Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
16-Inch MacBook Pro With All-New Design Expected in 2019, 13-Inch Model May Gain 32GB RAM
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
And it will be a slap in the face for every Mac user again! Here is what Ming-Chi Kuo didn't tell us:
- Soldered RAM and soldered SSD
- No ports except USB-C
- No Nvidia GPU
- Audio jack finally removed
- Worst Keyboard ever
- Touch Bar really nobody wants, there won't be an option to upgrade to a standard keyboard
- Uber expensive and simply not worth the price!
And as a benefit:
- OpenGL still deprecated in macOS 10.15
- Still no Vulkan support in macOS 10.15
- Still no cloud strategy/services that can compete with Google/AWS/Azure
- Soldered RAM and soldered SSD
- No ports except USB-C
- No Nvidia GPU
- Audio jack finally removed
- Worst Keyboard ever
- Touch Bar really nobody wants, there won't be an option to upgrade to a standard keyboard
- Uber expensive and simply not worth the price!
And as a benefit:
- OpenGL still deprecated in macOS 10.15
- Still no Vulkan support in macOS 10.15
- Still no cloud strategy/services that can compete with Google/AWS/Azure
Nothing to get excited yet until it is officially announced with the specs and prices. And after at least of 6 months of usage.
I think removing SD was a mistake on computers whose target audience include photo and video editors, hopefully it will return as it's core functionality other computers offer but the MBP lacks. Other than that I think you're right there's no point adding USB A back now, even if it's removal was a generation or so early and HDMI etc has pretty well been superseded as far as apple are concerned (easy enough to get a HDMI to USB cable or adapter).
Magsafe I'm not 100% sure, as there's a hard power supply limit of 100W - while that isn't currently a massive issue I don't think it's totally beyond the realm of possibility a more powerful machine might require a 120W charger (pretty standard on entry level gaming laptops) and a lot of Windows computers offer the ability to charge via a proprietary 120+W connector, or by USB C (lesser wattages) in a pinch. Guess it ultimately depends on if the screen size bump comes along with a big power bump as well.
[doublepost=1550497023][/doublepost]
Interesting point - they must be quite a way into the development of this machine if there's leaks about it happening so I wonder if they've already taken these issues into consideration? Or whether this machine was purposely designed around a different KB (even that new rumoured glass one) if they were hoping the gen 3 design would fix the issues.
Just like the current 15 inch model maxed out is almost $5000. Only a select few can afford it.
[doublepost=1550497672][/doublepost]
Yeah and I paid $50 for my first car....that’s not happening.
Last edited:
I don't really get the hate on the Touch Bar TBH. It adds functionality. You may use keyboard shortcuts for most of what's up there but you it can be useful sometimes - like text options or a screenshot button or whatever app you use frequently. I struggle to understand how individuals feel their workflow is the one all people should have.
Same thing about the ports. You can get the same functionality as the 2015 with just 1 or 2 adaptors. That is if you still use the SD card as some cameras use CFast or XQD, or maybe you just download the photo/video content diractly on an external HD. The thing is having to use an adapter is just not as big of a deal as some people portray it to be. You know those NVidia Quadros? Some models come with mini display ports so I had to use an adapter - and that's a desktop.
Same thing about the ports. You can get the same functionality as the 2015 with just 1 or 2 adaptors. That is if you still use the SD card as some cameras use CFast or XQD, or maybe you just download the photo/video content diractly on an external HD. The thing is having to use an adapter is just not as big of a deal as some people portray it to be. You know those NVidia Quadros? Some models come with mini display ports so I had to use an adapter - and that's a desktop.
Alright, allow me to explain it to you:
Keyboards are designed for typing, not looking pretty. It must be as easy as possible to hit the key you want to hit as possible without looking at the keyboard, because looking at the keyboard means you're taking your eye off of the screen, which is where the content is. You don't want to have to do that.
The touch bar has no tactile feedback or leads or your fingers to find the buttons. Instead, it wants to use your ability to sense light, i.e. your eyes, to navigate it. This is completely counter to the design of keyboards.
Now, that doesn't make it a worse keyboard experience in and of itself. In fact, adding light but not removing the tactile feel is a useful aid (backlight comes to mind). However, when the function keys and especially the escape key are replaced with keys that have literally no travel, bump, or any other tactile feel, that's when the keyboard suddenly becomes significantly worse.
Combine this with the fact that the butterfly switches don't provide a particularly good typing experience in the first place, and you have a grade A turd.
On the point of ports:
USB-C/Thunderbolt ports are very expensive due to licensing costs, and the hardware must also be fairly high end to implement 4 of them, since they need a lot of PCI-e lanes. Putting 4 of them in a product is incredibly expensive as a result.
