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It’s interesting that Ming Chi Kuo said the 13” may get 32GB Ram, that would be killer for those that need it. A 13” MacBook Pro with quad core and up to 32GB ram really would be the ultimate portable powerhouse.

Yeah 32GB would be awesome if you work with a lot of VMs but it will be expensive af.
 
Yeah 32GB would be awesome if you work with a lot of VMs but it will be expensive af.

Yea it will be expensive. If the 13” goes to 32GB Ram, I wonder if the 16” will go to 64GB Ram, that would be insane but there are people out there that need it.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this new 16” MacBook, I wonder if it will be announced at WWDC or October? I would hope earlier rather than later.
 
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I think it's likely that the 16" is a response to a couple of things, all stated various places in the last nearly 1500 posts.

1.) The 9th Generation CPUs are likely to run hot - the desktop 8-cores certainly do. They may well need to redesign the cooling to accommodate them.

2.) The display in the 2018 MBP is a close relative of the original 2012 Retina display (they've brightened the backlight quite a bit, and broadened the gamut somewhat). When it was released, the standard display on workstation-class laptops was Full HD, occasionally a 1920x1200 variant of Full HD. Very few laptops had anything beyond sRGB display gamuts, and quite a few (even high-end workstation models) were around 70% of sRGB. There were no 4K laptops at all until 2014. Today's display market is completely different - 4K is standard well below the price of the 15" MBP, either as the standard display, or at least as a reasonably priced option. The MBP's "most of DCI-P3" gamut is not unusual at all - most workstation laptops offer Adobe RGB, DCI-P3 or both (I think HP's Dreamcolor display supports both color spaces)?

3.) They may be interested in changing the keyboard. I'm not sure they're close enough to the keyboard they want to release it. Apple's been filing patents for years related to one-piece keyboards with haptic feedback and remappable keys (with a secondary display under the keyboard). I'd think pictures or information would have leaked if they were close enough to put something like that on the MBP in a few months. They're clearly thinking in that direction, but I don't think it's right around the corner. My best guess is yet another butterfly generation, with the next most likely option being a (quiet) retreat to some sort of scissor keyboard (if Jony Ive wen't so committed to his ideas, I'd hope they just bought one from Lenovo). In either case, they may be getting ready to release the haptic keyboard on a MacBook in the next 1-3 years, possibly with a move to A-series for the MacBook at the same time. I'd expect the haptic keyboard to migrate to the MBP at the next redesign.

As for Coffee Lake Refresh and Ice Lake/Sunny Cove being close in time, my understanding is that we'll see a few ultra low power 10 nm chips this year, with most of the lineup coming in 2020.
 
My general prediction is that 2019 is going to be a very boring year for apple products.

- Macbook pro - we likely are still stuck on their crappy chassis/keyboard for one more year given previous cycle lengths. Will just see a cpu bump basically.
- Macbook air - same as macbook pro
- iPhone - I don't think there's much innovation left for smartphones, though I was hoping to hold out for the broadcomm high accuracy GPS chip. I'd also really like to see an "XS-sized XR". Give us a small phone in that $750 price point. Not gonna happen, though.
- Mac mini - prob just a cpu bump if any change, this was a nice introduction last year
- Mac pro - this would be the biggest announcement
- iPads - I don't really know or care.

2020 will probably be big changes all around. Possible arm chips in macbooks and hopefully a completely new chassis and keyboard, AV1 hardware decoding, 802.11ax, maybe OLED will make it up the chain to ipads or macbooks (unlikely imo though based on cost)
 
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Engineering resources, maybe? They did the same thing in 2012, releasing the 15" retina Macbook Pro redesign (essentially the same as the 2015 design that is so popular). The 13" didn't get a Retina until 2013, if I recall correctly.

I believe the 13" retina just release in the fall of 2012. Ill need to double check

according to everymac it was a few months after the 15" release

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...i5-2.5-13-late-2012-retina-display-specs.html
 
Ming-Chi Kuo is about as respected an Apple crystal ball gazer as there is, and he sounds pretty sure about a redesign for the 15". Yes, it seems a year early, but there are reasons for it. The keyboard isn't popular and the 6-core processors are testing the thermals of the present chassis.

