Apple to disrupt notebook space with radically redesigned MacBook Pros | Hacker News Reader

Apple to disrupt notebook space with radically redesigned MacBook Pros

appleinsider.com

38 pointssovande53 comments

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.

A significant amount of laptop weight is the battery. If they gave that treatment to a 13" MacBook Pro it would probably be 10-15 pounds.

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.

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.

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.

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

If you look at the ipod, where the ipod classic has maxed out at 160gb and hasn't seen a refresh for 2.5 years you can see that they don't cater to the top 0.1% of users.

What they might have a problem with though is convincing the average user that their computers with 256 gb are actually better than the really cheap windows machine with 750gb, to a user that does seems like it's 3 times better.

The best of both worlds would be to have an SSD for / and spinning metal for /Users.

> they're only hurting themselves by not throwing a bone to customers with more specific needs

Do you have any clue what it costs to do a low-volume custom build of a product? Apple's margins would vanish in a puff of irrationality.

> 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.

You presume without evidence that a MacBook Air made with 2000ish technology would be wildly successful. I have no reason to believe that to be true, particularly because sub-notebooks were very much a niche product until the netbook fad, which is pretty much over.

> power users will cling to the last generation as long as they can, hoping in vain that Apple will eventually come around

And eventually the power users will come around. They always do. The cycle is quite predictable.

You're presuming without evidence that an Air in 2005 or so would not be successful. Moreover, it need not be an Air as we know it, but simply a MacBook with no optical drive and a 10-11" screen. The tiny Vaios of the time did fairly well, and with healthy margins.

I'll stipulate that I have no clue what BTO infrastructure costs.

However, I do take umbrage with the notion that power users will simply see the light one day. Most of the time, it's not a matter of preferences or delicate sensibilities, but needing a tool to do a job. It is today impossible to have a modern Mac laptop with five extra batteries, harming a certain user segment's ability to work while traveling. Soon, it may be impossible to get a modern Mac laptop with over 512G of storage, which sucks for someone, say, editing video in the field. (Dangling an external HD sucks; you're one jostled cable away from serious data loss.)

I have no issue with the "applianceification" of computing; in fact, I'm all for it. But because this has been Apple's focus, they've spent less effort in recent years on professionals for whom Macs are vital tools (see also the Final Cut fiasco). Maybe those users simply aren't profitable, which would be very sad indeed, given the alternatives.

Hopefully, cheap and huge

... SSDs are around the corner, making the issue moot.

I don't think you'll see a bay capable of supporting an optical drive -- they're gone, and few people care -- but I'd still expect the next generation MacBook Pro 15" to augment a cooked-on SSD with space for a user-fitted 2.5 inch HDD. And the 17" model should have space for TWO user-fitted 2.5 inch drives, as befits the model's target market.

I'd also expect a next-gen MacBook Pro to have multiple Thunderbolt ports for connecting a multitude of monitors, storage and pro peripherals.

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.

I don't think so. People seem to believe ANY lost sale is lost money, but it is not so. Every sale comes with what is called an "opportunity cost" (wikipedia it).

Making stuff for tiny niches is not worth it if you have a nicely streamlined production run going.

I'd much rather like to see the new high-capacity cells hit the market - apparently, 4000 mAh cells have been pretty much ready for half a decade, yet mass production will only start in a few years.

Right now, 3100 mAh is the most you can get out of a 18650 cell, and those are only made by Panasonic. Most laptop manufacturers use 2600 or 2800 mAh 18650 cells - obviously, there's not enough demand to accelerate the release of higher capacity batteries (which will also cost more).

Then again, Apple might very well be waiting for solid state cells to become ready for production...

As for smartphones, the RAZR Maxx is great with its 20+ hours life, hopefully other manufacturers will pick up on the trend.

Unfortunately, high-capacity cells are not enough if device manufacturers actively sabotage the potential for building longer-lived devices. The manufacturers can just add some power-hungry features instead.

In 2004 Intel had CPU parts with TDP of 5W http://ark.intel.com/products/27609, Pentium M ULV (ultra-low voltage) series. Now the lowest TDP in ULV series is 17W: http://ark.intel.com/products/54617. Of course, over the course of this time the memory controller and GPU got integrated on the chip. And manufacturers are not eager to use LV/ULV parts in their laptops anyway. But still, given the progression of Moore's law I think that low power consumption is just not a priority of chip, parts and laptop designers.

I don't think Apple is guilty of that. My wife was perfectly happy with her first-gen, 5 year-old C2D MacBook (we upgraded memory, hard-disk and battery) until a couple weeks back, when a small piece of the bottom casing fell off. Repairs will cost us about US$170 and it's still an excellent computer.

