> It's almost as if Apple aren't even basing their hardware strategy on what developers are complaining about on Hacker News.
I’m imagining someone who went into a fallout shelter about 10 years ago, somehow only had HN as a source of news, and suddenly re-entered the world. What would such a person be suprised to learn?
I suspect Apple still being a successful company would come as a huge shock to such a person. So would the success of SystemD and Docker and Kubernetes and Dropbox and microservices, the complete takeover of widescreens in the display market, and the continued survival of Tesla.
I bet a stock picking strategy that invests in companies and ideas that HN users hate, and shorts the ones that HN users love, would be right far more often than it is wrong and would make tons of money.
The first Macbook Air was a seriously limited device, style over substance. Expensive, weak CPU, mechanical hard drive, low battery life.
It was with the second generation (2011) that they knocked it out of the park, where they added fast Core i5/i7 CPUs, SSD, greatly improved battery life, two (!) USB ports, choice between 11' and 13' models.
And most of all they sold it at an entry level price (for Apple standards). Considered that the competition at the time were bulky Sony Vaio, HP and Dell "bricks", it was like a laptop from the future.
The Macbook Air wasn't in any way intended for developers, though. All the people I knew buying Airs (even first gen) were the frequent travelers and types of people who do loads of work involving email, text documents, and slideshows. Nothing that required heavy processing, but work that involves being out of your desk and having to haul your work with you.
A lightweight PC small enough to slip in a folder was what they wanted.
The Macbook Pro was generally for more of the processing-intensive work and development side. Recently I've been seeing/hearing more and more dissatisfaction from that crowd.
It wasn't a powerhouse, but it was (the second generation one) the first successful "thin" laptop that made reasonable compromises so that it could be used a development machine.
In an era of remote servers and web scripting languages, not every developer needs a full-blown workstation.
I agree it wasn't indended for developers, but it ended up being adopted by many of them.
I used a 2013 Air with maxed specs as a dev machine for a while and still use it for web browsing and while traveling rather than lug around my more expensive MBP. With an i7, it's a very capable machine with great battery life.
Doing front end development, it was more than powerful enough for anything I had to throw at it.
> In an era of remote servers and web scripting languages, not every developer needs a full-blown workstation.
I haven't really found that to be the case, especially these days with "modern" frontend tooling, like Babel/Webpack/etc, static analyzers like ESLint/Flow/Typescript, and the various types of frontend testing. Every bit of performance helps.
You can debate whether all of that is necessary, but the reality is many companies use them.
The Apple's MBA11 was a fantastic device, but they stopped improving it and Dell came out with the XPS13. It is a similar form factor, has a bigger display, and runs Linux.
Neither were guaranteed hits when they were introduced. Apple’s biggest claim to fame at that point was the iPod. Even after the iPhone was released, it was years before critics looked at it as a product that could withstand the test of time.
In 2008 the iPhone was a $500 subsidised device (at a time when other phones were "free" or up to $200) which really didn't do anything. It didn't do MMS, third party apps didn't exist, google maps didn't have turn-by-turn. I'm sure the user experience of a reasonable sized capacitive touch screen was great compared to the alternatives - but I never even saw one in real life and on paper it was very expensive and didn't have anything to sell me on it.
Once the iPhone 3G came it out was clear the device was a phenomenon and not a rich people toy, but initially the market was pretty confused, from what I remember.
I am not an apple fanboy, but I had a couple generations of Danger products (by far the most modern at the time) prior to the release of the iPhone and owned a few generations of iPhone from the start. The 1st generation iPhone was revolutionary and deserves every last bit of credit it gets. The 3G was a yawner, like adding leather seats to a flying car. Yeah 3G is nice... but seriously, the car is freaking flying how did you not notice that??
Exactly. The iPhone had the revolutionary UI and the revolutionary functionality (functioning web browser that worked with the most pages not specially made for phones) at the moment it appeared.
I think, that you didn’t see it in person was the reason you didn’t expect it to be a success.
The 3G had 3G, but otherwise same hardware specs as the original.
What sold me was that Apple got the UI right (“smooth as butter”), the webbrowser and email actually worked, and jailbroken it was almost Unix in your pocket! It really felt like a phone with so much potential and a far ahead of anything I had seen. The things you mention were just a matter of software updates. Btw. 3G and App Store both came out in 2008.
Yeah to me it was clear after seeing a smooth UI in an internet ad. I got the 1st gen - what surprised me was the empty shop without a queue. Maybe it was luck but to me it was an obvious game changer without even touching it.
The original iPhone was unsubsidized. It required a contract until it was unlocked, but you could only buy it at the full retail price, forfeiting any subsidies.
$500 with a required contract is a subsidised device; it doesn't really matter how you phrase it. AT&T paid for it to be exclusive and the retail price would have been set taking that into account. If it wasn't there'd be no reason for Apple to allow a carrier exclusive with a required contract - the buyer would own the device.
The original iPhone was unsubsidized and it was GSM only, so there wasn't an option to offer it on Sprint and Verizon then. The 4 Gb iPhone was $499 and the 8Gb one was $599. Because Apple was new to phones, they only wanted to deal with one carrier initially.
Back then, you could get a Treo or a Blackberry for less than half as much, as they were subsidized by the carriers.
And because paying that much for a phone at that time impeded sales, Apple discontinued the 4 Gb model and dropped the price of the 8 Gb model to $399 two months after it was released. They also "gave in" to the subsidy model, since that was the standard practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation)#Releas...
It was clear to me that there was a phase change when the iTunes store came out - wow, was that 2003? Anyway, the reason I am not rich is because I didn't believe in Steve Jobs, so I didn't have the faith to hold AAPL stock forever. But the iTunes store was the point at which it was clear something spectacular was happening and Apple was moving in to a new world, compared to the days when the WSJ constantly called them "beleaguered".
> So would the success of (...) Docker and Kubernetes and (...) and microservices
It's hard to tell if they're a success. With enough time and money you can make almost everything work. It does not mean that there weren't better alternatives available.
Tesla? Why would anyone on HN doubt survival of Tesla?
Except making impossible claims about delivery deadlines, they weren't mentioned in any especial sins worth mentioning. And Tesla Roadster looked definitely like the big future in 2008.
That's fine, why not? Isn't this the whole startup thing? Burn money until you IPO or get acquired? Otherwise it is look down at as 'revenue business'.
I'd go further and say that Apple isn't basing their hardware strategy on the needs of any real person. It's a laptop with only USB-C ports (and the 13-inch only has two of them). You can't even plug a USB stick into it. The only people who asked for a laptop like that are working at Apple.
Honestly, I've been working with the USB-C only MBP as my only development machine for a year now, and I haven't once wished it had a classic USB port on it. At my desk it's plugged into monitors which have ports on them. Having a single cable for all my peripherals is quite nice.
Because I go to meetings and work from home sometimes. Only thing I'd use a standard USB for would be charging, which isn't really something I do in meetings, and I have plenty of chargers at home.
This is seriously where we're supposed to be for a pro laptop?
It shouldn't work "pretty well" when you're using a $2000+ machine. It should work perfectly every single time. This is what built apple into the company it is. "pretty well" wasn't good enough.
This sounds like the type of concession I would have made in 2005 on my gentoo laptop. "Yeah, USB doesn't work, but there is a workaround that sends that data over wifi! It even usually works!"
Uhm, no, you're just supposed to spend the $19 on a USB C -> Lightning cable to connect them.
The wifi thing is just convenient for many people. If it's not good enough or "pro enough" for you, there is still a cable that you can use.
I don't really see the problem here. Assuming I buy the base model MacBook Pro and the cheapest iPhone 8, I've just spent $2000 dollars and I don't see how I can justify complaining that I need to spend an extra 1% on a cable to connect them.
It's not a workaround, it's an additional capability.
Before they added this feature, a USB cable was the only way to do this, and it still works, and works reliably. If you have a USB-A connector on your Lightning cable, you'll need an adapter, if you have a USB-C connector, you won't.
From the OP's complaint, he didn't like having to do this with USB, so I suggested the WiFi option to avoid cables. Maybe you read that as "the USB option does not work", which is not the case.
WiFi depends on the quality of your WiFi network. Mine is rock solid, so "pretty well" is my engineer answer to cover the cases when AP is flakey, range is crap, etc.
You didn't answer the question. It doesn't need to be so dysfunctionally thin and light to travel between work and home sometimes. Nobody is going to suffer from an extra pound of weight.
He did answer the question, only with reasons that you don't seem to agree with.
I also mostly use my MBP plugged in and yet still want my laptop to be as light and thin as possible for when I'm carrying it around during the day/commuting. An extra pound of weight makes a huge difference to me walking home.
> An extra pound of weight makes a huge difference to me walking home.
That's hard to believe. Are you walking 50 miles? How would you notice an extra pound? What about the rest of the stuff you carry, your clothes, your shoes? Is everything else already optimized?
Why does the (likely) most expensive full-size computing device need to lose weight vs everything else, especially when it's infringing on the actual user experience of working with it?
> That's hard to believe. Are you walking 50 miles? How would you notice an extra pound? What about the rest of the stuff you carry, your clothes, your shoes? Is everything else already optimized?
Not everyone is particularly fit. Some are old, some don't have time to exercise, some choose not to, some don't have the choice and some others are and just prefer the convenience.
> Why does the (likely) most expensive full-size computing device need to lose weight vs everything else, especially when it's infringing on the actual user experience of working with it?
I think is largely a generational issue. I bet there's a large swath of young professionals right now who grew up with ultraportables like the macbook air but are looking for just a bit more performance right now. These people are also likely to be more accustomed to typing on shallower and lighter keyboards (including virtual and mechanical) so the change won't be as big a change for them than people who grew up with typewriters and Model Ms.
There are multiple product lines. Those people who need extreme lightness should not choose the Macbook Pro line then, which should remain focused on functionality first.
I think most pros doing particularly heavy processing nowadays have a desktop or server to offload to in addition to their laptops and performance has improved enough for pros with light to moderate processing so that higher portability is better value for most people.
Nobody is saying Apple shouldn't have thin and light options.
Apple's prices and hardware designs made the 15" MacBook Pro a popular desktop replacement. For the same price as a 13" MBP and a 21.5" iMac, you could get a 15" MBP that would outperform the iMac in some cases.
Mobility is functionality, which is why things like battery life and working keys matter.
Is it really that hard to believe that some people prefer to have a lighter laptop. My daily driver is thinkpad but I really appreciate my mbp when traveling or for conferences because it's much more portable and I can carry it with ease
The point being is that should be a choice, and they have Macbook line for it if that matters more to you. It shouldnt be the priority for the Pro line when it hurts the UX, that's the issue.
My personal machine is a 12” MacBook and my work machine is a 13” Touchbar MBP. I use a very small messenger bag and so yes, I do notice the extra weight on my shoulders when I commute with the MBP.
I have optimised my bag heavily but already have a few non-negotiable medical items I must carry to stay alive and so I like to get that weight back from my laptop.
I understand that weight isn’t a big deal for everyone however it is for me. If my company offered smaller machines I would switch instantly.
In places other than the US, the majority of commuters are supporting the weight of their laptops on their backs (on public transit/walking/cycling), rather than having it sitting beside them (in a car.)
When I was in primary school we were taught that our backpacks shouldn't weigh more than 10% of our body weight. That's not much when you're in third grade, but I think most adults can comfortably carry laptops that are two millimeters thicker and weigh a pound more than the Macbook.
