Waiting for the 2018 MBP

[Queen6]

My primary hope was they would knock, even $100 or so off the prices in recognition the machines are now over a year old and a generation of chipset behind (in the absence of a meaningful hardware/ spec upgrade) and also update the exchange rate prices in countries where that is applicable - I guess that sort of gesture has gone out of fashion at Apple now

Wrong company brother, Apple would rather charge you for the box in 2018...

Q-6

 

[Mr. Dee]

My primary hope was they would knock, even $100 or so off the prices in recognition the machines are now over a year old and a generation of chipset behind (in the absence of a meaningful hardware/ spec upgrade) and also update the exchange rate prices in countries where that is applicable - I guess that sort of gesture has gone out of fashion at Apple now

They are not gonna drop prices on old hardware because they don't have to. iPhone sales ensures they can do that.

 

[erigas]

I think I read somewhere that the new high end 15” will have the RX Vega MG H GPU.

If so the benchmarks https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-RX-Vega-M-GH-GPU.278680.0.html are a very good combo of pro app performance (like Solidworks) and gaming.

I sure hope that is true!

 

[hajime]

While I really wasn’t a fan of most hardware updates being lumped into WWDC last year, I do wish they had deigned to throw us something at WWDC this year... we’ve been a long time now with what were imperfect and not especially impressive or good value machines when they launched!

Anybody noticed that at the very end of the WWDC, it was like TC wanted to say something but then he decided to stop and thanked the audience?

 

[Queen6]

Anybody noticed that at the very end of the WWDC, it was like TC wanted to say something but then he decided to stop and thanked the audience.

No, such things are planned & rehearsed to the last detail...

Q-6

 

[d0nK]

I'm hoping the 2018 15" mbp has a better keyboard, better battery and with magsafe and USB 3 ports alongside the thunderbolt ports.... and a price drop.
My 2011 mbp discrete GPU is failing again. I won't pay £2700 for a 15" mbp with a 512GB HD, naff keyboard, crap battery life and only 4 TB ports.
The best mbp seems to be the 2015, but I won't buy 2015-tech in 2018.
Damn Apple.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I must say, we really don't know how good we really do have it though. I was looking at my vintage PowerBook G4 and iBook G4 yesterday; I must say, these things are like luggages.

We are going through some pain points right now with the current design of the 2016/17 but I think its for the better in the long run. I am sure 18 years from now, we are gonna wonder how people used these heavy things.

What I think Apple needs to do is split the MacBook line into two groups.

I can see one around for as long as there is a market (pros and users who want ports for legacy devices) and one that looks like the retina MacBook 12 inch, in 13 and 15 inch sizes that even drops the head phone Jack in favor of even thinner design.

 

[hajime]

I'm hoping the 2018 15" mbp has a better keyboard, better battery and with magsafe and USB 3 ports alongside the thunderbolt ports.... and a price drop.
My 2011 mbp discrete GPU is failing again. I won't pay £2700 for a 15" mbp with a 512GB HD, naff keyboard, crap battery life and only 4 TB ports.
The best mbp seems to be the 2015, but I won't buy 2015-tech in 2018.
Damn Apple.

Besides, the 2015 has no dGPU nor ability to use eGPU. None of the current MBP being sold is worth the investment. Shame on Apple.

 

[djdeepv]

Assuming the next MBP comes out someday and it comes stock with 8GB of RAM, is there anywhere besides Apple that I could purchase a MBP with additional RAM? Is Apple the only ones who sells their own customized products?

 

[CodeJoy]

I think I read somewhere that the new high end 15” will have the RX Vega MG H GPU.

If so the benchmarks https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-RX-Vega-M-GH-GPU.278680.0.html are a very good combo of pro app performance (like Solidworks) and gaming.

I sure hope that is true!

That particular part isn't very likely, and it's actually just a renamed Polaris derivate anyway. Real Vega Mobile chips are fairly likely though, and you should expect them to perform even better.
[doublepost=1530157992][/doublepost]

Assuming the next MBP comes out someday and it comes stock with 8GB of RAM, is there anywhere besides Apple that I could purchase a MBP with additional RAM? Is Apple the only ones who sells their own customized products?

