Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MacBook Pro 2011 predictions
- Thread starter shyam09
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
All this talk about completely using SSD instead of HDD seems like a lot of wishful thinking. A 512 GB SSD cost an arm and a leg. The massive internal space freed by removing the Optical Drive should be used to house a 2nd HDD. 1TB HDD is incredibly cheap these days, and if folks want speed, have a dual 1TB HDD in RAID 0.
SSD would speed up boot up time: how many times you boot up in a year?
SSD would speed up app opening: for what, 10 second speed advantage?
SSD would half my power consumption. Really?
This dual HDD config would significantly add to the speed of your operations. Not to mention you could have the option to upgrade to dual 2TB for a 4TB/RAID 0 HDD in 13" package. That's a dream within reach I say. The Air has portability & SSD. The Pro should have storage muscle & longer battery life. Remove that Optical!
If you have to have SSD, you should look at VAIO Z which houses a quad RAID 0 SSD with an option up to 512GB! It also has 1GB VRAM, and BluRay in a tiny 13" package. Sony probably adds USB 3.0 in their VAIOs next year. The Z is starting to look enticing for those frustrated by Apple.
SSD would speed up boot up time: how many times you boot up in a year?
SSD would speed up app opening: for what, 10 second speed advantage?
SSD would half my power consumption. Really?
This dual HDD config would significantly add to the speed of your operations. Not to mention you could have the option to upgrade to dual 2TB for a 4TB/RAID 0 HDD in 13" package. That's a dream within reach I say. The Air has portability & SSD. The Pro should have storage muscle & longer battery life. Remove that Optical!
If you have to have SSD, you should look at VAIO Z which houses a quad RAID 0 SSD with an option up to 512GB! It also has 1GB VRAM, and BluRay in a tiny 13" package. Sony probably adds USB 3.0 in their VAIOs next year. The Z is starting to look enticing for those frustrated by Apple.
Quite honestly, every single one of your predictions will be wrong. There are software and hardware limitations that will prevent each of these from being realized in the next MBP. SSD will not be standard. We will not see a new chassis, and it certainly won't get any thinner. We will not see IPS retina display on notebooks. We will not see quad core MBP. We will not see 30 day sleep, or inbuilt cellular connectivity. I could go point by point and explain why, but I really don't feel like typing that much.
Last edited:
you do not mention other advantages of the ssd. and a normal user does NOT need a 2 TB hdd.
I agree with you.
But this is Apple we are talking about. Sometimes they come up with stuff so far ahead of its time, it seems like a trendy gimmick. When MBA came out, there were so many things on it that seemed too progressive, or just plain weird in the name of being "thin". When Apple TV came out, it sounded like a good idea too far ahead of its time and that it wouldn't sell.
But MBA and Apple TV came through, and the buying public came around to where Apple was.
However, that being said, sometimes they come up with progressive stuff and it never catches on like the Cube. Also the cool look of Leopard may have been nice, but I don't really like how it works in practical applications. I can't easily see what's open. Also the new trackpad, small and all, is not that comfortable to use. We will see how this works out. I don't like the new nano, but time will tell.
If Apple came out with one or more things on the list, I would not be surprised.
+1, This is a prediction thread not a wish list. We might see small refinements to the chassi but that's pretty much it.
retina would be a huge nono due to resolution and useless.
When SJ first came back to Apple, I learned to expect a lot from Apple, but I always have expected a lot.
These days, with so much riding on iTunes (Beatles get onto the site which was a long and litigious undertaking), iPod, Apple TV, iPad, and iPhone, I don't expect Apple to focus as much on their computers as much.
So what if they incrementally improve their computers without any radical changes in industrial design? Was the unibody really that necessary?
If the MBA gets thinner and somehow crams more stuff in, and the Macbook and MBP go on diets and still retain an optical drive and are similar to bleeding edge Sonys, then fine. I really don't care if the laptop is medium thick, as long as it's lightweight and gets good battery times.