4 Thunderbolt 3 ports is very nice if you need 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports, but literally nobody needs 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports. Almost everyone needs at most 1, maybe 2, a charging port, and an assortment of other ports. So while 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports is nice in theory, it simply doesn't even remotely justify the cost, and the cost is that the MacBook Pros Apple are currently making are some of the most expensive pro laptops Apple has ever shipped. The Touchbar OLED strip that few people want probably makes it even worse.
I'm looking forward to seeing what a new line of MacBook Pros might mean. The Thunderbolt 3 ports are fine I guess, since it's getting cheaper because Intel opened the standard and it's now quite old anyway. However, the keyboard absolutely MUST be fixed. I will NOT buy any Mac product with butterfly switches and a touchbar. I tried it and returned the machine within ~7 days due to pain in my fingers and just overall dissatisfaction.
I'm pretty sure you can still take an old beater off somebody's hands for that amount and comparing the two isn't relevant. I'm also well aware the MBP will never cost $2000 for a 16" model - my 13" currently cost as much.
[doublepost=1550499179][/doublepost]
Approximately 2300 dollars. Not anywhere near what this will cost.
I hope this is real. I hate how laptops are so small. Yeah I get that they need to be portable, but I just like the idea of a computer with a smaller footprint, but I like a bigger size screen. I had their old 17" MBP, I'd buy a 19" if they made one. Anything bigger and you may as well just move up to an imac
Sounds good but I hope it will be significantly more repairable (battery, screen) and that they don't just keep increasing the price further and further. According to Moore's law, computers are supposed to be getting cheaper, not more expensive.
I can live with USB-C, I can live with soldered-in RAM and storage, but when something inevitably goes wrong, you should to be able to get it repaired without having to buy a new computer. The top case being fused to the battery, keyboard and trackpad needs to go. The sub-standard 1 year warranty needs to go. The terrible approach Apple has to repairing things needs to go.
I don't care if the computer is 1 mm thicker because of this. I'll get over it eventually. It will take time and lots of tears, but I'll get over it.
I can live with USB-C, I can live with soldered-in RAM and storage, but when something inevitably goes wrong, you should to be able to get it repaired without having to buy a new computer. The top case being fused to the battery, keyboard and trackpad needs to go. The sub-standard 1 year warranty needs to go. The terrible approach Apple has to repairing things needs to go.
I don't care if the computer is 1 mm thicker because of this. I'll get over it eventually. It will take time and lots of tears, but I'll get over it.
Apple needs the new chassis this year in order to use Intel’s new 9th Gen CPUs with up to 8-cores and 16-threads running at a base frequency of 3.6GHz with a boost clock speed of 5.00GHz. Unfortunately it is still a 14nm++ Skylake revision so hopefully Apple provides adequate cooling for this one (unlike the 6-core i9 15” MBP).
Hopefully this means Apple will decrease bezels across the board. Apple is really lagging its competition in both design (eg thin bezels) and reliability (keyboard, T2 chip, display flex cables). These latter issues must be addressed before I will purchase another Mac portable.
Nobody is taking your beloved USB-C ports away. What people want is a couple of USB-A and maybe a HDMI port as well without having an extra box on the table - which, incidentally, is what Apple offer with the 2017 iMac, the iMac Pro and the 2018 Mac Mini. ....because although it might be cool to connect 2 5k displays, a SSD RAID and an eGPU, sometimes its more useful to be able to connect a charger and four or five boring USB2/3 peripherals like backup drives, card readers, USB sticks, data projectors etc. without needing an external hub. The number of mini multi-port USB-C docks on the market ought to be a clue that people do actually need that sort of connectivity on the road.
Even 6-8 USB-C ports would be better than 4 (but, of course, there aren't enough PCIe lines to support that many fully-featured TB3 ports, so some would have to be USB-only) - Even re-instating MagSafe would mean that you didn't have to 'waste' a data port by using it for charging (and wouldn't preclude connecting a USB-C charger to another port).
That would suck, but it would also be a "courageous decision" when squarer displays seem to be on the ascendent: the MS Surface Book (probably the major realistic alternative to the MacBook Pro) and the Google Pixelbook have 3:2 displays.
(Also, sticking a 16:9 display in the same housing would reduce the diagonal size - look at the Razer Blade Stealth or the Dell XPS15 and their "edge-to-edge - but whoops not the bottom edge" displays).
The main reason for going 16:9 would be to use a generic "so-called-4k" UHD display as per many PCs and which, so far, Apple have resisted.
Going 3:2 or 4:3 would be great, but I'm guessing that what we're really talking about here is something very much like the current 15" 16:10 form factor but with reduced bezels to squeeze in an extra inch... No suggestion that they're inclined to make it thicker to improve the thermals, add ports, increase the battery size etc.
Mind you, it didn't save my MBP from taking flying lessons when the cable got yanked - and that was a fairly hefty 17" model. Summary: Someone tripped over the cable wrong (actually, it was a dog, and a slightly thick one even by canine standards so it can be forgiven for not reading the instructions).