I am quite sure she'll be happy with her MBP for the next 5 years.

I agree, Apple is not particularly guilty of that; in fact, I think they are better than average. It's just that it looks like the average could be so much better, if only manufacturers and consumers cared.

Agreed. While my 3 year-old netbook is starting to show its age (I suspect support for its GPU will be dropped a couple Ubuntus from now), the fact I use it most of the time hooked to a keyboard, mouse and display allowed it to show less aesthetic aging than it would otherwise.

The Latitude line of Dell machines also ages very well - my company-issued notebook is a Latitude 4310 and it's built like a tank. My previous one, a D630 is still being used by a less lucky employee.

Hmm, I think the potential for low power usage is much better with current chips. Pentium 4's and M's were quite power hungry no matter what speed they ran at, while Core 2 Duo, Sandy Bridge and especially Ivy Bridge chips can be both power hungry (at the highest multiplier/clock) and low power (if locked at the lowest multiplier), so you get the best of both worlds. That's why ULV chips are only used for special cases these days.

In fact, a ULV Core 2 Duo is nothing more than a factory undervolted Core 2 Duo - you can significantly increase your battery life and reduce heat by undervolting (sadly, that's not possible anymore with Sandy and Ivy)...

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

Doesn't make much sense. We get the same kind of battery life now that we used to have to carry 2 or 3 spares to achieve, close to 8-10 hours with some models. And it keeps getting better. Even my Air gets around 5 hours of running time, and that too will get better --so no need to compromise on weight for something that can be improved with better technology tomorrow.

After a point, it makes no sense to add a larger battery. What use would I have for a 15-20 hour battery? So I can use my laptop in the desert?

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

Are you going for long stretches of time alone in the woods with your phone? Because even on the road, you can charge it in a car-charger, in a motel, etc.

Carrying something heavy and thick is a real problem, because most of us carry our phones 24/7. Charging it every day or every other day, less so. So, I'd go for thin (within reasonable bounds) and light, over thich, heavy but with more battery time.

I want to be able to grab my laptop and not even have to think about battery life. 5 hours is still much to short for that. Going anywhere for an extended period of time means carrying a power cable around and being tied to an outlet.

Sure, you need to carry a power cable. But tied to an outlet? No. Where do you go for "an extended period of time" that doesn't have a power outlet to charge after you're done working away from one?

I can understand such a need for, say, photojournalists, or war correspondents, nature professionals and the like, but what is the use case for the ordinary guy?

Or do you consider working on the laptop on the beach or in the woods for stretches > 5 hours?

its not about being somewhere without an outlet. its having to find one and plug it in. Go to starbucks, a friends or the airport? now you have to find a seat thats next to a wall. Its a hassle that could be avoided. The only time my laptop should be charging is at night when i'm sleeping.

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.

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.

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

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.

You mean like constantly inventing whole new markets out of thin air (or out of niches 5% of the population cared about), that other companies, including giants like Google, Microsoft, Sony, HP, Dell, Samsung, etc, then try desperately to enter by making a u-turn and releasing similar stuff to yours.

You know, like, the iPod, the iTMS, the iPhone, the iPhone App Store, the iPad, and the Air-like laptop?

I'd argue that the OS X was a similar story too. It took desktop UNIX, (which was supposedly going to get mainstream with Linux circa 2000 but never did, and even today has insignificant Desktop share, despite also being free AND open source) and got it to 10-15% mass market adoption.

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.

> 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.

I am in your situation too and I am looking at lenovo's X220.

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.

I'm considering the Dell v131 or one of the beefier Minis from HP. The 13-inch screen is a bit of a put off for the Dell, but I think I can live with it.

I'm typing this on an Acer Aspire One, which is still my main home workstation (connected to a big LCD, a Microsoft natural keyboard, a mouse and a couple external HDDs on a USB hub). It's a bit slow with disk IO, but the battery is holding well. I'm really unhappy with this "bring back the expensive ultraportable" trend.

Why do you need to replace a 3yo MBP? I have a Mid 2009 myself, upgraded to 8G RAM and an Intel SSD, that I intend to keep using for many years.

The processor and graphics adapter seem to be the bottleneck - the new i7 Sandy Bridge quad cores are a lot faster, Ivy Bridge even more so - the jump in performance is quite noticeable...

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

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.

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...

The point is to double the resolution and make the display 'retina', like on the iPhone.

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

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...

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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

Think of the poor people trying to write music...

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

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.

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.

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 :)

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