In the past, some ultralight Sonys and Fujitsus were so thin, yet still had a superdrive or combo drive, but sacrificed battery time and you had to carry the AC adapter. Why not make the body a little bit bigger and accommodate a better, longer lasting battery so you don't have to carry the adapter. The weight will be the same with super slim body and adapter anyway. And also what does having a sharp tapered edge on the laptop add?
There will be a lot of people watching for a new design for the shell of their laptops in 2011 but I would rather prefer better stuff on the inside. Touchscreen would be a plus, and even though other makers have it, a Mac laptop with a touchscreen will get the attention and probably sell better than any single line of touchscreen from any maker on its release.
These days, with so much riding on iTunes (Beatles get onto the site which was a long and litigious undertaking), iPod, Apple TV, iPad, and iPhone, I don't expect Apple to focus as much on their computers as much.
So what if they incrementally improve their computers without any radical changes in industrial design? Was the unibody really that necessary?
If the MBA gets thinner and somehow crams more stuff in, and the Macbook and MBP go on diets and still retain an optical drive and are similar to bleeding edge Sonys, then fine. I really don't care if the laptop is medium thick, as long as it's lightweight and gets good battery times.
In the past, some ultralight Sonys and Fujitsus were so thin, yet still had a superdrive or combo drive, but sacrificed battery time and you had to carry the AC adapter. Why not make the body a little bit bigger and accommodate a better, longer lasting battery so you don't have to carry the adapter. The weight will be the same with super slim body and adapter anyway. And also what does having a sharp tapered edge on the laptop add?
There will be a lot of people watching for a new design for the shell of their laptops in 2011 but I would rather prefer better stuff on the inside. Touchscreen would be a plus, and even though other makers have it, a Mac laptop with a touchscreen will get the attention and probably sell better than any single line of touchscreen from any maker on its release.
Last edited:
Steve said touch in a laptop works the best via trackpad and I have to agree with him. Touch is completely useless unless every single bit of the OS is designed for it. Currently, OS X is not, thus it would be very hard to operate it via touch. At this point, I can't see Apple making a laptop with touchscreen. It just doesn't work
I agree. Mr. Jobs went out of his way to make sure we knew that he thought a touchscreen on a laptop was awkward and a bad idea when he presented the new Air. They won't be going back on that.
When ppl say they want retina display they don't mean literally 300 dpi they just mean they want an enhanced display. While many probably don't understand how the iPhone screen cannot be replicated and utilized at a MBP size, they are likely asking for something sharper with better color depth and white point than the current hi res screens, but there isn't that much room for imprOvement without sacrificing mainstream comfort level with the smaller print.
That last line is the key. OSX has one crippling deficiency that makes it unusable at very high resolutions - there is no way to increase the size of the system font!!! It's been user adjustable in Windows and Linux for many years. Yet in OSX, you cannot change the system font or make it larger!! A very annoying limitation.
In Windows or Linux, you could use a massive 12,000 x 9,000 pixel display, and scale all the fonts up nice and big so they're easy to read. In OSX, you can't.
Here's hoping that 10.7 Lion finally gives us resolution independence, or at least let us adjust the damn font.
Resolution seems to be a good idea, except when you consider the GPU would have trouble handling 3D at those resolutions, it's kinda pointless to go above 1920x1200.
HDD/SSD, I can see that. RAID-0... eh... maybe what the iMac's have like a SSD/HDD combo. SSD for programs, HDD for storage.
Quad-Core, a real quad-core please.. if possible.
ATi Video card... um... I don't know. But it would be nice.
8GB ram is the new norm. 4 slots instead of 2 is what I would be asking, up to 16GB like the iMac's.
Resolution.. it's pretty good considering what the GPU can handle under 3D conditions.
Optical drive, yes, get rid of that thing.
Better GFX card only if it can handle the heat load and power consumption. Or do a hybrid in which we can use a lower/mid range card under battery conditions and still have a top end under A/C conditions.
