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Apple Hardware

Apple To Launch Thinner, Lighter MacBook Pro Models With OLED Touch Bar, Touch ID In Fall (9to5mac.com) 238

Posted by msmash from the pretty-high-for-crazy-laptops dept.
Apple plans to refresh its MacBook Pro line later this year. The makeover will see both 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models replace their function keys atop laptop keyboards with an OLED touch bar, according to a report. Both the models will also have Touch ID fingerprint sensor, and will support Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port, multiple outlets are reporting citing ever-so-reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The refreshed MacBook Pro model will be thinner and lighter as well. There's no word on if -- and when -- the MacBook Air lineup will receive a refresh.
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Apple To Launch Thinner, Lighter MacBook Pro Models With OLED Touch Bar, Touch ID In Fall More

Apple To Launch Thinner, Lighter MacBook Pro Models With OLED Touch Bar, Touch ID In Fall

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  • Thinner and lighter... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @09:14AM (#52170933)

    This is still the main marketing touch point?

    I am starting to believe all the "Apple is starting to stagnate" hype...

    Apple, I think it's time to reformulate the sales pitch...

    • Apple really is stagnating. Watch the 2014 Keynote when they introduce the "new" Mac mini. The hype and bullet points [wordpress.com] are misleading.

      They wrote "PCIe-based flash storage" as if that was the default setup but they're still putting slow 5400 RPM in their computers, the flash storage is optional in all models. I would have been happier to see even only 120GB flash storage in the low-end rather than a slow 5400 RPM hard drive.

      The fact that the low-end model is only 1.4GHz and that RAM is soldered on-board means

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by NMBob ( 772954 )
        I have 4TB of slow hard drives IN my 2012 mini. Doesn't affect what I use it for in the least. Cost was about $200. When SSDs can beat that I'll switch.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Rob Y. ( 110975 )

        The whole laptop market is 'stagnating' in the sense that most of current laptop users don't really need traditional laptops at all. No incremental features or hardware bumps are going to make most laptop users go out and buy a new one - when all most of them need is a Chromebook. Companies tied to Windows, will keep buying replacement laptops for a while, I suppose. And those who are not tied to Windows might buy Macbook Airs as party favors for their 'high-status' employees - but for the most part, if

    • Reminds me of Ericssons mobile phones back in 2000. They won the race against Nokia to make them the smallest in the world, but they lost to Nokia in usability. Wasn't that partly why Ericsson died?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

      As a MacBook Pro users all I can say is NO NO NO.
      Make MacBook Pro with at least one M.2 slot and user upgradeable ram!
      The price of ram and SSDs keep dropping! It is insane to lot let you upgrade them after purchase on a "professional" machine.

  • Apple is copying...Lenovo? (Score:5, Informative)

    by blackomegax ( 807080 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @09:16AM (#52170943) Journal
    Lenovo tried getting rid of F-keys with a touch bar in the X1. It failed SPECTACULARLY. I suspect the same will happen to Apple here. Professionals use F-keys. A lot. and not being able to touch type them is a glorious, horrible, pain in the ASS.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

      I very rarely use any function keys except for the 3 volume controls. Certainly nothing I have to touch type. I suspect you don't use Mac OS X.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        I very rarely use any function keys except for the 3 volume controls. Certainly nothing I have to touch type. I suspect you don't use Mac OS X.

        I use a Macbook Pro and I DO use the function keys .. albeit when I am either running windows VMs (which I commonly do) or when remoted into a windows computer.

        Perhaps for pure OS X usage they are underused, but for a professional user they are a required tool.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

          My Macbook Pro is a company laptop. I use it for work. That would make me a professional user.

          There's a reason why the function keys default to not acting as function keys (changeable in System Preferences).

        • Perhaps for pure OS X usage they are underused, but for a professional user they are a required tool.

          So... what you are saying is, there are no professional users that use OS X only?

          (I hardly ever use the functions keys.)

      • I very rarely use any function keys except for the 3 volume controls. Certainly nothing I have to touch type. I suspect you don't use Mac OS X.

        I use OS X, and I use the function keys a lot. Enough that I've toggled the setting so their normal behavior is as function keys and I have to hold the "Fn" key to get them to act as volume controls, light controls, etc.

        • I agree with this. I use the the function keys as function keys and have it toggled as needing the Fn key for volume/brightness/etc. I have almost all of the Function keys mapped to things in Emacs...

