MacBook Pro to disappear towards the Air way?

[ratzzo]

So I was thinking, the Pro line has its name due to the increased specs in relation to the rest of the computers. But nowadays, it carries an optical bay drive which isn't used by the vast majority of users. I can't remember when I last used mine. It takes up about a third of the case space, which is pretty big. Secondly, the world of computing is moving towards SSD and eventually HDD will disappear in the interior of machines (only to be used as external backup until SSD GB/$ goes down).

Apple did say the MacBook Airs were the 'next generation macbooks'. I can see a blend from both, and Apple offering external optical disc as an option, removal of HDD and introduction of the SSD in the MBP lineup when the prices go down. Perhaps this will be the next case redesign. We have the technology to slim down computers, and being a laptop, it is only logical that they make it lighter and thinner, like the Air is. Perhaps the current MBPs will become Air, with a larger screen size. I know that if they had sold Airs at 15" I would have bought one instead of my MBP (my MBP being all the good that it is already).

Comments?

 

[Young Spade]

Mmm for what you're suggesting to happen we would have to see some major price drops and technology increases. SSDs are great but there are limitations to them that would edge people towards HDDs. I do agree that as time goes on, Apple computers will be able to get slimmer while still retaining the power inside of them, however you can only fit so much into a tight space.

Yes the Airs have a SSDs but you can also choose to have that in MBPs as well; the CPUs are also underpowered and although they might be great for the average consumer or college student in a "general" field of study, for people looking to do editing or other CPU intensive work, they look toward the Pro to deliver.

 

[204353]

Personally, I hope that the MacBook Pro doesn't lose its SuperDrive, although I know it's likely to happen fairly soon. I use the drive quite a lot because I play games via Boot Camp. I need the drive firstly to install Windows, secondly to install games (I use Steam and Direct2Drive, but I still prefer disks) and finally to play DVDs (I have a lot of TV shows on DVD that I'd hate to be unable to play, e.g. the Friends complete collection).

I just think that in order for a portable computer to be considered 'pro', it needs an optical drive. Optical media will disappear eventually, but I still think it’s a long way off. At least make the drive optional, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, no one knows for sure until Apple unveils the upcoming redesign, whenever that will be.

 

[Macsavvytech]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

Personally, I hope that the MacBook Pro doesn't lose its SuperDrive, although I know it's likely to happen fairly soon. I use the drive quite a lot because I play games via Boot Camp. I need the drive firstly to install Windows, secondly to install games (I use Steam and Direct2Drive, but I still prefer disks) and finally to play DVDs (I have a lot of TV shows on DVD that I'd hate to be unable to play, e.g. the Friends complete collection).

I just think that in order for a portable computer to be considered 'pro', it needs an optical drive. Optical media will disappear eventually, but I still think it’s a long way off. At least make the drive optional, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, no one knows for sure until Apple unveils the upcoming redesign, whenever that will be.

Copy all your films to hard drive? It's not illegal unless you redistribute it. As for games, I personally hate games where you need the disk. A lot of this against losing the disk drive is just worry about what will take it's place. I personally don't believe the consumer is ready for a MBP with out a SuperDrive buy I see it happening soonish and I look forward to it!

 

[204353]

Copy all your films to hard drive? It's not illegal unless you redistribute it. As for games, I personally hate games where you need the disk. A lot of this against losing the disk drive is just worry about what will take it's place. I personally don't believe the consumer is ready for a MBP with out a SuperDrive buy I see it happening soonish and I look forward to it!

I'm considering making image files of all the games that I still have on disk, but ripping all of my TV shows to a hard drive would take a heck of a long time and would be really tedious. I'm just glad that my new MacBook Pro, which should be arriving later this week, still has a SuperDrive and yet is an awesomely-powerful upgrade for me. My current 2007 model is struggling with modern games.

Anyway, I do see the MacBook Pro becoming more Air-like. It's clearly the direction that Apple is taking and it's one that makes sense. I just think they need to keep the Pro more mainstream (with normal hard drive bays, an optical drive for now etc.). All evidence suggests that they're doing that, of course. That's the reason the Air family is separate at the moment.

 

[harcosparky]

As a sometimes working professional, I cannot see a Macbook PRO not having some form of onboard optical drive with burning capability.

I uses the drive on a daily basis ( when I am working ) to provide product to customers on the spot when needed.

