I recently purchased one for the same thing: web dev, travel, and iOS development too. I had a 2014 MacBook Pro Retina that was stolen and decided to "downgrade" for the replacement. I'm honestly really happily surprised with the little silver box. Its paper thin, the keyboard is really nice after you get used to it (takes a few days). The battery lasts seemingly forever and it runs really smoothly.
Compared to my MBPR it feels just as fast if not occasionally faster. However, streaming video to the TV over airplay hasn't been as nice. If you do video heavy things like gaming or video production, its not for you. But as a programmer, I'm really, really happy.
Note: I would recommend the 1.2 GHz configuration or the 1.3 - I have the 1.2 and a lot the the reviews are saying that there is a noticeable difference between the 1.1 and 1.2 in terms of computing power.
It's great. Keyboard and trackpad work surprisingly well (and is highly underrated... other manufacturers are going to have a really hard time getting this right on devices this thin... use one in a store if you haven't). Screen is great. Battery life is as expected. Size is obviously incredible. CPU performance is as expected (1.1) or slightly above (1.3, which is the one I have, is actually fairly fast). It's a superb machine.
As far as actual use, well that depends on who is using it. The role that this laptop fits really well IMO is use as a secondary device for consistently mid-level computing tasks (with some burst activity) in an environment where mobility is important. "webdev work while traveling" is exactly this role so as long as you are OK with the form factor then you will like this laptop. If the form factor is an issue, you should consider the Air. If power is an issue, you should consider the Pro. If price is an issue, look at other manufacturers (new Surface and new XPS are both great machines, for example, though neither are really that cheap).
The reviews on this device have been mixed but I think a lot of reviews are acting on the premise that it's a one-stop machine, but it's not. It's not perfect. It's a bit pricey. You aren't going to be running a new game at max settings on it. The one port thing is odd and you will need to wait for the adapter market to catch up for some of this oddness/clumsiness to disappear. 8 gig ram isn't quite enough if you are expecting to be running big VMs on it a lot. The CPU is relatively underpowered (though, honestly, I think this is overrated and the 1.3 in particular is quite good... even with the 1.1 you will likely never even notice).
For me, this device is replacing a 13" 2011 Air and so far I consider it to be superior in just about every way and my experience has been great. If I need to sit down and do some "serious" computing for a decent stretch of time (new game at max settings for a couple hours, large data crunching, long programming stretch where I really need a desk and several monitors) then, well, that's what my desktop is for (or a powerful, bulky, docked laptop which amounts to the same thing).
In other words, what you are buying when you buy this machine over something else is this: the keyboard, the trackpad, the screen, the efficiency of the CPU, the battery form factor, the fanless design, and the entire form factor to bring this all together in such a tiny laptop. In return, the tradeoff is slightly less RAM, slightly less CPU power, and a lack of extension ports.
I really don't get the RAM thing - I have a 2013 MBAir 13" which I slam hard, run a ton of apps, VMware w/WIndows XP, Cisco Router Virtualization Simulations (GNS3/Dynamips), full office suite, Google Earth, Chrome w/20 Tabs - usually around 20-25 Apps at once, and I never have Ram pressure. OS X and 8 GB of memory for "typical user stuff" (I.E. not huge VMs, not Databases, No Video Codecs) - just seems to be the sweet spot for memory, and I 100% of the time recommend people not worrying about not having more memory on the MBAir.
For the work that a Macbook is going to be doing, I would think that 8 GB is more than enough.
The thing that will kill me - lack of USB ports when I'm out in the field. I really need the two USB ports - and the MBair is a life saver their. Hopefully a cheap USB-C --> 2 USB port converter will come out soon.
Can this MacBook handle Windows VM with VirtualBox? My wife is considering this MacBook. She is not a power user/developer, mostly browsing, emails, word processing, and spreadsheets. But she also wants Windows VM for programs that don't have OSX versions or experience on OSX is not that good.