I wouldn't be surprised if Intel caught Apple off guard by increasing the core count of the 14nm Skylake derivative mobile processors, and even more so by doing it twice only a year apart. All other things being equal, an 8-core processor is going to use more power and produce more heat than a 4-core processor using similar cores and based on a similar process. Intel hasn't increased TDP, but they have increased actual power use and heat dissipation by running the processor over TDP more of the time. The present 15" MBP was not designed to cope with these higher-power CPUs - Apple was betting on 6 and 8 core 45W parts being cooler 10nm chips.

Apple can't wring the 10nm chips out of Intel any sooner, they can't ignore the hot-running 8-cores, which are likely to provide very real performance improvements, and they may very well not be able to cool the 8-core chips in this chassis. They can, however, design a chassis that can handle them. They probably realized a couple of years ago that they were going to get a couple of generations of hot-running chips as the 10nm project stalled. Assuming that they started to design the 2016 chassis in 2014 or so, they probably saw a roadmap that looked something like this for 45 watt chips:
2016: quad-core 14nm
2017: quad-core 10nm
2018: 6-core 10nm
2019: faster 6-core 10 nm (next generation microarchitecture).

By 2017, a customer the size of Apple might have seen a road map something like this (even if Intel wasn't publicly admitting it):
2017: extra generation of quad-core 14nm
2018: 6-core 14nm (a chip Intel hadn't intended to produce)
2019: 8-core 14nm (the only way to go faster than the 6-core - there's simply no more headroom in Skylake)
2020: Finally, a 10nm 45 watt chip (and with a couple of other improvements rolled in).

Apple probably asked some hard questions like " how real is that 10nm chip in 2020"? That answer isn't public yet - I'm sure Intel will get a bunch of 10-15 watt chips out, but the 45 watt model? Will we see yet another 14nm generation in 2020?

They also almost certainly asked "just how much power can those 6 and 8 core chips really draw"? They didn't like the answer - it was probably something like "the 6-core can go 60 watts or more, with the 8-core pushing 70". When Apple heard that, they realized they had to push the chassis redesign up a year, because it is something they can control. They aren't going to get a 60-70 watt CPU into a chassis that was designed for a well-behaved 45-watt CPU.

That said, I expect a nice machine something like:

16"+ 4K (or higher?) display - remember that the original Retina burst upon a world of Full HD displays at the most, and even the workstation laptops had lower resolution options - Full HD (occasionally 1920x1200) was an upgrade...

9th Generation 8-core CPUs

Minimum of Vega 16 and 20 GPUs (maybe a next generation that is similar but 7nm - that would also help the cooling - the Vega chips are already easier to cool than the old 560X)

32 GB RAM standard on top model (maybe a 64 GB CTO upgrade possible)

Same SSD options, probably somewhat better standard configurations - 512 GB standard from the bottom of the 16" line, perhaps 1 TB standard on top model? Will 2 TB and 4 TB options be better priced?

Some form of Touch Bar or (unlikely) fully remappable keyboard.

Probably an improved butterfly keyboard
 
Have to say I don't think I've been as excited about any Apple rumors like I have for this new MBP in a long time. Missing out on 10nm isn't ideal but if they really do improve the cooling, fix the keyboard and add an updated display I don't think I'll care one bit. A bezel-less OLED would be something else in a MBP chassis.
 
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16.5" MBP is the most exciting news in close to a decade. I have been waiting to replace my all alu 17" MBP matte for over 11 years!

Please  provide a matte screen option...

And bring back more ports and expansion - so we can reduce dongle hell!
 
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If they update the 15” to a 16” does anyone know what spec bumps the 13” could get this year? Maybe a dedicated graphics card?
 
The A-Series rumors is what has me concerned though. I want to see how this affects the product line before I consider buying another Mac. Yes, it ould be nice to have a 16 in MBP, but if its gonna become a legacy supported product with only two upgrades of macOS, I'm not buying. Sure, Macs do last long even when they are not getting updates from Apple, but it would just be kinda awkward. Imagine how those users who bought last gen PowerPC Macs two years later when Snow Leopard came out?
 
