No MBA Update....

[L0s7man]

Ok, so there's no update for MBA; there might be some reasons why it is "somewhat" justified; but what the hell is happening with MBP? 13" is STILL C2D? Lol? How do you justify that?

If you email The Great Steeeeve he'd probably reply:

"Why bother; old hardware sells too.

-- Sent from my iPhone"

SIGH. I need a laptop. Really, I need one right now; and I'd like to stick to OS X.

 

[Scottsdale]

If no new MBA by November, its a dead line.


More likely a iPad with built in keypad.

As much as from the brand I agree, I feel like Sandy Bridge and the graphics benefits may not be available, in the quantity that Apple needs, until January 2011.

I really want to believe October is it, but I just don't know that Apple could get the quantity of CPUs necessary that early. I have read varying reports that LV Core i7 variants of Sandy Bridge will be available October through End of First Quarter 2011... that's six months of possibilities...

Any way we look at it, the MBA is getting EITHER Core i7 LV/ULV variant or AMD/ATI combination. I am not passed believing AMD negotiated a deal. In addition, Apple has moved to ATI with all of its discrete cards. I wouldn't mind Core i7 LV w/ATI(AMD) GPU or AMD/ATI CPU/GPU/chipset combinations.

 

[nunes013]

i was also expecting a silent update, maybe not mention it at the event but a silent update after. the only other product besides the classic that wasnt updated was airport express, im surprised they havent updated it to have n instead of n draft considering they did with airport extreme and tc last year.

 

[tsubikiddo]

If no new MBA by November, its a dead line.


More likely a iPad with built in keypad.

Then I'm afraid the MBA is set to be a dead line to you.
Sandy Bridge is not going to be available until Jan'11.
On top of that, Intel has a tendency to announce first-ship later delay, ranging from 3-6 months. You are at least another 2Q of a year away from any realistic time frame to see a MBA refresh.

Let alone Intel's increasingly unwillingness to deploy its SFF manufacturing, which means Intel will have to set off a certain production capacity for Apple.

The least that I would have expect would be the new Air housing AMD's Bobcat, I still think that would be truly a step backward. Even AMD publicly claims the Bobcat is only going to be available to the Netbook category, but never under-estimate what Steve can negotiate for what he wants.
Bulldozer is amongst the same time frame with Intel's Sandy Bridge launch, but the Anandtech articles are just not favouring them too much. And I still think Bulldozer is still 0.5-1 generation behind Nehalem-gen.

The MBA is not going to get anything anytime soon, it's pretty much a dead line to you no matter which way you're looking at it.
From a realistic perspective, get a MBP.

 

[URFloorMatt]

Sometime between October and January. I really believe the information could lead us to either October or January. If Apple is waiting for Sandy Bridge, probably January. An event could happen in October, as another iPad and the new MBA could be updated... and I am expecting other updates much quicker this rotation. The 13" MBP/MB/Mm updates were a stop-gap measure of sorts until they could get the strategy determined... I did feel like the AppleTV update could mean that this is all we're getting this year, but Apple has updated products in October quite frequently... I am not giving up at all. I think it was far-fetched to expect an update today.

No offense, but nothing in Apple's recent release history suggests that Sandy Bridge Macbooks could ever be ready in January. They'll be ready in April, just like the i5 and i7 Macbooks were.

- Niche device that is fully featured at a premium price.

Name one thing Apple has done in the time since the MacBook Air's original release that suggests they are at all interested in continuing to pursue this niche market.

 

[mrsir2009]

Its never going to come. Time to get that Mac Pro.

Thats going to be next to go. For Apple doesn't care for real computers anymore, just gimmicky touch screen devices ...

 

[manuelfp]

New Processor

Mabye Apple is making a new processor in secret as A4 but for MBA.
Better battery life.

So they will release in January as always.

I'm waiting a revision to change my MBA revA.

 

[hattrick123]

MBA Shipping Date in German Apple Online Store

has changed to "3 days".


Link

EDIT: Ignore - shipping date for all Macs is currently 3 days...

 

[L0s7man]

has changed to "3 days". I think it has always been "24 hrs" over the last few months. Maybe nothing...

Link

Hmm, yeah; just checked UK, France, USA and few Asian stores. US/EU 3 days, Asia 24h. Please let it be something ;-)

 

[chickadee]

Of course this may mean nothing, but I was recently surprised when I took my Air in for repair and they rather cheerfully handed me a brand-new one.

This replaced an Air that had been problem-free until the predictable hinge blowout this spring, and after they'd fixed that the Airport card and logic board started crapping out and each had to be replaced. Most recently the hard drive started going south, so they just replaced the whole machine. The most surprising part is that this was a way-out-of-warranty Rev. A with no AppleCare.

Even nicer, they let me keep my old hard drive, and I managed to get all my old files off of it.

 

[gri]

Of course this may mean nothing, but I was recently surprised when I took my Air in for repair and they rather cheerfully handed me a brand-new one.

This replaced an Air that had been problem-free until the predictable hinge blowout this spring, and after they'd fixed that the Airport card and logic board started crapping out and each had to be replaced. Most recently the hard drive started going south, so they just replaced the whole machine. The most surprising part is that this was a way-out-of-warranty Rev. A with no AppleCare.

