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Born again 17" 5k Laptop coming...?

T'hain Esh Kelch said:
The servers were killed because Apple didnt sell enough to make them worth maintaining. The software went because Apple is a hardware company that uses flashy new software to sell hardware.
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Of course. The servers were never going to generate mass market sales. But they made sense for Apple to meet the needs of a segment of the customer base until they moved in another direction. For the record, I'm happy with the path Apple has taken. I don't miss 17" laptops, professional software applications or servers for one moment. :)
 
I think at most we would see a 16" in a size similar to the current 15".

Then a 14" inside a 13" body.
 
zhenya said:
Run the 15" model at 1920x1200 and you have *exactly* the same amount of space on both screens. Not quite large enough you say? Retina screens in my experience make text content so much sharper that you can move down about 2" in screen size while retaining the same legibility.
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When it comes down to it, 1920x1200 on the 15" is an interpolated resolution. It looks adequate, but not as good as if it were a native 4k/3840 panel. I much preferred working on the "native" 1920 on my 17". If they offered 4k and anti-glare -maybe- I could buy into it as a 17" replacement. As it is, I just find that the combination of scaling and glossy screen makes it difficult to be as productive on the 15".

newellj said:
The professionals didn't support the machine - the sales just weren't there. Pursuing a machine that a tiny number of people will buy is irresponsible.
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The 17" "poor sales" is all just internet speculation. Of course it sold less than the smaller models, but that doesn't mean it wasn't profitable. Anecdotally I know vastly more professionals who bought a 17" macbook than have bought the new MacPro - and god knows that couldn't have been cheap to develop.
 
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newellj said:
Look at it from Apple's perspective. They spent a lot developing the 17" machine and bringing it to market. The professionals didn't support the machine - the sales just weren't there. Pursuing a machine that a tiny number of people will buy is irresponsible. It's a business, not a charity.
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This claim of low sales never ceases to amaze me, no one from Apple has said this (and they never officially said that they killed the product, they just stopped making them), yet every 17" hater argues this point. Mac Pro didn't sell in those quantities either, yet it didn't stop Apple to move the manufacturing of this model to US. The 17" PB and MBP were niche machines, but they commanded hefty premium and certainly were not loss makers on Tim's P&L. The problem back in 2012 was no 'decently priced' HiDPI screens and above all powerful GPU's to drive those pixels.

I switched to Apple in 2006 and got a Core 2 Duo MBP 17" - still works, but my primary machine is now retina MBP 15" because after Sandy Bridge nothing happened with the 17" line. From 2012 I used another MBP 15" and it did feel cramped, but when I switched this year to the retina version, the lower profile & high resolution options 'kind of' emulate the 17" and I no longer weep about not having a 17" machine.
I admit though I would take a very hard and long look at 17" if it was relaunched in the future, certainly with advances both in displays and GPU power it would be possible to bring to the market a freakishly powerful yet thin 4k laptop. But that's would be rather predictable, and not innovative enough (not how Apple rolls). Having Thunderbolt 3 in place now and Intel's iGPU catching up in performance and decently feeding 4K displays , I'd rather they move away completely from dedicated GPU's in laptops and give us decently priced external GPU's for the times when we want to game or work on multiple external hi-res monitors. Seamless eGPU would make more sense across the whole Mac line, rather than another niche product.
 
austinpike said:
When it comes down to it, 1920x1200 on the 15" is an interpolated resolution. It looks adequate, but not as good as if it were a native 4k/3840 panel. I much preferred working on the "native" 1920 on my 17". If they offered 4k and anti-glare -maybe- I could buy into it as a 17" replacement. As it is, I just find that the combination of scaling and glossy screen makes it difficult to be as productive on the 15".

The 17" "poor sales" is all just internet speculation. Of course it sold less than the smaller models, but that doesn't mean it wasn't profitable. Anecdotally I know vastly more professionals who bought a 17" macbook than have bought the new MacPro - and god knows that couldn't have been cheap to develop.
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As someone who's really picky about not-sharp screens myself, I'm not sure you'd actually be able to tell a difference. I use interpolated resolutions on my MacBook and the ones that Apple has optimized are very very good. 1920x1200 at 17" isn't that high a pixel density, so I'm thinking that the interpolated retina resolution would still appear sharper. Also, just in the last year, Apple has greatly improved the anti-glare coating used on their devices to the point where I see little difference in most lighting between the new Apple screens and the matte screens we still get on our Thinkpads.