What do you need adapters and dongles for if your goal is to go out to a cafe or a park and work with the computer? Do you, like, need a 7tb media drive with you at all times or something? Are you constantly plugging it into different monitors? Not like you wouldn’t need adaptors for that unless you exclusively live around DisplayPort screens anyway. Do you carry around a wallet full of DVDs and an external drive for those?
Strawman - most people are not working in a cafe or park, but an office where you have to plug your laptop into actual things - projectors and so on. And almost all the projectors I use at my work, my customers' work, or the last few conferences I've been at, are HDMI - which is cool because I have an HDMI port right there on the side of my [2014, may-it-last-forever] macbook pro. It's next to the SD card slot where I can put in the SD cards from my rather nice digital camera, so I can edit photos when travelling. I earn money from photography, so as someone who is technically therefore pro, both of these connectors are useful for pro work, that isn't just typing things in cafés.
> which is cool because I have an HDMI port right there on the side of my [2014, may-it-last-forever] macbook pro
I would point out that modern non-Apple PCs don't tend to have HDMI ports, either. They either have mini-HDMI ports, or OTG ports. The dongle requirement is nearly-universal for connecting modern devices to projectors, to the point that you may as well just buy a set of dongles for each projector, rather than for each laptop.
> It's next to the SD card slot where I can put in the SD cards from my rather nice digital camera
Is there a reason you can't plug the camera into the computer (using a USB cable) to transfer the photos instead? That's what I see the photographers at my own office doing.
(I asked one just now, and they said: if you're trying to transfer photos outdoors, moving an SD card also has the chance of pushing dust into the SD card slot on the camera. They say they've had SD card slots wear out/break before. And for cameras that take micro-SD, when moving the card they're always a little paranoid they might drop the thing on the floor and lose it. All in all, cables are just easier if it's your own camera and your own computer. SD cards are just for passing off to other people.)
Easy - half the conference venues don't come with dongles, or if they do the AV guy is dealing with a crisis in one of the other 17 conference rooms and won't be able to get to your one within your 20 min slot (this happens A Lot. I do have my own HDMI-VGA though, but the VGAs seem to by dying out thankfully).
SD cards - I've never had an SLR or a high end mirrorless camera (but i haven't bought either for maybe 18 months) that's been able to transfer through itself at anything like the speed of a fast SD card in the slot. Makes a big difference when you want to dump 64GB of pics. As for dust, my favourite camera has been to Syria, the desert southwest of the USA several times, morocco, antarctica on a sailing ship (so being sprayed a lot), and not to mention my local beach. Aswell as just being the camera i throw into my shoulder bag when going out. Unless the photographers in your own office are war photographers or dirt-bike specialists, I've probably given my kit a harder life than they have. I've never had an issue with pushing dust into the SD slot of my camera or laptop. I did however dent the ISO knob on my camera when trying to tether it to my laptop when sailing across drake's passage, and a wave tipped the boat and I instinctively grabbed the macbook and let the camera hit the deck. I learnt my lesson. Fair point on micro SD though, but I have never used them for photography. I would probably be concerned too about fumbling, especially if wearing gloves.
True - but I doubt that's really a significant factor in the MacbookPro target market.
(They're much more likely to optimise them for being carried in artisan faux-vintage messenger bags by people riding share-scooters between home and the FAANG shuttlebus...)
> Nobody is going to suffer from an extra pound of weight.
I would and did for a long time, and I am very glad for the lightening trend. Try considering for just a moment that there are many people in the world who aren't as ablebodied as you. Small changes can make big differences.
I know a lot of people with physical disabilities. I've been one myself; I'm married to one.
Nobody's asking Apple to make all of their laptops heavier. And I don't think anybody's asking for 9lb / 4kg monstrosities from Apple, either.
What I see is a lot of people wishing for pro laptops from Apple that eschew their "lightness at all costs" philosophy in favor of a more balanced approach that offers some extra functionality in exchange for, say, an extra pound of weight or something.
That wouldn't preclude Apple from selling smaller, easier-to-carry models.
You can have light without being anorexic thin. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon has a 14" screen and weighs half a pound less than the MacBook Pro, and it has the missing ports.
> Nobody is going to suffer from an extra pound of weight.
For many things in life, it’s not about whether or not you suffer, it’s about what’s more or less pleasant. And for many, that even trumps an occasional inconvenience.
An external HD or removable SSD drive would be a much better system for moving between home and work. It doesn't matter how heavy the base system is if you're just moving a tiny disk, but there's no money in that for Apple.
I see this so often it's becoming ridiculous. "pfft, it works fine as long as you use it less like a desktop!" We'll I can build a much more capable desktop for one third the price, so no thanks.
If the intention is to use it as a desktop then why keep sacrificing function for fractions of a mm?
The intention isn't to use it as a desktop. The intention is to not plug anything into the computer (other than the charging cable, sometime) except when using it as a desktop.
Everything is wireless these days. Input devices, audio devices, networking.
You basically only need a cable to charge the thing (with your USB-C charger), for mass storage (where most new mass-storage devices are USB-C devices as well, and if you have a well-used old one you can keep a dongle stuck to it), and for displays (at which point you are in a "docked" use-case, and so you can just use a USB-C dock or Thunderbolt-display-with-dock.)
All other use-cases are so rare or esoteric that you can just put them off until you get home and to your desk.
Or are you constantly balancing your laptop and a USB-only printer on your lap or something?
So as soon as I get up from the desk I should stop using anything USB? Never connect to anything HDMI unless I'm at my own desk? I think that's preposterous. Not to mention, Apple wouldn't be selling very many dongles if this was really how most people used their laptops.
> and I haven't once wished it had a classic USB port on it.
While I haven't missed classic USB (thanks to a dongle with old USB slots) I have however wished I still had a magsafe power cord.
It also doesn't help that the dongle I bought is a multi port one (ethernet, USB-A, HDMI and others) and for whatever reason, using it on battery noticably reduces battery life.
It's decent when your employer springs for a "dock" type devices that allows a single USBC hookup to the laptop, including power, which is the setup I had at my previous role.
It sucks when you have to attach and detach a whole bunch of dongles each time you sit down at your desk, as with my current role.
I could buy the dock thing myself I suppose, but then it's personal property I have to worry about and could disappear, etc.
Lately I've been working at a company that uses YubiKeys for 2FA. You can use a traditional YubiKey, but the YubiKey Nano is especially popular because you can put it in your laptop and leave it there. It barely sticks out at all, just enough that you can touch it and activate the touch sensor. [1]
I started noticing people in meetings with their new MacBook Pros and six inch cords sticking out the side, and on closer inspection, there was a YubiKey Nano plugged in at the end of the cord.
Meanwhile, the folks with ThinkPads or older MacBooks just had a Nano tucked into one of their USB-A ports like it was no big deal.
I bought myself the full sized Yubikey instead of the nano because I'm very much of the opinion that the inconvenience is a feature, not a bug — do you _really_ want to leave your Yubikey attached to the device that holds your password manager too?
That's a great point about not leaving the YubiKey plugged into the laptop all the time. But the company actually suggests that people get a Nano and leave it plugged in for convenience. Maybe that isn't the best security advice!
Thanks for the pointer to the USB-C YubiKey Nano - it looks like a fine solution for the dongle problem.
That's even more funny, because the MBP's touch-bar is essentially the same type of device as the YubiKey—an isolated offboard CPU with its own TPM that can be unlocked with a fingerprint and then asked to encrypt secrets for the host/parent PC. The touch-bar just has more screen.
I'm surprised nobody's hacked the YubiKey app into making use of the touch-bar as the YubiKey "device."
Doesn't that kind of defeat the point of the Yubikey? I would think you would want to separate the key and the computer when you yourself are separated from your computer.
The copy on the Yubikey Nano's website says, "designed to remain in port." Removing it is still an option, but it doesn't sound like it's the point of having it.
You can also use the fingerprint sensor as a replacement for the ubikey. Which works arguably as well - at least it satisfies the criteria that you separate the key and the computer when you yourself are separated from the computer.
It's not just a cosmetic issue. The people with the six inch cords are leaving them plugged into the laptop all the time as they walk around the building, just like the people with the USB-A ports are leaving their YubiKeys plugged in all the time.
The difference is that if they bump into somebody or something, that dongle is likely to get broken, and it could even damage the USB-C port in the MacBook. That's not going to happen with a Nano plugged directly into a USB-A port.
> I'd go further and say that Apple isn't basing their hardware strategy on the needs of any real person.
Real person here! I love the USB-C only approach. I love being able to charge from either side of my laptop, and I love having single cable to plug in at my desk for RAID/monitor/ethernet/charging/etc. I want my laptop minimal; if I want it to do more, I can add more.
I on the other hand wouldn't mind if they made the laptop a little bit thicker in exchange for better battery life.
When the discrete graphics chip is being used, plus a retina display, and or several dongles plugged in for ethernet, usb-a or whatever, battery life on my 2017 MBP while doing development work is maybe 3-4 hours.
It was quite a shock to go to that from the 8-9 hours I used to get from my older MacBook air. Whereas previously I would leave certain apps (notably image editing apps or VMs) open while developing, I now find myself opening them, doing a task and then closing them so as not to activate the discrete graphics chip and drain the battery.
I now find myself opening them, doing a task and
then closing them so as not to activate the discrete
graphics chip and drain the battery.
Sounds like what's really needed here is a way to tell MacOS not to use the discrete graphics chip when on battery power.
Is there no way to do that? It's been a while since I used a MBP with discrete graphics. There used to be a menubar app for that, but I always felt it should have been an option baked into MacOS itself.
There is an app for that (https://gfx.io/), but it doesn't switch automatically when battery is in use so you have to enable it manually (and you have to close any apps that are using the discrete chip first).
Mostly though I just use that app to know when the discrete chip is enabled, and then quit whatever program enabled it when I've finished with it.
They can only make the battery 99WH, and still have it allowed to go on an airplane. The battery is already ~83WH, so sadly, there may not be much to gain there.
While it's technically true, it's worth noting that part of the weight & thickness savings in the 2016+ MBPr was from simply reducing the battery from 99.5 Wh to 76Wh. I strongly dislike this change.
Just take a look at the Lifebook U937/938. Thinner and lighter than the Air, but has 1xUSB-C, 2xUSB-A, SD, HDMI and even RJ45(!). All the while sporting a 15W TDP CPU and slotted RAM. (And yes, battery life is good as well.)
I don't have the new body style of Macbook, I have a 2015, but I can tell you that when I switched from a PC laptop to the 2015 Macbook, it was thin enough that I could now travel with my laptop and an iPad in my carry-on. Before I had to make the choice of carrying only my laptop or packing a roll-aboard to be able to fit everything I needed for a work trip.
What does a thinner laptop enable you to do? What a question. Might as well ask why compact cars are more popular in the city than pickup trucks.
I had a similar experience back in 2012 when I bought a 13" MacBook pro after carrying around a PC laptop.
But, I wrote "at this point".
Does 3mm, at about the same weight, really make much difference?
I suppose incremental improvements(?) in "thinness" accumulate, and in 2028 we'll all be complaining that the new MacBook Pro at 2.8mm thick is easily bent and has no ports.
"At this point" does a marginally faster CPU make a big difference? Not to me, my "workhorse" laptop is a 2013. But if they stuck with a 2013 CPU in a 2018 Macbook, people would go ape shit even though for people like me, the faster processor doesn't change a single thing about how the machine works.
Way too often people on here see something and think "that doesn't help my use case, therefore it's a stupid decision" and never stop to think "hey maybe someone has a use case I don't have, and maybe this helps them". To you, 3mm doesn't sound like a lot. To me, a few hundred Mhz or another few GB of RAM doesn't sound like a lot. But you don't see me screaming in the comments thread "how dare Apple put a faster processor in their Macbooks instead of shaving off another few MM of thickness!" because that's just ridiculous. Someone out there is happy that the machine is faster, even if that person isn't me. I have the ability to put myself in someone else's shoes and be happy on their behalf.
