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2012 Macbook Pro Redesign

BK. said:
A really big thing I'm worried about is if they just upgrade the displays to retina displays and essentially doubling the amount of pixels or whatever without changing the "physical" screen resolution. Yes to clearer, pin sharp graphics and photographs - as long as that doesn't stop them keeping the same ****** "physical" screen resolution. I don't just want my **** clearer, I want to open Mail/Safari and have things spread out more.

My worry is if they go to retina displays they'll just go from 1280x800 --> 2560x1600 but keep the same "physicalness" of the display meaning it's still 1280x800 for intents and purposes just clearer and more crisp.
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Yeah, this is something I've been wondering about as well, and mentioned a couple of times without any replies. I think at this point no one really knows exactly how they'd implement it.

To be honest, on the 17" and 15" high res, I wouldn't mind that sort of implementation as they already have decent real estate, but for the 13", that would be a total cop out IMO. We've heard your complaints about the 13" resolution, so we've doubled it!! Oh, you have the exact same real estate so nothing about it will be more efficient or pleasing, but that half of a safari window you can fit on your screen will be twice as sharp!

Maybe they'll have various settings that you can play with in order to have increased real estate. I think we can speculate, but at this point it's hard to know just how or if they'll implement it.
 
BK. said:
I'm still hoping that the optical drive stays. I cant be arsed getting in to the "I don't use the optical drive"/"I *DO* use the optical drive" **** all over again, so I won't, I'll just say this - eventually people will stop using DVDs, I understand that and have no issue with it. I haven't, and neither has anyone I know.

Still, plenty of computers could get away without an optical drive.

I don't think something with the label "Pro" and sells for over 1k falls in to that category, however.

A lack of optical drive is fine on a 10/11 inch netbook that you buy from HP for $250-$300. Most people don't use those as their main computers. If I'm spending 1k on a computer, on a Pro computer, you'd better believe that I'm going to be using it as my main computer. Like I said, some machines are fine without an optical drive, but I don't want to buy a main computer without an ODD. Not yet, anyway. I could buy an external drive, but that sort of defeats the purpose of having a portable computer that I can just chuck in a bag and go out with.

Anyway, enough about the optical drive - people will disagree, I'm just talking from my POV. I won't spend 1k on a Pro computer that I will be using as my main computer, when it doesn't have an optical drive. Not yet, maybe in a few years, but at the moment I watch too many DVDs on my computer.

</rant>

A really big thing I'm worried about is if they just upgrade the displays to retina displays and essentially doubling the amount of pixels or whatever without changing the "physical" screen resolution. Yes to clearer, pin sharp graphics and photographs - as long as that doesn't stop them keeping the same ****** "physical" screen resolution. I don't just want my **** clearer, I want to open Mail/Safari and have things spread out more.

My worry is if they go to retina displays they'll just go from 1280x800 --> 2560x1600 but keep the same "physicalness" of the display meaning it's still 1280x800 for intents and purposes just clearer and more crisp.

That would suck. If they upgrade the displays I hope they don't think going retina negates the need for more physical space on screen.

(I'm not a technical person, so I have probably explained this horrifically bad. Basically, my understanding, rightly or wrongly, is that retina displays are all about increasing the amount of pixels whilst keeping things with the same physical dimensions so they look clearer/more sharp, without looking any bigger/smaller. That's fine, but I don't want just that - I want more screen estate, and going retina doesn't and shouldn't negate that. Super clear amazingly crisp graphics = win... but on a 1280x800 display? Nah!)
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I agree. I think the resolution should be bumped up a notch (1440x900 for 13", 1680x1050 for 15" and 1920x1200 for 17") AND be retina. The 13" MBA has more screen real estate than a 13" MacBook Pro. Emphasis on the word Pro.
 
Boe11 said:
Yeah, this is something I've been wondering about as well, and mentioned a couple of times without any replies. I think at this point no one really knows exactly how they'd implement it.

To be honest, on the 17" and 15" high res, I wouldn't mind that sort of implementation as they already have decent real estate, but for the 13", that would be a total cop out IMO. We've heard your complaints about the 13" resolution, so we've doubled it!! Oh, you have the exact same real estate so nothing about it will be more efficient or pleasing, but that half of a safari window you can fit on your screen will be twice as sharp!

Maybe they'll have various settings that you can play with in order to have increased real estate. I think we can speculate, but at this point it's hard to know just how or if they'll implement it.
Click to expand...


