7 ms·

Apple’s expected Mac event on October 27 is official

76 points by chrisamanse 10y ago

dancek 10y ago
Ars Technica has a summary of what is expected: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/10/report-new-macs-still-coming-this-month-11-inch-air-could-go-away/ http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/10/report-new-macs-still-c... tl;dr USB Type-C, Thunderbolt 3
- rch 10y ago
  So, new macs = different plugs. Awesome.
  - russell_h 10y ago
    The CPU bump will be nice, especially in the 15" models - the current 15" Macbook Pro has a CPU from 2013.
  - chris_7 10y ago
    Taking away MagSafe will be very unfortunate. MagSafe is one of the best things about Macs.
    - leesalminen 10y ago
      If this turns out to be true, I will not purchase Apple laptops for myself again and I will seriously investigate switching our whole company.
      - eyelidlessness 10y ago
        ... to other products which also lack magsafe?
        leesalminen 10y ago
        I'm voting with my wallet, as they say. If enough people do the same, perhaps they'll come around after an iteration or two.
        kylec 10y ago
        I'm voting with my wallet by not buying the headphone-jack-less iPhone 7, but I don't think enough people will care about the lack of MagSafe. It doesn't prevent you from doing anything, and with everything going SSD (i.e. no data loss if dropped) it's probably easier for Apple to just offer an AppleCare replacement policy if the products do get damaged by being yanked to the floor.
        leesalminen 10y ago
        > I'm voting with my wallet by not buying the headphone-jack-less iPhone 7 Same here, I'm fine with the 6S+ for another year.
        laurentdc 10y ago
        > AppleCare replacement policy if the products do get damaged by being yanked to the floor. For some reason Macs are the only Apple product not covered for accidental damage by AppleCare. I'm not sure why. It's not even about margins, the top of the line iPhone costs more than the MacBook Air and it's much prone to accidental damage.
        Alupis 10y ago
        > ... to other products which also lack magsafe? Well, depending if these new macs use the USB-C port for charging _and_ regular USB usage, another laptop with a standard non-magsafe charging port could actually be more optimal for some/most.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - duck 10y ago
      I won't argue that it might be the best thing about a Mac, but at the same time it isn't a great feature. They get dirty way too often and will lose contact, the size difference between old and new always bites me (my wife has the older size), and I've never seen a time where it saved my laptop (and I have four crazy kids running around and work remotely some).
      - city41 10y ago
        The size change was really unfortunate, that has been a pain in the butt. But other than that, I disagree. I find magsafe works great and has saved my laptop many times.
      - valm- 10y ago
        It doesn't apply to a lot of people, but I have a mobility disability that makes plugging into ports difficult or impossible without getting someone to help. With MagSafe I really appreciate just lining up the cable imprecisely and letting magnetism do the rest.
        Rotten194 10y ago
        There was a Kickstarter a while back for a Magsafe-like solution for USB-C. You might want to check it out if you haven't seen it already. Wish I remembered the name...
        toyg 10y ago
        Do you mean this? http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/4/10702516/griffin-breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-adapter-magsafe-apple-macbook http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/4/10702516/griffin-breaksafe-... I like it, but leaving a dongle there all the time is dangerous, so you'll end up taking it out and back in every time, defeating much of the convenience. Still good for safety though.
    - eknkc 10y ago
      It has always been unreliable for me. On multiple macbooks and adapters. Sometimes it does not light up at all. Sometimes lights up faintly. No major issues (just detach and re attach) but not as good as the physical grip of a USB port. Maybe I've been unlucky. Edit: Reading other comments, I guess I was lucky.
    - rconti 10y ago
      I've bought 4 of 5 of these goddamned Magsafe1 to Magsafe2 adapters, and they ALL fail over (a very short amount of) time. Sorta non-sequiter, but god it's terrible.
      - leesalminen 10y ago
        Conversely, I have several adapters permanently attached to chargers and have never had a problem.
      - toyg 10y ago
        With what you've spent in adapters by now, you could have bought an actual M2 brick. Just sayin' ;) (In 4 years I had to buy two bricks. Those thin cables are shocking. Still, Magsafe is such a nice connector, I wish they were all like that... instead of these large phallic daggers that will inevitably break their precariously-soldered ports.)
    - skrause 10y ago
      Personally I'm glad to see MagSafe go away if that means I can use charging ports on either sides of the laptop. Sitting on the right side of the bed with the charger connected is a huge hassle when you only have a charging port on the left side. The cables of Apple's MagSafe charger are also quite crappy, they tend to fray after 2-3 years of use. I hope that gets better with USB-C and if not at least you'll have better third-party chargers available.
      - mitchty 10y ago
        While I don't disagree with the annoyance as to laying things on the left side, magsafe is more nice in that if you hit the cable or accidentally have torque on the charging cable it just disconnects, not causes a ton of pcb or connector damage.
      - jshevek 10y ago
        Yes, this is something that I absolutely love about the Chromebook Pixel. Having two fully functional type c ports on both the left and right side of the laptop offers an unexpectedly amazing degree of convenience. The ability to daisy-chain several devices for charging is pretty cool as well. I'm never going back to a laptop that doesn't offer charging ports on both sides of the computer.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - kps 10y ago
