Apple's new MacBook Pros in production, due by early March - sources
The first major overhaul to Apple's MacBook Pro line in nearly a year is on the cusp of fruition, with production actively underway and volume shipments to begin as early as the first week of March, AppleInsider has been told.
A person familiar with the matter said the Mac maker currently anticipates an introduction of the new models within about two weeks time, which would represent a delay of just a couple of weeks from when the company initially hoped to usher the new models onto the market. The setback was attributed to a widely publicized design flaw in the chipsets accompanying Intel's new Sandy Bridge processors, which the new MacBooks are expected to employ.
That latest revelations appear to support a rumored timeframe shared last week by Danish blog KennethLund.dk (via MacRumors), which identified Tuesday, March 1st as a prime candidate for the notebook launch. It should be noted that while both reports are believed to be on point as of Wednesday, Apple's product launches are often a moving target that can see last minute delays of several days due to unexpected anomalies in manufacturing or the company's supply chain.
Meanwhile, a second person familiar with the matter has hinted that a move to Intel's new Sandy Bridge architecture won't be the only highlight of the new notebook lineup, as Apple appears poised to up the value proposition of the new models through the addition of some enhancements of its own.
It's unclear, however, whether those enhancements are related to the "slight changes" in the notebook's unibody chassis design that the Cupertino-based company is rumored to have implemented, or something entirely different.
One thing that is clear is that Apple's new line of redesigned MacBook Airs are serving as an indicator for the future direction of the company's notebooks in general, with features such as instant-on, standard SSD drives, slimmer enclosures, and the omission of optical drives expected to become more prevalent in many of the models planned for future design cycles over the next 12 to 18 months.
The new MacBook Airs are so hot, in fact, that a third person familiar with Apple's supply chain recently revealed to AppleInsider that the ultra-thin portables are now selling in volumes roughly half that of MacBook Pros after being on the market for less than six months.
Last week, AppleInsider exclusively reported that a design error in Intel's Sandy Bridge chipsets, dubbed "Cougar Point," would have a immaterial impact on the next-generation MacBook Pros. One person familiar with the situation indicated that some, but not all, of the new notebook designs were affected by the situation, but minor tweaks to the logic boards of those models would result in delays of a couple of weeks at most.
Intel's Cougar Point chipsets support a total of six serial ATA ports, but Intel revealed earlier this month that it discovered an error that causes the performance of ports numbered 2 through 5 to degrade over time in extreme conditions. The issue applies to both mobile and desktop processors powered by Sandy Bridge technology.
Just a week after it disclosed the error, Intel announced that it had resumed shipment of chipsets for Sandy Bridge-powered PC system configurations not impacted by the design flaw. The company also said the new, fixed version of its support chip would begin shipping for systems that relied on SATA ports 2 through 5 in mid-February.
A refresh to Apple's MacBook Pro line is long overdue, with the last hardware update coming in April 2010. At the time, the high-end notebook line was outfitted with Intel's first-generation Core i7 and Core i5 processors.
For more on the future of Apple's professional notebooks, see AppleInsider's MacBook Pro information archive.
A person familiar with the matter said the Mac maker currently anticipates an introduction of the new models within about two weeks time, which would represent a delay of just a couple of weeks from when the company initially hoped to usher the new models onto the market. The setback was attributed to a widely publicized design flaw in the chipsets accompanying Intel's new Sandy Bridge processors, which the new MacBooks are expected to employ.
That latest revelations appear to support a rumored timeframe shared last week by Danish blog KennethLund.dk (via MacRumors), which identified Tuesday, March 1st as a prime candidate for the notebook launch. It should be noted that while both reports are believed to be on point as of Wednesday, Apple's product launches are often a moving target that can see last minute delays of several days due to unexpected anomalies in manufacturing or the company's supply chain.
Meanwhile, a second person familiar with the matter has hinted that a move to Intel's new Sandy Bridge architecture won't be the only highlight of the new notebook lineup, as Apple appears poised to up the value proposition of the new models through the addition of some enhancements of its own.
It's unclear, however, whether those enhancements are related to the "slight changes" in the notebook's unibody chassis design that the Cupertino-based company is rumored to have implemented, or something entirely different.
One thing that is clear is that Apple's new line of redesigned MacBook Airs are serving as an indicator for the future direction of the company's notebooks in general, with features such as instant-on, standard SSD drives, slimmer enclosures, and the omission of optical drives expected to become more prevalent in many of the models planned for future design cycles over the next 12 to 18 months.
The new MacBook Airs are so hot, in fact, that a third person familiar with Apple's supply chain recently revealed to AppleInsider that the ultra-thin portables are now selling in volumes roughly half that of MacBook Pros after being on the market for less than six months.
Last week, AppleInsider exclusively reported that a design error in Intel's Sandy Bridge chipsets, dubbed "Cougar Point," would have a immaterial impact on the next-generation MacBook Pros. One person familiar with the situation indicated that some, but not all, of the new notebook designs were affected by the situation, but minor tweaks to the logic boards of those models would result in delays of a couple of weeks at most.
