“The high resolution artwork [found in the second Developer build of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion] indicates that Macs could soon come with a HiDPI mode, essentially Retina Display, meaning that their screens would have a much greater density of pixels packed into the same area,” AppleBitch writes.
“What is worth noting, however, is that in order for Apple to accomplish [a Retina display in the new iPad], the majority of the internal volume of the new iPad is now comprised of battery,” AppleBitch writes. “And how could Apple achieve this in the MacBook Pro? You guessed right. Drop the CD/DVD drive… [which] takes up an enormous amount of space. Ditch that drive and replace it with battery, and you have a MacBook Pro with enough battery capacity to support a high pixel density display for a significant amount of time.”
AppleBitch writes, “So don’t be surprised if the next MacBook Pro you see will be a thinner, lighter, MacBook Air like model with a super high resolution display, bigger battery and sans optical drive.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Sarah” for the heads up.]
For as often as I use the DVD drive, I think it would be a great trade-off. Sign me up
Retina display. No optical. No HDD. But still a dedicated GPU.
Thicker than the MBA. Thinner than the current MBP.
🙂
Not sure that it is quite time to ditch the HDD altogether, not with high-capacity SSD’s costing as much as they do. I’d look for a hybrid drive solution with the SSD’s providing the rapid boot times like the MBA but the 500GB+ HDD providing storage for non-system files.
If they are ditching optical and plan to make a slimmer case then they will have to ditch HDD as well. Both Optical and HDD are 9.75mm. Apple can’t physically make a slimmer unibody MBP case without ditching both drives
Perhaps two 256GB SSD chips for the standard and dual 512GB in the high end?
thats more like what I think would happen.
you are correct they can’t ditch one and keep the other, they could… but the New MBP would be a tad lopsided in design.
I think apple applied for patents not to long ago regarding irregular shaped batteries. They could move the hybrid drive to the back and stuff e tapered front full of battery.
What GPU will they use?
I don’t know specfically, but using “HiDPI mode” is not as GPU intensive as supporting four times as many pixels “natively.” So for a given Mac model, the OS is still using the old non-doubled resolution, but graphical elements that support HiDPI mode are displayed at double resolution. In other word, the size and amount of content shown on the screen will the same as current Mac displays, but some portions will be twice as sharp.
Therefore, it may be possible the current class of GPU to support HiDPI mode.
I really can’t remember the last time I used my drive. It makes no sense carrying it around in a laptop, when you can leave an external one at home. But the rest of the PC industry will scream about it for years the way they did with the 3.5
I use mine in spurts to import CD’s to iTunes. Yes, I still buy and listen to CD’s. Call me old fashioned but I prefer it to the all-digital way. Movies and TV shows on the other hand – all digital.
“I use mine in spurts …”
Don’t we all?
CDs are digital.
Maybe you meant “online” or “Internet delivery”?
Yeah, what you said.
I’m with you.
I don’t buy my music/tv/movies digitally. I buy my Games digitally, but thats it.
I prefer to rip them myself and have them exactly how I want them.
CDs are digital. 1s and 0s. Perhaps you mean you prefer to buy physical media and uncompressed music.
yeah thats what i meant.
I’m used to the “digital download” tag thats on games etc when referring to the download instead of the actual physical disk in a box/case.
I’m not sure if this is a good thing for professional content creators. It’s going to throw the resolution all over the place on that screen. The higher the resolution the small everything is going to get obviously. It’s already too high!! Not to mention content creation applications will need to be rewritten to support such things as well. I’m all for moving forward, but does this make sense right now?
My 13″ MacBook Pro at 1280 x 800 is about as small as I would want to go. It’s going to be interesting.
It will not make everything smaller. Icons aren’t smaller on the new iPad, are they? It just makes things more “crisp”. We are talking the same “screen real estate” with a sharper display.
Would make logical points of differentiation between the MBA and MBP lineups. Pros have retina display, larger storage capacity (hybrid SSD/HDD), greater capacity for RAM and at least one notch higher performance CPU/GPU combos available. Equal battery time. Thicker and heavier than the MBA, but just a tad thinner and lighter than the current MBP.
