Apple's slimmer 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros in production - report - Page 3

How many times do you need people to tell you, you are exhausting their patience after some point, read the other thread we had here, it's not a viable option to carry around with you adapters for basic out of the box functionality, adapters break, get lost, get misplaced, get forgoten and all these don't make them viable options for usage when you need to just stick a cable in your MacBook and join a network in a conference, at work, in a hotel, at a uni, or any of the countless scenarios of usage where Ethernet network access becomes a necessity.

How long more are you going to keep asking for people to explain to you the same thing over and over again?

It isn't a question of like, Ethernet dongles are a non starter in many organizations.

indeed. In fact they don't really 'announce' updated computers that much anymore. They just update the site and there they are.

As for the rumors. Apple already makes a slimmer 13 inch Macbook Pro, it's called the 13 inch Air. So that's likely a valid bit. They are possibly updating the displays etc on them to bring them a bit closer to the Pro with the intention of slowly moving that Pro model out of the lineup so it's merely the Air at 11 and 13 and the Pro at 15 and 17.

Is it possible they will reduce the pro to only the 17. Maybe. But I don't think it will happen right now. I think they will keep the 15 in the game for a bit longer. For higher end users that don't want the 17. the 15s sell enough to warrant that. Do I think they might make a 15 inch Air even this year. Perhaps. But i'm not selling the house or my soul based on Digitimes as the only source. That's a suckers bet on the losing side

apples documentation is pretty clear, they tell developers that non integer multipliers are possible. Now that being said they will likely take the easy way out and double the resolution. It really comes down to their ability to source large panels in 2X pixel density. If they can't get the hardware then either high resolution panels are out of the question or they compromise. Honest a 1.5x increase in pixel density would still be pretty impressive visually.

Apple hasn't had an issue yet with strength but I've handled other laptops that where flimsy to say the least! My early 2008 MBP isn't bad at all and I actually thought the newer ones where stiffer. Of course that isn't a 17" machine.

As to CNC'ed enclosures I actually wonder if Apple will stay on that route for future machines.


In any event my iPad 3 just arrived!!!!😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃

Obviously this thread has just lost any importance it may have had.

I believe a redesign would constitute a keynote, albeit shorter than the iPad one.

The iMac gets a keynote on every redesign, and the unibody got a keynote with its introduction.

I like Wizard's list too.

Apple is lucky when it comes to the amount of RAM they include in their machines. They can often get away with shipping just 2GB when PCs are shipping with more because their customers are loyal and gullible and because third party RAM is so cheap that Pro users who feel like Apple ripped them off are just $40 away from being satisfied. An 8GB dual channel PC-10600 kit currently goes for $37 at my local PC shop.

Of course when retail prices are that low many openly question why Apple couldn't just include more in the first place and keep whatever profit there is on $37 worth of RAM for themselves. The answer lies in the gullible customers who willingly part with $200 to get that RAM pre-installed.

On the MacBook Air side of things they're relying on people's desire for thin and light to quell any whining about insufficient stock RAM. People are forced to pay Apple prices for additional RAM or shut up and buy a PC.

This is a great idea.

I love the iPad 3. It gives my company more work to do making my job more secure and it raises the value of my AAPL shares.

We have lived for lot's of years with DVI (mDVI) and then mDP ports on Mac laptops while projectors stuck to VGA. And since using adaptors was not viable, nobody who occasionally used those projectors bought Mac laptops.

Not being viable means not surviving in the market. Obviously Mac laptops survived in the market thus your assertion that adaptors are not viable is just a wishful projection (ie, hoping to convince as many people that Mac laptops would not be viable and thus convincing, indirectly, Apple not to release such machines).

And I wonder how all those MBA's without Ethernet are selling in such huge numbers if they are not viable.

Whoever thinks mounting an external file system over an easily disconnectable connection is a great idea has great faith in the resilience of file systems.

I love the 13" MBA I got last year and, at home, it's mostly hooked up to the 27" Thunderbolt Display. It's great for long business trips but I do yearn for a 15" screen every now and then. A 15" MBA that still weighs only 3 pounds would be the holy grail - for at least a few years.

15" thinner MBP - fine!
Just

This is one impressive little tablet! The upgrade from the original iPad is like night and day.

I have to ask though what exactly are you doing with the iPad? Just for curiosity sake.

The choice of connector for TB is a bit odd, it has all the markings of an executive making a rash decision.

I agree with this, but I also never liked eSATA connectors. Also regarding file systems, HFS+ has to be one of the buggiest of them all, and it's very poor for external storage systems. I'm not sure how it's still in existence.


