I could see them eventually ditching mag-safe because of wireless charging but it stayed on the 13" for now.
Apple will retain the mag-safe connector as long as the MacBook is sucking significant power. The only MacBook to lose the mag-safe is able to operate for a day without charging. If a MacBook is likely to remain connected to a power source while in use, then it's likely to have a mag-safe connector.
A lot of people have a difficulty imagining using a laptop without it sucking power from the wall... the new MacBook is free of that constraint but people haven't quite got to that point yet. Maybe next year being continuously connected to a power supply will become less common.
As for the discrete GPU ... maybe Apple is ready to reveal one based on the iOS version. The iPad GPU is getting close to the faster GPUs in the laptops, Apple is sure to be looking at that kind of performance to drive the iPad Pro anyway. It would make sense as a way to gain performance without the accompanying heat problem.
Been waiting on this. My needs have exceeded the capabilities of my 2012 MBA, even though it's served me extremely well. Hopefully this is a significant design and tech update, as am planning on jump on the next MBP refresh.
If the new 15" Pro arrives in June, then Skylake isn't likely, since Intel's chip won't start appearing in computers until the second half of this year. Anyone thinking of getting a new Mac should, in my opinion, definitely wait for Skylake. The revolutionary chip is 60% more energy efficient than Broadwell, and will offer wireless charging capabilities.
The version of Skylake suitable for the 15" MBP is Skylake-H. I haven't seen any rumors that suggest Skylake-H might ship before 2016, so any 15" MBP introduced at WWDC is virtually certain to have a Broadwell CPU.
I will probably buy one. I presently have no intention of waiting for Skylake, which is only a Tock.
The idea that Skylake could 60% more energy efficient that Broadwell, both of which are built on the same 14nm process (the main determinant of energy efficiency in integrated circuits) is laughable. Almost all energy efficiency gains come with the Ticks. The Tocks offer new features. More likely, both Broadwell and Skylake are about 60% more energy efficient than Ivy Bridge and Haswell.
Nope. The market for such a product is way too niche. Apple will never bring it back, nor should they.
That's not clear. It seems that 17" MBP sales were satisfactory at the time of discontinuation. The reason for the discontinuation is that in 2012 the cost of Retina 17" displays was unaffordable due to low yields. Now 17" Retina displays are affordable making a 17" rMBP a realistic possibility.
If the new 15" Pro arrives in June, then Skylake isn't likely, since Intel's chip won't start appearing in computers until the second half of this year.
You do realize that WWDC is in June right? It wouldn't be the first time something was announced at WWDC with shipping to come in two weeks.
Anyone thinking of getting a new Mac should, in my opinion, definitely wait for Skylake. The revolutionary chip is 60% more energy efficient than Broadwell, and will offer wireless charging capabilities.
If at all possible this is true, SkyLake should be wonderful. However I don't have any hope for wireless charging in a performance laptop like the 15" MBP. In fact wireless charging doesn't really fit into common usage profiles for a laptop like this.
On the other hand I just brought a 13" Broadwell based laptop and must say I pleased with the purchase. Compared to my previous machine, a 2008 MBP, this new laptop is a real work horse on battery power. The only real requirement I see is that Apple needs to address the OS performance and especially so, elf the apps. Preview for example still beach balls like crazy and I have no explanation as to why (the machine is lightly loaded when this happens).
That's not clear. It seems that 17" MBP sales were satisfactory at the time of discontinuation. The reason for the discontinuation is that in 2012 the cost of Retina 17" displays was unaffordable due to low yields. Now 17" Retina displays are affordable making a 17" rMBP a realistic possibility.
They would have been waiting for IGZO availability, in other words.
Apple will retain the mag-safe connector as long as the MacBook is sucking significant power. The only MacBook to lose the mag-safe is able to operate for a day without charging. If a MacBook is likely to remain connected to a power source while in use, then it's likely to have a mag-safe connector.
I suspect this is one thing that people don't grasp, the way many people use the Mac Book Pro you really need wired charging.
