First Machines Using Kaby Lake Processors Coming This Fall, but MacBook Pro Not Likely Among Them

[0098386]

Haters invade EVERY OTHER ARTICLE with "but what about MacBook Pro?" "why can they do XYZ and not MacBook Pro"...
Finally an article just for them, about the delivery schedule for the Intel chips Apple needs for new MacBook Pros.
So there is much rejoicing, right?
Nope, more hate. Pretty much the entire "most popular comments" section is full of hate.
Sigh.

Hah, because it's not good news! It's strange having to explain this... do we need to? And besides folk have been excited about this rumoured OLED function key bar, we're just gutted about the processor situation. These are supposed to be top of the line devices after all.

 

[bpcookson]

Just excited to hear it was running Overwatch well. I'll be upgrading to a Kaby Lake MBPro basically for this reason.

 

[yurc]

all macs will recieve the Mac Pro treatment going forward

oh yeah...because apple love to kill productivity people who don’t spent $$$$ on their iToys ☆

create iToys is okay as the "real mac" also update equally.

so apple forgive me i'm broke your EULA with my xeon E5 hackintosh...it's vey faaaast ♡

 

[BreadofWonder]

So the long awaited revolutionary new Macbook Pro will be outdated from the start?

Did you even bother to read the article?

Intel often launches low-power 4.5W Y-series chips and 15W U-series chips first, neither of which are suitable for use in the machine that people are most curious about, the MacBook Pro

Kaby Lake chips appropriate for use in the MacBook Pro, the iMac, and the Mac mini won't launch until the very end of 2016 or the beginning of 2017

 

[hajime]

Apple seem to charge customers as if they are incorporating the latest technology, so why isn't Apple incorporating the best tech? Apple seems to appear to be half a year to a year behind in some cases. What exactly is preventing Apple from doing so?

Maybe iPhone, iPad and the obsession to build the "thinnest" computers?
[doublepost=1471387313][/doublepost]How likely will Surface Pro 5 has the Kaby Lake CPU in it?

 

[manu chao]

Actually the 4-core workhorse 15" MBPs haven't had a CPU upgrade in 34 months. Yep, Late-2013. "Current" MBPs have had minor spec & speed bumps, but same Haswell chips, 1600Mhz RAM. You'd probably claim that the "new" 8GB MacbookAir is a 2016 model, right ?

Exceptions prove the rule, and the 15" MBP did get a discrete GPU, an SSD and a battery update last year. And the MB, the two MBAs and the 13" MBP all got Broadwell last year. It is your prerogative to belief that the continued use of Haswell in the 15" MBP as a move by Apple to save money and porkchop's prerogative to see it as an indicator that the 15" MBP will be discontinued (though apparently he seems to see it even as indicator that the complete Mac product line will be discontinued). But in particular that last 'prediction' makes the predictor rather look like a fool, and pointing that out was the main point of my post, not saying that not updating the 15" MBP to Broadwell is just fine.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

Steve said that for a company to make great computers, it needed to control the silicon. Apple is clearly concentrating on ARM and has been for some time now.

Why do people assume the next MBPs will use chips from a company as unreliable as Intel when Apple keeps pushing ARM as the future?

You have hit on something here, with TSMC exclusive deals, bring on A10-18! INTEL isn't catering to APPLE, methinks they will pull the plug on INTEL

 

[BeamWalker]

In the meanwhile Apple's most expensive Laptop is still on Haswell and their most expensive Desktop on Ivy Bridge-E. Sigh.

 

[341328]

Only display port 1.2 #fail

 

[inhalexhale1]

just release it with skylake, I don't give a damn about kaby lake.

For people wanting a model with dedicated graphics, it's not a big deal at all. But it seems if the model you want uses the iGPU, Kaby Lake would be worth waiting for.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Are they even on broadwell yet, or did they just call it a day with haswell and plan on sticking with that for a decade...

 

[flyinmac]

You have hit on something here, with TSMC exclusive deals, bring on A10-18! INTEL isn't catering to APPLE, methinks they will pull the plug on INTEL

If they switched over to the Apple A series, I'd abandon Macs for sure.

While the processors could likely run an optimized version of OS X, going through the whole transition again does not interest me.

And a Rosetta type emulation would likely bog down an A-series processor if they tried to provide such a translation layer during the transition.

Also, losing native Windows support would be a major issue. The majority of the workforce is based on Windows. So Windows support is going to be highly desirable.

The die hard Apple loyalists may still buy them. But those who aren't buying the machines based on a sense of identity and brand loyalty, would just move back to PC's from other companies.

Some people like OS X, but need Windows. The current Macs cater to that.

