The next MacBook Pro redesign (merged)

[Sonmi451]

Why are there 3 threads? Waiting for Kraby Lake, Waiting for Skylake, Waiting for redesign? Isn't everyone commenting on the same thing?

About all this headphone jack hoopla... Apple isn't removing the headphone jack yet. They had a reason to do it for the iPhone, but it takes up no space on a laptop. I don't think it makes sense to have an adapter when using an iPhone, but if you're on a laptop, it's not as big of a deal. Of course, I am always for better but less standards, and while lightning connector is MILES ahead of the 30 pin or whatever, and micro-usb, It sucks that lightning and usb-c are different. usb-c seems like a good connector. Also I'm pretty sure there's nothing special about a lighting > 1/8" adapter, so I'm sure you could make a simple low profile one that barely sticks out.

 

[Roller]

Why are there 3 threads? Waiting for Kraby Lake, Waiting for Skylake, Waiting for redesign? Isn't everyone commenting on the same thing?

But isn't that the way it always is on MacRumors? There are currently at least five front page stories about iPhone 7 ordering, each with its own thread. And that doesn't include all the threads created by members in the forums. So you end up with a lot of overlap and duplication. It's inevitable.

 

[tofagerl]

It's sort of a self-identification thing

 

[lewdvig]

I would say the new A10 Fusion qualifies for being used in the next Macbook Pro. That's why Apple added "Fusion" to the normal naming scheme. Mark my words!

I think so too.

It would be cool if Apple used the mobile GPU (with more compute units of course) and ditched AMD/NV. Their gpu in the Ax processors is amazing and they could scale it easily to a m370x power envelope.

 

[JesperA]

Ax processors is amazing and they could scale it easily to a m370x power envelope.

Lets see your math on that

 

[Niacchus]

I think it will be really interesting to see if lightening port is included on the new Macbook Pro.

If it is, then we can assume that Apple cares about lightning headphones and its part of their future plans.

If it is not, then I think the lighting ports days are numbered. This could be the case as its only a matter of time before Apple brings wireless charging to the iPhone. Apple clearly believes in a wireless future and the wireless headphone market is where the growth is. I think its also telling that the macbook does not have a lightening port, so users of new wired lightening headphones can't use their headphones with their MacBooks.

There is clearly space for a 3.5mm as well but it would be unlike apple to include both. If they have made a decision on moving the industry away from 3.5mm jack I would be surprised to see it on the new Macbook Pro redesign (even though we saw it on the leaked chassis.

Interesting to see that the new Beats wireless headphones have a USB-A to lightening charging cable. Rather than USB-C to lightening or lightening to lightening options. None of the Beats headphones have a wired lightening connector I believe.

 

[MDull]

I think it will be really interesting to see if lightening port is included on the new Macbook Pro.

If it is, then we can assume that Apple cares about lightning headphones and its part of their future plans.

If it is not, then I think the lighting ports days are numbered. This could be the case as its only a matter of time before Apple brings wireless charging to the iPhone. Apple clearly believes in a wireless future and the wireless headphone market is where the growth is. I think its also telling that the macbook does not have a lightening port, so users of new wired lightening headphones can't use their headphones with their MacBooks.

There is clearly space for a 3.5mm as well but it would be unlike apple to include both. If they have made a decision on moving the industry away from 3.5mm jack I would be surprised to see it on the new Macbook Pro redesign (even though we saw it on the leaked chassis.

Interesting to see that the new Beats wireless headphones have a USB-A to lightening charging cable. Rather than USB-C to lightening or lightening to lightening options. None of the Beats headphones have a wired lightening connector I believe.

I can see people losing wireless ear buds left and right (pun intended) of course they only sell them in pairs. I can see Lil Timmy grinning.

 

[irontiger82]

Maybe one of the 4 USB-C ports is a lightning port!

 

[Val-kyrie]

Maybe one of the 4 USB-C ports is a lightning port!

Please no! Apple needs to standardize on USB-C for its Macs and iPhones like everyone else will do over time. Apple's attempt to lock me into their proprietary technology for headphones has me looking at other phone options. Including a lightning port on a Mac might just push me back to Windows.

