Waiting for Haswell MBP Mega Thread

[Pentad]

No event is required to introduce the Haswell MBPs. Most Mac introductions the last few years have been without an event. I cannot imagine Apple would schedule an event just to say that they've added Haswell, 802.11ac, and PCIe SSD to the MBP. It would generate the biggest collective yawn among the press at any Apple event in history.

I would normally agree with you but I think a 'Mac' event will happen because Apple has three items to show off:

-MP
-Mavericks
-MBPr

That makes a nice round number and each of these would be a boring event but together gives them a nice show.

Given that Apple is running MP ads in theaters, I doubt they are going to do a silent release of this which leads you to an event. By having all three product together you maximize your event millage...

-P

 

[mneblett]

My hunch, given that the Haswell chips have already launched and will cost more, is that Apple is waiting for the Back to School special to expire so they don't have to offer the updated models at a discount. So I'm guessing a mid September launch.

Could be -- buuut -- as a practical matter, how many students are aware enough and/or will want a Haswell MBP over the Haswell Air or current MBP they picked up for school?

I'm guessing the number isn't that great, i.e., the overall cost to Apple associated with reselling some number of machines as refurbed machines would be small relative to the income derived from earlier Haswell MBP sales. So, I'm thinking a wait until 9/21 isn't that likely -- either announced at the 9/10 event, or not until October.

 

[Asifasim22]

No event is required to introduce the Haswell MBPs. Most Mac introductions the last few years have been without an event. I cannot imagine Apple would schedule an event just to say that they've added Haswell, 802.11ac, and PCIe SSD to the MBP. It would generate the biggest collective yawn among the press at any Apple event in history.

With all the competition releasing respectable products , and it has tb2 to show off as well as mavericks and the Mac Pro. Haswell is a game changer unlike sandy or ivy bridge. They're going to emphasize an all day powerhouse laptop, something the competitors can't . This requires a keynote especially when mac sales have been down

 

[ValSalva]

With all the competition releasing respectable products , and it has tb2 to show off as well as mavericks and the Mac Pro. Haswell is a game changer unlike sandy or ivy bridge. They're going to emphasize an all day powerhouse laptop, something the competitors can't . This requires a keynote especially when mac sales have been down

Keynotes are a precious commodity. Apple isn't going to 'waste' them on only Macs anymore. It's not 2005. The press and public is bored with computers. Haswell is great but it's not going to change that. IMHO Apple won't risk disappointing the press and the public with a Mac only keynote any time soon. Macs may get a mention in a keynote that is primarily about something else, meaning iPad or iPhone. Sad but true these days.

 

[g35]

Good summary. One question that all this raises is the price. Just looking at the options for the 13" for example, Ivybridge chips were 225$ for the two lower options, and with Haswell the cost for the two lower options you mention is 342$. That's an >100$ increase from Intel (this holds true even for the 15" options), so the big concern is will the prices stay the same, since Haswell chips seem quite pricey? I guess we won't be seeing a bump in SSD storage sizes for the base models given the expensive CPUs.

Good point but Apple put Haswell chips in the new MBAs and cut the price by $100. That's essentially a $200 cost savings somewhere in the materials, manufacturing (unlikely) or margin (also unlikely). Maybe they can do that with the new rMBPs too.

 

[mneblett]

Keynotes are a precious commodity. Apple isn't going to 'waste' them on only Macs anymore. It's not 2005. The press and public is bored with computers. Haswell is great but it's not going to change that. IMHO Apple won't risk disappointing the press and the public with a Mac only keynote any time soon. Macs may get a mention in a keynote that is primarily about something else, meaning iPad or iPhone. Sad but true these days.

Interesting thought -- something that hadn't occured to me. Makes a lot of sense in today's market.

 

[mcarling]

I disagree with you. I think they definitely would forgo the revenue of 1 month in order to have that statement for over an entire year.

Apple will have the opportunity to boast about the battery performance improvements of Mavericks for that year (or whatever period) irrespective of whether or not they release the Haswell MBP first. The advantage you suppose is imaginary.

I would normally agree with you but I think a 'Mac' event will happen because Apple has three items to show off:

-MP
-Mavericks
-MBPr

Don't forget that the iMac and Mac Mini are also due for an update. However, it's very unlikely that all of them will be ready at the same time. Apple will release each whenever its ready to go.

