What to expect from Apple's 'let us loop you in' event today

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  • Reply 21 of 83
    AI2xxx said:

    Mmm ...

    My 17yo grandson has a Mac, iPad 2, iPhone 6S and a PS4.  But he wanted a laptop to do his homework (Straight A student) and college courses.  Friends convinced him he needed a PC rather than a Mac (he could do some gaming too).


    I'd be hesitant on the iPad Pro for school. This is where the Surface Pro 4 has it's appeal, it's still running Windows, so it will run any required software (or games) a student will need. That being said, a lower cost 9.7" iPad Pro might be a decent device for note taking to compliment a laptop. Although, the Surface 4 should be announced in the coming months, and unless you're in an art program, the Surface Pen is much better for note taking or general productivity.

    An updated MacBook Pro 15" would be nice to see, something like the XPS 15, so Skylake-H, DDR4, GTX 960 (or better/equivalent) and Thunderbolt 3.  

    Never was a fan of the 12" Macbook, but I'm sure some users here might be interested in an updated model. Skylake Core m and a couple of Thunderbolt 3 ports might be a nice improvement. A better keyboard is also a must, the current one is terrible.
    That's an unintentionally funny post you made, but you're new here, so it's understandable.

    Dick is probably the last guy in this forum to whom I would presume to give computer shopping advice.
    mrboba1pscooter63roundaboutnowargonauttallest skil
  • Reply 22 of 83
    apple ][ said:
    I haven't really been following too many of the rumors lately, but I hope to see something announced or introduced that is totally unexpected.

    I want to be surprised and wowed, is that asking too much? 

    simple: if you want to be surprised, dont spend your days on rumor sites dedicated to outing any possible surprises. (this complete always makes me shake my head...)
    I think he meant 'surprise' relative to what's already known, including from rumor sites. 

    You must shake your head a lot.....
    edited March 2016
  • Reply 23 of 83
    In other words, nothing to be excited about. 
  • Reply 24 of 83
    gordygordy Posts: 1,004member
    Fingers crossed for a Mac Mini update.
    ai466Sgoldfishargonaut
  • Reply 25 of 83
    "AppleInsider will offer full, live coverage of the "Let us loop you in" event. For those who can watch, Apple will be streaming it live on its website and via Apple TV.
    The keynote will kick off Monday, March 21 at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern. It will be held at Apple's headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, Calif."

    According to the event.ics that Apple has on their stream site, this takes place from 1-3pm.
  • Reply 26 of 83
    misamisa Posts: 827member

    There are other products that Apple could also upgrade, such as bringing 802.11ac Wi-Fi support to the AirPort Express, but those would be unlikely to warrant stage time at an Apple keynote.

    There better be a Mac Pro refresh (or a move back to the 2010 tower design where GPU's can be upgraded) in the cards, because it's pretty pathetic to sell/update for like Final Cut Pro X, and not have any usable Mac Desktop in that cycle (currently 2013 model.) 

    Also, please, a real laptop. Not a single model is viable for 4K/8K video, let alone upcoming gimmick VR visors. The existing models are too thin and too weak. 

    It feels like Apple is catering to the "photoshop" creators, but telling video content creators to go back to Windows.



    AI2xxx said:
    toddzrx said:
    I think all of Apple's computer lines, both desktop and laptop, are begging for significant changes.  Given the advent of USB-C, TB3, and Skylake, it would be nice to see redesigns of the Macbook Pro, iMac, and at least updates to everything else.
    Thunderbolt 3 would be great as it would allow for external graphics solutions for devices like the Macbook.

    For example, here's a video showing Acer's Thunderbolt 3 graphics dock, with a GTX 940M, boosting the performance of a Core m5 powered Acer tablet:
    I hope everyone realizes that external GPU's are dead in the water. Why would you pay 800$ for an external GPU, only to cripple it to 4 PCIe lanes? Especially on a laptop. And these external bridge boxes cost hundreds of dollars. 

