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Full Laptop Refresh By Holidays?

Sopranino said:
3) With the Santa Rosa platform coming out sometime around April of 2007 it is possible that Apple has elected to skip the Merom chip upgrade and focus on getting everything ready for the Santa Rosa release. It must be realized that any chip upgrade or change to a board layout can cost several million to implement and with the issues that are known to exist with the current MB/MBP there may be a financial reason behind making a decision to skip one upgrade cycle.

4) The longer the current delay to getting new MB/MBPs out for the current C2D chip the less time remains for a company to recoup their investment in that release, before the next major update, which makes it more likely that they would be aiming for the next major release. If you say that the current Merom update does not come out until mid to late October then you have reduced the time for recovery of the return on investment to a period of around 6 months.
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Math 101:
Assuming that it costs Apple $10,000,000 to install the new machinery etc. for the Merom updates, and assuming that the average selling price of a MB/MBP is $2,000; and assuming that Apple makes $200 (Just a 10% margin) on each laptop sold, the would need to sell just 50,000 laptops to break even.

I know that $10m is a modest estimate but so is $200 margin per laptop. But that's not the real point.

You think there is not a world-wide market for 50,000 of the *new* C2D MB/MBP laptops in the world.......specially considering that the holiday season is around the corner not forgetting Apple's rising market share!?
 
prady16 said:
assuming that Apple makes $200 (Just a 10% margin)
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It's a lot higher than that. I'm guessing in the 20-30% range at least. For a start, they sell to resellers with around 12-15% margin left just for the reseller.
 
TMA said:
It's a lot higher than that. I'm guessing in the 20-30% range at least. For a start, they sell to resellers with around 12-15% margin left just for the reseller.
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Yeah! I know! But i was just trying to prove the point that there IS a huge market out there and Apple might miss out on this opportunity to make big bucks by not introducing the C2D at the optimal time.
Now their interpretation of the most optimal timing might differ from ours. That's what market analysts get paid for.
 
Wilz said:
I have a feeling that they may arrive sometime after 7th of october, as that is when the final date for cut price iPods with laptops ends (in the uk)

It would be a good time to release the new line then, for that reason, and the fact i REALLY want need a new laptop soon
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If they are so anal about the EDU customers in the god damned UK why not make it the 21st? For all you know the UK buyers may have price protection over the 1st 14 days.
 
FWIW.. I have a friend who works for Apple in sales. I emailed him about the possibility of new Macbook Pros soon... he told me he didnt have any specific info on new Macbook Pros being imminent BUT... he did say they are having a sales meeting in Cupertino NEXT WEEK (week of Oct 2th)...

Being in sales myself, "sales meetings" usually proceed new product launches etc...

Pure speculation on my part, but I wouldnt be surprised to see a Apple Special Event announced for mid-late October....

Food for thought.. some fact and some speculation.....
 
Multimedia said:
Well I just made a post over at the fully bloated 107 page 2669 post "MacBook Pro Upgrade At Photokina?" Thread asking all of them to come over here since that thread is no longer a relevant topic. But so far no go. Some of them are hung up on setting a record for thread length. :rolleyes:
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Well I think your idea is best...I mean, Photokina is over.
Now we're just waiting...hopefully not in vein.
 
Sky Blue said:
I really hope the macbooks are refreshed before the holidays.
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I share that feeling and I am not even really looking to buy one right now - I just like to see Apple at the technology forefront. Surely they will have something by the shopping season.

Good to see things slowly migrating over here from the Photokina thread...
 
I don't think we'll be seeing any new laptops before Oct. 7th, mainly because the UK student discount promotion won't end till then.

This is a time where Apple needs to sell their remaining CD MacBooks, before releasing anything new.
 
Thrilled with my lowly Core Duo MBP

Look guys, I'm the poster child for this Merom wait. Been holding out for months now. But I cruised into the Regent Street Apple Store yesterday, spotted a 2.16ghz 15" open box so £200 off. Brilliant deal. And, though I was really nervious having read some of the problems, I am bloody thrilled with this machine. It's a HUGE improvement over my old Thinkpad x20 and my iMac G4 800. Got Parallels with XP installed without a hitch (amazed how easy and fast it is!).

Basically, folks, if you can find a deal on a current generation MBP, go for it. It's an amazing machine, even if it is eventually superceded (and cooks your lap).

