What to Expect at Apple's 'Hello Again' Mac Event

[topmounter]

Heck, I'm still waiting on a QHD 27" Cinema Display to match my 27" "Late 2013" iMac.

A Mac Mini w/ the Mac Pro form factor would be cool.

A convertible MacBook or Macbook Air would be cool.

An enthusiast level variant of the Mac Pro (~$1500) would be cool.

Needless to say, I'm not holding out much hope for something 'cool'.

 

[fastasleep]

Please hand me a BTO 15" maxed out with highest spec processor (unless it's like $500 for .2 GHz or something ridiculous), dGPU, 32GB RAM, 2TB storage. Don't tell me what it costs, just take my credit card and run it.

Oh and a set of black AirPods, Pencil that works with the MBP's Magic Trackpad, if either of those things also exist.

And a patented Apple Bag™

 

[MDF314159265]

What to expect?

High fives
Desperate whooping
Products described as amazing
People saying they are deeply passionate
People saying they believe profoundly
Cheesy camera shots of an excited gallery
A corny joke or two to gloss over the fact that Apple have done precious little for Mac users for years now, other than introduce joke machines like the new Mac Mini.

...and all to introduce three updated computers, years late, and perhaps a hint of "jam tomorrow" for a lineup that is still woefully inadequate and outdated.

And you can't forget Tim Cook saying: "this is the best Mac we've ever made!"

 

[skellener]

Tomorrow morning we get to see the latest things Apple has removed from our professional Macintosh computers.

Are you taking away the headphone jack on these Phil?

 

[BlueRevere]

Oh Lord, please let the new Macbooks have a Thunderbolt port. I love my Thunderbolt Display and there is still no way to connect a Thunderbolt Display to Macbook with USB-C ports only, or is there a converter from USB-C to Thunderbolt?

 

[recoil80]

What to expect?

High fives
Desperate whooping
Products described as amazing
People saying they are deeply passionate
People saying they believe profoundly
Cheesy camera shots of an excited gallery
A corny joke or two to gloss over the fact that Apple have done precious little for Mac users for years now, other than introduce joke machines like the new Mac Mini.

...and all to introduce three updated computers, years late, and perhaps a hint of "jam tomorrow" for a lineup that is still woefully inadequate and outdated.

Don't forget Phil Schiller telling us that "those are the best Macs we've ever made".

 

[RamGuy]

How long is the shortest Apple Keynote that's been done in recent years? They are normally going for 2 hours+. The one exception in recent history is the iPad Pro 9,7-inch keynote. That one was short, it took just over one hour.

If Apple is only going to show a MacBook 13-inch (identical to the 12-inch, only slightly larger?), new MacBook Pro 13-inch and new MacBook Pro 15-inch they will have to really stretch things if they are going to hit the same length that they normally do with these keynotes.

macOS 10.12 Sierra, iOS 10, watchOS 3 and tvOS 10 was released only a short while ago and Apple have already dedicated previous keynotes to talk about these releases so I doubt there will be much talk about software during this keynote. I won't be surprised to see them releasing 10.12.2 BETA, iOS 10.2 BETA, watchOS 3.2 BETA and tvOS 10.1/10.0.2 BETA but I highly doubt they will include anything really special so they feel the need for showing it during the keynote.


I have the feeling that there has to be something more under the wraps here? A whole keynote just for showing of three new MacBook's sounds awkward. It might be that they had planned to show of a new Cinema Display and iMac's, but rumours has it that they got delayed until Q1 2017. So perhaps the keynote gets handicapped as a result of this, who knows?


Or perhaps they will refresh other things like the Apple AirPort Express? It's getting pretty old and not having 802.11ac support on the Express makes it really dated as a access point. 802.11ac 2x2 chipsets are really cheap, so Apple should be able to update it with 802.11ac and still keep the same price point. And perhaps they could included updated AirPlay specs with better support for playing in multiple rooms directly from iOS-devices? Or perhaps their partnership with Sonos might make it so that they could include Sonos within the AirPort Express making it into a really cheap and awesome alternative to the Sonos Connect.

They could also update the AirPort Time Capsule, we have gotten newer revisions and generations of the 802.11ac spec so a new Time Capsule could support better 802.11ac speeds, and faster SoC's for improved routing performance and better performance towards the built-in hard drive for faster Time Machine backups.



One thing that is bugging me is Apple's attitude towards hardware like the Mac mini. I do understand that the Mac mini is not something they focus on anymore. Desktop computing like the Mac mini is not really something that sells all that well anymore, it makes much more sense to focus on the iMac etc.. But they don't need to redo the Mac mini, but for the love of god put up-to-date hardware within it. Just refresh the hardware into Intel Skylake, DDR4 and add support for Apple's NVMe SSD's instead of regular old SATA SSD's and your golden. The price / performance of the Mac mini is plain stupid when it features two (about to become three) generation old hardware and still have the same price tag as it did when it got released in 2014.

