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MacBook Air and Possibly 13-Inch MacBook Pro Without Touch Bar Said to Receive Processor Refresh in the Fall

Dulcimer said:
I still don’t understand what the point of having both the MB and MBA is now, especially since they haven’t updated the former.

The only way to justify it going forward is to treat it as a testbed for Apple’s own processors being used in the fanless MB. Make it an ultra sleek, significantly higher battery life version of the previous gen while at the same time laying down the groundwork for transitioning to full on Catalyst apps and basic x86 emulation. (The people buying this A-series MB aren’t going to be running advanced x86 apps anyway.)
Click to expand...
The MBA is 36% heavier than the MB. For some people minimum weight matters.
 
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Dulcimer said:
I still don’t understand what the point of having both the MB and MBA is now, especially since they haven’t updated the former.

The only way to justify it going forward is to treat it as a testbed for Apple’s own processors being used in the fanless MB. Make it an ultra sleek, significantly higher battery life version of the previous gen while at the same time laying down the groundwork for transitioning to full on Catalyst apps and basic x86 emulation. (The people buying this A-series MB aren’t going to be running advanced x86 apps anyway.)
Click to expand...

The main reason for the MB12 is size. I travel a lot and anything bigger than the 12” will not fit on the train’s table or on the airplane tray as conveniently.

I do software and use Final Cut Pro fro HD videos.

I do use Windows applications in the emulator, including cad software.

So I definetly need a refresh of that machine.

All my colleagues can connect their larger MacBooks to thunderbolt devices and I can’t. After 4 years it is ridiculous.
 
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Coconut Bean said:
We all wish that. But realistically, no, as Apple would never sell a 13" TB MBP ever again.
Click to expand...
Wrong.
The non-TouchBar MBP will probably come with a 4-core CPU, only one with a TDP of 15W and a single fan, which limits its performance. The integrated GPU is intel Iris, which is half as powerful as the Iris Pro.
The TouchBar models comes with dual-cooling and 28W CPU, which gets much better performance. It also comes with the Iris Pro GPU.
In addition, Apple may continue limiting the non-TouchBar model to only 2 TunderBolt ports.
 
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I'm still on the fence. Trying to squeeze a bit more life from my 2010 MBA 11" (love that computer), I even took my work Mac, a 2013 MPBr 15" home with me for the Summer.

I really just want a medium powered Air, or similar; but the 2018 release was a bit anaemic, underwhelming and quite pricey; making the jump ut to the much more powerful 13" MBP (or even a 15") all too tempting...so I got up on the fence, and the resent MBP bumps wasn't enough to get me down...

I don't mind the butterfly keyboard (had the original MB 12", and didn't have any problems with that), don't need a plethora of ports, touchbar or not doesn't matter (though the Touch ID seems nice).

Oh well. Not that long until September (or October).
 
ghanwani said:
This is what I was worried about. I just got a 13 TB MBP last Friday, even though I don't like the TB, just because of the silent keyboard.
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LOL. The (edit: new 2016) keyboard (design and its revisions) is one reason I have so far refused to buy an Apple notebook.

A four year warranty on the keyboard is less important to me than its durability and feel.
 
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Zerosopher said:
Please just make the TB optional or simply get rid of it.
Hopefully, Apple will launch MacBook Pro without TB but with Touch ID (like in the MacBook Air 2018).
Click to expand...

The Touch Bar is very useful in apps, I recently brought a 13" MacBook Pro 2019 with the Touch Bar, I've got use to it so much so that when I use 2012 iMac I look down to see where the Touch Bar is and then realise there isn't one.
Apps like Pixelmator Pro work really well with the Touch Bar.

Rather than getting rid of it, I hope Apple bring it to the iMac in the next redesign, obviously on the keyboard.
 
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Dave245 said:
The Touch Bar is very useful in apps, I recently brought a 13" MacBook Pro 2019 with the Touch Bar, I've got use to it so much so that when I use 2012 iMac I look down to see where the Touch Bar is and then realise there isn't one.
Apps like Pixelmator Pro work really well with the Touch Bar.

Rather than getting rid of it, I hope Apple bring it to the iMac in the next redesign, obviously on the keyboard.
Click to expand...

I have to force myself to use the Touch Bar from time to time just so it doesn’t go to waste.
 
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Drop the non TB MB Pro and upgrade the MB Air instead.