I have a hackintosh with i3 2310M[1], 8GB RAM and I think the 12 inch macbook, 1.2gh has 5Y71[2] ticking inside it. Judging by the benchmarks they are pretty similar with the 5Y71 beating the i3 on single threaded stuff with the higher clock speed but not always.
My machine handles a Windows8.1 in VirtualBox easily. I use it for Visual Studio 2013 daily and it's fine although it's not perfect. It's slow at times but not enough to make me dualboot.
I hope that someone chimes in with Win VM on the real MacBook because I'm interested in it but I think it'll be just fine.
I haven't tried this yet but as a regular VirtualBox user now on several different platforms, I would suspect that under a situation where you're not depending on the VM for a lot of graphics acceleration or sub-ms-level latency (games, for example, or _possibly_ video editing/composting), this macbook would handle it just fine. So for the uses you're describing she should be happy.
FYI the new version of Office for Mac will be out soon (preview is available now for free) if that's what you're referring to when you say "bad OSX experience."
Thanks for the feedback. I have a 2012 rMBP 15". I use Windows 7 VM in VirtualBox primarily for Tableau and large Excel files. I noticed the fan runs continuously and MBP gets hot while using VM. I am concern that if something similar happens on new MacBook w/o fans, it might be cooked. Both MS Office and Tableau are terrible on OSX. My wife is more concerned with Quicken. She prefers Quicken for Windows.
I don't think you have to worry about the chip getting too hot unless it turns out there is a serious manufacturing defect. This chip is quite unlike the ones in earlier MacBooks and is closer in efficiency and thermal performance to a chip you'd find in a phone or tablet. So it'll just throttle down for a bit, not fry, no matter what you throw at it.
Plus, once you have a chip that efficient, it simplifies your heat dissipation... a lot of times you'll have people put chips that really aren't made for laptops in because they are relying on the air flow to cool it to compensate, but air flow can be very unreliable. And that is the exact situation you have with some of the more notorious heat problems of other laptops. If however you have a good chip, and know it can't exceed X heat generation, and its low enough you can passively cool it, that's actually much more reliable... there's nothing mysterious about how much heat can be transferred from a chip to the piece of metal touching it, and the rate at which it transfers (note sturdiness and looks is not the only reason the case is metal). So in a lot of ways this device is actually far more thermally dependable than most actively cooled laptops, even though it'd seem to be the opposite at first glance.
As an aside, have you tried Win 8 for your VM? If you can deal with the UI, Win 8 is about 20% more efficient than 7 due to changes made for tablet support in 8. If you're running 8 in a VM and the VM is on a laptop and you're having heat issues, switching might be particularly beneficial. Also, consider VMWare Fusion or Parallels... I use VirtualBox myself but there's no question that the native Mac versions of the 2 main commercial VMs are going to be more efficient and give you less heat problems on day to day tasks.
Thanks for clarification on toasted chips. You just persuaded me to buy the new Macbook instead of 13"rMBP for her. We have been waiting for Retina to come out on Air weight/size format to buy new laptop for her.
I just can't get used to Win 8 interface. My wife uses Win 8 desktop. Anytime she asks me to troubleshoot issues on her desktop, I just cringe and become frustrated. I used Parallels and VMware Fusion before switching to VirtualBox. VMware asked for more money for compatible version with Yosemite. So, I finally gave up and switched to VirtualBox. I don't use Windows/other VMs often enough so VirtualBox is good enough.
/edit P.S. Adding this one line, as I forget if you mentioned this, but have your wife try out the laptop in the stores. The keyboard is awesome but may not be for everyone. Someone who used an Air for a long time shouldn't have any issues but I would definitely try it first just to be sure.
My pleasure.
I was in a similar situation, using the 2011 13.3 Air for years as a secondary device (being what I guess others would consider a "power user" I have always kept available a bitching desktop and/or (now) a bunch of cloud VMs, depending on the task), super happy with it (my Air is the best laptop I've ever owned, having started in about 1998), but wanting to upgrade, and watching the last Apple keynote in anticipation of a Retina Air. And I'm very happy with the new MB. It's not quite what I was expecting but if the form factor and power suits your needs, it's great.
