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MacBook Pro Reportedly Won't See Any Major Upgrades in 2018

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Apple currently has no plans to make any major upgrades to its MacBook Pro lineup in 2018, according to DigiTimes. Of course, if accurate, the report doesn't rule out a MacBook Pro refresh or update of any kind this year.

2016-15-inch-macbook-pro-space-gray-800x710.jpg

An excerpt from the report, citing sources within Apple's supply chain:
The sources revealed that Foxconn had been aggressively working to land more MacBook orders from Apple during the past few years by offering attractive quotes. Since Apple has not had a major upgrade to its MacBook product line since the releases of its new MacBook Pro devices at the end of 2016 and has no plan for one in 2018, the US-based vendor is planning to shift orders for models that are already in mass production to Foxconn to save costs and reduce risks.
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Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn could land a large number of additional MacBook orders this year, the report adds. The increase could come at the expense of Quanta Computer, which has been Apple's major MacBook supplier in recent years.

Taiwan-based Foxconn has reportedly been working to boost its chances of notebook orders from Apple by offering attractive quotes. Apple will therefore switch MacBook orders to Foxconn for models that are already in mass production as a way to save costs and reduce risks, according to the sources cited.
Foxconn is expected to begin mass shipments to fulfill the new orders in the second quarter of 2018, said the sources. Foxconn and Quanta both declined to comment on their clients or orders. The sources pointed out that Apple started outsourcing the assembly for some of MacBooks' components to Foxconn's plants in Shenzhen, China in the second half of 2017.
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Despite the news, Quanta is expected to remain Apple's biggest supplier going into 2018. According to DigiTimes' research, out of 15 million MacBooks shipped to Apple a year, the shipment ratio between Quanta and Foxconn has been at around 8:2 for the past five years. Last year alone, Quanta had a 79.5 percent share and Foxconn took 20.5 percent.

Quanta is said to be looking to other brand vendors to offset the impact of the loss of orders, as it aims for similar growth to the market average in 2018. The Taiwan-based firm shipped 38.7 million notebooks last year, up five percent on year, and is currently the largest notebook supplier for HP, Apple, Acer, and Asus.

Quanta also maintains orders for the Apple Watch, and is said to be teaming up with Israeli-based augmented reality company Lumus to manufacture lenses for smart glasses. It's not clear if Quanta and Lumus are working with Apple on a future AR headset or smart glasses, but it is a possibility as rumors suggest Apple has a wearable augmented reality product in the works.

Article Link: MacBook Pro Reportedly Won't See Any Major Upgrades in 2018
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/15/foxconn-more-macbook-orders-from-apple-2018/
Last edited:
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Tuanglen

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Apr 27, 2014
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MacRumors said:



Apple supplier Foxconn could be about to land a large number of additional MacBook orders this year, according to upstream supply chain sources (via DigiTimes). The increase could come at the expense of Quanta Computer, which has been Apple's major MacBook manufacturer in recent years.

Taiwan-based Foxconn has reportedly been working to boost its chances of notebook orders from Apple by offering attractive quotes, while Apple has not majorly upgraded its MacBook range since 2016's Touch Bar MacBook Pros, and is said to have no plan for one in 2018. Apple will therefore switch MacBook orders to Foxconn for models that are already in mass production as a way to save costs and reduce risks, according to the sources.

2016-15-inch-macbook-pro-space-gray-800x710.jpg
Despite the news, Quanta is expected to remain Apple's biggest supplier going into 2018. According to DigiTimes' research, out of 15 million MacBooks shipped to Apple a year, the shipment ratio between Quanta and Foxconn has been at around 8:2 for the past five years. Last year alone, Quanta had a 79.5 percent share and Foxconn took 20.5 percent.

Quanta is said to be looking to other brand vendors to offset the impact of the loss of orders, as it aims for similar growth to the market average in 2018. The Taiwan-based firm shipped 38.7 million notebooks last year, up 5 percent on year, and is currently the largest notebook supplier for Hewlett-Packard (HP), Apple, Acer and Asustek Computer.

