Rumor: Apple to update 15" MacBook Pro, 27" iMac on Wednesday

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  • Reply 21 of 50
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    rob53 wrote: »
    Apple Store showing 2-3 week delivery on non-Retina iMacs when choosing the 3.5GHz Core i7 putting it right in line with WWDC. Actually any BTO option for the top of the line non-Retina 27" iMac shows a 2-3 week delivery while the other 27" iMac only changes by a few days when selecting options so it looks to me like Apple is getting ready to make major changes to the better non-Retina 27" iMac. I've been waiting for an upgrade to these to figure out whether I really need to spend the money on the Retina iMac or can be satisfied with a more current non-Retina iMac. 
    They may phase out the non retina 27" model if they have manufacturing under control. I suspect the primary reason for having both is to moderate any ramp up issues they might have.
    As for an iMac only coming with a USB-C port, I don't see that happening. Even at its fastest speed it isn't as fast as Thunderbolt 2, which iMacs can came use of a lot more than laptops. 

    I really doubt that Apple will drop TB anytime soon. TB and USB-C serve different needs entirely, especially in "PRO" hardware. The fact that many here don't understand that doesn't mean that Apple doesn't grasp the issue. If anything we might see TB 3 hardware this year.
  • Reply 22 of 50
    customtbcustomtb Posts: 346member

    No love for the 21.5?  :-(    

  • Reply 23 of 50
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    rogifan wrote: »
    I think we see a new ?TV at WWDC. Otherwise if there is enough software stuff to fill up the 2 hours we might not see any hardware at all.

    What I'd love to see them do at WWDC is to announce that the next years worth of development at Apple will focus on bugs and performance issues in Mac OS. Especially the Apple supplied apps that come as part of MacOS. Some of these apps like Preview for example, just suck performance wise. Maybe this will mean rebuilt libraries and apps, some of them rebuilt in Swift.

    As for hardware I'd be surprised by an Apple TV update at WWDC. This isn't impossible of course but the lack of rumors seems to suggest something else. Notably we have seen more rumors about iPad Pro than Apple TV of late.

    Speaking of iPad, I'd love to see Apple open up the iPads I/O port a bit. This so that the market for iPad hardware isn't so constrained by the MiFi program. I'd also like to see a move to USB-C on the iPads. USB-C not just for openness but also for the performance. Of course I would expect iPad announcements in the fall with the Rest of the iOS lineup. Heavily refactored iPads though might warrant an update at WWDC.
  • Reply 24 of 50
    carthusiacarthusia Posts: 583member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by CustomTB View Post

     

    No love for the 21.5?  :-(    




    I'd love a 21.5" Retina Display (standalone) or Retina iMac with some decent CPU/RAM/SSD specs. If they could deliver that for about $2,000 I'd bite. 

  • Reply 25 of 50
    carthusiacarthusia Posts: 583member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post





    What I'd love to see them do at WWDC is to announce that the next years worth of development at Apple will focus on bugs and performance issues in Mac OS. Especially the Apple supplied apps that come as part of MacOS. Some of these apps like Preview for example, just suck performance wise. Maybe this will mean rebuilt libraries and apps, some of them rebuilt in Swift.



    As for hardware I'd be surprised by an Apple TV update at WWDC. This isn't impossible of course but the lack of rumors seems to suggest something else. Notably we have seen more rumors about iPad Pro than Apple TV of late.



    Speaking of iPad, I'd love to see Apple open up the iPads I/O port a bit. This so that the market for iPad hardware isn't so constrained by the MiFi program. I'd also like to see a move to USB-C on the iPads. USB-C not just for openness but also for the performance. Of course I would expect iPad announcements in the fall with the Rest of the iOS lineup. Heavily refactored iPads though might warrant an update at WWDC.



    USB-C on an "iPad Pro", but not the non-Pro. The average iPad user wouldn't know what to do with USB-C, that is, compared the the Lightning connector they just became familiar with.