It would truly suck to have it taken away and have to rely on an external drive.

I guess I could try to demand that my customers all have high capacity flash drives.

 

[Abstract]

Apple really should keep 2 laptop lines, and neither of them should include a built-in optical drive. However, the MBP should include an external optical drive and be a bit thicker in order to still allow for a proper CPU and GPU to fit.

The second line can be MBAs. There's nothing preventing Apple from expanding to 15" or even 17" MBAs. I don't believe it's breaking any of Apple's goals in having such a laptop line. There are people out there who want a slim and lightweight "portable" laptop, but don't necessarily feel that "portable" has to mean "small screen". A 13" MBA wouldn't be any more portable (IMO) than a 13" MacBook Pro if they were the same weight, even if the 13" MBA is thinner!

 

[aibo82]

I think it would be an awfull mistake to go any thinner with the macbook pro!

We have heat issues already if it was thinner you can forget:

Powerfull cpus
Powerfull graphics

What you be left with is crappy atom based cpus or low powerd ones that are in the ipad!

Totally the wrong direction for power users like film,music and design editors!

The current macbook pro's limitation is the unibody not hardware avalible to them they could go all out on graphics but would melt the thing unless it was thicker!

But we live in a style consious world no one wants a chunky laptop!

 

[aibo82]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)



Copy all your films to hard drive? It's not illegal unless you redistribute it. As for games, I personally hate games where you need the disk. A lot of this against losing the disk drive is just worry about what will take it's place. I personally don't believe the consumer is ready for a MBP with out a SuperDrive buy I see it happening soonish and I look forward to it!

Really? So you dont have a ps3,xbox? They all load from dvd,blueray and revert back to the internal hard disc to load!

 

[Alvi]

I think that they will go back to basics and have a 11" and 13" "MacBook" which will replace the Air, MacBook Pro and white MacBook and a thicker 15" and 17" MacBook Pro for the people that really do some professional work on it. It could have a 256GB SSD and an optional 2TB Drive that would replace the DVD Drive

 

[harcosparky]

Wan't that long ago when I read people posting on here crying because Apple did not include BLU-RAY drives and support in their Notebooks .... and now here we are saying they should do away with optical altogether? LOL

Do we really know what we want at all ? LOL

 

[entatlrg]

Personally, I hope that the MacBook Pro doesn't lose its SuperDrive, although I know it's likely to happen fairly soon. I use the drive quite a lot because I play games via Boot Camp. I need the drive firstly to install Windows, secondly to install games (I use Steam and Direct2Drive, but I still prefer disks) and finally to play DVDs (I have a lot of TV shows on DVD that I'd hate to be unable to play, e.g. the Friends complete collection).

I just think that in order for a portable computer to be considered 'pro', it needs an optical drive. Optical media will disappear eventually, but I still think it’s a long way off. At least make the drive optional, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, no one knows for sure until Apple unveils the upcoming redesign, whenever that will be.

Maybe look at adapting your computer and work habits in the direction they're heading sooner rather that later.

I think the optical drive should disappear asap. Given the choices out there nowadays it's not necessary, there's better, cheaper and easier options than screwing around with cd's and dvd's. I haven't used them for years.

 

[Ca$hflow]

Get rid of the optical drive and sell an optional external thunderbolt superdrive.

 

[mike 2011]

Just out of curiosity, how does one re-install their OS w/o an optical drive?

 

[TenderBranson]

You'd use a usb key dongle with the new os on it.

 

[Gen]

The Macbook will be replaced by the Air. I don't see them continuing to offer the white model, since the Air has most certainly outsold the white Macbook model.

The Macbook Pro will lose the optical drive. However, I think there will be a possibility that the 17" may keep the optical drive.
Apple can increase the performance of their machines greatly by taking out the OD

/my thoughts

 

[thermodynamic]

I think it would be an awfull mistake to go any thinner with the macbook pro!

We have heat issues already if it was thinner you can forget:

Powerfull cpus
Powerfull graphics

What you be left with is crappy atom based cpus or low powerd ones that are in the ipad!

Totally the wrong direction for power users like film,music and design editors!

The current macbook pro's limitation is the unibody not hardware avalible to them they could go all out on graphics but would melt the thing unless it was thicker!

But we live in a style consious world no one wants a chunky laptop!