Some people's laptops sit on a desk all day and that's fine. Mine doesn't, and every MM shaved off is another pair of socks I can pack into my luggage.
Always with the hyperbole. How would you feel if your laptop suddenly increased 2mm in thickness but didn't gain any weight? Most people wouldn't even notice the difference if you didn't point it out to them.
Definitely, they should put a SCSI port on the next version.
Weren’t we having this discussion when they dropped the floppy drive? Should they keep USB-A forever? When is it ok that they drop USB-A? The original move to USB-A was met with resistance to people then that were angry that suddenly their ADP or other older devices wouldn’t connect — but then device markers saw the advantages of USB and quickly moved to embrace it. They are starting to see the advantages of Thunderbolt 3 and eventually, USB-A will go the way of the serial port — but not without the requisite hang-wringing and “get off my lawn” first. In 3 years, nothing but dollar-store junk will still use USB-A.
> In 3 years, nothing but dollar-store junk will still use USB-A.
Good. Then I'll give up my laptop with USB-A and buy one with USB-C only. In the now, where I live, many things still use USB-A. This is the main reason I didn't even consider a new MacBook Pro for replacing my 2015 one.
A while back someone posted an article comparing Nikon and Canon in the professional photography market starting in around the 1970s.
Tellingly, Nikon did what HN seems to want: they had a very conservative approach to "pro" model cameras, emphasizing backwards compatibility and respecting what their "pro" users asked for. Canon, on the other hand, experimented a lot and, despite not actually inventing many of the new ideas, was willing to try them out on "pro" cameras.
This difference of approach cost Nikon its leading market share among "pro" users. There may be a lesson there.
To add another point: I've had a 2017 MBP for over a year now and I don't mind that it only has USB-C plugs. I have an adapter for the rare cases when I want to plug in some older USB device.
I actually really like their push towards USB-C everywhere. The only major device I own that doesn't use USB-C is actually my old iPad. If they killed their proprietary adapter in favor of USB-C I'd be very happy.
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." -- Henry Ford
Nobody asked for USB ports when they had serial/parallel ports, or for the floppy drive to disappear, or to lose the VGA connector.
I don't know if Apple have made the right calls here (on either the USB-C ports or the keyboard), but they do have some history in making eventually-winning calls on at least some of these things. (That _also_ built the Newton, so I'm not gonna claim they _always_ get it right.)
It'll be interesting to see how these design decisions fare over then next 3-5 years...
> Nobody asked for USB ports when they had serial/parallel ports, or for the floppy drive to disappear, or to lose the VGA connector.
I don't recall being annoyed by those changes. In particular, the VGA->DVI transition was handled really well. Just about everything was DVI-I and would accept a VGA signal over a DVI cable, so you just bought a VGA->DVI cable and continued using VGA.
Macs with USB but no SCSI connector were a big cause of complaints where I was back then (I worked around lots of designers with SCSI Syquest and Zip drives, and all their client archives of high-res photoshop and page layout work on them), and _everybody_ in my circles thought Apple were insane for leaving floppy drives off... (These were a long time back though...)
To be clear, I remember those transitions being very smooth, but I was a Windows user. The first machine I bought without a floppy drive was my laptop in 2005 when CD-RW had long since replaced floppies on the Sneakernet.
My school was mostly iMac G3s and I vaguely recall the lack of a floppy drive being annoying once or twice, but the Windows machines had floppy drives and you could easily share files on the network, so it was never a big deal.
Heh - my school had AppleIIs and BBC Micros. My first year at Uni we used a VAX 11/780. I guess we had somewhat different experiences.
On the other hand, I think the most impressive and smoothest transitions I've ever seen in the entire personal computer space were Apple's transition from 68K to PowerPC processors, and almost as smooth their transition from PowerPC to X86. I'm still incredibly impressed with the attention to detail they showed getting those major changes to work so smoothly for users.
> I don't recall being annoyed by those changes. In particular, the VGA->DVI transition was handled really well. Just about everything was DVI-I and would accept a VGA signal over a DVI cable, so you just bought a VGA->DVI cable and continued using VGA.
Just about everything was USB-C and would accept a USB-A signal over a USB-C cable, so you just bought a USB-C->USB-A cable and continued using USB-A.
I don't see a difference. Except the part where you say the transition was handled well. I didn't feel good applying that to USB-C...
There are a lot of USB devices that do not attach via a cable. You can't just use a different cable in that case, because you were not using one to begin with.
VGA devices always connected via a cable, so you weren't adding bulk. Even adapters for devices with integrated cables (grrr...) were pretty minor compared to the sheer heft of the VGA cable itself.
> Nobody asked for USB ports when they had serial/parallel ports, or for the floppy drive to disappear, or to lose the VGA connector.
I remember all of these technologies, and they all had major pain points. Serial and parallel ports were slow and needed tuning to work with IRQ/DMA (don't quote me on this), floppies were slow and unreliable and VGA was blurry on LCD monitors.
There's no current replacement for USB that does the job better. Nothing for HDMI. Same for SD cards. Nobody was asking to get rid of these ports so that they could use the next big thing. Apple had Thunderbolt 2 co-existing with USB on their older laptops, they could do the same with the newer ones. In fact, USB-C charging is limited to 100W, so 15" MacBook Pros run at their limit could power-throttle or lose charge when running intensive workloads.
Indeed and perhaps the height of absurdity - if you were to go buy a brand new iPhone 8 today, the cable that comes with the phone has a USB 3.0 connector not an USB-C connector at the far end.
So you can't even plug a brand new iPhone 8 directly into a brand new Macbook Pro without buying a cable as a separate purchase.
Except you don’t need to, generally. Setting up a phone doesn’t require a computer connection and, since USB-A phone chargers are ubiquitous, it doesn’t make much sense to go Thunderbolt 3 on iPhone’s default cable yet because the days of the iTunes setup process are long gone. The primary use of that cable that comes with iPhone is for charging — and it does include a charger. Unless you are the .025% of iPhone owners that do development, your complaint really doesn’t matter. With AirDrop, AirPrint and iCloud, there really isn’t much point to connecting to a computer for the vast majority of users.
Generally except if you commute/travel via long distance by train or bus and there is only one power outlet per passenger, and you need your phone as a modem for your laptop. Or at an airport with limited outlet availability. Or at a coffee shop with limited outlet availability. Or if you prefer to back up to your laptop locally via iTunes.
>"Unless you are the .025% of iPhone owners that do development, your complaint really doesn’t matter."
Telling people their view doesn't really matter on account of a statistic you completely made up? Dismissing others people's views because their use case differs from your own? Brilliant.
I can't remember the last time I plugged my iPhone or iPad into my computer. And I can remember the last time I borrowed someone's USB-2/3 charger. It was like, two days ago.
I'm with Apple on this having been the right choice.
Yeah except Apple has failed to do that twice in a row now.
Both the iPhone 8 and iPhone X shipped after the introduction of the USB-C only Macbooks. And both phones have shipped with only a lightning to USB-3 cable.
So instead of telling me to "remember my words" you might instead try to remember the facts.
I recall a review in APC magazine in mid-2003 of Lindows, a live CD Linux distribution, mentioning that you could pair it with a “cheap-as-chips 128MB USB drive for $70” for persistent storage. The phrase stuck with me due to its absurdity—you can get a lot of chips for $70! Now, fifteen years later, you can almost get 2000× the storage for the same price. (I say “almost” as APC spoke of 70 AUD which is somewhat less than 70 USD.)
I don't think I've used, or seen anyone else use, a USB stick in about a decade. We can't just keep these legacy ports around forever, cluttering up our devices.
USB dongles are absolutely standard in pro audio. Products made by Steinberg, Avid, and many plug-in shops will not work without a USB dongle.
Aside from a few high-end audio interfaces, most music hardware - including licensing dongles - is USB-A.
Of course you can buy the inevitable wart-on-a-cable adaptor from Apple. But it's both fragile and ugly, and when you have an iLok with thousands of dollars of software on it, you really don't want fragile.
Edit: to be fair, some of these licensing schemes are moving to cloud licensing. But that has issues of its own - and not all are.
The USB-C adapter is fragile and ugly? Ugly is debatable, but fragile seems misplaced. Having an iLok on the end of a short flexible wire seems far safer than having it rigidly protrude from the side of a laptop.
As for high end audio interfaces, replacing the included USB-A cable with a USB-C cable seems a trivial matter. And sooner or later they'll be included in the box.
They just need a cable that goes from their device to a USB-C port. That's it. Most of the time, the device in question has a USB B port on it so all they need to do is buy a USB B to USB C cable and they're good to go.
Sure, sometimes they need to plug in a dongle and will need an adapter until USB C dongles become commonplace but that is hardly an issue at all.
> USB dongles are absolutely standard in pro audio.
That is like saying everyone is using floppy disks, why did Apple remove floppy disk drive. You will need to use dongle for a while but everyone moving to USB C/wireless is a good thing.
> I'm certain that until pioneer, m-audio, etc. jump on board, they will lose consumers.
I am sure Apple must have thought of that before pulling the plug on USB A. The point is this is classic Apple move to let go old tech and embrace new.
I had stopped using floppy disks completely by high school. The reliability of floppies of that era was so poor that despite only having 56K at home, I'd start an FTP upload of my documents to my free 20 MB dialup ISP space when I left for school and by the time I arrived they were all safely there.
True, I guess. And I'm one of them. Sometimes I use numerous Linux, Windows or macOS VMs for testing stuff. At 5-10GB per VM, that's way too much for my system array. So I use LUKS-encrypted HDDs and SSDs via USB. With my pitiful uplink, cloud storage for hundreds of GB would be unworkable.
My wife, the professor, is finally going to replace her 2011 Macbook Air. She was excited to check out the new 13" MBP. Then she saw the touch bar (without a real escape), hated the keyboard after typing on it in the Apple Store, and realized she'd have to replace the dongles she uses to present to her classes (VGA and HDMI). What really killed it was when she realized she'd have to have yet another dongle to plug in her mouse.
She already has a Linux desktop both at home and at work, and asked me if I'd help her put Linux on a laptop for her. We're looking at the latest X1 Carbon..
I don't understand this. They're very, very clearly marketing the Macbook Pro to developers. Read their press release, they have a section devoted to Unity performance for goodness sake.
Look at the older 2012-2015 models - arguably the entry point for many modern developers, the devices that were so good and so reliable it cemented their love for the brand.
There's a difference between pivoting your target demographic, and just making a bad device and hoping professionals won't notice.
I prefer caps lock as control. Although for a while I ran in a hybrid mode where if I hit caps lock and released quickly it was escape. If I held it down and tapped another key it was control.
I’ve always set up my Caps Lock to be both an Esc and Ctrl key, so the touchbar change didn’t cause me any issues. Karabiner Elements is worth looking into if the virtual Esc key bothers you.
I have one of these in front of me now (been working on it for a little over a week, should have waited, d'oh!) and the virtual escape doesn't seem that big a deal. Even if my finger isn't quite on virtual key pretty much at all, but is in the middle of where the real escape key would be, it triggers "ESC".
Go ahead and return it. Apple's pretty good about returns/exchanges after new product releases. I think you have 14 days from purchase to make an exchange, so hop on it if you really like the new systems.
