So what use do you have for an ODD? This is going to happen and there's nothing you can do to stop it.
On my personal MBP, I like to watch movies. That's just about the only thing I ever use it for. On my work MBP, occasionally I might get some documents on a CD, but that is vanishingly rare.... I have to admit that I'd prefer to have an internal ODD and I'll happily sacrifice a few mm of thickness, but I can see how my use case might not be a market driver. As long as there is a large screen and I can stuff enough DRAM in, I'll be happy. The early Airs were a little too limited with DRAM options, so I stayed away from them, but that is less of an issue now.
It seems like rumors/opinions pop up occasionally that Apple is abandoning the "higher end" - like abandoning the Mac Pros, or by making the MBPs less powerful. I hope that these rumors don't turn out to be true. Less memory and such is fine for watching media, but for creating stuff (coding, 3D rendering, etc...), having the extra power is well worth it.
By the end the year, I suspect they will have the following lineup:
Tablet: iPad 2, iPad 3
Notebook: Macbook Air 11, 13, 15, 17
Desktop: iMac 21, 27 (also radically thinner than the current ones)
There will be no HDs anywhere. If you want an HD you can use the Thunderbolt port. Apple may even provide their own external HD, in the same way they provide an external optical drive now.
So no MacBook Pros?
I don't think the 13" MBP that loses the ODD and follows the tapered design of the MBA means they are the same machine. I am also not rulingout that Apple keeps the aluminium chassis of the current MBPs with the ODD as the new MacBooks for awhile, at least at the 13" size.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison
4G Cellular technology -in every model. I want to be on the road and realize that I need connectivity yet i'm nowhere near a Wifi station and be able to purchase a month of Data from AT&T, Verizon or Sprint. Having GPS in a MBP would also allow me to start leveraging location based applications with a higher degree of accuracy.
I'd like to see the world mode chip added to Mac notebooks, even if they follow the original AirPort card and make it something that can be easily installed by removing the bottom panel. Apple has done a great job of making them small and has kept them as a separate daughter board on the iPads so I don't think it's out of the question.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison
The processing power is a given.
Whatever comes down the pipe is going to be based on Ivy Bridge which is a lot more efficient than Sandy Bridge in power consumption.
With Ivy Bridge I'll be surprised if we don't get USB 3.0.
If this is true, then it looks like my current MBP better survive for a while or it will be my last. There is nothing PRO about the current airs. I absolutely need an optical drive, and SSD are so far, well too small for me. THE GPU is underwhelming as well. I'm not carrying around external pieces to get one with my daily life for the sake of being thin.
Thank you. I don't know what Apple will introduce, but I can testify that I use the optical drive enough that I would pause before buying a laptop without one. We do enough audio and video recording and editing in the field followed by handing out DVD's or CD's that "no optical drive" would be a problem. I do not want anymore external thingies to wrangle in my gigbag.
As for disk space, I feel very strongly that the current SSD's do not offer enough space for me to feel comfortable. We just have too many video files and multi-track audio recording sessions on the HDD to think about something less than 500 gb.
I'm not saying I won't buy whatever Apple replaces my 15" MBP with, but I really feel a need for an optical drive, a HDD, and no more fragile little boxes to keep up with.
Even Jobs said it when he announced the first Air.
I don't think SSD are going to be used by these machines. Memory cards will. They are a lot less expensive and easy to replace. I suppose 128GB cards will be the standard. 4 of these and you can have 512GB. On a laptop that's plenty of space. Most people didn't use even 256GB. And you can always have a USB HD for extra space, until those cards get to 256GB each.
Optical drives are dead. Dead, dead, dead. I have used the one on my MB Pro like 5 times, and not for me, but for other people.
I think we could see these new machines by June.
...And sure, at least one model will have a retina display.
If this is true, then it looks like my current MBP better survive for a while or it will be my last. There is nothing PRO about the current airs. I absolutely need an optical drive, and SSD are so far, well too small for me. THE GPU is underwhelming as well. I'm not carrying around external pieces to get one with my daily life for the sake of being thin.
It sounds like you are equating the removal of the ODD as the same as making it a MBA. That should not be how you see this. There is nothing to suggest they'll use a CULV CPU, a iGPU, have little internal storage, remove most ports, have soldered RAM, etc.
