Apple Predicted to Discontinue 17-Inch MacBook Pro

[KnightWRX]

Please, please keep the 17" Apple.

I am a developer and I need a desktop replacement laptop. 17" is essential for my development apps.


If it disappears I will have to return to a Windows laptop .

What about a 17" screen is required for developing ? I develop apps on a 13" MBA just fine.

 

[WardC]

This article is just complete BS though, as if Apple would drop the 17-inch MBP, never going to happen.

Speaking of *drop* -- my cat slid my MacBook Pro off my desk a couple months ago and it hit the floor, leaving a dent in the aluminum backing behind the display. The thing still runs perfectly but now I want to sell it and that little 2" dent is bugging the hell outta me. I posted to the forums about it, and they told me the only way to get it fixed would be to replace the whole display. It's a 2010 model 15" Antiglare, NOT under AppleCare. I just don't like my beautiful MacBook Pro having this ugly dent in the aluminum, no matter now tiny the dent is. The MacBook Pro was sitting on a desk plugged in while I was asleep, and the cat got on the desk and spread out to sleep, causing the MacBook Pro to fall off the desk and hit the floor, about 3 feet onto a carpeted floor -- but, it left it a dent. Really, it's bugging the hell out of me.

Any way to fix dents, or could Apple just replace the aluminum housing of the display? Does anybody know? Any help with this would be great. I would like my MacBook back to mint condition if this could be accomplished easily without spending a fortune.

 

[KnightWRX]

If they got cut the 17" and the Mac Pro then it's a clear signal that they no longer want the professional market.

Depends which professional market you're talking about. Lots of professionals don't need 17" laptops or Xeon based workstations with ECC RAM.

 

[devappler]

Keep the 17" !!!

Nooooo, Apple! Both of my last two Mac purchases have been 17" MBP's! They're brilliant! All the extra computing power plus the lots of extra screen real estate. Plus they fit perfectly in my backpack!

I fully agree. Taking an iMac in a backpack won't cut it. I use my 17" constantly for iOS development - especially while on the road. Even 17" isn't enough - with Spaces I often have several screens fully populated and always have mixed type documents on a single screen (web page, textmate, other source code,...) so I hope we the Lion line doesn't also go the way of 100% iOS which only allows one app's documents on a single page. My 17"-er is a great tool. 15" won't cut it. Keep it Apple! Please! Don't forget your developers! We may be a minority of the markety, but without developers there would be no market.

 

[KnightWRX]

I love my 17inch. I am a programmer and amateur photographer. I find the 17inch perfect! Big enough to view code for multiple classes or pages and compare photographs.... a 15inch just wouldn't be big enough I guess.

As a programmer, you should realise that screen inches means nothing. They could simply come out with a 1920x1200 15" and you'd see the same code for multiple classes or pages as you do on your current 17".

And in fact, they should. Bout time they raised the PPI on their screens.

 

[WardC]

What about a 17" screen is required for developing ? I develop apps on a 13" MBA just fine.

I think they are talking about editing 10 trillion lines of code simultaneously while running twenty virtualization engines, checking their AIM messages, and surfing the web while they are watching streaming video.

For that, I think the 17" model comes in handy for THOSE people.

 

[Konrad]

Speaking of *drop* -- my cat slid my MacBook Pro off my desk a couple months ago and it hit the floor, leaving a dent in the aluminum backing behind the display. The thing still runs perfectly but now I want to sell it and that little 2" dent is bugging the hell outta me. I posted to the forums about it, and they told me the only way to get it fixed would be to replace the whole display. It's a 2010 model 15" Antiglare, NOT under AppleCare. I just don't like my beautiful MacBook Pro having this ugly dent in the aluminum, no matter now tiny the dent is. The MacBook Pro was sitting on a desk plugged in while I was asleep, and the cat got on the desk and spread out to sleep, causing the MacBook Pro to fall off the desk and hit the floor, about 3 feet onto a carpeted floor -- but, it left it a dent. Really, it's bugging the hell out of me.

