Planning to buy a MacBook Pro 2018

Hi Team, I am planning on buying a 13 inch MacBook Pro. I have a 2015 already so no rush, I just want a new laptop to give the 2015 to wife. Should I wait until March for maybe new ones or is ok to jump now and buy it. What you think?

Thank you,
Luis

No rush? Then wait. :grinning:

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I think that you wonā€™t see anything new until around/just after WWDC time. I could be wrong, but Iā€™d be surprised to see an update less than a year after the previous one. If I could get someone to buy my 2017 15ā€ MBP, I wouldnā€™t hesitate to buy a 2018 right now.

I would be very surprised if we see new MacBook Pros before WWDC, and even that would be less than a year since the last update. Fall may be more likely, and itā€™s possible we might not see new machines until 2019 (especially if Apple is moving towards either a new design or a switch to ARM).

Intel finally announced their 10nm Ice Lake processors at CES. Thereā€™s a chance we may see those in Apple hardware; if we donā€™t see a spec bump on the current hardware next fall, thatā€™s probably more likely.

Cannon Lake was the codename for the 10nm Intel CPU architecture was slated for release sometime late 2017 to early 2018ā€¦ thatā€™s how far behind Intel is for its processors. So even though they say Ice Lake will be available in consumer machines by holiday 2019 you can never be sureā€¦

The chipsets for Ice Lake are designed for mobile, and will enable Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) (with appropriate installed Intel CRF module), and it will include Thunderbolt 3 over USB Type-C, and they also reworked the board design to apparently free up more dimensional space for a portableā€™s battery. Right up Appleā€™s alley. Ice Lake might be useful in a lower-end Macbook updateā€¦ assuming Apple doesnā€™t hold off on updating the Macbook in favor of an ARM-based unit in 2020ā€¦

The diminutive Lakefield line was created by Intel for a single customer who put in the request to meet a requirement for a processor with a 2mW standby power, though it will be available to all OEMs. Rumors has it that Apple is the customer. Itā€™s a very low-power chip, lower that Appleā€™s A12x, so itā€™s probably not bound for a laptop. Very curious processor for Apple to order, and some think itā€™s not Apple but Lenovo who wanted it (for their Yogabooks). Weā€™ll seeā€¦

I agree that there almost certainly wonā€™t be any new MBP updates at or before WWDC. I hope that there will be either shortly after (as happened in 2018) or in the fall.

What might be something that coincides with WWDC (but more likely in 2020) is a move of the 12ā€ MacBook to ARM, as that would help explain why the thing still exists, why it hasnā€™t been updated, and it would be of great interest to the Mac development community.

Donā€™t count on it happening this year, but WWDC will give devs an interesting wink-wink look at continuing architectural convergence.

Going back to macOS Sierra the OS kernel indicated some level of support for Apple ARM ā€˜Hurricaneā€™ chips (the code-name used for the A10 used in iPhone 7). And for more than two years, developers no longer submit fully compiled binaries to the Mac App Store, instead submitting intermediary bit code which Apple uses to compile for the specific CPU architecture. Should Apple release an ARM-based Mac, developers probably wouldnā€™t need to re-submit their existing code or need to add any ARM-specific code in order for their apps to run natively on ARM-based hardware, and a transition could be relatively painless. (Note italics.)

(Itā€™s also possible that Apple has also been working on binary translation for emulation of Intel on ARM, but given Intelā€™s implied threat to Qualcomm/Microsoft re emulation on SnapDragon chips - and those companies not pursuing such emulation [yet] - it might not be a path Apple wants to take.)