A lot of people have a difficulty imagining using a laptop without it sucking power from the wall... the new MacBook is free of that constraint but people haven't quite got to that point yet. Maybe next year being continuously connected to a power supply will become less common.
This is so true. However I must say my 13" MBP is really impressing me with its ability to run well for a long time on battery power.
As for the discrete GPU ... maybe Apple is ready to reveal one based on the iOS version. The iPad GPU is getting close to the faster GPUs in the laptops, Apple is sure to be looking at that kind of performance to drive the iPad Pro anyway. It would make sense as a way to gain performance without the accompanying heat problem.
I guess this is possible, after all Apple has hired a number of AMD engineers but I imagined these people working strictly on processors for iOS devices. Beyond that the Imagination derived processors really don't do OpenCL or compute if you will, well. I still see OpenCL support as very significant in the market as the only widely accepted cross platform GPU compute solution. I know there is limited OpenCL support in Imaginations chips but they don't support 32 and 64 bit math anywhere near as well as the NVidia and AMD solutions.
Speaking of AMD they are expected to debut their new GPUs very soon with the High Bandwidth Memory support. Such a GPU in a laptop would be awesome. We should see performance exceeding all previous discreet GPUs by a good margin. I know many don't like AMD GPUs, for any number of imagined reasons, but you don't see much in the way of valid complaints from Mac Pro users. If Apple has to stay with Broadwell then this might be one way to significantly boost overall MBP performance.
That's not clear. It seems that 17" MBP sales were satisfactory at the time of discontinuation. The reason for the discontinuation is that in 2012 the cost of Retina 17" displays was unaffordable due to low yields. Now 17" Retina displays are affordable making a 17" rMBP a realistic possibility.
They would have just kept the non-retina if that was the case. They did it with the 13" model. They kept the mac pro going in spite of what must have been dismal sales after several years without updates. On the software end, final cut pro languished for a long time. If they intended to update the 17" macbook pro at that time, it never would have been cancelled. Bringing out a new one would be going back on that. I have yet to see them resurrect a product like that.
Nope. The market for such a product is way too niche. Apple will never bring it back, nor should they.
I could see Apple realigning the common frame sizes around the sizes of 12, 14 & 16 inches. With modern screens the bezels could be shrunk to allow a 16" screen into a MBP that isn't much bigger than the current 15".
As it is I perfectly understand the wants people have for a 17" screen as screen realestate is king. The problem is 17" machines just aren't portable and many have rejected such machines due to size issues. It is a niche market as you note. That doesn't mean Apple shouldn't try to deliver a better solution than the current 15" machine, they can do that buy delivering the largest screen possible in the form factor.
I have a hard time believing that apple would get rid of the discrete gpu this time around. The iris pro is a decent integrated gpu, but I don't think it's quite ready to completely replace the discrete gpu at the high end.
What I would like to see in an update is more RAM and TB3. I don't think it would be unreasonable to see a USB-C port, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they didn't put one in (like the 13" rmbp update).
As for the 17" being niche, if a smaller apple could justify it as a product before, why can't a larger apple justify it now? If anything, it can become the model with 32GB of ram, discrete GPU and bigger battery. There are a lot of people, myself included, that would buy that machine. Would it sell in MacBook Air numbers? Of course not, but I think it would still be a profitable product for apple.
They would have just kept the non-retina if that was the case.
Absolutely not. That would have created confusion about which is the high-end machine: the 15" rMBP and the 17" cMBP as well as confusion about why there was no 17" rMBP. From a marketing perspective, that would have been disastrous.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmm
If they intended to update the 17" macbook pro at that time, it never would have been cancelled. Bringing out a new one would be going back on that. I have yet to see them resurrect a product like that.
The recently introduced (or re-introduced) Retina MacBook is a perfect example.
They would have just kept the non-retina if that was the case. They did it with the 13" model. They kept the mac pro going in spite of what must have been dismal sales after several years without updates. On the software end, final cut pro languished for a long time. If they intended to update the 17" macbook pro at that time, it never would have been cancelled. Bringing out a new one would be going back on that. I have yet to see them resurrect a product like that.