Whew. That a was quite the run-on sentence.
Anyway, regarding Win8, I have to use it at work a lot and I feel your pain, it's pretty damned awkward at times. My experience so far is that the best way to navigate it is to a) use the search facility on the Start Screen to access your usual stuff (similar to OSX searchlight, so, Windows key to get to the Start Screen and then just start typing out the application or file name... its kind of awesome when it works) and b) set the OS to default to the desktop view on boot, in which case it's almost exactly the same as 7. The best way to look at it IMO is that Win8 = a more efficient Win 7 kernel + a mobile/tablet/metro API + a new UI start screen. Once you get past that it's surprisingly good.
When has Apple ever released a bad product in the first generation? In the 21st century, at least?
I waited for second generation for the iPhone and iPad, both far more radical steps than this little Macbook, but the first gen products were spectacular.
(edit: My most disappointing Apple product in the past 15 years has been my iPhone 6. Jobs wouldn't let them make it wider due to handling issues. Without his restraint, they made it wider. Now I have to have a case and drop the darn thing all the time. Never had that problem with other iPhones.)
The first 12" macbooks were super efficient lap warmers. Mine would get so hot (doing nothing much in particular) that the case would temporarily warp and then snap back into place when it cooled.
The first generation retina macbooks had screens that ghosted, and it took several months before lots of kinks were worked out
The first gen products ARE spectacular, and they're not 'bad products', just not necessarily great value. i.e. it pays off to wait 1-2 years.
The Macbook for example was $1800, with a $1300 additional cost if you wanted a 64gb SSD. It had a few hours of battery life and very weak performance.
Was it spectacular? Absolutely. But not necessarily amazing value. It eventually turned into a damn powerful little laptop that people bought instead of a MBP for dev work and even lightweight photo/video editing, with 12+ hours of battery life and still really thin.
The rMB kind of feels like that. It's not necessarily the best value right now. A rMBP or MBA is fine, and if you're OS agnostic, the Dell XPS or Asus Zenbook are interesting choices, too. In a few years the MBA won't have gotten any updates and the rMB gets sourced with a faster chip, drops $100 in price and adds some battery life, and probably comes out with a beefier 14" version. Then it'll be an interesting buy.
Don't forget lack of third party native apps, GPS, MMS, live video streaming/calling, copy/paste, and backgrounding of tasks. You know...all that stuff that had made smartphones "smart". You couldn't even change your wallpaper or ringtone.
First gen iPhone was a big deal because they put all resources into providing the one or two things all the others sucked at: a smoother and more user-friendly interface and a more pleasant mobile web browser.
But it wasn't until the second or third gen that people coming over from previous smartphones could really get most of those things we took for granted already. If you were coming from a flip phone you were just adding some cool stuff. But if you had become accustomed to the typical features of a smart phone, you had to choose between smooth scrolling and pinch/zoom on a nice capacitive screen and being able to install software, stream music (in the background no less), get live navigation in the car, and operate on the latest high(er) speed networks.
I don't think the new Macbook has nearly as far to go as the first iPhone did. They'll iterate with faster processors, a better GPU, and maybe an extra port next round.
Right. The iPhone was a fundamentally new kind of product. The new Macbook is just an incremental refinement of a 15+ year old product line. The only thing that even remotely makes it more than "a better Air" is the single port. And the single port solves other problems.
Today, after 8 years of both phone and network improvements, it looks terrible. But then? You could get on the internet from your phone! It was incredible.
The Model T, released today, would be a joke. But a century ago, the idea of an automobile rather than horses was a tremendous advance.
Eventually. Once they got on popular carrier and had the ability to install apps (since user-installable applications pretty much defines the "smart" aspect of smart phone). The first iPhone at launch was basically a tech demo, a taste of what was to come.
