What if Apple does not release a new MBP at WWDC in June?

[hajime]

@hajime

It's either MBP of Huawei Matebook. I've got a chance to play a little with that device, and it's great! Build quality is awesome, screen with 3:2 aspect ratio is great as well. Keyboard is pretty good as well. And looking at reviews, battery life is great as well. I couldn't test that one out myself because I've used the device less then 1h

Where can I try out this device?
[doublepost=1527678417][/doublepost]

One word. ThinkPad....

Which model? I considered the X1 Carbon 2018 but its two Thunderbolt 3 ports are sharing the same bandwidth. Using one drops the bandwidth of the other.
[doublepost=1527678567][/doublepost]If the MBP 2018 has a new keyboard similar to the old ones, I would just go for it given its weight and after sales support.

 

[maflynn]

If the MBP 2018 has a new keyboard similar to the old ones, I would just go for it given its weight and after sales support.

I'd be very surprised to see apple return to the scissor mechanism for their keyboards. That's basically an admission of a failed design and I don't think Apple is capable of that. At best we'll see a "version 3", at worst, no mention but a silent update.

 

[hajime]

I'd be very surprised to see apple return to the scissor mechanism for their keyboards. That's basically an admission of a failed design and I don't think Apple is capable of that. At best we'll see a "version 3", at worst, no mention but a silent update.

Let's hope for the best. With the removal of Nvidia GPU, some useful features of the MBP and the addition of the butterfly keyboard, Apple really screwed up my workflow. I guess depending on the announcements next week, I and some users may leave the MBP line for at least a few years.

 

[maflynn]

Let's hope for the best.

Indeed, I'm keeping my options open by researching non-apple laptops

 

[Dave245]

We will have to wait and see what happens on Monday but there is a chance that they will update Mac's because it's been a year since they did so at last years WWDC. Maybe they are planning on holding an October event this year if so Mac's won't appear at WWDC.

I'm guessing it will go like this:

IF no Mac's at WWDC then an October event OR silent update

Mac's at WWDC updated to the latest processors and possibly an update to the keyboard.

September event will probably be for Apple Watch, iPhone and possibly iPad Pro if the iPad Pro isn't announced at WWDC again like last year.

 

[hajime]

We will have to wait and see what happens on Monday but there is a chance that they will update Mac's because it's been a year since they did so at last years WWDC. Maybe they are planning on holding an October event this year if so Mac's won't appear at WWDC.

I'm guessing it will go like this:

IF no Mac's at WWDC then an October event OR silent update

Mac's at WWDC updated to the latest processors and possibly an update to the keyboard.

September event will probably be for Apple Watch, iPhone and possibly iPad Pro if the iPad Pro isn't announced at WWDC again like last year.

iPhone again. Now, Apple Watch...

I don't have time to play with Apple anymore. I need to buy in June. If Apple continues to sell MBP with that rubbish keyboard, I may have to choose other brands. As I said, I tried different keyboards from different brands yesterday. The one on the MBP 2017 is the worst.
[doublepost=1527683346][/doublepost]I think about 30 years ago, there was a keyboard like the feel of the butterfly keyboard. Don't remember which brand it was. That brown touch keyboard on the Atari 400 was equally bad. Hope Apple is not going to make that kind of keyboard. Surely it is very very thin.

 

[shaunp]

Where can I try out this device?
[doublepost=1527678417][/doublepost]

Which model? I considered the X1 Carbon 2018 but its two Thunderbolt 3 ports are sharing the same bandwidth. Using one drops the bandwidth of the other.
[doublepost=1527678567][/doublepost]If the MBP 2018 has a new keyboard similar to the old ones, I would just go for it given its weight and after sales support.

I went for a P51, but I wanted more than 16GB RAM. It's not a light laptop by any means but it is very good. For a light weight laptop I'd look at the X1 Carbon and not worry about the sharing bandwidth on the TB3 ports. If you are pushing it that hard (external 5K screen and a big TB3 array) then you probably need a faster laptop anyway. I've run 2 x 4K screens and a promise R2 from 3 x TB2 ports and that wasn't an issue. One external 4K screen and an external disk from 1 TB3 port would be fine.

 

[Dave245]

iPhone again. Now, Apple Watch...

I don't have time to play with Apple anymore. I need to buy in June. If Apple continues to sell MBP with that rubbish keyboard, I may have to choose other brands. As I said, I tried different keyboards from different brands yesterday. The one on the MBP 2017 is the worst.
[doublepost=1527683346][/doublepost]I think about 30 years ago, there was a keyboard like the feel of the butterfly keyboard. Don't remember which brand it was. That brown touch keyboard on the Atari 400 was equally bad. Hope Apple is not going to make that kind of keyboard. Surely it is very very thin.