I'm in full agreement on both that we don't know how they'll implement it and that we also need more physical room.

One thing I've been contemplating is that while the screen real-estate might not increase, stuff will actually be much sharper. This could mean that we'll be able to read smaller text more comfortably and actually reduce the size of some screen components. While not providing more physical room, it is a different way of providing more room on the page.
 
My worry is if they go to retina displays they'll just go from 1280x800 --> 2560x1600 but keep the same "physicalness" of the display meaning it's still 1280x800 for intents and purposes just clearer and more crisp.

That would suck. If they upgrade the displays I hope they don't think going retina negates the need for more physical space on screen.
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Agreed ... I've been wondering the same thing. If it did just double the dpi, but keep the same physicalness, then i've gained no extra working space. Likewise if you could natively run the laptop at its full resolution, then I think 2560 on laptop screen would be too small ... let alone doubling anything higher than 1280.

The more I've thought about it, the more I think that I'd rather just have laptops with higher res screens as standard. like 1680 on the 15" as standard. etc

OR

would retina class displays allow resolution independence?
 
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I really hope they refresh the MBP in the next week or two. Waiting until WWDC is something I don't think I can do having been computer less for like 4 months. The 2011 models came out in Feb. it seems insane that they would wait until June to refresh. I understand they were waiting for Intels ivy bridge announcement but now that they have we should see them soon. Last year the sandy bridge MBP was released a week before sandy bridges release. Also NVIDIA and AMD have both released their 28nm graphics lineups. Waiting to release alongside ML makes no sense because last year they refreshed hardware before Lion, and people just got free upgrades. Lion was a huge update to the Mac OS, and they didn't wait. ML is more of an incremental update to Lion. I don't see them making a big deal out of releasing hardware alongside it. However, if they do, it's going to be MBAs and Mac Minis. Both those machines were refreshed in July at the same time with Lion. Also, when Apple says something is coming in "summer" it means late summer, like late July or august. Don't expect ML to be released on June 11 at WWDC. The iMacs are another question. Now that it's already going to be May, and the iMacs were last refreshed in May, are they just going to wait and refresh the MBP and iMac at the same time in mid may? Who knows...they just need to update the MBP already.
 
This might be saying stupid stuff but its worth looking at:

You know how Apple always like to put stuff in pictures like time's and date's.. Like with the iPad 3 release the clock gave the date and time away when they where goin to launch?

I've seen a couple of mails from Apple with the date:
13th may 2012

since this is in like 2 weeks, is the a date that could be an sort of hint? Or is it me just looking to far? :D
 
I think it's certainly possible that they'll be released in the next couple of weeks, but if we're being objective (which is hard because I really want one asap)... the rumors have kind of dried up. There doesn't appear to be any serious shortages in stock at this point.

I mean, it could happen some time in May but if they are in fact "heavily redesigned" I don't think they're going to just nonchalantly drop them without a key note that close to WWDC. And they're probably not going to hold a separate key note event like 2 weeks before WWDC either.

They could be announced before I submit this comment, or any time before or after WWDC, but I think all signs of reason are currently pointing to a WWDC launch. On one hand, it really sucks waiting another month and change, but the anticipation will make the release that much better. And yes, I do mean the sexual sense.
 
Frankied22 said:
I really hope they refresh the MBP in the next week or two. Waiting until WWDC is something I don't think I can do having been computer less for like 4 months. The 2011 models came out in Feb. it seems insane that they would wait until June to refresh. I understand they were waiting for Intels ivy bridge announcement but now that they have we should see them soon. Last year the sandy bridge MBP was released a week before sandy bridges release. Also NVIDIA and AMD have both released their 28nm graphics lineups. Waiting to release alongside ML makes no sense because last year they refreshed hardware before Lion, and people just got free upgrades. Lion was a huge update to the Mac OS, and they didn't wait. ML is more of an incremental update to Lion. I don't see them making a big deal out of releasing hardware alongside it. However, if they do, it's going to be MBAs and Mac Minis. Both those machines were refreshed in July at the same time with Lion. Also, when Apple says something is coming in "summer" it means late summer, like late July or august. Don't expect ML to be released on June 11 at WWDC. The iMacs are another question. Now that it's already going to be May, and the iMacs were last refreshed in May, are they just going to wait and refresh the MBP and iMac at the same time in mid may? Who knows...they just need to update the MBP already.
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I really hope your reasoning rings true, its certainly not unrealistic.
Since I have done it in a while, Im going to list my realistic hopes for the upcoming low-end 15" model.

