Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Waiting for the 2019 MBP [Merged]

It's confusing, because the Retina models were introduced simultaneously with Unibody models with identical CPUs and GPUs - but Apple has always given redesigns spec updates as well. The initial Touch Bar models were two processor generations newer than their Retina predecessors. The Retina models were a processor generation newer than their actual predecessors (the confusion is that the final Unibody generation was introduced alongside the Retinas and got the upgrade as well). The first Unibody MBP got a very modest processor upgrade and a graphics upgrade compared to the final pre-Unibody generation.

If they follow their own pattern, we won't see a substantial redesign (e.g. new screens, new keyboard) without a spec bump to go with it. It could be a tiny spec bump as in the transition to the Unibody design, or something more substantial like the Haswell to Skylake upgrade that came with the Touch Bar generation - but it won't come without the spec bump (which there are no chips for right now). It is possible that a jump of a few hundred MHz and a couple of minor CPU features is enough to give Apple the excuse to redesign the MBP, but I'd think it's more likely with the transition to Sunny Cove, which will probably come in 2020.

A redesign would be likely to do something to the screen, and something to the keyboard. Remembering that the keyboard is shared across the line, we're going to get something very flat to fit in the MacBook. It could be an improved Butterfly, or it could be another super-flat design. They'll eventually go for a non-moving haptic keyboard, but is that one more redesign away?

Unfortunately, aren't reduced bezels and Face ID incompatible? Face ID needs a substantial and well placed camera setup - two cameras and a dot projector, almost certainly atop the screen. The largest bezel on the current design is also atop the screen. Dell's bezel-free designs generally rely on putting the webcam in a bad place below the screen, in the hinge area where the screen can't extend (the newest 13" squeezes it into a small top bezel, but none of them have biometric-capable cameras) . The alternative is a pop-up camera design, which would be hard to do elegantly, especially with the very thin screen housing.

I'm hoping for reduced bezels to allow increased screen size, and maybe even a 5K Super Retina display.
 
danwells said:
Unfortunately, aren't reduced bezels and Face ID incompatible? Face ID needs a substantial and well placed camera setup - two cameras and a dot projector, almost certainly atop the screen. The largest bezel on the current design is also atop the screen. Dell's bezel-free designs generally rely on putting the webcam in a bad place below the screen, in the hinge area where the screen can't extend (the newest 13" squeezes it into a small top bezel, but none of them have biometric-capable cameras) . The alternative is a pop-up camera design, which would be hard to do elegantly, especially with the very thin screen housing.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm wondering aswell. It's not just the size of the bezel, but the TrueDepth sensor setup has a significant depth within the device to it aswell that the screen panel on the current MBPs (even less on the MBs) just doesn't have. If you hold your iPhone X(S) next to the MBP screen and compare thicknesses, then the iPhone is still significantly thicker.

Now it's not out of the question that future versions of the Face ID sensors will reduce their area and depth they require (this year's iPhone is already heavily rumored to have a smaller notch), but there are limits to how small such a camera array can physically be in order to still absorb enough light. So if Apple wants to put the Face ID sensors above the display, it would likely still require the display part of the MBP to be significantly thicker. I'm not saying that there aren't any elegant solutions to this, but it still makes me wonder how (and when) Apple is going to handle this.

My guess is that the iMacs (and maybe the rumored new Pro displays) are the first Macs to get Face ID because they are thick enough not to have this problem. They also have a much larger need for Face ID since unlike the MBP/A's, they don't have Touch ID in any shape or form yet (unless we do get that often-speculated Magic Keyboard with Touch Bar after all). It's only logical that MBPs will get Face ID too eventually, but it would very likely require a change in paradigms – either they'd have to move the camera array somewhere else (and cameras below the laptop screen are usually awkward as hell), or they need to add a good bit of thickness to the MBPs.
 
afir93 said:
That's what I'm wondering aswell. It's not just the size of the bezel, but the TrueDepth sensor setup has a significant depth within the device to it aswell that the screen panel on the current MBPs (even less on the MBs) just doesn't have. If you hold your iPhone X(S) next to the MBP screen and compare thicknesses, then the iPhone is still significantly thicker.