But if the A-series processors are not Intel compatible (which they aren't), then I would buy based on need, instead of want. And that would mean I'd buy a Windows PC.

 

[Johnny907]

And yet most of us use their machines productively much longer than any PC laptop usually is being used. Quiet an achievement. Outdated at release date and years later still good enough for daily work. My rMBP is 4 years old and the MBP of my wife is 8 years old (upgraded with SSD still a very usable machine).

So you're bragging about the fact Apple has done such a poor job innovating within that time period as to not give you or your wife any justifiable reason to upgrade? Ok then.

 

[Matt Leaf]

Man, I've never really known what it's like to be waiting for an MBP, but I am now firmly in that basket.

2017 it is.

 

[Johnny907]

They have had 15 months to work on a MacBook ARM version.. surely must be capable of this..

Nope, and I'll tell you why in case you haven't read about it yet: in order to make an ARM based Macbook successful (hell, just to make it viable) it needs to be able to not only run programs and an OS specifically coded for it but also support programs via emulator NOT specifically coded for it, which is pretty much every single desktop class application on the market right now. Apple faced this same issue when they switched from IBM's PowerPC processors to Intel's Core processors. Those new generation Mac's were easily able to run software coded for PowerPC chips via an emulator called Rosetta, as the new Intel chips had a ridiculous amount of horsepower by comparison, and the fact that CISC-based processors more easily emulate RISC-based processors. As it stands right now, ARM based processors have nowhere near the power to emulate x86 coded programs because as I've said before, ARM processors just don't scale well. They are great in smaller applications like phones and tablets, and handle simple OS's like Linux when installed in an array such as on a server, but for general use laptop and desktop applications they are a long way off. I'm not saying it won't be possible some day, just that right now there is no financial or functional benefit for Apple or any other PC maker to replace Intel chips with ARM chips in their systems.

 

[PizzaBoxStyle]

Apple was frustrated by the pace of PowerPC development when IBM started focusing more attention to developing processors for high-end servers. Mr. Jobs made the tough decision to transition to Intel processors because PowerPC wasn't keeping up. Now we have Intel putting its focus on very low power devices and leaving Apple without the processors it needs to refresh the Mac. Since Apple has its own ARM processor development team, we might see Apple focus on higher-end ARM processors and make another transition.

Flip the nouns in that and you can pull out a whole other story:

Loyal Mac users were frustrated by the pace of Mac hardware releases when Apple started focusing more attention to developing iOS powered devices. Professionals and power users made the tough decision to transition to Windows and Linux because Apple wasn't keeping up.

...

Now we have Apple putting its focus on mobile devices, leaving professionals and power users without the hardware they need to keep up with their workload.

 

[Johnny907]

Ok, this. For all you fanboys who will scream 'I told you how awesome Apple is' when they release the new MBP in a couple months, just keep in mind that you'll be waiting another two years with the same gear, as it gets more and more outdated, and Apple keeps the same premium price.

At this point, one nice update won't obscure the evidence that all macs will recieve the Mac Pro treatment going forward: A kickass update, then completly ignored for years with no price adjustments.

And that's what kills me. I don't mind the stagnation because as others have pointed out, Apple hardware ages well enough, but rather the fact that Apple gets away with charging a premium for outdated tech because the fanboy fanatics let them.
[doublepost=1471391955][/doublepost]

Flip the nouns in that and you can pull out a whole other story:

Loyal Mac users were frustrated by the pace of Mac hardware releases when Apple started focusing more attention to developing iOS powered devices. Professionals and power users made the tough decision to transition to Windows and Linux because Apple wasn't keeping up.

...

Now we have Apple putting its focus on mobile devices, leaving professionals and power users without the hardware they need to keep up with their workload.

Boom. This. I wish I could like it twice because it is spot on.

 

[Omega Mac]

https://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/16/intel-arm-new-licensing-deal/

Told you... ARM it will be..

Maybe Apple is in the process of a major PIVOT and the new campus is a very real physical manifestation of that process.

This guy is great, makes a compelling case for ARM in macs, sadly no updates since last year and the user posts here too - http://www.applenews.zone

If there was an arm switch and considering how thermally efficient they are, why not pack 4,6,8,10,12,16 into a much larger laptop chassis but one that is thinner where a fan is not an issue, if you need one. These chips already fit into a tiny space, a laptop chassis is like a football stadium compared to the space in an iPhone. Now that intel are in the mix for fabbing ARM chips thing got one step closer to a wider deployment of ARM across the APPLE ecosystem.

They decide to innovate a complimentary array of chips if switching to ARM, you might see something more like the custom chips legacy pioneered on such platforms as the Amgia, (AA & AAA) chipsets but in an contemporary tech world so much bigger and wider with a company that has a lot of money.