  • Reply 26 of 50
    carthusiacarthusia Posts: 583member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post





    I think we see a new ?TV at WWDC. Otherwise if there is enough software stuff to fill up the 2 hours we might not see any hardware at all.



    All I want from Apple this year is a redesigned ?TV that incorporates Airport Extreme/Time capsule. I want one device to ditch my cable box, current Airport, and that has a built-in HDD/SSD/Fusion for backing up all my media. Well, that and a 21.5" Retina iMac....

     

    I don't quite get it. The hardware required to run the ?TV is so trivial, why not throw it into their other Wi-fi networking devices? I'm sure it would drive iTunes sales if costumers knew that that is where their media lived.

  • Reply 27 of 50
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post





    I thought Skylake was coming this fall. Does this mean the processors Apple would need for the rMBP won't be available until next year or are they going to be late in releasing a Skylake machine? Perhaps a laptop redesign that won't be ready until next year? I can't see Apple releasing a new 15" in May and then again in the fall.

     

    Skylake won't even begin shipping until October.  That means it will be early next year before Apple could include them in the quantity they'd need.  They won't update to Skylake until this time next year.  

  • Reply 28 of 50
    bocboc Posts: 72member
    The question is not whether the 15" MBPro 2015 model will be better, but just how much better. We know the SSD speeds are up with the prior 13" model released earlier.

    Now I'ld like to know if graphics hardware & software has been updated as that can become touchy in higher end apps and Windows work. A bunch of fixes to Yosemite would be a welcome upgrade, too.

    Hoping for the best in a stable workhorse MBPro.
  • Reply 29 of 50
    rogifan wrote: »
    I thought Skylake was coming this fall. Does this mean the processors Apple would need for the rMBP won't be available until next year or are they going to be late in releasing a Skylake machine? Perhaps a laptop redesign that won't be ready until next year? I can't see Apple releasing a new 15" in May and then again in the fall.

    We don't know for sure what's coming on Wednesday, just rumors. And we obviously don't know Apple's future roadmap for the MacBook Pro Retina. One of those questions will hopefully be answered in 48 hours.
  • Reply 30 of 50



    Sorry, I meant to word that as a conjecture. I would not be surprised if the current 13" Unibody15 (non-retina display) is taken down. I forgot that the 15" Unibody is already gone. 

  • Reply 31 of 50
    Well, I caught the last MBP line before the unibody update in 2008, looks like i'll be catching the last update before Skylake. Hopefully it will be as stable as my 4,1 was. Always tough missing out on the next 'big' update, but there's no way I can get by without an upgrade this year. Plus, it'll be available before tax free weekend here in MA.
  • Reply 32 of 50
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post





    I thought Skylake was coming this fall. Does this mean the processors Apple would need for the rMBP won't be available until next year or are they going to be late in releasing a Skylake machine? Perhaps a laptop redesign that won't be ready until next year? I can't see Apple releasing a new 15" in May and then again in the fall.

    It could still be delayed, but Apple never seems to update right before the holidays. You can also add 2 months from the official release date for a shipping date that is closer to reality.

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post





    Well I think there's a lot of people that want retina but want something lighter than the current rMBP. Hence why some were upset that Apple gave us the rMB instead of new Airs with retina displays. If Skylake allows Apple to to take the Pros in the direction of the Airs they will do it.

    I guess people would buy it, but at comparable sizes they aren't much heavier than the airs. The difference in 13" models is approximately half a pound according to their specs. The 15" might benefit more from that in terms of absolute weight, but I don't know that skylake specifically enables this.

  • Reply 33 of 50
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    sdw2001 wrote: »
    Skylake won't even begin shipping until October. That means it will be early next year before Apple could include them in the quantity they'd need.  They won't update to Skylake until this time next year.

    The 15" MBP doesn't ship in large quantities. The entire laptop line is about 4m units per quarter and more than half are Airs and entry MBPs. Their Mac ASP is $1258. In a best-case for the 15", say every low-end model sold was the $899 Air and every 15" was the entry $1999, to hit an average of $1258, the split would be such that the Air sold 2.06x more units than the 15" MBP so the 15" can only sell at most 33% of all the laptops, which is 1.3m units. It would in fact be a lot lower and Intel's capacity is way higher than this. If Intel launched Skylake-H in August, Apple could easily get enough volume for an October launch but Intel focuses on the low power chips first.