I'm sure Apple is aware of both mainstream consumers of content... and content creators. We'll still see muscle-power systems.

 

[gnomeisland]

I think/hope the new MBP will be thinner (sadly losing FW and Ethernet) but not as thin or tapered like the MBA. There will be no optical and there will be a MBA style SSD and space for "full size" 9mm 2.5" drive. Which can either be an SSD or spinning platter drive. Perhaps they will even use the hybrid tech in Intel's new controller to combine the two (a 20GB SSD that just caches your OS and most commonly used files from the HDD so it acts as one really fast disk).

It will have Ivy Bridge, USB 3.0, TB (duh), and SDXC-HI. Oh, and I'm guessing .5lbs lighter. If I'm right, I'll probably buy one.

 

[gpat]

Just dump the crappy unibody plastic case:

$999: either 13" Aluminium "MacBook" (inferior hardware compared to Pro, no FireWire, slightly inferior screen, same Pro form factor, like the 2008 ones) or 11.6" Air.
$1199: 13" MacBook Pro. Minimum 7200RPM or hybrid HDD, ExpressCard, option for hi-res/matte/IPS. Or high-end 11.6" Air (128GB SSD)
$1299: Either 15" Aluminium "MacBook" (same hardware as $1199 Pro, crippled connectivity, bigger screen but same resolution, some bottlenecks such as 5400rpm disk or 1 RAM slot, etc) or 13" Air.
$1499: Either 13" high-end Pro or 13" high-end Air.
$1799: Either 15" MacBook Pro or 15" MacBook Air. More power versus more portability.
$2199: Either high-end 15" Pro or high-end 15" Air (512GB SSD)
$2499: 17" MacBook Pro.

Uh, and give the Pros more expandibility. Let me swap the optical disk drive for a second HDD (RAID FTW!), or battery, or a Radeon for the 13"s (Crossfire on 15"? Why not?)
Would you like that?

 

[baypharm]

This issue has been discussed at length since last summer at least. I am an advocate of eliminating the internal optical bay. It would free up a lot of space for a larger battery for example. I just don't see the need for an internal drive anymore. Music CD's are pretty much going the way of VHS tapes. And those of us who use Final Cut Studio for professional applications keep all of the video/audio files on an external raid storage system. Even DVD is going the way of VHS. Face it we have moved ahead technologically to the point where video/audio files are disseminated into cloud platforms or transmitted via satellite link to specific destinations. Seriously, when was the last time you watched a VHS tape or even recorded video using a VHS camcorder? The system is simply outdated. DVD is still being used but is going to be gone very soon.

I like the idea of having an external optical drive available IF your needs dictate the use of one. Just my 3 cents...

 

[BlingBling]

Who knows what they'll do. But I think the majority of users (not us) still use and want an optical drive, but there is a large and growing chorus of people who want to see it gone in favor of improved performance and form factor.

I can't see them putting out a hybrid between the two while keeping the pro and air, although I sure would like one. At some point in the future I'm sure we'll see it disappear on the 13" and maybe 15". The 17" looks like it will always have enough room to accommodate a op drive.

 

[calaverasgrande]

I dont get why folks want Apple to turn the MBP into an air. It's like expecting Toyota to turn the Camry into the Celica or vice versa. The two models serve different market segments. The air is for people that dont want or need all the connectivity and performance that a MBP has and are willing to sacrifice that fro a lighter machine. The MBP is for people that need ethernet, USB, firewire etc.
I use every single inch of my MBP, all the ports etc. I have maxed out the ram and wish it could take more. Heck I wish I had bought the next model up!

 

[apolloa]

Yawn.. is this yet another get rid of the ODD thread based on the populous opinion of a few people in a forum?? Oh it is? I'll go and read the rest of the forum then

 

[onthecouchagain]

I think we'll have a better idea of Apple's direction with the Pro line after we see the 2012 refresh design. Should be exciting.

 

[Hrududu]

Yawn.. is this yet another get rid of the ODD thread based on the populous opinion of a few people in a forum?? Oh it is? I'll go and read the rest of the forum then

Apparently its understood that if you don't use the optical drive that the "vast majority" don't either. Until I see actual research results of actual MacBook & MacBook Pro users proving that MOST don't need it, Its not a fact. Since I don't ever use my iSight camera, I should be able to claim that Apple should get rid of it since "most" people don't use it. See, logic doesn't work that way fellas.