SD Card/3G Sim... not gonna comment on that. Though, expresscard 3/4 is a bit more useful if the software/firmware handled external video cards like my Core Duo does (running GT240 512MB GDDR5 under Windows)
SSD Card Stick, probably gonna be a iMac SSD/HDD hybrid.
That's too bad for OS X. I think people are getting used to "new" ideas from Apple. At first I didn't like the iPad and couldn't navigate my way around it. But after a half a dozen tries on that thing, seeing stuff like Pages, and getting used to the virtual keypad, it became a hit with me. The small Apple store has been selling around 80 iPads a day during Christmas season. They come in second only to iPods and iPod accessories at that store.
The salesman told me if I go at it more, I will actually get used to the whole idea of typing on the glass vs. the hard keys I prefer. Then the idea of fooling with OS X and a touchscreen seemed like something I could get used to if it ever came out.
I could also envision a mini OS X on iPad someday, with most of the basic features of the full OS X. I am from the older generation so everything I did in high school and college used a typewriter at most for high technology. When I quipped that people probably don't do their schoolwork on an iPad, the Apple salesman showed me how it could be done. When I said how the iPad is as workable as a similarly priced netbook, he said "exactly". I was able to get "it" then. He further showed me some spreadsheet stuff on the iPad, and in his hands, it looked really easy to use.
One local law school is using the iPad as it's main workstation and it has worked well with the two new buildings that are all wired up for smart devices. Instead of the antiquated law library, there's iPad and all the cases, homework, and research databases on the iPads. Great stuff, really and a good way to maximize the technology. There has been talk of some sort of invention and how it works with the iPad. Lawyers, they think of these things.
Last edited:
Optical drive = gone burgers!
New dual disk- blade 64GB standard, option up to 128GB on 13" and 256GB on 15/17" + HDD 250GB/13", 320GB/15", 500GB/17"
Discrete graphics in all models, (have to to compensate for poor Intel integrated package)
RAM to stay the same
13" and 15" to get screen res bumps; unfortunately STILL no anti-glare for 13"...
Slightly slimmer, lighter form factor.
And that's all folks!
New dual disk- blade 64GB standard, option up to 128GB on 13" and 256GB on 15/17" + HDD 250GB/13", 320GB/15", 500GB/17"
Discrete graphics in all models, (have to to compensate for poor Intel integrated package)
RAM to stay the same
13" and 15" to get screen res bumps; unfortunately STILL no anti-glare for 13"...
Slightly slimmer, lighter form factor.
And that's all folks!
That's too bad for OS X. I think people are getting used to "new" ideas from Apple. At first I didn't like the iPad and couldn't navigate my way around it. But after a half a dozen tries on that thing, seeing stuff like Pages, and getting used to the virtual keypad, it became a hit with me. The small Apple store has been selling around 80 iPads a day during Christmas season. They come in second only to iPods and iPod accessories at that store.
The salesman told me if I go at it more, I will actually get used to the whole idea of typing on the glass vs. the hard keys I prefer. Then the idea of fooling with OS X and a touchscreen seemed like something I could get used to if it ever came out.
I could also envision a mini OS X on iPad someday, with most of the basic features of the full OS X. I am from the older generation so everything I did in high school and college used a typewriter at most for high technology. When I quipped that people probably don't do their schoolwork on an iPad, the Apple salesman showed me how it could be done. When I said how the iPad is as workable as a similarly priced netbook, he said "exactly". I was able to get "it" then. He further showed me some spreadsheet stuff on the iPad, and in his hands, it looked really easy to use.