        > Personally I'm glad to see MagSafe go away if that means I can … buy cables with strain relief, and/or replace a $10 cable instead of an $80 power supply.
    - izacus 10y ago
      USB-C charging might actually be a step forward... unless Apple adds DRM for chargers and refuses to charge from non-Apple ones.
      - maherbeg 10y ago
        There's already a USB-C charging laptop from Apple and that does not have any DRM in it...I highly doubt they'd do the same for chargers for the rest of the family.
    - alialkhatib 10y ago
      I'm about as heavily invested in MagSafe as a single person can semi-reasonably be, but I have pretty strongly mixed feelings about dropping MagSafe, so when I hear that people are upset (and I admittedly presume that those individual people can't possibly be more deeply invested in continuing with MagSafe than I am (although I make no claims about people making decisions for groups of people, like IT staff)), I see an opportunity to point out that there's at least some merit to this. I want to be clear upfront that I'm not saying it's a landslide in favor of Type C, but that there is at worst a silver lining and perhaps at best this is a net win. First, it's a good thing that we're converging on a standard. Standards mean not only that we can safely buy components from third parties (for instance, buying reputable, reliable USB Type C cables from places like Monoprice or whomever), but that we can borrow charging cables from others relatively easily. We've had a taste of that thanks to MagSafe's ubiquity, but a USB-based spec potentially broadens that. Second, USB battery packs (admittedly a slightly niche product category, but one that's been growing rapidly in the past few years) could potentially be made to charge Macbook Pros now. There are some battery packs out there that support MagSafe today, but my sense from shopping around every few months is that the best option continues to be to buy a battery pack that has a standard electrical outlet, and carrying that big bulky MagSafe AC adapter with me. Transitioning to a USB spec (should) permanently open the door to portable battery packs, third party AC adapters, etc... Third, USB power hubs (again a slightly niche product category, depending on whom you ask) can consolidate all of the AC adapter functions that devices need for charging. I'm already nearly there --- my tablet, battery pack, bike lights, phone, and watch all charge by USB (heck, I have a charger for my DSLR's batteries that uses Micro USB), and a single AC adapter for those devices is both tidier and easier to pack and travel with. I agree that MagSafe's really nice and I'll be sad to see some of the benefits go, but particularly with MagSafe 2 they've overcorrected in my opinion by making the threshold strength necessary to break away too low, and it's caused me to seriously reconsider whether the frustration of all these inadvertent disconnections is worth the benefit. I see at least a few reasons to be glad that the next laptop I buy (maybe in a year, certainly in three) will probably be able to charge via the same (reasonably priced!) AC adapters and battery packs that I'll own for my peripherals, and that if I'm really up a creek it'll be more likely that I find someone with a compatible charging cable, since USB is (and will continue to be) pretty much ubiquitous.
  - kylec 10y ago
    As long as there's at least one standard USB-A port, I'm OK with this. I can just replace my Thunderbolt cables and dongles.
    - rconti 10y ago
      I need USB-A so I can plug in my ethernet dongle! Otherwise it's dongles all the way down...
      - kylec 10y ago
        No doubt you'll be able to get a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 ethernet adapter
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - laurentdc 10y ago
        USB-C to USB-A dongle, then USB-A to Ethernet dongle. Or like the fanboys on the Apple subreddit have pointed out, "who the hell uses wires in 2016". Not sure if certain people are complete apologists or simply out of touch with the real world.
        cardiffspaceman 10y ago
        Eight or nine years ago, I conceived a plan that I was going to have CAT-5 run through my house someday, once I found someone to do it. Here it is 2016, I have trade workers throughout my house doing a renovation and I won't bother. I'm not sure why I'm going to the trouble of bringing indoors the twisted pairs of the phone jacks so I can use POTS from every room. Everything I have, as a 57-yo fuddy-duddy, is wireless.
        dingaling 10y ago
        Conversely, we're planning on rewiring a 1950s house and shielded Cat6 is definitely in the requirements. Once a family start using wireless devices, even on two channels ( one each on 2.5 and 5 GHz ) the throughput drops dramatically. On more than one occasion I've been found sitting on the stairs near the router with a cable plugged into my laptop...
weinzierl 10y ago
> The new MacBook Pro is said to include a redesigned, thinner body with a flatter MacBook-style keyboard, an OLED touch panel that replaces the physical function keys at the top of the keyboard, and Touch ID support. > It is expected to do away with the USB-A port, HDMI port, and SD card slot, featuring just four USB-C ports based on part leaks, and it is said to include support for USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt 3. The four USB-C port configuration will be interesting. As far as I can tell the rumor stems from leaked housing shots (maybe prototypes) [1] which show four slots, two on each side. The Wikipedia page about Thunderbolt[2] says: > Intel offers three versions of the controller: > - one "DP" version that uses a PCIe 3.0 ×4 link to provide two Thunderbolt 3 ports (DSL6540) >- one "SP" version that uses a PCIe 3.0 ×4 link to provide one Thunderbolt 3 port (DSL6340) >- an "LP" (Low Power) version that uses a PCIe 3.0 ×2 link to provide one Thunderbolt 3 port (JHL6240). This means either not all USB-C ports will be Thunderbolt 3 ports or the machines will have to have two DSL6540's on board. I don't know the cost of this chips but I think this could be expensive. On the other hand: same connector with different capabilities? - not Apple's style. [1] https://www.idropnews.com/2016/06/01/photos-of-new-macbook-pro-with-oled-touch-bar-leak-magsafe-sadly-confirmed-absent/ https://www.idropnews.com/2016/06/01/photos-of-new-macbook-p... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Thunderbolt_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Thunde...
