Microsoft: Surface just enjoyed its most successful month ever, thanks to the new Apple MacBook Pro

 

Microsoft likes to compare its Surface range with the MacBook Pro at any given opportunity, even though the two products are very different.
 
November, according to Microsoft, was the best month ever for consumer Surface sales, and the software giant is gleefully claiming that disappointment with the new MacBook Pro is part of the reason behind the surge. But is it? Really?
 
In a new blog post, Brian Hall, CVP Microsoft Devices Marketing, writes:

More people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before. Our trade-in program for MacBooks was our best ever, and the combination of excitement for the innovation of Surface coupled with the disappointment of the new MacBook Pro -- especially among professionals -- is leading more and more people to make the switch to Surface, like this. It seems like a new review recommending Surface over MacBook comes out daily. This makes our team so proud, because it means we’re doing good work.

Microsoft doesn’t reveal any sales numbers, only says that "November was our best month ever for consumer Surface sales" and reports how the Best Buy-exclusive Surface bundle sold out on the first day, the UK experienced its best single week for Surface ever, and the Surface Pen became the best seller in PC Accessories on Amazon in Germany for 12 hours.
 
Those claims obviously don’t really mean much without any context. There could well have been very limited numbers of the Best Buy-exclusive Surface bundle put out to start with, the UK’s sales could have been generally dreadful, but there was one week when it wasn’t, and having the best selling PC accessory in Germany for half a day isn’t exactly big news.
 
Also, Microsoft refers to "Surface" as if it's a single device, rather than an entire family of products which includes Surface, Surface Pro, and Surface Book. There's no breakdown of how each different model has performed.
 
The other point to make, is while Microsoft says people disappointed with the new MacBook Pro are switching to Surface, in speaking to The Independent last month, Apple’s Phil Schiller stated "We are proud to tell you that so far our online store has had more orders for the new MacBook Pro than any other pro notebook before". Is it a disappointment, or is it a huge hit? Take your pick. Tech companies like to make broad claims without any numbers to back them up -- in the hope they’ll be taken at face value -- which is something you should never do.
 
The takeaway from Microsoft's blog post is simply Surface sales were up in November and the company is happy with that.
 
Microsoft also says that demand for its super-sized Surface Hub has far exceeded its expectations, and it’s "shipped Surface Hubs to over 2,000 customers in 24 markets", with "orders as large as 1,500 units to a large car manufacturer". It’s a safe bet that the big order mentioned is likely a one-off, and most sales to companies are one or two units, but Microsoft is happy enough with how the device has been received so far to the point where it is ramping up production, and introducing a Surface Hub Try-and-Buy Program which will let customers try it for 30 days before committing to buy one or more.
 
Photo credit: pathdoc / Shutterstock
 
~ Wayne Williams

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Why did Apple limit the MacBook Pro (2016) to 16GB RAM? Battery life

 

The recently unveiled MacBook Pro (2016) complete with its Touch Bar has been praised and criticized in just about equal measure. One of the biggest criticisms levelled at Apple is that RAM is limited to 16GB. Why such a cap on a professional device?
 
Apple has revealed that the reason for the limit is nothing to do with -- as some may have suspected -- keeping costs down (as if!), but rather due to concerns about battery life. The reasoning may be fairly sound, but the full explanation may not be enough to silence critics completely.
 
Speaking to MacDaddy Apple's Phil Schiller explains that increasing the amount of supported memory would mean using RAM that consumed more power. RAM with higher power consumption means shorter battery life. It was a balancing act. But there is more to the decision, as Schiller explains:

The MacBook Pro uses 16GB of very fast LPDDR memory, up to 2133MHz.

To support 32GB of memory would require using DDR memory that is not low power and also require a different design of the logic board which might reduce space for batteries. Both factors would reduce battery life.

He had previously said: "To put more than 16GB of fast RAM into a notebook design at this time would require a memory system that consumes much more power and wouldn’t be efficient enough for a notebook". His latest statement really just expands upon his initial explanation, presumably in the hope that it will convince complainers that the right decision was made.
 
Which side of the fence do you fall? Would you rather the RAM had been increased, or are you happy with less memory and longer battery life?

~ Mark Wilson

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Apple makes 2016 MacBook Pro harder to repair and upgrade

 

Apple is obsessed with making its products smaller and lighter -- and this shows with the latest-generation MacBook Pro. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch models are more portable than their predecessors, making the prosumer line a much better choice for road warriors. But, knowing that Apple does not always give without taking away, what is the catch?
 
Well, in the quest to improve the new MacBook Pro line, Apple has made them harder to repair and upgrade. The company is not renowned for making laptops that are easy to service, but with the 2016 MacBook Pro line it is taking things to the next level.
 
According to iFixit, which has taken apart both the standard (referred to as the "Escape Edition") and Touch Bar-enabled 13.3-inch MacBook Pro models, you cannot change the SSD anymore or replace certain components without breaking them first.
 
The SSD is now part of the logic board, which no doubts aids in making the 2016 MacBook Pros thinner and lighter. This means that if you believe that you will need more storage down the road it is probably best to shell out for a storage upgrade before pulling the trigger on one.
 
It also means that if it fails, for whatever reason, you will have to replace the whole logic board, which, as MacBook users know, is not cheap. You can be looking at an eye-watering bill, unless your situation is covered by the warranty or accidental damage insurance.
 
I do not think many MacBook owners have gone through the hassle of upgrading the SSD, so this is unlikely to affect the vast majority of prospective buyers. But, what is more problematic is the repairability aspect, which is worse on the Touch Bar models than on the "Escape Edition".
 
"Our efforts to separate the OLED panel from the upper case resulted in the digitizer separating from the display. You live and you learn", says iFixit. "Adding insult to injury, the Touch Bar flex cable is routed underneath the upper case, making removal just a tad bit more annoying than we expected".
 
The iFixit report also notes that "the Touch ID sensor doubles as the power switch, and is paired with the T1 chip on the logic board. Fixing a broken power switch may require help from Apple, or a new logic board". This shouldn't probably surprise us, because Apple does not like it when you mess with Touch ID. And, for good reasons.
 
Both the standard and Touch Bar 2016 MacBook Pros have in common a "very solidly, glued into the case" battery assembly, which makes it much harder to replace the battery. These things start to lose capacity after a while, and it looks like a fix may involve a trip to a repair shop.
 
Unsurprisingly, Apple's design has led the iFixit team to give its 2016 MacBook Pro laptops a one out of 10 repairability score. That is the lowest that a device can get. Does this matter? Probably not.
 
Consumers and prosumers who are eyeing a 2016 MacBook Pro likely have a different set of priorities in mind than repairability and upgradeability. Despite my criticisms, Apple will manage to sell a ton of these, because, quite frankly, the latest-generation MacBook Pro line is very appealing in that segment and very hard to beat if you are already living an Apple lifestyle.
 
~ Mihăiță Bamburic

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Apple makes 2016 MacBook Pro's dongle hell less expensive

 

With the latest-generation MacBook Pro, Apple made a giant leap forward and fully-embraced USB Type-C. It went so far as to drop all other ports on its new prosumer-oriented laptops, even if the consumer market is not ready for it. The end result is that, if you want to use your existing peripherals and accessories, you will need (quite) a few dongles.
 
And this creates a problem. The new MacBook Pro does not come with any dongles in the box, so you will have to buy them yourself. This has angered quite a few prospective buyers, so, to make up for it, Apple has decided to do something it rarely does -- cut prices.
 
"We recognize that many users, especially pros, rely on legacy connectors to get work done today and they face a transition. We want to help them move to the latest technology and peripherals, as well as accelerate the growth of this new ecosystem. Through the end of the year, we are reducing prices on all USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 peripherals we sell, as well as the prices on Apple's USB-C adapters and cables", says Apple.
 
This is a sensible move on Apple's part, which is sure to please some prospective buyers. The latest MacBook Pros are expensive enough to begin with, after all, and you really shouldn't have to pay a lot more for dongles -- or have to replace all your peripherals and accessories.
 
