gdgt

I think cmason has hit the nail on the head...

... by being completely wrong about Dell.

Practically every machine in the Latitude and Precision range can be specified with WWAN. And for the sort of regular consumer types (and apparently, a lot of tech press people who don't look very hard) this range is all but off their radar.

The Macbook range - yes, even the Pro - are essentially completely consumer notebooks in terms of utility (and no, they cannot be compared against the likes of the Dell Precision and HP Elitebook ranges without the comparer looking a bit clueless).

Consumers have different needs to professional users, and it's very likely a fact that for the vast majority of people who buy them, the Macbook itself is their biggest stretch in financial terms, and a 3G contract fails the "value test" because a company is not footing the bill for the data plan.

If Apple were to offer a Macbook Pro with built-in 3G, it would be an interesting indicator of just how many actually truly-demanding, well-resourced, well-connected users Apple has. I very much suspect it'll be quietly discontinued after a year.

I'd grab the option in a heartbeat, though.

I was going to say it may affect the number of iPhone 4s sold, but then again, as you said, the iPad has a 3G option. It certainly isn't a cost issue on the consumers' end -- you only need to pay $130 more for the iPad 3G, but apply the same structure onto the MacBooks and it may cost Apple a lot more for the tooling and components for a potentially tiny market.

What I'm saying is perhaps it's more to do with Apple's assumption that there's only a small percentage of laptop users who'd need mobile data; and these are likely to be heavy users (like myself, living on 4G LTE full time, even at home), whereas the regular Joe would be sticking to Wi-Fi at school, work or home to avoid paying for premium "unlimited" plans on MiFis or 3G dongles, let alone built-in 3G.

While the amount of daily data consumed on the iDevices is no doubt on the rise, the computer is likely still sucking up way more bandwidth due to its true multitasking nature and storage capacity, plus not all countries have come out with true and affordable unlimited 3G data just yet, so it makes sense to just have 3G on iDevices, but not on laptops. I guess Apple will come back to this when the percentage of iPad 3Gs sold out of all the iPads hit a critical level; or, very simply, maybe they're just waiting for AT&T to catch up with the demand. :)

Don't know about the other 4G modems, but seeing how much battery juice my ZTE 4G LTE dongle sucks up, I doubt Apple would be integrating 4G into laptops any time soon. It's like launching the 2G iPhone in the 3G era all over again.

My theory is that they originally intended the iPhone to be your 3G modem for Apple computers and they haven't given up on that idea despite the bickering with carriers over the debate as to whether or not tethering should be free. Then there is the multiple carrier technology factor. We have only recently reached a point where a GSM+CDMA chip is a feasible and desirable option. So, we may see it yet. It does seem to make more sense for them to just recommend mifi devices at this point, though.

I've been thinking about hat myself lately. In theory, we might all end up with tethering plans on our phones, making embedded 3G superfluous. But--my iPad 2 has AT&T, and I just love it. It's great to be able to turn on the thing and immediately begin using the Internet, without worrying about connecting to an external device, trying to conserve battery life, etc. An 11" MacBook Air with 3G (or 4G!) would be killer.

Realistically: a few factors.

The biggest one is technology lock-in. Do you really want to pay a premium on a MacBook to have its 3G or even 4G tech obsoleted in a year or two? Dual-mode chipsets are coming that will have LTE and 3G on one chip, and that'd be smarter.

Also: carriers hate cheap data plans for computers, because they know you're much more likely to actually use it. 2GB on an iPad? Sure, we know you'll probably use 700MB of it. But you're more likely to hit 2GB on a notebook, and because it's a full computer, they can't block you from sharing that connection with others. So the only alternative would be to charge for a tethering-enabled plan, no matter how you use it.

I'd add that Apple may think of battery life as too much of an issue. It's one thing to have 3G on an iPad, where you still get nine hours of juice on 3G. It's another when you drop from seven hours to five or less. No 3G or 4G until Apple is getting iPad-like longevity out of a MacBook Air, I say.

I would tend to blame it on the SKU. Look at the current offerings from Apple in the laptop line. They really only make 5 laptops. The only things within a line you can really change are the CPU, RAM, Storage and the screen type. Each of these changes is a drop in replacement for the same system. There isn't a different mainboard to install if you choose the 8gb vs 4gb machine or the SSD vs spinning disk. If you want more USB ports than 2 then you have to go up to the 17 inch MBP. you want the discrete GPU you get the 15 or the 17. They don't spend the time to figure out how to give you an option in the smaller cases to add that because if you need it then you will buy that larger laptop if you don't then you go with the smaller one.

Now if Apple were to add a built in 3G option they would have to either make an extra set of mainboards for all these machines and figure out how to run the wires and making a new #G enabled case to handle all of that so now the 15 inch MBP isn't all the same you have to know what one it is... or they would have to make all the machines include the space and hardware support for 3g to allow the build option. They won't do the later until enough people are buying the option to make up for the increased price on the machines sold to people that don't need/want 3g. Then to make it worse you have to figure out who's 3G you are going to support. Do you make one for all the networks?

