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Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

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261–270 of 351 posts

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure they're done with the touch bar

Are there any rumors about that? That's the only change that my next laptop isn't a ThinkPad

They released a new keyboard with TouchID and no TouchBar. IMO, that means the TB is dead. Otherwise, it's a niche item that no one will ever make full use of.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s goal is to have every portable computer work like an iPhone: you charge it overnight, then unplug it and use it unwired for a full day. This is why the charging port on the mouse is on the bottom, for instance. They never quite got their Intel laptops there, though. (Especially running MS Teams, Slack, and Chrome!) It’s kind of funny that, now that they can make a laptop that really does last all day on one c…

> They never quite got their Intel laptops there, though. Man is that an understatement. My work MBP - a 16" i9 - may as well be a desktop.

I bet that's true for most laptops regardless of whether it's got the battery life or not.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#263

> Apple plans to launch the redesigned MacBook Pros in 14-inch and 16-inch screen sizes. They’ll have a redesigned chassis, magnetic MagSafe charger and more ports for connecting external drives and devices. Apple is also bringing back the HDMI port and SD card slot, which it nixed in previous versions, sparking criticism from photographers and the like. Even if they continue to force the anti-feature that is the Tou…

Is Apple even going to refresh any of its Mac products with Intel CPUs at this point? When they first announced the transition last year, it was implied that some products will still get refreshed during the 2-year transition period. But based on this article and common sense, there is minimal incentive to do an Intel refresh. Refreshing both discourages buying of Apple silicon-powered Macs and lessens the performanc…

After using M1 for some time I don't really want any Intel machine any more.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#264

How should one reconcile bloomberg saying "Redesigned MacBook Pros are expected to debut as soon as early this summer" and everyone else saying that they're being pushed back until next year?

With rumors it’s generally better to trust sources like Bloomberg, especially if they have newer information. Other rumors seem to indicate that the machines may launch but be supply-constrained.

I remember what happened the last time Bloomberg published rumors though.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#265
post #134

As someone who planned to buy the new MacPro since the first rumors and only skipped it when I learned how much the prices had risen compared to its predecessor - and the entry level 8core Xeon wasn't that impressive either - I am so ready to finally upgrade my aged iMac. The 4+4 core M1 already gets glowing reviews, it will be very impressive with 16+4 or even 32+8 cores. I like those rumors very much!

I bought a 10-core iMac Pro, and it's a screamer - super-fast and super-reliable even after 16+ hours of use a day. So I don't regret that choice, even if it was the most expensive computer I've ever bought. A 32+8 core M1 for a less insane price sounds like an easy upgrade choice. The lingering question is memory. 16GB won't be enough.

> super-fast and super-reliable even after 16+ hours of use a day.

What does the time have to do with it? It's not like a car with moving parts.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#266

I've been waiting for a 16-inch M1 MacBook Pro to come out. I've been delaying my work upgrade for it. I'm curious what the I/O situation will be. Will it be able to output to two 4k screens or not. The 13-inch cannot, so I'm not holding my breath.

An 8k TV is not that expensive. They are coming soon.

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-65-inch-Class-Q800T-Built/dp/...

The port standards to support 8k exist already. As do the cables.

And the super-high DPI is basically only useful to people sitting close to them... which is what someone doing MBP work will be doing.

2x4k would be a cop-out. I'd say 1x8k + 2x4k should be what an MBP should support.

You know, if it does mean "professional".

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#268

> Apple plans to launch the redesigned MacBook Pros in 14-inch and 16-inch screen sizes. They’ll have a redesigned chassis, magnetic MagSafe charger and more ports for connecting external drives and devices. Apple is also bringing back the HDMI port and SD card slot, which it nixed in previous versions, sparking criticism from photographers and the like. Even if they continue to force the anti-feature that is the Tou…

> Even if they continue to force the anti-feature that is the Touch Bar onto users

For what it's worth, once I got the physical escape key back, I've come to really like the Touch Bar.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a bit weird to me. Many programs are hard to multithread but I'd expect that if any given program can make effective use of 8 threads it can probably keep scaling to 16 and 32. The hard part is getting from 1 to 2 and 2 to 4. So I'd expect that in most cases having more than 8 high performance cores doesn't make that much sense.

> it can probably keep scaling to 16 and 32 Bad assumption. It's pretty difficult to write a multithreaded program that scales up to 32 cores. You have to carefully avoid all sources of process-wide contention. The only cases where it is easy to just keep adding cores are where the units of independent work are overwhelmingly large compared to everything else, like video compression.

Even then, there’s the contention on memory access. If one of those easily paralleled tasks uses x% of your memory bandwidth, having more than 100/x CPUs won’t help.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#270

I've been waiting for a 16-inch M1 MacBook Pro to come out. I've been delaying my work upgrade for it. I'm curious what the I/O situation will be. Will it be able to output to two 4k screens or not. The 13-inch cannot, so I'm not holding my breath.

I'm curious why the 13" MBP can't drive two 4K monitors? Any insight into this limitation?
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