Apple Should Stop Selling Four-Year-Old Computers

If apple relased newer GPUs and an updated OpenGL stack then we could have decent gaming on the mac.
 
Juason1 said:
Well, I'd argue that laptops have not experienced significant improvements in the past 3 years....

My current laptop from 2013 is an Alienware M17 with a Core i7 4800MQ, 16GB DDR3 and a Geforce 780M. If I go hunting on Passmark, my CPU is still within striking distance of the fastest benching (available) mobile CPU.

The counter-argument to this is newer CPUs are more energy efficient or harness better pipelining and architecture. Well, PassMark and other benchmarks should show that advantage right? And the 4th Gen Core i7s shows a TDP of 47W. The 6th Gen Core i7s show a TDP of 45W. Not seeing much of an improvement here!

The 780M and 880M are practically the same due to Nvidia trickery. The 980M is a step up - but it now appears Nvidia is skipping a 1080M entirely. I've considered upgrading to a 980M which would bring my 3 year old laptop up to par with anything available today.

Laptop LCDs haven't advanced much either. For many years resolutions were capped at 1920x1080. Think I've seen one popular 17" screen go higher, and IPS screens seem a little more available.

But the current statistics show what? 78% of laptops sold use 1366 x 768. Blegh... how can you fault Apple when 78% of shoppers are buying even older tech?
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78% of people are cheap morons. I wish we could have a bonfire with all the 1366x768 LCDs.
 
I really want to get a Mac Mini so I can mess around with the OS but I really don't like the fact that you can't upgrade the RAM and the HDD is a pain in the ass to get to. I was pretty close to buying one, but not with all this outdated hardware. Update your shit, Apple. Jobs would probably have fired all of you for not doing so.
 
Apples boxes are closed systems. Trying to approach them without that mindset is textbook insanity. To use the OS you gotta buy the box. Otherwise that's like being grumpy that you can't get to the source of the windows kernel having come from years of running Linux on your workstation.
 
the main thing is the power of the machines over the last 4 years isn't that much. The 3770K isn't that much slower than a 6700K, is it?

3770k-6700k-passmark.jpg


PassMark - Intel Core i7-3770K @ 3.50GHz - Price performance comparison

PassMark - Intel Core i7-6700K @ 4.00GHz - Price performance comparison
 
vegeta535 said:
Yes but those laptops don't sell for $1000+.
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This is ultimately the issue. Apple sells 4 year old tech for the same price they sold it for 4 years ago.

Before you say "not that much slower!"... you still have to consider the chipset and I/O side of things. A lot can change in 4 years when it comes to that.

And the price of components. 8GB of ram doesn't cost today what it cost then.
 
rat said:
This is ultimately the issue. Apple sells 4 year old tech for the same price they sold it for 4 years ago.

Before you say "not that much slower!"... you still have to consider the chipset and I/O side of things. A lot can change in 4 years when it comes to that.

And the price of components. 8GB of ram doesn't cost today what it cost then.
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The only real big changes were DMI 3.0 and DDR4, the memory upgrade is the only real upgrade for the platform.

The biggest is the chip itself for Apple's mobile platform as it consumes a shit ton less power.
 
ChadD said:
Considering OSx accounts for almost 10% of the OS usage in the wild again. I would say their current slower upgrade path hasn't really hurt them any in terms of sales. Perhaps part of the thinking is convincing regular users that spending a little extra on a Mac is a good idea as they don't go obsolete every year. (seeing as they have been selling the same models for so long).
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That's just it, it does go obsolete every year. Just because Apple doesn't give you a replacement doesn't mean it's not obsolete. Newer cpu, gpus, memory, hdd, etc come out every year and makes it obsolete. Now this doesn't mean it's still not a useful product. My computer is obsolete and plays all games at 2k resolution on high/ultra settings without a problem.

Now, their product prices should shrink as the component prices drop, but of course, it's Apple. It doesn't.