- awalton 10y ago
  DSL6540s are $10 in 1000 quantity if you're not Apple. If you're Apple or another OEM integrator, you can probably get Intel to give you a pretty healthy shave off that even. $15-20 bucks to make all four ports Thunderbolt is nothing to Apple's bottom line, especially when they can (and probably will) just tack on another $100 to the price to cover it. This is Apple hardware - even if it's not the best, most advanced hardware out there, it will still fly off the shelves because of the fans/fanboys/startups.
Keyframe 10y ago
A new Air finally? That will be the day!
- spyspy 10y ago
  I imagine the Airs being eaten by the new MacBook.
  - Keyframe 10y ago
    Let's see what they bring to the table with a possible new Air. If they let down, it's a possibility where Macbook will continue on and Airs rest in piece.
  - rtpg 10y ago
    Just an anecdote but none of the college kids I see get a MacBook , but still opt for the Air, or pay the $100 more to get a pro. USB ports and all that.
    - scarlac 10y ago
      I see this as well. Students particularly. The Air got popular when the price dropped. Initially, everyone also criticized it for being too expensive and underpowered. Look at this thread and tell me it doesn't sound like they're talking about the new Macbook: http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/why-is-the-macbook-air-so-expensive.856233/ http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/why-is-the-macbook-air-s... My speculation: No upgrade for the Air but I think they'll announce a new lower price for the new Macbook as well as somewhat upgraded internals. They may lower the Air price a bit and keep it around or perhaps kill it outright. Everything about the Macbook seems like it's made to replace the Air apart from the price.
      - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
        I don't think Apple can drop the Air until the MacBook is at the same price point.
squarf 10y ago
squarf's predictions >mac mini with A10 CPU >MacBook air with the same guts as arm mini >MacBook pros that are more powerful but not more powerfuller enough to satiate tech bloggers >RIP in peace Mac Pro tower >a Siri box for your house
- monk_e_boy 10y ago
  VR ready? Thoughts? Alienware is VR ready for around £1K, much cheaper than current apple laptop.
  - redial 10y ago
    I think not, given Tim Cook's recent comments. They are much more interested in AR than VR. http://mashable.com/2016/10/03/tim-cook-augmented-reality/#ZL6dnmvshqqx http://mashable.com/2016/10/03/tim-cook-augmented-reality/#Z...
- marricks 10y ago
  I'm not sure how seriously to take your predictions, but although Apple is making some fast and efficient processors these days I think seeing it cross over to their lap/desktop line ups is pretty far out in the future because of software reasons. It's not like a program made for amd64 processor could just run on an ARM one, so most programs people know and love just wont work. Also, emulating 64/32 bit is a pain and very slow for ARM. It seems quite possible that Apple is pushing iPad pro for work to get "desktop" programs working well on the chip, but it seems a bit of a ways offs to have those power efficient A chips anywhere outside of mobile...
  - mccada 10y ago
    Actually I think their long term plan will be to switch to ARM processors. Probably not just yet though. They have already made their software compile to platform independent code (I may have the terminology wrong, I'm not super familiar with it), which means all current software should be able to run on ARM. You can check out some more in-depth discussion about this topic here https://www.macobserver.com/columns-opinions/particle-debris/evidence-mounting-apple-will-convert-macs-arm-cpus/ https://www.macobserver.com/columns-opinions/particle-debris...
russell_h 10y ago
The new Macbook Pro is widely rumored to have a fingerprint sensor. I haven't seen anybody exploring how this will be implemented though: is Apple likely to borrow the secure enclave or other tech they use in the iPhone?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- kobayashi 10y ago
  Seems very likely, and they'll probably go over that aspect in the address.
- twoodfin 10y ago
  Might it be as simple as adding a cheap A-series chip to the motherboard? Or they could be boring and just exploit the SGX on Skylake chips.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  Apple seem to seriously care about security†, it would be surprising if they deployed a MacBook implementation which has less security than the iPhone's. So, presumably it would use the Secure Enclave or something similar? †I mean, they have a public document detailing the iOS security architecture, so they're at least proud of it. And of course, they went to court over it.
- bootload 10y ago
  "The new Macbook Pro is widely rumored to have a fingerprint sensor." Wouldn't be happy with this carrying an mbp around with instant LEO access ~ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fingerprints+iphone+fbi https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fingerprints+iphone+fbi
  - r00fus 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure you could turn it off. Even iPhones don't require TouchID.
  - russell_h 10y ago
nwrk 10y ago
Wish the upgrades will be like 2016 specs and not year behind. (smoke)
Randgalt 10y ago
I just hope we get 32G of RAM on the MBP. It's desperately needed.
- Alupis 10y ago
  I doubt it. Very few people have a legitimate need for 32 GB of RAM in any device, let alone a laptop. Apple doesn't really build their hardware so that it's "developer-oriented", so it's unlikely you'll see 32 GB of RAM anytime soon. Perhaps 8, 12 or 16 GB.
  - rimantas 10y ago
    Even for developer 16GB works fine.
    - Alupis 10y ago
      Depends if you're running multiple VM's concurrently, but yes, most of the time, 16 GB is more than enough.
  - awalton 10y ago
