New MacBook Pro and 13-Inch 'MacBook' Coming Next Week, iMac and Display Not Ready Yet

[MacHiavelli]

I mentioned many pages ago that Apple may do what AMD will be doing in their upcoming Zen server processors which they implant an ARM processor within their server processor to encrypt data on the fly and decrypt when needed.

Yes. And when Apple has got powerful A10 chips (and faster in its labs) available and it is clearly pushing ARM as the future for its product line, why would it waste resources developing Intel Macs? Intel is the past. ARM is now fast enough for most people's needs. Steve said Apple needed to own the silicon to make great products. ARM is the silicon Steve was talking about.

 

[shaunp]

With notebooks, size is important. Also, other OEMs have managed to cram chicklet-style keyboards into devices as thin, but have needed to make other compromises (such as a smaller battery or a lower resolution screen). Notebooks are about balancing trade-offs.

I get that on a product where portability is key - i.e. the MacBook Air- but on a desktop replacement, it's the portability that should be compromised over usability. You don't want to have to work on something for 8 hours a day and it be utterly useless. Other manufacturers manage just fine at producing very usable keyboards (Lenovo) because they don't make their laptops too thin. They are the same weight as the rMBP just not quite as thin. This thin gimmick can actually be taken to far and I feel Apple have done that and now they have started producing products where style wins over usability.

 

[0388631]

Yes. And when Apple has got powerful A10 chips (and faster in its labs) available and it is clearly pushing ARM as the future for its product line, why would it waste resources developing Intel Macs? Intel is the past. ARM is now fast enough for most people's needs. Steve said Apple needed to own the silicon to make great products. ARM is the silicon Steve was talking about.

Also explained this several pages ago. Apple can do it, of course. They can recompile and tune their OS. But you'll need to get software companies to adopt. From big time players to the small ones. It isn't as simple as recompiling portable code. Many software isn't written strictly with one language. You also face obstacles of how an ARM processor handles chunked data. Only so much each time, in an even stream. You then deal with the development or licensing of instruction code. You also have issues with people who need to set up VMs. Even if you installed VM software, you couldn't run an old version of OSX, Windows and the majority of Linux distros. You could only run Windows RT, if that's still a thing, and a couple Linux distros compiled with ARM in mind. Sure, Apple can dump Intel and go down the rabbit's hold of optimizing and convincing the big software players to dump macOS/OSX development and restart on ARM, which costs them a lot of money, or they can say no and work on Linux and Windows. And then, like in the past, Mac customers who're annoyed and of the professional variety will move onto Linux systems powered by Fedora and used in a professional setting or Windows in the same setting.

The point of ARM was to provide a processor that could be used in very small form factors and not need constant active cooling, to use very little energy and not get very hot as a result. There's been synthetic tests with Apple's ARM processors and others and they've gotten close to a very low spec i3 on the old Sandy Bridge platform. Even if you got the entire market to develop on ARM, you'd have to ramp up the power and speed of that ARM processor to keep up with what's thrown at it.

 

[KJL3000]

I really hope that SSD is removable or the 2TB option is not another $1000 ...

 

[asoksevil]

I don't care on politics, as FYI (educate yourself) Taiwanese are people born in the Republic of China, as people born in Beijing are from People's Republic of China, as Argentinian Mexican Spanish and others are tagged Hispanic, for instance there are Taiwanese Chinese , PRC Chinese , Hong Kong Chinese and so on , most or all of them speak Mandarin, and and actually neither are Chinese since China isn't the actual name they give to their territory, China its an historic error the actual name is Zhōngguó (middle land or middle state as you like), China comes from Portuguese charts and believed to be a Persian word "chin" but not the actual name of the territory we use to name China.


A bit of Wikipedia won't hurt.


I'm pretty sure Mr. Ming it's a proud Chinese (Taiwanese Chinese).


