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Waiting for Skylake MBP thread

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dukeOfPrunes said:
I an most curious about whether the rumored ultra thin 13" will be a replacement to the Air or Pro, or some kind of merger.

Specifically, will the 13" be built around 15W chips (Air) or 28W chips (Pro)? This choice dictates a lot of the design due to thermal handling.
Click to expand...

I think it's highly possible to merge the 13" Pro and 13" Air into one model if Apple wanted to streamline their notebooks. If that were to happen it would probably be based on the 15W Skylake chip, which is acceptable. If Apple took this direction I think it would just be called the MacBook 13 or 14 (depending on screen size) and the Pro & Air branding would be dropped.

Ultimately, I don't care what they do with the branding. As long as they offer a premium 13/14" notebook with high-end components & screen then I'm happy. If they start cutting things out to cut costs and insist on dropping things like the SD card slot & headphone jack then I won't be at all happy.
 
I think they should get rid of Magsafe to replace it with a USB solution. The breaking point could be in the cable or just outside the connector, as 3rd party solutions suggest.

While Magsafe is great, I don't want to continue carrying around apple's huge power supply units with their fixed cables that tend to break and require a 70 € replacement.

Looking at the competition, you see USB based charging with interchangeable PSUs and I'd say that's the way to go. Needless to say, on the Pro you need a power supply that doesn't block you from doing demanding work, so that approach would probably require two USB 3 ports at least.
 
Flex77 said:
I think they should get rid of Magsafe to replace it with a USB solution. The breaking point could be in the cable or just outside the connector, as 3rd party solutions suggest.

While Magsafe is great, I don't want to continue carrying around apple's huge power supply units with their fixed cables that tend to break and require a 70 € replacement.

Looking at the competition, you see USB based charging with interchangeable PSUs and I'd say that's the way to go. Needless to say, on the Pro you need a power supply that doesn't block you from doing demanding work, so that approach would probably require two USB 3 ports at least.
Click to expand...

I've been using the Mag-Safe system since 2008 and haven't had a single cable break on me, My oldest 60w Mag-Safe 1 power supply I got with my first Macbook is still working just fine. The cable near the connector is getting weak indeed but after around seven/eight years of use this isn't a unexpected. And yes I use it on the go, not just stationary. I carried this brick around college, long weekend trips, to my girlfriend, on the job, etc... Just treat it with care and don't bend the cable (I don't use the cord-clips on the brick, I just make 5 inch loops and place it in a compartment in my backpack).
 
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Not only does this thread set people up for disappointment because the updates don't happen WHEN they are expected/hoped/wished for - but some of the expectations around ports, charging, GPUs, screen technology, etc. are just so far from what will most likely happen that I don't believe ANYone will be happy once the new MBPs are announced. However It DOES provide great entertainment for those of us who are into schadenfreude...
 
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There's entertainment value too in seeing the experts make their firm assertions, watch them fail to materialize, and then they continue on with new solid statements of fact. :)
 
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on April 1st the only surprise can be an silent update for the 12" Macbook. thats it. The macbook pros are kept for the WWDC
 
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April 1st? Some of you think Apple is going to do a product update on a Friday? Without a "show"? Unlikely. Unlikely indeed.
 
Mike in Kansas said:
...that I don't believe ANYone will be happy once the new MBPs are announced.
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au contraire, I will happily buy damn near any new MBP that Apple releases as long as it starts with Skylake and ends in TB3 which really isn't asking all that much. Same guts, same everything. This does not mean there isn't room for improvement, just that i've reached a new level of desperation after the heartbreak that was the March event.

All this 16" touch screen hovercraft hologram paperthin liquidmetal MBP stuff sounds cool but it's too much to happen all at once.

Glad to see this thread is quieting down, I expect the bickering to pick up around late april with the mud slinging resuming mid may. We will be back up to a new page per hour.
 
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I was thinking about this and felt it might be interesting to post.

I think apple will do one of the following things with the "Air" products:

1. Drop all products with the "Air" moniker. The new 9.7 inch iPad Pro basically replaced the iPad Air 2 and the new MacBook did so too, with the MBA. Simplifying the product lines, with less confusing names.
+ The "Air" name nowadays doesn't actually represent something anymore. The 9.7 inch iPad pro weighs exactly the same as the Air 2 and the MacBook is lighter and thinner than the MBA. No more need for the "Air" products.

2. They keep an "Air" product in each product category, which will be the lower spec, cheaper machine. But making it more clear that the Air procucts are actually a lower tier product.
A clear difference between casual machines, and the Pro machines.

The air products just seem so out of place at the moment. Well, the entire Mac line-up is a total mess and the iPad offerings don't make sense at all.

Hopefully Apple will clean up after all these years and show us how great simplicity is.
 
Build conference next week to see what Microsoft's up to. Xeon E5 v4 info/launch (if you're following nMP refresh)
We'll likely get WWDC dates by ~3 weeks.
May heralds Skull Canyon NUC benchmarks.
May 8 is Google IO.
WWDC itself is only 80 days out for June 13.
Polaris launch around June too.
The eGPU will be out at some point too.

