Fall Event #2: "Unleashed" [Livestream discussion begins on Page 7]
- Thread starter dmsilev
- Start date
Aw hell, why not.
A 16GB/512GB 13" MBP in the current line is $1699 from Apple. I think there will be a premium for the 14" over that but not a $300 premium. I'll guess $1799 for the base 14" and a no-change $2399 for the 16".
I'd be delighted with that exact timing, because it's 11pm Sydney time and means I wouldn't have to wake up at arse o'clock.
We’re all getting Unleashed Power. For free. You will not be able to delete it.
What am I missing?
Now all we need is the blink tag and we'll be back like it's 1999! (If it wasn't already deprecated by then)
The remaining "higher end" Intel models start at $1799 for 16/512, I'd expect the 14" to be a direct replacement/successor to those 13" MBPs. We'll see if they keep the lower end M1 MBPs around long term or maybe the next M2 MBAs replace and fill in that gap when those come around.
If there's a Pro-Motion display on a MBP, I may suddenly have an iPad Pro for sale. Watching films/shows is a big reason for me to even have a screen larger than an iPhone.
What am I missing?
(Especially since I bought a MBP of this exact configuration for my wife a few months ago…)
The equivalent model to be replaced would be the starting intel which is $1799.
I agree the 14" will replace the remaining Intel MBPs, but I also think the M1 models are a better reference point in terms of pricing strategy. Their prices were set more recently and we can expect them to remain part of the lineup in the short term. Again, I'd expect the base 14" to be more expensive than the 16/512 M1 13", but not by $300. That's why my guess is $1799, or maybe $1899, but not $1999.
This, and I don't think there's much of a chance the M1 MBPs will stick around after the new 14" model launches. As weird as Apple's product categories have become, having two Apple Silicon MBPs, with very similar screen sizes and price points not too far form each other, doesn't make sense.
It's not that unheard of. When they released the 2012 Retina MBPs they kept selling the non-Retina 13" MBP as well for a year or so. It was a couple hundred dollars cheaper and basically bridged the gap between the MacBook Air and the 13" Retina MacBook Pro. Same with the 2015 15" MBP, which they sold up until 2017 or so. If the rumours of there being a price bump for the 14" model are true, then keeping the old 13" MBP around for a year as a stopgap between the Air and the 14" MBP would make sense. Then in a year or so when they do a spec bump, they can use the then old 14" MBP as the stopgap model instead of the M1 MBP.
Apple under Tim Cook is a lot more willing to retain somewhat overlapping products to ensure that all price points are hit. If any of us are right, and the price of the 14" starts between $1799 and $1999, they're going to want a product to sit in between that and the $999 Air. I fully expect the M1 MBP to stick around at least until the M2 Air is introduced in early 2022.
To be fair, that's exactly what they did in the Intel days. The low-end Pro started at $1299 but came really close to the high-end once you upgraded it to 16GB/512GB.
It's definitely niche, but they'd have a sizable price gap between the Air ($999 starting) and high-end 14" Pro (potentially $1999?) otherwise.
Just daydreaming of a 16" screen macbook air type thing. An economical 16" screen machine that doesn't have to be super fast or have all the ports or anything but would just be the perfect machine for my mom. One can dream. I think it has a near zero percent chance of happening on Monday lol. Oh well.
Hahaha *economical* - go ahead, pull my other finger. Apple makes a perfect economical "mom" machine already
Hoping for a fan-less option for the MBP. I swapped out a fully loaded 13" Intel MBP for the M1 Air and it's wonderful with good performance.
Assuming the redesigned MacBook Air remains $999, which I'm skeptical will be the case. Continued supply chain pressure will probably add $100 to the price, maybe $200 if Apple is feeling particularly greedy in light of surging demand.
orionquest
Ars Praefectus
Off topic.
yes, like serious why is this place so dated......
other forums have a lot more functions and fun stuff...here we are stuck.
On topic
Great Apple's got more shit to sell. Yaaaaa
Maybe that lady on top of the Apple campus roof will return, that was something...
I wouldn’t bet on this. If they think the current M1 MBP requires a fan then there’s zero chance they’ll put a higher core count processor in there and take the fan away.
The next step up in fanless performance will be the M3 a year from now.
Given how quickly the M1 MBA was discounted to $900 and then $850 during sales, I don't think Apple will have a problem keeping the $999 entry level price.
Vincent Hanna
Ars Scholae Palatinae
If the redesigned M2 MacBook Air next year is anywhere near what Prosser says it will be, I expect it to replace the Touch Bar M1 MacBook Pro at $1299 and they simply keep the M1 MacBook Air around at $999. (It will still be a great value at that price for at least another year.)
And this is why I keep beating my drum about the SoC naming conventions. If the M chips stay in 15W devices only, then the M1 and M2 MacBook Airs can live side-by-side with no confusion for the consumer. The MacBook Pros get the X1, which puts them on an easy-to-understand and totally separate upgrade cycle.
This allows Apple to keep multiple generations of MacBook Airs and Pros on sale, just as they have done with iPhones for years. The new iPhone 13 comes out, but they keep the 12 and 11 on sale at lower price points. If Apple does M, X, and Z SoCs for the different Mac product segments, then they can do the same thing with Macs. "I got an M2 MacBook Air to replace my M1 MacBook Air, but my partner is going to stick with his X1 MacBook Pro for awhile". It allows normal humans to understand the laptop product generations for the first time ever.
And this is why I keep beating my drum about the SoC naming conventions. If the M chips stay in 15W devices only, then the M1 and M2 MacBook Airs can live side-by-side with no confusion for the consumer. The MacBook Pros get the X1, which puts them on an easy-to-understand and totally separate upgrade cycle.
This allows Apple to keep multiple generations of MacBook Airs and Pros on sale, just as they have done with iPhones for years. The new iPhone 13 comes out, but they keep the 12 and 11 on sale at lower price points. If Apple does M, X, and Z SoCs for the different Mac product segments, then they can do the same thing with Macs. "I got an M2 MacBook Air to replace my M1 MacBook Air, but my partner is going to stick with his X1 MacBook Pro for awhile". It allows normal humans to understand the laptop product generations for the first time ever.
Wouldn't surprise me if the current Air stays $999 and a redesigned Air eventually takes the higher price point, discontinuing the 13" M1 MBP. But I don't think that's coming at this event.
Depends on what you mean by a "mom" machine. Plenty of us just want to do office work and multi-tasking. Screen space is valuable, iPadOS is too limited, ports and multi-threaded performance and discrete GPUs are irrelevant. (As I've noted before, the 16" Intel entailed engineering compromises to provide that power that actually make it worse for my usage.)
I doubt a budget 16" is coming, but I know people who would buy it if it existed.
It would be absolutely perfect for my wife, who:
1) Is comfortable with MacOS and doesn’t want to learn the finer points of iPad OS
2) Doesn’t use her computer for particularly complex or intensive tasks
3) Has terrible eyesight
I’m resigned to shelling out for one of the new 16” MBPs, despite having no doubt that it’ll have vastly more power than she’ll ever need.
I'm also concerned about delivery times. Planning to get an order in as soon as the store comes back up.
[url=https://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=40315173#p40315173:3v7i2ss5 said:
if you are posting in Ars, you are not the typical “mom” person buying an iPad for facebooking, YouTubing, ticktocking, and face timing the grandkids, who buy these in the millions.
You're the one who brought up iPads in a discussion about MacBooks. The definition of a "mom" machine is subjective and isn't going to get us anywhere. Plenty of people like the iPad form factor and plenty don't.
For example, my dad does pretty basic web/email tasks. He's tried iPads and does not like them. He bought his 2012 15" rMBP solely for the screen and hasn't upgraded since because he doesn't need much power or IO. Since his MBP is almost out of support, he’s planning to get the new 16" and will likely keep it just as long. A budget 16” would absolutely serve his needs.
My grandma uses her iMac for extremely basic email and FaceTime. An iPad could easily handle her apps. But she has always used a desktop computer with a mouse and an old-school keyboard with lots of key travel. She's never used a touchscreen in her life, does not want to start, and does not want the ergonomics of small/portable device.
Emphasis mine. It's not willingness, it's basic consumer psychology in action. Aspirational price points.
Well you are right that the much older folks are not open to learning new things, even if the new way is simpler, easier and more secure. I say this as I have been trying to help my 80 year old dad over the last two week try to recover from a social engineering hack where he gave the other side FULL remote access to his MacBook Pro where he conveniently saved all his passwords to EVERYTHING in an excel file (including the his kids and grandkids names, DOB, SSN). Something that would have been harder (not impossible) to do on an iPad.
Having said all that, sorry I brought an iPad to a MacBook fight. Carry on.
This is the stuff that keeps me up at night. Helped my parents with a password issue and went to change something in their iCloud Keychain and there was a sea of "compromised password" alerts. All I remember is everything went white and tasted like purple and I snapped out 30 minutes later when I was called to the dinner table. I brought it up to them but I really don't expect anything to be changed as they don't even bother to remember their own email passwords.
We really need to hurry up with passwordless credentials as I can't even get people my own age to invest in even free password managers.
iPilot05 and Gandhim3,
Being in the same age bracket as your parents—but a little more security-conscious, I solved the problem with a couple of 20th-Century technologies—Post It notes and a ballpoint pen. I bought a pair of these plastic boxes over the Web from Walmart for US$6 plus shipping. They're not incredibly sturdy, although the first one has lasted for a couple of years so far. I simply print the name of the organization/relative underlined on the first line of each Post It note and alphabetize them in the box; your parents probably still remember how to print and alphabetize.
So I don't keep any sensitive information on my computer, though it's a bit less convenient.On this subject I now have a cautionary tale, about something that recently happened to a friend of my late ex-wife's. Her former physical therapist had moved from NYC to Virginia, but sent me an e-mail of consolation when she got the news of of my ex-wife's death—via a broadcast sent out by my ex-wife's co-executor using e-mail addresses I had copied from my ex-wife's computer when he got me access to it. On 11 October I received an e-mail with no recipient list, saying
I replied asking what kind of "catching up" she wanted to do with me, and this was followed the same day by an e-mail
The message sounded fishy to me, so I e-mailed my ex-wife's friend back saying so. When I belatedly looked at the sending address and realized it was from a similar-looking address on outlook.com, I again e-mailed the friend—strongly urging her to change the password on her real e-mail account overnight before the hacker could block any incoming messages. I've since tried to get a Virginia phone number for the friend, but have so far been unsuccessful.
Edit: Deleted one-word last sentence in last paragraph, because—as Vincent Hanna said below—it was a detour into off-topic-ness.
P.S.: Just to finish the "cautionary tale" in my final paragraph, my ex-wife's friend replied to my 12 October e-mail in the early afternoon of 14 October:
Thank goodness I did get the idea "Your e-mail account has been hacked, I think!" through to her, even without having her current phone number.
Vincent Hanna
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I second that. There’s huge pent-up demand for these machines, and the latest rumors are saying the 14” and 16” are going to be “closer” in price than the existing 13” and 16”. I think probably both models will increase in price, but the 14” will increase more relative to the 13” it’s replacing. Calling it now: $1999 for the 14” and $2499 or (eek) $2599 for the 16”.
That said...I’m really excited to see these machines. The M1X or M2 chip, plus reintroducing MagSafe/HDMI/SD, plus a good scissor switch keyboard, plus a 1080p webcam, plus removing the “MacBook Pro” logo from the front (supposedly), plus a 120 Hz display (supposedly), etc., etc…it’s like a true reincarnation of the 2015 generation, widely regarded as one of (if not the) best laptops ever. I’m pumped :bigdumbgrin:
That seems reasonable, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the 16″ starts at $2600. Since the rumors sound like they’re giving people almost everything they want, my biggest worry is the trade-off for that will be a substantially increased price (e.g., starting at $3,000 or more). However, I think a slight increase is more likely than a big one.
