Skip to main content

Apple reportedly set to introduce new, thinner, 13 inch and 15 inch MacBooks by July

macbook-pro-retina-mf840lla

Digitimes has a mixed track record of reliability with regard to Apple rumors, but its latest report gels with expectations. The report claims Apple is preparing new 13 inch and 15 inch MacBooks to launch in the summer, by July. Although the publication does not say this, it indicates that new MacBook Pros are on the horizon perhaps debuting at WWDC, Apple’s developer conference.

Given Intel’s CPU roadmap, Apple laptops featuring the new Skylake processors are due. Therefore, it is not that much of a stretch to believe this report. A key feature of Skylake is power efficiency, which would allow Apple to make dramatically thinner laptops.

A similar story was published by Economic Daily News late last year, which claimed Apple was preparing new 13 inch and 15 inch MacBook Airs for a June debut. Synthesizing the two reports together, it would make sense that Apple is planning new MacBook Pro updates with Air-like thinness. In fact, the Digitimes reports claims the new MacBooks will be even thinner.

The two new MacBooks share a design similar to the existing 12-inch MacBook, but thinner than existing MacBook Air.

The fate of the MacBook Air itself is bleak, with Apple heavily pushing the new Retina MacBook and the iPad Pro as its successor.

Apple’s March event featured no mention of the Mac, but there’s still many months left for Apple to give attention to its traditional PC business. Digitimes expects Mac sales growth to continue despite weak industry demand.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Comments

  1. Julian (@thejulianw) - 8 years ago

    “Thinner than MacBook Air”
    *drooling* :O
    I’m one of those “Thinner is always better” people, so that is fantastic news :)
    Can’t wait for a thinner “iPhone 7” as well <3

    • paulywalnuts23 - 8 years ago

      It is called the Macbook, it already exists.

      • Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 8 years ago

        From reading the article they were referring to, it suggests that the MacBook will be thinner but also in larger screen sizes. At least that’s how it reads.

      • 311sie - 8 years ago

        Well, there is a Macbook and it does exist. But it seems like Julian, and the article, are making reference to a thinner-than-Macbook-Air, Macbook PRO. And -at least for now- no, it does NOT exist.

    • Alex Simkin - 8 years ago

      I can understand wanting thinness, but is it really always better? The Retina MacBook may be thin, for example, but its processor is slow and its keyboard sucks. And by making the iPhone ever-thinner (when it was already quite thin with the 5/5S), they lost a great opportunity to have really good battery life.

      I do hope the next generation of MBPs are thinner, but if that means a hit to battery life, performance and/or the keyboard I’ll be annoyed as thinner, in that scenario, would very much not be better.

      • rnc - 8 years ago

        The keyboard is far from “sucking”.

        If it sucks, it’s your opinion, because I tried it and it’s excellent!

      • pharrisart - 8 years ago

        The MacBook keyboard does anything but suck. In fact, its quite amazing. The keys are 18% larger than those on the Airs and Pros, which mean you strike the proper key FAR more than the incorrect one. Yes, is has a shallow travel space, which I will tell you is absolutely weird the first several times you use it. However, after a few days you get used to it, and then find it to be a spectacular keyboard.

      • If they keyboard sucks so much, then why has almost every other manufacture copied its design?

  2. triankar - 8 years ago

    That’s more like the news I was waiting to hear. I never missed an Apple keynote since 2009 and I didn’t bother with yesterday’s until just now.

    So, a few more months until I can, hopefully, upgrade my aging rMBP. And I say hopefully because with Ive at the helm, we might as well be looking for another set of ultra thin but under-specced or even port-limited rMBPs.

  3. Well, the redesign makes sense. 2008 brought unibody, 2012 thinner retina MacBooks and now again four years later a thinner design seems logical. My concern is that by July, Intel’s Kaby Lake is around te corner. By the end of this year or early next year we’ll get the next 14nm architecture… Skylake isn’t that new anymore.

    • dksmidtx - 8 years ago

      Forget about Kaby Lake – Intel has barely gotten its drivers working with Sky Lake (after five months from the release of my Surface Pro 4). Be glad Apple has waited and refined Sky lake – it will be Fall 2017 by the time Intel gets Kaby Lake right.

  4. I am hoping they mac a mac pro with more affordable specs. Apple lacks a Mac with a decent GPU.

    • rettun1 - 8 years ago

      I bought a late 2013 27 inch iMac, and even though it’s a mobile chip (I think it’s a gtx 780m) it runs all my games at 50+ fps. Skyrim, gta v, fallout 4, all run well even at full res (2k), but going down to 1080p makes everything buttery smooth.