Good point but Apple put Haswell chips in the new MBAs and cut the price by $100. That's essentially a $200 cost savings somewhere in the materials, manufacturing (unlikely) or margin (also unlikely). Maybe they can do that with the new rMBPs too.

That's even easier with the rMBP than with the MBA because Apple's cost of Retina displays has dropped a lot as yields have improved.

 

[goMac]

if they decide to go with even worse CPU performance than the alternatives, as well as worse everyday graphics performance than their bottom-of-the-line-laptops, plus wasting space on a dGPU that draws extra power and is worse at graphics computation, with the only benefit being slightly better framerates in a few games. These two chips are nearly identical except one is in the larger 37.5mm x 37.5mm x 4.7mm form and the other in the 37.5mm x 32mm x 1.6mm size.

The non-Iris CPUs have better CPU performance, not worse. Higher clock rate.

 

[GSPice]

The non-Iris CPUs have better CPU performance, not worse. Higher clock rate.

Not sure if clock rate alone equals better performance.

 

[mcarling]

The non-Iris CPUs have better CPU performance, not worse. Higher clock rate.

The Iris Pro CPUs have a 128MB L4 cache that the other mobile Haswells don't have. That might more than balance against a higher clock rate -- depending on the application.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I would normally agree with you but I think a 'Mac' event will happen because Apple has three items to show off:

-MP
-Mavericks
-MBPr

-P

Actually I hope for more

- iLife 2014
- iWork 2014
- Aperture X

 

[GSPice]

Actually I hope for more

- iLife 2014
- iWork 2014
- Aperture X

And Compressor while they're at it.. the interface is hideous lol (I know, I know)

 

[Qaanol]

if they decide to go with even worse CPU performance than the alternatives, as well as worse everyday graphics performance than their bottom-of-the-line-laptops, plus wasting space on a dGPU that draws extra power and is worse at graphics computation, with the only benefit being slightly better framerates in a few games. These two chips are nearly identical except one is in the larger 37.5mm x 37.5mm x 4.7mm form and the other in the 37.5mm x 32mm x 1.6mm size.

The non-Iris CPUs have better CPU performance, not worse. Higher clock rate.

Did you just...selectively truncate my post to eliminate the link to the processors I was talking about? Somebody had asked about the 37W Haswell chips, so I linked to those and was discussing them.

Here is the entirety of what I wrote in the post you clipped:

15.4" non-Iris 37W possibilities:There are two 37W Haswell processors with HD4600 graphics Apple could use for the next 15.4" rMBP, if they decide to go with even worse CPU performance than the alternatives, as well as worse everyday graphics performance than their bottom-of-the-line-laptops, plus wasting space on a dGPU that draws extra power and is worse at graphics computation, with the only benefit being slightly better framerates in a few games. These two chips are nearly identical except one is in the larger 37.5mm x 37.5mm x 4.7mm form and the other in the 37.5mm x 32mm x 1.6mm size.

See that text in blue at the beginning? Try clicking on it. The 37W Haswell chips only come with 2.2 GHz processors, and have max turbo 3.2 GHz. I already covered the 47W Haswell chips in an earlier post.

 

[GSPice]

Well this is interesting

 

[Vanilla35]

No event is required to introduce the Haswell MBPs. Most Mac introductions the last few years have been without an event. I cannot imagine Apple would schedule an event just to say that they've added Haswell, 802.11ac, and PCIe SSD to the MBP. It would generate the biggest collective yawn among the press at any Apple event in history.

I would normally agree with you but I think a 'Mac' event will happen because Apple has three items to show off:

-MP
-Mavericks
-MBPr

That makes a nice round number and each of these would be a boring event but together gives them a nice show.

Given that Apple is running MP ads in theaters, I doubt they are going to do a silent release of this which leads you to an event. By having all three product together you maximize your event millage...

-P

I've also posted my thoughts regarding that as well. Sure they can silent release half of their mac line, but are they really going to do that? I don't think so, although it is possible. The Mac Pro is definitely going to have some sort of launch event, and it only really makes sense to have the other macs in there too. Whether they launch the macs alongside the iPad or not, is still to be determined.

----------

I think it'll be one of two things:

1) iPhone/iPad event in September. Mac lineup in October
2) iPhone only in September. iPad and Mac Pro/Maybe the rest of Mac lineup in October.

