Apple Tells Suppliers to Expect Strong MacBook Pro Shipments Going into 2017

[Duane Martin]

What do you do Mythos? Just curious about the type of users that are buying...

Happy to comply. I am a television and film picture editor and freelancer. Most of my work is done in an office off desktops (ironically using 2009 Mac Pros to edit offline on a TV drama in season 10) but the MBP will be for side projects, training, and taking work home. The series I currently work on is using Avid Media Composer (which isn't currently supported in Sierra but hopefully will be in a month or so) but I choose FCP X for side projects because of the speed and will use Premiere when required.

I tend to keep my computers for a long time (currently early 2011 MBP) and buy for the future (early MBP was first Mac that supported Thunderbolt which has been huge in my line of work). I have been making a living in television and film for more than 20 years and as a picture editor for 14 years (i.e. other than teaching editing that's all I do) so I believe I would qualify as a "professional". I love the new MBP, ordered one in the first 16 hours after some research (4 TB3 and the PCIe 3 SSD 2TB has me drooling) and hope to see it next week.

I work with a DIT (guy on-set who takes in the data from camera and generates dailies, even does some colour timing) who was disappointed in the lack of a 32GB RAM option for Resolve and large formats, and is not a fan of the AMD video card, both totally valid for his particular needs, who may wait until the Kaby Lake version later this year (I bet him he wouldn't wait and I am pretty sure I will win the bet). I also spoke to another colleague who does VFX for a living who commented that his company uses desktops so he really didn't have an opinion other than he wanted one just to try working with the Touchbar, assuming it would migrate to external keyboards). However I have not spoken to one person in my community who gives a rats *** about the so called "dongles-issue" because we have all lived through transitions in the past and will see them again in the future. What we do care about is 4 TB3 ports and that is a Very Good Thing™ in our collective humble opinions.

 

[nikhsub1]

Professionals are (rightfully) complaining, but that won't stop the flashy Starbucks crowd from wanting the latest shiny toy.

True 'pros' don't use laptops as their main machine.

 

[AdonisSMU]

Vocal trolls = professionals?

I'm a professional and I like the new MBP. I do programming for a living I have 31 tabs in one chrome window, another 2 chrome windows with 7 and 9 tabs, slack, notes, Sketch, Zeplin, a VM for development and a VM for Windows testing, Atom and iTerm all open on my 16GB machine now. Try again.

 

[ChrisCW11]

Only short term thinkers (and people who truly need > 16meg - blame intel) will complain.

Blame Intel!?

Wow, Apple should get down on their knees and worship Intel if they are not already doing so; if it wasn't for Intel's innovation, MacBooks would still all be 2" thick and run for 1 hour.

If you haven't figured out by now, Apple is a case designer and by deciding to shave a few more millimeters off their cases, and reducing battery size in turn, is why they can't put a professional level of RAM into a professional product. Intel has nothing to do with this. Intel offers Apple a powerful CPU that runs on less watts than most LED light bulbs along with a chipset and platform that delivers all the power and performance Apple could hope for and still be able to cram it into Apple's obsession for anemic wafer thin laptop cases and you have the ****ing audacity of blaming Intel for Apple's design shortcomings?

All Apple did was make a wishlist of technology and specs to add to their new MacBook Pro and Intel delivered, give Intel some respect. Apple would be nowhere with Mac's if it wasn't for Intel.

 

[rauls4]

View attachment 670986

But… Windows.

 

[BuffyzDead]

Personally... I could deal with the dongles, but no memory card slot not so much. I have a storage adaptor that works with for a microSD card and rests flush with the side when inserted. Serves as an extra hard drive, primarily for Plex stuff. I'll stick with my recent 13" MBP until it doesn't work any more

The Environment Thanks You!!

 

[AdonisSMU]

It's comments like this that makes me miss the 'downrank' feature because saying it's a few vocal trolls is trolling in itself.

Don't LIE to the forum community, you know full well that a lot of people are pissed off at this ridiculous gimmicky, neutered and overpriced laptop that's falsely catered to professionals.

I'm not lying to anyone. It's not overpriced. You have a phone inside of a computer along with a smaller case better SSD, TB3/USBC which is superior to every standard ports that came before it at a price that's comparable to the 2012 MBP when it was initially released. Everyone said that one wasn't a pro too and then they still went out and bought it just like they will this one. You're the one who's lying about what is a Pro device and what's not. A Pro to me is someone who can get work done with less resources not more resources. Pros save companies money. Everyone else is just dead weight.

 

[Elijen]

If everyone is hating the new MacBook pro, then who's buying it.

I am both hating and buying because I need a new laptop and there are no better alternatives.

 

[NoNothing]

Blame Intel!?