The cheapest -- better said, least expensive -- model, the 13.3-inch version without the Touch Bar, starts at $1,499 -- and it only has two USB Type-C ports. And one of them will be rendered useless while charging the device, because Apple dropped the MagSafe port on the new generation. The top of the line model kicks off at $2,799 -- and if you want all the hardware upgrades you will have to shell out $4,299. Quite costly, indeed.
 
So, what sort of discounts can you expect to see? Well, it would seem that they range between $6 and $20, depending on the dongle. For instance, a USB Type-C to USB Type-A dongle will only cost you $9 now, instead of $19. A one-meter USB Type-C to Lightning dongle goes for $19, as opposed to $25 prior to this price change (the 2m version is $10 more expensive).
 
This move affects not only Apple's own accessories but also third-party ones too. Again, that should be well received by prospective buyers, especially considering that the discounts are quite substantial. The Verge says that prices on third-party USB Type-C accessories are roughly 25 percent lower on average.
 
But, what if you already bought some dongles? The good news is that Apple will automatically credit you the difference, so you will not have to go through any hassles because of this price cut.
 
If the thought of lower dongle prices may have lead you to reconsider buying a 2016 MacBook Pro, keep in mind that if you go this route you will have to carry all of the dongles you need with you. How many you need depends on your work flow, but if you are not surrounded by USB Type-C accessories and peripherals, chances are you need one for each device you plan to connect to it.
 
Photo Credit: patpitchaya/Shutterstock
 
~ Mihăiță Bamburic

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Apple exec explains why "cumbersome" SD card slot removed from new MacBooks but 3.5mm jack remains

 

Just why does Apple love removing long-used ports from its products? It seems the outcry that followed the disappearance of the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 had no effect on the Cupertino company; it dropped most of the standard ports from the new MacBook Pro, including the SD card slot, yet kept the laptop's 3.5mm jack.
 
Speaking during an interview with The Independent, Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, explained the thinking behind axing the SD slot. He called the decision a “bold move” - similar to how removing the latest iPhone’s headphone jack took “courage.”
 
It seems the two main reasons behind the slot’s removal were because it is “cumbersome” and there are an increasing number of cameras that use wireless transfer technology.

Because of a couple of things. One, it’s a bit of a cumbersome slot. You’ve got this thing sticking halfway out. Then there are very fine and fast USB card readers, and then you can use CompactFlash as well as SD. So we could never really resolve this – we picked SD because more consumer cameras have SD but you can only pick one. So, that was a bit of a trade-off. And then more and more cameras are starting to build wireless transfer into the camera. That’s proving very useful. So we think there’s a path forward where you can use a physical adapter if you want, or do wireless transfer.

While Schiller has a point about more cameras using wireless, there are still plenty of models, even expensive DSLRs, that don’t have the feature. And was the SD card really such a pain when sticking slightly out of the MacBook's slot? Surely using a full USB-C SD adapter, as he suggests, would be a lot more cumbersome.
 
When asked why the 3.5mm jack was removed from the iPhone 7 but remains on the MacBook Pro, Schiller said that the jack is used for more than just headphones on the laptop. Apple kept it because “these are pro machines,” and many users “have setups with studio monitors, amps, and other pro audio gear that do not have wireless solutions and need the 3.5mm jack.” Suggesting that if people used the MacBook Pro's jack for just headphones, then it would have likely been dropped. But it could still be removed in future models, if a Apple survey from September is anything to go by.
 

 

The removal of so many standard ports, and the fact that not everyone is impressed by the new Touch Bar, has led to a fair amount of criticism being directed at the new MacBooks – something that has surprised Schiller. He did add, though, that he’s never “seen a great new Apple product that didn’t have its share of early criticism and debate — and that’s cool.”
 
Despite the negative reception from some quarters, Apple’s online store is apparently taking more orders for the new MacBooks than “any pro notebook before.”
 
~ Rob Thubron

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Microsoft Surface Book i7 vs Apple MacBook Pro 2016: Which new laptop should you choose?

 

Last Wednesday, Microsoft revealed, among other things, an updated Surface Book. The following day, Apple introduced a new MacBook Pro. Both devices look great, sport powerful innards and come with a suitably high price tag.
 
Which you go for will likely depend on whether you’re a fan of Microsoft or Apple, but if you’re not firmly entrenched in either camp, and need a little guidance to decide which laptop to go for, here are all the details you need.
 
Obviously, the Surface Book i7 and MacBook Pro 2016 aren’t exactly like for like. The Surface Book’s display detaches, for one thing, and it’s touch screen, but let’s see how they compare generally.
 
Design
 
The new Surface Book keeps the same design as the previous one, including the slightly divisive hinge that means the book doesn’t fully close. The screen can detach from the body and be used as a tablet. The laptop has a magnesium alloy body.
 
The new MacBook Pro is -- you guessed it -- lighter and thinner than previous models. It has an all-metal body, and keeps the same simple, but stylish look, albeit with a few tweaks, such as a much larger touchpad.
 
Size and Weight
 
The MacBook Pro is available in two screen sizes -- 13.3-inch and 15.4-inch. The Surface Book only comes in one size -- 13.5-inch. Because Apple is fixated with thinness, it’s no surprise to see the MacBook Pro is the slimmest product at 0.6-inches, versus Surface Book’s 0.9 inches. As for weight, the MacBook Pro weighs in at 3lbs for the 13-inch device, and 4lbs for the 15-incher. The Surface Book is 3.3-3.6lbs, depending on the model (dGPU models weigh more).
 
Display
 
As I mentioned earlier, the Surface Book’s screen detaches, while the MacBook Pro’s doesn’t. The Surface Book only comes in one screen size -- 13.5-inch, while Apple’s product can be had in 13.3-inch and 15.4-inch sizes.

 
The Surface Book offers a higher resolution display -- 3,000 x 2,000, versus 2,560 x 1,600 for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, and 2,880 x 1,800 for the 15-inch model.
 
The Surface Book has a full touch screen, and you can use it in tablet mode. The MacBook Pro has a Touch Bar, a long OLED Retina display that sits in place of the old function keys at the top of the keyboard. You can use this in various ways, and additional functionality will be added in time.
Security
 
The MacBook Pro offers Touch ID, so you can log into your laptop using a fingerprint. Surface Book doesn’t have a fingerprint scanner, but does have Windows Hello, which uses facial recognition to log you in.
 
Processors
 
The Surface Book and MacBook Pro can both be had in a choice of configurations, so you can opt for a sixth-generation Intel Core i5 or i7. The Surface Book offers either Nvidia GTX 965M GPU or Intel HD graphics, while the MacBook Pro has Integrated Intel Iris Graphics 540. The larger 15-inch model adds a Radeon Pro (450 or 455) chip for 3D gaming.
 
Input
 
The Surface Book comes with a Surface Pen, so you can draw on screen. That sort of behavior isn’t possible on the MacBook Pro, but you do get the Touch Bar and a super-sized touchpad with pressure-sensitive Force Touch technology.
 

 
Battery Life
 
If you’re a road warrior, the most juice you can get out of your laptop between charges the better. Apple’s battery life is not spectacular in this case. The new MacBook Pros promise around 10 hours of battery life, while the Surface Book claims between 12 to 16 hours.
 
Storage and Memory
 
The 13-inch MacBook Pro and the new Surface Book i7 are available in 256GB, 512GB and 1TB storage configurations. The 15-inch MacBook Pro can be had with a 2TB SSD. Memory-wise, both the MacBook Pro and Surface Book can be had with 8GB or 16GB of RAM.
 
Ports
 
Apple has come under some fire for its ports choices with the new MacBook Pro. It offers four USB-C ports -- that double as Thunderbolt 3 ports -- which can be used for Thunderbolt, USB, DisplayPort, HDMI, VGI, and charging. (The basic 13-inch model only has two USB-C/Thunderbird 3 ports). This means you may need a dongle to attach certain hardware. There’s no SD card reader.
 
