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Apple Finishing Up Work on an Ultra-Thin 15" Notebook

I'll admit it does feel every so slightly early to drop optical drives from Pro machines to me... but I also think I'm probably wrong in thinking that way. It's more of a gut reaction to loosing the built-in drive after so many years of relying on it I think.

Apple's path for laptops (and desktops too really) is now starting to seem fairly clear and it centres around three main things. 1) App store to deliver the bulk of applications though with alternative means available for at least the next couple of years (and probably far far longer). 2) iCloud to backup data and start to tie together apps from iOS and OS X. 3) Thunderbolt.

It's Thunderbolt that's the real ace in the hole here IMO. Even now with this first version we've got a monitor packing gigabit ethernet, 3 USB and 1 Firewire port all running flat out as well as providing the video feed to both that monitor and, potentially, a daisy-chained display as well. It's not hard to imagine a relatively cheap hub with a single thunderbolt cable and magsafe adaptor providing easy access to external hard disks and optical drives when you're at the desk. Heck, as things improve perhaps external GPU's will become an option as well, turn any Macbook Air into something close to a Mac Pro with a single cable.

Looking at the possibility of these hitting this year I can see a couple of potential problems though:

1) It kinda feels like Apple would prefer to have Ivy Bridge available for a thinner MBP. Either that or they must have a pretty impressive cooling system to run both Sandy Bridge and a discrete GPU in a smaller package than the current MBP.

2) Prices for large SSD's are still on the high side and a pro machine would need a pretty hefty chunk of storage on-board. Maybe the same hybrid system as build to order iMac's could help there...

3) Battery life. I assume that without the need to house an optical drive Apple could come up with a more efficient battery configuration than they currently have but they're still going to have to go some to match the current machines.

Ah well, see what happens I guess. Personally I hope this is true as it would be a VERY interesting step forward and shake things up a bit in the rest of the industry. If you want an optical drive externals only cost £20 anyway :D
 
mdntcallr said:
a macbook pro isn't a computer that ought to miss an optical drive. Apple is on an artificial crusade to get rid of optical drives because it will push more people to buy programs and software via itunes and the app store.

this isn't gentle nudging and giving consumers decisions, it is literally telling consumers what to do.

makes me think about windows 8 and what the more consumer friendly windows market and hardware looks like.
Click to expand...

I don't think you are right about Apple's motives here. I think they see the optical drive as the big waste of space it is and in their mind it has adversely affected design decisions for long enough.

I am always surprised to hear people defending optical media. I find it to be unreliable, ugly and slow to use. The sooner it is gone the better as far as I am concerned and I love Apple for leading on this.
 
deus_ex_machina said:
Burned optical discs are ~5 years depending on the quality. 20+ would be a stretch.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/107607/Storage_expert_warns_of_short_life_span_for_burned_CDs
http://www.pcworld.com/article/124312/do_burned_cds_have_a_short_life_span.html
Click to expand...

Less than 5 year life span of a burned DVD? I've got burned DVDs and CDs from way further back than 5 years, all of them work perfectly fine (mind you, I rarely use them and theyre all in a binder used as storage).

I almost feel as if I should have everything on HD and DVD as backup.
 
Patriot24 said:
Does the 17" Pro sell well enough to even justify its existence? It seems like Apple is trying to streamline their offerings. This may be a sign of things to come for the 17" Pro.
Click to expand...

I really hope they don't kill the 17". It is one of the few laptops on the market with 1920x1200 resolution (1080P has taken over unfortunately). As LCD tech improves I'd like to see the 17" have even higher resolutions, which would be reasonable now with Lion's HiDPI feature.

I would like them to remove the optical drive from the 17" though, and either make it lighter or use that extra space to fit both their proprietary SSD + a standard size drive (allowing for either SSD + HDD or dual SSD), preferably the latter option as I think the 17" should be positioned as a real desktop replacement whereas other models should focus on portability.

-Written from a unibody MBP 17" :)
 
First thing I said when the Air was announced

I said to myself "In five years all notebooks will look like this."

It's been 3.5 years since that day in January 2008. 1.5 years until January 2013.
 
In the short term, I think that hybrid hard drives like the Seagate Momentus are the way forward, as they offer near SSD performance with hard drive capacity. Though I don't know if Apple would offer one.

I'd love a machine with the form factor of an Air, but I'd like a faster cpu and much more disk space. It would be great if that could become a reality.
 
wizard said:
Internal storage is a requirement for portability and reliability.
Click to expand...

Portability and reliability in the same sentence. I laughed. As soon as you transport something, you've just killed it's reliability.

A home NAS is much more reliable and safe for your data than any kind of laptop internal storage.

Guys, get with the program. Build up your own household infrastructure. Transfer your archived data off your laptops and don't carry it every where you go, where it's at risk.

