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Last month I seriously considered a Hackintosh, because neither the iMac nor the Mac Mini fit my needs, and the Mac Pro is an old product.

However, I realized not everything works out of the box. Even people who followed Tonymac's buying advice post in the forum with issues they find. I left the custom built PCs scene more than a decade ago, precisely because I was tired of compatibility issues, and the posts requesting help at Hackintosh forums, reminded me of those years from the past.

So I decided to wait a bit more. But if they don't release this year a Mac with powerful CPU, powerful GPU and no builtin display, I might decide to go Linux, because it has all my software, and it runs more out of the box than the Hackintosh
 
Ah yeah right!

I call b.s. on this whole article. Apple's way of making you buy buy buy their stuff now, and as much as you can thinking nothing will be coming down the pipe until end of the year.

Wait about 6 weeks and everything will be updated, especially the iPad and iPad mini, that is 100% the case. Nice try but some of us know fact from fiction.

Peace
 
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I think we'll see a 5S sooner than summer, Spring, and then a 6 around the same time as the past few years, Fall. I don't see them changing the 5, but maybe dropping the 4 and 4S and filling the gap with the iPhone mini?

They did "change" the 16GB iPad 2 models in March to have a slightly tweaked version of the A5 processor from the original run. It's not inconceivable that they'd do something similar here.

MacBook Pro: In line with his predictions from last year, Kuo believes that Apple will do away with the non-Retina MacBook Pro line in 2013, moving to an all-Retina lineup at cheaper price points than the current Retina models. Kuo also believes that Apple will tweak the design of these thinner Retina MacBook Pros, despite having just introduced the current form factor last year.

They need the regular MBP line for another year or so ... some people still want all of the I/O and user upgradable internals, not to mention great hardware per price point.

Not only do they not need the regular MBP line, but all signs point to it disappearing this year. User-upgradable internals are not a priority for Apple. If anything, they're a nuisance to them. Price has never been that large of a concern to them either. In many ways, the 13" Air beats the 13" cMBP in normal speed tests due to the SSD, and they now cost the same at base configuration. Non-Retina MacBook Pros are gone. The fact that the two revs shared a single rev side-by-side is uncommon and, for those of us who really wanted/needed one, a blessing. But that's all we're getting. Sadly, we don't need Kuo to tell us that one.

Apple TV: Kuo predicts a minor update to the existing Apple TV product as soon as late this quarter, but he offers no details on what the update would entail. He also notes that Apple's more substantial television effort is unlikely to appear in 2013, with content issues and a lack of experience in the television set industry pushing things back until 2014.

If not 2013, then when? Hopefully the current Apple TV is updated

With what? What else do we need, hardware-wise, from that box? They gave us a single-core A5 processor so we could have 1080p. What else would we need anything faster for?

I don't see anything more than spec bumps for the rMBP line. There really is no reason for anything more radical. They are brand new designs, and only now, more than 6 months after the 15" rMBP was released, is a Windows PC OEM (Acer) even talking about a Retina-like display (AnandTech is reporting that Acer has a 2880x1620 screen in the works).

It is likely that any design tweaks would be mostly internal and under the hood. Similar to the differences between the original "MacBook Pro" and the "Core 2 Duo"/"Late 2006" model and the differences between the 15" MacBook Pro (Late 2008) and the 15" MacBook Pro (Mid 2009). A lot of times there are internal (and maybe even some external) differences between a Rev A and a Rev B.

I'd give the cMBP one more year, but Apple might surprise us.

The cMBP's demise at this point would be anything but a surprise, sadly. Speaking as someone who thinks that the unibody non-retina design is the single best laptop design they've ever put out, I'm not stoked to be predicting its discontinuation, but all signs point to its discontinuation being highly likely.

I also agree the Air isn't getting a Retina Display yet, but hopefully we'll see some higher resolution options. 1920x1080 is becoming more common in this space. Even 1600x900 would be a step up for the 11.6" model.

Unless display thickness is an issue, I don't see why it couldn't get a retina display. Though, they may opt to keep that as a distinguishing feature between Pro and Air for another year before it becomes fully standardized across all non-desktop devices.

Sorry for contradicting you, Your Highness!

My point is that it didn't seem like a stretch to predict that Apple would keep the cMBP after releasing the rMBP when factoring in the added expense of the Retina Display and Apple's history of keeping cheaper older models around for a period of time when releasing more expensive newer ones.