The Surface Book has two full-sized USB 3.0 ports, and an SD card reader.
 
Software
 
Apple's MacBook Pro runs macOS Sierra, while the Surface Book runs Windows 10 -- It’s Siri vs Cortana here. You could opt to install Windows 10 on your MacBook Pro if you want to, but you can’t install macOS Sierra on your Surface Book.
 
Price
 
The price for the entry-level MacBook Pro starts at $1,499, but you won’t get the Touch Bar for that. If you want the new Touch Bar, you’ll have to pay $1,799, which will get you the 13.3-inch display and the Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. The price for the 15-inch MacBook Pro, with Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, and Radeon Pro 450 graphics, starts at $2,399.
 
The Surface Book starts at $1,349, for which you get the Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. Opt for the i7 version, with 256GB SSD, and 8GB of RAM, and you can expect to pay $2,399. Choose the 1TB version with 16GB RAM and the price jumps to $3,299.
 
Specs:
 

	Surface Book	MacBook Pro
Processor	Intel i5, i7	Intel i5, i7
RAM	8GB/16GB	8GB/16GB
Screen Size	13.5-inch	13.3inch/15.4inch
Resolution	3000x2000	2560x1600/2880x1800
Graphics	Intel HD -- Nvidia GTX 965M	Intel Iris/-- Radeon Pro 455
Thickness	0.9-inch	0.6-inch
Weight	3.3-3.6lbs	3lbs (13-inch)/4lbs (15-inch)
Touch Control	Full touch screen	Touch Bar/Touch ID
USB Ports	2 USB 3.0 Type A	2x (13-inch), or 4x (15-inch) Thunderbolt 3
Battery Life	12-16 hours	10 hours

  
Summary
 
For the money, the Surface Book provides a better all round deal, and the screen can be used as a tablet, which is a welcome bonus. The MacBook Pro is a svelte beast, with good looks, and future-proof ports which might require you to use a dongle or two for now, but which will be standard in the coming years. You also get a choice of screen sizes, which can be useful depending on your needs and personal preference.
 
There's no right or wrong answer when it comes to which laptop you should get, only opinion. If you're thinking of buying one of these laptops, please share your reason for doing so in the comments below. 
 
~ Wayne Williams

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MacBook Pro (2016) disappointment pushes some Apple loyalists to Ubuntu Linux

 
The new Apple MacBook Pro looks to be a wonderful laptop, but understandably, not everyone is impressed. The "Pro" moniker literally means "professional", and there are some concerns from that segment. Some photographers, for instance, will be very hurt and disgusted by the lack of an SD card slot. More importantly, the computer maxes out at 16GB of RAM -- many pro users want 32GB or more, which is not possible on the new machine, sadly.
 
While you might expect some of these disappointed Apple loyalists to turn to a Windows machine -- and I'm sure some will -- some are turning to an unexpected alternative -- Linux. You see, immediately after the Apple Keynote, famed Ubuntu laptop and desktop seller, System76, saw a huge jump in traffic from people looking to buy its machines. The traffic was so intense, that it needed to upgrade servers to keep up!
 
"We experienced much more traffic than we had prepared for, the website didn't go hard down but experienced slowness. We had to scale up to return to normal. It was a pretty big surge, I don't have the details in front of me at the moment but I've not really heard of anything like this before. People being so underwhelmed by a product that immediately following a new product release they actively seek out competitor's products", says Ryan Sipes, Community Manager, System76.
 
I decided to compare specifications and pricing on my own, so I headed to both Apple.com and System76.com to compare. Apple's new 15-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,400. This machine has a Quad-core Sklyake i7, maxes out at 16GB of RAM, has an NVMe 256GB SSD, and a Radeon Pro 450 with a paltry 2GB memory.
 
 
Alternatively, I headed to System76 and configured its 15-inch Oryx Pro (you can do so here). I closely matched the MacBook Pro specs, with a Quad-core Sklyake i7 and NVMe 256GB SSD. Instead of 16GB of RAM as found on the Apple, I configured with 32GB (you can go up to 64GB if needed). By default, it comes with a 6GB Nvidia GTX 1060. The price? Less than $2,000! In other words, the System76 machine with much better specs is less expensive than Apple's.

Had website issues due to all the traffic following the #AppleEvent. This year rocks! #Linux #Ubuntu #YearOfTheLinuxDesktop :)

— System76 (@system76) October 30, 2016Obviously we aren't comparing apples to apples (pun intended). If you absolutely need macOS for certain software or licenses, an Ubuntu machine will not meet your needs. Also, the System76 machine does not have Apple's revolutionary Touch Bar.

Still, the Oryx Pro can be configured with specs far beyond the MacBook Pro, and at a very competitive price -- it is not hard to see why System76 saw a huge jump in traffic following the Apple Keynote. It is worth noting that both the Oryx Pro and MacBook Pro can run Windows too.
 
Are you surprised that some Mac users are jumping to Linux? Tell me in the comments.
 
Photo credit: Brian A Jackson / Shutterstock
 
~ Brian Fagioli

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Apple wants to limit how the new MacBook Pro (2016) Touch Bar can be used

 

When Apple unveiled the latest MacBook Pro, it was the Touch Bar that stole the show. But if you were expecting this touchscreen addition to the keyboard to become an all-singing, all-dancing fun parade, you may be disappointed.
 
Apple -- loving, as it does, to remain firmly in control of everything -- has issued developers strict guidelines that restrict how the Touch Bar can (or should...) be used.
 
The company is very keen for the Touch Bar to be seen as an extension of, or addition to, the keyboard, and not the screen. As such, Apple is keen to avoid the Touch Bar being anything other than useful -- and certainly avoiding the risk of it becoming a distraction. TechCrunch shares details of some of the guidelines that have been given to developers:
 
It remains to be seen whether developers choose to abide by these guidelines, or what sort of penalties -- if any -- might exist for those who decide not to. But it is safe to assume that there will be a burgeoning market of third party tools that go against everything Apple has set out.
 
~ Mark Wilson

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If you're a recent MacBook Pro buyer, Apple just did you a HUGE favor

 

People wanting a shiny new MacBook Pro are in for sticker shock. The entry-level for the cheapest, newest 13-incher is $200 or $500 more than its predecessor, depending on whether or not opting for the newfangled TouchBar and TouchID. That's $1,499 or $1,799. Yikes. MBP 15 is a $400 price hike, $2,399, for current tech.
 
But if you already own MacBook Pro, particularly the 13-incher released in March 2015 or the larger model two months later, Apple increased the laptop's value by not accelerating its depreciation. No kidding. That's because the new entry-level SKUs are the same as before.
 
The $1,299 MBP 13 is the same vintage 2015 model: 2.7GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, and Intel Iris Graphics 6100. The $1,999 MBP 15 also is the same 2015 notebook: 2.2GHz Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and Iris Pro Graphics.
 
Think of it like this: Whenever Apple announces new models and plugs them into existing price points, the resale value of the older Macs goes down. But arguably that's not the situation this release cycle. Apple arbitrarily kept the old in market, and that's great for the value of your existing Mac. You might even turn it into opportunity, selling the old one to buy the new thang.
 
I wonder if sellers understand this. Over at Swappa, the lowest listed MBP 13 March 2015 with 128GB SSD is $899, in "good" condition. High lister is 3.1GHz Core i7, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD for $1,650. I have the same model but with half the storage, purchased from a reputable reseller that buys Macs from corporations. I paid less than his price five months ago, with AppleCare that's good through 2018. The seller lists his laptop as "good". Mine is "excellent".
 
Swappa-listed MBP 15 starts at $1,750 for 2.5GHz Core i7, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD. The laptop sold for $2,499 new last year. Other sellers are smarter, asking for as much as $1,910.
 
Prices at eBay are all over the place, with some sellers giving away too much value. Don't they know what they've got! Don't price MacBook Pro based on Windows laptop depreciation.
 