The political situation where Taiwan (ROC) self defines as independent territory (I think their have total right on that) and continental/mainland China (PRC) and other states (mostly due fear to RPC) names it as a Rouge Chinese province, this is nothing I care about as they do what we like they do: great gadgets for us.

Well, a little bit of modesty from your side won't hurt either. China is the informal name of People''s Republic of China as Taiwan is the informal name of Republic of China just as Spain is the informal name of Kingdom of Spain. So by just saying "China" you are implying PRC (especially when you said located in China in geographic terms) not ROC.

I don’t consider myself an erudite nor expert in Chinese or Taiwanese history but having a Spanish, Chinese and Taiwanese background (family and education) should definitely help.

We weren't talking about ethnicity whatsoever but now that you are bringing all that let me make some remarks about Taiwan for those who aren't knowledgeable about it.

- The ROC is a foreign government (Chinese) not one elected nor decided by the Taiwanese, which is why there's a blue side (pro-uninifcation) and green side (pro-independece).

- When Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan (after the Chinese Civil War in 1949) he brought around 1.5-2M Chinese who nowadays are about 10% of Taiwan's 23.5 M population. Hakka or Hokkien are about 90% and the other 2% being Taiwanese aboriginals.

I think it’s shortsighted to assume that Mr. Ming-Chi Kuo is of Han descent by calling him a proud Taiwanese Chinese… and if we are going by ethnicity, perhaps all Americans should start calling themselves Irish American, English American, Russian American because there’s no such thing as “white american race”?

Recent polls suggest that 90% consider themselves to be Taiwanese and not Chinese when given these two only two options. That is because being Taiwanese is not just about ethnicity, like the US, but culture, values and upbringing.

Source: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2015/02/05/2003610873

So, why don’t we just stop with all these nonsense and we refer them as what they want to be called? KGI Securities is a firm based in Taiwan and Ming-Chi Kuo is an analyst covering the Consumer Electronics Market (3C).

 

[0388631]

I think a lot of people aren't aware that ARM is nothing new and it's used in a lot of stuff, not just phones. Microsoft has been using ARM code for specific industries in their embedded lineup. The fall of Intel and AMD was heard in the late 90s, the mid 2000s, in 2011 and even these last few years. I wish it were as simple and feeding your x86/x86-64 based software written in a variety of languages and compiled into an ARM translator and get a perfect working piece of software.

Pretty sure there was a sweet rivalry between ARM and SuperH in the mid 90s, too. I remember attending this huge show that brought in minor leaguers and the big boys. They brought in all their toys and there was a lot of heated discussion. I got some pretty cool posters from Xerox.

 

[Erasmus]

When Apple began their transition from PPC to Intel processors, they completed the transition in about a year, year and half max. If they do shift Macs to their own custom ARM processors, I expect the transition time to be about the same.

Apple COULD transfer to ARM across the range very quickly. But they would be insane to do it. Moving to Intel allowed Macs to run Windows, which was used as a selling point. People would buy it, knowing that if they hated OSX they could still use Windows, but after trying OSX, realised it was far better than Windows and kept using OSX. Intel also brought more powerful, and power efficient processors.

If Apple put ARM processors in their high power computers now, they would take a massive performance hit. Also, they would lose customers who need to use Windows, and piss off all the companies that make software for Macs, because it would all have to be rewritten.

 

[tentales]

I don't get all the teeth gnashing. (your story & needs deleted). I suppose I'll get criticized for being all positive, but I'm still a happy Apple camper.

So basically, you don't want to understand other peoples' needs and requirements but you're asking them to understand yours ?

FWIW, I also own a 2014 MacMini refurb and am generally happy with it, albeit, I've regretted selling my quad-i7 2012 MacMini.

The reason for the teeth gnashing is multifold, but do you not get the general trend that Apple has pivoted away from focusing on computers and focusing only on the iPhone ? As a result, many of us that have been Apple loyalists since long before you joined in 2011, are justifiable pissed at the direction their computer division has taken in recent years.