The screen and form factor and software (web browser in particular) and touchscreen beat the crap out of everything that wasn't already a mini computer.
I mean, the state of the art in smart phones in the US at the time was an HTC 2125...
Wait, how is this first generation? Do you consider any refresh of an existing line to be "first generation"? What would you consider not to be "first generation".
The computers that are processor bumps aren't first generation. Not the case here; though this is a similar computer to the MacBook Air, there are a ton of new parts in it. The Air is still (more or less) the same design that it's had since 2010 or so.
As an example, Apple had been making white iBooks for a long time before their Intel transition. But the 1st gen MacBook used a different white plastic that could absorb oils from your hands and turn a nice shade of orange/brown. http://appleinsider.com/articles/06/07/26/apple_recognizes_w...
With a brand new design, you risk problems like that slipping through the cracks. Maybe it turns out that the new keyboard mechanism starts missing presses once the usual crud falls in between the keys, or maybe the USB-C connector isn't durable enough and stops charging reliably a few months in. If the new models have any issues like that, waiting for the second version would save you some headaches.
I advise you to wait for the 2d generation. Like the first iteration of the Macbook Air, it looks beautiful but terribly lacks functionnality (one port only & a weak processor being the most problematic things yet).
My advice: Buy a 13-Inch Pro Retina if you absolutely want the Retina Experience. Otherwise, go buy an Air.
My daughter is looking for a new Mac, so we compared the other day. I'd buy the new Macbook in a heartbeat over the current-model Airs. If I wanted more power than the Macbook can provide, I'd get a Pro. The single port isn't that big a deal, really. It doesn't need to sit on a charger all day thanks to battery life, AppleTV and Chromecast have replaced wired HDMI, and I almost never use more than one USB device at a time (and if you do, don't you have a hub lying around?).
I completely agree with you on this. I've had to send my 1st gen retina macbook pro back to the service depot literally 5 times. The first hard drive was apparently defective, as were the first and second logic boards. And twice I had defective parts replaced with identical defective parts.
And whenever anything is sent to the service depot, they wipe the goddamn hard drive. No matter what. And you guys know the pain of re-downloading XCode, re-installing everything with homebrew, re-cloning all of your git repos, re-configuring all of your git-remotes, re-installing virtual machines for IE8, etc. It takes like 2-3 days. And it's not an issue that employers with deadlines are sympathetic about.
The stupid thing is that every time I get it back I think, "everything will be different this time". It's like a sick abusive relationship.
I just got it back like 4 days ago from the latest trip to the depot, and now there's a harsh buzzing sound that I've never heard before. So now I have to weigh the severity of this stupid issue against the headache of re-installing everything again and rolling the dice with another trip to the depot.
I guess what I'm saying is that you really should beware of 1st gen apple hardware.
I bought a 13" MacBook Retina Pro last December as my first Apple laptop after several years of Arch Linux. My expectation was that it would "simply work", whereas Arch often required manual configuration.
My experience hasn't been very positive with the MacBook. It doesn't support non-Apple hardware well. The software quality is not that great, there are various bugs and issues. I'll sometimes do a bit lightweight gaming, and to my surprise wine works better on Linux than native games on the Mac OS X I've played. There are "known issues" that many MacBook owners have with various games but these are seemingly ignored.
With Arch there were issues, but almost always they could be manually fixed with a bit of command line magic. With Apple the usual solution is to either pay around 20 to 30 dollars to buy some random software which should fix the issue or just deal with the problem. Just as an example, even basic stuff like an external mouse with scroll wheel doesn't work well due to inadjustable scrolling acceleration.
Are you comparing 13" MacBook Retina Pro to Arch Linux? We can discuss OSX vs Arch Linux or MBP vs whatever hardware you used. Have you tried Arch on MBP?
I'm comparing the whole experience, so hardware + software. The hardware of the MacBook may be a bit ahead of my old laptop, but that doesn't have a major effect on my user experience.
