{"id":1680,"date":"2011-02-07T12:31:30","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T17:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adam-jackson.net\/blog\/?p=1680"},"modified":"2011-02-07T12:31:30","modified_gmt":"2011-02-07T17:31:30","slug":"whats-next-for-apples-macbook-pro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/02\/07\/whats-next-for-apples-macbook-pro\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2605 What&#8217;s Next for Apple&#8217;s MacBook Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script type='application\/json' class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links'>[{\"id\":13768,\"href\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.flickr.com\\\/photos\\\/adamjackson\\\/3673515938\",\"archived_href\":\"http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20190122150258\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.flickr.com\\\/photos\\\/adamjackson\\\/3673515938\\\/\",\"redirect_href\":\"\",\"checks\":[{\"date\":\"2025-11-06 03:01:23\",\"http_code\":200},{\"date\":\"2025-12-23 12:19:59\",\"http_code\":200},{\"date\":\"2026-01-18 22:48:30\",\"http_code\":200},{\"date\":\"2026-04-02 22:00:44\",\"http_code\":200},{\"date\":\"2026-04-08 08:23:26\",\"http_code\":200},{\"date\":\"2026-04-15 02:15:20\",\"http_code\":200},{\"date\":\"2026-04-20 12:01:12\",\"http_code\":200},{\"date\":\"2026-04-24 20:00:52\",\"http_code\":200},{\"date\":\"2026-05-04 02:23:15\",\"http_code\":200},{\"date\":\"2026-05-09 09:43:13\",\"http_code\":200}],\"broken\":false,\"last_checked\":{\"date\":\"2026-05-09 09:43:13\",\"http_code\":200},\"process\":\"done\"},{\"id\":13769,\"href\":\"http:\\\/\\\/gigaom.com\\\/apple\\\/the-exciting-future-of-apples-macbook-line\",\"archived_href\":\"http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20120707101432\\\/http:\\\/\\\/gigaom.com:80\\\/apple\\\/the-exciting-future-of-apples-macbook-line\\\/\",\"redirect_href\":\"\",\"checks\":[{\"date\":\"2025-11-06 03:01:28\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-01-18 22:48:29\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-04-02 22:00:45\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-04-08 08:23:27\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-04-15 02:15:20\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-04-20 12:01:14\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-04-24 20:00:54\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-05-04 02:23:15\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-05-09 09:43:11\",\"http_code\":503}],\"broken\":true,\"last_checked\":{\"date\":\"2026-05-09 09:43:11\",\"http_code\":503},\"process\":\"done\"},{\"id\":13506,\"href\":\"http:\\\/\\\/gigaom.com\\\/apple\\\/instapaper-a-blog-readers-killer-service\",\"archived_href\":\"http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20110817082846\\\/http:\\\/\\\/gigaom.com\\\/apple\\\/instapaper-a-blog-readers-killer-service\\\/\",\"redirect_href\":\"\",\"checks\":[{\"date\":\"2025-11-06 02:29:10\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-02-07 17:58:28\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-02-26 19:27:06\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-03-02 08:10:44\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-04-02 22:00:46\",\"http_code\":503}],\"broken\":true,\"last_checked\":{\"date\":\"2026-04-02 22:00:46\",\"http_code\":503},\"process\":\"done\"},{\"id\":13770,\"href\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.marco.org\\\/3027446896\",\"archived_href\":\"http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20110406232936\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.marco.org:80\\\/3027446896\",\"redirect_href\":\"\",\"checks\":[{\"date\":\"2025-11-06 03:01:29\",\"http_code\":206},{\"date\":\"2025-12-23 12:20:06\",\"http_code\":503},{\"date\":\"2026-04-02 22:00:57\",\"http_code\":200},{\"date\":\"2026-05-09 09:43:18\",\"http_code\":200}],\"broken\":false,\"last_checked\":{\"date\":\"2026-05-09 09:43:18\",\"http_code\":200},\"process\":\"done\"}]<\/script><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"New MacBook Pro 17&quot; by adamjackson1984, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adamjackson\/3673515938\/\"><img  loading=\"lazy\"  decoding=\"async\"  class=\"aligncenter pk-lazyload\"  src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABAQMAAAAl21bKAAAAA1BMVEUAAP+KeNJXAAAAAXRSTlMAQObYZgAAAAlwSFlzAAAOxAAADsQBlSsOGwAAAApJREFUCNdjYAAAAAIAAeIhvDMAAAAASUVORK5CYII=\"  alt=\"New MacBook Pro 17&quot;\"  width=\"640\"  height=\"480\"  data-pk-sizes=\"auto\"  data-pk-src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3579\/3673515938_dc72e5db3f_z.jpg\" ><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Apple has said that the MacBook Air is &#8220;the next generation of MacBooks&#8221; and, in October I wrote a post that <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/apple\/the-exciting-future-of-apples-macbook-line\/\">details five key areas<\/a> where the MacBook line-up of 2011 will change.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Battery life improvements<\/li>\n<li>SSD as a standard<\/li>\n<li>Lack of optical drives<\/li>\n<li>Thinner and lighter body designs<\/li>\n<li>Higher resolution displays<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It was a pleasant surprise to see a blog post from Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper (<a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/apple\/instapaper-a-blog-readers-killer-service\/\">review<\/a>) and the ex-lead developer at Tumblr detailing what he thinks is the future of Apple&#8217;s MacBook Pro. It&#8217;s safe to say that I agree with everything written and would like to\u00a0dissect\u00a0a few of his ideas. In Marco&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marco.org\/3027446896\">Speculation on the next MacBook Pro<\/a> entry, he reviews the future of the white MacBook and 13&#8243;\/15&#8243;\/17&#8243; MacBook Pro models starting with the 17&#8243; MacBook Pro:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I don\u2019t foresee major changes to the 17\u201d MacBook Pro. It\u2019s an aircraft carrier made for maximum performance, maximum capacity, and rarely-used hardware features (like the ExpressCard slot) to sell to people who actually need them, such as people operating portable recording setups. When Apple wants to remove features from the rest of the lineup, they can usually appease most of the \u201cWe\u2019re still using that!