Rumor: Apple's next 15" laptop refresh will be Air-like
Considering the extraordinary success of the MacBook Air in its previous and current refreshes, it doesn't take a particularly accurate crystal ball to predict where the overall laptop lineup is headed. Apple's buying power in NAND flash memory helps it deliver SSDs in portable machines at lower component costs than the competition, and the pure sexy factor of leaner, lighter (yet still powerful) notebooks is winning converts to the platform.
MacRumors believes a 15" ultra-thin Mac laptop is in the late testing stages at Apple, although the post doesn't nail down whether this beastie would be considered part of the Air or Pro lines. Likely as not, the larger laptop would skip the optical drive in favor of slimmer lines and longer battery life.
This 15" Air-esque rumor corresponds pretty well with what we're hearing, but with a few additional tidbits: chances are these will be the next MacBook Pros, not oversized Airs. There's also a 17" model in the works. And we might see them under Christmas trees, with a few weeks to spare.
If Apple can control costs on the SSD front and deliver Pro performance in a lean package (hopefully with a relatively full suite of ports, or a Thunderbolt breakout dongle), the Air-like Pro would be quite compelling.
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This 15" Air-esque rumor corresponds pretty well with what we're hearing, but with a few additional tidbits.
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I hope they don't do away with the HD option. Even the largest SSD is still smaller than the HD that I just got for my brand new MacBook Pro, and for all the virtues of SSD, I really don't want to have to sacrifice storage space on my next refresh, especially when the reason my previous MacBook was running slow was because my HD was too small.
July 27 2011 at 9:41 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWith no optical drive, I think they can fit in both an SSD drive and an old-school rotating HDD, at least in the 15" and 17" models. If Apple is going to label these "Pro" and not "Air", they won't make them less powerful or with less storage capacity than existing models, for sure.
July 30 2011 at 12:36 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThis seems like a reasonable goal but I wonder how attainable it actually is. I would definitely support the removal of the optical drive to be replaced by more battery but I confess that I'd worry about whether the Pro performance can be maintained in an even thinner package without generating too much heat. The MacBook Air is great but you wouldn't want to use it as your main computer for doing processor- or GPU-intensive work, and I believe the restriction is based on the heat that would be generated by faster processors. As it is, the current MacBook Pros aren't exactly behemoths so I'm not sure how important making them thinner is really going to be whilst still maintaining the current screen size.
An SSD as standard for the OS would be welcome - I swear that is what makes the Air so tolerable even with relatively slow processors.
This rumor has been floating for like 3 or 4 iterations of MBP.
and I REALLY hope they take out the optical drive. and make it smaller - but still more powerful - im hoping that the iMac 2011 is the last iMac I will ever get.
That MBP in the future will have enough GPU for my gaming demands - because the possibility to grab that MBP and go to a friends place is just appealing to me- but for now i went for the more powerful iMac.
Seriously these days i was thinking getting an Macbook AIR, I own an 15 macbook pro, selling or trading my macbook pro to macbook air 13 inch, unfortunately i don't like small screen like 11 or 13, at least 15 or 17.
I said let 's wait maybe before the end of this year apple will refresh the macbook pros, thinner and lighter or they will make a 15 and 17 Macbook air, wowww my dream comes true!
I hate the size & weight of the 15" MacBook Pro, and I *DON'T want a built-in optical drive. I'd rather have an external optical drive that I can leave home when I don't need it. Last year I switched from the 15" to a 13" Late 2010 MacBook Air, which I'm using as my primary development system. I really need 8GB of RAM & more than 256GB of storage. The 13" MBPro seems ideal, but it still feels too big & heavy, and I'd rather have a SSD as a secondary drive instead of the SuperDrive. I'm disappointed with the new Air since it's still limited to 4GB/256GB, or I would upgrade.
July 26 2011 at 8:30 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down ReplyI fully expect Apple to offer a 15-inch version of the MacBook Air sooner or later. I also think Apple will call it a MacBook Air, because of the lack of a discrete video card more than the lack of an optical drive. (I'm suprised at the number of comments I've seen in the last week saying that optical isn't dead, and how much those comments sound like the comments ten years ago saying that the floppy wasn't dead.)