I would love to grab a Mac mini to replace my Time Capsule as a Time Machine backup server. Backing up to a Time Capsule is painfully slow, running macOS Server on a Mac mini and stick 2x 1TB or 2TB hard drives in RAID1 inside of it would work out much better. I have no problem spending the amount of money Apple wants for the Mac mini in order to achieve this, but I won't pay that price when the hardware is that old.

 

[malexandria]

Your post is so riddled with irony that I couldn't restrain myself.

What does one's ethnicity have to do with this? I assume that in a business as competitive as Apple that they hire the best PERSON for the job without looking at their race.

The paradox is that the most racist thing you can do is to pay attention to race when it is irrelevant.

Then you whine that they are almost all white males and then in the same post say when they did include a woman she was awful. So which is it? Do you want a diversity show where people who aren't the most competent are paraded out as tokens of their race or gender and give poor presentations, or do you want people who are the most competent to be on stage regardless of their background?

Now, maybe Apple is discriminating against people of color and that's why there aren't many women or minorities on stage, or maybe when there are so few people at the top that the most talented at this particular point just happen to be white. Everything I've seen at Apple tells me they are committed to both excellence and fairness.

Are you also are offended by the lack of white men in the NBA?

Typical response from an obvious white male - who immediately assumes that all the white men on stage are instantly and inherently there based on their own merit.

I'm sure if a black person was on stage you'd assume they are only there because of diversity. So maybe you should look at yourself in the mirror and wonder why my benign comment offended YOU.

Apple does have a few minority and female executives (who run their marketing and retail divisions). Hell, they could at least trot out Dre to talk about Beats. Yet, YET they very rarely appear at these briefings. Excuse me for wanting to see diversity on the stage and in that audience. Yeah, I'm so unreasonable.

 

[bostero2]

I'd wish Apple gave less importance to Jony Ive's opinion and give more importance to the technical needs of upgrading a computer so you can have it for almost a decade after spending more than a thousand dollars on it...

 

[maflynn]

I'd wish Apple gave less importance to Jony Ive's opinion and give more importance to the technical needs of upgrading a computer so you can have it for almost a decade after spending more than a thousand dollars on it...

I think Ive is a great designer, I'm hoping for more design changes and not a few tweaks, which is what we have for the MBP.

Heck, how different is the current MBP then the G4 powerbook that was rolled out in 2003? Sure its much thinner and doesn't have an optical drive but its been the same exact look for 13 years

 

[bostero2]

I think Ive is a great designer, I'm hoping for more design changes and not a few tweaks, which is what we have for the MBP.

Heck, how different is the current MBP then the G4 powerbook that was rolled out in 2003? Sure its much thinner and doesn't have an optical drive but its been the same exact look for 13 years
View attachment 668029

Sure Ive's a great designer, but I do believe he's the one most obsessed with making the MacBook Pro thinner and thinner... As I've said before, I think the MacBook Pro of all products should have the main focus in giving the needed functionality instead of having the main focus on thinness and lightness. Sure we would all love a thin and light computer beast that would be suited for the heavy users and still maintain the lightness and portability that a MacBook has. But if you have a "Pro" labeled product I would give the priority to functionality over design.

 

[chfilm]

Oh Lord, please let the new Macbooks have a Thunderbolt port. I love my Thunderbolt Display and there is still no way to connect a Thunderbolt Display to Macbook with USB-C ports only, or is there a converter from USB-C to Thunderbolt?

If they remove tb in its current form there will be an adaptor of course!

 

[frankgrimes]

it's simple:

1. New MBPs a bunch of superlatives for the OLED bar
2. teaser of upcoming new Imacs
3. teaser of revamped MP for next year
4. bunch of useless talk about renewable energy

 

[maflynn]

but I do believe he's the one most obsessed with making the MacBook Pro thinner

No question, Apple is way too obsessed with thinness to the detriment of the product.

teaser of revamped MP for next year

I'd be surprised if apple mentions the Mac Pro, I think that product is on life support. It reminds me of how Apple treated Aperture, just letting it whither on the vine until they had the "courage" to kill it off. While I'm comparing software and hardware, I'm actually comparing apple's actions

 

[frankgrimes]

No question, Apple is way too obsessed with thinness to the detriment of the product.


I'd be surprised if apple mentions the Mac Pro, I think that product is on life support. It reminds me of how Apple treated Aperture, just letting it whither on the vine until they had the "courage" to kill it off. While I'm comparing software and hardware, I'm actually comparing apple's actions

Despite my personal favortism for custom built PCs, I still think Apple would be stupid to kill of their flagship line up. Judging by some of the top youtube guys (Marques, Lew, Austin Evans...) they all seem to be using a MP for their videos. I mean, Apple wouldn't have to do much just make the thing expandable I mean, why do people have to pay 4.000 bucks and more for a machine that doesn't allow them to put in a GTX 1080 or whatever to handle their 4k video edits?

