Monday, April 23rd 2012
Apple Could Discontinue 17-inch MacBook Pro
Market researcher Ming-Chi Kuo, who is credible with reports on Apple's product lineup in the past, predicted that Apple could discontinue the 17-inch variant of its MacBook Pro soon, owing to weak sales. Apple's next MacBook Pro could look increasingly like the MacBook Air, offering high-performance in a very compact form-factor. Being a major design rejig, Apple could take a fresh look at the viability of each variant based on its past market reception. "While adding new products, Apple is likely to stop making the 17" MacBook Pro this year due to falling shipments, in order to maintain a lean product line strategy," Kuo writes in his report.
Source:
MacRumors
19 Comments on Apple Could Discontinue 17-inch MacBook Pro
If they don't make a 17''..!! Im not gonna buy the bloody small 13'' or 15''..!! no way..!!
you will lose a customer for sure..!!
Regardless.
Apple has a good grip on getting people to spend 300 to 1500$
But the Mac book pro 17 inch fails to deliver an appropriate amount of performance or a neccessary incentive to put a large amount of money down on a purchase, when their smaller sized/priced alternative does everything perfectly for the expecting user.
And the more expensive and classy the laptop, the more a consumer is going to check out alternatives
That ends up being a "duh" decision when they compare the Mac book pro to other products that offer the same specs for cheaper or more for the same price.
Apple products like the Mac book air and iPad tablits offer impressive quality of use and quality product for more redible and common prices 1200$ n below.
The 17” Mac Book Pro entry level pricing likely isn’t in the typical realm of comfort for the majority of consumers. The ~$2500 entry level price of the Mac Book Pro is the same as the entry level price of the Mac Pro. Keep in mind that the hardware configuration options of the 17” MBP don’t dramatically improve over the 15”, whereas, the Mac Pro performance effecting options are greatly improved over something like the Mac Mini or iMac.
If Apple dropped the price of the 17” Mac Book Pro or effected price change by altering the options so that the hardware wasn’t only on the higher end of the spectrum, they might sell more.
People like options and Apple does have some options but they are fairly inflexible when it comes to the 17” Mac Book Pro.
I’m not saying Apple should do this only that more general purpose consumers may buy the 17” MBP model if they had a base model unit or option that would lower the price by ~$300 to ~$500 USD down from the standard ~$2500.
They aren't really alienating a "large" user base by any means.
100% of everyone I have ever seen with a 17" macbook pro, only has the 17" model because they weren't the ones that paid for it.
Hardware wise, the only advantage is 2" physical real estate and screen resolution. Res. can easily be fixed on the 15" line (and IMO would be nice if they did bump it up a notch.)
I definately consider myself a power user (I chew up screen realestate as fast as I can get it) and certainly don't enjoy doing my work on a 11-15[excluding the high res option]", but the size of a 17" is truely cumbersome compare to the little gain you get (little to no extra power, and a tiny bit more space), compared to the loss of mobility.
Take that $200-500+ saved, and just get a real monitor to dock with at your workstation and more than double your work space.
I'd also like to see the newest A-MVA tech in an Apple laptop. The battery life won't be as good as with TN, but the contrast ratio and viewing angles will be much improved. OS X isn't much of a gaming platform, so the slow response time of A-MVA (although it is supposedly improved in the panels about to hit the market) isn't much of an issue. IPS still lags considerably when it comes to contrast ratio.