Waiting for the 2018 MBP

[The Mercurian]

Eh...might be a while longer yet: https://segmentnext.com/2018/03/15/intel-coffee-lake-chips-spectre-meltdown/

These redesigns will be seen in Intel 8th Gen core Chips that will ship in the second half of 2018.

However its unclear to me from this article if that is the timeline intel gave or the journalists interpretation

 

[gobikerider]

A few points:

1. Many times when a release happens after WWDC, someone claims it was supposed to have happened earlier at WWDC. However, the fact of the matter is that most of the time, the MacBook Pro is not released at WWDC. The WWDC-centered rumours are usually just idle speculation.

2. From a 10.14 developer point of view, the MacBook Pro doesn't NEED to be released at WWDC. One of the big OS upgrades I am hoping for / expecting is 4K DRM support built into the OS. This is not dependent on 2018 hardware, as the 2017 MacBooks, MacBook Pros, iMacs, and iMac Pros all support this already in hardware. The just need software support, in the form of 10.14 +/- iTunes +/- Netflix, etc.

3. I too was expecting the leaked Intel chips to be evidence of a release soon, but what concerns me is that the Intel GT3e 15 W quad parts still haven't leaked. If it really just is a spec bump, then one might expect Apple to wait for GT3e 15 W quad parts for the entry level non-Touch Bar MacBook Pros. So far, the only chips with GT3e that have leaked are likely 28+ W. These 28 W chips have previously been reserved for the Touch Bar MacBook Pros. I suppose there is a possibility though that Apple would downgrade the non-Touch Mar MBP to 15 W quad with GT2 if there are no 15 W quad parts with GT3. Alternatively they could stick with dual-core with GT3e. The latter would allow Apple to drop the non-TB pricing a bit.

Or with the new 13" entry level MacBook you could see Apple shift the entire lineup pricing having the MacBook Pro's start at $1500 with Tb

 

[snortpig]

3. I too was expecting the leaked Intel chips to be evidence of a release soon, but what concerns me is that the Intel GT3e 15 W quad parts still haven't leaked. If it really just is a spec bump, then one might expect Apple to wait for GT3e 15 W quad parts for the entry level non-Touch Bar MacBook Pros. So far, the only chips with GT3e that have leaked are likely 28+ W. These 28 W chips have previously been reserved for the Touch Bar MacBook Pros. I suppose there is a possibility though that Apple would downgrade the non-Touch Mar MBP to 15 W quad with GT2 if there are no 15 W quad parts with GT3. Alternatively they could stick with dual-core with GT3e. The latter would allow Apple to drop the non-TB pricing a bit.

I wouldn't at all complain if they were forced to use the 28W quad + GT3 in a nonTB 13"

 

[gobikerider]

So a new leak has appeared, showing perfomance of CoffeeLake H chips(what you’ll see in the 15” Pros. Here is a link https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel...Hexa-Core-CPUs-have-been-leaked.289356.0.html

The coolest thing I see is that the i9 chip is going to maintain the 45w tdp, meaning Apple could theoretically implement it as a top tier proccesor upgrade.

 

[PickUrPoison]

I wouldn't at all complain if they were forced to use the 28W quad + GT3 in a nonTB 13"

I wouldn’t either, but at the same time I don’t necessarily expect a quad core option for the 13” nonTB at all. Apple may only offer it in the more expensive (i.e. TB) models.

 

[gobikerider]

I wouldn’t either, but at the same time I don’t necessarily expect a quad core option for the 13” nonTB at all. Apple may only offer it in the more expensive (i.e. TB) models.

Ideally the non TB model goes away and Tb drops to $1500

 

[PickUrPoison]

Ideally the non TB model goes away and Tb drops to $1500

Realistically, the $1,300 nonTB probably sells pretty well as the entry level model, so I don’t see Apple wanting to raise the lowest priced MBP by $200.

But sure, who wouldn’t want the $1,800 model to drop to $1,500 However I don’t see that happening either (unfortunately). I’m hopeful there will be some price decrease though; there was quite a hike with the 2016/17 lineup.

 

[Eason85]

Ideally the non TB model goes away and Tb drops to $1500

I am offended like a person that you want to foist that piece of **** TouchBar on everyone.

 

[EugW]

The Touch Bar sucks.

 

[impulse462]

The Touch Bar sucks.

I use it in final cut and autocad. Pretty useful. More than I used the function keys

 

[EugW]

I use it in final cut and autocad. Pretty useful. More than I used the function keys

As I've mentioned before, the only people I know that seem to like it are Final Cut users. (I don't know any AutoCad users.) Almost everyone else seems to dislike it, or at most tolerate it.

 

[afir93]

I am offended like a person that you want to foist that piece of **** TouchBar on everyone.

