Apple Television, iPad Mini, MacBook Air Speculation for 2013

[phillipduran]

Originally Posted by wkadamsjr

I predict that in 2013, water will be wet.

Does this get me on the front page of any news website?

Ohhh mahhhh gahd! I just bought a gallon of water yesterday! Why are the water companies screwing over its loyal customers by releasing newer products all the time!

[Tech198]

"Macbook AIr gets Retina " (No chance that is gonna happen, its a miracle the mini is)... not with the thinnest. or "Apple TV's gets apps development"

WHy the hell would you wanna use apps in the comfort of your couch..

Today's "smart-TV" can't even do it right... overlays may look good, but not when it interrupts your favourite TV show..

If Apple does in on this, let s hope they learn how to do it right. No Multiple screen or anything... I live my movies Full screen, why would i wanna check while i'm "watching"

[Nee412]

The iPad mini with retina display probably will happen next year, but not as early as March. I'm betting closer to October 2013. Apple have a price point and a size they have to keep to.

MacBook Airs with retina displays won't happen next year at all. The MacBook Pros with retina displays need their time to shine. Next years new Mac hardware product will be the new Mac Pro with a complete redesign. Maybe a new super thin Thunderbolt Display along the lines of the new iMac as well.

An redesigned iPad 5 is a must, but again towards the end of the year.

An Apple TV is a possibility. Apple certainly does need to launch it's next brand new product. Just not sure a product solely aimed at changing the American cable market will make the worldwide splash Apple is used to.

All the current product line will of course get their yearly spec bumps as well.

[Tech198]

Why would Apple update the Mac Pro ? Its the last of the line, Apples not caring about, leaving uses in the dark.

Personally, I just recon users who bought the Mac Pro,,, sorry, but you've just wasted $$$,,,,


It doesn't even have Thunderbolt. Its always suspicious if Apple leaves stuff, then its no accident, not even a small improvement.

[olowott]

Here we Go again,

Rumours and facts

We need pictures and double down as usual!!

[eject]

Needs to be at top end 75" - just look at Samsung's latest offering available today.

[dampfnudel]

Originally Posted by RyanG

Yeah, I mean, when has that ever happened? Retina and spec bumps later in the year. Didn't happen with the iPad 3 -> 4. Oh wait...

If they add a retina display in March/April, they'll have no choice but to add a A6 or A6X in there. Personally, I think we'll get a retina mini earlier than October 2013, maybe June-August, in time for the back to school sales. I also believe that the next iPhone will be more than a "modest upgrade" from the 5. Just adding an A7 and 12MP camera won't cut it in my opinion. They'll have to do better than some half-baked beta feature like Siri this time. What's better than a complete redesign, away from the 4/4S/5 design to make those currently on the S cycle happy?

Just my predictions...

[pgiguere1]

Originally Posted by skaertus

The MacBook Pro had its optical drive and HD removed, and got a retina display. But it also got a lot thinner and lighter, so the whole space was not filled with battery.

I wouldn't say 21% thinner is "a lot", considering all the space they saved by going with a laminated glass display, no optical drive, no 2.5" hard drive and no removable standard RAM. Those are all things that couldn't be applied to the MBA, so it's not clear how you could fit a bigger battery in a MBA enclosure.

The current 13-inch MacBook Pro with a retina display weighs 3.57 lbs, which is not a far cry from the 2.96 lbs of the 13-inch MacBook Air. And the Pro has a standard-voltage Intel processor (35W, while the Air consumes just 17W) and a retina display.

Sure, then a 13" MBA with Retina display could be a little thinner than a 13" rMBP. You still couldn't get the kind of battery life you get in the current MBA with a Retina display without improving battery capacity though. It would have to be in between a 13" MBA and 13" rMBP.

Haswell will be more power-efficient, even at the same TDP. Intel is promising wonders with the new architecture. The processor at idle state will consume far less power than Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge. Intel is said to have revamped power usage of its processors with Haswell. Details are scarce so far, but the 10W processo aren't the only attempt at lowering power consumption.

Intel always promise wonders. Let's wait for actual benchmarks before drawing any conclusion from their marketing. The current MBAs could get a slightly better battery life without having a Retina display. The 11" is especially disappointing in that regard.

Broadwell will be, of course, more power-efficient than Haswell, mainly because it will be built on a 14 nm process. But the great leap in power usage will be the architecture itself (Haswell), and not the shrink (Broadwell).

The gains in power consumption may allow Apple to put a retina display on the MacBook Air.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. MBAs may get Retina displays in 2014 with Broadwell. Not before.

There are already some ultrabooks on the market which sport a 1920x1080 resolution. With Haswell, Apple could put a retina display on the Air.

1920x1080 is quite far from 2560x1600. It's half the number of pixels, and closer to the current MBA's 1440x900 resolution than to 2560x1600.

It's not irrelevant. ARM chips consume far less battery than Intel chips, that's true. But the fact that the Macs use Intel chips don't make their screens consume more power than the screen on ARM-powered devices. I'm talking about the additional power the high resolution screen demands on these systems.