 

[jerm13]

is there a chance Apple changes the keyboard to be closer to the one used in the Macbook? I tried out that new keyboard in the Apple store last week and did not like how flat/flush the keys were. I know the Pro will have more room for the keyboard, but one of the rumors mentioned a "flatter" keyboard.

 

[tofagerl]

There's no effing way I am ever buying a lightning-only headset. Especially with $9 adapters...

 

[TechZeke]

I hope Apple simplifies things for everyone and just adopts USB-C across the board. Clearly, Lightning will never make it mainstream beyond Apple's own products, so all continuing with this input will do is slow down comprehensive adoption of USB-C across the industry.

They have a real opportunity here to do the right thing for consumers by going with USB-C. They blew it with the iPhone for (presumably) at least another year but they could at least get the MacBook Pro on the right path.

Killing the headphone jack would have been a perfect opportunity to switch to USB-C from lightning. At least if you buy USB-C headphones, you can use it on other devices. There's no chance I'm buying expensive headphones that can only be used on Apple's proprietary connector.

 

[Kobayagi]

Killing the headphone jack would have been a perfect opportunity to switch to USB-C from lightning. At least if you buy USB-C headphones, you can use it on other devices. There's no chance I'm buying expensive headphones that can only be used on Apple's proprietary connector.

My thoughts exactly. Wish they did this, now you can't even use the headphones that come with your new iPhone on your MacBook. I don't thing theres even an adapter for female lightning and male 3,5mm....

 

[Donoban]

Please no! Apple needs to standardize on USB-C for its Macs and iPhones like everyone else will do over time. Apple's attempt to lock me into their proprietary technology for headphones has me looking at other phone options. Including a lightning port on a Mac might just push me back to Windows.

Please don't leave to Windows man. This forum would be a lesser place without your input/knowledge.

 

[Val-kyrie]

Please don't leave to Windows man. This forum would be a lesser place without your input/knowledge.

Not to worry. They would have to mutilate everything i love before I left. It's just how I feel at times. I love Apple. I just wish they would sometimes do things differently.

 

[unagimiyagi]

I'm thinking this: Apple goes to a proprietary standard for EVERYTHING for one reason: they're perfectionists.

An open standard, would be out of Apple's full control, which perfectionists need desperately. Control is also required because inevitably there's going to be bugs. With an open standard, Apple may or may not be able to fix things to their liking.

So why not start with an open standard and then add more to it later? I think Apple is realistic and knows that with something like bluetooth, they're going to fix the pairing problems, and then others are going to whine and moan or whatever instead of just accepting it, then Apple's going to end up forking the open standard towards their own eventually anyway. So why not just start with a proprietary standard if that's where you're going to end up anyway?

Also, Apple's been burned before by partnerships, etc, and it's now why they have seen the benefits of building absolutely everything in house--siri, their AI, cpus, maps, sapphire (not anymore, they were burned), microled, aluminum machining, absolutely everything. They're maniacal about owning everything, even at the cost of billions of dollars.

Apple doesn't play nice with others because they feel they're the only company at that scale whose perfectionist culture requires isolation. Compatibility is a casualty of the degree and polish that they want. Apple is not perfect, but compared to other companies at this scale, they have higher standards.

If you disagree, why are people saying that the Airpods pair more reliably compared to bluetooth? If bluetooth pairing was that easy, it would have been solved already. But apparently only Apple has solved it. It would have taken longer had they tried to work with bluetooth, because let's say bluetooth 5 was focused on low energy and higher bandwidth fidelity....while Apple would have been saying "let's make sure pairing is rock solid, and we'll chase literally 500 edge cases". Bluetooth consortium would have been like you'd rather do that and improve the reliability by 0.1% at the cost of higher sound quality? Apple would be like "yes". Bluetooth would be like, ok, go ahead and do that we'll be doing the other stuff and we'll see if we want to accept your changes in later. Apple says, OK, we're taking our work and then calling it a W1 chip. See ya.

 

[toddzrx]

I'm thinking this: Apple goes to a proprietary standard for EVERYTHING for one reason: they're perfectionists.