Some other configurations are available from retailers. I've seem 16G/256G for example.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Assuming the next MBP comes out someday and it comes stock with 8GB of RAM, is there anywhere besides Apple that I could purchase a MBP with additional RAM? Is Apple the only ones who sells their own customized products?

What country are you in? Also, the 15” always ships with 16GB so I assume you’re looking at the 13”?

 

[bykaraanne]

I'm hoping the 2018 15" mbp has a better keyboard, better battery and with magsafe and USB 3 ports alongside the thunderbolt ports.... and a price drop.
My 2011 mbp discrete GPU is failing again. I won't pay £2700 for a 15" mbp with a 512GB HD, naff keyboard, crap battery life and only 4 TB ports.
The best mbp seems to be the 2015, but I won't buy 2015-tech in 2018.
Damn Apple.

FWIW, I’ve been using my 2017 MBP 15” 2.9ghz for the past month. I use Adobe Illustrator daily with a ton of apps in chrome. The keyboard is actually nice. With the new policy I no longer have to worry about the keyboard failing, though I wouldn’t love having to bring it in for repairs but hey, my previous Windows laptops broke down before, too.

The TB ports are fine, I got 2 dodocool USB-C to A ports and they are great. I like being able to charge from both sides and use every other port from any side.

But I agree the price is ridiculous in the UK. I got mine for S$3388 (very approx £1600) refurbished and there’s an offer now on lazada for a brand new one at S$3088 (very approx £1400), which is a great deal, almost a thousand bucks off retail.

And I also agree it’s all personal preference. Much like Windows, some people have no problems with it at all and some have a lot. I’m happy with my purchase but wished I got it earlier. If the MBP2018 are a big jump I will be selling this one and getting the new one probably 6 months after its release.

I’m so glad I jumped the gun and purchased though. It was getting sad waiting for the launch and thinking / complaining about what could and should happen. If I liked Windows I would’ve just went ahead with an XPS I think. I got so much work done in the last month I had the MBP and made back the money in no time, so it was stupid for me to keep waiting since March sigh, first world problems.
[doublepost=1530177103][/doublepost]

I must say, we really don't know how good we really do have it though. I was looking at my vintage PowerBook G4 and iBook G4 yesterday; I must say, these things are like luggages.

We are going through some pain points right now with the current design of the 2016/17 but I think its for the better in the long run. I am sure 18 years from now, we are gonna wonder how people used these heavy things.

What I think Apple needs to do is split the MacBook line into two groups.

I can see one around for as long as there is a market (pros and users who want ports for legacy devices) and one that looks like the retina MacBook 12 inch, in 13 and 15 inch sizes that even drops the head phone Jack in favor of even thinner design.

I agree. I think it’s a painful transition process that we will come to appreciate in a few years. While I don’t love the prices, it is what it is.

 

[Ma2k5]

I must say, we really don't know how good we really do have it though. I was looking at my vintage PowerBook G4 and iBook G4 yesterday; I must say, these things are like luggages.

We are going through some pain points right now with the current design of the 2016/17 but I think its for the better in the long run. I am sure 18 years from now, we are gonna wonder how people used these heavy things.

The fact that laptops were heavier a decade ago doesn't mean much to be honest.

I think this might not be a fair comparison - as the competition of today are also creating thin and light machines without some of the shortcomings of Apple. What really is painful is to see Apple regress on some area's of the laptop (keyboard for one, but there are other areas one can look at, such as MagSafe, touchbar etc).

No one is against innovation and better designs, everyone just wants Apple to be way ahead of the competition (to justify the cost).

 

[mctrials23]

Just described exactly how Apple is today. As for other marques they are equally criticised in their own realms and user forums, likely just as concerned with any issues, more so especially given the cut throat nature of the PC industry. The difference being, Apple has near limitless resources, by far the longest timelines between major updates, no competition (OS X), has full control over the hardware & software, yet Apple remains seemingly incapable of producing a MBP that is not problematic in one way or another....

I'm sure other manufacturers gets criticised, I'm not doubting that but how many times have you heard someone slate a Dell XPS without owning one? How many people have you heard complain that apple hardware is overpriced rubbish. I have heard it a lot from a lot of people who have never owned a macbook or any apple computers.

