Notebook Refresh to Be Highlight of WWDC, Non-Retina MacBook Pro to Continue?

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

To those complaining about a lack of Retina in the MBA's...

Apple does not care whether these laptops 'could' support a Retina display, because that is not relevant. The distribution of features lends a product line value on paper, and that is why Retina on the Mac is touted as a pro feature. If you want it, you have to pay more to get it. It's also the reason that Retina will make it into their Cinema Display, but not iMac's.

On a practical level, also consider that the USP of the MBA's is their form factor, and not performance. A person buys a MBA because they want the most portability, whereas another will buy a MBP for it's performance. With these two things come trade offs, and that's why the two products exist. Until Apple can combine both into the same product with no compromise, then a paradigm will always exist.

The only major restructuring I can see for the future is that the MBA's will be branded in a similar fashion to the MBP's with no name decal on the screen, and that the cMBP's will be phased out once SSD prices have come down even more so that the capacities can compete better with traditional HDD's. Right now, you have to say that Apple's notebook line-up is the strongest it's ever been.

 

[Lancer]

My money is on the MBP lines merging with the disappearance of DVD and HDD. Retina will be on the top models with a 'normal' LCD on the base models. The MBA will continue as a separate line.

Hey look I'm an analyst

 

[vpro]

love!

An 11" rMBA with an increased display size/reduced bezel and 16GB RAM is my ideal machine. Can't see it here before next year unfortunately.

now we're talking that is a great idea, yeah - reduce that thick ugly bezel drastically please ! the thickest - ugliest bezel in the market of ultra/net-books ever. hah!

 

[soulbot]

Actually, there are two different things.

Not exactly sure what this means... There are three options right now. Glossy cMBP, Antiglare cMBP and Retina. Since I'm always going to be after the least reflective option possible the glossy cMBP was completely disregarded. Then it was a contest between the Antiglare and Retina. The Retina is indeed MUCH more reflective than Apple claims. Period. They [Apple] say, "The Retina display reduces glare up to 75 percent while maintaining incredible color and quality." False. (The 75% bit.)

My point was simply that the only thing that the Retina's have over the cMBP is the screen. No more. And for my needs, the extra pixels don't compensate for the extra glare — when compared to a proper anitligare cMBP. So this wasn't an advantage at all. Remove my expandability and it's even worse.

The matte display would be a welcome addition, and Apple may release a matte retina display in the future.

Yes, it would be welcomed... but we don't know if or when. This is complete speculation. I've got photo editing to do today, this week, next month. How long can I wait for a machine that may never materialize? The Apple waiting game is such a waste of time. If computers are a hobby for someone, great, it won't matter when or if the next "revolutionary" or "magical" item comes to fruition. But working pros can't make their buying decisions based on their own personal wish lists. That's a great way to end up with no computer. Ever.

I'm disappointed at Apple because the new products cannot be upgraded, but there's not much I can do about it.

Sure there is! Buy the upgradeable one today. I get it. It's all about tradeoffs. If the Retina display is more valuable to you than user-upgradeability, so be it. Decision made. I went the other way: the glare involved with the Retina is a bigger cost than the extra pixels afforded. This was a con, not a pro. Not to mention the screen ghosting. So the new glorious screen was actually strike one. The lack of expandability was strike two. I didn't need a strike three. But if I did, it was the price of the Retinas.

 

[pmz]

I'm very much looking forward to the discontinuation of the archaic MacBook Pro, so that the people who are so unbelievably full of it can put up or shut up, and the numbers can show for themselves.

Apple will however have to price the rMBP appropriately.

 

[manu chao]

But if Apple won't drop it, I hope they'll at least equip it with a decent resolution. 1280x800? That's a joke, the year is 2013, not 2007 for christ sakes! How How difficult could it be when even cheapo 11-inchers have 1366x768!?

The displays in the MBA have a higher resolution but a noticeably worse variation as a function of the view angle. For once, stuff looks funky and desaturated when viewed enough from the side. This matters if you want show something to two or more persons. And if you want to any colour (but also contrast, saturation, etc.) critical work you will get uneven results when you don''t maintain always the same viewing angle and even then center will slightly differently from the borders.

 

[vpro]

Kinda..

Apple's notebook line-up is the strongest it's ever been.

It was strongest when the 17"MBP was in the line-up. Other than the retina-display being so overly excited about, there is not much going for the current line of mbps. They are beautiful macbooks but the 17" will always be the ultimate standard in truly pro. Without the 17" in the line-up, these macbooks are just as good as over priced consumer gadgets really.

