512 Pixels

Apple may boast about their new keyboard design, but this ThinkPad is something else.

Eunice Kim, Product Manager for Google Play:

Several months ago, we began reviewing apps before they are published on Google Play to better protect the community and improve the app catalog. This new process involves a team of experts who are responsible for identifying violations of our developer policies earlier in the app lifecycle. We value the rapid innovation and iteration that is unique to Google Play, and will continue to help developers get their products to market within a matter of hours after submission, rather than days or weeks. In fact, there has been no noticeable change for developers during the rollout.

To assist in this effort and provide more transparency to developers, we’ve also rolled out improvements to the way we handle publishing status. Developers now have more insight into why apps are rejected or suspended, and they can easily fix and resubmit their apps for minor policy violations.

This has long been a point of humor of Apple fans, but that aside, I think this is a great move on Google’s part. The iOS App Store has its issues, but I firmly believe that having actual humans reviewing apps before putting them in the store is one one reason there have been so few security problems with iOS apps.

Clayton Morris:

Apple Watch won’t save us from shitty behavior but it will limit our distractions. Think of the Watch as a seive through which only the most relevant information lands on your wrist. Your interaction with that information is also whittled to nearly a few contact points: read, respond, or reachout.

On the surface the Apple Watch is limited and direct with the most useful information pushed to the top. A text comes in from one of my VIP contacts and I can immediately read it and respond without being dragged four layers deep inside my phone. To respond I can only use voice dictation or tap one of the prefilled fields such as “On my way”. An Uber notification that my car is two minutes away. Great, nothing more to see here. A Dark Sky notification that a massive thunderstorm is set to strike. I think I’ll head inside. A phone call from my wife, “Hello?”. No more fumbling for the phone inside the car, the backpack or pants pocket. My phone could even be plugged in three floors away, on the same WiFi network, and I can receive a call on my wrist.

Apple is currently selling a lot of notebooks, and its more than a little confusing. Long gone are the days of a more simple product matrix, when the line between what was for consumers and what was for professionals was more clear.

Three out of the five portable machines on this page sport a 13-inch screen. The new MacBook is thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air. The MacBook Pro and MacBook Air actually have ports, but the Air doesn’t come with a Retina display like the MacBook Pro and MacBook.

Whew.

So, who are all of these computers for? If you’re in the market, where should you be looking in Apple’s line up?

The MacBook Air

Starting at $899, the MacBook Air may be the cheapest of Apple’s notebook offerings, but it is no slouch. Even the base models are more than powerful enough for the everyday user.

The MacBook Air offers a wide range of customizable options for those who may need more, though. A fully-loaded 13-inch MacBook Air with a 2.2 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7, 8 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD runs $1,749, which is more than the MacBook several SKUs of the MacBook Pro with Retina display.

That aside, most people may only need to bump up the SSD option for a great machine that will serve them well for years.

The MacBook Air also offers crazy battery life. Users of the 11.6-inch and 13-inch models will enjoy up to 9 or 12 hours of battery life, respectively, making it a great option for students or other people on the go.

What’s Hot:

• The best battery life in the family
• Lots of ports, including an SD card slot on the 13-inch model
• Thinnest i7-powered Apple notebook

What’s Not:

• The 11.6-inch model may be small, but it’s chunky in weird ways with a huge bezel
• 4 GB RAM as default; no 16 GB option
• 128 GB base storage option is crazy
• Non-Retina display isn’t as sharp or color-accurate

Who is it for?

The 13-inch MacBook Air is my default answer for most people wondering what portable Mac to buy. It’s thin and light with great battery life and offers lots of options for those who may need more power or storage.

The MacBook

Apple’s newest notebook computer isn’t even for sale yet, and people are already talking about it, myself included. It’s not hard to see why; the 12-inch Retina display and crazy thin chassis would be enough to consider before remembering the machine has just one USB C port.

That port is really the decisive thing here, as it will define the MacBook experience. If owning a thin and light machine is your goal, the MacBook is for you, but it comes at a cost — using adaptor for common tasks and kissing goodbye Thunderbolt peripherals.

That said, the MacBook may become less annoying as time moves forward. For a while, people complained about the MacBook Air ditching optical media, but now I can’t remember the last time I burned a CD for anything.

There’s also a question as to how the MacBook will perform. With a slower chipset than the rest of the line, it’s going to struggle under loads that the MacBook Air and Pros will handle more gracefully.

What’s Hot:

• It’s the smallest Retina Mac money can buy
• The Force Touch trackpad seems like magic
• Fanless design (this isn’t a pun!)

What’s Not:

• Expensive dongles and adaptors are required to do common tasks, like charge the computer and an iPhone at the same time or just simply use a USB drive
• Lower CPU clock speeds
• That gold option

Who is it for?

If you live life on the road or have a desktop Mac as your primary system, the MacBook looks like a great option.

The MacBook Pro

Not that you would know without digging around Apple’s site, but the company still sells a single SKU of a non-Retina MacBook Pro.

The $1,099, 13-inch machine comes with a spinning 500 GB hard drive and has an 8 GB RAM ceiling. It’s a relic of a time gone past, and while I love the 13-inch MacBook Pro I had several years ago, it’s not a compelling machine today. Even Apple’s press image of the machine hasn’t been updated in a long time.

What’s Hot:

• Uhhhhh…

What’s Not:

• Everything about this computer

Who is it for?

I’m convinced this machine is only still around for schools to buy them in bulk. Please don’t buy it.