The way the dismissal of the 17" was handled though was very interesting as Apple has said very little about it. I suspect that sales did tank on the platform but that might have been the result of poor updates and configurations. I really think that Apple will try to get more screen realestate out of a 15" class laptop enclosure. If they could pick up a half inch in width and height giving use what ever for the diagonal that would have a real impact on screen area. Even if Apple had to grow the enclosure by a quarter inch in two directions it would be worth the extra scree area and would minimize an explosion in the laptops size. In effect an edge to edge screen a far as the technology will allow.
Absolutely not. That would have created confusion about which is the high-end machine: the 15" rMBP and the 17" cMBP as well as confusion about why there was no 17" rMBP. From a marketing perspective, that would have been disastrous.
The recently introduced (or re-introduced) Retina MacBook is a perfect example.
They recycled a name more than a product in the case of the retina macbook. It has a lot in common with the Air, but it doesn't share much with the older macbook. It's not entry level model in terms of price. It's more a sign of where they're likely to go in the future. I disagree with the other assessment too. The 17" wasn't there to be the high end model. Hardware configurations converged between the 15 and 17" model, so what you really obtained was extra screen real estate. Having owned both 15" and 17" models, I can say it does make a difference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
The way the dismissal of the 17" was handled though was very interesting as Apple has said very little about it. I suspect that sales did tank on the platform but that might have been the result of poor updates and configurations. I really think that Apple will try to get more screen realestate out of a 15" class laptop enclosure. If they could pick up a half inch in width and height giving use what ever for the diagonal that would have a real impact on screen area. Even if Apple had to grow the enclosure by a quarter inch in two directions it would be worth the extra scree area and would minimize an explosion in the laptops size. In effect an edge to edge screen a far as the technology will allow.
Well in the G4 era the 17" had the best cto options. I don't think they were able to find enough buyers through screen real estate alone. They probably lined it up with the retina introduction to minimize customer attrition. I do like the 17" model, but I don't expect this to happen. As I mentioned I also don't expect to see them do away with a 15" model. Its sales are probably limited somewhat by its price, but the popularity of the size is likely to keep it around.
You might get something like this. The reasoning is pretty simple, to set the machine apart performance wise. I could see the two SSD's RAID'ed together to increase transfer rates. If not RAID at least provide for the extra storage capacity.
Yes. The current Macbook Pro SSDs already do 700MB/sec, two of them in a striped RAID would be quite compelling for pros.
I wonder if a new Pro MacBook might emerge with dual GPUs given that the Pro Apps have all now been tweaked to be able to use the extra GPU on a nMac Pro?
I wonder if a new Pro MacBook might emerge with dual GPUs given that the Pro Apps have all now been tweaked to be able to use the extra GPU on a nMac Pro?
I wonder if a new Pro MacBook might emerge with dual GPUs given that the Pro Apps have all now been tweaked to be able to use the extra GPU on a nMac Pro?
Battery life is a big deal for notebooks. Two discrete gpus would consume too much power. As it is they all have some form of integrated graphics. Some of them sort of have two already by the inclusion of integrated and discrete graphics. They do not have the ability to run both simultaneously, so that should be your first clue. You would also be looking at an extremely limited market. Gaming would represent a big part of this if they could operate in some crossfire-like configuration, but those people would spend more time in Windows. Others are better served by a desktop (yes even in the current year) if they require that level of power.
Nope. The market for such a product is way too niche. Apple will never bring [the 17" MacBook Pro] back, nor should they.
If I ever open the dictionary looking for "pessimist" the name "Slurpy" should appear. Thank goodness folks such as yourself don't work for Apple.
The entire market for Macs is "a niche" in light of how many silly Windows PCs are sold. Therefore, the term "niche" is meaningless.
And although Apple discontinued the 17" in the past, that doesn't mean they couldn't or wouldn't bring a huge screen notebook back to the market, especially now that BIG SCREENS ARE THE IN-THING. Again, I cite for you the popularity of the iPhone 6 Plus and the rumors of the upcoming 12.9" iPad. BIG IS IN!
