“Apple’s hardware engineering strengths might just provide a boost to sluggish Mac and iPad sales in the coming months,” Eric Jhonsa writes for TheStreet.
“On Thursday morning, Apple announced an anticipated refresh for MacBook Pro models with Touch Bars. Getting the most attention: Apple is swapping out the 7th-generation Intel processors (based on Intel’s Kaby Lake architecture) that it began placing within MacBook Pros in June 2017 with 8th-gen chips based on Intel’s Coffee Lake architecture,” Jhonsa writes. “With the Coffee Lake CPUs both featuring higher core counts and delivering architectural improvements relative to their predecessors, Apple claims performance gains of up to 70% are possible for its 15-inch MacBook Pros with Touch Bars ($2,399 starting price), and gains of up to 100% for the 13-inch models ($1,799 starting price).”
“Regarding the iPad Pro, [analyst Ming-Chi Kuo] (like Bloomberg) predicts Apple will launch Face ID-capable tablets featuring no home button later this year. Just as the iPhone X’s lack of a home button and edge-to-edge display allow it to have a smaller form factor than the iPhone 8-Plus in spite of having a slightly larger display (5.8 inches versus 5.5 inches), Apple could make Face ID-capable iPad Pros that are meaningfully smaller than its current 12.9-inch and 10.5-inch Pro models, without sacrificing display size.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: New iPad Pro units freed of the antiquated, staccato-inducing Home button and much more capable MacBook Pro models should all move off the store shelves quite nicely, thank you very much!
I am looking forward to a new MacBook to augment an iPad Pro for those occasions when needed. My 2012 MacBook Air is on its last legs (only in terms of Retina display and performance, the damn thing works perfectly). My 2018 Apple purchases will be a new MacBook, and new iPad Pro with Face ID (my current 10.5 inch will go to my wife or a friend). I already purchased three HomePods (a better than expected product) this year. I will likely pass on a new iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch; my iPhone X is near perfect, my SS Series 3 is a thing of beauty, and my AirPods work great. My wife will get a new iPhone X (2018), and a Series 4 Watch. If we are any indication, it will be a good 2nd half of 2018 for Apple.
Not with the current keyboard.
Sorry Apple. Couldn’t wait. Has to go with a ‘gasp’ Dell XPS. Didn’t want to but your constant attitude of ignoring upgrading your Mac line with no real firm date when you might possibly get up to snuff is unacceptable.
Is that your nose I see on the floor?
For the first time in my life, I am contemplating buying a non-Apple laptop – probably the Dell XPS. I can’t risk buying a computer were I cannot rely on the keyboard. I just can’t believe that Apple is charging high prices for computers with known defects.
It just works – should apply to both software and hardware.
– where
I think you are overestimating the keyboard “problem” here, lol. My wife and kids share a first gen retina MacBook…still feels new. I’m surrounded by people at work that carry MacBooks and pros..no issues. If you based buying decisions on reported issues and stories about lawsuits, you’d never buy anything Apple. But history tells us there are always overblown.
This great and all, but why hasn’t Apple utilized Face-ID for the Mac lineup? Microsoft has similar feature on some of their devices, albeit, not as sophisticated as Apple’s Face-ID. Having said that, I’m waiting for a new entry-level MacBook. I don’t need anything special. Just something for home and travel. My iMac is more than sufficient for me not to get a MacBook Pro.
Probably because all the Face-ID units that can be made are being put into iPhones and, hopefully, new iPads.
Come on. I have not read of any flagging sales.
No, but I have read about your flagging dongler
Still no new Mac Pro.
Yeah, I know … but it still has to be said.
Flagging sales???
What the heaven is he talking about???
Flagging sales, these are where you wave flags to alert people you have a massive sale on.
Gartner research suggested that in 2nd Qtr of 2108:
Lenovo shipments increased 10.5% for a 21.9% market share
HP shipments increased 6.1% for a 21.9% market share
Dell shipments increased 9.5% for a 15.6% market share
Apple shipments increased 3.0% for a 7.0% market share
Acer shipments increased 3.1% for a 6.3% market share
others in the consolidating industry are losing ground rapidly
So bottom line, Apple is growing more slowly than the other top5 computer makers, just above the rate of population growth. I would consider that flagging, since Apple has the least penetration of these makers in emerging markets and only a few years ago (pre-Cook) was growing at double digits.
The MacBook refresh may help somewhat, but Apple’s weak Mac product lineup overall, with high prices and poor pace of updates, doesn’t bode well for the future. Consistent product leadership, offering a better product for a reasonable price without stupid fashion compromises, is a challenge that Apple leadership needs to resolve immediately. Otherwise the 7.1% market share that the Mac has today will continue to stagnate. If Apple made it a goal to achieve 40% Mac product share, then software makers would stand up and take notice. As it is, Apple’s visionless caretaker management team is doing a shitty job keeping the Mac platform healthy.
What Apple should do is to come out with that new modular Mac Pro and take and take a page from the Hacintoshes. They should have 2 video slots for Nvidia or Radeon either to add extra monitors or to use the SLI features of the card for editing and/or special effects. And be 5K capable. An upgradeable processor. A provision to upgrade your processor. If the new processor has a different number of pins or if the are a different configuration, Apple should make an adapter to add the processor upgrade. And it should add a PCI slot, maybe 2, incase a third party developer or Apple comes out with a card to add functionality to it. for port on the back it should have 6 USB ports, 2 Gigabit ports and 4 Thunderbolt ports all wit the capability of either for external hard disks or connected into the video channel to the video card if more monitors. In the Settings there will be a control panel to control this feature. And it ALL must be user upgradable so you do not have to wait about a week to have things installer. The processor adapter as well as processors should be available along with video cards. Adapter should run about $50. With this machine it will change everything we known about upgradable PCs and Hackintoshes.
With Bloomberg coming out with an article today about Adobe’s plan to have the full Photoshop on the iPad sometime in 2019, mainly because many of their pro customers are moving to iPads from notebooks, and have been demanding it, we’ll see a surge in iPad Pro sales next year. They intend to get the entire Creative suite on the iPad over time, and are rewriting Illustrator now.
This is a major shift folks!
Major shift in the wrong direction.