Trouble is, as Macs get lighter (and the 15" MBP has shed over a pound since Magsafe was introduced) the easier they are to yank off tables - its a trade-off between making the connector pull out too easily and making sure they detach when yanked.
Frankly, after last October's launch, my attitude was "wake me up when you can run MacOS on an iPad Pro" - because the iPad and A-series systems-on-a-chip are clearly where all the innovation is going now. Roll on the ARM-powered Macs, I say (I'm needing Parallels less and less as everything is going cloud-y and browser centric and most modern software should just re-compile for ARM with only modest work). Part of the problem with recent Mac releases is Intel's messed-up schedule and their tendency to start marketing the hell out of generation X+1 chips before they've finished releasing all the promised versions of generation X. E.g. the Mac Mini: you can have a desktop-class CPU but Intel Say you can't have it with an Iris Pro iGPU or AMD in-package dGPU. That sort of problem wouldn't happen with the pick'n'mix nature of ARM.
The touchbar definitely made typing much worse for me, because it requires no travel to trigger those “keys.” I type very fast, but my fingers sometimes brush the touchbar, from decades of bad typing habits and from a habit (not mostly broken) of resting some of my fingers up there when they aren’t being used. In any case, many times a day i trigger touchbar functions uninitentionally, while typing blocks of texts.
This is ironic because the only time i *intentionally* use the touchbar is to adjust volume (which now requires me to turn my head down and look at the keyboard) or to authenticate via Touch ID.
I'm aware of those... and frankly scared too. I absolutely love keyboard on MBP 15" mid 2014 but also on my two MBP 17" 2006/2008 - rest in between has been IMHO utter crap
I would suggest the following:
MBP: 16”, 65-95W TDP design, i9 and i7 CPUs, iGPU/dGPU, 64GB DDR RAM, Ethernet port, 4TB3 ports
*Apple needs to make the 16” thick enough to accommodate a full Ethernet port for professionals for whom WiFi is not an adequate option. This should also provide enough room internally to cool i9 and i7 CPUs.
MBA: 14”, i7 and i5 CPUs, 35-45W TDP design, Iris Plus, 32GB LPDDR RAM, 4 TB3 ports.
MB: 12”, i3 CPUs, 15-25W TDP design, Intel integrated, 16GB LPDDR RAM, 2 TB3 ports.
I am really disappointed Apple never used the Kaby Lake G chipset. It had Apple’s fingerprint all over it, yet it never materialized. Let’s see what they do next.
The butterfly keyboards are atrocious and I haven't upgraded my late 2013 MacBook partly because I detest the keyboard so much.
I would expect the butterfly keyboards are proving a costly nuisance to Apple so an all-new solution is the only sensible answer. Unless they can ensure next-gen butterfly keys have a little more travel and are immune to a little bit of dust and dirt - like all Apple keyboards used to be prior to 2015!
Apple will never again offer an Ethernet port. And since your cable is in a fixed location, anyway, a usb-c to Ethernet dongle is not a horrible solution.
Trackpad is starting to fail on my 2013 15". I have been holding off on hope that apple pulls it's thumb out if it's rear and makes a decent compute
No, but I work half from home and half from or office, and I hook my MBP up monitors, external drives, keyboard, backup raid, etc in both environments. And I sometimes use my MBP "nake" while sitting on the couch. I also highly doubt i am alone. If portability is so paramount to a user, there exist two options below the "Pro" notebook already that sacrifice features and flexibility in the name of size and weight. Use those. Let the professional users use a professional machine.
Lmao Great use of the word bront! In any case I agree but my 2016 MBP works as well as my 2018 MBP both if which works better than my 2013 rMBP 2 years into it. So I dont understand these people complaining but maybe there are qa issues.
Moore's law says nothing at all about price. It predicts the density of transistors over time, that's all. All the other interpretations are based on wishful thinking.
Yeah, the computer should be more modular. I agree. But unfortunately, the MacBooks aren’t using SSDs anymore. They have flash memory with a separate controller, the T2 chip. You could put those flash memory chips onto sticks, but there'd be nothing standard about them so you still wouldn’t be able to replace them. And anyway, look at the thread discussing NVMe SSDs in the early retina MacBook pros. It's such a hassle that it's just not worth it.
But I fully agree that the computer should still be more modular anyway. It's silly to see a company having to replace half a computer when one component becomes faulty. I think it stings them particularly bad with the problems they had with th butterfly keyboard so I'm hoping they'll learn from it.
Dang. I just replaced my 17" with one last (2018) summer. The machine is great, but the screen is noticeably smaller and so not as useful. I usually just keep it connected to the 2004 30" cinema, but the 17" was more usable. I didn't think I'd be buying another MacBook Pro for 5 or 6 years. This might entice me...then the spouse would get a new machine (the 2018 15").