Honestly, no one gives a **** if dell release a product that isn't that good but when Apple have any issues its everywhere and every man and his dog wants to stick the knife in even if they have no interest at all in the product.

Apple also don't have complete control over the hardware in their computers. The GFX and processors are completely out of their hands and those two components are huge deciders in performance.

Design changes can annoy, being subjective for many, however objective failures are a completely different matter, Apple's MBP has been plagued with dGPU failure, throttling, image retention, delaminating displays, now batteries & keyboards on notebooks costing up to and over $3K.

Are you listing all the issues that macbooks have had since they were introduced? The only serious issue that the new MBP design seems to have had is with the keyboard. Apple sell a huge number of a small selection of laptops. Ultimately there are only ever 4 or 5 "designs" over potentially a 4-5 year period. If it turns out your screens delaminate under certain conditions after years of use then all your laptops (macbook, macbook pro, macbook air) could all suffer that issue and you have 10s of millions of them out there. Any issue that affects even 0.5% of users is going to affect a lot of people.

I'm not claiming that apple laptops are perfect but you are making out like they are a complete mess with design flaws that make them a complete **** show. I have owned macs for over 10 years and have never had any issues with the things you have listed.

Apple is behind the curve with Coffee Lake as it needs to resolve the current keyboard issue and figure out how to power & cool far more performant CPU's delivering over 40% increase in computational performance in the MBP's diminutive chassis, without power or thermal throttling or is this just yet another corner Apple has neatly painted itself into at our cost...

I agree that apple have backed themselves into a corner a bit here. If you sit on the edge of cooling performance then you have few places to go if you need a hotter and more powerful chip in a later revision of the MBP but I can only assume they didn't think Intel would give them chips with this issue. The keyboard issue will be sorted at some point I assume as well. Mine is fine and I am happy that for the next 2 and a bit years I can have it fixed for free. They made a mistake here and at least they are admitting it.

And yet they still manage to screw up fundamental components of a laptop such as the keyboard. Two years of Mac sales with the defective keyboards and a huge amount of negative publicity.

Frankly, I'm surprised a multi-billion-dollar company would need so many months to perfect a product, happily charge more for it than competing products (and $400 more than prior versions of the same product), and still end up with issues like the butterfly keyboards. It's clear that Apple's management isn't giving the MacBook Pro the resources it needs to succeed and stay competitive.

The keyboard isn't anything to do with resources, it was a poorly tested component that didn't consider that people aren't super precious with their laptops and stuff gets under the keyboard quite easily. They ultimately convinced themselves that the beautiful product they had made was worth the lack of repairability and that it was more durable than it was.

 

[maflynn]

I'm hoping the 2018 15" mbp has a better keyboard,

Agreed, but the more I think about it, the more I think in 2018 we'll see only a refinement of the existing design. Whether that will be sufficient to increase the quality of the keyboard is anyone's guess and only time will tell.

better battery

They have room to put in a stepped battery but they didn't for 2017...

and with magsafe and USB 3 ports alongside the thunderbolt ports.... and a price drop.

The ports will not change nor will we ever see magsafe again. As for the price drop, I only foresee that if they offer a non-touchbar model for the 15" MBP, like what they have for the 13" MBP.

My 2011 mbp discrete GPU is failing again. I won't pay £2700 for a 15" mbp with a 512GB HD, naff keyboard, crap battery life and only 4 TB ports.
The best mbp seems to be the 2015, but I won't buy 2015-tech in 2018.
Damn Apple.

Here's the bitter pill I see.
2009 through 2012 varying levels (with the 2011 being worst) of GPU failures.
2012 - 2015 screen issues with the coating flaking off
2016 - 201? keyboard failures.

While I've said quite often that my 2012 rMBP is the best laptop I've owned and I dodged a bullet with the screen coating, Apple's track record is not all that stellar when you step back for a moment.

 

[nrdpxl]

Anybody noticed that at the very end of the WWDC, it was like TC wanted to say something but then he decided to stop and thanked the audience?