Apple sells refurbished 2.7GHz March 2015 MBP 13 for $1,099, and that's a good measure for your resale pricing, if condition is excellent. Imagine if you could use a laptop for 18 months and recover as much value off your original purchase price of $1,299. Even selling for $899, you only spent $400 to use a computer for as long as 18 months. Wow.

If anything ruins the boon Apple gives current owners, it will be sellers' desperation to cash out fastest to pay for the shiny new model announced yesterday.
 
Photo Credit: Joe Wilcox
 
~ Joe Wilcox

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Apple is out of touch

 

I am not an Apple fanboy, but I have defended the company's decisions and philosophy more times than I can remember. And for good reason. But, looking at the new MacBook Pro line, I am finding it hard to see where that "touch of genius" is. What exactly makes its latest laptops anything more than glorified MacBooks?
 
Apple has never been afraid to take risks and innovate. But with the new MacBook Pros it has failed to improve upon their "Pro" status. It wrongfully applied the same approach it has used over and over again in the consumer space without considering that prosumers, the folks who MacBook Pros used to be designed for, have a different set of needs than the average Joe who buys a MacBook Air to go on Facebook at Starbucks. As a result, the new MacBook Pros, while different than before, are not evolved enough for this day and age. The so-called "touch of genius" tagline is proof that Apple has lost touch with the real world.
 
Now, before going any further I will admit that Apple will probably sell a ton of the new MacBook Pros. It usually does, and there is no reason to suggest sales will drop, taking into account the fact that the last major update to the Retina display-toting MacBook Pros came aeons ago. People who are looking to replace their aging rMBPs will look at what Apple has to offer first and will probably decide to move to a new model.
 
In the short run, that will work out fine, but in the long run Apple risks having to do the same thing it did with the iPad line, which is to Pro-ify it. Remember, we are talking about PCs here, regardless of the fact that they run macOS and have an Apple logo on the back. And PCs aren't selling all that well these days, because, among other things, people do not have good-enough reasons to pull the trigger on a new one, because, well, the improvements are not all that compelling.
 
But, let's get back on to the topic at hand.
 
Looking at the new MacBook Pro line, it feels like Apple wants to unify its MacBook range a bit too much. The MacBook shipped with a USB Type-C port, and so does the new MacBook Pros. Except they don't have only one, they have four. Except if you get the base new MacBook Pro in 13-inch trim, which only has two. And of the two, only one is usable if you are charging it. But the trouble is that, in order to use any of them, you either have to buy devices with USB Type-C ports or get dongles.
 
The USB Type-C device market is basically irrelevant at this stage in the grand scheme of things. Even Apple believes so, because it did not bother to introduce a compatible iPhone charger. You can get a USB Type-C to Lightning cable to transfer files, but you can't use it with the charger -- so you also have to carry the standard cable around. Or you can get, you guessed it, a dongle.
 
To be frank, that's stupid. I may be harsh, but Apple prides itself on its attention to detail. So how could it have missed that if you buy one of its new products you will not be able to use it seamlessly with another one -- that is also new, and arguably more important? Remember, the iPhone 7 launched last month, not five years ago. It's not a legacy product.
 
I am sure that lots of iPhone users would have been fine with buying a new cable and charger with USB Type-C connectors. This would be a more elegant solution, rather than having to carry a dongle to charge your iPhone and transfer some files quickly -- or a second cable.
 
Apple also seems to be torn between two technologies. On the latest MacBook Pros you get USB Type-C, with Thunderbolt 3 support, while on the iPhone 7 you have Lightning. The iPhone carries more weight, and so you can't change from Lightning to USB Type-C as easily as you can switch from standard USB connectors to the new reversible one -- because it would affect far more customers at once and relatively soon after ditching the old connector -- but I am sure that Apple is probably thinking of it.
 
But that is not the biggest problem. The USB Type-C adoption is, and it is time to address it. If you buy a new MacBook Pro today, for each USB device that you buy you will have to get a $19 dongle to be able to use it with your new laptop. And you will have to carry as many as you need with you, otherwise you will not be able to stick something as basic as a USB drive in your cutting-edge device. Connectivity-wise, without dongles, the new MacBook Pros are crippled.
 
Apple likes to take risks, and someone will surely point out that things will change and that USB Type-C is better and that the company is simply ahead of the curve. And that may very well be true, but fact of the matter is no one is fully prepared for the new MacBook Pros, not even companies making products that should work with it.
 
Something else that I find to dumb down the new MacBook Pro line is the fact that there is no MagSafe connector anymore. And that is not a change forward, because MagSafe is cleverly designed to protect your laptop from being damaged if you trip on the charger's cable. The USB Type-C cable that's provided to charge the new laptops doesn't have a similar functionality.
 
So that is a clear step backwards. Luckily, you still have the 3.5mm headphone jack, which is good because I would have hated to talk about yet another dongle. Unfortunately, I can't -- because you will need one to connect an SD card.
 
Yes, Apple dropped the SD card reader, even though it is basically as slim as a USB Type-C connector, and, arguably, incredibly useful to the vast majority of photographers. Most professional-grade cameras use SD cards, and now you will have to (I hate to say it one more time, but here goes) get a dongle to transfer photos and videos to a new MacBook Pro.
 
Two cool new things that you do get -- again, unless you opt for the base model, which only gets the latter -- are the Touch Bar and larger trackpad. The former is the real party trick, but I suspect that the bigger surface area of the trackpad will be more appreciated, more of the time.
 
I have not used a Touch Bar, so I cannot really share my experience with it, but from everything Apple has said it does not look like a revolutionary addition. What's more, it is unlikely to be extremely useful soon, because Mac developers typically need a bit of time before they embrace such features. And, really, I do not use as many apps where it could be extremely useful.
 
However, the TouchID support is a fantastic addition. However, I do not live in an environment where the risk of someone else using or stealing my laptop is worth thinking about. And Apple Pay is not in the equation either. So, let's just say I'm skeptical of the benefits it provides in return for the premium it involves.
 
But the elephant in the room is not what Apple has removed. It is what Apple has not added. And that is anything that can move the game forward in terms of laptop technology. Everything that you see on the new MacBooks has be done before -- in some form or another, if not better -- and it is not like Apple just had an iPhone moment where it managed to combine all those things in a way others have not.
 
With the exception of the Touch Bar, most of what you see on the new MacBook Pros represents an evolutionary move from the previous generation: a bit smaller, a bit lighter, a bit thinner, a bit faster, a bit more color variety, and that's pretty much it.
 
For the kind of money that Apple is asking for a new MacBook Pro, I honestly expect more. And I do not expect more for the sake of it. No. I expect more because Microsoft is doing more. Have you seen the recent Surface announcements? Barring the Surface Pro 4, which hasn't received an update yet, the software giant's PC line looks incredibly innovative and refreshing next to Apple's.
 
And Microsoft is not even trying to compete on price, because some of its stuff is hugely expensive. No, Microsoft is competing with Apple by doing what Apple should have done, which is to change the status quo. The new MacBook Pros are not all that different to the old ones or other laptops for that matter, but the Surface Pro 4, Surface Book and Surface Studio are. Microsoft is the bolder of the two, and it shows. Apple looks complacent by comparison.
 
The magic is gone.
 
Photo Credit: Lisa F. Young/Shutterstock
 
~ Mihăiță Bamburic

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Could Apple make Mac laptop buying any more confusing?

 

The Mac laptop line, following today's new announcements, looks lots less like Apple and more like Compaq—where Tim Cook worked much earlier in his career, incidentally, long before the original IBM PC clone-maker's demise. Confusing. Complicated. These are apt descriptions that might just send the ghost of Steve Jobs skyward on either—take your pick—Halloween or Day of the Dead.
 
Among Apple cofounder's first tasks when returning to the chief executive's chair in 1997: Simplifying product families. Jobs cut the deadweight, surprising many people by killing off Newton, for example. Complex product lines define Apple under successor Cook, by contrast.
 