Apple has never done what they're doing with the MacBook Pro line with any other device. Period. You don't see an iPad 2 with an A6X driving a non-retina display, do you? MacBook Pros, both retina and non-retina, have Ivy Bridge, GeForce GT 650M and/or Intel HD 4000 graphics, and USB 3. Were they to do the typical Apple thing, they'd simply keep the 13" 15" (and hell, maybe even the 17" as well) of the Late 2011 generation alongside the retina models. But no, they didn't opt to do that. They updated the soon-to-be-discontinued body style to have the latest innards. That's not typical of Apple. Similarly, the 15" rMBP is cheaper than the 15" cMBP when both are configured with SSDs, so there goes your "cheaper" argument, save for how the models are priced. Given Apple's stance on a HDD/ODD-less future for notebooks, I think they're fine sacrificing the low-cost of their non-retina counterparts, especially given that the 13" MacBook Air is poised to cannibalize the 13" cMBP.

Hey, look, I'm not happy about it either, but to say that this guy came up with ho-hum, obvious predictions is false. No one would've ever seen two lines of MacBook Pro, one old design, and one new, both with current hardware, let alone the same basic elements.

what a load of bollocks.

rMBP is pretty damn fine as it is - why would they change the form factor again so quickly?

Oh yeah they want to add an optical drive and a serial port...

No, it's probably a slight internals layout tweaking. Remember that the Late 2008 15" MBP and the Mid 2009 MBP were both unibody, but with quite a few differences between them. Similarly, the Early 2006 15" MBP to the Late 2006 15" MBP. Apple typically does a slight tweak between Rev A and Rev B of their flagship notebook line.

You're the first person to tell me this :rolleyes:

I wonder if you ever succeed in those half price statements. Does it really affect you how many people you can convert to your Anti Apple religion? Guess what, anyone that buys a Mac Pro is obviously a professional and therefore knows somewhat about technology. Guess what! price is the first thing you learn about technology and they still opt for the Mac. Obviously they have good reasons so nothing you say is going to work.

So...I hate to say this...but, it's Apple Fanboys like you that give the rest of us Apple Fanboys a really bad rep. Some of us are very pro-Apple when it comes to a few things. For me, it's the iPod touch, the MacBook Pros, the full-sized iPad, and the iPod shuffle. Basically everything in my signature. However, there are some of us, who, while being fond of some Apple products, really aren't of others. FYI, that doesn't make us wrong, nor does that make us anti-Apple. Also, not everything Apple does is in the customers' best interest. If it was, there wouldn't be forums like this one with people complaining.

It's because the 2013 Mac Pro will be made in the USA and Kuo's information comes from the SE Asia supply chain.

This is actually a fairly intelligent hypothesis. For once there is one of those being made here about the future of ye olde Mac Pro.

ah I actually did know that the cost of the Mac Pro is somewhat on par with other xeon workstations. You can't actually word out that full sentence in voice without being cut to bits by an ignorant Apple Hater so I just go with what's easy.

Please, just stop.

My current Retina can push such resolution, multiple times, without issue. It's running both the 2880x1800 screen (in 1920x1200 scaled mode) and an external monitor at 2048x1156 right now as we speak. I'm also playing Guild Wars 2 on it while typing this post.

The "Retina Macbooks can't push the resolution!" thing is a myth that needs to die.

OHMYGODSERIOUSLY!!!!

There is a "rule" in IT Consulting: Never wait for the next "big" thing. You never if and when it will come out. If you see something that covers your current needs, got the money for it, go for it. Do not wait as you will end up waiting forever.
If you want to play it "safe", wait until end of February. If nothing new comes out go and get yourself a new laptop ;-)

Really, there's a rule in Mac Consulting...or at least there should be. Most of Apple's products are on an 8-10 month release cycle. The iPods are refreshed around September/October and the iPhone comes out no later than October as well. MacBook Pros, more than any other Mac, strictly adhere to the 8-10 month cycle and pretty much have since they switched from being PowerBook G4s. If it's a month old, don't buy it. If it's two months old, buy it. If it's three months old, buy it. If it's four months old, buy it. If it's five months old, what were you waiting for, either buy or wait. Then from months six to eight, it's "buy only if you need it". Simple as that. But yeah, if you're buying for a whole IT department, waiting on the latest and greatest is stupid. Buy when you need it and pay no heed to what's coming around the corner unless it's a specific feature that you need (e.g. USB 3).
 
