The "OldBook Pro" aka the MD101LL/A has come up on the Mac blogging scene in a way that I bet Apple doesn't really like. There are some people and sites talking about it, its place in the Apple product line-up, and what it does for the company and for customers. It's a complicated issue. I've previously spoken very harshly about the very old machine. As of the publishing of this post, the MacBook Pro will have been on sale for 1337 days.
Interestingly, as I continue to question whether or not I actually need or want a 2-in-1 or hybrid computer, I've been investigating laptops and what different price points offer. Realistically, most laptops on sale today are sufficient, even really old systems like the old MacBook Pro, especially given that the MacBook Pro still advertises longer battery life than most PC notebooks, and it's a nice physical size.
Long lasting products aren't something Apple has never done before, the Mac Plus was on sale for an exceedingly long time (1733 days) and the Apple IIe was on the market for over ten years, but in the 1980s, things were a bit different and by the time the Mac Plus was discontinued, the fastest Mac was only four or five times faster than it. Today, "The 101" only consistently outperforms one product in Apple's Mac family: The 2015 Retina MacBook. It is also one of the lowest resolution displays in Apple's product family, and it's one of (if not the only) mainstream computer still using old Ivy Bridge processors.
It's probably important to note though that fans of the 101 believe it consistently outperforms not only the MacBook Air, but the 13-inch MacBook Pro, with their newer processors, purely because of the wattage rating. That said, it's a higher end system than its contemporary MacBook Air, and it is still a little faster than the new MacBook, so performance-wise, it has some relevance. It's not outrightly bad but it's very obviously the oldest machine in Apple's lineup, and supporting some things on it (such as the new Metal graphics API) takes more effort than it probably would have been worth if they'd replaced it with a Haswell model sporting HD5000 graphics (or just killed it) in 2013.
The other big thing about it is that it's got user-replaceable memory and storage, and with moderate effort, it can accommodate neat things like two hard disks. It also comes with a DVD drive, onboard Ethernet, and a FireWire port. This thing just oozes yesteryear, and in some ways, it's a surprise that it ever got built to start with. It's got some modern technologies though, including USB 3.0 and the first generation ThunderBolt connector.
The other thing about the Old MacBook Pro that makes it unique in Apple's lineup today is that aside from the Mac Pro and the RAM in the 27-inch iMac, it is the only system that can be upgraded after you purchase it. I think that this may be the part of it that resonates with buyers more than anything else. You can buy this thing in its base configuration with 4 gigs of RAM and a 500 gigabyte hard disk and later upgrade to 8, 10, 12, or 16 gigabytes of memory, put in a new bigger hard disk, a better optical drive, or replace the optical drive with a hard disk. I think people like this flexibility because it lets them spread the cost of a system over the course of some years, into the future. A common talking point is how much Apple charges for RAM, which isn't super relevant because at this point it is in line with what the rest of the OEMs charge, but it can save you a few dollars to buy third party RAM.
I don't think Apple likes selling it. Demo units in their stores are either nonexistent or are grubby (like they've been sitting out since 2012) and it's hidden in a deep dark corner of their web site. It doesn't even get its own dedicated sales page, and hasn't since 2014 or so.
I can't help but suspect that some faction inside Apple, or some really big and important customer is keeping this thing alive. I don't know if it's some secret product or marketing team somewhere working on building an MMM, or if it's just a coalition of schools and education departments telling Apple they'll have to switch to a PC maker if they discontinue this thing. Several of the people I've heard specifically talk it up are working for K12 school districts who are still upgrading old Core2Duo MacBooks with sixteen gigs of RAM and fresh disks, just because they can.
There's nothing else in Apple's product line (except perhaps the iPad mini 2) that's riper for discontinuation, and yet I can't help think there's something other than the open secret of surprisingly strong sales keeping it alive.
