Apple, this time you made a mistake
andhennie.tumblr.comAs a professional software dev/system architect using MacBook Pro's, I am excited about the new MacBook Pro. I'll miss the SD card for my amateur photography, but I'll live.
It's still got the 3.5mm for my headphones, with USB-C hopefully daisy chaining non Apple displays will finally become a reality, and thankfully my work has upgraded to using wireless technology for displaying screens in conference rooms (which works from OS X and Windows).
The new context sensitive function bar is going to take some getting used to, but I have been using Caps lock for escape for years now and OS X just got native support for mapping that.
Grabbed a USB-C to lightning cable while I was at it. Now I can just bring a single charger and charge either my Mac or my iPhone or both at the same time. I rarely use USB drives, so unfortunately I'll need a dongle for that, but it's not that big of a deal.
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I am more sad that there was no announcement for the Mac Pro/Mac Mini. Also no Apple display, instead handing that to LG, so it looks like Apple is pulling out of the desktop market (I wonder how long the iMac will last).
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Edit: There is one thing I will miss, and that is MagSafe. It has saved my laptop many a time in it's lifetime. I am hoping Apple builds a USB-C to MagSafe cable that provides the same functionality to save laptops from a tripping hazard.
Very strange. What are Vim users going to do without the ESC key? Ctrl-c and ctrl-[ don't work in some Vim emulation tools or for browser extensions that provide Vim keybindings.
Function keys are important for some things. F1 (help), F5 (reload page), F11 (full screen), F12 (browser dev tools), shift-F2 (Firefox terminal), alt-F4 (close window), etc..
I almost bought a Macbook in August, but I decided to get a Thinkpad 460 instead. I deleted Windows 10 and installed Ubuntu 16.04. The Thinkpad was $1,000 cheaper than the Macbook and has better specs (24 Gb RAM), except for the screen. The screen on the Thinkpad is better in one way though: it has a matte finish, so there is less glare. There is also a middle button on the touchpad, which is great for copy/paste in Linux.
Hearing about the missing ESC key makes me very happy that I didn't switch to Mac.
Edit: I see that there is a touchbar, but I have a fully touchscreen keyboard, and it's impossible to type without looking at it. A touchbar seems like it would be less efficient than keys. Keys are programmable too, while still providing reference for your fingers.
> What are Vim users going to do without the ESC key?
They have the pleasure to install an additional ESC server which simulates the ESC key with an ios device :-)
https://github.com/brianmichel/ESCapey
It's amazing that Apple considers the backquote/tilde key so much more important than the ESC key.
Looks like a reasonable solution. :)
They are all important. Backticks for things like markdown, reStructuredText, ES6, and shell scripting. Tildes for file paths and regex. ESC for Vim keybinding emulation in many programs.
The ESC key on the touchbar doesn't look like it's in the right position, but maybe people will be able to retrain themselves to feel for the left edge of the touchbar with the little finger and then tap with the ring finger.
It doesn't seem ideal, but I'll try it at a store before making a final opinion. I'm still relieved that I didn't switch from Linux to Mac though. :)
While I don't completely disagree, you might find this helpful :) :
F1 → ⌘?, F5 → ⌘R, F11 → ^⌘F, F12 → ⌘⌥J, ⌥+F4 → ⌘W (just window/tab) or ⌘Q (entire app).
I was also scared about the removal of MagSafe when I first got my Macbook 12", but in reality what happens when you trip on your power cable is that it will come out from the plug in the wall since the cable is not attached to the transformer.
Detaching easily from the wall socket is a peculiarly US phenomenon. In the UK for example it takes considerable force exactly perpendicular to the socket to remove a plug, and all retail cables are moulded to the plug. So one end is anchored to the wall ans the other is connected to a €3500 laptop...
It would have made more sense to move the Magsafe connector onto the PSU DC output.
I think they are talking about the USB-C connector detaching at the wall, not the power plug detaching.
Exactly ^^
You can get one of these USB-C cables with magnetic locks https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...