 

[Erasmus]

I dont think that is there fault that performance has been at a slow increase. I mean, it not like their engineers aren't doing their part. It must be pretty difficult to try and meet the demand of those wanting a chip that is high performance while still keeping a low TDP. If it were that easy to just make CPU's just like that, then more companies would have been considered by apple i assume. But its a bit silly to think that Intel should have made a CPU like that for consumers.

It's not an issue of the engineers, it's an issue with the marketers and economists. Intel have almost no real competition at the moment, so they are under no pressure to push for real performance. Which is also why Apple isn't considering changing to anyone else. AMD really needs to hit a winner with Zen.

The previous poster seems to be pretty on point about how we have hit a performance wall.

We have hit a performance wall for single-core performance. Which is why we need more cores.

Now if you want to mention that we do have 8 core CPUs and such, just remember they are in a much higher TDP range, and clearly aren't made for mobile devices.

TDP scales heavily with clock speed. I'm sure a 2.0-2.5 GHz 8-core would be a perfectly reasonable TDP. It would still be 60-80% faster than the quads we have now.

 

[felixswensson]

Any idea what kind of graphics cards we can expect on the MBP?

 

[Santabean2000]

... The reason for the teeth gnashing is multifold, but do you not get the general trend that Apple has pivoted away from focusing on computers and focusing only on the iPhone ? As a result, many of us that have been Apple loyalists since long before you joined in 2011, are justifiable pissed at the direction their computer division has taken in recent years.

Exactly. Whilst Apple has grown, their Mac division seems to have been plundered or decimated. Either way, the Mac world has been sadly neglected - much to the long term detriment of the company.

I just don't get it.

 

[iLLUMI]

Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Is it Thursday yet?
Is it Thursday yet???????

Oh maaaaaaannnn!!!!!! The wait, the suspense. Why is timing going by so slowly all of a sudden??

Now I know how Eric Cartman felt when he was waiting for the Nintendo Wii to arrive.
Quick, somebody freeze me then thaw me out on Thursday.

I have a 2012 13" MacBook Air that I want to upgrade.... give me new colors, higher specs, higher screen res ... I might even go for the Pro with OLED strip. I'm craving a new technology experience.

 

[tech4all]

If you're accessing both the SSD and the HDD at once, e.g. any time you're loading user data while the OS is doing anything that requires disk I/O, it's going to be faster. And the user data doesn't really need quick access anyway. You're ensuring that the OS always has the full SSD bandwidth and IOPS available to it so that your system is always responsive. But yes, the Fusion drive is more practical for typical users*.

* Separate OS and user data is more practical for me or anyone else who might be switching OSs or managing backups.
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Sorry, there's no way I'm going back to dealing with Linux or whatever. My time is worth something, as is everyone else's.

I don't have much experience with Linux, but in regards to Windows (which I assume you meant by "whatever"), I've never had to "deal with Windows" in a way that it would take up too much of my time on a regular basis. Personally I like the openness of Windows especially when you build your own system. That's certainly not for everybody, but it's still nice to have options.

 

[AdonisSMU]

Um, they were working on a redesign? Why update the laptops and announce a redesign 2 months later? Makes no sense. People REALLY need to start thinking.

Most people don't know what they are talking about. They parroted what someone else said.

 

[Ardmanz]

Any idea what kind of graphics cards we can expect on the MBP?

I wondering this as well. For me its 1050 (or equivalent) or bust.

 

[otternonsense]

I wondering this as well. For me its 1050 (or equivalent) or bust.

Then probably it will be bust. I'm afraid Tim & co will ditch all Mac models with iGPUs as the only option.

 

[dylin]

It's not an issue of the engineers, it's an issue with the marketers and economists. Intel have almost no real competition at the moment, so they are under no pressure to push for real performance. Which is also why Apple isn't considering changing to anyone else. AMD really needs to hit a winner with Zen.