There's something to be said about a system like the old MacBook Pro. It's sufficient for what most people need, and with the improvements in Mac OS X and other Mac software, it should be getting better over time, a first for several years in the Mac universe. In addition, the upgrades to max it out are actually pretty inexpensive. You won't get PCI Express speeds out of even the best SATA SSDs you can put in it, but you can have one or two terabytes of SSD capacity for a lot less than it would cost on a newer system, or you can put in a really big hard disk, you could put in both, or you can leave in the DVD burner, should that be important.
I wonder if this is a signal that Apple may be interested in entertaining the notion that there should be laptops that are customizable or expandable after the original sale. People will consider it a win if Apple either builds another version of this system, or continues selling this system.
I don't think an old mainstream Ivy Bridge laptop is a good deal at $1099, even if it is one of the less expensive Mac laptops Apple sells (After the 11.6-inch Air at $999 and the 13-inch Air). It's a pretty unique situation Apple has that they can sell an older and fatter system using a long outmoded CPU architecture for more than it sells its current mainstream notebooks for. I don't know if this is just because of demand, or if there's some legitimate reason that they can't sell it for a much more reasonable $699 or $799, at which it becomes almost a no brainer as the basic model in the lineup. I'm sure there's still a lot of profit for Apple at that kind of price point.
The other problem is that I don't think there are really any good chips to drop into this laptop. The i3-6100H appears to be a good successor as a 35-watt CPU, but there aren't any 35-watt i5s. The 6100H is meant to be a basic chip for systems that have quads and IRIS Pro graphics in them at the high end, and those chips produce 45 watts of heat and cost a lot more. I actually suspect that this chassis, or a new one similar to it, can dissipate 45 watts of heat with no trouble. There are also the 28-watt chips such as the i5-6287U which are probably what will be used in an upgraded 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, or just dropping down to the 15-watt chips, perhaps even using a modernized Old MacBook Pro as a replacement for the MacBook Air.
A modernized expandable or non-Retina MacBook Pro could be a big hit. Modernizing the thing would give Apple a reasonable excuse to charge so much for it, and they could even do things like include dual PCIe m.2 storage slots instead of a single SATA hard disk bay, while maintaining a machine with some user upgradeable parts.
I think the question is exactly how you mix the new and the old. Will a modernized system lose its appeal if they switch down to the 15-watt CPUs? Will it be too expensive if they add a Retina display? Are the old DVD and Firewire bits actually important, or can those be taken out in favor of more modern ports and a bigger battery? Are customers looking for something that can sustain performance long term, or just for something cheap? Will customers like the move from a cheap hard disk to a more expensive solid state disk?
You will end up with a different system almost regardless of what you do. Most of these systems don't necessarily make a whole lot of sense for Apple. For example, is there a place in the world for a 13-inch system with dual SSDs, an i5-6350HQ CPU with IRIS Pro graphics, a 1280x800 or 1440x900 display, and maybe dual SSDs and four RAM slots, at the expense of battery life? On the other hand, is there room for a fat i5-6260U or i3-6100H system whose primary goal is to be cheap?
I think this kind of thing is a crossroads that will eventually come up for Apple as they negotiate the inevitable end of The 101 and need to come up with a replacement, or simply do without whatever it is people like about that system in their product lineup.
Of course, the other consideration is that if you're Apple, regardless of what you are or aren't doing, somebody doesn't like what you're doing. Whether it's the lack of an MMMM, or the fact that the quad-core Mac mini no longer exists, or the fact that big P700 and P900-class workstations no longer exist.
Some of this can be resolved by simply running Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware. Some of it can be resolved by moving away from Mac OS X (which is probably a good idea where workstations and pro applications are involved, because Adobe software, as one example, runs better on Windows than Mac OS X now anyway) and some of it is resolved by just being okay with what Apple is selling It's not like Apple doesn't have a 13-inch notebook that's faster, has a better display, faster storage, and will accommodate 16 gigs of RAM, you just need to budget more ahead of when you buy it. In reality, although there can be a premium for some hardware upgrades, Apple is building and selling very good computers that are sufficient for what I think they think their customers are doing.
