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Chances of apple resurrecting the 17" in the fall
- Thread starter The Final Cut
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No chance I'm afraid, Apple ran the sales figures on this one...My 17" MBP is eight months old, so not yet due an update but I really don't know what I will eventually replace it with.
I will probably keep my current 17" as well for posterity if nothing else. There were rumblings about OLED a while ago but the hard fact is that Apple just didn't sell enough units to keep the best laptop for Pro\s in the range alive.
The thought of buying a Windows based device doesn't exactly fill me with joy...Hopefully other options, like a full spec. 17" that will run Linux without driver issues might surface...I can dream..
I will probably keep my current 17" as well for posterity if nothing else. There were rumblings about OLED a while ago but the hard fact is that Apple just didn't sell enough units to keep the best laptop for Pro\s in the range alive.
The thought of buying a Windows based device doesn't exactly fill me with joy...Hopefully other options, like a full spec. 17" that will run Linux without driver issues might surface...I can dream..
Yeah, just like they updated the 13" in spite of it going retina soon in the future. Yanking the 17" only to re-release it later seems like a wasted opportunity to profit on a product until the new model was ready. I heard it wasn't selling well, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have made it BTO.
It didn't sell well because of its price and the average consumer not seeing the point in spending that much for 17" when they could either get a 15" or a more powerful iMac. Yeah, a retina 17" ought to cost more than that. If they did re-release the 17" as a retina, I'd expect it to be after the prices drop on the other two retina (15" and assumed 13") models. They're bound to drop as the classic models either drop or get phased out completely. And again, I wouldn't be surprised if they were BTO since the originals were not selling. This would also up the cost.
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17" isn't exactly a popular notebook display size.
I wouldn't be surprised to see it return at some point in the future, when retina display costs come down and apple can justify production of a retina 17" display.
At the moment though, it is probably a lot of money to invest in cutting edge (read: expensive) displays that will not sell in high numbers. The payoff probably isn't there right now.
I wouldn't be surprised to see it return at some point in the future, when retina display costs come down and apple can justify production of a retina 17" display.
At the moment though, it is probably a lot of money to invest in cutting edge (read: expensive) displays that will not sell in high numbers. The payoff probably isn't there right now.
Are you sure you would´t be more satisfied with the brilliant resolution of the rMBP? With 1920x1200 you will get a lot of space. I come from a 17" myself and have absolutely no regrets size wise. Just checking.
I don't think it will be coming back anytime soon. The graphics hardware to drive a retina 17" screen probably doesn't even exist, and if it did, it would need a much bigger battery, as would the screen. One day it might be possible for it to come back, but that doesn't make it very likely. I bought a brand new late 2011 17" 2.5 from the refurb store when the 17" was discontinued. That will keep me going another couple of years before it's an issue for me.
Pssssst.. It's 2012. I think we must have woken you up from a 5 year long nap. While you were sleeping, technology has progressed and sales of 17" notebook sales (across all platforms) have spiraled downward in favor of newer, smaller footprints that use the screen real estate more efficiently.
Btw.. You're really going to be po'd when you find out that they shut down all the Blockbuster & Hollywood video rental stores.
Why is it shameful to not make a 17" MBP anymore?
You realize, BMW has stopped offering ANY manual transmission options in all future M5's sold to American buyers? Guess how these people felt. BMW isn't backing off from that decision, either - and they have arrived at that conclusion with offering MT as a no-cost upgrade.
When 17" MBPs consist of just 50K of the millions of overall Macs sold, it is easy to say making 17"s just to satisfy a small percentage of the customer base is not economically cost-effective.
I hate it when people sight that because the 17" is big and costly it just won't sell and is going the way of the dinosaurs... It's like saying SUV's are dying off in America because they are big and costly and you can fit just as many people in a Ford Focus for half the cost... Yet every year we see new SUVs and crossovers and every year they seem to get better and better at proving their critics and their talking point wrong (MPG, weight, refinement, etc).
There are a a lot of people out there that really like that extra 2" while doing work on the road or in the field, not to mention the last models had more I/O ports and the future one, if there is going to be future one, I bet will have more as well, it might only be an extra USB, but it's still more.
