Rumor: Apple to launch 15-inch MacBook Air in April, 'effectively killing the Pro'

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  • Reply 21 of 184
    mauszmausz Posts: 243member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solsun View Post


    if the above rumor is true, then you could either use a usb/ethernet adapter or get the 17"



    USB won't cut it for gigabit, unless it's USB3 (highly unlikely)
  • Reply 22 of 184
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by auxio View Post


    But not outside the realm of possibility given the cost of this Thunderbolt to Expresscard adapter



    I think my point is being missed. I understand that thunderbolt is still expensive. The point is that if you can't give us a cheap thunderbolt to gigabit adapter, just leave the port in instead. I can't imagine they are completely unable to work in the ethernet port even in a slimmer form factor.
  • Reply 23 of 184
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tmallon View Post


    I second the need for the gig ethernet port, now the million dollar question to buy a Pro now, or wait and see what we end up with.



    Agreed.. Apple is moving into business. Ethernet is very important here.



    The optical disk is worthless. Better to carry an external one.
  • Reply 24 of 184
    cmf2cmf2 Posts: 1,427member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mausz View Post


    USB won't cut it for gigabit, unless it's USB3 (highly unlikely)



    Why is USB 3.0 highly unlikely? It will be natively supported in Ivy Bridge. I'm expecting Ivy Bridge based macs to include it.
  • Reply 25 of 184
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xacattaque View Post


    I don't see them killing the Pro unless they manage to lower prices considerably. I have Pro and would love to "upgrade" to an Air, but I get more for my money with the Pro right now.



    I agree that they won't kill the Pro just yet but not due to price so much as capacity. the 15 and 17 inch pros are the powerhouse machines and a 256GB drive just won't cut it. When the drives can be at least 500GB then those machines might be killed off. Also they need thunderbolt to be more mainstream to counter killing off the firewire ports and it wouldn't hurt to have 802.11ac actually out.



    Now I can see them bringing out a model or two of a 15 inch Air alongside the Pro for now. See if it sells. it might not. They might discover that no one really wants an Air that big. In the end we could have the Airs as the 11 and 13 inch machines (kill off the 13 inch pro) and the Pro as 15 and 17
  • Reply 26 of 184
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JJJameson View Post


    I could live without both as long as I can hook up an optical drive through thunderbolt and have a thunderbolt to ethernet adapter so that you don't have to get pathetic 10/100 speeds from that lousy usb to ethernet adapter. The biggest thing for me is getting a real video card, not some integrated, toy card from Intel. That and if you are getting rid of the hard drives from SSDs, at least make the upgrading substantially cheaper and offer comparable storage. Paying an additional $1,100 for a 512 GB SSD to replace the standard 750 HD is ridiculous...



    My thoughts exactly.
  • Reply 27 of 184
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cmf2 View Post


    Why is USB 3.0 highly unlikely? It will be natively supported in Ivy Bridge. I'm expecting Ivy Bridge based macs to include it.



    Because of their push for Thunderbolt so heavily. Including USB 3.0 at the same time would do nothing but diminish any reason to go to Thunderbolt. At least in the case of having USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt you have enough differentiation. USB 3 and Thunderbolt, not as much. Sure, theoretical peak is only half of thunderbolt, but that's substantially less difference than than the 20 times slower USB 2.0. And honestly you are probably not going to ever saturate USB 3.0 completely very often anyway.
  • Reply 28 of 184
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Carniphage View Post


    Really?

    I am over optical media. When I last cleared out my office, I threw out the blank DVDs.



    C.



    I'm not. My line of work requires transfer of information between various departments, auditors and 3rd party vendors. We have email caps, so we can't go that way. We don't give out USB drives either. We tried FTP, but some vendors are clueless.
  • Reply 29 of 184
    conrailconrail Posts: 489member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addicted44 View Post


    Agreed.. Apple is moving into business. Ethernet is very important here.



    The optical disk is worthless. Better to carry an external one.



    I like the idea of taking out the optical drive to add a second HDD.



    But that falls under the categories of "options" and "customization", neither of which are important in the post-PC world we're being dragged into.
  • Reply 30 of 184
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by auxio View Post


    And what about external drives? USB 2.0 is for people who have time to waste. Firewire or Thunderbolt please. With TB, you could do both gig ethernet and external drives with one port.



    Yeah, but the actual port is important for Pros and techies.



    The biggest "gotcha" in dealing with MacBook Airs in terms of tech support is the missing Ethernet port. The whole thing about it not having an optical drive is, in practice, rarely a problem at all. Not having an Ethernet port however makes it very difficult to work with on a daily basis. The average consumer or end user can get by without an Ethernet port, but once you are servicing the thing all you can think about is how much you wish it had an Ethernet port.



    Perhaps some of those patents that surfaced just before the Air came out with the collapsing Ethernet port will be used.
  • Reply 31 of 184
    I hope/wait for this redesign. I have an older 13 inch pro that is starting to show it's age. I now need to run at least one VM and with only 2 cores it's not working. Quad Core makes a big difference when running multiple OSs (and doing development inside each).



    It's interesting how needs change. I used to really love the 13" size laptop. It was small enough to use at home in the living room and bed room so was a much better internet device then larger laptops. But that has now been completely replaced with the iPad.



