16-Inch MacBook Pro With All-New Design Expected in 2019, 13-Inch Model May Gain 32GB RAM

[0388631]

Keep the headphone jack, add back magsafe and a couple USB3 ports (along with USB-C ports), and PLEASE make the Battery, RAM, and HD user upgradeable. Do that (or most of it) and we are good to go.
And I pray that awkward touchbar is gone too....a failed experiment.

With Apple focusing on services, they may make it possible to swap the battery out. I'm not skilled at CAD, bit I'm sure some people on here are and can come up with a crude example of a laptop with a bottom that can be opened up. Reality is that the bottom is never seen so there being a way to open it up shouldn't be a problem.

The current MBP's NVME is slightly slower than the current fastest NVMEs. It shouldn't be too hard for Apple to allow NVME swaps and not soldered chips, but the T2 become a problem, unless they remove it or allow it to re-authorize itself with the drive. Who knows.

 

[WillNN]

Good news. I'm not sure that I'll be able to afford it with all the money I've had to spend on USB-C adapters....
I went from a 15" to the 17" in 2011, and then to a 15" in 2017 and ... I still use the 17" as a second computer. I prefer the larger screen. So it's great to know that this will be an option.
One of the biggest issues that I don't think has ever been properly addressed is that as screen resolution increased the size of fonts in Calendar, Contacts, and a few other Apple native apps do not have a text size option-- so things just keep getting smaller and smaller. (Changing the whole screen res is a bad option.) Also other applications, like my word processor of choice, Nisus Writer Pro, the menus are still the same size they were 20 years ago. Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, the handle and corner point sizes have never been adjustable. If like me you've been using Illustrator for 25 years, it's like these things are just getting more and more difficult to use as screen resolutions increase (if somehow Adobe's changed this in the post CS5 monthly-shakedown, I'm not really interested. If they haven't and you're paying $30-$60 a month to poke poke poke for a drawing point or handle, what are you really paying for?). A 16" won't solve these problems, but it will be nice. I hope someone at Apple has figured out that they need to really dial up some of their basic applications to take advantage of a larger high res screen. (How about expandable mini-notes for a word processor. How about a major redesign of word processors and spreadsheets?)
What I've found traveling with a MacBook Pro is that as devices get lighter, they really aren't getting that much lighter, just smaller. The power blocks and the back-up external drive, sleeve, etc... instead of a 4 pound machine being replaced by a 3 pound machine, are more like 7 pounds of gear now weighing 6 pounds. Instead of a 25% reduction, it's more like 14%. The weight savings is not really worth the smaller screen size. I think the larger screens will make seeing a MacBookPro stand out from the crowd of laptops as it once did. (Just my two cents. If any of this is rubbish. Thanks in advance for setting me straight.)

 

[lowkey]

Keep the headphone jack, add back magsafe and a couple USB3 ports (along with USB-C ports), and PLEASE make the Battery, RAM, and HD user upgradeable. Do that (or most of it) and we are good to go.
And I pray that awkward touchbar is gone too....a failed experiment.

Seriously? Whats the point of listing off a bunch of stuff that is obviously NEVER going to happen?
On what earth are they going to re-instate a user replaceable battery and hard drive?

 

[eco7777]

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh it's happening!

I'm sold if it's under $4,000! This will be almost the same as the old MacBook Pro 17's!

For 4k it batter have a steering wheel and go buy and bring me my food by itself.

 

[Fallenight]

I really don't not want a laptop, do to the smaller screen as about the same size as my iPad Pro. Being back the 17" laptop as a 16.5" could change my mind.

 

[Blue Sun]

What are the chances that the 13" MBP is made into a 14" MBP? That would be the perfect size for me.

 

[insomniac86]

Features this thing needs:

• Emoji-bar optional.
• No condom keyboard.
• Matte screen option.
• nVidia GPU.
• User upgrade-able Ram and SSD.
• Apple pencil support built in the Trackpad.
• Mag-safe
• Cooling solution that doesn't throttle (excessively).
• Illuminated Apple logo on the back, just because damn it.. it's a Mac!!

My order of the Wishlist

• FaceID
• Mag-safe (even if retro fitted on a USB-C port)
  
• nVidia GPU. (Won't ever happen but we can dream right?)
• Apple pencil support built in the Trackpad (I was expecting this on the last new design!)
• Cooling solution that doesn't throttle excessively. (It's gotten better once the patch was released, but a better thermo design is required)
• Illuminated Apple logo on the back, just because damn it.. it's a Mac!! (dam straight)
• Matte screen option (YES PLEASE, though the new screens don't have too much glare.
• Emoji-bar optional (I like the Touch Bar, so but it should be optional)
• No condom keyboard. (I dont care about the rubber, it's a big improvement, but a better keyboard design is needed)
• User upgrade-able Ram and SSD. (I could live without this, but would be nice)

 

[Dave245]

I wonder how likely it is that we will see Face ID with this "new design"

Also will we see this glass keyboard or will Apple go for a gen 4 of the butterfly keyboard? https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/apple-glass-keyboard-patent

I do think that people posting about going back to the old keyboard are going to be disappointed.
[doublepost=1550560728][/doublepost]

What are the chances that the 13" MBP is made into a 14" MBP? That would be the perfect size for me.