Imagine SSD is also part CPU. What I am trying to say is there may be a whole new approached informed by the innovation from the tiny iDevices, rolling back to the desktop/laptop formats liberating the internal layouts from the limitations of spludging together multiple third party tech to produce a final product. Closer to Jobs vision of full control of the silicon as others have mentioned here.

If this happened, APPLE would be in their own league. It would be reminiscent as I said of the early days, where some platforms now gone were vastly superior to the era of PC's proliferation which gave Windows the leg up and intro to a wider market when WANG was knocking out the units cheap. Where are they now?

I think so many in the West get confused by Cycles, which are natural, yes things repeat, it is not to be assumed to be a sign of going backwards. Moments now may resemble moments to the past but you are further along in the story. We have a very linear demand on life in the west. Makes people a bit cranky in threads like this but there are valid concerns about the snail pace of deployment of pro tech in the pro lines of MacBooks.

 

[bounou]

Curious to see if Microsoft will have the surface book 2 with Kaby lake and 10 series Nvidia GPU's at around the same time the new MacBook Pro's get released, I might consider it an alternative to the MBP if they work out all the kinks of the first surface book.

 

[__dontpanic__]

We have good reason to be pissed off. Apple continue to sell HASWELL machines as if they're current generation devices. I'm not going to spend $4k on a top of the line MacBook Pro only to get two year old hardware. If they were selling it for a reasonable price, I'd probably buy one and wait patiently to upgrade it once new machines come out. Similarly if they'd stuck a Skylake or Broadwell-E processor in there. But since that's never going to happen, I'm just going to sit here on my 2011 17" MBP and grumble from the sidelines.

 

[itguy06]

And if this is true, it's even more sad, because iDevces are such "pinnacles of innovation"... Just compare the iPhone with a Galaxy S7 and see how hard Apple's engineers are trying.

Yeah let's compare last years phone (iP6s) with this year's phone (GS7). I've dabbled in the Galaxy/Android space. Garbage.

 

[tentales]

Exceptions prove the rule, and the 15" MBP did get a discrete GPU, an SSD and a battery update last year. And the MB, the two MBAs and the 13" MBP all got Broadwell last year. It is your prerogative to belief that the continued use of Haswell in the 15" MBP as a move by Apple to save money and porkchop's prerogative to see it as an indicator that the 15" MBP will be discontinued (though apparently he seems to see it even as indicator that the complete Mac product line will be discontinued). But in particular that last 'prediction' makes the predictor rather look like a fool, and pointing that out was the main point of my post, not saying that not updating the 15" MBP to Broadwell is just fine.

Understood, like I said small increments. Not agreeing with speculation that Macs would be discontinued, but Apple's focus is clearly elsewhere these days and lots of Pro users are jumping ship. I'm good with my 2015 MBA for my purposes, but I am miffed that Apple charges 2016 prices for 2013-15 technology.

Calling people "Drama Queens" is a little inappropriate, when they're just expressing their disappointment and speculating (as is appropriate for a "rumours" site) about possible discontinuation of certain products they love.
[doublepost=1471394267][/doublepost]

We have good reason to be pissed off. Apple continue to sell HASWELL machines as if they're current generation devices. I'm not going to spend $4k on a top of the line MacBook Pro only to get two year old hardware. If they were selling it for a reasonable price, I'd probably buy one and wait patiently to upgrade it once new machines come out. Similarly if they'd stuck a Skylake or Broadwell-E processor in there. But since that's never going to happen, I'm just going to sit here on my 2011 17" MBP and grumble from the sidelines.

You could spend just $2K on a 2013 refurb MBP and enjoy a massive upgrade over your 2011, but I hear ya.

 

[jwloader]

You mean like they silently updated the current MacBook Pros to Skylake? Oh wait, they're still on Haswell, lol. The days of Apple silently updating Macs with current CPUs and GPUs are long gone.

Time to face the facts: Apple do not care about Macs and probably would EOL all Macs if they didn't fear the backlash against such a move. I would even go so far as to say they now have contempt for Mac users. The Mac division is where they send the engineers who can't make it on the iDevice teams.

Have you seen how many creatives (especially audio people) still use Macs? Windows is not a viable alternative for most audio engineers and DJs. Apple is highly unlikely to disregard that segment, irrespective of how well its portable division is doing.

 

[mj1108]

Not to worry, Apple will include Kaby Lake in the 2020 refresh of the Macbook Pro.

 

[Cole Slaw]

Not to worry, Apple will include Kaby Lake in the 2020 refresh of the Macbook Pro.

The Mac line might be gone altogether by 2020 with Cook at the helm.
All we really need, apparently, are iPads.