MacBook Pros, more than any other Mac, strictly adhere to the 8-10 month cycle and pretty much have since they switched from being PowerBook G4s. If it's a month old, don't buy it. If it's two months old, buy it. If it's three months old, buy it. If it's four months old, buy it. If it's five months old, what were you waiting for, either buy or wait. Then from months six to eight, it's "buy only if you need it". Simple as that.

So you believe that there will be a Retina 15" refresh between 11 March and 11 May 2013? Surely if that were true we'd have some updates being leaked from the factory already. I'm thinking of buying a Retina 15" but I'd definitely wait if it was only a few months before the refresh.
 
It is mainstream. Go to your web browser and set the cache size to 1MB, or less, and turn of all page prefetching and try that experience versus the more typical double digit sized cache and acceleration.

Prestaged shows will start instantaneously and never hiccup do to network congestion. The performance would be the same (or better) than streaming content off a local mac (or server).

I'm not talking about users picking which shows to store locally. Talking about the AppleTV doing something smarter once bump the local cache from around 5-7GB up to 10-14GB ( total Flash going to 16GB versus the current, relatively limited in 1080p world, 8GB ).

Most current web browser have adopted web caching and prefetching techniques and they haven't resoundingly rejected by users.

But yeah for the subset of folks who live on fiber-to-home connectivity and zero local congestion it wouldn't be much of a difference. I don't think that is the mainstream though. Nor would it be effective if it was a clueless prefetch cache ( like fetch/cache something the user is not likely to watch).
Most TV users are predictable. Even more so if users explicitly tag their favorites (e.g., season passes, etc. ).

We recently got fiber... up until then we were on a 2-3mbit DSL line. Never had issues streaming... ever. While I didn't think of needing more cache, as you say, I still don't buy that it is necessary. At least not for what the ATV currently does. The thing is too limited by software. If they allowed us to do more with it I could see needed more available space. As is, the damn thing is locked down tighter than any other Apple product.

Again, would it be beneficial? Yes, you explained how it would be. Would it be worth the cost of production increase? I still say no. But hey. Maybe they can get the parts for dirt cheap since we are phasing out single digit (in GB) storage capacities anyway. Bottom line is it is going to boil down to cost of production versus what I consider a minuscule user experience upgrade.

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$1,000/year for a cell phone plan to go with that 'affordable' iPhone sounds middle class?

If they are making a cheaper iPhone I think it is safe to say that they are making it to be contract free. I would expect it to sell for around $300 (otherwise it wouldn't be worth not just getting the 4). Contract free can be had for dirt cheap, especially if you don't want data. We are talking $5 on up, obviously depending on minutes, texts, etc. For someone that essentially wants an iPod touch with phone capabilities only when they need them, they can have service for very much under $1000 a year.

All that said, the iPhone is already a middle class device. The average user BY FAR is a middle class citizen I would think.

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Last month I seriously considered a Hackintosh, because neither the iMac nor the Mac Mini fit my needs, and the Mac Pro is an old product.

However, I realized not everything works out of the box. Even people who followed Tonymac's buying advice post in the forum with issues they find. I left the custom built PCs scene more than a decade ago, precisely because I was tired of compatibility issues, and the posts requesting help at Hackintosh forums, reminded me of those years from the past.

So I decided to wait a bit more. But if they don't release this year a Mac with powerful CPU, powerful GPU and no builtin display, I might decide to go Linux, because it has all my software, and it runs more out of the box than the Hackintosh

Are you talking about custom built PCs running OSX or Windows? If Windows, what compatibility issues are you talking about? Maybe you are using peripherals that are not mainstream, but I have been building PCs for over a decade and have never run into any real compatibility issues. Not saying you are wrong. I am sure you had bad experiences, just wondering what they were.

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actually I could do with another six USB 3 ports lol

This is... ironic, based on your sig.

Sorry, I had to! ;) :D
 
At least I know the 13 inch Retina MBP will have a better processor and I can hope that I will be able to upgrade the RAM to 16GB.

The 15" RMBP has a better processor in terms of performance. However the 13" has a better one in terms of power usage.

If money is not an issue, go for the 15"....
 
