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

[manu chao]

A fair enough point, but even though we're locked into an Apple Monopoly for such upgrades, using Apple's retail prices to do so ... particularly when cross-shopping ... is problematic.

I agree, that comparing only spec-matched machines is only one aspect. Advertised prices that get people into stores (be they physical or online) are an important factor as well.

Case in point: your number shows that Apple is charging $300 for that +128GB SSD upsize, whereas the street (retail) price for a 128GB MBA blade is currently only $60, which means that there's a $240 "Apple Tax" on this feature normalization.

Is that a 3.1 GB/s SSD blade though?

As such, the alternative view is that this upgraded MBA should really only cost around $1060, not $1300, so the remaining differentiation feature (the retina screen) isn't really a $200 premium, but a $460 premium.

And a good deal of people will select to spend only $999 and either live with with 128 GB or probably more likely get a <$100 external (be it 3.5" for their desktop, 2.5" for mobile use, or USB stick/SD card expansion). Those customers are much less likely to spend a net $400 premium for a retina screen.

To some degree Apple has a problem here of only offering very premium storage that prices them out of some markets. Having a top-class display (not only retina but also gamut, brightness, viewing angle) adds to that (pre-retina MacBooks and MBAs had lower quality screen than the MBPs). Add cutting edge ports (the MBA got upgrades to TB2 two years after the MBP, getting TB3 on top of USB-C) is another slightly more premium classification.

 

[cdpage]

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

Apple takes so damn long between updates that users/buyers have no choice. a Huge HUGE percent of these purchases are corporations buying their employees the long over due replacements.

 

[robeZ]

I can understand people being angry about Apple axing the audio optical out. It may not be used be "über"-pros. But I know quite some musicians who use it when playing in smaller venues like bars and pubs etc.

Having said that I guess demand is big in china. Chinese people only care about the image - hell most of the Chinese even run MS Windows on their Macs. But show off value is more important.

Surely not all Chinese

 

[manu chao]

Yes, unfortunately- that appears to be the way that most home electronics are going. More often than not, if something goes wrong, you just have to throw it away. Visualize mountains and mountains of electronics in the dump....

I would wager the guess that Mac laptops stay in use longer on average than PC laptops.

 

[Beer Wig]

And the "it doesn't work for me" argument is orders of magnitude more valid

More valid than what? Not a reasoned argument.

These new machines appear to be amazing.

Any new product wants to appear amazing.

In my opinion it's a further sign of the ever sickening entitlement culture that some pros (lol) are having a heart attack about a computer they have not seen, let alone used.

Yes how entitled - people spending upwards of 3k or more and they want the latest tech, compatibility with standards everyone uses and no gimmicks. How spoiled can one be.

Further why would you need to use anything to know you're not getting kaby lake, a nvidea gpu, increased storage, and must buy dongles? Maybe given the specs it's rather "sickening" you're so willing to go to bat defending it. If you think it's great then buy it. Why are you so against others voicing their grievances? Criticism is an important part of making anything better. Surely any PRO knows this...

But I need the PRO for my WORKFLOW, BRO.

Hilarious.

Yeah other people have different needs than you and you sh/t on them.

Hilarious.

 

[redkamel]

Yeah that - OR... your "it works for me so it's fine" argument is crap.

lol, ok,
so if I generalize and talk about all pros, people would peg me as "I am speak for others".
If I speak about people I know, its "anecdotal"
If I speak about my experience "it works for me so its fine".

How may I provide evidence opinion that the port change is actually not a big deal?

The new ports are a mild PITA that can be solved with $200. It boosts USB-C adoption, and puts everyone squarely into "the future". Thats it. If you don't like it, wait a year or two.

 

[Jim Lahey]

I agree

 

[manu chao]

I agree USB-C/thunderbolt is a great thing. But now, four is not enough. I refuse to accept I will need dongles to either expand it, or to add functionality. One port will be taken for power. One will be taken for SD card port. One will be taken for Ethernet because I need speed, not wireless. Now I have one port free. This is totally unacceptable.

