I've been wondering for the last couple years, if Apple will add an AX chip in addition to the Intel chip, to allow iOS apps to run on them
what do you guys think about this?
what do you guys think about this?
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Ultra-Thin 15" Mac Notebook Getting Closer to Production
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The only reason I bought a Macbook Pro was because of the limitation of hard drive size on the Air. A thinner Macbook Pro with a 512GB SSD would do it for me. I have used the optical drive in my Macbook Pro, once, to rip a old CD I have into itunes.
adder7712
macrumors 68000
Do want, but not the Air form factor. I don't want to spend $$$ for a USB hub or heck a Thunderbolt hub.
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Not as thin but thinner than the current ones, but maintain the ports, add a boot SSD in place of the DVD drive.
Why wouldn't you buy the macbook pro which will have the above features. This is likely to be a 15" MBA that wouldn't replace the pro
Prodo123
macrumors 68020
I did; I'm typing on a 15" MacBook Pro 2.2Ghz with 8GB RAM and Radeon HD 6750M w/ 1GB VRAM while backing up to a FW800 drive.
theSeb
macrumors 604
The strategy that Steve Jobs (RIP) implemented when he returned to apple in 1997 was of four quadrants. Portable home user, portable professional, desktop home user, desktop professional. I find it hard to believe that they would turn their back on this since it has worked quite well for them. The 15 MBA looks like it falls nicely in the portable home user premium quadrant so I don't think this is the end of the MBP line at all. Hopefully I won't be eating my words next year.
Tim Cook has been interim CEO in a very long time, even before, as chief operational officer, he would have had a big part in forming the future of product lines. That's what he did in the nineties, when they began their consumer/pro 4 category strategy.
I think some of you guys are a little dillusional.. its going to be a 15 inch air. end of story. no dedicated this, no user serviceable that. There is a market for a consumer laptop with a big screen, so apple is going to take it before the acers of the world make their 15 inch ultra book. At best you can speculate that the 15 will have the same size guts as a 13, so there will be more space for the battery.
there is still going to be a 15 inch pro, so freaking relax! And i don't know where everyone is coming up with the death of the 13 inch pro?? apple already axed one of their three 13 inch models, i don't think theyre going to do it again.
apple is going to have the 13 and 15 overlap on the consumer and pro lines. Its not like its the first time that's ever happened, Hell, its down right conservative compared to companies like dell and hp that have 6 different models with the same size screen and barely any difference in spec..
there is still going to be a 15 inch pro, so freaking relax! And i don't know where everyone is coming up with the death of the 13 inch pro?? apple already axed one of their three 13 inch models, i don't think theyre going to do it again.
apple is going to have the 13 and 15 overlap on the consumer and pro lines. Its not like its the first time that's ever happened, Hell, its down right conservative compared to companies like dell and hp that have 6 different models with the same size screen and barely any difference in spec..
MightyMac007
macrumors member
I hate to echo what so many have already said, but i'm excited about this. I did end up getting the 13" Macbook Pro and told myself as soon as they release a 15" Macbook Air I'll jump on it.
Excited by Apple once again.🙂
Excited by Apple once again.🙂
just give me a 15" air like notebook apple, doesn't have to be a pro
someone posted this mock up and it looks piff 😉
someone posted this mock up and it looks piff 😉
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Yebubbleman
macrumors 603
While I entertain the idea of a 15" MacBook Air (given that I don't feel like ultra-portable and large screen should be mutually exclusive features for those that want it [a demographic that I'm not a part of, mind you]), the idea that such a machine will completely replace the 15" MacBook Pro as we know it today is absurd and demonstrates a clear lack of the understanding of these machines under the hood.
I know that (seemingly) all of you are hell-bent on the death of the optical drive in favor of narrow and nowhere-near-all-encompasing replacements such as iTunes (what about my movie collection on discs?), the Mac App Store (what about my Microsoft Office and Adobe products, or my pre-MAS software?), or cloud-based storage things (can't easily hand off 4.7-8.5GB of data to a friend via dropbox or iCloud!), but really, the lack of an optical drive is only one of many inconveniences to owning a MacBook Air that will NOT appeal to EVERYONE wishing to own an Apple notebook computer.
For one, removable/replacable RAM. If you buy a MacBook Air today, you're capped at the RAM you have; for some, this isn't a big deal; for others, it's a deal-breaker. Not to mention that you are guaranteeing that when Mac OS X 10.8 comes out and it requires a minimum of 4GB of RAM, that MacBook Air you bought with only 2GB of RAM only two years prior, won't make the cut. Similarly, if you buy one of today's Airs, and the trend of OS X's RAM requirement doubling at every release continues, it won't be able to run 10.9. I'm sorry, if I'm buying a Mac today, it better be able to run 10.9. Add to that, non-removable (at least not without that proprietary pentalobe screwdriver) boot drive, a non-standard boot drive form-factor, lack of on-board expansion (and sure, for a substantial cost, I can regain that expansion back with a Thunderbolt device), you have a notebook that is pretty limited.
Of course, I haven't even gotten to the part where you won't be able to fit in a discrete GPU (due to the much smaller thermal envelope) or the quad-core processors, let alone non-ultra-mobile (and therefore not-severely-underclocked) processors. If I wanted an iPad, I'd buy an iPad. But a MacBook Pro still affords options that you can't (and at this rate, never will) get on a MacBook Air, and for that reason, with Apple's notebook sales being the most important of their Mac unit as a whole, I don't expect the MacBook Pro to go anywhere, whether this 15" machine sees the light of day or not, and neither should you.
