Nice idea but other than the free 5gb it is a waste of money. If you use a lot of space you most likely have office 365 so you get 1tb included. For a family of 5 they all get 1tb for $99 and office too.
I'd like to see you make a real professional slide show with one of those or a spreadsheet that actually does work. Even pure word processing Libre and Open are jokes compared to Word.
Real professional Slide Shows need Keynote. I'll keep Excel, though Google's spreadsheet is rapidly fitting the bill there. Word is a last resort; Pages is a far better solution for short, stylish documents. If you need some serious documentation you can still pull Word out, but you get all the crashes and hassles that come with it.
The productivity software you mentioned are all pay to play. Keynote might be free on the App Store, and OSX might only be $20, but there's a large upfront cost to purchasing Apple hardware.
Keynote makes pretty presentations (exceptional templates), PowerPoint makes functional presentations (highly specialized animations, effects, fine tuned positioning, etc). Neither is better than the other. Both are necessary to make an excellent presentation.
Google spreadsheet is grossly inadequate. One of the simplest functions, linear regression (with equation and R^2) isn't available.
I don't even remember the last time Word crashed on me. Maybe your knowledge is outdated and/or you're using an obsolete computer/version of word.
OSx costs nothing any longer. It's a free update. There's no 'large upfront cost to purchasing Apple hardware.' Perhaps it's your information that's outdated? (Though I'm with ya, Word hasn't crashed on me in years) Not sure how long it's been since you've played with Keynote, but ya might give it a try. Pretty powerful and certainly preferable for me for presentations With you on excel and word and it's essentially a 'bonus' to 5TB of family 'cloud' storage for ten bucks a month;). I honesty prefer Pages but Numbers I'm ignorant to. I stick with Excel
As to your first comment, it's no longer true. There's not an example of an overpriced model in their lineup. Computers, phones or tablets. Hell, they're the only option if you want 128GB on your mobile phone or tablet (Surface, more of a laptop IMHO aside). And without the carrier and manufacturer bloat, iOS actually has 'real' room available. There's not a computer on the market that compares to the 13 & 15" retina MBPs. Period. If you're a 'gamer' okay ...I give it to ya, Alienware is going to smoke the rMBP at about 20-100% the price playing BattleLand or whatever ...for 45 minutes unplugged. If you need a portable graphics powerhouse workstation for rendering CAD or 4k RAW I believe natively from RED is the only format w/o necessary prerender playback on the rMBP. Rocket fixes that though. Again, CAD/AE and nVidia Quadro/32GB rigs they aren't. Nor do they only last an hour unplugged doing their 'tasks' their built for. They're display and third generation technology with the iGPU IrisPro from Intel, quad core fast Haswell processing and PCIe SSDs ...mine is hitting consistent 1,000/1,100mb read/write. Truly amazing and paging necessary in After Effects because of used RAM runs fast as hell! Thunderbolt II & several inexpensive peripherals, including BluRay decks/recorders (w/software) Ethernet x2 and separate USB outboard audio DACS, USB3 2-6 extras and VGA, DVI, HDMI, even serial and parallel ports for older connectivity with a second T.bolt port, so your NAS, printer snd displays are daisy chained to a single line. In thirty years I've never been a happier computer knee and as an OSx and Windows user, the rMBP is hands down the BEST experience I've had to date computing. Even work 'stuff' I smile firing it Up! Four pounds of incredible display, power and speed, IO & craftsmanship, and longevity to boot. My two year old rMBP is on every day, sometimes not sleeping for a week. Still showing over 92% battery health. Still gets a good 7 hours unplugged at 70% brightness ...we just bought another pair for the business. The newly updated, this summer model, essentially last fall's release with an updated Haswell CPU. A TB of solid state storage, over five million pixels and the GPU(s) to handle them fluently and quadcore i7 performance with 16GB of RAM & OSx'es management and compression algorithms they're using, I've not dealt with the limits yet. Even on the 2012 Again, please show me a competitive computer to the 13/15" rMBPs. Keeping in mind as well the limitations imposed on today's customers at the box stores with Win 8 and ½ with touch, ½ without as well as build quality of competing Ultrabooks to the 'MBA'. While the display isn't 'retina' yet, it's now starting at 8/999 for the 11/13". As well with fast PCIe storage. Intel 5000 graphics, the 1700 dollar option on Surface 3 & probably mandatory to keep up with the pixels. On these ULV CPUs, power and TDP are limited. Intel and Apple have worked closely on iGPU progress, Thundebolt and I'm sure plenty we're not privy to. They're intelligent enough to realize what will and won't work without throttling performance in a two pound package. Toshiba, Acer, HP ...all still making the standard 1366/768 or whatever they've decided for their hybrids, 2in1s, etc. But similar pricing and minus the bloat when you buy OSx. You get excellent, free software that if you decide you can or don't have to download and use. iWork Pages Numbers & Keynote and iLife with GarageBand (very powerful and enjoyable DAW/music production program) with iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie most of today's population will find these to be exactly and all they need for their tasks.
The new Mac Pro. Seriously? It's been documented time and time again you can NOT build the computer for less. Period. It can't be done. It's an incredible design in engineering and a very powerful, TINY Monster. If you've not used one and/or seen one you're in for a treat (unless your mind is that closed) with, once again PCIe SSDs, twin GPUs, one dedicated to computational tasking ...After Effects, FCP 7 and 'X', Premiere and Encore, it's a dream machine not much larger than a big coffee cup. If you've not seen it you'll smile about the 'trash can' comments as it's truly a remarkable, space saving and brilliant price of engineering.
