MacBook Pro just had a refresh earlier this year; from what I've seen, new design is probably in the 2020-range.
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.
Apple Launches Special Event Page for October Event With Dynamic Set of Apple Logos
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I think that with Adobe bringing photoshop to the iPad. it starts laying the groundwork for when apple switches from Intel. It won't be so hard to port the app. All the code has already been written.
Agreed, this is all about Photoshop. Adobe has begun to enhance their entire photo suite of products for the iPad, starting with Lightroom. They've been waiting for the computing power to catch up enough for the Photoshop component. It looks like they are there now.
Photoshop on a 12.9" iPad will be a great use of the platform, especially as many of us also use Wacom pen tablets to work with Photoshop and Lightroom. I'm watching this one closely. My call is it's all about a new partnership with Adobe and the Photography suite of products.
What are you doing? Buy a 2018 right now! Heck you should’ve bought one back in July! They are not redesigning the MBP until at least 2020. These machines now have hexa core CPUs and 32GB RAM. They will never offer the good CPUs without the Touch Bar. They never have. They may update the function key MBP with some low power CPU but it won’t be as good as the ones in the 13” TB. You would only be getting two TB3 ports instead of 4 which cripples it imo.
I didn't buy it back in July and since I haven't bought it till now... maybe they'll upgrade the basic 15-inch model with even faster CPU or greater VGA out of the box? That's what I'm afraid of..
I usually just take a longer lunch break - this time around it looks like I will be sick the morning of the event and suddenly feel better in the afternoon
Given the keynotes for the last several years, it certainly isn't worth wasting a lunch break for. Maybe if you have nothing better to do in the evening (but then you have a boring life).
Just take a look at the Mac news sites later in the day too see if there is anything worth checking into more.
I'd say extremely unlikely, though most of the 'insiders' didn't think we'd see the quad/hex core refreshes either. But, there isn't anything to really refresh this time. I don't think we have much hope of ditching the TouchBar anymore, but I guess we can dream.
I suppose... a lot of people probably still care what Adobe does, so it is necessary to have it on the platform. But, the bigger problem, I'd think, would be all the people running VMs and stuff like that.
Yeah, I'm afraid of that too. I wonder if Apple would spend any time announcing the Mini at an event anyway. It might just pop up on the store one day. Why spend 5 minutes on the Mini when there are new emoji, or TV shows, or Watch bands?
Why not show off the new powerful Macs using Adobe, Affinity etc. including the Mac Mini creating art, and push the iPad Pro as a Wacom-like tablet that can work with the Mac or not.
Apple used to be about visual creativity, so this would be a good place to show both off and how the iPad Pro can be a vital tool.
I have to skip this keynote but will catch up in between jobs. No worries given current keynotes.
If Apple can prove they’ve fixed their software and hardware snafus too, even better.
Apple used to be about visual creativity, so this would be a good place to show both off and how the iPad Pro can be a vital tool.
I have to skip this keynote but will catch up in between jobs. No worries given current keynotes.
If Apple can prove they’ve fixed their software and hardware snafus too, even better.
Would it be wrong to hope for an iPad Pro with a keyboard as you see with a laptop? I really like what Windows laptops with touch screens are doing (I just don’t care for Windows much). Why can’t we have those convertible and flip form factors in iOS?
I could get behind that... if it had BOTH OSs effectively on it and transformed from iOS to macOS depending on how it was setup. But, it would have to be something like that, as iOS doesn't make a very good desktop/laptop, and macOS doesn't make a very good mobile experience.
Then we come to factors like performance, but for most people, I suppose the performance of an iPad Pro would be adequate.
As soon as I get the same functionality on an iPad that I get on my Wacom tablet, including being able to use it as such on my Mac, I'm absolutely sold. Wacom stopped selling an entry-level tablet that supports touch. I don't know why, but it was a really stupid decision. But even with the previous models, while touch-support is there and ok, it could be much much better. Not everyone wants a Cintiq (there are solutions that transform the iPad into a Cintiq like tablet). Give me an ApplePen with a button (I'm using my graphics tablet as my sole input device in lieu of mouse or touchpad) and the option to use it solo on the iPad as well as a graphics tablet on the Mac, and I'm seriously throwing all the money I have at Apple.