The MacBook Pro with Retina display

At the top of the notebook family tree sits the MacBook Pro with Retina display. Available with 13-inch and 15-inch Retina displays with high-powered chipsets and lots of RAM, these machines are for those of us who value portable power above all else.

That’s not to say these machines aren’t modern. They get thinner every couple of years, and are getting better battery life than ever. They may not be as sexy as that new MacBook, but they can get any job done thrown at them.

Starting at $1,299 for the entry-level 13-inch model, the MacBook Pro with Retina display is more expensive than the other models, but even the $1,999 price for the base 15-inch model is a far cry from the several thousand dollars Apple used to require for these machines. Yes, you may spend more, but you’ll get what you pay for when it comes to performance.

What’s Hot:

• Lots of power
• Flexible options when customizing one to order

What’s Not:

• The 15-inch hasn’t gotten the Force Touch trackpad yet.
• The only discrete GPU option is $2,499.

Who is it for?

If you need all the power you can get out of a portable Mac, this is the line for you. People working with multimedia or who are looking for a great notebook to use as a desktop machine shouldn’t look any further.

My new favorite tumbleog.

Glenn Fleishman:

But how likely is a cord-tripper to yank a new MacBook off a surface versus the USB-C cable coming out first? My calculations, vetted by Mack and a variety of engineers, show it’s almost certain the MacBook will move a bit or a lot unless all your stars perfectly align.

Hold on! Some math’s coming, but it’s worth it.

This week on Connected:

On the heels of Apple’s Spring Forward event, the boys talk about Federico’s trip to San Francisco, the new MacBook, the Apple Watch and more.

It was made possible by:

• Swift Summit: A two day conference on the State of Swift.
• Hover: Simplified Domain Management. Use code ‘TIMEZONES’ for 10% off your first purchase.
• Sanebox: Clean up your inbox and spend less time on email.

As of this writing, the iOS and Mac App Stores are down, as well as the iBook and iTunes Stores. Yikes.

Update: Apple has isssued a statement on the matter:

BREAKING: Apple apologizes to users for outage that took down iTunes & other services. http://t.co/61NJWHH7pY pic.twitter.com/yZGQCRudYl

— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) March 11, 2015

My very beardy Relay FM co-founder recently gave a talk at the Covent Garden Apple Store on his podcast career. Check it out.

As rumored, today’s event included the unveiling of an all-new Apple portable. While the rumor mill was calling it a MacBook Air, the new machine returns to familiar ground and is just called MacBook.

(It even comes in colors, and my, the Space Gray looks good.)

Specs-wise, the machine is a 12-inch notebook with a 226 pixels per inch Retina display and an Intel Core M processor with 8 GB RAM, which allows it to run fanless. It forgoes all ports ever shipped on an Apple notebook for a single, solitary USB C port across from a headphone jack.

The limited I/O is interesting. The trend started with the original MacBook Air has reached its logical conclusion ¹ in this machine. Almost everything will require a dongle, ² and with no hub in sight, this machine could be annoying to live with for the power user. (Oh yeah, there’s no Thunderbolt here.)

The keyboard is all new and ditches Apple’s traditional switch design for something far thinner, meaning the travel on this keyboard is going to be less than what we’ve been used to for several years.

More importantly, the trackpad is all new. Gone is the hardware that allows the glass surface to click. It now stays in place, and uses haptic feedback and force sensors, not unlike the Apple Watch. Here’s how Apple describes it:

Force sensors detect how much pressure you’re applying, and the new Taptic Engine provides a click sensation when you press anywhere on the surface. Now the click that once was a single, mechanical function is just the start of what you can do with Force Touch. The sensory capabilities of the Force Touch trackpad allow you to tell your MacBook what you want it to do based on subtle differences in the amount of pressure you apply. This makes it possible to perform a variety of different actions in different apps, all on the same surface. And it can respond with haptic feedback you can actually feel, making your MacBook more usable and personal than ever before.

Hands-on reports are mixed as far as if this change is a good one, and there’s no doubt that it will take some getting used to, but I remember complaining when Apple took the button away, and now I’m fine. Time heals all temporary growing pains.

Priced at $1299 for the 1.1GHz/256GB model or $1599 for the 1.2 GHz/512 GB, it’s the simplest machine Apple has shipped in a while. In fact, the ordering page looks like that of an iPad or iPhone:

I don’t think that’s by accident. Everything about this computer screams “simplification.”

It’s easy to think about the original MacBook Air when looking at this thing, and I’m sure that technology found here will bubble its way up. ³

That’s not to say that I think we’ll all be using fanless, low clockspeed machines in a few years. I think the MacBook Pro will pick up some of the tech here, but remain bigger, heavier and more powerful than this thing.

The real question is what happens to the MacBook Air. I’ve seen countless tweets from people freaking out that this new MacBook is thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air, which existed on such claims for so long.

As it stands today, the MacBook Air is a much more flexible machine with a better CPU and the inclusion of Thunderbolt. Can the fanless MacBook ever catch up and offer something equivalent to i5s and i7s found in the Airs these days? I can’t help but think it can, and at some point, the lines will merge. Until then, there are a lot of great Apple notebooks in the sub-$1500 space, and even though my needs couldn’t be met by the new MacBook, it doesn’t keep me from wanting one.

Apple:

Apple Watch is so capable you’ll want to wear it all day long. So we made sure we gave it a battery that lasts all day, too. Our goal for battery life was 18 hours after an overnight charge, factoring in things like checking the time, receiving notifications, using apps, and doing a 30-minute workout. And because everyone will use Apple Watch differently, we tested several other metrics as well.

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