If I had to build a macbook pro I would add SSD as a key feature, LightPeak and an i5 processor.
That would make it blazingly fast - even faster compared to many desktop pc's in various aspects.
There are already ssd's with 512 gybes on the market and I guess firewire 800 is really outdated and ie. to slow for hd video editing - especially if they skip the express card slot as they do right now.
And if they skipped the dvd drive, they could even build thinner computers. (I myself still need the dvd drive, but it would be sufficient for me to use an external drive.) The machines would be even more energy-efficient, more robust and completely unique in the whole industry.
Apple itself said when they talked about lion, that the future is iphone/ipad-technology - that means "instant on" and enhanced sleep mode is the way to go and I don't see any reason why they wouldn't do it with the macbook pro as well.
As the subject says a waste of time to put in hardware to run iOS apps. The big issues are marketing and consummer confusion. Also from the engineering point of view it is a complete waste, an Intel processor can easily emulate an entire ARM based machine.
As a side not there are likely a number of ARM processors all ready in Apples Macs. ARM core are often embedded in support chips.
The answer is never. Atleast not in the sense you want to see them implemented. The sad reality is that ARM CPU cores aren't even close to intel performance wise.
Actually that would be very nice to hear about. I don't think Apple will ever reveal ever detail about operations there though.
So Intel can't make a low-performance chip and ARM can't make a high-performance one?
Regarding the current iMac, I couldn't disagree more with you. The current design, is in my mind, superp. I genuinely believe that the iMac is the most beautiful desktop ever produced.
In addition would a design like you describe, mean that the need for an XMac would be revived due to the slower chips being used in such iMac.
I really, respectfully, don't hope your ideas are realized
If they used the i5-2400s, it would perform the same as the current i7. They would be a notch down from what's available at this generation but I don't think it matters any more once you reach this level of performance for the iMac. If they pull the price of the iMac down by dropping the 27" and going with 24" instead, they can lower the Mac Pro entry price too.
The costs may not be significantly higher if they can mould the parts.
I agree that the current design is best to get the highest performance parts in there but it's going to hinder what touch features they can put into it and Apple puts the user experience before raw specs.
At some point, they are going to want to put display adjustment in there and you can't do that with peripheral ports on the back of the screen. Maybe they can have some sort of hybrid where the motherboard and GPU go behind the screen to maintain performance but the IO ports, PSU and drives go in the base but that will likely cause some reliability issues if they can even build a design like that at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hoolahoophugs
As interesting as that sounds, apple would never make a product with a detachable display. They hate superfluous design.
It wouldn't be superfluous as it helps in packaging and support. Think of the base like a Mini that is twice the height but goes into a dome with a small flattened top. Then the arm is a single cylinder just like the old design with flat clips that attach to the flat top of the base and the back of the very thin display. When packing into the box, the box only has to be the same width as the height of the base.
When it comes to support, if you have a display issue, you unclip the screen and ship it back to Apple in a very thin box. If you have a computer issue, you just ship the small base back. When they bring out a new one, you keep the screen and upgrade the base as they'd sell the base as Minis.
The floppy was about a year away from being dead when Apple dropped the floppy drive. Though clearly being used less and less, I don't see any way that we'll consider DVDs or CDs to be totally obsolete one year hence (especially outside the U.S., a market most people here seem to ignore).
The floppy was about a year away from being dead when Apple dropped the floppy drive. Though clearly being used less and less, I don't see any way that we'll consider DVDs or CDs to be totally obsolete one year hence (especially outside the U.S., a market most people here seem to ignore).
That?s not true. It was years before the average PC wasn?t being sold with floppy drives and I think it was only last year Sony stopped making them. Apple also wasn?t the first to drop them. Dell did it before Apple, but Apple gets credit for the ?revolution? because they did it across the board.
With data ports for NAND drives and internet being the successor to optical drives, unlike with floppy drives whose direct successor was another disc technology, the only thing probably holding back Apple is cost, not the number of people that need to use a CD/DVD on occasion.
DVD drives cost more than USB ports, but a DL-DVD for a restore disc costs a lot less to produce than an 8GB flash drive. Even though the USB port and 8GB flash drive is a lot cheaper than the combination of DL-DVD and the ultra-slim DVD player in Mac notebooks the issue falls with Mac OS X updates.