Intel's Cougar Point chipsets support a total of six serial ATA ports, but Intel revealed earlier this month that it discovered an error that causes the performance of ports numbered 2 through 5 to degrade over time in extreme conditions. The issue applies to both mobile and desktop processors powered by Sandy Bridge technology.
Just a week after it disclosed the error, Intel announced that it had resumed shipment of chipsets for Sandy Bridge-powered PC system configurations not impacted by the design flaw. The company also said the new, fixed version of its support chip would begin shipping for systems that relied on SATA ports 2 through 5 in mid-February.
A refresh to Apple's MacBook Pro line is long overdue, with the last hardware update coming in April 2010. At the time, the high-end notebook line was outfitted with Intel's first-generation Core i7 and Core i5 processors.
For more on the future of Apple's professional notebooks, see AppleInsider's MacBook Pro information archive.
Comments
At least 10 TB of SSD is what I need in my MBP and that too at the price of HDD. Unless wireless transfer rate becomes like 10 GB per wink. I am just freaking tired by handling TBs of photos, movies and other data, plugging unplugging of external drives.
Unless SSD becomes cheaper with price per GB less than 10 fold of that of HDD's, I think I will be happily using my 2010 MBP. Merely upgrading CPU and RAM does not increase the system's performance a lot.
Ahhhhh, ready to know the features, mostly the video. Ready for a gaming machine.
Yeah man. After I ran Windows 7 Boot Camp on my 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, I can't get enough gaming. I can't wait for an even better graphics card. My FPS will at least double. I'm on my 9400M, I think I burnt out my 9600 because it's not even showing up in system profiler.
It'll be interesting to see if the lack of a major delay is due to Apple getting first dibs on the new corrected chipsets or if it's simply because Apple isn't using the defective SATA ports but is still using the early chipset batches. In any case, I won't be looking to but until the summer so hopefully they'll transition over to the fixed chipsets by then.
At least 10 TB of SSD is what I need in my MBP and that too at the price of HDD. Unless wireless transfer rate becomes like 10 GB per wink. I am just freaking tired by handling TBs of photos, movies and other data, plugging unplugging of external drives.
Kudos for having 10 tb of photos and stuff. I don't know if you could get that much storage except possibly on a maxed out mac pro. I suggest that you reorganize some of your drives and put away the old ones you don't use. By the way, I heard (possibly here
Maybe they will finally dump the useless dvd and put in a 100GB SSD and a large HDD for speed, fast startup yet cost effective mass storage.
I'd rather see a bigger battery. After all if you get a better screen, it'l take up a ton more battery
i
At least 10 TB of SSD is what I need in my MBP and that too at the price of HDD. Unless wireless transfer rate becomes like 10 GB per wink. I am just freaking tired by handling TBs of photos, movies and other data, plugging unplugging of external drives.
Go buy a Watson.
Maybe they will finally dump the useless dvd and put in a 100GB SSD and a large HDD for speed, fast startup yet cost effective mass storage.
I?d like the optical drive removed, the mini-PCIe SSD added, but also keeping the space for a standard 2.5? HDD/SSD so I can have speed and capacity, without sacrificing internal space.
Hopefully the improved value proposition will include transitioning to standardized higher resolution, IPS screens with no increase in price points.
HP has IPS displays on one brand of notebooks for an additional $500 or something crazy like that. I assume these are special low-power IPS displays but I don?t really know. The quality didn?t seem much different from the quality TN panels Apple uses from one review I read.
Intel always had a ship date of Feb 20 for the dual core chips so this article is somewhat misleading with it's implication Apple would have had them out sooner except for the SATA snafu.
Feb 20th is the consumer launch date. Most computer manufacturers get their chipsets beforehand.
In other news, mouse acceleration suddenly started working today (I disable it long ago) and it remind me this : HOW THE CRAP can you possibly use that thing ?!? Apple need to put an option to disable this in setting has if i would not have been able to manually disable it in terminal, I would had RETURN my iMac just for this.
Seriously that thing is horrible, its like dragging the mouse cursor in mud.
How to disable mouse acceleration in terminal:
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scaling -1
... then reboot.
Sorry, i just don't think Netflix, books, Spotify and others ought to be paying a vig fee to apple to be on their platform. and stop censoring software that can be installed as well.
Apple makes tons of cash. let people use their devices as they see fit, not only as apple can monetize
Without Blu-Ray, USB 3, and an guaranteed open install ability. not locking Mac OSX down to only apply sold or subscribed ... i may bolt to Windows laptop.
Sorry, i just don't think Netflix, books, Spotify and others ought to be paying a vig fee to apple to be on their platform. and stop censoring software that can be installed as well.
Apple makes tons of cash. let people use their devices as they see fit, not only as apple can monetize
I don?t think you?re on the correct thread? or correct planet?
Maybe they will finally dump the useless dvd and put in a 100GB SSD and a large HDD for speed, fast startup yet cost effective mass storage.
Make the optical drive bay modular so people can easily add what they want, whether it is a DVD drive, hard drive, or extra battery.
Create a docking station accessory with its own power button so people can turn on the laptop while the screen is closed.
Support daisy chaining of multiple monitors through the Mini Displayport connector.