To be fair, wasn't the main complaint about the TB everyone had back when the 2016 MBPs released not that it wasn't all that useful, but that it wasn't sufficiently useful to justify the price increase? The Touch Bar models sold for about $300 more than spec-wise comparable 2015 models did before, with the 13" models being the best comparison because the TB entry-level model even was exactly $300 more expensive than the nonTB one (and yes there are other differences between the TB and nonTB, but those are neither very obvious at first glance nor are they very intuitive; Apple wants people to associate the price increase with the Touch Bar).

Most people didn't seem to fundamentally dislike the Touch Bar, they just didn't find it as useful to justify the $300 price tag. Touch ID and the few additional control schemes in applications, many of which they might not even use that often, didn't seem to be worth the asking price. You can do objectively more with the Touch Bar than with the fn-keys, but not $300-more, that was the most common critique that I remember.

Now if, as the other commenter suggested, the price of the TB-models would be lowered $200-$300, then that wouldn't be an issue anymore. They price-wise would step into the shoes of the nonTB-models, so they might aswell replace them. If Apple is able to lower the asking price to where it was before the 2016 TB-models, then they might aswell uniformly put the Touch Bar which they believe is superior, two fans (–> higher TDP) and 4 USB-C ports (vs 2) into all of their MBPs.

 

[snortpig]

To be fair, wasn't the main complaint about the TB everyone had back when the 2016 MBPs released not that it wasn't all that useful, but that it wasn't sufficiently useful to justify the price increase?

To me the price increase is less egregious than the loss of function/escape keys. I'm happy to pay a few hundred more for increased thermal headroom and an extra two thunderbolt ports if I'm not forced to take a touchbar instead of keys I use.

 

[TheralSadurns]

Today on my way to work I had an idea... what Apple COULD do... if they were cool. Which means it's probably not gonna happen.
As per the rumor that they wanna include A-class CPUs and alrdy have T-class CPUs. Maybe they can combine some of these in a package and call it G-class. Wait for it...

Then Tim goes on stage:

"A lot of our customers are creative professionals. Some of them were not so happy with the direction the Mac Pro was heading. Late last year we introduced iMac Pro. And professionals were thrilled. The feedback has been so positive that we decided to push this idea even farther! Today, we take what we learned from iMac Pro and make it mobile. Today we introduce a third class of notebook computer. With our MacBook and MacBook Pro we serve a large portion of the population. Ranging from students to creative professionals. But there are some that require the best of what is technically possible. For their work is utterly demanding. We hear you. We listen.
So today... we bring you a true mobile workstation. Today we introduce a machine many of you have been waiting for, for a long long time. Today... we introduce the PowerBook G5."

Boom... laughter...
and Pros are happy!

 

[The Mercurian]

Ideally the non TB model goes away and Tb drops to $1500

Ideally the TB model goes away...

 

[Poki]

I'm impressed at how resistent to change people still are. The Touch Bar is here to stay, and it's a natural evolution of the function keys. If you want a physical escape key, you can just remap it to the ^ key at the top left, which most users don't use anyway. In my opinion, with Better Touch Tool and some time customizing the Touch Bar to your own use cases, it's a great step forward for the MacBook Pro.

 

[Ries]

I'm impressed at how resistent to change people still are. The Touch Bar is here to stay, and it's a natural evolution of the function keys. If you want a physical escape key, you can just remap it to the ^ key at the top left, which most users don't use anyway. In my opinion, with Better Touch Tool and some time customizing the Touch Bar to your own use cases, it's a great step forward for the MacBook Pro.

Every keyboard or laptop with a "touchbar" has turned out to be a gimmick. Except for some fringe program, now 1.5 year later, the touch bar is still just a gimmick. If it was optional and at a tack on price, almost nobody would buy the upsell. A gimmick at +$400 vs physical I use everyday, it's not even a choice.

 

[The Mercurian]

I'm impressed at how resistent to change people still are. The Touch Bar is here to stay, and it's a natural evolution of the function keys. If you want a physical escape key, you can just remap it to the ^ key at the top left, which most users don't use anyway. In my opinion, with Better Touch Tool and some time customizing the Touch Bar to your own use cases, it's a great step forward for the MacBook Pro.

Totally disagree. I think its on the way out. Why ? Because Apple have shown no inclination to spread it other prodcuts such as magic keyboard. It was an experiment. Its failing/failed. I think at most it will be an optional extra in next model.

 

[Poki]

Every keyboard or laptop with a "touchbar" has turned out to be a gimmick. Except for some fringe program, now 1.5 year later, the touch bar is still just a gimmick. If it was optional and at a tack on price, almost nobody would buy the upsell.

I have never seen any other notebook with a Touch Bar that's as neatly integrated and customizable as the MacBook Pro's. Would you mind sharing the notebook models you think about? I'm genuinely curious here.

That people don't want to spend additional money on this feature doesn't mean it's not useful. I just don't think most naysayers have given it a fair chance and didn't even try mapping specific software functions or even macros for their most used applications to it.

 

[raqball]

I have never seen any other notebook with a Touch Bar that's as neatly integrated and customizable as the MacBook Pro's. Would you mind sharing the notebook models you think about? I'm genuinely curious here.