      I can’t speak on how games run on the 5k iMac, but with a more powerful gpu and knocking it down to 2K during gaming, I don’t think there would be any problems

      • vslavik - 8 years ago

        5K iMac is fine with the higher GPU. Not great, but most games run decent on it in 1080p on high details settings. Its worst issue is that the GPU is by AMD and they decided to screw over iMac users about 2 years ago and it’s no longer possible to install their latest drivers on Apple hardware (it’s not a technical problem, but a config flag)… and Apple of course sucks about updating Bootcamp drivers.

  5. Matt - 8 years ago

    New line up all Retina screens: 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pros with thinner design (Air Like) and refreshed MacBooks with better internals, another port, and two screen sizes.

    Bye bye MacBooks Airs.

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      I disagree, either the MacBook or MacBook Airs need to have A series chips and ARM supported OS X. I think there is room for 3 lines of MacBooks. One a budget 12″ ultra portable with ARM chips, another ultra portable with mid tier Intel chips at 13″ and 15″ then redesigned Pro’s with 14″ and 16″ screens.

    • r00fus1 - 8 years ago

      Sad for me – MB Air was an absolutely revolutionary machine – I remember seeing these back in ’10 and they were truly drool worthy at the time.
      Small, light, stylish and snappy (due to SSD-only) for the time.

    • If this report is right, and these new Macbooks are as thin as they say, I doubt they are MBP. I don’t see Pro level guts being power efficient enough to go into such a thin design. That’s not to say there won’t be new MBP machines. I just don’t think this report refers to that line

  6. taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

    They use the term MacBook when the earlier rumors used iPad Air. Does this mean Apple will be calling all Laptops MacBooks and all iPads iPad Pro’s?

    Apple has to many products in the 12″-13″ range. I would like to personally see 12″ MacBook go to A series chips with a big price cut and Air at 13″ and 15″ and pro at 14″ and 16″. The 12″ MacBook for its price is a hard sell when the 12.9″ iPad Pro has a more powerful processor for way less. One of the MacBook lines need ARM chills and ARM supported OS X.

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      Imagine how well a 12″ ARM MacBook would sell for education. Price it at $899 or so you have great affordable devices for schools.

      I really hope Apple keeps 3 lines of MacBooks and think there is room for all 3 if Apple makes the 12″ model with A series chips.

    • Actually, I would like to see 13″ / 15″ MB & 13″ / 15″ rMBP. With the iPad Pro being as powerful as (if not more) as the 12″ MB, I see the 12″ MB being stuck in no man’s land without a bright future.

      • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

        I think the 12″ would have a bright future if they put A series chips in it and gave it a nice price drop.

  7. Eduardo Freitas - 8 years ago

    Oh my God. I can’t wait to put my hands on this thing. I hope it comes in colors too.

  8. Arin Failing - 8 years ago

    I’m hoping all the recent unveils and rumors point to 2016 being the year that Apple drops numbers (not including screen size classifier) and “Air” [i.e – iPad mini, iPad (fall), iPad Pro; MacBook, MacBook Pro; iPhone SE, iPhone (fall), iPhone Pro (fall)]

  9. Alex Simkin - 8 years ago

    I’ll be buying a 13 inch MacBook Pro in August so it looks like this will be it. I just hope they don’t use a butterfly keyboard, and keep at least one USB 3.1 port.

  10. Doug Aalseth - 8 years ago

    Hope they’re right about the MacBook Pro being “on the horizon perhaps debuting at WWDC”. The MacBook is just too underpowered and doesn’t have enough ports for what I want to do.

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      It’s also about $300 overpriced. The chips in the iPad Pros have higher geek bench scores the the Macboook. I think the MacBook should had A series chips last year..

      I think the MacBook Pro was always headed for June or July release. As late as February the Skylakes chips suitable for the Pros were not shipping, they were priced, but. Not available. The chips suitable for the 15″ model still are not. available. I thought a redesign was coming and made sense for debut at WWDC in June.

      • Doug Aalseth - 8 years ago

        Oh I completely agree about the price. The MacBook would be a fine $999 laptop, but $1300 US for a base price is nuts.

      • viciosodiego - 8 years ago

        No.
        The iPad pro is 10 times less powerful then the macbook.
        ARM will never pass x86 in performance, despite what geek bench said.
        X86 is more complex and ARM is simpler.

  11. Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 8 years ago

    The thing about the MacBook Air is that it’s a less expensive laptop starting at $899/$999 instead of starting at $1299. Plus isn’t the i5/i7 better than the mCore or CoreM or whatever they call that processor?

  12. Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 8 years ago

    But what about the MacBookPros? They need to replace those, quickly.

  13. uniszuurmond - 8 years ago

    Apple needs to streamline its product lines and naming conventions. Consider this:

    One line of MacBooks. No Air, and no Pro. Just a 12″, 14″ and 16″ MacBook. Which, if they want, they can call S, M and L.

