Kuo: New MacBook Pro Models to Feature Flat-Edged Design, MagSafe, No Touch Bar and More Ports

[Jet_ski]

The Bloomberg article says “more I/O ports” which reads to me like 4 usb-c thunderbolt ports not other types of ports.

 

I don’t know if the MagSafe will come back in it’s old form. Unless Apple decides to make some sort of MagSafe that the laptop sits on top off, they’ll go with USB-C. If Apple uses a newer version of their M1 chips, the power requirements will be low enough to charge the system with a 100watt USB-C brick.

 

Maybe Apple is feeding people false info to figure out who the leakers are.

 

Kuo told us these systems would be release last year. So I don’t really trust his rumors.

[saltycaramel]

1 minute ago, Jet_ski said:

If Apple uses a newer version of their M1 chips, the power requirements will be low enough to charge the system with a 100watt USB-C brick.

 

This is already true for the Intel 16” MBP, one of the few mobile workstations to work at full speed on a 96W usb-C charger.

[captain_to_fire]

6 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

That's literally the reason. Also Apple Silicon can't run Windows natively. That makes any Apple Silicon Mac out of the question for me. 

Apple said that they can enable Bootcamp on AS Macs only if Microsoft gets to do their part. Also, I wouldn’t see Windows devs rushing to port their programs to ARM64 just yet. 

[n0stalghia]

Won't happen. I don't believe MagSafe is coming back or that the TouchBar is gone.

 

Apple just set up it's whole ecosystem to use USB-C; and the TouchBar functionality is being enhanced every now and then. 

[Sauron]

10 hours ago, hishnash said:

No I think instread the power cable's USB-C male connector that ships with the device will be just a little bit smaller so it does not physically hold in the device, then they will add some magnets in the socket and some magnets on the plastic bulge that merges the connector and the cable and that will be `mag-safe`, eg if you pull on the cable hard enough it will pop out. The downside is you will be unable to use this cable on any other device as it will just fall out very easily without the magnets in place to hold it in.

That doesn't make any sense, why keep the usb-c connector if it's not going to be compatible with other usb-c cables anyway?

[CommanderAlex]

4 hours ago, Amias said:

Oh look guys, 1 person is okay, therefore the millions of other users experiencing problems, overheating and dangerous frayed cables are wrong.

 

Apple has even admitted (so you know it's terrible) the quality issues of their MagSafe chargers. They have class action lawsuits against them for been a terrible dangerous design that overheats.

 

MagSafe design is dangerous, unreliable and overly expensive.

Someone is happy...

[xteron]

I would love the magsafe to return, but I don’t think it will happen. it’s just so unlike Apple to bring it back. In this house all laptops are older macbooks with magsafe. Works on all the different models. It’s awsome, the dog doesn’t destroy the them when she trips over the cord etc. 

 

I have not tried the touchbar yet so cant say anything about it.

[DrMacintosh]

5 hours ago, n0stalghia said:

Won't happen. I don't believe MagSafe is coming back

Why? They just brought it to the iPhone. 

[Commodus]

7 hours ago, Jet_ski said:

The Bloomberg article says “more I/O ports” which reads to me like 4 usb-c thunderbolt ports not other types of ports.

 

I don’t know if the MagSafe will come back in it’s old form. Unless Apple decides to make some sort of MagSafe that the laptop sits on top off, they’ll go with USB-C. If Apple uses a newer version of their M1 chips, the power requirements will be low enough to charge the system with a 100watt USB-C brick.

 

Maybe Apple is feeding people false info to figure out who the leakers are.

 

Kuo told us these systems would be release last year. So I don’t really trust his rumors.

Did Kuo say the high-end MBP models would arrive in 2020? I don't recall as much. That and even accurate supply chain rumors can't rule out delays.

 

I could entirely see MagSafe coming back in a familiar form, just not an exact rehash of what you saw before 2016. Ideally, Apple will have learned what didn't work and refine the system.

[Commodus]

I'll say this: the new MacBook Pro could easily be my next laptop if the Bloomberg and Kuo rumors hold up.

 

The performance of the existing M1 Macs would already be good enough for my needs, but a 14-inch screen, a faster chip and more ports would make it an easier choice. Hell, if Apple brings the new body to entry MBPs, I might get one of those.

[Amias]

6 hours ago, SpiderMan said:

Someone is happy...

I'm sat here typing with a red hot connector trying to charge my laptop, burning my leg, thinking about having to spend another £79 to replace it before it burns my house down.

 

 

[maskmcgee]

You're still using a macbook with magsafe, really doubt you have a house, 

[hishnash]

10 hours ago, Sauron said:

That doesn't make any sense, why keep the usb-c connector if it's not going to be compatible with other usb-c cables anyway?

The port would be compatible, just talking about making the power cable not be compatible with other USB-C devices. Making the metal part in the power cable be .5 mm thinner is all that would be needed to make it pull out easily. 

