Rant: where are your updated laptops, Apple?
I expected to see a thread complaining about the lack of a recent MacBook or MacBook Pro update. There was none so I decided to create one. Apple's laptop range is well overdue for an upgrade. Since other companies have already released updated their laptop line-ups with Skylake processors, I cannot understand why Apple is taking so long.
Cue comment: If you need a new Mac just go and buy what's already on sale! Agreed. But when did you ever 'need' a new Mac? Almost never. They just go on and on and on. But when did you 'want' a new Mac? Almost always!
I have a 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina display. I 'want' something faster with more memory that's a bit lighter. Surely the next upgrade cycle is due?
Love the new 12" MacBook but the processor isn't powerful enough for me nor is the screen real estate sufficient. i keep hearing that there will be a larger format version that'll replace the MacBook Air 13", something like a MacBook 14" with Retina display. If that's in the works, sell it already!
The MacBook Pro with Retina is due for a re-design too. I'd be happy with just a slightly thinner and lighter version of the current 13" MBPr.
The lack of rumours on this subject is depressing.
Cue comment: If you need a new Mac just go and buy what's already on sale! Agreed. But when did you ever 'need' a new Mac? Almost never. They just go on and on and on. But when did you 'want' a new Mac? Almost always!
I have a 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina display. I 'want' something faster with more memory that's a bit lighter. Surely the next upgrade cycle is due?
Love the new 12" MacBook but the processor isn't powerful enough for me nor is the screen real estate sufficient. i keep hearing that there will be a larger format version that'll replace the MacBook Air 13", something like a MacBook 14" with Retina display. If that's in the works, sell it already!
The MacBook Pro with Retina is due for a re-design too. I'd be happy with just a slightly thinner and lighter version of the current 13" MBPr.
The lack of rumours on this subject is depressing.
Comments
http://wccftech.com/topic/hardware/
That is 16TFLOPs, double the Titan X. That performance level is what to expect in the next Mac Pro (currently 7 TFLOPs) with whatever custom GPU it gets. NVidia will have their presentation tomorrow:
https://developer.nvidia.com/gdc-2016
AMD is planning to launch in the Summer (June at the earliest), NVidia launches in May. Skylake GT4e isn't out yet either:
http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-skylake-gt4e-core-photo-shows-long-chip_179708
These GPUs shouldn't affect the entry level models so the 12" Macbook and 13" MBP could be updated. The 13" MBP can get the following:
http://ark.intel.com/products/91497/Intel-Core-i7-6650U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_40-GHz
This GPU would sit between the Iris Pro 5200 and 650M in the older 15" models. I suspect Apple will use GT4e on the entry 15", which could be 80-90% of the M370x in the current model. The replacement for the M370x I'd expect to be somewhere around NVidia 960M/970M performance but much lower power draw.
Apple has an event on the 21st ( http://www.apple.com/apple-events/march-2016/ ). This can bring a new 4" iPhone, new iPads (iPad Air + keyboard/Pencil), new 12" Macbook and new 13" (maybe 14") MBP with USB C and updated design.
iMac, Mac Pro, 15" MBP would have to wait until around June (WWDC, possibly silent updates).
As as for getting your panties in a bunch, it is pretty obvious now that Intel will be slowing down delivery of new process technologies. This means we could see 3-4 year delays between process shrinks and there may only be one or two left at that. In other words the industry is at a point where technology improvements will dwell a bit until new paths are found.
Although Apple says that they will still be supporting the Mac, it wouldn't take very much to turn OS X more into iOS (even on x86). It's all about simplifying the computing experience. Take for example the process of installing an operating system. That doesn't need to work the same way we are used to. Systems can be installed the same way applications are. They can come down as a read-only disk image and you just drop the disk image onto a drive to make it bootable and optionally have multiple systems side-by-side. It would have a permissions-restricted writeable override folder that could modify the functionality of the core system but hardly anyone would ever use it. System updates can be disk images too.
This creates a separation between user-level files and the system. The further modification of taking away write permissions from applications by default brings security up to the level of iOS without compromising functionality. The last step has to be a way to interact with the screen at a distance under iOS. This requires removing the mouse cursor from OS X or rather changing it to a multi-touch compatible design (partially transparent circle). The windowing system needs to go too.