An SD card port is normally used only for sparse and relatively short periods of time. You can usually easily get by with unplugging a charging or synching iOS device, other devices charging via USB, your backup drive, or the laptop power supply for these moments.

 

[Beer Wig]

lol, ok,
so if I generalize and talk about all pros, people would peg me as "I am speak for others".
If I speak about people I know, its "anecdotal"
If I speak about my experience "it works for me so its fine".

How may I provide evidence opinion that the port change is actually not a big deal?

The new ports are a mild PITA that can be solved with $200. It boosts USB-C adoption, and puts everyone squarely into "the future". Thats it. If you don't like it, wait a year or two.

Of course you can't say it's going to be a year or two with any certainty. So in the present it's just a big inconvenience and needless waste of money for dongles. This may not be a big deal for you - and that's fine. Obviously for a lot of people it is. As for speaking, just try to speak objectively.

 

[-hh]

I agree, that comparing only spec-matched machines is only one aspect. Advertised prices that get people into stores (be they physical or online) are an important factor as well.

But of course.

Is that a 3.1 GB/s SSD blade though?

Don't think so / probably not .. and while that's of course an important performance feature, let's also keep in mind the underlying technologies and where the actual costs reside: in oversimplified form, an SSD is merely a bag of memory chips and a memory controller chip - - the primary cost driver has traditionally been "how many" memory chips (capacity), and the primary bandwidth performance bottleneck has been the controller. Since the controller isn't a primary cost driver, the expedient parameterizing is to normalize just on size (capacity) and not sweat the small stuff.

And a good deal of people will select to spend only $999 and either live with with 128 GB or probably more likely get a <$100 external (be it 3.5" for their desktop, 2.5" for mobile use, or USB stick/SD card expansion). Those customers are much less likely to spend a net $400 premium for a retina screen.

Agreed, although the case can easily be made that they're not the "Pro" segment. OTOH, I'm seriously considering a current MBA as a candidate in lieu of a loaded MBP, specifically because since neither of them can really adequately handle my heavier duty stuff, it doesn't matter if they fell 5% short or 50% short, so I may as well pocket a 66% cost avoidance ($1K vs $3K): that budget goes a long ways to paying off my newest lens (a Canon EF 400mm DO IS f/4L).

To some degree Apple has a problem here of only offering very premium storage that prices them out of some markets. Having a top-class display (not only retina but also gamut, brightness, viewing angle) adds to that (pre-retina MacBooks and MBAs had lower quality screen than the MBPs). Add cutting edge ports (the MBA got upgrades to TB2 two years after the MBP, getting TB3 on top of USB-C) is another slightly more premium classification.

Yes and no. Apple's also been guilty of what appears to be burdening themselves with unnecessary constraints. An example with the MBP (and is the current scapegoat for 'low yields') is the change in keyboard. The legacy one was a mature design and very well received by its customers, so why did they mess with it?

-hh

 

[redkamel]

Am I suppose to be impressed by your appeal to status as an editor? As if the educational requirements for that are anything more than a youtube video and a sizzle reel or better yet - who you know. This assuming you cut anything that makes it to theater which I doubt but feel free to link your imdb page with full credits since you feel like showing off. As for SSD's being faster - that's only half the issue isn't it - size also counts especially at the price MBP's go for. If you don't need more RAM I can only assume your file sizes are not that large to begin with perhaps because you're rendering to Youtube(?) or that you don't care about the longevity of your machine. Really your argument boils down to not caring about paying more for substantially less. What a professional attitude to take!

As for the red-herring of what I do (as if you care) let's say I'm a creative with two degrees on my wall that doesn't need to appeal to status to make a solid argument.

So quick question, if your work requires extremely large amounts of RAM, the latest (thus, I imagine the fastest) processors and you seem to require/want it very strongly...why do you do it/need to do it on a laptop? Are you required to do heavy 3D modeling, and edit movies/VFX or whatever you do onsite? Or do you just need to be able to take files/programs from home to work? Why does a drive for mobile work and a desktop for heavy lifting make no sense? Or will you decline to say?

