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It has now been the longest time ever between MacBook Pro updates

A

anthillsinrome

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 26, 2012
4
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It has now been, according to the MacRumors buyer's guide, 323 days since the last round of Macbook Pro updates (not counting the minor changes to rMBP a few months ago). This is the longest duration ever between Macbook Pro updates, tracked by the guide.

And, based on the availability of laptop Haswell processors, it will be nearly Fall when we have the newest Pros in our hands. The prior record was 317 days, in 2011...
 
Everyone is pretty sure there's a new one coming as discussed in all the Haswell threads :)
 
This doesn't tell much about Apple's release cycle, it's just following Intel's regular tick-tock schedule.

They can't do much more than just delivering small model bumps within the same CPU architecture, which they already did but you think doesn't count.

I guess they could have improved stuff like IO (improved Thunderbolt, better camera, 802.11ac, 4K output support) but that's about it.
 
Yeah, understood. I'm not really criticizing, but thought it was an interesting point to call out. It's amazing to me that it has been nearly a year already...
 
anthillsinrome said:
Yeah, understood. I'm not really criticizing, but thought it was an interesting point to call out. It's amazing to me that it has been nearly a year already...
Click to expand...

Schedule stays more or less the same: June - February - October - June - ...
MBPs were updated in June, 2012. Small speed bump in Feb. 2013 wasn't that significant, but price changes and configuration updates tell otherwise. Actually, it's a legitimate update every time you get a new model code (MC975 -> ME664 for instance)
 
johnnnw said:
Everyone is pretty sure there's a new one coming as discussed in all the Haswell threads :)
Click to expand...

actually only a few people are indeed certain that there will be an update to the mbp line, a lot think its going to be discontinued
 
Mr MM said:
actually only a few people are indeed certain that there will be an update to the mbp line, a lot think its going to be discontinued
Click to expand...

Yep, there is uncertainty there. Either way - been a long, long time to wait for updates and we still have months and months to go...
 
It just goes to show how mature the computer market has become. There's little rush to push updates. I'd be shocked if there were not Haswell MBP's come WWDC though.
 
anthillsinrome said:
It has now been, according to the MacRumors buyer's guide, 323 days since the last round of Macbook Pro updates (not counting the minor changes to rMBP a few months ago). This is the longest duration ever between Macbook Pro updates, tracked by the guide.

And, based on the availability of laptop Haswell processors, it will be nearly Fall when we have the newest Pros in our hands. The prior record was 317 days, in 2011...
Click to expand...

People are just failing to acknowledge that the rMBP is the legitimate successor to the cMBP. Apple may update the cMBP, or may simply discontinue it. In any case, the rMBP and the cMBP don't seem to me as two distinct lines of products. The rMBP is clearly the replacement of the cMBP, and the maintenance of the cMBP for the time being is probably just a matter of Apple meeting the demand, and not being able to further reduce the prices of rMBP, or increase its availability.
 
Still waiting for a Haswell rMBP. Now that all my external drives are Thunderbolt I could do with the 2 Thunderbolt ports ;)
 
If one is picky the last Sandy Bridge Q3 update wasn't really much of an update either. They change from 6750 to 6770 but the CPU bump was the same that the current MBP got as well. It was just entirely silent because there wasn't much to talk about.

Buyer's guide lists these currently.
???325 days
Jun 2012 231 days
Oct 2011 242 days -> This one doesn't really count though.
Feb 2011 317 days

So one could be more honest and write the history like
Feb 2011 317 days
Oct 2011 242 days
Jun 2012 231 days
Feb 2013 257 days
?? till now about 2 months + a couple days.

Or you just remove the minor barely news worth bumps and end up with.
with something of around 500 days being the regular update cycle.
In which case we are still a few months out.
 
well the 2011 15 dropped at least the 6490m which was a very large improvement
 
dusk007 said:
If one is picky the last Sandy Bridge Q3 update wasn't really much of an update either. They change from 6750 to 6770 but the CPU bump was the same that the current MBP got as well. It was just entirely silent because there wasn't much to talk about.

Buyer's guide lists these currently.
???325 days
Jun 2012 231 days
Oct 2011 242 days -> This one doesn't really count though.
Feb 2011 317 days

So one could be more honest and write the history like
Feb 2011 317 days
Oct 2011 242 days
Jun 2012 231 days
Feb 2013 257 days
?? till now about 2 months + a couple days.

Or you just remove the minor barely news worth bumps and end up with.
with something of around 500 days being the regular update cycle.
In which case we are still a few months out.
Click to expand...

That actually is a more sensible way to track this. And will put us right on schedule for the next update - since like you said, it's still a few months out. It's tough to determine which are significant updates and which are just housekeeping, but clearly the cycle isn't totally off-kilter for this next update.
 
I've been following the Haswell project closely, I always enjoy following chip development.

Based on all that I've read, especially in the last few months it's my feeling this will be no different than most of the other new processors. Hyped because it's the latest, and Intel is in the business of selling chips, but in real world day to day usage it will certainly not be a mind boggling upgrade.

Only a very few times over the last decade have the "latest & greatest" processors actually lived up to the hype. I'm betting this one will be no different.

Not only that, after this long of a period, if one waits it's Murphy's Law that there will be lots of bugs. Thus it would be prudent to wait for three or four months, and then buy one if it suits your needs.
 
I personally am not a power user, and would be just fine with current model.

Only reason I'm waiting is in the hopes that the cMBP has a Retina display.
 
The speed bump that you're getting from Haswell isn't much so I can see why people are not waiting. The GPU is supposed to be better so if you're a gamer or use apps that leverage the GPU then perhaps waiting is better.

As for the wait times, I remember waiting even longer back in the olden days during the powerbook days so a year is nothing ;)
 
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