“Yep, the MacBook Pro is getting old: on that pretty much everyone can agree. The design seems almost frozen in time at this point,” Brooke Crothers writes for Forbes. “Over the last week, I’ve been talking on and off with Daniel Matte, an analyst at market researcher Canalys. It’s been widely reported that the new high-performance MacBook will be thinner, lighter, and have a touch panel that replaces the physical function keys (that run along the top of the keyboard). A Touch ID button is also expected (possibly where the power button is now on the 12-inch MacBook), according to Matte. And combination USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports too. ‘And obviously they can bring some combination of the improvements they brought for the 12-inch MacBook like the new butterfly keyboard switches,’ Matte said.”
“But what about the internals? AMD? More than any other MacBook, the MBP’s silicon is the defining feature. ‘It seems clear that [Apple] was waiting for AMD’s new Polaris 11-based GPU,’ Matte said,” Crothers writes. “And Intel? Which Intel processor would the 2016 MBP use? ‘Kaby Lake seems like a fair possibility for the CPU,’ according to Matte.”
“Why the MacBook Pro redesign delays? One theory is that Apple has been holding back on the MBP overhaul because of the dedicated graphics (traditionally used in the larger 15.4-inch model). Until recently, smartphones have been getting priority on 14 nanometer silicon, forcing the graphics guys to wait,” Crothers writes. “Essentially Apple and Qualcomm were taking up much of the 14 nanometer foundry capacity for smartphones. ‘The iPhone is delaying the Macs in other words,’ Matte said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The long wait is almost over, Mac users!
That’s an interesting theory. Probably not the only reason, but it’s one premise that I have heard before.
I was with him up to the point of waiting for the new Polaris GPU, but after that the reasoning gets weird.
PRO should connote upgradibility. Touch = first thing to break.
For Apple’s bottom line I think it connotes “most expensive option”, not much more.
Dammit they need to hurry the hell up. My 2010 iMac is starting to have graphic card issues and I damn sure don’t want to pay 3k for 2 year old tech. stop your teasing and start your pleasing!
One would think Apple can walk and chew gum at the same time. The new Macs need better graphics than Intel Vampire Video, need to allow for user upgradeable memory and a much better performance to price ratio.
While my Mac Pro Tower was off getting a new power supply I tried using both a Mac mini AND a MacBook Pro – both current generation- to do together the stuff I usually do on one Quad Core 2010 era Mac Pro without breaking a sweat. It was not pretty.
The fact that two Core i5 current generation Macs could not keep up with what an entry level Mac Pro sold 6 years ago and do not blame the SSD/HD as both were connected to ProBoxes using standard HDs on a USB 3 connection.
Transcoding EyeTV output to h264 mp4 files with no other apps running ran 14-18 FPS conversion with HandBrake and a little faster with ElGato Turbo264 on either the Mac mini or the MacBook Pro and the MBP was running the cooling fan like a jetliner in a nice 72 Degree home office.
The Mac Pro can do the same conversion 3-4 times faster while simultaneously running multiple apps – including Parallels workstation with Windows 7 and live HD TV running via EyeTV and not breaking a sweat. Try that with your 5k iMac.
Somebody at Apple needs to be worrying less about Facebook integration and animated text messages and clean up the code- and performance- of the OSX software. They need to stop wasting time trying to seal up boxes and upgrade the hardware they are overcharging customers for.
There will bew new hardweare when Apple releases hardware. Then you will see what features it has.
All other stuff is just speculation and bullshit.
If the hardware isn’t shipping in time for September school/uni semesters then something is really wrong here.