What will happen if New Macbook Pro comes out on the 15th?

They are generally available in all countries, unless the product is something like the iPhone, but I doubt they'd be releasing a MB/P update to only the US, that wouldn't make much sense.

Depending on the specification, the product could ship immediately or in a few weeks to months. It all depends what they have in the gadget and whether those components are actually shipping at the moment or not. No one here will know that till it's released.

If it is released immediately though, there will probably be a lot of demand, meaning some delays, depending on when you placed your order.

First there will be whining and complaining that the new MBP didn't have this or that feature as standard and people will moan about the price too. Although the price will likely stay very close to or exactly the same as current models.

After that, I believe that if the hardware is not immediately available, Apple still sells the older ones at the same price. Some buyers who are not in the loop will buy not knowing a newer model has been announced. Again, if it's not immediately available (which often times it is). After the newer hardware comes out, then the old ones eventually appear in the refurb store. I've never seen Apple lower a price on older hardware in the regular store when new hardware has been announced, but I could have missed it.

Apple usually slows shipments of older hardware before an update so that the newest hardware is available quickly. You also have to be careful buying from places other than Apple when they do this - some advertise hardware as "new" which it is, but it may not be the newest

mroseneo said:

What about the price of existing Macbook Pros? If the new model is delayed a few weeks, will the current generation MBPs go on sale at lower prices immediately or do they continue to sell at full price until the new models come out?

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Apple exist to make money. They will continue to sell the existing stock at the existing price. Old models tend not to be discounted, although I guess they could be sold through the refurbished store.

Taking a look at the refirb store, you can see all last year's models being sold for a fairly paltry discount.

Caveat emptor.

Now Apple have shifted to Intel, it's fairly well known when hardware changes will be coming through. For example we know that the Penryn processors will be released by Intel imminently, so we can infer that Apple will be building them into the Macbook Pros fairly soon as -- I believe -- it's just a chip-swap and not a change of motherboard.

Apple have some form in delaying the release as was the case of Macbook Pros and the Santa Rosa chipset, where they released it a good three or four months behind other manufacturers.

I suspect that the Penryn processor upgrade isn't worthy of much PR time and it's unlikely that they'll be announced next week. I think it'll be a simple press release announcing the new processors in a few weeks. Feb?

Again, think back to when the LED displays in the MBP 15" were announced. ISTR not a lot was said, certainly I can't remember big Steve saying anything.

Usually there aren't leftover older version MB/MBP in the Apple retail channel except for refurbs, but it's common to see those previous versions on websites of resellers like MacConnection, and they usually are discounted by about $100-$200.

My guess is that Apple will stop selling the old version as soon as the new version is announced, but there will be the usual lag in the retail channels, including the Apple Store, of 2-4 weeks before supply catches up with demand. You'll likely be able to order your new MacBook on Jan 15, but I'll bet it's backordered for awhile.

Naturally this assumes that there will be new MacBooks/MBPs announced at MWSF, and I think that's far from a certainty. If you read MacRumors much, you'll see that everybody here is predicting, or at least would like to see, brand new versions of every product Apple sells. AFAIK, the only virtual certainty is upgrades to the Mac Pro.