The point is, things have progressed from the day when Apple was making 17" laptops. Most of the market is looking for something smaller - and most of the advantages of the old 17" models have been squeezed into the 15" ones, making an already niche product all the tougher a sell.
 
austinpike said:
You don't carry it around everywhere. If I want to get work done on the road, I'm taking it to a hotel where it sits on the desk for a few days, I'm not hauling it along to every restaurant and coffee shop. And I want the biggest screen possible for that.
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I don't disagree that that's a great use case for a 17"...for the person that travels frequently and requires a large screen. I just don't know how many people both travel frequently and really care about that 2" difference when the 15" Retina just fits more people. I also don't disagree that there is a market for the 17". There definitely is.

I would say most people prefer a laptop in the 12-14" range, hinging mostly on the fact that that's what I see most of the time. There will always be niche products out there for the people that want them. And that said, I support Apple bringing back the 17" if only to give everyone everything they want. I mean, they have every other screen size covered...4", 4.7", 5.5", 7.9", 9.7", 11", 12", 13", 15", 21.5", 27". Is having a 17" product available really going to hurt them? I would say the 12" MacBook is equally as obscure as a 17" MBP. I guess it just proves the direction Apple wants to head (smaller and thinner). They won't stop until it's basically a slab of glass.
 
This conversation is going no where. The post above makes no sense. (Run the 15 Model at 1920 and you exactly the same amount of space as the 17) Really??????????????? You can say you have the same view, JUST Smaller.
 
Yes, it's exactly the same amount of space, just smaller, just like I wrote. Not that difficult a concept.
 
I'd love a 17.

Over the past couple years, people would ask whether the Touch would ever be updated and there would be proclamations that there was little to no chance as it had too small a market, everyone had cell phones, et cetera.

Prior to the introduction of the new Macbook, I don't recall predictions of it.

Meanwhile, video editing, film restoration and the like are exploding. A 17, especially with some graphics horsepower would be a wonderful thing.

As others have noted, it could be created not much larger than the current 15 with more modern components. I don't think the size and weight would be excessive.

I don't expect it, but its hard to know what to expect.
 
mikecalderone said:
This conversation is going no where. The post above makes no sense. (Run the 15 Model at 1920 and you exactly the same amount of space as the 17) Really??????????????? You can say you have the same view, JUST Smaller.
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So is the Ipad mini screen as good as the macbook pro 17" because it can display 1920x1200? No, absolutely not. Even though the Ipad mini screen and the 17" macbook can have the same view.
 
well they managed a crappy underpowered Macbook that nobody needed but bought because it was a new product, so i don't see why they can't do the same for a 'real' professional product like a 17" MBP 4k
 
mikecalderone said:
There are many individuals here wanting Apple to produce a 17 inch Macbook Pro with updated specs.
I hope Apple is reading this.
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I agree with the first part, but I highly doubt anyone from Apple ever sees anything here. Apple doesn't even monitor it's own forums on it's own domain.
 
The only reason there was no demand was that despite the screen size of 17" and resolution of 1920x1200, the specs were identical to the 15" with identical performance, yet they charge 500 pounds extra for it, thats why few people bought it - Apple were happy to fleece customers. The dells of the time however Charged an extra 50quid. There was a clear market for the 17 inch, the Professionals who needed them for Video and CAD and 3d modeling. Some of the Gaming Laptops 15 inch are same or superior specs than Mac 15, with 4k screens, broadwell 5700hq i7, PCI express sata drives, Nvidia 970m, numeric keypads, at at less than 2kg and very slimline (and cheaper) but ALSO make similar 17models, also very limline and barely 2kg with Nvidia 970 for the same price. Apple could easily do similar and I think might still. But at the moment they are focussed on iphones, expensive gaming laptops (theres nothing professional about the mac pro with its gaming cards), and ipads. It has forgotten the Professional Market. The Mac Pro sells in smaller quantities than the 17in Mac Pro ever did so why didnt they ambandon that too??
I just bought a 17inch professional MSI laptop, ultra thin with 960m and love it. I hope I love it as much as my Mac Air from 2011 still going like new, or my NEC P8210 from 2006 still going like new with a recent SSD upgrade and serving my mother well as internet and skype machine.
Come on Apple, listen to your customers.
 
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I miss my 2011 17"... it had the dreaded GPU failure, I took it to Apple for warranty repair and Apple sent me back a refurb machine that was not mine. Long story short when they couldn't retrieve my actual machine I sent in, they instead gave me a top line 15" rMBP (2.8Ghz, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD). While this machine is 3 years newer, I still miss the 1920x1200 resolution. I would buy a 17" rMPB in a heart beat.
 
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