DigiTimes: Apple to Announce Redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro in September

[dwmc]

Reading this brings Niagara Falls to mind. That’s a lot of data moving around. Wow.

Yes, by nature if your training input comes from the field at a rapid clip. In that sense it's probably not much different than dealing with captured video or photos. If it's a vision system, it is in fact overwhelmingly photos (say 3 per second, 24 hours a day). You may or may not be able to really effectively do all of your processing on the MBP, but you can get it off the MBP quickly. For me that's been an outstanding feature.

Any professional use case where large chunks of data are changing regularly is going to gobble up bandwidth (or hit you with the time is money hammer). Professional meaning that if you lose some data, you're not the only one that pays for it . Hence I'm assuming robust and regular unattended backups. Any data that's on the MBP needs to be in a second place too. If that data is churning, your backups will be doing the same. File-backed VMs, for example, cause a lot of backup churn but you may need them backed up (I do).

In my non-professional use... a lone TS3+ has what I need at home (and then some), minus 10G ethernet. Fortunately 10G ethernet is easy to get standalone via Thunderbolt.

 

[dwmc]

Exactly. 💯

Except the Intel MBP 16" only has 2 Thunderbolt controllers for 4 ports (x4 to the left ports, x4 to the right ports, all straight to the CPU). So going from 4 ports to 3 probably means leaving bandwidth on the table (2 controllers, but one can only be half utilized) or shorting us on total bandwidth (1 controller, shared across 3 ports). I'd rather have neither of these scenarios.

The M1 reports two Thunderbolt controllers, of course. I just don't know what Apple's plan is for the next edition. Discrete controller per port, perhaps. But maybe not.

 

[transpo1]

Except the Intel MBP 16" only has 2 Thunderbolt controllers for 4 ports (x4 to the left ports, x4 to the right ports, all straight to the CPU). So going from 4 ports to 3 probably means leaving bandwidth on the table (2 controllers, but one can only be half utilized) or shorting us on total bandwidth (1 controller, shared across 3 ports). I'd rather have neither of these scenarios.

The M1 reports two Thunderbolt controllers, of course. I just don't know what Apple's plan is for the next edition. Discrete controller per port, perhaps. But maybe not.

Hopefully, they give us one per port, that would be ideal.

 

[dalestrauss]

Well, this makes perfect sense if iPhone 13 is going to be the "yawn" that many predict. Big new feature is autofocus in the ultrawide camera? With a snoozefest that will be "this is the best iPhone we've ever made (because its manufacturing date is a year newer than the iPhone 12, which itself was a snoozefest over the iPhone 11) it will be nice to have a "one more thing" moment for the MacBook Pro - or maybe the other way around - "Oh yea, one more thing, iPhone 13...clap clap clap..."

 

[transpo1]

Well, this makes perfect sense if iPhone 13 is going to be the "yawn" that many predict. Big new feature is autofocus in the ultrawide camera? With a snoozefest that will be "this is the best iPhone we've ever made (because its manufacturing date is a year newer than the iPhone 12, which itself was a snoozefest over the iPhone 11) it will be nice to have a "one more thing" moment for the MacBook Pro - or maybe the other way around - "Oh yea, one more thing, iPhone 13...clap clap clap..."

I'm sure Apple has something cool up their sleeve for the iPhone 13. As a filmmaker, I'm just hoping it's not video oriented, as I really want to skip this year's upgrade and direct resources to the MBP.

 

[erich.j.k]

all of the 14-inch and 16-inch screens that are supposedly starting to arrive this month

Which rumor is it, you're referring to? I must've missed that one.

But I'm with you. If the devices are ready, they will roll them out. I hadn't heard they were almost arriving though. Then there still might be some hope to get my hands on one soon.

 

[jk73]

Which rumor is it, you're referring to? I must've missed that one.

But I'm with you. If the devices are ready, they will roll them out. I hadn't heard they were almost arriving though. Then there still might be some hope to get my hands on one soon.

One of the MacRumors articles last month said the screens for the new MBPs will start being delivered to Apple this month.