    And while they’re at it, apply the same thinking to iPad (with the mini becoming S, the small Pro becoming the M and the large Pro becoming the L). And also iPhone. Even the Apple Watch (S and L) and iMac (S and L) which really should be called the Mac (as it doesn’t run iOS, and OS X should be MacOS, like watchOS and tvOS). Not sure what happens with the Mac mini and Mac Pro, but even they could benefit from such a consolidation.

    In other words, if you can compare and buy one Apple product, you can compare and buy them all. Keeping it simple.

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      People have have different needs for laptops and is why companies have multiple lines of them. For many users the Macbook is criminally under powered for their needs.

    • Matthew Gonzales Landry - 8 years ago

      lol Mac OS is what the operating system is called OS X is just shortened way to say it. And as far as iMac is concerned, the i stands for a lot of things. Perhaps it could use an updated name, but its name is more justified than iOS, iPod, iPad, and iPhone.

  14. jb510 - 8 years ago

    Been waiting for a thinner/lighter 15″ for 2.. now 3 years… I want something more powerful than the seriously underpowered MacBook, but I’ll take something less powerful than the current rMBP as long as it’s 14″ or bigger.

    • Matisyahu Gardiner - 8 years ago

      The biggest problem has been the lack of die shrinkage when it came to discrete GPU – the move to 14/16nm recently should mean thiner designs, better performance and improved battery life.

  15. It’s not hard to imagine WWDC being a huge launch for all Macs, with USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 across the board. I’m just hoping an updated Thunderbolt Display gets launched too. :)

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      Disappointing the retina 21″ and 27″ iMacs didn’t receive USB-C late last year. It needs USB-c more then any Mac with its ports hidden in the back.

      I think WWDC we could see updated MacBook Pro’s and whatever they decide to call the new thinner mid tier 13 and 15″ MacBooks. Redesigned or updated Mac Mini and Pro’s should also make an appearance.

      12″ MacBool will probably be updated before WWDC. the iMac design is long in the tooth, but doubt it will be updated this year.

  16. just-a-random-dude - 8 years ago

    The main question for me is that will they support eGPUs via TB3. Thinner laptops would be acceptable if we can add eGPUs to it via TB3. If they do plan to support this, we still need fast enough CPU to catch up with it. That does mean 28w/45w Skylake CPUs rather than 15 ones.

    • viciosodiego - 8 years ago

      EGPUs will be hard to implement with EFI, tho it can be done.

    • I keep reading rumours that Apple will probably drop discreet GPUs so I am hoping that at the very least this will be an option hopefully with older ports as I’m sure it’s going all USB-C/Thunderbolt 3. I also hope they standardise the SSD connection as the storage is one thing that I constantly upgrade as my needs grow and I haven’t jumped on a Retina MBP because of this.

  17. Jake Becker - 8 years ago

    UGH YES 15″ MACBOOK OR PRO IN SPACE GREY. Junk the Air and get it over with.

  18. JULY?! Mother —–

  19. Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 8 years ago

    I think Apple needs to make sure that the MacBookPro’s are, in fact, a “Pro” level laptop. Intel is offering Xeon mobile processors. I don’t know if they offer a performance improvement over the higher end i7’s, and if they do, they might want to make Xeon based MacBook Pro’s since the typical Professional user wants lot of processing (CPU/GPU) performance, lots of RAM, I/O, storage, long battery life, and high res screen. Thinness is not as much of a concern as power, RAM, I/O, storage, high res screen and long battery life.

    In some ways I think Apple is neglecting the high end laptop user.

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      Typically Apple only used Zeon chips in the 15″ model and I am not sure if those chips are shipping now.

      • slowawake - 8 years ago

        No they have not used Xeons in any MacBook models.

    • It does appear that Apple seem less interested in the Mac market for Pro users and I think they have left the sweet spot of well designed machines that are easily upgradable which is quite annoying from a product longevity and environmental aspect. The Unibody non retina MBP is the best notebook they have ever made! There was a matte display option, the HDD, Ram and battery are easily upgradeable + MagSafe has saved me a few times. iOS is great for certain tasks and a nice lightweight accompanying toolset but it will never compare to OS X and the type of work that can be done on a traditional OS & App offering + mouse input.

  20. At first I hated my new Macbook, now I LOVE IT! The keyboard took about a week – the speed is great for everyday word processing, spreadsheets and photo work. Don’t recommend for gamers, however who uses a laptop for gaming anyway. The size is great! The only draw back I have found is the one port! Add a second USB-C port, HDMI and SD card slot and you have a killer laptop!

  21. Robert Wood - 8 years ago

    How about Macbook pro shed some weight ? 13″ should be well under 4lb, closer to 3lb. Need usb3.1/USB-C ports. Upgradeable flash SSD that starts at 256GB base configuration.