[hishnash]

14 hours ago, maskmcgee said:

So then how come the Air dosen't have a touchbar?

The air never did have a Touch Bar, changing the tooling of the production line is also a high cost operation, and until recently the Air did not have a T2 or M1 so was unable to run a Touch Bar (pre M1 touchers were run by the T2 chip not the x86 cpu, they were running a version of watchOS).

[hishnash]

18 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

That's literally the reason. Also Apple Silicon can't run Windows natively. That makes any Apple Silicon Mac out of the question for me. 

It can, you can download Window (For ARM) from MS website (and you can legally use it as long as you have a windows pro or higher license) it runs very well in Parallels. The impact on cpu perf between running in a VM and running bar metal is less than 1% with modern cpus that have memory isolation vm support backed into hardware  like the M1.  When it comes to GPU perf Parallels have a good (but not outstanding) mapping layer that exposed DX and OpenGL (no VK support yet).  MS emulation layer for x86 (32bit and 64bit) is not nearly as good as apples but I not be surprised if as more users start to run windows in this way MS create a dedicated version of the emulation layer that takes into account the hardware features of apples cpus that would allow them to have better (not the same as Rosseta2) perf.

It depends if your buying a mac just to run windows on it then sure there is never a reason to buy a mac, drivers etc have always been slow to get updates and bug fixes, MS do not give apple (and apple would not both if they did) access to the lower level kernel changes needed to do cpu frequency/voltage/VRM dynamic tuning in the same way the do non macOS (see Linus' review of the 16" MBP and how it runs better in macOS compared to bootcamp windows). 

[maskmcgee]

14 minutes ago, hishnash said:

The air never did have a Touch Bar, changing the tooling of the production line is also a high cost operation

 

Yes but you claimed it was cheaper to make the touchbar than CNC'n the key holes and making the keys, and if it was really cheaper then why wouldn't they have put their cheapest design on their cheapest laptop? 

[n0stalghia]

5 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Why? They just brought it to the iPhone. 

Because they set up the entire ecosystem around USB-C being a magical thing used for everything. With iPhones, you had the trend of going "cableless" for several generations now - removal of headphone jack, wireless headphones, implemented wireless charging without an official charging solution, now wireless charging solution, next year completely cable-less. It's a natural progess, a slow one, over like 6 years.

 

In this case, it would be ripping out something they set up quite recently and bringing back something they already had. Except the keyboard, they didn't do that.

 

It's my opinion, obviously. But my gut tells me this won't happen, or at least not abruptly. If they start introducing subtle changes and change it over 2-3 generations - then I'll believe it.

[Brooksie359]

16 hours ago, Amias said:

Oh look guys, 1 person is okay, therefore the millions of other users experiencing problems, overheating and dangerous frayed cables are wrong.

 

Apple has even admitted (so you know it's terrible) the quality issues of their MagSafe chargers. They have class action lawsuits against them for been a terrible dangerous design that overheats.

 

MagSafe design is dangerous, unreliable and overly expensive.

I think that is a huge assumption you have their. I would wager it is far more than just one person that liked the magsafe charing. Sure it had its problems but that is the case with most designs when they are first implemented. If they could design an improved version that didn't have the safety issues I would imagine that most people would like to have magsafe charging. 

[hishnash]

2 hours ago, maskmcgee said:

 

Yes but you claimed it was cheaper to make the touchbar than CNC'n the key holes and making the keys, and if it was really cheaper then why wouldn't they have put their cheapest design on their cheapest laptop? 

Cost of changing the production line. Notice how the case that is used by the air has not changed, this saves a lot of money. The difference in price in more CnC and other cleaning time, more keys for the keyboard vs low quality OLED screen with touch detector will be factories of a cent per laptop if that.

But making changes to the production line and supply (given the MBA is the highest volume laptop apple sell by a good margin) would cost more, might also make it harder to get the cheap OLED display if they put in such a large order they might need to start taking higher binned products to make up the volume. The other aspect might well be internal space, most of the key travel volume is outside of the internals of the laptop but the Touch Bar is flush with the metal surface so all of its internals are within the laptop. The Air is a good fraction thinner than the MBP while im sure they could make it work doing so might require even more changes to the internals increasing cost (and increasing the chance of defects, that long term is also an increase in costs).

[Amias]

13 hours ago, maskmcgee said:

You're still using a macbook with magsafe, really doubt you have a house, 

Hey this laptop is only ... 7 years old. Late 2013 retina display ftw. Things runs great still. GPU sucks for things like youtube, but otherwise it's great.

 

 

[NumLock21]

Don’t own a Mac but I do like the usefulness of the Touch Bar where is changes based on the program that person is using. I bet majority of the users who are happy with the removal never used it or don’t know how to use it properly. Fun keys shows up when you press the fn button.