What do you absolutely need an optical drive for? From my experience people think they need legacy HW a lot more than they actually do.
Even Jobs said it when he announced the first Air.
I don't think SSD are going to be used by these machines. Memory cards will. They are a lot less expensive and easy to replace. I suppose 128GB cards will be the standard. 4 of these and you can have 512GB. On a laptop that's plenty of space. Most people didn't use even 256GB. And you can always have a USB HD for extra space, until those cards get to 256GB each.
Optical drives are dead. Dead, dead, dead. I have used the one on my MB Pro like 5 times, and not for me, but for other people.
I think we could see these new machines by June.
...And sure, at least one model will have a retina display.
Apple's the largest buyers of NAND storage in the world. They will use SSD. Anything less expensive delivers poorer performance and there's no need to take up precious space adding 4 slots. Also if you're thinking of RAM storage that won't work because it's volatile storage meaning that data is purged once you power down.
What's not immediately clear is how Apple plans to bridge the gap currently filled by the 13-inch MacBook Pro...
Uh, really? How about
- Quad core
- Real GPU
- 2+ Thunderbolt ports
- Matte option (heh, probably not)
That's very different from an Air. There's no reason the 13" Pro can't have the exact same specs as the 17" once you free up the room taken by the optical drive.
Anyone still thinking that Apple is going to release a laptop in 2012 with an optical drive and a (real) Ethernet port is, I think, going to be sorely disappointed. But I'll be first in line to grab a new 13" Pro.
Anyone still thinking that Apple is going to release a laptop in 2012 with an optical drive and a (real) Ethernet port is, I think, going to be sorely disappointed. But I'll be first in line to grab a new 13" Pro.
While I think that WiFi is by far the most LAN connection type I still think Ethernet might be included.
I do think that 802.11ac and 4 spatial streams should not be ruled out.
I guess I'm the only one here but I use my MBP as a primary computer and I refuse to buy music from iTunes as its bit rate is only 256. So if I can't find a FLAC or ALAC version to download I instead buy the disc to acquire the lossless format. Which in turn takes up more space thus makes me not want an SSD with the current price to size ratio. Buying an external optical drive for a computer that is over $2,000 seems silly when one that is <$300 comes with it.
But I digress... I know this is the way of the future.. may as well go along with it.
The new MacBook Pros may be sleek and light and fine for home users, but they'll be a disaster for professionals and the enterprise.
Apple's insistence on returning to the bad old days of proprietary hardware will severely limit, if not entirely prevent, aftermarket upgrade and replacement options for things like SSDs, DRAM and batteries. In the meantime, they're also ignoring the widely adopted and economical USB 3.0 bus in favor of the expensive and poorly supported Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt may be faster, but I can buy a 1TB USB 3.0 drive for $100. And for 99.999% of anything anyone would use it for, USB 3.0 is more than fast enough.
I would have thought Apple had learned their lesson from the early 90s that turning their back on open standards was a bad thing. Apparently not. Of course, that was when Apple was struggling to gain market share and the higher cost of proprietary hardware worked against their interests. That is why Apple was an early adopter of USB with the first iMac in 1997. It would appear that their relatively recent success has brought with it the arrogant belief that the best interests of the end user places a distant second to maximizing profits. Today, Apple's prevailing attitude has become: let's lock them into our walled garden and prevent them from configuring their Macs the way they want. Apple has indeed become the new Microsoft.
While I think that WiFi is by far the most LAN connection type I still think Ethernet might be included.
The port is just too damn tall. Not gonna happen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaun, UK
One unified design...
11" & 13" branded MBA - focus on price and battery life
15" & 17" branded MBP - focus on power and performance
Nah. Again, there's no reason a 13" has to be less powerful than a 15" or 17". I much prefer the 13" form factor. Just make it a real Pro machine on par with the other two, please.
The new MacBook Pros may be sleek and light and fine for home users, but they'll be a disaster for professionals and the enterprise.
Apple insistence on returning to the bad old days of proprietary hardware will severely limit, if not entirely prevent, aftermarket upgrade and replacement options for things like SSDs, DRAM and batteries. In the meantime, they're also ignoring the widely adopted and economical USB 3.0 bus in favor of the expensive and poorly supported Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt may be faster, but I can buy a 1TB USB drive for $100. And for 99.999% of anything anyone would use it for, USB 3.0 is more than fast enough.
