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What Next for MacBook Pro? Four Upgrades We're Likely to See
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Tethering is a pain in the keester.
I don't always have iPhone with me. This is why I have two Apple Watches, just in case. Or the iPhone doesn't always have a charge to support such use. Hotspotting also burns battery power down very quickly because you're making heavy use of TWO radios in the iPhone: The 5G or LTE on the ISP end and WIFI on the laptop end.
As I said above, hotspotting and tethering is a real pain. If I'm buying a new mobile computing device in this day and age, I'm ready for the added line costs, or else I'll re-use one of my lines by swapping out an old device.
I think the notch is a completely non-issue for the MBP. The "ribbon" at the top of the screen does not suffer with the notch there. Oh sure, I'd like to see it go away one day, but it's probably less visible on MBP than on the iPhone.
LOL!
But it's not "buyer's remorse".
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In terms of hardware - without even considering the architecture changes - one of the main messages from Apple is, "Damn, we really screwed up in 2016."
Of course they don't say it because Apple is never wrong, but at least the worst parts seem to have been addressed.
The UI redesign isn't very good, but I guess it's always something.
People won't have to constantly backspace over double-typed letters, bang on the spacebar, accidentally send their volume through the roof when trying to hit "Delete" (due to the double-typed letter), or go insane from seeing the touchbar rearrange itself every time you hit the "Control" key.
Of course they don't say it because Apple is never wrong, but at least the worst parts seem to have been addressed.
The UI redesign isn't very good, but I guess it's always something.
People won't have to constantly backspace over double-typed letters, bang on the spacebar, accidentally send their volume through the roof when trying to hit "Delete" (due to the double-typed letter), or go insane from seeing the touchbar rearrange itself every time you hit the "Control" key.
I think we will more likely just see a more compact 13” Air when the redesign comes out.
In the most recent Upgrade podcast, they interview Apple VPs Tom Boger and Tim Millet from the hardware group who explain that in performance modeling for the MBPs, their focus was on performance , it was worthwhile to give up a little on the efficiency in order to gain more maximum performance. Classic power vs efficiency trade off.
Upgrade #379: They Feed on Memory Bandwidth - Relay
We're joined by Apple VPs Tom Boger and Tim Millet to discuss Apple's chip-design philosophy and how it factored into the company's first high-end Mac chips, the M1 Pro and M1 Max.
They could have still add 2e cores thoIn the most recent Upgrade podcast, they interview Apple VPs Tom Boger and Tim Millet from the hardware group who explain that in performance modeling for the MBPs, their focus was on performance , it was worthwhile to give up a little on the efficiency in order to gain more maximum performance. Classic power vs efficiency trade off.
Discussion at 24:30Upgrade #379: They Feed on Memory Bandwidth - Relay
We're joined by Apple VPs Tom Boger and Tim Millet to discuss Apple's chip-design philosophy and how it factored into the company's first high-end Mac chips, the M1 Pro and M1 Max.www.relay.fm
My main concern is whether that's a forever decision of if they are likely to get 10/12c chips next year...if so I may be better of waiting for these ,given the incredible battery life that's being kinda wasted for relying on P cores
Yes, but not a near future. It will be at least three or four years before µLED will be economically feasible to use in laptops. These displays are still far too expensive and not available in sufficient yields.
In a decade or two micro LEDs may be producible at scale… In the meantime the double layer OLED that Apple is working on looks like a fantastic solution!
Your roadmap would be great if it wasn’t for the chip shortage and logistics crisis. The delays in current orders seems to indicate Apple will release new products in a very phased pace, to avoid production and distribution “overbooking”. I’m very skeptical about Apple offering Intel recent chip, and if so never before the IMac and Mac Mini “pro” get upgraded AS, so the benchmark charts, for those who care, look clean good…
I’m not sure why people are so sure these things are going to be a yearly upgrade thing.
The M1 MacBook Air and Mac mini were introduced in November 2020, and it doesn’t look like they’ll be replaced until at the earliest spring/summer 22.