Sadly, don't think I can. It's the company's laptop, we put the order in after WWDC assuming it'd be a few months longer before updates, and for various reasons I didn't get to setting this particular one up until recently. We're sadly past the flip date, but honestly I'm pretty happy with it so far.
I want a new one so bad, but I will not buy a TouchBar ever.
Also, the reason for thumbprint readers on phones is that passcodes are difficult to quickly type on phones. On a notebook keyboard it’s easy. I don’t want a thumbprint reader on my notebook.
So the hardware looks very good (maybe the best looking laptops in the world?). The screen looks very good (high res + great color). The keyboard looks great and some may even say that a hockey puck as mouse looks great.
This is what sells.
I also think that Apple never intended to serve the pro market. They tried some times but brands like Microsoft, HP, Dell and Siemens are still too strong.
It's almost as if Apple aren't even basing their hardware strategy on what developers are complaining about on Hacker News.
Apple's market cap is over $900 billion on it's way to $1 trillion; so apparently the strategy of not reacting to every complaint on the internet about their products, including Hacker News, seems to be working for them.
If Hacker News had a built-in prediction market (a la https://www.predictit.org), I would have made a fortune betting against what developers are complaining about on Hacker News.
Apple has never cared what their users wanted and they've never listened to them. Design, like shit, flows downhill. The difference between then and now that is Steve Jobs isn't around to tell them that the shit landing on their heads is really gold. As a result, they're not afraid to offend Steve and they're starting to develop opinions of their own.
It's actually my favorite keyboard of any I've used with the exception of the current-gen external Apple keyboards. I enjoy the light-touch and low key travel required to type. I find the typing more pleasant and kinder on my hands.
That sounds pretty awful. Luckily I haven’t personally had any keyboard troubles (I’ve had it since release and travel with it frequently), but if I had I’d probably be a lot less positive about it (:
I wonder what happens if you have a keyboard issue AND your logic board dies at the same time after the first year? Will they replace the logic board for free, given that the keyboard was malfunctioning?
I also really like the new keyboard. It’s definitely the best non-mechanical keyboard I have typed on and I really enjoyed using it. However, like five or six keys are stuck, space and shift work only if I hit them in the center and the 7 key has key chartering worse than a broken Cherry MX.
It’s a pity and I am looking forward to buying a new MacBook with a hopefully more reliable keyboard shortly.
What a great summary! Thing is, if the keys work, I love typing on them. I read that the new releas has improvements and I hope they work.
Concerning the second point; I use some Mac-only tools plus Microsoft Office plus developer tools like Docker, terminals, etc. Combined with the need to have a reliably working machine, I have no choice other than buying a Mac again at this point. Was looking into buying a Carbon X1 with Linux, but it just doesn’t work for me.
> I read that the new releas has improvements and I hope they work
There are no improvements related to keys not working, only less clicky.
> Combined with the need to have a reliably working machine, I have no choice other than buying a Mac
That's funny, I would think that a machine where about 1/4 of the keys don't work properly (or work at all)--which can die and take all your data with it, is not exactly the definition of neither "working" nor "reliably".
> There are no improvements related to keys not working, only less clicky.
People say they changed something related to dust and sticky keys.
> What am I missing here..?
You’re missing that there’s more than just the keyboard. Even with the keyboard broken, the device has a long battery life, good screen and the software works. I can open it and start working - which is extremely important, when you’re at a client to present something. And that is something i have yet to experience with a Linux or Windows notebook.
Frankly speaking, if I could, I’d switch to using CentOS as main OS.
Same, I also actually like the keyboard. When I'm not using it, I'm using Topre switches or Cherry Browns. I'm worried about the durability issues, though.
I think the touch bar sucks, but I like the touch login button.
I think the keyboard hate is severely exaggerated.
I actually like the new MacBook keyboard, except for the noise. I type, umm, vigorously, and sometimes I'm actually asked to be quieter when taking notes in meetings. So, 8% quieter is great.
Regarding the crumb problem: compressed air fixes this for me. I always have had to blow out my keyboards when the keys get shit in them. It's true the new one needs the air treatment more often. I'm ok with that.
The touchbar I could do without, but I have trained myself to use the virtual escape key. I think Apple should get rid of it, but I expect inertia means the touchbar is here to stay. If I were a vi user maybe this would be a deal breaker.
The biggest issue with the 13" MacBook has been the anemic CPU and I'm looking forward to trying out one of the new models with a quad core i7.
From my experience, I didn't realise I tapped a 'fake' esc key when using vi, it's in the same position so you naturally tap it easily. I think the only downside is you realise a moment later that what you pressed wasn't exactly right.
I can mostly live with the keyboard, and grudgingly cope with the touchbar (too many accidental presses doing unwanted things) but please, please, please give me the old arrow keys back.
I'd also be willing to trade some thinness for more battery life.
Unfortunately for us, Apple bases its decisions on expected sales numbers more than our feelings. That said, does anyone know if the sales numbers are stronger after these mean keyboard and touchbar (and dongly) redesigns?
Meaning people may still buy this MBP but decide that their next computer won't be a Mac, this means the "lost sale" could be four or five years into the future.
Plus there's the magnifying effect of "influences." Are technical people still going to recommend to their less technical family members a Mac?
My point isn't "Apple is doomed!" rather, any company, has to look beyond yesterday's sales numbers to broadcast tomorrow's sales. Hopefully Apple has the data to know if these changes do more good than harm.
> Are technical people still going to recommend to their less technical family members a Mac?
I've done that for decades. Not anymore. More or less after 10.6.8 the software started getting more and more fiddly, slower, and less intuitive, and the hardware has been getting more fragile and less versatile. I just recommend Lenovo with Windows 10 and/or Ubuntu, depending on the person. Xubuntu for me.
Returns don't lag like that. If people were that unhappy with the keyboard, they'd take the Mac back. Apple can read HN or the like all day, but if laptops are leaving the door, then they have no reason to change anything.
I think you can infer that they're trying to address some of the issues with the keyboard, specifically the dust-breaks-everything bit. There was an ifixit article[0] posted a day or two ago touching on some of those points. The tl;dr there is that the quiet aspect is a result of what looks like a fix for the high failure rate of the keys. They can't admit that it's an issue, likely for legal reasons.
The touchbar is such an FU to developers. It still hasn't found any real use. They're not rolling it out to other models. Basically, it's a little fun "experiment" that they've imposed on all their PRO users, thus demonstrating they no longer really care about this user group.
Personally, I'm waiting for the next generation of Surface devices to come out, and I'm going to see if I can make WSL work for me.
Apple could have added the touch bar on top of the function keys instead of replacing the function keys, and they would have avoided the entirety of the criticism. Nobody hates the touch bar, we just love the function keys.
This is how I feel about it. If the touch bar were above the top row of keys, it could still be useful for innovative things like video scrubbing, etc., but yet let other users move quickly with physical keys for day-to-day tasks.
Without an Escape key I'm doomed. The touchbar doesn't cut it.
I tried a 2017 model and could only adapt with the daggy workaround of remapping Caps Lock to Escape. Unfortunately that is therefore in the "wrong" location for muscle memory for every other keyboard I use.
Sadly I have such a strong preference for OSX that it seems I'll be using the limping 2012 Retina MBP on which I'm typing until it dies completely, and then probably switch to a (nonpro) MacBook.
I also remap caps lock to escape; for a button used so regularly, it just makes sense. Heck, who in their right mind is using caps lock more frequently than Escape!
With karabiner, you can make it so that tapping capslock is escape and hold is control. You can make shift-caps be toggle caps if you need it for some reason. You can make hold-enter another control (nifty, but adds a nearly perceptible lag to regular tap enter).
I don't have a good use for the old control key. Maybe another fn? Maybe a super (or hyper) key?
Now that I have a video demonstration, I feel obligated to post it any time I see someone complaining about the escape key. You can use escape on the touchbar by putting your finger in the exact same place as you would on any other keyboard. Escape didn't go anywhere.
It's a little misleading to call it "the exact same place as any other keyboard".
Here's[0] is my previous MBP. Pressing anywhere on the escape key will trigger a keypress. You don't have to be perfectly centred on it, and even having a finger half-off the left side will work.
Does that work for the non-visible bit of the touchbar?
And how do you know when you've actually pressed it, if the app doesn't immediately indicate it, and you're not looking down at the "button"?
> And how do you know when you've actually pressed it
Usually when I press a key I expect the application behavior to noticeably indicate that I've pressed something, regardless of what key I'm pressing. When do you press escape and not get actual behavior change, whether that change is to back out of a vim mode or to dismiss a dialog box?
Various tty applications will wait a short time after an escape to see if it was part of a esc-<key> meta combination.
In emacs esc-esc-esc is something I use relatively often.
It gets even worse over slow ssh to somewhere remote, when visual state updates could take up to several seconds.
On other keyboards I'd assume the tactile click of the key was a press, and could chain up extra inputs. Now I much more often have to pause to check I did in fact trigger the esc at the right point.
The other annoyance is the lack of touch force means even a slight overshoot on the number keys or ¬ will probably also trigger an escape, so I have to keep that it mind. It's much harder to do with a physical key because it takes more than brushing it with a fingertip when using the finger pad to press the targeted key.
Better haptics might make the touchbar a bit less obnoxious (and Better-Touch-Tool can already trigger the trackpad 'click' when a button is touched, but isn't ideal)
If Apple can implement 'force touch' on the trackpad, I suspect it could be possible on the bar as well, so it needs to be "pressed" rather than just "touched".
Am I the only person on here who is bothered by the specs of the base models? For $2400 you get a 2.2 Ghz machine with a 256 GB ssd and 16 GB of Ram. That was seriously overpriced and it hasn't budged in this new release. Seems like you've got to spend well north of 3K to get a reasonable machine. That is way over the market.
The model in the review is fully loaded. Apple will charge you a cool $3200 to upgrade to that 4TB ssd mentioned in the review. Apple's habit of gouging on peripherals is not... endearing.
Also, aren't many premium laptops 4K at this point?
In 2014 I bought the top of the line MBP for $2700AUD. To get a top of the line model now it's $4100AUD. As someone who loves macOS, I'm still not gonna buy a new MBP until the price reaches some level of reasonableness. I've been seriously considering of getting a Dell and using Linux instead and I may just do so if there's no budging of the prices in the next 2-3 years.
Yes, as stupid as it sounds the trackpad is one of the things I love most about the MBP. I wish the XPS had the same reputation as it'd make it an easier sell for me.
Apple has always commanded a premium for their laptops. Yes there’s competing specs out there for less but there always have been. I paid $3k for my Retina MBP in 2012 and it still works great for me today. It was a good buy for me.
If the MBPs available don’t seem worthwhile to you, no need to get upset about it, just don’t buy one.
I've always been happy (well, happy isn't the right word -- accepting perhaps) to pay what I know is a 25-40% premium for apple computers over a roughly equivalent PC, because I know what I'm getting in terms of quality, and the software is far superior.
I'm far less accepting of a 100% price premium while I watch the advantages which caused me to love Apple have been diminished. Seemingly every move in the pro line over the last several years have been to take away things that matter to me (replaceable parts, good keyboard, physical keys).
I for one welcome Apple's premium on hardware in general. It seems to make for a company that keeps its business model based on just their hardware. This is off topic so I apologise, but I've become rather disillusioned with how many better priced companies seem to be surreptitiously inserting constant tracking into their software and hardware.
I work in the public sector, we’re not allowed to use Chinese hardware and we get a special version of Windows 10 that has had it’s tracking disabled by Microsoft and verified/reviewed by our version of the NSA.
The only smartphones we’re allowed to use are iPhones that are enrolled into our enterprise program.
