Apple Event 2016-10-27 -- New Macs finally

[Eug]

http://www.recode.net/2016/10/18/13323264/apple-new-macs-october-27

Rumoured include new iMacs and a new 13" MacBook Air (really?), and most importantly revamped thinner and lighter MacBook Pros with 4 x USB-C supporting USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt 3 as well as OLED function bar.

I just hope they don't fsck up the keyboards on the new machines. I am not impressed with the 12" MacBook's keyboard.

Also, I'm really hoping for Kaby Lake, but have been told by the CPU gurus here that Apple will likely disappoint us and ship Skylake instead. Kaby Lake includes hardware 10-bit H.265 HEVC decode amongst other things.

I'd also like to see a new iPad Air 3 and iPad mini 5 based on Apple A10 Fusion and with 3 GB RAM. The new iPad Pros would come later with dual-core A10X at 2.8 GHz and 4 GB RAM.

 

[jpiniero]

The 15" almost has to be Skylake-H (4+4e). For the 13", the 28W Kabylake models aren't coming out until next year so it may very well be Skylake too.

 

[JAG87]

This crap better be powered by kaby lake, even if it's paper launched now and has to ship in 2 months. It is inexcusable to launch a skylake product at this point. I would rather buy a kabylake-Y MB or a properly refreshed kabylake-U MBA than a skylake MBP.

 

[amyklai]

The 15" almost has to be Skylake-H (4+4e). For the 13", the 28W Kabylake models aren't coming out until next year so it may very well be Skylake too.

For the 13", Apple could do something like Lenovo did with the T460s: use a 15W chip but give it extra headroom by increasing the SDP to 25W. Worked pretty well in that case - and with the added speed from Kaby Lake it will most definitely be better than using a Skylake processor.

 

[amyklai]

http://www.recode.net/2016/10/18/13323264/apple-new-macs-october-27

I just hope they don't fsck up the keyboards on the new machines. I am not impressed with the 12" MacBook's keyboard.

I have a 2012 MBA 11 and a 12" Macbook. The old keyboard is so much better it isn't even funny. The butterfly keyboard kind of ok for an ultramobile which competes with an iPad Pro as far as size and weight is concerned. But for a bigger "pro" machine, it's inexcusable.

Also, I'm really hoping for Kaby Lake, but have been told by the CPU gurus here that Apple will likely disappoint us and ship Skylake instead. Kaby Lake includes hardware 10-bit H.265 HEVC decode amongst other things.

Yeah, after waiting for so long, getting last year's technology would be a pretty big letdown.

I'd also like to see a new iPad Air 3 and iPad mini 5 based on Apple A10 Fusion and with 3 GB RAM. The new iPad Pros would come later with dual-core A10X at 2.8 GHz and 4 GB RAM.

Amen to that - although I'm afraid they won't do that to protect the iPad Pros which would look somewhat unappealing until they get upgraded. Basically, nobody would buy them this holiday season. I hate that kind of logic, but that's how I think the guys at Apple look at it.

 

[Eug]

Skylake vs Kaby Lake video playback on U series laptop CPUs (which is what we'd expect for MacBook Pros). This is my primary reason why I don't like Skylake, but not the only reason.

http://gizmodo.com/intels-new-kaby-lake-processors-what-you-need-to-know-1785889498/amp

BTW, my unsupported 2009 MacBook Pro seems to run Sierra just fine (using a patched installer) so theoretically I can wait. My main issue is actually tax related. If I wait until say late 2017 / early 2018 to buy, it may be less favourable to me because of my tax situation. But it may be worth it anyway since the upgrade to Kaby Lake from Skylake is such a big one.

 

[asendra]

...
But it may be worth it anyway since the upgrade to Kaby Lake from Skylake is such a big one.

You highlighted literally the only "big" difference between Skylake and Kabylake. Hell, the only smaller Intel upgrade in recent memory has been haswell refresh, so no, is not a big upgrade.
Now, I admit it is an important one, for some, but I'm afraid Apple isn't very interested in h265 knowing their stance on iOs.

I already upgraded my laptop last year when the broadwell refresh, so I'm in no need to upgrade anytime soon. And thank god I did and decided to not listen to the rumors talking about a fast refresh of the macbook line to skylake at the end of 2015, because i would have been waiting 18 months! for this refresh lol.

