Rumor: Apple to launch 15-inch MacBook Air in April, 'effectively killing the Pro' - Page 4

There are a few things I'd like to see from Apple on a display level, but I don't know their feasibility at a manufacturing level within Apple's cost parameters. IPS has obviously gotten a lot cheaper. If they placed a large enough order, I suppose it's possible. The cost breakdown is definitely a bit different with a laptop though, especially with relative cpu costs. It wouldn't surprise me immensely to see them expand their line a bit, but that goes against the general forum attitude until they do such a thing. It's weird because most of the arguments seem to be in favor of whatever Apple is doing at that second.

Looking at the actual hardware that is available, I think it would be good if they maintained some differentiation between their machines. Heat and fan noise seem to be common points of user stress, so better heat dissipation in their power models would be excellent.

I do want to keep pretty much everything on the 15 pro, the optical, the ethernet, the rotating hard drive and the better cpu. I can give up the optical for a dual hard drive, one SSD one rotating but prefer optical.

If they dropped the pro completely I would gravitate towards a 13 air and using my desktop more, but at replacement time that desktop might not be an Apple if they dropped the optical out of that one too.

IPS seems more problematic than HiDPI. I am seeing some IPS panels in other machines but they are still pricey, seem to be low yield at those sizes, but this is Apple we're talking about and even though a 200 PPI* IPS display in a 13" MBP would probably be doable I can't see them doing that until they can put it in the entire line at or near the same time frame.

* HiDPI doesn't need to use a 2x scaling n order to get the appropriate scaling needed, unlike with a window-less OS.

What ever happened to the idea of putting Ethernet and other ports on the power brick? I don't need ethernet when I'm not plugged in, but sure would be nice and convenient to use the brick as a docking station of sorts.

Thought I read here that apple received a patent for this idea?

There area couple convenience issues with that idea but the biggest problem is the ability to transport. There have been a couple machines that did just that but they take the ethernet and convert to WiFi so it's even slower than using a USB dongle for 100BASE-T. The only feasible way around this is to use and optical cable for data in the power cable. So we're talking LightPeak that isn't even on the market, but then you'll need a controller in the power supply to convert to copper ethernet which I don't think warrants the cost in and of itself.

No, I am not incredibly weak. Also I was not trying to imply that a 17" was useless or even that it is too heavy.

Since I don't need that big of a screen there is little benefit for me in dragging around a larger and more awkward (and expensive!) computer. If I am hauling the kids around or am out and about for work I think that 17"
is just to big to be convenient. I might be using it in the drivers seat (while parked) or doing an invoice with it perched on the hood of my truck or balanced on my arm.

I am actually thinking about getting the new iPad because I would be more likely to take that with me then I do my 13" Macbook pro. And.. I think that high res screen might be easier on the eyes.

The rest of your comment I agree with. Running office, email, and surfing the inter webs the airs are
fast.

Your point???

To be less factious, I think Apple or the article write loses the point of the PRO line. It's for professionals, not for kids reading facebook in bed. If you're going to aim a hardware line and spec it for people who want to do more than browse the web, don't discard functionality for style. Optical is dead or mostly and I'd gladly live with a USB DVD drive for all the times I've used it, but when I'm throwing around multi-gig files on a network I don't want to do it via wireless.

To the commenters on the whole thunderbird/USB 3 adaptor: as long as it's included in the box, then it's cool. Asking someone to pay ~$150 for a standard peripheral on top of the ~$2k you've already paid is pushing the limit.

My point seems pretty obvious. What's your point?

Definitely drive performance. 7200 RPM drives are fast in terms of reliable, large volume notebook drives, but they don't stack up to SSD as far as speed is concerned.

However, Apple has a clear lead in solid state storage, and they seem to have found a way to manage the fidelity of their SS memory extremely well. Compare their storage — with very little known incidents of failure — to even the best third-party solid state aftermarket drives. The actual mean time between failure for the latter is roughly 9 months. That's astonishingly low, especially when you're talking about sensitive, unique data that's at risk.

What I really hope is included with the new laptops is a 1TB disc space. With all the hi-res videos and photos nowadays, 750GB is not (more than) enough. 1TB base space seems like a minimum requirement now.

Again I ask what your point is. I don't see how it addresses my comment about Apple having to actively not include USB 3.0 when its a part of the Ivy Bridge microarchitecture they'll be using.

ThunderBolt (ports, optical drive, graphic expansion).

For all the Storage naysayers, remote, cloud or server.

Thanks.

My original point was a sarcastic response to your comment about them being shitty if they would not including a USB 3 port. "your point?" inferred that yes, I think they would do it. I would sincerely hope that I'm wrong, but USB 3 is somewhat of a competitor to TB.

And my apologies, my intent was to be a smart ass, not to start a flame war.