The iMac? What is there to say? The best selling AIO in history (& year to year for a decade)! True game changer.
And hard to believe the iPod was introduced just 13 years ago. Look at what's been done with that product? It created an empire. And back n forth the most valuable company in the world. iPhone. And Tuesdays presentations. And a second generation 64bit mobile SoC with display size increases and even higher dpi 6+ with a development community providing us with the largest selection of software in history ...not JUST for our phones but our tablets now too! The iPad Air and retina mini are very ..very special devices. Game changing and continuing to dominate the market ..despite price parity with Samsung's latest offerings, minus the subsidized and 'joke' of a usable tablet(s) like the Amazon and Nexus crap. After doing the Xoom I was pretty happy. But the Nex 7&7.2 we're extreme let downs. Especially using it for anything in portrait.
Routers? Yeah, maybe a bit high with AC now, it's ease of setup and functionality there are plenty of choices that are a hundred bucks more. Something to be said for ease of set up, time machine and plugging starting to the router ...Apple TV is right on par with most competitive steaming boxes (not the limited sticks and nightmare attempting to mirror your display).
Yep. Nope. There isn't an 'Apple Tax' any longer. All pricing across mobile, lap and desktop, peripherals and 'hobbies' all pretty much in line with the market but in most cases 'exceeding' the market today in price vs 'what ya get'. I've detailed the hardware. The plethora of software but don't forget ...no security or spyware, malware or Trojans to dick with. No manufacturer bloat. Just usable (& with choice, you want em or don't)--unrivaled support, free OS Updates. Continuity and Handoff. New code: Swift. New low level graphic programming stripping the overhead of OpenGL (Metal)
You're missing the forest through the trees n I thing it's time you actually spend some time with a current Mac. Lap. Or desktop. Neither disappoint ...nor have their mobile choices. Just continue to get better and better while updating ALL devices simultaneously, keeping exploits safe while advancing everything from the silicon to the OS, XCode for developers and losing NOTHING with their desk/laptop OSx. In fact gaining and in a way I believe most Apple users were terrified of, but are at peace now with ...it's integration and aggregation with iOS
TL/dr. Just responding to a silly comment comment and watching sports center getting ready for some football!
I use LibreOffice Calc for many page sheets for my LOTRO cooks. As far as presentations, I could care less. We are talking about home office use here. A personal budget plan isn't going to be a problem for most users. My point was there there are free options for what he was saying he pays for to get "free" storage. It seemed pretty pointless to me.
I am in no way defending Apples pricing, I just thought his comments about iCloud were pretty silly.
If you're on a recent device with OS X or iOS, you get Pages/Numbers/Keynote for free. I know some people hate the new versions because they changed the UI to make it look cleaner, but 99% of the functionality is still there if you look for it.
I think you missed the point. Rather than pay $240/yr to Apple for 1TB of storage and use a "free" office suite with half the features does not make sense when for $99/year (less than half) you can get Office 365 for 5 users, with 5TB of storage (1TB for each user).
But then again, as it says in the article, most Apple users don't really care about how much things cost anyway... (well, unless it's from Microsoft :P )
Most Apple users don't care to pay the Microsoft tax when they have "Good Enough" versions of some software and "Far Better" versions of others (Keynote especially).
I'm curious as to who is storing more than 200GB in the cloud, and why. Surely Office has not bloated Word and Excel files to the point where that's required yet, right? And if you're talking photos... those are included for free in iCloud, so your argument is getting thinner and thinner...
The point is still the point. Apple users would pay $240 for 1TB and a less capable office suite while students can get the full version of Office and 1TB for $79. That's not a MS tax, that's an Apple tax - and a huge one.
In any case - I have 128GB free on OneDrive, 75GB free on Dropbox - why would I pay $20 a year for less than a tenth of that? Only commenting, here, re: your 200GB in the cloud. . . Apple's 200GB prices are still pretty stupid. . .
Apple's iWork suite is completely free and not at all tied into 'storage pricing' in the cloud. iCloud and it's prices for storage IMHO look high as well ...but if you're comparing to OneDrive, it's leaps n bounds ahead for using within iOS or OSx'es ecosystem. Not the case with OneDrive. Can't send to, open in, or transfer to other services (ala Dropbox) without headaches Right now I'm enjoying OneDrive for the business as we get 5TB of storage with five users ...for ten bucks a month. Just happens to come with Word/Excel &PPT. Pages, Numbers and Keynote are free as are OS Updates on OSx. Six one way a half dozen the other.
One thing is for sure though. Gone are the days everyone 'needs' Word to open a .doc ...or to create a .docx.
"Most Apple users don't care to pay the Microsoft tax when they have 'Good Enough' versions of some software and 'Far Better' versions of others (Keynote especially)."
Funny how you're criticizing the "Microsoft Tax" when you're completely ignoring the "Apple Tax". The massive "cover" you must pay to buy into the Apple ecosystem is appalling.
$900 for a 13" MacBook Air with a screen from 2010, and absolute garbage performance. Its funny how my Atom Tablet runs Powerpoint better than the MBA 2014.
Stop showing your ignorance, idiot. You either haven't used a Macbook Air or got scammed. There is no way that an Atom Tablet would run better than a 2014 MBA with i5. Plain rubbish. Macbook Air is in fact cheaper than most WINDOWS ultra books of the same or worse performance.
