Apple Quietly Discontinues MacBook Pro 17"

[toke lahti]

That might be a little excessive. Apple merely has said "You 1% are too expensive to keep around. Sorry."

Correction: "You 1.7% don't carry enough money to our pockets. Sorry."
Do you really think that 17" hasn't been profitable or wouldn't be in the future?
You really see Apple's greed, when they focuses only to products that are most profitable.
Well, maybe they can't do things half way. When they changed their focus from quality and advancing the tech to profitability, they had to do it all the way.

Not correct as Apple still offers it on the 15" but true, not the Retina display since they claim it is 75% less reflective.

But if retina is still 10x glossier than old matte, matte lovers are not happy.
Once again matte people are probably too few to be profitable enough for Apple.

Ugh, 95 PPI fischer price duplo block pixel mode.
Get your eyesight fixed people.

You sound too much like Apple now.
People are different and have different habits.
You like smaller text than average Joe.
A computer should be flexible enough to fullfill both needs.

I have got used to the font size of my 17"(1920x + matte, of course). First it felt too small, but now it's nice. Maybe I could get used to 15" retina, maybe not. Anyway I would always have thought in back of my mind, that 17" with same PPI would be a whole lot nicer.
Anyway, I hope there would be one more setting between 1920x and 2880x. There is a 50% bumb in PPI, which is quite steep...

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Hi Musician.
Here you go for all your sound card and HDD needs:http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html

MY GOD those things are EXPENSIVE. Sonnet can shove them where the sun doesn't shine. I could buy an entire Mac Mini for the price of two lousy PCI slots. Screw Sonnet.

 

[KnightWRX]

It also lacks a cd drive with optional usb external being the only option (at considerable cost!).

Wait, 35$ is considerable costs ? You're talking about 2,000$ laptop, and saying 35$ is considerable ? Maybe this isn't the laptop for you...

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You sound too much like Apple now.
People are different and have different habits.

I have got used to the font size of my 17"(1920x + matte, of course). First it felt too small, but now it's nice. Maybe I could get used to 15" retina, maybe not. Anyway I would always have thought in back of my mind, that 17" with same PPI would be a whole lot nicer.
Anyway, I hope there would be one more setting between 1920x and 2880x. There is a 50% bumb in PPI, which is quite steep...

Uh ? you don't seem to understand how 2880x1800 mode works... Step away from the Retina bashing for a second...

In normal mode, the MBPR displays 1440x900 usuable pixels (using 2880x1800 pixels to do so), that means you're essentially using the old 15.4" low-res screen, just now with sharper, but same size text...

If you want to match the font/UI size of your MBP 17" on the new MBPR 15", you go one step up, to 1680x1050 scaled mode. This is essentially a 3360x2100 frame buffer that is downscaled to 2880x1800.

If you want the full 1920x1200 resolution, you have to go up to a mode that gives you essentially 147 PPI. Try it before you knock it. OS X fonts are huge anyhow.

 

[NeferNefer]

Of course I own it. But now I know what has happened in silence - Apple has dropped support for Final Cut Studio 2 (which is the version I have), but if I can find FCS 3 I will be good to go.

Too bad though, that Apple has discontinued FCS 3 and only sell the toy versions of their old software now, and without DVDSP, as they have chosen not to believe in any optical media. I, personally, would never store my personal files in any cloud. And what if the internet connection is down, when I need them? And I don't want to watch just the films that can be video-on-demand downloaded this week.

Apple's priorities are strange. All FCS 3 on ebay are really expensive, and there are lots of bidders for every copy. A year after discontinuity!

Why did Apple cease to sell their own software, that is the one that people want? What would it cost them to keep selling it? The software is already developed, and the discs it's delivered on costs just about nothing.

I also talked to Apple about FCS 2, and they admit that it could have worked on the MacBook Pro, if they had wanted it to. And that's kind of obvious, as the software works on intel processors.

(Yes, now I've bought FCS 3, and it cost an arm and a leg.)

 

[toke lahti]

Uh ? you don't seem to understand how 2880x1800 mode works... Step away from the Retina bashing for a second...

In normal mode, the MBPR displays 1440x900 usuable pixels (using 2880x1800 pixels to do so), that means you're essentially using the old 15.4" low-res screen, just now with sharper, but same size text...

