Waiting for 2021 MBP

[stlow]

Apple Plans to Announce Move to Its Own Mac Chips at WWDC

Apple Inc. is preparing to announce a shift to its own main processors in Mac computers, replacing chips from Intel Corp., as early as this month at its annual developer conference, according to people familiar with the plans.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[piecookie]

Does this mean we might see it next week?

 

[hungryghosty]

I doubt it

Does this mean we might see it next week?

More likely they just announce the move to ARM at WWDC with a development environment which can run on current Macs in Xcode. It's also possible they'll release a devkit Mac Mini or Macbook purely for developers to test/port existing X86 code/apps and develop new ones.

I suspect it's VERY unlikely we'll see an ARM based Mac made available to the general public this year. I could be wrong though but we'll know more next week!

 

[limo79]

I believe they may announce some coming products with ARM CPU but focusing on CPU more. Based on Intel delays I think this might be a good solution but I have in my head terrible real life performance of PowerPC iMac so really do not know what to think. From productive perspective it seems to be miss but professional software is limited on Mac so I believe that it may be even better due to optimizations (like on ARM iPad Pro). From the other hand Apple may use AMD chips but no TB3 was/is a stopper.

 

[Icehart]

Does anyone think they might redesign the Macbook Pro series in 2021 with the mini-LED launch?

 

[matram]

Yes that seems likely, during first half.

 

[Tozovac]

4. Get rid of that "Macbook Pro" right in front of your face like what Dell did for their XPS 17's "infinity display".. c'mon the competititors are catching up.. be minimal..

Regarding minimalism and removing more as a way to give more, when competitors catch up to each other and the bezelless no-label silver unibody black keys designs look alike from 5 feet, will that be a pencils-down victory?

 

[erigas]

What happens to Bootcamp if that's the case......I rely on it (as well as Parallels)for running my pro CAD apps like Solidworks and Siemens NX

 

[Ma2k5]

What happens to Bootcamp if that's the case......I rely on it (as well as Parallels)for running my pro CAD apps like Solidworks and Siemens NX

It will likely not be possible.

One thing to note though, it might be in the background (and some of their devices seem to point to this direction) that Microsoft are looking to go ARM themselves in the future. It will be a way for them to maybe in the future provide a more connected mobile experience across multiple platforms.

 

[DanMan619]

It will likely not be possible.

One thing to note though, it might be in the background (and some of their devices seem to point to this direction) that Microsoft are looking to go ARM themselves in the future. It will be a way for them to maybe in the future provide a more connected mobile experience across multiple platforms.

Microsoft already has Windows 10 for ARM. They did it for the recent Surface Pro X which has the SQ1 (ARM) chip. The bigger issue will be waiting for the third party apps like Solidworks and Siemens NX that Erigas mentioned, to be ported over to ARM. Bootcamp/Parallels for ARM almost certainly won't be there day 1 of the transition, but i think it's something that's on the transition roadmap for sure.

 

[Broko Fankone]

I'd like the touchbar to stay

 

[SvenLorenz1975]

I'd like the touchbar to stay

Yeah, me too. It's almost surprising that it has survived this far. After the whiners managed to kill the perfectly fine butterfly keyboard, I was expecting the touchbar to go next.

 

[impulse462]

Yeah, me too. It's almost surprising that it has survived this far. After the whiners managed to kill the perfectly fine butterfly keyboard, I was expecting the touchbar to go next.

A perfectly fine keyboard that broke when a spec of dust got lodged under a key and required a $700-1000 replacement that was then trashed in a landfill all so Jony Ive felt good while admiring the laptop from the exterior and didn’t do any actual work on it.

also a perfectly fine keyboard that felt like you were typing on a piece of wood.

Yes, that perfectly fine keyboard

 

[DanMan619]

Yeah, me too. It's almost surprising that it has survived this far. After the whiners managed to kill the perfectly fine butterfly keyboard, I was expecting the touchbar to go next.

Just because yours didn't break doesn't mean it didn't happen to all the other people who have had issues with it. If it was "perfectly fine" Apple wouldn't have dropped it and offered a repair program for it.

 

[SvenLorenz1975]

A perfectly fine keyboard that broke when a spec of dust got lodged under a key and required a $700-1000 replacement that was then trashed in a landfill all so Jony Ive felt good while admiring the laptop from the exterior and didn’t do any actual work on it.

also a perfectly fine keyboard that felt like you were typing on a piece of wood.

Yes, that perfectly fine keyboard

The whole "butterfly-keyboard-ate-my-children" thing was just a media thing. And they dropped it because a few anecdotal problems were turned into a hysteria. It was the perception that the keyboard was bad that made Apple kill it, not the facts.

There were some good articles about this hysteria, like this one:

Editorial: Reporting about the MacBook Pro is failing at a faster rate than the butterfly keyboard | AppleInsider

In April 2015, Apple introduced its new Retina Display MacBook with a new "butterfly" keyboard design. Some critics didn't like its shorter key travel, but complaints really began to snowball as its mechanism was adopted across Apple's other notebook models. Today it's regarded by some as a...

appleinsider.com

 

[Ma2k5]

The whole "butterfly-keyboard-ate-my-children" thing was just a media thing. And they dropped it because a few anecdotal problems were turned into a hysteria. It was the perception that the keyboard was bad that made Apple kill it, not the facts.