The current culture in Apple products just doesn't mesh with that. Each product they sell currently has a sales pitch to differentiate it from the rest of the machines. The 17inch is for the professional that needs the cardbus slot, the 15 is for the pro that doesn't need the card bus but needs the graphics processing the 13 is if you need 8gb of ram but don't need the higher graphics, the 13 air is if you need the screen realestate but super portability, the 11 for the price and super portability.

Why would they want to mess that up with a dozen different versions of each size to support the different carriers and/or countries? And all to capture a very small portion of the market? The iPad has a wider range of use locations than a laptop. The iPad can be comfortably used in all the same places a laptop can be but it will be found in more places that you just wouldn't pull out your laptop due to space or "workplace" ergonomics. And those are the places that don't have wifi (yet) because up until this point people haven't brought laptops to them and tried to use them so there hasn't been a need for wifi to come to those places.

I see Apple as staying out of that game in favor of simplicity of SKU and being able to send you to whatever wireless provider you want to get that service. It isn't like they would make a huge amount of money on the 3g hardware nor would they like to get into making a device like the mifi as there isn't a great profit to be made there. They will keep on making distinct devices that fit a use case and let the current corner cases go with an existing solution. I only see it happening if they can find a large enough market to make it worth it to put it in every machine in a line. That being said I could see them experiment with it in the 13 inch air or maybe in the 11 inch if they can find a way to make the manufacturing work to keep the entry model at the $999.

While I have (all too often) been without a connection (but I can quit anytime I want), I really don't want to give money, or even deal with, providers any more than I do now.

Seems to me that Apple decided to focus on the iPhone and iPad instead. 3G is more suited to casual devices than it is for actual workhorses, maybe they'll change their mind once cheap, reliable 4G networks are a reality.

How well have those 3g laptops sold? Money is at the heart of nearly every decision, and as cutting edge as we'd like to believe Apple to be, they are often slow to adopt new technologies over proven popular tech. (Bluray, AMOLED, 4g...)

Perhaps, as the 3g MBP Prototype shows, they are unhappy with the 3g reception/performance when it comes to including the tech in an Applesque design.

Maybe it's a question of battery life. Leaving 3g/4g + Wifi + Bluetooth on might lead owners to believe that Apple laptops have poor battery life (which they are currently pushing as a selling point)

Who knows. It's all speculation, but I'm willing to bet the target market is smaller than we believe it to be. I know I'm more likely to purchase a dongle/card instead of a whole new laptop. Those who need 3g already have solution, and they are not going to adopt/abandon purchasing an Apple machine solely on 3g.

Just my 2 cents.

I think the data plans might have something to do with it. Apple had AT&T create new data plans for the iphone and ipad in order to create a solution that they thought worked well for those devices. People can only get 5GB plans on 2-year contracts for computers now, and perhaps Apple doesn't think this is a good product for mobile internet access for a laptop.

I just got my new MacBook a few weeks ago and I am happy it has no 3G built-in as I have an Android phone with WiFi hotspot built-in. I pay €20 pm and I can connect up to 5 devices. I would not like to have to pay for a extra contract.

Apple has always had a vision of how the technological ecosystem should evolve as they have released devices. My guess is that they see their mobile devices (iPhone, iPod, iPad) as the "appendage" of the 3G network. That's the market they want to drive.

Steve Jobs did not like carriers. He didn't even want the iPhone to run on carriers so he definitely wouldn't want it in any Macs.

Quite simply, I think it's because Apple doesn't own an internet or phone provider yet. They don't want to leave their computer customers feeling like their phone customers; locked in to a company no matter what. If it was Apple provided 3G that is available worldwide, in a perfect world, opinion would change.

I think 3G would be a little slow for a laptop. I think Apple probably feels the same way.

The current 3G and 4G networks are having a hard enough time keeping up with the bandwidth demands of smartphones which, by comparison, allow users to consume far, far less data than they can on a traditional notebook. There's no way in hell the carriers could survive 3G/4G showing up in a popular mainstream notebook model, be it from Apple or another provider.

And when the entire network goes down because a bunch of people are pirating movies in the middle of the park, people who need to actually get work done or make critical phone calls would be out for blood.

They are probably waiting for 4G to be ready. I think Sprint quietly offers a WiMax laptop and Verizon demoed some LTE netbooks at CES if I remember correctly.

I think 3G access and I think expensive and unnecessary. I wish it was feasible to just walk around with a Mifi all the time and just have an iPod Touch so I could just have one monthly bill instead of a wireless internet bill and a home internet bill. I do use the phone part of my iPhone a lot so I know this isn't going to happen anytime soon. When Clearwire first came out I envisioned this working....then I woke up. I know that the connection would be much slower and likely drop out often because it's a newer service.