Gauging only by base models, without enclosure hues, Apple offers 11 different laptop SKUs: Two 12-inch MacBook (times four color combinations); two 13-inch MacBook Air (one color); four 13-inch MacBook Pro (three two-colors); and three 15-inch MacBook Pro (two two-colors). Granted, rivals like Lenovo offer way more SKUs. But the Chinese manufacturer isn't Apple and the expectations that come with the name.
 
Problem isn't so much number of base models—before they can be configured, adding many more—is the overlap of prices and capabilities among the different Mac laptops.
 
MacBook Pro 13
 
The cheapest MacBook Pro 13 is $1,299 for 2.7GHz Intel i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, and Intel Iris Graphics 6100. But, wait, that's an older model. To get the new thang announced today, price is $1,499—and that's without the hottest new feature: TouchBar.
 
You do get a 2GHz Core i5 chip, 256GB SSD, Iris Graphics 540, brighter display, and newfangled Butterfly keyboard. But some buyers should rightly wonder why a 2GHz laptop costs more than a 2.7GHz one. Apple could argue it's a generational thing between Intel chips, and addition of extras like double the storage and thinner design. Something else: You keep your USB ports on the older and lose them on the newer (in favor of Thunderbolt 3 ports). Buy more, and you pay more to add adaptors and dongles, too.
 
What I have long called the Apple Pay-more Principle applies. The current generation MacBook Pro 13 sold for $1,299 yesterday—and core capabilities were same as costlier models. That's no longer the case. Entry-level is now last-year's MBP, and something newer costs $200 more. But don't be confused, and mistakenly buy the $1,499 model wanting TouchBar. To get the newest tech, the starting price is $1,799, making the true entry level $500 more than before today's big Apple media event.
 
For that $1,799 you get 2.9GHz Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 256GB HD, Iris Graphics 550, TouchBar and TouchID, and four Thunderbolt 3 ports. Honestly, for this price, 8 gigs is stingy. Doubling the storage costs $200 more. The three costlier MBPs are available in two colors, space gray and silver, while the $1,299 laptop is silver only.
 

MacBook Pro's compelling new feature is the TouchBar.

 

MacBook
 
Speaking of that price, and some buyer confusion, is 12-inch MacBook, which also starts at $1,299, but is grossly underpowered compared to MBP 13: 1.1GHz Core m3 processor, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and Intel Graphics 515. Before today's new laptop unveiling, small size, display quality, and Butterfly keyboard were capabilities that set apart MacBook. That's still true when comparing entry-prices, given the 2.7GHz MBP is vintage March 2015 and is 14 percent larger and consumes 20 percent more volume than its successor.
 
Jump up in price to $1,499 and 13-inch MBP looks lots more attractive than the high-end 12-inch MacBook selling for $100 more. MBP now has a next-generation Butterfly keyboard and super-bright screen, all packaged into a considerably smaller enclosure. Neither laptop has the TouchBar. MacBook config: 1.2GHz Core m5 chip, 8GB memory, 512GB SSD, and Intel Graphics 515.
 
MacBook is lighter at 2 pounds, versus 3 lbs for MBP 13 but bulk and breath matter more. Comparative sizes: .52 x 11.07 x 7.74 inches versus .59 x 11.97 x 8.36 inches, respectively. Size is no longer much of a differentiator.
 
MacBook Air
 
Comparing screens, at 13 inches, there also is MacBook Air, which costs considerably less. Starting price is $999 for 1.6GHz Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, and Intel Graphics 6000. This is Apple's value laptop, if you don't mind non-Retina Display. Before today's MBP announcement, the Air filled a niche for thin-and-light 13-inch Apple laptops. No longer. Price is its only compelling attribute—and only below $1,000.
 
The costlier $1,199 config is a real loser compared to $1,299 MBP 13, which weighs about the same but is smaller, while offering many more benefits, such as better screen, keyboard, processor, and speakers. MBA measures .68 x 12.8 x 8.94 inches. Why not pay another 100 bucks and get so much more from MBP 13? Some confused buyers may not see the difference.
 

MacBook Pro 13 (right) is smaller and thinner than MacBook Air.
 
There are good reasons to ask why Apple offers either 12-inch MacBook or MBA 13. Apple knows. During today's keynote, Phil Schiller, who heads up marketing, explained the rational for the $1,299 Pro without TouchBar: "We think that a lot of potential MacBook Air customers will be very excited about this product, too". He then went on to basically make a sales pitch for MBP 13, by pointing out the size advantages—12 percent thinner and consuming 13 percent volume than the Air. He described MBP 13 as "smaller" and "better in every way".
 
MacBook Pro 15
 
MacBook Pro 15 stands apart from the other laptops such that most buyer's shouldn't be confused. The laptop is considerably larger than the others, packs dedicated graphics, and is considerably more expandable with respect to external devices, like monitors. There is price differentiator, too: $2,399 and $2,799 base models.
 
That said, the Pay-more Principle once again applies. Like MBP 13, yesterday the entry-level 15-inch MacBook Pro offered same core features as the higher-end models. No longer. For the same $1,999, buyer's get vintage May 2015 laptop with 2.2GHz Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and Iris Pro Graphics. The newest thang now costs $2,399, which arguably is 100 bucks less than what it replaced. Config: 2.6GHz Core i7 chip, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and Radeon Pro 450 graphics. All the goodies come too: Butterfly Keyboard, TouchBar and TouchID, etc. A $2,799 model doubles the storage, notches up to 2.7GHz chip, and bumps up to 455 graphics.
 
MBP, like Microsoft Surface Book targets a creative professional with specific computing-task needs. The buyer pays more and gets more, and benefits for the capabilities are clearer. However, Apple laptops with small screeners and lower selling prices crowd together, presenting somewhat confusing benefits for the cost.
 
Imagine the savings that Apple could pass on to customers or higher margins to its bottom line by streamlining manufacturing to MacBook Pro 13 and 15—particularly at a time when PC sales are falling. During Q3, shipments fell for the eighth consecutive quarter, according to Gartner. The new MBP makes the Air obsolete and gives little compelling reason to buy 12-inch MacBook. They're both dead weight.
 
Keep Steve Jobs' ghost in the grave and simplify, Apple.
 
Image Credit: Creativa Images / Shutterstock
 
~ Joe Wilcox

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Apple's MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is 'absolutely incredible'

 

The star of Apple's event today was always going to be the new MacBook Pro. Other announcements may have been made, but they faded into insignificance compared to the latest addition to Apple's notebook range. This time around we see a 13- or 15-inch device with an all-aluminum design. In Tim Cook's words, it is "absolutely incredible".
 
Both models are available in Silver and Space Gray, and it's the thinnest and lightest MacBook Pro ever made. Things have shrunk, things have grown. The new MacBook Pro is thinner and lighter than ever, but the trackpad is now twice as large -- it is huge. But the real show-stealer is Touch Bar.
 
We thought this
 
new killer feature may have been called the Magic Toolbar, but apart from the name change, it's very much what we expected. This is a Retina Display multi-touch panel that replaces the traditional row of function keys. That said, the function keys and Esc key remain, albeit in soft form.
 

 

Touch Bar is touch and gesture sensitive and includes Touch ID so you can log into your MacBook Pro with a fingerprint. Touch Bar has built in system functions such as screen brightness, and it's context sensitive, so it shows buttons that relate to the current app. Quick type suggestions blends the autosuggest feature of iOS with the features of a regular keyboard, but whether this allows for faster typing remains to be seen. Just as Cortana has a dedicated button in Windows 10, so Siri now has a dedicated button.
 
The 13inch MacBook Pro is just 14.9mm thick (17 percent thinner than before), features 23 percent less volume, and weighs just 3lbs -- almost 0.5lbs less than before. For the 15-inch model the 15.5mm thickness means it is 14 percent thinner than before, there 20 percent less volume, and the weight is just 4lbs. Both feature an all-new keyboard design with second generation butterfly switch mechanism.
 