The top tier Windows notebooks in terms of specs are gaming notebooks, built for desktop-replacement. This means their battery is awful and they are bulky. Macbook Pro Retina sports similar specs -in aspects better- with the Windows ones plus it runs OS X. There are some new Windows "ultrabooks" that look more or less like a Macbook Air copy. Avoid them...

I think the most important thing to answer is what OS you are comfortable with and what software you want to run, or already own.

Yes the top-tier windows notebook are bulkier than a MBP, but not all are extremely bulky. And the question is: does it really matter if you want a desktop replacement?

Telling people to avoid all windows ultrabooks is silly. The Apple machines are okay, but it is not as if no sensible windows machines exist.
 
Originally Posted by midwestshooter (Me)

Where is the timeline for a new Mac Pro ? I have 2 of them in the studio --- from 2007 and 2009 - and I've been waiting to upgrade for over a year. I'm looking for faster Intel chips - USB3 - and Thunderbolt / external drive connections.

Reply

"
The current Retina's are not USB 3.0? Wow, that shows how much I know about Apple. I expected everything to be top of the line since they just came out in October."

This shows how far we have sunk .... Apple users no longer know the difference between a MacBOOK Pro -- and a Mac Pro .... They have probably never seen a Mac Pro - let alone used one.

Apple has turned into a phone/entertainment company (and made a lot of $$$) ---

I remember my first Mac in 1991 (IIfx - $8,000 in 1991 dollars) - I had to buy it to use Photoshop 2.0 because Photoshop was written for - and only ran on - Macs. I've lived through dozens of "towers" (G5 cooled with water and a radiator?) to do large-format photography.

We High-End power users are now left in the dust .... and Apple doesn't even bother to make empty promises to us anymore ...
 
PlayRadioPlay
If they don't upgrade the Mac Pro in 2013, I will be buying a desktop PC.
All of us who have Mac pro are in the same boat, the issue is we the people who use Mac pro are no longer relevant to Apple and a lot now have jumped to PC, as like you say its insane and rude they have done this.

Apple have silently stopped supporting editors, photographers, film makers over the last few years, yes there are the odd update here or there but most have been left to wither on the vine,
I mean how long does it take to update aperture for god sake and the FCPx debacle was just silly and a punch in the face.

Lets face it Adobe has the edge for digital workflow and although not perfect and doesn't have Apple on the box at least its updated regular and works perfectly with a PC. :)
All of that is very true and sad.
I'm glad I have a decent MacPro - processing video as a hobby - it really does a great job.

Then the thought hit me - The MacPro totally redesigned like they've done to the iMac -
To 1/2 its original size design. The tower in some way still has to be part of the line-up.

One thing for sure - I'll never get rid this space station.
 
We recently got fiber... up until then we were on a 2-3mbit DSL line. Never had issues streaming... ever.

It is not "issues" is about how fast does it start. It likely didn't start up as fast on the 2-3Mbps line as it now does on fiber. There is no reason why that faster experience has to be limited only to users on fiber. The overwhelming majority of the AppleTV users are not on fiber and won't be in the next couple of years.


Again, would it be beneficial? Yes, you explained how it would be. Would it be worth the cost of production increase? I still say no.

going from 8GB to 16GB would not represent any significant real costs increase. Perhaps you are duped by Apple charging $100 increments for 8 or 16GB storage differentials for iOS devices but the real costs are no where near that high. The price of Flash memory is dropping like a rock. Only Apple is charging price gouging prices for SSD and storage to consumers. Their suppliers aren't.

But hey. Maybe they can get the parts for dirt cheap since we are phasing out single digit (in GB) storage capacities anyway.

Random vendors get them dirt cheap because they are dirt cheap. There is no Apple buys in billions discount factor here. Generic 8GB USB flash drives are priced around $8 and 16GB ones around $13-14. ( it actually not hard to find 16GB ones at the same $8 price as 8GB ones). The non Flash aspect of the drive is the primary cost driver. In almost the 2.5 years since the Apple TV moved to 8GB flash, the cost of 8GB flash has gone dramatically down. The AppleTV profit margin has gone up. That is the sole motivator on continuing to stick with a static limit of 8GB Flash. With a unit run rate of about 4M if Apple can goose another $1-2 out of component costs they can pocket another $4-8M and not provide a lick of better service to the customer.

