Waiting for the 2018 MBP

[MBX]

If there's MBP upgrades/ Keynote this year we won't see 32GB this fall. Unless Intel is ready.

No design upgrade for sure.

We may see some CPU & GPU bump, hopefully better batteries too. And they might address some of the keyboard issues.

But that's about it. Knowing Apple it will be underwhelming.

My only "one more thing" hope is: A 15'' NO-Touchbar version with highend specs.

 

[maflynn]

No design upgrade for sure.

As the days tick off to weeks, into months, the more I believe a major design change will not occur in 2018 but rather 2019 or even 2020. I have to believe we'll see Coffee Lake this fall but Apple has skipped chipsets in the past...

 

[haydn!]

A design change ahead of typical schedule will show whether Apple cares about unit sales/revenue or actual customer satisfaction as they claim.

 

[Martius]

1 trillion can't buy talent. Excellent developers are a scarce human resource. Lets remember Apple's home turf is surrounded by the competition fighting for those same developers: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Uber, Twitter, Adobe; and those are just the well known ones. Also, its not about throwing more engineers at the problem. The other issue is the American entrepreneurial spirit. Many developers these days seem to be moving away from buy me out mentality. They actually want to become the competition and grow their business.

Steve Jobs spoiled us with the couple of guys working out of the garage one man show years. We thought Steve was the only one designing these products and bringing it to the people. Steve definitely was good at managing Apple and selling the products. But in reality, engineering these products is actually really hard and requires a good team of engineers.

We are talking about orchestrating both hardware and software engineers under one roof to really be on the same page vision wise.

We have to remember, the 12 or 16 year old attending WWDC in 2018 will likely be the one defining the vision of what Apple products look and work like 10 years from now. Their philosophy of computing will not align with ours any more in fact. The ratio of consumers/everyday/average users is higher than those who are developers.

So, what Apple see's as being able to reach the masses is what they will go after. Its just business.

The marketing stuff like computing for the rest of us is slowly dying. If you can't accept it, ask those who used Punch Cards, Terminals and Disk Operating Systems.

Not saying the clamshell, iMac and tower computers will go away. But for the vast majority, an iPad will be all the computing they need. Not everyone needs a computer that can run Final Cut Pro or Xcode. That is Apple's future market.

Well, the problem with younger generation is that a lot of them are in the business just for the money & fame. I'm 28, I have been developing websites / webapps for more than 15 years (my father is one of the first generations of developer) and I love my job. I work as lead developer for local agency, we are mostly focused on e-commerce solutions and right now we are looking for some junior developers. You won't believe how hard is to find a talented young webdeveloper in 2018. Most people we interviewed doesn’t really cared what are we doing. They cared about money & working remotely. They see only the perks of being developer and don't realize that you have to work really hard and sacrifice a lot free time when the agency is launching a big project or solving some critical bugs.

There are of course a lot of talented young devs, but most of them are already working on their own business.

The old "computer" generation might be slowly dying, but there is nothing right now that could replace it. There have to be content creators to create content that people are consuming. And content creators need devices that allow using the full set of tools that are / already was on the market. I always laugh at those iPad / iPhone demos where they just drag and drop already prepared content / assets and they try to convince you that is the way PROs do it.

The Mac might be only 10% of Apple profit, but it's worth much more. The more pro users will Apple lose, the less (good) iOS apps will be released. This year is a key year for Apple. It takes some time to develop a great product, but computer industry is not car industry. You can't spend like 6 years trying to develop a new Mac Pro. The funny thing that almost every potential Mac Pro buyer would be happy with just an old Mac Pro case with new components.

 

[shoebobs]

When people are commenting on the upcoming redesign in 2019/2020 - what are the expectations? Is it expected that there will be a major redesign from the ground up both externally and internally?

I am a bit skeptical that we will definitely see a major external redesign in 2019/2020. I think Apple will instead choose to continue to make small tweaks with no major changes to the external design. For example, I could see upgraded internals, upgraded display technology (and thinner bezels), continued improvements to the keyboard, maybe drop the touchbar, etc. From an external perspective however, I think they've hit on the pinnacle design they've been moving towards for the last 15+ years and I don't see them abandoning it so soon with a radical change.

Historically, redesigns every ~4 years made sense when the Mac was a much larger portion of Apple's business, but as it is increasingly becoming a much much smaller chunk, I don't think it would make sense for Apple to devote resources to redesigns so frequently. Not only would that take away from other higher priority segments of the business, but as we've seen from this current line, every time you do a redesign it introduces new bugs. The longer you stay on a design, the more those bugs get ironed out. Each machine sold becomes more profitable - the R&D cost is spread out further and further, manufacturing costs go down as efficiencies are gained, and Apple loses less money as machines need to be repaired less frequently within the first year.