So Apple, do wise up and start putting all those savings from IOS toys and OSX retina profits to good development use, and bring back the most powerful macbook pro!

Thank you.

 

[pmz]

Not exactly sure what this means... There are three options right now. Glossy cMBP, Antiglare cMBP and Retina. Since I'm always going to be after the least reflective option possible the glossy cMBP was completely disregarded. Then it was a contest between the Antiglare and Retina. The Retina is indeed MUCH more reflective than Apple claims. Period. They [Apple] say, "The Retina display reduces glare up to 75 percent while maintaining incredible color and quality." False. (The 75% bit.)

My point was simply that the only thing that the Retina's have over the cMBP is the screen. No more. And for my needs, the extra pixels don't compensate for the extra glare — when compared to a proper anitligare cMBP. So this wasn't an advantage at all. Remove my expandability and it's even worse.



Yes, it would be welcomed... but we don't know if or when. This is complete speculation. I've got photo editing to do today, this week, next month. How long can I wait for a machine that may never materialize? The Apple waiting game is such a waste of time. If computers are a hobby for someone, great, it won't matter when or if the next "revolutionary" or "magical" item comes to fruition. But working pros can't make their buying decisions based on their own personal wish lists. That's a great way to end up with no computer. Ever.



Sure there is! Buy the upgradeable one today. I get it. It's all about tradeoffs. If the Retina display is more valuable to you than user-upgradeability, so be it. Decision made. I went the other way: the glare involved with the Retina is a bigger cost than the extra pixels afforded. This was a con, not a pro. Not to mention the screen ghosting. So the new glorious screen was actually strike one. The lack of expandability was strike two. I didn't need a strike three. But if I did, it was the price of the Retinas.

WHAT glare? You mean the glare that no one outside of a tech blog has any problem with? I'm so sick of hearing this elitist complaint. It's like, "I can see it...but I don't expect you to."

Can't wait until matte displays are not an option for you anymore, so we can stop hearing about it. You'll either buy something else or finally shut up about it.

 

[manu chao]

That quote is a bit off. And its doubtful Ford even said it. However Ford did seem to operate on those principles, which didn't bode well for his business as competition got stiffer.

The way Steve Jobs quoted it was: "If I had asked my customers, they would have wanted faster horses."

But this was used when new product categories (incl. major variations from a category, eg, the MBA) were introduced. It can hurt Apple if somebody else introduces a new 'product category' (4 to 5" phones, smaller tablets). It refers to something that did not exist (affordable cars when everybody still used horses) before.

 

[gnasher729]

It was strongest when the 17"MBP was in the line-up. Other than the retina-display being so overly excited about, there is not much going for the current line of mbps. They are beautiful macbooks but the 17" will always be the ultimate standard in truly pro. Without the 17" in the line-up, these macbooks are just as good as over priced consumer gadgets really.

It took about nine months until all the remaining 17" MBP were sold off in the UK refurbished store. Nine months for the leftovers. I think the 17" was the computer that everybody wanted, but nobody bought.

 

[Toltepeceno]

They exist. Just because you or your associates don't live in them doesn't make them mythical. Verizon has stopped fiber rollout and has neglected DSL... for a long time now. The infrastructure in the USA is bad in many places.

Not to mention the usa is not the only country out there. Some of us have unstable 1 or 2mb for mucho pesos.

 

[Kebabselector]

I hope they'll at least equip it with a decent resolution. 1280x800? That's a joke, the year is 2013, not 2007 for christ sakes! How How difficult could it be when even cheapo 11-inchers have 1366x768!?

Agreed, even a simple upgrade to match the 13" MBA resolution would be fine. I'm currently using my 2006 13" Macbook, I thought the resolution was a little dated then!

Oh and get rid of the glass

 

[macman34]

You mean Jony Ive? ;-)

lol, you could say that, he's got some cleaning to do that's for sure.

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Exactly, they'd be close in just about everything.

IF they make the 11" retina, then fold the line into each other, I could see it making sense. But I don't see Apple having a rMBA and a rMBP line at the same time.

trust me they'll have both lines.