          That said... I wouldn't mind replacing the Function keys with a touch sensitive OLED strip. It would let me put my own icons there to represent what I want those "keys" to do.... it could even allow them to change depending on the application. Sounds pretty cool to me.

        • I use OS X, and I use the function keys a lot.

          What for? Just curious.

    • Re:Apple is copying...Lenovo? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ColdWetDog ( 752185 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @09:26AM (#52171015) Homepage

      This isn't about professionals. Apple missed that boat awhile back. Professionals need a decent keyboard. Ooops. Professionals need computing horsepower. Not quite oops but certainly nothing high end about the presumed stats. And don't talk to me about soldering RAM on the motherboard.

      Professionals need ports. More than one or two. Dongles are for dorks. Professionals need batteries. Professionals need screens that do not double as a mirror. Nor do they need 3D touch or the latest silly gizmo thingy that Apple dreamed up.

      Professionals DON'T need super thin. Professionals are strong. They can cart around a few extra ounces. Triple shot 16 oz mochas go a long way. As long as they can get their work done, we're happy. Professionals actually need a decent graphics system.

      And for the love of God, bring back the 17 inch MacBook Pro.

      Gotta go. Nurse says its time for morning meds.

      • Professionals DON'T need super thin. Professionals are strong. They can cart around a few extra ounces.

        Depends on whether professionals have a bad back or not. I don't give a crap about thinness, but weight really really matters to me. That's why I kept on using my eee 900 for serious stuff on the road for long past a reasonable amount of time. It was robust and very, very light (including the PSU) and I could cope with the slow speed.

      • I agree with everything you've said. My 17-inch MBP is almost 10 years old and I refuse to replace it with the newer models that have a smaller screen, fewer ports, and no ability to upgrade the memory, storage, or battery. Apple should rename the MBP because there's almost nothing "Pro" about it anymore - it's barely even "Prosumer".

      • This isn't about professionals. Apple missed that boat awhile back. Professionals need a decent keyboard. Ooops.

        You mean the Apple specific keyboard layout? Been using that and PC keyboards for years, rarely have any problems switching.

        Professionals need computing horsepower. Not quite oops but certainly nothing high end about the presumed stats.

        On your local box? For what? Graphics programming? Game programming? Photoshop Work? Only the last one would make any sense to me, no serious developer develops games for the Mac because. For any other kind of development I have plenty of horsepower on the development machines I use but I'd still like better graphics performance on the Mac so I'll echo any criticism of Apple's graphics

        • Some of us actually do Photoshop / Premiere / Maya / etc on MBPs (they're 'professional' programs to be run on 'professional' hardware). Not all of existence is programming....

          Of course, Apple apparently thinks more like you than like myself. I suspect they're just waiting for my generation to die off or at least degenerate into iPad users and then ... world domination.

          Or something like that.

          Kids these days.

        • why not just buy a machine with proper RAM right off the bat?

          Let's look, first, at the last line of MacBook Pro to have user-serviceable RAM. It shipped with 8GB in its highest configuration, that was the most you could buy with it, period. Need more? Get fucked, Apply says you can only have 8GB. Though, if you had a brain, you could buy the 2GB model and a couple of 8GB SODIMMs and BAM 16GB, and it'd work (my 2011 17" MBP still does in that configuration).

          No big deal, because you can upgrade it after purchase and get more than Apple would have been willing to sell

        • > For what? Graphics programming? Game programming? Photoshop Work?

          [x] Graphics
          [x] Game Programming
          [x] Photoshop Work

          Check, check, and check.

          My day job is WebGL and a MBP is my main dev machine. For anything non-trivial I'll prefer to develop shaders with OSX instead of Windows.

          > Only the last one would make any sense to me, no serious developer develops games for the Mac because.

          You don't know what the fuck you are talking about W.R.T. game dev.

          Look, just because you don't do these things doesn't i

        • > If I want a weight lifting exercise I'll go to the gym. In
          > the mean time I'll take my computers in the smallest
          > format I can get.

          ^^^ This. So very much this.

          I hate, Hate, HATE "desktop replacement" laptops. Even the 13" Retina MBP is just too damn big and too damn heavy. I have a nice, beefy, multi-monitor, stationary, desktop for primary productivity. Laptops are for mobility. My 11" MacBook Air is easily the best laptop I've ever used. All but silent, small enough to be usable in the ai

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by berj ( 754323 )

        I think your definition of professional is different than mine.