I hope the changes we would see in 2019/2020 are similar to what happened with the iMac Pro. The iMac has had the same case/shell for 6-7 years, and there is no sign that it is changing anytime soon (if they had plans for it, I would think they would've done so with the iMac Pro). Instead, when they released the pro, they focused on internal changes and introduced the new cooling system. The hardware engineering teams didn't have to redesign the entire machine - they just focused on the internals and from what I've seen it has been a success.

 

[Poki]

When people are commenting on the upcoming redesign in 2019/2020 - what are the expectations? Is it expected that there will be a major redesign from the ground up both externally and internally?

I am a bit skeptical that we will definitely see a major external redesign in 2019/2020. I think Apple will instead choose to continue to make small tweaks with no major changes to the external design. For example, I could see upgraded internals, upgraded display technology (and thinner bezels), continued improvements to the keyboard, maybe drop the touchbar, etc. From an external perspective however, I think they've hit on the pinnacle design they've been moving towards for the last 15+ years and I don't see them abandoning it so soon with a radical change.

Historically, redesigns every ~4 years made sense when the Mac was a much larger portion of Apple's business, but as it is increasingly becoming a much much smaller chunk, I don't think it would make sense for Apple to devote resources to redesigns so frequently. Not only would that take away from other higher priority segments of the business, but as we've seen from this current line, every time you do a redesign it introduces new bugs. The longer you stay on a design, the more those bugs get ironed out. Each machine sold becomes more profitable - the R&D cost is spread out further and further, manufacturing costs go down as efficiencies are gained, and Apple loses less money as machines need to be repaired less frequently within the first year.

I hope the changes we would see in 2019/2020 are similar to what happened with the iMac Pro. The iMac has had the same case/shell for 6-7 years, and there is no sign that it is changing anytime soon (if they had plans for it, I would think they would've done so with the iMac Pro). Instead, when they released the pro, they focused on internal changes and introduced the new cooling system. The hardware engineering teams didn't have to redesign the entire machine - they just focused on the internals and from what I've seen it has been a success.

I don't think the frequency of redesigns is strictly tied to the volume of a product. With all the complaints with the current design, I could see a redesign this fall as just as likely as a redesign 2020 or even 2022, depending on just how aggressive Apple wants to be with the Mac. With all these amazing Windows notebooks out there - some of them being lighter, thinner, smaller and more powerful than the MacBook Pro - Apple might want to consider dedicating more budget to the Mac in order to keep this business growing.

 

[Hitrate]

Look at the iPhone and iMac and iMac pro...slim chance of any major re-design of mbp’s for yeeears is my guess...why such huge bezels on the iMacs and iMac pro’s? Low webcam quality lots of wasted internal space etc. Apple solidified their stance by saying No. to morphing iOS and macOS, thus saying no to touch screen MacOS also, out of pure stubborn principle, like they won’t make a detachable or even just touchable screen if the device is a “personal computer”.

They’re over compensating with the huge trackpads and touch bar instead of facing reality, and consumers are still eating it up, cause they don’t know better.

It’s like with politics, vote for the one you’ve been brainwashed to believe, cause you don’t really know or care enough to find out yourself, who and what to actually believe. So we can blame all this on ignorant consumers with lots of money, and anyone at Apple who hasn’t lived up to Steve Jobs’ and previous generation of consumers standards. The touch bar thing, ok they made some mistakes, that’s almost excusable. Not giving the option for 15”ers a non-touch bar is inexcusable. Ditching the MagSafe, again something showing their new stance, it’s more of a gamble being in the Mac ecosystem these days with headphone outputs, analog inputs, digital outputs getting removed. Normal buttons removed for no-feedback glass. No new mini for years etc. etc. iPads still toys (for my kind of use) iMac pros too pricey and no need for an iMac, when I got lots of screens already...so ya, hmmm....real fun waiting for a 2019 6core mbp xD

 

[haydn!]

We need to stop looking at the Mac business as a smaller business than it was. Because it's not. It's a bigger today in volume and revenue than it ever has been. It just represents a smaller chunk of Apple overall than it once did.

Tim knows that Apple is too reliant, financially, on the iPhone and shareholders know it too. One major wrong move with iPhone and the house comes tumbling down. Apple will want to address that and there two ways to do it, introduce new product categories and growing revenues in your existing product categories. Apple has had some great success with new categories including iPad, Watch and services - but they know they need to do more to make iPhone a lesser share of Apples overall revenue and that's why I can see them looking to grow the Mac business.

The line-up as been a bit a mess for sometime, but as I mentioned a few posts back, I think some of that is due to the Intel roadmap falling out of sync with Apples. With a move to custom chips though, Apple as the opportunity simplify the line-up. Give it a few years , and I think we'll have Mac (replacing the mini), Mac Pro, iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook and MacBook Pro - all leading in their respective categories again.