I agree with a few of the opinions on here that they wanted to launch a single retina Macbook for the fact of having one product to convince people that retina is viable and put their chips on the highest selling one and in the pro market that they know has early adopters. From a business perspective it makes complete sense. And the results of this business experiment will guide Apple on decisions about future models.
We are already getting reports of machines browsing the web with specs that would be expected of a 13" retina Macbook Pro. If that does come to fruition and is priced below the current 13" Macbook Pro, I think we will see the end of the Unibody for good. Also the way Apple identifies their Macbook Pros in the OS shows "Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1" for the new retina Macbook Pro and the aforementioned reports show the unidentified and suspected 13" retina Macbook pro as having a Model Identifier of "MacBookPro10,2". So if Apple is as anal as well all think they are, then perhaps the 17" retina Macbook Pro just might still be in that long pipe Apple has and will be called in the OS MacBookPro10,3.
There are a a lot of people out there that really like that extra 2" while doing work on the road or in the field, not to mention the last models had more I/O ports and the future one, if there is going to be future one, I bet will have more as well, it might only be an extra USB, but it's still more.
I agree with a few of the opinions on here that they wanted to launch a single retina Macbook for the fact of having one product to convince people that retina is viable and put their chips on the highest selling one and in the pro market that they know has early adopters. From a business perspective it makes complete sense. And the results of this business experiment will guide Apple on decisions about future models.
We are already getting reports of machines browsing the web with specs that would be expected of a 13" retina Macbook Pro. If that does come to fruition and is priced below the current 13" Macbook Pro, I think we will see the end of the Unibody for good. Also the way Apple identifies their Macbook Pros in the OS shows "Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1" for the new retina Macbook Pro and the aforementioned reports show the unidentified and suspected 13" retina Macbook pro as having a Model Identifier of "MacBookPro10,2". So if Apple is as anal as well all think they are, then perhaps the 17" retina Macbook Pro just might still be in that long pipe Apple has and will be called in the OS MacBookPro10,3.
No, we're saying it was big and costly and DIDN'T sell. Less than 2% of MacBook sales were for the 17 and it's already gone the way of the dinosaurs. It's gone, not going.
Currently they do not have a replacement model for it and I think it is a bit too early to count it out, if several years had gone by and no replacement model, then I would agree with you. But it's likely Apple wanted nothing in their own portfolio that was in anyway better than their new flagship. Flagships get replaced as we just saw and could very well happen again in the future.
Also, by your acknowledgement that it sold 2%, means that it DID sell. 2% of what Apple makes is a lot, a crap ton mind you. Just like they still have an iPod nano and no one thinks that's a big seller... It's a poor argument.
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It wasn't 2% of what Apple makes. It was less than 2% of Apple laptops.
Having no replacement was no reason to stop selling the current model if they had even the slightest desire to keep it going. 2% of Mac laptops is insignificant. It's not worth keeping a production line for it.
It's about 50,000 out of 4.7 million Macs (desktop and laptop). Which in itself is dwarfed by 6.6 million iPods, 20 million iPads and 29.5 million iPhones. Or about 0.08% of Apple's unit sales - less than a 10th of a percent of their overall revenues.
You can delude yourself into thinking it's coming back all you want. No skin off my nose.
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Not at all - not that I have any idea if they're right or not.
But I felt that any estimates would be close enough to make the point that sales of the 17 are an insignificant part of the financial picture.http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/07/10/record-ipad-sales-q3-2012/
Not quite accurate. SUVs keep being produced and sold for the North American market because customers here love their cars being able to put out lots of power - even if all they do is drive a quarter-mile to the supermarket a block away for bags of chips and idling for hours at McDonald's drive-thrus for a super-sized high-fructose corn syrup soft drink.
