Apple Is Dead To Me… And why NOT to buy a MacBook

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slrlounge.comYou couldn’t pay me to use a MacBook Pro. And it’s something I’ve been saying for years. Why? Well the simple fact is they can no longer keep up with a Windows machine and the immense power avaiable, at a much lower cost.

The oft heard crys from Apple fanboys and Girls, ‘no viruses’, ‘they don’t crash like Windows’ blah blah blah et al is just well, totally irrelevant and unfounded.

In other words, the Apple range of laptops and desktops, the once ‘must have’ machine for professional Graphics Artists, Designers and Photographers, is fast loosing it’s fan base. Can somebody tell Tim Cook that becoming a glorified phone company is not the way to repay his customer base for years of ongoing, but fast diminishing loyalty

An extract from an open letter to Apple after the fall ’16 keynote sent by Trey Ratcliffe

first want to start with the overall presentation you gave. I gotta say I’m at a loss for words at that presentation. It’s akin to getting ready to have tacos on Tuesday but instead a swift kick to my groin happened. To me, the magic of the Apple events is dying and becoming quite predictable with a thinner, faster, longer battery life device with features we didn’t truly need. Beneath all of this is a quite literal ignorance of what the pros actually want and need.

A comment from Pratik Naik, of Solstice Retouch

“With the MacBook Pro, it has become very clear to me that their products aren’t congruent with the needs of professionals with the direction of their forced change. Apple’s brilliance came from their focus on minimalism while providing the efficiency that every creative immediately gravitated toward. Now with their latest update, they welcome a flood of inconveniences that are becoming hurdles to efficiency.”

While the new Macbook Pros are anything but, Apple still has a hard time keeping them on their shelves. Why is this? The OS, although flashy, hasn’t really changed since 2013, only occasionally receiving the scraps from the latest iOS release. The company has prioritized the iPhone above all, and as of late last year, has no dedicated Mac operating system team. The hardware continually drags behind the competition and the ability to upgrade the machine becomes more abysmal each year, with everything becoming proprietary and soldered down. read more at slrlounge.com

 

There’s no perfect MacBook anymore – and Apple doesn’t care

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reviewed.comIs Apple really losing the plot with the MacBook? Has Tim Cook given up on the idea of the idea of the MacBook as the perfect laptop?

TJ Donegan of reviewed.com believes he has and that Apple Inc now sees it’s future in the iPhone. Have almost single-handedly created the premium laptop sector, Apples CEO now seems to be handing the market to his competitors on a silver platter.

As Donegan is keen to point out there are Windows PC’s at half the price that run circles around most of the current older Mac models that desperately need an update.

“The new MacBook Pros are neat, but they’re all significantly overpriced, have a keyboard that is only slightly better than the MacBook, and are missing major ports requiring you to live the Dongle Life.”

Over the past few years, it’s become increasingly obvious that Apple’s future is all about the iPhone. But while the iPhone has been ruling the smartphone market, Apple’s MacBooks have lost their luster.

While mobile computing is the future, many users and Apple fans depend on Macs to get their work done every day. But despite loud, repeated, and clear complaints from the Mac userbase, Apple has spent the last two years reinventing the wheel instead of listening to its customers. read more at laptops.reviewed.com

 

Mac-lash The Apple MacBook Pro and Why It Isn’t For The Pro

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firstpost.com

The new MacBook Pro that, well, isn’t for the Pro? Did Apple screw up?

Just exactly where has Apple gone with the new MacBook Pro update? Well, it really looks as if it’s gone were many true and loyal long term MacBook fans don’t really like.

There has literally been a huge Mac-lash and much hand wringing since the real usability issues have come to light. So what’s happened?

In truth, it looks like Apple has built and designed the new 15″ MacBook Pro for the consumer rather than the professional developers who have been faithful to the brand and design for years.

Why? You had better read on to check out the 2016 Apple MacBook Pro dealbreakers.

It may seem strange, at first. There’s nothing seriously wrong with the new Macs – they pack in improved displays, a Touch ID sensor (finally!), insanely fast SSDs, better audio quality and the all-compatible USB-C port on a chassis that makes the much-loved and once-impossibly-thin MacBook Air look fat! But the more I think about it, the more I’m not entirely sure if these Macs are for the “Pros” anymore…or for that matter, who they’re really meant for… read more at firstpost.com

 

MacBook Pro 2016 release date, news and rumors

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The news all Apple fans have been waiting for, the eagerly awaited and much anticipated (assumed) redesign of the Apple flagship MacBook Pro range of laptops. Most upgrades over the last couple of years have been purely incremental and it’s really a testament to the superb design of the original MacBooks that they still look as good today.

The rumour mill is in full swing with stories of a newly designed hinge from the company who manufactures the hinge for the Surface Pro, to the number of USB ports, and of course conjecture about the available case colors.

Update: Apple is apparently enlisting the services of Amphenol, which makes hinges for Microsoft’s Surface Pro devices, to manufacture hinges for its rumored super-slim MacBooks.

Apple’s MacBook Pro range hasn’t been updated for some time: the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina was refreshed in March 2015 and the 15-inch in May. New MacBook Pros are clearly imminent. The biggest change is likely to be in the Pros’ processors, and while there are rumours of detachable touchscreens we’d take them with a hefty pinch of salt.

According to one report by DigiTimes, Apple is gearing up to release new 13- and 15-inch MacBooks in the second half of 2016. It reckons they will feature hinges produced using a mechanism called ‘metal injection moulding’. Said to be inspired by Microsoft’s Surface Pro line of devices, the hinges will apparently be manufactured by Ampenol, who makes hinges for Microsoft’s convertible tablet.

The MacBook Pro is due an update, and we think it’ll be a big one. Will the new model be a radical redesign?

Check this Topic at techradar.com

Image courtesy of techradar.com

Apple MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2015) review

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The Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch is currently looking like it needs an upgrade and Apple fans are eagerly awaiting the release and news of the upcoming 2016 MacBook. The paucity of real updates, including the lack of a 5th Gen i7 still means the 15-inch MacBook “remains Apple’s biggest and most powerful laptop, and a great all day, everyday productivity machine” says Dan Ackerman of CNET.

We can safely say that we are looking forward to the release date of the MacBook Pro 2016 as much as anybody else in the industry.

Apple’s MacBook Air and Pro lines have remained steadfastly rock-solid in their look and feel for several generations. Each year brings a handful of tweaks and updates, typically only to internal components, from better hard drives to faster Wi-Fi to new processors. It’s only because both the Air and Pro designs were so far ahead of the curve when first introduced that these laptops still look so up-to-date.

For 2015, nearly every MacBook has received an update of a some kind, although these have largely been of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it variety. Both theMacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro have moved up to Intel’s fifth-generation Core i-series processors, also known by the codename Broadwell, while the 13-inch Pro also added Apple’s new Force Touch trackpad.

That clickless touchpad, which uses four sensors and some haptic feedback rather than a traditional hinge, was one of the highlights of the new12-inch MacBook , a low-power, 2-pound ultraportable that was Apple’s sole new laptop design in years.

Compared to all the changes listed above, and the entirely new 12-inch MacBook, the 15-inch MacBook Pro feels like it’s been slighted in the update department. The 15-inch Pro gets the Force Touch trackpad, and a faster solid-state hard drive, plus updated graphics in the form of an AMD Radeon R9 M370X GPU. But arguably the most important component upgrade is missing, as the Core i7 CPU here is the same as last year’s model (the fifth-gen Core i7 chips from Intel are only starting to trickle out now).

Check this Topic at cnet.com

Image courtesy of cnet.com