I like this article that 9to5mac put out, for all of those who may not have seen yet.
http://9to5mac.com/2012/05/14/apple...lay-ultra-thin-design-and-super-fast-usb-3-3/
I've posted just twice since last week, and it looks like I'm losing the party. Finally, there seems to be some leaks on the forthcoming MacBook Pro. And there are lots of rumors. I'll just summarize what I found to be the most important things.
The 5to9Mac report says that the a new 15-inch MacBook Pro will be released soon, probably in June. Re-designed, ultra-thin (but not tapered), Ivy Bridge processors, Retina Display, same-sized trackpad, no optical disk drive, two USB ports (at least one USB 3.0), two Thunderbolt ports, no Ethernet.
All of this seems very logical to me. There are other speculations in the article, but that's it: speculations, nothing else "confirmed".
I personally think there won't be a 13 inch. I easily could be wrong though, they may keep it in place just for the name. But in my opinion it's too close to the Macbook Air.
One of the concerns is this. The article mentioned the 15-inch MacBook Pro. What will happen to the 13-inch and to the 17-inch models?
The 13-inch MacBook Pro is Apple's best selling laptop. But does it make sense to keep a thin and light 13-inch MacBook Pro with no optical drive and SSD while Apple already has a similarly priced thin and light 13-inch MacBook Air with no optical drive and SSD? They might be pretty much the same product.
As for the 17-inch MacBook Pro, as previously reported, Apple may drop it because it is the worst-selling laptop of the line.
It would make sense. Seeing as there has been rumors of Apple using liquid metal for the next iPhone. Why not just use it for all the products they're releasing this year? A liquid metal line up.
Well, the liquid metal creator himself said that there wouldn't be liquid metal laptops for now, the technology has to evolve first. Some parts of the MacBook Air may be made of liquid metal. But the whole body? Hardly. It's incredible how several unlikely rumors follow a plausible one.
These was a report a couple weeks ago that Apple is still a couple years from really implementing liquid metal on a large scale.
Exactly.
So sans optical drive= room for multiple SSD or HDDs? And maybe a slightly lower price?
Don't count on that. Probably there wouldn't be multiple SSDs/HDDs, it doesn't seem to be Apple's approach. Apple would rather make a thinner laptop than leaving room for multiple drives. And about lower prices... well, let's see. Apple's current 15-inch MacBook Pro sells for US$ 1,799 (low end) and US$ 2,199 (high end), and that's a lot of money. Apple may lower the price a little bit so people can actually get access to these Macs, or they may use the wow factor of the redesign and the Retina Displays to keep the price up.
http://www.slashgear.com/macbook-pro-2012-gamestop-sales-tip-apple-gaming-future-14228128/
Well it does not make sense for me now that Apple wants to expand in Ultrabooks and at the same time to have a gaming future , already we are speaking about two different segments !! heat , optical drive !? Sorry I can't see how !?
In fact, although powerful video cards usually means power consumption and heat, the industry is heading to a mobile world, and both NVIDIA and AMD are trying to catch up with the trend. They will still produce the über-powerful video cards, but that's for a niche. Laptops and tablets will become increasingly more capable of displaying high quality graphics.
Well if it's only 1 drive... I'm going normal HDDs or hybrid ... SSD only is not for me
Storage on the redesigned MacBook Pro has been a wild card for me... Apple is certainly moving towards SSD in all fronts. It has even bought a company that produces SSDs! So, all Macs will get SSDs, sooner or later. But the MacBook Pro currently offers storage ranging from 500 GB HD to 750 GB HD. If Apple adopts SSDs instead of HDDs, the capacity will drop to 128 or 256 GB. Of course the SSDs are much faster than HDDs, but all that disk space is gone. It's a trade-off. Will Apple make the move right now? There are some reports which point in this direction. Apple may well keep an option for the HDD, or it may push users to keep external HDDs with USB 3.0 (they would be really fast and would make up for the lack of an internal HDD). I don't believe Apple will adopt two drives, but who knows for sure?
The Bloomberg article that just hit the front page specifically mentions flash memory:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...thinner-mac-laptops-sporting-intel-chips.html
Yes. And this article seems to contain reliable information. Second great rumor!
