Exactly how I feel. There really needs to a change in chassis to allow for touchscreens to be a good experience imo.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Last minute Apple silicon Mac thoughts
- Thread starter DHagan4755
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I personally think(or hope) we might get:
Return of 12 inch MacBook - Marketed as powerful but also extremely portable (most likely aimed at students). MacBook was a great entry-level device but it just didn't have enough power running on Intel M chips, it was just too slow, even now the 2017 ones are barely usable for browsing on the latest MacOS. On the other hand, when you got the likes of A14 chips being significantly better and more power efficient compared to even Intel U series, anything is possible. This could also be very affordable with the likes of student discounts etc, but lack other obvious features like touch ID and good speakers/studio mics. $850, $799? (Maybe just wishful thinking).
13 inch MacBook Air - most likely just the Apple Silicon switch, with some minor improvements like a better web cam (potentially) in this covid era. And same for 13 inch MacBook Pro.
I believe we might then get a 16 inch MacBook Pro with intel refresh which might be one of the last. Not sure apple wants to dump a 16-inch MBP with Apple Silicon, just to upgrade it to all these rumoured features like Micro LED display some mere months later (potentially even Q1 of next year). So this could act as a stop-gap.
Might be totally wrong on this.
Return of 12 inch MacBook - Marketed as powerful but also extremely portable (most likely aimed at students). MacBook was a great entry-level device but it just didn't have enough power running on Intel M chips, it was just too slow, even now the 2017 ones are barely usable for browsing on the latest MacOS. On the other hand, when you got the likes of A14 chips being significantly better and more power efficient compared to even Intel U series, anything is possible. This could also be very affordable with the likes of student discounts etc, but lack other obvious features like touch ID and good speakers/studio mics. $850, $799? (Maybe just wishful thinking).
13 inch MacBook Air - most likely just the Apple Silicon switch, with some minor improvements like a better web cam (potentially) in this covid era. And same for 13 inch MacBook Pro.
I believe we might then get a 16 inch MacBook Pro with intel refresh which might be one of the last. Not sure apple wants to dump a 16-inch MBP with Apple Silicon, just to upgrade it to all these rumoured features like Micro LED display some mere months later (potentially even Q1 of next year). So this could act as a stop-gap.
Might be totally wrong on this.
I would like to see them release a new line of notebooks that carry a new name and then sell the Intel versions along side the new AS models until the transition is complete. This would make sense considering we have had rumors of a refreshed Intel 16 inch MacBook Pro and a new AS 16 inch MacBook Pro. The vintage Apple fanboy would buy on day one if they went back to the PowerBook name...
You would. be lucky if Apple supported there ASi based hardware for 100 years, even if the 100 was a binary based value which translates to 4 years (the max warranty is for 3 years)
Enlighten me please; What's so special about a touch screen? The trackpad is great and I really don't see the logic in touching a screen to do...anything. If I wanted that functionality I'd get an iPad Pro with a magic keyboard.
Last edited:
There were 2m cables with Thunderbolt 3 . For example
Thunderbolt™ 3 2M Cable
shop.caldigit.com
What TBv4 brings is “Universal 2m “ cables. That means using ‘passive’ cables that should also work with USB 3.1 , USB 4 , and TBv4 . They may get cheaper , but not longer .
As for redesigns, the MBA just got a refresh not that long ago.
While the MBP has been running with the same overall design for a number of years .... it works! I doubt there will be a significant redesign outside of internals to get Apple SoCs into the machine.
I'd be surprised if they continued the Intel Macs. It'd honestly be a waste of resources to build, stock, and ship two different lines of computers that do the same thing. Back during the Intel transition Apple just stopped selling the PowerPC versions once the Intel versions came out.
And for good reason. They were still running the G4 chips back then.
I'd love to see some seriously improved graphics performance too. Almost forgot about that.
While the MBP has been running with the same overall design for a number of years .... it works! I doubt there will be a significant redesign outside of internals to get Apple SoCs into the machine.
I'd be surprised if they continued the Intel Macs. It'd honestly be a waste of resources to build, stock, and ship two different lines of computers that do the same thing. Back during the Intel transition Apple just stopped selling the PowerPC versions once the Intel versions came out.
And for good reason. They were still running the G4 chips back then.
I'd love to see some seriously improved graphics performance too. Almost forgot about that.