The screen is 67 percent brighter and offers a 25 percent wider color gamut. The 15-inch MacBook Pro features an Intel Core i7 Quad-core with 2133MHz memory, supports up to 4GB of VRAM, and includes an SSD operating at up to 3.1GB/s. The 13-inch model comes in i5 or i7 versions. Both models offer up to 10 hours of battery life.
 

 

There is also a 13-inch MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar for those looking to make a bit of a financial saving -- essentially replacing the MacBook Air. In all, there are three new models which have the following base specs:

• 13-inch MacBook Pro
• 2.0GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
• Intel Iris Graphics 540
• 8GB memory
• 256GB SSD
• 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports
• Available for $1,499; ships today

• 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar
• Touch Bar and Touch ID
• 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
• Intel Iris Graphics 550
• 8GB memory
• 256GB memory
• 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports
• Available to pre-order todayfor $1,799; ships in 2-3 weeks

15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

• Touch Bar and Touch ID
• 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
• Radeon Pro 450 graphics
• 16GB memory
• 256GB memory
• 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports
• Available to pre-order today for $2,399; ships in 2-3 weeks

Find out more at the MacBook Pro website.
 
~ Mark Wilson

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Oops! Apple leaks photo of new MacBook Pro with OLED Magic Toolbar

 
The release of macOS 10.12.1 was a fairly unremarkable affair... apart from one thing. In addition to the expected fixes and changes, hidden in the code are images relating to Apple Pay that appear to show off the new MacBook Pro -- the updated model that's not due to be announced until the upcoming event on 27 October.
 
The images are very revealing too, showing off a few surprises that Apple would probably have liked to have kept secret until the big day. Gone are the function keys at the top of the keyboard, replaced instead by a touch sensitive OLED panel presumed to be called the Magic Toolbar. There's also -- it appears -- built in support for Touch ID, and a few other changes.
 
As the images of the new machine -- first noticed by MacRumors -- originate from Apple Pay photography, that the Magic Toolbar (a name we know about from Apple's patent filings) is shown being used to make a payment with Touch ID is hardly surprising. But the addition of the OLED panel does mean that sacrifices have been made.
 
The function keys may have vanished, but so has the all-important Esc key. While it is not inconceivable that this key could have been removed altogether, the missing power button must have simply been repositioned.
 
From what we can make out from the photo, the new model would appear to be an even thinner, lighter design than before. The bezel of the MacBook Pro seems to have shrunk, but we should know precise details of the design tomorrow.
 
~ Mark Wilson

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How to replace and upgrade a MacBook Pro hard disk

Here's how an IT pro replaced a three-year-old MacBook Pro's hard drive with an SSD for less than $80 in about an hour. Now his machine is faster than ever. 

Image: Erik Eckel/TechRepublic

Laptops that fail three or four months after the extended warranty expires have always proven challenging. Should you replace the hard drive, reinstall the OS, and recover all the system's applications and data? That's a lot of work. And then, what happens after you invest such time and effort and the laptop's logic board or display fails? Is it worth continuing to invest funds in keeping the system running?
 
Well, when you have a less than three-and-a-half year-old MacBook Pro that's packed with an Intel Core i7 and 8 GB RAM and is otherwise running perfectly, I recommend replacing the failed drive with an SSD. The hard disk in my mid-2012 MacBook Pro (purchased very late in 2012) gave up the ghost. Instead of tossing the laptop, I purchased a $65 240 GB SSD and had the MacBook Pro back up and working faster than when it was new (with a 750 GB 5400RPM traditional drive). Only about an hour's work was required. Here's how I did it.
 
First I placed the MacBook Pro upside down on a static-free mat and removed the screws from the laptop's bottom casing. I noted which screws came from which location, as several of the screws are of different sizes. Then I carefully removed the wiring harness that connects the battery to the motherboard, as circled in red below.
 

Image: Erik Eckel/TechRepublic 

For the next step, I removed the two screws from the black plastic hard drive retention piece that secures the hard disk to the motherboard. The hard drive's location within the mid-2012 MacBook Pro is circled in red within the next photo. Note, the photo shows the new SSD drive installed in place of the old 5400RPM traditional hard disk.
 

Image: Erik Eckel/TechRepublic  

After ensuring I could easily replace the hard disk, I found and ordered a compatible SSD on Crucial.com. After ordering the replacement drive, which cost just over $78 including a three-dollar surcharge for expedited shipping, I downloaded the OS X El Capitan install file using another Mac, since I now had the MacBook Pro in pieces.
 
Next I found a 16 GB thumb drive. Using my other Mac, I connected the thumb drive and opened Disk Utility. I selected the thumb drive and clicked the Erase button that appears along the top Disk Utility's top menu. I made no changes to the Disk Utility's default settings, leaving the format set to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and name as Untitled.
 
Once the El Capitan installer was downloaded to my Mac's Applications directory and the thumb drive finished formatting, I opened a Terminal window and typed the following command, which I found on Mashable (they credited MacRumors member tywebb13 with sharing the command):
 

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia 

--volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app 

--nointeraction

 
As Mashable notes, Terminal prompts the user for the administrator password. When the correct password is supplied, the command erases the thumb drive media, copies installer files to the drive, and configures the thumb drive to serve as bootable media.
 
Upon receiving the SSD, I moved the screws from the side of the old disk to the same locations on the new drive, and then installed the drive in the MacBook Pro. I also reconnected the battery to the motherboard and replaced the hard drive retention piece, as well as the bottom cover and all screws.
 
I connected the thumb drive to the MacBook Pro, booted up the laptop while pressing the Option key, and then chose to boot from the thumb drive that read Install OS X El Capitan. I selected the SDD as the disk to which I wanted to install the operating system, and then I marveled at how easy the process was.
 
Next, the installation process failed. I was greeted with a nonsensical error that read "This copy of the Install OS X El Capitan application can't be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading." The file was fine; it wasn't corrupt, nor had it been tampered with.
 
I found the problem's answer thanks to YouTube's Easy Steps, who's posted a helpful video for this issue. The problem occurs, as the video notes, because disconnecting the battery causes the laptop to revert to an old date that confuses the OS X installer. I corrected the problem by opening Terminal from the MacBook Pro's boot screen and typing "date 032301532016," which instructed the Mac to set the date as March 23, 2016 and the time as 1:53am. That did the trick, and the installer continued to walk me through a regular OS X installation.
 
I ended with a faster-than-new MacBook Pro and a refreshingly clean install. I could have chosen to recover applications and settings from a Time Machine backup, but for this installation I sought to start from scratch with a fresh new install. For $78 and an hour or so of work, the laptop should provide another two years of reliable service. Time will tell.
 
~ Erik Eckel

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Microsoft acting like Donald Trump by attacking Apple MacBook Pro in new Surface Book videos

 
This may blow some peoples' minds, but both OS X and Windows 10 are great operating systems. True, Microsoft's latest offering has some major annoyances such as privacy concerns, but overall, it is solid. One major way the two OS experiences differ is with touch screens. Microsoft has embraced touch and drawing with its operating system, while Apple has not. In fact, the fruit-logo company has failed to manufacturer a touch-enabled laptop (some would argue wisely).
 
If you do not need a touch experience, or stylus, not having those things won't really matter. If you do need those things, however, a Windows 10 computer such as the Surface Book could be the smarter choice. To highlight this, Microsoft is straight-up attacking Apple's MacBook Pro in a series of new videos. Quite frankly, Microsoft seems a bit like a bully -- sort of like Donald Trump -- by attacking Apple in this way. Is the Surface Book truly better than Apple's offering as the videos suggest?
 
Unfortunately for Microsoft, all three videos are very similar. The big selling points as to why the Surface Book is better is the stylus and touch. While there is mention of Microsoft's offering having a higher resolution screen, the overall message is a bit of a one-trick-pony.
 
Yes, if you are an artist or have other needs for touch and a stylus, the Surface Book might be a better computer. With that said, a combination of a MacBook Pro and iPad Pro might be wiser. In that configuration, you could charge one while using the other, or in business, allow two employees to work simultaneously. A tablet/laptop like the Surface Book can only be one thing at a time, and for one person at a time.
 