I personally think it'l be the first of the two. To me that just makes more sense given everything that's going on, but the factual basis is that they rushed their iOS 7 team towards iPad a few weeks back to stabilize the platform more (my assumption is, in time for the September launch).

 

[mattshort]

13.3" Iris possibilities: There are three 28W Haswell processors with HD5100 "Iris" graphics Apple could use for the next 13.3" rMBP.

What about the 37W 4702HQ? The current 13" i7 uses a 35W part, which is 37.5mm x 37.5mm x {no thickness given} vs. the 4702HQ at 37.5 x 32 x 1.6.

Yes, it has HD4600 instead of the HD5100 with the U parts, but that's a tradeoff I'd gladly take for a quad in the 13" form factor.

 

[MovieGuy34]

I came across this article and it had a line in there that scared me:

http://www.examiner.com/article/flash-storage-vs-ssd-what-s-the-difference

It says "Though there are no moving parts to wear out, flash memory has a limited amount of program-erase cycles (P/E cycles) before the integrity of the storage deteriorates."

Now I was planning to get a rMBP but that lines scared me a bit. Has anyone had or heard of anyone having a problem with the flash storage breaking down? I really wanted a rMBP but for the price I'll have to pay for it i don't want it breaking down in a few years. I want it to last at least double what my current MBP has lasted (5 years).

 

[zOlid]

I came across this article and it had a line in there that scared me:

http://www.examiner.com/article/flash-storage-vs-ssd-what-s-the-difference

It says "Though there are no moving parts to wear out, flash memory has a limited amount of program-erase cycles (P/E cycles) before the integrity of the storage deteriorates."

Now I was planning to get a rMBP but that lines scared me a bit. Has anyone had or heard of anyone having a problem with the flash storage breaking down? I really wanted a rMBP but for the price I'll have to pay for it i don't want it breaking down in a few years. I want it to last at least double what my current MBP has lasted (5 years).

All SSD's are like this.
But we are talking millions of writes tho. (and that is guaranteed numbers they put on the ssd's. So most will last much longer.)
I saw some math about it taking even if you literally wrote to your disk 24/7 non stop for a year. You wouldnt hit the "cap" of when the SSD would start breaking down from to many write cycles.
Also SSD's have a controller that keep track of "ware" to negate this "issue" even further.
So this is really not an issue any one needs to think about, as long as they are not running a server that moves a LOT of data 24/7 or such.

Edit:
Looked at a really popular SSD from Intel named 520.
It has a failure rate expectancy of 1.2 million hours.
That is 137 years.
And they have a minimum of 5 years of hard service life expectancy. And that number is taken really low to negate for extremely high use.

Also a SSD is much more preferred in a laptop since its shock proof and a HDD is not.
So if you add all this up. A SSD is a much safer choice in terms of life expectancy then a HDD is.

 

[mcarling]

I came across this article and it had a line in there that scared me:

http://www.examiner.com/article/flash-storage-vs-ssd-what-s-the-difference

It says "Though there are no moving parts to wear out, flash memory has a limited amount of program-erase cycles (P/E cycles) before the integrity of the storage deteriorates."

Now I was planning to get a rMBP but that lines scared me a bit. Has anyone had or heard of anyone having a problem with the flash storage breaking down? I really wanted a rMBP but for the price I'll have to pay for it i don't want it breaking down in a few years. I want it to last at least double what my current MBP has lasted (5 years).

It's a good reason to ensure that you have enough RAM, so that you won't be massively swapping to the SSD.

 

[professorjay]

If rMBP's are ready to go in September, then they're going on sale.

There is no way they are delaying it just because Mavericks isn't ready. They are not going to sit on inventory and stall production lines just so they can add one hour of battery life to the specs upon release. Mavericks in itself is only a minor factor in improving the battery life as it is.

Additionally there is no way they will hinder one month of sales which accounts for 1/3 of the next quarterly report.

Otherwise, Apple has already lined everything to ramp up production in October already as planned months ago.

As for announcements, the rMBP's are last in the line of importance. iPhones, iPads, the new Mac Pro, even Airs are well ahead. Not to mention these are under the hood enhancements and battery life. Nothing earth shattering. I expect it to be a minor announcement to start or end a keynote where something else is the star.

