Apple May Processor Bump MacBook Pros in 2011

[Spartan23R]

You think Apple would drop FireWire port in the new MBP's??
Like the lower end MacBook (Air) doesn't have FireWire anymore, cause the white MacBook had a FireWire port.

 

[Winni]

You think Apple would drop FireWire port in the new MBP's??
Like the lower end MacBook (Air) doesn't have FireWire anymore, cause the white MacBook had a FireWire port.

The MacBook Air NEVER had a Firewire port. Just like it never had an Ethernet port either...

While FireWire and Thunderbolt are great technologies, they have something in common: Almost nobody else in the industry uses them, thus they are quite irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

 

[the8thark]

Apple may be bumping the processors of the MacBook Pros before the end of this year, but will make no other changes to the notebooks.Intel recently

Theoretically possible but highly unlikely.
My rationalisation for this is because the iMac/MBP updates this year were so substantial you'd get a lot of 2011 Mac purchasers with buyers remorse if Apple updated the Macs again this year.

For these reasons alone I believe any further updates will be 2012.

 

[blue22]

no SL support on a SB system?!

Makes the current lineup even more desirable as they are the last to be able to run SL, unless they have shut that down quietly in the last month or two as well.

Hmmmm... this is the first time I'm hearing of this, so you mean to tell me any minor update like this potential 2.4GHz/2.5GHz CPU bump to the early 2011 MBP's would also come with a lack of support for Snow Leopard?! Is there a source weblink you can refer to for this?

 

[guzhogi]

Theoretically possible but highly unlikely.
My rationalisation for this is because the iMac/MBP updates this year were so substantial you'd get a lot of 2011 Mac purchasers with buyers remorse if Apple updated the Macs again this year.

However, on the other hand, doing a big update might make those people buy a new MBP. Remember, Apple is a business and its main goal is to make money.

Personally, I'll wait until at least Ivy Bridge. Hoping Apple will put in USB 3.

 

[blue22]

modest speed bump for MBP's to end 2011, nothing more...

I'm guessing it'll wait until just after the back-to-school sale finishes which is too bad for me. They also really need a 2.5" 750GB 7200rpm HDD option. Considering they already offer the drive with the Mac Mini, adding it as an option for the MacBook Pro shouldn't be hard.

That would be nice, but knowing Apple I wouldn't expect it at this juncture.

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God I hope they make 8GB of RAM standard on every model. RAM is beyond dirt cheap, there is absolutely zero reason why a $1500+ laptop shouldn't come with it. Hell, I think RAM was pretty cheap even when they refresed them last.

I just looked on OWC's website they're selling a pair of 4GB sticks of Ram (8GB total) for only $68, man that is inexpensive!!! Now if only those pair of 8GB sticks (16GB total) could come down a little further from their current $400+ prices...

If this rumor is true, the question for me is do I buy it when the processors are bumped to be sure I get an optical drive, or do I wait for the redesign, likely lose the optical, but gain whatever nice new features Apple is building in.

I don't know how much longer I can do hard core video editing and medium intensity Photoshop work on this 07 white MacBook...

If I were you I'd jump on a '11 MBP model now instead of waiting anther 6+ months for Ivy Bridge. That 2007 MacBook of yours is well past it's prime already, so no need to torture yourself any longer. Also, in this way, if you're really not feeling the direction Apple takes with it's 2012 lineup you still have a very great laptop with the ODD.

The Appleinsider article is a joke. Here is the real list of possible updates: ... The list above is if Apple chooses to change to the new CPUs. Last year, Intel updated a lot of Arrandale CPUs and Apple only chose to include 1 extra high end CPU as a CTO, the 2.8Ghz i7

That lineup proposal of yours is possible, and would be nice, but I think Apple is only going to offer the 2.5GHz cheap as a BTO only for the higher end models.

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My guess is they'll take the two quad i7 QMs and make them extra BTO options. I highly doubt they'll put out a full refresh until Ivy Bridge.

The full article basically says Apple is only doing this (if they do) because the ivy bridge parts are delayed until first half 2012. If they don't, by the time ivy bridge actually ships, the MBP will be super outdated. This bump would just be to bring the line up to the current processors until the ivy bridge chips ship.

...For these reasons alone I believe any further updates will be 2012.

I agree. I'm guess-timating that more than likely now a fully redesigned MBP (in an MBA like form factor) will debut with Ivy Bridge sometime around May 2012. Just in time for the end times crowd (Mayan calendar) to go out with a bang.