    As a VMware developer, hehehe, you're funny. As a user of a modern web browser, yeah, 8GB by default isn't going to cut it anymore. Browsers leak like sieves and routinely I have to kill them once they hit 10+GB. 32GB is not even outlandish. It's a simple upgrade. The memory controllers support it. Apple can charge a fortune for it since it's "memory down" instead of DIMMs. Why wouldn't they do it?
    - Alupis 10y ago
      > As a VMware developer, hehehe, you're funny. You seemingly missed my comment about Apple machines not being developer-oriented. A developer isn't Apple's target user. > As a user of a modern web browser, yeah, 8GB by default isn't going to cut it anymore You're clearly exaggerating this by quite a bit. Everyone knows modern browsers consume more RAM than ever before, but 8 GB's is extreme. (Anecdotally, I tend to have hundreds of tabs open across multiple windows for weeks-on-end, and never have hit 8 GB's consumed by Chrome or Firefox, usually in the 1-3 GB range, and that's when I start to get concerned some tab has a broken script running). > 32GB is not even outlandish. It's a simple upgrade. Not really. If maybe 10% of their customers will use it, why include it? Especially right now when Apple seem to be in this kick of removing everything except exactly what they anticipate most of their users need. > Apple can charge a fortune for it since it's "memory down" instead of DIMMs I assume you're referencing the chips being soldered onto the mobo instead of being removable DIMM's - Adding way more RAM than necessary today may in fact preclude "upgrade" revenues later when Apple releases a line-up refresh in a few year's time (when average Joe might actually need 32 GB on his laptop). > Why wouldn't they do it? Because 32 GB is overkill in 2016 for majority of their customers. "Upgrading" to 32 GB today prevents them from doing so in the future in another line-up refresh (when 32 GB might be more reasonable for the average Mac purchaser).
izacus 10y ago
sigh Apple, can we have at least one USB-A port left on the Pro machines? Please? So we can plug in bunch of useful devices and TheyJustWork(tm)? It's sad enough that quarter of talks I visit start with "Does anyone have their Mac video dongle with them? Anyone? ... " shtick.
- ddorian43 10y ago
  Vote with your $. According to $, they're doing pretty great.
  - izacus 10y ago
    So how do I vote with my $ when I need a OSX machine for work with good CPU performance?
    - ddorian43 10y ago
      You don't NEED an OSX machine (unless you work on stuff that need OSX, in that case probably is your fault). It's like consoles, they are bad for everyone except the console-makers. Don't get yourself locked homie.
    - dman 10y ago
      https://github.com/AndrewDryga/vagrant-box-osx https://github.com/AndrewDryga/vagrant-box-osx
clhodapp 10y ago
Perhaps they could release a usb c charging cable with a magnetic disconnect in the cable itself (sort of like a cable with a smaller-magsafe-to-usb-c dongle built into it). No reason to suspect they will do this but it should be technically feasible and would allow a migration to USB C without losing all of the benefits of magnetic disconnection.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  There's a third-party solution for this, or at least one was working on it.
- toyg 10y ago
  It's on sale already: https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-power-cable https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...
Stratoscope 10y ago
If an OLED panel replaces the function keys, that ruins it for me. I mostly run Windows on my late-2013 15" MBPR, and I use the function keys all the time. Especially for debugging. F5, F9, F10, F11 are burned into my brain. I used to be a huge ThinkPad fan, but their wilderness years of bad displays and constant keyboard rearrangement turned me off, so I thought I'd try using my MBPR for Windows work instead. Turns out to be a very nice Windows machine, with the bonus of being able to boot into macOS too. (I can also run Windows under Parallels in macOS and that works pretty well, but running Windows native in a Boot Camp partition is more responsive.) The only serious function key issue is the lack of the little gaps between F4-F5 and F8-F9. If you don't use the function keys much, you'd be surprised how important those gaps are for a touch typist. Lenovo even ditched the gaps for a while (and they had their own misguided experiment with a touch panel in the second gen X1 Carbon), but now the gaps are back - and they finally have good displays again. ThinkPads also have the Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys instead of the crazy contorted Fn+arrow combinations you have to use on a Mac keyboard. I've gotten pretty used to these Mac keyboard issues by now, but losing the function keys? That's a bit much. Looks like my next Windows machine will be another ThinkPad.
- tgb 10y ago
  I just bought a new keyboard. There is literally none on the market that has the keys I want in the right places. This makes some sense since there are too many possibilities, but damn is it annoying to have to make tradeoffs. Please someone make a customized keyboard business. I ended up giving up on have a small (in width) keyboard with F keys, separate media keys, and pg up/dwn. Now good luck finding a laptop with the right keyboard.
  - falcolas 10y ago
    > There is literally none on the market that has the keys I want in the right places. If you're referring to laptop keyboard layouts, I agree. So much wasted space on your average macbook for the scrunched up keys they give you. If you're referring to keyboards in general, well, I disagree. There's a lot of custom options out there for almost every keyboard layout you could ever want.
marze 10y ago
Finally the switch to ARM?! The invite suggests!
- scarlac 10y ago
  How does it suggest a switch to ARM? I'm not seeing any indications to suggest such a claim.
  - Alupis 10y ago
    Parent probably saw "A10" in the mac mini and assumed that mean some ARM type processor. A10 is an APU from AMD, and is x86_64 based with an GPU on the same die.[1] [1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-an-AMD-A10-and-Intel-processor-i5 https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-an-AMD-...
  - marze 10y ago
    The word "hello".
  - marze 10y ago
    And the orange smoke, suggesting burning bridges.
    - marze 10y ago
      Or Note 7 phones burning, obviously