Now it's not out of the question that future versions of the Face ID sensors will reduce their area and depth they require (this year's iPhone is already heavily rumored to have a smaller notch), but there are limits to how small such a camera array can physically be in order to still absorb enough light. So if Apple wants to put the Face ID sensors above the display, it would likely still require the display part of the MBP to be significantly thicker. I'm not saying that there aren't any elegant solutions to this, but it still makes me wonder how (and when) Apple is going to handle this.

My guess is that the iMacs (and maybe the rumored new Pro displays) are the first Macs to get Face ID because they are thick enough not to have this problem. They also have a much larger need for Face ID since unlike the MBP/A's, they don't have Touch ID in any shape or form yet (unless we do get that often-speculated Magic Keyboard with Touch Bar after all). It's only logical that MBPs will get Face ID too eventually, but it would very likely require a change in paradigms – either they'd have to move the camera array somewhere else (and cameras below the laptop screen are usually awkward as hell), or they need to add a good bit of thickness to the MBPs.
Click to expand...

I totally agree!
 
danwells said:
Most faster laptop GPUs are found in much larger, gaming-focused laptops. There are a very few relatively thin and light gaming laptops that offer NVidia RTX 2070 or 2080 GPUs, but at huge costs in battery life. Razer isn't even quoting battery life on their higher-end Blade models - but the lower-end model with a GTX 1060 is listed as "up to" 6 hours, which will be much less if you run Lightroom or anything else that loads the system. My suspicion is that, when they finally release the figures, the 2070 and 2080 models will be 3-4 hours browsing the web and measured in minutes for anything that really uses the GPU?
Click to expand...


The question is, why do we need high-end *and* power-efficient GPUs? You cannot optimize for both. So why not have 2 GPUS, one for mobile use, and the other for sit-down or plugged in use.

Of course, this has been the philosophy of MBPs all along, but with the upcoming Sunny Cove platform, the integrated GPUs will be more than capable to handle *most* workloads, and in the case that you want to game or do serious work, what is the chance that you are not sitting down or plugged in?
 
I think Apple’s approach to biometrics across its various devices is to use one logical approach that works. iPhone, iPad, iMac get Face ID while laptop devices stick with Touch ID. With the keyboard setup on a Mac, it would have proved challenging. I wonder how this will affect the Mac Pro though? Will the new retina displays somehow have Face ID?
 
afir93 said:
That's what I'm wondering aswell. It's not just the size of the bezel, but the TrueDepth sensor setup has a significant depth within the device to it aswell that the screen panel on the current MBPs (even less on the MBs) just doesn't have. If you hold your iPhone X(S) next to the MBP screen and compare thicknesses, then the iPhone is still significantly thicker.

Now it's not out of the question that future versions of the Face ID sensors will reduce their area and depth they require (this year's iPhone is already heavily rumored to have a smaller notch), but there are limits to how small such a camera array can physically be in order to still absorb enough light. So if Apple wants to put the Face ID sensors above the display, it would likely still require the display part of the MBP to be significantly thicker. I'm not saying that there aren't any elegant solutions to this, but it still makes me wonder how (and when) Apple is going to handle this.