Lol. That's funny. The 13" MBA would trounce any and all Atom based net books. As it does most EVERY ULV Ultrabook! It's quicker than the SPIII, with better iGPU, faster PCIe SSD storage, Thunderbolt...and a two pound package that'll run OSx, Windows 7 or 8(.1), your favorite flavor of Unix, Linux ...name it.
Your 'Atom Tablet' is NO Where near the capabilities of today's MBA or Ultrabooks based on the Haswell core architecture. While indeed it's not a high resolution display, Apple's intelligent enough to wait until integrated graphic power catches up ...to move all those pixels around.
For one Microsoft has "One Note" that competes with Keynote, however the big difference is... Keynote is no longer being actively developed.
As for Microsoft's cloud, you can do more than just upload documents and photos, not to mention Microsoft provides everyone with triple the amount of storage compared to Apple in it's "Free" versions. And in the free version of OneDrive, Microsoft will backup your cloud data, Apple doesn't, OneDrive is also available on more platforms than Apple's competing solution.
Your last 'run on' sentence isn't really true. Apple DOES indeed backup your cloud data at it's free tier ...it's just smart enough to not store the "entire song, movie, TV show series or apps". iCloud stores the relevant metadata so it's aware you've bought the app, own the song or video and it's referencing backup for data, IE Pages/Word document is FAR & Away better than OneDrive. I use both OSx and Windows 8.1. iOS and Android. OneDrive is an absolute nightmare to access from most 'non MS associated' applications or software. Yes. You can back up your photos. But you can't 'import' them back into your local machine for editing in PS or video to manipulate with After Effects, Premier or FCPx like Dropbox or iCloud allow. In fact with DB & iCloud, especially for the every day 'joe and janes' ...it's pretty sweet the way 'Finder' allows them to be regular 'folders' within the OS itself. Not possible with One.note. While OneNote will store what you want, and it comes with office, for use on a mobile device, there is much better solutions. Especially if you're not using a Window's phone like 98% of us. iOS and Android for current offerings, although it's not without caveats, Dropbox is the pound for pound winner. iCloud drive and it's integration and aggregation with 10.10 remains to be seen, along with continuity/handoff with iOS 8 & AirDrop between to two. Time will tell.
I should mention I work for none, use them all and currently have a TB w/ Dropbox and 5TB with OneDrive, my business and family. I've not yet bought into iCloud even though I'm a bigger Mac user (my business and home vs. our business's servers and desktop environment [radio stations and proprietary software not OSx compatible or it would be different]) than Windows but I do LIKE Windows 8.1, my little HP 2 in 1 and it's 'crappy display from 2010' as earlier mentioned so eloquently earlier about the MBA (same display as my HP). Funny though, as I don't remember 2010 being a real terrible year. iPad dropped. Android started on tabs with the Xoom release, iPhone went 'retina' and the industry followed to HiDPI displays with phenomenal increases in quality since then on AMOLED display technology. Anyway, hopefully you get the point. MS, unless vertically and horizontally you're working within MS (mobile OS/desk and laptop OS/wherever you're communicating with's 'system' or OS) solely. If you're on android or iOS Dropbox bests them all at this point if you don't need office for it's versatility and accessibility across the board. If indeed your laptop, desktop and workstation 9-5 is all Windows based including your mobile choices (phone and tablet), I'll bet OneNote or as you say 'Microsoft's cloud' would easily smoke the others. That said.... OSx 10.10 and iOS 8 aren't in the hands off the masses as they're readying the GM versions for developers now. Once we're familiar with iCloud's abilities (remember it's not storing any actual 'content' you've purchased from them: apps, flicks, tunes TV shows, mags books or even 'documents' rather reference points 'in time' while making your document so you can go back and edit from a point before you've ACTUALLY screwed it up;)---& any metadata associates with your iTunes purchases, today's largest selling 'place' online for music! As well, your magazines, books, media period ...it doesn't take up 5GB of your thousand to save Django as on OneDrive. It knows you bought it with about a 25kb 'note') Time will tell. But don't for a second believe OneNote is as agile as the others. While you can install training wheels, I mean Windows on a Mac 'out of the box' with supported drivers...It's not possible to go the other direction. Hopefully it changes someday but today, iCloud services are very easy to use on Win 8 within the browser.
I'm genuinely curious.... what are the distinguishing features that make iCloud a compelling service for Apple ecosystem users? Cause based on what I've seen so far, I don't see any reason why one would want to pay for iCloud....
iCloud is basically built into iOS and OS X. You just log into your AppleID and that's it, everything else is handled for you in the background. Your devices are backed up, your photos and videos are uploaded in the background automatically, and so on. As long as you're an Apple user, it's the best integrated service you can get for photos, videos, and so on. It's certainly not the cheapest or the best cloud service but for Apple users, they want that effortless experience.
It's not unusual for Apple to follow in the wake of their competitors and then have customers so clueless as to not realize that the features they're paying more for are available elsewhere and have been for some time.
I'm fairly heavily invested in the Mac and iOS ecosystem and the 200GB offering is looking pretty good to me. But if you're looking for more than 200GB of Cloud storage, OneDrive+Office 365 is SO FAR AND AWAY the best value. $70 for 1TB is great value already, Office on top is a nice bonus.
Now if Office wasn't such complete garbage on the Mac. Still though in terms of MS and Apples offering: Word > Pages, Xcel >>> Numbers, Keynote >>> Powerpoint.
OneNote for Mac seems solid, one can hope MS will release an Office 2014 or Office 2015 update for Mac soon to make Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook as good as the Mac OneNote.
