Shifty 16-inch MacBook Pro news

[Mayo86]

I’ve posted the below in the news article thread but it will probably be looked over:

Has anyone else noticed that the Bloomberg article about the MacBook Pros with Apple Silicon making news yesterday by Mark Gurman has been sneakily changed?

When this was first reported I read the article in excitement and now when I read it again it simply states that the 13 inch MacBooks are further along in production and that « at least » those 2 would be shown at the event next week.

He tries to tip toe around the change as well... On the bottom of the page it states the article was updated to include the manufacturers in the third paragraph but makes no mention of the change of certainty that the 16 inch MacBook Pro may not be shown next week.

Seems shifty.

 

[Mikael H]

Shifty? From the company of "spy chips the size of a grain of rice on your server motherboards" fame? Impossible.

 

[UltimateSyn]

It's got me going crazy over here honestly, lol. I had no expectations of a 16" because there were no rumors to support that, but now that the light of hope has been lit I can't stop thinking about how awesome it would be to come out concurrently with the 13", and how dumb it would be to leave their flagship on the inferior Intel chips. But there's some push and pull with that article update, so now I don't know what to believe... 7 days..

 

[thenewperson]

and how dumb it would be to leave their flagship on the inferior Intel chips

Especially if there's potential of a more powerful ASi chip than the A14 meeting or exceeding the power of some 16" configs while in a 13" Pro or something.

 

[UltimateSyn]

Especially if there's potential of a more powerful ASi chip than the A14 meeting or exceeding the power of some 16" configs while in a 13" Pro or something.

Exactly, and I believe there will be. I elaborated on this idea over in another thread a minute ago:

Wouldn't that require them to gimp the 13" significantly as to not have it be vastly superior to the 16"? And if it's not vastly superior on ARM vs Intel then what was the point anyway? What if they give the 13" ProMotion, crazy battery life, better performance, ALL of these features:

But the 16", their more expensive high-end flagship super-'Pro' machine gets.... a 3% faster Intel chip and some AMD graphics? I don't see it. I think they need to bring the 16" along for the ride here.

 

[ADGrant]

It's got me going crazy over here honestly, lol. I had no expectations of a 16" because there were no rumors to support that, but now that the light of hope has been lit I can't stop thinking about how awesome it would be to come out concurrently with the 13", and how dumb it would be to leave their flagship on the inferior Intel chips. But there's some push and pull with that article update, so now I don't know what to believe... 7 days..

You are forgetting that the 16" can be configured with high end AMD GPUs. Apple may not be there yet with their GPUs.

 

[Mayo86]

It's got me going crazy over here honestly, lol. I had no expectations of a 16" because there were no rumors to support that, but now that the light of hope has been lit I can't stop thinking about how awesome it would be to come out concurrently with the 13", and how dumb it would be to leave their flagship on the inferior Intel chips. But there's some push and pull with that article update, so now I don't know what to believe... 7 days..

I'm baffled by this as well. All hints/leaks were pointing at some sort of 13-inch MacBook(s) or, a pipe dream, 12-inch MacBook revival. The rumors pointing to a 16-inch MacBook were tied in to the fact that they would support Bootcamp (therefore an Intel-based chip). As of yesterday, the cryptic individual on Twitter called l0vetodream or however you spell it stated 13-inch x 2. Gurman came out guns blazing with the 16 inch Apple Silicon article yesterday but it seems he is now rescinding that statement. At least that is what I am interpreting from this.

Don't get me wrong, a 16 inch Apple Silicon MacBook Pro would have to be on parity at minimum with the current offering of 16 inch Intel MacBook Pro which is huge. And from a GPU standpoint I'm not that worried about what they can offer. I've seen the Tomb Raider from the new trilogy running on a DTK with 4k resolution and almost all settings turned on maximum except anti-aliasing. This is on a A12Z chip no less... And yet, the writing isn't on the wall for this device as of yet which to me was a huge excitement yesterday and then a quick deflation when he essentially changed the context of his original article.

7 days and we shall know.

 

[icanhazmac]

Thought it said "Schwifty", left disappointed.

+1 for hoping the 16" is a last Intel refresh with a 5600 base.

 

[ADGrant]

Thought it said "Schwifty", left disappointed.

+1 for hoping the 16" is a last Intel refresh with a 5600 base.

You raise a good point. A 16" Intel refresh may be announced next week.

 

[Serban55]

Exactly, and I believe there will be. I elaborated on this idea over in another thread a minute ago:

Agree. Like you said, there are 2 options
- no update for 16” mbp until next year with apple chip
-16” goes apple chip next Tuesday

i dont see them place an slower cpu in the smaller mbp, slower at least on native apps that doesn’t need emulation

 

[JPack]

This happens often with Gurman/Bloomberg because he defers to Chinese sources, who always have high accuracy.