I hope all of you are right that this rumored 16" display comes in a bigger chassis. That would be an exciting product.

But I don't understand why Apple would wait this long to go this route. Such a product would have been well positioned back in 2016. Today it would be obsolete the moment Intel releases 10nm 45W parts... could things really be this bad for Intel?

If Intel really is telling Apple there is no hope on the 45W chips, I wouldn't rule out an AMD part. Apple loves to punish part suppliers and Intel has let Apple down repeatedly. Redesigning their laptop chassis around Intel's failures would be distinctly un-Apple. There is almost certainly a Ryzen 3 / Navi APU coming out this year for the new game console generation, and with the extra room, it would be easy to underclock it to fit into a 16" Pro.

If that sounds absurd to you, keep in mind Apple actually considered using an AMD APU for the Air around the time the PS4 came out. Apple had been using an integrated-ish graphics solution from nVidia, and Intel basically redesigned their chips to force Apple to use their (inferior) integrated graphics instead. AMD offered to solve this problem for Apple, but manufacturing woes killed the deal. Enough time may have passed for Apple to consider giving team red another shot.

Apple redesigning their notebook chassis to accommodate Intel's "we didn't improve it we just added more cores" strategy just sounds less plausible to me than Apple redesigning their notebook chassis and telling AMD to make them something that fits inside. Both actually seem pretty improbable, but then again, us still being on 14nm in 2019 seemed pretty improbable five years ago too.
 
I haven't seen anything on AMD's laptop lineup with more than 4 cores (including rumors)... Of course the 8-core mobile Intel leak from AnandTech came out of the blue a week ago (everything previous said "minor Spectre/Meltdown fixes are all we'll get before 10nm).

At least from what I've seen, it's actually the 15" MBP that is preventing Apple from using AMD chips. The quad-core Ryzen 3 mobile APUs are good fits for the Mini and the 13" MBP. Desktop Ryzen covers the whole iMac line very nicely, while Threadripper fits in the iMac Pro. Either Threadripper or EPYC would work in the forthcoming Mac Pro, depending on exactly what it turns out to be.

What doesn't exist in the AMD lineup is a high-power >quad-core laptop chip. Neither Apple nor users want to see the 15-16" MBP step backwards to 4 cores and perhaps 2//3 of its current performance (the mobile Ryzens don't perform as well as 2017 quad-core i7s, although they use much less power).

Maybe AMD will fix that, and maybe Apple already has samples of something that isn't public?
 
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I haven't seen anything on AMD's laptop lineup with more than 4 cores (including rumors)... Of course the 8-core mobile Intel leak from AnandTech came out of the blue a week ago (everything previous said "minor Spectre/Meltdown fixes are all we'll get before 10nm).

At least from what I've seen, it's actually the 15" MBP that is preventing Apple from using AMD chips. The quad-core Ryzen 3 mobile APUs are good fits for the Mini and the 13" MBP. Desktop Ryzen covers the whole iMac line very nicely, while Threadripper fits in the iMac Pro. Either Threadripper or EPYC would work in the forthcoming Mac Pro, depending on exactly what it turns out to be.

What doesn't exist in the AMD lineup is a high-power >quad-core laptop chip. Neither Apple nor users want to see the 15-16" MBP step backwards to 4 cores and perhaps 2//3 of its current performance (the mobile Ryzens don't perform as well as 2017 quad-core i7s, although they use much less power).

Maybe AMD will fix that, and maybe Apple already has samples of something that isn't public?

I shouldn't have said Ryzen 3 when I meant "Ryzen 3rd gen" or "Zen 2." The part I'm referring to is the APU in development for the PS5 and the Xbox 2, and probably the only APU AMD is currently working on. I'm quite serious when I say AMD would be happy to shop this part to Apple and just downclock the GPU, slap some HBM2 on there, and do whatever else Apple needs for it to fit in a new chassis.

