13" Retina MBP, iMac & Mac Mini Refresh To Be Announced At October 23rd Event?

Zapp Brannigan

jank wrote: »

Could I not get apple in Australia to upgrade it for me? Or do you have to get it upgraded before you buy it.

Afraid not. They're configured at the factory and that's the way they'll always be.

My advice to people buying a retina is usually over spec it that way you won't be disappointed by it in a few years time.

Spipov

ordered one. in transit at the minute. i know its not worth it. but i need a 13 inch footprint, but i need high res. macbook air (2010 then 2011) that i had have led to me having to switch too many programs, and it was way too big (bigger res = smaller font and windows). 15 inch retina, though its probably better bang for buck, is still too out of my reach - money wise.

i will update and let you all know how it is once i get a play of it on sunday/monday as im away friday (delivery day - hope i manage to get it in time) until sunday.

It still hurts and i wonder if i made the right decision, but ill live with it. this machine unless its bloody brilliant should last me for the year. i do tend to change often enough.

Sad Professor

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Your calculating the VAT wrong. VAT isn't 23% of the end purchase price, it's actually about 18.7% of the end purchase price. So Revenue get about €336.

Yeah, your right. I had a feeling I didn't calculate that properly. In fact, I see Apple are now listing the VAT amount on the store.

Sad Professor

A few thoughts on the announcements:

Dropping the optical drive from the iMac is a pretty big deal. I didn't expect Apple to do this so soon, especially in the absence of a killer new feature like a Retina screen. This confirms that Apple are committed to dropping the optical drive across their Mac line-up. It's just a matter of economics before they can discontinue the legacy MBPs.

I love the new 13-inch Retina Pro, although much like the early gen MBAs, I'm not sure it's a good buy right now considering it's destined to replace the old 13-inch MBP at the same price point. My next Mac will be either this or a 15-inch, so hopefully it won't be long before that happens.

Once again the Mini has had its price bumped due to changes in the value of the Euro, making it far too expensive IMO. Even at the US price I'm not sure who this machine is aimed at. The way things are going it could have been a replacement for the Mac Pro, but then Apple made the bizarre decision to replace the discrete gpu with integrated graphics.

Losty Dublin

Sad Professor wrote: »

Once again the Mini has had its price bumped due to changes in the value of the Euro, making it far too expensive IMO. Even at the US price I'm not sure who this machine is aimed at. The way things are going it could have been a replacement for the Mac Pro, but then Apple made the bizarre decision to replace the discrete gpu with integrated graphics.

Captive market of buyers perhaps? They are handy machines for their size and they seem to sell well in spite of zero publicity from the Apple PR circus. Obviously they have a market sector that Apple are able to milk for all they're worth.

TCP/IP

Well placed an order for a 15inch Retina MacBook Pro, 27 inch iMac and iPad 4 today can't wait. Salesman was a happy camper.

Sad Professor

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Captive market of buyers perhaps? They are handy machines for their size and they seem to sell well in spite of zero publicity from the Apple PR circus. Obviously they have a market sector that Apple are able to milk for all they're worth.

Yeah, just like the Mac Pro, another product Apple don't really care about anymore and would love to kill except they obviously sell enough of them to justify a spec bump every 2-3 years.

Brian017

Does anyone think that the 27" iMacs will arrive here before Christmas? Or will we be looking at a 3-4 week wait for them to ship once they become available to order sometime in December?

Sinfonia

Sad Professor wrote: »

Yeah, just like the Mac Pro, another product Apple don't really care about anymore and would love to kill except they obviously sell enough of them to justify a spec bump every 2-3 years.

D'you think so? Obviously they're not going to do well on the home market, but I would have thought they were doing very well on the professional market; Mac Pro totally dominates the audio/music & video production industry by now. If they killed off the Mac Pro they'd surely lose that industry almost completely within 5 years.

Losty Dublin

Sad Professor wrote: »

Yeah, just like the Mac Pro, another product Apple don't really care about anymore and would love to kill except they obviously sell enough of them to justify a spec bump every 2-3 years.