    A fool and their money is soon parted speaks pretty loudly for that. You'd be better off saving the money spent on the external bits and buying the most amount of laptop CPU+GPU power as possible, and unfortunately the trend for the last 5 years has been to move backwards with weaker CPU's and weaker GPU's in all but the top-end part, and the top end part ends up being crippled by poor cooling due to the trendy "thin" ultrabook platform. Ughh.

    edited March 2016 roger wadepscooter63Blaster
  • Reply 27 of 83
    AI2xxxAI2xxx Posts: 38member
    misa said:

    I hope everyone realizes that external GPU's are dead in the water. Why would you pay 800$ for an external GPU, only to cripple it to 4 PCIe lanes? Especially on a laptop. And these external bridge boxes cost hundreds of dollars. 

    A fool and their money is soon parted speaks pretty loudly for that. You'd be better off saving the money spent on the external bits and buying the most amount of laptop CPU+GPU power as possible, and unfortunately the trend for the last 5 years has been to move backwards with weaker CPU's and weaker GPU's in all but the top-end part, and the top end part ends up being crippled by poor cooling due to the trendy "thin" ultrabook platform. Ughh.

    You're missing the point of having a thin/light device that can do a lot more when docked. 

    The word "cripple" is not exactly appropriate, especially for those using it for gaming (Thunderbolt 3 uses PCIe x4 3.0):






    The cost for a dock+GPU is not as much as you make it out to be. The Acer one in that video will retail for under $300 USD and that dock has a GTX 960M + 4GB GDDR5 inside:



    Razer has completely embraced TB3 external GPU, in fact, just today they announced a new Razer Blade laptop for $2000 with an i7-6700HQ (4 cores,  8 threads), 16GB DDR4 RAM, PCIe SSD, 3200x1800 IGZO display and a GTX 970M (6GB VRAM). This laptop, can also use Thunderbolt 3 to be paired with an additional GPU:
    Razer's recent ultrabook can also use an external GPU via TB3:



    Another important thing is that newer API's such as DX12 take load off of the CPU and will be able to utilize the internal GPU and the external GPU for additional performance:


    roundaboutnow
  • Reply 28 of 83
    Although I understand the utility of having an ultrabook that can do more when "docked" I don't think its very applicable for Macs in general, owing to the lack of games on OSX to take advantage of a discrete external GPU. 
    baconstang
  • Reply 29 of 83
    reiszrie said:
    Although I understand the utility of having an ultrabook that can do more when "docked" I don't think its very applicable for Macs in general, owing to the lack of games on OSX to take advantage of a discrete external GPU. 

    Good thing we have boot camp then. The Division runs awesome on my iMac in Windows 10 under bootcamp. I'm fine with OSX sucking when it comes to games as long as Apple continues to support alternatives like that, which so far it has done a great job of doing. 
    AI2xxxargonauttallest skil
  • Reply 30 of 83
    apple ][ said:
    I also hope that there's no musical guest at the end. Screw the music. I'm interested in Apple and their products. If people want to watch and hear music, then go to damn youtube and watch a video. 

    I know! Don't you hate it when Apple forces you at gunpoint to keep staring at your screen??1?

    I hate that so much!
    baconstangjosutallest skil
  • Reply 31 of 83
    josujosu Posts: 217member
    apple ][ said:
    I also hope that there's no musical guest at the end. Screw the music. I'm interested in Apple and their products. If people want to watch and hear music, then go to damn youtube and watch a video. 

    I know! Don't you hate it when Apple forces you at gunpoint to keep staring at your screen??1?

    I hate that so much!
    Guy very good answer, In my case i LOVE the musical guests at the end of the event, and I must confess that after watching it live, I download the podcast version only to extract the songs with Garageband. And add them to my musical library, I know, I know, I'm not the best citizen but anyone knows other way to get them, that exact live versions, I used to buy the album versions too. And if I can watch them as part of the downloaded episode for free forever, why I can't extract the soundtrack too.
    edited March 2016
  • Reply 32 of 83
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    apple ][ said:
    I also hope that there's no musical guest at the end. Screw the music. I'm interested in Apple and their products. If people want to watch and hear music, then go to damn youtube and watch a video. 

    I know! Don't you hate it when Apple forces you at gunpoint to keep staring at your screen??1?