Oh, and for the record, I'm kind of hedging my bet... there's no restocking fee at Apple Stores in the UK (at least on previously open boxes). :cool:
 
Multimedia said:
Well I just made a post over at the fully bloated 107 page 2669 post "MacBook Pro Upgrade At Photokina?" Thread asking all of them to come over here since that thread is no longer a relevant topic. But so far no go. Some of them are hung up on setting a record for thread length. :rolleyes:
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Increase your posts per page. It's only 67 pages for me.

No future for me in Intel's laptop chips.
 
Multimedia said:
Well I just made a post over at the fully bloated 107 page 2669 post "MacBook Pro Upgrade At Photokina?" Thread asking all of them to come over here since that thread is no longer a relevant topic. But so far no go. Some of them are hung up on setting a record for thread length. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I just migrated. FWIW, I'm waiting because 1) I won't get another laptop for several years, and I don't want to buy one that I know will soon be upgraded. 2) I want the lastest processor chip for various reasons. 3) There is a chance this upgrade is taking so long because they are resolving the problems with earlier versions by making some design changes.
 
dtsfanohio said:
FWIW.. I have a friend who works for Apple in sales. I emailed him about the possibility of new Macbook Pros soon... he told me he didnt have any specific info on new Macbook Pros being imminent BUT... he did say they are having a sales meeting in Cupertino NEXT WEEK (week of Oct 2th)...

Being in sales myself, "sales meetings" usually proceed new product launches etc...

Pure speculation on my part, but I wouldnt be surprised to see a Apple Special Event announced for mid-late October....

Food for thought.. some fact and some speculation.....
Click to expand...

Interesting... on a more positive note - this is Apple, so are they really going to tell a bunch of sales people about upcoming products... even with NDA's?? I say no... which means either A) the sales meeting means very little to us or B) new products next week and a sales meeting to follow :D
 
Eidorian said:
Increase your posts per page. It's only 67 pages for me.

No future for me in Intel's laptop chips.
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Re: your signature. Thank you. I thought I was the only person that thinks that these codewords like Merom, Whitefield, Conroe, and Woodcrest convey little or no useful information about the actual chip. I can't even find a useable decoder ring table with all the codenames used internally at either Intel or AMD for all their various chips. Funny how when you actually purchase chips the designations are Pentium M, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo, etc. and then followed by either 9xx series or E6xxx numbers and the clock speed and socket type. I have yet to purchase one processor chip with the name of a city or whatever printed prominently on the top so evidently the manufacturer doesn't even think that it's important enough to preserve on the chip.

So, to clarify for us processor secret codename ignorant people could someone list the model number of the current evidently undesireable MPB chip and the model number of the highly desireable so called Merom chip?

BTW, just to see how extensive the ignorance of this chip is among other computer professionals I went to my local hardware outlet and asked to see a Merom chip and a motherboard with a Merom compatible socket and every tech there had heard the codeword but had no idea which of the specific chips in the case actually were Merom because they refer to them by socket type and speed.

I and the other codeword ignorant would appreciate a little enlightenment here. I want to know whether I need to start screaming for a Merom based Mac Mini or not.
 
Swarmlord said:
Re: your signature. Thank you. I thought I was the only person that thinks that these codewords like Merom, Whitefield, Conroe, and Woodcrest convey little or no useful information about the actual chip. I can't even find a useable decoder ring table with all the codenames used internally at either Intel or AMD for all their various chips. Funny how when you actually purchase chips the designations are Pentium M, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo, etc. and then followed by either 9xx series or E6xxx numbers and the clock speed and socket type. I have yet to purchase one processor chip with the name of a city or whatever printed prominently on the top so evidently the manufacturer doesn't even think that it's important enough to preserve on the chip.
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Yes, sadly I know nearly all the codenames and what the numbers mean. When I start tossing them out I ge strange looks. Even in my C&IT courses my classmates and professors are amazed at the stupid amount of technical minutiae I know. Cause knowing the instruction sets, chip generation, and release dates it just so useful, right?

Swarmlord said:
So, to clarify for us processor secret codename ignorant people could someone list the model number of the current evidently undesireable MPB chip and the model number of the highly desireable so called Merom chip?
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Yonah - 32-bit, Pentium-M derived
Merom - 64-bit, Core Micro-architecture derived

And stop being amazed by quad and octo-core laptops in your future dreams. It isn't happening anytime soon. It's not even in Intel's roadmap right now!