    Intel has an event on August 18th, they already showed off Skylake-Y at a previous event and this is the chip that will go into the 12" Macbook:

    http://www.gamespot.com/forums/mobile-connection-1000005/skylake-y-core-m-coming-h2-2015-32014769/

    Intel launched Broadwell-Y before Broadwell-H. Broadwell-Y was available in February at least whereas H is just coming out so at least 2 months between. I expect Intel will launch Skylake-Y mid-August and it's possible for Apple to use it in an October refresh of the 12" Macbook (this would be 6 months after the April 2015 Macbook, which is a fast refresh for them). This event can demo wireless technology in Skylake.

    Intel might push the Skylake-H chips out until October and Apple could use them in January-March 2016. Then it would be back to the usual cycle with Cannonlake and the 15" MBP refresh can be in October 2016.

    1000
    boc wrote:
    The question is not whether the 15" MBPro 2015 model will be better, but just how much better.

    The 13" one didn't improve much in the CPU (5-10%). The GPU jumped up a lot in some tests but not all:

    http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Graphics-5100.91977.0.html
    http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Graphics-6100.125591.0.html

    On average, it looks like the graphics were ~35% faster. If they can manage that with Broadwell-H, that would a solid improvement but it should have arrived last year to compete with NVidia's 850M. This year, Skylake would have been 50% faster again so double the GPU performance vs Haswell.
  • Reply 34 of 50
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,654member

    If it's announced Wednesday instead of at WWDC, that implies that these are very minor updates.

  • Reply 35 of 50
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Martin Glynn View Post



    Where is DDR4? Dell and HP have had it for months!



    Now that Intel has moved the memory controller onto the CPU die, the memory bus will depend on the CPU being used.  I see no laptops on dell.com that use DDR4, so I'm guessing that there are exactly zero mobile parts from Intel that use DDR4.

     

    (iMac uses a mobile processor too)

  • Reply 36 of 50
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post





    The 15" MBP doesn't ship in large quantities. The entire laptop line is about 4m units per quarter and more than half are Airs and entry MBPs. Their Mac ASP is $1258. In a best-case for the 15", say every low-end model sold was the $899 Air and every 15" was the entry $1999, to hit an average of $1258, the split would be such that the Air sold 2.06x more units than the 15" MBP so the 15" can only sell at most 33% of all the laptops, which is 1.3m units. It would in fact be a lot lower and Intel's capacity is way higher than this. If Intel launched Skylake-H in August, Apple could easily get enough volume for an October launch but Intel focuses on the low power chips first.

     

    First, Skylake is not going to launch in August.  A few months ago, we thought so.  The consensus is we're talking October, because Broadwell isn't even well established yet.  It may be ready, but it's not going to ship.  

     

    Secondly, we're still talking about hundreds of thousands if not a million chips.  It's nothing to sneeze at, even if Apple could get their hands on enough of them.  

     






    Intel has an event on August 18th, they already showed off Skylake-Y at a previous event and this is the chip that will go into the 12" Macbook:



    http://www.gamespot.com/forums/mobile-connection-1000005/skylake-y-core-m-coming-h2-2015-32014769/



    Intel launched Broadwell-Y before Broadwell-H. Broadwell-Y was available in February at least whereas H is just coming out so at least 2 months between. I expect Intel will launch Skylake-Y mid-August and it's possible for Apple to use it in an October refresh of the 12" Macbook (this would be 6 months after the April 2015 Macbook, which is a fast refresh for them). This event can demo wireless technology in Skylake.



    Intel might push the Skylake-H chips out until October and Apple could use them in January-March 2016. Then it would be back to the usual cycle with Cannonlake and the 15" MBP refresh can be in October 2016.

     

    You're contradicting yourself.  My entire point is we would not see a 15" Skylake until the middle of next year, the 1st quarter at the earliest. 