Google and MS already gives 15GB for free, Box 50GB free and dropbox you can get similar amount for free if you use samsung device. All of those are platform independent. No thanks at all.
And none of those are going to automatically backup a family with a half-dozen or so iDevices to the cloud. For a dollar a month one can do that much more cheaply now.
Now is 5GB stingy and not somehow additional space per device owned kind of shitty, sure, but none of that has anything to do the storage solutions you mentioned as they have nothing to do with iCloud's purpose.
considering how cheap and easy NAS is these days this is not terribly competitive. I also wish there was a better tier between 20gb, which is not enough to back up my idevices, and 200gb which is way more than I need to back up my idevices.
The apple way, selling over expensive crap to stupid consumers that like to get robbed.
This has been a disastrous launch in every respect. The iwatch is such an ugly piece of crap, it is truly unbelievable how a company, formerly known for its remarkable design, dares to put out such a crap ton of shit. Some characteristics are glaringly obvious and inherent to it: over expensive, hardly innovative, limited functionality and usability (need of an iPhone to make it work), looks exactly like a toy watch and so on.
There are of course way better smart watches out there, especially form the likes of Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Asus, LG, simply put, there is no need for another piece of over expensive junk.
The iPhone 6 is technologically stuck in pre-2011 times, a base model witch a capacity of 16GB without the possibility to use SD cards isn't even funny anymore. The screen resolution is horrendous, it isn't water proof, shock and dust resistant, it offers nothing innovative, just some incremental updates over its predecessor, both lacking severely behind their competitors at their respective launch dates.
Now the Iphone 6 Plus offers a „Retina HD“ screen, full 1920x1080p, oh wow, where have you been for the past 4 years apple, talk about trailing behind. That’s pathetic. The interesting thing about that is the fact that apple always manages to sell backwards oriented, outdated crap to its user base, all while pretending to be an innovative technology leader. The similarities regarding any form of sectarian cult are striking.
You gotta love how Apple always comes up with new marketing bullshit terms, aka "Retina HD", with the intention to manipulate its users while preventing easy comparisons with its competitors by withholding the actual specs. Apparently it’s not enough to have an 1080p screen, you have to call it "Retina HD" to make those suckers buy it, otherwise someone could look at the 4K Amoled and Oled screens form LG and Samsung devices and get outright disappointed. Same goes for everything else. Every outdated „feature“ needs to get its own marketing label to persuade buyers with crappy „experience“ and „usability“ ads, while covering the truth with marketing gibberish, knowing full well that only a fraction of aforementioned buyers cares to look at the facts and dares to compare them.
Car engines come to mind. For comparisons shake let’s look at a 1.0 liter, turbo charged petrol engine and a V8 compressor. What’s better should be obvious, but by calling the former an „ecobooster“, thus giving it a special marketing label, this joke becomes a „feature“, something positive that can be added tot the list of features of a car.
By doing so a negative aspect is transformed into a positive one, the reality is distorted, non tech savvy buyers are manipulated and comparisons are made more difficult (another layer of marketing bullshit to overcome), well done marketing department. You see , if something is seriously lacking (of course for profit, what else), don’t bother explaining, just give it a nice marketing term, distort reality, make it a feature and call it a day. Fuck that!!
The Apple Iphone 1 and Ipad 1 might have been innovative at their time, but since then, the bitten apple has been continuously rotting from the inside outwards, always swarmed by millions of Iworms which regale themselves with its rotten flesh, not forgetting all other Americans who support apple by means of their tax dollars to finance its bought US Treasury/Government bond interest rates.
Last but not least, every Apple product includes a direct hotlink to the nsa, free of charge, something that might make it a good value, after all.
Personally I'm not willing to send all of my data up in to the cloud. Google is inventorying everyone so they can sell you adds. Microsoft is being cheap to gain market share. The whole office thing only works if you want office I don't. And yes, Mac people have come accustom to a higher level of expectation that Microsoft simply won't deliver. No technical reason, they sell products that they love, and they are a big company full of software engineers. So 'easy' to them, not so much for the rest of us. Microsofts is doing great things in the Enterprise with Server, but their desktop products suck.
Sure, you can buy a sheep Windows computer, but you start adding up all the costs like Office, Windows upgrade. Not really cheaper. And though Apple insists on using more expensive laptop parts in most of their machines. It allows for more energy efficiencty, quieter(this is a big one), and smaller cases(I think Apple has taken this idea a little to far personally). And other parts of the Apple computer are generally superior to the cheaper PC versions people talk about, like AC networking.
So for all of the free stuff that Apple gives away, not really surprised they are charging more for this.
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whatsa - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
Nice idea but other than the free 5gb it is a waste of money. If you use a lot of space you most likely have office 365 so you get 1tb included. For a family of 5 they all get 1tb for $99 and office too.danjw - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
Paying for an office suite, what a waste of money. ;-) I use LibreOffice. OpenOffice and google docs are another free choice.dylan522p - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
I'd like to see you make a real professional slide show with one of those or a spreadsheet that actually does work. Even pure word processing Libre and Open are jokes compared to Word.TheStu - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
If you're on an iDevice, or a Mac (the main drivers behind iCloud Drive), then why not use Keynote?grahamwilliams - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
Real professional Slide Shows need Keynote. I'll keep Excel, though Google's spreadsheet is rapidly fitting the bill there. Word is a last resort; Pages is a far better solution for short, stylish documents. If you need some serious documentation you can still pull Word out, but you get all the crashes and hassles that come with it.krutou - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
The productivity software you mentioned are all pay to play. Keynote might be free on the App Store, and OSX might only be $20, but there's a large upfront cost to purchasing Apple hardware.Keynote makes pretty presentations (exceptional templates), PowerPoint makes functional presentations (highly specialized animations, effects, fine tuned positioning, etc). Neither is better than the other. Both are necessary to make an excellent presentation.