I'm also in no need to upgrade my Air 2 (can't believe it is 2 years old already, it flies still), so I don't really care one way or another, but all rumors point to new iPads in spring, not now. They will just use the current Pros as the cheaper alternative to the new ones.

 

[Chaotic42]

I was looking into getting a MBP this go around, but having played with the regular MacBook keyboard at Best Buy, Windows 10 getting a Linux environment going, and the rumors about the ports, I got scared off.

 

[Eug]

You highlighted literally the only "big" difference between Skylake and Kabylake. Hell, the only smaller Intel upgrade in recent memory has been haswell refresh, so no, is not a big upgrade.
Now, I admit it is an important one, for some, but I'm afraid Apple isn't very interested in h265 knowing their stance on iOs.

I already upgraded my laptop last year when the broadwell refresh, so I'm in no need to upgrade anytime soon. And thank god I did and decided to not listen to the rumors talking about a fast refresh of the macbook line to skylake at the end of 2015, because i would have been waiting 18 months! for this refresh lol.

I'm also in no need to upgrade my Air 2 (can't believe it is 2 years old already, it flies still), so I don't really care one way or another, but all rumors point to new iPads in spring, not now. They will just use the current Pros as the cheaper alternative to the new ones.

Yes for some. But that some is a lot of end users and consumers. To me, practical feature support is a lot more important than say process node tech or chip architecture.

BTW, in terms of codec support, it's not just h.265, but it's also VP9 in YouTube (as mentioned by others in the codec support threads). There is only limited VP9 support in Skylake, but there is full 10-bit VP9 hardware decoding in Kaby Lake.

There is an interesting stat being bandied about which is that as of April 2015, 25 billion hours of VP9 video have been watched on YouTube. The battery life improvement here alone is significant. 10-bit will also get more acceptance as more and more Macs go wide gamut. Hell, even my iPhone is wide gamut.

Furthermore, according to the AnandTech Kaby Lake article, it has been noted that DRM'd 4K streaming is not available for Skylake, but Sony has already announced support for Kaby Lake (and not Skylake). More importantly though, they state that Kaby Lake will likely bring Netflix 4K to the desktop/laptop as well, leaving Skylake out in the cold.

BTW, according to Netflix, current implementations of h.265 are about 20% more efficient than VP9 according to their exhaustive testing, so it seems h.265 may be important to them going forward at least in the near term.

 

[amyklai]

You highlighted literally the only "big" difference between Skylake and Kabylake. Hell, the only smaller Intel upgrade in recent memory has been haswell refresh, so no, is not a big upgrade.

According to this benchmark: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Kaby-Lake-Core-i7-7500U-Review-Skylake-on-Steroids.172692.0.html , Kaby Lake is actually a good bit faster than Skylake.

According to this: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3127...-what-optimization-can-do-for-a-14nm-cpu.html and this: http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/dell-xps-13-kaby-lake-battery-life , Kaby Lake gets between 1 and 1.75 hrs more battery life in an XPS 13.

Overall Kaby Lake is s a MUCH bigger jump than Haswell --> Haswell refresh. It's (unexpectedly) about as big of an improvement as Broadwell --> Skylake was.

That's quite a nice upgrade, and since for example Dell is alread shipping Kaby Lake notebooks, there's no excuse for Apple to use Skylake in a not-even-yet-announced notebook.

 

[asendra]

The Kaby Lake chips Dell is using are the 15W ones that Apple uses only in the Macbook Air line. Unless Apple decides to use them (with a higher TDP) because of thermal restrictions with the new thinner design, Apple uses the 28w ones, which are not yet available in theory.

And it would be a pretty big downgrade to do that...

 

[Eug]

The Kaby Lake chips Dell is using are the 15W ones that Apple uses only in the Macbook Air line. Unless Apple decides to use them (with a higher TDP) because of thermal restrictions with the new thinner design, Apple uses the 28w ones, which are not yet available in theory.

And it would be a pretty big downgrade to do that...

Personally I like the 13" MacBook Air form factor and I like its keyboard, and the 15 Watt chips it uses are fine for me. What I don't like is the screen.

A Kaby Lake 15 Watt 13" MacBook Pro (or revamped Air) with a similar form factor (doesn't have to be tapered), good backlit keyboard, good trackpad, and Retina screen would probably mean a buy for me.

According to this benchmark: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Kaby-Lake-Core-i7-7500U-Review-Skylake-on-Steroids.172692.0.html , Kaby Lake is actually a good bit faster than Skylake.