One is for ultimate portability the other is ultimate (well, at least apple's current definition of ultimate) pro power. Slim and light vs. slim (but not that slim) and light (but not that light), air and pro are going to be their two lines. Retina is an aside, it's just a higher resolution screen, doesn't mean nothing about them converging the two lines. And there's no point to converge the two lines either, an air profile will never be powerful enough for a good cpu and discrete gfx, not until at least 6-7 years from now, and even that is questionable.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

Retina or no Retina is a side issue for me. I currently have an early 2011 15" MBP with hi-res antiglare display. What I really care about is user upgradable Ram and standard side HDD (or SSD). The "classic" MBP offers that. And currently I can install two HDD (or SSD) into my MBP (or current cMBP model) which is great. That's not possible with the rMBP. At OWC I can get an SSD to fit into the rMBP but I can still only install one of them. I like the option to have two. When Apple does discontinue the cMBP then to it'd make sense to have that option for two SSDs in the rMBP. But maybe that's just me. I'm certainly no Johnny Ives.

 

[69650]

They also may just keep the 15" MBP but drop some of the options, like antiglare. It is already the case that there is only one 15" MBP entry in the online store. What they'd like do is drop the options that are selected less often. Frankly the antiglare option is whacked. It pushes a minor (relative to Retina screens) increase in pixels just to get the antiglare property.

Apple should just drop the "Hi-Res" because it is not. The Retina display clearly demonstrates that. Likewise they could just go to the laminated glass like the iMac and MBP Retina displays to far more effectively get rid of the glare.

In short, get rid of the Antiglare as an option. Just get rid of glare period and go to the standard resolution. That will streamline the inventory tracking on the product and give better margins. If they are just keeping it as "one" entry with limited number of BTO variations that is far better.

Whether the 15" cMBP sticks around or not depends just how much folks stopped buying it. If it has be crushed in the squeeze between 13 rMBP and 15 rMBP to dramatically drop volume then they'll cancel it. Otherwise simplifying the BTO is is far more likely.

That is a goofy premise. If Kuo is correct the 13" MBP is still , just like it was before retina varaints arrived, the best selling laptop Apple has. Apple would be on crack to kill off their best selling laptop. That's insane. If you haven't noticed Mac year-over-year growth is down in the crapper now. It would be beyond bozo land to kill off your best selling Mac. The 13" MBP wasn't kept around as a legacy favor to old timers. It was kept around because it is the core foundation of Mac laptop sales. Period.

The luxury of being a high single and low double digit growth phases is over. Doing crazy things with the product line can work in that context ( e.g., kill off best selling iPod for a highly revamped one.). In a shrinking market though that is just an excellent way to shot yourself in the head.

I think Apple will simply do again what they've done in the past:

1. Discontinue the 15" MBP
2. Drop the price of the MBP-R models to replace it
3. Keep the 13" MBP as the entry level MBP

So you would go 13" MBP > 13" MBP-R > 15" MBP-R in order of price.

That's what they did the last time we had a major MBP design change and they kept the plastic 13" model around for a while as the entry level model.

It also gives them a solution for people who still want or need a MBP with old style hard drive and optical drive.

 

[teknikal90]

Hey! News on a Sunday, I rarely see news on a Sunday.

Oh, analyst. Never mind.

kuo's actually the only analyst that should be taken seriously

 

[macman34]

Agreed, even a simple upgrade to match the 13" MBA resolution would be fine. I'm currently using my 2006 13" Macbook, I thought the resolution was a little dated then!

Oh and get rid of the glass

Good luck with that too, ain't happening. Sadly and disappointingly, because the light glossy coating on the airs is close to perfect, the least reflective of any laptop I 've seen, and apple have to saddle it for aesthetic purposes with a glass on the pros. And I can see the point of a glass acting as a touch screen or a hard layer for convertible touchscreen, a la windows, but since apple doesn't do touchscreens on notebooks why the **** is it there? Just to provide more glare. Which is considerably better on the laminated new rmbps but it's still way more reflective than the airs? Had there been a touchscreen there, I 'd say, ok, what can you do, but since there isn't one, so it's a wtf apple?

 

[teknikal90]

I think Apple will simply do again what they've done in the past:

1. Discontinue the 15" MBP
2. Drop the price of the MBP-R models to replace it
3. Keep the 13" MBP as the entry level MBP

So you would go 13" MBP > 13" MBP-R > 15" MBP-R in order of price.

That's what they did the last time we had a major MBP design change and they kept the plastic 13" model around for a while as the entry level model.