The last time this happened was in September. After Kang announced the news of Watch SE and A14 iPad Air, Gurman quickly updated his article to include those two. Days before, Gurman's articles only mentioned Watch 6 and suggested the iPad Air would only get the "latest processor" (A13).

 

[ADGrant]

Agree. Like you said, there are 2 options
- no update for 16” mbp until next year with apple chip
-16” goes apple chip next Tuesday

i dont see them place an slower cpu in the smaller mbp, slower at least on native apps that doesn’t need emulation

The third option is 16" with 10th Gen Intel CPU and possible a GPU bump.

 

[Jorbanead]

The third option is 16" with 10th Gen Intel CPU and possible a GPU bump.

His sources probably just said the 3 notebooks were in mass production but didn’t specify which ones were getting the Apple silicon treatment.

Edit: as of 10:00 pst the article still says:

Apple and overseas suppliers are ramping up production of three Mac laptops with Apple processors: new 13-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros and a new 13-inch MacBook Air, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

[UltimateSyn]

His sources probably just said the 3 notebooks were in mass production but didn’t specify which ones were getting the Apple silicon treatment.

Edit: as of 10:00 pst the article still says:

Apple and overseas suppliers are ramping up production of three Mac laptops with Apple processors: new 13-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros and a new 13-inch MacBook Air, according to people familiar with the matter.

And continues on to say "...The smaller models are further ahead in production and at least those two laptops will be shown at next week’s event." but if they're all in production already why wouldn't they announce all 3? They're not going to hold another event in December or January for the 16" version, hopefully..

 

[Woochoo]

Wasn't this rumoured everywhere already that 16" would be shown later than first ARM Macs? I see no surprise in having higher-end 16" and iMacs shown in 2021 while this year we see MBA/MB (or whatever they call it) and smaller MBPs

 

[Mayo86]

I think the surprise is that even his Twitter account says:

« New story: Apple is set to reveal its first Macs with its own chips on Nov. 10, replacing Intel. The the first ones: 13-inch MacBook Air, and 13 and 16-inch MacBook Pros. Also in the works: a redesigned iMac, new Mac mini and a half-sized Mac Pro »

And as of 2 hours ago he posted this on his Twitter account:

«
Foxconn is building 13-inch Air and Pro, while Quanta is manufacturing the 16-inch MacBook Pro. “The smaller models are further ahead in production and at least those two laptops will be shown at next week’s event." https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-02/apple-to-hold-nov-10-event-to-announce-macs-with-own-chips?sref=9hGJlFio… from story w/
@debbywuintaipei »

Sorry but the original story by him directly stated the 16-inch will be making an appearance on the November 10th event. Suddenly it’s being spun differently. People make mistakes, that’s fine, but don’t spin it as if that was your original story all along. He reported from his typical « people familiar with the matter » and that was his news story to break. It’s wrong? Own up to it. Shmuck.

 

[Serban55]

I’ve posted the below in the news article thread but it will probably be looked over:

Has anyone else noticed that the Bloomberg article about the MacBook Pros with Apple Silicon making news yesterday by Mark Gurman has been sneakily changed?

When this was first reported I read the article in excitement and now when I read it again it simply states that the 13 inch MacBooks are further along in production and that « at least » those 2 would be shown at the event next week.

He tries to tip toe around the change as well... On the bottom of the page it states the article was updated to include the manufacturers in the third paragraph but makes no mention of the change of certainty that the 16 inch MacBook Pro may not be shown next week.

Seems shifty.

Now its up again with the initial statement
"Apple and overseas suppliers are ramping up production of three Mac laptops with Apple processors: new 13-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros and a new 13-inch MacBook Air"
So 16" as well again ?

 

[Serban55]

Sorry but the original story by him directly stated the 16-inch will be making an appearance on the November 10th event. Suddenly it’s being spun differently. People make mistakes, that’s fine, but don’t spin it as if that was your original story all along. He reported from his typical « people familiar with the matter » and that was his news story to break. It’s wrong? Own up to it. Shmuck.

Without him and the others top tier leakers...you wouldnt have rumours ...so show some respect...it doesnt matter what he said and did not said...is just a rumour...your life doesn't depend on it or shouldnt

Again , we are still on for 16" on Tuesday ..even if its with Apple cpu or not

 

[theluggage]

So 16" as well again ?

Nobody who knows is allowed to tell, so anybody who does tell is, by definition, sketchy - you can only get so much out of rumours.