Furthermore, Apple could make the 17" thinner and lighter than the old version was, making it abundantly more portable. But speaking of "portable," such is in the eye of the user. Remember that the very first Mac laptop, the Mac Portable, was not portable by today's standards. It weighed 16 pounds (7.2kg). Yet people totted it around. The old 17" was 6.6 pounds (3kg). And again, Apple could make a lighter 17" today.
People who poo-poo the idea of bringing back the 17" are worshippers of the Status Quo. These people have no vision for what's current. They have no desire to see beyond their own needs. They have no desire to help others who have expressed differing needs. They are closed minded. And in many cases they cannot see outside their own borders. Like I said, things may be small here in Japan, but when you have one machine and when that machine is a portable, you often want the biggest screen you can afford. Hence a 17" MacBook may be more attractive to some people outside the US than a 15" or 13" or 12".
For those of you who are open-minded, tell Apple to bring back the MacBook Pro 17" here:
Comments
Apple will retain the mag-safe connector as long as the MacBook is sucking significant power. The only MacBook to lose the mag-safe is able to operate for a day without charging. If a MacBook is likely to remain connected to a power source while in use, then it's likely to have a mag-safe connector.
A lot of people have a difficulty imagining using a laptop without it sucking power from the wall... the new MacBook is free of that constraint but people haven't quite got to that point yet. Maybe next year being continuously connected to a power supply will become less common.
As for the discrete GPU ... maybe Apple is ready to reveal one based on the iOS version. The iPad GPU is getting close to the faster GPUs in the laptops, Apple is sure to be looking at that kind of performance to drive the iPad Pro anyway. It would make sense as a way to gain performance without the accompanying heat problem.
Been waiting on this. My needs have exceeded the capabilities of my 2012 MBA, even though it's served me extremely well. Hopefully this is a significant design and tech update, as am planning on jump on the next MBP refresh.
Apple should bring back the MacBook Pro 17".
Nope. The market for such a product is way too niche. Apple will never bring it back, nor should they.
If the new 15" Pro arrives in June, then Skylake isn't likely, since Intel's chip won't start appearing in computers until the second half of this year. Anyone thinking of getting a new Mac should, in my opinion, definitely wait for Skylake. The revolutionary chip is 60% more energy efficient than Broadwell, and will offer wireless charging capabilities.
The version of Skylake suitable for the 15" MBP is Skylake-H. I haven't seen any rumors that suggest Skylake-H might ship before 2016, so any 15" MBP introduced at WWDC is virtually certain to have a Broadwell CPU.
I will probably buy one. I presently have no intention of waiting for Skylake, which is only a Tock.
The idea that Skylake could 60% more energy efficient that Broadwell, both of which are built on the same 14nm process (the main determinant of energy efficiency in integrated circuits) is laughable. Almost all energy efficiency gains come with the Ticks. The Tocks offer new features. More likely, both Broadwell and Skylake are about 60% more energy efficient than Ivy Bridge and Haswell.
Nope. The market for such a product is way too niche. Apple will never bring it back, nor should they.
That's not clear. It seems that 17" MBP sales were satisfactory at the time of discontinuation. The reason for the discontinuation is that in 2012 the cost of Retina 17" displays was unaffordable due to low yields. Now 17" Retina displays are affordable making a 17" rMBP a realistic possibility.
If at all possible this is true, SkyLake should be wonderful. However I don't have any hope for wireless charging in a performance laptop like the 15" MBP. In fact wireless charging doesn't really fit into common usage profiles for a laptop like this.
On the other hand I just brought a 13" Broadwell based laptop and must say I pleased with the purchase. Compared to my previous machine, a 2008 MBP, this new laptop is a real work horse on battery power. The only real requirement I see is that Apple needs to address the OS performance and especially so, elf the apps. Preview for example still beach balls like crazy and I have no explanation as to why (the machine is lightly loaded when this happens).
They would have been waiting for IGZO availability, in other words.