Wow, Apple should get down on their knees and worship Intel if they are not already doing so; if it wasn't for Intel's innovation, MacBooks would still all be 2" thick and run for 1 hour.

If you haven't figured out by now, Apple is a case designer and by deciding to shave a few more millimeters off their cases, and reducing battery size in turn, is why they can't put a professional level of RAM into a professional product. Intel has nothing to do with this. Intel offers Apple a powerful CPU that runs on less watts than most LED light bulbs along with a chipset and platform that delivers all the power and performance Apple could hope for and still be able to cram it into Apple's obsession for anemic wafer thin laptop cases and you have the ****ing audacity of blaming Intel for Apple's design shortcomings?

All Apple did was make a wishlist of technology and specs to add to their new MacBook Pro and Intel delivered, give Intel some respect. Apple would be nowhere with Mac's if it wasn't for Intel.

I use the MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM PROFESSIONALLY to make money. I don't think you know what "professional level of RAM into a professional product" means in the slightest.

 

[manu chao]

Battery life, which has dropped from 12 to 10 hours already. The battery drop is disappointing, but I wouldn't say it's a short coming.

The 2015 15" MBP was rated at 9 h of wireless web and 9 h of iTunes movie playback. The 2015 13" MBP was rated at 10 h of wireless web and 12 h of iTunes movie playback. The 2016 MBPs are all rated at 10 h of wireless web and 10 h of iTunes movie playback. Overall that is pretty much a wash, win some, loose some.

I've seen a touch-bar-less model in store and they are very impressive. But the price. That's a real issue. This was an incremental increase in processing power and customer utility. It should have been an incremental price increase, not their usual hike.

Everybody is looking at the touch-bar-less model and noting that it is $500 more expensive than the 13" MBA and thus while spec-wise it could be considered to be a retina MBA, price-wise it is a big jump. But the $999 13" MBA has 128 GB of storage. If you increase that to 256 GB, the amount that comes in the base model of the touch-bar-less MBP, that price goes up to $1299. In other words, the retina screen 'only' adds $200 once you equalise storage.

They did adjust the price for Apple Watch many months later. I hope they adjust the price again. But I don't think it'll be for another 6 months.

The original retina MBPs got an update about six months in. Interestingly, their price wasn't changed, but the CPU speed was increased by 0.1 GHz an all models (keeping the same processor generation, Ivy Bridge) and the 13" MBP got a bump from 128 GB to 256 GB at the same price. One year in, the price of the 15" MBP was reduced by $200 and that of the 13" MBP by $300.

 

[AdonisSMU]

Vocal trolls = professionals?

If you have to ask, that means no.

 

[adriandegar]

True 'pros' don't use laptops as their main machine.

Actually plenty do, in clamshell mode. I have a mac tower from 2009 but my early 2015 MBP is just as (if not more) powerful.
Moreover if challenged, 'true pros' will make professional results with much less than the average 'amateur' feels they need.

 

[Detektiv-Pinky]

Let's make the keyboard harder to build - you know, the ones nobody likes in the first place. That's almost government level of stupidity - "Let's spend more money on those planes - you know, the ones we can't get to fly".

One other thing about the keyboard: I actually use the F-Keys quite a lot. My favourite file manger supports F2 for Rename, F5-Copy, F6-Move, and one Key is dedicated to show the Desktop, just like the good old Norton Commander ;-)

I am not sure how I would get by without these keys. External keyboard?

 

[citysnaps]

Wow... this is a literal slap in the face to the photographer crowd!

OUCH!

Not for me, though.

Let's start with a color-accurate high-performance DCI-P3 display for accurately rendering and editing photos. A huge trackpad that's great for editing photos when on the road. And then the ability to attach a couple external 5K displays (one would be enough for me) each with a single cable that handles display data, display control, audio, and laptop charging. And then having super flexible super fast I/O for handling large photo libraries.

All in a compact low weight package that I can easily take with me when I'm shooting on the road.

So... Tell me how was your faced slapped, assuming you're a photographer?

 

[jonnysods]

I've learned my lessons from Apple over the years from their first gen iterations such as the MBA, rMBP that I should wait for the 2nd gen of these. My 2013 15" rMBP will work great for another year!

I'm glad to see it doing well though. I want Apple to see the value of updating Macs.

 

[simonmet]

My inner audiophile is disappointed they removed optical out, but otherwise that's it. I have no real other complaints about this laptop and am really excited for mine to be delivered!

Are you serious? Even on the 15"? Please say it ain't so! I use and love optical as an interface to my DAC.

I was seriously considering an upgrade from my maxed out 15" 2015 Pro but that could be the straw that broke the camel's back. I could handle losing the SD slot, I could handle losing HDMI. I thought I could even handle the flat keyboard and loss of Magsafe. But this one stings.