It also gives them a solution for people who still want or need a MBP with old style hard drive and optical drive.

doesnt work for music pros who need an optical drive and firewire and have no need for a retina display and whose needs need the quad core processors of the 15 and the larger screen of the 15

Tonnes and tonnes of musicians use the 15" cMBP for Mainstage 2.

 

[Pakaku]

Does that hurt you, NO, plenty of people still want an optical drive and plenty of people still use wired network.

I think it is actually excellent news.

I love my cMBP because I've replaced my optical drive with a second harddrive.

 

[Kebabselector]

doesnt work for music pros who need an optical drive and firewire and have no need for a retina display and whose needs need the quad core processors of the 15 and the larger screen of the 15

Tonnes and tonnes of musicians use the 15" cMBP for Mainstage 2.

Would the Thunderbolt to Firewire converter get around the one issue? (Not ideal I know)

----------

Good luck with that too

I can dream, I'm fairly sure if I get another Macbook it'll be the Air - whatever version is available once the old Macbook finally dies.

 

[69650]

ive worked in data centers for six years and 75% of the server market is simply not true. probably more like 40%, M$'s licensing terms in server products make it prohibitively expensive to deploy their products unless you're an enterprise-level organization.

According to this report from IDC the relative market share is:

20% Linux
45% Microsoft
17% Unix
12% IBM

Source: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23974913

 

[baryon]

Man, laptops are for fast work on the go. If your are photographer you will take your rMBP for a trip, weekend work or something like that. Its not suposed to be a work station for professional users and if you need it for work station, well buy the highest end model and upgrade all components to fit your need.

I'm not too sure about that: laptops are not just for fast work on the go anymore. They have long been worthy replacements for desktop machines. Most people won't own two computers (desktop + laptop), and while companies will provide you with a good work desktop, you'll likely have to do your personal and freelance work on your own computer, which nowadays is pretty likely to be a laptop. I think the MacBook Air suits what you describe: quick edits on the go, but the MacBook Pro should be able to do anything in any volume. It even used to be marketed as "The desktop, without the desk" and I would agree. The only problem with laptops is price, that's about it.

Everybody would like the rMBP to be upgradeable, except for Apple. The rMBP is really an excellent machine, but it is expensive and it gets more and more expensive if you keep adding components to make it future-proof.

If you are a consumer, than you may want a machine that is a delight, although it is expensive. But if you are a professional, then you have to weigh the costs and benefits of it. If you use the laptop for work, you'll have to end up with the more efficient solution, the one that brings the best and fastest results with the lowest cost. And Apple is drifting away from that, as it doesn't allow users to replace parts.

Would you consider going back to a PC? Windows PCs will get retina-like displays in the near future, after the release of Haswell.

BTW, loved your signature.

Haha, thanks! The thing is I really love OS X, and I would really miss it. Apple hardware is nice (responsive trackpads, nice keyboards, well designed machines, etc…), but the actual stuff that matters is often compromised: not the highest performance, not upgradable, not enough RAM, and high failure rate with very low repairability, these things really don't sound good! But it's the software that you really "live in" eventually, so I guess it could be considered more important (not necessarily but I like OS X that much!).

Sounds like you would benefit significantly from an external monitor like an NEC or Apple Thunderbolt Display when you're at your desk. That way you enjoy the best of both worlds.

Yes, and with the lower price of normal MBP's, an additional external monitor is still cheaper than the rMBP… But I still love the idea of a high DPI screen, I'm just not a fan of the rest!

 

[quasibinaer]

If I were to write a wishlist for WWDC (like the analyst did, obviously), it´d have the Mac Pro at the very top. There were probably more updates to the MBP line in the last 4 years than there were Mac Pro/Powermac models ever.
And I refuse to work on laptop hardware that´s in a desktop machine, which is apparently made with more attention to design than performance.

And if it does come out eventually, they better ship it quicker than the friggin iMacs.

 

[the8thark]

I can see the notebook being spoken of at WWDC. But the highlight of the keynote? That I can't see. I can't see a product refresh of any kind being the highlight of any keynote. Unless it's a very substantial refresh.

I think iOS7 will be the highlight of the keynote. With a side order of 10.9 and whatever hardware refreshes Apple is ready to announce.

 

[Wanted797]

MacBook Pro

I was thinking Apple would discontinue the non-retina Pro and have the Air step up as being the main entry level laptop. Alternatively they could introduce a sort of "pro air" that could fill the niche market but that would probably be unlikely.