Rumor: new iMacs, MacBook Pros now set for June launch
updated 06:45 pm EDT, Fri April 6, 2012
Reports center around Ivy Bridge, anti-glare glass
Mac users expecting a spring refresh of some notebook and desktop models may have to wait a bit longer, if the latest rumors are to be believed. DigiTimes, quoting a report from China's Economic Daily News, says that supplier checks now indicate that due to late April availability of some Ivy Bridge chips, Apple plans to launched refreshed iMac and MacBook Pro models near the end of the company's fiscal second quarter, which ends in June.
The reports reiterate some earlier speculation that new iMacs and possibly other models will start using a new glass from a company called G-Tech for the display screens that is said to be less reflective and reduce glare. Suppliers Quanta and Foxconn are said to be the primary manufacturing partners for the new machine, which will benefit from the smaller and more energy-efficient yet faster Ivy Bridge chips, which will also bring with it support for internal PCI 3.0, USB 3 and faster graphics, though whether Apple will implement any of those features remains unknown.
The reports indicate that the updated iMacs may be thinner than the current models, possibly suggesting that they may lose the built-in optical drive, as did the MacBook Air. The paper notes that new MacBook Pro models may ship around the same time, again gaining the advantages of the Ivy Bridge i5 and i7 chips along with a possible move to Intel HD 4000 graphics as the default chipset (supplemented by a discrete video card in higher-end models).
The iMacs were last updated nearly a year ago, adding Thunderbolt ports, AMD HD Radeon graphics cards and FaceTime HD webcams. The MacBook Pro line was last updated in October of last year, but are traditionally updated more often than some other products. The next MacBook Pro models may also adopt a thinner design, possibly squeezing out the optical drive, which is seen by Apple as little-used in the era of internet software installs and HD-based recovery partitions. [via DigiTimes]
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MBP upgrade and mobileme death
I had hoped to migrate to a new mbp with lion before going to cloud from mobileme for both laptop and iphone. Apple must want everyone to buy a sw upgrade. Why buy sw just to stay where I am with mobileme and my iphone. A new lighter MBP would be a benefit
The apple store said to upgrade my iphone and laptop together even thought mobileme syncs fine today
Why should I forget about syncing my leopard laptop and my iphone? icloud just gives me parity with what I have today at extra cost
if they don't extend mobile me life till the new platforms are out it shows that apple cares very little for laptop/desktop users. It would prove they are just a cell phone company now.