Also please make the touch bar much more user configerable and bring it to the iMac keyboard. I find myself reaching for it on my iMac, now that I'm used to it. Sadly too few applications make the most of it.
 
The 2019 13" Pro Touch Bar is still running the 8th gen processor. So no thanks Apple, considering that Canadian prices have gone up considerably AGAIN this year. I'll stick with my 7th gen 13" Pro.

Like a previous comment, Apple HW is now outside of my tax bracket.
 
Dulcimer said:
I still don’t understand what the point of having both the MB and MBA is now, especially since they haven’t updated the former.

The only way to justify it going forward is to treat it as a testbed for Apple’s own processors being used in the fanless MB. Make it an ultra sleek, significantly higher battery life version of the previous gen while at the same time laying down the groundwork for transitioning to full on Catalyst apps and basic x86 emulation. (The people buying this A-series MB aren’t going to be running advanced x86 apps anyway.)
Click to expand...

Yeah, but if you have to to all of that, it might be easier to just make an iOS-based laptop with touch screen and FaceID. Basically, something close to an iPad Pro, but with a permanent keyboard attached. Now that iOS 13 has trackpad/mouse support as an Accessibility feature, a trackpad can be part of it as well. (Heck, bring back the iBook branding to differentiate it from the iPad lineup.)

Not saying they WON'T do an ARM-based Mac, but why muddy the waters on the Mac side with part of the lineup being ARM and part Intel, when they are really close to an iOS laptop with iOS 13.
 
Please don’t kill me if I say that I love the TouchBar.

I understand that Apple in 2019 needs to make more products because the user base is more diverse and blah blah but why do we have a MacBook Air, MacBook 13’ without TouchBar and MacBook 12’? This is confusing even for Apple fans themselves.

The iPad lineup is less of a mess now that the physical size of the device covers all usage scenarios but with the Mac even the screen size is almost the same.
 
aberamati said:
Wrong.
The non-TouchBar MBP will probably come with a 4-core CPU, only one with a TDP of 15W and a single fan, which limits its performance. The integrated GPU is intel Iris, which is half as powerful as the Iris Pro.
The TouchBar models comes with dual-cooling and 28W CPU, which gets much better performance. It also comes with the Iris Pro GPU.
In addition, Apple may continue limiting the non-TouchBar model to only 2 TunderBolt ports.
Click to expand...

Didn't know the double fan situation. But in that case it would just be a better Macbook Air? Or I guess does have even lower TDP Cpus..
 
I want a "basic" 15" Macbook! Last gen Macbook Pros had an non dGPU option in the 15" models, I wish we could get something like that again. Or basically, the Macbook Air but with a 15" screen should be awesome.
 
BuddyTronic said:
I think it will be an Apple processor
Click to expand...

I doubt that but who knows. If it was an Apple Processor they would have announced it in WWDC. Because it needs developer support for Apps to work.

MacBook Air Retina will likely get Lakefield, that is 1 Core Icelake + 4 Core Atom and Gen11 Graphics. The designed TDP fits the current MBAR usage.

The MacBook Pro Escape could get a Dual Core Icelake upgrade. Which is strange in my view because it means you get better single thread performance and much improved Graphics than Touch Bar.
 
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Dave245 said:
The Touch Bar is very useful in apps, I recently brought a 13" MacBook Pro 2019 with the Touch Bar, I've got use to it so much so that when I use 2012 iMac I look down to see where the Touch Bar is and then realise there isn't one.
Apps like Pixelmator Pro work really well with the Touch Bar.

Rather than getting rid of it, I hope Apple bring it to the iMac in the next redesign, obviously on the keyboard.
Click to expand...

That's fine. But for many of us it is not useful, at least not better than the already existing, much more reachable keyboard shortcuts. Apple should just push out an app for the iPad emulating touchbar (or actually letting devs use it similar to the tb).
 
Coconut Bean said:
That's fine. But for many of us it is not useful, at least not better than the already existing, much more reachable keyboard shortcuts. Apple should just push out an app for the iPad emulating touchbar (or actually letting devs use it similar to the tb).
Click to expand...

Many people on here will agree with you, however in the general world I’m not so sure. It will be interesting to see what Apple do in the next generation MacBook Pro.

Personally I hope they don’t remove it, but build on it, maybe add haptics to it? Or expand it into the keyboard itself?
 
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