        I write software every day on my MBP. It's got a ton of ports and the battery lasts me more than an entire working day. The keyboard is *fantastic*. I used to have a ton of RSI problems with all of the typing I do. I tried many different keyboards over the last 20 years (ergonomic/split keyboards included). It wasn't until I started using the thin aluminum mac keyboards that all of my wrist and finger pain went away for good. The current MB

        • I don't agree with you. The super-thin Macbook keyboard is unusable for long text entry like documents, articles, and code.
          The current macbook pro keyboards are about as small a key travel as you can go for adequate tactile feedback.

          If Apple replicates the Macbook keyboard to the pro, I would have to seriously look around for what my next serious work computer would be. I really don't want to leave MacOSX and other Apple hardware design features, but they might force me.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by friedmud ( 512466 )

          Completely agree with your entire post.

          I'm a professional developing high-performance, scientific simulation software. My entire development team (which is about 50 scientists) all use 15" MBPs and MacPro desktops... all backed by large linux clusters for the heavy lifting.

          MBPs are just the perfect mix of power and portability.

          As long as they keep battery life about the same I would love for mine to be thinner and lighter. We travel a lot for conferences and meetings and any weight savings is always a ble

      • Well said! Couldn't have said it better myself.

        I picked up a MBP Mid 2014. I wouldn't a single thing except to swap out the GPU from the nVidia 750M for a nVidia 1050M. Leave the dam ports alone!

      • are we talking about the same professional? [wikipedia.org]

      • Gotta go. Nurse says its time for morning meds.

        Tell her to tell the doctor that the dosage needs increased.

        Sorry. Really I am. Couldn't resist...

    • Depends on exactly what it means. On laptops, the F1-F12 keys along the top are doubled up in function with laptop adjustments like sleep, screen brightness, volume up/down, etc. You access these alternative functions by pushing the F1-F12 while holding the Fn button down. (Some laptops even reverse this, with the laptop functions primary, and you have to hold down Fn to use the F1-F12 keys. A real PITA even for web browsing since most browsers use F3 for "find next" after a search.)

      If they're going

      • (Some laptops even reverse this, with the laptop functions primary, and you have to hold down Fn to use the F1-F12 keys. A real PITA even for web browsing since most browsers use F3 for "find next" after a search.)
        And every laptop I'm aware of has a system setting where you can define what the Fn key is doing.

        If they're going to convert the F1-F12 keys to an OLED touch bar, then yeah that's really stupid.
        Why? The standard keys on that bar from left to right will be F1 - F12, that is a no brainer.

        thus all

      • A real PITA even for web browsing since most browsers use F3 for "find next" after a search.

        Command+G.

    • You missed the part that those keys still exist but are replaced by OLED ones, or if I understand that "stripe" thing correct, a bar going from left to right over the top of the keyboard. In other words: the f-keys are now just more fancy.

      Except for Eve-Online I don't use any function keys. I prefer memorizable keyboard shortcuts.

      I don't think I have used a function key on a PC the last 20 years ... or perhaps 30. And on a Mac: never, except for games like Eve online.

  • Please stop. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lw54 ( 73409 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @09:16AM (#52170951)

    My iphone is warped. Your products are becoming crap. Please stop. Full stop.

    I don't want a thinner laptop but I would like a more tactile keyboard. (sent from my 2015 mac pro)

    • My dream is that an enterpreneur will found a company that makes phones that are NOT thin! In fact, their motto will be "Our phones are indeed fat - and you'll love the gloriously long battery life!"
      And after swallowing a sizable chunk of the market that thirsts for such phones, they could then go on to making thick, somewhat heavy but oh so long-lasting laptops! With full-travel keys, or at least like the ThinkPads of 5 years ago.

      I can dream, can't I.

      • They should make a fat-phone with a removable back.surround (like the OEM LG G3 bumper that was a replacement back with a silicone piece that wrapped the edge) that (1) protects the phone without the need for a "case" and (2) is replacable for abou $10-20 so when you do scuff it up, you can get a brand-new shiny look just by swapping on a new back.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      And more than one port, and RAM sockets, and an upgradable SSD, and half way good sounding speakers... The MacBook Pro seems to be becoming more like a tablet.

      Fortunately there are lots of real "pro" laptops on the market. Many manufacturers do Ultrabooks so unless you really need MacOS there are plenty of better choices.

    • My iphone is warped. Your products are becoming crap. Please stop. Full stop.

