Intel’s target release day for the new Sandy Brdige E processors and their Xeon E5 equivalents has slipped to early 2012, which will likely delay any Mac Pro updates until then and the chips were originally planned for release on November 15th. The reason for the continued fluidity in launch timing is unknown and Apple’s primary MacBook Pro and MacBook Air aluminum case supplier, Catcher Technology has been forced to temporarily shut down its factory over over pollution concerns. Apple has reportedly already ramped down production of its current MacBook Pro model and that will likely lead to increasingly tight supplies heading into the refresh………………..
If you’re a Mac Pro customer, you’ve been waiting a hella long time for an update at this point and the last revision to the Mac Pro line came out in July 2010, which in computer upgrade terms may as well be part of the Metazoic era. A refresh to Apple‘s professional line of notebooks once anticipated for an introduction as early as September may not roll out until early next month and the late-2011 MacBook Pros, first detailed by AppleInsider back in September will deliver marginal speed bumps to the notebooks’ Core i-Series of Sandy Bridge processors, but will otherwise introduce no material changes over the existing models. That person said that the notebooks’ planned introduction in late September was put on the back burner once the release dates for iOS 5.0 and iPhone 4S were solidified, as Apple pooled all available resources to support the launch. The launch date for the Late 2011 MacBook Pros has reportedly been a moving target and the Mac maker is now advising its partners not to expect availability of the new models until the first week of November. It’s unclear whether the latest holdup is related to the situation over at Catcher Technology and the Taiwanese casing manufacturer of uni-body MacBook enclosures was ordered to cease operations earlier this week after the local government received complaints regarding strange odors emanating from one of its factories. Catcher has since vowed to invest $2-3 million to get the plant, which is responsible for churning out roughly 60% of Apple‘s MacBook Pro and MacBook Air enclosures, back online by November. The circumstances surrounding the MacBook Pro refresh are likely to see availability of existing models become increasing constrained over the next week or so. Apple is reported to have ramped down production of the 17-inch model over a month ago with production of the higher-end 15-inch models following suit shortly thereafter.
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