Now that HP and Dell (and probably others) have released machines with Kaby Lake processes surely it’s time for Apple for get with the times and update the entire Mac range to get them up to date.
The Mac may no longer be a large income earner for Apple (although I’m sure its still not insignificant) they really need to get up to date.
What are other Mac users thoughts?
Apple’s dilemma is that the released Kaby lake mobile processors are dual core, whereas the MacBook Pro has always run mobile quad core.
The mobile dual core chips in Apple’s lineup were what powers the MacBook Air. So while Dell XPS and HP spectre get the new processors, the Apple line up languishes as Apple doesn’t want the MBA to be more up to date than the MBP.
That is even leaving aside the theory that Apple has killed off the MBA in favour of the slower and more expensive Class M powered Macbook, and thus has nothing to put the Kaby lake processor in. If so, that really, really sucks.
From what I understand, Skylake mobile quad cores are only becoming available now. So it is possible that the MBP will come out with skylake, and an extra chipset to run all TB3/USB-C ports, as Skylake is missing the capability.
Tim Cook himself implied that new Macbooks were imminent, I’m still expecting an announcement in October.
Yes, to clarify, if the MBA isn’t killed off, there is no decent reason not to launch new MBAs soon with Kabylake, except for the MBP dilemma.
For the MBP, they would have to
a) wait for mobile quad core kabylake to be released next year
b) just whack dual core Kaby lake in and make the MBP a competitor to ultrabooks like the XPS and Spectre instead of updating the MBA
c) put quad core Skykake in the MBP with an extra chipset to drive TB3 in all ports and release now.
I pick c. The extra chipset will enable as many ports as is reasonable to go TB3/USB-C. Apparently the dual core kabylake can only handle two TB3 ports.
There are also a few other options for even more speculative fun
d) Intel make an extra special mobile quad core kabylake just for Apple with unique Apple requirements, which is basically between five and ten percent of its i series chip production
e) Apple produce a Mac variant of its A series chip in the MBA, or alternatively, it’s own version of an x86 chip specifically for the Mac and OSX without all the legacy cludge Intel needs to have in its wider market products.
Agree with c. And my preference. Let’s get on with it.