The MacBook Air made a big jump in power with the latest revision. It made me take a hard look at it because its power starts to make it worth the purchase price. But I don't want a 13-inch (or 11-inch) laptop. For me, it's 15-inch (or maybe 16-inch), or nothing.
Last year at work I was issued a new 15-inch MacBook Pro. I can tell you that I've never used the optical drive, and I'm sure that when the IT department put software on it, an external drive would have been fine. The only time the fan gets loud is when Flash kicks in. The majority of my work happens in BBEdit, Cyberduck, Chrome, and Terminal. A lightweight machine that can run those applications but still has a 15-inch monitor is the sweet spot.
The difference between the floppy and the optical drive is that the optical drive still has a very long life ahead of it. When Apple started dropping the floppy, there was absolutely no use for it. By that point it was only good for storing a couple text documents, even the smallest internet download was bound to be more than 1mb. people were angry because there was no real format to replace it (other than certain minor competitors like ZIP), but no one thought that the floppy was the best solution to the problem. Today most USB "jump drives" still hold less data than a good old fashioned DVD-ROM (Blu-Ray discs can hold as much as a "cheap" SSD), and while some people may be able to afford that newfangled 100mbps internet connection I've been hearing about, for most people it still takes way too long to download large files. Not to mention the fact that I'm not about to buy every single movie I already own again through itunes, only to be incapable of playing it on any non-Apple device.
Now, I'm fine with Apple making optical drives optional. In fact, I hope they do do that soon. There are many people who only use it once a year and wouldn't miss it, and would prefer to fill the space with another battery or hard drive. But if they completely remove optical drives it will mark the end of "Apple Computer" and the beginning of "Apple Gadgets". I think Apple should really consider splitting into two companies (or, rather, two brands): one which makes real computers for people who actually want to use them, and one that makes sleek, light, underpowered machines for people who want to check their Facebook while spending as much money as possible.
And really, what kind of wimp can't handle a five pound computer? My old 17" PowerBook G4 almost seems too light at times, and I never even notice the extra weight when I carry it in a bag or backpack. Every day each of us lugs around more computing power than the entire world had when humans first landed on the moon, and yet people are complaining that it is too heavy during the five seconds between removing it from a backpack and setting it on a table.
Jones
I'm kind of worried that an even thinner enclosure could prevent the use of a non-LV full-fledge quad core chip AND a decent GPU; MBPs already tend to get toasty after a while due to heat building up in that sub-1 inch case.
July 26 2011 at 7:09 PM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate down ReplyThere are two sorts of people who buy Macbook Pros: there are genuine Pro users who do graphic design and video editing and stuff like that, and there are people whose requirements are more along the lines of web and office applications, and management of personal photograph and video collections and the like. The first category of people buy the 15 and 17 inch Macbook Pros, and need the fast CPUs and graphics hardware to get their work done. They probably also do need optical drives. The 13 inch Macbook Pro is aimed at the second category of people, as it really lacks the power that the first category need. (Remember the 13 inch aluminium unibody machine was initially branded as a Macbook, not a Macbook Pro). However, lots of people in the second category also buy 15 and 17 inch Macbook Pros, particularly if they are the sorts of people who use a laptop mostly at home and appreciate a large screen.
There is quite a bit to be said for providing different 15 inch machines for the two markets. Replacing the 15 inch Macbook Pro with a thinner and lighter machine with no optical drive, less CPU power, and inferior graphics will piss off the Pro users, but it will make the non-Pro users happy. So the question is whether you sell it as a replacement or as an additional machine. Apple doesn't seem to mind pissing off the Pro users a bit lately though.
But how about a thinner and lighter machine with no optical drive, the SAME or better CPU power, and the same or better graphics, plus better battery life? That would only piss off the Luddites who still depend on reading and writing to big honkin' plastic discs that hold less than 8 GB of data each. For the pro users who occasionally need to communicate with Luddites using big honkin' discs, there will be an optional external drive.
July 27 2011 at 6:25 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI fear that Apple no longer cares about its professional users – witness the infamous Final Cut Pro debacle... So axing hard drives altogether strikes me as quite possible.