The operating systems don't need to merge but there doesn't need to be this notion of the Mac being legacy and iOS (and corresponding hardware) being the future. They can make a system that is as powerful as OS X but as secure and simple as iOS. Having the above lockdowns (which don't affect functionality that anyone uses) allows iOS to run scripting languages and build software securely because their processes are restricted by default and it simplifies the filesystem.
the he thing with Mac OS, that many seem to mis, is that it has become THE operating system for more advanced users. We literally have developers switching from Linux to Mac OS for their developmental machines. It has been slow in coming but Mac OS is becoming the preferred OS for technologists of all types.
This is comes back to the idea that Apple as a manufacture doesn't need to have a one pony show. Just like Ford makes trucks for those that need them while mass producing all sorts of cars, there is incentive for Apple to do the same thing.
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/mac-overtakes-linux-as-developers-primary-os-windows-headed-below-50-market-share/
OS X is the best UNIX system a developer can use. iOS has helped OS X here because developers need a Mac system to target iOS.
There just seems to always be a divide between the Mac way and the iOS way like back when there was the Apple II way and then the Mac way. It was mostly a UI difference that created that divide and eventually the Apple II design disappeared and the Mac OS that replaced it (before OS X) didn't have a terminal to use and it was not a very nice system to develop for.
Apple has to keep supporting a fully fledged OS because that's how software is made for their platform but I don't think there has to be a large divide between their systems because that divides their attention in hardware and software as well as the attention of the users. I don't think the way Microsoft removed the divide was the right way to do it though.
The Mac suffers from not being in the larger iOS app ecosystem where developers focus their attention. iOS suffers from the OS not allowing the capability of the Mac OS, one big feature being software development. You can't develop for iOS or the Mac on an iOS device.
I think it would be nice if developers could more easily make universal apps. They can't do this as long as OS X maintains its legacy UI. Similarly Mac developers can't target iOS easily because the windowing and menu system doesn't translate over easily and there's no dynamic code capability. This doesn't mean they have to be the same system with the same capabilities but I think there are changes that can be made to OS X (and iOS) that would help.
Apple has been trying to boost security with things like system integrity protection (SIP) and recently there was a flaw that used privilege escalation to affect the system that the end user can't then fix because they don't have permission to do anything:
http://wccftech.com/zero-day-os-x-sip-exploit-puts-all-theversions-at-risk/
Instead of locking down the system that way, if they used read-only operating system disk images that were checksummed, this would not only allow trivial operating system replacement but it could check online if the system file had been corrupted and warn the user. Users could check it manually. These images would be hidden away when installed on a system.
Developers could use beta versions of an operating system very easily and just reboot to their main system if it's too unstable and maybe delete it. Apple could throw out an x86 version of iOS as an image, Mac users could boot from it to test apps natively using multi-touch inputs like the trackpads (meaning iOS has to support the trackpad like how Apple TV supports the touch remote). Not mouse support because a mouse behaves differently. Apps would be fullscreen inside a split pane and windows would be panels contained in their application space but multiple app panels could split across window spaces to make an equivalent of Spaces. The menu system would have to be something else completely but this can appears as a left sidebar of commands, which is how some iOS apps do it.
The filesystem would separate apps, files and the operating system images. It doesn't have to be partitioning but when someone goes to the filesystem, they should see only their own files, none of the Applications folder, Library, System etc. The filesystem app would show only the contents of that user's home folder. There can be an app to allow developers to access more of the filesystem as part of XCode but even developers would hardly ever need to use this because there would be an applications space and this is where user-level UNIX software would go just like applications and it wouldn't be hidden away. No user-installed software should be hidden from the user that installed it.
Making OS X more secure and more user-friendly while making iOS more powerful would help maintain the attention of both sets of users and it would allow software developers an easier way to create universal apps between the two so that people who have used Macs for decades can get the same developer attention that iOS users get. A cool app on iOS that does some fancy image manipulation can target Mac users. One day, it can allow a multi-touch OS X system without the compromises that other systems have been making and this would satisfy people who only ever want a single piece of hardware for everything. Then there might not be this frustration on waiting for Mac hardware all the time because you have an expanded choice of hardware.