I disagree, only on the grounds that Chrome will max out the tiny GPU in that machine when HTML5 videos or CSS3 animations play. Even simple video effects like Expose will stutter. It's a great machine, but the video card is much too weak for the pixels it has to push. Take it with a grain of salt, of course.
It allows you to set the resolution to the 'true' resolution of your retina screen. This way you have more screen, but it also fixes the performance issues when playing video, virtualbox virtualisation, etc. Truly recommend.
It does mean that somewhat, but fonts still look fine. I find the huge load of extra screen space very handy when programming on 'just' my laptop screen.
Does it behave differently from just scaling the display in preferences? On Yosemite I can scale mine so that everything is too small, and several levels in between that and the default resolution. It would surprise me if Apple didn't leverage native resolution where possible with this scaling.
I'll try to find the source, but I'm pretty sure there are some issues with Chrome on OSX, and that these are thought to be the fault of Chrome. For example, testing has shown that Safari achieves significantly better battery life when running on the same set of pages.
Edit: Found it [1]. A couple of salient quotes:
"I ran the usual Verge battery test on Apple’s new machine. [...] Safari made the new Retina machine look good: 13 hours and 18 minutes. Google’s Chrome, on the other hand, forced the laptop to tap out at 9 hours and 45 minutes."
"The widely used SunSpider browser benchmark clocks the MacBook Pro in at 203ms when using Chrome. Safari scores 30 percent better with a time of 144ms."
There are definitely problems with Chrome on OS X, and it's not just performance. Lots of rendering problems when trying to set background-position: fixed; for large (i.e. "full screen") images where the background images either doesn't show up at all or hops all over the screen.
It's a great machine. Very happy with my purchase.
it really depends on your needs though. I use it as my portable machine and it goes wherever I go when I'm on the go, which I previously had an 11 inch air for. Coming from that it's an enormous upgrade.
The battery lasted me 7 hours yesterday of constant use, and the screen is the best screen of any laptop I have personally used. it's not really a widescreen anymore which helps with my terminal experience greatly.
My normal workload includes 50% terminal.app, 30% Xcode and the rest is split up between instant messaging and emailing. so I don't desire or need to run things like video editing or VMware. I use an iMac for that stuff, infrequently.
so for an OS X based machine that is ultra portable and runs terminal well, I'm not sure why you would be better off waiting. it's a great product.
I used one for a week and kind of had the same problems I had with other tiny laptops...it is nice that is so portable but unless you use it really close to your face you have to hunch over in any other position then on a desk right next to your face. I found myself constantly having to straighten my posture when I was doing any sort of work on it for longer than 20 minutes - and when you do you inevitably start to hunch again as the screen is just too small. I would say this is really just for rich people who want to carry around a fancy email machine rather than someone who uses it for work.
I don’t get this. Text and widgets on the screen render at the same size as on other Apple laptops, nothing is shrunk. When adjusted for viewing distance, everything displays basically the same as on a monster 27" iMac. Are you using System Prefs to render the content smaller? Why not reverse that?
I get what you are saying, but it is not the content I have a problem with it's the position my body is in to look at the smaller screen. Because it is so thin and the screen only comes up probably 10 - 12 inches from any surface you are working on you have to tilt your head way more than if you working on a 15 - 17 incher.
Laptop screens are so tiny, and they've got so little on them, I find myself instinctively moving my face closer, presumably in the subconscious hope I'll be able to see more, like I might with a porthole or a small window ;)
Increasing the resolution actually helped with this a little bit, I found. The non-integer scaling is pretty unnoticeable, thanks to the ridiculous panel resolution, so you can select the fake 1680x1050 without fear of everything turning into a blotchy funny-pixelled mess.
Though the ergonomics overall still aren't all that great, because you need to be pretty close to the screen if you want to actually use the keyboard...