I know that (seemingly) all of you are hell-bent on the death of the optical drive in favor of narrow and nowhere-near-all-encompasing replacements such as iTunes (what about my movie collection on discs?), the Mac App Store (what about my Microsoft Office and Adobe products, or my pre-MAS software?), or cloud-based storage things (can't easily hand off 4.7-8.5GB of data to a friend via dropbox or iCloud!), but really, the lack of an optical drive is only one of many inconveniences to owning a MacBook Air that will NOT appeal to EVERYONE wishing to own an Apple notebook computer.
For one, removable/replacable RAM. If you buy a MacBook Air today, you're capped at the RAM you have; for some, this isn't a big deal; for others, it's a deal-breaker. Not to mention that you are guaranteeing that when Mac OS X 10.8 comes out and it requires a minimum of 4GB of RAM, that MacBook Air you bought with only 2GB of RAM only two years prior, won't make the cut. Similarly, if you buy one of today's Airs, and the trend of OS X's RAM requirement doubling at every release continues, it won't be able to run 10.9. I'm sorry, if I'm buying a Mac today, it better be able to run 10.9. Add to that, non-removable (at least not without that proprietary pentalobe screwdriver) boot drive, a non-standard boot drive form-factor, lack of on-board expansion (and sure, for a substantial cost, I can regain that expansion back with a Thunderbolt device), you have a notebook that is pretty limited.
Of course, I haven't even gotten to the part where you won't be able to fit in a discrete GPU (due to the much smaller thermal envelope) or the quad-core processors, let alone non-ultra-mobile (and therefore not-severely-underclocked) processors. If I wanted an iPad, I'd buy an iPad. But a MacBook Pro still affords options that you can't (and at this rate, never will) get on a MacBook Air, and for that reason, with Apple's notebook sales being the most important of their Mac unit as a whole, I don't expect the MacBook Pro to go anywhere, whether this 15" machine sees the light of day or not, and neither should you.
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ReanimationN
macrumors 6502a
just give me a 15" air like notebook apple, doesn't have to be a pro
someone posted this mock up and it looks piff 😉
That looks amazing, I'd go for one of them.
There's a slight possibility we see the GPU as separate using Thunderbolt, like with the Sony Z series.
Oh. Right. Accusations of Sony copying apple begin now...
Yebubbleman
macrumors 603
No. A4/A5 runs on the ARM architecture; Intel's CPUs run on the x86 architecture used by both it and AMD. That'd be akin to Apple releasing a MacBook Pro that also had a PowerPC chip in tow so the thing could be both an Intel and a PowerPC machine, which is, to say the least, not something easily done. You should look at this Wikipedia article for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_architecture
Even that is generous. Unless Ivy Bridge DRASTICALLY brings down temperatures and the Ultra-Mobile Ivy Bridge chips find themselves more on-par with their normal Mobile Ivy Bridge chips in terms of speed and power consumption (which is a pretty big stretch in and of itself), a would-be 15" MacBook Air will be just as underpowered as its smaller siblings. At best, there might be room for an extra SSD blade (which is extremely doubtful) or 8GB of on-board (and therefore non-removable/upgradable) RAM (which is also extremely doubtful, but not a whole lot better than that, if anything at all.
Not even close. MacBook Pros still serve functions that the MacBook Airs will never be able to and with Apple's notebook computer line being a vast majority of their Mac sales, they'd be stupid to nix that line.
Sony didn't originate the idea. Talk of being able to do this was rampant just prior to the release of the Early 2011 MacBook Pros. It also softened the blow of the 13" MacBook Pro using only an Intel HD 3000 IGP with the notion that while the machine was docked to a Thunderbolt GPU, it had more than a neutered Intel IGP (which, in theory, would appease most users of that machine).
Talk by people on the internet is not the same as engineers actually making it work. This is something that had been discussed endlessly for years prior to implementation; it's just sort of vaguely feasible now. That's the same as most things other companies are accused of copying from Apple, however.
When does everyone think this will be coming out, unsure whether to get the current MBA 13" or just wait, but when will Ivy Bridge be coming out?
Ice Dragon
macrumors 6502a
Ivy Bridge is currently set for a tentative release of Spring 2012. Now, don't get nervous if it doesn't hit in late March or early April. I would expect it more around late April or even early May.
I am ready for an upgrade. Can't wait for this. All the benefits of the MBA without the compromises. I have a mid 2010 15 inch MBP and will be ready to upgrade next year when this comes out. It will combine perfectly with a 27 inch cinema display.
Hope everyone is enjoying their Saturday. It is beautiful weather here in NYC.
Hope everyone is enjoying their Saturday. It is beautiful weather here in NYC.
adder7712
macrumors 68000
A 15" OLED display?! I'm not sure if I'm living under a rock but there hasn't been a reasonably priced OLED panel of that size? However, with the specs and ports, it's definitely a proper MacBook Pro.just give me a 15" air like notebook apple, doesn't have to be a pro
someone posted this mock up and it looks piff 😉
Pretty good so far, except for SSDs. Fast, but still lacking in terms of storage. If only 512GB SSDs are cheaper...
It does look sexy... will consider. 😀