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Apple Ramping Up Production of 13" and 15" Next Gen MacBook Pros
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That makes a lot more sense than just buying an external slimline optical drive and plugging it into your MBP's USB port lol.
What does "ramping up production" really mean in terms of actual ship dates for the new line of MBPs? I read the article and assumed they were simply working on the new line, but most replies here are stating an actual store release by as early as April/May...? June for the 13" MBP? That would be amazing, but is that really possible?
I'm holding off on buying a new MBP even though I sorely want to lay to rest my tried and true 2008 MBP. I'd love a 13" (downgrading from my current 15" MBP), but I upgraded my current laptop in 2008 to have 2.8Ghz, 200GB, and 7200rpm. Kinda hard to justify buying a 13" MBP off the shelf today since most specs (aside from RAM, battery life, and HD space) are a downgrade for me.
And I'll admit, I'm a sucker for the slim MBA line and would love see that design streamlined with the next wave of MBPs!
I'm holding off on buying a new MBP even though I sorely want to lay to rest my tried and true 2008 MBP. I'd love a 13" (downgrading from my current 15" MBP), but I upgraded my current laptop in 2008 to have 2.8Ghz, 200GB, and 7200rpm. Kinda hard to justify buying a 13" MBP off the shelf today since most specs (aside from RAM, battery life, and HD space) are a downgrade for me.
And I'll admit, I'm a sucker for the slim MBA line and would love see that design streamlined with the next wave of MBPs!
MBP, 
The iMac doesn't have much time left. It's been on the chopping block for years. Every version of the iMac since the new design is supposed to have been the last, but they keep pushing it out because people keep buying them.
The value prop for the iMac just gets worse and worse. At some point the iMac no longer makes sense at all. The new Thunderbolt display is working to solidify it's ultimate EOL timeline. The 27" no longer makes sense when 90% of the consumers can get 90% of the feature set from a Mac Mini paired with a display.
Apple's future roadmap eliminates the desktop completely, because desktop sales have been on the decline for years. When they can knock $300-$400 off a MacBook Air + Thunderbolt combo the iMac will disappear. I highly doubt the iMac will exist beyond the next release of OS X.
I have 2006 macbook pro 1.1 I upgrade it to SSD. and it feels like a new computer.
I really got huge benefit for 6 years laptop
I'm getting ready to do this with my 13" unibody once i get all the pieces together. install a 128gb SSD and move my 1TB HDD to the optical drive space, and make the DVD an external. I figure i can squeeze another 5 years out of it that way.
But i am excited to see what the new Airs bring...my wife needs a new computer and i'm making her wait until Apple unveils them.
On campus here everyone that has macs has the little 13 inch pro, easy to see why it's in such high demand.
The only reason I bought a 15" MBP was to get the highest resolution display possible.
If Apple introduces a retina display on the 13" that dwarfs my 1680x1050.. I'll have to upgrade again.. I just hope it comes in at something staggering like 3000x2000.
If Apple introduces a retina display on the 13" that dwarfs my 1680x1050.. I'll have to upgrade again.. I just hope it comes in at something staggering like 3000x2000.
Unless Apple removes all software from the shelf and put it online, there will be a need for the ODD.
We know that Apple has the best servers in the world that can handle ALL the downloads when they have something new that comes out and the world wants it at the same time!Think back when Lion came out, when a new iOS comes out, what issues have you run into trying to download.
Don't care. I'd rather waste a little time here and there with software downloads than wasting space in my iMac with an ODD. Replace it with nothing more than another fan for all i care, but i want it gone.
Same here. Literally over 50% of the laptops I see here on campus are 13" MBPs. There are a few 15" MBP and very few 13"MBA in comparison.
lets look at the facts
First the macbook pro and or air will not be updated in april, june is more realistic, it will probaly be released with MLion just like the Air was last year, also if it was to be released in april we would have seen pictures, and parts, and placement orders, and a longer wait time on the apple website, i clocked the macbook pro updates for last Feb and there were a whole mess of pics, and leaks and parts floating all over the net, since Janurary and the same will happen when the new ones are close to being released
I would hope to have usb 3.0 on macnookss since most HIGH end laptops now have at least 1 usb 3.0 keep in mind again im talking high end, Mac always keeps up with its competitors so usb 3.0 should be a given, Thunderbolt is great but too pricey and usb is a standard on almost any product so they won't get rid of Usb's on macs
The optical drive should be removed here are reasons why it will be done the macbook air sells very well and no optical drive, the mac mini also sells well without the optical drive, I know some people can't live without it but Mac says hey we will give you an external option, why because Most people don't use optical drives anymore, again im saying most i know some people make a living burning stuff on Cd's but hey if its really that important to you get yourself an external drive, or stop complaining and get the current macbook pros available
Ivy Bridge is a must since its the next generation of Sandy Bridge plus alot of people will be disappointed if its not updated, so im really hoping for that.