      I don't want a thinner laptop but I would like a more tactile keyboard. (sent from my 2015 mac pro)

      If you have a Mac Pro, then the discussion of Keyboard-type is moot. Completely, utterly moot.

      Don't like Apple's keyboard? Then just purchase any one of a zillion other USB keyboards. Done.

      You can even have a replica of what a lot of people around here think of as the "God" of keyboards, the Model M, FFS.

  • Innovation (Score:5, Funny)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @09:19AM (#52170969) Homepage Journal
    And who said innovation was dead? OLED touch bars are what I want!

  • Gimmicky changes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @09:20AM (#52170973)

    Swapping the function keys for a touch bar is gimmicky on a machine that is labeled as "pro". And that is before even getting to the stories of OLED burn in.
    Upgraded ports are always nice, but again on a Pro model you need to have as many as you can cram in.

    But what is obviously missing from TFA is the things that make a computer important: CPU, memory, drive space, screen resolution. None of them get a mention.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chihowa ( 366380 )

      And that is before even getting to the stories of OLED burn in.

      Using OLED really is short-sighted here. OLED, with its burn-in issues, is the absolute worst display tech to use for key and their mostly static images. Backlit e-ink would be a far better choice, unless they're going for full-color, constantly moving key faces (cringe).

      • And that is before even getting to the stories of OLED burn in.

        Using OLED really is short-sighted here. OLED, with its burn-in issues, is the absolute worst display tech to use for key and their mostly static images. Backlit e-ink would be a far better choice, unless they're going for full-color, constantly moving key faces (cringe).

        You can avoid burn-in on OLEDs to a large extent with the "random walk" approach. Plus, if they pick a monochrome OLED (probably won't), there are some OLEDs with very good burn-in and lifespan specs.

        Plus, I would bet they are also thinking of expanding the use of the OLED strip to "Notifications". I am on the fence as to whether that would be more, or less, annoying tha pop-up "bubbles", though.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Why not OLED for the whole screen? (Score:3)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @09:23AM (#52171003)

    Is it still too expensive to make an OLED screen that big?

    • Because OLED suffers fro burn in. Waste of time.
    • I believe OLED has crashed before it could fly. Something about tiles falling off and it catching fire /s

    • They make it for much larger 4k TVs, so I guess it's possible.
      Apple is not a strong backer of OLED however. They still use LCD on their $800 iPhones.

      • They make it for much larger 4k TVs, so I guess it's possible. Apple is not a strong backer of OLED however. They still use LCD on their $800 iPhones.

        But, I believe the Apple Watch is OLED. So they have their toe in that water, and the OLED reps calling on their R&D dept.

  • No wonder Apple is losing money (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hsmith ( 818216 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @09:31AM (#52171071)
    I've been waiting to upgrade my MBP for a year now. It is a 2012 and feeling long in the tooth. Been waiting for a "redesign" - but Q4? Lord.

    • Same exact situation here. My 2012 MBP is still running fine, but I want something with a bit more processing power. Looking at the current lineup of MBPs, I just can't fathom spending so much money on such a limited machine. All the MBP models have tiny little hard drives and tiny little batteries and will get lost in a bookbag they're so thin. I just need a decent laptop with decent battery life that has a 1TB hd and some computing power. I guess I could buy the low-end MBP and upgrade it myself for far l

  • Zero innovation (Score:3)

    by cachimaster ( 127194 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @09:31AM (#52171075)

    The last time Apple innovated was with the iphone, in 2007. It basically have the same product line for 10 years straight.

    Meanwhile, Lenovo and Dell keep throwing out freak notebook after notebook, with the hope that some design sticks, and some actually do (Yoga, Hybrid tablets, rugged notebooks, etc.)

  • Nobody wants thinner and lighter. (Score:3)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @09:35AM (#52171103) Homepage

    We want Fatter with multi day batter and 17 freaking inches in size with a retina display.. The fact that used 17" MBP laptops are going UP in value are a fantastic indicator of this. It's the only peice of electronics outside of an Apple -I that gains in value almost daily.

    Give us a workstation 17" that is fat as the 2012 MBP that allows the installation of 2-3 .2 SSD drives and the option to install metric buttloads of ram.

    Dammit Apple, people will pay $2500-$3000 for that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by garcia ( 6573 )

      Did you ever think you may want to rethink how you're doing things if you require 3 SSDs, a 17" screen, and a metric buttload of RAM in your laptop?