July 28 2011 at 2:39 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThe purpose of the MacBook Air is not power; it is portability. Therefore what is needed is not a heavier and larger MacBook Air, but a lighter and smaller one! For power, just get a MacBook Pro.
July 26 2011 at 6:37 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down ReplyWow, not sure your logic works there. So the only purpose of the Air is portability? The new ones seems pretty darn powerful to me. If you didn't care about power, you'd get a nice looking netbook. Why can't the MacBook Pro be more portable? If you REALLY don't care about portability then why would you get a laptop at all? For power, just get a Mac Pro. (see what I did there?)
July 26 2011 at 6:45 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyIs this a comment from 2010? I strongly advise you check out the latest MacBook Air benchmarks. They piss all over last year's MacBook Pros - the performance of these news models is outstanding.
The MacBook Pro seems bulky, cumbersome and outdated now. I can see Apple dropping the 'Pro' and 'Air' suffixes in the next year or two and having a line up not too dissimilar to the current Airs, marketed simply as 'MacBook'.
Stupid comment. You're comparing a very recently updated, ultraportable laptop (that, as a matter of fact, IS built for portability first and foremost) with an older, much more equipped Pro-oriented machine. Even a child would know enough to assume that newer models would outperform older models, that's the way of technology, especially when one model has solid state drives (as a much lower capacity, again more for portability purposes than sheer power alone). Just because the new Airs have specs that outperform many aspects of the older Pros does not make them better. For starters, Pros have far more ports, greater hard drive capacity, and a better screen for media/design work (which is the kind of stuff the Pro machines are truly intended for).
You are looking at this from only one angle, and it is misleading. The MacBook Pros seem outdated to you now? That's because they ARE outdated. And because of this, among other things, comparisons are not so simple to make.
As for the topic at hand, making the Pro models lighter and putting SSDs in them is a good thing, but only if those SSDs come at comparable capacity to the standard HDDs they ship with now, and also only if that reduction in size sacrifices no connectivity capability (for me and many other Pro users, that includes optical drives, something I use on a daily basis and something that I refuse to pay extra for just to have to tote around with me and hog a USB port with. I have lots of devices that need ports and power and luggage space, an optical drive should absolutely not be one of them. But that's just me.)
@Greg Peterson,
It's worth bearing in mind that this is the first MacBook Air refresh that has been significantly faster than a Pro model released just 12 month's before it. Up until now the Air has been focussed on portability - and performance and raw power have suffered as a result, even when compared to Pro models of yesteryear. Not any more - Apple have made a very clear statement with the Air - this laptop means business. Never before has the Air significantly out performed such a recent Pro model.
When I referred to the Pro as bulky and cumbersome, I wasn't just considering performance - of course a refreshed Pro model from *2011* would bring enhanced power, that's just progress. I'm referring to the overall design, weight, and footprint of the machine. I'm sure Apple will (and by the sounds of it already have) figured out a way to substantially slim down the MacBook Pro whilst retaining the features that make it 'Pro' - namely, those additional ports and larger drive capacity.
But Apple's direction is very clear here: they have gone on record as stating the Air is the future of notebooks. For that reason I think it's likely that in the not too distant future Apple will drop the Air/Pro differentiator. I suspect 15" & 17" models will always have the edge when it comes to performance, but now they've figured out how to bring to Air up to Pro performance levels without sacrificing size and weight it's only a matter of time before the MacBook Pro sheds a few pounds (and dare I say it: a few of those dusty old ports too - FireWire, I'm looking at you)
alansky
All I know is that Apple is going to piss of a truckload of Mac users if they pull any of this no DVD drive nonsense with the next MacBook Pro. As much as people complained about the demise of the floppy disc or the SCSI port, replacements for these technologies were in place. Not so with the optical disc drive. The internet is nowhere near ready for the inconceivably huge demand for bandwidth that would be created by the demise of the disc drive. ISP's can't even handle current demand. They're already adding data caps to their subscribers' accounts. Without DVD's, the demand for bandwidth would far exceed any ISP's ability to deliver.
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