Apple actually does a lot of weird things, yet they still move computers. The adapters probably hold that back a bit. If they made adapters comparable in reliability to the rest of the computer that delivered solid connections, they'd work in more areas.

Well, so far apple has done very well without blue ray, in fact, I think blue ray is going to be a thing of the past in portable computing very soon, we are going into a free drive future..and mac air is the best evidence...

George

Sony, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba, and virtually every other mainstream notebook maker has offered 1080p displays on 15" notebooks now for quite a while (meaning several years). Apple is WAY behind the times here. Some, like Sony offer them on screens as small as 13". My 13" Vaio has one and I can't imagine using a larger notebook without it. Go actually try and use one and you'll see that it's fantastic and super crisp.

What do we think the internal memory options of the new 13" and 15" MacBook AirPros will be?

I can't imagine that SSD prices have fallen sufficiently to include 500 GB SSDs let alone 1 TB SSDs at anything like a reasonable price. So will we get hybrid SSD HDD drives?

Ivy Bridge seems like it is taking aeons to arrive. I guess that since we're all living in a new age of austerity we shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to part with our hard earned cash. If the delay to Ivy Bridge has anything to do with clearing existing inventories of Sandy Bridge laptops, dream on guys.

The technology is there to double the capacity of the 13", though it might not be as cheap as you would like. A 15" AIR is a different story, the capacity problem can be solved easily by adding slots. On top of that add some volume management to stick the drives together and you can have rather large volumes built with today's technology.

Prices are always falling. Part of the problem right now is profit taking. SSD's are expensive because people will pay for the performance.

Yep!

It all depends upon what is your end use. If your Mac makes money for you an upgraded machine might be well advised. I just hope that not to many are disappointed when they find out that Ivy Bridge is mostly about the GPU.

Some people will be disappointed just because they like to be disappointed. Apple could give them everything they want in a laptop plus more and they STILL will not be satisfied.

I do not know if I will be buying an Ivy Bridge machine, though I cannot wait for it to come out just because I want to see the specs. Better though that Intel iron out any problems before releasing it then rushing it out as seemed to happen with Sandy Bridge and then having to backtrack.

Exactly correct.

If the new 15" MBPs retain user-upgradable RAM and storage, I'll get one and keep my 13" for when I need an optical drive (I'm one of those who use it frequently). If the new MBPs don't, then I'll order a current top of the line 15" and put 16 GB RAM in it and then see how long it will last.

Well at least not about RAM upgradablitliy in the MBP. I simply can't imagine Apple being so far off the tracks that they would offer up a ""PRO"" machine that would be so lacking in a valuable Pro feature.

I agree with you - I just hope you're right! I have a part of my tax refund allocated for a new 15".

The idea of two SSD card slots is a good idea. In 2012, Apple could offer SSD cards of up to 512GB each, for a total of 1TB. That would, of course, be an expensive configuration, but few users need more than 256GB in a laptop. Many users are still buying the 64GB MacBook Air, though I would expect 128GB to be the minimum configuration for the MacBook Pro.

The idea of three SSD card slots is silly.

The idea of two Thunderbolt ports is also silly. The five year use case argument is the icing on the cake though. It is not in Apple's interest for users to keep their laptops for five years. Two to three years is the normal time to replacement and it's in Apple's interest to reduce that time by offering compelling improvements every year, not increase that time by offering functionality that is useless (and expensive) today but might become useful in the future.

The idea of 8GB minimum RAM is silly too. With the Mac Pro still shipping with 3GB of RAM in the base configuration and the Mac Mini still shipping with 2GB in the base configuration, it's obviously too early to ship any Mac with a minimum 8GB configuration. We'll see the Mac Pro and the Mac Mini rise to a minimum configuration of at least 4GB before any laptop gets an 8GB minimum configuration.

I don't understand why it is so difficult for some readers here to see past what they want and think for a moment about what makes sense for Apple to offer.

Maybe they start shipping all models sans the Air with 8 GB minimum?

And maybe tent poles… become…

Well, you get what I'm saying.

I would be exceptionally disappointed if Apple didn't do 4GB minimum across the board with the next update. I would be exceptionally surprised if they made 8GB standard on ANY model.

My mother, who's currently in the market for a Mac laptop after having commandeered mine for so long and who is a virtual greenhorn when it comes to technology, has told me outright there's no way she'll be buying a computer with the RAM soldered on ("Why would anyone not want to be able to get more RAM?") unless there's at least 8GB.

So it sounds like the next 11" or 13" laptop from Apple is out for her.

So adding one to the number of slots makes a good idea silly? Silly or not depends upon the hardware support that is available and the space that can be easily offered up for such capability. To that end three slots for AIR like SSD modules ought to be easy for Apple to engineer in. I say AIR like because I would expect a higher performance PCI-Express implementation.