If the laptop sits on a standard table where it will be comfortable to type on, then the top of the screen is 12 inches from the top of the table, which is much lower than the typical laptop. You're then faced with laying the screen flat and looking down at it, or hunching to lower the height of your head.
The comment is nothing to do with scaling and all to do with viewing angle. Ideally the monitor should be placed with its center at the same height as your head. This is impossible on laptops and worst on the smallest.
The jump between 12 and 13 inches is not really that big however 12 to 15 is. I think apple was more targeting the spot right between the 11 and 13inch that used to be occupied by the 12in powerbook which had a semi-cult following and was widely regarded as one of the best laptops Apple made.
And is it really that different than the MacBook Air 13" - which has a huge screen - large enough that I haven't bothered plugging a monitor into in the last 3+ years (even though I have a perfectly serviceable 24" monitor sitting on my desk).
I have to echo the other commenters advising against buying the first generation of the 12" rMB. There's a lot of short comings that will certainly be addressed in a second generation model within a year.
Right now the 13" rMBP seems like the better purchase in every way right now. I wouldn't buy a current MBA either as they are really showing their age. Their screen is the worst in Apple's line up by a long shot.
39 responses so far, and so far only two people with experience - but lots of opinions. :-)
I would love, also, to hear from people who have been using it. Thinking about purchasing it for my personal system to go along with my work computer which I travel with, so I can keep email, photos, all personal stuff off the corporate system. Portability is key - would love to know if anyone is using it in that fashion.
I agree with everyone here. On a side note, I've just purchased a Lenovo ThinkPad T450s, had them throw an i7, 8 GB of RAM, and an SSD in it an it's a great machine. I'm running Ubuntu on it right now, it seems to have pretty good support, though the keyboard backlight is a bit finicky.
In addition to the OP's question, if you are moving from an Air to the Macbook, I would especially love to hear direct comparisons. I was very tempted to get the new Macbook, but couldn't justify it given that the 13-inch Air was substantially faster and not much heavier/thicker...and the Retina screen isn't a huge deal to me for on-the-road work.
I ultimately didn't buy anything because I already have a 15-in Retina pro, and on further reflection, it didn't seem that much thicker than the Air...so I just replaced my stolen iPad instead.
It really depends on what your web dev work looks like. It's a sleek computer, but the specs are pretty weak for development if you need to run vagrant, a database, a server, etc. The computer specs are similar to a 2012 MBA. The keyboard will take a bit getting use to as it doesn't have the same tactile feel. Accuracy will probably drastically drop. Having a single port isn't horrible, but it's sure annoying when I need to charge my phone.
I bought a Macbook Air 13" about six months ago and it's been great. But I especially like the SD slot and multiple USB ports (which I need for my work -- android and iOS app development), and of course the 9 hour battery. This new Macbook seems like a downgrade. Seriously, why didn't they build on the Air instead of what looks like chopping out features to achieve an impractical thinness?
I am very happy with my 11" MBA. Except I could use a larger screen and a higher screen resolution.
I wonder if the 12" is noticeable slower than the (1.7GHz i7) 11" MBA.
Shorter battery life vs. significantly reduced computing power (due to reduced heat dissipation). Personally, for the development use case, I'll take the reduced battery life; I can mitigate that problem with a power cable.
I would like to know how the new macbook compares to the new chromebook pixel. At first glance, the specs look similar but the pixel has more ports, which I think I would like.
I'm working on a MBP, but also really interested in the pixel. We tend to now work in the cloud more than ever, and like the lower cost and simplicity of the chromebook.
Compared to my MBPR it feels just as fast if not occasionally faster. However, streaming video to the TV over airplay hasn't been as nice. If you do video heavy things like gaming or video production, its not for you. But as a programmer, I'm really, really happy.
Note: I would recommend the 1.2 GHz configuration or the 1.3 - I have the 1.2 and a lot the the reviews are saying that there is a noticeable difference between the 1.1 and 1.2 in terms of computing power.
Edit: fixed spelling and grammar.