AppleInsider Staff
While Apple's MacBook Air is rumored to receive an updated a dual-microphone system that would help with voice-driven features like dictation, the company's legacy MacBook Pro will not receive a hardware update at WWDC, a well-connected insider claims.
Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities said in a note to investors on Monday that Apple plans to unveil a slightly tweaked MacBook Air at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference next week. The thin-and-light will reportedly keep the same design as existing models, but will likely adopt a dual-microphone setup similar to the implementation seen in the current Retina MacBook Pro.
Kuo says the inclusion of a second mic comes as a result of positive feedback regarding the system's voice quality during VoIP and FaceTime calls. The microphones are also used for dictation, and the hardware revision could even be seen as a hint that Siri, Apple's voice-driven personal assistant for iOS devices, could be coming to the Mac.
As previously reported, the Retina MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are expected to be powered by Intel's next-generation Haswell CPUs, but Kuo now believes Apple will not be updating the entry level non-Retina MacBook Pro to the new processor tech. Instead, he said the current models will continue to be sold as-is, with previous-generation Ivy Bridge processors.
"We think Apple will discontinue the upgrade of MacBook Pro’s CPU to Haswell this year, basically because now neither hard disk drive nor optical disc drive creates a better user experience," Kuo said. "While we expect Apple to continue retailing Ivy Bridge-supported MacBook Pro, this product line will likely be withdrawn from the spotlight going forward."
Source: KGI Securities
With the older Pro model moving closer to being phased out, Apple is increasingly turning to solid state drives as a mainstream storage solution for its laptop lineup. In 2013, the analyst estimates the market share of MacBooks with SSDs to reach 64 percent, up from 45 percent in 2012, well ahead of the industry average 15 to 20 percent.
Kuo notes, however, that the move to discontinue non-Retina MacBook Pro upgrades will negatively impact Apple's laptop shipments as the overall PC market continues to show weak demand. Along with a product line transition and cannibalization by the iPad, the analyst forecasts a MacBook shipment decline of 10 to 20 percent in fiscal 2013.
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10 Comments
1) Siri seems like the most likely reason for dual-mics at this stage but I think they should have included dual-mics years ago. 2) This is not good news for those that want the ODD. At least the rumour says they are keeping it. Hopefully they'll update it to Haswell later on after the RMBPs get their fill.
if the MPB stays the same I can only see Apple justifying this with a price reduction.
1) Siri seems like the most likely reason for dual-mics at this stage but I think they should have included dual-mics years ago.
Apple is going to limit Siri in OS X to people who own a retina MacBook Air and retina MacBook Pro, aren't they?
They're honestly going to limit it to two models out of the thirty or so that will be able to run OS X, aren't they?
I don't know if I'm furious or depressed yet. Better just wait until they actually tell us, huh?
[quote name="Tallest Skil" url="/t/157816/dual-mic-macbook-air-expected-at-wwdc-legacy-macbook-pro-to-remain-without-update#post_2337362"] Apple is going to limit Siri in OS X to people who own a retina MacBook Air and retina MacBook Pro, aren't they? They're honestly going to limit it to two models out of the thirty or so that will be able to run OS X, aren't they? I don't know if I'm furious or depressed yet. Better just wait until they actually tell us, huh? :lol: [/quote] It'll be interesting if that's the case- right? Didn't even think about it until you posted it. Reminds me of my base model 2011 Mac mini being able to mirror to ATV and my 2.93 BTO 2010 27" iMac not being able to. But, of course, it was a "graphic card" issue. Lol
[quote name="Tallest Skil" url="/t/157816/dual-mic-macbook-air-expected-at-wwdc-legacy-macbook-pro-to-remain-without-update#post_2337362"] Apple is going to limit Siri in OS X to people who own a retina MacBook Air and retina MacBook Pro, aren't they? They're honestly going to limit it to two models out of the thirty or so that will be able to run OS X, aren't they? I don't know if I'm furious or depressed yet. Better just wait until they actually tell us, huh? :lol: [/quote] Perhaps, but I'd bet against it. The primary reason for Apple limited Siri to the iPhone 4S seems to be due to the number of users, not the built-in HW. All Macs capable of running Mac OS X 10.9 is small compared to the number of iDevices that can access Siri today. Then you have ML already being able to access system-wide dictation that uses the same Siri backend so it's hard for Apple to claim that it's a speech-to-text issue with the microphone tech. Finally, I would bet using Siri on Macs isn't used as extensively as with a more portable device since typing a command into Google is considerably easier and the users are likely more adept at internet searches. Overall I'd say it would be bet served as a value added to Mac OS X 10.9 than to use this feature to sell newer Macs.