AppleInsider Staff
Days after apparent supply constraints slowed ship times for certain Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro models to 1-2 weeks, the Online Apple Store on Friday extended those estimates to 2-3 weeks.
On Wednesday, AppleInsider reported that 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display inventory has been fluctuating over the past month. With discrete GPU models now shipping in 2-3 weeks, the dwindling supply could point to an imminent refresh with expected to bring Broadwell processors and Force Touch trackpad inclusion.
When Apple announced refreshed MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models last month, the 15-inch MacBook Pro was noticeably absent likely due to delayed production of Intel's high-performance Broadwell chips.
As for current availability, sources said authorized resellers are seeing shifts in supply, with Apple drawing down channel inventory in March only to send out fresh shipments in April. It seems, however, that supply for 15-inch MacBook Pros with discrete Nvidia GPUs is steadily decreasing at both resellers and Apple's own stores, suggesting a new model could be announced soon. A good time to debut a refresh is coming up at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Apple's last 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display update brought Haswell CPUs and more standard memory in July 2014.
Sponsored Content
Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
22 Comments
Well that truly sucks. If real this means SkyLake is farther off than expected. Either that or Intel is to ship SkyLake early.
Well that truly sucks. If real this means SkyLake is farther off than expected. Either that or Intel is to ship SkyLake early.
Yes ... :-(
[quote name="wizard69" url="/t/185954/shipping-times-for-apples-15-macbook-pro-with-discrete-gpu-slip-to-2-3-weeks-point-to-refresh#post_2714893"]Well that truly sucks. If real this means SkyLake is farther off than expected. Either that or Intel is to ship SkyLake early.[/quote] It looks like desktop Broadwell chips will be available in June: http://wccftech.com/intels-5th-generation-unlocked-broadwell-desktop-socketed-processors-arrive-mid2015/ https://www.computextaipei.com.tw (June 2-6) There's a slide here with the mobile Broadwell quad-cores: http://s8.postimg.org/4ui02ccit/New5th_Gen_Quads.jpg Apple uses the i7-4770HQ, i7-4870HQ, i7-4980HQ just now. There will be i7-5700HQ, i7-5750HQ, i7-5850HQ, i7-5950HQ. It doesn't make sense to even bother with the upgrade in June when they're clearly going to be launching Skylake in August, just 2 months later. Even Dell who usually ships every available upgrade is going to skip over it with some models: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2865877/dell-plans-laptops-with-intels-skylake-chips-in-second-half-of-year.html Skylake is scheduled for mass production mid-2015: http://www.techspot.com/news/58009-intels-14nm-skylake-platform-demoed-mass-production-scheduled-for-mid-2015.html so it's possible that Apple could get an early batch and be able to show off wireless charging etc but they used Broadwell in the 13" not long ago. There's no way that Intel is going to delay Skylake very long. Worst case it'll be early next year for MBP chips. The fastest upgrade Apple has done is around 7.5 months so if a MBP arrives in June, they would push the Skylake one out to around Jan/Feb 2016. That would be a bit disappointing, especially if PC manufacturers will be shipping Skylake this year. It would only be about 3-4 months later though. There's no way that Broadwell's Iris Pro competes with NVidia this year so one plus is there may be a bump to a 950M, even though it's at the higher price point.
Good analysis Marvin. It indeed doesn't make a lot of sense so I guess we're all praying (for naught) that it's gonna be a Skylake version...
Me too thinks it would be better to delay the 15" upgrade for half a year but getting Skylake at the same time.
It doesn't make sense to even bother with the upgrade in June when they're clearly going to be launching Skylake in August, just 2 months later.
While some Skylake parts will ship in Q3 2015, I don't expect Skylake-H parts suitable for the MBP before Q4 at the earliest. I think we'll see Skylake MBPs in February or March 2016.