Again, look at Apple‘s recent iPad/Mac upgrade patterns.
Obviously part of it has to do with the fact that we’re in the middle of a transition, but:
4K iMac: June 2017, March 2019, April 2021.
High-end 13/14 MBP: May 2020, October 2021.
iPad Air: March 2019, September 2020, nothing in 2021.
iPad Pro: October 2018, nothing 2019, March 2020 minor update, April 2021.
MacBook Air: July 2019, November 2020, nothing 2021.
Almost nothing Apple makes besides the budget iPad, iPhone and Apple Watch is updated every year at the same time anymore.
Almost all of their Mac and iPad line are on some sort of 16-24 month upgrade schedule, and I seriously don’t expect that to change anytime soon.
The M2 MacBook Air isn’t expected to launch until at least Q3 2022, almost 2 years after the last one. Not sure why people are so certain that the MacBook Pro isn’t the same.
If M2 is second half of 2022, then it can be expected that M2pro and M2max aren’t until first half of 2023, if not later.
I think it’s neither.
I Think they gave the M1 more efficiency cores, because it supposed to be more efficient. That’s the entire point. It’s for their thinnest, lightest, best selling computers.
Professionals want the most powerful processor, if it’s the most efficient, well that’s just a bonus.
But for Machines like the 16 inch MacBook Pro which are mostly used for video editing, photography, audio engineering and work, graphic design, etc, having the most performance cores is what most professionals care about.
This.
Apple already introduced a final Intel machine for those who absolutely need it, the 27 inch August 2020 update to the iMac. If you need an Intel machine that bad, get that one.
Also not sure why people are already talking about the M2pro/max.
We haven’t even got the desktop equivalent of the M1s folks, cool it.
There was an 11 Month gap between the M1 and M1pro/max, expect around the same thing for the M2.
The low power consumer grade version will be introduced probably in the second half of 2022, and you won’t see the pro/max for at least 6 months after.
These MBPs and their processors are here to stay for a while.
Chip shortage really doesn't affect the M# line since they are all custom built. Pretty much every other part of the computer could be affected by the global chip shortage... memory, camera, etc... but those are required regardless of which CPU is using it and affects the current lines.
Yes, there is still room for the M1 Max to be grow without changing the architecture in iMac Pro machines with overclocking and active cooling. Another possibility (but less likely in my opinion) would be to 2x and 4x the Max chips to get higher performance on desktop machines. The reason I consider this less likely because of the way that they were essentially doubling the functionality between the Pro and Max. It is unlikely that we are going to see 64 or 128 core graphics in an M1 desktop machine by adding multiple M1 Max chips. The interconnect required between multiple M1 Max processors would defeat the advantages that it has with unified memory. If they did release a multi-chip M1 Max machine the separation would be distinct... can run multiple processes but a single process type can only be run on a single chip. That would allow parallel processing of video, but would only double the speed as long as the chips were working on different parts of the project and results are stitched together at the end (burning a candle at both ends and meeting in the middle). No, I consider it more likely than going with 2x/4x Max chips that they would release a DIFFERENT chip for Pro desktop machines that take the Max and add additional CPU cores and possibly the ML cores as well.
I don't think that M1 and a year later for the M1 Pro/Max was a normal release schedule. Releasing the consumer M1 first was slick because Apple did not even attempt to convince the Pros users that the M1 was better than Intel... releasing "entry" level machines that blew away Intel chips and Apple just let the community sell it.
Basically Apple needs to flip the concept of releasing the low end versions first and release the high end and high performant versions before consumers start to get the new hardware. Mac releases cannot be like iOS devices getting newer CPUs with the A12 (consumer) and A12X (pro) cycle they did with iPhones and iPad Pros... the needs of those devices were completely different and did not depend on the CPU power as much as all of the other devices.
Here is my major point: The rumors for the M2 and the M2 MacBook Air especially do not line up with the release of the M1 Pro/Max.
If Apple were smart then they would jump straight into the high performance and high powered version of the M2 (or better would be D1 brand to split names and expectations) for desktop chips around WWDC 2022 and then release M2 laptop chips including the M2 MacBook Air redesign in the Fall 2022.