If you want to match the font/UI size of your MBP 17" on the new MBPR 15", you go one step up, to 1680x1050 scaled mode. This is essentially a 3360x2100 frame buffer that is downscaled to 2880x1800.

If you want the full 1920x1200 resolution, you have to go up to a mode that gives you essentially 147 PPI. Try it before you knock it. OS X fonts are huge anyhow.

I'm not bashing retina itself. It is best wysiwyg thing after sliced bread, of course. I'm bashing the Apple way to introduce it. Why they have to take something away, every time they introduce something new? Never just adding, always a trade off.
Now, to give us retina, they took away option for 17" AND option for matte screen. There's no technical reason for either of those.

But if I want to have same UI size with 15" than with 17", I get lesser real estate, with or without retina. If I want same real estate, I'll have to use smaller UI. I will certainly check this out, but smaller is always smaller. 17" retina would be anyway better for me. I don't have money for retina's price anyway now, so I'll wait if same thing happens to its price, what happened to Air's price and maybe there will be 17" retina...

 

[Crunch]

(...)

In normal mode, the MBPR displays 1440x900 usuable pixels (using 2880x1800 pixels to do so), that means you're essentially using the old 15.4" low-res screen, just now with sharper, but same size text...

(...)

This is exactly what so many people don't seem to get. I was SO hoping for a SXGA+ (1680x1050) panel in "Retina mode", which would be 3360x2100, but I understand that to get a "Retina display" on a 15.4" screen even at standard res. is quite the amazing feat, so I'm not complaining. I'm just never completely satisfied.

P.S.: I love how nobody is impressed by the fact that Apple has finally adopted IPS into their notebooks! I've been waiting for this for years. I realize that Retina is more impressive and more tangible I suppose, but to get IPS is a BIG deal to me. Thumbs up,

 

[gnasher729]

Correction: "You 1.7% don't carry enough money to our pockets. Sorry."
Do you really think that 17" hasn't been profitable or wouldn't be in the future?
You really see Apple's greed, when they focuses only to products that are most profitable.

Any company will and must try to be profitable. There is a limited amount of work that your employees (for example the people designing new hardware) can do. So would you want them working to develop a product that is successful and makes a million dollars, or a product that is successful and makes a hundred million dollars profit?

 

[toke lahti]

Any company will and must try to be profitable. There is a limited amount of work that your employees (for example the people designing new hardware) can do. So would you want them working to develop a product that is successful and makes a million dollars, or a product that is successful and makes a hundred million dollars profit?

I'd take both. It would make 101 million profits.
And no, Apple does not have limited amount of workers. There's plenty of population on the planet that still doesn't work for Apple.
If Apple chooses not to hire enough staff and as a result they have to limit their product portfolio, it is solely their choice.
And how much 17" has added r&d cost of their laptops? I'd guess not much more than that 1,7%.

 

[KnightWRX]

P.S.: I love how nobody is impressed by the fact that Apple has finally adopted IPS into their notebooks! I've been waiting for this for years. I realize that Retina is more impressive and more tangible I suppose, but to get IPS is a BIG deal to me. Thumbs up,

Let me say I've searched for this and haven't found any concrete evidence yet that the Retina screen is indeed IPS. No one seems to refer to it as such. While it's probably not a TN panel, are we sure it is IPS ?

----------

I'd take both. It would make 101 million profits.
And no, Apple does not have limited amount of workers. There's plenty of population on the planet that still doesn't work for Apple.
If Apple chooses not to hire enough staff and as a result they have to limit their product portfolio, it is solely their choice.
And how much 17" has added r&d cost of their laptops? I'd guess not much more than that 1,7%.

That's not how it works. Apple does have limited amount of workers and they operate in a way that keeps this count limited. They use limited engineering ressources and they switch them from project to project as the needs arise.

That is why when an endeavour is less profitable, it is dropped rather than maintained using "extra ressources". The workers are reassigned to more profitable projects.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/08/25/how-apple-works-inside-the-worlds-biggest-startup/

 

[mscriv]

So, I got to go to an Apple store yesterday and play around with the new Retina MBP. It is very nice. When scaling the screen to 1920 x 1200 text does get noticeably smaller (obviously), but I didn't think it too small for general laptop use of being a few feet away. However, I could really only test it with MSOffice as the display models don't have Photoshop, FCP, or any other heavy software loaded on them. All I can say is that if you are upset about the loss of the 17" then try to get by a store and check it out for yourself to see if you think the scaling would be workable for your specific workflow.