I can’t tell you if that means Apple tracks you less than Lenovo or Microsoft, but you can be pretty sure that someone is tracking you if you use unmodified hardware/software.
Yep. I have a $1400 laptop and it's 4k with a 7th gen i7, 512gb ssd and the same 16gb ram. It's also 15" but relatively light. The only thing that bothers me is the single USB port meaning I need to get an extender if I want to use a mouse and anything else but then even that is an improvement over 0.
I'm not suggesting that it can directly compete with a macbook in terms of graphics or processor but it's only slightly under for less than half the price.
I've been combing over the reviews on youtube and I came across this link [0].
> A teardown of the hardware on Friday, however, reveals a new silicone membrane encases each key that potentially serves as a dust-repelling feature to protect against malfunctions.
I'm going to give it a bit, but if it turns out to be the case that for dust at least the problem is resolved. They'll definitely get a purchase from me. I'll have to get used to the reduced travel after working with a late 2012 for 5+ years!
> I'll have to get used to the reduced travel after working with a late 2012 for 5+ years!
I have been working on my 2012 MBP since my wife got it for me new as a birthday gift. I absolutely love it and actually just put in an SSD the other day and it is even more amazing now. I just can't imagine not being able to easily change parts on my own laptop and the fact that this is the last model to allow that for MBP has driven the price up relative to other model years.
I'm confused. My 2012 MBP already came with a 256GB SSD (lowest possible standard configuration) and it's soldered, like the RAM. Did you mean a 2011 MBP?
You're talking about the "2012 MacBook Pro with Retina Display", they also sold a model without a retina display that used a standard laptop drive and came with an optical drive (!).
I don't begrudge Apple their quest for thin and light. All else being equal, of course everyone wants that.
But they have three portable product lines: the MB, and Air and the Pro. Surely the point of that is to allow them to differentiate? It seems strange that "thin and light" is the priority above all others, for all three.
I'd happily sacrifice a couple of millimetres and a few ounces of my 2016 MBP to a return to the 2015-era keyboard.
I'm working on a 3-cm thick gaming laptop and I'm about 100 times more productive compared to my old 2016 MBP, just because the keyboard actually registeres all keystrokes. I've also upgraded it by opening the bottom case with 4 Phillips screws.
People want thinness if everything else works. If to have thinness you have a laptop that you cannot type on, and you lose all your data if the logic boards dies (happened to me with that model), I don't want that.
I always make automatic, incremental hourly backups.
That doesn't mean it's positive for a computer to take your data with it in case of failure when it's completely avoidable (ex., don't have the SSD soldered to the logic board).
It’s shocking how expensive Macs have gotten. I paid around €2300 for my 2014 15” and today’s equivalent tier is over €3k. For this I get a faster thinner machine without MagSafe and a variety of ports.
It seems that the only viable upgrade path is to convince your employer to stump up the cash.
In July 2014, the U.S. dollar was worth around 0.73 euros; today, it is worth about 0.86 euros. In January of last year, it was worth about 0.95 euros, and Apple obviously has an incentive to account for possible short-term exchange fluctuations.
2300 / 0.73 * 0.86 = ~2710
2300 / 0.73 * 0.95 = ~2993
It would appear that currency fluctuations account for a significant portion of that price difference that you're seeing.
2300 EUR in 2014 was ~3151 USD, as you say. At today's exchange rate, 3151 USD is approximately 2710 EUR. In January 2017, 3151 USD was approximately 2993 EUR.
Apple will give themselves a cushion to prevent undesirable pricing discrepancies (or the need for frequent price adjustments) if the U.S. dollar strengthens against the euro, so a product that they sell at 3150 USD after taxes in the United States would reasonably be in the ballpark of 2800-2900 EUR in Europe given exchange rates in the last year or two. This is rather close to the parent post's stated price even without adjusting for inflation.
> Apple will give themselves a cushion to prevent undesirable pricing discrepancies (or the need for frequent price adjustments) if the U.S. dollar strengthens against the euro
Apple is a trillion-dollar company that has people who can and do hedge FX exchange rates on their products to keep costs predictable in local currency terms. As such they don't need a "cushion" - beyond the need to cushion their margins, that is.
(And even if they didn't hedge FX - if they need a cushion now, why didn't they need the same cushion before?)
I have a new 15" MBP on order at £3300. I also have a similar spec XPS 15 which cost me £2600. So yes the MBP is £700. The XPS also has a better CPU (i9-8950HK) but that is kind of a waste, I only got it with that because Dell basically upgraded me to it for free.
However I have had no end of issues with my XPS 15. To the point that I have had enough and I am returning it for a refund and will pickup something else. The first unit had physical damage to the lid so I got a replacement sent. The replacement has coil whine, interference on audio out. backlight bleed and the space bar has developed a wobble so does not pick up all presses. For a £2600 that is unacceptable. I know people like to hate on the new MBP keyboards but I have not had a single problem with my 2016 MBP. That machine is basically perfect and I hope/expect the 2018 model to be the same.
To be honest I am fine with pay £700 more for a machine that doesn't develop a problem with the spacebar after 11 days as well as all the other problems I have had. If I were to calculate the amount of time I have spent on the phone with Dell and waiting around for collections/deliveries I doubt I would be far off that £700 in time waste to be honest.
It's fascinating to me that Dell STILL hasn't fixed the bloody coil whine on the XPS. I have the top-of-the-line XPS 13 from few years back and had the motherboard on it replaced 3 times because of the whine, and it's still there. In comparison, my 2012 Air was perfect, absolutely no issues.
I find sometimes the whine is there... you (and others like you) just lack the high frequency hearing to perceive it.
I’ve walked into plenty of places and complained about many high pitched whine noises over the years, and more often than not, I get a puzzled look followed by some variation of “what noise?”
And to preempt the obvious possibility I was merely hearing things or have tinnitus. Yes I’ve had my hearing checked, and I’ve also, on a couple of particularly egregious occasions, used sound measuring equipment that in one case validated that there was in fact a loud intermittent, nearly inaudible noise fluctuating between 80 and 85 decibels whenever it was occurring, that apparently no one else in the office noticed.
I can't understand how computers with that bad coil whine can pass QC, especially at this price point.
I bought brand new XPS 9360 for my father and when I first used it I thought that there is regular HDD inside because of how loud coil whine was.
I agree the Dell XPSs are hit or miss on quality. I had a 9550 and after dealing with its issues moved over to the Thinkpad line (with Linux). Zero problems after that + better a much better keyboard than the Dell. I will say even on Thinkpads you cannot approach the greatness of the Mac trackpad ...
Maybe the 13" XPSs (dev editions) are better - I dont know.
I do think that if you are going Dell @ 15" it may be worth checking out the Precision line. Since this is the business version of the XPS it may have better build quality.
>To be honest I am fine with pay £700 more for a machine that doesn't develop a problem with the spacebar after 11 days as well as all the other problems I have had.
I'd argue that is a bad comparison. You're basically judging them both on a vacuum (since one is x amount more expensive but gives me reliability, that X extra is justified). but putting those two devices in context, if we take a look at earlier models, we see that macs have increased enormously in price without providing an equivalent amount of improvements.
For me it's more of a case of a company abusing it's status as leader, while others are unable to provide a real alternative.
They haven't increased enormously in price, when comparing like models and factoring in exchange rates to USD.
The 2012-2015 generation 15" were bifurcated in 2013 between integrated and discrete graphics. You need to look at discrete graphics models.
The 2009-2012 generation 15" was the midrange model, and the 17" was the top of the line model, so you need to compare to that model.
The 2018's have introduced new tiers of parts on the super high end (i9 and 4tb ssd) that bump the fully spec'd model up in price. Of course that's getting a lot of attention, but those don't represent the typical builds.
See this chart on historic USD pricing [0] and historic pricing by country [1], and historic 10Y exchange rates (pick any currency) [2]. I did this comparison for someone on reddit [3] with CAD and each of their examples of price increases were 100% accounted for by looking at exchange rates.
Oh it isn't a good comparison I agree with that. I can't help but be pissed off with Dell though. This isn't the first problem I have had with their "premium" laptops either. I only bought the 9570 as Apple was silent on upgrades to the MBP at WWDC but it has been the worst purchase I have made in years.
The MBP may be expensive but I have never had any issues with my previous MBPs so I feel much more confident buying one. I have a busy week this week with a lot of travel and I have to now make do with this XPS with a half working spacebar as Dell's "ProSupport" can't get me an engineer until Wednesday while I am on an flight! I am just so frustrated right now.
XPS 13 9370 has been the best purchase I've made in years, and Dells customer support really isn't too bad considering they don't have stores in every city like Apple does.
MBP's have their own sets of issues, and aren't flawless either.
Yes I have Pro Support (on-site, 24h) but they don't have the part (keyboard in this case) in stock so the earliest they can do is Wednesday (when I called Thursday) which is no good for me as I am over the Atlantic that day. Not Dell's fault that I am not available but I had hoped they would have a keyboard in stock or could at least get one next day but apparently that wasn't possible. I ended up initiating a return so it will be picked up the following week.
Apple has a strategy where they don't compete on price and it works well for them. They've been able to get fantastic margins while other hardware manufacturers have struggled. Their higher price reinforces their premium brand identity too.
Apple does build high quality products so the brand identity is earned to some extent. Of course, they could sell these high quality products significantly cheaper, but why mess with a successful formula?
For Macs, in my opinion they used to build high quality products, but they're losing their lead. macOS hasn't improved in ways that matter to me in years and some things got worse. The hardware used to be untouchably good, but the new MacBook Pros are worse for me than the original retina MacBook Pro I still use -- performance hasn't improved much (the latest upgrade might have changed that) and keyboard, ports, power connector all got worse.
Consistent UI, simple and fast built-in apps for common tasks, good unix subsystem, fast file system, pretty text rendering, system libraries that make it fairly easy to write good native apps, etc.
macOS has all this, but it had all this for a while. There are so many good things in it. Preview.app is great -- it even lets you do simple PDF editing, while being fast, reliable, and easy to use. CoreGraphics does beautiful drawing, reasonably fast, leading e.g. to gnuplot having pretty antiailased graphs on macOS but not elsewhere (via Aquaterm -- this might be outdated information though, haven't used it in a while). The find pasteboard is clever and convenient, as are document icons -- and dragging them into Terminal even inserts the path to the document. There are so many well-thought-out details on macOS.
I don't care about iCloud integration, sync with iOS, Springboard, tabs in Finder or Maps, Siri, iMessage integration (I don't use an iPhone). The new Photos app doesn't honor mac system conventions. The Mac App Store is repulsive to me in its philosophy, and its implementation has been inept. I miss the HIG. Airpods are cool, but connecting them with my MBP works only haphazardly as you'd expect of regular old Bluetooth headphones, not as you'd expect of Apple hardware talking to Apple hardware.
I could go on for much longer, but I'll stop now :-)
Well, if you don't have an iPhone all the iCloud/Continuity/Handoff stuff is going to useless to you :)
But with regards to your other issues:
> The new Photos app doesn't honor mac system conventions.
This is being fixed. Photos eschewed Cocoa when it was first written and then realized this broke everything, so they're slowly adding these things back.
> The Mac App Store is repulsive to me in its philosophy, and its implementation has been inept.
I can't do anything about the philosophy, but there's a new App Store in macOS Mojave that's native as opposed to being webview-based.
> Airpods are cool, but connecting them with my MBP works only haphazardly as you'd expect of regular old Bluetooth headphones, not as you'd expect of Apple hardware talking to Apple hardware.
They're supposed to "just work", based on anecdota gathered from friends. Not sure why they don't for you.