There were some good articles about this hysteria, like this one:

Editorial: Reporting about the MacBook Pro is failing at a faster rate than the butterfly keyboard | AppleInsider

In April 2015, Apple introduced its new Retina Display MacBook with a new "butterfly" keyboard design. Some critics didn't like its shorter key travel, but complaints really began to snowball as its mechanism was adopted across Apple's other notebook models. Today it's regarded by some as a...

appleinsider.com

You you can’t blame the media. In the article you posted, the comment section even has the Apple apologists highlighting the flaws with the article.

If you thought it through logically, you’ll realise there is a reason they didn’t have a repair programme for keyboards before 2016. There were those who tried to deny the whole staingate scandal, the issue with the short displaylink cable which was prone to break and some others I am forgetting - despite Apple fixing them, yet apparently it was just a media hype.

If you honestly believe Apple make decisions based on media and not on the data they have on how many repairs and returns occurred based on an issue - I guess ignorance is bliss.

Fun fact, let’s not forget all the media hate on Touch Bar, removal of Headphone jack, the removal of non type C port dongle gate, the dreaded notch, you see where I am getting at? Apple don’t give a crap.

Apple are successful because they are an outcome driven company, not a media driven one. They have more often than not been criticised by the media but they ignored it to their success.

 

[Broko Fankone]

Yeah, me too. It's almost surprising that it has survived this far. After the whiners managed to kill the perfectly fine butterfly keyboard, I was expecting the touchbar to go next.

Nah, sorry, the BF keyboard is a complete failure. The touchbar has never been so problematic as that excuse of a keyboard. Even now my gf has a model with BF an 3 of the keys barely work. I would never buy a laptop with that design and specifically waited for the 2020 models to fix it.

 

[Ma2k5]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1272535744750350336

This would be a great upgrade.

 

[c0ppo]

The whole "butterfly-keyboard-ate-my-children" thing was just a media thing. And they dropped it because a few anecdotal problems were turned into a hysteria. It was the perception that the keyboard was bad that made Apple kill it, not the facts.

My first MBP 15 had 3 keyboard failures. 2017 version.
Apple gave me brand new 2018 MBP 15". That one had 2 keyboard failures in less then 6 months. After it was repaired, I've sold it and moved on.

In 25+ years in IT and as a developer, never had a single keyboard fail on me. Unless I've spilled liquid on it.
Apple gave 4 years of additional warranty for keyboard issues on brand new 2019 MBP. They don't feel the need to do that on 2019 MBP 16".

Now, those are also some facts, not just opinions.

 

[Broko Fankone]

I honestly can't believe people still defend the Butterfly keyboards. They are factually the worst keyboards ever made on laptops in terms of reliability. Maybe people enjoy how they feel and the way the look, but for reliability there cannot be any argument other than the facts - they are NOT reliable. The new keyboard feels much better to me anyway and it should in theory be as reliable as those in the 2015 models.

 

[clangers23]

I actually quite liked typing on the butterfly keyboard but there was always a sense of foreboding. I ended up travelling for work with my ThinkPad as a backup. I had three outright failures requiring an Apple repair across three consecutive generations of MBP 13". I lost count of the number of stuck keys I managed to repair with a can of compressed air and a pin.

I guess if you kept your MacBook on your desk in a sterile environment you might be ok?

Bottom line is whether you loved or hated it once a consumer product get's a bad reputation fairly or not then it's usually done for.

 

[Ma2k5]

I actually quite liked typing on the butterfly keyboard but there was always a sense of foreboding. I ended up travelling for work with my ThinkPad as a backup. I had three outright failures requiring an Apple repair across three consecutive generations of MBP 13". I lost count of the number of stuck keys I managed to repair with a can of compressed air and a pin.

I guess if you kept your MacBook on your desk in a sterile environment you might be ok?

Bottom line is whether you loved or hated it once a consumer product get's a bad reputation fairly or not then it's usually done for.

Even a sterile environment wouldn’t save you - there are two issues, one is that something could get stuck but also there is the chance of a failure of the mechanism outright (this is why some Apple stores used compressed Air to see if they could fix issues but if not, it meant there was a mechanical failure and it required a top case replacement).

 

[fandy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1272535744750350336

This would be a great upgrade.

You think they're gonna add FaceID to the MBP 2021 MiniLED?

 

[Ma2k5]

You think they're gonna add FaceID to the MBP 2021 MiniLED?

Hopefully!

 

[LFC2020]

You think they're gonna add FaceID to the MBP 2021 MiniLED?

Damn it, looks like i'll never upgrade my 13" 2016 MacBook Pro, waiting for mini led, now Face ID is a possibility, plus apple is moving to arm chips. 🤦‍♂️😂 The wait continues.