Thinness has nothing to do with technological development, and a pro machine does not have to be a light as possible. Thin and light should be for the Air.
The pro should be a powerhouse with excellent thermal performance and insane battery.
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Apple Developing Thinner MacBook Pro, Apple Watch, and iPhone
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The pro should be a powerhouse with excellent thermal performance and insane battery.
It's quite funny that some people in the comments cannot use even the slightest amount of imagination to imagine a power-efficient and cool 2-nanometer process CPU-based device with a newer power-efficient screen so that the entire device will use less energy and need a smaller battery. In addition, it has a housing made of e.g. titanium instead of aluminum.
They say a hard NO: lighter and thinner means worse in every means and that's it!
They say a hard NO: lighter and thinner means worse in every means and that's it!
Of course, it does. A more efficient, smaller process CPU and GPU means a smaller required thermal system, fans, and batteries thus a thinner device.
Didn’t they just make the MacBook AIR almost as thick and heavy as the Pro?
Pros use real products, not imaginary ones. No matter what technology you have, less of it will do less.
It would appear that there's a multi-year cycle of beefing up every spec and footprint, only to then slim down while slowing down spec upgrades or even cutting a bit into them to go even slimmer.
I guess it's a great way to make it appear as if there's a lot of changes going on.
I'm sure this slimming down of devices will come at the sacrifice of something. They can then slightly increase size again down the line and add those things in again.
There aren't any major upgrades left for SoCs right now, not ones the consumer would immediately notice. So pushing AI and slimmer devices as the big selling points makes a lot of sense.
It’s about time. The bulge in my skinny pants was getting unreasonable.
That's not really how it works. Yes, a more efficient CPU maybe can reach the same processing power as last year's model while using less energy. But you don't want to be the same as last years CPU, you want to be faster. So you may use the same power as last generation but be 30% faster while doing so.
You're thinking of a device like the iPad where they're okay with not having huge performance gains, and focusing on efficiency. That's not the same logic that's followed when designing a CPU for a Pro laptop.
Not what I said. If they can make it thinner with the same or preferably longer battery life? Sweet.
I was merely saying if weight was your main concern—there is a perfectly capable machine in the MacBook Air.
For MacBook Pro.. I feel like it is actually for power users that require more intense processing power and ports to achieve their work as professionals, where weight is not the primary factor.
20 years ago professional laptops weighed 4-5kgs, battery lasted for 1-2h max. Once again, it's just a lack of imagination.
Yes, of course they did.
And you just know they'll get out than manilla envelope for the redesign coming in a few years and pull out the slimmest and lightest MacBook Air ever.
A lot of MacBook Air fans were a little disappointed with how thick and heavy the M2/M3 redesign is. So making those feel old and clunky with a new redesign makes a lot of sense.
Jony Ive...is that you? 🤣 Whatever you do Apple, please do not bring that muppet back.
The 13” M2 MacBook Air is actually lighter and thinner overall than the M1. The thick edge of the old wedge design was .63 inches. The overall thickness is now .44 inches.
You list development limitations based on the past, limiting technological development only to those known to you. The technological breakthrough we have experienced so far has been the transition to Apple Silicon. There was not a 30% increase, but a several-fold increase, something that people did not expect at all. Use this example to imagine something similar in the future.
Would it be impossible to make a 2 pound 12" Macbook with M1 with proper keyboard? I would buy two. I have to travel with photo gear and the late 2023 Macbook Pro 14" is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Everything is bearable in a backpack on a long day shoot untll you add the laptop. I now use the 15 Pro Max to edit images and it is a decent workaround when I need to be mobile all day.
I second this
I‘m very happy with the MBP battery life (regularly gets 10+ hours) and don’t need/want any more. I would however really appreciate a lighter and thinner device that was even easier to carry around. You feel the reduction in weight/thickness every time you use the device - I very rarely feel the benefits of having such a long battery life.
How about the other two dimensions and weight? What about a 135g, 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.4 mm (5.18 x 2.53 x 0.29 in) phone? Apple did it before (iPhone 12 mini) and could do it again, if it were not so greedy.
Not necessarily.
Apple can very easily increase battery life by just (finally) giving Watch a big SoC and spec upgrade.
But instead of doing substantial upgrades for Watch every 1-2 years or so, Apple usually resorts to giving Watch minor, almost pointless upgrades and pockets the profits instead.
Android watches are software-blocked from full Apple Watch-level iOS integration and also lack the numerous, high quality sensors that only Watch offers.
Having an very strong, (indirect) monopoly on the smart watch market, Apple can then utilize the vacuum that this lack of upgrades create to then create massive sales in the years that Watch does see genuine, big upgrades, like we saw with Series 4 and 1st Gen. Ultra.
Apple are masters of teasing out upgrades as its far more profitable than doing cutting-edge every year.
And with devices like Watch literally requiring an iPhone, it's not like consumers are free to pick and chose.
I'm not saying we're literally locked in the Walled Garden. But the walls sure are tall and expensive to climb, too expensive for most of us. Apple profits greatly from that.
I think it depends on the tasks a user uses their laptop for. If someone is hammering the SoC, then battery life really isn't anything like as good as it otherwise would be.I second this
You feel the reduction in weight/thickness every time you use the device - I very rarely feel the benefits of having such a long battery life.
Well the HDMI port doesn’t have a dedicated lane, so if Apple replaced the HDMI port with a Thunderbolt port, you would have the same bandwidth as the current three Thunderbolt ports.
If bandwidth is what you care about - the HDMI port isn’t taking anything away from you.
I think that is the point I was trying to make. Well that and total bandwidth has increased since the old MacBook Pros.