The Wintards are still bragging about having a Blu-ray drive in their notebooks which make them superior to Mac notebooks. I wouldn’t think there is too much demand for Blu-ray on a portable, but each person has their own preferences. I never had a Blu-ray player and I probably never will.
I have a Blu Ray drive in my PC.
And a PS3.
Beyond that, no dedicated Blu Ray player. I rarely use the PS3 for anything anymore.. And I use the BR drive in the PC mainly to Rip the BR into my own library.
I purchase BR, Just not sure when the last time I actually played a BR disk.. It just goes straight to my iTunes Library, either Rip it or from an iTunes Digital Copy.
Save Power Mode? Most typing and text modes on MBPros are great now.
I wonder if we will be able to chop the resolution back to the existing MBPro pixel density to save power in some way.
I realize we still have to power all those pixels, but there would not be a high GPU load, except when you actually want to do high res graphics or video.
It will be interesting to see what comes out.
But. But. Aren’t mbp’s usually connected to the mains supply anyway and ony run on battery when travelling?
will it have multitouch?
how many of you are reaching to your laptop screen..?
i know i am..
esp with a stylus, just tap the screen, etc…
“will it have multitouch?”
Depends on where you put it. I just don’t see doing it on the main screen, because it forces you to keep the laptop too close to you and keep your hand raised which is tiring.
I have been predicting that the touch pad could easily go to a touch LCD screen to use to accomplish various operations, maybe after it is activated with the likes of the Fn key.
A 2nd alternative is an LCD touch pad that spans the entire palm pad & touch pad areas below the keyboard.
Exactly. When you’re playing a movie for example the whole front bit, past the keyboard is a touch screen and displays big play, fforward buttons etc. I’m sure ther’d be other uses just can’t think right now. Think of it as a mini second monitor, maybe tool palettes in say photoshop or whatever could sit there while you work on the main window on the big screen.
Yes! I reach for the laptop screen! And, no, no one is going to hold their hand in the air to use it! Naysayers are wrong. A MBP touchscreen would be for occasional supplemental use, not the main input source. People seem to think it would be one or the other and their arm gets tired thinking about it. But that would not be the case at all. Don’t know whether it will be there, but I would like to see it.
So when is a new MBP being released? I’m saving up and don’t want to wait too long.
My guess is in April. Either that or June/July when Mountain Lion comes out.
The form factor will be interesting. Will HD or flash memory be available? Leaving out the optical makes more space for battery. Adding flash will provide more space but the Airs cost an extra $300 for 128GB. For MBP to use flash they would need at least 500GB to match the current specs.
I’m holding out for Sea Lion.
Some people seem to think they can save battery power by not engaging HiDPI mode. I don’t think this is so, because the new iPad’s major power consumption is not so much in driving the new display but for the additional LEDs used in the backlight. The retina display in the iPad needs much higher intensity backlight since it lets much less light through each pixel. I would think the HiDPI display would have the same requirements.
what about a NON-GLOSSY retina display for the MBPs?
Whoa…! That’s brilliant. After Mountain Lion will be Sea Lion. The Mac OS naming theme transitions smoothly from big cats to big ocean creatures (which has other cool choices like Orca, Octopus, Shark, Stingray, Dolphin, etc.)
No Retina for MPB for the nearest future. Even for smaller screen like in MBA 13″ it is not possible yet, since current process to produce Retina display would require like 70% bigger battery.
MBP have much larger 17″ screens which makes the problem even more severe. Besides the fact that the screens need to achieve 3840 x 2400 resolution, it will also need much heavier battery.
IGZO process would allow significantly ease battery problem, but it is not ready for mass production yet, and even with that this super resolution is yet to be achieved.
I can’t help thinking that the inclusion of an optical drive will prove more useful than a retina display!
Whatever Apple does is fine with me. Pass the aid, cool kind, that is!
Will that make my 700megs avi collection look better or worse?