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What are you most looking forward to for future MBPs?

  • Face ID

    Votes: 19 30.2%
  • More CPU power (M2/Pro/Max)

    Votes: 13 20.6%
  • More GPU power (10 core M2 rumour)

    Votes: 5 7.9%
  • New design for 13” model

    Votes: 4 6.3%
  • Mini LED for 13” model

    Votes: 3 4.8%
  • Other CPU/ GPU features (ray tracing support; advanced ML etc)

    Votes: 2 3.2%
  • Higher RAM options (32GB for 13”; 128GB for 16”)

    Votes: 3 4.8%
  • Other

    Votes: 14 22.2%

  • Total voters
    63

Falhófnir

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 19, 2017
6,146
7,001
The long awaited 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro’s are finally here and landing in people’s laps, as is tradition time to start up the wait for the next iteration I guess?

I’m not expecting a lot of people to be along for the wait to the successors of the M1 Pro and M1 Max MBPs, which may be good as there’s a decent chance they won’t arrive until late 2023!

The 13” M1 MacBook Pro which launched in November 2020 should be up for replacement in the coming year though, either with a direct replacement, or substituted in the lineup for one of the colourful new ‘MacBooks’. Perhaps it will also get a bump to 14.2”, similar to the recently launched model, but lacking some of the shinier bells and whistles, at a more mainstream price.

Either way it should be getting a new M2 chip, hopefully based on the A16, and with 10 GPU cores up from 8 on the M1. Further out the M2 Pro and Max chips will also make their way into the next gen 14/16” machines, maybe with Face ID and panels with a better response time to make the most of the ProMotion functionality.
 

supermars

macrumors member
Dec 1, 2015
58
30
Would like a macbook pro "light" : 14 / mini led / 120hz / not overly powered for better battery life / HDMI / 1,5 kg maximum / 10% cheaper
Will buy day one !
 
Last edited:

DHagan4755

macrumors 68020
Jul 18, 2002
2,252
6,124
Massachusetts
Now that the 14” & 16” are out, what will Apple do next with the 13” MacBook Pro?

Will they put the M2 chip in it & call it a day? Would Apple go through the effort of deleting the Touch Bar & adding a 1080p FaceTime camera? Or will Apple put it out to pasture in favor of putting the M2 chip in the 14” model, deleting a Thunderbolt 4 port from the left side in the process? Such a model (with 16GB/512) would likely come in around $1,699. Or will Apple just delete the 13” MacBook Pro from the line up altogether?

Assuming Apple moves the MacBook Air M1 price down to $899, the newly redesigned MacBook Air M2 will probably slot in at $1,099 out of the gate. It’ll probably start at 8GB of memory & 256 GB storage. The upper tier MacBook Air model with 512GB of storage will be the typical $200 up-charge at $1,299.

And therein lies the rub. Even if the MacBook Air M2 starts at $999, its new svelte design & rumored specs would make the 13” MacBook Pro stick out oddly in the overall lineup (with its thicker bezels, 720p FaceTime camera, Touch Bar, and lack of MagSafe).

With the redesigned MacBook Air M2 coming at some point in 2022, with its rumored design & specs, where would a 13” MacBook Pro model fit in? It seems out of place or redundant.
 
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Falhófnir

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 19, 2017
6,146
7,001
Would like a macbook pro "light" : 14 / mini led / 120hz / not overly powered for better battery life / HDMI / 1,5 kg maximum / 10% cheaper
Will buy day one !
It sounds like mLED 60Hz is Apple's next update to lower end models displays so hopefully they will look close, just without ProMotion! If that's one of the tradeoffs for a smaller/lighter/cheaper 14" replacement for the 13" M1 Pro I can see it being quite popular if they can keep the price to no more than $1,500.

I think the Pro is on a two year cycle. One year the basic chip, next year the pro chip, etc
Yep I agree, think the M chips will be updated on even years (2020, 2022, 2024...) and the M Pro and M Max chips on odd years (2021, 2023, 2025) or at least that's how it looks now. Once the transition is done and things bed in Apple might change it up and try for more regular updates, but then the yearly gains aren't giant even with Apple Silicon so every second year would probably be enough.
 

splitpea

macrumors 65816
Oct 21, 2009
1,146
418
Among the starlings
Waiting for v2 hardware reliability and for this last computer (purchased two years ago to tide me over from a 2012 model until Apple Silicon was ready) to start feeling out of date. Specs for this year’s models already hit the sweet spot.
 
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Falhófnir

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 19, 2017
6,146
7,001
Now that the 14” & 16” are out, what will Apple do next with the 13” MacBook Pro?