Apple is a company that still isn't happy about being forced to sell specs. I think they realise as a company that specs have mostly always been irrelevant when it comes to day to day usage. As folks that frequent [H] I'm sure most of us build our PCs or at least have in the past. We all know picking up a solid MB and Ram are at least as important as having a slightly improved CPU (cause the last few generations haven't seen massive performance jumps).
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Folks at [H] also know you can't be selling obsolete components at high prices for years. Doesn't matter how solid the product is. Imagine walking into a store and picking up a brand new 0 mileage 2013 car today. While other dealers have 2016 0 mileage cars. You'd expect the price to be lower on the 2013 car, when it's up against a comparable 2016 car.

Just to throw it out there as well... this may seem like a crazy theory, and I wouldn't place an actual cash bet on it happening shortly or anything. Apple has had a history of slowing hardware changes when they where planning to do something interesting. I could very much see Apple updating their desktop line across the board later this year. Removing Intels chips from all but their higher end Pro computers. Taking all their laptops and mid to low range options and swapping in Arm parts. The A10 is on deck shortly... and their are rumors TMSC is expecting a massive bump in sales from it... you wouldn't expect they would be excited about a iphone refresh at this point. There are also plenty of rumors that intel will in fact be getting some of the Fab work for the new A10. (I know most of those are likely due to Intels modem work... but who knows still might be more to it) If either or both of those are true... the OSx line might be in for a pretty big shake up. Apple filed a bunch of patents the last year or so that when I read them tell me they are readying a real time software/hardware code translation somewhat like what Transmeta was doing with "Code morphing" to run x86 on their non x86 hardware. I have a feeling if Apple does switch to A10, there isn't going to be any need to recompile anything which would make the transition smooth as silk if the performance is their. If it doesn't happen with a10 I am still thinking its part of apples long term... then I'll start saying the same thing about A11. lol ;)
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I don't see them wanting to write code for 2 different OS's. I'd see it more likely the whole lineup jumps ship off Intel and go pure Arm, than they would run Arm and Intel. That's if they were to do something like that, which I can't see.
 
rat said:
This is ultimately the issue. Apple sells 4 year old tech for the same price they sold it for 4 years ago.

Before you say "not that much slower!"... you still have to consider the chipset and I/O side of things. A lot can change in 4 years when it comes to that.

And the price of components. 8GB of ram doesn't cost today what it cost then.
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I bought a brand new laptop 3 months ago with a i7 skylake nvidia 960m discrete graphics 4gb gddr5 for 700$, so much better and newer hardware for less then half the price.
 
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Jim Kim said:
Bingo
But in the end you eventually have to use it and that's where Apple falls short.
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Pray tell you have some specific examples for this, right? I'm sure they are legitimate :android: (whoops is that an Android icon??)
 
Also... the entire premise of that article's click-bait title, and the rabid discussion by people who obviously did not RTFA, is due to one non-retina Ivy Bridge Macbook Pro 13" that Apple still sells for some reason. The trash can Mac Pro falls in there as well but that was a passing mention in TFA.

Everything else was updated... last year? (Macbook Pro, iMac) And this year? (Macbook, Macbook Air). Oh wait, the 2014 Mini still has Haswell. -1 for Apple.

Now I would like to know why they didn't update with Skylake yet on the rest of their shit since quad-core Iris parts started shipping earlier this year.

Anyways, sorry to interrupt the anti-Mac echo chamber here. I'm sure the Kool-Aid tastes great! :spam::vomit::cry:(y)
 
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^ Why make such terrible assumptions about people you disagree with?

I prefer the semi-circle jerk.
 
gigatexal said:
Nope. For productivity I can't use a windows PC. When I boot my win10 box I immediately boot steam and that's it. I loathe windows and PC trackpads. But that's me.
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I was actually suggesting you switch to Linux. I have an XPS 15 and the hardware works great under Linux. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04.
 
5icko said:
^ Why make such terrible assumptions about people you disagree with?

I prefer the semi-circle jerk.
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You need personal insults to make any sort of argument. You're worse than the people who do blindly buy from Apple or any other company. But do please continue to try to insult me, it makes you look super intelligent.
 
Quix said:
I was actually suggesting you switch to Linux. I have an XPS 15 and the hardware works great under Linux. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04.
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I'd second this. I have a Dell XPS 13 that I run with Debian on it. Works well. Only recommendation is to stay far far away from the high dpi touchscreen. Ubuntu and Linux in general do not play well.
 
ocme said:
Can anyone chime in on if its really needed an update? I know phones are different but my iPhone 5s is over 3 years old and it still operates new games like a champ. I have worked on Mac's that were a few years old and still ran great. Maybe they are a lot like PC's that are built really well and do not need an upgrade for a few years.
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I'm running my 2012 macbook pro retina, and it's still very smooth and responsive. Mostly it does work stuff and plays civ 5 and some other turn based RPG stuff. Primarily compared to newer wintel systems of similar theme (similar size, high dpi display, discreet GPU you can fit in said size), it's really only giving up battery life and some GPU power. The problem with the "old" macs is that they aren't old. They are new, and an incredibly shitty value. When I bought mine, I could pay a couple hundred less and go with a lower DPI screen of much lower quality on wintel (and in an odd reversal of tradition, move to the platform with shitty heat management/air routing, which was historically apple's thing), pay about as much and get similar specs except higher battery life and no GPU, or I could go way cheaper for something totally not similar. Now? Now I cna get things with better specs, longer battery life, and pay about $700 less. Apple is usually a premium, but at the moment it's an absurd premium, and the margin between new speediness and when the OS upgrades start clapping that sucker out are probably half of the historical norm for apple.
 
Quix said:
I was actually suggesting you switch to Linux. I have an XPS 15 and the hardware works great under Linux. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04.
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I've been evaluating that option. I'll try out the XPS's trackpad sometime.
 
Do we have something worry about? Profit margin is now lower?:smuggrin: RIP the PC.

mac-profit-share-2012.jpg
 
i'm going to get flamed for this but you PC laptop users should be thanking Apple for pushing the envelope. Apple popularized the thin ultra portable by making a laptop weigh as much as a netbook but instead of making it shitty they made the macbook air which was pretty capable when it came out. It had a pretty fast SSD to boot.

my 2013 macbook pro has a fast pci-e based SSD something Apple began doing before it was adopted by the wider PC laptop community IIRC. My fiance's 2016 macbook has an even faster nvme based SSD (proprietary controller I think) that is even faster. What do you see now in the mainstream PC laptop space (not looking at clevo or alienware here)? A move to the high-er end, pci-e or nvme based SSDs and an overall movement away from a race to the bottom dollar and a move towards more quality albeit at a higher price.
 
gigatexal said:
i'm going to get flamed for this but you PC laptop users should be thanking Apple for pushing the envelope. Apple popularized the thin ultra portable by making a laptop weigh as much as a netbook but instead of making it shitty they made the macbook air which was pretty capable when it came out. It had a pretty fast SSD to boot.

my 2013 macbook pro has a fast pci-e based SSD something Apple began doing before it was adopted by the wider PC laptop community IIRC. My fiance's 2016 macbook has an even faster nvme based SSD (proprietary controller I think) that is even faster. What do you see now in the mainstream PC laptop space (not looking at clevo or alienware here)? A move to the high-er end, pci-e or nvme based SSDs and an overall movement away from a race to the bottom dollar and a move towards more quality albeit at a higher price.
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Not trying to jump on flaming you but credit cannot be given to a company in this way. Just because you see a company release a product and then six months later you see another company make something similar does not really mean they copied. Often development takes a long time and many of these companies develop similar ideas in parallel, because they both utilize test groups for data collecting on what consumers want.

Also the amount of $200-300 laptops sold during back to school sales is staggeringly high.

Apple does push the thickness thing a lot. But other companies don't do it because 'apple' they do it because 'consumers'.
 
but if HP does it and nobody cares does it matter? My point is that Apple is creating a wake by selling premium laptops in grey aluminum with SSDs etc., and in an effort to keep up and also perhaps get more of the high end market which is more lucrative other manufacturers follow suit. So even if you hate Apple you're getting a better experience because they pushed it
 
the thickness thing though has gone too far: there's absolutely no reason for the 2016 macbook to have only one usb-c connector
 
gigatexal said:
but if HP does it and nobody cares does it matter? My point is that Apple is creating a wake by selling premium laptops in grey aluminum with SSDs etc., and in an effort to keep up and also perhaps get more of the high end market which is more lucrative other manufacturers follow suit. So even if you hate Apple you're getting a better experience because they pushed it
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I agree that the MacBook has pushed the laptop industry and that that's a good thing. I'd say right now however that Microsoft is doing a lot pushing with the Surface line. The Surface Book isn't perfect but it's well beyond anything Apple has currently. And because it's Microsoft, there are some that care. Sure Microsoft doesn't have anywhere the reputation of Apple in consumer devices, but the Surface line after it's rough beginning has struck a chord. I'd say interest in what Microsoft is doing with the Surface line these days is on par with Macbooks.
 
gigatexal said:
but if HP does it and nobody cares does it matter? My point is that Apple is creating a wake by selling premium laptops in grey aluminum with SSDs etc., and in an effort to keep up and also perhaps get more of the high end market which is more lucrative other manufacturers follow suit. So even if you hate Apple you're getting a better experience because they pushed it
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Not a full argument with you but other companies are not just sitting and waiting for apple to do something, if apple is first it just means they finished first, but that does not mean they are steering the boat. I don't hate apple, use a few of their products myself. Technology is always driven to be smaller, better, and cheaper. Remember 486 laptops. Apple does have a huge R&D budget so very often they will get something developed before other companies finish, this does aid to the illusion that everyone else follows apples lead.

gigatexal said:
the thickness thing though has gone too far: there's absolutely no reason for the 2016 macbook to have only one usb-c connector
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Agreed. I game on my laptop so it just sits on a cooler on my desk and occasionally goes on a business trip with me. I want it to be reliable and fast, weight isn't as important.
 
gigatexal said:
the thickness thing though has gone too far: there's absolutely no reason for the 2016 macbook to have only one usb-c connector
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I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, but the new MacBook seemed to do nothing more push minimalism at a pretty high price point.
 
Counting the days since an upgrade was done and being serious about it comes off as being a douchebag.


5icko said:
And don't get me started on their annoying fanbois... the same ones that overpay for stone age computers.
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Stone age he says. Stone age.
 
And yet Microsoft still has no answer to the Fusion drive, which actually does make the user experience better. And is totally customizable with your own hardware. Or am I only supposed to say bad things in this thread?
 
westrock2000 said:
And yet Microsoft still has no answer to the Fusion drive, which actually does make the user experience better. And is totally customizable with your own hardware. Or am I only supposed to say bad things in this thread?
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What's so special about the Fusion drive and does it add anything to storage performance beyond magnetic hard drives?
 
heatlesssun said:
What's so special about the Fusion drive and does it add anything to storage performance beyond magnetic hard drives?
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It combines an SSD and HDD as single volume (like JBOD). But is controlled at the operating system level so it dynamically moves things back and forth between the two. So size wise you get the capacity of both (1TB HDD + 500GB SSD = 1.5TB volume drive). But OSX writes everything to the SSD first and then moves things over to the HDD as determined by several factors. And it keeps more important things on the SSD regardless. It's not the same as a cache drive like Intel or a "hybrid" drive as sold by Western Digital or Seagate.


It's actually a very elegant system, I'm just surprised no-one else has implemented something similar.
 
Then stop buying them. Duh o_O. THAT will get a new model out in a hurry.

/still never bought an apple product ever and will never
 
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