WWDC is primarily a software event, they do sometimes release hardware like last year but most of the time it’s about software.

The keyboard is personal opinion I’ve tried the MacBook and the MacBook Pro keyboard, I liked the feel of it especially when typing fast.

If your not happy with Apple maybe look at another brand, have you ever thought about a Surface device? If your ok with Windows they are getting some good reviews.

 

[maflynn]

WWDC is primarily a software event, they do sometimes release hardware like last year but most of the time it’s about software.

Apple had gotten away from hardware announcements recently, though last year we did see hardware. More so during Job's era, it was the norm.

The keyboard is personal opinion I’ve tried the MacBook and the MacBook Pro keyboard, I liked the feel of it especially when typing fast.

For me, its less about how it feels (not a fan), but rather the quality. There's enough complaints here and elsewhere to warrant concern.

If your not happy with Apple maybe look at another brand, have you ever thought about a Surface device? If your ok with Windows they are getting some good reviews

Agreed, I'm a big proponent of getting the right tool for the job, and if Apple's direction, laptop configuration or components being used are not fitting the bill, find another company that does.

Apple is a multibillion dollar company, and their decisions are born out of profit and loss, just like every other corporation. If those decisions do not align with a person's needs for a product, then find one that does

 

[hajime]

Apple had gotten away from hardware announcements recently, though last year we did see hardware. More so during Job's era, it was the norm.


For me, its less about how it feels (not a fan), but rather the quality. There's enough complaints here and elsewhere to warrant concern.


Agreed, I'm a big proponent of getting the right tool for the job, and if Apple's direction, laptop configuration or components being used are not fitting the bill, find another company that does.

Apple is a multibillion dollar company, and their decisions are born out of profit and loss, just like every other corporation. If those decisions do not align with a person's needs for a product, then find one that does

The problem is I cannot find one yet.

 

[maflynn]

The problem is I cannot fine one yet.

No computer is perfect, you need to consider the pros and cons and determine if the pros outweigh the cons. For instance, I think the Razer 15" looks to be a stout machine, it has everything that I want: 6 core processors, great GPU, awesome (and sturdy) keyboard. Plenty of ports, matte display, thin, light ad a very mac like design. Ram and storage are user replaceable (battery too I think)

I'm weighing that against the following cons.
Customer service is not the best, but so far from what I've read Razer has and continues to work hard at improving that. I have no hard numbers or concrete evidence but it seems my research led me to this belief. Thermals on the razer 15" is not great, it gets hot, but how I use the laptop may make this issue a non-issue. Cost, its one of the more expensive laptops - it comes down to, is it worth it. So far I've not decided.

Consider Apple, we talk about their great customer support and it has been award winning, but there are flies in the ointment. Such as how they knowingly designed the iPhone 6 to be more bendy then prior models, and removed stabilizing structures on the logic board. Then when people incurred bent phones, they charged them for the repair, even though they knew in advance that the design was the cause or how we have a long history of failed GPUs and Apple largely denying the issue until it because an embarrassment. Staingate - same thing but so far they're quiet on the keyboard

Now I've had really great experiences with apple's support but its not all rainbows and unicorns with them.

 

[Dave245]

Apple had gotten away from hardware announcements recently, though last year we did see hardware. More so during Job's era, it was the norm.


For me, its less about how it feels (not a fan), but rather the quality. There's enough complaints here and elsewhere to warrant concern.


Agreed, I'm a big proponent of getting the right tool for the job, and if Apple's direction, laptop configuration or components being used are not fitting the bill, find another company that does.

Apple is a multibillion dollar company, and their decisions are born out of profit and loss, just like every other corporation. If those decisions do not align with a person's needs for a product, then find one that does

I wasn’t a Apple fan or user during the Steve jobs era, my Apple Mac usage didn’t start until I got my first MacBook Pro in 2011, I did have an iPhone 3GS and an iPod before that but I never watched the keynotes until around 2012. The last time I remember hardware at WWDC before last year was when they introduced the retina MacBook Pro back in 2012, last year was the biggest WWDC I can remember with updates to a lot of hardware, i just don’t think we will see the same again this year, that’s not to say it will be a bad WWDC tho.

I don’t know about reliability or issues outside of what I’ve read online because I don’t own a new MacBook Pro I’m still using my 2011 version (although I’m due a new Mac soon). One of my friends who has the MacBook Pro hasn’t had any issues so far, that’s not to say he won’t tho if there is widespread issues.

Yea I’m under no illusion that everyone will love or even like Apple products including the new MacBook Pro’s the keyboard seems to be the one thing along with the Touch Bar that a lot of people on these forums dislike. The cost of the MacBook Pro is very high especially here in the U.K. and Apple do have some still competition in certain areas, Microsoft seem to be producing some really nice looking hardware.