 

[johnnylarue]

All SSD's are like this.
But we are talking millions of writes tho. (and that is guaranteed numbers they put on the ssd's. So most will last much longer.)
I saw some math about it taking even if you literally wrote to your disk 24/7 non stop for a year. You wouldnt hit the "cap" of when the SSD would start breaking down from to many write cycles.
Also SSD's have a controller that keep track of "ware" to negate this "issue" even further.
So this is really not an issue any one needs to think about, as long as they are not running a server that moves a LOT of data 24/7 or such.

Yup. Not to mention the fact that third party suppliers like OWC are already offering replacement SSD drives for MBA's and MBPr's should you need/want to upgrade in the future. This really isn't something you need to worry about in my very humble opinion.

 

[Vanilla35]

If rMBP's are ready to go in September, then they're going on sale.

There is no way they are delaying it just because Mavericks isn't ready. They are not going to sit on inventory and stall production lines just so they can add one hour of battery life to the specs upon release. Mavericks in itself is only a minor factor in improving the battery life as it is.

No one is saying that they have them in stock or are delaying them only for Mavericks. There is absolutely no way they would be holding them for a month if they were ready. You guys aren't thinking. If apple was going to release them in October, they're not going to have ordered them in September. They'll get them just in time, to minimize Inventory costs.

If there was some sort of hickup in manufacturing (might be the case, since everything else [aside from MP preview] was announced in June) then they may be holding off till those issues are fixed or sorted out, and it might just be that around October is when that would be, so a release alongside Mavericks would be convenient. They mentioned much about Mavericks already in WWDC though, so the event will mostly be for product release.

 

[Qaanol]

Looked at a really popular SSD from Intel named 520.
It has a failure rate expectancy of 1.2 million hours.
That is 137 years.
And they have a minimum of 5 years of hard service life expectancy. And that number is taken really low to negate for extremely high use.

It is my understanding (though I could be mistaken), that mean time between failures (MTBF) does not mean quite what it sounds like.

The way I heard it explained is, for a drive with a 5-year guarantee, if you replace the drive with a new one every 5 years then there will be an average of the MTBF (137 years here) between failures of the currently-in-use drive.

 

[GSPice]

I came across this article and it had a line in there that scared me:

http://www.examiner.com/article/flash-storage-vs-ssd-what-s-the-difference

It says "Though there are no moving parts to wear out, flash memory has a limited amount of program-erase cycles (P/E cycles) before the integrity of the storage deteriorates."

Now I was planning to get a rMBP but that lines scared me a bit. Has anyone had or heard of anyone having a problem with the flash storage breaking down? I really wanted a rMBP but for the price I'll have to pay for it i don't want it breaking down in a few years. I want it to last at least double what my current MBP has lasted (5 years).

Ugh. I have great disdain for articles like this that trade relevant information for scaremongering. Don't worry about it. If only more articles out there warned people about the nature of hard disk drive failures.

----------

No one is saying that they have them in stock or are delaying them only for Mavericks. There is absolutely no way they would be holding them for a month if they were ready. You guys aren't thinking. If apple was going to release them in October, they're not going to have ordered them in September. They'll get them just in time, to minimize Inventory costs.

If there was some sort of hickup in manufacturing (might be the case, since everything else [aside from MP preview] was announced in June) then they may be holding off till those issues are fixed or sorted out, and it might just be that around October is when that would be, so a release alongside Mavericks would be convenient. They mentioned much about Mavericks already in WWDC though, so the event will mostly be for product release.

Seriously! And everybody worried about the MBP being delayed for Mavericks' "claimed battery life" - would it kill Apple to put an asterisk on battery life specs that noted Mavericks? They're not going to shoot themselves in the foot holding everything up unless they really need to.

 

[Millionaire2K]

I would normally agree with you but I think a 'Mac' event will happen because Apple has three items to show off:

-MP
-Mavericks
-MBPr

-P

Do they really have all that to show?

They already went over Mavericks and the Pro in great lengths at the last event. Why another event just to say: "here it is again" "now buy it"

They don't need another event to talk about ios7, they will just give us the release date.

I think it would make more sense to be all hardware:

Sept 10th.

iPhone
iPad
iPad Mini
rmbp
Thunderbolt 2 Display

And announce the release date for the Pro and Mavericks.

Remember they can have different release dates for all this stuff.