 

[The Cappy]

Too many devices for that...and two, its September that means these mbp will come with Big Sur and not Monterey
Since there are digital events...for Apple its even easier to make 2 events for 2 different months
So low expectation for the same event...like low trust ratio from Digitimes...when they guess (and not copy paste others) they are wrong almost all the time

Your first point isn't true. The moment of announcement doesn't mean anything. Apple could announce MBPs in September and ship in October with Monterey. The earlier posters' comments are more compelling: Apple doesn't generally allow anything to compete with its iPhone announcement.

 

[Lemon Olive]

Understood, and discussed in other threads.



It might make “complete sense” to people who hang out here, but it won’t make much sense at all to the average consumer comparing various laptops at Apple.com and seeing the most expensive models using an older generation of silicon, which Apple lists on the second line of its product pages.

”The M2 is this year’s; the M1X is last year’s, improved” is not the best marketing pitch.

Nope. Average consumers are not confused by this at all because they don’t know what any of it means in the first place.

 

[Lemon Olive]

Actually it might make sense to release the larger M2X before the smaller M2. The production volumes of the larger chip are smaller, so there is less time pressure to produce a large quantity, and any delays or issues in fabrication would have less of an impact of overall production.

I think @cmaier also mentioned that there are no technical reasons why a larger chip can't precede a smaller chip.

It’s simply not happening and is t worth discussing further. There are now even more corroborating reports that “M2” products (meaning based on A15 architecture) will ship in 2022 earliest.

 

[anshuvorty]

I'm just glad that the Nintendo announcement turned out to be a dud. If Nintendo had the courage to ship the upgraded Switch "Pro" with 4K60 support while it was docked, it would've been very hard for me to justify purchasing both the Nintendo Switch Pro and the redesigned MacBook Pro this year....

However, Nintendo made my decision easy this year! Redesigned MacBook Pro here we come!!

 

[coachingguy]

Bring on the iPad Mini 6! Apple Card at the ready!

Coachingguy

 

[jk73]

Nope. Average consumers are not confused by this at all because they don’t know what any of it means in the first place.

The silicon is literally the first line of the product descriptions at Apple.com. Even the computer illiterate could guess that M1 or M1X is probably older and/or inferior to M2.

 

[ArPe]

I just know I’ll grow a third testicle when I see the new 16”

 

[Fomalhaut]

It’s simply not happening and is t worth discussing further. There are now even more corroborating reports that “M2” products (meaning based on A15 architecture) will ship in 2022 earliest.

Maybe...we'll see! It would be a bit disappointing that there could be 1.5-year gap between architectures so soon after the launch of Apple Silicon. One would hope that there would be a lot of rapid improvement in the initial iterations of Apple Silicon.

Perhaps it simply isn't possible to move the M-series SoC at the same speed as the A-series used in the phone. Maybe we've got to used to expecting to wait no longer than 12 months for the "next great thing".

 

[Lemon Olive]

Maybe...we'll see! It would be a bit disappointing that there could be 1.5-year gap between architectures so soon after the launch of Apple Silicon. One would hope that there would be a lot of rapid improvement in the initial iterations of Apple Silicon.

Perhaps it simply isn't possible to move the M-series SoC at the same speed as the A-series used in the phone. Maybe we've got to used to expecting to wait no longer than 12 months for the "next great thing".

It is more than just chips. The Macs have never moved that the furious pace that iPhone does, and it never will, because it is a completely different business. It is not just about the chip.

 

[sublunar]

Maybe...we'll see! It would be a bit disappointing that there could be 1.5-year gap between architectures so soon after the launch of Apple Silicon. One would hope that there would be a lot of rapid improvement in the initial iterations of Apple Silicon.

Perhaps it simply isn't possible to move the M-series SoC at the same speed as the A-series used in the phone. Maybe we've got to used to expecting to wait no longer than 12 months for the "next great thing".

The A series are annual affairs though. Apple have to be predictable with their CPU release schedule or they will risk uncertain people just holding on for the next big thing.

I think the heavy duty versions of the ARM CPUs will appear every other generation after a process shrink whereas there should be a annual energy efficient version on an annual basis thanks to the iPhone.