Apple updates

Apple updates MacBook Pro, but where’s the Retina MacBook Air?

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At long last, Apple has finally gotten around to updating its line of Retina MacBook Pros. The CPUs are getting a nice boost across the board, and the amount of RAM on offer has doubled. Even better, the high-end and low-end MacBook Pros have dropped in price by $100 each. Hardware bumps and price dips are certainly welcome, but how long are we going to have to wait around for Apple to release iMacs and MacBook Airs with Retina displays?
With today’s update in place, all of the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pros ship with a minimum of 8GB of RAM, and the 15-inch models exclusively ship with 16GB. Unfortunately, no 32GB or 64GB options were introduced. As far as the processors go, the low-end 13-inch Retina model comes with a Haswell 2.6GHz dual-core Core i5, but it can be upgraded to a 3.0GHz dual-core Core i7 chip. On the other hand, the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro starts with a Haswell 2.2GHz quad-core Core i7 CPU, and can be upgraded to a 2.8GHz quad-core Core i7.
The graphics processors seem to be unchanged with the 13-inch models still rocking integrated Iris graphics, the 15-inch models sporting integrated Iris Pro graphics, and the top-of-the-line model offering a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 750M GPU as well. As far as I can tell, the only other notable difference is the option to upgrade select models to a full terabyte of internal flash storage. Of course, that will cost you an additional $500 on top of the 512GB version, so the extra space probably isn’t worth the price just yet.
More than anything, this update leaves me wondering about the long-rumored Retina-capable MacBook Air and iMac. It’s been over two years since the first Retina MacBook Pro was released, and we haven’t heard a peep out of Apple regarding the rest of its lineup. Offering a 27-inch Retina display for an iMac would undoubtedly be a costly affair, but that’s Apple’s bread and butter — premium devices at a premium price. What’s the hold-up?
With the rise of 4K (and 5K) displays for the living room happening so quickly, it seems inevitable that these high-res displays will have to start working their way into Apple’s product line. When you look at the 11-inch MacBook Air’s paltry 1366×768 resolution compared to the 2048×1536 display in the 10-inch iPad, it’s actually a bit embarrassing.
In fact, the MacBook Air’s display is a lot closer to the 1136×640 display included with the four-inch iPhone than the high-res displays commonly found in comparable 10-inch tablets. If Apple actually releases 4.7-inch or 5.5-inch iPhones this year without a Retina update for the MacBook Air, the iPhone’s resolution will absolutely dwarf the resolutions found in its ultra-thin laptops. Frankly, that’s just too surreal for me to accept as a possible outcome. There must be an update planned for this fall.