* Processing power of 2,5-2,7GHz IB QC.
* 8 Gigabytes of Ram (who knows but I wouldnt say unrealistic, almost everyone I see have been upgrading their Ram to 8GB, maybe its time for Apple to just save us the trouble)
* Nvidia Kepler 640M 1GB Ram (I think 650 is just unrealistic)
* Resolution 1680x1050 (retina? Fine but like mentioned, I want the real estate of 1680 anyhow)
* ODD? Either works but if its removed the absolutely optimal for _me_ would be a blade-ssd or second HDD space, but both of those seem rather unrealistic, so best is probably that the ODD stays, then I can replace it with a SSD.
* USB 3 ports, I would like USB, preferably on all ports, but atleast 1.


I think that more or less sums my hopes for the coming version.
 
Boe11 said:
I think it's certainly possible that they'll be released in the next couple of weeks, but if we're being objective (which is hard because I really want one asap)... the rumors have kind of dried up. There doesn't appear to be any serious shortages in stock at this point.

I mean, it could happen some time in May but if they are in fact "heavily redesigned" I don't think they're going to just nonchalantly drop them without a key note that close to WWDC. And they're probably not going to hold a separate key note event like 2 weeks before WWDC either.

They could be announced before I submit this comment, or any time before or after WWDC, but I think all signs of reason are currently pointing to a WWDC launch. On one hand, it really sucks waiting another month and change, but the anticipation will make the release that much better. And yes, I do mean the sexual sense.
Click to expand...
It's a bit silly, that they may release them in June, Ivy Bridge will be almost 2 months old by then.
 
"Apple WWDC 2012: iOS 6, iCloud, OS X and Macs"

Why would they update the Macs with Ivy Brige? Haswell will only be 8 months away at that point?
 
I'd really like to see a MBP refresh or redesign but I don't expect to see anything 'till at least mid-late June, maybe later, barring a shakeup in the MacBook Pro product line.

Apple probably isn't going to update until they can update the entire MacBook Pro line, which doesn't align with the newly released chips.

With Sandy Bridge, the performance line quad core (i7-QM) processors came out very close to the mainstream dual core (i5/i7-M) chips. Specifically, the mainstream dual core processors were launched on 02-20 and the MacBook Pro refresh was 4 days later on the 24th.

Ivy Bridge release is going a bit differently. The time period between the release of the performance and mainstream target segments is a bit longer, which performance chips coming out now, but we won't see the mainstream chips, the ones typically used in the 13" until "June 2012".

Hopefully, Apple will either drop the 13" or decide the entire Pro lineup deserves a quad core processor. Otherwise, I think we have a long wait ahead before we see new models.
 
Robot Overlord said:
Hopefully, Apple will either drop the 13" or decide the entire Pro lineup deserves a quad core processor. Otherwise, I think we have a long wait ahead before we see new models.
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About the quad core 13 inch, hasn't Intel only released one 35W quad core part? Currently Apple offers two different processors for the 13 inch, surely they wouldn't go down to one option?
 
samac92 said:
About the quad core 13 inch, hasn't Intel only released one 35W quad core part? Currently Apple offers two different processors for the 13 inch, surely they wouldn't go down to one option?
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One quad core option is still better then two dual core options, isn't it?
 
Liquinn said:
"Apple WWDC 2012: iOS 6, iCloud, OS X and Macs"

Why would they update the Macs with Ivy Brige? Haswell will only be 8 months away at that point?
Click to expand...

Are you suggesting they not update at all until Haswell, or suggesting that they....well let's be clear, I have no clue what you're talking about....
 
Haswell is only a few months away and is a significant upgrade to Ivy Bridge. If Apple went with Ivy Bridge now, they'd lose out to competitors who are already ahead of them. Does Apple want to be behind the curve? No, they want to be ahead of it. Therefore, Apple will release with Haswell after this summer, but they will get exclusive early access to Haswell, so they will get their laptops out before the official launch.


The last MBP update was only 185 days ago. Most updates are >300 days. Therefore, we have a long ways to go and Apple certainly won't release in the next few weeks. Also, since this is a new design under a new CEO, they want to make sure they get it right. Consider all these factors, and you'll realize that the next MBP update won't be here for a long time.


Another thing to keep in mind is that Haswell is expected to come with built-in Thunderbolt technology. Coincidence? Does Apple do ANYTHING that is a coincidence?
 
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