Macbook Pro Differences (2015 vs 2016) I was looking into getting a Macbook Pro 15 inch with Retina Display. I've never owned a Mac so I did some researching while looking at what to get. I saw a lot of articles saying to wait for the 2016 Macbook Pro to be released, since the 2015 version hasn't had many updates over the years. The only notable difference between the previous years has mostly been the CPU. 

The 2015 version uses the 4th Generation Intel Haswell CPUs. The 2016 version will have the 6th Generation Skylake CPUs, and probably some other sort of hardware upgrades. 

Since I'm new to the Mac world, I was wondering if there would really be any benefit to waiting for the 2016 models to come out? I was also wondering about the price difference. At the moment I can get the 15 inch retina display, with the 512 GB SSD upgrade for $2169. 

I'm only going to use the laptop for basic use and programming (nothing graphically intense). In my perspective an i7 Haswell is by no means a bad CPU, and I could only see maybe up to a 10% increase in performance with the Skylake CPU, and maybe some minor increase in battery performance. 

So I ask the Apple people, do you really thing there will be a big enough increase in hardware performance to wait for the 2016 release? I have a feeling the price may increase substantially, for a slight performance boost. 

If I'm too off topic feel free to migrate to Hardware Recommendations
The 2016 model's probably going to have Thunderbolt 3 which is usb-C compatible. It's quite possible that it's going to have a complete redesign and some of the ports like HDMI and SD-card slot might have to go. With Skylake there's going to be new Iros Pro integrated graphics which compete with current dGPU's of suitable thermal envelope for the MBP. As there's nothing significantly better available I think they are going to ditch the dGPU option for good and make the chassis smaller and lighter.

AMD's Polaris and Nvidia's Pascal are coming in the second half of this year and they are going to outperform Iris Pro but I doubt Apple is going to wait for them as they are not so keen on ultimate graphics performance.

The next Apple event is going to be March 21 and there has been no solid rumors of anything that's going to be announced there. I believe we might see the new MBP there because there's really no reason for Apple to keep waiting when competitors are adopting the new high-end Skylake processors. A lot of retailers have the 2015 model on discount right now and their stock is running low. 

If you dont't think you need a slight improvement in performance, the possible redesign and Thunderbolt 3, now is the time to jump on those discounts. The 2015 is by no means a bad laptop.