This adaptor is rated at 60W. The 15" MBP charges at 85W
The new MacBook is 61W for both 13" and 15" variants - https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/
The 13" is 61W. The 15" is 87W. You're looking at the 13" specs, click on the 15: tab at the top of the page and scroll down.
Aha, what a confusing web page. Thanks for catching that.
I was kind of hoping for an iMac update too. Not anything important, but move it to USB-C so it's in line.
That would have been nice. I was hoping for Mac mini update too. I still have mine from 2012, and the newer versions don't really offer much over that version.
Just upgraded the SSD in it from the fusion drive to a full on SSD, and it is incredibly fast now.
Surface Studio perhaps? ;)
It will be interesting to see if Apple decides to try to respond to that thing. It's pretty impressive in quite a few ways.
> It will be interesting to see if Apple decides to try to respond to that thing.
Probably not, they really seem dead-set against touch interfaces of macOS, and have made pretty much no improvement to it towards that end.
One reason might be that, if you buy a Macbook with a touchscreen, there is less reason to buy an iPad in addition to the Macbook.
I had one laptop with a touchscreen and it was so annoying that I disabled it. Every time I would brush something off of the screen, or someone would point at my screen and touch it, unexpected things would happen. Keyboards are much more efficient than touchscreens, so there didn't seem to be any point.
They're probably right about that. But they could put the pin sensor technology from the iPad Pro into an iMac and get a pretty good product. They did a fantastic job with it.
They most likely will just like they did with the iPad pro.
I think the real "killer feature" of this screen will be distracting the user. I already experience this with my phone lighting up when it's lying at the bottom of my screen.
> I have been using Caps lock for escape for years
I didn't knew people were doing that :O, whats the benefit?, and how do you turn on caps?
> I didn't knew people were doing that :O
I rebind mine to control.
> whats the benefit?
Control is an actually useful key, in Emacs specifically but also in OSX in general as all OSX controls have emacs-ish chords support (e.g. C-a C-e for start and end of line). Having Control on a large well-placed key is more convenient than have it on a small key in the corner, and I've literally no use for capslock.
> how do you turn on caps?
I don't think I've ever wanted that in the last 20 years or so, every single toggling of capslock has been by mistake. In fact one of my issues with windows is there still isn't a way to easily remap capslock, it takes 3 clicks in OSX (or ChromeOS), it takes installing third-party software or hand-rolling custom keyboard layouts on windows.
All the time I see people saying they never want caps lock. I develop in Java and it's convention to have constants be caps lock; other languages do something similar too. In that case what would be the solution without caps lock, typing each character holding shift? I think I'll try it to see how it goes but sounds weird to me.
> In that case what would be the solution without caps lock, typing each character holding shift?
Yes, what little you need to type before autocompletion kicks in anyway, and code is mostly not constants, writing constants is a much rarer case than chording Control in emacs, terminal or cocoa text control.
Vim user here... hence why it is mapped to Esc.
I remap caps lock to be the control key. I have never in my life used caps lock.
I have. All the time.
Mostly when doing finances with stock trading tickers. Tickers are almost always presented and handled in upper case. So when I'm doing work in the trading space, caps lock goes on and stays on.
S 1M IBM @MKT
Makes sense! I don't do anything with stocks.
I don't turn on caps. I usually only need it for a single letter, so the shift key does wonders.
I follow this setup[1], where caps lock can both function as ctrl and esc depending on how long you press/hold.
[1]: http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/a-modern-space-cadet/#cont...
I have the shift key for when I want to type caps. I don't think I have EVER used caps lock to type in all caps.
What a whiney, content-free blog post. The author complains about removing the function keys, MagSafe, HDMI, SD Card and the escape key but doesn't give any examples of how they used those in the past or how those features' absence will cripple their workflow.
Here are my thoughts:
Removing the function keys and replacing them with the touch bar is a step up. The function keys have been annoyingly inconsistent on macOS for a few years now, most programs don't make use of them like they could because by default you need to use an awkward chord with the fn key.
The addition of the fingerprint scanner alone is a win, but having proper context sensitive keys will be huge for discoverability and ease of use.