 

[toke lahti]

That's not how it works. Apple does have limited amount of workers and they operate in a way that keeps this count limited. They use limited engineering ressources and they switch them from project to project as the needs arise.

That is why when an endeavour is less profitable, it is dropped rather than maintained using "extra ressources". The workers are reassigned to more profitable projects.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/08/25/how-apple-works-inside-the-worlds-biggest-startup/

I know this and already said this.
But they could change their habits.
Apple isn't company it used to be a decade ago, why they should act like it?

 

[OllyW]

Let me say I've searched for this and haven't found any concrete evidence yet that the Retina screen is indeed IPS. No one seems to refer to it as such. While it's probably not a TN panel, are we sure it is IPS ?

Apple say it is...

The new Retina display reduces glare while maintaining incredible colour and quality. In fact, it has a 29 per cent higher contrast ratio than a standard MacBook Pro display. Blacks are blacker. Whites are whiter. And everything in between is rich and vibrant. IPS technology gives you a wide, 178-degree view of everything on the screen, so you’ll see the difference at practically any angle. And you’re going to love what you see.

http://www.apple.com/uk/macbook-pro/features/

 

[KnightWRX]

I know this and already said this.
But they could change their habits.
Apple isn't company it used to be a decade ago, why they should act like it?

Apple change their habits ? Why ? It's working well so far the way they do it. You're right they aren't the company they used to be, they slimmed down the product lines, stop carrying niche products for too long when they were obvious money pits, reconcentrated efforts and optimized their inventory management.

Apple is a well oiled machine how it is. If you don't like how they do things, there are other vendors.

----------

Apple say it is...

http://www.apple.com/uk/macbook-pro/features/

thanks, the info was up yet when I had looked around for it and the reviews weren't helpful. Shoulda thought to look again at the features page.

 

[pilgrim2812]

I still like my Macbook Pro 17"

Granted the new retina display blows the 17 inch panel away, but just imagine what a 17" retina display could do for you on an ultra thin form factor. A 17" laptop is a desktop replacement. And Apple will no longer have a desktop replacement product. After some time, I can see apple reintroducing the 17" with a retina display with screaming fast graphics and powerful CPU which will be needed to do the display justice. And it will be spectacular.

 

[Zydac]

Sticking with ol' 17" for now

I think it's funny how pissed off I got when I read that Apple was discontinuing the 17" MBP. It's almost as if I've been primed to start hating Apple and was looking for an excuse! Ever since it started becoming Big Brother and then Jobs dying, I've been wondering if and when the bean-counters would take over and it would become a company that just made entertainment devices for the masses that cause them to walk into lampposts while having their personal data stolen. Aaargh! It has happened!

Hmm, in reality this is just one blip in the product line. I think they haven't ironed out the engineering for this new technology on the 17" or they can't get the supplies and pricing right yet. I'm in the market for an upgraded 17", and the equivalent PC versions, although the hardware specs are great on some, weigh a ton and have at best half the battery life. I'm betting that in 6 months they will come out with a retina 17" Macbook Pro and everyone will say "see I told you so." It will be very expensive but I will buy it anyway. In the meantime my 2009 17" is still great!

 

[mscriv]

Hmm, in reality this is just one blip in the product line. I think they haven't ironed out the engineering for this new technology on the 17" or they can't get the supplies and pricing right yet. I'm in the market for an upgraded 17", and the equivalent PC versions, although the hardware specs are great on some, weigh a ton and have at best half the battery life. I'm betting that in 6 months they will come out with a retina 17" Macbook Pro and everyone will say "see I told you so." It will be very expensive but I will buy it anyway. In the meantime my 2009 17" is still great!

I hear what you are saying, but in reality that just doesn't make sense to me given the evidence we have from how they are handling the Mac Pro and the other MBP's in the line up. If they don't have the technology then why not continue to sell the current model 17" or simply give it minor spec bumps like they did the 15" and 13". When the Mac Pro hit a wall in terms of upgrade path they didn't discontinue it until the tech was available, they just continued to sell it as is.