I guess this is possible, after all Apple has hired a number of AMD engineers but I imagined these people working strictly on processors for iOS devices. Beyond that the Imagination derived processors really don't do OpenCL or compute if you will, well. I still see OpenCL support as very significant in the market as the only widely accepted cross platform GPU compute solution. I know there is limited OpenCL support in Imaginations chips but they don't support 32 and 64 bit math anywhere near as well as the NVidia and AMD solutions.
Speaking of AMD they are expected to debut their new GPUs very soon with the High Bandwidth Memory support. Such a GPU in a laptop would be awesome. We should see performance exceeding all previous discreet GPUs by a good margin. I know many don't like AMD GPUs, for any number of imagined reasons, but you don't see much in the way of valid complaints from Mac Pro users. If Apple has to stay with Broadwell then this might be one way to significantly boost overall MBP performance.
That's not clear. It seems that 17" MBP sales were satisfactory at the time of discontinuation. The reason for the discontinuation is that in 2012 the cost of Retina 17" displays was unaffordable due to low yields. Now 17" Retina displays are affordable making a 17" rMBP a realistic possibility.
They would have just kept the non-retina if that was the case. They did it with the 13" model. They kept the mac pro going in spite of what must have been dismal sales after several years without updates. On the software end, final cut pro languished for a long time. If they intended to update the 17" macbook pro at that time, it never would have been cancelled. Bringing out a new one would be going back on that. I have yet to see them resurrect a product like that.
I could see Apple realigning the common frame sizes around the sizes of 12, 14 & 16 inches. With modern screens the bezels could be shrunk to allow a 16" screen into a MBP that isn't much bigger than the current 15".
As it is I perfectly understand the wants people have for a 17" screen as screen realestate is king. The problem is 17" machines just aren't portable and many have rejected such machines due to size issues. It is a niche market as you note. That doesn't mean Apple shouldn't try to deliver a better solution than the current 15" machine, they can do that buy delivering the largest screen possible in the form factor.
What I would like to see in an update is more RAM and TB3. I don't think it would be unreasonable to see a USB-C port, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they didn't put one in (like the 13" rmbp update).
As for the 17" being niche, if a smaller apple could justify it as a product before, why can't a larger apple justify it now? If anything, it can become the model with 32GB of ram, discrete GPU and bigger battery. There are a lot of people, myself included, that would buy that machine. Would it sell in MacBook Air numbers? Of course not, but I think it would still be a profitable product for apple.
They would have just kept the non-retina if that was the case.
Absolutely not. That would have created confusion about which is the high-end machine: the 15" rMBP and the 17" cMBP as well as confusion about why there was no 17" rMBP. From a marketing perspective, that would have been disastrous.
If they intended to update the 17" macbook pro at that time, it never would have been cancelled. Bringing out a new one would be going back on that. I have yet to see them resurrect a product like that.
The recently introduced (or re-introduced) Retina MacBook is a perfect example.
The way the dismissal of the 17" was handled though was very interesting as Apple has said very little about it. I suspect that sales did tank on the platform but that might have been the result of poor updates and configurations. I really think that Apple will try to get more screen realestate out of a 15" class laptop enclosure. If they could pick up a half inch in width and height giving use what ever for the diagonal that would have a real impact on screen area. Even if Apple had to grow the enclosure by a quarter inch in two directions it would be worth the extra scree area and would minimize an explosion in the laptops size. In effect an edge to edge screen a far as the technology will allow.
Absolutely not. That would have created confusion about which is the high-end machine: the 15" rMBP and the 17" cMBP as well as confusion about why there was no 17" rMBP. From a marketing perspective, that would have been disastrous.
The recently introduced (or re-introduced) Retina MacBook is a perfect example.
They recycled a name more than a product in the case of the retina macbook. It has a lot in common with the Air, but it doesn't share much with the older macbook. It's not entry level model in terms of price. It's more a sign of where they're likely to go in the future. I disagree with the other assessment too. The 17" wasn't there to be the high end model. Hardware configurations converged between the 15 and 17" model, so what you really obtained was extra screen real estate. Having owned both 15" and 17" models, I can say it does make a difference.