I've been committed to 17" laptops since 2003, and I really find them awful to lug around. Maybe it doesn't matter so much if you aren't excessively mobile all the time (and by that I mean walking around all day, lugging you gear or commuting on a bike) but for me it has been awkward. They are just a smidge too big for most bags- especially messenger bags (at least the ones I use). If they work for you awesome! I just find them unwieldy.

That said, I am finally upgrading after FAR too may years and I really need Apple to keep the 15" Pros. I hope Apple remembers that professionals buy their laptops too... I don't need an optical drive enough to have one built in (an external is more than fine for the rare times I use it) And I wouldn't mind the extra space being used for something more beneficial- like a SSD boot It would be nice if they kept the ethernet port, but the real necessity is powerful graphics capabilities.

Don't break my heart Apple- stay away from Intel integrated graphics in Pro models.

That's the problem with sarcasm in text form. It can easily be missed.

FireWire is a lot closer to USB than Thunderbolt is yet Apple never removed USB or kept it at USB 1.1 so that FireWire was the only way to power an iDevice and the only feasible way to sync an iDevice. On top of that Apple had a big stake in FireWire where as Thunderbolt is an Intel tech.

Just like Thunderbolt not requiring Apple (or any vendors that use mDP) to add another port, USB 3.0 allows for backwards compatibility with USB 2.0.

Again, it'll be included in the microarchitecture so for Apple not to add it would be shitty.

I called this yesterday.

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...7&postcount=17

Do I get a cookie?

I suppose if they merge the Pro and Air lines together, it will be neither a Pro nor an Air, but rather "the new MacBook."

Well a few years ago IPS was extremely expensive, and LG panels weren't so great. Things have changed obviously, but in the past IPS leveraged out older crt displays where quality was needed. Obviously phones were another matter as they became a big point of growth. Given that a number of low cost IPS displays exist, I'm guessing it would be possible in a notebook space if Apple really wanted it. The large premium on such a display is likely due to low volume, but HP has a 15" 1920x1080 with their dreamcolor label. To give Apple credit, the current displays really aren't bad for TN displays. Some of the older ones sucked. If implementation was simple enough they could do something like bump the current "high resolution" display to a standard option and offer IPS as an upgrade with higher resolution. I guess it would be an issue of how many people are willing to pay for such a thing. My point before was that laptops got passed over there. IPS made headway on desktop displays where quality was needed in medical, broadcast, prepress, color grading, etc. to replace aging crts. Then the next big thing was smartphones, although I have no idea what the display cost is for the iphone.

Displays are a really quirky issue though. There are so many aspects and so many small pieces of circuitry that affect performance and stability. I'm not a huge fan of Apple in terms of desktop displays. They have different issues from some of the others on the market.



Did you take note that the rumor was started by a troll blog?

Dropbox at $9.99 per month gets you 50GB. That is probably less than the cost of the shipping of the DVD.

On top of that they will have it on their system ready to go in a much faster time. Plus, if it's just a routine editing of the same basic file it will only sync the changes which can make it nearly instantaneous. Finally, with the paid service all versions are stored indefinitely which means you'll never be more than a few clicks away from older files.

Who knows? Maybe all these nebulous rumors were triggered when some leaker saw the enclosure for the new 15" MacBook Pro. Thinner, like the MacBook Air. More tapered, like the MacBook Air. No optical drive, like the MacBook Air. None of those changes should surprise anyone in the slightest.

Remember, way back in January 2008, when the first MacBook Air was announced? Steve Jobs pulled one out of that manila envelope and said "We think it's the future of notebooks." The tag line for MacBook Air ads was "The future of notebooks." Well it's been more than four years since then. That particular future is now.

Throw in Retina and it's sold so far as I am concerned.

black ! God no, lets not go back to that monstrosity...

How would you then open up the lid. With the screen up it covers the entire back panel.

This design is very elegant. I cannot see them dropping it in a month of sundays

The air is the future... post pc era..... blah blah..

They say this stuff because it sounds cool. These rumors are nothing more than bloggers trying to pick a winner. You really don't need credible information when the rumor already plays into popular opinion.

+10000000 on this

If they do go the optical route and it is pricey, maybe that coincides with the merging of the lines? Buy a Macbook and it comes with a standard power brick and no onboard ethernet port. But they also sell an optional "Pro" power supply/port. Found the original article that mentioned the patent:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...connector.html

Apple will drop both the "Air" and the "Pro" monikers with a move similar to what they did with the new iPad.

We'll now have the 11" Macbook, 13" Macbook, 15" Macbook, and in a few months the 17" Macbook.

this is not a matter of if.
it's a matter when

and this
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/n...-battery/18985

makes me think we're going to see unheard of battery life in portables really soon

Not likely.