Google spreadsheet is grossly inadequate. One of the simplest functions, linear regression (with equation and R^2) isn't available.
I don't even remember the last time Word crashed on me. Maybe your knowledge is outdated and/or you're using an obsolete computer/version of word.
akdj - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link
OSx costs nothing any longer. It's a free update. There's no 'large upfront cost to purchasing Apple hardware.' Perhaps it's your information that's outdated? (Though I'm with ya, Word hasn't crashed on me in years)Not sure how long it's been since you've played with Keynote, but ya might give it a try. Pretty powerful and certainly preferable for me for presentations
With you on excel and word and it's essentially a 'bonus' to 5TB of family 'cloud' storage for ten bucks a month;). I honesty prefer Pages but Numbers I'm ignorant to. I stick with Excel
As to your first comment, it's no longer true. There's not an example of an overpriced model in their lineup. Computers, phones or tablets. Hell, they're the only option if you want 128GB on your mobile phone or tablet (Surface, more of a laptop IMHO aside). And without the carrier and manufacturer bloat, iOS actually has 'real' room available.
There's not a computer on the market that compares to the 13 & 15" retina MBPs. Period. If you're a 'gamer' okay ...I give it to ya, Alienware is going to smoke the rMBP at about 20-100% the price playing BattleLand or whatever ...for 45 minutes unplugged. If you need a portable graphics powerhouse workstation for rendering CAD or 4k RAW I believe natively from RED is the only format w/o necessary prerender playback on the rMBP. Rocket fixes that though. Again, CAD/AE and nVidia Quadro/32GB rigs they aren't. Nor do they only last an hour unplugged doing their 'tasks' their built for. They're display and third generation technology with the iGPU IrisPro from Intel, quad core fast Haswell processing and PCIe SSDs ...mine is hitting consistent 1,000/1,100mb read/write. Truly amazing and paging necessary in After Effects because of used RAM runs fast as hell! Thunderbolt II & several inexpensive peripherals, including BluRay decks/recorders (w/software) Ethernet x2 and separate USB outboard audio DACS, USB3 2-6 extras and VGA, DVI, HDMI, even serial and parallel ports for older connectivity with a second T.bolt port, so your NAS, printer snd displays are daisy chained to a single line. In thirty years I've never been a happier computer knee and as an OSx and Windows user, the rMBP is hands down the BEST experience I've had to date computing. Even work 'stuff' I smile firing it Up! Four pounds of incredible display, power and speed, IO & craftsmanship, and longevity to boot. My two year old rMBP is on every day, sometimes not sleeping for a week. Still showing over 92% battery health. Still gets a good 7 hours unplugged at 70% brightness ...we just bought another pair for the business. The newly updated, this summer model, essentially last fall's release with an updated Haswell CPU. A TB of solid state storage, over five million pixels and the GPU(s) to handle them fluently and quadcore i7 performance with 16GB of RAM & OSx'es management and compression algorithms they're using, I've not dealt with the limits yet. Even on the 2012
Again, please show me a competitive computer to the 13/15" rMBPs. Keeping in mind as well the limitations imposed on today's customers at the box stores with Win 8 and ½ with touch, ½ without as well as build quality of competing Ultrabooks to the 'MBA'. While the display isn't 'retina' yet, it's now starting at 8/999 for the 11/13". As well with fast PCIe storage. Intel 5000 graphics, the 1700 dollar option on Surface 3 & probably mandatory to keep up with the pixels. On these ULV CPUs, power and TDP are limited. Intel and Apple have worked closely on iGPU progress, Thundebolt and I'm sure plenty we're not privy to. They're intelligent enough to realize what will and won't work without throttling performance in a two pound package. Toshiba, Acer, HP ...all still making the standard 1366/768 or whatever they've decided for their hybrids, 2in1s, etc. But similar pricing and minus the bloat when you buy OSx. You get excellent, free software that if you decide you can or don't have to download and use. iWork Pages Numbers & Keynote and iLife with GarageBand (very powerful and enjoyable DAW/music production program) with iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie most of today's population will find these to be exactly and all they need for their tasks.
The new Mac Pro. Seriously? It's been documented time and time again you can NOT build the computer for less. Period. It can't be done. It's an incredible design in engineering and a very powerful, TINY Monster. If you've not used one and/or seen one you're in for a treat (unless your mind is that closed) with, once again PCIe SSDs, twin GPUs, one dedicated to computational tasking ...After Effects, FCP 7 and 'X', Premiere and Encore, it's a dream machine not much larger than a big coffee cup. If you've not seen it you'll smile about the 'trash can' comments as it's truly a remarkable, space saving and brilliant price of engineering.
The iMac? What is there to say? The best selling AIO in history (& year to year for a decade)! True game changer.
And hard to believe the iPod was introduced just 13 years ago. Look at what's been done with that product? It created an empire. And back n forth the most valuable company in the world. iPhone. And Tuesdays presentations. And a second generation 64bit mobile SoC with display size increases and even higher dpi 6+ with a development community providing us with the largest selection of software in history ...not JUST for our phones but our tablets now too! The iPad Air and retina mini are very ..very special devices. Game changing and continuing to dominate the market ..despite price parity with Samsung's latest offerings, minus the subsidized and 'joke' of a usable tablet(s) like the Amazon and Nexus crap. After doing the Xoom I was pretty happy. But the Nex 7&7.2 we're extreme let downs. Especially using it for anything in portrait.