\u201d crowd by keeping it in the 17\u201d for a few more generations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The 17-inch MacBook Pro is too large for many users but history does tend to repeat itself as Apple offered a non-glossy display on the 17&#8243; MacBook Pro first as a professional option and it still offers the ExpressCard slot as a standard feature and it was first to offer higher clock speed CPUs, larger capacity ram and larger solid state drives. The 17&#8243; MacBook Pro and PowerBook have each offered a bit more for professionals while also having a bit of legacy built in for those users who needed a specific port or feature. He continues:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And that\u2019s where I think Apple\u2019s going to shove the optical drive: the 17\u201d, and the $999 plastic MacBook. That\u2019s it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>and<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;the low price of the 13\u201d Air will leave little reason to buy the 13\u201d MacBook Pro, so I\u2019m guessing it will be eliminated from the lineup.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I agree that Apple and Steve Jobs has been on this war path against optical media since the first MacBook Air was released in 2008. Steve showed that you can get most of your content via iTunes and the web and the Mac App Store is showing that we barely have to search all over for\u00a0downloads\u00a0of software that we once got on a CD at the Apple Store. The CD software selection at stores is dwindling as well. I think that the MacBook will keep the optical drive for only one additional revision merely because the current design is still pretty new but, soon, our white MacBook will forgo the\u00a0optical\u00a0drive and only the 17-inch MBP will have the SuperDrive as a standard feature.<\/p>\n<p>Look at it this way, currently two out of six Apple notebooks lack a super drive. If Apple kills off the 13&#8243; MacBook Pro and removes the optical drive from its 15&#8243; cousin, three out of five notebooks Apple sells will lack the drive and in one year, it&#8217;ll be across the board. The\u00a0juiciest\u00a0tidbit from Marco is this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And I\u2019m guessing that the 15\u201d will undergo its most significant change in a very long time: it will adopt the wedge shape of the Air, losing its thick, uncomfortably sharp front edge. Removing the optical drive will free up a lot of space inside, leaving room for a rearrangement that can enable the wedge shape without giving up a significant amount of battery volume.<\/p>\n<p>Ideally, this would come with two other major changes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>No more glass screen.<\/strong> Glass is much heavier, shows\u00a0<em>far<\/em> more glare, and requires a thicker screen lid than the \u201cglossy\u201d plastic screens on the Airs and plastic MacBooks. To make the 15\u201d significantly lighter and thinner, Apple needs to drop the glass. (This isn\u2019t a very strong prediction as much as it\u2019s wishful thinking.)<\/li>\n<li><strong>SSDs only.<\/strong> This is much trickier in the 15\u201d lineup, but the wedge shape could start out a lot thinner if it didn\u2019t need to accommodate a 2.5\u201d drive bay for a traditional hard drive. This, I think, is the riskiest prediction here: it\u2019d be a ballsy move for Apple\u2019s only hard-drive-bearing laptops to be the plastic 13\u201d and the massive 17\u201d. A lot of 13\u201d and 15\u201d MacBook Pro buyers want a lot more disk space than current SSDs offer at reasonable prices. But the benefits in performance, reliability, and case-design freedom would be huge, and that\u2019s exactly the kind of ballsy hardware move that Apple likes to make.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>When Apple called the latest MacBook Air models the future of MacBooks, this is what I envisioned as well. The wedge design would make its way to the rest of Apple&#8217;s notebooks within the next 18 months and HDDs would be replaced by SSDs in a shift where HDDs were available only as a built to order option or you could buy the old MBP model for a steep discount while supplies last if you needed the capacity. The issue of price and capacity of solid state drives would be nearly eliminated if Apple decided to equip their future notebooks with eSATA ports allowing for faster transfer speeds to external drives.<\/p>\n<p>In a move that I feel is long overdue, removing the glass layer from Apple&#8217;s notebooks would be a welcome change for nearly everyone I&#8217;ve spoken to. These screens look great in ads but simply don&#8217;t work when you have any light glaring onto the display. However, Apple&#8217;s move to eliminate glass would be a backtrack considering their iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and current LED displays all have the same glass screen treatment with a black bezel so it&#8217;s a good prediction that I don&#8217;t think will happen for a few more years. Marco does argue that removing glass, HDD and optical drive from the 15-inch MacBook Pro could bring the weight down from 5.6 pounds to 4.8 which is only .3 pounds heavier than the current 13&#8243; MBP.