TMO Daily Observations 2016-10-31: What Apple Left Out of its ‘hello again’ Event
Apple’s “hello again” media event felt like it was missing something, and that’s really bothering Bryan Chaffin and John Martellaro. They join Jeff Gamet to discuss what they think may have been planned, but pulled at the last minute, plus they question how much time Apple devoted to the new MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar.
Sponsors
SmartBackup 4 from Solesignal gets you faster backups, clones, and synced folders because it’s multi-threaded and optimized for SSD, Flash storage, and RAID systems. It’s regularly priced at $34.99, but you can get a $10 discount through Sunday, November 5th, using our special link.
Show Notes
- What did Apple pull from its "hello again" media event?
- Apple Has Missed the Plot
- Touch Bar Is Apple's Double Down Against the Foolishness of ToasterFridges
- Microsoft Takes Apple by Surprise, Pours on the Heat
- TMO Daily Observations Twitter feed
The Apple “hello, again” event was scheduled for 2 hours, because I downloaded Apple’s invite from their website (the .ics link), and it shows 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm EDT for the event. Calendar is completely capable of scheduling something for 1 hour and 30 minutes, which the “hello, again” event was 1 hour and 30 minutes on the dot.
AMD’s new Zen processor is coming in January, and considering Apple and AMD’s close relationship, I suspect that the 21″ iMac is going to have Zen chips, while the 27″ iMac will get the new Kaby Lake processors from Intel. I believe the lower model Kaby Lake processors do not have the integrated graphics Apple would like, so instead of adding a graphics card to the 21″ iMac, Apple can use one of AMD’s new Zen system-on-chip processors.
Broadwell Xeon processors for the Mac Pro are ready now, but the new graphics card’s from AMD do not ship until January. The 2013 MacPros have Ivy Bridge Xeons (E5-1650 v2 for the 6 core), and the Broadwell Xeon (E5-1650 v4 with 6 cores) starting shipping in the 2nd quarter of 2016.
If Apple wants Skylake Xeons now they have to drop down to the E3 Xeon models, the E5 Skylake Xeons are not shipping until the 1st half of 2017. I would imagine Apple will wait for the E5 Skylakes, because Intel is claiming that these E5 Skylakes (with their Purley platform) is the biggest improvement in Xeons since the 2009 Nehalem platform. (Remember how awesome the Nehalem Mac Pros where when they came out?)
I fully believe, if there is a new Mac Pro, the graphics cards will be the Radeon Pro WX 7100, 5100, and 4100; especially after seeing the new 15″ MacBook Pros include Radeon Pro 450, 455, and 460 options. The Radeon Pro WX 7100 has a list price of $999, which is cheap for a workstation graphics card, and the 5100 and 4100 are even cheaper, so Apple can keep the dual graphics card options if they want.
The lack of 4K Apple TV seems to having nothing to do with the Apple TV hardware, and everything to do with streaming 4K content through iTunes. Apple seems to not want a 4K Apple TV until they can get favorable licensing to offer 4K movies and TV shows in iTunes.
Finally, after last week’s event the Reality Distortion Field (RDF) is officially down for Apple, so they better step things up.
I’m ‘hoping’ that they pulled the iMac because of Micrsoft’s Surface Studio.
I’m hoping they pulled the Mac Pro because the chips aren’t ready.
I’m hoping that they did either of these things because the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.
If what they’ve done to the ‘pro’ notebooks is mirrored in the ‘pro’ desktops then OMFG.
I don’t agree with John’s take on Apple’s MBP not supporting 32GB RAM. I suggest reading this:
http://www.loopinsight.com/2016/10/31/more-detail-on-the-reason-the-macbook-pro-is-limited-to-16gb/
Other Pro laptops are not all using 32GB RAM. Check out the new Surface Book – around the same price as the new MBP and only 16GB support. You will get 32GB RAM when Intel releases mobile chipsets that support LPDDR (LP => Low Power, not regular DDR4) RAM across its ENTIRE mobile line, which won’t happen until Intel CannonLake (circa 2018)
As far as new Mac Pros are concerned, Macworld UK says (per their sources) that a new Mac Pro will be introduced end of November. I don’t know credible they are but it might be something to think about.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/new-mac-pro-release-date-rumours-uk-mac-pro-2016-tech-specs-new-features-3536364/