Routers? Yeah, maybe a bit high with AC now, it's ease of setup and functionality there are plenty of choices that are a hundred bucks more. Something to be said for ease of set up, time machine and plugging starting to the router ...Apple TV is right on par with most competitive steaming boxes (not the limited sticks and nightmare attempting to mirror your display).
Yep. Nope. There isn't an 'Apple Tax' any longer. All pricing across mobile, lap and desktop, peripherals and 'hobbies' all pretty much in line with the market but in most cases 'exceeding' the market today in price vs 'what ya get'. I've detailed the hardware. The plethora of software but don't forget ...no security or spyware, malware or Trojans to dick with. No manufacturer bloat. Just usable (& with choice, you want em or don't)--unrivaled support, free OS Updates. Continuity and Handoff. New code: Swift. New low level graphic programming stripping the overhead of OpenGL (Metal)
You're missing the forest through the trees n I thing it's time you actually spend some time with a current Mac. Lap. Or desktop. Neither disappoint ...nor have their mobile choices. Just continue to get better and better while updating ALL devices simultaneously, keeping exploits safe while advancing everything from the silicon to the OS, XCode for developers and losing NOTHING with their desk/laptop OSx. In fact gaining and in a way I believe most Apple users were terrified of, but are at peace now with ...it's integration and aggregation with iOS
TL/dr. Just responding to a silly comment comment and watching sports center getting ready for some football!
danjw - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
I use LibreOffice Calc for many page sheets for my LOTRO cooks. As far as presentations, I could care less. We are talking about home office use here. A personal budget plan isn't going to be a problem for most users. My point was there there are free options for what he was saying he pays for to get "free" storage. It seemed pretty pointless to me.I am in no way defending Apples pricing, I just thought his comments about iCloud were pretty silly.
krutou - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
If you're not professional/productivity/enterprise focused, you probably don't need to pay for cloud storage.Free offerings (iCloud 5GB, Dropbox 2GB, OneDrive/Google Drive 15GB, etc) are more than sufficient for "home office use".
ThreeDee912 - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
If you're on a recent device with OS X or iOS, you get Pages/Numbers/Keynote for free. I know some people hate the new versions because they changed the UI to make it look cleaner, but 99% of the functionality is still there if you look for it.PCMerlin - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
I think you missed the point. Rather than pay $240/yr to Apple for 1TB of storage and use a "free" office suite with half the features does not make sense when for $99/year (less than half) you can get Office 365 for 5 users, with 5TB of storage (1TB for each user).But then again, as it says in the article, most Apple users don't really care about how much things cost anyway... (well, unless it's from Microsoft :P )
grahamwilliams - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
Most Apple users don't care to pay the Microsoft tax when they have "Good Enough" versions of some software and "Far Better" versions of others (Keynote especially).I'm curious as to who is storing more than 200GB in the cloud, and why. Surely Office has not bloated Word and Excel files to the point where that's required yet, right? And if you're talking photos... those are included for free in iCloud, so your argument is getting thinner and thinner...
SoCalBoomer - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
The point is still the point. Apple users would pay $240 for 1TB and a less capable office suite while students can get the full version of Office and 1TB for $79. That's not a MS tax, that's an Apple tax - and a huge one.In any case - I have 128GB free on OneDrive, 75GB free on Dropbox - why would I pay $20 a year for less than a tenth of that? Only commenting, here, re: your 200GB in the cloud. . . Apple's 200GB prices are still pretty stupid. . .
akdj - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link
Apple's iWork suite is completely free and not at all tied into 'storage pricing' in the cloud. iCloud and it's prices for storage IMHO look high as well ...but if you're comparing to OneDrive, it's leaps n bounds ahead for using within iOS or OSx'es ecosystem. Not the case with OneDrive. Can't send to, open in, or transfer to other services (ala Dropbox) without headachesRight now I'm enjoying OneDrive for the business as we get 5TB of storage with five users ...for ten bucks a month. Just happens to come with Word/Excel &PPT. Pages, Numbers and Keynote are free as are OS Updates on OSx. Six one way a half dozen the other.
One thing is for sure though. Gone are the days everyone 'needs' Word to open a .doc ...or to create a .docx.
krutou - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
"Most Apple users don't care to pay the Microsoft tax when they have 'Good Enough' versions of some software and 'Far Better' versions of others (Keynote especially)."Funny how you're criticizing the "Microsoft Tax" when you're completely ignoring the "Apple Tax". The massive "cover" you must pay to buy into the Apple ecosystem is appalling.
$900 for a 13" MacBook Air with a screen from 2010, and absolute garbage performance. Its funny how my Atom Tablet runs Powerpoint better than the MBA 2014.
ttzero13 - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link
Stop showing your ignorance, idiot. You either haven't used a Macbook Air or got scammed. There is no way that an Atom Tablet would run better than a 2014 MBA with i5. Plain rubbish. Macbook Air is in fact cheaper than most WINDOWS ultra books of the same or worse performance.akdj - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link
Lol. That's funny. The 13" MBA would trounce any and all Atom based net books. As it does most EVERY ULV Ultrabook! It's quicker than the SPIII, with better iGPU, faster PCIe SSD storage, Thunderbolt...and a two pound package that'll run OSx, Windows 7 or 8(.1), your favorite flavor of Unix, Linux ...name it.Your 'Atom Tablet' is NO Where near the capabilities of today's MBA or Ultrabooks based on the Haswell core architecture. While indeed it's not a high resolution display, Apple's intelligent enough to wait until integrated graphic power catches up ...to move all those pixels around.