Last edited:
Now:
Apple needs to come out of the gate strong to prove that ARM is not the weakest link.
- MacBook Air with 5g and 20 hours battery life.
- MacBook Pro 13 with top end performance and specs (16-32gb RAM, 1-4TB SSD)
Apple needs to come out of the gate strong to prove that ARM is not the weakest link.
I need a new laptop so bad right now. But I'm reminded of the adage about cars - NEVER buy the first year of a new car model. Kind of like the related computer corollary - NEVER install the X.0.0 version of an operating system.
So I'll probably limp along for a while longer.
Touchscreens in a laptop are counter intuitive to me. Increased battery life is always a bonus, but not a deal breaker. Touch bar? Meh. Frankly, laptops haven't evolved much in the last few years aside from thinner and lighter. I'm not sure there's much more room for development with the current keyboard/touchpad input methods. There's no rumors of a "ground breaking" feature, just another rendition with new chips. But I can hope to be pleasantly surprised.
So I'll probably limp along for a while longer.
Touchscreens in a laptop are counter intuitive to me. Increased battery life is always a bonus, but not a deal breaker. Touch bar? Meh. Frankly, laptops haven't evolved much in the last few years aside from thinner and lighter. I'm not sure there's much more room for development with the current keyboard/touchpad input methods. There's no rumors of a "ground breaking" feature, just another rendition with new chips. But I can hope to be pleasantly surprised.
I'm surprised there are no rumors/leaks on the front page with less than 24 hours to go. Apple has done a good job keeping this event under wraps.
So:
- Macbook Air 8 gb ram with 256 ssd and "AS" base chip
BTO options will be just for storage and Ram, 16gb ram+512ssd etc
- The macbook pro will have a better AS chip 16gb (or they will start from 8gb ) ram and 256 default with BTO options for 32gb ram ,more storage up to 4T
It seems they will keep selling the lower end 13" MBP, but the high end with 10th gen will be replaced by AS MBP
- Macbook Air 8 gb ram with 256 ssd and "AS" base chip
BTO options will be just for storage and Ram, 16gb ram+512ssd etc
- The macbook pro will have a better AS chip 16gb (or they will start from 8gb ) ram and 256 default with BTO options for 32gb ram ,more storage up to 4T
It seems they will keep selling the lower end 13" MBP, but the high end with 10th gen will be replaced by AS MBP
Lets wait for another 12 hours and then we will see..but for now, we already know about 13" macs that will be shown...so we are not entering this event with nothing that we know....until months ago, we thought the 24" imac will be announced this year...but know, its almost a solid rumour for the 13" Mba and MBP
Given what we know about Apple Silicon for the Mac (which is a new line we have not seen before), I would expect this first iteration to be notebooks. Probably a Macbook Air version and a Macbook Pro 16 version (because they want to appeal to both people who want portability and those looking for more power).
Both will likely have Face ID and possibly cellular internet capabilities. The Air is probably a 4x4 SoC with increased cache and also more GPU cores than we see even in iPads. Ditto for the Pro except the cores hopefully are 8x6. I am thinking both will start at 16GB RAM on die. No touchscreens.
Both will likely have Face ID and possibly cellular internet capabilities. The Air is probably a 4x4 SoC with increased cache and also more GPU cores than we see even in iPads. Ditto for the Pro except the cores hopefully are 8x6. I am thinking both will start at 16GB RAM on die. No touchscreens.
Pretty much everyone says and seems to know for sure, that we are talking laptops are about to be announced. I have a fine laptop; what I am waiting for is a new Mac mini. And ... well, Apple already has a working Mac Mini with Apple Silicon in it. I have a hard time understanding why it wouldn't be the easiest thing to do to just put a new processor in it, more memory or whatever, and make it public. (I know it's probably marketing and timing, but I still have my hopes up for tomorrow!)
Can't fit FaceID hardware without making the lid much thicker. Same reason MacBook webcams are so crappy.
Thats largely a moot point, until there is windows software that supports arm to run.
that's why Apple calls them notebooks not laptops. not snarky about that, heard it from an Apple sales rep years ago.
If it is the same enclosures as the current MacBook 13" laptops unless they change the screen in some way to bleed more power , then more battery life is probably a given.
