

Apple to disrupt notebook space with radically redesigned MacBook Pros - sovande
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/10/apple_to_disrupt_notebook_space_with_radically_redesigned_macbook_pros.html

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jsilence
Instead of making devices ultra thin I really wish manufacturers would simply
fill up the freed space with batteries.

Not only Apple MacBooks, this goes for mobilephones as well. Samsung Galaxy
half an inch thick and a runtime of one week please.

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lukifer
Apple's simplified product line is a very good thing, but they're only hurting
themselves by not throwing a bone to customers with more specific needs. The
Air itself finally satisfied the sub-notebook market that Apple all but
ignored for a decade, and it was fantastic for their bottom line.

In a perfect world, they would have a 15 or 17 Pro model with an empty bay for
BTO options, such as a 2nd battery, an optical drive, a platter HD, or a
second SSD.

But we all know they won't do this. They'll cook the SSD onto to the
motherboard to make it as crazy-sexy-thin as possible, the tech press will ooh
and ahh, they'll sell like hotcakes, and the power users will cling to the
last generation as long as they can, hoping in vain that Apple will eventually
come around.

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jschmitz28
I agree with the customizable bay idea but also that it probably won't happen.
Whenever I hear rumors about moving the mechanical drive in the MBP to the SSD
in the MBA, I wonder about how they're going to satisfy all of the people who
don't care/know about read and write speeds but wonder why their storage space
got cut in half.

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lukifer
I wonder if Apple pays any attention to the users who put a 2nd HD in the
optical bay? Anecdotally, it seems common among power users, but I'd be
curious to find out just how widespread it actually is. And you're right, even
regular users will be baffled when their shiny new laptop has less storage
than their crummy old one.

All I know is, unless affordable 2TB SSDs magically appear out of nowhere, I'm
never going back.

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jakeonthemove
I use an optical bay caddy, too. Maybe Apple is betting on Thunderbolt
external drives - those look pretty attractive...

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pavlov
Something about AppleInsider's writing makes me feel like I'm reading an old
copy of the _Soviet Union_ magazine.

Maybe it's the constant talk about industrial production power and
revolutionary breakthroughs that, after years of careful planning, will soon
be unveiled to the shock of hapless competitors.

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Terretta
Imagine if the Soviets had had the same follow through.

It's hard to overstate the shock of PC and smartphone "hapless competitors" at
Apple's industrial production power and breakthroughs.

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Turing_Machine
Given that in the last quarter the iPhone alone generated more revenue than
all of Microsoft _combined_...

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martythemaniak
It makes sense and it wouldn't surprise me if by the end of the rollout
there's no longer a "MacBook Air" or "MacBook Pro", just a "MacBook" in 11,
13, 15 and 17 screens with the CPU and RAM gradually increasing with screen
size.

Seeing as how my MBP is almost 3yo, I'll have to pick one of these up. Let's
just hope it runs ubuntu well.

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wazoox
> _Let's just hope it runs ubuntu well._

Historically Macbook support under Linux has been quite poor. Unfortunately,
as time passes Apple hardware (and software) becomes more closed and
proprietary. I don't know if I'd buy another macbook now. I've ditched windows
in 2002, and I may well ditch MacOS soon, though there is no PC laptop
remotely half as nice as macbooks are.

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StavrosK
I was looking for an ultrabook and was disappointed at the alternatives. I
ended up going with a MacBook Air, even though I was trying to avoid it.

However, Ubuntu supports it almost perfectly. I actually can't think of
anything that doesn't work, except perhaps that sleep woke up on me once while
the lid was closed (a pretty bad bug). Everything works fine.

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twiceaday
So they will release beefier Airs and call them MacBook Pros? Radical.

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ipod48
There was a rumor about a high density display similar to the iPhones with
more than 300ppi. That would be the best and most important improvement, since
OSX has to be adjusted heavily. I dont get it that we still use displays with
100-130 ppi like 10 years ago.

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jakeonthemove
Is that practical, though? My eyes start to hurt from a 1680x1050 15.4 inch
display, and I simply can't imagine working with a Full HD screen (maybe just
for photo/video, but not for everyday work), unless it's 17+ inches in size...

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StavrosK
Why not? The letters would be the same size, just smoother.

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jakeonthemove
Is that the case with Mac OS X? On Windows laptops, the text becomes smaller
as the resolution is increased, and the DPI scaling sucks...

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sgdesign
So what exactly is new? It doesn't take an "Apple insider" to know that the
MBPs are due for a refresh, that SSDs are the way to go, or that the next
model of an Apple product is going to be lighter and thinner than the previous
iterations…

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atldev
I remember thinking they wouldn't make it in the mid-90s. I had just bought
one of the pizza box PowerMacs and it felt like an expensive mistake. Now it's
$14B in profit for the quarter. It took my company all of 2011 to earn in
EBITDA what they earn every 3 hours.

And I'll be contributing soon. The only thing that's kept me from getting an
air is the lack of an 8GB model. If it's 15", even better.

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buff-a
I like being able to swap out my HD for an SSD, and later a bigger/faster SSD.
My 17" MBP is a mobile workstation. A 17" Air would suck for my purposes.

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lukifer
If they keep the 17" as the only thick and beefy model, I'll be contented;
that seems like a reasonable compromise. It's insane to go Air-thin on that
one: clearly anyone with a laptop that huge is more interested in power than
portability. But now that Jonny Ive is at the helm... well, let's just say I
don't think the man really gets us any better than Steve did.

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rafski
It's the only way to go for laptops. I swapped a 17" 3 kIlograms MacBook Pro
for an Air and I sure am not going back. My only gripe with Air: it's still
too heavy.

Unbeknownst to many, Air's SSD is replaceable, you can upgrade it up to 480GB
with an Air-only blade from OWC.

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gmac
I hope this is right. I'll be replacing my MBP in the Summer, and have been
wondering if the trade down to 4GB memory and lower CPU speed in an Air will
be adequately compensated by the SSD, or if I need another Pro. An Air-style
Pro would be just right for me.

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CWIZO
As always depends on what you are doing. I have a 13" air (2011) and it just
flys. I use it for programming (PHP,nginx,mysql,memcached,...) and some
photoshop now and then (loads so fast I though at first that it was broken:)).
The only issue I have with it is that some badly programmed flash on web sites
will spin my fan like there's no tomorrow (really loud). Oh that happens when
playing games too, but that seems reasonable to me. All in all this is the
best computer I have owned or used (and I've never used OSX before).

The most surprizing thing was that I came from a 15,4" laptop to a 13" and I
don't feel being cramped at all, I can work on my stuff easily, which I wasn't
able to do on my old laptop. The resolution is just perfect (at least for me).

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kayoone
wonder what this will do to the noise these things make. I had the 2011
Macbook Pro 15" i7 with dedicated graphics and under heavy load it was as
noisy as a vacuum cleaner :/ Cant see how that gets any better with even
thinner devices, despite the fact das Ivy bridge might improve heat a bit.

But still for power users doing graphics intensive stuff, the noise is an
issue.

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nknight
Just getting rid of spinning HDDs makes cooling easier. They generate an
insane amount of heat.

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kayoone
if anything, the SSD i had in there made it even worse because the system
wouldnt have to wait for the HDD all the time.

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lwhi
It sounds like Apple is attempting to gear up before ultrabooks become
established as market favourite.

The article mentions that the model referenced doesn't have style or panache
.. but I've seen a couple of models that do.

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lwhi
Ooooh. I wrote something that isn't universally supportive, while commenting
on a 'fair and balanced' (cough) Apple Insider article.

The down-vote(s) will surely teach me a lesson :)