Any way to fix dents, or could Apple just replace the aluminum housing of the display? Does anybody know? Any help with this would be great. I would like my MacBook back to mint condition if this could be accomplished easily without spending a fortune.

LOL. That's pathetic.

 

[tido2012]

Sounds like they are headed toward that 15" MBP/Air mix thing. I just hope they allow you to put an actual graphics card. I was hoping to purchase the 15" option with an actual graphics card and a thunderbolt display.

 

[devappler]

Its not all about dpi either

As a programmer, you should realise that screen inches means nothing. They could simply come out with a 1920x1200 15" and you'd see the same code for multiple classes or pages as you do on your current 17".

And in fact, they should. Bout time they raised the PPI on their screens.

Its not about dpi - we'd all like it to be higher. Its about what your eyes can take in and handle. Higher dpi simply makes things smaller at the same distance - unless you map more than one hi-res pixel to what used to be a lo-res pixel - but alas, now you have less you can see.... So, bring on the higher dpi - its great for photos and movies and just nice to look at. But lets not cut off the edges of our desks simply because we "can." I have a big desk at home for when I work with paper - I wouldn't want to give up an inch of it either just be cause I can. If I have to move to a smaller area, then thats what I'd have to live with it - just like some have smaller budget they have to live within. As long as I can afford it, I'd rather have a 17" and I hope Apple allows us that choice.

 

[bryanr74]

Ridiculous

I personally always thought the 17-inch MBP looked big and had few benefits over the 15-inch version, so I'm not surprised if this rumor ends up being true.

I suppose some could miss the ExpressCard slot though...

I for one will be highly pissed off if I have to start using anything less than a 17" Macbook Pro. Professionals that need screen real-estate will hate working on anything less than the 17".

I use my Macbook Pro 17" daily and for all sorts of things and would never consider a 15" sufficient for my needs.

 

[bit density]

If Apple gives up the 17", Samsung and Asus will rush in to fill the gap. There is a definite market for it.

Sure that market is 50k people. Not MASS, not many. Hardly any. 20 per store per year. 1 every other week. This is NOT a huge gap.

 

[faroZ06]

But yet people want to get rid of the 13" Macbook Pro. Not happening. As stated, its the best selling Macbook. Slim it down and give us a high def screen. Oh and Ivy Bridge, too.

The 17" MBP was way too big and overpriced.

My dad had a 17" MBP. It was too big and heavy to be a portable computer. He got a 13" and took it everywhere.

The best use for a 17" MBP is within a building (whether it be a house or a large company) as a semi-portable pro computer. It doesn't make a good laptop to take to school and travel destinations.

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Depends which professional market you're talking about. Lots of professionals don't need 17" laptops or Xeon based workstations with ECC RAM.

He's right, and wouldn't many pros have separate screens at their workstations for their laptop? Really, why would you need a 17" screen when you're traveling or something? That's the size of my older iMac's screen!

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I think they are talking about editing 10 trillion lines of code simultaneously while running twenty virtualization engines, checking their AIM messages, and surfing the web while they are watching streaming video.

For that, I think the 17" model comes in handy for THOSE people.

Do it on a 30" Apple Cinema Display or on an array of 15" CRTs all daisy-chained

 

[Cubytus]

As a programmer, you should realise that screen inches means nothing. They could simply come out with a 1920x1200 15" and you'd see the same code for multiple classes or pages as you do on your current 17".

And in fact, they should. Bout time they raised the PPI on their screens.

Raising PPI too much is a big step backwards, and would trow current displays back in the "resolution wars" of the 90's, were having too many pixels in a given size would simply make the text un-readable.

IMO, the high-res 15" is just right. Any more pixels shouls only be used to get finer text, not smaller one. Considering that reading numerous pages of text is still, against all strides made, easier on paper than on a relatively low-resolution screen, I believe larger screens do retain their value. E.g., my own thesis was printed over multiple times, in full. Much easier to shuffle through paper pages than parts of pages on a 13" screen. Things may be different when coding, though.