76 points by chrisamanse 10y ago

Ars Technica has a summary of what is expected: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/10/report-new-macs-still-coming-this-month-11-inch-air-could-go-away/ http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/10/report-new-macs-still-c... tl;dr USB Type-C, Thunderbolt 3

rch 10y ago
So, new macs = different plugs. Awesome.
- russell_h 10y ago
  The CPU bump will be nice, especially in the 15" models - the current 15" Macbook Pro has a CPU from 2013.
- chris_7 10y ago
  Taking away MagSafe will be very unfortunate. MagSafe is one of the best things about Macs.
  - leesalminen 10y ago
    If this turns out to be true, I will not purchase Apple laptops for myself again and I will seriously investigate switching our whole company.
    - eyelidlessness 10y ago
      ... to other products which also lack magsafe?
      - leesalminen 10y ago
        I'm voting with my wallet, as they say. If enough people do the same, perhaps they'll come around after an iteration or two.
        kylec 10y ago
        I'm voting with my wallet by not buying the headphone-jack-less iPhone 7, but I don't think enough people will care about the lack of MagSafe. It doesn't prevent you from doing anything, and with everything going SSD (i.e. no data loss if dropped) it's probably easier for Apple to just offer an AppleCare replacement policy if the products do get damaged by being yanked to the floor.
        leesalminen 10y ago
        > I'm voting with my wallet by not buying the headphone-jack-less iPhone 7 Same here, I'm fine with the 6S+ for another year.
        laurentdc 10y ago
        > AppleCare replacement policy if the products do get damaged by being yanked to the floor. For some reason Macs are the only Apple product not covered for accidental damage by AppleCare. I'm not sure why. It's not even about margins, the top of the line iPhone costs more than the MacBook Air and it's much prone to accidental damage.
      - Alupis 10y ago
        > ... to other products which also lack magsafe? Well, depending if these new macs use the USB-C port for charging _and_ regular USB usage, another laptop with a standard non-magsafe charging port could actually be more optimal for some/most.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - duck 10y ago
    I won't argue that it might be the best thing about a Mac, but at the same time it isn't a great feature. They get dirty way too often and will lose contact, the size difference between old and new always bites me (my wife has the older size), and I've never seen a time where it saved my laptop (and I have four crazy kids running around and work remotely some).
    - city41 10y ago
      The size change was really unfortunate, that has been a pain in the butt. But other than that, I disagree. I find magsafe works great and has saved my laptop many times.
    - valm- 10y ago
      It doesn't apply to a lot of people, but I have a mobility disability that makes plugging into ports difficult or impossible without getting someone to help. With MagSafe I really appreciate just lining up the cable imprecisely and letting magnetism do the rest.
      - Rotten194 10y ago
        There was a Kickstarter a while back for a Magsafe-like solution for USB-C. You might want to check it out if you haven't seen it already. Wish I remembered the name...
        toyg 10y ago
        Do you mean this? http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/4/10702516/griffin-breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-adapter-magsafe-apple-macbook http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/4/10702516/griffin-breaksafe-... I like it, but leaving a dongle there all the time is dangerous, so you'll end up taking it out and back in every time, defeating much of the convenience. Still good for safety though.
  - eknkc 10y ago
    It has always been unreliable for me. On multiple macbooks and adapters. Sometimes it does not light up at all. Sometimes lights up faintly. No major issues (just detach and re attach) but not as good as the physical grip of a USB port. Maybe I've been unlucky. Edit: Reading other comments, I guess I was lucky.
  - rconti 10y ago
    I've bought 4 of 5 of these goddamned Magsafe1 to Magsafe2 adapters, and they ALL fail over (a very short amount of) time. Sorta non-sequiter, but god it's terrible.
    - leesalminen 10y ago
      Conversely, I have several adapters permanently attached to chargers and have never had a problem.
    - toyg 10y ago
      With what you've spent in adapters by now, you could have bought an actual M2 brick. Just sayin' ;) (In 4 years I had to buy two bricks. Those thin cables are shocking. Still, Magsafe is such a nice connector, I wish they were all like that... instead of these large phallic daggers that will inevitably break their precariously-soldered ports.)
  - skrause 10y ago
    Personally I'm glad to see MagSafe go away if that means I can use charging ports on either sides of the laptop. Sitting on the right side of the bed with the charger connected is a huge hassle when you only have a charging port on the left side. The cables of Apple's MagSafe charger are also quite crappy, they tend to fray after 2-3 years of use. I hope that gets better with USB-C and if not at least you'll have better third-party chargers available.
    - mitchty 10y ago
      While I don't disagree with the annoyance as to laying things on the left side, magsafe is more nice in that if you hit the cable or accidentally have torque on the charging cable it just disconnects, not causes a ton of pcb or connector damage.
    - jshevek 10y ago
      Yes, this is something that I absolutely love about the Chromebook Pixel. Having two fully functional type c ports on both the left and right side of the laptop offers an unexpectedly amazing degree of convenience. The ability to daisy-chain several devices for charging is pretty cool as well. I'm never going back to a laptop that doesn't offer charging ports on both sides of the computer.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - kps 10y ago
      > Personally I'm glad to see MagSafe go away if that means I can … buy cables with strain relief, and/or replace a $10 cable instead of an $80 power supply.
  - izacus 10y ago
    USB-C charging might actually be a step forward... unless Apple adds DRM for chargers and refuses to charge from non-Apple ones.
    - maherbeg 10y ago
      There's already a USB-C charging laptop from Apple and that does not have any DRM in it...I highly doubt they'd do the same for chargers for the rest of the family.
  - alialkhatib 10y ago
    I'm about as heavily invested in MagSafe as a single person can semi-reasonably be, but I have pretty strongly mixed feelings about dropping MagSafe, so when I hear that people are upset (and I admittedly presume that those individual people can't possibly be more deeply invested in continuing with MagSafe than I am (although I make no claims about people making decisions for groups of people, like IT staff)), I see an opportunity to point out that there's at least some merit to this. I want to be clear upfront that I'm not saying it's a landslide in favor of Type C, but that there is at worst a silver lining and perhaps at best this is a net win. First, it's a good thing that we're converging on a standard. Standards mean not only that we can safely buy components from third parties (for instance, buying reputable, reliable USB Type C cables from places like Monoprice or whomever), but that we can borrow charging cables from others relatively easily. We've had a taste of that thanks to MagSafe's ubiquity, but a USB-based spec potentially broadens that. Second, USB battery packs (admittedly a slightly niche product category, but one that's been growing rapidly in the past few years) could potentially be made to charge Macbook Pros now. There are some battery packs out there that support MagSafe today, but my sense from shopping around every few months is that the best option continues to be to buy a battery pack that has a standard electrical outlet, and carrying that big bulky MagSafe AC adapter with me. Transitioning to a USB spec (should) permanently open the door to portable battery packs, third party AC adapters, etc... Third, USB power hubs (again a slightly niche product category, depending on whom you ask) can consolidate all of the AC adapter functions that devices need for charging. I'm already nearly there --- my tablet, battery pack, bike lights, phone, and watch all charge by USB (heck, I have a charger for my DSLR's batteries that uses Micro USB), and a single AC adapter for those devices is both tidier and easier to pack and travel with. I agree that MagSafe's really nice and I'll be sad to see some of the benefits go, but particularly with MagSafe 2 they've overcorrected in my opinion by making the threshold strength necessary to break away too low, and it's caused me to seriously reconsider whether the frustration of all these inadvertent disconnections is worth the benefit. I see at least a few reasons to be glad that the next laptop I buy (maybe in a year, certainly in three) will probably be able to charge via the same (reasonably priced!) AC adapters and battery packs that I'll own for my peripherals, and that if I'm really up a creek it'll be more likely that I find someone with a compatible charging cable, since USB is (and will continue to be) pretty much ubiquitous.
- kylec 10y ago
  As long as there's at least one standard USB-A port, I'm OK with this. I can just replace my Thunderbolt cables and dongles.
  - rconti 10y ago
    I need USB-A so I can plug in my ethernet dongle! Otherwise it's dongles all the way down...
    - kylec 10y ago
      No doubt you'll be able to get a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 ethernet adapter
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - laurentdc 10y ago
      USB-C to USB-A dongle, then USB-A to Ethernet dongle. Or like the fanboys on the Apple subreddit have pointed out, "who the hell uses wires in 2016". Not sure if certain people are complete apologists or simply out of touch with the real world.
      - cardiffspaceman 10y ago
        Eight or nine years ago, I conceived a plan that I was going to have CAT-5 run through my house someday, once I found someone to do it. Here it is 2016, I have trade workers throughout my house doing a renovation and I won't bother. I'm not sure why I'm going to the trouble of bringing indoors the twisted pairs of the phone jacks so I can use POTS from every room. Everything I have, as a 57-yo fuddy-duddy, is wireless.
        dingaling 10y ago
        Conversely, we're planning on rewiring a 1950s house and shielded Cat6 is definitely in the requirements. Once a family start using wireless devices, even on two channels ( one each on 2.5 and 5 GHz ) the throughput drops dramatically. On more than one occasion I've been found sitting on the stairs near the router with a cable plugged into my laptop...