Please not another subscription. Please no. LOL
That won’t happen until 2019. Intel doesn’t have any newer mobile i7s/i9s. They’ve had lots of trouble with 10nm. So far the only 10nm CPU is a desktop i3. Either buy one now or wait till March-July next year.
The only Macs that will be updated at the end of the month are the iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Air/retina MacBook.
Also, Apple and nVidia have some beef so Apple is not going to use anything but AMD. The next GPU will probably be a Radeon Pro 660/660X. A little better than the 560X but nothing revolutionary. The way to go will be eGPU. While Mojave can now accelerate the internal display for some apps/games, the only way to get full eGPU performance is with an external display. And even with eGPUs nVidia is still not supported since they haven’t released Mojave web drivers. So the best you can get are RX580, Vega 56 and Vega 64. They’re not terrible. They’re comparable to 1060,1070 and maybe the regular 1080 but way behind the 1080ti and the new RTX GPUs.
I guess the question is - why?
The iPad is a powerful computer in its own right. It doesn’t need to play second fiddle to the Mac, nor does it have to be marketed as a Mac accessory. It’s perfectly capable of standing on its own two feet and taking on many of the tasks normally carried out on a laptop or even desktop.
And likewise the Mac doesn’t need to play second fiddle to the iPad. There’s a place for both and both should be touted as creative tools. Many use their iPads as primary machines, many don’t. This is a chance for Apple to give demos on both platforms and make people take notice of both.
I use my iPad to draw and surf. I use my Mac to write, do image and video work and other creative things. I have space and need for both, but Mac desktops remain my primary machine and I want to see Apple courting people like me again too. I want them to make me want both, but especially make desktops that help me be creative.
Different strokes for different folks.
And, I'd add to to this that for different tasks and workflows, one or the other are either far inferior or not even possible. Maybe at some point in the future, it could just be more preference of how one interacts or the physical aspects of the product. But, right now, there are really good reasons why neither should be second fiddle.
That one has become second fiddle, highlights a problem with Apple's leadership.
Exactly!
There are things I've always enjoyed more and preferred to do on my iPad.
There are things my iPad is simply not capable of and I would never want to do without a dedicated keyboard and mouse/touchpad input.
For many, either is fine as a standalone. For many, an iPad can perfectly work as their main computing device. For me, they complement each other perfectly and I would not want to miss either, but if I had to choose, I can live without an iPad. I cannot without a Mac. And this is something Apple needs to understand. Labeling the iPad "Pro" might work and be enough for many professionals, but not for all who are using Apple products, particularly in a professional context.
I was actually wondering if there will be more choises in CPUs/VGAs, not only for the better.
A MacBook 15-inch with inferior specs than the currently Pro model, will be a wiser purchase for my needs. The expected Air/retina MacBook will be at 13-inch, right?
I don’t know why people get so hung up on the Pro label. Whether Mac, MacBook, iMac or iPad, it simply means higher specs/performance (which naturally is more expensive).
Plenty of pros use the regular MacBook, iMac and iPad models; similarly many home/consumer customers also buy iPad Pro and MacBook Pro, though relatively few buy Mac Pro or iMac Pro for obvious reasons.
You said it better than me: they compliment each other and work just fine independently. As this is creative/art/music-centric event I want to see both working together and love shown for the ‘second fiddle.’ I want to learn new ways to be creative on both.
They are both tools for the job. Simple as that.
I think it is because the definition of 'pro' at Apple has seemingly changed and your response points that out.
Pro, in terms of tools and gear, used to apply to the product being of higher quality, durability, capability, etc. It was a quality of the object, not a marketing term.
As you point out, a professional lawyer could use a Chromebook, and in that sense of use, it is a pro product if it were aimed more at that professional market.
When it comes more recent Apple equipment, it is kind of a mixed bag. Certainly the Mac Pro (cylinder) and iMac Pro are more in the category of substantially different hardware dedicated to professional uses. The previous Mac Pro (cheese grater) was especially like this.