Apple have said they are going to move the entire Mac line over to Apple Silicon and that the process will take about 2 years (...which is roughly what they said for PPC->Intel, and that time the entire range actually moved to intel after only ~1 year). So unless Apple do a massive U-turn there is almost certainly an Apple Silicon replacement for the 16" MBP in the works, quite likely due for release in the next 6 months or so, which means the wheels will already be turning.

Guessing whether it is going to launch next week, March or next July is a mug's game. Even Apple are likely to avoid committing to a release date until all their ducks are in a line.

Apple also said that they still had new Intel Macs in the pipeline - they didn't say how many - so it is entirely plausible that they'll release one more bump of the Intel 16" MBP. Maybe the all-new 16" MBP will have to wait for the (rumoured) second-gen ASi CPU/GPU but, even if not, the "real pro" market is not going to be ready to switch to ASi on day 1 so it would make a lot of sense to make sure that the last Intel Macs are as up-to-date as possible.

If so, that means that there could be two 16" (or 16"replacement) MBPs in the works.

Also, everybody seems to be assuming that there will be a 1:1 correspondence between Intel Mac models and ASi Mac models. That may not be true - for example, if you believe the more optimistic predictions about ASi performance, then Apple would have to deliberately and obviously knobble the 13" MacBook Air to make it perform worse than the current top-end Intel 13" MBP - I find it really hard to see why the lower-end "2-port" MBPs would need to exist in the ASi range. Also, if the higher-end Apple Silicon lives up to the ASi/ARM reputation for low power consumption, there's no reason why the high-end ASi 13" MBP can't have the same innards as the 16", so the distinction just becomes a matter of screen size. Even with Intel, a 16" MacBook with a modest CPU and iGPU would have a niche for doing DTP, web development or even large spreadsheets... So it's an opportunity for Apple to re-think the line up.

Anyway, this is all speculation - we'll know some of it next week.

 

[Mayo86]

Without him and the others top tier leakers...you wouldnt have rumours ...so show some respect...it doesnt matter what he said and did not said...is just a rumour...your life doesn't depend on it or shouldnt

Again , we are still on for 16" on Tuesday ..even if its with Apple cpu or not

You do realize this is part of his income source, right? Creating an image for himself? The guy has been known to be a cocky fellow and, personally, I don’t believe it’s warranted. So no, I will show respect for integrity not for side stepping a mistake.

But you do you.

 

[thenewperson]

Even with Intel, a 16" MacBook with a modest CPU and iGPU would have a niche for doing DTP, web development or even large spreadsheets...

They had a 15” config like this in 2010 (I think) and I loved its existence. Shame they never bothered with it again.

 

[leman]

They had a 15” config like this in 2010 (I think) and I loved its existence. Shame they never bothered with it again.

They did, but Intel decided to drop faster iGPUs from their high-performance CPU lineup.

 

[thenewperson]

They did, but Intel decided to drop faster iGPUs from their high-performance CPU lineup.

Oh yeah, that was the last iGPU year wasn't it? The Nvidia 320M I believe? Shame.

 

[leman]

Oh yeah, that was the last iGPU year wasn't it? The Nvidia 320M I believe? Shame.

Intel Iris Pro actually. Intel de-facto dropped it with Skylake.

 

[Jorbanead]

And continues on to say "...The smaller models are further ahead in production and at least those two laptops will be shown at next week’s event." but if they're all in production already why wouldn't they announce all 3? They're not going to hold another event in December or January for the 16" version, hopefully..

Right my comment was replying to the idea that the 16in was getting intel processors. It still says its getting the ARM treatment. That was the purpose of my comment.

But they don't need to hold an even to announce macs. For the first apple silicon macs it of course makes sense to get the buzz out. However they easily could do a press release in January, or hold an event in January too if they want. Right now it's basically just releasing a video, so it's not that difficult for them to hold an event.

I think the surprise is that even his Twitter account says:

« New story: Apple is set to reveal its first Macs with its own chips on Nov. 10, replacing Intel. The the first ones: 13-inch MacBook Air, and 13 and 16-inch MacBook Pros. Also in the works: a redesigned iMac, new Mac mini and a half-sized Mac Pro »

Maybe this is a bit of semantics here, but he didn't explicitly say they were all going to be released at the event - just that they were going to be the first. I do see how its semi implied that all 3 of them are supposed to be at the event, but he didn't say "13in air, 13in pro, and 16in pro all to be announced at event" he just said they would be first in the timeline.

Even if he did mean it was going to be released at the event, his sources likely just told him the first macs were going to be those 3, and he didn't get the information that the 16in was not as far into production as the others until after he posted the original article.

You do you though.