Sorry, I am just very intrigued as to what demands a situation that requires 32gb of RAM, every last % of CPU power, AND a laptop.

Its a laptop for high level portable work, thus, a compromise between portability, battery, and power. But I don't think anyone expects it to stand in for a server farm or desktop workstation. I don't complain that my car is fine for going to Home Depot and remodeling the kitchen but can't haul enough lumber to build a house.

I wish it had the latest chips too, but I think its fine this year. I just hope its not a trend.

 

[Judas1]

Apple continues to think they are the only company in the world that matters. Other companies use open standards. How about trying to work with them? People that listen to a lot of music or play video games will already have nice headphones made by other companies that use 3.5 that they don't want to replace. They might have already expensive equipment that uses current standards like HDMI, usb-a that won't get replaced. It's making it harder for people for no reason.

 

[ErikGrim]

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

Just ordered the "base" Touch Bar model for my wife. Going to be a nice upgrade for her 2011 MBA.

 

[Beer Wig]

Sorry, I am just very intrigued as to what demands a situation that requires 32gb of RAM, every last % of CPU power, AND a laptop.

You'd have to ask someone that wants 32. I've simply defended the idea that those complaining are not without merit simply because someone else prefers less or doesn't need it. It may be task related, it may be future proofing, it may be that 16 has now been the standard for close to 5yrs, it may be something else. The issues with the lineup, however, are obviously not reducible to simply ram.

 

[manu chao]

If I compare it to my current 15-inch MacBook Pro, Late 2011 model for example. For starters, it has no less than 10 ports, not 4 like the 2016 MacBook Pro. (MagSafe, Ethernet, Firewire 800, Thunderbolt, 2 x USB, SD-Card slot, 3.5mm Audio In & Out including optical in/out, DVD/CD burner, Kensington lock, and Infrared).

The big difference is that only one of those ports (the TB1 port) can be used to adapt and daisychain all possible kinds of peripherals (and TB1/2 couldn't daisychain the power supply and the 40 Gbit/s of TB3 also enables more daisychaining). The other difference is that the four USB-C/TB3 ports pretty much eat up all of the PCIe lanes. On the 13" MBP, the available PCIe lanes even limit the right-side TB3 ports to 20 Gbit/s. I haven't done the full math but it might easily be that adding even one USB-A port (needing 5 Gbit/s) would resulted in having less or slower TB3 ports.

I consider the lack of ports on the 2016 model a serious downgrade. Even though I welcome the benefits of USB-C, they do not make up for lack of all these ports alone. Even as multi-use ports that can be adapted to individual requirements, the fact that I only have 4 to start with is problematic. - These ports are precious! - Why would I want to 'waste' one of these hi-speed ports to do something as mundane as charging, or as lowly as reading an SD card? Surely sticking a couple of regular USB ports on there wouldn't be too much to ask? It almost seems inevitable that this thing needs to be paired with a Thunderbolt dock of some description to bring back the connectivity that has been lost as a result.

I'd say, when using an external monitor a USB-C or TB monitor or a dock should be used.

My 2011 Macbook Pro allows me to upgrade both the Hard drive and the RAM. I consider that a major plus point. I originally bought the base model with 4GB RAM, and 500 GB drive. Since then I have upgraded the RAM to 16GB, and replaced the hard drive with a SSD after a hard drive failure.

One of the ironies here is that even if the 15" MBP had upgradeable RAM slots, you couldn't put more RAM into it as it already comes by default with the maximum amount technically possible.

This brings me to my next point. - I refuse to pay Apple's over-inflated prices for RAM and storage. Deliberately making the base configuration so poorly spec'ed, then soldering these components into the machine and then charging the prices they do is nothing short of extortion.

As just said, this does not apply for RAM on the 15" MBP. And the SSD isn't soldered, it 'only' uses a custom connector. But not offering an option to have slower and thus cheaper storage (probably best in the form of a Fusion drive made up out of a very fast and a significantly slower and thus significantly cheaper SSD) is one of the design problems.

What happens in case of data corruption or hard drive failure? - A whole logic board replacement becomes necessary! This is definitely a downgrade as far as the end user is concerned.