An open standard, would be out of Apple's full control, which perfectionists need desperately. Control is also required because inevitably there's going to be bugs. With an open standard, Apple may or may not be able to fix things to their liking.

So why not start with an open standard and then add more to it later? I think Apple is realistic and knows that with something like bluetooth, they're going to fix the pairing problems, and then others are going to whine and moan or whatever instead of just accepting it, then Apple's going to end up forking the open standard towards their own eventually anyway. So why not just start with a proprietary standard if that's where you're going to end up anyway?

Also, Apple's been burned before by partnerships, etc, and it's now why they have seen the benefits of building absolutely everything in house--siri, their AI, cpus, maps, sapphire (not anymore, they were burned), microled, aluminum machining, absolutely everything. They're maniacal about owning everything, even at the cost of billions of dollars.

Apple doesn't play nice with others because they feel they're the only company at that scale whose perfectionist culture requires isolation. Compatibility is a casualty of the degree and polish that they want. Apple is not perfect, but compared to other companies at this scale, they have higher standards.

If you disagree, why are people saying that the Airpods pair more reliably compared to bluetooth? If bluetooth pairing was that easy, it would have been solved already. But apparently only Apple has solved it. It would have taken longer had they tried to work with bluetooth, because let's say bluetooth 5 was focused on low energy and higher bandwidth fidelity....while Apple would have been saying "let's make sure pairing is rock solid, and we'll chase literally 500 edge cases". Bluetooth consortium would have been like you'd rather do that and improve the reliability by 0.1% at the cost of higher sound quality? Apple would be like "yes". Bluetooth would be like, ok, go ahead and do that we'll be doing the other stuff and we'll see if we want to accept your changes in later. Apple says, OK, we're taking our work and then calling it a W1 chip. See ya.

Uh, please, dear Lord, no.

 

[myscrnnm]

Uh, please, dear Lord, no.

Unfortunately, that's the reality of the situation. The W1 chip and AirPods are a prime example of Apple's design philosophy. Sony was in a very similar situation through the 90s and 2000s. They were notorious for using proprietary technologies and standards (eg. Memory Stick, MiniDisc, UMD, ATRAC, S-AIR, et cetera). The use of these standards made their products largely incompatible with those from other manufacturers, raised prices, and left a bad taste in consumers' mouths. But what all these technologies had in common was that they had better features than competing formats. Those who wanted the best would put up with joining Sony's ecosystem to take advantages of those features.

We've seen in the case of Sony, proprietary standards can leave a poor impression on the general public, and early adopters and loyal customers can be burned when proprietary standards fail to catch on or are eventually superceded by competing formats finally catching up technologically. But Apple is betting that their customers would rather pay $160 for the convenience of not having to pair headphones than deal with the shortcomings of Bluetooth.

 

[toddzrx]

Unfortunately, that's the reality of the situation. The W1 chip and AirPods are a prime example of Apple's design philosophy. Sony was in a very similar situation through the 90s and 2000s. They were notorious for using proprietary technologies and standards (eg. Memory Stick, MiniDisc, UMD, ATRAC, S-AIR, et cetera). The use of these standards made their products largely incompatible with those from other manufacturers, raised prices, and left a bad taste in consumers' mouths. But what all these technologies had in common was that they had better features than competing formats. Those who wanted the best would put up with joining Sony's ecosystem to take advantages of those features.

We've seen in the case of Sony, proprietary standards can leave a poor impression on the general public, and early adopters and loyal customers can be burned when proprietary standards fail to catch on or are eventually superceded by competing formats finally catching up technologically. But Apple is betting that their customers would rather pay $160 for the convenience of not having to pair headphones than deal with the shortcomings of Bluetooth.

I was mainly responding to the idea of Apple going proprietary for everything, which is what unagimiyagi said in the first line of their post.