 

[KPOM]

I agree. I'm guess-timating that more than likely now a fully redesigned MBP (in an MBA like form factor) will debut with Ivy Bridge sometime around May 2012. Just in time for the end times crowd (Mayan calendar) to go out with a bang.

Wasn't the rapture rescheduled for October? Maybe Apple is targeting that crowd with this refresh?

Anyway, Ivy Bridge looks pretty impressive based on what came out of IDF yesterday (as reported by AnandTech), but since it's been delayed a bit to mid-2012, a processor boost to the current lineup is warranted. The 13" Pro is in the same position it was last October in that it isn't much, if at all faster than the highest-end MacBook Air. It isn't much faster than the base 13" Air and is more expensive when equipped with an SSD. Putting in a faster i5 or i7 in the 13" Pro would help keep it relevant for the holiday season.

 

[Kendo]

Theoretically possible but highly unlikely.
My rationalisation for this is because the iMac/MBP updates this year were so substantial you'd get a lot of 2011 Mac purchasers with buyers remorse if Apple updated the Macs again this year.

For these reasons alone I believe any further updates will be 2012.

Apple doesn't follow an exact yearly cycle for product updates. Sometimes they update every 10 months or so (like the MacBook Pro and Air), sometimes 18 months (Mac Pro), and sometimes an exact year (iPod).

December would hit the 10 month mark for the MacBook Pro so it is highly likely they would update the line in 2011. And as far as buyer's remorse, why would people have it? Dell comes out with newer stuff on a monthly basis. Same with the Android phone line. At least with Apple, you get to have the latest for at least 3/4 a year before worrying about new stuff coming out.

 

[robeddie]

However, on the other hand, doing a big update might make those people buy a new MBP. Remember, Apple is a business and its main goal is to make money. I don't like it, but that's how life is
.

You don't like that Apple is a business? You don't like it that they exist to make money? You don't like it that they update their hardware every 9 or 10 months or so to keep it current?

I'm confused about what you don't like, and why.

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Theoretically possible but highly unlikely.
My rationalisation for this is because the iMac/MBP updates this year were so substantial you'd get a lot of 2011 Mac purchasers with buyers remorse if Apple updated the Macs again this year.

For these reasons alone I believe any further updates will be 2012.

For the past decade, a 9 or 10 month gap between new hardware offerings has been fairly common for Apple. If that's a problem for you, the only way for you to avoid 'buyers remorse' is to NEVER buy a mac.

Problem solved.

 

[GorgonPhone]

This is like the mac mini refresh that just came out that removed the super drive but added thunderbolt and a slight speed increase. I had bought my previous model just 5 months before the refresh but i did not feel any biyer remorse at all since i use the super drive alot and the machine meets my needs with no problem..
So the only reason to get the new on would be to say "oh look i have the newest"

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Hmmmm... this is the first time I'm hearing of this, so you mean to tell me any minor update like this potential 2.4GHz/2.5GHz CPU bump to the early 2011 MBP's would also come with a lack of support for Snow Leopard?! Is there a source weblink you can refer to for this?

^^ i have noticed that that is the new tactic apple uses to force consumers to upgrade their hardware more frequently it sucks and is the reason i had to get rid of my PPC Mac Pro "super powerful" 2005 tower and get my mac mini.. seems they want us to spend big every 2.5 to 3 years.. I will not...

 

[bniu]

Well, that kinda blows for the early 2011 MBP crowd... And yes, that includes me...

Not really, I got several more months of use out of my early 2011 2.3 quad. It was a huge step up, going from a core 2 duo to a 2.3 i7 quad. Plus, I can easily boot into snow leopard when I need to...2.5ghz is kinda a yawn to me, sure it'd be nice to have but not worth waiting 6 months for it and plus, I needed a laptop by May so time was a factor as well.

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God I hope they make 8GB of RAM standard on every model. RAM is beyond dirt cheap, there is absolutely zero reason why a $1500+ laptop shouldn't come with it. Hell, I think RAM was pretty cheap even when they refresed them last.

You just gotta know how to score the complimentary upgrade to 8GB of RAM. hint: refurbished store

 

[msoravia]

Oh for gods sake Apple just hurry up and redesign it! it looks outdated now and plus the current models are crap

I totally agree with you. I'd like something more future-proof than a mba (i'm still stuck with a 2gb ram), but without the useless - to me - optical drive.
You got my thumbs up, now you're just -53

 

[mr.steevo]

How come I don't see long threads of people complaining about the Airport Express having the same look since 2004?