Guilty as charged, m'lud, so I've deleted the "Suggestions?
" final sentence from my preceding post.However I'm not sure that the rest of that post was as much of a derailment, and—if it was—iPilot05 and Gandhim3 laid its foundations. This thread has become a debate on what kind of Macs/iPads various categories of users want, and IMHO it would be unfair to exclude "much older folks" as a category. What are these "passwordless credentials" that iPilot05 mentioned up-thread, and would these be more easily implemented on a Mac or an iPad? The last paragraph of my preceding post is—shorn of its final sentence—simply a more-dire illustration of the potential liability of passwords, and IIRC my late ex-wife's friend is at most now in her 60s—therefore merely security-ignorant rather than a specimen of "much older folks".
Guilty as charged, m'lud, so I've deleted the "Suggestions?
However I'm not sure that the rest of that post was as much of a derailment, and—if it was—iPilot05 and Gandhim3 laid its foundations. This thread has become a debate on what kind of Macs/iPads various categories of users want, and IMHO it would be unfair to exclude "much older folks" as a category. What are these "passwordless credentials" that iPilot05 mentioned up-thread, and would these be more easily implemented on a Mac or an iPad? The last paragraph of my preceding post is—shorn of its final sentence—simply an illustration of the potential liability of passwords, and IIRC my late ex-wife's friend is at most now in her 60s—therefore merely security-ignorant rather than a specimen of "much older folks".
Suggest you start a new thread in this forum with the contents of your post and your request for suggestions. Your question is important, but this particular thread is about next week's Macbook Pro relaunch, which has a lot of people very excited & is likely to soon spawn hundreds of new posts.
'Passwordless credentials' could mean something like FaceID or TouchID. My partner relies on her laptop but struggles to deal with their complexities. Having dyslexia doesn't help either. She writes all her passwords down in the back of her diary which she carries with her everywhere ... (!) (and each year she gets a new diary and then can't remember which year's diary the desired password was in, a task which would likely defeat even the best of us)
I've just moved her from an iPhone 7+ with a dodgy TouchID button to the new iPhone 13. It arrived last week (lucky her) & she loves it so far & I've been showing her how to enable passwordless access to secure apps (banking etc) with FaceID. She still needs to keep a record of passwords though. Your suggestion of a box with index cards that stays in a secure place at home is excellent.
For the moment I'm testing the 1Password password management app. I'm setting up a shared vault with her that I can use to store our existing utility passwords, plus she will have her own private password storage area in 1Password, and be able to access that via FaceID and enable password autocomplete / autoentry on both desktop and mobile. I don't know if that will work for her, only time will tell.
(I looked at the upcoming improvements to Apple Keychain / Apple first party password management, and it still doesn't seem good enough. No ability to write notes - e.g. answers to security questions - is just one of its many failings)
Back on thread topic:
Hopefully the new Macbook Pros will have both FaceID and Touch ID - then people can choose whichever passwordless ID system they prefer.
No, it hasn't. redtomato is correct: This is a thread created for Apple's virtual event next week and the (likely) announcement of new Macs. Yeah, right now we're in a bit of a holding pattern as rumors swirl so the conversation is loose and free-form. That people were discussing what sort of Mac might be appropriate for an older relative is only within the context of those announcements and attempting to guess what those machines are and their price-points.
Once the event happens, this thread will balloon to hundreds of messages about the products Apple presents. Anything else will be lost in the flood. If you're asking a question that needs a specific answer unrelated to what Apple may or may not announce, that belongs in its own thread.
...and as always, David, challenge yourself to write your messages with a minimum of extraneous information and uncomfortable personal details. No one is going to answer a question if they have to saw through a lot of word salad to find it.