Will they put the M2 chip in it & call it a day? Would Apple go through the effort of deleting the Touch Bar & adding a 1080p FaceTime camera? Or will Apple put it out to pasture in favor of putting the M2 chip in the 14” model, deleting a Thunderbolt 4 port from the left side in the process? Such a model (with 16GB/512) would likely come in around $1,699. Or will Apple just delete the 13” MacBook Pro from the line up altogether?

Assuming Apple moves the MacBook Air M1 price down to $899, the newly redesigned MacBook Air M2 will probably slot in at $1,099 out of the gate. It’ll probably start at 8GB of memory & 256 GB storage. The upper tier MacBook Air model with 512GB of storage will be the typical $200 up-charge at $1,299.

And therein lies the rub. Even if the MacBook Air M2 starts at $999, its new svelte design & rumored specs would make the 13” MacBook Pro stick out oddly in the overall lineup (with its thicker bezels, 720p FaceTime camera, Touch Bar, and lack of MagSafe).

With the redesigned MacBook Air M2 coming at some point in 2022, with its rumored design & specs, where would a 13” MacBook Pro model fit in? It seems out of place or redundant.
I would just say it's a big jump in price of admission to the 'pro' laptops if Apple don't replace the 13" with some sort of alternative ($1,299 right up to $1,999). The only question is what form it will take and if it will be called 'MacBook Pro'. The iPhone model of having similar pro and non pro models would be good, with a cheaper 14" to replace the 13" lacking ProMotion, getting the M2 chip and being slightly thinner and lighter (less need for battery and cooling). I doubt it would stay at $1,299, but $1,399 or $1,499 would still be a big difference.

Waiting for v2 hardware reliability and for this last computer (purchased two years ago to tide me over from a 2012 model until Apple Silicon was ready) to start feeling out of date. Specs for this year’s models already hit the sweet spot.
Yeah I'm hoping that just holding off for a bit and buying later in the cycle will give enough time for any problems to come to light... I'm not expecting another refresh next year so there's no real hurry to buy with these models...
 

TheRealAlex

macrumors 68030
Sep 2, 2015
2,980
2,248
Now that the 14” & 16” are out, what will Apple do next with the 13” MacBook Pro?

Will they put the M2 chip in it & call it a day? Would Apple go through the effort of deleting the Touch Bar & adding a 1080p FaceTime camera? Or will Apple put it out to pasture in favor of putting the M2 chip in the 14” model, deleting a Thunderbolt 4 port from the left side in the process? Such a model (with 16GB/512) would likely come in around $1,699. Or will Apple just delete the 13” MacBook Pro from the line up altogether?

Assuming Apple moves the MacBook Air M1 price down to $899, the newly redesigned MacBook Air M2 will probably slot in at $1,099 out of the gate. It’ll probably start at 8GB of memory & 256 GB storage. The upper tier MacBook Air model with 512GB of storage will be the typical $200 up-charge at $1,299.

And therein lies the rub. Even if the MacBook Air M2 starts at $999, its new svelte design & rumored specs would make the 13” MacBook Pro stick out oddly in the overall lineup (with its thicker bezels, 720p FaceTime camera, Touch Bar, and lack of MagSafe).

With the redesigned MacBook Air M2 coming at some point in 2022, with its rumored design & specs, where would a 13” MacBook Pro model fit in? It seems out of place or redundant.
If they make the 13” MacBook Pro just an M2 device with a touchbar and an OLED Display that would be my Go to device.
 
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flapflapflap

macrumors 6502a
Dec 13, 2013
768
439
Now that the 14” & 16” are out, what will Apple do next with the 13” MacBook Pro?

Will they put the M2 chip in it & call it a day? Would Apple go through the effort of deleting the Touch Bar & adding a 1080p FaceTime camera? Or will Apple put it out to pasture in favor of putting the M2 chip in the 14” model, deleting a Thunderbolt 4 port from the left side in the process? Such a model (with 16GB/512) would likely come in around $1,699. Or will Apple just delete the 13” MacBook Pro from the line up altogether?

Assuming Apple moves the MacBook Air M1 price down to $899, the newly redesigned MacBook Air M2 will probably slot in at $1,099 out of the gate. It’ll probably start at 8GB of memory & 256 GB storage. The upper tier MacBook Air model with 512GB of storage will be the typical $200 up-charge at $1,299.

And therein lies the rub. Even if the MacBook Air M2 starts at $999, its new svelte design & rumored specs would make the 13” MacBook Pro stick out oddly in the overall lineup (with its thicker bezels, 720p FaceTime camera, Touch Bar, and lack of MagSafe).