My guess is that the iMacs (and maybe the rumored new Pro displays) are the first Macs to get Face ID because they are thick enough not to have this problem. They also have a much larger need for Face ID since unlike the MBP/A's, they don't have Touch ID in any shape or form yet (unless we do get that often-speculated Magic Keyboard with Touch Bar after all). It's only logical that MBPs will get Face ID too eventually, but it would very likely require a change in paradigms – either they'd have to move the camera array somewhere else (and cameras below the laptop screen are usually awkward as hell), or they need to add a good bit of thickness to the MBPs.
Click to expand...
Assuming they can't make a FaceID module thinner:
they could do two sep modules. Keep the camera up top and put a FaceID module elsewhere
FaceId could capture your face from an angle pretty easy and the user wouldnt even notice
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Ener Ji
I agree with Mr. Dee - Touch ID is just fine on a laptop (and I'd hate to lose, say, a 5K display in pursuit of Face ID when Touch ID works so well). What to do with the Mac Pro is a far bigger challenge - of course, it is the one machine where password-free access matters least. It's likely to get logged into for long periods of time (so a password is less of a bother), and it is often found in secure environments (it's not going anywhere), so it may not always need a password if you're sitting in front of it, depending on how and where it's set up (if someone is in James Cameron's office with physical access to his computer, there's a problem whether or not they can get at his files). It can also always offer the option of access through your iPhone (if it sees your unlocked iPhone sitting next to it, it unlocks itself). Apple has done this with the Apple Watch, but there's absolutely no reason not to extend it to the iPhone as well (except to sell Apple Watches).
 
  • Like
Reactions: supermars, Mr. Dee and Falhófnir
danwells said:
I agree with Mr. Dee - Touch ID is just fine on a laptop (and I'd hate to lose, say, a 5K display in pursuit of Face ID when Touch ID works so well). What to do with the Mac Pro is a far bigger challenge - of course, it is the one machine where password-free access matters least. It's likely to get logged into for long periods of time (so a password is less of a bother), and it is often found in secure environments (it's not going anywhere), so it may not always need a password if you're sitting in front of it, depending on how and where it's set up (if someone is in James Cameron's office with physical access to his computer, there's a problem whether or not they can get at his files). It can also always offer the option of access through your iPhone (if it sees your unlocked iPhone sitting next to it, it unlocks itself). Apple has done this with the Apple Watch, but there's absolutely no reason not to extend it to the iPhone as well (except to sell Apple Watches).
Click to expand...
Apple is stopping support of touch ID and moving to FaceID - it's not if that will come to mbp- it's when.
and I would not assume the camera and the faceID module do not have to be in the same place.
 
danwells said:
I agree with Mr. Dee - Touch ID is just fine on a laptop (and I'd hate to lose, say, a 5K display in pursuit of Face ID when Touch ID works so well). What to do with the Mac Pro is a far bigger challenge - of course, it is the one machine where password-free access matters least. It's likely to get logged into for long periods of time (so a password is less of a bother), and it is often found in secure environments (it's not going anywhere), so it may not always need a password if you're sitting in front of it, depending on how and where it's set up (if someone is in James Cameron's office with physical access to his computer, there's a problem whether or not they can get at his files). It can also always offer the option of access through your iPhone (if it sees your unlocked iPhone sitting next to it, it unlocks itself). Apple has done this with the Apple Watch, but there's absolutely no reason not to extend it to the iPhone as well (except to sell Apple Watches).
Click to expand...
Good points. I suspect since the Mac Pro will be a stationary device, it will be in a secure lab or editing bay that requires key card access, going through front desk security to even get to the machine then having to log onto the machine with a password.
 
Mr. Dee said:
Good points. I suspect since the Mac Pro will be a stationary device, it will be in a secure lab or editing bay that requires key card access, going through front desk security to even get to the machine then having to log onto the machine with a password.
Click to expand...
There is no chance they are skipping FaceID on MBP. It'd be a huge upgrade to touch ID. Please stop posting this nonsense.
 
danwells said:
The problem with an MBP update is that there's nothing to update them with (other than a redesign). The processors and GPUs are current and the best available from Intel and AMD, the RAM (finally) and SSD options are close to as good as it gets in a thin-and-light workstation (there are a few with very expensive 64 GB options).]
Click to expand...