The 2560x1600 screen on the Nexus 10 is likely to consume the same battery as the 2560x1600 screen on the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 has a screen resolution of 1280x800 and weighs just a little less than the Nexus 10 with its 2560x1600 screen, although the announced battery life of both ablets is comparable. Therefore, Samsung/Google managed to tweak the tablet to include a high-resolution screen with minimum sacrifice of size or battery life.

You were quoting the overall battery life of those devices, so that's why I pointed out they used CPUs with lower TDPs. I know the displays themselves don't require less power (except for the fact that they're smaller).

In a similar fashion, Apple managed to put a retina display on the new iPad and keeping it almost as thin as the iPad 2.

One of the reasons the iPad 3 wasn't significantly thicker than the iPad 2 while having a significantly (70%) bigger battery is because they redesigned the screen so that it's thinner and closer to the glass panel, a bit like what they did going from iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4. It would be hard to make the MBA's screen significantly thinner as it already has no glass cover, it's just a panel directly held by aluminium.

And, if a device as small as a smartphone can have a screen with a 1920x1080 resolution, then the battery for such screen doesn't seem to take so much space, right?

Indeed, the battery inside the 1080p Droid DNA doesn't take that much space. That's why this phone has a crappy battery life. Even though it has a 2,020mAh battery, The Verge said it couldn't last a full day. They had to charge it 2 or 3 times a day.

Intel itself is expecting ultrabooks to have retina-like resolutions by 2013. You should have read this one some months ago: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/04/12/...y-pcs-by-2013/

Intel was also expecting ultrabooks to account for 40% of notebook sales in 2012. How did that work out? Marketing is just that, marketing.

[Tigger11]

Originally Posted by pgiguere1

Source?

I don't think the disabled cores are all defective, but it would make no sense to just throw away chips with a single defective core when one of your products use only one core anyway. I would have though it's a mix of half-defective chips and good ones with a core disabled to reduce power consumption.

The update to the original article. The parts in the updated iPad 2 are marked identically as the parts in the AppleTV 3. Since the iPad 2 uses both cores, the parts in the iPad 2 obviously have both cores running. When you do that bad part trick, the parts are marked differently, at one point we were making 8 versions of 68040s from the same die depending on what tests they passed, or what was needed, but when packaged, they were 8 different parts. Since the part marking is the same (as was shown when they found them in the new iPad 2), we know they aren't taking parts with a broken core and using them in the Apple TV, because all the devices using the 32nm A5 have the exact same part number on it. I would like to point out, that the conditions that required/allowed you to do this trick before are much less likely to happen in this age of 32nm.

[rphouston]

Just stopped by the Apple Store at a mall in Sacramento, and met a young couple doing research about "iPhone integration" for Frog Design; they wouldn't tell me for what, but the words, "in living rooms" was used often.


Frog Design designed the first Trinitron TV; are they doing one for Apple? It would be cool if they were.

[cfs112]

I think it would be too soon to have an iPad mini retina in March 2013, but I would definitely welcome it. I actually don't mind the screen it has now, but if the new one came with an A6x chip I would definitely upgrade then. But till then, I'm gladly using my current mini and its more than good enough, its great!

[skaertus]

Originally Posted by pgiguere1

I wouldn't say 21% thinner is "a lot", considering all the space they saved by going with a laminated glass display, no optical drive, no 2.5" hard drive and no removable standard RAM. Those are all things that couldn't be applied to the MBA, so it's not clear how you could fit a bigger battery in a MBA enclosure.

The MacBook Air certainly has no optical disk drive or HDD to be removed. But I guess the space may be used a little bit more efficiently. Not going to make a big difference, though.

Sure, then a 13" MBA with Retina display could be a little thinner than a 13" rMBP. You still couldn't get the kind of battery life you get in the current MBA with a Retina display without improving battery capacity though. It would have to be in between a 13" MBA and 13" rMBP.

Using today's technology, you're right.

If Haswell promises to be as efficient as Intel is announcing, then Apple may be able to get the same battery life in the MacBook Air with the retina display.

You can't rule out Sharp's IGZO technology as well. Intel, Apple and Foxconn are reportedly interested in saving Sharp so they could make use of this very power-efficient display technology. It has been widely announced in the media that IGZO displays may be the perfect companion to Haswell.

Intel always promise wonders. Let's wait for actual benchmarks before drawing any conclusion from their marketing. The current MBAs could get a slightly better battery life without having a Retina display. The 11" is especially disappointing in that regard.

Well, not always. In fact, this time I kind of believe in Intel (with a grain of salt, of course).

It may not appear so, but Intel is struggling for survival right now. ARM is a much more dangerous competitor than AMD has ever been. And ARM processors are beginning to step into Intel's territory, promising much more power-efficient solutions. Microsoft has developed a Windows version that runs on ARM processors. Apple is rumored to be considering ARM for Macs. And Android-powered ARM tablets are becoming increasingly powerful. Well, I guess Intel won't wait until ARM processors are powerful enough, or Windows RT turns into a viable option, to take action.