weinzierl 10y ago

> The new MacBook Pro is said to include a redesigned, thinner body with a flatter MacBook-style keyboard, an OLED touch panel that replaces the physical function keys at the top of the keyboard, and Touch ID support. > It is expected to do away with the USB-A port, HDMI port, and SD card slot, featuring just four USB-C ports based on part leaks, and it is said to include support for USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt 3. The four USB-C port configuration will be interesting. As far as I can tell the rumor stems from leaked housing shots (maybe prototypes) [1] which show four slots, two on each side. The Wikipedia page about Thunderbolt[2] says: > Intel offers three versions of the controller: > - one "DP" version that uses a PCIe 3.0 ×4 link to provide two Thunderbolt 3 ports (DSL6540) >- one "SP" version that uses a PCIe 3.0 ×4 link to provide one Thunderbolt 3 port (DSL6340) >- an "LP" (Low Power) version that uses a PCIe 3.0 ×2 link to provide one Thunderbolt 3 port (JHL6240). This means either not all USB-C ports will be Thunderbolt 3 ports or the machines will have to have two DSL6540's on board. I don't know the cost of this chips but I think this could be expensive. On the other hand: same connector with different capabilities? - not Apple's style. [1] https://www.idropnews.com/2016/06/01/photos-of-new-macbook-pro-with-oled-touch-bar-leak-magsafe-sadly-confirmed-absent/ https://www.idropnews.com/2016/06/01/photos-of-new-macbook-p... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Thunderbolt_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Thunde...

awalton 10y ago
DSL6540s are $10 in 1000 quantity if you're not Apple. If you're Apple or another OEM integrator, you can probably get Intel to give you a pretty healthy shave off that even. $15-20 bucks to make all four ports Thunderbolt is nothing to Apple's bottom line, especially when they can (and probably will) just tack on another $100 to the price to cover it. This is Apple hardware - even if it's not the best, most advanced hardware out there, it will still fly off the shelves because of the fans/fanboys/startups.