<\/p>\n<p>In closing, here is his rumored pricing and line up for our 2011 MacBook family:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$999 plastic MacBook, unchanged, for econobuyers<\/li>\n<li>$999\u00a011\u201d MacBook Air<\/li>\n<li>$1299\u00a013\u201d MacBook Air<\/li>\n<li>$1599\u00a015\u201d MacBook Pro, new wedge design (down from $1799)<\/li>\n<li>$2299\u00a017\u201d MacBook Pro, unchanged<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I can certainly get behind this sort of pricing but we have to understand that the tradeoffs as Marco illustrates in reducing the amount of ports that 15&#8243; MacBook Pro can have (due to the wedge design) and possible inability to do any sort of CPU speed bump in this revision may make this makeover a bit hard for professional Mac users to stomach but that Apple line calling the Air the future of MacBooks has me thinking that a lack of optical drives, a move to SSDs and a focus on the wedge design may be where we&#8217;re going despite the obvious trade-offs. If you have a problem with it, there&#8217;s always the unchanged 17-inch MacBook Pro that still has ExpressCard, a SuperDrive and that huge HDD for tons of storage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple has said that the MacBook Air is &#8220;the next generation of MacBooks&#8221; and, in October I wrote&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-technology","7":"cs-entry","8":"cs-video-wrap"},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-r6","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6576,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2017\/01\/23\/linked-the-evolution-of-apples-laptops-from-the-powerbook-to-the-macbook-pro\/","url_meta":{"origin":1680,"position":0},"title":"Linked: &#8220;The evolution of Apple&#8217;s laptops, from the PowerBook to the MacBook Pro&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"via Macworld Online: Great job by Jason talking us on a walk down memory lane. I\u2019ve owned every PowerBook \/ MacBook since the G3 Pismo. I have not yet owned a Retina MacBook (2015\/2016) but I am pretty sure I will one day if I start traveling more than I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7536,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2018\/08\/20\/linked-a-year-with-apples-5k-imac\/","url_meta":{"origin":1680,"position":1},"title":"Linked: &#8220;A year with Apple&#8217;s 5K iMac&#8230;&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"August 20, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A year with Apple's 5K iMac: Still the best Mac for your money: I love my 2016 5K iMac. It\u2019s the top of the line model in every way except I opted for a 3 Terabyte Fusion Drive which is a decision I still regret because the SSD in my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14612,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2026\/04\/15\/macbook-neo-versus-ipad\/","url_meta":{"origin":1680,"position":2},"title":"MacBook Neo versus iPad","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 15, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Michael Tsai's roundup,\u00a0iPadOS Post\u2013MacBook Neo, got me thinking about how Apple's iPad and MacBook Neo actually stack up. As Brendan Shanks points out: for $598 you can buy a 128GB A16 iPad ($349) plus a Magic Keyboard Folio ($249) \u2014 or a 256GB A18 Pro MacBook Neo for $599. That's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ipad2026lineup.avif","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ipad2026lineup.avif 1x, https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ipad2026lineup.avif 1.5x, https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ipad2026lineup.avif 2x, https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ipad2026lineup.avif 3x, https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ipad2026lineup.avif 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8400,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2020\/11\/12\/technology-apple-silicon\/","url_meta":{"origin":1680,"position":3},"title":"Technology: Apple Silicon","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"November 12, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow.\u00a0 Apple\u2019s fanless MacBook Air may not be able to sustain the load of my Core i9 8-Core iMac sitting on my desk but it outperforms it in benchmarks which is truly an amazing feet. Apple\u2019s shipped an \u201cUltraBook\u201d form factor laptop with all day battery life, no fan and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":537,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/09\/16\/apples-june-09-2-13ghz-macbook-air-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":1680,"position":4},"title":"\u2605 Apple\u2019s June \u201809 2.13Ghz MacBook Air [REVIEW]","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"September 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The best way to summarize this entire review is to say that Apple's MacBook Air is the best $1900 Netbook I've ever owned. Apple has managed to create a notebook that can go anywhere, do anything and satisfy 90% of my needs in such a small package that it makes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Thoughts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Thoughts","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-thoughts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8681,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2022\/03\/11\/linked-apples-mac-studio-27-imac\/","url_meta":{"origin":1680,"position":5},"title":"Linked: Apple&#8217;s Mac Studio &#038; 27&#8243; iMac","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Via Michael Tsai: I\u2019ve been happy with my 27-inch iMac, after many years of laptops-as-desktops before that, so I had kind of been assuming I would either get anew iMac or a desktop Mac with an external display (to go along with the non-Retina Dell that\u2019s attached to my iMac).\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}