Hardware-Free WWDC Sets Stage for Busy Second Half of 2016

[SoundChaos]

I honestly have been waiting with my wallet ready for a year to replace my 2013 macbook air but thus far Apple hasn't released anything compelling enough for me to want to switch because I love my 2013 air but I wish it had a better screen (not even higher resolution just better colours and IPS with a thinner bezel) and also I would love even longer battery life. The macbook doesn't do it for me, battery life is worse than the air and only one port. Macbook pro doesn't do it for me either, thicker, heavier, more power than I need, and worse battery life. Many times I have considered switching back to windows but unfortunately I am very wary because every windows laptop I have used in the past has had a really bad touchpad

Every sentence you said is my exact thoughts. My 2013 macbook air was the best computer I've ever had bar none, but I do photo editing work a lot, and watched a lot of movies from bed with it. The lack of an IPS screen, and the fact that I only had a 128gb SSD in it made it time for an upgrade, so I sold it a couple weeks ago for $750 on craigslist in anticipation for the new mac announcements.

I've never cared for the Macbook Pro line, still too bulky IMO, and I really like the tapered shape of the air, and the Macbook isn't option due to major speed downgrade, more expensive, and awful keyboard. We need a new true Air upgrade.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Keep dreaming. Intel has (or had) a one-year cycle, Apple has not and will not go faster than that except for minor things like a price reduction or a .1 GHz speed-bump.

That would dictate how often Macs are updated, providing the CPU was the only component in the machine.

 

[Winni]

I honestly have been waiting with my wallet ready for a year to replace my 2013 macbook air but thus far Apple hasn't released anything compelling enough for me to want to switch because I love my 2013 air but I wish it had a better screen (not even higher resolution just better colours and IPS with a thinner bezel) and also I would love even longer battery life. The macbook doesn't do it for me, battery life is worse than the air and only one port. Macbook pro doesn't do it for me either, thicker, heavier, more power than I need, and worse battery life. Many times I have considered switching back to windows but unfortunately I am very wary because every windows laptop I have used in the past has had a really bad touchpad

Buy a Dell XPS 13. Seriously. That machine is a killer notebook and it eats my Retina MacBook Pro for lunch. It is as light as a MacBook Air but provides awesome compute power and long battery life.

But I give you this point: ALL touchpads suck when you use them with any other operating system than OS X. Even Apple's touchpads royally suck when you use Windows or Linux in "Boot Camp". So it's the software that is the problem, not the hardware. And Kudos to Apple: Their touchpad drivers for OS X are the gold standard that has not been matched by anybody else -- not even by Apple's own drivers for Windows. But that is about the last remaining thing where a Mac running OS X is clearly better than every other hard- and software combo out there.

 

[HighDesert50]

There are a number of hackintosh articles springing up that make the process far simpler than in the past. So, for those of you eager for an upgrade, the opportunities abound for a hybrid system. In the old Woz and Steve tradition, take a risk and experiment. Learn a little along the way, too.

 

[nt5672]

It's time for updating the MacBook Pro series – the MBP is >400 days old (and it's case has the exterior of 2008), and the MBA is on its way out. Hard times for everyone who's not interested in a 12" MacBook. What a disappointing year it has been so far.

And just to be clear, thin, lighter MacBooks are good. Thin, lighter Macbook Pros suck. We need performance and ports in a Pro machine, at least in the top end Pro machine.

 

[velocityg4]

I don't really get why it is so difficult to release new Macs as the manufacturers release new products. Its not like Apple is fabricating the chipsets themselves. They just have to use off the shelf components. All the heavy lifting has already been done by the various chip makers. This isn't the old days of PowerPC where they had to get stuff custom made and wait for IBM or Motorola to deliver. All they need is drivers.

Don't they have separate engineers for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, &c? Do they just have 20 engineers that have to jump from one project to another?

If they don't want to use company talent on this. I'm sure Asus, Gigabyte, &c already have ready made Ultrabook motherboards with and without GeForce graphics Apple could use. They'd be more than willing to toss in a Thunderbolt and Magsafe connector for Apples tremendous sales volume of high end computers. Also move the chips around to fit it to the current form factor and heatsink placement.

I'm sure Samsung is chomping at the bit to switch Apple to the nvme 950 Pro from the old SM951 SSD Apple has been using. LG and Samsung have 4K panels ready to toss into the Macbooks.

I sure as heck hope that Apple isn't getting ready to release a Skylake line when Kaby Lake is nearly due. Perhaps they will have Skylake Macbook Pro with GTX 960m released as Dell releases a Kaby Lake XPS with GTX 1070m or 1060m.

 

[meaning-matters]

It's time for updating the MacBook Pro series ... it's case has the exterior of 2008 ...