One local law school is using the iPad as it's main workstation and it has worked well with the two new buildings that are all wired up for smart devices. Instead of the antiquated law library, there's iPad and all the cases, homework, and research databases on the iPads. Great stuff, really and a good way to maximize the technology. There has been talk of some sort of invention and how it works with the iPad. Lawyers, they think of these things.
sorry for this harsh reply, but you simply do not have the slightest idea.
the iPad is NOT equivalent to a netbook. it is very funny that you quote a salesman to make your point. what should he say? that typing on glas is crap because you lose the pressure point and the feedback? that for the price of an iPad you could get a notebook (!) with i3 and 9 hours battery time?
also, even if all your arguments were correct (and they aren't) you still do not make your point. the iPad is (like Steve gracefully said in the keynote) a PAD. it gets really uncomfortable to use touch gestures on a vertical area if you intend to use the device longer than just 30 minutes.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; nb-no) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)
Dude.
Why the hell would apple make it like the MacBook air. Think please. If they did is there a reason for the air to exist? I mean. Really did you think before making such a statement? The premium of the air is lightweight and portability. I'f they make the pro same as the air with just beefier specs. Who the f would buy a air.
And please stop talking about retina displays like its a thing.
WardC said:
Dude.
Why the hell would apple make it like the MacBook air. Think please. If they did is there a reason for the air to exist? I mean. Really did you think before making such a statement? The premium of the air is lightweight and portability. I'f they make the pro same as the air with just beefier specs. Who the f would buy a air.
And please stop talking about retina displays like its a thing.
Predictions and Wishlists
I've been reading this thread for quite a while, and i made up my mind by joining some of my ideas with some of your thoughts:
My Prediction (based on facts):
13":
-No Optical Drive (Apple is moving that direction)
-Still No Discrete Graphic Card
-1440x900
-New Sandy Bridge Processor, which one is difficult to predict...all i5 are 35W anda few LV at 18W and Apple always used 25W processor in their 13" so the only processor available is the LV i7 (i think an LV i7 is too expensive, a crazy option would be using a LV i5 + AMD discrete graphic but this is science fiction...)
-RAM stays 4GB standard with 8GB options a bit cheaper
-Hard Disk, this is the most complicated prediction, SJ said the macbook air would have showed the way towards all laptops will go...assuming this is true i would say SSD ONLY
15"-17":
-No optical Drive in at least 2 15" models
-Discrete Nvidia Graphic 435M seems in line with old predictions
-core i5 in 2 models and i7 in the most expensive model
-Hard Disk, Here they will offer SSD+HDD (SSD+HDD won't be in the 13" model, that would make it too much a "pro" model and woud drop the battery time)
ALL MODELS will be thinner (not as thin as MAC AIR but thinner) due to the lack of ODD, so expect better battery life.
My wishlist:
Discrete Graphic in 13", but will not happen...
Hope the drop Nvidia and give us AMD dicrete graphic cards
Other Thoughts:
No retina displays or such (no Graphic card could support it and fonts are tiny)
No DUAL HDD RAID things....too power hungry (Apple always focused on battery time)
When will this happen?
I hoped February or April, since it's always been a 6-10 months wait between refreshes...LION comes in june so everything points that way...still to me it seems too long of a wait...
I've been reading this thread for quite a while, and i made up my mind by joining some of my ideas with some of your thoughts:
My Prediction (based on facts):
13":
-No Optical Drive (Apple is moving that direction)
-Still No Discrete Graphic Card
-1440x900
-New Sandy Bridge Processor, which one is difficult to predict...all i5 are 35W anda few LV at 18W and Apple always used 25W processor in their 13" so the only processor available is the LV i7 (i think an LV i7 is too expensive, a crazy option would be using a LV i5 + AMD discrete graphic but this is science fiction...)
-RAM stays 4GB standard with 8GB options a bit cheaper
-Hard Disk, this is the most complicated prediction, SJ said the macbook air would have showed the way towards all laptops will go...assuming this is true i would say SSD ONLY
15"-17":
-No optical Drive in at least 2 15" models
-Discrete Nvidia Graphic 435M seems in line with old predictions
-core i5 in 2 models and i7 in the most expensive model
-Hard Disk, Here they will offer SSD+HDD (SSD+HDD won't be in the 13" model, that would make it too much a "pro" model and woud drop the battery time)
ALL MODELS will be thinner (not as thin as MAC AIR but thinner) due to the lack of ODD, so expect better battery life.