I’ve said in the past that the Surface seems like a silly product but after seeing it and people using them I think I do understand it. From what I’ve seen online the Surface range has brilliant hardware it’s just the software that seems to let it down. I have to be honest if it wasn’t for Windows I would probably consider a Surface as my next laptop and that’s coming from an Apple fan who has multiple Apple devices I do love my iPad Pro tho, I just wish it could do more, for example I hear the Surface can play full PC games.

 

[c0ppo]

@maflynn

You forgot to mention some of the biggest Apple support jokes of all time. iMP... If you bring it in for repair, chances are that they can't repair it on site (because no one has been trained to do so...), or they can even refuse to repair it if you broke it yourself (Linus).

And then there is VESA mount for iMP and going cheap with screws for a 80$ adapter to a (minimum) 5000$ machine.
I still haven't tried to take mine off VESA mount. And probably won't even try until I really have to.

And that is a 'PRO' machine, a kind of niche audience that Apple promised to take care of

 

[turbineseaplane]

@c0ppo

Good points..
I personally wonder if this is all the result of the squeeze for margins that Tim has been driving for years. Perhaps, despite external appearances and branding to the contrary, internal build quality is being trimmed wherever possible, perhaps too much, and the laptop keyboards and iMP situations are reflecting that in different ways.

 

[albertdros]

The problem is I cannot find one yet.

90% of us here got sucked in the whole Macbook thing early on and we all love OSX. That's the whole problem. Apple has got us tied up here and I am still willing to buy their machines, JUST FOR OSX. If it wasn't for OSX, most of us would be long gone...

 

[turbineseaplane]

90% of us here got sucked in the whole Macbook thing early on and we all love OSX. That's the whole problem. Apple has got us tied up here and I am still willing to buy their machines, JUST FOR OSX. If it wasn't for OSX, most of us would be long gone...

Yep - If I could be running macOS on a ThinkPad, I'd have been long gone a while ago..

 

[c0ppo]

Good points..
I personally wonder if this is all the result of the squeeze for margins that Tim has been driving for years. Perhaps, despite external appearances and branding to the contrary, internal build quality is being trimmed wherever possible, perhaps too much, and the laptop keyboards and iMP situations are reflecting that in different ways.

I would love to agree with that, but honestly, I can't. I highly doubt that they went out of their way to use some low quality screws on a niche machine, and a niche adapter (VESA) that is tailored to that niche machine only. If they saved 2000$ there it would shock me.

They didn't even make that VESA mount, they just rebranded it into Apple one. But the lack of control, and lack of quality checking is disturbing. And that one is on Tim, but not just him, but entire top people who are in charge of mac department. That kind of attitude is the thing that looses users really easy.

90% of us here got sucked in the whole Macbook thing early on and we all love OSX. That's the whole problem. Apple has got us tied up here and I am still willing to buy their machines, JUST FOR OSX. If it wasn't for OSX, most of us would be long gone...

I got into OSX for the first time in 2008/9 I believe. Before that I didn't even see a mac in person. And I had to use a mac for a few jobs in the company I worked for at that time. OSX seemed like it had some nice things, like animations, better looking UI, and some other similar things. Everything else I hated. If I needed unix, I would use Linux.

But slowly in the next 2-3 months after I used it more and more, it grow on me. And I liked it more then Windows, but even more then Linux (ms office, adobe, etc., everything was available without running VM or dual booting).

I guess moving on to Windows now for you would be a similar thing. You would hate it at first, but slowly you would see some upsides even Windows has. And those would make the transition easier.

Yep - If I could be running macOS on a ThinkPad, I'd have been long gone a while ago..

I wouldn't even look at any mac if that was possible

 

[hajime]

How easy and stable it is to run Mac OS as a virtual machine, rather than as a Hackintosh, in Windows laptop?

 

[galactic orange]

90% of us here got sucked in the whole Macbook thing early on and we all love OSX. That's the whole problem. Apple has got us tied up here and I am still willing to buy their machines, JUST FOR OSX. If it wasn't for OSX, most of us would be long gone...

If Logic Pro X wasn’t tied to Macs I’d be gone too. I think Logic is an amazing software. Been using Logic on Mac since the pre-Mac exclusive days (eMagic Logic 4.x on a circa 2001 white Macbook). I like OSX too, but I could live without it in this day and age.

 

[MrGunnyPT]

Taking Mac OS and iOS Handoff out of the equation I’ll still pick a MacBook Pro.

Here’s why :

a) Customer suporto, I have had Razer Blade, Dell XPS 13”, Surface Book & Thinkpad.. All of them went to RMA than took more than 1 month and all of em were “shady” especially Razer I waited 4 months.

B) resale value after 2/5 years, trust me it’s there.