The notion that more flash storage will necessarily lead to either a AppleTV price increase or significantly less profits per unit for Apple's is completely disconnected from reality of Flash prices.

The original question posed that I answered was what hardware could be added without deeply changing the current mission. It is almost a certainty that the caching policies currently implemented on AppleTV are non optimal both in respect to the customers' and Apple's interests.
 
This is... ironic, based on your sig.

Sorry, I had to! ;) :D

ha ha yeah.

It's just the current crop of USB3 hubs are somewhat fickle to say the least (I'm using one which is 90% stable).
I came from a Mac Pro to a rMBP so....

On the subject of Mac Pros - a 2008 MacPro is still a very usable machine, especially with an SSD and a bunch of RAM (strongly suggest video card upgrade to handle OpenCL though).

We always want 'new' stuff but we should also ask if we are able to work with what we have. My 2006 MBP Core Duo 2.0Ghz/2GB RAM served me well for over six years! It was struggling a bit at the end but still usable.
 
The 15" RMBP has a better processor in terms of performance. However the 13" has a better one in terms of power usage.

If money is not an issue, go for the 15"....

I was referring to the refresh. Saying that the 13 inch Retina "refresh" in June will be better then the current model since it will likely be Haswell.

I prefer the 13 inch over the 15 inch. That's what stopped from buying right now, in a "perfect world" I would buy the current 13 inch Retina + 325 for the processor + 180 for the extra ram.

The problem is, it's not a perfect world lol.

So I'm waiting for the new rMBP to come out, hopefully in June.
 
A
Lets face it Adobe has the edge for digital workflow and although not perfect and doesn't have Apple on the box at least its updated regular and works perfectly with a PC.

Uh how about Adobe's recent support for hi-res displays (Retina MBP)?
As far as I know that is a Mac specific thing and I'm loving that Photoshop and Illustrator support on my rMBP.
The Creative Cloud is also great - $49.95 US a month for all that software - easy to install and update (on a Mac without any virus junk right now).

I use Final Cut X - its great.
Premiere is cool too but to say Apple has abandoned creative pros is a tired old argument - I don't know about you but I'm a creative pro and I get my work done better than ever with new Apple HW and a combo of software.

In fact I got good stuff done on a Power PC with 8GB RAM in the 90s and a Mac Iici before that yadda yadda - today I use a computer that's thinner than a box of matches to do serious 'pro' stuff - thanks Apple!
 
"
Where is the timeline for a new Mac Pro ? I have 2 of them in the studio --- from 2007 and 2009 - and I've been waiting to upgrade for over a year. I'm looking for faster Intel chips - USB3 - and Thunderbolt / external drive connections.
"

"
The current Retina's are not USB 3.0? Wow, that shows how much I know about Apple. I expected everything to be top of the line since they just came out in October."

This shows how far we have sunk .... Apple users no longer know the difference between a MacBOOK Pro -- and a Mac Pro .... They have probably never seen a Mac Pro - let alone used one.

Apple has turned into a phone/entertainment company (and made a lot of $$$) ---

I remember my first Mac in 1991 (IIfx - $8,000 in 1991 dollars) - I had to buy it to use Photoshop 2.0 because Photoshop was written for - and only ran on - Macs. I've lived through dozens of "towers" (G5 cooled with water and a radiator?) to do large-format photography.

We High-End power users are now left in the dust .... and Apple doesn't even bother to make empty promises to us anymore ...
"

I'm not a "Apple User", I stated I was a "Apple Newbie", I've only owned three ipods and a Iphone 5 from Apple. I found this while researching what product to buy. This will be my first major Apple purchase, looking to get a rMBP 13 inch. Thinking I'm going to wait till they do the "refresh" in June.
 
I was referring to the refresh. Saying that the 13 inch Retina "refresh" in June will be better then the current model since it will likely be Haswell.

I prefer the 13 inch over the 15 inch. That's what stopped from buying right now, in a "perfect world" I would buy the current 13 inch Retina + 325 for the processor + 180 for the extra ram.

The problem is, it's not a perfect world lol.

So I'm waiting for the new rMBP to come out, hopefully in June.

I was ging to get the 13 rMBP but the lack of QuadCore and max RAM put me back to the 15. Some people might not need a QuadCore but I do - hence the price difference - there are choices. Something for everyone.
 
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