They should have Quad core on the 13 inches even if its on the higher end one, that one will definately sell,
So to recap no macs coming out in April
i figure apple will wait and release it with Mountain Lion either Late June or early July thats the most sensible thing they can do
Hoping for thinner mac without the optical drive
these are my thoughts based on my research, if you agree cool if not i would like to hear a rebuttle
First the macbook pro and or air will not be updated in april, june is more realistic, it will probaly be released with MLion just like the Air was last year, also if it was to be released in april we would have seen pictures, and parts, and placement orders, and a longer wait time on the apple website, i clocked the macbook pro updates for last Feb and there were a whole mess of pics, and leaks and parts floating all over the net, since Janurary and the same will happen when the new ones are close to being released
I would hope to have usb 3.0 on macnookss since most HIGH end laptops now have at least 1 usb 3.0 keep in mind again im talking high end, Mac always keeps up with its competitors so usb 3.0 should be a given, Thunderbolt is great but too pricey and usb is a standard on almost any product so they won't get rid of Usb's on macs
The optical drive should be removed here are reasons why it will be done the macbook air sells very well and no optical drive, the mac mini also sells well without the optical drive, I know some people can't live without it but Mac says hey we will give you an external option, why because Most people don't use optical drives anymore, again im saying most i know some people make a living burning stuff on Cd's but hey if its really that important to you get yourself an external drive, or stop complaining and get the current macbook pros available
Ivy Bridge is a must since its the next generation of Sandy Bridge plus alot of people will be disappointed if its not updated, so im really hoping for that.
They should have Quad core on the 13 inches even if its on the higher end one, that one will definately sell,
So to recap no macs coming out in April
i figure apple will wait and release it with Mountain Lion either Late June or early July thats the most sensible thing they can do
Hoping for thinner mac without the optical drive
these are my thoughts based on my research, if you agree cool if not i would like to hear a rebuttle
I think desktops are still hugely relevant and profitable. They may not be the growth industries within tech anymore, but they are still important. I think the real declines in desktops are for home users, but anyone who works on a computer all day will tell you the big screen is necessary. Our office is entirely a mix of Mac desktops (some iMacs and some mac-Mini's). I think Apple will want to support desktops as much as possible, especially since once you buy one Apple product, you are more likely to buy others. Businesses are very slow at upgrading machines, but with the sudden rise of Apple on the consumer end, I bet you see more businesses switching to Apple so that people's work experience matches their home experience.
Desktop sales decline every year, and every project shows they will continue to do so. Not just with Apple, but across the board. Apple doesn't keep declining revenue products around, and it shouldn't.
I've seen several internal roadmaps that date back to…hell, I think all the way back to 2007 that had EOL for the iMac (not IN 2007 though). Apple has played with the idea of "docking stations" for notebooks for years now. Just take a look at their patent portfolio. The Thunderbolt display is what ended up materializing. To be honest, it's pretty damn good. The only thing it lacks is the ability to offload graphics processing/rendering…which may be in the works.
iMac's don't make much sense in the office either. Not when a Mac Mini/Thunderbolt display is the same price. Not when you can get a MacBook Air and third party monitor for $1200, which is the direction we are heading.
Two years from now Apple will probably be able to shave between $100 and $200 off of the MB Air, Thunderbolt Display and the Mini. The iMac just doesn't fit in anywhere in that world.
Why do you have to go and ruin all the fun?
Doesn't Apple have a history of shipping Macbooks a couple of months or so after the new chips reach end users? I think the Pro's were the only time they came out early, isn't that right?