C) Build Quality, so far the best laptops I have ever used on daily basis..My other ones had screws or plasti come off from either sides or back

This is just my 5 cents. My 13” 2025 had issues and a week after I had a new one... My Razer Blade went on for a RMA for 4 months.. came back and had a key broken

 

[CodeJoy]

How easy and stable it is to run Mac OS as a virtual machine, rather than as a Hackintosh, in Windows laptop?

It's quite easy and perfectly stable, depending on your definition of stable. But depending on your use case, it may not be what you want to do. Things like disk, USB, network and I believe sound, should work just fine. But graphics may be slow, and it won't really work like a real Mac if that's what you expect. It's easy enough to try for yourself though if you want to have a look.

 

[maflynn]

C) Build Quality, so far the best laptops I have ever used on daily basis..My other ones had screws or plasti come off from either sides or back

I go back and forth on this one. I'm not entirely sold on this any longer. I guess the issues with the keyboard and Apple's silence over this has rubbed me the wrong way. They did this over staingate, they more or less did this with the GPU issues. It seems apple won't address a problem unless a class action suit is filed.
[doublepost=1527762736][/doublepost]Let me add that the non-mac news about apple is eye opening in that the company may have its focus more on P&L statement then quality.
The intentional slowing of iPhones, seems rather sneaky, and the class action suit regarding bendgate. News broke that Apple knew full well its iPhone 6 was more likely to bend and the log board to be damaged - they were aware of this even before the iPhone hit the streets. Yet they blamed the consumer and charged them $$

I've enjoyed some great customer support with apple, and I still think they make great products, I may very well buy a new MBP but all is not perfect in apple land

 

[hajime]

It's quite easy and perfectly stable, depending on your definition of stable. But depending on your use case, it may not be what you want to do. Things like disk, USB, network and I believe sound, should work just fine. But graphics may be slow, and it won't really work like a real Mac if that's what you expect. It's easy enough to try for yourself though if you want to have a look.

By stable, I mean no system crash or hang. No lag, no lost of work due to system issues, etc. As for graphics, if it is just usual productivity work, will it run fast enough? How is the performance of such virtual machine compared with running Windows 7 under VMware Fusion few years ago?
[doublepost=1527771445][/doublepost]

a) Customer suporto, I have had Razer Blade, Dell XPS 13”, Surface Book & Thinkpad.. All of them went to RMA than took more than 1 month and all of em were “shady” especially Razer I waited 4 months.

When was it? Do they still have reliability and customer services issues the past year? Considering to get a Razer Blade or DELL.

 

[smallcoffee]

No computer is perfect, you need to consider the pros and cons and determine if the pros outweigh the cons. For instance, I think the Razer 15" looks to be a stout machine, it has everything that I want: 6 core processors, great GPU, awesome (and sturdy) keyboard. Plenty of ports, matte display, thin, light ad a very mac like design. Ram and storage are user replaceable (battery too I think)

I'm weighing that against the following cons.
Customer service is not the best, but so far from what I've read Razer has and continues to work hard at improving that. I have no hard numbers or concrete evidence but it seems my research led me to this belief. Thermals on the razer 15" is not great, it gets hot, but how I use the laptop may make this issue a non-issue. Cost, its one of the more expensive laptops - it comes down to, is it worth it. So far I've not decided.

Consider Apple, we talk about their great customer support and it has been award winning, but there are flies in the ointment. Such as how they knowingly designed the iPhone 6 to be more bendy then prior models, and removed stabilizing structures on the logic board. Then when people incurred bent phones, they charged them for the repair, even though they knew in advance that the design was the cause or how we have a long history of failed GPUs and Apple largely denying the issue until it because an embarrassment. Staingate - same thing but so far they're quiet on the keyboard

Now I've had really great experiences with apple's support but its not all rainbows and unicorns with them.

I like that Razer laptop too... just can't stomach going away from macOS. (not that I dislike the new MacBook Pros, though).

 

[CodeJoy]

By stable, I mean no system crash or hang. No lag, no lost of work due to system issues, etc. As for graphics, if it is just usual productivity work, will it run fast enough? How is the performance of such virtual machine compared with running Windows 7 under VMware Fusion few years ago?

I don't think you're going to have crashes or hangs. You'll probably need an Intel CPU, and it's the same as with any hackintosh with system updates etc. As far as graphics, when I tried it I had Safari open, XCode, a code editor, some terminal windows etc. For that, the graphics was fine, and compilation ran at full speed effectively. But I ultimately decided to not continue down that path, and I didn't try any other use cases. I used Virtualbox so don't know about Vmware, but subjectively I found it snappier than Windows 10 in a similar setting.

I suspect you'd be better off dual booting though if that's at all feasible, and of course best with a real Mac.