I really hope they keep the 13" Macbook Pro around.
The Macbook Air is a fantastic machine but being able to stick a reasonably priced SSD and 16GB of ram into my work 13" MBP has improved my output dramatically.
I wonder how long it will be before Apple prevent after purchase customization at all.
The 13" Retina should persist for some time. That model's entry price is only $100 more than the non-Retina 13" MBP entry price. I don't really see the appeal of the non-Retina version at this point. The Retina display is really great and worth the extra $100, in my opinion, and I think the MBA offers much better value.
It has a slightly faster processor (don't be fooled by "1.3GHz", the MBA's top CPU speed is 2.6GHz) but there's a 500GB non-solid-state hard drive, it's heavier, the graphics are older, and it has a lower-resolution screen. Why would anyone want it?
It's probably a diminishing use-case, but I personally still need an ethernet port. There's a surprising number of times when I visit somewhere (offices, universities) and they can't figure out how to get me logged onto the guest wifi, but I can just plug in to the wired network without a problem. Also some hotels have only ethernet, though that's getting less common.
I think the reason Windows and Linux seem to behave awkwardly with Thunderbolt is that Thunderbolt is actually PCI-Express, and they're not exactly used to hot-plugging PCIe devices! But that's just speculation on my part.
Yes, I suppose the Ethernet is useful. But it doesn't seem worth sacrificing everything else for. Why not just get a USB or Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter?
"Oh, you want to hook your Firewire drives up to it? That's another adapter. Oh, you want to play or burn CD's? You need to get an external drive then. You want to use your old Magsafe power bricks? Sorry, we changed the connector. You want to lock up the computer while it's at your desk? Sorry, there's no Kensington slot anymore."
At which point the SSD and Retina display sound nice, but that other stuff seems like it's going to a pain in the neck on a daily basis.
Apple tend to deprecate and remove stuff often and quickly. The PC world and Microsoft don't. For those of us who like living on the cutting edge, we're fine with it, but it's not really for everyone.
Remember when the iMac was the first USB-only computer, and had no floppy drive? Both were really unpopular at the time.
(Lack of Kensington is stupid though, I'll agree on that.)
Huh, I hadn't seen the Thunderbolt ones. The USB ones are notorious for not really working (they seem to have driver issues). Hopefully the Thunderbolt ones are better?
I'd second the thunderbolt recommendation but I would question the concerns about USB – until upgrading to Thunderbolt, I had no problems with daily heavy usage (along with several coworkers). The main drawback is that the USB devices can't go over 100Mb.
I think for a lot of people the issue is storage. Most don't know the difference between an ssd and a mechanical hard drive and don't want to have to pay an exorbitant sum to get to 500+ gb. They have lots of pictures and music and other things they want to keep around, even if they rarely access them.
Yeah. They go in to the Apple Store and the salesmen says that SSD is faster. But the buyer has heard that computers will be faster a lot in their lives, and usually it's only a 10-25% performance increase, which isn't that noticeable. So they don't put much stock in that. We're all so used to SSDs that the huge performance gains don't surprise us anymore.
The education discount for the non-retina MBP 13 is (and has been) $200, rather than the $50 for other models around that price. At least now the MBA 13 starts at a lower price after the discount.
I wonder how long it will be before Apple prevent after purchase customization at all.