    We can quibble over whether it's going to be Q1 or early Q2, but the point is it's not going to be October 2015.  You're talking 4-5 months? No way.  This is the same wishful thinking that had people here saying they didn't see any reason Apple wouldn't go with Skylake NOW.  It's unrealistic.  The only time I've seen Apple upgrade so quickly was with the PowerPC-Intel transition.  They released the iMac G5 in the Fall, and went Intel in December.  But that was for a major architecture change, obviously.  

  • Reply 37 of 50
    bregaladbregalad Posts: 816member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post







    They may phase out the non retina 27" model if they have manufacturing under control. I suspect the primary reason for having both is to moderate any ramp up issues they might have.

    I really doubt that Apple will drop TB anytime soon. TB and USB-C serve different needs entirely, especially in "PRO" hardware. The fact that many here don't understand that doesn't mean that Apple doesn't grasp the issue. If anything we might see TB 3 hardware this year.



    No, the main reason for keeping the non-retina iMac is price. Until Apple can significantly lower manufacturing costs for retina iMacs they will need to keep the older models around.

     

    I would not expect to ever see an update to the non-retina iMac models. The last non-retina MBP that's still available was introduced in June 2012 and hasn't received an update since then.

     

    So is there a reason to update the retina iMac and are there components available for that purpose?

     

    I've heard that the retina iMac can be sluggish because the mobile 290 and 295 GPUs struggle to cope with 5K displays. I'm not up on mobile GPU developments so I don't know if Apple can easily address that situation.

     

    The speculation here seems to be that they'll replace the current Core i5 4690 and/or Core i7 4790K with Broadwell processors. But that's highly unlikely because Intel is only releasing two desktop chips based on Broadwell: Core i5 5675C and Core i7 5775C and those chips are slower than the ones currently used in the retina iMac.

     

    Unless there's going to be a retina 21.5" iMac introduced this month I doubt we'll see any iMac update until Skylake is shipping in quantity.

  • Reply 38 of 50
    curtis hannahcurtis hannah Posts: 1,833member
    rogifan wrote: »
    I thought Skylake was coming this fall. Does this mean the processors Apple would need for the rMBP won't be available until next year or are they going to be late in releasing a Skylake machine? Perhaps a laptop redesign that won't be ready until next year? I can't see Apple releasing a new 15" in May and then again in the fall.
    They've done it before(2 years ago), so why not?
    rogifan wrote: »
    Well I though Skylake would allow for a slimmer/lighter laptop redesign. I'm assuming the MBA didn't get retina for a reason and that reason was redesigned rMBPs.
    Why would they do that, the mb air could get retina potentially.
    cnocbui wrote: »

    Oh no!  Please not slimmer. That would mean The cost escalating, the battery capacity declining and most of the ports being shed for that stupid USB-C only crap.  If you keep the current battery capacity and just reduce the electrical load, you would get considerably improved battery life, which would be of more interest and benefit to 15" users I think than chasing that minimalist nonsense.
    Agreed, if the 13 inch air gets 12 hours, and the 13 inch pro gets 10, the 15 inch pro looks sad at 8 hours, an improved processor might get it around 10 as well.
    sandor wrote: »
    My question is when will we gain (at least) 2 TB of internal storage on the MacBook Pro?

    I have purchased 4 13" (old model) MacBook Pros in the past 3 months for this very reason - not enough internal storage in the new ones.
    Taking random guess, next year?
  • Reply 39 of 50
    brlawyerbrlawyer Posts: 828member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post



    I guess we will know Wednesday if this rumor is true or not. Short wait, at least!



    Revamped MBPs;

     

    Revamped riMac;

     

    new MPs?

  • Reply 40 of 50
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member

    Hopefully both machines will move to USB-C, allowing the peripherals market to move fully towards the new spec. Unfortunately, Apple's probably going to keep USB-C at the Rev. 1 speed, since these machines will likely also retain Thunderbolt 2.

     

    Thunderbolt 3 won't arrive till Skylake, likely next year.

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