 

[blue22]

The Rapture of disbelief...

Wasn't the rapture rescheduled for October? Maybe Apple is targeting that crowd with this refresh?

heh, yeah, next month a bunch of poor suckers are going to forfeit their life savings just to find out the Rapture has been delayed *yet again*, this time to mid-2012, so they might as well just go ahead and buy the speediest BTO MBP coming next month and enjoy it while they still have time to do so!!!

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

God I hope they make 8GB of RAM standard on every model. RAM is beyond dirt cheap, there is absolutely zero reason why a $1500+ laptop shouldn't come with it. Hell, I think RAM was pretty cheap even when they refresed them last.

You just gotta know how to score the complimentary upgrade to 8GB of RAM. hint: refurbished store

How does that work?! I've never seen the Apple refurb store list any MBP with 8GB of RAM! I mean great if they did do this, but I don't believe it. When did you ever see this???

 

[guzhogi]

You don't like that Apple is a business? You don't like it that they exist to make money? You don't like it that they update their hardware every 9 or 10 months or so to keep it current?

I'm confused about what you don't like, and why.

I don't like how Apple (and many other companies) make millions, if not billions, of dollars in profits and not seem to do much with it. I'm all for Apple making the money it deserves, but it has 10s of billions in the bank. Would be nice to see maybe higher wages/better benefits for its workers (so they could afford to buy more Apple products), give some money back to stockholders, invest more in R&D so their products are even more awesome, or increase production because it seems like it takes months before Apple can meet demand for its new goodies.

Also, I don't like how Apple seems to be going solely after the consumer/prosumer market. I work in a company that uses over a dozen xServes. They work great for open directory stuff, web serving, etc. I, and many other people in the IT department, were sad that Apple discontinued it. Plus, the Mac Pro has even been updated in over a year. Not even a small bump for new video cards. And I hope you've seen all the FCP X threads where people expressed their concerns about many missing features.

You ask whether I don't like getting an update every 9-10 months to stay "current". I've see a lot of posts about how Apple doesn't use the latest video cards, procs or USB 3 in some devices. I don't know if there's a valid reason (heat concerns or whatever), but I would like to see some more of the "current" technologies in Macs.

Just my 2¢

 

[brdeveloper]

It could be worse; PC manufacturers update their products so often that a new top of the line model will be out of date in 1 month anyway.

If it could happen, would be better. Outdated models would get a price drop. Upgrade capabilities and a outdated computer bargain are all I need to have a great computer. If you can spend, buy a new hardware at the launch date. If you can't, buy the last month's best hardware ever made.

 

[guzhogi]

If it could happen, would be better. Outdated models would get a price drop. Upgrade capabilities and a outdated computer bargain are all I need to have a great computer. If you can spend, buy a new hardware at the launch date. If you can't, buy the last month's best hardware ever made.

That's another thing I don't like about computers: they go out of date so quickly. Well, it's not really the progress I hate, but how little time it seems we have to really appreciate having the latest & greatest. I'd like a medium release schedule: enough time enjoy having the latest & greatest & not feel obsolete, but short enough so that we get upgrades as we need them. Plus, with longer amounts of time between upgrades, but progress staying at the same pace, the upgrades will that much bigger.

I hope that makes sense. Even I don't understand my sense of logic sometimes.

 

[TheUndertow]

However, on the other hand, doing a big update might make those people buy a new MBP. Remember, Apple is a business and its main goal is to make money.

Personally, I'll wait until at least Ivy Bridge. Hoping Apple will put in USB 3.

It's in line with past practices within a model year, and considering a "wait" needed for Ivy Bridge.

There won't be a radical change until it's a total radical change.

Until Thunderbolt takes off and/or USB 3 gets added, I can't see FireWire going away due to so many product utilizing that for best thoroughput with their Macs.

WAITING for TB Apogee....


This update will be for folks that want the latest procs available and don't like the growing pains of a "rev 1" model change. Whether we see another MBP in Feb 2012 or later will depend on Intel.

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heh, yeah, next month a bunch of poor suckers are going to forfeit their life savings just to find out the Rapture has been delayed *yet again*, this time to mid-2012, so they might as well just go ahead and buy the speediest BTO MBP coming next month and enjoy it while they still have time to do so!!!





How does that work?! I've never seen the Apple refurb store list any MBP with 8GB of RAM! I mean great if they did do this, but I don't believe it. When did you ever see this???