With the redesigned MacBook Air M2 coming at some point in 2022, with its rumored design & specs, where would a 13” MacBook Pro model fit in? It seems out of place or redundant.
rumor is that the m2 Air will be 15 inches and have the features in the attached tweet. if the off white bezel rumor is true and there is no option for black, I will wait for the 14 to feature better life, fix its notch issues and have Face ID
 

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Falhófnir

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 19, 2017
6,146
7,001
rumor is that the m2 Air will be 15 inches and have the features in the attached tweet. if the off white bezel rumor is true and there is no option for black, I will wait for the 14 to feature better life, fix its notch issues and have Face ID
I’ve not heard the 15” part, source? If that’s true maybe that will take over the price point of the 13” Pro and there will be some sort of cheaper 14” pro around the $1,500 mark? Honestly I’d probably even be able to forgive white bezels/ keys for a 15” Air…
 

flapflapflap

macrumors 6502a
Dec 13, 2013
768
439
I’ve not heard the 15” part, source? If that’s true maybe that will take over the price point of the 13” Pro and there will be some sort of cheaper 14” pro around the $1,500 mark? Honestly I’d probably even be able to forgive white bezels/ keys for a 15” Air…
the tweet I shared in my post is from a guy who is highly accurate (almost 100%)
 

stevemiller

macrumors 68020
Oct 27, 2008
2,055
1,606
14” Thermal throttles badly
waiting for 3nm CPU and GPU M3 Max
FaceID
WiFi 6e


personal Rule never buy Gen 1 Apple Tech of anything
I bought first gen unibody, first gen quad core, and first gen retina mbp. All were solid machines. I did 3rd gen of the garbage 2016 era macs in 2018. Worst laptop I’ve owned.
 

Falhófnir

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 19, 2017
6,146
7,001
I believe the next steps will be incremental and not really worth the wait. Wake me up in 5 years :)
Yeah the 14/16” will certainly be hard to follow up, which is partially why I think they won’t even get another update for ~2 years… even the M1 Pro (performance wise) seems like it’s going to be difficult to give a meaningful boost. The 10 core graphics sounds like it will be a nice step up though, and any and all design changes and new features like mLED mean it could still be a compelling package.

The only thing that argues against a 2 year cycle is that Intel/ AMD are going to be quite far ahead in terms of raw performance (if still nowhere near on perf/watt) by Oct. 2023…
 

Falhófnir

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 19, 2017
6,146
7,001
Gurman has suggested a new base model MBP will be among 5 new macs releasing this year, but there are still no details on it. In the absence of any info my current guess:
  • Same 14" design as the just-released MBP (helps to differentiate from the new MacBook Air)
  • Maybe a little thinner than the high end 14", smaller battery, smaller speakers, etc
  • Mini LED but no ProMotion
  • Magsafe, 2x Thunderbolt ports and headphone jack (no 3rd thunderbolt, HDMI or SD card slot)
  • Standard M2 chip (4/4/10 configuration) and single cooling fan
  • Black screen Bezel and keyboard (helps differentiate from the new MacBook Air)
  • Same 8GB/ 256GB starting configuration, $1,399 starting price (+$100 for mini LED)
 

fa8362

macrumors 68000
Jul 7, 2008
1,571
498
The long awaited 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro’s are finally here and landing in people’s laps, as is tradition time to start up the wait for the next iteration I guess?

I’m not expecting a lot of people to be along for the wait to the successors of the M1 Pro and M1 Max MBPs, which may be good as there’s a decent chance they won’t arrive until late 2023!

The 13” M1 MacBook Pro which launched in November 2020 should be up for replacement in the coming year though, either with a direct replacement, or substituted in the lineup for one of the colourful new ‘MacBooks’. Perhaps it will also get a bump to 14.2”, similar to the recently launched model, but lacking some of the shinier bells and whistles, at a more mainstream price.

Either way it should be getting a new M2 chip, hopefully based on the A16, and with 10 GPU cores up from 8 on the M1. Further out the M2 Pro and Max chips will also make their way into the next gen 14/16” machines, maybe with Face ID and panels with a better response time to make the most of the ProMotion functionality.
It won't be replaced until 2023.
 

Bob1985

macrumors regular
Sep 19, 2015
128
124
1) Option to buy more CPU cores at the expense of GPU cores, or some kind of multi-chip solution.
2) 2x PCI-e SSDs. RAID-0 across two separate SSDs with independent PCI-e channels. I.e., give us more BW for these high SSD costs.
 

2adOpin2

macrumors newbie
Oct 24, 2021
7
5
Waiting for the 2025 MBP. I hear it will be way better than something I could actually buy and use today.
 
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