Keyframe 10y ago

A new Air finally? That will be the day!

spyspy 10y ago
I imagine the Airs being eaten by the new MacBook.
- Keyframe 10y ago
  Let's see what they bring to the table with a possible new Air. If they let down, it's a possibility where Macbook will continue on and Airs rest in piece.
- rtpg 10y ago
  Just an anecdote but none of the college kids I see get a MacBook , but still opt for the Air, or pay the $100 more to get a pro. USB ports and all that.
  - scarlac 10y ago
    I see this as well. Students particularly. The Air got popular when the price dropped. Initially, everyone also criticized it for being too expensive and underpowered. Look at this thread and tell me it doesn't sound like they're talking about the new Macbook: http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/why-is-the-macbook-air-so-expensive.856233/ http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/why-is-the-macbook-air-s... My speculation: No upgrade for the Air but I think they'll announce a new lower price for the new Macbook as well as somewhat upgraded internals. They may lower the Air price a bit and keep it around or perhaps kill it outright. Everything about the Macbook seems like it's made to replace the Air apart from the price.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
      I don't think Apple can drop the Air until the MacBook is at the same price point.

squarf 10y ago

squarf's predictions >mac mini with A10 CPU >MacBook air with the same guts as arm mini >MacBook pros that are more powerful but not more powerfuller enough to satiate tech bloggers >RIP in peace Mac Pro tower >a Siri box for your house

monk_e_boy 10y ago
VR ready? Thoughts? Alienware is VR ready for around £1K, much cheaper than current apple laptop.
- redial 10y ago
  I think not, given Tim Cook's recent comments. They are much more interested in AR than VR. http://mashable.com/2016/10/03/tim-cook-augmented-reality/#ZL6dnmvshqqx http://mashable.com/2016/10/03/tim-cook-augmented-reality/#Z...
marricks 10y ago
I'm not sure how seriously to take your predictions, but although Apple is making some fast and efficient processors these days I think seeing it cross over to their lap/desktop line ups is pretty far out in the future because of software reasons. It's not like a program made for amd64 processor could just run on an ARM one, so most programs people know and love just wont work. Also, emulating 64/32 bit is a pain and very slow for ARM. It seems quite possible that Apple is pushing iPad pro for work to get "desktop" programs working well on the chip, but it seems a bit of a ways offs to have those power efficient A chips anywhere outside of mobile...
- mccada 10y ago
  Actually I think their long term plan will be to switch to ARM processors. Probably not just yet though. They have already made their software compile to platform independent code (I may have the terminology wrong, I'm not super familiar with it), which means all current software should be able to run on ARM. You can check out some more in-depth discussion about this topic here https://www.macobserver.com/columns-opinions/particle-debris/evidence-mounting-apple-will-convert-macs-arm-cpus/ https://www.macobserver.com/columns-opinions/particle-debris...

russell_h 10y ago

The new Macbook Pro is widely rumored to have a fingerprint sensor. I haven't seen anybody exploring how this will be implemented though: is Apple likely to borrow the secure enclave or other tech they use in the iPhone?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kobayashi 10y ago
Seems very likely, and they'll probably go over that aspect in the address.
twoodfin 10y ago
Might it be as simple as adding a cheap A-series chip to the motherboard? Or they could be boring and just exploit the SGX on Skylake chips.
TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
Apple seem to seriously care about security†, it would be surprising if they deployed a MacBook implementation which has less security than the iPhone's. So, presumably it would use the Secure Enclave or something similar? †I mean, they have a public document detailing the iOS security architecture, so they're at least proud of it. And of course, they went to court over it.
bootload 10y ago
"The new Macbook Pro is widely rumored to have a fingerprint sensor." Wouldn't be happy with this carrying an mbp around with instant LEO access ~ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fingerprints+iphone+fbi https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fingerprints+iphone+fbi
- r00fus 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure you could turn it off. Even iPhones don't require TouchID.
- russell_h 10y ago

nwrk 10y ago

Wish the upgrades will be like 2016 specs and not year behind. (smoke)

Randgalt 10y ago

I just hope we get 32G of RAM on the MBP. It's desperately needed.