I've said this a few times in this thread but AMD is still largely driven by their custom business. What they currently have and what's currently in their roadmap won't matter if Apple asks them to make a hexacore APU.
 
Well, if they are courageous enough, that would be a real oxymoron :D

Is impossible to believe until Apple gets it act together or drops the Mac in favour of another IOS toy. Sadly the later seems more likely with a double helping of BS to wash down the nonsense...

Apple will likely keep on milking it's customers for all their worth, well at least until they wake up. As my late father would say "Fools and their money" he indeed had a point which remains valid to this very day...

Q-6
 
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If this 16" is due this year, that makes me really excited about the chances of a redesigned range being available this year. They're not just going to drop that screen in to the current style of body as that would mean a re-design of sorts, re-tooling etc when they're coming to the end of a cycle.

If its to replace the 15", I'm guessing they're going to stick to the current lighter is better approach which has its limitations as we all know.

If its in addition to the 15" then I'm much more optimistic that the bigger footprint will mean much better thermals and we'll get a proper powerhouse of a machine.

I really hope there's a new keyboard and an option to buy without Touch Bar. Add in a new design which takes it cues from the new iPad Pro and I'd buy that MBP today.
 
If they update the 15” to a 16” does anyone know what spec bumps the 13” could get this year? Maybe a dedicated graphics card?
Can't imagine they could fit even the most basic dGPU in the current design no matter how much rearranging they try to do, it's already pretty tightly packed in there. I would expect that to come with a slightly larger redesigned 14.4" MacBook next year or something.

The A-Series rumors is what has me concerned though. I want to see how this affects the product line before I consider buying another Mac. Yes, it ould be nice to have a 16 in MBP, but if its gonna become a legacy supported product with only two upgrades of macOS, I'm not buying. Sure, Macs do last long even when they are not getting updates from Apple, but it would just be kinda awkward. Imagine how those users who bought last gen PowerPC Macs two years later when Snow Leopard came out?
Definitely worth waiting to see what happens on this front now, unless you are using some legacy (no longer supported or made) software you know won't be updated for ARM and have little faith in Apple's ability to emulate via a new Rosetta feature...

If this 16" is due this year, that makes me really excited about the chances of a redesigned range being available this year. They're not just going to drop that screen in to the current style of body as that would mean a re-design of sorts, re-tooling etc when they're coming to the end of a cycle.

If its to replace the 15", I'm guessing they're going to stick to the current lighter is better approach which has its limitations as we all know.

If its in addition to the 15" then I'm much more optimistic that the bigger footprint will mean much better thermals and we'll get a proper powerhouse of a machine.

I really hope there's a new keyboard and an option to buy without Touch Bar. Add in a new design which takes it cues from the new iPad Pro and I'd buy that MBP today.
Possibly not? Though don't think they don't make changes from generation to generation within a cycle. The 2015 MacBook Pros had the ForceTouch trackpad added, they were the last of the retina generation, and that would have meant re-tooling to accommodate the motors underneath. The 2018 is significantly different internally to the 2017 despite looking the same on the outside - so it definitely does happen. Until we get more rumours suggesting exactly what to expect beyond a larger screen size I'd be hesitant to expect a 100% new machine. Of course by now it might be that they have accelerated the development of what would have been the 2020 machine, but really we don't have any firm reason to believe this yet.
 
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Its really interesting the different directions they could go with a re-design. And you have to assume they're well aware of the unhappiness with the current range. They addressed the 32GB thing which was one of the big outcries at the start, so surely the keyboard and thermals are on their radar, even if they hadn't had to offer an extended warranty on the keyboards.

I know they've been upgrading the internals as they've gone and the new Air is a further step in the right direction. Changing screen size mid-cycle would be a bit more challenging than the other changes they've done I guess, especially given how compact the current chassis is.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall just now to see what they're doing with the MBP.
 