Apple is in the business of making money and I think if they truly intended to keep the 17" alive and well with an eventual Retina model that they would have kept on moving along until the tech was ready. Plenty of people would have loved to buy an updated 17" with a faster processor, improved graphics, and USB3. Why would Apple turn down this opportunity at income while working out the bugs of the future Retina model?

I hope I'm wrong and you guys still holding out hope are right because I think it would be awesome to see them come out with a Retina 17" later. However, I just don't think it's going to happen as it makes no business sense to kill the 17" just to bring it back later.

 

[Bali50]

Idiots. Not even good business

Don't they realise there are people who wouldn't buy a 15" as a substitute for 17", no matter how sharp the screen is? What kind of business says "No Thank You" to potential customers? Particularly professional users who would pay EVEN more for a 17" screen than it was worth.

I was drooling at the prospect of a retina 17" and now they've axed even the non-retina ones? CRAZY!

If they had any sense, they'd even create a 18/4" or 19" version and sell it for $3999 if they had to, and they would have had THOUSANDS of orders worldwide.

DAFT! DAFT! DAFT!

 

[toke lahti]

Apple change their habits ? Why ? It's working well so far the way they do it. You're right they aren't the company they used to be, they slimmed down the product lines, stop carrying niche products for too long when they were obvious money pits, reconcentrated efforts and optimized their inventory management.

Apple is a well oiled machine how it is. If you don't like how they do things, there are other vendors.

Times change and if they want to keep their success, they'll have to change. Look what happened to Nokia; decade a go global leader, 5 years ago they went blind for what customers wanted and now they're almost gone. Apple is bullying with iOS just like Micro$oft a decade ago and everybody started hating that. In osX products they seem to not care what customers want, just making the most profitable models. They don't care about professionals even if they would provide the best halo effect possible. Computers are still decades away from technology point where everybody's need would be fulfilled with one model.

They just killed a major segment in computers: DTR. Apple has grown so big that they really should start to expand and multiply their teams. Not having them is just a silly mindset, that will lead to nowhere. In the past before Apple's big success, they had to consider every dollar used in r&d, but not anymore. They are sitting on a so big pile of money, that sometime in the future they need to start using it. Maybe they just use it for damage control after they have made a mess of their computer business because their today's habits.

Or if they really want to make only the most profitable products, they should just sell osX products to somebody who really wants to build new products and also keep other choices available. You shouldn't kill a product segment every time you introduce something new. 2 usb & 1 tb port on a pro laptop is pretty sad. Ditching ODD and making all parts not upgradeable made MBPr half a kg lighter. I'm not interested having lighter laptop, since I'm not holding it with one arm. I would be interesed having lighter iPad, though, since I try to hold it like book when reading, but it's much heavier than average book. If I carry my MBP in backpack it doesn't matter if the backpack weights 4.5 or 5 kg's. What matters, is that I have to also pack half a dozen dongles and 2 hubs besides the PSU. And the backup storage...

Taking away ODD did not give option for second storage. How many cubic cm's or grams would be wasted if they'd used ram slots? My guess is not enough to anybody to notice. Those slots don't have to be on top of each other, they could be side by side and at the end of motherboard, thus not adding thickness (hight) at all.

Hopefully if they ever release 17" again, there will be option for second storage and upgradeable RAM, since there's plenty of area in 17", that would otherwise end just not used at all.
Funny that Apple could put more features to 12" powerbook in 2002, than they do today with 13" or 15"... Tim Cook repeats endlessly that Apple's goal is just make the best products, but what is best depends on who's perspective you are looking. Maybe MP has been best product for Apple for the last 4 years, but for nobody else?