 

[monstruo]

About all this headphone jack hoopla... Apple isn't removing the headphone jack yet. They had a reason to do it for the iPhone, but it takes up no space on a laptop. I don't think it makes sense to have an adapter when using an iPhone, but if you're on a laptop, it's not as big of a deal. Of course, I am always for better but less standards, and while lightning connector is MILES ahead of the 30 pin or whatever, and micro-usb, It sucks that lightning and usb-c are different. usb-c seems like a good connector. Also I'm pretty sure there's nothing special about a lighting > 1/8" adapter, so I'm sure you could make a simple low profile one that barely sticks out.

Well, the fact that they did a poll on the usage of Jack says a lot about the disparity within Apple.

I'm sure there are 2 camps: one who is pushing forward regardless of the cons, whereas the other camp is looking for a smoother transition — preferably less disruption for consumers in general.

End day, I do hope headphone jack gets to stay. Most pro users, including myself, use it daily. Removing it and bundle with another free adaptor is simply not the solution.

 

[tofagerl]

Unfortunately, that's the reality of the situation. The W1 chip and AirPods are a prime example of Apple's design philosophy. Sony was in a very similar situation through the 90s and 2000s. They were notorious for using proprietary technologies and standards (eg. Memory Stick, MiniDisc, UMD, ATRAC, S-AIR, et cetera). The use of these standards made their products largely incompatible with those from other manufacturers, raised prices, and left a bad taste in consumers' mouths. But what all these technologies had in common was that they had better features than competing formats. Those who wanted the best would put up with joining Sony's ecosystem to take advantages of those features.

We've seen in the case of Sony, proprietary standards can leave a poor impression on the general public, and early adopters and loyal customers can be burned when proprietary standards fail to catch on or are eventually superceded by competing formats finally catching up technologically. But Apple is betting that their customers would rather pay $160 for the convenience of not having to pair headphones than deal with the shortcomings of Bluetooth.

Well, let's see how it works out in practice. I have two problems with Bluetooth, and the battery is sort of the third, but that's unsolvable in the near future, so we all have to live with it.
1: Connection is a minefield. Not only is it the flaky "dude, you moved your head like two inches, so now I can't find the headset" thing, but it's also the interface. For example I sometimes need to use my bluetooth headset for Skype on the computer, but I ALWAYS need to use my bluetooth mouse for my computer. So now every time I walk into my apartment while listening to a podcast on my headset I hear "PC 1 connected!". Why can't we just forget about PC 1 until I specifically ask to connect to it...? Let's just pretend we've never met, like when you meet your ex in line at the drug store...?
2: Audio quality. I have good experiences with the APT+ codec, and I use that to connect to both my "Music bluetooth headset" and my soundbar-thingy. But if the Airpods are going to use the bog standard Bluetooth A2DP standard, I'd rather listen to FM radio in a tunnel!

 

[miscend]

Who is they? Apple never said they were going to release the MacBook Pro or Another model. Only Apple fanatic's on this site thought they might release one.

Yeah but but Apple never announce products prior to when they reveal them. So all we can do is speculate.

 

[Cougarcat]

Most pro users, including myself, use it daily. Removing it and bundle with another free adaptor is simply not the solution.

It's not just pro users. Many of us use our computers in the real world, where we do not have the power to dictate the port situation.
For example, the "smart" classrooms in the school where I teach have VGA, HDMI, and an audio jack--and they only recently added that HDMI. I expect they'll get USBC in 2026.

One may argue that Apple's approach will make institutions more likely to switch, but try telling that to cash-strapped schools.

 

[Tensakun]

It's not just pro users. Many of us use our computers in the real world, where we do not have the power to dictate the port situation.
For example, the "smart" classrooms in the school where I teach have VGA, HDMI, and an audio jack--and they only recently added that HDMI. I expect they'll get USBC in 2026.

One may argue that Apple's approach will make institutions more likely to switch, but try telling that to cash-strapped schools.

Excellent point. I teach at various universities and give seminars at various venues that have wildly varying levels of tech, often quite ancient. If you can't "downgrade" your interfaces, you're just f***ed.

 

[blindpcguy]

one reason i keep an older powerbook around lol i can still get the new features on a current mac and go to an older machine if i have to pbg4 12 inch with a dvi to via adapter plus its cool to sometimes bust out a ppc machine lol