    I hate that so much!
    So unless somebody has a gun pointed to their head, they're not allowed to voice an opinion on something?

    If we are to apply that same logic to the post event complaining that is guaranteed to come, then nobody in the world has a right to complain about anything that Apple does or releases.
    Blastergtr
  • Reply 33 of 83
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    I also have trouble understanding this desire to dock to an external GPU. Great innthoery, but you  end up spending a truck load of money and because of interface restrictions, lose some of the full power of the GPU anyway. You would be better off getting a tower in a transportable design if you want to go to LAN parties, and a basic laptop when you want to do word processing at school etc.
  • Reply 34 of 83
    How about an upgrade to tvOS making it easier for content owners to publish their content more easily?
    Or better yet a deal between Apple & Content providers.
  • Reply 35 of 83
    canukstormcanukstorm Posts: 2,695member
    sog35 said:
    We will get new HomeKit based hardware.  You can book it.
    What makes you so sure, unless you're real name is Mark Gurman?
  • Reply 36 of 83
    appexappex Posts: 687member
    Bring a true real Mac tablet.
  • Reply 37 of 83
    "Let us loop you in."? OK, so Apple is building a Hyperloop.
  • Reply 38 of 83
    macapfelmacapfel Posts: 575member
    What about Software? Really, what about solving the iTunes mess, making a more streamlined store front for all the different stores. Bring back some important features to iWork products, increase functionality of Photos – and make iCloud a real Dropbox competitor. There is a lot to do in the software arena. What makes Apple great is that they do both, hard- and software. So, please, start talking about software again!
  • Reply 39 of 83
    appex said:
    Bring a true real Mac tablet.
    Apple can't do that because they would appear to be backtracking on their whole "refrigerator wth toaster" argument against full OS X on touchscreens -- not to mention all the Apple cheerleaders who would also have to change their story in order to remain lock-step with Apple.  So instead of touchscreen iMacs and MacBooks, Apple decides to start propping up the iPad to make it look like a laptop which happens to have a touchscreen.  It reminds me of Mac haters who proclaim they will never buy a Mac, but then they go and buy PC laptops which look like obvious imitations of Mac laptops.  And then they install Apple desktop backgrounds on those PC laptops, and install GUI skins on top of Windows to look like OS X.
  • Reply 40 of 83
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    I'm hoping to see some progress around getting Siri on the OSX platform with both near-field and far-field voice/sound recognition so it can support use cases similar to those seen with Amazon Echo. Having Siri on the iPhone, Apple Watch, and Apple TV but missing on the MacBook, iMac, Mac Pro, and Mac Mini products now seems like an unintended omission. 

    Some possible desktop Siri scenarios:

    1) "Siri, I'm going to lunch now" would cause Siri to lock my Mac and invoke the screen saver.  
    2) "Siri, I'm back" would stop the screen saver and give me a login prompt - but only for my voice.
    3) "Siri, next slide" would go to the next page in a Keynote presentation, even when invoked from across the room. Same thing for previous, explicit slide number, etc.
    4) Voice integration with iPhone to initiate phone calls from your Mac - "Siri, call Tim Cook on his iPhone"
    5) Voice integration with Calendar, Mail, Messages, Notifications, XCode, Photos, etc.

    "Siri, what are my top 3 notifications for today?"
    "Siri, did Tim Cook respond to the email I sent him last Saturday?"
    "Siri, please print a hard copy of my last monthly status report for Project Excalibur." 
    "Siri, remind me again, when exactly is my wedding anniversary."
    "Siri, download and install all of the latest App updates to my iPad Air after I go to bed tonight"
    "Siri, disable all notifications until further notice" (Siri would then periodically remind you that notifications are still off)
    "Siri, I'm traveling to Seattle on Thursday, what should I pack?" (Siri would respond - "An umbrella" along with weather related info and remind you to bring your passport.
    "Siri, bring XCode to the top on my primary monitor" and "move Excel to the left half of my second monitor"
    "Siri, do a full build of Project Excalibur at midnight tonight and send the build results to my iPhone"  



    edited March 2016
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