“Apple made an interesting move a couple of weeks ago when the company announced that it would be cutting prices on a number of its MacBook models,” Ashraf Eassa writes for Seeking Alpha.
“In particular, Apple reduced the price on the 13″ Retina MacBook Pro from $1699 to $1499, and cut the price of the 13″ MacBook Air from $1499 to $1399,” Eassa writes. “At first, I thought nothing of it, but then I started wondering if this represented the death knell for the 13″ MacBook Pro. So, will Apple get rid of the 13″ MacBook Pro?”
Eassa writes, “The only real differences here are form factor (the MacBook Air is thinner and lighter) and clock frequency on the CPU. Now, this difference shouldn’t be brushed aside lightly; the difference between models is anywhere from 44% to 50% and CPU performance scales almost linearly with clock speed. The MacBook Pro is markedly faster, but it comes at a financial and form factor cost. However, that distinction has been getting blurrier and blurrier in each generation, and I believe with Intel’s ‘Haswell,’ Apple will be able to finally consolidate its 13″ models to simply the Air.”
Read more in the full article here.
Never, I hope. The MBA and MBPr are impractical from the standpoint of upgrading your own RAM and HDD/SSD. And I positively hate what they did with the MagSafe connector on the MBPr – dumb retrograde move on Apple’s part.
What I hope they do is extend the functionality of the MBP line by bringing out a retina model. The MBPr has too many compromises for me. Fail.
Dude, you make no sense. Please clarify. There are MBP retinas in both 13 and 15. User upgrades? Most of the market doesn’t care anymore. Most people don’t customize their cars or their computers. And, finally, it’s a “fail” so don’t get rid of it?
Jensen, if you are new, just remember BLN (balmer’s left nut). None of us bother to even acknowledge him anymore. Nothing he ever says makes any sense… So, please don’t encourage him. Ignoring him is the best policy.
Gotcha. I have seen the trolling posts before but this one is beyond trolling, it’s just stupid.
That’s a bit harsh, Jensen. BLN posts some reasonable stuff on occasion. It just surprises most of us.
Are you a complete retard? Unscrewing a couple of screws on the bottom of the MBP is too much of a task?
Let me be clear for dummies like you. I mean bring in a retina model for the full size MBP rather than the slimline MBPr that they have now.
How’s that for English comprehension?
And that is a bit harsh, BLN. Your original post was a bit cryptic.
Apple does sometimes sacrifice functionality to the sacred goals of thinness and lightness. I understand your concern that Apple may be doing so with the MBP lineup, going for too much “air” and not enough capabilities for the power user on the go. Perhaps Apple sees the technological potential for an effective convergence of the two platforms that is not readily apparent to its clients?
I don’t see any reason why they can’t do both – have a full size MBP line alongside a slimline MBPr line which over time will replace the MBA line seeing that there are more similarities between them (non-upgradable soldered on parts) than there are differences.
So the MBPr line will converge with the MBA line, leaving the full size MBP line intact, with a retina upgrade.
I think it’s a couple years off. Until they can make the retina models with the same level of storage, and max out the RAM on each model while keeping it at the $1199 price, then the MBP line will go away.
When you can make a 13″ MB Pro Retina with 500gb flash storage, and 8gb of RAM for $1199.. Then it will happen.
Why not? They’ve made other equally stupid maneuvers this year. What’s one more?
The MacBook Pro was killed when Apple sealed the case, went with goofy batteries and dropped connections people actually use. Form over function is not what is needed in a work tool.
No. They will kill the air.
They’re in the process of killing the optical drive and the hard drive.
Apple is really beginning to piss me off a lot. This quest for thinness has become the most stupidest thing in computing history.
1. I do NOT like the step backwards Apple has taken with soldered RAM in the MBPr. Soldered RAM? What is this? The mid-1980s?
2. I do NOT like the step backwards that Apple has taken with SSD only in the MBPr. Most people, that are in their right mind, are NOT going to pay hundreds of dollars more just for a few extra MB of storage space.
3. I do NOT like the step backwards that Apple has taken with getting rid of the SuperDrive in the MBPr. Further, I can’t honestly understand why Apple continues to deny full OS X data support for internal Blu-ray drives. Some people, like myself, have huge long-term data storage requirements. SSDs are not going to cut it.
The MBPr is a huge step backwards IMO. Too limited in so many ways. The screen might be nicer, but I like Ethernet, SuperDrive, 1 TB+ HDDs, etc. The fact that Apple is getting rid of everything that is still quite useful is the reason why I recently ordered a brand new MBP 15″ with a high resolution glossy display (1680 x 1050). I can bump it up to 16 GB on my own and put in a Seagate 750 GB SSHD. It will arriving by Friday. 🙂
My next notebook computer, unfortunately, does not look like it is going to be a Mac. As long as Apple continues this garbage of deleting features that many people still need they are going to push people to buy a Windows notebook. I don’t want to be carrying around dongles for Ethernet capability, external SuperDrives, etc.
That should be… “It will BE arriving by Friday.”
I don’t care about the small MacBook Pro. I want a new 17″ MacBook Pro.
Yes yes yes. I want a new 17″ MBP. I have an original i7 17″er (2010) and although it still does a great job an updated model with 3 USB3, 800 FE, thunderbolt and a 3/4 card slot for my Apogee card would be heaven.
Me too.
The 13″ was my first MacBook Pro, and I still love it. My wife is treating it with respect and it does a great job every single day.