I am glad Apple released this "new" 15-inch rMBP

[bollweevil]

I am glad that Apple released these "new" Retina MacBook Pro laptops today. I would be happier if they had next-generation Intel processors, but I would be much less happy if Apple had waited for Intel before releasing anything.

The 15-inch rMBP had gone 10 months without any update at all, and I really wanted to buy a new rMBP. I didn't want to buy one and then have them update it the next week, I would feel like a sucker.

This is definitely better than nothing, in my opinion.

I wish Apple would do micro-updates every 4 months, similar to Lenovo or Dell. That way I could buy a laptop whenever I need one without worrying too much about it being out of date. It will be at most 4 months out of date. Sometimes the updates are extra important, but those are hard to predict. You just roll with it.

Even the "major" updates in laptop processors have not been very major for the past few years.

 

[colonel179]

Is it true that the new MBP doesn't have broadwell and it's still Haswell?

If true, then i am also glad for this "upgrade", because it just means that a redesign is coming soon. After all, it's pretty obvious, and I have said it many times. Apple will want every Mac to have the new Keyboard.

With that said, I don't think that a new design will be introduced in October, unless the new OS X has features that will need it. IMO, I guess a new design will be introduced by this time next year.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Is it true that the new MBP doesn't have broadwell and it's still Haswell?

Yes.

 

[Roman2K~]

I don't understand why Apple claims one additional hour of battery life while keeping the same CPU.

I suspect they increased the battery capacity to 99.5 Wh from... 95 Wh, from the top of my head.

News sites report a doubling of speed for the SSD. So they plugged 2 additional PCI-e lanes like in the 13"? Could they have switched from AHCI to NVMe like the rMB? This, on paper, does improve battery life, according to AnandTech.

Even if any or all of the above is true, I don't feel it would be sufficient to enable a whole hour of additional theoretic battery life. Does anyone know what happened?

 

[DarwinOSX]

Those "micro" updates you speak of are ridiculous. They offer next to nothing in improvement.
I'm upgrading my 2013 15" MBP for a 2.5 times faster sed, extra hour of battery life, faster gnu, and force touch which I'm just kind of ok with. The faster sed and one more hour of battery life are pretty remarkable improvements.
Show me a PC laptop with an ssd remotely as fast.

I am glad that Apple released these "new" Retina MacBook Pro laptops today. I would be happier if they had next-generation Intel processors, but I would be much less happy if Apple had waited for Intel before releasing anything.

The 15-inch rMBP had gone 10 months without any update at all, and I really wanted to buy a new rMBP. I didn't want to buy one and then have them update it the next week, I would feel like a sucker.

This is definitely better than nothing, in my opinion.

I wish Apple would do micro-updates every 4 months, similar to Lenovo or Dell. That way I could buy a laptop whenever I need one without worrying too much about it being out of date. It will be at most 4 months out of date. Sometimes the updates are extra important, but those are hard to predict. You just roll with it.

Even the "major" updates in laptop processors have not been very major for the past few years.

----------

It's good question. They could have increased the battery or made it larger using the stepping stone approach found in the MacBook. It's likely a combination of many things including OS improvements.
SSD speed is a combination of PCI-e lanes, and custom ssd and firmware designed by Apple.

I don't understand why Apple claims one additional hour of battery life while keeping the same CPU.

I suspect they increased the battery capacity to 99.5 Wh from... 95 Wh, from the top of my head.

News sites report a doubling of speed for the SSD. So they plugged 2 additional PCI-e lanes like in the 13"? Could they have switched from AHCI to NVMe like the rMB? This, on paper, does improve battery life, according to AnandTech.

Even if any or all of the above is true, I don't feel it would be sufficient to enable a whole hour of additional theoretic battery life. Does anyone know what happened?