We have hit a performance wall for single-core performance. Which is why we need more cores.


TDP scales heavily with clock speed. I'm sure a 2.0-2.5 GHz 8-core would be a perfectly reasonable TDP. It would still be 60-80% faster than the quads we have now.

And I'm not sure how we know intel is under no pressure but, I guess AMD doesn't feel like a threat for the high end market.

Still not sure how the cooling would be with that. Not arguing that the multi core support wouldn't be benefitted, but I'm sure there is good reason intel or AMD hasn't tried to do that yet.

2.0ghz 8-core seems unlikely in a 45watt TDP. I would love to see that happen, but the thermal build up and the needed heat dissipation would definitely need a much larger heat sink.

It's just weird how many people think they know exactly how the heat process works in these chips and how the speed of the chips can easily be adjusted to incorporate multi core chips.

Even with intel dominating the more powerful end of processors, sure that even their engineering team hasn't considered trying for more cores in mobile platforms.

If they had to weigh things out on performance, I'm thinking Apple might value the single core market for where most of the apps go. Word documenting programs and such don't really need that power, and not to say that video editing and 3D rendering isn't done on macboook pros, maybe Apple doesn't want those to be taken away from their Mac Pro.

Honestly this is all just speculation, and I'm sure Apple and intel have a very skilled research and development team, creating charts and graphs that better understand the market.

 

[Ardmanz]

Then probably it will be bust. I'm afraid Tim & co will ditch all Mac models with iGPUs as the only option.

I can't see it happening. It'll be the same as it is now. Top spec 15" rmbp will have a dgpu (that's the one I'm interested in). I think it would be silly to ditch it when the competition all have dgpus at the same price point.

 

[deadlystriker]

Tim,

Please update the Mac Pro.

Thanks

 

[robeddie]

I really hope that SSD is removable or the 2TB option is not another $1000 ...

Good luck with that. One of the primary 'features' of Apples computers these days is overpriced storage that can't be upgraded by the user.

 

[bobob]

I really hope that SSD is removable

I'm pretty sure I saw an "Eject SSD" key on the new OLED control strip.

 

[robeddie]

Apple COULD transfer to ARM across the range very quickly. But they would be insane to do it. Moving to Intel allowed Macs to run Windows, which was used as a selling point. People would buy it, knowing that if they hated OSX they could still use Windows, but after trying OSX, realised it was far better than Windows and kept using OSX. Intel also brought more powerful, and power efficient processors.

If Apple put ARM processors in their high power computers now, they would take a massive performance hit. Also, they would lose customers who need to use Windows, and piss off all the companies that make software for Macs, because it would all have to be rewritten.

You also need to consider the developers who would likely flee if Apple went to ARM.

Some people seem to think it would be like the iphone. It won't be. The iPhone was the new "IT" platform which grew incredibly for it's first 7 years of existence, and which has 50 times the number of users as macs. The Mac market at this point in the world of 'computers' (phones included) is small, and will likely continue to shrink. I think many developers won't bother at this point.

So what you will have is a situation like Macs in the mid/late 1990's - sitting on their lonely little island with little major software players on board.

 

[mgauss77]

What about the Mac mini?

There is no real reason the mini could not grow and become much more powerful, a poor man's MacPro.

 

[Farmerp2005]

Well with a 2 hour timeslot, it sounds like the changes could be pretty radical, or (probably gonna get shot down for this thought), are they gonna split the time to 1 hour on the Macs, and another on their Alexa equivalent speaker thing thats been rumoured for so long?
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There is no real reason the mini could not grow and become much more powerful, a poor man's MacPro.

None at all. I have always thought the Mini could be a major earner for Apple. It's still gotta be cheaper for them to manufacture compared to the iMac, and yet the potential is huge.

 

[kattskrall]

Going ARM processors would make no sense at all, that won't happen...