from Hacker News

Where the hell are the new MacBooks?

by Stamy on 6/14/16, 3:46 PM with 51 comments

  • by morley on 6/14/16, 4:09 PM

    This article, in my opinion, didn't raise above the level of a petty rant. For a more nuanced look at Apple's Mac pipeline (which also predicted that WWDC wouldn't have hardware announcements), there's this from MacRumors:

    http://www.macrumors.com/2016/06/08/new-macbook-air-pro-june...

  • by grandalf on 6/14/16, 4:32 PM

    If you buy a laptop based only on raw specs, you are in a different market than the vast majority of laptop users.

    Most people want their laptop to be reasonably fast, get solid battery life, and have a nice display and ergonomics. Also important is power saving technology (sleep, hibernate, etc.) and storage size/speed.

    Most commodity laptops that are competing in the raw specs wars have major deficiencies in one or more of the above areas.

    If you are a Windows user, you have taken on the task of dealing with a broken, polluted driver ecosystem and lots of malware, as well as an OS that shows you ads on the desktop.

    If you are a Linux user you take on the task of making sure your bleeding edge hardware works with linux. This is no small task and in many cases it's over a year after release that linux support for new technology becomes anything approaching reliable.

    A Macbook, on the other hand, just works, and works extremely well. It is a reliable work horse that does its job without complaining. The hardware and ergonomics fade into the background and you just focus on your work.

    I suppose if you are a gamer there is a case to be made for running Windows on bleeding edge hardware, but such gamers are a very small percentage of laptop users.

  • by overcast on 6/14/16, 4:16 PM

    The real question is where the hell are the new Mac Pro towers? There are people outside of Mom and Dad that require something more than a laptop integrated into a monitor.

  • by brightball on 6/14/16, 4:28 PM

    I'm still breathing life into my 17" MBP from 2010 holding out for Apple to finally make another one.

  • by Overtonwindow on 6/14/16, 4:30 PM

    I don't just want new MacBooks. I want new MacBooks that I can fix myself, and have someone other than Apple to fix it. I'm hanging on to my 2012 Pro model as best I can, and see no reason to spend the money on a product that isn't really mine.

  • by masukomi on 6/14/16, 4:11 PM

    > by omission it’s made something startlingly clear: your next laptop won’t be an Apple one.

    not if you're an attendee of WWDC or anyone else developing for iOS or macOS....

    I agree with @morley... it's just a lame rant.

  • by ryantuck on 6/14/16, 4:26 PM

    kind of wild there was no mention in the article of the new macbook, which IMO is an objectively better overall machine than either the air or the pro.

  • by jlarocco on 6/14/16, 6:47 PM

    What a whiny article.

    My 2013 MBP is still working great, and I'm in no hurry for new ones to come out. I use mine mostly for my photography (RAW editing, catalog management, etc.) and it handles the 36 megapixel images from my camera just fine - I drag sliders and the changes show up in real time. I keep all of my RAW files on an external HD, so if I really needed things faster my first step would be to buy a faster one (SSD).

    I also occasionally use it for development, and I don't have any problems there, either.

    The most true statement in the article is that my next laptop may not be an Apple, but that has a lot more to do with Apple's crappy software quality lately, and the fact the photo software I use also works on Windows.

  • by mr_tristan on 6/14/16, 4:37 PM

    I just wonder if we're seeing Apple try to slowly move away from being a "devices" company and identify itself in terms of "general computing", so including software and services.

    So yeah, everyone has this super-strong connotation of "Apple = awesome devices", and they still wait in anticipation for new, beautiful hardware. But it sure seems like Apple is trying to drive a different identity.

    I'll truly believe this is happening when iMessage hits Android, which I didn't hear any mention of, despite the rumors.

  • by creshal on 6/14/16, 4:37 PM

    If you look at just how painful the Skylake launch was on Windows and Linux, I figure they're waiting on hardware/drivers that actually work as intended.

  • by inputjoker on 6/14/16, 5:35 PM

    Macbook air is somewhat in apple terms an old technology(it's the best value for money imo). So there is a great chance that we won't see a refresh for macbook air. Pro 13 gets thinner and lighter taking over the air.

  • by mieses on 6/15/16, 1:05 AM

    I stopped holding my breath after hearing that the function keys in a "Pro" laptop might be replaced by a touch sensitive strip like Lenovo tried on the X1 Carbon.

  • by cmaggard on 6/14/16, 4:14 PM

    They'll hold off on hardware announcements until they can ship them with macOS 12 already on them. Why would they announce new hardware that you'd have to do a full OS upgrade on in a few months?

  • by danpalmer on 6/14/16, 4:16 PM

    The fact that journalists still expect Apple to announce hardware at a software engineering conference amazes me.

  • by heavymark on 6/14/16, 4:17 PM

    Lol. Yesterday's event was a software event, a jam packed incredibly long one at that. It was so packed they didn't even have time to talk about all the changes to the app store, which is why Apple disclosed that info ahead of time. Not sure when you would expect them to all also announce new hardware.

    Just download iOS10 and open the new Breathe app, and Breathe. New Macbooks, iPhones, Macbook Pros, and Apple Watches will all come in time in future events.