Mac 17inch may be no more

[Michael McLaughlin]

I hope they do one more with the Ivy chips.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/mac...nue,15415.html

[Jim Collins]

Speculation by a single analyst does not the truth make. If anything it is probably a contra-indicator. I am more concerned about the rumors that the next MBPs will only have solid state storage and no hard drives. The optical drive can go away. I hardly ever use that any more. I really want to see a retina display. And I want USB3.

[Jon Thomasberg]

Thanks for the link to the article Michael.

Seems like Apple's 'lean product line strategy' portends to alienating the 'Pro' market. Recently, this is seen with ditching the XServe, ceasing production on the 30" display, then the slow MacPro refresh cycle, and now supposedly the 17" (the only one left in the MB line with a PCIe34 slot). Then again, perhaps it is just the evolution of the product lines. However, without a looking-glass into their product roadmap it only leaves one to speculate that the underperforming 'Pro' devices are headed for near-term demise.

It is also part and parcel of the cyclical trend of centralization/decentralization. With a recent shift toward 'cloud' (read: centralization) computing and storage, the apparent need for high-horsepower devices for the masses is lower than what it used to be. Apple's push toward that and their significant capital investment into iCloud is demonstrative of that principle. For those on the so-called 'bleeding edge' we are left to devise our own solutions or find others that better cater to our use case. IMHO, the barrier to adoption of the contralization model is the bandwidth consumption required to facilitate it. This increase in bandwidth consumption is evidenced by the exploding mobile data usage trends in just the last few years, with the domination of iPhone/Android and tablet devices like iPad.


Typed on my 2011 MacBook Pro 17" 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (8,3) with anti-glare screen; 240GB SSD (OS) and 750GB spinner (DATA) in the optical bay :)

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

Thanks for the link to the article Michael.

Seems like Apple's 'lean product line strategy' portends to alienating the 'Pro' market. Recently, this is seen with ditching the XServe, ceasing production on the 30" display, then the slow MacPro refresh cycle, and now supposedly the 17" (the only one left in the MB line with a PCIe34 slot). Then again, perhaps it is just the evolution of the product lines. However, without a looking-glass into their product roadmap it only leaves one to speculate that the underperforming 'Pro' devices are headed for near-term demise.

It is also part and parcel of the cyclical trend of centralization/decentralization. With a recent shift toward 'cloud' (read: centralization) computing and storage, the apparent need for high-horsepower devices for the masses is lower than what it used to be. Apple's push toward that and their significant capital investment into iCloud is demonstrative of that principle. For those on the so-called 'bleeding edge' we are left to devise our own solutions or find others that better cater to our use case. IMHO, the barrier to adoption of the contralization model is the bandwidth consumption required to facilitate it. This increase in bandwidth consumption is evidenced by the exploding mobile data usage trends in just the last few years, with the domination of iPhone/Android and tablet devices like iPad.


Typed on my 2011 MacBook Pro 17" 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (8,3) with anti-glare screen; 240GB SSD (OS) and 750GB spinner (DATA) in the optical bay :)

The article is complete nonsense, if anything they would axe the Mac Pro in favor of the 17 inch macbook pro.

[Andrae Palmer]

Who knows... the article could be true. I was surprised that they only sold 50k 17 inchers out of 3.1 million laptops.

[Scott Crawley]

It is also part and parcel of the cyclical trend of centralization/decentralization. With a recent shift toward 'cloud' (read: centralization) computing and storage, the apparent need for high-horsepower devices for the masses is lower than what it used to be.

Apple may indeed believe that the need for high power machines is on the decline, but I don't subscribe to the community assets model. I want the horsepower on my desk, available for me when I need it. I don't care to be waiting in line to access computing cycles, or worse yet have my computing power throttled down by my ISP because they would like a bigger piece of the subscription based computing pie. I'm no socialist.

I have always preferred to work on Mac OS on their hardware, but if they cut the high end machines for the cloud, I'm out of here.

I have been on the perverbial fence while choosing my next NLE, and if the ability to have a worthy Apple workstation really comes into question, my choice will become much easier. I don't think we are quite there yet but if their cloud takes off as they hope it will then I don't doubt that their high end lines' days are numbered.

In three to five years the writing on the wall will be brighter, higher resolution and easier to read. How's that for marketing speak?

[L. Langer]

Who knows... the article could be true. I was surprised that they only sold 50k 17 inchers out of 3.1 million laptops.

I'm not. I used to sell those things for a living when Apple had their Macbook boom and nobody really jumped for the larger models. Larger laptops just don't sell well except amongst certain demographics which are certainly not the average consumer.

[Kwan Khan]

Would be a damn shame if so. As a Onset VFX, editor and DIT, the extra screen real estate available on the 17" MBP makes working in AE, Ppro, FCP and others... that much more practicable and it's really not that heavy a machine to lug around.

My first Apple computer ever. 17" Macbook Pro. And I loved it. Certainly if they discontinue the 17" I'll be replacing my current 17" MBP pronto before they disappear from the channel...

[Jeff Kilgroe]

This is stupid. I think people are reading into this the wrong way here... It seems that the MacBook Pro systems as we currently know them are going away. They're redesigning them to be more compact, sleeker and lighter. We've been reading rumors of this for months regarding the 15" model and now the rumors over the 17" are popping up. Some of them credible. IMO, I'm betting they're going to make them more like the Macbook Air in away -- no optical drive, solid state storage, that sort of thing. If the new flagship Macbook Pro comes with a 16" or larger screen, 512GB 6Gbps SSD and I can put 32GB RAM in it with a quad-core i7 Ivy Bridge CPU, and if it also has USB3 and dual Thunderbolt ports... Done, I'm sold. With all the new displays hitting the market for notebooks, I already see a trend to move away from the 17" screen size. looks like we can expect more 14" and 16" instead of 15" and 17". And with more pixels. We're talking 2560x1440 on the 14" displays here.


speculation... I know...

[Josh Snyder]

Who knows... the article could be true. I was surprised that they only sold 50k 17 inchers out of 3.1 million laptops.

Well that laptop is the most over priced product in the history of computers so it doesn't come as a surprise to me.