 

[KnightWRX]

I think they are talking about editing 10 trillion lines of code simultaneously while running twenty virtualization engines, checking their AIM messages, and surfing the web while they are watching streaming video.

For that, I think the 17" model comes in handy for THOSE people.

I do all of that on my 13" MBA.

17" screen is just an arbitrary spec. It's meaningless by itself. The fact that Apple insists on shipping a gimped 15" in the PPI department is the only reason for the 17" to exist.

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Its not about dpi - we'd all like it to be higher. Its about what your eyes can take in and handle. Higher dpi simply makes things smaller at the same distance

Yes, smaller pixels = good. Really, at a laptop's normal viewing distance, I can't stand anything under 130 PPI. 150-160 PPI is more like it, but Apple won't ship such a wonderful resolution.

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Raising PPI too much is a big step backwards, and would trow current displays back in the "resolution wars" of the 90's, were having too many pixels in a given size would simply make the text un-readable.

I disagree. Have your prescription checked. The 11" MBA's 135 PPI is just good enough.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

What about a 17" screen is required for developing ? I develop apps on a 13" MBA just fine.

It is a lot more screen real-state to work with. Big time considering you can not kick the Macbooks to 2 external monitors, you are forced to use 1 of your two monitors as the laptop's so a larger screen would be nice.

Now if you just have the laptop the larger screen is handy for having more space to keep stuff on the monitor to make the work flow better.

 

[KnightWRX]

It is a lot more screen real-state to work with. Big time considering you can not kick the Macbooks to 2 external monitors, you are forced to use 1 of your two monitors as the laptop's so a larger screen would be nice.

Screen inches and real-estate have nothing to do with each other. Pixels. Only Apple links pixel count and screen size, and again, a 15" 1920x1200 display would offset the loss of the 17" to begin with.

And you've been able to connect 2 external monitors to the MacBook since it shipped with the 9400m, back in 2008. Just need to be creative about how you do it.

Daisy chaining with thunderbolt isn't the only way.

Now if you just have the laptop the larger screen is handy for having more space to keep stuff on the monitor to make the work flow better.

Again, screen size and screen real-estate have nothing to do with each other. The 13" MBA is quite the proof of that, being able to have as much stuff on screen as the 15" MBP, albeit, without the fischer price look.

 

[quickmac]

I always wanted one of the 17 inch models, it appears as the best of the best in a way for Apple laptops. But my first Apple laptop was an early 2006 black macbook, and my current one is a mid-2009 15 MBP..I needed more graphics power and more screen size but couldnt justify the 17inch at the time for needing to move it around from place to place near daily. If it wasn't moving a

I eventually got a cinema display to connect the MBP to and I think thats what most people do, want to do, and/or Apple is moving towards. Being able to have a powerful but ultra portable laptop that you can dock to a massive screen, the best of both worlds.

 

[zap2]

There have already been several replies here why people don't want the Air over the Pro.

So, to pay more money to get the air I get less storage space (since I use my laptop as my main computer really bad), a slower processor (If I want an SSD to speed up my MBP I can install one into it), less RAM upgradeability... all for the sake of a slightly more portable computer which honestly I don't need it to be *that* portable (I just like being able to take it with me on vacation and also to my friend's house every week). So please tell me, why can you not understand that some of us don't want an Air? I can certainly understand someone wanting an air, especially if it was a supplemental computer for portability. But that doesn't mean I myself have any use for it.

There are certainly advantages to the 13" Pro over the Air, no argument there. I can see how saving a few hundred dollars is worth wild for many users.

That said, I can see Apple merging the lines, more so as the CPUs Intel is pushing out lets the Air and the Pro share a very similar model. There is just more overlap between the two models then I would expect from Apple's line up.

Honestly, I like choice and would prefer Apple keep it around. Sadly, I just don't see that happening.