I feel like UI is one of the things that shouldn't really be complained so much about. If you're talking about apps, then it's sort of hard to have a consistent UI when everybody's doing Electron apps or using other frameworks like it.
Sure, electron apps get this very wrong. App makers are free to write software that prioritizes something else than being a good Mac app. But Apple's own apps should be good Mac apps.
Almost all of the apps I use are consistent, largely because I stay away from Electron. This is feasible on macOS because there are almost always native alternatives for things.
Every Mac user I know has had their Mac purchased by their employer. I think that creates a certain price insensitivity. An employer knows that the cost difference between a Mac laptop and something like a Dell or Lenovo is inconsequential compared to the cost of the person using it.
I believe so. I regularly sell used things. I'm always surprised by the amount of calls I get for my Apple stuff. I'm not sure I'd be able to sell a 3-4 years old Dell as easily.
Truthfully, it's why I'm very sad that the Air looks to be discontinued. I'm still using a 2012 MacBook Air, and it was quite possibly the least stressful computer purchase I ever made. $1000 and some change to get a computer that has just worked magnificently for nearly 6 years now without missing a beat. I walked into an Apple Store, told the Apple employee I wanted a 4 gb MacBook Air, and in 5 minutes I walked out with one, no other pressure or sales pitches.
It was a very relaxed experience for me, and I certainly hope that it's still the same with Apple. $1000 isn't chump change, but it's accessible for someone just a little above the poverty line like me.
He said looks t be. There are rumours of a new low cost Mac laptop with different branding. ‘Air’ branding doesn’t make sense for the low end model that’s not actually the thinnest and lightest in the range, which it hasn’t been since the MacBook came out.
I did read that, but I interpreted "looks to be" to mean the present appearance. Obviously the Air will be discontinued at some point, and when that happens it won't come as a surprise to anyone.
When I bought my 2012 MBP just after it was announced, it was a screaming deal. Retina screen (no other laptop had such hi-res screens), 256GB SSD base, 8GB RAM. That was the lowest configuration and it was $2400. Six years later, the $2400 model buys you basically the same laptop, same 256GB storage, except with a faster processor and faster 16GB RAM.
I just looked at Apple's US site and the base model 13" MBP is $1299 brand new. So the "fantastic deal" $1199 MBP is only $100 less than today's 13" MBP straight from Apple with no discount.
But it is six years later and that $1299 MBP still comes with an 128 GB SSD.
And I agree with your parent poster. In 2009 I bought a MacBook aluminium for ~1050 Euro. Later I replaced the memory by 8GB and the hard disk by an SSD. You could open it with a simple lever to replace the hard disk, memory, and battery.
My 2016 MacBook Pro, which cost 1700 Euro in early 2017 was more expensive than my 2009 MacBook Pro after upgrades (of course, with a more modern CPU).
It's sad that we seem to be standing still on the memory/storage size front, paying even slightly higher prices. In the meanwhile extensibility has gone out of the window. The only winners are Apple and the subset of the market that want even thinner laptops.
MPBs are expensive enough now I expect if Apple weren't so very protective of their IP we'd see a laptop equivalent of the Shelby / Saleen / AMG treatment done in the automotive world. Someone would rehome the MBP guts in a proper case with all the features Apple's power users really want and sell it at a huge premium.
However Apple being Apple they'd cancel warranties and shower Cease & Desists to anyone who dared to reimagine the MBP rather than allowing a licensed derivative. Too bad.
I remember paying $1850 for my MBP late 2013 which was the entry model of the 15”. The ”same” model starts at $2800.
Given this was 2013 and I remember Apple increasing the price twice. One time because of exchange rates and one time when they redsigned the line a bit..
Note: I am converting my local currency to dollars (1:10) so the exact dollar value is slighty lower but you all get the idea.
If this review sample was for keeps, then... lucky guy. The model as specced in the review (maxxed out) costs around £6k. Most of that is the 4TB SSD which adds about £2.5k on top.
Actually, I pay that extra amount without hesitation. Thinking of the times when I constantly had to fiddle around with my Windows ThinkPad or my Ubuntu ThinkPad, time is more expensive for me, so the extra 700 Euros means nothing for me. - But yes, you are right. They have gotten expensive in the past several years.
In my experience, the people who choose Wintel vs. Mac computers based primarily on price and not on whether it's the best tool for the task at hand are people whose time isn't very valuable.
I'm not trying to be insulting. But if you're using the computer for work and you can save eight or ten or twelve hours over the course of a month, when you multiply that by your hourly rate and then again by the number of months in a year, it makes sense.
I still have two client-supplied Windows boxes on my desk I have to use daily because the client's unusual legacy needs. But it's good because it reminds me of what the Windows ecosystem is like and every time one of them does something stupid, I love my Macs more.
The Mac isn't always the best tool for the job, but since I switched from Wintel boxes to Macs in 1999, I know that each Mac purchase premium will pay for itself in time and aggravation saved.
Horses for courses. I've used Mac, Linux and Windows. Multiple generations of each. Getting work done is not a problem, unless it's something like not having an app be available for the platform at all. Which affects Linux the most, and Windows the least.
After getting used to the cross-platform OpenShot video editor I miss my MacBook Pro even less.
Yes it’s strange. I would always buy upper-end kit for personal use for most of my adult life, had a succession of MBPs but now - even tho’ I earn more than I did in those days - I balk at the cost and have put off upgrading for a long time.
Disclaimer: I did recently upgrade and not to a Mac, for once.
Which is failing to apportion any of the price to the value of macOS . Sure I can buy a cheaper laptop, but then I’d be without macOS and that for me is worth quite a bit of a premium.
(This is absolutely subjective and I totally respect other people like other operating systems, I just find myself much happier and satisfied when I’m using macOS and will - and do - happily pay for it indirectly through the hardware purchase.)
You are repeatedly doing this dumb “Apple fanboys” shit on this thread - please stop, it’s totally valueless.
Macs are more expensive than most equivalently-specced PCs. There are reasonable trade offs - things like good support, MacOS support, and build quality - and it’s totally understandable that some people think that’s worth the money.
How about more time trying to understand that people have different requirements from you, and less time being a cliché?
Please show me a laptop with the same quality trackpad and an operating system that works as well with my iOS devices e.g. AirDrop, Continuity, iCloud Notes, Photos, Keychain. And of course one that has perfect driver support and supports apps like Pixelmator and Omnigraffle.
>And of course one that has perfect driver support
I've used MBPs daily for the last few years and occasionally have issues when hotplugging external (Apple) displays. Nothing has perfect driver support.
Your requirements sound like those rigged bids in corrupted countries where the bid book conditions are like "car length to be between 2531 mm and 2533 mm" and "car weight between 1203 kg and 1205 kg"
Thinness does have some value for phones. For laptops, there's certainly a market for ultra portable machines but Apple seems to have forgotten that some of us use our computers for work and are willing to trade off thinness for practical usability.
I think the issue is that articulating that balance is hard - for example, the original thinner retina MBP lost some practical usability, but from a work standpoint for me, it was worth it for the increased portability.
same goes for smartphones, sadly the market has a tendency to align with 'stupid' goals and so no more production of non-thin devices. I'd be very happy with a thicker phone (larger battery, more shock resilience and even... some buttons)
Like the beloved S4 Active. It even came in a camo color scheme, for those more rugged outdoor types. I still have it as a sort of alarm clock/emergency phone by my bedside.
...which happened just around the time batteries became good enough for both daily use, as well as a phone’s typical lifespan.
10 years or so ago, a three-year old cell phone battery would still be good for maybe three or four hours per charge. Today, I’m using a 5-year old iPhone that still gets through a typical day on a single charge.
There are also battery cases, or external battery banks, whose introduction has solved most people’s battery-related questions, except “why are people still complaining about non-removable batteries?”
well it just happen that my moto g1 battery died so I had to find a supplier (harder since it's not a shelf part anymore) and disassemble the phone (the battery is still glued, I'm waiting for the replacement to do that).
all your points are valid though, but still I like a bit of swappability.
Expensive now? A Quadra 950 in 1992 had a starting price of $7200 (1992 dollars) and that didn't include any hard drive. That's almost $13000 or more than €11000 today for the basically empty base model before several thousand more to upgrade RAM and add storage.
That's a very unfair comparison. You need to compare the relative price against comparable laptops produced today.
Also Apple seems to be the first laptop producer to raise prices instead of lowering them. In 2010, I could get a MacBook for 1000 euros. The equivalent laptop upgraded to today's standards would cost 2-3 times that.
>That's a very unfair comparison. You need to compare the relative price against comparable laptops produced today.
Well, first spec them comparatively though. Which includes things like same CPUs and GPUs, and the quality of the screen, the touchpad, and the casing.
High-end MS Surface laptops, for example, cost just as much (15 inch Intel Core i7-8650U CPU clocked at 1.9 GHz, a discrete Nvidia 1060 GPU with 6GB of RAM, 16GB of memory and a terabyte SSD = $3,299, 13-inch machine with an i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and an integrated Intel GPU = $1,499 ).
>In 2010, I could get a MacBook for 1000 euros. The equivalent laptop upgraded to today's standards would cost 2-3 times that.
No, it wouldn't. The MacBook was a low spec machine for students and such. The equivalent machine today would be a lowest spec 13' Macbook Pro retina, which goes for €1.499 in Germany. So 1.5 times that (though it's not exactly comparable).
The MacBook was a low spec machine for students and such.
The MacBook Aluminium was everything but a low spec machine (in fact, they sold it a year later as 'MacBook Pro') and I bought it for 1050 Euro new in 2009.
The plastic MacBooks were ok, but definitely not so cramped at the time as a MacBook Pro base model today. I know it's a hard disk, but the 2008 model had more storage than today's base model MacBook Pro (160GB vs 128GB).
At the time, macOS worked well on spinning platters, while having an SSD is pretty much a necessity now.
>At the time, macOS worked well on spinning platters, while having an SSD is pretty much a necessity now.
Is it? Or just what we're used to? If you go to SSD speeds, you can't easily go back.
I don't think OS X / macOS needs an SSD any more than it used to (if you boot as HFS+ volume). It will be faster with the SSD (of course) but it wont be slower with an HD than it would be back in time, just because it's HD.
Apple lost me two years ago. While I was a big macOS fan and developer, I now work under linux.
I was very surprised to see how far linux has gotten as a desktop workstation. Including very good apps (darktable, ardour, inkscape and even gimp which had an horrible interface at the time).
I still think macOS had a superior UI (I say "had" because I haven't touched a mac since sierra) and that the hardware was beautiful. But my main workstation which has 3x 27'' monitors attached to it, was less than 2000$ (without the monitors of course).
The exact same thing happened to me. Now I have a big tower PC for serious work (32 cores, 64 Gb RAM, dual 1080) plus a nice laptop (XPS 13), for a combined cost of less than this MBP.
While the Linux software ecosystem is not quite as smooth as macOS, I have found it to be quite adequate for my work.
How exactly are you calculating that your desktop+laptop is cheaper than the MBP?
64GB of ram apparently sells for around $600 right now, plus $500 for each 1080, plus $700 for a 16 core threadripper (I'm not sure what 32 core processor you're using or if you're using multiple processors, but the next gen threadripper will be 32 and cost about this much), plus $1000 for the base model Dell XPS 13 9370 puts you at a total of $3300 before we even get to the motherboard, case, monitors, keyboard, mouse, power supply, storage, laptop upgrades, etc. This also assumes that you built the desktop yourself while valuing the time you spent researching and building at $0.
