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Why did Apple refresh the MacBook Pro so quickly after the Late 2016 release?
- Thread starter Karvel
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The genuine reason is that Intel released new CPU generation only few months after Apple introduced the MBP redesign in 2016. Traditional Apple's refresh cycle for laptops and desktops are two releases per year, following CPU and GPU release cycles. The reason why Apple swayed from that schedule in the last years is due to certain stagnation in the CPU market + most likely certain "political" reasons (e.g. failure to secure a contract with Nvidia).
Nah, as above, Apple do their redesigns on their schedule and then intel have their own cpu schedule.
Sometimes these things line up. Sometimes things change.
As above, kaby lake and skylake are virtually identical except for some DRM instructions in skylake.
The big change is coming soon with Coffee-lake, where the 15”s will be going to 6 core most likely, and the 13s will go to quad core (purely due to intel CPU advcancements/product release schedule - quad core CPUs in the <35 watt TDP range were not available prior - and that is/was the design maximum TDP for Apple’s 13” machines). But the mobile coffee lake CPUs aren’t quite out yet.
Because if they didn't there'd be riots in Cupertino with people demanding to know why the MBP wasn't refreshed 
In 2015 people went nuts when Apple stayed with the same Haswell CPUs from the 2014 MBPr15s (even though the replacement silicon offered absolutely minimal benefit.)
In 2015 people went nuts when Apple stayed with the same Haswell CPUs from the 2014 MBPr15s (even though the replacement silicon offered absolutely minimal benefit.)
Because if they didn't there'd be riots in Cupertino with people demanding to know why the MBP wasn't refreshed
In 2015 people went nuts when Apple stayed with the same Haswell CPUs from the 2014 MBPr15s (even though the replacement silicon offered absolutely minimal benefit.)
Yup. Just like they are with the Mac Mini right now.
Fact is, until Coffee Lake, there’s very, very little point in refreshing the Mac mini.
With coffee lake it might get 6 cores in it in the same TDP, a marginally better GPU, USB-C/Thunderbolt 3, etc.
Coffee Lake is the first intel CPU architecture worth bothering to upgrade to since Sandy Bridge, unless you’re either going for ultra high end HEDT workstation spec CPU (think socket 2011 i7/i9 with > 4 cores) or have been waiting for ultra low power (think core M) spec.
For anything in between (i.e., in the Mac world: macbook air, macbook pro, imac, mac mini), the upgrades since sandy bridge for CPU have been a resounding “meh”.
Sure, there have been other reasons to upgrade (better displays, better audio, new battery, new warranty, etc.) but since 2011 CPU advances have been totally snooze worthy for mainstream platforms.
edit:
Apple did actually bump to broadwell on the 13” macbook pros (i own one - and there was. marginal power efficiency improvement on those parts). on the 15”s they did not, and you know why? in some ways (GPU EDRAM if i recall), the broadwell parts were worse. pretty sure they had less EDRAM/level 4 cache than haswell. people cried their eyes out, but Apple made exactly the right call.
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My speculation is that Intel simply couldn't meet Apple's demand with the Broadwell Iris Pro parts. These CPUs were constantly delayed and even after release, were practically unavailable except in some low-volume workstation laptops. The 2017 release had all indications of Apple executing an emergency plan and scrapping their previous designs, which were based on Iris Pro. They have heavily invested in AMD and bought basically all their Polaris 11 production to power the new 15" MBP. We went back to the traditional Mac design of every 15" MBP having two GPUs.
I have to disagree there haswell was a massive step up in efficiency and graphics from sandybrigde in 2013 and well worth the upgrade, but yeah since then it’s been all about screens, ram, storage (ssd’s), and I/O.