rMBP update - The longer the waiting...

[ss.soulbeat]

...the bigger the update !!!

All right, so I might be in some kind of an "off the charts" expectations mood for the next rMBP update...

September is coming fast and it seems it will be reserved for a new iPad and iPhone 5S/5C release.

We are now, more than 6 months away, since last rMBP update. This is the biggest update waiting in rMBP (yet short) history ! I'd say a "silent update" in the Apple Store is out of the question.

Last July 9, a Next-Gen 15'' MacBook Pro showed up in Benchmarks (https://www.macrumors.com/2013/07/09/next-generation-15-inch-macbook-pro-shows-up-in-benchmarks/). Nothing happened until today...

Could it be that, last July, Apple realized the benchmark of the new Haswell platform would be hardly noticeable ? Besides, without OS X Mavericks, the battery life gains wouldn't also, make much of a difference ?

My guess is, OS X Mavericks release date will define when the next rMBP and cMBP appear.

Video card:
I'd say, a MBP with just the new iNTEL Iris HD 5200, without discrete graphics from ATI or Nvidia, very plausible.
However, the longer the waiting, the harder a new Iris HD 5200 will be acceptable as the one and only video board for a MBP.
My guess is, if Apple is to release an update to the MBP within the next 2 months, we might see this 'Pro' laptops with only integrated graphics. If not, I think they'll have to add a discrete solution to the mix.

SSD
SSD's prices are falling... Maybe an upgrade to the SSD's capacity without rising the laptop prices will be true...

Thunderbolt 2
Ok, so now I'm dreaming... but what if we happen to be at least still 2 months away from a MBP update ?

Touch Screen
Now, I'm joking... "who needs a touch screen on a laptop ?" This is what Apple uses to say...

Any thoughts, guys ?

 

[bill-p]

Iris Pro (HD 5200) as the only GPU is already a sure-fire thing. Whether the "professional" market eats that one up at the price tag Apple is offering the machine remains to be seen.

SSD... may be dropping in price, but Apple is using the fastest SSD chips on the market, so that sort of equalizes out the pricing scheme.

Thunderbolt 2 is surely gonna be there. Along with 4K support. My guess is that Apple may make a 4K display that has a built-in graphics processor or a Thunderbolt GPU to go along with the new rMBP. Otherwise they risk selling a $2000 laptop with just integrated graphics. That doesn't sound like something they can weasel their way out of even with Godly marketing.

Touch screen... is surely not gonna happen. I can't see how much more unfriendly Mavericks can be to touch screen. If Apple wants to move to touch screens, they need an OS that is finger-friendly. Mavericks is not even stylus-friendly for those who work daily with Wacom tablets.

 

[lewdvig]

SSD - samsung's new 1 TB ssd is only $670 MSRP. IMO this new drive will redefine what people are willing to pay for ssd drives. I hope Apple is ready for that.

GPU - the 5200 will barely match the incredible '650m' in last years' model which as everyone knows was a golden sample that was in some cases 30% faster than the 650m in windows laptops. With razer cramming a 768 core 760m into a 13" rmBP sized case, anything less would be a huge mistake. 760m and 765m chips are in thin and light windows PCs costing $1000.

4k suppoty and TB2 makes sense but this will require a lot of ram and a big ssd (even just for temp local files). 8 GB ram and 256 GB sdd is too small. If the price point stays the same I would hop to see those numbers double.

 

[leman]

Iris Pro (HD 5200) as the only GPU is already a sure-fire thing. Whether the "professional" market eats that one up at the price tag Apple is offering the machine remains to be seen.

Or the consumer one

 

[ValSalva]

SSD - samsung's new 1 TB ssd is only $670 MSRP. IMO this new drive will redefine what people are willing to pay for ssd drives. I hope Apple is ready for that.

But the SSD in the rMBP will almost certainly be of the PCIe variety and thus much faster. I see your point but there is something to be said for the speed of the PCIe SSD.

4k suppoty and TB2 makes sense but this will require a lot of ram and a big ssd (even just for temp local files). 8 GB ram and 256 GB sdd is too small. If the price point stays the same I would hop to see those numbers double.

TB2 and 4K is for retina desktop displays. Sure, a lot of users would be working with bigger files but for many it would allow for a spectacular desktop display. This wouldn't require any additional SSD space or RAM.

 

[bill-p]

Or the consumer one

Consumers can't even discern the difference between the Macbook Air and a comparable Windows laptop.

Otherwise the Macbook Air wouldn't have sold as well as it did.

And yeah, you can quote me on that.

But the SSD in the rMBP will almost certainly be of the PCIe variety and thus much faster. I see your point but there is something to be said for the speed of the PCIe SSD.

And the speed of the PCIe SSD is pretty much... useless. Unless you constantly thrash your storage while reading and writing files incessantly... and you back up your work every second like an insecure maniac...

Just kidding.

But seriously, I think PCIe SSD is overkill. Apple shouldn't use that as an excuse to keep the price of the next rMBP up. If they could produce the machine cheaper, they should skip the PCIe SSD and go for a price drop instead.

But we all know how it'll play out...

All of this has been seen from months ago...

 

[lewdvig]

But the SSD in the rMBP will almost certainly be of the PCIe variety and thus much faster. I see your point but there is something to be said for the speed of the PCIe SSD.

Its a minor interface difference. The connector at the end of the pcb is a pretty small portion of the bill of goods. The salient point is ssd storage is coming down in price and I worry that Apple will try to cash grab by charging $1000 for a 1 TB SSD.

TB2 and 4K is for retina desktop displays. Sure, a lot of users would be working with bigger files but for many it would allow for a spectacular desktop display. This wouldn't require any additional SSD space or RAM.

I would bet 99% of people use the out of the box settings (i.e. scaled to look like 900P but with higher pixel density). Pros would use a TB or similar display to get more desktop real estate.

4k movies are big, doing anything with those files requires space and memory. A single 4k movie can be 100 GB and thats only if you are simply watching it. As a pro machine I would expect many people buy it to do pro things.