What a silly ck,ment
akdj - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link
'Silly comment'. It was supposed to read anyway ;)StevoLincolnite - Saturday, September 13, 2014 - link
Far Better? Hardly.For one Microsoft has "One Note" that competes with Keynote, however the big difference is... Keynote is no longer being actively developed.
As for Microsoft's cloud, you can do more than just upload documents and photos, not to mention Microsoft provides everyone with triple the amount of storage compared to Apple in it's "Free" versions.
And in the free version of OneDrive, Microsoft will backup your cloud data, Apple doesn't, OneDrive is also available on more platforms than Apple's competing solution.
akdj - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link
Your last 'run on' sentence isn't really true. Apple DOES indeed backup your cloud data at it's free tier ...it's just smart enough to not store the "entire song, movie, TV show series or apps". iCloud stores the relevant metadata so it's aware you've bought the app, own the song or video and it's referencing backup for data, IE Pages/Word document is FAR & Away better than OneDrive. I use both OSx and Windows 8.1. iOS and Android. OneDrive is an absolute nightmare to access from most 'non MS associated' applications or software. Yes. You can back up your photos. But you can't 'import' them back into your local machine for editing in PS or video to manipulate with After Effects, Premier or FCPx like Dropbox or iCloud allow. In fact with DB & iCloud, especially for the every day 'joe and janes' ...it's pretty sweet the way 'Finder' allows them to be regular 'folders' within the OS itself. Not possible with One.note. While OneNote will store what you want, and it comes with office, for use on a mobile device, there is much better solutions. Especially if you're not using a Window's phone like 98% of us. iOS and Android for current offerings, although it's not without caveats, Dropbox is the pound for pound winner. iCloud drive and it's integration and aggregation with 10.10 remains to be seen, along with continuity/handoff with iOS 8 & AirDrop between to two. Time will tell.I should mention I work for none, use them all and currently have a TB w/ Dropbox and 5TB with OneDrive, my business and family. I've not yet bought into iCloud even though I'm a bigger Mac user (my business and home vs. our business's servers and desktop environment [radio stations and proprietary software not OSx compatible or it would be different]) than Windows but I do LIKE Windows 8.1, my little HP 2 in 1 and it's 'crappy display from 2010' as earlier mentioned so eloquently earlier about the MBA (same display as my HP). Funny though, as I don't remember 2010 being a real terrible year. iPad dropped. Android started on tabs with the Xoom release, iPhone went 'retina' and the industry followed to HiDPI displays with phenomenal increases in quality since then on AMOLED display technology.
Anyway, hopefully you get the point. MS, unless vertically and horizontally you're working within MS (mobile OS/desk and laptop OS/wherever you're communicating with's 'system' or OS) solely. If you're on android or iOS Dropbox bests them all at this point if you don't need office for it's versatility and accessibility across the board.
If indeed your laptop, desktop and workstation 9-5 is all Windows based including your mobile choices (phone and tablet), I'll bet OneNote or as you say 'Microsoft's cloud' would easily smoke the others. That said....
OSx 10.10 and iOS 8 aren't in the hands off the masses as they're readying the GM versions for developers now. Once we're familiar with iCloud's abilities (remember it's not storing any actual 'content' you've purchased from them: apps, flicks, tunes TV shows, mags books or even 'documents' rather reference points 'in time' while making your document so you can go back and edit from a point before you've ACTUALLY screwed it up;)---& any metadata associates with your iTunes purchases, today's largest selling 'place' online for music! As well, your magazines, books, media period ...it doesn't take up 5GB of your thousand to save Django as on OneDrive. It knows you bought it with about a 25kb 'note')
Time will tell. But don't for a second believe OneNote is as agile as the others. While you can install training wheels, I mean Windows on a Mac 'out of the box' with supported drivers...It's not possible to go the other direction. Hopefully it changes someday but today, iCloud services are very easy to use on Win 8 within the browser.
J
SoCalBoomer - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
$79 if you're a student. . .ruggia - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
I'm genuinely curious.... what are the distinguishing features that make iCloud a compelling service for Apple ecosystem users?Cause based on what I've seen so far, I don't see any reason why one would want to pay for iCloud....
MikhailT - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
iCloud is basically built into iOS and OS X. You just log into your AppleID and that's it, everything else is handled for you in the background. Your devices are backed up, your photos and videos are uploaded in the background automatically, and so on. As long as you're an Apple user, it's the best integrated service you can get for photos, videos, and so on. It's certainly not the cheapest or the best cloud service but for Apple users, they want that effortless experience.krutou - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
"They want that effortless experience."Is it correct, then, to label Apple users as lazy? CBA to do marginal amounts of work to save quite a bit of money?
