Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable
by neilc on Friday June 15, 2012 @12:36PM
(#4117334)
Doing essentially what you seem to suggest: giving people a choice of a new thing and not taking any old things away.
You really think Apple will be selling old-style MBPs indefinitely? It seems like the product line is going through a transition, and the old-style MBPs will be the end of the line.
Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable
by roc on Friday June 15, 2012 @09:51PM
(#4119624)
If the old style sells enough, I think they'll absolutely keep it around. In fact, I'd expect them to back off on the 'transition' and rename the new-style MBP an Air.
After all -- despite the mini, nano and shuffle -- the iPod classic stubbornly remains. Even after all these years. Not to mention the 13" MBP which seems (without the benefit of sales data) to be fairly pointless.
Apple won't hesitate to risk cannibalizing itself with new products. But they don't have any history of forcing the issue, if the old products still sell.
Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable
by eddieroger on Friday June 15, 2012 @03:37PM
(#4118273)
I think that if they can, they will. "Can" being dictated by the market of course. Look at the Mac Pro - arguably the most ignored product line Apple sells, yet it still sells. If people continue buying the non-Retina MBPs, I have no doubt Apple will continue updating it, even if slowly.
They didn't. You can still get an old-style macbook pro with updated internals. They're offering a new option that looks a lot like a MBP-Air. Doing essentially what you seem to suggest: giving people a choice of a new thing and not taking any old things away.
And if/when most pros demonstrate that they don't care about the modicum of hardware-accessibility in the old-style pro design, Apple will simply be dropping the product that its customers do not prefer. As it always does. As it did with the 17" MBP. A beast that increasingly few Apple customers had any interest in.