I also subscribe to the theory that the iPad Pro (which trades blows in raw CPU performance with the Core M MacBook) is the direction Apple sees end-user computing heading. I don't think they see a reason to build a new laptop that caters to things people wanted a decade ago.
In a lot of ways, the iPad Pro and the MacBook are a cross-over point. They have similar performance, but very different treatments of the overall product and concepts of how people are going to be productive on them. How far that cross-over will carry is interesting. The MacBook is one of the slowest Intel Macs in the past few years, but new ideas such as USB Type C and the thinner keyboard might make their way to different Macs in the family.
I have what might be obvious predilections for a new Mac model, but I don't think that those are enough to build a product. There are always going to be people on the Mac scene, regular users and bloggers alike, who suggest that Apple needs to build something else to fill a particular need. As it stands, I actually think that the MacBook product family may be a little bit too crowded. They have four different models in the 11.6 to 13-inch size category, and that's five if you count the 11.6-inch and 13-inch MacBook Airs as separate products. They only have one fifteen inch computer, and there are significant points of overlap between the five different "small" laptops they sell, which suggests to me that Apple has a really good idea about what Mac buyers want and really need.
One possible idea is to revamp the Old MacBook Pro, perhaps give it some name like MacBook C, and then make it the new "cheap" Mac in lieu of updating the MacBook Air at all. Then, upgrade the MacBook and the Retina MacBook Pros to a Skylake based platform. It may be time for Apple to give up on their insistence on using i5 chips in consumer products so they can use that i3-6100H in a new, cheaper MacBook C.
Another possibility is to simply drop both the Air and the old Pro, resulting in only three laptops: Really Small, Small, and Big. I don't really think this will happen, because somehow there's enough demand and enough need for differentiated products that Apple currently has two Really Small laptops and three Small ones, but only one Big one. There are of course sub-models and customizable specifications, but it stands.
Other things I want involve the ability to use an eGPU, give the thing three or four USB Type C ports, if your platform allows it, let all of them do charging and Thunderbolt, but two USB Type C and two ThunderBolt ports would be fine. If you do that, I don't specifically think there's a good reason to keep Firewire and Ethernet ports in. I also think that making a switch to Type C charging across the family line makes sense, even in the other MacBook Pro systems, because the USB Type C power delivery specification will result in longer power cords, the ability to use third party adapters and cords that are longer and more durable and get at least some kind of charge off of USB battery packs and phone chargers could be a boon as well. I think that the flexibility of USB Type C is worth the trade-off for the loss of the MagSafe connector.
I think in reality, what we'll end up with is a system using 15 or 28-watt chips, but perhaps with slotted RAM or SATA hard disks in place. Whatever it is, I don't think it will be able to satisfy the majority of 101 buyers. Either it will not be sufficiently differentiated from the Retina MacBook Pro, or an ULV processor will give people the impression that it will not be a fast computer, or powerful components will appreciably reduce the battery life, increase the cost, or necessitate the elimination of certain parts like the optical drive or the SATA hard disk bay. If you were willing to go with one or two SSDs, you could probably have and cool a 45 watt CPU, have two (or four?) RAM slots, and a big enough modular battery to power the whole thing for long enough, but then you anger the people who wanted it to be cheap and who actually wanted a DVD drive.
I think the whole thing may resolve itself as Apple issues re-designed versions of its laptops, which are overdue. The current MacBook Pro family is using on designs started in 2008 and then thinned in 2012, and the MacBook Air's current design dates from about 2009 or 2010. MagSafe is a decade old as well, and although is beloved and works well most of the time, has some limitations that are causing problems at the high end of the Mac lineup, and Apple had to re-design the connector recently anyway, to accommodate some of its newest and thinnest laptops, so the idea of ten years with one universal connector that all Mac users are likely to have one of is gone.
In the midst of all that, I think that the most likely results for The 101 are that it soldiers on completely unchanged (complete with its pack-in 65-watt original MagSafe adapter) or that it gets killed, with no replacement that addresses the reasons people still buy it, in light of how much it costs and its performance and modernity challenges.