Anyways, saying that your setup cost less than a MBP seems pretty ridiculous even if it is technically accurate when you only consider the "max" price of a MacBook pro.
My biggest issue with Linux apps when making it my desktop was basic PIM apps. Any suggestions for those? Even better, are there any sources and places to hang out where you get this information for Linux?
One of the best things about the Apple ecosystem (which I cannot even find in Windows) are the number of Mac focused publications that discuss and critique the variety of apps available. This has been damaged lately since most Mac apps are now discussed as extensions of their iOS ones, but it’s still beyond what I have found on Windows or Linux.
If you mean email/calendar/contacts... I use thunderbird. It's not "sexy", but it gets the work done. The good side is that there is nothing I can't do with a bit of coding if I need to adjust some style or behavior.
Evolution may not be pretty, but it works pretty well for Email, Calendar, and Contacts (assuming that's what you mean by PIM).
Honestly though, email has lost a lot of utility for me in the last few years (privately; professional email is still strong), to the point where I am really fine with webmail these days.
I have a 2015 Macbook. I like it, but I know that my next work computer will likely be a desktop dual booting linux and windows. Containers and kubernetes hog RAM like crazy, my laptop is used at the same desk 99% of the time, and for the price of a macbook I could build a phenomenal desktop that I can easily upgrade as necessary.
Yeah I have a (much) older MacBook Pro as my main home machine still. I've been wanting to replace it for a long time but as it has sat on my desk for years (I have a work laptop) I really want to buy a desktop machine.
But, Apple doesn't make one. I refuse to buy a touchbar-laden MacBook Pro or an all-in-one iMac Pro with a monitor I don't need (and a base price of 3 grand), so I'm thinking of jumping ship from the Apple ecosystem. I'm not happy about it; I just want iMac-quality hardware in a box (that ideally I could upgrade). A Linux box that can boot into Windows for games sounds like it's in my future as well.
Since the 2016s were released the USB-C cord is separated from the power brick, so if there's any cord fraying you can just replace the cord w/o replacing the brick.
Which also has the added benefit of allowing you to use your own cable that is either more durable to begin with or a different length. I have a 10 ft USB C braided cable that I've been using since day one, which is much more convenient than having a fixed cable attached to the brick.
Yes, for me, fraying hasn’t been an issue since they switched from MagSafe to USB-C. Considering a 2014 MagSafe nearly started a fire in my house (Apple had nothing to say about that, but did replace the cable), it’s been welcome.
After seeing literally dozens of frayed Apple power cords, I think the real problem was actually the relative softness of the old cable sheathing, not the magsafe part itself. The new USB-C cables are quite noticeably stiffer.
I am a touch typer. I use the escape key constantly. I use the function keys frequently. Like every other touch typer I know, none of us want to look at our fingers to type anything, let alone to look down and navigate around a microscopic touch screen menu that requires you to not only look at your fingers but to move your hands away from the micro-screen to see what you're trying to tap on. I have no idea how they decided any of that was a good idea, let alone for a machine aimed at professionals.
I'm thrilled to see 32gb RAM finally, but I'll pass. Wake me up when they remove the Touch Bar.
For me it’s not just that there’s no tactile feedback but that a lit/colored/app-switching display would force itself into your peripheral vision like some kind of banner ad. This means you are distracted into looking down at it both when you need it and when you don’t, meanwhile a real keyboard wouldn’t have required you to ever look at it.
The touch bar is the only thing preventing me from purchasing my next Macbook. The keyboard, with all its issues currently, makes it a tough buy as well.
Touchbar can be mostly turned off in macOS settings - I left only Esc button on left, and moved sound and brightness all the way to the right, with nothing in between left and right areas. And function keys only show up when I press fn button.
It’s really not too bad (although kind of stupid expensive gimmicky waste if you ask me).
I too touch type, and simply remapped escape to caps lock, the same as the last 15 years, and moved on. I have had a touch bar since late 2016, and have not missed function keys a single time, while I have several uses for the touch bar.
I would be annoyed if the touch bar were removed, or the trackpad made smaller, or the keyboard made spongier, or any of the other things that people on here like to claim "professionals" want.
I'm a developer and prosumer who types by touch. I have operational macros triggered by FN keys and somewhat miss the hard FN keys on my 2017 MacBook Pro.
I've set the System Preferences so pressing the fn key causes the Touch Bar to show soft FN keys. I use the soft ESC key frequently and without problem; aiming for the left corner of the Touch Bar almost always works and very rarely transforms into something other than ESC (In fact, I can't remember under what conditions it turns into something other than ESC, though I'm sure it does.)
So, one would think that as a touch typist who uses hard FN keys to trigger operational macros, the Touch Bar would be somewhat of an annoyance but for me it's really not.
The Touch Bar changes and reveals and/or offers functionality that isn't offered by any other means.
For example, I frequently Screen Share (VNC) to my home machine that has multiple displays. When doing so, the Touch Bar has buttons to allow me switch between display 1, display 2, or both displays. I've tried and could not figure a reliable way to trigger this functionality with macros or the keyboard, despite having extensive AppleScript knowledge and being very familiar with Keyboard Maestro. The Touch Bar made Screen Sharing much easier to use in a remote context.
Another example, I use Apple's Mail app and for years have used Adam Tow's super useful MsgFiler. When Apple Mail is frontmost, the Touch Bar features a "Move to $Mailbox" button that seems to learn where I file similar messages, and in my observation it is almost always correct.
I also prefer the Touch Bar sliders that reveal when adjusting my screen brightness and the volume controls.
So the Touch Bar does offer a few features which I find useful despite my being a touch typist. I somewhat miss the hard FN keys, but for me losing them is not a deal breaker because I can coerce the Touch Bar to display function keys by pressing the fn key.
So, I'm pretty neutral with regard to the Touch Bar but the keyboard is a different story.
I LOVE the shallow-press keyboard. I generally type with the pads of my fingers rather than the tips, and the shallow key press feels more solid and graceful to me. I've not yet experienced the non-functioning key problem that many others have reported and am somewhat concerned about losing my laptop for a week due to keyboard failure.
> I somewhat miss the hard FN keys, but for me losing them is not a deal breaker because I can coerce the Touch Bar to display function keys by pressing the fn key.
And you can really use them without looking at them?
Your reply to "anecdata" is.... your personal anecdata? That's fascinating.
Anyway I am glad you personally don't mind changing long standardized keyboarding habits by using software modifications to make up for befuddling product decisions. I think that's wonderful, and I am thrilled that works for you and a handful of other people that have a background with ADM-3A terminals, though you should really remap the 'tab' key to 'escape' if you want to be truly proper.
This isn't "oh they shifted where the arrow keys are" they removed an entire row from the keyboard. Sure you can adapt, but why bother when there are plenty of competitors.
I don’t really need them. Everything I use for text input at length has vi bindings, and a couple of tweaks to the IntelliJ default Mac bindings mean that I don’t miss them at all. And if I do need one for some reason, they are a single button press away.
I’ve been using one for six months - in my experience, the keyboard is awesome to the point that I hate going back to my other, older machine.
I reckon there’s been a bit of an unfair perpetuation of this idea that it’s particularly bad, though I accept that some other people have different tastes!
Yeah, I'm the same. I really prefer the new keyboards, though there are clear durability problems (possibly now improved) and noise can be a bit louder than desirable (also now improved).
It’s very different. I personally prefer it to the retina MBP one, which I never liked much (and which was a step down from the pre-retina one), but I can definitely see that some people wouldn’t like it.
It's not necessarily that you're wrong or anything! I totally appreciate that people have different tastes in keyboards. I'm just aware that I've heard an awful lot of people talk about how bad it is, without having actually used it – to the point that I was really rather surprised when I started using it and realised how nice it is!
I used to see a lot of software failures on old versions of Mac OS, but it hasn't been as bad in the past year. I am, however, on my third MBP in 10 months due to hardware issues mostly around the keyboard/touchpad and the chassis.
Yup, you nailed in. I think I can get used to the new keyboard (despite the messed up arrow keys and lack of travel), but the touch bar just kills the purchase for me.
I thought about making a hackintosh laptop, but it doesn't seem like there are super reliable options out there. Guess I'll have to bite the bullet and make my next laptop a Linux one (despite the pain that tweaking the OS or even installing some software can be).
That automatic display makes me think about the bad experiences I have with the hardcoded adaptive contrast on my XPS-13 9350. It makes it unusable for pro grade photo editing since the features can't be turned off and the monitor therefore can't be calibrated. In addition, when trying to use the nightlight feature of the new gnome stack, the color temperature swings wildly with subtle color changes on the page caused by things such as scrolling, or highlighting text.
I know Dell released a BIOS update that includes disabling DBC for my 13" 9370. Have you checked the most recent BIOS for a new setting that disables DBC on the 9350?
To you. A review can't (and arguably shouldn't) be everything to everyone. For example, for those who are flexible in the operating system they use, it would make more sense to compare with different manufacturer's products; for those who are interested in using macOS, it the review as written makes more sense. The first sentence of the piece is "I’ve been using Mac laptops for a long time, going back to the very first portable Apple ever made": it's unlikely they're writing to the former audience. You may not be the intended audience, and that's okay. There are likely reviews out there that address the questions that interest you. This just happens not to be one of them.
This is the exact comparison I want - to know in which ways it is different from what I have now.
I'm not going to switch away from MacOS on my daily use machine (though do have various ThinkPads with FreeBSD and so forth), so comparison to the hardware other manufacturers hardware produce is irrelevant to me.
the benchmarks also pretty much scale with cpu core count. I’d like to see some web, compilation, video and photoshop benchmarks, stuff people with Macs actually do.
Using the Esc-key for vi(m) is crazy nevertheless. It's a really long reach.
Personally I have rebound Left Ctrl to Esc, and Caps Lock to Ctrl, but an option would be to rebind Caps Lock to Esc. 'jj' is also fine, but since rebinding Esc to a closer key, I started using it a lot more often, where I would have used the mouse.
Year 2018, price 2000euros, specifications: 8gb RAM (non-upgradable) and just 256GB of SSD. Most smartphones have higher specifications. That is just a rip-off, imo. Shame on you, Apple!
The report is that the keyboard is not the same. Quieter, but not necessarily more reliable. Reliability remains to be seen. Keep in mind that the uproar over keyboard problems started far too recently to have affected the design of the 2018 version.
The ~2016-designed [0] third-generation butterfly keyboard (MacBook Pro 2018) features a silicone membrane [1] designed to «prevent and/or alleviate contaminant ingress» [0] thereby softening or preventing dust-caused key failure.
> the uproar over keyboard problems started far too recently to have affected the design of the 2018 version.
The lawsuits were more recent, but Apple has known about the issue long before designing the 2018 MBP. This keyboard was on the 2015 MacBook and people have been complaining since early 2017 about the MBP.
Has Apple fixed the layouts? I found the arrow keys particularly vexxing (in addition to wanting more travel, less noise, and more durability). When the keyboard died on my old black MacBook I bought a box of top cases on that auction site and replaced it.
Has Apple started bundling cables with their charges? With my mid-2012 MBP I can buy a gen 1 MagSafe charger and it'll have everything it needs to work with the computer. Last I checked the USB-C chargers aren't any cheaper, but they don't come with a cable that will connect it to a computer. The cable, of course, is another $30 or so.
TFA (and other reporting) says the keyboard is marginally more reliable. But 1) it's still a keyboard with almost no travel, and 2) not only is the touchbar still there, but the non-touchbar option is gone.
Not the best review but I feel it is more for others looking to use it for things similar to the author (CFD).
It is nice to see some keyboard and screen improvements though. I am looking forward to mine arriving on the 26th and will write up a review from a software developer perspective if I get the time.
