Apple officially axes 17-inch MacBook Pro from notebook lineup - Page 2

Aww crap. I sure hope they will just wait a few months before introducing the 'new' 17"er like they did in the past.

One thought, is the Retina display one available in a matte finish? Hmmmmmmm...... I need the matte finish! And the Express Card slot is a great feature.

I guess it's a good thing Apple replaced my 2010 17" model with the latest/greatest because of a graphics problem last month. Should last me a few years.

Now, what's with the Mac Pro?!?!

PLEASE DON'T KILL THE REAL PRO COMPUTERS APPLE!!

I doubt it will be but it will sure be nice to have.

Give it up dude...the 17" is dead! There's absolutely no reason why they wouldn't have updated the 17" model with Ivy Bridge technology. There was nothing stopping them from doing so. It doesn't fit their lineup and its not a big seller. 

 

Well you can set the new retina MBP 15" to 1920x1200 if you want - it's one of the modes. Anandtech has screenshots of that, they look absolutely stunning, way better than I thought it would look.

 

Hahaha about the backpack comment, I gave up looking for a new, nice, small-as-possible, soft bag for my MBP17 - there's nothing out. I have a very nice backpack, AXIO, which is large enough, but need a shoulder bag so I can stuff it in a motorbike pannier. No dice. There's bags available of course, but almost all of them are designed for those MONSTER 17" PC laptops which are the size of a small fridge. All of the bags I found were just fugly. So now... on to the new 15" and I can probably still sell this 3 year old 17" MBP for close to $1000. Amazing, isn't it?

During the last number of macbook pro major updates, the 17inch model always lagged release by a number of months.  I am a power user and require as much mobile screen real-estate as possible.  I will wait for the release of the 17 inch retina display model.  The extra case size should facilitate more USB ports and more SSD.  I would like to see at least 1TB of SSD and more if they can squeeze it in.  The move to 16 GM of RAM and the retina display was excellent as well as all the other enhancements.  I will be amount the first to order a fully loaded 17 inch with retina display.

 

You'll be waiting forever. Apple took it off their website entirely. Unlike the 13", which will eventually get a retina display, the 17" is toast.

 

If you think users can bring it back, feel free to fight for it, however.

They took the current model of the 17 inch off the web site as it is now out of production.  This makes sense since the manufacturing process is more refined for their current lineup.  The new Retina 17 inch should be out by October.  This is the historical pattern.  The application development community is essential to the success of Apple and a large part of this community does want lots of horse power and screen real-estate.  The same goes for all the power users in a lot of disciplines from science, to publishing, to videography.  

 

They kept it for sale the last time there was a case update. This isn't happening. Don't expect it. Don't make purchasing decisions based on it.

 

Funny though . . . no matter how nice the screen looks with a retina display, it's still smaller, which is the issue of dropping the 17" display.

And then there's the fact that one doesn't generally take a "huge external monitor" on the road with your laptop (it kind of defeats the whole portable computer thing, doesn't it?)

The point people don't seem to get is that the 17" MBPs are not really used as "laptops" in the classic sense. They are used as full featured, full powered, portable desktops. They are also used by people like my Mom, who have visual problems, but want a compact machine they can easily move around the house. The computer with the "huge external monitor" stays on her desk in her office. For like her (and most pros) a retina display is cool, but not at the expense of screen size.

For those who say the rest of us shouldn't have an optical drive in our MacBook Pros - PFFFT!

 

I still get DVDs and BluRay sets from Target (5% Target Card discount, plus a bonus 5% when I fill five prescriptions). I installed Diablo III from disk. My kids still play games that require the disk in the drive (and my disk image attempts often fail). Heck, my daughter's Wacom tablet demands one (don't know why...) (and, yes, she takes that tablet on the road). FYI, those disks go in my daughter's Phillips portable BluRay player, so digital downloads don't work for her.

 

Yes, I'm aware that NetBooks don't have optical drives either. Was really funny when I decided to do a system wipe and the instructions included "insert reinstallation disk into your external optical drive" which I don't own.

 

For you coders, the extra screen space makes file syncing in BBEdit a *heck* of a lot easier while you're on the train or at the ballpark. (External monitor folks aren't thinking about that.) Yeah, I should be watching the ballgame, but I HAVE coded in the stands at AT&T Park.

 

Oh, and ever try taking an external monitor to an on location shoot? I thought so... :)

Do you think someone will fire-off an email to Tim about this and we'll all be reading his reply in an article here on AI within the next week?

I don't think anyone has said you shouldn't have one, but what people are saying is that here comes a point when obsolescing tech is satisfying such a smaller percentage of an ever shrinking number of users — most whom most have very valid individual reasons for keeping antiquated tech — that it's hurting the majority by keeping technology from progressing upward.

