
Consumer Reports now recommends the MacBook Pro after a software fix - Brajeshwar
https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/12/consumer-reports/
======
mojuba
There seems to be a lot of negativity around Apple's recent products, both
justified and unjustified. What I'm fearing is, that Apple's management will
disregard them all as unjustified, i.e. see, CR just rushed to report bad
battery life but it kinda wasn't our fault and it wasn't the battery.

But battery life aside, there are legitimate concerns that haven't been
addressed, such as no updates for a long time. Phil Schiller saying "I have
never seen a great new Apple product that didn’t have its share of early
criticism and debate — and that’s cool", then missing sales targets for the
iPhone 7 - these things may be a sign that they are gradually losing the sense
of reality.

Obviously they are hearing, but are they listening?

~~~
narrator
I think that technology is slowing down. Skylake to Kabby Lake was a
negligible performance improvement. It's hard to get everyone excited about
the new lineup when there's not a whole lot that's new and cool in the full-
size computer world.

~~~
mojuba
What people need is not necessarily faster systems, but often just quality
workhorse computers to replace their previous (broken or worn off) ones.
Fingerprint security, better audio and better battery life would have been a
good enough increment to a lot of people to buy the new series. In fact the
MBP did perform well in sales, though it could've been even better if all 3 of
the above were available on all models.

The iPhone 7 though is a big disappointment, and the fact that Apple
themselves overestimated the demand is indicative of that. I think to a lot of
people it looked like a decrement rather than increment, i.e. it's a 6 without
the headphone jack. Camera? I don't know if I need the new one really. Faster
CPU? I'm not sure it's critical for the apps I'm using. Personally, it's the
first time since iPhone 3 that I _don 't want_ the new one.

Maybe it's all normal and maybe Schiller is right in that every new product
will always be met with criticism. Apple's stuff is now too popular and too
important to be dismissed if it's a flop. Who cares if Dell's next laptop is
ugly and/or overpriced? No one cares. But Apple is a near-monopoly because of
OS lock-in and millions of people's jobs (I'm guessing) literally depending on
them.

It's this sense of panic that Apple is slowly building up a bubble around
themselves. We don't even know whether it's the usual secrecy around R&D or
they simply don't know what to do next.

~~~
coldtea
> _The iPhone 7 though is a big disappointment, and the fact that Apple
> themselves overestimated the demand is indicative of that. I think to a lot
> of people it looked like a decrement rather than increment, i.e. it 's a 6
> without the headphone jack. Camera? I don't know if I need the new one
> really. Faster CPU? I'm not sure it's critical for the apps I'm using.
> Personally, it's the first time since iPhone 3 that I don't want the new
> one._

The headphone port aside, it's an incremental update, with big internal
technology boosts (cpu, gpu, camera setup, etc) as always (and waterproof,
which is big).

What exactly would the disappointment be? And the 7 is selling more than fine,
who said anything about "overestimating demand"?

"In the US, iOS grew 7 percentage points year-over-year, from 33.5% of
smartphone sales to 40.5% in the three months ending October 2016. This
represents the strongest rate of growth for the OS in more than two years, as
well as the highest share seen since the three months ending January 2015
(42.8%). And while Android remains the dominant OS in the US, at 57.9% of
smartphone sales, this latest data represents the 5th consecutive year-on-year
period decline"

The iPhone enjoyed its largest gains in the UK, where sales of Apple’s iPhone
lineup grew 9.1% year-over-year to 48.3%. At the same time, Kantar says
Android’s share of smartphone sales slid 1.8% to 49.6%. iPhone’s share of the
market also grew in France, Italy, Spain and across the EU5 region as a whole.

other source:

Overall, Slice says, revenues from iPhone sales in November and December 2016
were up 66.9% from the same period last year.

~~~
mojuba
There were reports a few weeks ago that Apple is going to cut production of
iPhone 7 because it overestimated demand, at the same time it underestimated
demand for iPhone SE and other cheaper models. It may still be huge, or even
"bigger than ever" but the fact that they under- or overestimate things is an
indication of something being not quite right with Apple.

~~~
coldtea
A lot of those reports are just rumors and the opposite pans out.

------
london888
I liked Gruber's mention of a Mac Nano idea, I'd love something like a
Raspberry Pi running MacOS.

~~~
pawadu
Raspberry Pi costs $35. What would the Mac Nano cost?

~~~
leonroy
Probably would be comparable to an AppleTV if Apple did indeed make such a
thing.

~~~
pawadu
I doubt it, the price of one AppleTV is subsidized by future iTunes purchases.

------
izacus
Huh, those battery life numbers are nowhere near what those machines actually
get in real world O.o

~~~
gtufano
Using Chrome and Atom (HTML/JS) applications takes its toll on batteries...

~~~
paublyrne
I switched to mostly Safari when I got the new MacBook Pro because I
understood that there were efficiencies built in that would maximise battery
life. Not sure how large a difference if any there really is. In any case I
get a few hours when all I'm doing is light browsing. No Atom open, etc. Which
is for me OK as I'm usually not away from a socket for very long.

The figure of 15.x hours, however, seems completely unbelievable to me.

~~~
H4CK3RM4N
Try lowering you're brightness. You can get the same subjective brightness as
older models at lower levels.

------
_1
I'm still finding that the battery on this machine sucks. Opened my MacBook
pro this morning and the battery was down to 74% (my Air would be around 95 if
left overnight in my bag). I've been at work, unplugged for just a half hour
and I'm at 67%. Not running anything intensive, just Outlook and Chrome.

~~~
timemachiner
I have the tMBP 15". I know there is a lot of hate on HN (easy upvotes), but I
get 8-10 hours on mine. I use safari.

~~~
rufius
Ditto.

------
mark_l_watson
I expect the second generation of the new MacBook Pro will be awesome as
battery issues are fixed and more software uses the new hardware toolbar.

I bought a MacBook a week after the MacBook Pro was released, and I feel good
about that decision because the design is stable and had one hardware update.
A really nice device.

I continue to be disappointed by Apple Cloud web services, and as I have said
here before Tim Cook and the board of directors should on a regular basis sit
down together and use Siri and Google Now/Assistant and honestly compare them.

I very much like iPads, but the weaknesses in web services also affect iPad
usability.

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bsder
3 extra hours of battery life if you skip the touch bar?!?!?!

Wow.

~~~
grk
It has a lower TDP CPU and a slower SSD.

~~~
gambiting
And a bigger battery. And it doesn't have the second thunderbolt controller to
power.

~~~
Dylan16807
I'd be very disappointed if that controller takes notable power when inactive.
The rest is fair.

~~~
gambiting
[https://lwn.net/Articles/707616/](https://lwn.net/Articles/707616/)

"Thunderbolt controllers consume about 2W even when idle"

For a laptop, that's crazy.

~~~
m45t3r
This is mostly because Linux can't manage Thunderbolt power states. I would be
disappointed if MacOS didn't do it however, since the hardware is supposed to
be "integrated" with software.

~~~
asendra
True, i can't imagine that being the case in macOS. Though, I was still very
disappointed to find out that using the ethernet thunderbolt dongle used more
battery that using wifi in my 2015 rMBP.

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toodlebunions
Cool does the software fix add 32GB RAM option?

18 hour battery??? LOL! Come on.