I would have thought Apple had learned their lesson from the early 90s that turning their back on open standards was a bad thing. Apparently not. Of course, that was when Apple was struggling to gain market share. It would appear that their relatively recent success has brought with it the arrogant belief that the best interests of the end user places a distant second to maximizing profits. Apple has indeed become the new Microsoft.
You're assuming they would have to use a standard Ethernet port. They could go for something as simple as having the very back of the tapered design be just big enough for a standard Ethernet port opposite the MagSafe connector. Or they could have 3 or more USB 3.0 Type-A ports with an included adapter for Ethernet (something they typically don't do) or they could go radical and design their own mini-Ethernet port interface that they submit to a standards body for free just like they did with mini-DisplayPort.
They won?t disrupt the whole network space. Just the eleven people who meet all of these criteria:
1. Watch DVDs a lot while not at home, so an external drive is something to carry.
2. Object to the extra part to remember to put in their laptop bag, even if the total volume/weight still isn?t larger than the old Pro. And even if an external drive is just one part, compared to the stack of scratchable discs you?d need to lug no matter whether the drive were internal or external.
3. Prefer lugging extra weight for a drive and discs, instead of ripping a disc or watching from iTunes/etc..
4. Forget that the new Pros give you more for your money even IF you add the optional external drive.
OR
The four people who prefer to burn DVDs rather than re-use tiny, cheap thumbdrives... and must burn them while away from home/office. They?ll have an external drive (and scratchable discs) to lug too.
OR
The two people who like to install software at Denny's instead of at home via no-cost Remote Disc.
The rest of us will be glad that the external is optional; only carry that weight/volume when/if you need it.
So I really hope the internal opticals go away.* I haven?t wished for an internal optical in 4 years of using Airs as my primary professional work machines. And I have never needed to buy an external, even. Once in a long, long while I?ll need to use a disc, and Remote Disc does just fine. (I do watch DVDs... but at home.)
* Maybe not for the iMac, though: they?re nice home movie screens, and all-in-one simplicity is what they?re all about.
The white MacBook is totally gone, the Pros will look like Airs, and Apple is now selling Airs to the education market. That's pretty much settles it. The entire Apple notebook family will be ultrathins @ 11", 13", 15" and 17". They'll drop Air and Pro from the names and just call the whole lineup "MacBook".
Quote:
Originally Posted by old-wiz
But what about people who need 500 GB storage? or wired ethernet?
SSDs are already cresting 1TB, if you need more than that then you're okay with using externals. Th-th-th-Thunderbolt! And I'm sure the one-fives and one-sevens will be big enough for an ethernet port.
Frankly this is why I don't believe this rumor. I have nothing against the idea of a Mac Book AIR. In fact I could see myself buying one if the right configuration came along. The right configuration though would have to have a magnetic drive bay to go along with the solid state storage.
In a nut shell I don't see how Apple could be successful with a Pro marketed machine that doesn't have significant bulk storage capacity. It is one of the reasons I purchased my 2008 MBP over the alternatives at the time. Sadly even the large disks of that time where quickly out grown.
As to Ethernet I suspect that they will find a way to keep that around. Just from the standpoint of mechanical strength I don't think these machines will be as thin as the AIRs anyways. Beyond that I'm expecting that we will see another Thunderbolt port.
There are other issues also including RAM capacity, GPU support and battery life that are important to Pro owners. Apple should have a grasp of all of these needs of their users, as such I don't expect them to alienate a good portion of their pro customers. So while one can expect a modern design I don't think Apple would be so stupid as to castrate the machine. At least not for the bulk of its users. Everyone needs to remember that simply deleting the optical drive gives them a huge advantage in circuit board and battery layout.
Quote:
Originally Posted by old-wiz
But what about people who need 500 GB storage? or wired ethernet?
Comments
So what use do you have for an ODD? This is going to happen and there's nothing you can do to stop it.