Sometimes I wonder about the effect of Apple seizing the computer manufacturing altogether. As most Apple products are transported for global introduction via air, the per unit size is of critical importance. Material cost is next and its volume reduction brings us back to the shipping issues. A $1200 MPB is significantly less attractive in revenues than the iPad and the iPhone. Desktops are today last on the list. Next is the production capacity where the popular mobile devices are eating up most of the available labor force. I for instance doubt we will see anytime soon anything in a much needed monitor segment, where the profits given (again) the size are dwarfed by the income from the tablets alone. Apple has also much to much cash assets, which is not all that healthy for them, as it is partially a sign of a production bottleneck and monies allocations. Lowering prices, much like raising workers compensations can today be of another detriment to the balance of a company the size of Apple. The success of the current magnitude can be incredibly risky with directly dependent volatility of the international entity like Apple. Thus, I would not make any prediction about what and when we are going to see from something this big, because it is no longer about you and me, it is about them and us, and this alone is a whole different idea.
You're out of date on this, though I had the "end of june" wrong too, it'll be early june
CPU World's list
or even our very own MR
Ah, I guess I got it mixed around. Seems easy to do with these rumors being so quick to pop up here and not really reporting anything new each time.
If any of these incredibly stupid rumors are at all true, the 17" MacBook Pro will be positioned similarly to the Mac Pro, by which I mean, the "everything including the kitchen sink" machine for the Apple portable Mac lines, so those who need/want an optical drive, those who need/want a discrete GPU, those who need/want a FireWire 800 port, Ethernet port, ExpressCard slot, and three USB ports, while the 15" Pro will be relegated to the status of a more consumer-laptop with its weaker (due to the lack of thickness) specs. If any of these rumors are true, it'll be bad news bears for anyone who actually uses their system resources to the fullest on 15" MacBook Pros. Though I seriously doubt these rumors are true. We've heard these rumors for two years now with nothing to show for it, except pages upon pages of forum posts of MacBook Air crazed loonies.
If you're gaming on a 13" Air and your screen real estate is your biggest complaint, then you're really doing it wrong.
The lack of a discrete GPU and a CPU that isn't ULV ought to be the first orders of complaint, not the screen, which, for what it is, is pretty impressive. The ULV Sandy Bridge i5s and i7s along with the Intel HD 3000 makes for a sub-par experience with anything even remotely graphics-intensive.
Ah, right, give me a proprietary slot so I can have my proprietary SSD, which I won't be able to easily upgrade. Nice idea!
Also, given that Mac OS X doesn't let you, on machines with both a hard drive and an SSD (such as the higher-end CTO Mac minis, the higher-end CTO iMacs, or the higher-end CTO Mac Pros), configure your user account to be located on the hard drive while the OS remains on the SSD out of the box, it seems stupid that they'd all of the sudden start making machines that shipped like this the common norm, unless they ship them alongside 10.7.4 or 10.7.5 and in those machine-specific builds, they finally allow that option, but I'm not holding my breath and you shouldn't either.
You need to keep dreaming. You don't make the machine thinner and still have space for as powerful of a discrete GPU. ODD or not, if you make the machine thinner, you sacrifice performance. Period. Ivy Bridge is not SO much of a breakthrough that it'll allow this kind of stuff to happen. Nor are the discrete non-gamer-laptop mobile GPUs out from AMD and NVIDIA. Sorry.
Right, remove the thing I might use and relegate it to being a resource that my computers will have to compete over when they need to actually use it. Smart thinking! Also, surely I won't appreciate not having to carry around (or even decide whether or not to carry around) an additional accessory. You're so amazing! You must think of everything!
No, I really wouldn't. If I'm waiting for a refreshed 17" unibody MBP, it'll be a substantial purchase, and three months for a machine that I, in theory, will only purchase every six years, is pretty minimal. Frankly, if I were a 17" MacBook Pro customer instead of a 15" MacBook Pro customer, I'd have appreciated having three more months to decide whether or not I liked where the line was to be headed or not.
If by "merge the 13" MBP and the 13" MBA" you mean "replace t he 13" MBP with the 13" MBA", then yes, I think it's more or less inevitable. Those who would ordinarily shop for a 13" MBP are the types to not care about the features it has that aren't present on the 13" Air, such as no FireWire 800, no Ethernet, no Optical Disc Drive, no hard drive options for large space. For those that things like this matter, the 15" MacBook Pro is a better machine and Apple would probably try to position it that way.