 

[PhilMacbook]

I agree Haydn. So many people say the Mac is a small segment for Apple and they need to concentrate on other things. It's a trillion dollar company. Sure they are looking at AR and cars but how much would they need to increase their R&D to knock it out of the park where the Mac is concerned? They need products with a Wow factor as that is what Apple is about. The Mac, Watch and Homepod don't have that. Maybe the iPhoneX does but only maybe.

I think it would be minimal cost and manpower for Apple to address the Mac. I would be happy with TouchId and no TouchBar. I actually like the new keyboard and I can cope without the ports and try to get by without Magsafe.

It is a shame when many of us want to buy a new Mac but can't find one we like. Still, maybe we are irrelevent to Apple and maybe I'll still be typing on my 2012 Macbook in 2022. If it makes it that far it will have done an impressive job.

 

[jpep]

For me i don't need a new design, fix the keyboard and I'm good.

 

[stevemiller]

It is a shame when many of us want to buy a new Mac but can't find one we like.

this is what frustrates me the most. I'm not holding out for some unicorn of perfection or even to be wowed; I just want a reasonable, current-market product and they'd have $3k from me. but the previous generation processor and keyboard issues have me stuck. the MagSafe, touchbar, ports, ram, and gpu situation don't help either. and now the expectation is that the situation isn't going to improve for another 4 months. and apple at this point feels like they would just as likely prioritize adding animoji support to a Mac as they would addressing any of the above.

 

[Starlights]

We only need to look at their revenue streams to understand the differences in priority also.
They certainly are consumer driven over ‘computer’ driven, and quite rightly so. I would do the same if Apple was my business, and put my focus into iOS and its hardware.

For all we know (and for all the people waiting for the 2020 and beyond update), Apple may just stop making MacBookPros by then. It appears that MacBook lineup, especially the pro's is a shrinking product line-up for them. Considering the "Class Action Lawsuits" it may just be not a viable option going forward - after all, Apple, in its current state, is a business for profitability, not people pleasing down to the last soul.

 

[Falhófnir]

For all we know (and for all the people waiting for the 2020 and beyond update), Apple may just stop making MacBookPros by then. It appears that MacBook lineup, especially the pro's is a shrinking product line-up for them. Considering the "Class Action Lawsuits" it may just be not a viable option going forward - after all, Apple, in its current state, is a business for profitability, not people pleasing down to the last soul.

It’s not shrinking, it’s growing, both in absolute terms and a percentage of their business (albeit very slowly). It would be negligent of the execs to kill off a healthy line of business and make the company even more of a one trick (iPhone) pony...

 

[ilukeberry]

Next redesign will be ARM based MacBook Pro

 

[sotorious]

On a side note has high sierra gotten any better i know there was a lot of people complaining about it.

 

[ocnitsa]

I just had a nightmare vision of Apple shrinking the bezels for the next line of MBP and including a notch for Face ID. Basically, I was thinking about how they removed the backlit Apple from the lid and how it is increasingly becoming hard for them to differentiate their laptops visually from others...then that made me think about arguments people have made about the notch not strictly being a design trade off, but a conscious effort to construct Apple-ness...Any thoughts on whether or not that might occur in the next gen MBP? I have to admit I'm slightly terrified given that it seems a totally typical Apple move at this point.

 

[afir93]

I just had a nightmare vision of Apple shrinking the bezels for the next line of MBP and including a notch for Face ID. Basically, I was thinking about how they removed the backlit Apple from the lid and how it is increasingly becoming hard for them to differentiate their laptops visually from others...then that made me think about arguments people have made about the notch not strictly being a design trade off, but a conscious effort to construct Apple-ness...Any thoughts on whether or not that might occur in the next gen MBP? I have to admit I'm slightly terrified given that it seems a totally typical Apple move at this point.

Not gonna happen. The current height of the iPhone X notch is already less than the size of most if not all laptop display bezels currently out there, meaning there would be no reason to put in a notch when Apple could easily shrink the bezels down to what some competitors currently have and still fit Face ID in there space-wise.

As you said, the notch is strictly a design trade off, it's the best solution right now for having Face ID and an edge-to-edge screen on the iPhones; the fact that it's a memorable characteristic is just a nice side-effect. On a bigger screen like the MacBook Pro one, a notch in this form wouldn't really work; in fact I can't even see a notch on this year's iPad Pros which some people have been speculating. It only really works that well in on the iPhone because there never was that much content in the iPhone's menu bar anyway that doesn't fit left and right besides the notch.

 

[Hadron]

It only really works that well in on the iPhone because there never was that much content in the iPhone's menu bar anyway that doesn't fit left and right besides the notch.