On my personal MBP, I like to watch movies. That's just about the only thing I ever use it for. On my work MBP, occasionally I might get some documents on a CD, but that is vanishingly rare.... I have to admit that I'd prefer to have an internal ODD and I'll happily sacrifice a few mm of thickness, but I can see how my use case might not be a market driver. As long as there is a large screen and I can stuff enough DRAM in, I'll be happy. The early Airs were a little too limited with DRAM options, so I stayed away from them, but that is less of an issue now.
It seems like rumors/opinions pop up occasionally that Apple is abandoning the "higher end" - like abandoning the Mac Pros, or by making the MBPs less powerful. I hope that these rumors don't turn out to be true. Less memory and such is fine for watching media, but for creating stuff (coding, 3D rendering, etc...), having the extra power is well worth it.
By the end the year, I suspect they will have the following lineup:
Tablet: iPad 2, iPad 3
Notebook: Macbook Air 11, 13, 15, 17
Desktop: iMac 21, 27 (also radically thinner than the current ones)
There will be no HDs anywhere. If you want an HD you can use the Thunderbolt port. Apple may even provide their own external HD, in the same way they provide an external optical drive now.
So no MacBook Pros?
I don't think the 13" MBP that loses the ODD and follows the tapered design of the MBA means they are the same machine. I am also not rulingout that Apple keeps the aluminium chassis of the current MBPs with the ODD as the new MacBooks for awhile, at least at the 13" size.
4G Cellular technology -in every model. I want to be on the road and realize that I need connectivity yet i'm nowhere near a Wifi station and be able to purchase a month of Data from AT&T, Verizon or Sprint. Having GPS in a MBP would also allow me to start leveraging location based applications with a higher degree of accuracy.
I'd like to see the world mode chip added to Mac notebooks, even if they follow the original AirPort card and make it something that can be easily installed by removing the bottom panel. Apple has done a great job of making them small and has kept them as a separate daughter board on the iPads so I don't think it's out of the question.
The processing power is a given.
Whatever comes down the pipe is going to be based on Ivy Bridge which is a lot more efficient than Sandy Bridge in power consumption.
With Ivy Bridge I'll be surprised if we don't get USB 3.0.
If this is true, then it looks like my current MBP better survive for a while or it will be my last. There is nothing PRO about the current airs. I absolutely need an optical drive, and SSD are so far, well too small for me. THE GPU is underwhelming as well. I'm not carrying around external pieces to get one with my daily life for the sake of being thin.
Thank you. I don't know what Apple will introduce, but I can testify that I use the optical drive enough that I would pause before buying a laptop without one. We do enough audio and video recording and editing in the field followed by handing out DVD's or CD's that "no optical drive" would be a problem. I do not want anymore external thingies to wrangle in my gigbag.
As for disk space, I feel very strongly that the current SSD's do not offer enough space for me to feel comfortable. We just have too many video files and multi-track audio recording sessions on the HDD to think about something less than 500 gb.
I'm not saying I won't buy whatever Apple replaces my 15" MBP with, but I really feel a need for an optical drive, a HDD, and no more fragile little boxes to keep up with.
I don't think SSD are going to be used by these machines. Memory cards will. They are a lot less expensive and easy to replace. I suppose 128GB cards will be the standard. 4 of these and you can have 512GB. On a laptop that's plenty of space. Most people didn't use even 256GB. And you can always have a USB HD for extra space, until those cards get to 256GB each.
Optical drives are dead. Dead, dead, dead. I have used the one on my MB Pro like 5 times, and not for me, but for other people.
I think we could see these new machines by June.
...And sure, at least one model will have a retina display.
If this is true, then it looks like my current MBP better survive for a while or it will be my last. There is nothing PRO about the current airs. I absolutely need an optical drive, and SSD are so far, well too small for me. THE GPU is underwhelming as well. I'm not carrying around external pieces to get one with my daily life for the sake of being thin.
It sounds like you are equating the removal of the ODD as the same as making it a MBA. That should not be how you see this. There is nothing to suggest they'll use a CULV CPU, a iGPU, have little internal storage, remove most ports, have soldered RAM, etc.
What do you absolutely need an optical drive for? From my experience people think they need legacy HW a lot more than they actually do.
Even Jobs said it when he announced the first Air.