Call me dense, but I am still not seeing the difference between a 13' MBP sans ODD and 13' MBA. Is it really as straightforward as smaller SSD vs larger HDD? What am I missing?
Weaker CPU in the Air than on the 13" Pro. If you configured a 13" Pro with an SSD and put it against a 13" Air, the Pro would smoke the Air easily. But most people wanting to buy a 13" Pro wouldn't feel the need to do that, at least, not at the time of purchase anyway.
You don't "thin it out" and "keep the Pro features", engineering doesn't work that way. I know you people love the fantasy of the useless optical drive giving way to a much more powerful computer, but face it, that's not how this stuff works!
This is a very interesting theory. Given that the 27" iMac seems to be being groomed for replacing the Mac Pro, I could see Apple replacing both the iMacs and the Mac Pros with something more expandable than the iMac, but less larger-than-life than the Mac Pro. But Apple will always have one desktop in their line for those who work in the production industries. If that's the Mac Pro (and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if it was), then I could see the iMac disappearing (and frankly, with all of its problems and lack of expandability, good riddance).
Did an ODD run over your grandma or something? Did it steal your high school sweetheart or take your job at work? Did it bully you all the time, taunting you and teasing you about how it will replace your beloved floppy disc and provide you, even to this day, the most superior viewing experience of content to date? Do you cry yourself to sleep at night feeling inadequate because at every turn the ODD had triumphed in ways that you could only dream of? Are you poised, ready to strike and finally kick it when it's down. Are you that hungry for revenge?
Because honestly, if you're not, then you seriously can't expect us to take your anti-ODD claims (with respect to an iMac of all Macs) even remotely seriously.
I haven't used the optical drive on my 13" macbook pro yet. I'd be happy if the price of the 13" macbook pro stayed where it is and ditched the optical drive for a slimmer profile and or more battery life. I'd sell this on ebay the day it was announced.
Totally agree! Dell is nothing but trouble~! I bought this system in march last year and gave a LOT of $$$ for it... and Dell has worked on it two times I have had to reformat it 3 times - The last time I reformatted it I didnt do the Dell hidden full factory system restore (I'm not talking about just rolling it back to an earlier time) I stripped the machine and only installed the windows 7 OS from the disc and the drivers leaving all the Dell crap out~! and there is a BUNCH of it. It seems to be running a LOT better but I still dont trust it~! I AM GETTING A MAC~ AND NOT LOOKING BACK! I dont know which one I will get yet but I am glad to finally hear some incouraging news of some on the way even if this is false we know the Ivy Bridge is coming and that's a start. I CANT WAIT TO GET A NEW MAC!
>>> I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER DELL<<<
(((((PEACE)))))
OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name XXXXXX
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model XPS 8300
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3401 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. A06, 10/17/2011
SMBIOS Version 2.6
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7601.17514"
User Name XXXXXXX
Time Zone Central Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 12.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 12.0 GB
Available Physical Memory 9.31 GB
Total Virtual Memory 24.0 GB
Available Virtual Memory 20.9 GB
Page File Space 12.0 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Graphics ATI 5700 HD 1G
USB 3.0 X 2
So long as there is a dedicated GPU and HiDPI display, nothing else matters to me! Secondary is form factor... but I am indifferent to the bulk of the MBPs.
I can't see HiDPI MBPs (if such a thing is in production) NOT having a dedicated GPU, the integrated Intel ones just would not cut it graphics-intensive applications (which I do venture in often) - the third-generation iPad being a cautionary tale.
I can't see HiDPI MBPs (if such a thing is in production) NOT having a dedicated GPU, the integrated Intel ones just would not cut it graphics-intensive applications (which I do venture in often) - the third-generation iPad being a cautionary tale.
I'm not sure the Mac Pro is even explicitly necessary anymore. The only people using the bandwidth that the Mac Pro provides are people who are editing video. Most of the machine goes to waste.
PCI-E provides the necessary bandwidth to offload video rendering to a dedicated hardare box. We already see Thunderbolt enabled boxes for running video through H.264. It's faster to do H.264 transcoding with a dedicated Thunderbolt device than it is to actually use the CPU resources in the Mac Pro. A Final Cut "render box" is within the capabilities of the technology. You could even offload an entire graphics card with low bandwidth requirements.