Haswell is, IMHO, Intel's answer to ARM. It has to be powerful enough to show everybody that Intel will be relevant in the mobile future. Intel was in a very comfortable position fighting AMD. Now, I think it will really have to show up something. And, by the noise it is making with Haswell ("the notebook reinvented", says one of the mottos), Intel has better deliver it.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. MBAs may get Retina displays in 2014 with Broadwell. Not before.

Suppose Haswell is power-efficient enough to drive the battery life of current form-factor MacBook Air to 10h (and it may well be). When Broadwell is released, it won't represent so much of a jump in power-efficiency as Haswell did. So, if Apple puts a retina display in MacBook Airs in 2014, it may see the then 10-hour battery life of the MacBook Air reduced to, say, 8 hours.

If the big bump in power efficiency is coming with Haswell (and not with Broadwell), then I see no reason why Apple won't put a retina display in the MacBook Air in 2013.

1920x1080 is quite far from 2560x1600. It's half the number of pixels, and closer to the current MBA's 1440x900 resolution than to 2560x1600.

1440x900 = 1.29 million pixels
1920x1080 = 2.07 million pixels
2560x1600 = 4.09 million pixels

You were quoting the overall battery life of those devices, so that's why I pointed out they used CPUs with lower TDPs. I know the displays themselves don't require less power (except for the fact that they're smaller).

Yes. The power consumption of these displays is the closest I can think of for comparisons.

Intel was also expecting ultrabooks to account for 40% of notebook sales in 2012. How did that work out? Marketing is just that, marketing.

Well, that a different story. Those are marketing projections, and Intel has no control on what people chooses to buy (they wish they had). When Intel predicts such high resolutions in laptops, they may or may not happen as well. But Intel only makes these predictions because it knows that its products will be able to allow such screen resolutions. The ultrabook specification is made by Intel itself. Intel would have to be incoherent to promise technology it can't deliver.

I guess retina displays are coming to ultrabooks in 2013. As for the Samsung Series 9 ultrabook, why would it even bother to show off the prototype with a 2560x1440 display if it wasn't capable of mass-producing it one year later?

[cocacolakid]

Originally Posted by roland.g

I'm interested in replacing my iPad and the Mini looks nice. Truth is we may need 2. A Mini for the kids and a retina for us. But we still don't use our iPad 2 that much and yet there are times we could use to have two at once. I'm inclined to wait on the retina Mini as I keep hearing the screen is the downside.

So you don't use your iPad that much but you use it enough that you need 2 of them?

[cmChimera]

Originally Posted by Yvan256

Upgrading and replacing hardware seems normal for geeks and nerds. Not so much for regular people, who only replace things when their current one stops working. Not everyone has thousands of dollars to waste every year, not to mention the whole ecological footprint of such behavior.

If that were true, the TV business would be dead. People upgrade to bigger and better TVs when they can afford them. I don't think someone that buys a TV today is going to go out and buy an Apple TV in November, but for the guy who has a 3 year old TV, I think it's likely that he would consider it.

[Boatboy24]

Wait, I thought the TV was coming out in the fall of 2012?

[vikpt]

if this happens will there be four macbook airs (11 and 13 in non retinas plus retina versions) or will macbook air become really expensive all over again?

[nonamelive]

Originally Posted by RetepNamenots

$1,500 would be ridiculously expensive, relative to sets on the market even today.

That would be around £1130 including tax, and when you can get a nice 42" set for half that price I can't imagine what the Apple TV could do that would convince me to spend so much more.

It may run on iOS.

[Virinprew]

Not that I mind but no Mac Pro?

[Aluminum213]

13' air with retina is my dream laptop

[duncan35]

Originally Posted by PDFierro

Bunch of crap if a Retina iPad mini comes out in March. Although I would buy one.

Was there ever anything more certain than the fact that a retina iPad mini would follow the non-retina version, at least at some point? This is the safest bet in the history of the world.

[godslabrat]

Originally Posted by zerolight

I just can't seem them doing away with usability in favor of cosmetics.

Ahem.

[ericinboston]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

- September 2013:...and we get a new iPad, which is totally redesigned to look more like the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini.

I can't stop laughing! TOTALLY REDESIGNED?!...to look like the mini version of itself (so that's about 8 steps backwards in progress)! And how else "totally redesigned"?!...it comes in blue?...it now runs an Intel chip?...it has a completely new AND different OS?


Sheeeez...folks really love to throw out the "redesign" term a lot in Apple world...and then the "totally" adjective gives it even MORE emphasis.

[LLIBSETAG]

When is Apple going to update the desktop version of iWork?

[vanzantapple]

I'm gonna lay my wager on Apple NOT putting a Retina Display in the Mini within a 18 months of it's launch. But the price will fall a bit.

[HelveticaRoman]

Originally Posted by WilliamLondon

You mean the speculation regarding consumer products which come from a company with the largest market capitalisation on the planet? Strange, especially since they don't pre-announce every product before availability. It boggles the mind.

I didn't realise Oxford had a resident professor of sarcasm; he's very good though.