      • Some things require real estate. It's one reason I have a pair of 4k monitors and a TB SSD docked to my Surface Pro 4 for doing CAD work (day) and music production (evening). And it would be nice to not have to pay a king's ransom for a bit of extra memory and storage ($1400 for 768GB of SSD and 8GB of memory seems steep, don't you think?).

      • Do you want to know how I know you aren't a developer?
        Screen real estate makes your life MUCH easier.

      • Well, if I still would do C++ then on one SSD would be the headers, on the other the sources, the object files would be written on the third and the linked exec on the second again.
        No idea if that makes sense on SSDs, on rotating SCSI discs that spead up a build from 6 hours on one disk to a little bit more on 2 disks.

        OTOH, the last time I tried to speed an C++ build up, we figured the build time was completely CPU bound and not IO bound. Hard disks and SSDs are just so much faster than 20 years ago.

    • My first G4 17" Mac Book Pro costed far more than that :D
      And yes, for a decent new 17" or bigger I would pa yup to 5k. But decent!

  • Not if I can't upgrade my own laptop. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jethro ( 14165 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @09:36AM (#52171107) Homepage

    I'm writing this on an Early 2011 15" Macbook Pro, which is frankly on it's last legs. In fact, it's at the point where I can't really move it around.

    It would have been pretty unusable years ago, except that this is one of the last Macbook Pros that you could upgrade the RAM and harddrive on. I got this thing with the least amount of RAM and cheapest harddrive I could, and as time went on I added more RAM and an SSD. New lease of life. And that stuff all cost me about $250 rather than the extra > $1000 Apple would have charged.

    I want (and pretty much need) a new laptop, and Apple makes great ones. Yeah, people say "Apple Tax!" a lot, but spec-for-spec, Apple laptops are pretty much equal to other manufacturers and the *usability* is *phenomenally* better. From the UI design to the friggin *trackpad*.

    But if I can't upgrade my own machine... sorry, not happening. And that goes for any other laptop maker.

  • I think Apple is inexorably moving toward products so thin that they can not be seen or used at all. This will be considered the height of elegance. Hipsters and women who don't shave their armpits will line up to buy them.

  • Does marketing actually TALK to humans? (Score:3)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @10:09AM (#52171313)

    It's obvious to me now that the mindless marketing drones at Apple need to spend more time around humans to understand that we can actually carry around a portable device that weighs more than a dog fart. Sorry, but I just don't get the whole lighter and thinner bullshit, especially after Bendgate.

    With all the damn statistics and metrics being captured in this world today, it floors me that companies still feel zero need to actually ASK the damn customer what they would want or even need in a new laptop design. I'm willing to bet exactly no one was demanding or even asking about thinner at this point, and weight is a pathetic metric anyway when everything out there is already been reduced considerably in the last few years. We're humans, not mice.

  • Thinkpad...

  • Apple's war on ports is annoying. There's not enough wireless spectrum for me to transfer files at gigabit speeds in anywhere but the middle of a wheat field.

    • I think that the middle of a corn field would also work.

    • Apple's war on ports is annoying. There's not enough wireless spectrum for me to transfer files at gigabit speeds in anywhere but the middle of a wheat field.

      So plug in that Thunderbolt Ethernet port adapter and enjoy your gigabit speeds. You're just too much of a luddite to realize the true wonderfulness that is Thunderbolt.

      Heck, with Thunderbolt, you can go whole-hog with several brands of third party adapters and easily do 10gig or FibreChannel. Try THAT with an RJ45 GigE on any laptop.

  • I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by erp_consultant ( 2614861 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @11:37AM (#52171935)

    Why is Apple stubbornly staying with soldered memory when users clearly don't like it? Are they not supposed to be the company of great customer service that loves and listens to their community? Not in this case. I can sure see how it benefits Apple to do it that way but Joe Public...not so much.

