Apple jacks up MacBook pricing with M5 Pro, Max debut

RAM shortages and faster chips have a big impact on Apple's next-gen laptops. On Tuesday, the iGiant unveiled its M5 Pro and Max MacBook Pros and M5 Airs alongside steep price hikes across the lineup. Apple's refreshed MacBook Pros now start at $2,199 for the 14-inch and $2,699 for the larger 16-inch model, $200 higher than …

[elsergiovolador]

Meh

I was really hoping for 256GB RAM version. The line up feels so 2025.

[trevorde]

Re: Meh

Not even Tim Cook could afford a 256GB version

[PhilipN]

Price is OK as a function of quality

Have 4 Mac Pros - 2 cheesegraters (albeit seldom used) 1 trashcan all still working perfectly, one 2019 Pro which went kaput and Apple service replaced all key parts it was still dead. Only thing it is good for is to stand on when I am replacing the strip lights.

So I'll pass, thanks.

[DrewPH]

But Tahoe

$1099 for an M5 Air with 512Gb SSD is not outrageous... but it will come with Tahoe so that makes it a hard nope.

[Eric 9001]

Re: But Tahoe

>$1000 USD >Not even 1TB, non-replaceable SSD. >As soon as the SSD wears out, it mostly stops working (1TB SDD's can last significantly longer than 512GB ones).

But that's not considered outrageous - the problem is the latest macOS version, which seems to have more or less the same anti-features and restrictions than previous macOS versions?

Of course, rather than switching to GNU/Linux (even for the shallow practical reason of better software compatibility than macOS), such sort will instead run old versions of macOS?

[Richard 12]

Re: But Tahoe

Tahoe absolutely trashed the UI. "Liquid Glass" is roundly hated.

The new Dock also displays app icons in a different way that seems to make anything that looked good before look very small.

Worse, having updated the icons they then look wrong (too big) in all previous versions of macOS.

Most app developers don't want to waste their time, so Tahoe looks janky for everyone who actually uses their Mac.

[Eric 9001]

Re: But Tahoe

The UI was always trash.

If they can't even configure how the GUI looks like (for example, putting it back to how it was before), how is it their mac?

[An_Old_Dog]

It's About the Pentiums!

1. Price is no object to the true status-seeker.

2. An Intel Pentium-based desktop still runs Quake II smoothly. (Voodoo 3DFX auxilliary video card optional.)

3. I have been hoping the DRAM, SSD, and hard drive scarcities would cause a return to more-thoughtful programming (lightsabre ... elegant weapon ... blah-blah-blah ...). NOT because I am opposed to hosing around raw compute- and I/O speed to get a program quickly-written and running, as such.

Part of the more-thoughtful programming process includes a pre-programming process in which one considers the question, "Is this a program which truly ought to be written?"

Mine's the one with the PDP-8/e programming card in the inside pocket.

[rg287]

M5 MacBook Air starting prices, meanwhile, are up $100 to $1,099 for the 13-inch model

I was wondering how long their $999 entry point would last. To their credit, they've held that for years, and maintained it across their (belated) base-spec change from 8GB to 16GB.

Not that it matters. I'm on a work M3 Air that will last a decade, and my next personal system will be Linux. macOS has taken a nosedive in the past few years. Laggy dialogs when network drives are mounted (even if I'm only trying to interact with the local filesystem), the requirement to do command-line-fu to run unsigned applications like LibreWolf and - most recently - the strong desire by the OS to toss any file it's not sure about into the Trash. Last week I inadvertently tried to open an SVG in Preview (which doesn't support SVGs). You might expect an error, and an error is what I got. Along with a security warning and a dialog offering to "Move to Trash"... WTF? Just because an application can't open a file doesn't mean it needs to go in the bin.

I'm not against an amount of "Are you sure" for random applications downloaded from the internet because that prompts my parents (who would otherwise run any old malware) to at least pause a moment. Tech support callouts are much better than the good-old-days of "autorun anything anywhere", but recent changes are now actively obstructive to work.

And this is just on Sonoma/Sequoia, which have been less responsive than Snow Leopard on a 2008 Macbook with 4GB of RAM and a dual-core Intel processor. Tahoe? No fucking thanks.

[Androgynous Cupboard]

> Last week I inadvertently tried to open an SVG in Preview (which doesn't support SVGs). You might expect an error, and an error is what I got. Along with a security warning and a dialog offering to "Move to Trash"... WTF? Just because an application can't open a file doesn't mean it needs to go in the bin.

You piqued my curiousity - this definitely does not happen under 15.4.1. I might hold off on that upgrade a bit longer...

[rg287]

You piqued my curiousity - this definitely does not happen under 15.4.1. I might hold off on that upgrade a bit longer...

Weirdly I haven't managed to reproduce it (15.7.3), so not sure how I upset macOS enough to offer to bin it. It was definitely a raised eyebrow moment.

[excperr]

Don't forget the introduced extra £100 for the charger....

Its now an "extra".

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Don't forget the introduced extra £100 for the charger....

It never occurs to them how much emissions person will generate to make that £100.

[An_Old_Dog]

Customer Emissions

Why. Would. They. Even. Care?

They are a corporation whose only goal is to get money. Corporations are like that.

[Anonymous Coward]

So the CPU and GPU used to be separate, then were combined, and now are separate but glued together?