My wishlist:
Discrete Graphic in 13", but will not happen...
Hope the drop Nvidia and give us AMD dicrete graphic cards
Other Thoughts:
No retina displays or such (no Graphic card could support it and fonts are tiny)
No DUAL HDD RAID things....too power hungry (Apple always focused on battery time)
When will this happen?
I hoped February or April, since it's always been a 6-10 months wait between refreshes...LION comes in june so everything points that way...still to me it seems too long of a wait...
Last edited:
I really do think it would make sense for all the pro models to have a discrete graphics card. Remove the optical drive and it is possible.
And to compensate for battery consumption they can still use the awful intel integrated graphics for SB. I don't think it would matter all that much seeing as new mac models can seamlessly switch between the discrete and integrated graphics without logging in and out. Even the integrated graphics offered by intel is sufficient for normal everyday tasks.
But then again, who knows? I am aware that apple is working to use Open GL as a means to take the load off the processors and improve performance, but I still think it is there best option.
And to compensate for battery consumption they can still use the awful intel integrated graphics for SB. I don't think it would matter all that much seeing as new mac models can seamlessly switch between the discrete and integrated graphics without logging in and out. Even the integrated graphics offered by intel is sufficient for normal everyday tasks.
But then again, who knows? I am aware that apple is working to use Open GL as a means to take the load off the processors and improve performance, but I still think it is there best option.
35W CPU isn't an issue since the IGP is included in that TDP. It would be similar to the current TDPs (25W CPU + ~12W IGP/chipset)
I doubt MBP will lose optical drives anytime soon. Why not just get MBA then...
MBP is for pro users and they do typical more things than average users. MBA is for people who carry their laptops more frequently. MBP is for people who use it with more extensive applications than average users.
Optical Drive may or may not go away, but personally, I hope it goes away.
There is no way in hell apple will put 512GB SSD on MBP without charging an arm for it. So, don't dream. Apple will most likely offer HDD+ SSD combo for across all MBP models. i5 and i7 will still be exclusive to MBP 15/17 models. Apple will most likely offer i3 on 13 MBP.
MBP is for pro users and they do typical more things than average users. MBA is for people who carry their laptops more frequently. MBP is for people who use it with more extensive applications than average users.
Optical Drive may or may not go away, but personally, I hope it goes away.
There is no way in hell apple will put 512GB SSD on MBP without charging an arm for it. So, don't dream. Apple will most likely offer HDD+ SSD combo for across all MBP models. i5 and i7 will still be exclusive to MBP 15/17 models. Apple will most likely offer i3 on 13 MBP.
Not the same as an Air, but inspired by. Air always puts portability first; MBPs to be stripped of extraneous features too. Key difference here is that the MBP will REPLACE these features with other things, rather than remove as is the case for the Air.
Removed = Portable/light/thin = MBA
Replaced = Power/features = MBP
Those predictions are not based in any facts what so ever. Like everyone else on here you are just 'wishing' for this but I'm afraid you will be disappointed, Apple are not going to turn the pros into an air which is all it will be. And if the laptops are any thiner then expect less powerful components then they already use because it'll be almost the thinnest laptop on the market yet you all are still going to expect i5's and i7's and discrete graphics
and people think they are hot now??!!About 90% of people in this thread are playing on Steve Jobs words and 'hoping' the odd gets ditched. It won't. And as for 'retina', their is no such thing with computers, no other screen calls itself a fancy name so why would Apple? They only invented retina for the market and sales pitch, something people could relate to. And the higher the screen resolution the less chance the computer has of playing any games at that resolution.
I don't know why I even bother to post in here, it's like every other MacBook Pro prediction thread from the last 2 years, half the people have only joined in the last two months and the majority of the predictions are BS, just like all the other threads and when the refresh is launched it's all like 'told you so' because Apple unsurprisingly didn't do any of the said predictions.
I suppose next year we can look forward to newbies predicting quantum computing.......