If they shrink the bezels down on the 15" and make it the 16" or 16.5" then i think they would also shrink the bezels on the 13", there is no way that they would do it just on one device (iPad Pro as an example).

However i don't know if this is the aim here, they could just bring back the bigger 17" that they sold years ago. This could be in the same form factor as the current Macbook Pro's with Touch Bar and a new improved keyboard.

HOWEVER Ming Chi Kuo states that it's an "all new design" i have no idea what this will result in

 

[tjedora]

HOWEVER Ming Chi Kuo states that it's an "all new design" i have no idea what this will result in

I could imagine this being a "complementary" device being announced together with the MacPro with both sharing similar design decisions - whatever those might be. I guess the 13" will then get a redesign in 2020.

 

[Dave245]

I could imagine this being a "complementary" device being announced together with the MacPro with both sharing similar design decisions - whatever those might be. I guess the 13" will then get a redesign in 2020.

That’s actually a really good point! With the Mac Pro getting released it could be that Apple wants to focus on Pro devices. The MacBook Pro is Apples best selling Pro laptop.

I do wonder how it will be different from the current 15” and 13” tho, the chassis is already thin. My guess would be reduce the bezels.

Wouldn’t it be great if they announced both at WWDC

 

[ginuz]

I don't mind a bigger MacBook Pro, even if I'd rather prefer to have the 15" computing power into the 13" than going bigger, but if Apple is going to have more space at disposal it should bring back the SD reader at least. An HDMI should be appreciable, too. And rethink of some sort of mag-safe (removing it was the dumbest of all decisions). I like the concept that is airing around, with the edge to edge display so maybe they can bring 16" within the actual 15" sizes.

 

[atikalz]

It will have proper ports- USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports. The ports that do everything. I'm so freak'n tired of people whining about it - they're what is here now. They work fantastic. They have power. They have every modern connection with an adapter. I'm sorry your 15 year old game controller doesn't work without a cheap, passive adapter. But I don't care. This is what is now and going forward. Suck it up and grow up.

Keyboard, you have slightly more of a point on. It's still not going to be radically different. The new boards need some better control, but they feel fantastic to type on. There's nothing wrong with them operationally.

Matte screen is hard to find on any laptop. Whine to the manufacturers.

Performance especially on the new ones are fantastic. Just.. just give it up. THey're good machines, bront. And life goes on. If you can't move on, you'll get left behind.

Sorry, but all displays and all TVs I am connecting my MacBook Pro 2015 too use hdmi or display port. And all my lightning cables have a usb-a connector. This stuff is all nearly new and not 15 years old. So the new MBP doesn’t meet the standards.

 

[smirking]

So the new MBP doesn’t meet the standards.

You can make a TB3 port fully backward compatible with any of your USB-A devices. The same cannot be said the other way around.

It'll cost you as little as $1 to convert any of your USB-A devices to a USB-C version. I have almost a dozen USB-C to USB-A endcap adapters. They were cheap and they work.

You're so done with Macs. If you refuse to spend $1 per device to update your peripherals, why on earth haven't you moved on to Windows?

 

[ionutc]

Sorry, but all displays and all TVs I am connecting my MacBook Pro 2015 too use hdmi or display port. And all my lightning cables have a usb-a connector. This stuff is all nearly new and not 15 years old. So the new MBP doesn’t meet the standards.

You should get new cables then, or maybe adapter(s) for the stuff you still want to use. Not everybody wants to plug everything into a laptop and even so, if you want to be able to plug anything you would still need an adapter no matter what laptop you choose.

 

[PeterJP]

It seems like many people here are working in many different environments, or in environments that they can't change. For me, that's different. I have a home office and currently, one office where I work. I can easily install a USB-C dock in both. It may cost me a small amount of money, but I'll have the luxurious situation that I can just arrive, plug in 1 cable and be done. So yeah, USB-C all the way, and get the dock that matches what *you* want to do, instead of insisting on getting a built-in dock that may cater to some, may frustrate others.

Additionally, USB-C charging over MagSafe or whatever means that I can use 1 charger for laptop, iPad Pro and my phone. Now, for whatever reason, rumours are that Apple still wants to keep its braindead proprietary Lightning connector for the iPhones. That's so silly. I was happy to see a dramatic move in the direction of standardisation from Apple, with USB-C/TB3 in its entire range from the iPad Pro upwards. They should now push it down, too.

 

[itsamacthing]

Good but base on their cycle, it's too soon. They make an all-new design MacBook pro every 4 years. So I doubt they gonna release it in this year.

I would normally agree but with iPhone sales slowing, I think apple is ready to make some changes

 

[KPandian1]

Sorry, but all displays and all TVs I am connecting my MacBook Pro 2015 too use hdmi or display port. And all my lightning cables have a usb-a connector. This stuff is all nearly new and not 15 years old. So the new MBP doesn’t meet the standards.