Quanta also maintains orders from Apple for Apple Watch, and is said to be teaming up with Israeli-based augmented reality company Lumus to manufacture lenses for smart glasses. It's not clear if Quanta and Lumus are working with Apple on a future AR headset or smart glasses, but it is a possibility as rumors suggest Apple has a wearable augmented reality product in the works.

Article Link: Foxconn to See More MacBook Orders From Apple in 2018 Despite No Major Upgrades to Line-Up Planned This Year
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[doublepost=1516015801][/doublepost]MacBook Pro users seem to be able to look forward to one of two changes each year. We tell them the MacBook Pro is thin enough and we'd like new and better features, to which some years they respond with "No" and some years they respond with, "We've heard you, so we've made it thinner and removed fewer useful features than we usually do!" At this point, I'd be happy if they reintroduced the MacBook Pro lineup from a few years ago, replacing one of the USB ports with USB-C, knocked $300 off the price, and declared, "We think you'll find them to be the best we ever made."
 
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sublunar

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Jun 23, 2007
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My reading of it is no structural change in layout - screen, case, all Thunderbolt ports, and (controversially) the keyboard. I'd expect a CPU refresh but that's not always a guarantee with Apple lately.

With this, Kaby Lake Refresh seems to be the order of the day and that's surely just an obvious refresh even if the notebooks get done before WWDC.

We would then have had 3 generations of the current shape and Apple would then be in a position to move on from this generation to something else early next year. I'll still point out my theory of a slightly bigger 14" and 16" model with smaller bezels and better graphics performance (and optional additional cores) plus a sorted out keyboard.
 
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maflynn

maflynn

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May 3, 2009
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Given that there was a major update in 2016, this is not really shocking news. The question is will Apple continue to improve (or better yet) replace their keyboard and secondly what chip family will it have, i.e., coffee lake or cannon lake?
 
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CmdrLaForge

CmdrLaForge

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Feb 26, 2003
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No major update? It would be a minimum requirement for me to get interested in buying a new MBP to have a reliable keyboard. 6-core CPU would be nice as well. Also I would like if we can get 14" and 16" MBPs with very tiny bezels. Again - the keyboard is a must.

EDIT: the headline seem to be wrong. If you read the article it looks like the rumours are about Apple moving their supply chain around, doesn't really matter to me.
 
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xkam1x

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Dec 15, 2014
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I would be gobsmacked if they did not at least update the CPU to coffee lake, update the GPU to AMD Vega M with 6GB VRAM, support 32GB RAM, improve the keyboard and improve the battery. These are the things I would be interested in if they plan on keeping the current prices which I think is reasonable.
 
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sublunar

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I think this year it'll be Kaby Lake + Radeon Vega for the 15" MacBook Pro so in effect a GPU upgrade with a slight clock speed bump to 3.1GHz for the 15". There is a 2.8Ghz i5 variant which retains the multi threading so perhaps a cheaper entry level for the 15".

Currently announced Kaby Lake R CPUs are 15w with only UHD620 graphics which probably fall below the Iris Plus Graphics standard which Apple want in their 13" laptops. It's looking possible that we'll keep the improved graphics at the expense of additional cores.

There's also the prospect of a small price cut or storage bump if they genuinely don't bump the CPU because they have something better coming next year too. I believe they did a price cut with the 2014 models.
 
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IlluminatedSage

IlluminatedSage

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Aug 1, 2000
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Wish they would consider on of these intel G Radeon cpu's. and more ram! But since they appointed an product manufacturing cost efficiency expert CEO.... they don't spend money to upgrade logic board or etc, Many are left wondering why Apple is so cheap they can't update Mac mini or Mac Pro's on a modest yearly basis too.

Seems like the only thing Apple considers these days is a chip upgrade which will fit on an existing logic board or chipset.

Sad
 
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kasakka

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Oct 25, 2008
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Lesser Evets said:
What more does it need than an upgraded CPU? Not much more should be done at this time.
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A keyboard that doesn't feel like crap and have a **** layout, no useless Touchbar on the higher end models and a trackpad that isn't so huge it constantly mistakes my palms for fingers.

Understandable that they don't want to improve it this year since it's not that old a design.
 
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