Apple didn't merge the Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Pro products into a single product line and I don't see any reason why they'd do it with laptops.

I first thought that this would have been a great compromise, giving people a nice way to make a dual drive MacBook Pro. A lot of people like having that 750 to 1000 GB hard disk in their laptop. But I think the spinning Hard Disk is no longer appropriate for a portables.

I want Apple to blow us away with a completely solid state MacBook Pro. Putting in slots for two or three "MBA" style SSDs and then update Disk Utility so that you could create a RAID array across the drives. That would offer more capacity and/or better performance and/or maybe a little data redundancy. Larger disk-based storage devices could be accessed via the Thunderbolt Port, a USB 3.0 port, Ethernet Port, or the new wireless AirPort (802.11ac). That's a nice variety of connectivity options...

I may take a lot of flak for saying this, but the 2.5" drive form factor is a waste of space. That space would better be used to beef up the battery. The bigger battery can drive a brighter display, with more pixels (retina), and better graphics chip, all the while delivering more hours of happy usage.

I couldn't disagree more. It makes perfect sense to have one name for the entire line: Macbook.

Really, why have two Macbook Air models 11" and 13" and two Macbook Pro models 15" and 17". They could call the 11" an Air, but why differentiate when they are all going to be Air-like slim according to the proposed rumors? Calling the larger, but aesthetically identical, laptops "Pro" seems superfluous.

They may go that route if they deem that internal storage isn't the most important aspect for a pro notebook. I'm thinking it still has its merits and selling points which is why I don't think the 2.5" drive can die quite yet.

It's a couple years now (maybe three) that I removed my ODD and replaced it with an OptiBay so I can place a HDD in that space. I then added a 2nd gen Intel X25 80GB SSD where the standard drive goes. Then in OS X System Preferences under Users I rerouted the entire HDD to become my user partition. This gives me the unique ability to have my system boot in under 10 seconds, wake from sleep in under 2 seconds, and launch pretty much every app instantly all while getting a substantial amount of storage. I now have a 1TB 9.5mm HDD for my user folder. It's the best of both world for me.

Right now, the ODD is a 13.7mm drive which allows one to use a 13.5mm thick HDD in the standard HDD bay. For Apple to waste less space while cost to GB go down slowly over the next few years they could use a 9.5mm max drive. Or, they could even go with a 7mm single platter drive. I think you can get about 500GB from them now, which may still be too small for many pro users.

Regardless, I hope they do offer a fast boot system with a lot of storage at a good price. Outside of that I don't care how they do it even though my criteria do limit the possibilities.

Me too, like my old Pismo.


Ah, good point.


When I first got my 17' (July '09), I lugged it wherever I went. It was heavy, but compared to other 15 and 17 inchers, very luggable. Now that I've stopped carrying it except when I really need to, however, it does feel very heavy.

But I love the real estate of the 17", I don't think I could go smaller.


Should it not be "Macbooks Air"?

Many large, content-creation firms (studios, post-houses, etc) have shifted to Aspera.

We're not going to see an end to the need for Ethernet though. Any of the three customers I've just mentioned have on average, a staggering number of Macs. The daily data transfer rates would make the best WiFi networks melt.

(e.x: 60 seconds of Pro Res footage = 2GB)

I agree that Apple needs to get competitive on SSD pricing if they wish to retain thought leaders and tech pros with their high end MBPs (MBAs?) ...

As for gig eth & the rest, I'm just getting a 27" TB Cinema Display for all that. A high-end graphics chip needs to be onboard however, to drive what I hope will be a retina display (or close) on these laptops.

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My gawd, I hope so! The memory size of 4GB is the *only* reason I don't own a 13.3" MBA already and I've told this to numerous Apple retail employees every time I walk into an Apple store!

You're arguing some things that don't really make a difference. Brighter isn't better in terms of displays. It's not really needed unless you feel they grow too dim as they age. There are far better ways to improve a display than raising its maximum luminance.

I don't mind the MBA style ssds, but you should consider cost here. That kind of density is most likely very expensive. I'm sure the idea would sell, but I don't know that you'd feel the difference as much as you expect.

I haven't used my Ethernet port in something like 5 years.

So my prediction is it's gonna go.

BTW no one said they'd kill the MBP line - the guy quoted in the rumor said it would "kill the pro for the average consumer" meaning the new 15" air would be a way better / cheaper / nicer choice for any non-pro.

Pro or not imma get that puppy. Been waiting for this for so long...

Dude - it's 2012. I can download 1GB in about 1 hour and I am in a 3rd world country with shitty internet connections. Japan or Europe? Please.

Use download managers if you have disconnect issues. Use a seed box (100MB up/down) and make torrents, that costs all of $5/month. Or a dedicated FTP server. Or Dropbox, actually, which automates all of this stuff.