Ultimately, both the Surface Book and MacBook Pro are excellent machines, although Microsoft's computer has been plagued with problems. With many of those bugs largely fixed, however, I think it is silly to say one is better than the other. If you need Windows and touch, obviously the Surface Book will better meet your needs. If you aren't dependent on Windows and don't use touch, Apple's refined and elegant MacBook is superb.
 
Do Microsoft's videos succeed in showing the Surface Book is better than the MacBook Pro, or do the ads fall short? Is the company being a bully like Donald Trump? Watch them below and tell me in the comments.
 
 
Photo Credit: Ollyy/Shutterstock
 
~ Brian Fagioli

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Modbook Pro: Yes, there is an OS X tablet and it's been available since 2012

As capable as the iPad Pro is for artists, there are those who want Apple to make a tablet that runs OS X. That's not likely to happen, but a third-party company has been making one for a while.

Modbook Pro

A tablet running OS X has been a pipe dream for some and a Los Angeles-based company, Modbook, has been making one since 2012. Since Apple doesn't sell nor license the OS to third parties, the Modbook Pro takes a radical approach.
 
When you buy a Modbook Pro you are essentially buying a 13-inch MacBook Pro that the company cannibalizes to make the tablet. Everything inside the MBP that makes it a Mac is incorporated in a tablet enclosure that is the Modbook Pro.
 
The tablet houses the computer, and has a 13.3-inch display that works with a Wacom pen. The MBP keyboard base unit is ditched in favor of a pure tablet device.
 
The company aims the Modbook Pro at the serious artist who needs a sensitive pen (1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity) for sketching, while also having a need for running OS X apps.
 
According to Modbook, the conversion to the tablet involves placing the MacBook Pro in the tablet housing and connecting it to the ModBook Pro via a USB 3.0 connection. This accounts for a lot of the five pound weight of the tablet.
 
In addition to an OS X installation, it can be ordered with just Windows, or it can be installed on the Modbook Pro in a dual-boot arrangement for those needing access to both OSes. This is Windows 7 according to the specifications.
 
The Modbook Pro tablet is nearly an inch thick, so it's not a slim device. It is configurable to suit the buyer's requirements, with CPU, memory, and SSD storage sizes to suit. It is available in a price range of $2,699 - $2,999 for OS X and $2,799 - $3,099 for Windows only. There is also an entry-level model for $1,899 that is a DIY version which ships with everything in a box for hardy souls willing to take on the daunting task of building the Modbook Pro themselves.

Using the MacBook Pro in this fashion voids Apple's warranty so the Modbook Pro comes with a one-year warranty of its own to cover the tablet.
 
The need for running OS X on a tablet aside, it sounds like it might be time for those considering the Modbook Pro to look at the iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil. It's a lot cheaper if nothing else.
 
~ James Kendrick

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Apple's Tim Cook calls Microsoft's Surface Book 'Deluded'

There’s no question that Microsoft’s new Surface Book laptop/tablet hybrid has divided opinion. Some people love it, while others remain unconvinced, especially with regard to the high price and unconventional hinge. It’s very much designed as a rival to the MacBook Pro, and during its launch Microsoft made this clear by declaring its new device to be twice as fast as Apple’s offering.
 
So is Apple worried about the competition? Not so much. The company’s CEO Tim Cook took a swipe at the device earlier today while talking to students at Trinity College, in Dublin.
 
"It’s a product that tries too hard to do too much", he said. "It’s trying to be a tablet and a notebook and it really succeeds at being neither. It’s sort of deluded".
 
(Although the Independent.ie says Tim Cook used the word "Deluded" when describing Surface Book, it's possible he actually said "Diluted", which would make more sense in the context.)
 
Cook also took the opportunity to push Apple’s newly released iPad Pro, claiming he now only travels with that and an iPhone. But of course.
 
So what's your view? Is Apple's top man right about the Surface Book? Leave your comments below.
 
~ Wayne Williams

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Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book go on sale today -- will you buy one?

 

Surface Pro 4, the latest generation of Microsoft’s popular Windows slate, and Surface Book, the company’s brand new high-end laptop, both go on sale today -- provided you live in the US or Canada. If you live elsewhere you’ll have to wait until November.
 
Pre-orders have reportedly been brisk, with both devices going in and out of stock. Microsoft says the initial reaction to Surface Book and early pre-order activity has exceeded its expectations, so it’s likely to have limited quantities in store today.
 
As a refresher, Surface Pro 4 runs Windows 10 Pro and is powered by the new 6th generation Intel Core M, i5, or i7 processors. It’s thinner than its predecessor, and 30 percent faster too. The screen size has increased from 12 inches to 12.3 inches.
 
Microsoft describes Surface Book as the "ultimate laptop" and says it’s twice as fast as the MacBook Pro. It also runs Window s 10 Pro and can reportedly deliver up to 12 hours of battery life and has a 13.5” PixelSense display with six million pixels. What’s cool is the screen detaches, so it can be used as a tablet.
 
The device is powered by a 6th Generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor and features Intel HD graphics, and up to 1TB of storage. Surface Book is also available with discrete NVIDIA GeForce GPU if you require a little more oomph.
 
There are reasons for and against buying the Surface Book, although of course that’s true of any such device.
 
Now that both products are officially on sale, we’re interested to know whether you’re planning to buy either of the devices, and if so which.
 
Please answer our poll, and then leave a comment below telling us why you voted as you did. If you are going to buy either device, please say which model you've opted for.

Will you buy Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book?

 See the survey on the bottom of the "Home" page. Thank you.
 
~ Wayne Williams

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Apple refreshes 15-inch MacBook Pro, introduces cheaper 5K iMac

Apple has refreshed the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, beefing up its top-of-the-line laptop with a Force Touch trackpad, faster internal storage and dedicated graphics, and, of course, better battery life. Also new is a 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display configuration which kicks off at $1,999, $300 cheaper than the original model.
 
But these are not the only changes that Apple has announced. The original 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display now starts off at $200 less than before -- prior to this price-cut, it had been available from $2,499. Let us take a detailed look at what the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display brings to the table.
 
For those who are not familiar with the Force Touch keyboard technology, it basically adds haptic feedback to the trackpad using built-in pressure sensors. It enables new gestures, and there are dedicated APIs for developers so that they can integrate the new capabilities into their apps. The Force Touch trackpad was introduced alongside the new MacBook, in early-March 2015, and is also available on the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display.
 
Apple claims that the refreshed 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is equipped with internal storage that is 2.5 times faster than before, offering a throughput of up to 2 GBps (2,048 MB/s). The laptop's battery life is one hour longer than before, with the latest model quoted to offer 9 hours of battery life when browsing via Wi-Fi or watching videos using iTunes.
 
The high-end version of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, which adds a dedicated graphics card, is said to perform 80 percent better in the graphics department -- when editing video, rendering images or playing games -- compared to the model it replaces, thanks to its AMD Radeon R9 M370X card.
 
The base 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display ships with a 2.2 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM, 256 GB of internal storage and Iris Pro graphics, as the main features. It kicks off at $1,999.
 
Starting at $2,499, the high-end model adds a faster 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, doubles the internal storage to 512 GB of space, and, as mentioned above, adds the Radeon R9 M370X graphics card to the mix.

Moving on to the base 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display, the new $1,999 all-in-one features a 3.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, Radeon R9 M290 graphics, 8 GB of RAM, 1 TB of internal storage, 4 USB 3.0 ports and 2 Thunderbolt 2 ports, the last of which are said to offer twice the bandwidth -- 20 Gbps each -- of the previous generation. It has the same display as the original model, a 27-inch IPS panel with a resolution of 5,120 by 2,880.
 
The $2,299 model improves upon the base model by packing a faster 3.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, and Radeon M9 M290X graphics, and also by replacing the standard 1 TB HDD with a speedier 1 TB Fusion Drive.
 