He wanted to say “Help me”

 

[Queen6]

Here's the bitter pill I see.
2009 through 2012 varying levels (with the 2011 being worst) of GPU failures.
2012 - 2015 screen issues with the coating flaking off
2016 - 201? keyboard failures.

While I've said quite often that my 2012 rMBP is the best laptop I've owned and I dodged a bullet with the screen coating, Apple's track record is not all that stellar when you step back for a moment.

That's my issue Apple remains seeming incapable of producing the MBP without some major flaw one way or the other, and it's making rather a habit of it...

Q-6

 

[maflynn]

That's my issue Apple remains seeming incapable of producing the MBP without some major flaw one way or the other, and it's making rather a habit of it...

Q-6

There are issues, but for a bit of perspective, it seems many other makers deal with a variety of issues. XPS has coil whine, and battery swelling.

One thing I do appreciate with apple is their customer support, and while these issues highlight a breakdown in quality where some folks are in a lurch, I'd say that apple at the end of the day has backed up their laptops with repair programs. Some may not be happy with the solution, but its better then other makers. For instance, I believe Dell isn't doing much related to the battery swelling issue.

 

[redheeler]

We are going through some pain points right now with the current design of the 2016/17 but I think its for the better in the long run. I am sure 18 years from now, we are gonna wonder how people used these heavy things.

There's a limit to how thin laptops can get without needing more and more compromises as space diminishes. Fewer ports, diminished key travel / less-reliable keyboard, no upgradable components, poorer cooling, worse battery life.

The 2016 MacBook Pro has more compromises for thinness than any prior generation.

 

[spicy_guy]

and a price drop

wahhh!!

 

[Ener Ji]

Question

Is it really crazy to believe that the Base Model 2018 Macbook Pro is going to have 16GB of RAM?

The 15" already comes with 16GB of RAM as base, and has for some time. Do you mean the base 13"?

 

[cocoua]

Coffee lake = 4 core 8 thread 15W chips, 6 core 12 thread 45 W chips.

Realistically speaking, how much is the performance increase of Coffee Lake compare to Kaby Lake? Like Kaby Lake was over Skylake? My 2010 MBA is already on its limits... I'm not sure if I could wait another year.

compare:
-coffee lake (blue)
-rMBP 2017 (pink)
-rMBP 2012 (yellow)
compare the huge difference between the 2017 rMBP and the new coffee lake, vs the very subtle difference between the 2012 rMBP vs the 2017 rMBP!!!

very impressive

I'd jumped from 2 core (2006) to 4 core (i7 2012) and my jump now will be similar, from 4 core to 6core, upgrading Macbook pro to same number of cores has no sense, as the price is super high, while the performance difference is very little

 

[Falhófnir]

Wrong company brother, Apple would rather charge you for the box in 2018...

Q-6

It does seem more and more to be the case unfortunately

They are not gonna drop prices on old hardware because they don't have to. iPhone sales ensures they can do that.

Yea, unfortunately everything else is more or less a hobby now - there is a business case for diversifying income though...

Anybody noticed that at the very end of the WWDC, it was like TC wanted to say something but then he decided to stop and thanked the audience?

Interesting - I will have to re watch and see if I can see it...

 

[cocoua]

What about new tech that could leave the macbook old in the near future?

i.e. the 2012 rMBP came W/O didn't offer 4K at 60Hz, or the DP wasn't enough to work with eGPU...

is there any specification, for WIFI, WIMAX or something that could make the 2018 rMBP look old in 2020?

 

[Poki]

What about new tech that could leave the macbook old in the near future?

i.e. the 2012 rMBP came W/O didn't offer 4K at 60Hz, or the DP wasn't enough to work with eGPU...

is there any specification, for WIFI, WIMAX or something that could make the 2018 rMBP look old in 2020?

There are tons of technologies which will be ready in 2019 or 2020, like WPA3, 10 nm Intel CPUs, 7 nm AMD Vega Mobile GPUs, possibly Thunderbolt 4, SD Express support, LPDDR4 support (which enables 32GB+ RAM) and most definitely tons of things I didn't think of right now.

The thing is, there is always going to be some new standard which will improve on current ones. If there is something very specific you want to wait for, you're free to do so, but just waiting for the sake of it will be a never ending story.