I don't think SSD are going to be used by these machines. Memory cards will. They are a lot less expensive and easy to replace. I suppose 128GB cards will be the standard. 4 of these and you can have 512GB. On a laptop that's plenty of space. Most people didn't use even 256GB. And you can always have a USB HD for extra space, until those cards get to 256GB each.
Optical drives are dead. Dead, dead, dead. I have used the one on my MB Pro like 5 times, and not for me, but for other people.
I think we could see these new machines by June.
...And sure, at least one model will have a retina display.
Apple's the largest buyers of NAND storage in the world. They will use SSD. Anything less expensive delivers poorer performance and there's no need to take up precious space adding 4 slots. Also if you're thinking of RAM storage that won't work because it's volatile storage meaning that data is purged once you power down.
What's not immediately clear is how Apple plans to bridge the gap currently filled by the 13-inch MacBook Pro...
Uh, really? How about
- Quad core
- Real GPU
- 2+ Thunderbolt ports
- Matte option (heh, probably not)
That's very different from an Air. There's no reason the 13" Pro can't have the exact same specs as the 17" once you free up the room taken by the optical drive.
Anyone still thinking that Apple is going to release a laptop in 2012 with an optical drive and a (real) Ethernet port is, I think, going to be sorely disappointed. But I'll be first in line to grab a new 13" Pro.
Anyone still thinking that Apple is going to release a laptop in 2012 with an optical drive and a (real) Ethernet port is, I think, going to be sorely disappointed. But I'll be first in line to grab a new 13" Pro.
While I think that WiFi is by far the most LAN connection type I still think Ethernet might be included.
I do think that 802.11ac and 4 spatial streams should not be ruled out.
11" & 13" branded MBA - focus on price and battery life
15" & 17" branded MBP - focus on power and performance
MBA 128Gb SSD / MBP 256Gb SSD
Ivy Bridge
But I digress... I know this is the way of the future.. may as well go along with it.
I see ThunderBolt for pros and a new wifi based solid state external for the masses coming from Apple soon.
p.s. I was just listing to some Hot Tuna, do you ever get those Hezetation Blues too?
Sounds like a cool tune, I should check that out.
Apple's insistence on returning to the bad old days of proprietary hardware will severely limit, if not entirely prevent, aftermarket upgrade and replacement options for things like SSDs, DRAM and batteries. In the meantime, they're also ignoring the widely adopted and economical USB 3.0 bus in favor of the expensive and poorly supported Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt may be faster, but I can buy a 1TB USB 3.0 drive for $100. And for 99.999% of anything anyone would use it for, USB 3.0 is more than fast enough.
I would have thought Apple had learned their lesson from the early 90s that turning their back on open standards was a bad thing. Apparently not. Of course, that was when Apple was struggling to gain market share and the higher cost of proprietary hardware worked against their interests. That is why Apple was an early adopter of USB with the first iMac in 1997. It would appear that their relatively recent success has brought with it the arrogant belief that the best interests of the end user places a distant second to maximizing profits. Today, Apple's prevailing attitude has become: let's lock them into our walled garden and prevent them from configuring their Macs the way they want. Apple has indeed become the new Microsoft.
While I think that WiFi is by far the most LAN connection type I still think Ethernet might be included.
The port is just too damn tall. Not gonna happen.
One unified design...
11" & 13" branded MBA - focus on price and battery life
15" & 17" branded MBP - focus on power and performance
Nah. Again, there's no reason a 13" has to be less powerful than a 15" or 17". I much prefer the 13" form factor. Just make it a real Pro machine on par with the other two, please.
The new MacBook Pros may be sleek and light and fine for home users, but they'll be a disaster for professionals and the enterprise.
Apple insistence on returning to the bad old days of proprietary hardware will severely limit, if not entirely prevent, aftermarket upgrade and replacement options for things like SSDs, DRAM and batteries. In the meantime, they're also ignoring the widely adopted and economical USB 3.0 bus in favor of the expensive and poorly supported Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt may be faster, but I can buy a 1TB USB drive for $100. And for 99.999% of anything anyone would use it for, USB 3.0 is more than fast enough.
I would have thought Apple had learned their lesson from the early 90s that turning their back on open standards was a bad thing. Apparently not. Of course, that was when Apple was struggling to gain market share. It would appear that their relatively recent success has brought with it the arrogant belief that the best interests of the end user places a distant second to maximizing profits. Apple has indeed become the new Microsoft.