To be precise, the case has been renewed (i.e. made thinner mainly) in 2012. That's still 4 years ago.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

The past kinda left some precedence to figure this out:
- New OS versions were announced for all Apple Products

- Release date: Fall
- New hardware will also be release in the Fall and will have the new OS already preinstalled in it.
- Fall usually means October. Therefore, we could expect new hardware in October, when the new OS versions are released.
​

 

[WRONG]

Or they are working on it and don't want to rush out a product line before it's finished. Patience is going to be a virtue here as frustrating as it is, id rather have a new Macbook Pro announced when ready than have one rushed out.

I don't want to be rude, but having their entire computer line-up outdated doesn't seems to me as "we're perfecting our products", instead more "LOL we don't care anymore!"

I mean,

MacBook Air is 465 days old
MacBook Pro retina is 394 days old
MacBook Pro non retina is 1466 days old (LOL)
Mac Mini is 609 days old
Mac Pro is 910 days old (LOL)

Does Apple really needs all this time to make good computers?!

 

[soco]

I don't want to be rude, but having their entire computer line-up outdated doesn't seems to me as "we're perfecting our products", instead more "LOL we don't care anymore!"

I mean,

MacBook Air is 465 days old
MacBook Pro retina is 394 days old
MacBook Pro non retina is 1466 days old (LOL)
Mac Mini is 609 days old
Mac Pro is 910 days old (LOL)

Does Apple really needs all this time to make good computers?!

You're SO rude.

 

[djacopille]

Apple's approach of increasingly infrequent but epic updates (sometimes epic) flies in the face of the philosophy of smaller but continuous improvements common to Agile or kaizen.

This may be because Tim Cook, master of the supply chain, wants to milk an investment for as many years as possible before making an expensive change.

Or because Jony Ive takes design so seriously that he doesn't want to change anything unless a genuinely major improvement is possible.

Either way Apple is taking computers way too seriously. Like everyone else, I just need to get my job done. I don't care if the next Mac Pro is spherical and levitates over a magnetic plate. That seems to be Apple's idea of innovation. Meanwhile the thing that actually does work in computers - the CPU and GPU - is now three years old in the Mac Pro with no update in sight. Three years ago the 12 core machine was up to date. Now you can get 22 core machines and GPUs have advanced by leaps and bounds in 3 years.

Apple is probably having a meeting somewhere wondering why their Mac Pros aren't selling. Perhaps the case isn't trash canny enough? Or the anodization doesn't have the right undertone of blue gray? No. It's because you'd have to be an idiot to spend $10K on 3 year old technology.

Now they are doing the same thing with the MacBook Pro. Someone said they haven't changed the case since 2008. My wife, an avid Mac user her whole life, has been waiting YEARS to upgrade an old MacBook Pro. She finally broke down and bought a Skylake PC from the Microsoft store that was discounted a couple hundred bucks to $1000 because IT WAS SO OLD!. It has a far more advanced processor and video card than the top of the line $3400 MacBook Pro. Yes, it's ugly, but the screen, processor, video card, sound system and battery life are amazing. She didn't buy the computer to install in our art gallery - she just needs to get her work done.

At this point Apple is so slow at releasing updates I don't even see it as slow updates. I see Apple as literally leaving the computer industry for a year or two...leaving us hanging for a few years with no updates and wondering if they will ever get back into the computer business. The Mac Pro is a great example of that. They have literally left the professional workstation market for two years...again.

We're just as likely to hear "we discontinuing the product because hardly anyone was buying them". Steve Jobs said something like that when they discontinued the Xserves and the 17" MacBook Pro. And now they can say it about a 3 year old Mac Pro that anyone would literally have to be insane to buy.

Or they could get back into the pro workstation market with a bang. Could go either way. Professionals that have to get their work done can't be committed to a computer company that operates with that level of indifference to customers. I will never buy another Mac Pro because of this. Pretty much about to do that with the MacBook Pro. I highly question whether they will be able to ship a laptop by year end.

Apple: There's only one way to go here. Do the great design, but in an Agile or kaizen way. This thing where you leave the computer industry for a couple years at a time will destroy the greatest customer loyalty ever seen by a computer company.

 

[slapppy]

256GB Base model size is laughable these days. Minimum should be 500 or more.

 

[PatriotInvasion]

Hoping for a redesigned 27-inch 5K iMac in space gray and gold options with 4 USB-C ports including two that support Thunderbolt 3 this fall. [Although I doubt they'll want to bother with multiple color skews of the associated accessories, but they would look awesome nonetheless]. Could you imagine??

Despite getting a 5K display, the current iMac has had the same design for nearly 4 years now. Even though it got dramatically thinner in 2012, the front face of the iMac is unchanged since 2009! Since they will need to change the body anyway for USB-C ports, I think we'll see a redesign this year with a smaller chin and thinner bezels.

 

[Eightarmedpet]

You're almost implying that everybody's pushing Apple for a radically designed MacBook Pro. Most people here would have been perfectly happy with just some silent hardware upgrades in the same shell. Newer GPUs and newer CPUs. Heck, maybe even DDR4 RAM, or BTO for 32GB RAM.

