Apple updates MacBook Pro with Ivy Bridge CPUs and Nvidia graphics

Frigging optical drives.

But at least the redesign is absolutely GORGEOUS and doesn't have one.

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Originally Posted by iSheldon 
By far the easiest way to swap files.

*snort*

It's only funny because you're actually serious.

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Originally Posted by digitalclips 
So the Mac Pro is for another day. Still waiting on Intel I guess.

But it was updated… 

The price, that is! THIRTY SEVEN NINETY NINE.

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Originally Posted by Tallest Skil 

Frigging optical drives.

 

But at least the redesign is absolutely GORGEOUS and doesn't have one.

What's wrong with optical drives? And what happens if you have to reboot off a CD? 

So, are the new processors in the 15 inch MBPs the same as the old ones (with speed bumps)?

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Originally Posted by sc_markt 
So, are the new processors in the 15 inch MBPs the same as the old ones (with speed bumps)?

It's a new processor family. It's a process shrink from Sandy Bridge.

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Originally Posted by sc_markt 
What's wrong with optical drives?

They're last century's tech. They're the bottleneck for the entire computer.

That cannot happen anymore, so nothing.

Wow!  Some stupid comments here already.

When was the last time anyone had to boot off a CD on a Mac??  A common action in the PC world of course. 

And as for an optical drive being the best way to swap files, that is the dumbest of many dumb comments ever posted on AI.  It really is funny.

Now for a real question... why the **** should I get a retina display if as Apple says the pixels are so small I can't even see them with my eye?  Seems I should save myself a few bucks and upgrade on memory, disk space or other useful things, and if I want better video I can hook up an external display.  Ya?  No?

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Originally Posted by Spiffy1 

...

 

Last, the upgrades for 17 inchers usually come a few weeks after the 15ers come out, so keep your panties on for now.

 

...

Upgrade from what?  The 17" MBP is no longer offered for sale on Apple's website.

I agree that they are old tech. What and how do they "bottleneck" the computer?

As to not being able to boot of a CD anymore, that's news to me. So, what happens if you want to erase your HD and do a clean install?

And what happens if you buy a brand new HD and pop it into your computer? How would you start up your system and load OS X on it? 

you install new OS using a thumb drive... that how

actually, the last update for 17" MBP was in Oct of 2011.... not 18 months ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by sc_markt 

As to not being able to boot of a CD anymore, that's news to me. So, what happens if you want to erase your HD and do a clean install?

 

And what happens if you buy a brand new HD and pop it into your computer? How would you start up your system and load OS X on it? 

Bootable USB.  There are plenty of instructions.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by sc_markt 

As to not being able to boot of a CD anymore, that's news to me. So, what happens if you want to erase your HD and do a clean install?

 

And what happens if you buy a brand new HD and pop it into your computer? How would you start up your system and load OS X on it? 

http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/

Very disappointed the MBP 13" did not get a screen res upgrade (to 1440 x 900, same as the 13" Air). I can understand that Apple might have made a hard business decision to limit competition with the Air. But it would have been nice to at least have a BTO option for a 1440 x 900 screen. Get one in a heartbeat if they did.

So it looks like an Air for me, in about a month.

Would have also been nice if the BTO option hi-res screen for the (non-retina) 15" MBP was 1080 instead of 1050.

Glad Apple have gone to USB 3 (like they had a choice?). I held off buying until this round of hardware upgrades partly so I can get USB 3. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spiffy1 
Now for a real question... why the **** should I get a retina display if as Apple says the pixels are so small I can't even see them with my eye?  Seems I should save myself a few bucks and upgrade on memory, disk space or other useful things, and if I want better video I can hook up an external display.  Ya?  No?

A fine question, but the purpose of the retina display is not to see the pixels. The purpose of the retina display is to not see the pixels.

Look around you. At anything you choose. What do you see? You see the material out of which the object is made. Get closer. You see more detail, yes? How far could you go before you stop seeing new details? Grab a desktop microscope and break off a piece of whatever the thing is (don't… don't actually do this… ). Take another look. More detail, yeah? You can see details down to the six quark types, and that's only as far as we know.

But look at your computer screen. You can see the pixels. That breaks your vision. There's a fundamental difference there. The retina display's purpose is to lessen that difference. Eventually displays where subdivisions that truly cannot be perceived by the human eye will be released, and that's when the virtual… can stop being virtual.

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Originally Posted by sc_markt 
What and how do they "bottleneck" the computer?

The ODD's throughput is pathetic. It's slow to write and it's painfully slow to read. It's noisy, it's power-hungry, and there aren't going to ever be any more improvements to it. It's time to die.

The newest computers come with a restore partition built into the computer. If you get a new, blank hard drive, you can still boot to that partition and download Lion and have it install. If you don't want to use the Internet, you can make a backup installable version of Lion from a USB stick.

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Originally Posted by BahHumbug 
The real question is -- are there are 17" a MBP available.

Nope. Well, sure, in the refurb store.

And takes up a ship load of space.

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Originally Posted by Amti 
And takes up a ship load of space.

Exactly. Space better served for more important things like the battery.

The newnibody MacBook Pro couldn't possibly have received the same battery life as its older updated cousins if it had kept an ODD, because the battery HAD to take up more space (width and length) since it didn't have more space (height). Oh, and to push the retina. I actually forgot about that.

Of course, Haswell is going to be astonishing on these computers. I wonder if Apple built the newnibody MacBook Pro with Haswell in mind…

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amti 

Very disappointed the MBP 13" did not get a screen res upgrade (to 1440 x 900, same as the 13" Air). I can understand that Apple might have made a hard business decision to limit competition with the Air. But it would have been nice to at least have a BTO option for a 1440 x 900 screen. Get one in a heartbeat if they did.