So much FUD. Where does one begin?
The port is just too damn tall. Not gonna happen.
You're assuming they would have to use a standard Ethernet port. They could go for something as simple as having the very back of the tapered design be just big enough for a standard Ethernet port opposite the MagSafe connector. Or they could have 3 or more USB 3.0 Type-A ports with an included adapter for Ethernet (something they typically don't do) or they could go radical and design their own mini-Ethernet port interface that they submit to a standards body for free just like they did with mini-DisplayPort.
1. Watch DVDs a lot while not at home, so an external drive is something to carry.
2. Object to the extra part to remember to put in their laptop bag, even if the total volume/weight still isn?t larger than the old Pro. And even if an external drive is just one part, compared to the stack of scratchable discs you?d need to lug no matter whether the drive were internal or external.
3. Prefer lugging extra weight for a drive and discs, instead of ripping a disc or watching from iTunes/etc..
4. Forget that the new Pros give you more for your money even IF you add the optional external drive.
OR
The four people who prefer to burn DVDs rather than re-use tiny, cheap thumbdrives... and must burn them while away from home/office. They?ll have an external drive (and scratchable discs) to lug too.
OR
The two people who like to install software at Denny's instead of at home via no-cost Remote Disc.
The rest of us will be glad that the external is optional; only carry that weight/volume when/if you need it.
So I really hope the internal opticals go away.* I haven?t wished for an internal optical in 4 years of using Airs as my primary professional work machines. And I have never needed to buy an external, even. Once in a long, long while I?ll need to use a disc, and Remote Disc does just fine. (I do watch DVDs... but at home.)
* Maybe not for the iMac, though: they?re nice home movie screens, and all-in-one simplicity is what they?re all about.
But what about people who need 500 GB storage? or wired ethernet?
SSDs are already cresting 1TB, if you need more than that then you're okay with using externals. Th-th-th-Thunderbolt! And I'm sure the one-fives and one-sevens will be big enough for an ethernet port.
The new MacBook Pros may be sleek and light and fine for home users, but they'll be a disaster for professionals and the enterprise.
Already proven wrong.
Apple insistence on returning to the bad old days of proprietary hardware...
What, the SSD stick? What's proprietary about that connector? I'd love to know.
...will severely limit, if not entirely prevent, aftermarket upgrade and replacement options for things like SSDs...
Other than the fact that they've been offered for quite some time now.
...DRAM...
If Apple is moving to an entirely non-upgradable RAM system, you can be sure they'll step up their capacity game.
...and batteries.
Already been the case for about three years and people are getting along fine.
...USB 3.0...
Yeah, let's ignore the future for a port that doesn't even have HALF the throughput of ports already shipping on all but one Mac model.
And for 99.999% of anything anyone would use it for, USB 3.0 is more than fast enough.
1. You're not "anyone".
2. You don't do "anything". Which is blindingly apparent since you have no clue what you're talking about here.
I'll make the obligatory reference. I'll do it. Fine, here it is: 640k ought to be enough for anyone.
"OH, THUNDERBOLT. NO ONE NEEDS TO GO THAT FAST."
I would have thought Apple had learned their lesson from the early 90s that turning their back on open standards was a bad thing.
Again, would you elaborate on what is nonstandard about what they're using right now?
In a nut shell I don't see how Apple could be successful with a Pro marketed machine that doesn't have significant bulk storage capacity. It is one of the reasons I purchased my 2008 MBP over the alternatives at the time. Sadly even the large disks of that time where quickly out grown.
As to Ethernet I suspect that they will find a way to keep that around. Just from the standpoint of mechanical strength I don't think these machines will be as thin as the AIRs anyways. Beyond that I'm expecting that we will see another Thunderbolt port.
There are other issues also including RAM capacity, GPU support and battery life that are important to Pro owners. Apple should have a grasp of all of these needs of their users, as such I don't expect them to alienate a good portion of their pro customers. So while one can expect a modern design I don't think Apple would be so stupid as to castrate the machine. At least not for the bulk of its users. Everyone needs to remember that simply deleting the optical drive gives them a huge advantage in circuit board and battery layout.
But what about people who need 500 GB storage? or wired ethernet?