Totally Agree with @davidacland not to make this discussion about Thin Imaging vs Bare Metal Imaging. Thin Imaging works for a few machines and rollouts at a time. Our rollouts, and re-images are weekly. Netboot is a workhorse when configured properly and maintained.

@CasperSally You and me both, I don't like the idea of replacing every MBA in my environment with a MBPr.

The connector is USB-C, but the bus is USB 3.0. So, it's not going to be like using a 5 year old USB 1.1 5400rpm hard drive or anything. Not ideal, but not a total nightmare. Apple also have USB-C to USB adaptors ($19), but their USB to Ethernet adaptor is still listed as 2.0... which is not ideal. Looks like a local USB 3.0 boot drive is the way to go for now.

Well the apple usb-ethernet adapter is only 10/100Base-T so yeah it will suck.. bad.

Admittedly, I'm holding out hope that there will be a better adaptor. However if each machine really can operate at 100 Mbps then it can still be acceptable. Then again, I've never seen a usb adaptor run at thise speeds...

@Chris_Hafner Yep 6-8mb/sec in practice is what i've seen. We stopped imaging about 300 macbook airs using the adapters after the first run of 10 and did the rest over wifi, got much better throughput.

I think this new macbook is like the original air, super expensive, very limited capabilities. Hopefully it gets better and becomes a decent machine before they kill the air.

Read this summary of USB-C and learned its 10Gbps. That's twice USB 3.

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/usb-type-c-faq

The more I think about the "Macbook" the more I think about it as a home or personal computer. Not a business machine.

@cwaldrip Probably wouldnt really believe much that is written on Wired TBH

Straight from the horses mouth: ie Apple.

Again, I really don't think that the USB-C standard here will cause any speed issues at all. I am a little surprised that thunderbolt didn't make it here, I can see USB-C as the standard for "iOS" devices moving forward. That could be interesting. However, it all goes back to the adaptors. If a new USB-C adaptor can run a USB 3.1 speeds then we're A-OK. At the moment I don't see any sort of adaptor form Apple. The closest thing is their USB-C to USB (or one of the other USB-C Adaptors with a USB port) which you'd have to plug a standard USB to ethernet adaptor into. That's not going to be pretty in any event.

The USB-C to AV adaptor has another USB-C 'link' port. This can be utilized for charging during any type of transfer. If I could get something like a USB-C to Ethernet adaptor WITH power I would be in a far better situation that I am with the current MacBook Air's during mass imaging. I'm particularly interested in this because I would put good money on the fact that I'll have a flood of students with these next year.

Again, this is going to be all about the adaptors... again.

@calumhunter ah. Maybe the spec can go up to 10Gbps, but Apple is choosing to stick with 3.x. Interesting.

@rderewianko

The more I think about the "Macbook" the more I think about it as a home or personal computer. Not a business machine.

Apple does not make personal and business devices. They make devices.

It's going to be a few months before the computer is for sale, I bet we'll see more adapters and cables by then. (Like DisplayPort to USB-C)

Belkin announces USB-C to Gigabit Ethernet adapter

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/03/11/belkin-new-usb-c-cables/

@dstranathan Sweet. Nice catch on that one! All I hope is that it has another USB-C charging port.

By the way - does anyone know what build of OS X 10.10 Yosemite is running on the new 2015 MacBook 12" laptops? Safe bet that it ain't 14C109

Apple's site hasn't been updated to reflect the recently-announced Apple 2015 hardware yet. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204319

I don't know the exact build, but one of our Apple reps already confirmed for us that they are running a different build than the 10.10.2 retail version, so it means building a new base image... once again.

Imaging is dead.

Business

Education

@jcarr That's nice, if you live in the USA.

Good point, @Matt.Sim.

My post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Sorry I forgot to close my </tongueincheek> tag. :)

Seriously though, I'm sure DEP will be coming to more and more countries. Also, given where this new MacBook fits into the product lineup, it is squarely aimed at the consumer market. For the foreseeable future, in most cases EDU will likely stick with the MacBook Air for the price point, and PRO users will want the capabilities of the MacBook Pro.

Don't forget though, DEP is available in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States.

Again, Apple designs for the user not for the market.

Every time something new comes out we race to say why we can't use it, instead of asking if it can help us. Look at the iPad, and what it did for slow, clunky, HEAVY, 15" laptop carts with 90 second login times because "it needs to be joined to the domain".

I'm wicked excited to see what the MacBook does at blending Air and Pro features. I'm about ready to buy one myself except I don't like using a system that's different from what my users use, and we like the simplicity and consistency of the Air.

DEP sounds cool, but if you work in a big enough company good luck getting the right legal people to care enough to fill out the forms so you can get enrolled properly. I spent a couple of weeks on it when they released it and have not had time to chase that down again. And then can you enroll all of your existing computers in it?
I am sure DEP is a discussion for another thread.

About the "New" MacBook how new is it other than the part forcing you to buy all new cables and adapters, having a slower processor, but it has turbo, I remember my first 286 that had a turbo button. The new touch pad sounds interesting but so what. They have not posted the actual spec of the wifi card, is it still a consumer level card that lets Bluetooth disrupt its networking capabilities? In all reality its just another laptop that comes in 3 colors now. I would be more excited about fixing all the enterprise type bugs and instabilities and getting anywhere close to how stable 10.6.8 was. Although the localhost renaming bug is fixed in the latest 10.10.3 seed and I was quite happy about that yesterday.

here I go rambling about stuff only slightly relevant to the discussion.

If I had to do it in my current environment, I might craft an imaging process around a combination of Self Service and/or custom policy triggers. Essentially, you could create a whole mess of policies which are all triggered by a single custom policy trigger, and in order to "image" one of these, you'd:

1. Enroll (DEP, quick-add, /enroll page, whatever)
2. sudo jamf policy -trigger GoldOnMyMacbook 2a. If you want, create a Self Service policy (scoped to your imagers) which runs the above command
3. Make a sammich

Rebuilds are going to depend on either having access to Internet recovery or an OS installer on some external USB storage, but I tend to keep one, so NBD. Once the OS is re-installed, start over.

A bit more about the policies - I'd create a category just for this set of policies, so that they're visually separated in the policy page. I'd alphabetize them where it really mattered in what order they run, including something like "zzz - Recon" at the end (obviously not running recon on every policy). I've also created a launchdaemon that does (among other things) a recon, in cases where I need it to occur after a reboot.

I remember when the first air came out and everyone was losing their mind how slow it was, how little ports it had, etc, etc. and everyone somehow survived. And now everyone is like "I hope they don't get rid of the Air".

Apple has telegraphed their move; this is the third time in recent memory that they've done it! The Air came out as expensive and niche, but it got cheaper and obviated the old Macbook. The Retina came out as expensive and niche, but it got cheaper and obviated the old Macbook Pro. Now the Macbook is here as the clear replacement for the Air. It's expensive and niche, but it'll get cheaper, and it'll obviate the Air.

I don't have a ZOMG MUST HAVE reaction to this machine, personally, but I can't wait to get my hands on a few and hand them to my road-warrior users, new dongles and all.

Now, if they can just get iTunes' Wifi synching to work reliably..

Has anyone considered that this MacBook has an 802.11ac chip in it?
I know wide spread AC adoption is in its very early stages (I am lucky enough to be in a position to direct policy in our organisation and have insisted on AC as part of any upgrade).
But given that most devices are still put in the hands of IT to prep before deployment surely a single AC point in the lab will give Gigabit wireless. Far better than the current Apple 10/100 USB-Ethernet and will allow those who have NetBoot based methodologies to continue doing what they do.