 

So it looks like an Air for me, in about a month.

 

Would have also been nice if the BTO option hi-res screen for the (non-retina) 15" MBP was 1080 instead of 1050.

 

Glad Apple have gone to USB 3 (like they had a choice?). I held off buying until this round of hardware upgrades partly so I can get USB 3. 

I was disappointed that there wasn't a 13" retina with a GPU and no optical...ah well.  My next mac update was going to be an iMac anyway.  Gotta wait a bit for that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil 
Of course, Haswell is going to be astonishing on these computers. I wonder if Apple built the newnibody MacBook Pro with Haswell in mind…

That's exactly what is happening here I think.  Haswell will be a big jump in both cpu and native GPU, by next year we should see the price on optical TB down a bit hopefully (plus more TB peripherals at better prices) and more.  Haswell will also have native support for TB, so that may make the connectors to the mobo less trouble to build if it has some aspects that will now be cpu controlled.  Add in that Haswell will also be a large jump in power efficiency and it looks pretty clear what Apple is doing.  They're getting people used to the idea of a powerful system that banishes legacy ports and such.  Weaning people off the ODD, which is more than they did when they brought out the iMac and made people give up the floppy :)  Spend a year getting the yield problems out of the process for the Retina displays, buy up as much of the output of those screens and next year change the entire laptop lineup to Retina.  It may well be that the MBA would be kept on regular res and the MBP would be the one to go all-Retina, but I could see room for at least a BTO Retina display on the MBA.

Haswell is the key.  They are having to use all these things like the new fans and such to be able to shoehorn that cpu and gpu in along w/all the battery and still maintain a 7 hour life.  That's is pretty major.  Haswell will let them extend battery life on all their systems and they may even be able to back off on the amount of battery included in systems like the Pro to fit more ports or storage.  I'm also very curious about a MBP w/2 TB and HDMI.  How many monitors will it be allowed to drive at once?

And if we get Sharp's IGZO screens, total power consumption should crash.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SSquirrel 

 

That's exactly what is happening here I think.  Haswell will be a big jump in both cpu and native GPU, by next year we should see the price on optical TB down a bit hopefully (plus more TB peripherals at better prices) and more.  Haswell will also have native support for TB, so that may make the connectors to the mobo less trouble to build if it has some aspects that will now be cpu controlled.  Add in that Haswell will also be a large jump in power efficiency and it looks pretty clear what Apple is doing.  They're getting people used to the idea of a powerful system that banishes legacy ports and such.  Weaning people off the ODD, which is more than they did when they brought out the iMac and made people give up the floppy :)  Spend a year getting the yield problems out of the process for the Retina displays, buy up as much of the output of those screens and next year change the entire laptop lineup to Retina.  It may well be that the MBA would be kept on regular res and the MBP would be the one to go all-Retina, but I could see room for at least a BTO Retina display on the MBA.

 

Haswell is the key.  They are having to use all these things like the new fans and such to be able to shoehorn that cpu and gpu in along w/all the battery and still maintain a 7 hour life.  That's is pretty major.  Haswell will let them extend battery life on all their systems and they may even be able to back off on the amount of battery included in systems like the Pro to fit more ports or storage.  I'm also very curious about a MBP w/2 TB and HDMI.  How many monitors will it be allowed to drive at once?

This is a different situation than the floppy disk elimination.  Floppies really only had one purpose -- computer data delivery and storage.  Optical disks, by contrast, have multiple uses and really have become integral in home entertainment.  Sure, they could go away sometime as entertainment becomes more cloud-centric but Apple taking out the ODD in the new MacBook will have no bearing on that process unlike where the original iMac probably did hasten the end the floppy.

I just asked a room full of people when the last time they used their ODD. Other to rip video to avoid using the ODD and have network centric distribution, responses ranged from over a year to they could not remember.  It's a trade-off for some.  I made it with my Air just fine.  Others may have a legitimate need for an ODD and they will always be available in one form or another.  But the advantage of freeing up the space is a very major plus.  As computing devices get smaller, the ODD is pretty much fixed in size.  That's an obstacle to progress.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eye Forget 

I just asked a room full of people when the last time they used their ODD. Other to rip video to avoid using the ODD and have network centric distribution, responses ranged from over a year to they could not remember.  It's a trade-off for some.  I made it with my Air just fine.  Others may have a legitimate need for an ODD and they will always be available in one form or another.  But the advantage of freeing up the space is a very major plus.  As computing devices get smaller, the ODD is pretty much fixed in size.  That's an obstacle to progress.

It must be true for everyone then, right? No, it's not - I've used the optical drive on my laptop more than 10 different times in the last week. Of course, I use my laptop as my desktop right now (until there's an iMac I like enough to buy). I use the ODD even when I travel,  though not as much as at home.

Does anybody know if these new MBPs or the Retina MBPs have improved sound boards/speakers? I thought I read somewhere a while ago that Apple was talking about improving the sound systems in their MBPs.

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Originally Posted by Eye Forget 
It's a trade-off for some.  I made it with my Air just fine.  Others may have a legitimate need for an ODD and they will always be available in one form or another.

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Originally Posted by elroth 

It must be true for everyone then, right? No, it's not - I've used the optical drive on my laptop more than 10 different times in the last week. Of course, I use my laptop as my desktop right now (until there's an iMac I like enough to buy). I use the ODD even when I travel,  though not as much as at home.

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