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Times change and if they want to keep their success, they'll have to change.
Look what happened to Nokia; decade a go global leader, 5 years ago they went blind for what customers wanted and now they're almost gone.
Apple is bullying with iOS just like Micro$oft a decade ago and everybody started hating that.
In osX products they seem to not care what customers want, just making the most profitable models.
They don't care about professionals even if they would provide the best halo effect possible.
Computers are still decades away from technology point where everybody's need would be fulfilled with one model.
They just killed a major segment in computers: DTR.
Apple has grown so big that they really should start to expand and multiply their teams.
Not having them is just a silly mindset, that will lead to nowhere.
In the past before Apple's big success, they had to consider every dollar used in r&d, but not anymore.
They are sitting on a so big pile of money, that sometime in the future they need to start using it.
Maybe they just use it for damage control after they have made a mess of their computer business because their today's habits.
Or if they really want to make only the most profitable products, they should just sell osX products to somebody who really wants to build new products and also keep other choices available. You shouldn't kill a product segment every time you introduce something new.
2 usb & 1 tb port on a pro laptop is pretty sad.
Ditching ODD and making all parts not upgradeable made MBPr half a kg lighter.
I'm not interested having lighter laptop, since I'm not holding it with one arm.
I would be interesed having lighter iPad, though, since I try to hold it like book when reading, but it's much heavier than average book.
If I carry my MBP in backpack it doesn't matter if the backpack weights 4.5 or 5 kg's.
What matters, is that I have to also pack half a dozen dongles and 2 hubs besides the PSU.
And the backup storage...
Taking away ODD did not give option for second storage.
How many cubic cm's or grams would be wasted if they'd used ram slots?
My guess is not enough to anybody to notice.
Those slots don't have to be on top of each other, they could be side by side and at the end of motherboard, thus not adding thickness (hight) at all.
Hopefully if they ever release 17" again, there will be option for second storage and upgradeable RAM, since there's plenty of area in 17", that would otherwise end just not used at all.
Funny that Apple could put more features to 12" powerbook in 2002, than they do today with 13" or 15"...
Tim Cook repeats endlessly that Apple's goal is just make the best products, but what is best depends on who's perspective you are looking.
Maybe MP has been best product for Apple for the last 4 years, but for nobody else?

Wow. I don't think I've seen the new sentence per line method before. It's even harder to read than a lack of paragraph breaks. I didn't think that was possible.

 

[toke lahti]

Wow. I don't think I've seen the new sentence per line method before. It's even harder to read than a lack of paragraph breaks. I didn't think that was possible.

Isn't it great, that you can still learn new things?
I was testing readability and writeability & editing with iPad.
I find it also great that you agree so much with my content, that you argue only about the form of text.
Changed the text back to more normal. Better now?

 

[HasanDaddy]

I am so fxxking sad. Been waiting for this for almost a year. My 4 years old 17" is dying, now i don't know what to do...

I use my 17" at work, i lock it in to my safe at end of day. I have meetings in my office all the time and a desktop monitor is not what i want because it will block my view.

This really sucks, worst of all is, since they did not say anything, do i wait and hope or what?!?! Or there is simply no hope i should just start looking in other laptops?

Or i should go out to buy the new 15", man this is not what i want, what a mess.....

Dude - do what I did - go to apple.com and buy a refurbished 2.5 ghz quad core - upgrade it with more ram and an ssd drive from
Other World Computing - you're welcome

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Isn't it great, that you can still learn new things?
I was testing readability and writeability & editing with iPad.
I find it also great that you agree so much with my content, that you argue only about the form of text.
Changed the text back to more normal. Better now?

To agree, I'd have to read it first. It's more like I didn't bother to read your content because it created too much eye strain for my poor astigmatism-stricken eyesight. And no, it's not really better. You still have new lines after every sentence. The only saving grace is that your message was short.

To summarize, if you want people to read your opinions, make the text easy to read. This mean line space breaks after paragraphs (since you cannot indent on most Internet sites) and reasonable paragraph lengths so you don't stare at a giant wall of text.

 

[toke lahti]

To agree, I'd have to read it first. It's more like I didn't bother to read your content because it created too much eye strain for my poor astigmatism-stricken eyesight. And no, it's not really better. You still have new lines after every sentence. The only saving grace is that your message was short.

To summarize, if you want people to read your opinions, make the text easy to read. This mean line space breaks after paragraphs (since you cannot indent on most Internet sites) and reasonable paragraph lengths so you don't stare at a giant wall of text.

Thanks for the tip!

 

[splott]

Gutted. Totally gutted. The 17" MBP has been my workhorse since it first came out and it's been as close as it gets to ideal. There simply isn't the screen real estate to do what I do on the 15", retina display or no, and a desktop is out of the question as it's far too power-hungry for my off-grid situation.

 

[Zwhaler]

Gutted. Totally gutted. The 17" MBP has been my workhorse since it first came out and it's been as close as it gets to ideal. There simply isn't the screen real estate to do what I do on the 15", retina display or no, and a desktop is out of the question as it's far too power-hungry for my off-grid situation.

Sounds like you need a refurb of the last gen MBP 17".