HisDivineOrder - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
It's not unusual for Apple to follow in the wake of their competitors and then have customers so clueless as to not realize that the features they're paying more for are available elsewhere and have been for some time.blacks329 - Thursday, September 11, 2014 - link
I'm fairly heavily invested in the Mac and iOS ecosystem and the 200GB offering is looking pretty good to me. But if you're looking for more than 200GB of Cloud storage, OneDrive+Office 365 is SO FAR AND AWAY the best value. $70 for 1TB is great value already, Office on top is a nice bonus.Now if Office wasn't such complete garbage on the Mac. Still though in terms of MS and Apples offering: Word > Pages, Xcel >>> Numbers, Keynote >>> Powerpoint.
frostyfiredude - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
OneNote for Mac seems solid, one can hope MS will release an Office 2014 or Office 2015 update for Mac soon to make Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook as good as the Mac OneNote.nerd1 - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
Google and MS already gives 15GB for free, Box 50GB free and dropbox you can get similar amount for free if you use samsung device. All of those are platform independent. No thanks at all.nerd1 - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
Oh I forgot I have extra 100GB free for google drive (came with purchase of chromebox :D)solipsism - Tuesday, September 16, 2014 - link
And none of those are going to automatically backup a family with a half-dozen or so iDevices to the cloud. For a dollar a month one can do that much more cheaply now.Now is 5GB stingy and not somehow additional space per device owned kind of shitty, sure, but none of that has anything to do the storage solutions you mentioned as they have nothing to do with iCloud's purpose.
CalaverasGrande - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
considering how cheap and easy NAS is these days this is not terribly competitive. I also wish there was a better tier between 20gb, which is not enough to back up my idevices, and 200gb which is way more than I need to back up my idevices.AppleCrappleHater2 - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Worship the holy apple.The apple way, selling over expensive crap to stupid consumers that like to
get robbed.
This has been a disastrous launch in every respect. The iwatch is such an
ugly piece of crap, it is truly unbelievable how a company, formerly known for
its remarkable design, dares to put out such a crap ton of shit. Some
characteristics are glaringly obvious and inherent to it: over expensive,
hardly innovative, limited functionality and usability (need of an iPhone to
make it work), looks exactly like a toy watch and so on.
There are of course way better smart watches out there, especially form the
likes of Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Asus, LG, simply put, there is no need for
another piece of over expensive junk.
The iPhone 6 is technologically stuck in pre-2011 times, a base model witch
a capacity of 16GB without the possibility to use SD cards isn't even funny
anymore. The screen resolution is horrendous, it isn't water proof, shock and
dust resistant, it offers nothing innovative, just some incremental
updates over its predecessor, both lacking severely behind their competitors at
their respective launch dates.
Now the Iphone 6 Plus offers a „Retina HD“ screen, full 1920x1080p, oh wow,
where have you been for the past 4 years apple, talk about trailing behind.
That’s pathetic. The interesting thing about that is the fact that apple
always manages to sell backwards oriented, outdated crap to its user base, all
while pretending to be an innovative technology leader. The similarities
regarding any form of sectarian cult are striking.
You gotta love how Apple always comes up with new marketing bullshit terms,
aka "Retina HD", with the intention to manipulate its users while preventing easy
comparisons with its competitors by withholding the actual specs. Apparently it’s
not enough to have an 1080p screen, you have to call it "Retina HD" to make those
suckers buy it, otherwise someone could look at the 4K Amoled and Oled screens
form LG and Samsung devices and get outright disappointed. Same goes for
everything else. Every outdated „feature“ needs to get its own marketing label
to persuade buyers with crappy „experience“ and „usability“ ads, while covering
the truth with marketing gibberish, knowing full well that only a fraction of
aforementioned buyers cares to look at the facts and dares to compare them.
Car engines come to mind. For comparisons shake let’s look at a 1.0 liter, turbo
charged petrol engine and a V8 compressor. What’s better should be obvious, but
by calling the former an „ecobooster“, thus giving it a special marketing label,
this joke becomes a „feature“, something positive that can be added tot the list
of features of a car.
By doing so a negative aspect is transformed into a positive one, the
reality is distorted, non tech savvy buyers are manipulated and comparisons are
made more difficult (another layer of marketing bullshit to overcome), well done
marketing department. You see , if something is seriously lacking (of course for
profit, what else), don’t bother explaining, just give it a nice marketing term, distort
reality, make it a feature and call it a day. Fuck that!!
The Apple Iphone 1 and Ipad 1 might have been innovative at their time,
but since then, the bitten apple has been continuously rotting from the inside
outwards, always swarmed by millions of Iworms which regale themselves with its
rotten flesh, not forgetting all other Americans who support apple by means of
their tax dollars to finance its bought US Treasury/Government bond interest rates.
Last but not least, every Apple product includes a direct hotlink to the nsa,
free of charge, something that might make it a good value, after all.
Ceterum censeo Applem esse delendam.
Shiitaki - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Personally I'm not willing to send all of my data up in to the cloud. Google is inventorying everyone so they can sell you adds. Microsoft is being cheap to gain market share. The whole office thing only works if you want office I don't. And yes, Mac people have come accustom to a higher level of expectation that Microsoft simply won't deliver. No technical reason, they sell products that they love, and they are a big company full of software engineers. So 'easy' to them, not so much for the rest of us. Microsofts is doing great things in the Enterprise with Server, but their desktop products suck.Sure, you can buy a sheep Windows computer, but you start adding up all the costs like Office, Windows upgrade. Not really cheaper. And though Apple insists on using more expensive laptop parts in most of their machines. It allows for more energy efficiencty, quieter(this is a big one), and smaller cases(I think Apple has taken this idea a little to far personally). And other parts of the Apple computer are generally superior to the cheaper PC versions people talk about, like AC networking.
So for all of the free stuff that Apple gives away, not really surprised they are charging more for this.
zodiacsoulmate - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
or i buy 6TB of hardrive for $240 and sync to it on my phone...