Monthly Archives: September 2012

Yes, Virginia, the rMBP does have optical out

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There’s been some question and debate around the interwebs about whether or not the new MacBook Pro with Retina display has an optical out or not. Pretty much every Mac released for the past ten years or so has provided digital audio output via the 3.5 mm stereo jack, requiring a mini-TOSLINK cable or adapter to utilize. However, the Apple does not list such functionality on the rMBP tech specs, leading to some speculation about whether Apple has decided to EOL this feature.

Here’s some pretty definitive proof that the feature is in fact still available and ready to go, courtesy of a Monoprice mini-TOSLINK adapter. Ooh, shiny red glow. Do not look directly into laser with remaining eye.

rMBP: 10.8.2 and EFI Update 1.0

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Yesterday, Apple released OS X Mountain Lion Update v10.8.2 and MacBook Pro Retina EFI Update 1.0. I’m pleased to announce that one or both of these updates have resolved the poor battery life and slow wake-from-deep-sleep issues I’ve been experiencing over the past few weeks.

The latter issue hasn’t been widely reported. Essentially, it would take my rMBP a few moments to wake up after being in power-saving mode for an extended period of time (more than a few hours). That may not seem like a big deal, but instant wake-from-sleep is an oft-touted selling point of this product.

Full review of the rMBP and the new (unfortunately-named) EarPods to follow…

UPDATE: I may have spoken too soon. I still have a momentary pause after waking from deep sleep, where the password-to-unlock entry field is whited out and the system time is out-of-date. It’s better than it was before, but still annoying.

UPDATE 2: Okay, here’s the scoop. The momentary pause is actually the system coming out of hibernate, where it essentially has to reconstitute the RAM state from a file on disk. This takes a few seconds for obvious reasons. Fortunately, you can control whether this feature is enabled, and the time delay before going into hibernate mode. Here‘s a Stack Exchange post about it.