While Apple's laptops have always been a bit non-pro in certain ways (like not being able to push them with heavy jobs w/o damaging them), they were more suited to professional use and environments. Maybe that is just a liability of laptops, though one could imagine a pro laptop (in the sense I'm using the term) could be made.... with tradeoffs Apple (and maybe even the majority of professional users) wouldn't buy.
Certainly, most of the pro models have more performance or some higher capacities. What has been missing, is more the durability and flexibility to cover a broad range of pro use. For example, dramatically limiting the ports on the pro laptop creates more difficult situations for professionals who regularly use the ports. Yet, maybe a lot of people who do development work on coffee shop tables love that aspect if they gain some extra portability.
Basically, the two have become more similar in inconsistent ways. Pro has come to mean a bit fancier model aimed at people who will spend more money to up-purchase a bit higher end model. It doesn't mean that if you buy the pro model, you can safely use it to do higher end work, nor might it have the capabilities it would have had a product generation or two back.
Note: this has happened in other industries as well... sometimes where the 'pro' model isn't much better at all, just fancier packaging or labeling.
It’s really not about fancy packaging or labeling. As I said, the Pro models are the highest performance products available from Apple.
But not everyone needs that level of performance—even business/pro use is common with 12” MacBook, MacBook Air, iMac, iPad mini and even the 9.7” iPad. The fact is even the lower tier products are sufficiently performant for many professional users.
But not many home/consumer users need (or want to pay for) a $5,000 15” 32GB hex-core MacBook Pro, iMac Pro or Mac Pro, so they’re mostly purchased by business/pro.
Those who complain the Pro models aren’t “pro” enough have a point. Apple isn’t going to make a mobile workstation or gaming notebook, or an HP Z-type $100,000 Mac Pro. The market for those Apple products simply isn’t big enough.
Yeah I’m pretty sure they will 13”. Apple has never made a non-pro 15”. Only the 15” MBP will ever have a dGPU. The truth is the Intel’s Iris and even weaker are good enough for general purpose computing. A strong GPU is only needed for advanced video editing, gaming, 3D modeling and that sort of stuff.
AMD actually has a much better mobile GPU solution, RX Vega M, that Apple has chosen not to use for some reason. It was included in Kaby Lake G. They don’t have hexacore CPUs but the GPU memory bandwidth is 204.8 GB/s and 3.6 TFLOPS so it has twice the performance of the 560X if not a little more. The memory bandwidth on the 450/455/460/555/560/555X/560X is the same at 80-81 GB/s no matter whether they are 2GB or 4GB versions. This is because the Vega M memory bus is HBM2 1024-bit vs. the 128-bit bus on all of the Radeon Pros.
The iMac Radeon Pro 570/580 have a 256-bit memory bus. This makes a huge difference. Even back in 2004 the difference between a 128-bit and 256-bit card was the difference between running Doom 3/HL2/Far Cry 1 at high res/high settings and having to play at 1024x768 medium.
I guess Apple goes with the lower bandwidth chips to extend battery life since it will go down dramatically with a powerful GPU. It kind of defeats the purpose of a notebook of it only lasts 1.5-2 hours on battery which is why those 17” gaming notebooks with 1070s need to be plugged in all the time.
[doublepost=1540156264][/doublepost]
Apple’s MBPs have always had weaker specs than the Windows competition. Usually less RAM, weaker GPUs. The difference is that they used to use nVidia which has had a lead on AMD/ATI for over a decade now! So even a low end-mid range nVidia GPU will give a mid range-high end AMD GPU a run for its money. It is more noticeable in apps that support CUDA which is why so many video editors have complained about the new MBPs since most comparatively priced Windows notebooks come with 1050-1070.
Now the thing is since Apple develops macOS, FCPX and Logic with particular hardware in mind, it is heavily optimized to the point where the weaker hardware performs nearly as well as the stronger stuff with the exception of cross platform apps that run better on nVidia GPUs.
The ports talk is nonsense since it doesn’t get more Pro for a notebook than 4 full speed 40 Gbps TB3 ports. They can handle multiple 5K monitors, eGPUs, external SSDs, external TB2 RAID storage and so on.
Last edited: