No...just, no. It’s a sophomoric design detail and needs to stay gone.
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Two New Apple Silicon MacBooks Expected to Enter Mass Production in Second Half of 2021
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...and 2 fewer TB ports. Not an improvement at all. But apparently necessary.
You're right except for the Mac Pro. I would not expect that until 2022.
If this is true, it is a bummer... Still going strong on my day-1 2016 13" MBP, and ready and willing to get the new 14" (and potentially 16") MBPs... I'll wait though.
Is the general consensus here on MR that the 13.3" MBP will remain as the bottom tier option with the new 14/16" coming in at higher price points?
I would expect that for at least a while the current M1 13" MacBook Pro and Air to stay the bottom tier. A 13" MBP at $1300 is going to sell better than a $1800-$2000 14" MBP or a $2400-$2800 16" MBP. I wouldn't be surprised to see that build-to-order options on the two port MBP start to decrease with the introduction of higher end MacBook Pros. We also don't know the cadence for updates for Apple Silicon machines. Is it yearly, every other year, every 18 months? That will likely make a difference with what Apple does moving forward as well.
I think I would be disappointed because it would represent a change in how Apple thinks and works: design from the ground up not from whatever the old device happens to be. Also ... really waiting for that matte black option 🍸😸
Before I jump into it I will require 4 Ports, the ability to configure 24 or more GB of RAM and the ability to connect two monitors. Both the Mini and the Macbook Air/Pro are currently demonstrating ongoing problems connecting monitors in all sorts of bizarre ways with people fighting back by trying multiple cables and other gyrations to try to get a dependable trouble-free connection. I will wait at least a month after the release and keep an eye on Apple communities because my plan is to change from my iMac to a MB Pro and twin 27" LG 5K monitors which currently are having issues for many people, as are many brands of monitors.
It will be such a terrible wasted opportunity if it doesn't have it. Face ID is perfect for the iMac. Plenty of space for the sensors, a camera that is always pointed directly at the user (no angle issues), detached keyboards don't have to deal with Touch ID security issues (and who wants to have to reach for the sensor anyway).
Face ID will just work, effortlessly, for an iMac user. No more constantly entering your password for ever-increasing things Apple thinks users need to authenticate for. No more flakey Apple Watch unlock that randomly stops working whenever it feels like it.
Show of hands...Who thinks the MagSafe will be an add-on and it will continue to ship with usb-c power?
They are gonna squeeze revenue out of first gen redesign, then entice you to upgrade on the second gen for features like Face ID.
Magsafe charging is a major step backwards, being able to charge everything with a USB-C cable is very convenient, not to mention allows for power banks to be able to charge Macbooks.
Not to mention something as simple as charging from either side. It is a huge step backward.
And I think they know it. All signs point to this move being related to the removal of Thunderbolt ports. Once the Pro machine that has 4 goes down to 2, they need to make up for that somehow. Their answer is adding back legacy ports to fill the gap.
I don’t see why people can’t get a magnetic usb-c dongle if they want - there are plenty of them on Amazon.
Nobody has said that you won’t be able to charge by USB-C when you want to. It’s part of the USB-C specification, and I’m guessing they will continue to allow it.
There will be 4 USB-C/tb ports on the 16” and 14” MBPs.
I keep going back to the fact that TSMC lost Huawei as a customer (banned) and Apple swooped up those 5nm wafers. I think Apple has already spun out a bunch of M1/A14/M1x?/A14x?/... chips and it needs to figure out what do do with them. Maybe that's why we'll see March devices with A14x.
In addition, Apple has never skipped a beat on shipping a new A chip every year, and I would think the same will be true for the M chips - after all, TSMC is coming out with new fabbing pretty much every year, and Apple is revving their power/efficiency cores every year. It looks like Macs will be on a similar cadence as phones.
I think whatever Apple comes up with won't be anything like those multi-color 24' iMac screens rumor having edge to edge displays in a recent article. I shudder with that thought.
In the same context I don't want a 14"/16" MacBook Pro laptop where they grow the screen size in a similar manner but sacrifice the ruggedness and thermals. I prefer just to see minor variations to design of the most recent MacBook Pros using the M1X with the improved thermals allowing cooler operation. Perhaps in the future we all get what we been looking for.