The next MacBook Pro redesign (merged)

[spacebro]

I wouldn't worry about usb-c. All your old devices should "just work" with a new usb cable that has the usb-c end.

 

[danwells]

The (significant) exception to this is devices with built-in USB plugs - sure, you can get an adapter, but it is an extra piece. Memory sticks, card readers, cell "modems" (no, it's technically not a modem, because it's digital on all sides, but I'm not sure what else to call the item that looks like a memory stick and connects a computer to the cellular network), and many USB DACs all fall in this category. Some other devices, including the lightest hard drives, have built-in USB cables. Anything where it's built in means that there's an extra connection to fail, and that connection is probably a cheap, low-quality adapter (unless you use the bulky multi-port Apple adapter or a hub). As of now, there its no card reader with a direct USB-C connection available on either B&H or Newegg, which means that downloading a memory card goes from 0 extra pieces to 2 extra pieces (or one large one with a detachable cable).

There are at least some reports of cheap adapters damaging computers or devices on the other end. Damaging the downstream device is easy to see - a power pin at the computer end miswired to a data pin at the device end would do it... Any cable that carries both power and data is vulnerable to this, and low-quality cables and adapters are especially prone. It's harder to see how it would damage the computer - the easiest mechanism I can see is a power pin and a data pin shorted together - power could flow from the computer over the power pin, across the short and back into the computer, but over the data line, which really doesn't want 100 watts!

 

[nj-morris]

would be nice to have lte sim support on the new mbps

That would be awesome

 

[BondFancy]

The (significant) exception to this is devices with built-in USB plugs - sure, you can get an adapter, but it is an extra piece. Memory sticks, card readers, cell "modems" (no, it's technically not a modem, because it's digital on all sides, but I'm not sure what else to call the item that looks like a memory stick and connects a computer to the cellular network), and many USB DACs all fall in this category. Some other devices, including the lightest hard drives, have built-in USB cables. Anything where it's built in means that there's an extra connection to fail, and that connection is probably a cheap, low-quality adapter (unless you use the bulky multi-port Apple adapter or a hub). As of now, there its no card reader with a direct USB-C connection available on either B&H or Newegg, which means that downloading a memory card goes from 0 extra pieces to 2 extra pieces (or one large one with a detachable cable).

There are at least some reports of cheap adapters damaging computers or devices on the other end. Damaging the downstream device is easy to see - a power pin at the computer end miswired to a data pin at the device end would do it... Any cable that carries both power and data is vulnerable to this, and low-quality cables and adapters are especially prone. It's harder to see how it would damage the computer - the easiest mechanism I can see is a power pin and a data pin shorted together - power could flow from the computer over the power pin, across the short and back into the computer, but over the data line, which really doesn't want 100 watts!

Yeah I've heard a lot of reports of that happening.

Anyone hear anything about this USB-C hub? It has pretty much anything I could ever need and it's stylish, long as it doesn't have faulty wiring haha...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01ANIHZ3S/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8

 

[Basic75]

I don't think that's true. You have any evidence of that?

Do you mean iOS vs. macOS? Let's start with the iPhone introduction where Steve said that the iPhone "runs OS X". If that doesn't convince you, look at the developer documentation.

 

[TRDGT4Writer]

So I've heard in this forum (as well as other places) that Apple switches out the GPUs every two years. Sine its currently on AMD, I'm told the next release will include Nvidias (which I really need for CUDA).

I was hoping there would be news about a new MBP at WWDC this week, alas there was none. Whats the likelihood (everyone's thoughts on the likelihood) the next MBP will include Nvidia? What about it being released in 2016? The roundup at https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/macbook-pro/ says its likely but I'm not certain how much stock to put in it. Are these just that (rumors), or something more substantive like leaks from employees that (for legal reasons) might have to be qualified as rumors?

I wish they stick with Nvidia because a lot things can be finished better on the GTX line but I've heard Polaris is supposed to change the GPU game. If that's true, it'll change the tone of both the professional and consumer at heart.

I know alot of editors that prefer (including myself) Nvidia GPUs but if Polaris can give what we need to run GPU-intensive apps like Avid and Adobe, then we might give AMD a chance.

 

[tofagerl]

The GPU game "changes" every time someone holds a press conference. It gets either slightly faster, or slightly cheaper.

 

[TRDGT4Writer]

What do people think about the chances of (all on the 15"):

4K or wide-gamut display? It wouldn't have to be OLED - the latest iMacs have really nice high-resolution, relatively wide gamut LCDs (they have been full sRGB for years, and the latest version is P3, a digital cinema standard similar to Adobe RGB). I'd love to see a P3 display (and the 9.7" iPad Pro even has one).

32 GB RAM? Of course it would be an upgrade, and Apple might charge several arms and legs for it! Having it available would make a big difference for pro photo and video work.

2 TB drive space? Another pricy upgrade for sure...

If none of the above appear, I could actually see the new model being a downgrade...

Skylake is a 10% speed boost - not a big deal (maybe also 10% in battery life largely due to improved idling, on a machine that already has superb idle power consumption).

Polaris is a big GPU boost (on the one model that gets it)

BUT

It looks almost certain that we lose all ports other than USB-C. This means dongles for every standard peripheral, which is a pretty significant downgrade. My best example is that reading an SD card from my camera (one of the most common things I do on my computer) goes from "stick it in the side" to "attach a dongle, then attach a second peripheral to the dongle, then put the card in the second peripheral" (neither B+H nor Newegg yet show a direct-attach USB-C SD reader - there are one or two for Micro SD only, plus a couple of CFast or XQD readers that also read SD, but are larger and connect via cable). Using a projector goes from "attach it to the HDMI port" to "find the dongle, hope it isn't broken (because it's too new for University IT to have a backup), then worry about two connections coming loose". Thunderbolt storage (other than the very newest TB3 drives) needs a $100 active adapter. Every dongle needs a backup, because the darn things break all the time.

At least to me, dongles aren't worth it for Skylake alone - and Polaris would have to be pretty impressive to compensate for them... A smaller, lighter computer doesn't matter to me - the 15" rMBP is hardly a monster. If it picks up 4K, or improvements in RAM and drive limits, that starts to be worth dealing with the dongles.

I'm hoping for 32GB RAM, 4K antiglare non-touch P3 display, 4-8GB VRAM, and dual SSDs configuration. C'mon, it's 2016 and almost 2017, PC manufactures are offering them. However since Tim Cook took over, he's not interested in laptops and/or desktops no matter how much we plead him and his creative/engineering team. I really lost it when I heard they were putting an OLED strip on the laptops.

While they're at it, they should bump up the specs on the last gen non-retina MBP13 as a final goodbye. I'm sure it'll sell like hotcakes.

 

[ChinkyBob]

Phone screens aren't switched on very much, you'd probably not trigger image retention in normal usage.

I've never seen image retention on a iphone, I have seen a few Samsung s6 's in demo mode in shops with pretty bad screen burn however, although I'm sure phones in normal use would be fine.

 

[doitdada]

I'm finally without a Apple laptop. One iPad Air 2 and a Hackintosh. Don't really miss it.

 

[Omega Mac]

Ooooh... a *True Tone Retina screen for the new MBPro's, anyone?



*Which Pros can disable if they wish!

 

[Appleaker]

Ooooh... a *True Tone Retina screen for the new MBPro's, anyone?



*Which Pros can disable if they wish!

Yes probably. Could even be built into the next TB display as well.

 

[Omega Mac]

Then we might see TT screens for new MBP's and IPP 12.9" announced at the same time... but perhaps we might have heard rumours from screen manufacturers already?

A TT 13' MBP and TT 12.9" IPP would be a really nice combo in my world.

 

[t0mat0]

Did we hear of any rumours about true tone prior to the iPad Pro release?

 

[Cougarcat]

Did we hear of any rumours about true tone prior to the iPad Pro release?

Don't think so. In general we don't hear much about Macs and iPads because they are produced in far fewer quantities than iPhones.

 

[Omega Mac]

Don't think so. In general we don't hear much about Macs and iPads because they are produced in far fewer quantities than iPhones.

Then it's ON!

 

[squarebreathing]

Hey all,

I've been using (and used to work on for awhile) Macbook Pros since the mid 2009 refresh. I picked up a Retina model a year and a half ago and have been very happy with it. The only extra accessory I had to buy was a thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor, which I sometimes need as the wireless can be spotty in some areas of my house (I have ethernet cables wall fished through into several rooms).

I am not looking forward to the refresh. I don't want a system that only has a bunch of USB-C ports. I use my Macbook Pro for music in Garageband and my usual setup is
Power cord plugged in
Ethernet Adaptor in one thunderbolt port
USB Portable Hard Drive in one USB port for time machine
USB Audio Interface in another port
Headphone jack hooked up for headphones
SD Card Slot as a second/manual backup as needed
HDMI Port used to hook up to my 42 inch LCD TV


This setup works beautifully. It is going to be a pain to do this with just a bunch of USB-C ports. I would need a dongle that has HDMI out, 2 regular USB ports and I won't be able to use my SD Card or Thunderbolt to ethernet. If this is multiple dongles, it just keeps adding on the price. I don't understand the need for the refresh. People are still buying their old cMBP - I don't understand the current infatuation with USB C.

Also, lack of HDMI out is such a deal-killer for me. I hook my retina pro up to HD TVs all the time for Netflix streaming or other media viewing and I HATED when I had to have the darn thunderbolt dongle for the cMBP.

 

[Basic75]

I am not looking forward to the refresh. I don't want a system that only has a bunch of USB-C ports. I use my Macbook Pro for music in Garageband and my usual setup is
Power cord plugged in
Ethernet Adaptor in one thunderbolt port
USB Portable Hard Drive in one USB port for time machine
USB Audio Interface in another port
Headphone jack hooked up for headphones
SD Card Slot as a second/manual backup as needed
HDMI Port used to hook up to my 42 inch LCD TV

I am looking forward to replacing all that with a single Thunderbolt 3 connection to a docking station.

 

[tofagerl]

Which is fine, until you realize you need another docking station. And then you start getting put in a different office one day a week, so you need one there as well...

 

[BondFancy]

Hey all,

I've been using (and used to work on for awhile) Macbook Pros since the mid 2009 refresh. I picked up a Retina model a year and a half ago and have been very happy with it. The only extra accessory I had to buy was a thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor, which I sometimes need as the wireless can be spotty in some areas of my house (I have ethernet cables wall fished through into several rooms).

I am not looking forward to the refresh. I don't want a system that only has a bunch of USB-C ports. I use my Macbook Pro for music in Garageband and my usual setup is
Power cord plugged in
Ethernet Adaptor in one thunderbolt port
USB Portable Hard Drive in one USB port for time machine
USB Audio Interface in another port
Headphone jack hooked up for headphones
SD Card Slot as a second/manual backup as needed
HDMI Port used to hook up to my 42 inch LCD TV


This setup works beautifully. It is going to be a pain to do this with just a bunch of USB-C ports. I would need a dongle that has HDMI out, 2 regular USB ports and I won't be able to use my SD Card or Thunderbolt to ethernet. If this is multiple dongles, it just keeps adding on the price. I don't understand the need for the refresh. People are still buying their old cMBP - I don't understand the current infatuation with USB C.

Also, lack of HDMI out is such a deal-killer for me. I hook my retina pro up to HD TVs all the time for Netflix streaming or other media viewing and I HATED when I had to have the darn thunderbolt dongle for the cMBP.

Here is a one size fits all solution for your delemma no idea if it is any good, but this will probably be what I get for it, unless something better arises.

https://www.amazon.com/MINIX-NEO-USB-C-Multiport-Adapter/dp/B01ANITHVQ

 

[Psyfuzz]

Hey all,

I've been using (and used to work on for awhile) Macbook Pros since the mid 2009 refresh. I picked up a Retina model a year and a half ago and have been very happy with it. The only extra accessory I had to buy was a thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor, which I sometimes need as the wireless can be spotty in some areas of my house (I have ethernet cables wall fished through into several rooms).

I am not looking forward to the refresh. I don't want a system that only has a bunch of USB-C ports. I use my Macbook Pro for music in Garageband and my usual setup is
Power cord plugged in
Ethernet Adaptor in one thunderbolt port
USB Portable Hard Drive in one USB port for time machine
USB Audio Interface in another port
Headphone jack hooked up for headphones
SD Card Slot as a second/manual backup as needed
HDMI Port used to hook up to my 42 inch LCD TV


This setup works beautifully. It is going to be a pain to do this with just a bunch of USB-C ports. I would need a dongle that has HDMI out, 2 regular USB ports and I won't be able to use my SD Card or Thunderbolt to ethernet. If this is multiple dongles, it just keeps adding on the price. I don't understand the need for the refresh. People are still buying their old cMBP - I don't understand the current infatuation with USB C.

Also, lack of HDMI out is such a deal-killer for me. I hook my retina pro up to HD TVs all the time for Netflix streaming or other media viewing and I HATED when I had to have the darn thunderbolt dongle for the cMBP.

You've demonstrated you're open to using adaptors with your Ethernet to thunderbolt set up. I'd argue that having a TB3 hub with all those connections available to be delivered via a single cable to your laptop is more convenient.

At the end of the day, the move to the retinas was apparently sacrilege and removed ports people couldn't apparently live without - 4 years, people are now experiencing the same thing.

 

[MDull]

So the loss of magsafe is a blessing. I know how could i say such a thing. The fact is with this i can now replace the cable on a charger for a reasonable price and not 100 bucks every single time it frays. This also opens the door to charge bricks and other non-apple means of charging. This is a huge release of control by apple. I am exact about it.

I will only miss the usb a ports for a few months till i buy a bunch of cables on mono price.

The lack of the rest of the ports does not phase me.

I can echo i want a better display and a longer battery life.

But something has to be done about the weight it is a monster at 4.49. I think we need to aim for 3.8 we need to shave some serious pounds.

Buy a MB 12"

 

[Appleaker]

Hey all,

I've been using (and used to work on for awhile) Macbook Pros since the mid 2009 refresh. I picked up a Retina model a year and a half ago and have been very happy with it. The only extra accessory I had to buy was a thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor, which I sometimes need as the wireless can be spotty in some areas of my house (I have ethernet cables wall fished through into several rooms).

I am not looking forward to the refresh. I don't want a system that only has a bunch of USB-C ports. I use my Macbook Pro for music in Garageband and my usual setup is
Power cord plugged in
Ethernet Adaptor in one thunderbolt port
USB Portable Hard Drive in one USB port for time machine
USB Audio Interface in another port
Headphone jack hooked up for headphones
SD Card Slot as a second/manual backup as needed
HDMI Port used to hook up to my 42 inch LCD TV


This setup works beautifully. It is going to be a pain to do this with just a bunch of USB-C ports. I would need a dongle that has HDMI out, 2 regular USB ports and I won't be able to use my SD Card or Thunderbolt to ethernet. If this is multiple dongles, it just keeps adding on the price. I don't understand the need for the refresh. People are still buying their old cMBP - I don't understand the current infatuation with USB C.

Also, lack of HDMI out is such a deal-killer for me. I hook my retina pro up to HD TVs all the time for Netflix streaming or other media viewing and I HATED when I had to have the darn thunderbolt dongle for the cMBP.

Hopefully USB C adapters become cheap enough that you won't find yourself running out, unless you are somebody who only buys the Apple cables, then I understand why you're complaining. The infatuation with USB-C at Apple is because they view it as the replacement to USB-A (compared to other manufactures who implement it as another port). The reason that all of the ports will be Type-C is because Thunderbolt 3 now uses that port.

 

[rezwits]

I'll be getting a cheap "Approved" USB-C 4 Port (USB3) for around $30. That's a fairly good price...

 

[Sugarbear33]

Hey all,

I've been using (and used to work on for awhile) Macbook Pros since the mid 2009 refresh. I picked up a Retina model a year and a half ago and have been very happy with it. The only extra accessory I had to buy was a thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor, which I sometimes need as the wireless can be spotty in some areas of my house (I have ethernet cables wall fished through into several rooms).

I am not looking forward to the refresh. I don't want a system that only has a bunch of USB-C ports. I use my Macbook Pro for music in Garageband and my usual setup is
Power cord plugged in
Ethernet Adaptor in one thunderbolt port
USB Portable Hard Drive in one USB port for time machine
USB Audio Interface in another port
Headphone jack hooked up for headphones
SD Card Slot as a second/manual backup as needed
HDMI Port used to hook up to my 42 inch LCD TV


This setup works beautifully. It is going to be a pain to do this with just a bunch of USB-C ports. I would need a dongle that has HDMI out, 2 regular USB ports and I won't be able to use my SD Card or Thunderbolt to ethernet. If this is multiple dongles, it just keeps adding on the price. I don't understand the need for the refresh. People are still buying their old cMBP - I don't understand the current infatuation with USB C.

Also, lack of HDMI out is such a deal-killer for me. I hook my retina pro up to HD TVs all the time for Netflix streaming or other media viewing and I HATED when I had to have the darn thunderbolt dongle for the cMBP.

Well we've really only seen the chassis for the 13". 15" might have some extra I/O. Also it was just a prototype...

However, a Usb-c Dock will be straight money for you...

I still argue 4 usb-c is a bit excessive though. Even for the next 4-5 years from now.(the next redesign would be more suited for usb-c only IMO)