Indeed, I'm looking at my MBP's status/menu bar now and there's no space for a notch - especially not a centred one. And no imaginable need for one. I'm tempted to joke that a "typically Apple move" right now would be to respond to the reliability problems of the keyboard and the complaints about the short travel by replacing them with fixed keys with haptic response (same as after years of comments about a mouse with only one button they released a mouse with no buttons ). The trouble is that I'm not 100% sure I'd put it past them, though I can't see that happening this year.

The observation made a couple of pages ago that iOS developers need a Mac, and hence Apple can be complacent because they are a captive market, misses one important point: iOS developers are a tiny fraction of MacOS users, and it's not cost-effective to maintain the platform, even in the most careless and complacent way you could imagine, just for them. If the Mac platform were to become unprofitable Apple could simply release the iOS SDK for other platforms. I'm not saying they will do this, I'm just saying that the future of the Mac platform does not and cannot depend on its use for iOS development.

 

[jwolf6589]

My 2012 MBP is starting to show it's age, so I was going to upgrade this year. But just like you, I think I will hold until 2018. I am hoping for a price cut also.

I have a 2012 and even am running it with the standard HDD. Whats wrong with your machine? Mine runs fine.

 

[Cardino]

For me i don't need a new design, fix the keyboard and I'm good.

I need a 8559u which can boost to 4.5G.

 

[cool11]

Well, the problem with younger generation is that a lot of them are in the business just for the money & fame. I'm 28, I have been developing websites / webapps for more than 15 years (my father is one of the first generations of developer) and I love my job. I work as lead developer for local agency, we are mostly focused on e-commerce solutions and right now we are looking for some junior developers. You won't believe how hard is to find a talented young webdeveloper in 2018. Most people we interviewed doesn’t really cared what are we doing. They cared about money & working remotely. They see only the perks of being developer and don't realize that you have to work really hard and sacrifice a lot free time when the agency is launching a big project or solving some critical bugs.

There are of course a lot of talented young devs, but most of them are already working on their own business.

The old "computer" generation might be slowly dying, but there is nothing right now that could replace it. There have to be content creators to create content that people are consuming. And content creators need devices that allow using the full set of tools that are / already was on the market. I always laugh at those iPad / iPhone demos where they just drag and drop already prepared content / assets and they try to convince you that is the way PROs do it.

The Mac might be only 10% of Apple profit, but it's worth much more. The more pro users will Apple lose, the less (good) iOS apps will be released. This year is a key year for Apple. It takes some time to develop a great product, but computer industry is not car industry. You can't spend like 6 years trying to develop a new Mac Pro. The funny thing that almost every potential Mac Pro buyer would be happy with just an old Mac Pro case with new components.

Nice thoughts and post.
I was reading an article that today's main Apple profits come from 'services' like itunes, ipay etc
So they definitely mainly focus on these cash flows.
But they should never forget, that their computer core, is irreplaceable.
It is not about quantity, it is about quality, and about importance in the whole computing and technology business.

 

[Ries]

I have a 2012 and even am running it with the standard HDD. Whats wrong with your machine? Mine runs fine.

Put a SSD into it, i'll be like you bought a new machine that feels twice as fast.

 

[richinaus]

Put a SSD into it, i'll be like you bought a new machine that feels twice as fast.

Lucky you guys. I couldn’t survive on one of those machines in 2012.....

 

[MBX]

Forget about redesign, won't happen for another 2 years probably. Also it doesn't rush really, they're still top. Even though I'd like smaller bezels but for now it's still the most beautiful laptops.

It's a shame that they can't pack discreet gpu's into the non-touchbar version. At least I hope they will offer a 15'' non-touchbar version later this year.

Come on Tim Cook, you like to sell so many dongles why not some more laptop versions

 

[Falhófnir]

Not gonna happen. The current height of the iPhone X notch is already less than the size of most if not all laptop display bezels currently out there, meaning there would be no reason to put in a notch when Apple could easily shrink the bezels down to what some competitors currently have and still fit Face ID in there space-wise.

As you said, the notch is strictly a design trade off, it's the best solution right now for having Face ID and an edge-to-edge screen on the iPhones; the fact that it's a memorable characteristic is just a nice side-effect. On a bigger screen like the MacBook Pro one, a notch in this form wouldn't really work; in fact I can't even see a notch on this year's iPad Pros which some people have been speculating. It only really works that well in on the iPhone because there never was that much content in the iPhone's menu bar anyway that doesn't fit left and right besides the notch.

The thing is, the notch can be so small on an iPhone because the phone is more or less the same thickness right to the edge. MacBook screens taper, which is why the camera isn't located as close to the edge, it's inset a fair amount. If you look up a computer whose screen doesn't taper (the surface laptop is a good example) you will see why apple will never take this approach. The macbook over the MacBook air already makes a compromise by not tapering to as sharp an edge in order to move the camera a bit closer and shrink the bezel.