May as well enjoy this interesting year in tech - GPU halving their process from 28nm to 14nm, pretty cool. Intel actually releasing Skylake in dribs and drabs. OS X 10.12/other. iOS 10, Metal v2.

EDIT - Here's a thought. The consoles from Microsoft & Sony could actually go the way of eGPU if they wanted to. The Xbox One already effectively runs Windows 8. They're wanting to bring PC and console gaming towards each other. And Apple could do this too.

Neither Microsoft one Sony are going to be able to get actual 4k 60fps in the next generation for $100 for the GPU, and heat requirements - 3k gaming struggles with 1x top of the line GPU currently.
So what if they did it? They could add a USB-C port with TB3, and offer higher res gaming as an option via an external chassis of their design, maybe sold with a card to minimise issues. Offer higher resolution when the eGPU's running. Then they can upgrade the graphics capabilities of a console on a more frequent basis. VR is one example of this - they could use this style to add capabilities like this, whilst still have a too weak for VR GPU in the actual console. (So could Apple - Any nMP refresh is going to be around for a while - how do Apple deal with VR if not beefing up their graphics somehow multi year old at launch GPUs&CPUs was nMP's legacy).
 
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t0mat0 said:
Build conference next week to see what Microsoft's up to. Xeon E5 v4 info/launch (if you're following nMP refresh)
We'll likely get WWDC dates by ~3 weeks.
May heralds Skull Canyon NUC benchmarks.
May 8 is Google IO.
WWDC itself is only 80 days out for June 13.
Polaris launch around June too.
The eGPU will be out at some point too.

May as well enjoy this interesting year in tech - GPU halving their process from 28nm to 14nm, pretty cool. Intel actually releasing Skylake in dribs and drabs. OS X 10.12/other. iOS 10, Metal v2.

EDIT - Here's a thought. The consoles from Microsoft & Sony could actually go the way of eGPU if they wanted to. The Xbox One already effectively runs Windows 8. They're wanting to bring PC and console gaming towards each other. And Apple could do this too.

Neither Microsoft one Sony are going to be able to get actual 4k 60fps in the next generation for $100 for the GPU, and heat requirements - 3k gaming struggles with 1x top of the line GPU currently.
So what if they did it? They could add a USB-C port with TB3, and offer higher res gaming as an option via an external chassis of their design, maybe sold with a card to minimise issues. Offer higher resolution when the eGPU's running. Then they can upgrade the graphics capabilities of a console on a more frequent basis. VR is one example of this - they could use this style to add capabilities like this, whilst still have a too weak for VR GPU in the actual console. (So could Apple - Any nMP refresh is going to be around for a while - how do Apple deal with VR if not beefing up their graphics somehow multi year old at launch GPUs&CPUs was nMP's legacy).
Click to expand...

Console's main attraction is that you buy one box and know all the games will run. It's one of the reason you don't find very high quality games for Kinect. Developers won't invest in something they aren't guaranteed everyone will be able to run/buy.
 

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BenTrovato said:
In terms of features I'm not expecting more than everything we've been reading about Skylake. I do expect a redesign with a space grey offering. Badly need a 13" that can drive a 4k monitor.
Click to expand...

Same. I personally want basically nothing changed from my 2013 13" MBP, I just want Iris Pro graphics, and a faster CPU would be a nice touch (although from what I understand, I shouldn't expect a huge difference from 3rd gen Core to 6th gen). It's pretty amazing how well the integrated graphics perform on my MBP, especially considering the ridiculous resolution, but frankly it isn't enough when driving a second display. The animations turn to s***, scrolling is a laggy mess, etc. I don't need anything crazy, but I do want things to run smoothly. I often unplug the external monitor, but then I'm switching between windows so often that I think it's faster to just deal with the lag and slow scrolling.

If I'm going to dream a bit though:
The infinity display on the XPS is sweet, so smaller bezels would be nice.
The facetime camera could certainly be a bit better.
TouchID would be a convenient, uh, touch.
Colors! Silver is totally classic but I'd prefer space grey.

Quick question: if it does indeed come down to Iris 580 for 15" (or 16" or whatever) and Iris 550 for the 13", do you expect that I'll be happy with the 550? I need to power a second external monitor, and the applications aren't graphically demanding: I need to run chrome, safari, preview (PDFs) and the horribly optimized Kindle application (I don't have a choice, my textbooks are bought through kindle). Yes, I can technically do that already, but like I said it's laggy to the point of near constant frustration.

I wish I could just get a Windows laptop, because there are plenty of good options on the market that would suit my needs. Unfortunately, Windows (and to a lesser extent Ubuntu) is not an option for me. Every time I have ever had the urge to get one (better specs! better price!), Windows just feels like such convoluted garbage that I can't deal with it, perhaps just because I've used Macs my entire life, and I return it within a couple of weeks. Ubuntu feels pretty great to me, but I end up doing way more troubleshooting than I want. (I'm not an engineer, just a lowly user, so firing up the terminal and messing about to make things like flux work, or update drivers, or change permissions, can be a nightmare for me!)
 
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