Sure, they have the remote install option and you can use any external DVD drives, but they need to make sure that they can sell Mac OS X Lion updates to customers on flash drives. This scenario will come into affect with the new MBAs. Will they have you send in your 8GB flash drive Restore Stick or pay extra for the 8GB flash drive.
It seems to me that getting Mac OS X Lion out would be the first goal before making this sweeping hardware change on their notebooks. After that they can include the few million 8GB flash drives with Mac notebooks per quarter where the cost will be easily consumed with the entire cost of the notebook and counted against the cost savings of not including a DVD drive and all the other benefits that come with it. After that they have about 2 years before they will have to plan for most or all of Mac OS X 10.8 ?Mountain Lion?? to come on flash drives.
Haven't there been instances in the past where the 17" wasn't refreshed at the same time as the others? I hope that is not the case this time. I want a maxed 17"!
2 years ago the 17 was earlier than the others - it was the first MBP with built in battery and long runtime. That's how I ended up with one. Love the HUGE screen, and it's only a tiny bit bigger than most Windows 15" machines (it fits in laptop bags made for 15" Windows computers).
But next time around I'll still go for a 15" again. 17 is just too big to be carried around all the time - the weight would be OK but the physical size of it.... it's large.
Very pretty but unfortunately that image is just Photoshop wanking, plus a wishlist of features (all speculation). No way they're going to make a liquid metal one, and as much as everyone seems to be waiting for matte black anodized alu it should be clear by now that Jon Ive hates that idea so they're going to be sliver alu as usual.
If they make a MacBook-Air 15" I'll run to the store with cash in my hand...
I think dropping the optical drive for dual storage capabilities (a la iMac) would be a sensible choice for the MBPro. As long as I can use any 3rd party DVD drive to install software. Just don't make me buy an Apple Superdrive for $99
I think dropping the optical drive for dual storage capabilities (a la iMac) would be a sensible choice for the MBPro. As long as I can use any 3rd party DVD drive to install software. Just don't make me buy an Apple Superdrive for $99
You don?t have to buy Apple SuperDrive or any USB DVD drive at all.
And HW for LightPeak. I haven?t read about Intel incorporating it into chipsets, other vendors making chipsets for it, or even what the port will be like, not to mention the complete lack of devices to connect to LightPeak. It?s not like you can just plug in an iPhone which has cooper ports out to LightPeak simply because they both can use the USB protocol to transfer data. You still need a convertor from cooper to optical if you are going to make them work.
I hope the new unibody design gets some clues from the Macbook Air:
1. No optical drive.
2....snip)
I was going to disagree, but then I thought about pros' needs. Since storage capacities of DL DVDs can be matched with thumb drives data isn't the issue. The question is do most pros need burning capabilities on their mobile machines. I would say no because if they are at the stage in a project that requires burning they can probably get by with an external burner in the home/office/studio.
The only time I have ever needed to burn something in the past year is when I was at the studio so yeah I think it's time to say sayonara to optical for good too. No optical and 1TB SS HDDs would be nice.
I was going to disagree, but then I thought about pros' needs. Since storage capacities of DL DVDs can be matched with thumb drives data isn't the issue. The question is do most pros need burning capabilities on their mobile machines. I would say no because if they are at the stage in a project that requires burning they can probably get by with an external burner in the home/office/studio.
The only time I have ever needed to burn something in the past year is when I was at the studio so yeah I think it's time to say sayonara to optical for good too. No optical and 1TB SS HDDs would be nice.
1 TB SSDs (even as RAIDs) are 'not ready for prime time' simply because of cost, but that day is coming.
I've used the optical drive once: To install iWork. lol. thats it.
It would be great to ditch but it's probably too early. Apparently people still use DVDs.
I agree, the space used by an optical drive would better be used for battery. I hope they will give us the option to ditch the optical drive. I'm sorry, but there's hardly a reason to use physical media anymore for most of my work. (Programming)
I know certain disciplines would be more media dependent than others, but some of use hardly use an optical disc and would rather have longer battery life.
Comments
That would make it blazingly fast - even faster compared to many desktop pc's in various aspects.