I'm not content with the 15" product.  I hope Apple brings back the 17" version.

I guess I won't be getting a new Mac this year.

 

Apple is free to discontinue whatever they want, but that doesn't mean we have to "settle" for whatever they choose to offer.  If Apple doesn't want to support the pro market, those of us who need pro machines will simply go elsewhere.  Asus has some nice offerings.  I prefer OSX over Windows, but I also prefer getting my work done efficiently over spending several minutes of every hour shuffling things around the screen.

 

I'm a little surprised by those who suggest that because THEY don't need the larger screen, NOBODY should.  If your situation and/or preferences make a Retina 15" suitable for your application, you're lucky.  If I need/prefer a larger screen, and have no difficulty transporting the larger device, why would being disappointed by the absence of that option make me a "whiner?"

The article says there was no official announcement during the keynote, but Phil said (of the 15" Retina MBP) "This is now our flagship computer," which I took as meaning the 17" was gone.

Too bad... so here's your next computer...what's stopping ya?

 

No, they probably just went by looking at their general sales data.

 

What where they thinking? In fact, if they talked to my coworkers, they would have announced a 21.3456 inch laptop with a Zip drive.

Now just means NOW. The new 15" display makes the old 17" look like on old standard def TV. It doesn't mean there will never be a retina display 17" model (although that is likely).

If I was a 17" fan and needed a machine, I'd buy a refurb or old stock somewhere right now. Otherwise 15" retina IS the new 17".

A 17" with a 3091x1987 pixel display (extrapolated from the 15.4" model's resolution) would be nice. It's interesting that they went with a 14x9 aspect ratio - maybe to allow 16x9 video plus controls above or below?

 

Videographers who travel with their work often prefer the larger portable display. Improved clarity is nice, but you need to be able to read the legend and see the thin bars and/or lines on a graph (spectrometer, volume, whatever) too. With this display on a 17" model, you will be able to work with full-size full-HD video with more room for legible controls. Though I would like to see the resolution bumped slightly to support 3840x2160 (maybe x2469, keeping the same ratio) or more, so that full-HD video can be evenly doubled and eliminate scaling artifacts.

 

Another interesting omission is the drop of FireWire, considering videography is a major user focus. Most cabled cameras use FireWire for video, and many of the ones that also support USB cannot transfer video over it. Granted, many new cameras are moving to digital storage like SDXC cards, but it will be an annoyance to now need to always carry a Thunderbolt/FireWire dongle. I have many FireWire 800 drives as well, which don't support USB 3, and I don't relish having to either replace them or use bottleneck adapters.

The Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adaptor should offer effectively the same performance as a native PCIe Firewire card.  I know, it will end up being one more cable to carry around; but it shouldn't create any new bottlenecks.

 

Cute, but not far from the truth.  A large-market broadcaster recently upgraded to Avid Nitris.  Previous Avid systems in this facility were run on Macs.  This time they went with HP.

Went with a new MacBook Pro late last year and decided to go with the 15" to replace the older 17" I was using. Seemed like more bang for the buck with the 15". Have to say that I miss the 17" when in the office and am very happy I chose the 15" when on the road. I have an external monitor in the office but it does clutter up an already cluttered desk!

 

For better or worse, Apple is ruthless when it comes to eliminating products that don't generate desired revenue / profit. That said, it would be sad to see the 17" MacBook Pro gone for good.

 

You need to stop talking until you do some research on what you're talking about.

 

 

Hey. Guess what. That's the idea.

 

 

Except for full screen mode. On every application. And, you know, QuickTime, iTunes, Aperture, Final Cut Pro, and iPhoto's functions.

 

I dunno, it seems like sometimes the choices are kinda arbitrary, or based on the mood/preferences of one of the small handful of decision makers at Apple.  I'll bet Apple made more profit on the small quantity of 17" MBPs they sold than they've realized from the Apple TV, yet the latter survives because Apple management is curious about the TV market, despite the fact that it's an area with a very small chance of making any serious coin (as evidenced by three years of losses at Sony).

 

I think Apple drops products when the bigshots lose interest in them.  Sometimes that may be because buyers don't respond, other times it may be because building them would require attention they'd rather devote to other things.  Obviously bottom line is a consideration, but I get the feeling it's farther down the list than other issues.

 

One thing that's VERY obvious is that Apple is absolutely banking on the bizarre loyalty exhibited by its customers.  They KNOW that even angry Apple buyers continue to buy Apple products, so there's really no reason for them to worry about upsetting smaller market segments.  Maybe if we quit accepting whatever they offer as "close enough, I'll adjust" and instead buy something else they will become more responsive.  Or, more likely, they'll continue to make $billions on iDevices and not really notice that their traditional market of content creators has gone elsewhere.