Why Apple? How much did you save by cutting a feature that made no difference to the form factor and which some users really loved?

I'm so seriously!

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Unless we know what Apple sales projection range is "strong" has no meaning other than it's at the high end of its range. We won't really know how well the market embraced the new MBP until 1Q 2017 revenue is reported.

 

[NT1440]

Are you serious? Even on the 15"? Please say it ain't so! I use and love optical as an interface to my DAC.

I was seriously considering an upgrade from my maxed out 15" 2015 Pro but that could be the straw that broke the camel's back. I could handle losing the SD slot, I could handle losing HDMI. I thought I could even handle the flat keyboard and loss of Magsafe. But this one stings.

Why Apple? How much did you save by cutting a feature that made no difference to the form factor and which some users really loved?

I'm so seriously!

First off, you have (for all intents and purposes) a brand new maxed out 2015 machine....other than form factor and weight why in the world would you be in need of an upgrade so soon?

Second....do you really think a regular headphone jack and one with an optical interface at the end are the same size?

 

[Thunderhawks]

The truth is, Apple probably will get a brief boost to MacBook Pro sales, simply because it is so long since the last upgrade.

However, in the long run, I expect this laptop to sell very poorly, and that its marketshare will shrink greatly.

So if Apple is advising its suppliers of strong sales, then it is a two-edged sword. Expect a fillip today, but a famine tomorrow.

Agreed, the users who have been waiting will buy, which is the first wave.

And, if this is only until the end of the year, that would indicate they don't know exactly what to expec , or they have the next MBP versions in the works already.

I know I will not be the only one waiting for the other shoe to drop.

For now the concept of all USB-C may be future, but it has a lot of flaws.

I will wait for a price drop or better specs for the same money.

Once the pipeline is filled maybe Apple will come to it's senses.

 

[2IS]

A few vocal trolls was never going to stop anyone from purchasing the new MBP if thats what they wanted.

Apple cut prices of it's dongles. I'd say it would take a whole lot more then a few vocal trolls for apple to make such a move.

 

[hh83917]

Yeah... I'm a developer, and this is my first time to decide not upgrading, so are all my coworkers... it's a bummer because the touchpad looks nice, but man, one have to give up so many ports and way higher price, for a Pro laptop, it's too much to take in.

I get the Macbook with only 1 USB-C port because it's a portable and that's fine with me. But for a 15" Pro laptop that I have to buy so many dongles and pay much higher price, as of now, it does not make sense at all. So I'm sticking to my latest 15" with some ports and minimal dongles. Maybe in a year or two, living with only USB-C/thunderbolt ports will be doable, but not currently.

It's a shame really because we all love to code on Apple laptops. My coworkers who are upgrading are now either going with linux on Razer Blade or the XPS13 developer edition.

Apple telling people the MacBook Pro's numbers are strong reminds me of the 1st edition of Apple Watch, telling people numbers are strong while in reality, it's not...

 

[simonmet]

Irony that Apple put the name "MacBook Pro" under the monitor again, while these seem not a "Pro" machine.

Indeed. They were confident enough to remove it and now they put it back. Why can't they make up their mind?

First rule of propaganda is to know your weakness then state the opposite.

 

[ImaxGuy]

If everyone is hating the new MacBook pro, then who's buying it.

I for one, am getting a fully loaded 15" to replace my aging 2013 15". Not jumping for joy about the price, but I need the tools. Also no way in hell would I disrupt my ENTIRE workflow to go PC.

 

[Bregalad]

As an Apple shareholder I hope sales are amazing.
As an Apple customer I hope sales are terrible, prompting Apple to reassess their strategy of raising prices while introducing mediocre features and more unnecessary thinness.

 

[friedmud]

I'm a professional and I'll be buying the new MBP.

I develop massively parallel, scientific simulation code that runs on the worlds largest supercomputers.

I don't care about dongles. I've already been carrying DP->DVI and DP->VGA with my current MBP for connecting to projectors, USBC->DVI and USBC->HDMI and USBC->VGA will only add one dongle. Other than that I never plug _anything_ into my MBP (everyone using USB sticks: haven't you heard of Dropbox?)

I use my MBP all day, every day. I have 3 Mac Pros that I don't even have hooked up to monitors. I use them over SSH for small compute jobs and for distributed compiling (using distcc).

I'm looking forward to the Touch Bar for better contextual menus in my favorite programs (I hope there are some good Emacs extensions!). I'm also drooling over the huge Touch Pad with 3D touch, faster SSD speeds and faster graphics cards.

True professionals don't care about the price or dongles. All they want to know is if the machine can expedite the work they do daily. That's all that matters.