There are already ssd's with 512 gybes on the market and I guess firewire 800 is really outdated and ie. to slow for hd video editing - especially if they skip the express card slot as they do right now.
And if they skipped the dvd drive, they could even build thinner computers. (I myself still need the dvd drive, but it would be sufficient for me to use an external drive.) The machines would be even more energy-efficient, more robust and completely unique in the whole industry.
Apple itself said when they talked about lion, that the future is iphone/ipad-technology - that means "instant on" and enhanced sleep mode is the way to go and I don't see any reason why they wouldn't do it with the macbook pro as well.
As the subject says a waste of time to put in hardware to run iOS apps. The big issues are marketing and consummer confusion. Also from the engineering point of view it is a complete waste, an Intel processor can easily emulate an entire ARM based machine.
As a side not there are likely a number of ARM processors all ready in Apples Macs. ARM core are often embedded in support chips.
The answer is never. Atleast not in the sense you want to see them implemented. The sad reality is that ARM CPU cores aren't even close to intel performance wise.
Actually that would be very nice to hear about. I don't think Apple will ever reveal ever detail about operations there though.
So Intel can't make a low-performance chip and ARM can't make a high-performance one?
Seriously though, what about Project Denver?
Regarding the current iMac, I couldn't disagree more with you. The current design, is in my mind, superp. I genuinely believe that the iMac is the most beautiful desktop ever produced.
In addition would a design like you describe, mean that the need for an XMac would be revived due to the slower chips being used in such iMac.
I really, respectfully, don't hope your ideas are realized
If they used the i5-2400s, it would perform the same as the current i7. They would be a notch down from what's available at this generation but I don't think it matters any more once you reach this level of performance for the iMac. If they pull the price of the iMac down by dropping the 27" and going with 24" instead, they can lower the Mac Pro entry price too.
The costs may not be significantly higher if they can mould the parts.
I agree that the current design is best to get the highest performance parts in there but it's going to hinder what touch features they can put into it and Apple puts the user experience before raw specs.
At some point, they are going to want to put display adjustment in there and you can't do that with peripheral ports on the back of the screen. Maybe they can have some sort of hybrid where the motherboard and GPU go behind the screen to maintain performance but the IO ports, PSU and drives go in the base but that will likely cause some reliability issues if they can even build a design like that at all.
As interesting as that sounds, apple would never make a product with a detachable display. They hate superfluous design.
It wouldn't be superfluous as it helps in packaging and support. Think of the base like a Mini that is twice the height but goes into a dome with a small flattened top. Then the arm is a single cylinder just like the old design with flat clips that attach to the flat top of the base and the back of the very thin display. When packing into the box, the box only has to be the same width as the height of the base.
When it comes to support, if you have a display issue, you unclip the screen and ship it back to Apple in a very thin box. If you have a computer issue, you just ship the small base back. When they bring out a new one, you keep the screen and upgrade the base as they'd sell the base as Minis.
That space can be put to so much better use. And imagine how dated a machine with an optical drive will look in 2014?
The floppy was about a year away from being dead when Apple dropped the floppy drive. Though clearly being used less and less, I don't see any way that we'll consider DVDs or CDs to be totally obsolete one year hence (especially outside the U.S., a market most people here seem to ignore).
That?s not true. It was years before the average PC wasn?t being sold with floppy drives and I think it was only last year Sony stopped making them. Apple also wasn?t the first to drop them. Dell did it before Apple, but Apple gets credit for the ?revolution? because they did it across the board.
With data ports for NAND drives and internet being the successor to optical drives, unlike with floppy drives whose direct successor was another disc technology, the only thing probably holding back Apple is cost, not the number of people that need to use a CD/DVD on occasion.
DVD drives cost more than USB ports, but a DL-DVD for a restore disc costs a lot less to produce than an 8GB flash drive. Even though the USB port and 8GB flash drive is a lot cheaper than the combination of DL-DVD and the ultra-slim DVD player in Mac notebooks the issue falls with Mac OS X updates.
Sure, they have the remote install option and you can use any external DVD drives, but they need to make sure that they can sell Mac OS X Lion updates to customers on flash drives. This scenario will come into affect with the new MBAs. Will they have you send in your 8GB flash drive Restore Stick or pay extra for the 8GB flash drive.