Emerging tech like portable wifi can never keep up with permanent hardware like a home connection.

Back to the main question: How useful is having a 3G connection on your computer when 4G comes to fruition? Hopefully you don't buy a new laptop each year because many are meant to last 3-5 years. Sounds kinda like the argument about bluetooth, wifi, gps and other tech built into cars. You buy a car to last 5-15 years. You buy a computer to last between 3-8 years. You buy a phone to last 2-3 years. New shit comes out each quarter, so having a car with bluetooth from 2007 is useless in 2014, same with having a laptop with 2010 3G connection in the world of 4G in 2013.

I think there are a number of factors, first of which is demand. A few years ago everyone was in a hurry to build a 3G radio into their devices. That trend has tapered off, and now 3G seems the exception. Consider the B&N Nook and Amazon Kindle. The WiFi only version of these devices are much more common than their 3G equipped siblings. The customer didn't even feel the pain of paying for an extra data account when it came to those devices.

Which brings me to thought #2: customers need the ability share a single data account across multiple devices. Currently, each radio you carry around needs a plan, and the bandwidth quotas for those plans don't pool together. That means you might exhaust your laptop's quota while barely approaching your tablet's or phone's cap. Until that happens I expect customers will prefer to use WiFi only, or use a portable hotspot / tethering to achieve the same end.

Cost might be another consideration. 3G radios aren't terribly expensive, but they aren't free either. They also take up precious space in a device where weight and size are critical selling points.

Consider the use case as well. If you are in a location where you have no WiFi access but might have 3G access would you rather
- Use your phone
- Use your tablet
- Use your laptop

I'm thinking the laptop is the loser in that lottery.

It also doesn't hurt Apple that the absence of a 3G radio in a laptop gives their customers an excuse to carry around an iPad, but I doubt that is deliberate.

All that said, a radio in a MacBook would certainly be useful to a niche group, and I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see it become an option.

It makes more sense to buy a mifi or dungal. Unless the 3g chip is user upgradable, which is unlikely on a MacBook Pro, the technology will be outdated before your mac will. And I'm sick of paying 5 different data plans. Unless the carrier consolidate these accounts, another monodevice 3g data plan doesn't sound very appealing. We need an umbrella plan that encompasses all my connected devices on the same, and hopefully less expensive monthly bill. I'd give up my unlimited at&t iPhone plan for that.

Your guess is as good as mine. I believe they have problems attending to the real public mainstream needs. They believe, they only know what's best for the consumer because they say so. So hardly any input is probably even gone through from their consumers. It's a big theory, but it could end up harming their development product team's decisions because they're going upon their standards that's been made up over the so many years. They go by the book. EVEN THOUGH they say it's made by the artists or musicians themselves, alot of love and community has been built upon it. Though, the machines work GREAT and sometimes even flawless, no product is perfect.
Basically, the bottom line is they don't care what you want. They just keep making their machines that work for them, not the general public. Lots of words, but just things to keep bare in mind. I wouldn't take any of this for more than a grain of sand, when I speak of this.

I bet Apple is demanding no contracts for 3g laptops. With such iPad 3g success, they don't want to scare customers away with a contract.

Probably because they want to be involved with carriers as less as possible, after all they don't exactly like carriers, as proved by their original discussions about the iPhone. Plus now that the iPhone 4 supports wifi hotspsots, they will say that you can tether from that.

Furthermore most likely because one of the key selling points about the Macbooks is the battery life, and this would dramatically reduce it if i'm not mistaken, like adding an extra processor ;)

I am not 100% sure why Apple has not included a built-in Cellular in the past, but I have a theory for the future. Starting with the introduction of the Verizon iPhone 4 and contuining with the 4S, Apple now uses Qualcomm modems. This new business partnership with QC could open up new doors for the Gobi based modems to be included in MacBooks. The beauty of these modems is that they can have almost all bands and technology types in a single modem, allowing multi-carrier choice. Qualcomm makes the "mother of all modems" and they could be showing up in a MacBook soon.

- We don't think that Apple is not capable of integrating a tiny 3G Qualcomm into the MacBooks, does your MacBook run out of battery when a 3G USB stick is attached to it all the time ?

- have a look at how the Qualcomm is designed, some chips can have different receivers inside i.e. Bluetooth and Wifi, so integrating the technology to the Wifi chip in the MacBooks isn't really a challenge, is it !!

- See how annoying is that you are taking the Bus or the Metro for a couple of stations and your MacBook Air 11" to check your mail, edit a pdf and send it right away !! Now you have to get your iPhone out first activate the Wifi tethering function and then open the MacBook and wait for the connection to be established !! That's too much..

- A lot of companies did start manufacturing 3G enabled Laptops ages ago, and it's up to the customer, which data plan you choose, there should be a little program on the Mac to exclude the unnecessary data traffics over 3G.

P.S. Same boring situation when you have your 3G USB Stick attached to your Mac, only people who have tried this knows ugly is it.