The way the dismissal of the 17" was handled though was very interesting as Apple has said very little about it. I suspect that sales did tank on the platform but that might have been the result of poor updates and configurations. I really think that Apple will try to get more screen realestate out of a 15" class laptop enclosure. If they could pick up a half inch in width and height giving use what ever for the diagonal that would have a real impact on screen area. Even if Apple had to grow the enclosure by a quarter inch in two directions it would be worth the extra scree area and would minimize an explosion in the laptops size. In effect an edge to edge screen a far as the technology will allow.
Well in the G4 era the 17" had the best cto options. I don't think they were able to find enough buyers through screen real estate alone. They probably lined it up with the retina introduction to minimize customer attrition. I do like the 17" model, but I don't expect this to happen. As I mentioned I also don't expect to see them do away with a 15" model. Its sales are probably limited somewhat by its price, but the popularity of the size is likely to keep it around.
You might get something like this. The reasoning is pretty simple, to set the machine apart performance wise. I could see the two SSD's RAID'ed together to increase transfer rates. If not RAID at least provide for the extra storage capacity.
Yes. The current Macbook Pro SSDs already do 700MB/sec, two of them in a striped RAID would be quite compelling for pros.
I wonder if a new Pro MacBook might emerge with dual GPUs given that the Pro Apps have all now been tweaked to be able to use the extra GPU on a nMac Pro?
No chance. More likely integrated graphics only.
I wonder if a new Pro MacBook might emerge with dual GPUs given that the Pro Apps have all now been tweaked to be able to use the extra GPU on a nMac Pro?
Battery life is a big deal for notebooks. Two discrete gpus would consume too much power. As it is they all have some form of integrated graphics. Some of them sort of have two already by the inclusion of integrated and discrete graphics. They do not have the ability to run both simultaneously, so that should be your first clue. You would also be looking at an extremely limited market. Gaming would represent a big part of this if they could operate in some crossfire-like configuration, but those people would spend more time in Windows. Others are better served by a desktop (yes even in the current year) if they require that level of power.
USB and Thunderbolt solve different problems. If anything we will see a more advanced version of TB.
But the point is that Thunderbolt 3 is tied to Skylake, isn't it?
No Skylake, no TB3. No TB3, no USB 3.1 Gen 2.
Nope. The market for such a product is way too niche. Apple will never bring [the 17" MacBook Pro] back, nor should they.
If I ever open the dictionary looking for "pessimist" the name "Slurpy" should appear. Thank goodness folks such as yourself don't work for Apple.
The entire market for Macs is "a niche" in light of how many silly Windows PCs are sold. Therefore, the term "niche" is meaningless.
And although Apple discontinued the 17" in the past, that doesn't mean they couldn't or wouldn't bring a huge screen notebook back to the market, especially now that BIG SCREENS ARE THE IN-THING. Again, I cite for you the popularity of the iPhone 6 Plus and the rumors of the upcoming 12.9" iPad. BIG IS IN!
Furthermore, Apple could make the 17" thinner and lighter than the old version was, making it abundantly more portable. But speaking of "portable," such is in the eye of the user. Remember that the very first Mac laptop, the Mac Portable, was not portable by today's standards. It weighed 16 pounds (7.2kg). Yet people totted it around. The old 17" was 6.6 pounds (3kg). And again, Apple could make a lighter 17" today.
People who poo-poo the idea of bringing back the 17" are worshippers of the Status Quo. These people have no vision for what's current. They have no desire to see beyond their own needs. They have no desire to help others who have expressed differing needs. They are closed minded. And in many cases they cannot see outside their own borders. Like I said, things may be small here in Japan, but when you have one machine and when that machine is a portable, you often want the biggest screen you can afford. Hence a 17" MacBook may be more attractive to some people outside the US than a 15" or 13" or 12".
For those of you who are open-minded, tell Apple to bring back the MacBook Pro 17" here:
https://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html
Even if you don't want one yourself, please send Apple feedback on behalf of those of us who do. Be a good Samaritan!