If my MBP gets delayed due to this bleep I'm gonna be ticked!

 

[Alexjones]

My Dell studio desktop pc at home is a intel Quad core i7 2.93Ghz. My new MBP is a 2.3 GHz i7 and runs a lot faster. My point? Its not all about processor speed. My new MBP is for keeps.

 

[jcotteri]

Thats what I'm saying, it doesn't make web browsing, emailing, or anything else really noticeably faster. It's interesting to see that the fast majority of users only do basic tasks with their MBP. I guess waiting a few seconds less while exporting a movie in final cut is worth 200 to some

perhaps you are missing the professional applications that people use their MBP for?

 

[MacSince1990]

1. Heat. The current sandy bridge MBP's get ridiculously hot. My fans spin up constantly making the laptop sound cheap. Hoping 22nm vs. 32nm helps with this.

Yeah... it should help a lot... unless they do something to screw it up. Although I'm actually kinda hoping they'll quit scaling cores and just ramp up the clock... I want a 3 GHz laptop. I was at 2.4 GHz 8 years ago when I built a Northwood P4... and then at 2.4 GHz again in 2009 when I got a Lenovo Core 2 Duo.... I want to break the freaking 3 GHz Barrier, not have another 2.4 GHz i7 :/

What actually really makes me angry is the bloody integrated graphics... WHY are they doing this? I don't want a machine with integrated graphics ANYWAY, why on earth would you put it on the CPU, wasting silicon, generating MORE heat, and cutting clockspeeds and core counts? Such a worthless addition.

2. Poor integrated graphics - hoping that intel/nvidia or someone else can work things out for a real chip. USB3!

The integrated graphics today are better than they've ever been... lightyears ahead of where they were only a few yyears ago. Use the dedicated GPU if you're short on power =/

And ugh yeah USB2 just depresses me.. so slow. I seriously want 3. Now.

Ah yes, the current models are so ugly and slow compared to nonexisting, supposedly to be redesigned, Ivy-Bridge models

Oh wait, this is you in 2012, talking crap about the Ivy-Bridge models because the newer, better, sexier Haswell MBP models are about to be released.
Am I not a prophet

You sir, are a prophet.

Does this mean new architecture?

Are we going to see the same thing that happened with the PowerPC?

Yes. Apple is dropping the Intel architecture in favor of the PowerPC again. The olllll bait n' switch.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

Also, I don't like how Apple seems to be going solely after the consumer/prosumer market. I work in a company that uses over a dozen xServes. They work great for open directory stuff, web serving, etc. I, and many other people in the IT department, were sad that Apple discontinued it. Plus, the Mac Pro has even been updated in over a year. Not even a small bump for new video cards. And I hope you've seen all the FCP X threads where people expressed their concerns about many missing features.

You've got a point about the Xserve. I still don't understand the rationale for dropping it. They couldn't have sold that few of them -- I certainly saw plenty in use. I have never understood why companies terminate profitable product lines when they aren't high-volume enough. I sort of agree with you about the Pro, but, not completely. There really hasn't been much of a CPU upgrade available until this fall with the next-gen Sandy Bridge. The FCP thing is a mess. I have no idea why they couldn't allowed it to import previous projects. The old FCP code base was reportedly in dire need of a rewrite, though, so, I understand that part.

 

[bniu]

heh, yeah, next month a bunch of poor suckers are going to forfeit their life savings just to find out the Rapture has been delayed *yet again*, this time to mid-2012, so they might as well just go ahead and buy the speediest BTO MBP coming next month and enjoy it while they still have time to do so!!!





How does that work?! I've never seen the Apple refurb store list any MBP with 8GB of RAM! I mean great if they did do this, but I don't believe it. When did you ever see this???

The complimentary upgrade comes post purchase, sometimes you receive it, sometimes you don't. Kind of like when the airline gate agent takes your boarding pass and rips it up and then hands you another one for first class!

 

[MartiNZ]

Yes. Apple is dropping the Intel architecture in favor of the PowerPC again. The olllll bait n' switch.

Awesome.

Dealing with Lion complaints one at a time. OS X 10.8 PPC - no more need for Rosetta! 64-bit and runs on the G5 processors from 2004, finally bringing them the 64-bitness they never had a use for before!

And bringing you the G5 PowerBook ... where's that picture .

 

[igazza]

Oh for gods sake Apple just hurry up and redesign it! it looks outdated now and plus the current models are crap

I dont think apple will redesign the MBP, airs are outselling them theres your future.