As you might expect, the refreshed and new models that Apple has introduced are available right away from its online store and select authorized resellers. All ship with OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
  
~ Mihaita Bamburic

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Refreshed MacBook Pro: Stunningly fast storage, spooky touchpad, delightful display

Summary: David Gewirtz shares first impressions from his brand new, recently refreshed MacBook Pro. His primary take-away thought: "Holy Mother of God, storage is fast!"
 

My new MacBook Pro Image: David Gewirtz

I'm writing this on my new MacBook Pro. If you'll recall, a week or so ago I took you through my thinking process in determining which Mac notebook to buy.
 
I wound up deciding to buy the middle-of-the-road 13-inch MacBook, which is powered with a 2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, 16GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 memory, 256GB PCIe-based flash storage and Intel Iris Graphics 6100. Of particular note is the Retina display, which makes working on a relatively small 13-inch display a pleasure.
 
I'll give you a quick survey of my experiences, but I'm not going to bury the lead: this machine has completely unexpected, insanely fast storage performance. More on that near the bottom of the article when I talk about benchmarks.

Delivery almost-snafu

Oddly enough, my first-first impression of the machine was annoyance. While I wanted the machine quickly to begin a new project, Apple informed me that delivery would take until Tuesday (about a week). Given that I was ordering a non-standard configuration (maxing out RAM), I accepted that.

But here's where it got annoying. On Thursday, the Apple site said my order would arrive on Tuesday and require a signature. On Friday, the order arrived, and required a signature. I was not planning on being home on Friday and it was just blind luck that the delivery truck showed up during the short window of time I was home.
 
I appreciate delivering more than you promise, but when something like delivery-with-signature requires planning, it would have been nice to have gotten something resembling an accurate delivery estimate -- especially when I checked just the previous evening.

The display

Here's an admission: this is the first Mac laptop I've had since my 1994 PowerBook 150. We were a heavy Mac shop from about then through 2001 or so, but we ran off of a succession of desktop machines. After that, I went all Windows (with a smattering of Linux) until around 2007 or so, when I moved back into the Apple space with an iMac for iPhone development.

PowerBook 150, circa 1994 - Image: Dana Sibera CC BY-SA 2.5

 
Since then, I've been adding more and more Macs, some of them running Windows and many of them hybrid machines, but I haven't had a portable Mac since the early days of the Bill Clinton presidency.
 
This is not a Bill Clinton-era display. The Retina display on the MacBook Pro is clean and crisp, and well worth the added costs over a non-Retina MacBook Air screen. It's clear (pun not intended) that Retina in terms of how it feels to my eyes was the right choice.
 
It is also far more comfortable to read this screen (and write on it) than my trusty (and by comparison crusty and rusty) HP Chromebook. Night and day.

Keyboard and touchpad

I bought a $69 Magic Mouse with the MacBook because I am not a fan of touchpads. That said, there are some very noticeable observations about the MacBook Pro touchpad.
 
First, this is the first laptop/notebook I've ever used with a touchpad where my normal typing on the keyboard wasn't always interrupted by misinterpreted touchpad actions. The MacBook Pro touchpad stays completely out of the way. It's the first touchpad-equipped notebook where I haven't had to go in, the very first thing, and turn off the blasted touchpad.
 
Second, the haptic feedback in the touchpad is spooky. If I didn't know better, I'd think that I was clicking and moving the touchpad surface, when the reality is that it's rock-stable and not moving at all. The haptic in the touchpad give a feeling completely and totally indistinguishable from an actual press and click.
 
I validated this with a laser level. The touchpad isn't moving. But it sure feels like it is. That's amazing and makes me wonder what other areas will benefit from limited and directed haptic feedback. Very cool.
 
Still, I'll use my mouse.
 
As for the keyboard, typing on it is fine. The key travel is reasonable and has required no special getting used to. My only complaint is the keyboard layout itself. I use the PC version of the Logitech K810 keyboard on all my computers (I'm a big fan of the three Bluetooth connection buttons), and so my keyboard layout is a little bit more PC and a little less Mac-oriented.
 
I'll need to go into Settings on the MacBook Pro and tweak my keyboard keys. That said, one thing that truly annoys me is that the Delete key in the upper right of the keyboard is a backspace key, rather than a true Delete key. Once again, I'll go into either settings or fire up Keyboard Maestro to change things around, so it's no big deal.

What about performance?

Subjectively, performance has been smooth. I haven't tried writing code on the new MacBook Pro yet, so I can't tell you how that feels, but basic work is nice and snappy.
 
However, being somewhat anal about such things, I decided to subject the device to a set of benchmark tests. I used NovaBench for overall performance testing, Cinebench for graphics and a second CPU test, and the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test for storage performance.
 
As a test set, I compared my main 2013 27-inch maxed-out iMac with my late 2012 Mac mini (where I replaced the hard drive with an SSD) with the new MacBook Pro.
 
Overall performance: As comes as no real surprise, overall performance of my Core i7 3500 MHz 32GB maxed-out iMac was roughly twice that of the new MacBook Pro. That iMac also cost more than twice that of the MacBook 18 months ago and was truly maxed in capability and capacity.
 
CPU and RAM: CPU performance according to Novabench was considerably better from both core i7s (the one in the iMac and the one in the Mac mini). Even a Core i7 running at 2300 MHz beats the pants off a Core i5 running at 2700 MHz by a factor of 697 to 447.
 
RAM speed has something to do with the performance win, but not as much as you'd think. The slowest, the new MacBook Pro benched with a RAM speed of 7112 MB/s, the Mac mini showed 8226 MB/s, and the super-duper iMac showed 9931 MB/s.
 
Graphics performance: On the other hand, graphics and storage performance was quite interesting. Using Cinebench, I was able to measure graphics performance and the iMac running a GeForce 780M blew everything else away with a benchmark of 87.04 fps. The new MacBook Pro came in second, running the Intel Iris 6100 and showing a workmanlike score of 25.73 fps. Far at the bottom of the barrel was the Mac mini running HD4000 graphics, with a measly score of 16.67 fps
 
This score makes me wonder just how tolerable the new MacBook might have been. It sports a Retina display, meaning it has to push a lot more pixels, and yet it's running a slower HD5000 graphics adapter, which would give it numbers more in line with the Mac mini's performance than the MacBook Pro. Combine that with the substantially slower CPU in the new MacBook and I'm very glad I didn't choose it for my purchase.
 
Storage performance: Finally, let's look at storage performance. Both the iMac and the MacBook Pro use flash storage, while the Mac mini uses an aftermarket-upgrade SSD. Flash storage is often much more efficient than even SSDs, so let's see how the benchmarks played out. For that, I turned to the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test. Prepare to be blown away.
 
My maxed-out iMac showed 708.6 MB/s write speeds and 728.7 MB/s read speeds. At the other end of the spectrum, my upgraded Mac mini registered a measly (but still way better than spinning platter) 174.2 MB/s write speeds and 501.9 MB/s read speeds.
 

Wow!

Now, here's where you need to buckle up. The new MacBook Pro? 1098.3 MB/s write, and 1049.8 MB/s read. Holy Mother of God, that's fast. That blows away the specially configured 1TB of flash storage in my maxed out iMac and just leaves it in a puddle. I did not expect this, but I'm thrilled. I'm always about storage performance and yowzah-bowzah, that's fast!

Finally, from the Completely Odd Dept

For some reason, my Applications folder is missing all its applications. I just discovered it this morning, but if I go to my Applications folder in my David folder, there's nothing there. And yet, applications like Evernote and Chrome are able to launch.
 
I haven't had a chance to figure out what's up, and it's new enough in this machine's life that I may just toss a recovery install its way, but it's odd.
 
UPDATE: There's no missing apps. I just looked in the wrong place without enough coffee. Oops.
  
So there you go. I like the machine. I know I haven't touched on battery life, but that's because it's been sitting on my desk in my study all weekend. I also haven't mentioned weight for the same reason. It's nice and small, but does weigh considerably more than the Chromebook. But for what you get with the extra pound, I think it's worth it.
 
~ David Gewirtz

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