Swarmlord said:
BTW, just to see how extensive the ignorance of this chip is among other computer professionals I went to my local hardware outlet and asked to see a Merom chip and a motherboard with a Merom compatible socket and every tech there had heard the codeword but had no idea which of the specific chips in the case actually were Merom because they refer to them by socket type and speed.
Click to expand...

Chip ignorance is commonplace. Don't expect most to know much more then this has more MEGAHURTZ, this one is dual core, it's AMD/Intel, and finally Windows/Mac.
 
Gelsinger said Apple's MacBook Pro was the last product in which the two companies worked closely. "We've just gotten that done, but a number of projects are under way with Apple on next-generation technologies -- but I can't detail those," he said. "Apple is very secretive, even to us. It's the nature of the company."
Click to expand...

A sign...at last! Apple Insider
 
dtsfanohio said:
FWIW.. I have a friend who works for Apple in sales. I emailed him about the possibility of new Macbook Pros soon... he told me he didnt have any specific info on new Macbook Pros being imminent BUT... he did say they are having a sales meeting in Cupertino NEXT WEEK (week of Oct 2th)...

Being in sales myself, "sales meetings" usually proceed new product launches etc...

Pure speculation on my part, but I wouldnt be surprised to see a Apple Special Event announced for mid-late October....

Food for thought.. some fact and some speculation.....
Click to expand...


shadowx said:
Interesting... on a more positive note - this is Apple, so are they really going to tell a bunch of sales people about upcoming products... even with NDA's?? I say no... which means either A) the sales meeting means very little to us or B) new products next week and a sales meeting to follow :D
Click to expand...



I fully agree there. Too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. With the hush hush they like to keep before announcements usually, plus the fact that you have an engineering leak now and then or whatever, it doesn't make any sense to me for Apple to let the cat out of the bag internally or to resellers.


Something that has caught my eye a little bit is the people mentioning that their local outlets are having big sales on the current line, and supplies running low. While it doesn't mean anything overall and could simply be it's time for that particular outlet to have a sale, the more that do it around the same time now makes me wonder a bit.
 
Thanks for the quick clarification! That answered my key questions about the current and yearned for chips for the MBP. Now maybe I can keep up with the chip codenames from this point onwards and not feel so lost.:cool:
 
I don't think it's that people are going for a record, I think it's a suitable place, as that thread is just as futile as waiting for Merom MBP's seem to be.. I can't do another thread, so I'll just die with the Photokina-thread until I get a new machine and then I won't be here much for a couple of years again. :)
 
jericho878 said:
A sign...at last! Apple Insider
Click to expand...


Interesting article FWIW.

I'm wondering if there is a possibility that they may produce a separate platform sometime in the future. Something else to distinguish the internals from the PC competition. Maybe not likely, but it wouldn't surprise me if it went that way down the road. If for nothing more than to combat the installation of OS X on non-Mac hardware.

I'm almost set in my mind that there is some sort of big picture roadmap for the relationship between these two that at this time we can't even imagine what will be possible 18-24 months from now.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, it's an exciting time to witness.


How this factors into the current "delay" I have no idea. But it's at least some light for the future updates to the line.
 
I just read this at appleinsider. Maybe some hope left:

Gelsinger said Apple's MacBook Pro was the last product in which the two companies worked closely. "We've just gotten that done, but a number of projects are under way with Apple on next-generation technologies -- but I can't detail those," he said. "Apple is very secretive, even to us. It's the nature of the company."

It's unclear if Gelsinger was referring the MacBook Pro models released in February or the revised Core 2 Duo models due in the next six weeks. However, with Intel believed to have been largely responsible for Apple's Mac Pro released last month, it's likely he is implying the latter.

- James
 
jericho878 said:
A sign...at last! Apple Insider
Click to expand...
I wouldn't use the expression "just gotten it done" about a product that was introduced 7 months ago (meaning it was finished 8-9 months ago). And since Intel likely had a hand in the MacBooks, and as James just pointed out, the Mac Pros, which were more recent than the MPBs, and this quotation specifically refers to MBPs, I suspect that this is a slip that indicates that the MBPs are indeed ready to go when, as another AI article suggested, Apple Marketing sees fit to pull the trigger. Let's hope for the sanity of those stragglers still on the Photokina thread that it happens soon!
 
WE WANT MMBP PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Sigh i need a machine that can run windows ASAP and it CAN'T be the current MBPs. Seriously considering an iMac now or a Mini BUT i need mobility.
 
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