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Not sold on "MacBook Ultra"

DHagan4755

DHagan4755

macrumors 68020
Original poster
There's been quite a bit of chatter about a "MacBook Ultra." This is supposedly the MacBook line with a tandem OLED display with touch support, a thinner enclosure, possibly a cellular option, etc. My problem has been why would Apple clutter the line with yet another even more elite tier of MacBooks? This "ultra" may be what Apple internally calls it because of all of the improvements, but in my opinion, it's just going go to be another MacBook Pro that replaces the existing models over time. My look at it is similar to when retina displays came out back in 2012. You had the 2 body styles; the thicker non-retina update model, and the thinner retina model. Same product line. That's probably what's going to happen this time, too.
 
Is the name really the important part? If and when Apple releases a higher-end laptop what I'm interested in are the tech specs and the price. I couldn't care less about whether they call it MacBook Pro or MacBook Ultra.
 
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The Retina parallel only holds if you assume everyone eventually wants the new tech. The 2012 jump was non-controversial — nobody was going to pick a lower-res display at the same price. Touch + OLED is a workflow decision, not just a spec bump. Plenty of pros don't want to be reaching across the screen all day, and Apple's never been shy about keeping forked lines for diverging use cases (iPad Pro vs iPad Air).

If they actually drop an M-series Ultra chip in a laptop too, the gulf gets wider than retina vs non-retina ever was. Wouldn't shock me if it stays its own tier for years.
 
I’m no expert, but I feel like a new line of MacBooks would allow Apple to price them higher for the premium features. I could see many folks unhappy if they included OLED and touchscreen to existing MacBooks then raise the price on those.

Personally, I’m in the market for a new Pro to replace my 2018 model. Those Ultra features don’t really appeal to me. I’m hoping they don’t make some specs (like the 8TB) available only on the Ultra. I’d actually rather they just let us configure a Pro to include what we want, just to state the obvious.
 
I'd love to see something with a higher quality display and more powerful chip options in a thinner-bodied chassis than the Pro has. I'm assuming cellular will come to all of the range (or the Pro at least) once they start to include it in their laptops, but I've no issue with another laptop coming in to the range as it gives everyone more options.
 
It would be awesome if Apple gave the 16 inch ultra a 4k resolution, 3840x2400. that'll give it a ppi of 277. the current MBP aren't far behind at 254 ppi.
 
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The question is how will Apple market the Ultra as a premium over the already premium MacBook Pro? Especially when you consider today’s memory prices. The non-binned version of the M5 Max 16” is already over $4,000. Realistically, it was already outside of the range of most buyers but now it even hits the ceiling of many “prosumers”. I just don’t see much headroom for another even more premium line of laptops… iPhone ultra at least differentiates itself from the iPhone Pro line enough to really be something different. It’s a similar story with Apple Watch Ultra.

This brings up another question which is how will Apple differentiate the MacBook Pro from MacBook Ultra (if the rumor is even true). So far it sounds like the new chassis will come to the regular MacBook Pro along with the OLED display. Maybe that’s where the MacBook Pro line stops and maybe the touch screen functionality is reserved for the Ultra… but is that really enough? Especially when touch in MacOS is supposed to be more of a convenience option than a big feature. We certainly won’t be getting Apple Pencil support. Performance wise, I highly doubt there’s enough thermal headroom to put the M5 Ultra in a MacBook chassis especially if the chassis is expected to get slimmer. That being said, maybe the next generation Ultra chips will be designed differently so perhaps there is a way for Apple to offer a few more CPU/GPU cores within a MacBook chassis.

It will definitely be interesting to see what they come out with. I’ll be waiting for the M7 Mac version regardless.
 
terminator-jq said:
The question is how will Apple market the Ultra as a premium over the already premium MacBook Pro?
Click to expand...
Well, that’s just it. For the foldable phone it makes sense, it’s going to have a completely different & new form factor.

We’ve had several iterations of MacBook pro designs over the last 20 years & on each of those iterations has been improvements to the display.

The tandem OLED is coming, along with improvements including a slightly thinner enclosure are just another iteration in the cyclical innovation of Apple industrial product design. To change naming conventions on the MacBook Pro’s 20th anniversary makes zero sense to me. But what do I know?
 
I'm not sold on them at these prices. I got an M5 Max before the price increase. It felt like fair value for money. Not cheap, mind, not with some of these large capacity integrated memory boxes on the PC side managing to get down to about $4000 or so even with the current supply crisis and general lack of competition in components, but fair. Post price increase? This just isn't competitive. And I have to assume an M7 Max laptop with local LLM-appropriate RAM is going to run $10,000 unless Apple changes course; even a Depression if/when the current AI house of cards comes down will take a long time to filter through on price of memory (if rather less time to have an impact on storage). Let's hope the shift to integrated memory on the PC side gathers pace so that Apple feels more competitive pressure.

As for branding, a name's just a name on some level and a good marketer can get away with just about any name on the right pretext, but given that almost all PC laptops at this point have touchscreens, special branding and a price premium for a touchscreen Apple laptop strikes me as counterproductive.

They've used "Ultra" so far to make a point about something obviously different on capability -- specifically on the watch, where I think the real selling point wasn't so much compute as it is ruggedness, not just Apple's first MIL-grade ruggedized mobile device but still the only time any manufacturer has combined MIL-810, a smart phone and a smartwatch in a single device; and then on the high-end Studios, where this concept of fusing processors together to build not only double the chip but also double the channel to memory was a genuinely innovative way of getting more computing into a smaller box. I'm not sure a me-too feature like a touchscreen would fit that branding.
 
I think Apple fully planned on selling this computer at around 4 grand.. but they didn't anticipate Ai ruining the party.. But it is Apple and they will have NO problem releasing it at a base price of 5 grand.. they just better not plan on selling many of them. But many people will 'want' one I bet.

Apple does displays.. if you know what I mean, and you can be pretty sure it will be an absolutely stunning OLED screen if they do it, just like the iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad Pro screens are.
 
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