    Now for strict work (and I'm a developer) there is a tug of war between screen size/resolution and portability. To me a 15" air would be almost perfect. It's still small enough to carry from the car to work/home/coffee store. To me the 17" is too large for that (on a close to daily basis). If I travelled a lot then I would probably still look at the 13" air.



    My only remaining concern is HD space. Running several VM, each with their own tools development installs takes up a lot of room. Not sure the SSDs for that size is affordable yet. My dream would be a small SSD with a separate standard disk. I think in a 15" with no optical they could fit that in.



    I'm not buying a new laptop until they update their lines (but then My dual core is only 3.5 years old and is still running fine)
  • Reply 32 of 184
    I want a Macbook Pro with a Retina Display!
  • Reply 33 of 184
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by charlituna View Post


    I agree that they won't kill the Pro just yet but not due to price so much as capacity. the 15 and 17 inch pros are the powerhouse machines and a 256GB drive just won't cut it. When the drives can be at least 500GB then those machines might be killed off. Also they need thunderbolt to be more mainstream to counter killing off the firewire ports and it wouldn't hurt to have 802.11ac actually out.



    Now I can see them bringing out a model or two of a 15 inch Air alongside the Pro for now. See if it sells. it might not. They might discover that no one really wants an Air that big. In the end we could have the Airs as the 11 and 13 inch machines (kill off the 13 inch pro) and the Pro as 15 and 17



    The 13" Pro is a very popular machine at the $1,199 price point. Unless they can get the 13" Air to that price point with 256GB SSD, the 13" Pro will continue. Perhaps, with the Anobit acquisition, this will happen. I am sure Apple is working hard to lower the cost of flash memory because that would give them a huge competitive advantage.
  • Reply 34 of 184
    Or if nothing else stick the ethernet port on the back rather than the side where it's got enough thickness even on the Airs to support the port.
  • Reply 35 of 184
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tmallon View Post


    I second the need for the gig ethernet port, now the million dollar question to buy a Pro now, or wait and see what we end up with.



    Why rush out to buy a Pro based on rumors? If Apple does drop it, there will be plenty of places to buy existing stock - and probably at a discount.



    Best move is to buy a computer when you need it. If you don't need it, don't buy.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xacattaque View Post


    I don't see them killing the Pro unless they manage to lower prices considerably. I have Pro and would love to "upgrade" to an Air, but I get more for my money with the Pro right now.



    I don't see them killing the Pro at all. Read the quote - 'killing the Pro FOR THE AVERAGE CONSUMER'. I would anticipate that the Pro would remain the high end laptop.



    One possible scenario would be to drop the 13" pro to make the new lines:

    MBA - 11, 13, and 15"

    MBP - 15 and 17"



    The main differences would be that the Pro has more ports (including Ethernet), optical disk and discrete graphics. For some people that would be worth a significant premie, so I don't see how they would reduce prices.



    It would, however, significantly reduce the volume of Pro systems. I suspect that there are a lot of people like me. I love the Air, but can't manage with a 13" screen. If there were a 15" Air, I'd buy one. If not, I'll get either a 15 or 17" Pro.
  • Reply 36 of 184
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleGreen View Post


    The 13" Pro is a very popular machine at the $1,199 price point. Unless they can get the 13" Air to that price point with 256GB SSD, the 13" Pro will continue. Perhaps, with the Anobit acquisition, this will happen. I am sure Apple is working hard to lower the cost of flash memory because that would give them a huge competitive advantage.



    That's what I'm hoping too. Apple needs to do something to drive SSD prices down substantially before removing the option of HDDs right now. As much as I don't mind connecting external drives up when at my desk, I'd much rather be able to have tons of built-in storage so that I don't necessarily need to carry around a bunch of external drives all the time.
  • Reply 36 of 184
    carniphagecarniphage Posts: 1,984member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ghostface147 View Post


    I'm not. My line of work requires transfer of information between various departments, auditors and 3rd party vendors.



    I can see your need, but in my opinion, optical drives have moved from necessity to legacy. I don't think they belong in a consumer product.



    Although Apple should certainly offer an external drive peripheral.



    C.



    (PS. Have you considered shared Dropbox folders? - A lot less fuss than FTP)
  • Reply 38 of 184
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Carniphage View Post


    (PS. Have you considered shared Dropbox folders? - A lot less fuss than FTP)



    I can't speak for the person you are talking to, but sharing data over Dropfox folders where I work and have worked would get you in serious criminal trouble hence why optical disks are still widely used. Email and FTP is also not a possibility either.
  • Reply 39 of 184
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    We've had the 13" MB, MBA. and MBP all at the same time but we're suppose to believe that by introducing a 15" MBA that the 15" MBP would be killed off? That's an excessive leap.





    PS: I can't believing I'm seeing posters say a Pro needs an ODD. Really?! It's 2012.
  • Reply 40 of 184
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    We've had the 13" MB, MBA. and MBP all at the same time but we're suppose to believe that by introducing a 15" MBA that the 15" MBP would be killed off? That's an excessive leap.





    PS: I can't believing I'm seeing posters say a Pro needs an ODD. Really?! It's 2012.



    Yes, many people still use optical media for vast amounts of things. The fact that Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden, Sony, Ritek, etc. are still pumping out 100s of millions of optical discs every year is a sure sign of this.
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