All these rumors are really making me excited for WWDC. One thing I wish a rumor would mention, though, is switching over from TN to IPS displays along with the Retina Display. That would be awesome!
The Retina Display is coming, of course, to all Mac models, sooner or later (and rather sooner than later). The MacBook Pro will likely be the first one to receive it. But nobody mentioned the transition from TN to IPS. I believe Apple will adopt IPS displays, despite the lack of information on this respect. The report mentioned that the screen would be awesome. And Apple has already adopted IPS in every line of products (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, iMac) except for the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. Price shouldn't be a concern, as Apple ships iPads with IPS screens for US$ 499 and iPod Touchs with IPS screens for 199. Of course a larger screen would cost more, but the MacBooks are much more expensive than iPads and iPod Touchs.
And, in addition, Asus is going to release a Zenbook equipped with a 1920x1080 IPS screen very soon. Will Apple keep a lower quality TN screen when its competitors are already adopting IPS? I don't think so.
If they are (allegedly) making it ultra-thin, does that mean it will eventually merge with the Air and we will have one MacBook model to rule them all?
And what would they call it? Just MacBook and then have many versions raging from student/consumer to professional?
No. At least, I don't think so. Apple has traditionally kept two lines of laptops, and it will probably follow its own tradition. "Corporate culture", Steve Jobs would say.
From the article "Retina Displays Also Coming to Next-Generation iMac?"
"[...] rumored 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2880x1800 display compared to the 1440x900 display in the current model [...]"
I'd really like to see real increases in screen resolution. But if the 15" MBP gets a display which sharper, but otherwise acts as a 1400x900 display (i.e. text is sharper, but you can't put more of it on screen), that's hardly much of a win.
Read carefully the article published by 9to5Mac. What about this part?
Sources familiar with software strings left behind in OS X Lion 10.7.4 and Mountain Lion betas say that this Retina Display MacBook Pro features multiple Retina resolution modes, so users are able to adjust the sharpness and image sizes to their liking. Unlike Mac display settings of today, these Retina Display settings will not be marked with numbers/resolution sizes, but with descriptions such as big, small, or optimal, according to these software-based findings. The long-awaited resolution independence is upon us.
Interesting, huh? I'm salivating...
I wonder how some website can tell about retina without speaking about price. Higher resolution means higher price. It costs about 100 to up from 1440x900 to 1680x1050... If you look for tft panel price, 1920x1200 panel cost much than 1680x1050 and much more than 1440x900. So 3840x2400 or 3360x2100 will never be as cheap as current ones.
In fact, MacBooks are stuck with the current resolutions for several years now. Nobody seems to notice that the industry of screens should evolve as much as the other technological ones. The production of processors became much more efficient in the last 4 of 5 years, and that led Intel to produce much more powerful chips. Why shouldn't we be happy with the same screen resolutions we used 4 or 5 years ago? The 13" MacBook Pro has a screen resolution of 1280x800, and the 4.6" Galaxy Nexus has a screen resolution of 1280x720, which almost matches that. 2560x1600 should be now what 1280x800 was 4 or 5 years ago. The iPad has a Retina Display, and it costs only US$ 499. And it has an IPS display, which is better than the TN display used by current MacBooks. The fact is that there is technology to produce ultra-high resolution screens in large scale for a reasonable price, and Apple will benefit from that.
What do you think about the rumors of a Nvidia GT 650 on the new MBP... I was looking at the clocks and it seems can run a bit too hot for an Air-like case.
I do think it is possible an underclocked version will be shipped with the MBP. What do you think?
There are reports of Apple replacing the current AMD cards for NVIDIA cards. Apparently the NVIDIA mobile cards can now handle 3840x2160 resolutions, which is not enough for doubling the current resolution of the 17" MacBook Pro, of 1920x1200 (that would be 3840x2400). Will Apple drop the 17" MacBook Pro? Will it keep AMD instead of NVIDIA (AMD cards are currently more suitable for Retina Displays, as the 7000M series can handle resolutions of up to 4096x3112)? Will it use a custom NVIDIA card? Will it change the screen ratio of the laptops, adopting 16:9 instead of 16:10? Or a combination of these?
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to comment on everything...
