When I was a teenager, my dream was to get so called Hi-Fi audio system. I knew that some audio systems could generate sounds in the frequency range 20-20000Khz. To have something like this would be like money from home, but those audio systems were too expensive. No, they were unreachable. These days any pair of $10-headphones at Wallmart plays 20-20000Khz. Today, I can afford expensive speakers that deliver crystal clear sound, but there is a little problem: I can’t hear those high-frequency notes any more. Not sure if I ever could.
What all this has to do with today’s Apple announcements of thew new MacBook Pro with the retina display? I won’t feel the difference between the screen quality of my last-year model MacBook Pro and the new one. I’m pretty sure of this because last week I had to buy a new iPad for my wife – her original one broke (half of its screen is permanently pitch black). The new iPad has this retina display and I don’t see much of a difference. But at least the new iPad costs the same as an old one, which is not the case with the new MaBook Pros.
I love Apple’s products. I really do. Each member of my family owns a MacBook Pro and other mobile devices from this great company. But I’m not going to shell out another thousand bucks just to demonstrate my loyalty to Apple.
Can Apple make me exited in the future? Yes they can, and this is what I want:
1. I’d really appreciate if the body temperature of my MacBook Pro would be as close to the temperature of my body as possible. Today, I could cook fry eggs on it.
2. It would be nice if the battery on my MacBook Pro would last during entire the flight from New York to Europe or California. I know, Apple has achieved 7-hour battery life in their labs under certain conditions, where the screen was dimmed, the wifi was off, and they were watching black-and-white silent movies. But I need real 7 hours of work when my quad-core processor is busy.
3. If they’ll manage to fix the temperature, the fans won’t be too loud and during my Skype conversations I’ll be able to use the internal mike without people asking me if I’m sitting in the airplane.
That’s all for now. Am I asking for too much? What MacBook improvements would make you happy?
If you want to see what’s inside of the new MacBook Pro, follow this link at iFixit.com.
yakovfain.com 
Personally, I like Apply products (though didn’t get any of them so far, and perhaps won’t get ones in foreseeable future), but I use my laptop 4-5 times in a month at most, and I won’t pay more than one thousand for a one. Anyway, I can NOT do real work on laptops, but reading, writing mails etc..
As for me, I’m doing all my work (job duties, pet projects, hobbies as podcasting and video editing) on my 13′ macbook pro previous gen. For me it small enough to carry it with me. And I already upgraded it with maximum ram and installed custom ssd. And it fast like Road Runner. Having gorgeous 27′ display from Apple I don’t need retina with beyond HD resolution.
But I totally agree about price. 1k extra is too much.
Plus I not sure about hardware upgrade options in new MBP.
Thanks, Apple. Not this time.
So you are working on 13″ MBP, or you are attaching it to 27″ display? I can’t imagine working on 13″ display honestly. It makes me damn angry in half an hour.
It’s not only the display that costs extra, but also SSD-only option starting with 256 Gb and with $500 for upgrade from 512 to 786 in the top model. I ordered one though, it’s about time to upgrade my 5+ years old MBP which is still doing well and runs Lion, but won’t be supported by 10.8.
I think I get your point Yakov. For example, some folks will buy an iPad and get the 64GB version and say it’s “better” than the 16GB. Maybe I’m an oddball but I don’t need the space. Besides the use of cloud storage, I would only load up the device for a plane trip and you’ll hit 64GB too if you behave that way. Nevertheless, people would agree the 64GB is “better”.
Consider even at least one person… a friend of mine bought the 3G iPad and has never purchased service for it… he just wanted it just in case. Definitely these two examples remind me of you sentiment.
I’m not sure how many apps will really exploit the new display. Eventually you may find a retina type display is required to do anything common.
What I find particularly interesting about the SSD only aspect is they kept saying “FLASH” when referring to it. Yes, it’s accurate but I wonder how much of a not-so-subtle attempt it was to trample Flash’s “brand”.
It’s a sweet device but I just can’t justify it. I’ll maybe find a way in time for the new OS. I haven’t supported Mac OS for a long time.
That’s why people are broke in this country – they either buy what they don’t need, or what they can’t afford. I won’t be considered cool, but will stick to the 16MB iPad with no 3G 🙂
Yakov, I see your point, and yes, the regular 15″ MacBook Pro in its cheapest configuration is $400 less than the cheapest configuration of Retina MacBook. But I bet you as a developer don’t use a MacBook in a standard config, you probably have at least 8 gigs of RAM in your machine and there’s a good chance you use an SSD as well. So, the point it, if you add those two upgrades to the cheapest 15″ MacBook, it’s going to be $200 more expensive than a Retina one that comes with 8Gb of RAM and a 256Gb SSD by default. And a high res display, thinner and lighter body and a less noisy fans come as a cherry on top of that. Absolutely free.
Yes, I have 8 gigs of RAM, but 256G SSD is not enough for me. When my MacBook will need to be replaced, I may reconsider, but at this point in time don’t see a reason for upgrade.
Sure, I’m not justifying an upgrade for the sake of an upgrade, I’m saying, when the time for an upgrade comes, a Retina MacBook is going to be your cheaper and better choice.