Gains in CPU performance have been minimal since Haswell, although I would have preferred Apple upgrade the 15" MBP to Broadwell, if for nothing else than an increase in battery life and better graphics performance.
Apple could have updated the 13" MBP to Skylake, but I can imagine the uproar if the 13" it did not receive TB3 or if it did receive TB3 but the 15" did not because they used two different chipsets.
I'm not sure which models advertise 17 hours of run time. Could you provide a link? Are they quad core or dual core?
Apple could release a MBP similar with Intel HD GPUs, but I do think it would incur a noticeable performance penalty due to a lack of eDRAM.
I'm sorry it comes across that way, because I do not excuse Apple's lack of upgrades. I agree Apple's decisions are holding them back, and I am only trying to present what I think is Apple's logic while I wait with everyone else. At this point, I have plenty of reasons to leave Apple--not just for lack of Mac updates--but I do too much work with Mac only programs.
You can count me among those unwilling to pay a premium for old hardware. My problem is that I have been bitten on both ends of Apple's cycles--buying the last of a Mac generation when a new generation was introduced only to have support cut short and buying the first of a generation only to experience all of its problems.
We are in that transition again--seemingly endlessly--and unfortunately unless Apple travels a different path or kicks Intel in the pants to gain earlier (if any) access to the parts it is using (GT3e/GT4e), it looks like this process will only become more drawn out, especially with no details for a Kaby Lake update for the quad core chipsets that Apple uses.
[Edit: I won't be waiting until the end of 2018 for Apple to update the 15" MBP from Skylake, so I hope they start thinking more about the future than how to milk their customers.]
[Edit 2: I just read a blog about the upcoming release for Kaby Lake by Paul Thurrott, which may help explain Apple's reluctance to have released Skylake-based products. I will leave a quote from him for your consideration:
"... while Intel has never formally confirmed this, my sources at Microsoft and elsewhere have told me that Skylake, the original “tock” release following Broadwell, was among the buggiest of chipsets that Intel has ever released. Problems with Skylake are at the heart of most of the issues that Microsoft has seen with its Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book devices, and it’s fair to say that the software giant now regrets delivering the very first Skylake-based devices into the market in late 2015.
So Kaby Lake is essentially a fixed version of Skylake, one that uses the same 14nm process of its two predecessors and offers some modest “architectural improvements,” though details are light on what those might be. Frankly, if these chips just work correctly, that would be enough. But it appears that the Kaby Lake versions of the Core m chipsets could be reasonable upgrades, while the Core i versions will offer only subtle improvements."
I had heard this before and this most recent admission (July 2016) should give all Apple users pause before purchasing anything based on Skylake. That is why I am both frustrated and curious to see what Apple is planning to do.]
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