The driving force behind such a configuration is the very fact that large SSDs are still very expensive. Thus one might find it cheaper to populate the machine with three 256GB "blades" than two 512GB modules. The problem for Apple is pretty clear, if they want to transition to all SSD based machines they need a way to satisfy the needs of a wide array of users. Offering up three slots is probably the best bet for the next two years.

For a laptop marketed as a desktop replacement for Pros it is a very good idea. It means that a fast disk array can be attached without the bandwidth issues seen on a single TB channel. People have to remember that the port is still serial and like all such ports can become congested.

I'm not sure where you get your numbers from. First it is not normal to trade a machine in every 2-3 years. Most people are saddled with hardware for much longer. The problem here though is that you mis the point anyways. Apple designs platforms and then gets about four to five years use out if them with minor respins each year. This isn't a discussion about users it is a discussion about how Apple markets and designs hardware. The UniBody came out in 2008 so it is about time for another platform to serve them for the next 4-5 years.

As to Apples interest here, it would be a terrible mistake to build hardware to entice only the existing customer base. It is in Apples best interest to continue to design hardware that brings in new customers. Relying on the replacement business is breath to most companies.

I really don't care about Apple existing hardware, what I care about is what is reasonable for Apple to offer on new models. RAM has gotten so cheap over the last year that anything less than 8Gb in a Pro laptop would be a ripoff. Beyond that why even bring up the Pro in a discussion about RAM, the machine is well past 500 days for an update.

I really don't understand why readers are so willing to bend over for Apple when they have pricing structures that are clearly out of whack with reality. Here I'm talking specifically about base RAM in their machines. It really doesn't make sense for Apple to offer up hardware that gives a bad user experience right out of the box. This is exactly what we are getting right now.

Some other ways to look at this. My MBP came with 2GB of RAM in early 2008. This wasn't bad at introduction but is clearly a limitation with the current shipping software suite. Today that 2GB of RAM is a trivial expense. If you don't like that reference consider this, my new iPad comes with 1GB of RAM. This for a single tasking machine that never runs a VM, XCode, Eclipse, Mac OS Safari or other demanding piece of software. In any event I can tell you with some confidence that 2GB of RAM is not enough for even casual use of a Mac these days.

As to the Mini of course it should have 4GB in the base machine, though again 8GB wouldn't hurt. Apple could do that and lower the price at the same time. You know I really don't know if the management teams at Apple are too dense to see the reality of their hardware lineup, but the Minis poor sales can be directly attributed to its crappy value relative to even the laptops.

If you think this is out of line then I'd have to suggest looking around a bit. Compare the cost of 4GB or 8GB of RAM to what it would cost a year ago. In the case of a Mac Pro two years ago. Then consider this, Apple is a huge consumer of RAM, they likely get very good prices relative to what we see in the market today. In the end I really don't understand why people are so willing to give Apple a pass on this issue.

Best post I've seen in ages!

If a greenhorn can grasp the importance of RAM to Mac OS and it's users then I have to wonder why posters here are so willing to take it in the behind from Apple.

Offering two of these cards might be cheaper than offering a higher density version in one. If you consider that Apple would like to push everyone to a laptop, and that many people use a laptop as their primary machine, it's reasonable to expect some powerful options rather than everything based around the macbook air paradigm.


If you bothered to look up the chips being used, the thunderbolt chips shipping in everything but the macbook air and possibly the mini support 2 port configurations. Given that it will not always be practical to daisy chain things, it makes perfect sense to make use of this. Apple is weirdly stingy on ports at times. If the prediction of the ODD removal comes true, they will have extra space available on the edges assuming that it can work with their board design.


I wouldn't use the mac pro configuration as a reference for anything. It is configured this way because at the time, they used tri channel ram, so Apple made the base configuration take advantage of this. Given slow development from Intel in this market segment, it's gone untouched for a very long time. It's just a poor point of reference.

Keep in mind that for a number of years we were hitting the wall on ram configurations. You could get 1GB dimms in 2003 or so, yet until SL it was basically pointless going past 4GB as the gains were ridiculously minimal. Look at the current price of ram relative to a year or two ago. It's fallen off a cliff.


No one likes to deal with performance quirks from lack of ram, and Lion is ridiculously ram hungry. Apple states minimum requirements at 2GB of ram, so I find it silly that they'd ship current machines with that. The bare minimum amount of ram should be something that's only really applicable to older machines as an indication of whether or not the user can take advantage of such an upgrade rather than currently shipping machines that came out around the time of Lion's debut.