Lenovo X1C 2nd Gen.. They smartly and quickly ditched it after seeing it for the gimmick it is..

https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-2014

 

[Eason85]

To be fair, wasn't the main complaint about the TB everyone had back when the 2016 MBPs released not that it wasn't all that useful, but that it wasn't sufficiently useful to justify the price increase? The Touch Bar models sold for about $300 more than spec-wise comparable 2015 models did before, with the 13" models being the best comparison because the TB entry-level model even was exactly $300 more expensive than the nonTB one (and yes there are other differences between the TB and nonTB, but those are neither very obvious at first glance nor are they very intuitive; Apple wants people to associate the price increase with the Touch Bar).

Most people didn't seem to fundamentally dislike the Touch Bar, they just didn't find it as useful to justify the $300 price tag. Touch ID and the few additional control schemes in applications, many of which they might not even use that often, didn't seem to be worth the asking price. You can do objectively more with the Touch Bar than with the fn-keys, but not $300-more, that was the most common critique that I remember.

Now if, as the other commenter suggested, the price of the TB-models would be lowered $200-$300, then that wouldn't be an issue anymore. They price-wise would step into the shoes of the nonTB-models, so they might aswell replace them. If Apple is able to lower the asking price to where it was before the 2016 TB-models, then they might aswell uniformly put the Touch Bar which they believe is superior, two fans (–> higher TDP) and 4 USB-C ports (vs 2) into all of their MBPs.

Negative -- for me it was the loss of function, not the price. So frustrating to have to suddenly look where you are pressing your fingers to a flat smooth surface after touch typing/using fn-key shortcuts for 20 years just fine.

 

[afir93]

Ideally the TB model goes away...

No, forcing the users who like or got used to the Touch Bar, who integrated it into their daily workflow to get rid of it and return to function keys on future upgrades would arguably not be any better than forcing the Touch Bar onto everyone who doesn't want it. In both cases, Apple doesn't give users the choice.

Ideally, Apple makes the Touch Bar an optional upgrade on every Mac they sell. 13" and 15" MBPs, 12" MBs, on desktop Macs via a higher-end Magic Keyboard with TB, while also maintaining nonTB-models of each of those. For the user this would be ideal as everyone could decide whether or not he wants the TB and if it's worth the additional price to him.

In practice I don't expect this to happen as it would probably fragment the product lineup too much, and user-choice has never really been Apple's strong suit in this regard. Either they are gonna stick to it, stand by their belief that it's superior to function keys, improve it and bring it to other devices like they have done with many features before (which I deem more likely), or they are gonna drop it completely (which I don't really expect, but then again, the backlash against the TB was most likely larger than Apple expected).

 

[Loge]

Put the touchbar above a row of physical function keys and esc. There's room. It was always unsatisfactory that the function keys had to share with the volume/brightness keys in any case.

 

[afir93]

Lenovo X1C 2nd Gen.. They smartly and quickly ditched it after seeing it for the gimmick it is..

https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-2014

Interesting, but I don't think it adresses Poki's question about a "notebook with a Touch Bar that's as neatly integrated and customizable as the MacBook Pro's".

The Lenovo's Adaptive Keyboard Row just consisted of a number of fixed (non-physical) buttons, the only thing that was changing was the inscription. The symbols on those non-physical buttons changed depending on the App you were using, not the buttons themselves, not the size, width or position of the buttons, and there was no functionality for swiping/scrolling. And if that wasn't bad enough, the symbols themselves were built into the hardware, so there was no room to use your own symbols or buttons via software. And the buttons all were in a single color. If you didn't like how these buttons looked then you were out of luck. There was pretty much zero customizability.

Independently of what one might think of the TB, this adaptive row is arguably not even in the same league as the Touch Bar. It's essentially just some fixed function/system keys but made non-physical, the only thing that was changing were the keycap descriptions of those non-physical buttons, and even those only changed to some by the hardware predetermined greyish symbols.

On the Lenovo laptop touch stripe was never any capability to show a miniature timeline, scroll through dynamically previewed Safari tabs or undo-redo-steps in Photoshop, apply effects while you're moving something with the mouse around or display word suggestions when typing in a foreign language. No brightness/volume scrubber, no miniature previews when browsing through your photo collection or watching a video fullscreen, nothing like that. None of the stuff that makes the Touch Bar so great (for those who find it useful) was possible with the Lenovo laptop's touch stripe.

 

[raqball]

Interesting, but I don't think it adresses Poki's question about a "notebook with a Touch Bar that's as neatly integrated and customizable as the MacBook Pro's".

I already assumed this would be the response... That is personal preference and it's an open ended comment to where anyone can claim there were correct by simply stating the part you bolded.

The Lenovo 2nd gen was from 2014 so I'd hope progress has been made with it over the past 4-years. There is a reason Lenovo dumped it and never did it again and there is a reason that no one else is doing it...

I had the Lenovo and it was a joke. I had the 2016 TB and it was a joke.. My personal belief is it's a gimmick...