(Also I don't think the Air is a supplemental computer is your main machine was going to be a MacBook Pro 13", the specs on the Pro win in most areas, but if you're gonna be able to use the MBP, you could most likely use the MBA 13." Not everyone can, and the choice for consumers is good, I'm not arguing that. I'm saying based off Apple's love of simple product lines, there is more over lap then I'd expect. Also the Air's day to day speed for opening and closing programs flies thanks to the SSD. Seriously, hard drive are a huge burden on the over all speed of a machine for most average day tasks. The Air makes up a lot of lost group thanks to that when compared to the MBP)

 

[steve-p]

Sure that market is 50k people. Not MASS, not many. Hardly any. 20 per store per year. 1 every other week. This is NOT a huge gap.

That number is just someone's guess at Apple's current share of the 17" market. The market itself is much larger, but Sony, Samsung, Dell etc already take most of it because they are cheaper, and because most enterprise procurement is still Windows.

 

[JesterJJZ]

Worst thing that happened to pro users were the success of iToys...

I would sacrifice the existence of iPhones and iPads in a heartbeat if it kept Apple on a professional path and provided us with badass powerful pro laptops and giant hulking towers. That, and gave me Final Cut Pro 8. I prefer buttons on my phone anyway...

 

[Eric S.]

Apple, please, please don't kill the 17".

Do you think Apple cares about any of the people who have made similar pleas in the past few years - "Apple please don't kill this-or-that"? Apple makes these decisions based on its bottom line, period.

I'm glad I got my 13" MBP when I did. I don't want an MBA, an MBA/MBP "hybrid," or iOS features in my OS X. So I have my Sandy Bridge MBP, it runs Snow Leopard (and Windows 7), and it's great. It'll last me a few years at least, after which if Apple keeps going in the direction it's currently headed I'll probably move to a Windows platform. (Gasp! A statement I couldn't have conceived of 20 or 25 years ago.)

 

[Joe-Diver]

I love my 17" MBP.

My first Apple laptop was a 13" MacBook...white...and while nice and portable, IMHO it was too small of a screen for me and my use. After using it for 6 months, I sold it and bought the 17" MBP.

I don't do any developing or programming. I don't use it for anything "professional". It is simply my personal mobile computing platform. I surf, email, manage music, photos and video. I take it with me when I travel. I watch movies on it when I'm spending the weekend on the sailboat.

So, with such simple needs/use, why do I like it so much? That 17" big beautiful screen! Yes, that screen is everything...and for the very small price of dealing with a laptop that is just a bit bigger than others, the screen is worth it. I've had it for almost 3 years now, a summer 2009 model, and it still does everything I need it to do.

If they discontinue the 17" MBP, I'll sell this one and buy a new one so I can have the last, latest/greatest model they ever produced, to enjoy for many years to come.

 

[dampfnudel]

It wouldn't be a surprise. Apple continues to shift away from the pro market that made them a name years ago to the mainstream making them crazy-rich today. Apple wants to streamline their laptop lineup with a emphasis on mobility, style and simplicity. Eventually the MBA and MBP lines will merge, dropping the optical drive, using only SSDs, becoming lighter, faster with higher resolution displays, more integrated with iOS and making a lot of people happy in the process. That appears to be Apple's future and it looks pretty bright to me.

 

[FluJunkie]

i'm quite disappointed with the sales number of the macbook air in the article, especially when it is compared with the strong sales of the mbp 13". Mba 13" is in every aspect much faster than the mbp 13", the screen is a lot better too. When you take the price of an equivalent ssd in the consideration, mba 13" is much cheaper too.

So are people buying the 13" mbp just for the word "pro"?

For me its the RAM. I'd love to buy an Air, but for my purposes the Air's memory is anemic and fixed. It's just a non-starter.

 

[kurb77]

This Would Be A Mistake

Regardless of the opinions out there, there are some creative professionals that PREFER to use a 17" MBP for work, plain and simple. Regardless of sales numbers, hardware trends etc. I choose to use a 17" MBP as my primary production machine and have chosen this hardware as such for the past 8 years ~ what's wrong with that? I will never use a 15' screen for graphic design, if that's the direction Apple is heading then they have certainly turned their back on a base that helped bring them the success they enjoy today.