There are a few things, IMHO, the Apple could include in a spec update. 9th generation mobile processors (another Skylake derivative on 14nm) are coming in Q2. They'll be virtually identical to the current Coffee Lake, but will include hardware mitigations for some of the Spectre / Meltdown vulnerabilities. This will have the side-effect of improving performance, because the current software/firmware mitigations impose a performance penalty.

There could be another tweak to the keyboard's reliability. The display flex cable which is starting to fail on 2016/2017 MBPs may be reinforced in some small way to increase longevity and reduce Apple's warranty costs. The iSight camera may be improved (a la the iMac Pro, which has an improved camera). WiFi 6 (802.11ax) should also become available this year, although perhaps not on Apple's timeline.

A longer shot is a 7nm mobile Vega or mobile Navi GPU, although that's more likely for 2020.

danwells said:
Apple might or might not bother with Yet Another Skylake Derivative (assuming that it doesn't bump available core counts). Right before Skylake, they ignored Broadwell chips perfectly suitable for a minor update to the MBP, keeping Haswell on the market from late 2013 until the emergence of the Touch Bar/Skylake generation. They would be crazy to ignore something with a core count bump, and they won't ignore Sunny Cove when it comes out.
Click to expand...

I hate to say it, but this is a possibility. Apple may consider the 2019 changes too minor to bother with, and instead put their efforts into finishing the MBP redesign and launching in the first half of 2020 instead.

danwells said:
My speculation is that the A-series will appear first in the MacBook, and will spread to the Mac Mini and the lower end of the iMac line. This is a guess, but what if Apple uses the designation "Pro" to identify Intel Macs? Could this be what we see by 2022?
Click to expand...

My speculation is similar. Will be interesting to see how the initial A-Series Macs are received, and how quickly Apple is able to proliferate A-series chips across the Mac lineup.
 
Ener Ji said:
Will be interesting to see how the initial A-Series Macs are received, and how quickly Apple is able to proliferate A-series chips across the Mac lineup.
Click to expand...

You all seem to be pretty convinced Apple's got ARM based Macs in the pipeline?
 
Even on the MBP, Face ID would be nice, but Touch ID already works very well. Unlike my iPhone (admittedly an old 6S+), my MBP's Touch ID works the first time every time. I certainly wouldn't give up a ~16" slim-bezel screen, especially if it were higher resolution, to get Face ID.
 
tjedora said:
Interesting - the i7 models have full 8 cores without HT while the current i7 has 6 cores with HT. Would physical 8 cores be faster for actual distribution of workload than 12 logical cores?
Click to expand...

8 physical cores is better than 6 physical cores with 6 virtual cores.
 
Last edited:
tjedora said:
You mean 12 logical cores? (at least that was what I was asking :p )
Click to expand...

*virtual not logical is what I should have used.

In essence, 8 cores without HT is better than 6 cores with HT.

HT efficiency is quite wild, ranging from 5-25% at best imo. Then there is the issue of sharing cache and other stuff.

6 cores should be cooler though, but the 9th gen use soldered IHS again which should be a huge boost. We won’t have people having to delid them I guess.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: tjedora
I'd like Touch ID on MBP to be on the front edge so that 1) I can touch it with my thumb and 2) it is accessible when the cover is closed.
 
A 16 threaded MBP is gonna be wild stuff...

Such a pitty graffics look like they are probably remaining the same so far...
 
.
Aquamite said:
A 16 threaded MBP is gonna be wild stuff...

Such a pitty graffics look like they are probably remaining the same so far...
Click to expand...


All still 14nm right? So without a redesign we’ll be seeing further heat constraints I suppose?
 
Howard2k said:
All still 14nm right? So without a redesign we’ll be seeing further heat constraints I suppose?
Click to expand...

I will make an educated guess and say they will be based on the same old 14nm lithography b/c the 9th gen desktop cpu's were also on 14nm. Mobile cpu's always seem to lag several months behind desktop counterparts.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back