Regarding the transition from Intel... I doubt that the iMac 2020 update is going to be the last. That wasn't the case when they did the G5 transition to Intel years ago. While Rosetta2 is much better performant than the original Rosetta, there is still a need for professionals to have Intel chips that are more updated than the iMac 2020 version. Last time this happened there was only one machine that was still being updated and that was the G5 Tower released after all product lines were "complete" in their transitions. Apple even said in their own announcement while going to Apple Silicon that they were going to continue to release intel versions within the 2 transition period. The reason for this is software and does not catch up to hardware as fast and having an updated machine that is compatible with 5 year old software is still a business requirement for many professionals.
Ideally professionals will be able to make the switch to AS, but Apple needs to support the professions that are stuck and for whatever reason Rosetta2 is not good enough for their needs, One example is X86 virtual machines that even a year after M1 has no replacement or emulation yet -- any software that is dependent on X86 that individual professionals have no choice but to buy obsolete Intel hardware because of decisions that their workflow depends on. Often it is significantly cheaper to upgrade the hardware than it is to upgrade the software and/or learn a new workflow.
It used to be like early-2013, late-2013, mid-2014. I’m not hoping it will be that fast again but at least 12-15 months between iterations would be nice. I’m waiting to see that redesign MBA with M2.
I have never had any of those things happen with the TouchBar. I don’t understand the issue is. You must be aware you can customize it, even turn it off?
Very reasonable arguments. Although I’m not so confident in the short run Apple will significantly differentiate laptop and desktop chips. When Apple took the bold decision of going all in with the SoC architecture it got a significant conceptual advantage, that allows to improve and “redesign” the management of processing power rather than just “scale by stacking” processing cores, something along the lines IBM has been doing in their datacenter processing. In short increase processing efficiency. However I think this will need time to mature before being released. So meanwhile we are getting the benefits of the efforts put in increase power efficiency-the M line.
As for Intel offer, although I share your “wishful” thinking, I think when bootcamp got ditched, it was a clear sign to professional customers and their catering software developers, they had to choose between OS. In my professional area-AEC-MacOS still has very little and poor implementation, specially because of very scarce Metal adoption/optimization. So a lot of folks who really need top performance just went PC. This Metal “handicap” is something Apple needs to address fiercely if it wants to have a relevant role in AR and VR as Tim’s keeps telling, and in that process, also so some of us don’t feel the M1max is already “overpowered”?.
After the transition settles down I see yearly cycles. The complexities of the transition puts predictions out the window, but with full control they can move to yearly chip cycles for Macs
I got used to the volume buttons being at the right side of the function key row, moving it would have been annoying and very specific to a particular situation.
It wouldn't have really been much of a problem except for two factors:
* the frequent need to hit the delete key was due to the butterfly keyboard constantly double-typing R's and T's.
* the keyboard surface was almost flat to begin with, and the touchbar has no contours at all, so you could never get a feel for your keyboard.
As far as disabling it, then I would have no function keys at all. Is that what you're getting at? Maybe I'm not getting your meaning.
The peripheral vision of the rearranging touchbar happened while using an external keyboard & external monitors. I could see the laptop off to my right. Even when using an external keyboard, there was no escaping the damned touchbar.
I disliked that touchbar from the moment I saw it, and it only became more annoying over time. Never once did I see any benefit from it. Some did I'm sure, that's cool.
But like the A# development for the iOS devices, they don't have to update the architecture every year. For example, during the iPhone 4 through 7, they were on a tick-tock release schedule where the first year they redesigned the body and the second year they updated the internals. The 4 was a new body, but the 4s was a "supercharged" version of the 4. Something similar could happen with Macs as well.
However, I honestly believe that it would be better for Apple to not be on a regular schedule because everyone knows that the new phone is coming out in fall but computer releases have been more of a surprise. Buyers needed to make decisions based on what info was available at the time and usually could not afford to wait a few months.