Not a slam dunk. The newer iPhones use Qualcomm SD865
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon-865-plus-5g-mobile-platform
That includes Wi-Fi bluetooth. The other major Wi-Fi chipset used in PC laptops is Intel's (and Apple is dumping Intel). Apple has used another vendor for Mac Wi-Fi in the past and they didn't have a generally available WiFi 6 solution last I checked. They could have finally finished something but this isn't certain just because of the iPhone.
Thunderbolt not being "royalty free" had nothing to do with Apple's use or non use of it.
If this is a presumption that Apple whipped up their own "from scratch" TBv4 implementation and are ready to ship. I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.
Again Intel has the only shipping TBv4 implementation out there ( and if Apple is dumping Intel .... ). The DTK had no Thunderbolt. Apple wasn't ahead of the curve there.
USB 4 . Likewise Intel is only one shipping in volume at the moment.
As to "how do you use XDR" ... there is a not so well documentent DiplayPort v1.3 mode that you can use on some Windows laptops ( some Microsoft models) to get to XDR to drop into a backward compatibility mode that "happens to work". Apple probably knows that "back door" to that mode better than anyone else. Unofficially, Thunderbolt isn't necessary. And USB 4 and/or TBv4 are necessary at all for XDR.
700 nits is only going to drain battery faster.
If not changing the lid design then in the same boat of "no room for the extra cameras and sensors" as the HD Facetime camera.
the Touch Bar was driven by the T2 chip. Since the T2 chip is being subsumed into the SoC ... how likely is that. They would need to bump up the number of displays the a-series are capable of drving. That was party of the problem with the intel iGPUs. They couldn't do more than 3 Dispalys. ( lid-screen + two Thunderbolt DP streams ). Intel
cracked that limit with the Xe Graphics in the Gen 11 CPU packages now but that is just as Apple moved away. Apple should be trying to cover most of what the Xe-LP can do in graphics.
The MBA doesn't have a touch bar so wouldn't be surprising if it is still not there.
Ironically would be the fastest path to WiFi 6
If Apple is doing the MBA then I'm kind of skeptical that Apple is really ready for two controller Thunderbolt I/O .
If the MBP 16" stays intel then Apple may keep a Intel 13" model also. ( the MBP 13" 2012 stayed around for a long , long , long time). Some folks are going to balk at the can only boot MacOS model.
is it or going to get one last Intel refresh because can't really match the discrete GPUs in the MBP 16" in computational "horsepower" ? If there is no substantive case revisions ... could just be an Intel model.
Yep, unfortunately without a redesign Face ID is highly unlikely, and perhaps not even then. The hold-up for both Face ID and higher res webcams is the thickness of the lid, which currently couldn't fit a much higher-res camera, not to mention a true-depth scanner. It's hard to imagine Apple accepting additional millimeters across the entire lid just for the webcam.
Where there is the potential for some improvements, I imagine, is if Apple were to apply some of their software camera magic from the iPhone to the webcam. It may be that the Mac A-series chips still include some version of the photo processing unit on the phones, and I've wondered if they might not try to improve webcam performance that way. Maybe there's even some less-hardware-based form of Face ID in that. I wouldn't expect anything like either though until the probably 2021 redesign at the earliest.
The iMac, on the other hand, I would find surprising if it didn't have Face ID and a better webcam.
Where there is the potential for some improvements, I imagine, is if Apple were to apply some of their software camera magic from the iPhone to the webcam. It may be that the Mac A-series chips still include some version of the photo processing unit on the phones, and I've wondered if they might not try to improve webcam performance that way. Maybe there's even some less-hardware-based form of Face ID in that. I wouldn't expect anything like either though until the probably 2021 redesign at the earliest.
The iMac, on the other hand, I would find surprising if it didn't have Face ID and a better webcam.
Well, since the iPad Pro is essentially a "touchscreen Mac running iOS instead of macOS" why can it not be redone to run the macOS? It solves a lot of problems:
1. Apple doesn't have to intentionally harm the performance of Macs to protect iPad sales. The "entry level" Mac becomes the iPad Pro and can be intentionally hurt performance-wise to meet thermal requirements and not be stronger than the ASMacs.
2. Tablet Macs can finally happen.
3. iPad Pros can run the lesser walled garden of macOS rather than the miles-high wall of iOS, allowing for customizability of the Pro models.
But those are just dreams...