    Here is my wish list:

    1) Bring back the 17" Macbook Pro. Yes it's big and bulky but I'm willing to put up with that for the extra screen real estate.
    2) Bring back user upgradable memory. If it truly is a Macbook Pro then it should come with 8GB minimum and I should be able to plug in up to 32GB (or maybe even 64) as and when I need it. If the laptop was aimed at home users I could maybe see not wanting them to be able to do this but I'm a professional and I know how to open laptops and upgrade them. I should be able to do this on my own and without a trip to the Genius lab.
    3) Ports - lots of them. Wireless is nice but sometimes I prefer a hardwired network connection. Gimme a network port. I also need a couple of HDMI ports and at least 3 USB ports. Why not throw in a Firewire port too? I know that it's kind of old technology now but a lot of people still have firewire drives and would like to be able to plug them in.
    4) Bootcamp. Why not have the option to have Bootcamp pre-installed if you know you're going to use it? Or maybe a prebuilt virtualized Windows. Yes, some of use would prefer to do it ourselves but others might appreciate the convenience.
    5) I'm tired of the race to the thinnest laptop. I want something with a battery big enough to last the whole day, or more, doing intensive processing. If that adds a half pound or a half inch so be it. This is supposed to be a big boy laptop, not some hipster toy.
    6) 4K display. Could you imagine a 4K display on a sweet 17" laptop with a matte finish? Heaven.

    Until then I'm hanging on to my creaky old 2008 era Macbook Pro.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dbc ( 135354 )

      Well, yes and no. YMMV.

      1) Bring back the 17" Macbook Pro. Yes it's big and bulky but I'm willing to put up with that for the extra screen real estate.

      Not for me, thanks.

      2) Bring back user upgradable memory. If it truly is a Macbook Pro then it should come with 8GB minimum and I should be able to plug in up to 32GB (or maybe even 64) as and when I need it. If the laptop was aimed at home users I could maybe see not wanting them to be able to do this but I'm a professional and I know how to open laptops and upgrade them. I should be able to do this on my own and without a trip to the Genius lab.

      Well, having run the numbers on other products, I know that every connector is a reliability liability. If the memory is soldered in and factory tested, the machine will be more reliable for you, and have fewer warranty issues for Apple. I'm with Apple on this one.

      3) Ports - lots of them. Wireless is nice but sometimes I prefer a hardwired network connection. Gimme a network port. I also need a couple of HDMI ports and at least 3 USB ports. Why not throw in a Firewire port too? I know that it's kind of old technology now but a lot of people still have firewire drives and would like to be able to plug them in.

      Truth.

      4) Bootcamp. Why not have the option to have Bootcamp pre-installed if you know you're going to use it? Or maybe a prebuilt virtualized Windows. Yes, some of use would prefer to do it ourselves but others might appreciate the convenience.

      You have a good idea here, although for my use I want a Linux VM.

      5) I'm tired of the race to the thinnest laptop. I want something with a battery big enough to last the whole day, or more, doing intensive processing. If that adds a half pound or a half inch so be it. This is supposed to be a big boy laptop, not some hipster toy.

      Truth

      6) 4K display. Could you imagine a 4K display on a sweet 17" laptop with a matte finish? Heaven.

      I can imagine it, but I probably wouldn't be able to see the fine detail because my vision just isn't that good any more. But

      • I hear what you're saying about the memory soldering. But I have to say that my 2008 Macbook Pro has been rock solid and I have added memory more than once. so the connectors have not been an issue, at least for me. Besides, how many times would someone add or remove memory? Not more than a few times I would think. My issue with soldering the memory is that once you buy the laptop you cannot upgrade the memory. What happens to the person that cannot spring for the extra money for the memory right then or th

  • I don't know the investments he's trying to rescue (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tlambert ( 566799 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @11:44AM (#52171985)

    I don't know the investments he's trying to rescue... but Ming-Chi Kuo at KGI Securities has been predicting OLED and AMOLED displays for Apple products the last 3 releases, and Apple has not been stupid enough to oblige him with a product containing one.

    Also, I can not see Jony Ive putting a different looking bar at the top where the functions keys normally go, and breaking up the overall design into three zones that end up looking so incredibly different from each other, and certainly, not to draw a display down where it ends up taking up attention from the main display. That just totally violates the design principles he espouses when you talk to him about it.

    But I'm sure a lot of people clicked that link, which I guess is the point...

  • All I really want is a refresh/update to a modern video subsystem. Is that too much to ask?

  • ...wait until the entire keyboard is replaced with touch bars guys!

  • I code for a living, and I love my mac book air to death. I use it mainly as a thin client to connect to servers/build servers to do actual heavy lifting.. and the usual presentation/writing work for which this is more than enough. This is connected to an external keyboard and display.
    The battery lasts for around 6 hours, which is good enough to last a conference. I would rather have a thin *nix machine than a heavy one. If you'd rather have a heavy box that you don't want to move, get a desktop.

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