  22. Jim Frye (@Jsfrye) - 8 years ago

    During the 3/21 presentation, Cook said that was the last announcement in that building, does that mean the new spaceship campus will be ready in time for the Summer announcement of the updates to the CPU Product lines?

    • matt3224 - 8 years ago

      Jim, WWDC is typically held at the Moscone West in San Francisco, California :)

  23. I’m fairly exited about this news. Even had a feeling they would be getting a update this year because its been quite some time however, sucks its still a few months away. I’ve been holding off buying a new MBP for over a year now.

  24. iamrefresh - 8 years ago

    I just would like to be able to see my screen outdoors in the daytime. Well… and 2 drive bays.

  25. Ayinde N Smith - 8 years ago

    Why not leave the current size and give me 24hr battery life… so crazy it just might work

  26. Jim Scimonetti - 8 years ago

    Bring on USB-C,

    Fingerprint Reader,

    Skylake – YES,

    Seri for OS-X,

    Bring back iWeb!!!!!!!

    Here is a great idea, make iWorks (2009) BETTER not WORSE. It is a little embarrassing to buy a high-end MacBookPro that spell-checks worse then I do. Face it, Apple’s Pages is like MS Works-Lite.

    Keep the back lit Apple logo and the back lit screen.

    BRING BACK THE BOUNCE BUTTON ON MAIL. I loved bouncing junk email and spam back to the folks who sent it. Why did you remove that?

    Stop kidding yourself (and us) about iO/S and O/S-X being “seamless.” My apps and my CONTENT placement on my Mac are totally different from what’s on my iO/S devices.

    Clean up iTunes! It really turned out to be a complicated mess. I hate to launch the app. Apple is not like my Windows 98/Vista experience, but I sometimes wonder if that is where the Cupertino guys is taking it. When I bought my Late 2008 MacBookPro I walked out of the Apple Store with a slick computer that had everything I needed right out of the box with a clean simple UI. Since I have been doing all the updates, MY MAC DOES LESS THEN IT DID WHEN I BOUGHT IT.

    • pdixon1986 - 8 years ago

      i kinda agree with you… i feel like i am having to find alternatives for apple software — and yes…my current mac does less than my old mac…
      The iworks should either be vastly improved OR just got rid of – and to think they used to charge for them :-( … they feel a lot like google docs online — you cant really do much with them…so limited

      iTunes is so bad that the only time i use it is to make a back up of my phone to my computer…i use my phone instead for music or streaming site.
      Why can’t the player be separate — i hate clicking between all the tabs trying to find stuff… it’s more complicated than it needs to be.

      As for the glowing logo — i actually hate it now.. it looks cheap and out of date… a shiny silver plate is better, although the black glass one is nice too.

    • Jake Becker - 8 years ago

      I generally think Apple is doing fantastic but iWork is a sore spot…..
      The MS Word updates have essentially wrecked my ability to competently create and edit Publisher files on my Mac – which was a nightmare to begin with – but Pages does not offer some of the options I’m used to (why can’t I add a colored glow to raw text? etc..)..

  27. pdixon1986 - 8 years ago

    if apple want to push the macbook – they would need to get rid of the macbook air AND lower the price dramatically…for what it is, it is very over priced…add much needed adaptors and the macbook is almost the same price as a macbook pro — hence why i went for the macbook pro over the macbook.

  28. Mark Granger - 8 years ago

    Let’s say that along with new thinner MacBooks, Apple also released one big thick MacBook beast of a gaming laptop. Big, heavy, not sleek but built with the fastest CPU and discrete GPU with the ability to upgrade both the RAM and SSD, would this tempt you? I know it would tempt me if it had enough horsepower to run a VR headset.

  29. yt75 - 8 years ago

    Release them before June !
    At least for the skylake 13/14 MBP

  30. appleisgrindingmygears - 8 years ago

    Blurring the line between iPads and MacBooks.

  31. AgileBulletDodger - 8 years ago

    much thinner and we’ll start seeing clam-shell cases made of kevlar to keep the MBP from snapping in two :)

  32. Nathan Lanier - 8 years ago

    Thinner MacBooks with $200 of hardware, $100 of metal, $1300 for an LED logo in the shape of a fruit.

  33. Philip G Mills - 8 years ago

    iweb iweb
    i loved iweb bring back iWeb apple please lol.

  34. drtyrell969 - 8 years ago

    Dear Apple, we don’t give a shit about thinner. We want faster. And bring back the GD 17″ MacBook Pro!

  35. Bogdan (@b_rotariu) - 8 years ago

    How about they stop screwing around with thinner designs and focus on making it feel less like molten lava after using it intensely for more than 15 minutes.

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.