I can't imagine they can mess substantially with the screen size without a new chassis (perhaps of similar footprint). The only precedent I can think of is when the pre-Retina models offered two resolutions. I think those panels were different sizes by a couple of tenths of an inch (which they made up by adjusting bezels)? I can't see how they add close to an inch without significantly reworking the screen housing (at the very least). They might have the space without increasing footprint by eliminating the bezel, but that means moving cables, antennas, camera and backlight that presently reside in the bezel - it's not just empty space. I guess it's possible that they plop a brand-new screen housing on the old base unit, but that seems unlikely - why not take the opportunity to address thermals at the same time?
 
When persons mention 'redesign' what are you asking for more of really out of a clamshell? Certainly making it any thinner is not a logical route, since a major issue is the thermal envelopes for the processors Intel is releasing prevents the MacBook Pro chassis from keeping up. That would suggest, Apples best option is to backtrack on a lot of the wrong decisions they made since 2016. They need to go back to the 2012-2015 chassis for sure, it was already thin enough, stop trying to make Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian happy.

I have a feeling Apple will indeed backtrack, the hints are there, Angela moving on because of her idea of making Apple retail into a luxury experience pretty much lost the script. Steve Jobs understood luxury, but he also understood what it means to be practical. Apple kinda lost the startup mindset because they are no longer on the brink of bankruptcy. Although execs at the company still feel that they are, its not necessarily true across the company.

I wish I could be hired as the CESJ at Apple (Chief Executive Steve Jobs) where I go in the elevator frighten employees into doing their best work and do what I tell them to. Put Tim Cook back into SCM, check up on Jony's work at the Design Studio and tell him 'No' and he just has to follow my rules or else. Sneak up on employees, see what they are doing and if it makes sense or you should pack your things and leave the premises at once because you are wasting my time and resources.
 
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I have a feeling Apple will indeed backtrack, the hints are there, Angela moving on because of her idea of making Apple retail into a luxury experience pretty much lost the script. Steve Jobs understood luxury, but he also understood what it means to be practical. Apple kinda lost the startup mindset because they are no longer on the brink of bankruptcy. Although execs at the company still feel that they are, its not necessarily true across the company.

I wish I could be hired as the CESJ at Apple (Chief Executive Steve Jobs) where I go in the elevator frighten employees into doing their best work and do what I tell them to. Put Tim Cook back into SCM, check up on Jony's work at the Design Studio and tell him 'No' and he just has to follow my rules or else. Sneak up on employees, see what they are doing and if it makes sense or you should pack your things and leave the premises at once because you are wasting my time and resources.

If you are wanting Apple to go back on the butterfly keyboard and the whole chassis design, I think you will be very disappointed. Apple won’t go back, only forward.

How do you know Angela is moving on for that reason? that’s is pure speculation.

As for Jobs, he wasn’t Apple, he was a large part but it wasn’t Jobs who come up with the iMac for example (that was Johnny ive) Jobs had ideas but a lot of other people did the work and he took credit for it on stage.
 
What does “forward” mean?
They are basically at the limit on the “thin” stuff

Not going backwards with the design to before the 2016 MacBook Pro. I don’t know what they will do with the future MacBook Pro design, it’s clear that they think the butterfly design is here to stay, there is a 3rd gen keyboard that they introduced last year, if they were going to go back to the old style they would of done it.

Maybe that’s why this new design and 16” screen is rumoured for this year (instead of next years 4 year design change).
 
If you are wanting Apple to go back on the butterfly keyboard and the whole chassis design, I think you will be very disappointed. Apple won’t go back, only forward.

How do you know Angela is moving on for that reason? that’s is pure speculation.

As for Jobs, he wasn’t Apple, he was a large part but it wasn’t Jobs who come up with the iMac for example (that was Johnny ive) Jobs had ideas but a lot of other people did the work and he took credit for it on stage.
You really do have short memory don't you are you like a post 1997 Apple user?
 
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Maybe that’s why this new design and 16” screen is rumoured for this year (instead of next years 4 year design change).

Hey for all we know they’re changing the keyboard…

Remember they already ship a scissor keyboard on the desktop, one that predates the butterflies. It would be perfect and doesn’t have any reliability issues at all.

I don’t know if we would call that backward or forward or sideways, but I would welcome it.
 
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