According to this: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3127...-what-optimization-can-do-for-a-14nm-cpu.html and this: http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/dell-xps-13-kaby-lake-battery-life , Kaby Lake gets between 1 and 1.75 hrs more battery life in an XPS 13.

Overall Kaby Lake is s a MUCH bigger jump than Haswell --> Haswell refresh. It's (unexpectedly) about as big of an improvement as Broadwell --> Skylake was.

That's quite a nice upgrade, and since for example Dell is alread shipping Kaby Lake notebooks, there's no excuse for Apple to use Skylake in a not-even-yet-announced notebook.

Thanks for linking those reviews.

Remarkable. Battery life playing back 4K 10-bit HEVC goes from 3 hours (Skylake) to 10.5 hours (Kaby Lake)!

Kaby Lake - 2% CPU utilization: "With hardware acceleration of 10-bit HEVC video, the 7th-gen Kaby Lake Core i5-7200U is buttery-smooth playing both 1080p and 4K video."

Skylake - 81% (and sometimes 100%) CPU utilization: "This 1080p HEVC file encoded with 10-bit color depth will drag a Skylake Core i5-6200U to the ground."

 

[Spicedaddy]

So glad I bought my refurb early-2015 MBP retina 13" in november 2015. At that time, rumor was that Skylake models would be out early-2016. LOL, I would've waited a whole year for it.

It'll be nice to see the new MacBook Pro, I might upgrade when they update it to Kaby Lake next year. Not buying a 1st gen Apple laptop, and it's almost a given it'll be Skylake since they use the CPUs with Iris graphics, and the Kaby Lake version of those aren't out yet. Also hoping they don't go crazy thin with the design, the 12" MacBook keyboard is ok, but the one on my MBP is much better.

New iPads would be interesting. I could finally upgrade my 3 year old iPad Air.

 

[JAG87]

The power efficiency improvement with kabylake with both hevc and vp9 content is paramount. Software or even hybrid decoding is incredibly inefficient in comparison. I would have no issue at all with Apple using the 15W chips in the 13" MBP. In fact, it would make for some pretty beastly battery life. I would rather that than an obsolete skylake 28W chips.

 

[nerp]

The keyboards are a non-starter for me and many other people who have to write a lot for work.

 

[Eug]

The keyboards are a non-starter for me and many other people who have to write a lot for work.

Which keyboards? I don't like the MacBook keyboard (even though I love that machine's form factor) but I really like the MacBook Pro keyboard.

The power efficiency improvement with kabylake with both hevc and vp9 content is paramount. Software or even hybrid decoding is incredibly inefficient in comparison. I would have no issue at all with Apple using the 15W chips in the 13" MBP. In fact, it would make for some pretty beastly battery life. I would rather that than an obsolete skylake 28W chips.

Bingo.

 

[Chaotic42]

Which keyboards? I don't like the MacBook keyboard (even though I love that machine's form factor) but I really like the MacBook Pro keyboard.

The rumor is that they will be using the MacBook keyboard in the new Pro. If they do that, it'll show that they're losing touch with the consumers. I don't use a Mac, but I've been hearing grumbling noises from friends and coworkers who do about it.

 

[Eug]

The rumor is that they will be using the MacBook keyboard in the new Pro. If they do that, it'll show that they're losing touch with the consumers. I don't use a Mac, but I've been hearing grumbling noises from friends and coworkers who do about it.

I can only hope that even if they go thinner in the MBP's keyboard, it will not be the same as the MacBook's. They managed this with the new trackpads. With the MacBook Pro, the new Force Touch trackpad feel just like the original mechanical one. The one in the MacBook does not, although it's OK.

---

Notebookcheck.net: Kaby Lake (Core i7-7500U) Review: Skylake on Steroids

Kaby Lake 10-bit HEVC is smooth and only uses 3.2 Watts:

Skylake 10-bit HEVC stutters despite using 16.5 Watts:

---

I don't want to wait this long but...

Wall Street Journal (via 9to5mac): Apple to launch new Mac laptops with E-Ink dynamic keyboards in 2018, contextually display emojis and special characters

The Wall Street Journal says this will become a “standard feature” of MacBooks, which implies it will spread across Apple’s lineup and be featured on the cheaper Airs and more-expensive Pro models. It’s easy to imagine how Apple could make it so that users could choose to replace the ‘boring’ symbol keys with their favorite emoji or quick shortcuts inside apps. For a more serious use case, regular users of Photoshop could make their favorite editing tools available with a single button press, for example. There is already a third-party accessory market for special-purpose keyboard covers today, which simply skin the keys with additional labels.