Wouldn't the fact that they're experienced peripheral manufacturers mean they have less of an excuse for their external GPU being oversized? I have no idea how else that would be relevant in this situation.
The writing has been on the wall ever since they dropped the ethernet jack from the MBP. They're making the Pro as thin and light as possible, so the Air doesn't make a lot of sense as a product line anymore.
I'm curious what the author thinks about the OpenCL deprecation in future versions of macOS. How will this deprecation influence his CFD work on macOS.
I assume an OpenCL -> Metal 2 migration will solve the problem.
Finally adding 32GB gets a big thumbs-up from me, somebody at Apple is finally listening.
I'll have to check the keyboard, however I don't expect any improvement - maybe it'll get stuck a bit less, but I bet travel will still be atrocious.
The MBPr was released in 2012 and redesigned in 2016, so I guess we might expect the next big iteration to come in 2020 or so; then it will take a year or two to work out the bugs, as it always does. This model is clearly the mature version of the 2016 design. It's a good time to buy.
That's not the case - the 32gb config in these machines is regular DDR4, not Low-Power DDR4 as the lower-spec ones. This possibility was already there two years ago. Apparently they just ship a bigger battery to compensate for higher power requirements - something that was suggested when the 2016 model came out (and promptly dismissed by the Apple faithful as wishful thinking).
Intel only shipped their first LPDDR4 big-ram chips last May [1], and they are not the type Apple would use (not powerful enough). It's possible that Apple decided to go ahead with this configuration as a temporary solution, and will eventually swap-in "real" LPDDR4 chips when they land.
For a professional, that's a few days of work. Over 5 years, after tax etc etc, it's still a blip for what is effectively one's main tool.
An IT pro must invest in three primary tools: chair, monitor, and laptop. A £5K budget to amortize over 5 years is fair game, and in the grand scheme of things (traders etc) is actually very very low.
If it's to watch movies and play games, then of course it's insanely pricey; but then you don't really need 32GB, nor a MBP in the first place.
I didn't realize that the esc key was gone before I ordered my new 15". I haven't had a "touch bar" model yet. Why didn't the touch bar take off with developers? I read Apple said you can develop functionality into apps to utilize the touch bar. Why didn't this happen?
The keyboard is one of the last reasons why someone would want a laptop vs. a tablet. I loved my MacBook Air, but no Apple laptops for me until they fix the keyboard. But hey, I am sure they found a market for this stuff. It is just not for touch typists.
That's a bit of shame that they still haven't up since the introduction of the very first 15" Retina. Default scaling on the new 15" looks blurry as it's not 1:4 pixel matching.
Man I like MacBooks, but they need to make one with a touchscreen, bring back the function keys and give me a better keyboard before I’ll buy a new one again.
I see they have also retained the massive POS trackpad, for those who have not experienced it, agony is a good word. Imagine typing away and next thing Siri pops up for absolutely no reason or the cursor changes position and you are typing in a new location. Jumping randomly regardless of what I have done. I am lucky I did not taken a hammer and smashed it to pieces.
From a 2011 MacBook Pro which cost the same, I consider $343 per year a steal for being the only tool needed to generate my entire income during that time.
For the life of me I don’t understand why most developers who work for a company - and get a company supplied laptop - buy a MacBook or any other laptop for personal use.
I don’t do any personal development currently. But when I start back on my personal projects, a 27 inch 5K iMac is much more appealing. You get more for your money, a nicer, bigger display, more ports, faster processors (at least for single core tasks), etc.
Interestingly enough, I get this same feeling of being constrained while being tethered to a desk. I love the ability to move to the kitchen, or the couch, or outside. I've tried using external monitors before and I'm so used to virtual desktops that I often forget they're even there. To each their own, I guess.
Yep this is me. I need to be able to roam around my office and even just sit in different postures (standing, couch, leaning back in office char, on high top stool) to keep me from getting restless.
Your eyes can only look at one screen at once. I find that a laptop + some key commands to switch between applications and windows of the same application is roughly equivalent to multiple monitors and just leaving everything open.
When I’m doing web development, I usually have both the web page up and the IDE with back end API. When the API end point is hit, it breaks in the IDE. That doesn’t even include database clients, looking at things in the AWS console etc.
On Topic: I own a late '16 MBP 15" w/ touchbar. My machine has been serviced once to replace some issue with a failure of some motherboard component (not touchbar or keyboard). I'm am early adopter (hardware, software, gadgets, etc.) -- and I have the luxury now to wait many years before I need to upgrade again. YMMV.
Off Topic: (sorry)
I think there's a much larger debate around what it means that a company owns "everything" you do on (not via?) their laptop (and worse, the whole concept of owning all thoughts, etc.).
But, what really IS a computer anymore?
I boot off external SSD (for my OSX use). I do this while at work, home, friends, etc. I carry around an SSD drive that's small and light -- no more hauling laptops.
This usage style seems to break a lot of assumptions of what a computer with things such as licensing (Apple, Microsoft, etc.). Although it can be painful at times (if something requires GUI and the network bandwidth is low or latency is inconsistent), using a machine as a client (ie: GUI or GUI-less) terminal to access a remote (dev) machine is possible -- such as any client (windows, linux, OSX on MacBook Air) and iMac (or whatever) on the LAN. Prior to iOS dev (which requires OSX), I was using (windows) PCs and full screen VMWare to run FreeBSD, etc.
If I use a machine and ssh to a remote server and change something, does the owner of the machine that I used to do the ssh now own the thing I changed on the remote server?
I currently share my desktop via iCloud sync (and I used rsync to do this as far back as '03 or so), and split data between local and cloud -- so for the most part I can access the data I need from anywhere.
Many SaaS (cloud or not) can be accessed and used from anywhere. It's extremely frustrating to have to maintain so many different accounts to separate work from personal.
For me, at least, the "computer" is getting abstracted away and devices are just ways to access tools for doing whatever it is that I want or need to do at the moment.
I’m not suggesting using a company laptop for personal projects. But with an IDE up, a web browser for development, a shell, etc. working on just a laptop monitor is painful. I can’t imagine developing an iPad app on a 15 inch laptop.
Agreed, development on a single monitor is grossly inefficient for me if I'm doing any sort of serious work. It drives me nuts when I have to pair program with someone who doesn't use multiple monitors, or doesn't utilize multiple monitors effectively. Every time you switch a screen from one app to the other adds friction to your workflow in the form of keypresses and mentally keeping track of context. The more of your workspace can be laid out at once, the less friction there is and the more effort can be devoted to the work itself.
I dunno, I'm comfortable working on a laptop screen - I usually do so for work, even though I also have a work iMac 5k as well. Would it be nice to have more windows side by side for diffing and such, sure, but it's probably only a minor decrease in productivity.
I develop iPad apps on a 13" laptop, and it's not actually too bad. You scale your iPad simulator down so that it fits on the screen and stick it another space if necessary.
When I ramp back up on actually doing side work. iOS Development is on my bucket list along with more web work and I’ll probably need to be running a Windows VM.
I want at least 32GB of RAM.
My ideal iMac setup - 5K, 32GB of RAM, 2TB fusion drive, 4.2Ghz i7 - is $3099
A similarly equipped MacBook Pro would be $3000 with 512GB of storage (that would be enough). But I would still want a 5K external display - adding another $1300.
The last time I used a MacBook Pro to run a Windows VM, the battery life was so bad, I stayed plugged in most of the time anyway.
But back to iPad development. Can you really get a good feel of the UI usability of an iPad with a scaled display? I haven’t done any iOS development before.
When I'm doing UI usability I usually just pull out a real iPad–the simulator is just there for "this change looks about right", and I coalesce a couple of these changes together before running on a real device. I rely heavily on AutoLayout, so most basic UI work is done on the iPhone simulator anyways; I only switch to iPad when I'm testing specific features such as split-screen support.
By the way, battery life on virtual machines has gotten better, I can get around 3-4 hours with a Windows VM running and seven or so with a lightweight Linux one. It seems like Windows has a penchant for preventing the VM from idling which really kills battery life.
Interesting. If you play games, I can see the point - otherwise, I'm not sure why you'd buy a desktop for personal use! You're then stuck with it wherever it is, your desk in your spare room or study or whatever. A laptop, on the other hand, you can use wherever you like - and you can still get a reasonable facsimile of a desktop PC by plugging it in to a full-size keyboard/mouse/external monitor(s).
(I've got 2 x 27" monitors plugged into my 13" Macbook Pro. They're 2560x1440, it's true, rather than 5K, but I'm old enough, and sit far away enough, that I don't mind. Hi-DPI is very worthwhile when I'm using my laptop as a laptop, but from a distance of 1m it's much less of a draw.)
Performance isn't as good, but I've always found this an OK tradeoff. I like the portability and the option of using my PC in the front room. As far as performance goes, any development I do for myself, for whatever reasons, tends to be less demanding than stuff I do for money; and for the non-development stuff, mainly (e.g., now) me staring at the internet via Firefox, it's just not an issue.
Interesting. If you play games, I can see the point - otherwise, I'm not sure why you'd buy a desktop for personal use! You're then stuck with it wherever it is, your desk in your spare room or study or whatever.
The only thing I use an actual computer for is development. Anything else, I either use my iPhone or iPad.
A laptop, on the other hand, you can use wherever you like - and you can still get a reasonable facsimile of a desktop PC by plugging it in to a full-size keyboard/mouse/external monitor(s).
I posted earlier. But while a suitable MacBook Pro and iMac are around the same price, a separate 5K monitor is $1300.
(I've got 2 x 27" monitors plugged into my 13" Macbook Pro. They're 2560x1440, it's true, rather than 5K, but I'm old enough, and sit far away enough, that I don't mind. Hi-DPI is very worthwhile when I'm using my laptop as a laptop, but from a distance of 1m it's much less of a draw.)
I’m not too concerned about the hiDPI. More about the usable real estate when you push it passed the pixel doubled resolution.
Performance isn't as good, but I've always found this an OK tradeoff. I like the portability and the option of using my PC in the front room.
My first job when I got married a few years ago was remote and since then I’ve had jobs with a liberal work from home policy. I’m very careful to separate my work life (including side projects) from my home life so my (step)kids know not to disturb me when I am working. I work in my office.
As far as performance goes, any development I do for myself, for whatever reasons, tends to be less demanding than stuff I do for money;
The most demanding thing I will be doing is running Android emulators and Windows VMs.
and for the non-development stuff, mainly (e.g., now) me staring at the internet via Firefox, it's just not an issue.
I'm going the other way. I'm getting a desktop /instead/ of a laptop for the first time in probably 10 or 12 years.
The reason? I want the feeling of a "workplace" again. With a laptop, I often felt like anywhere I was, I could work (sometimes even felt like I had to).
There wasn't a sense of /place/ attached with work, and I think this has made work a bit less enjoyable and a bit less distinct from non-work. I think of my dad woodworking in his shop when I was a kid. He didn't woodwork at the kitchen table, or the coffee shop. He had a distinct place where meaningful focus took place with intention.
I'm going to try applying that to /my/ work again (after all these years), and see how it feels.
Exactly. My home office is my work area where no one disturbed me. I have my keybosrd, monitors, and my wired connection to the Internet.
When I’m out of the office, I’m available for my family. When I am in my office I am “at work”. It’s especuslly important during the summer when both my wife (she works on the school schedule) and son are home.
Many, many developers: "We hate this keyboard. It is atrocious! Give us back the old one please!"
Apple: "We have listened to your needs. The keyboard is now 8% quieter, and the touchbar is mandatory!"