Even nicer, they let me keep my old hard drive, and I managed to get all my old files off of it.

No surprise. Three major issues and its strike out with a replacement. If it is within the right timeframe and not within years from each other. Did you get a new Rev A or an upgrade?

 

[chickadee]

No surprise. Three major issues and its strike out with a replacement. If it is within the right timeframe and not within years from each other. Did you get a new Rev A or an upgrade?

Yeah, I was awfully just surprised that they did this with three recent major issues on such an old (Jan. 2008) machine.

They offered to replace my base model Rev. A with a base model Rev. C, and I opted to upgrade to the SSD, having always regretted not getting that in the first place.

 

[Scottsdale]

No offense, but nothing in Apple's recent release history suggests that Sandy Bridge Macbooks could ever be ready in January. They'll be ready in April, just like the i5 and i7 Macbooks were.

Name one thing Apple has done in the time since the MacBook Air's original release that suggests they are at all interested in continuing to pursue this niche market.

Some people, like you, know everything.

 

[Alvi]

Something tells me it will happen what they did with the iPod Classic, not dead yet, but the Touch will replace it (iPad will replace the Air)

Sad thing I really hope they refresh it sometime, October?

 

[abriwin]

I'm lovin' it

Too late for me now, I bought an iPad for travelling and apart from the stupid way we get files into the machine it's great. (I thought iTunes was for media, not files, maybe they will eventually rename iTunes 'finder'?)

 

[RedReplicant]

Mabye Apple is making a new processor in secret as A4 but for MBA.
Better battery life.

So they will release in January as always.

I'm waiting a revision to change my MBA revA.

Not really a possibility to use anything but an Intel cpu.

 

[Scottsdale]

Not really a possibility to use anything but an Intel cpu.

Not true. Apple could easily go with an AMD CPU, and use an AMD (no longer ATI) chipset/GPU combo. This would be sorta the "norm" in a sense as Apple really liked the Nvidia chipset/GPU combo. If AMD can provide the best overall solution, I hope Apple goes with it.

The problem with Intel, is it markets to consumers that the only way to improve computers is to upgrade CPUs. In reality, the C2D CPUs are amazingly capable. What we need is for Apple to focus on all of the other things that with tuning could be impressive.

For example, go beyond SATA-II as SSDs are quickly going to saturate the bandwidth of SATA-II drive controllers. The bottleneck in the current computing environment is the drive and drive controller combination. The reason the MBA with an SSD is so very fast is Apple jumped on the SSD bandwagon... and thankfully it didn't take them as long as it has with other tools and components - like no Blu Ray and etc.

Take advantage of better graphics systems. Focus on making simple use of OpenCL and other tools available to application providers. Make Grand Central Dispatch a widely used tool. Keep focusing on software improvements. ADD MORE ***** RAM!

About the least problematic (and most capable) component in the MBA, or any Mac for that matter, is the Intel CPU. But until consumers understand that, Apple will be forced to upgrade the damn things. Just like when it upgraded the 15" to Core i-Series CPUs... the users would have been better off with C2D and Nvidia 320m, as they would have had the much more powerful base graphics system. Everytime the 330GT kicks in it eats more battery than it would have had the 320m had first crack at taking care of the graphics.

I would say people need to learn about the current state of computing and understand what the hell does what... before preaching go big, GO INTEL, or go home.

 

[bc24]

Mabye Apple is making a new processor in secret as A4 but for MBA.
Better battery life.

So they will release in January as always.

I'm waiting a revision to change my MBA revA.

this is the right Direction !

 

[thinkdesign]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 8.12; MSIEMobile6.0) Sprint T7380)

Scottsdale - Your opinion on the news about AMD, saying that a planned chip for ultraportables won't arrive until late 2011?

1.) Would that CPU chip be suitable?

2.) Do they have anything else Air-suitable known to be coming up, any sooner?

 

[animatedude]

what does Apple have in store for us in this final quarter anyway? everything has been updated except the Air.

 

[CaoCao]

Apple is probably waiting for the Sandy Bridge ULV since the MBA is at the best ULV C2D chip currently and if it went i3 the GPU would be utter rubbish

The MBA will probably be the first to use Liquidmetal Technology to use as guinea pig, and IIRC the Sandy Bridge ULV is coming January 2011

 

[entatlrg]

^^ coming in January 2011 would appear in notebooks by March/April?

 

[CaoCao]

Ok, so there's no update for MBA; there might be some reasons why it is "somewhat" justified; but what the hell is happening with MBP? 13" is STILL C2D? Lol? How do you justify that?

If you email The Great Steeeeve he'd probably reply:

"Why bother; old hardware sells too.

-- Sent from my iPhone"

SIGH. I need a laptop. Really, I need one right now; and I'd like to stick to OS X.

C2D+320M>i3+Intel IGP

 

[sushi]

I expect Apple to come out with an MBA update in the future. But this was a media event. No way Apple was going to introduce a new MBA.

 

[L0s7man]

C2D+320M>i3+Intel IGP

Aye!

But there has to be SOMETHING you could put inside, right? Don't tell me there is not a single GPU/CPU combo from Intel/Nvidia/AMD that would fit inside MBA.