Apple's 17" MBP sales amounted to 50K in the most recent fiscal year. At least 2-3 million Macs total sold in the same period. That is not even 5% of overall sales. Also, the 17" MBP offers very little in the way of performance upgrades over the 15" MBP. Consider the following:
17" pros/cons over the 15":
+1 USB port (ignoring Mid-2012 MBPs atm)
+1 ExpressCard slot
-SDXC card slot
+1200v native screen
-additional size and weight
Most importantly, the basic technical specs on the 17", including all upgrades, are exactly the same as the 15". You get a bigger screen to compensate for additional physical dimensions, you don't get access to better specs i.e. top-of-the-line 55W-TDP quad-core CPUs, above-midrange GPUs, etc. to make the plus size/weight more palatable.
Not more I/O ports. You lose a SDXC slot to gain one USB2 and one ExpressCard slot. The latter is already made redundant in the face of Thunderbolt.
Considering the sales of 17" MBPs of late, keep holding your breath waiting for a 17" MBPR to come out.
This information was pulled from Apple's 2011 4Q results:
http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q411datasum.pdf
That year-over-year in mobile units grew 37% and revenue increased 44%.
Yet look at desktop where year-over-year only grew 3% in units and 1% in revenue.
So if I was to base all my assumptions about future products on a technical basis of sales and market trends, then Apple did two very stupid things a month ago; they updated a desktop computer, the Mac pro, and didn't take it out of it's misery because sales are sucking and secondly they eliminated a model, the 17" MBP in a vastly growing market.
http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q411datasum.pdf
That year-over-year in mobile units grew 37% and revenue increased 44%.
Yet look at desktop where year-over-year only grew 3% in units and 1% in revenue.
So if I was to base all my assumptions about future products on a technical basis of sales and market trends, then Apple did two very stupid things a month ago; they updated a desktop computer, the Mac pro, and didn't take it out of it's misery because sales are sucking and secondly they eliminated a model, the 17" MBP in a vastly growing market.
What?
Apple bumped up the Mac Pros to address the fact that the company didn't provide upgrades to that line for some two years, much to the chagrin of its owners. And it still doesn't have Thunderbolt ports.
17" MBPs accounted for less than 2% of overall Mac sales, and barely registered anything after accounting for the iPads and iPhones. It is NOT "vastly growing market" like you claimed.
That is my point, why did Apple update a product that doesn't sell that much with a tiny little update... Is it not in the same boat as the 17" MBP, as you argue?
Therefor I ask, why would a product that is so niche and not selling well in a stagnating market be updated (Mac Pro), while a niche product that has been updated multiple times in the last two years and exists in a growing market segment be eliminated (17" MBP)?
It just doesn't make sense. And you sight the fan base as being one of the motivating factors in Apple's decision in keeping the Mac Pro around. Well I can tell you along with albeit more than a handful of members here, that the 17" MBP has a solid fan base that wants a 17" retina MBP and will fork over the money because of those few extra features that happen to be insignificant to you, but not me.
ALSO, if you actually read the report, the Mobile CPU market was the second best performing market segment reported by Apple and was only beat by the iPad for year-over-year growth
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Probably because there is no next best alternative for the mac pro. The mini and even the imac would still be poor replacements for people needing the pure horsepower. I am not tech savvy enough to know what exactly could have been upgraded on the mac pro, but suffice to say, I think they still have plans for it in the near future.
As mentioned, there is really nothing distinguishing the 17" mbp from the 15" version save the larger screen, and the Rmbp simulates that somewhat with its high-res display. It's loss wouldn't be felt as hard because there are other laptops still able to get the same job done.
I think Apple is keen to further streamline its computer line, but they may have been more conservative with the Rmbp this time round because they weren't very sure of public reception to it yet. For all we know, next year may see them phasing out the 13" and 15" MBPs in favour of their retina siblings, so we only have 3 laptop offerings - 11" air, 13" retina air/pro hybrid, 15" retina pro.
In short, I think I can safely conclude that the 17" pro has gone the way of the dodo.
The Mac Pro is important to the Apple ecosystem in other ways, because it's a powerful machine that you can use to develop iOS and OS X apps.
Works better than any other Mac as a desktop workstation for app development.I'd say the chances of Apple resurrecting the 17" anytime soon is worse than the chance of Steve Jobs' second coming anytime soon.