This USB-C nonsense! They still don't have a standard cable.

Apple should just release the 2015 MacBook Pro again with the TB ports re-machined as USB-C ports. The template exists anyway and it will be a worthwhile Beta test on the public. They seem to be public Beta testing with a lot of their products anyway - starting with the iPhone 6 to the last iPad Pro.

 

[cmaier]

My order of the Wishlist

• FaceID
• Mag-safe (even if retro fitted on a USB-C port)
  
• nVidia GPU. (Won't ever happen but we can dream right?)
• Apple pencil support built in the Trackpad (I was expecting this on the last new design!)
• Cooling solution that doesn't throttle excessively. (It's gotten better once the patch was released, but a better thermo design is required)
• Illuminated Apple logo on the back, just because damn it.. it's a Mac!! (dam straight)
• Matte screen option (YES PLEASE, though the new screens don't have too much glare.
• Emoji-bar optional (I like the Touch Bar, so but it should be optional)
• No condom keyboard. (I dont care about the rubber, it's a big improvement, but a better keyboard design is needed)
• User upgrade-able Ram and SSD. (I could live without this, but would be nice)

How do you imagine faceid working? What’s equivalent to the swipe up gesture on iOS devices, to prevent unintended log ons and to initiate retries? Or does it just continuously try and logs on no matter what if it sees you?

Just wondering how they’d make it work, because for a Mac I think there may be some advantages to Touch ID over Face ID.

 

[theluggage]

You can make a TB3 port fully backward compatible with any of your USB-A devices. The same cannot be said the other way around.

Apart from the need to buy & carry around dongles and replacement cables, that wouldn't be so bad if there were 6-8 TB3 ports so you could connect the same number of devices as before without needing a hub. The problem is that full-featured TB3/USB-C ports are expensive to implement and eat PCIe lanes, so we get port rationing - the worst case being the non-TB MBPs and rMBAs with only two ports to do everything (including charging).

How do you imagine faceid working? What’s equivalent to the swipe up gesture on iOS devices, to prevent unintended log ons and to initiate retries?

Uh... let's think... swipe up on the trackpad?

Just wondering how they’d make it work, because for a Mac I think there may be some advantages to Touch ID over Face ID.

I'm inclined to agree with you (and I'm sure that the only real justification of Face ID was 'whups, we want a bezel-free iPhone but the through-display fingerprint sensor isn't ready...') - but on the other hand, face recognition has been commonplace on Windows laptops like the MS Surface range for a couple of years, so its basically a solved problem (apart from the minor detail of making it reliable). It would also be easier to implement Face ID on iMacs (or thunderbolt displays) vs. having to build a 'secure enclave' into external keyboards or trackpads for touch ID.

 

[smirking]

Apart from the need to buy & carry around dongles and replacement cables, that wouldn't be so bad if there were 6-8 TB3 ports so you could connect the same number of devices as before without needing a hub.

Huh? How were you able to plug 8 devices into the previous MBP without a hub when it only had 2 USB-A ports?

 

[Falhófnir]

Huh? How were you able to plug 8 devices into the previous MBP without a hub when it only had 2 USB-A ports?

I think he means theoretically if you had Magsafe that's 1 USB C on the new models; 2xUSB A is equivalent to another two; 2x TB2 is a further two; and an SD makes another one (well, that's 6 connections not 8 but you get the idea)

 

[TinyMammal]

I'm sure it'll continue the same horrible trend that Apple has been focused on for the last four years. It'll certainly have fewer ports, the same terrible keyboard as the current generation, less battery capacity, and a shaky thermal profile.

Oh, and it'll probably cost $5k for a processor that's at least two generations old.

I wish I had more confidence in Apple to make good choices in their Mac lineup, but I've mostly given up hope.

 

[EightyTwenty]

Draw a 2:1 ratio screen on an A4 paper - now see that as the aspect ratio of any laptop, especially from Apple. Not possible.

LOL. Of course it’s possible.

The Acer Predator 21 has a 21:9 aspect ratio, which is even wider than 2:1.

 

[jdiamond]

BTW, I know this is an obvious observation, but Apple could keep the same 15" MBP form factor and just shrink the rather large bezel to get a 16" screen. This would make the most sense of the 16" replaces the 15" - because it IS the 15", but with a more advanced display.

Back in 1999-2001 I had an absolutely amazing ThinkPad - it had a beautiful IPS 1,600 x 1,200 17" screen, but I bring it up because it had zero bezel - about a 1 mm thick plastic wall extended beyond the screen on the sides, forming a lip seal when it closed, but that was it - it was all screen...

 

[KPandian1]

Of course it’s possible. The Acer Predator 21 has a 21:9 aspect ratio, which is even wider than 2:1.

My mistake in the choice of the word "impossible". Any ratio is possible, even a 3:1 screen.

It will look weird, unless it is used only for gaming or movies. The real estate available for browsing, working on documents, etc. is going to skewed. The practical nature of a 2:1 screen is close to nil.