16" MBP - Anyone Get One yet?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Meads

I just bought a 13" with 512/16 the other day and was pretty impressed with performance.
Got an offer for the 16" base model for only 150€ more now, so I'm thinking about returning the 13".
But since Avid probably needs another year for their team of coneheads to make PT run on Catalina I'm not sure what to do now.

Did I understand correctly that if the 16" doesn't support an install of Mojave it will also not be able to boot from an external drive that has a Mojave system on it?

Have there been any known procedures to trick that? Like it's possible to install new macOS versions on unsupported old Macs using a patcher utility. Is there something like that but to downgrade?

There is no generic "patcher utility" that fixes stuff, the fundamental issue is new device support, GPU, LCD screen, keyboard, CPU, all at least slightly different... and be careful looking for utilities to help with OS version capability, most of what you will find is the reverse, exactly as you say, installing newer macOS versions on older Macs, especially Mac Pro Cheesegraters. And you run into digital signature issues that likely make hacking compatibility difficult or maybe impossible. I would not be holding my breath for anything.

Unless somebody here has one to test and prove it can run Catalina assume it does not work at all. This is one case where Googling externally is much more useful than asking here, lots more very technical folks out there with their hands on these already and lots of folks want to run Mojave for 32-bit app support... so if it's hackable you will find instructions out on the Web. So far... *crickets*. Practice your Google foo...

https://www.google.com/search?q=%221...e%22&tbs=qdr:m

I had a choice earlier this year to upgrade to the then new 15" MBP or wait for this 16". Suspecting this exact OS issue will happen, I went for the 15" that I knew would run Pro Tools out of the box. But good they have finally addressed the frigging keyboard...

[Meads]

Thanks for your - as always - patronizing answer.
Like I said I am aware of the patches that do the reverse. Also my google game is fine, I asked the question here as part of a "conversation" since the topic just came up.
As you seem to be knowledgable, asking you if reverting to previous OS versions on devices that never came with those older versions seemed viable and more attractive in the moment, than hopping through forums and reddit posts to look for an answer.

To correct one point you made - CPUs haven't changed. They're the same 9th gen CPUs as in the previous 15" model.

I had a choice earlier this year to upgrade to the then new 15" MBP or wait for this 16". Suspecting this exact OS issue will happen, I went for the 15" that I knew would run Pro Tools out of the box. But good they have finally addressed the frigging keyboard...

It's ridiculous that Avid forces a decision like that on the users.
Thankfully the Macbook won't be a crucial part of my work, so I'm not going to let this issue play a huge part in my decision anyways.
I guess, that's why I haven't been on a google crusade but rather lazily and casually asked here.
Thanks anyway for your input.

[Darryl Ramm]

Oh stop. I was not being patronizing, I was answering your question about patching utilities. Yes... agreeing with you as I noted.

The CPUs are different, at least in maximum number of cores supported in the MBP. You can't rely on marketing versions to tell you these have no differences. You have everything down to potentially custom microcode that changes. And the SSDs are larger and I think an updated controller. Point being a lot has changed, and this is very different from the going the other way utilities you mentioned.

And trying to help point you at the Google search. I have no idea if you know how to do time limited searches etc. Sorry for trying to help. I've spent enough time crawling though them to see nothing... but who knows, that's where stuff will appear first.

[Meads]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

The CPUs are different, at least in maximum number of cores supported in the MBP.

I'm not sure where you're getting this from, but the 16" Macbook Pros have the identical Intel i7 (I7-9750H) and i9 (I9-9880H/I9-9980HK) CPUs as the previous 2019 15" releases.

Now I did google and all I could find was this:



But when you click it, it say it has been removed by the author. Not cached by google either. But it sounds like it doesn't work.

[Darryl Ramm]

Yes you are right, I was brain farting on the last i9 gen in 15" MBP.

But again, be careful of assuming CPU marketing part numbers tell you the whole story. And again the high-level point is there are a lot hardware changes in these MBP even if they might seem like a cosmetic upgrade. Frustratingly many of the improvements look great... (I would likely upgrade my 15" if it worked) which is why lack of Catalina support from Avid is so frustrating in this case. While doubtful it will happen I've been actively looking all over for info on Mojave support (should have made that clearer in my post).

But I hope... with the New Mac Pro Cheesegrater coming I assume Avid has to make Catalina support a high priority.... lots of the important to Avid video & post industry should be lining up for that box.

[Meads]

Also found this:



You never know who posts those things, but I'd say chances are that it's true.
Like you said, why would they bake drivers for the GPU, etc into an older OS?

Well, let's see how long it takes Avid this time. Maybe the nMP really is an incentive and it's said to be released in December.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Meads

Also found this:



You never know who posts those things, but I'd say chances are that it's true.
Like you said, why would they bake drivers for the GPU, etc into an older OS?

Well, let's see how long it takes Avid this time. Maybe the nMP really is an incentive and it's said to be released in December.

And here's the link to the above web page found via a simple Google search: https://apple.stackexchange.com/ques...19-macbook-pro
But right now there's not much that I could find other than this article on running the 16 incher on anything earlier than Catalina.

[JFreak]

As I said, it is at least very rare if even ever happened that Apple backports drivers to older OS after new hardware has been released. So these 16" laptops and new Cheesegraters are likely only compatible with Catalina and later