Shortage of MacBook and MacBook Pro may yield update at WWDC2018
If you have tried to order a MacBook, or MacBook Pro directly from Apple, you may have bumped in a few issues, especially when trying to order a Core i7 MacBook, as there doesn’t seem to be any stock available for immediate purchase, either for pickup or delivery, as first reported by Apple Insider this week.
Core i7 Apple MacBooks, and other models can still be ordered, however free delivery won’t be fulfilled until the brief period running from June 4 through June 6.
This pattern isn’t new, as Apple is known for suspending availability of some of its product categories, as impending updates loom, alas unofficially This could very well mean that updated Macbooks may be in schedule for WWDC2018, which will take place on June 4.
As always, making an accurate prediction on what exactly we can expect, is hard, but not impossible, as rumors have been circulating about Apple possibly integrating Intel Coffee Lake processors.
The shift to Coffee Lake from Cannon Lake is a rather huge deal, because the latest family of processors support 32GB memory sizes, a huge jump from the customary 16GB typical of most laptops, including Macs.
32GB is a typical size for desktop computers like the Apple iMac, as the casing, and price point, allows for more powerful, and power-hungry hardware, not normally available on laptops and other mobile devices.
With that said, it/s unlikely that Apple will ship 32GB MacBooks in June, at least according to sources close to the Apple’s supply chain.
This means that consumers interested in 32GB MacBooks will have to wait till late 2018, or even early 2019.
The big question, at this point, is whether these new Macs are worth holding out for, considering that most consumers, according to current trends, have little need for RAM beyond 8GB, and 16GB is still considered overkill for professionals as well. Case in point are creative professionals working with powerful graphic software like Photoshop or Illustrator. Even if current MacBooks came with 32GB or RAM, Core i7 powered MacBooks still fall short of providing sufficient performance for workflow typically reserved to Apple iMac desktop computers.
While Intel Coffee Lake has the capability to allow MacBooks to reach new heights in regard to memory support, and perhaps considerable CPU performance improvements, it’s very unlikely that the current owners of 2017 MacBook, and MacBook Pro models, will be in a hurry to upgrade, unless Apple comes up with something so sensational, that it will render all of the above points meaningless, and yes, it would have to be something way better than the Touch Bar.
This has lead us to develop a number of theories, one of which revolves around the idea that Apple is finally getting close to widening support for Apple Pencil, to Macs, possibly by reengineering it to support existing Mac peripherals like the Magic TrackPad, or by even taking it a step further, with an actual Apple Pencil compatible graphic tablet.
Another theory, if we were to explore the realm of extravagance, may lead to believe that Apple is actually working on a MacBook with a second touchscreen display designed to replace the keyboard, which could be compatible with Apple Pencil, although it might be a bit of a stretch considering that Tim Cook had been very clear on a number of occasions about how absurd it is the idea of a touchscreen MacBook.