Alupis 10y ago
I doubt it. Very few people have a legitimate need for 32 GB of RAM in any device, let alone a laptop. Apple doesn't really build their hardware so that it's "developer-oriented", so it's unlikely you'll see 32 GB of RAM anytime soon. Perhaps 8, 12 or 16 GB.
- rimantas 10y ago
  Even for developer 16GB works fine.
  - Alupis 10y ago
    Depends if you're running multiple VM's concurrently, but yes, most of the time, 16 GB is more than enough.
- awalton 10y ago
  As a VMware developer, hehehe, you're funny. As a user of a modern web browser, yeah, 8GB by default isn't going to cut it anymore. Browsers leak like sieves and routinely I have to kill them once they hit 10+GB. 32GB is not even outlandish. It's a simple upgrade. The memory controllers support it. Apple can charge a fortune for it since it's "memory down" instead of DIMMs. Why wouldn't they do it?
  - Alupis 10y ago
    > As a VMware developer, hehehe, you're funny. You seemingly missed my comment about Apple machines not being developer-oriented. A developer isn't Apple's target user. > As a user of a modern web browser, yeah, 8GB by default isn't going to cut it anymore You're clearly exaggerating this by quite a bit. Everyone knows modern browsers consume more RAM than ever before, but 8 GB's is extreme. (Anecdotally, I tend to have hundreds of tabs open across multiple windows for weeks-on-end, and never have hit 8 GB's consumed by Chrome or Firefox, usually in the 1-3 GB range, and that's when I start to get concerned some tab has a broken script running). > 32GB is not even outlandish. It's a simple upgrade. Not really. If maybe 10% of their customers will use it, why include it? Especially right now when Apple seem to be in this kick of removing everything except exactly what they anticipate most of their users need. > Apple can charge a fortune for it since it's "memory down" instead of DIMMs I assume you're referencing the chips being soldered onto the mobo instead of being removable DIMM's - Adding way more RAM than necessary today may in fact preclude "upgrade" revenues later when Apple releases a line-up refresh in a few year's time (when average Joe might actually need 32 GB on his laptop). > Why wouldn't they do it? Because 32 GB is overkill in 2016 for majority of their customers. "Upgrading" to 32 GB today prevents them from doing so in the future in another line-up refresh (when 32 GB might be more reasonable for the average Mac purchaser).

izacus 10y ago

sigh Apple, can we have at least one USB-A port left on the Pro machines? Please? So we can plug in bunch of useful devices and TheyJustWork(tm)? It's sad enough that quarter of talks I visit start with "Does anyone have their Mac video dongle with them? Anyone? ... " shtick.

ddorian43 10y ago
Vote with your $. According to $, they're doing pretty great.
- izacus 10y ago
  So how do I vote with my $ when I need a OSX machine for work with good CPU performance?
  - ddorian43 10y ago
    You don't NEED an OSX machine (unless you work on stuff that need OSX, in that case probably is your fault). It's like consoles, they are bad for everyone except the console-makers. Don't get yourself locked homie.
  - dman 10y ago
    https://github.com/AndrewDryga/vagrant-box-osx https://github.com/AndrewDryga/vagrant-box-osx

clhodapp 10y ago

Perhaps they could release a usb c charging cable with a magnetic disconnect in the cable itself (sort of like a cable with a smaller-magsafe-to-usb-c dongle built into it). No reason to suspect they will do this but it should be technically feasible and would allow a migration to USB C without losing all of the benefits of magnetic disconnection.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
There's a third-party solution for this, or at least one was working on it.
toyg 10y ago
It's on sale already: https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-power-cable https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...

Stratoscope 10y ago

If an OLED panel replaces the function keys, that ruins it for me. I mostly run Windows on my late-2013 15" MBPR, and I use the function keys all the time. Especially for debugging. F5, F9, F10, F11 are burned into my brain. I used to be a huge ThinkPad fan, but their wilderness years of bad displays and constant keyboard rearrangement turned me off, so I thought I'd try using my MBPR for Windows work instead. Turns out to be a very nice Windows machine, with the bonus of being able to boot into macOS too. (I can also run Windows under Parallels in macOS and that works pretty well, but running Windows native in a Boot Camp partition is more responsive.) The only serious function key issue is the lack of the little gaps between F4-F5 and F8-F9. If you don't use the function keys much, you'd be surprised how important those gaps are for a touch typist. Lenovo even ditched the gaps for a while (and they had their own misguided experiment with a touch panel in the second gen X1 Carbon), but now the gaps are back - and they finally have good displays again. ThinkPads also have the Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys instead of the crazy contorted Fn+arrow combinations you have to use on a Mac keyboard. I've gotten pretty used to these Mac keyboard issues by now, but losing the function keys? That's a bit much. Looks like my next Windows machine will be another ThinkPad.

tgb 10y ago
I just bought a new keyboard. There is literally none on the market that has the keys I want in the right places. This makes some sense since there are too many possibilities, but damn is it annoying to have to make tradeoffs. Please someone make a customized keyboard business. I ended up giving up on have a small (in width) keyboard with F keys, separate media keys, and pg up/dwn. Now good luck finding a laptop with the right keyboard.
- falcolas 10y ago
  > There is literally none on the market that has the keys I want in the right places. If you're referring to laptop keyboard layouts, I agree. So much wasted space on your average macbook for the scrunched up keys they give you. If you're referring to keyboards in general, well, I disagree. There's a lot of custom options out there for almost every keyboard layout you could ever want.

marze 10y ago

Finally the switch to ARM?! The invite suggests!

scarlac 10y ago
How does it suggest a switch to ARM? I'm not seeing any indications to suggest such a claim.
- Alupis 10y ago
  Parent probably saw "A10" in the mac mini and assumed that mean some ARM type processor. A10 is an APU from AMD, and is x86_64 based with an GPU on the same die.[1] [1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-an-AMD-A10-and-Intel-processor-i5 https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-an-AMD-...
- marze 10y ago
  The word "hello".
- marze 10y ago
  And the orange smoke, suggesting burning bridges.
  - marze 10y ago
    Or Note 7 phones burning, obviously