As said, SSD isn't soldered.

Losing innovative features like MagSafe are a big deal. I've owned Apple laptops before MagSafe was invented, that have been damaged due to someone tripping over the power chord. Since it's invention I've still had many close calls - but MagSafe has saved the day, and performed what it was designed to do.

As laptops have become lighter, MagSafe probably has become a bit less effective. And offering a MagSafe cutoff at the end of the USB-C charging cable would probably be more fiddly and less effective as well (I simply cannot see MagSafe and USB-C charging to ship on the same laptop, among other things this would require two charging cables).

 

[benjitek]

I think, I could live with something like this...

There isn't a microSD USB-C adaptor that small, they stick much further than the irrelevant legacy USB accessory in your photo.

Less is more... ​

​

 

[manu chao]

Apple continues to think they are the only company in the world that matters. Other companies use open standards. How about trying to work with them? People that listen to a lot of music or play video games will already have nice headphones made by other companies that use 3.5 that they don't want to replace. They might have already expensive equipment that uses current standards like HDMI, usb-a that won't get replaced. It's making it harder for people for no reason.

The laptops still have 3.5 mm audio ports. And USB-C to HDMI cables (not dongles, cables) are starting to appear and join things like USB-C to Lightning, DP, USB-B, USB mini, USB micro, and USB SS aka USB3 micro cables.

 

[MallardDuck]

Sorry, I am just very intrigued as to what demands a situation that requires 32gb of RAM, every last % of CPU power, AND a laptop.

Easy - Technical demonstrations of enterprise-class IT solutions inside virtual machines.
[doublepost=1478644706][/doublepost]

As said, SSD isn't soldered.

From reports, it is on the touchbar models.

 

[SeaFox]

Rich casual users.

If their cloud services are any indication, that seems to be the only customers Apple really wants.
But they hate to be called a "boutique" computer.

 

[manu chao]

From reports, it is on the touchbar models.

I haven't seen any reports from somebody outside of Apple actually having a touch-bar model in their hands.

 

[twa440]

So. Summary. Only in my humble opinion, of course;

49% of the internet whiners can't afford one. The other 49% would never have bought one even if it wiped their arse with quilted toilet paper, and was free.

The remaining 2% (the majority of normal buyers) who can afford one, and don't expect the entire Universe to owe them a living, will buy one.

Apple is doomed!

They're not doomed, it'll take them awhile to piss everyone off. If Windows wasn't such a mess right now, they probably would loose a lot of computer business. But then again, I don't think they care about computers anymore. Just profits.

 

[obiwan]

I haven't seen any reports from somebody outside of Apple actually having a touch-bar model in their hands.

Wait 'till iFixit get their hands on it, then we'll know for sure.

 

[SeaFox]

No point moving the iPhone to USB-C if they are going to introduce wireless charging soon.

Yeah, because they can't do both.

How about Apple join the rest of the world and drop Lightning? If they considered it a serious interface, why is it not on any of their Macs? Other makers of overly-thin smartphones are doing just fine with USB-C, it has high transfer rates and power handling abilities, and it can be inserted either way, which was the main argument for Lightning when it came out. Maybe it's time for another proprietary Apple connector to ride out into the sunset.

 

[Abazigal]

Yeah, because they can't do both.

How about Apple join the rest of the world and drop Lightning? If they considered it a serious interface, why is it not on any of their Macs? Other makers of overly-thin smartphones are doing just fine with USB-C, it has high transfer rates and power handling abilities, and it can be inserted either way, which was the main argument for Lightning when it came out. Maybe it's time for another proprietary Apple connector to ride out into the sunset.

That has always been the price and the allure in going with Apple products. We are never truly a part of society (due to the need for proprietary cables and adapters, and the use of platform-specific services like airdrop and iMessage), but because there is usually at least one other person around you who will have those cables and use those services, you are never truly alone either.

 

[MallardDuck]

Wait 'till iFixit get their hands on it, then we'll know for sure.

It may be a moot point in either case. There's only OWC's very expensive, and somewhat kludgy options for the 2015's.