Aside from the the RAM capacity, 2 processor option and the monitor options then there isn't much power benefit in a MP, regardless of the price difference. You'd wonder what stranglehold Apple have on the Audio Visual industry to keep it as such.

stimpson

Sad Professor wrote: »

Yeah, just like the Mac Pro, another product Apple don't really care about anymore and would love to kill except they obviously sell enough of them to justify a spec bump every 2-3 years.

The mini is a cracking machine. Great as a SoHo server, the quad core will make an awesome cheap dev box. And then there is the likes of me who will buy one for HTPC duty (replacing a 2007 mini). I'm glad they are killing the optical drive across the range. I'd say in 5 years I've used mine less than a dozen times. It's a dead technology as was the floppy before it. At the end of the day you can pick up an external drive for very little if you really need one.

Sinfonia

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Aside from the the RAM capacity, 2 processor option and the monitor options then there isn't much power benefit in a MP, regardless of the price difference. You'd wonder what stranglehold Apple have on the Audio Visual industry to keep it as such.

For music at least, I think initially the main selling points were things like
1) the fact that Apple machines and everything in them are produced and tested by Apple, resulting in a smaller probability of failure/project loss etc.
2) once Apple bought Logic, they heavily improved its features and hiked the price; after the competition did the same, Apple then greatly reduced the price, giving LogicPro excellent value (and of course it's exclusive to Mac).

More recently then, you have the fact that Apple's popularity (due to reasons such as the above) means that more people are using Apple products, both in the professional market and in the home/amateur market. Therefore both contemporaries and clients are more widely using Apple products, therefore it benefits a producer to follow suit: if a client is more likely to have demoed their tracks at home using Logic/Garageband, then a Windows-exclusive DAW in the studio will be effectively incompatible, resulting in either much harder work for the producer, or the client going elsewhere.

K.O.Kiki

I'm still VERY surprised with Apple's performance/design decisions.

13" Retina without a discrete video card? I pity anyone who tries to do 3D on that! Coupled with soldered-in RAM (because they built it so it can't even PHYSICALLY take more than 8Gb), I'm not sure which "pro" market they're going after.

And iPad mini for a premium price AND without Retina? I think I'll wait for the update before hankering after it. Should only take 6 months...

Sad Professor

They are not quite there yet with the slimmer Retina design which is why they are still selling the legacy MBPs. This is a repeat of what happened with the Air. The early adopters pay the premium and suffer the problems/limitations, while the later adopters reap the benefits. The Air is a great machine now and basically replaced the Plasticbook, but I wouldn't have touched it in first-gen form, not at least because I couldn't afford it.

The 13-inch MBP's "Pro" status was always questionable anyway. I'm actually kinda surprised they bothered with a Retina model of it. I was expecting them to simplify their line-up by letting the Air fill that slot. But I guess that wasn't possible with the Retina screen.

Spipov

received the laptop today. took a grand total of 2 days - hard ordered late on the 23rd october, chose express shipping (10 euros) as well as a magsafe adapter.

i havent opened the box yet, but the box is actually smaller than the macbook air box. it is very light actually.

looking forward to digging my hands in hopefully tomorrow. ah, if only i was here this weekend!

Sean Quagmire

I'm a bit let down by the imac tbh. This is purely form over function, how bloody thin do ye need an all in one desktop computer to be? a small bit thinner than the last sure but its should all be about the specs. I was sure i wanted one for the house but might look at a mini instead.

I am not even going to mention the ipad mini. got the missus an ipad3 last month, now the ipad4 is on the horizon. Apple sure can piss you off sometimes.

no interest in the retina 13" macbook "pro".

Zapp Brannigan

Screen looks nice, but it's only that.

Still a dual core processor and no discrete graphics card.

Would rather an Air over it and stick with the 15" Retina for any serious work.

@Sean

What's annoying about the new iMac? Finally has Ivybridge processors and USB 3. Sure there's no physical disc drive but you can just buy an external one for cheap any ways. I love the design new one, can't wait to see it in the flesh.