Carry around what you need to work on only.
 
I just wish they'd stop to try and make everything so damn tiny and just make it powerful. The current form factor of the Pro is perfect in my opinion. Same story with the iPhone 4 - just add more features!!!
 
FasterQuieter said:
I don't think you are right about Apple's motives here. I think they see the optical drive as the big waste of space it is and in their mind it has adversely affected design decisions for long enough.

I am always surprised to hear people defending optical media. I find it to be unreliable, ugly and slow to use. The sooner it is gone the better as far as I am concerned and I love Apple for leading on this.
Click to expand...

He's dead on with Apples motives. To say otherwise about Steve Jobs and his big brother ways (a far cry from his 1984 commercial, how ironic) is just blind faith in Apple. Steve Jobs' purpose as CEO is to make apple as much money as possible (and for himself as well). Its business. He's not interested in YOUR wants. If he was he'd give you choices, something Apple and Steve have never been comfortable with and never will be.

On the other hand, I don't mind the absence of the DVD drive, in fact, I rarely use it and greatly benefit from having a secondary hard drive inside my macbook pro (one for SSD for boot and the other HDD for storage).

I know you guys on macrumors will love to praise steve jobs as if hes actually looking out for you, he really isnt. He wants whats in your wallet.
 
wyrdness said:
In the short term, I think that hybrid hard drives like the Seagate Momentus are the way forward, as they offer near SSD performance with hard drive capacity. Though I don't know if Apple would offer one.

I'd love a machine with the form factor of an Air, but I'd like a faster cpu and much more disk space. It would be great if that could become a reality.
Click to expand...

Don't forget about sufficient number of USB 3.0 ports, ethernet (just in case), SDXC slot, a secondary HDD/SSD slot, etc.

I'm all for a Macbook Air, but it needs to be just as versatile in a small form factor as my macbook pro.
 
This might be perfect for me. A 15" ultralight with powerful Sandy Bridge CPU + SSD for watching Flash video sites!

For those complaining about thinness, THAT is a major feature. People want thin, thin, thin.
 
MacRumors said:
[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Apple is working on a 15" ultra-thin Mac notebook, MacRumors has learned. We aren't certain if it will be called a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, but we do know that it is already in late testing stages at Apple.

Apple's notebook lineup has received a significant revamp over the past two years, and the introduction of the MacBook Air seems to have finally edged out the low-end MacBook design. While originally priced as a premium product, the Air seems to have found a more mainstream market as its starting price dropped to only $999.

Image


MacBook Air​
Many now expect that Apple's design choices in the Air will eventually make their way to the MacBook Pro product, with the use of integrated SSD and lack of optical drive being the most notable changes allowing for such a thin design. While we don't know for a fact, we expect that any future "ultra thin" laptop from Apple will also dispense with a built-in optical drive. As evidenced by its recent release of the optical drive-less Mac mini, Apple has no problem leaving physical media behind.

The ultra-thin market is also about to get much more competitive this fall as Intel's partners begin launching their Ultrabook notebooks.

The timing of an ultra-thin 15" Apple notebook remains a mystery to us as Apple just revamped the MacBook Air with new 11" and 13" models. Meanwhile the MacBook Pro line was refreshed in February, likely pushing the next release out to at least very late in the year.

Article Link: Apple Finishing Up Work on an Ultra-Thin 15" Notebook
Click to expand...

Man...no. Seriously, no. If this is an additional member of the MacBook Air family and doesn't come at the cost of the 15" MacBook Pro as we know it today, this is great. But otherwise, NO. I don't want to sacrifice both the optical drive (as believe it or not, some of us DO use these things regularly, if not just more than you do), the discrete GPU, and use of a quad-core non-ultra-mobile laptop CPU so the damn thing can be thinner. Make no mistake, this laptop will be lacking in at least two of these things, unless Ivy Bridge is substantially different or unless either AMD or NVIDIA make some sort of ultra-mobile discrete GPU (a which point, there will still be a performance hit). At which point, I'm left with a 17" MacBook Pro if I want a Mac laptop with real balls and even then, the crusade to force me to rebuy a decade's worth of DVDs on iTunes, and to ONLY buy my software on things like the Mac App Store, will probably have me sans an optical drive whether I want it or not. External Super-Drive you say?

What ever happened to the idea that a notebook was a completely integrated, fully self-contained unit? Carrying around yet one additional accessory kills that. I can understand getting rid of it on the Mac mini; I use one of the last generation Mac mini Servers and I'm delighted to have an optical drive attached to it via USB 2.0 that is both faster than Apple's internal would've been, and way more reliable. But this machine is far from all-in-one and having all of my peripherals scattered externally is a part of the bargain...the optical drive just becomes one more thing in that case. This is not true of a MacBook Pro, nor should it ever be. Making it like the proposed future of notebooks almost invalidates why I started using a MacBook Pro to begin with; I want a powerful, full-featured, Mac laptop that makes no sacrifices. Last I checked, the MacBook Air makes many sacrifices, none of which are practical if you want your computer to actually get real (graphical) work done and if you are capable of lifting five pounds.
 