 

[maflynn]

I still think Apple would be stupid to kill of their flagship line up.

I don't know who's using it, but seeing that the product was untouched for 3 years, leaves me to believe is something other then a flagship product. The 5k iMac seems to fit that bill better.

 

[RamGuy]

Final Cut Pro is still the number one editing software for a huge portion of the market. The Mac Pro is the number one system for editing using Final Cut Pro. And with the high prices Apple is taking for the Mac Pro I bet they earn a whole lot per unit sold. I can't for the life of me figure out why Apple would abandon such hardware.

They don't really need to do much with the Mac Pro, just do a spec bump every time Intel updates their HEDT SKU's, which is normally like tops once every 1,5 year. It shouldn't really be all that hard to do. Just toss in Intel's new SKU's and new AMD/NVIDIA Graphics card every now and then.

 

[maflynn]

Final Cut Pro is still the number one editing software for a huge portion of the market. The Mac Pro is the number one system for editing using Final Cut Pro

Fair enough, That's outside my sphere of knowledge. I can only devise my opinion on what I see and read, and I'm out of touch on that aspect.

Hopefully Apple does update it, but I still remain doubtful they will

 

[moxin]

disappointed on the decision to use Skylake, should have been the first of the many notebooks to use KabyLake

 

[RamGuy]

disappointed on the decision to use Skylake, should have been the first of the many notebooks to use KabyLake

KabyLake SKU's suited for MacBook Pro's are not available until Q1 2017.

 

[maflynn]

disappointed on the decision to use Skylake, should have been the first of the many notebooks to use KabyLake

The cpu type that apple uses, isn't out yet. Only the 15w variation

 

[theluggage]

Oh Lord, please let the new Macbooks have a Thunderbolt port. I love my Thunderbolt Display and there is still no way to connect a Thunderbolt Display to Macbook with USB-C ports only, or is there a converter from USB-C to Thunderbolt?

There is, but you're not gonna like the price:
https://www.startech.com/uk/Cables/...rbolt-3-usb-c-thunderbolt-adapter~TBT3TBTADAP

Fair enough, That's outside my sphere of knowledge. I can only devise my opinion on what I see and read, and I'm out of touch on that aspect.

Well, the Mac Pro is less of a general purpose machine and more of a specialised "appliance" for Final Cut Pro and other pro software that can use the dual GPUs to offload work from the CPU. Also, such users are going to burn through terabytes of storage, so external drives and hot-swap RAID arrays will be the order of the day.

 

[Ckent03]

Typical response from an obvious white male - who immediately assumes that all the white men on stage are instantly and inherently there based on their own merit.

I'm sure if a black person was on stage you'd assume they are only there because of diversity. So maybe you should look at yourself in the mirror and wonder why my benign comment offended YOU.

Apple does have a few minority and female executives (who run their marketing and retail divisions). Hell, they could at least trot out Dre to talk about Beats. Yet, YET they very rarely appear at these briefings. Excuse me for wanting to see diversity on the stage and in that audience. Yeah, I'm so unreasonable.

Yes, you are. Look at how many comments there are here from people who have been craving updates of actual substance in terms of macs for YEARS and have gotten little more than crumbs. We can't even get up to date macs that have the most recent processors, or manage our many peripherals that are going further and further out onto dongles.

And then here you come in with "why can't I have more diversity in my Apple presentations?!?!?!?" Talk about a lack of substance. Presenting is a skill which most people do not have, and those that do, this skill is often limited to only presenting itself in ways that may not line up with the long established format that Apple has chosen for these events. Then there is the fact that people who may have the skills to present may not actually WANT to present at this event, or maybe, even if they would want to, Apple's executive leadership looks at those persons and has to admit to themselves that those individuals may not be able to best represent the company.

This is the entire point- the event is to represent Apple, not your myopic ideals of non-white males being everywhere so that this blight you ascribe to the world of male-whiteness can be forcibly erased from existence one malicious and non empathetic step at a time.

Apple has always struck me as a company that cherishes diversity in their company, but I suppose their CEO's personal characteristics that align him to your precious victim status aren't sufficient for your tastes, given his white maleness. How dare he? And how dare we remained focused on wanting products that actually do what we need them to without bending in our backpacks? Why, we should all be more concerned with the color of the person's skin on stage because, that isn't racist!! Right?!?!?

 

[anp27]

My guess: A Macbook that can be converted to an iPad, among other things.

 

[Macaddict16]

My guess: A Macbook that can be converted to an iPad, among other things.

This would hands down be a day one purchase for me