 

That's exactly what I'm thinking. There just must be a misunderstanding somewhere.

 

 

Incorrect. And incorrect.

 

 

Perhaps, on applications that aren't updated. But that becomes moot when you realize apps are going to be updated.

 

 

Oh, I'm sorry, did you want us to respond to that? Come back when you're not a troll and have a coherent argument.

Maybe they are out of them?

 

You don't really know any more than the other people here.

 

Some rumors state that the 17" is expected in the Fall.  Maybe that will happen, maybe not.  But don't go claiming you know anything more than anyone else here.  Because you don't, unless your name is Tim Cook Or Jony Ives.

 

You're grasping.

But is not everything going to be smaller?

Dear. Mr. BahHumbug

 

The retina display does make a big difference.  Even though you cannot see the pixels unless you get really close to the screen, a higher pixel count makes fore much sharper text and images.  I would really appreciate a retina display on the 17 inch to come.  I know when I purchased a iPad 3 with retina display, it was phenomenal.  The imaging and text were surreal.  The technology vanished.  There was not pixelization at all.  I want this experience on the mac book pro 17 inch.

 

 

It's interesting that people who don't own a 17" Mac Pro, think its too big for other people who want one. It's also interesting that those who had a choice, bought the 17" & then some complain about it. While I appreciate the fact that they are sharing their experience, it seems to include justification that Apple should not make 17" laptops for those who really want or need them.

 

Not seen in this discussion, but the 17" laptop computers have been generally referred to as portable desktops, which is a distinction completely separate from personal laptops, which include the Macbook Air 11" through the Mac Pro 15". They are like a portable office, & people who figure out that's what they want & need, buy it, knowing its larger & heavier than a smaller laptop. I've waited for years for the right configuration to buy one so I could take my recording studio with me to different locations, church, friend's houses, on vacation to record/edit music & edit video. If you look at programs like Garage Band, Logic Pro, Main Stage, you need as much real estate as you can get to see the software control boards, etc. & like others have said, even in video editing, there are fields, names, lists etc. that are almost impossible to see on smaller screens. For the glib response of, "just plug into a larger screen at your destination…" really, at each destination, make sure there is one at each destination or take one in the car and/or plane with me? Again, people are saying that the need for a 17" Apple is invalid (according to them), so it shouldn't be made. To me, that's like saying, "Apple should phase out the iPad, because everything you do on the iPad cam be done on an iPhone!"

 

I currently own a $2400 Toshiba X505-898 18.3" blu-ray laptop with a 64GB SSD & 500GB SHD that I bought in Oct. 2010. It does most of what I want with also-ran software (Pro Tools & Mixcraft), but then have to export the results.  A comparable Apple 17" at the time priced out at $4400 but with a larger SSD drive. It would not have included the blue-ray player, & I would have also had to carry an external drive. I'm hoping the new Mac Pro 17" will come out later so I can run windows in Parallel & sell the Toshiba. For now, the Toshiba works great. It's a tad big on the plane though.

 

I have a New iPad (& iPhone4) which can do a many tasks while I travel. Why would I want to also carry a small screened Macbook Pro which doesn't meet my needs & I, by choice, am willing to carry the beast with me?

Edited by kellya74u - 6/12/12 at 12:37pm

I don't pretend to know about everybody else, but when I need to see pixels, I tend to sit close enough where I can see the pixels. I normally use two or three 24" displays, each 1920x1080 or 1920x1200, unless I'm on the road. And I tend to sit about 12" away from the display I am focusing on. It's a fairly high-resolution setup, but I can still see pixels.

 

With 4x the pixels, I might actually be able to ignore specific pixels - alas, even Retina doesn't actually give 4x the pixels, not when comparing a 2800x1800 display with a 1920x1200 one, only a little over double. Better, but not there yet.

 

As far as pixel-accurate vs interpolated graphics goes, it would be a pretty poor "professional" program to which I provide a 1920x1080 image but it gives me a full-size preview using an upscaled low-res thumbnail. If I am displaying an image at 100% scale, it had better not be interpolated. If I'm upscaling from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, the "interpolation" is easy to do without artifacts - just use four pixels instead of one, doubling both dimensions. If the program wants to apply smoothing, that's fine - as an option, since sometimes I want the actual original image.

 

However, a 30% upscale must necessarily introduce artifacts. An angled line that was smooth now has a jagged edge, since only 3 out of 10 pixels are doubled. Attempts at artificially smoothing these lines will affect the original image, which is why upscaled images often appear fuzzy. Either 25% or 50% will be significantly smoother than 30%, with an even 1 in 4 increase or every other pixel. It's not perfect, but at least it's even. Of course, many programs want to overly smooth the upscaled image even with a size multiple, and that feature may need to be disabled in some cases.