Honestly, this is the most exciting rumor I've heard in a damn long time. I would love a MacBook Air-like 15" MacBook Pro. To me, the SuperDrive is useless. The only big question on my mind is processing power. Would this thing be quad core, or at least a very powerful duel core?
 
Good.
Drop the optical drive, add the MBA's blade SSD for OS drive then have standard 2.5" drive for storage (probably 128GB/750GB base & 256GB/1TB HD 256GB/512GB SSD options). With the extra room from losing the optical I'm sure all models can fit discrete graphics(fingers crossed for CUDA friendly GPU).
Quad core standard if it retains the Pro moniker(hell it should be standard on the airs soon too)
 
Nielsenius said:
The only big question on my mind is processing power. Would this thing be quad core, or at least a very powerful duel core?
Click to expand...

I wouldnt care as long as the benchmarks and real world performance show it to be an improvement over the current generation macbook pros.

A lot of you guys are forgetting about the graphics card. Would you give up an ATI Radeon 6750M? I'm not sure if I could.
 
mdntcallr said:
a macbook pro isn't a computer that ought to miss an optical drive. Apple is on an artificial crusade to get rid of optical drives because it will push more people to buy programs and software via itunes and the app store.

this isn't gentle nudging and giving consumers decisions, it is literally telling consumers what to do.

makes me think about windows 8 and what the more consumer friendly windows market and hardware looks like.
Click to expand...

Consumer friendly Windows market? What planet are you from?

Want to hear the story of how I was over at a friend's house the other day, and couldn't set up backups for his Windows 7 machine over the network to his Time Capsule, because Windows 7 only allows backups to network devices for Win7 Professional and Ultimate? So to do something that any OS should allow he would be forced to spend an extra $100+ to upgrade Windows.

Or how about the 2 hour nightmare call I had with MS over getting activated on a Win7 upgrade disc after wiping my drive, because I no longer had the Vista OEM partition available?

Consumer friendly Windows market. A classic oxymoron if I've ever heard one.
 
thedarkhorse said:
Good.
Drop the optical drive, add the MBA's blade SSD for OS drive then have standard 2.5" drive for storage (probably 128GB/750GB base & 256GB/1TB HD 256GB/512GB SSD options). With the extra room from losing the optical I'm sure all models can fit discrete graphics(fingers crossed for CUDA friendly GPU).
Quad core standard if it retains the Pro moniker(hell it should be standard on the airs soon too)
Click to expand...

You do understand this rumor is about a new ultra-thin case, not just the old case with the ODD removed right ?

Again guys : you want storage, move it out of your laptop. The laptop's internal drive is not meant to store and archive years of data. It's meant to be your "current work" stuff.

Airdisk, Thunderbolt, AFP/SMB NAS, USB, that's where the bulk of your storage should come. Build up a nice mutli-TiB RAID-6 array (double parity) at home and put your stuff there.
 
The space they'll get by removing the optical drive should be used for a bigger battery, better cooling system, more powerful dedicated GPU.
The Pro's are mobile power machines and it should stay that way.
If someone wants an ultra portable MB they can go for the Air. They should add a 15" Model to the air family and add more features to the Pro's.
About the SSD, it should be standard with the Pro's AND an additional HDD for storage.
This is my opinion.
 
KnightWRX said:
Again guys : you want storage, move it out of your laptop. The laptop's internal drive is not meant to store and archive years of data. It's meant to be your "current work" stuff.

Airdisk, Thunderbolt, AFP/SMB NAS, USB, that's where the bulk of your storage should come. Build up a nice mutli-TiB RAID-6 array (double parity) at home and put your stuff there.
Click to expand...

Its extremely arrogant and ignorant to tell someone how they should manage their files.

I want all my files on one single computer spread across two drives, with an external that I use for backing everything up. I nor anyone else needs to be told how to manage their data.
 
The problem is, it seems most of the people on here will never be satisfied on the product, it'll always be something they don't or do want...
 
goinskiing said:
Isn't that the goal of a business, I mean really?
Click to expand...

Of course. But most of the members on macrumors and Apple evangelicals dont have a hand in it, which is why I don't understand this obsessive praise for Apple based on anything and everything the company does, be it good, bad, two steps forward one step backward, with some grey area, etc.

It seems as if objective reasoning doesnt exist with the majority of Apple fans (and I say that as a heavy Apple consumer).
 
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