Have you seen the competition recently? Dell do a brilliant laptop with 4k touch screen and higher specs than a MBP. Also thinner bezel. Apples current Hardware lineup is embarrassing.

 

[satchmo]

Sometimes hardware availability dictates release times.

I think that certainly has partly to do with it.

Additionally, I'm guessing Apple is working to ensure the form factor will stand the test of time. It will probably be the new design language moving forward for the next 4 or 5 years.

 

[Gudi]

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple will launch three new MacBook models by year's end: a thin and light 13-inch MacBook in the June-September quarter, and two thinner and lighter 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models in the September-December quarter.

That's a stupid rumor and I remember myself saying that. The bigger MacBook should be 14-inch so that there is a 2-inch difference to the smaller one and it sits nicely between MacBook Pro sizes.

 

[lyngo]

Wow, that company used to care about computers, now it seems like Mac is an absolute afterthought...
A "hobby" to put it in Cook terms.

Glassed Silver:mac

I'm pretty sure that Steve jobs referred to the Apple TV as a hobby before Tim Cook.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/02/jobs_apple_tv_a_hobby_because_theres_no_market

 

[manu chao]

That would dictate how often Macs are updated, providing the CPU was the only component in the machine.

Given that the CPU update is often the main update with new Mac laptops (next in line are SSD updates), updates that don't update the CPU would be rather minor. Look at what updates the retina MBP has received so far in three years beyond CPU updates:

• Two SSD updates: (1) moving to PCIe and (2) moving to faster PCIe
• Move from TB 1 to TB 2
• Faster discrete GPU in 15" MBP
• Haptic trackpad
• Slight increases in battery capacity

What would be gained if Apple released those updates separately from CPU updates? I can tell you what would be gained: a more splintered line-up of MBPs that people have to keep track of, including Apple with software and firmware updates.

 

[magicschoolbus]

Lets hope for a 1 port, deep blue Macbook Pro, with two gigs of ram, no head phone jack, and also available in 14K gold

 

[jgbr]

I doubt a busy year, the fact nothing was updated this time around means too much for later in the year. Something will give based on declining event performance.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

It's been 394 days since the 15" rMBP was updated. The 13" rMBP, on the other hand, hasn't had an update in 465 days!

That's fine though. I'm happy with the Dell laptop running Windows 10 that my employer gave me. If nothing else, it'll help me get through a year or two of disappointing updates from Apple. And if Apple is set on never releasing a worthwhile computer again, maybe I'll just go for a PC (as recently as 6 months ago, I would have been amazed that I was saying that... but really, Apple seems to be completely done with Macs. It's like the Mac is an accessory for the iPhone now.)

 

[__dontpanic__]

I wouldn't care so much about the long delays, if Apple actually adjusted their prices to match the age of the hardware.

It's ridiculous that we should be paying 2013 prices on the Mac Pro here in mid 2016 (here in Australia, the price actually went up by thousands of dollars thanks to our falling dollar). I want to purchase a new Mac Pro, but I refuse to pay that much for 3 year old hardware.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

I honestly have been waiting with my wallet ready for a year to replace my 2013 macbook air but thus far Apple hasn't released anything compelling enough for me to want to switch because I love my 2013 air but I wish it had a better screen (not even higher resolution just better colours and IPS with a thinner bezel) and also I would love even longer battery life. The macbook doesn't do it for me, battery life is worse than the air and only one port. Macbook pro doesn't do it for me either, thicker, heavier, more power than I need, and worse battery life. Many times I have considered switching back to windows but unfortunately I am very wary because every windows laptop I have used in the past has had a really bad touchpad

I'm sitting on a 2013 MBA too. I grabbed it because it sat unwanted in our equipment room for a year and felt like somebody had to get some use out of it. It's actually been a surprisingly capable little machine. For kicks, I loaded parallels, win7, solidworks and inventor on it, and not only does it run it, but it real-time displays fully rendered multipart assemblies... we still have desktops that struggle with that. I would have never considered one, thinking tgey were underpowered administrative machines, but this little guy has become my favorite computer ever, and definitely my favorite apple product. It's light, reliable, and has already depreciated to the point its costing me nothing to use. But yeah, I do wish it had a higher res display sometimes, though that change would ultimately change the rest of the machine. MBA + (ipad pro + duet 2nd display app), is a pretty great light, minimalist, mobile setup.

 

[lyngo]

WatchOS 3 paves the way for a new Apple Watch without Force Touch.
Anyone noticed how they replaced nearly all Force Touch actions by swipe and push actions?

It seems to me they find that Force Touch is confusing on the watch. Removing Force Touch probably gives them room to add other, most wanted, features...

Enter Apple Watch 2.

I can totally see something like this happening. Your observations about the demonstration for watchOS 3 were spot on!

 

[pgwalsh]

I keep wondering if I should holdfast for something new or jump ship and go with Linux laptop (my other computers are all *nix flavor). I don't want to jump ship, and I still have a working Macintosh SE in my house, but as others have said Apple doesn't appear to be focused on computer hardware anymore.