Some of this vision will be revealed in the 2016 MacBook Pro, expected to be unveiled next week. That product will substitute the function key row with an OLED touchscreen that can contextually display different commands and controls.

 

[Spicedaddy]

I agree that Kaby Lake 15W would be better for my needs than Skylake+Iris 28W. It's possible they go with Kaby Lake, especially if they make it thinner the reduction in power would help.

15W CPU and crappy keyboard, nothing really "Pro" left about it though.

 

[amyklai]

I'm not looking forward to that eInk keyboard, for two reasons:

#1: the eInk mini screen will probably make the "top" of the key a bit thicker. When you combine that with the fact that Apple is always trying to make stuff thinner, it doesn't mean good things for key travel.
#2 that keyboard will have to have lots of electric connections in moving parts (each key). I'd hate to see keys go blank / black after a few years because the mechanical wear breaks wires or stuff like that. My inner cynic says that that's exactly why a manufacturer might LOVE this kind of thing.

 

[asendra]

I guess it really depends the use you have for the laptop. Myself, my MBPs are my work machines. I personally don't watch many (any!) 4k/1080p videos while working on them but I noticed quite a bit the cpu jump from a 2013 air to a Broadwell rMBP...
For anything else I just use my Air 2, iPhone 6s, Apple tv etc

I get the preference if you are a student, or you use the laptop as your general use computer etc, and as I said, I'm already set for the next couple of years, but If I had to choose it would be the 28w skylake before a 15w kaby lake. The Macbook Pros need to have all the cpu they can get, period. They are the Pro machines.

 

[Eug]

I guess it really depends the use you have for the laptop. Myself, my MBPs are my work machines. I personally don't watch many (any!) 4k/1080p videos while working on them but I noticed quite a bit the cpu jump from a 2013 air to a Broadwell rMBP...
For anything else I just use my Air 2, iPhone 6s, Apple tv etc

I get the preference if you are a student, or you use the laptop as your general use computer etc, and as I said, I'm already set for the next couple of years, but If I had to choose it would be the 28w skylake before a 15w kaby lake. The Macbook Pros need to have all the cpu they can get, period. They are the Pro machines.

I'd be perfectly happy if the 15 Watt was only in the 13" Air, but it'd have to have a Retina screen and decent keyboard.

Give us the 12" Retina MacBook with 4.5" Watt CPU and crappy keyboard, 13" Retina Air with 15 Watt CPU and good keyboard, and 15" Pro with 28 Watt CPU and good keyboard. An optional model would be the 13" Pro with 28 Watt CPU and good keyboard.

Aside from the CPU wattage and speed, differentiators between a 13" Retina Air and the Pro models could be the OLED function bar, max RAM, max storage, and of course GPU. The 13" Retina Air would have no OLED bar or discrete GPU, and would max out at say 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage.

 

[manly]

This crap better be powered by kaby lake, even if it's paper launched now and has to ship in 2 months. It is inexcusable to launch a skylake product at this point. I would rather buy a kabylake-Y MB or a properly refreshed kabylake-U MBA than a skylake MBP.

What's inexcusable is how much the Mac line-up has languished, it's embarrassing:
http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac

The internals of the 15" MBP are extremely dated, and sadly Apple is going to bump it to Skylake about 3 months before Kaby Lake H ships.

At this rate, I wonder if I'll ever buy a new MacBook Pro!

The latest rumor is that we'll lose both MagSafe and USB A ports.

 

[jpiniero]

The internals of the 15" MBP are extremely dated, and sadly Apple is going to bump it to Skylake about 3 months before Kaby Lake H ships.

Apple simply couldn't wait any longer. Maybe the OLED bar caused delays.

PS: I do kind of think Intel is purposely delaying the other Kabylake models until next year to align it's release with that of Cannon/Coffee Lake. I don't know if Intel would be willing to let Apple have the 4+2 H and 2+3e Kaby 3 months ahead of everyone else.

Edit: And I am totally expecting the Air to get only one final update and the Mac Pro to be discontinued (although the latter might not happen until the iMac gets updated)

 

[Eug]

Optimist comment: It should be noted that Intel has made exclusive CPUs for Apple before:

Anand: Intel’s SFF Merom: Just for Apple

And Intel has done this more than once too.