It seems to me that getting Mac OS X Lion out would be the first goal before making this sweeping hardware change on their notebooks. After that they can include the few million 8GB flash drives with Mac notebooks per quarter where the cost will be easily consumed with the entire cost of the notebook and counted against the cost savings of not including a DVD drive and all the other benefits that come with it. After that they have about 2 years before they will have to plan for most or all of Mac OS X 10.8 ?Mountain Lion?? to come on flash drives.
Haven't there been instances in the past where the 17" wasn't refreshed at the same time as the others? I hope that is not the case this time. I want a maxed 17"!
2 years ago the 17 was earlier than the others - it was the first MBP with built in battery and long runtime. That's how I ended up with one. Love the HUGE screen, and it's only a tiny bit bigger than most Windows 15" machines (it fits in laptop bags made for 15" Windows computers).
But next time around I'll still go for a 15" again. 17 is just too big to be carried around all the time - the weight would be OK but the physical size of it.... it's large.
http://www.wemac.se/?p=698
Gorgeous, if it's the real deal.
Very pretty but unfortunately that image is just Photoshop wanking, plus a wishlist of features (all speculation). No way they're going to make a liquid metal one, and as much as everyone seems to be waiting for matte black anodized alu it should be clear by now that Jon Ive hates that idea so they're going to be sliver alu as usual.
If they make a MacBook-Air 15" I'll run to the store with cash in my hand...
I think dropping the optical drive for dual storage capabilities (a la iMac) would be a sensible choice for the MBPro. As long as I can use any 3rd party DVD drive to install software. Just don't make me buy an Apple Superdrive for $99
You don?t have to buy Apple SuperDrive or any USB DVD drive at all.
And HW for LightPeak. I haven?t read about Intel incorporating it into chipsets, other vendors making chipsets for it, or even what the port will be like, not to mention the complete lack of devices to connect to LightPeak. It?s not like you can just plug in an iPhone which has cooper ports out to LightPeak simply because they both can use the USB protocol to transfer data. You still need a convertor from cooper to optical if you are going to make them work.
Hope it has Lighpeak (read article).
Hope it has Lighpeak (read article).
That would be great.
I'm hoping for new MacBook Pros and the iPad 2 as the "one more thing."
I don't know how much longer I can wait for the iPad2. I'm going to have to buy an Android tablet if it doesn't come out soon.....NOT!
I think laptops need to be updated more often than once a year. Tech moves faster than that.
+1
I want native eSATA ports on all MacBooks and iMacs.
I hope the new unibody design gets some clues from the Macbook Air:
1. No optical drive.
2....snip)
I was going to disagree, but then I thought about pros' needs. Since storage capacities of DL DVDs can be matched with thumb drives data isn't the issue. The question is do most pros need burning capabilities on their mobile machines. I would say no because if they are at the stage in a project that requires burning they can probably get by with an external burner in the home/office/studio.
The only time I have ever needed to burn something in the past year is when I was at the studio so yeah I think it's time to say sayonara to optical for good too. No optical and 1TB SS HDDs would be nice.
I was going to disagree, but then I thought about pros' needs. Since storage capacities of DL DVDs can be matched with thumb drives data isn't the issue. The question is do most pros need burning capabilities on their mobile machines. I would say no because if they are at the stage in a project that requires burning they can probably get by with an external burner in the home/office/studio.
The only time I have ever needed to burn something in the past year is when I was at the studio so yeah I think it's time to say sayonara to optical for good too. No optical and 1TB SS HDDs would be nice.
1 TB SSDs (even as RAIDs) are 'not ready for prime time' simply because of cost, but that day is coming.
I've used the optical drive once: To install iWork. lol. thats it.
It would be great to ditch but it's probably too early. Apparently people still use DVDs.
I agree, the space used by an optical drive would better be used for battery. I hope they will give us the option to ditch the optical drive. I'm sorry, but there's hardly a reason to use physical media anymore for most of my work. (Programming)
I know certain disciplines would be more media dependent than others, but some of use hardly use an optical disc and would rather have longer battery life.