 

I guess the bottom line is that a Retina display is actually a higher-resolution display. It's not a fake spec, like 300hz TVs use, only allowing the source to provide 60fps. It does give a better image quality, and only interpolates when the image is lower-resolution than the display. If the display only accepted a 1400*900 image and upscaled it, that would be a different (and disappointing) matter.

I agree with ditching optical, etc., but ditching the 17 inch laptop is a boneheaded move.  The 17 inch platform is PERFECT for a retina display.  You can fit far more windows filled with crisp, readable text without the text having to tiny small print like you see on the back of an aspirin bottle.  I'm now going to be looking to move away from Apple products and will purchase a 17 inch laptop from other hardware manufactures that increase resolution of their 17 inch laptops and "get it".  I may at first try the hackintosh route, but I'm already preparing to move from Apple entirely and switching to Ubuntu Linux.

 

Apple done goofed.  I will also after 20+ years of basically evangelizing Macs to countless people cease and desist from those activities.  I will recommend a more stable platform to all my clients, friends and family in the future.  If this is simply a supply issue and Apple plans on releasing 17 inch retina display laptops in the future, then they'd better come clean quick, because I have work to do and I throughly resent these distractions from Apple by being so wishy washy and dishonest about this.  Apple is looking more and more like an unstable platform for professionals.

 

I will also move away from iPods, iPads, iPhone or any other Apple products as well.  This is the final straw.

 

I love the people who make accounts just to say they'll never use Apple products again.

I'm hoping that this move by Apple will encourage other manufacturers to use higher-resolution displays.

 

1920x1200 was fairly common on 24" displays, and even some smaller laptops, for a brief while, but when HD TV standardized on 1920x1080, much of the hardware stagnated there. I had a Dell laptop with a 15.4" display that was 1920x1200. I loved the display, alas, the rest of the computer was lacking. Maybe some Windows 8 models will have 3840x2160 displays.

 

Which brings up another noticeable omission from this model - No touchscreen? Only a multitouch trackpad? Isn't the next OS supposed to allow iOS-style apps? They're introducing an iPhone/iPad-style Retina display, but not the touchscreen. Not yet, anyway.

 

While I don't have specific fact/figures, I find it odd that people say 17" laptops are only for pros and there are such low sales. I have 4 neices in college. Three of them have 17" laptops (1 MBP, 2 PC) and the 4th an 15" MBP. They all have smartphones, none have tablets (of any kind). They rely on jobs and student loans to get through college, so it's not mom & dad buying them the larger laptops.

 

I agree the market for 17" laptops is small compared to smaller sizes, but citing such low sales figures just seems strange to me.

I do. As I posted earlier, I sit about 12" away from a 24" 1920x1200 display. And maybe 18" from a second one, and 24" from a third. I see the pixels, at least somewhat. I see roughness in angled lines, like those in this text.

 

And using a higher-resolution display does not inherently mean any interpolation. Instead of that 500x500 image, you can now use a 2000x2000 image - with "more information". Any dynamically-generated content, like text or vector graphics, will generate the graphics for the higher-resolution display, hence "more information."

 

EDIT: It seems he has deleted his post...

 

What does the Mini need PCIe 3 for?  Apple doesn't buy SSDs that are fast enough to max out PCIe 2, so no worries there.  You have FW and TB running their own direct lines.  Getting inside a Mini to swap a hard drive is a PITA.  I'm missing the use case.

 

The Retina has 2 TB.  you can chain a lot of things that way.  Each of those will do 20Gb each direction simultaneously.  I think w/2 of those running you will be able to run what you need to, plus you can run the HDMI port out to a monitor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waterfield Designs.  sfbags.com 

Quote:

 

They didn't, it's 16*10.  2880*1800.  1800/10=180. 180*16=2880.  That is exactly the reason Apple has had 16x10 so often over the years instead of a more standard 16x9.  BTW, the 17" would be 3840x2400, double the 17" MBP's 1920x1200.  Which is also 16x10.  Extrapolating pixel count from the screen diagonal isn't how it's done.  There are screens of so many different sizes w/the same resolution numbers out there.

 

 

 

 

2,304,000 vs 5,184,000 or 125% more pixels.  It is 4x the pixels over the resolution that was the previous base for the 15" MBP (1440x900).  1,764,000 vs 5,184,000 or 193.88% more pixels over the 1680x1050 upgraded 15" MBP screen.

Edited by SSquirrel - 6/12/12 at 12:31pm

what kind of ridiculous comment is that? Especially from someone with the screen name apple 2.

It has to be supported by the OS. I can't see windows 8 suddenly adopting this out of the blue, but i can see them trying to clone it in windows 9.