RIP MagSafe - it was such a great design. I would have kept it and ditched a thunderbolt port, but that's just me.
Having HDMI built-in was pretty good for connecting to projectors, but HDMI doesn't support many screen modes and is pretty out-dated these days. Buy a $10 adaptor if you need it.
SD Card readers are also not used much these days. Buy a $10 adaptor if you need it.
Lots of people are moaning about the escape key like it is their favorite member of One Direction. My guess is that the escape key will be available (as a touch bar icon) in any application that actually needs it.
I am not in the market for a new MacBook Pro, but I can see the appeal.
> The addition of the fingerprint scanner alone is a win
Interesting. Every other laptop has one these days, but I haven't really seen people using it much. It seems more like a gimmick.
Fingerprint scanner on a phone makes more sense, because it lets you to unlock it almost as quickly as if you didn't have any lockscreen security, which is a big convenience.
Every laptop I have seen with a fingerprint scanner has used one of those cheap swipe-your-finger-across-this-slit style devices. They are slow, unreliable, and insecure.
TouchID (at least on my iPhone) is 100% more usable and I would love to have it on my laptop as well.
The phone finger print scanner is sweet. Can't live without it now. Can single handedly unlock the phone and browse HN. :-)
> It seems more like a gimmick.
Don't you use a password manager? Aren't you tired of constantly typing your master password in to unlock your keys?
Because having your password manager unencrypted (so that biometrics can "unlock" it) is a great idea.
What do you even mean by that? On iOS any app can request a TouchID authentication for upgraded privileges. Would be surprised if something similar weren't possible. 1Password on iOS uses TouchID. It's certainly not unencrypted at rest.
That's the goal - I provide my TouchID + maybe a PIN (or if for added security, combined with separate channel factor).
I work in an office of about 100 people and 8 meeting rooms. In each room is a tv or projector. Every room has a hdmi > DisplayPort adaptor. We have tried about 15 different adaptors. Every single one will break down within half a year to a year. Or sooner.
I've never had a single problem plugging in HDMI directly.
Your customers would be pretty annoyed at you if a display port in their $1000+ laptops broke after half a year of normal usage. On the other hand, $10 adapter is a throwaway item, so manufacturers have zero reasons to care.
Such is the disposable culture.
> The addition of the fingerprint scanner alone is a win
I think security minded folks in IT are not going to be thrilled with these. A fingerprint being an identifier, not a authenticator and all that.
Calling HDMI outdated helpfully allows me to ignore the rest of your comment.
It all comes down to this:
NOW I HAVE LOOK AT THE KEYBOARD.
For example, as a developer I press the ESC button zillion times a day. I'm used to "upper-left corner is cancel/close/undo".
Now with the new touchbar it can have an "OK" there. Or "Done". Or "edit". It's up to a developer now.
As a developer do you not use an external mouse, keyboard, and display?
I use laptop and display. Laptop keyboard and trackpad are perfect. The mac trackpad is the best available and I will miss it now that this release has convinced me to go full linux.
> SD Card readers are also not used much these days. Buy a $10 adaptor if you need it.
Photographers. Photographers were still using that.
You know what my mid 2009 MBP can still do? Pull images from my DSLR while charging while plugged into a wired network, transferring them to an external hard drive under the command of an external mouse and keyboard, using an external display. No daisy chaining required, and the cabling is only a minor disaster!
(If I bought a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, I'd be using zero USB ports for any of this. External disk is Firewire.)
On the other hand, the new MBP can do all that when you plug it into a big display at home with a single cable, avoiding the cabling discomfort. I like the Surface Book more than the new MacBook but I see its benefits.
That requires that I buy a display that works like that, and still limits the subsets of that setup I can use. Which comes up for me a shocking amount these days :/
In particular it's nice when my computer is useful without a bunch of extra crap plugged in, and mostly progressively enhanced by new attachments.
I can do light photo work on site with a 2009 MBP and no peripherals at all.
> The addition of the fingerprint scanner alone is a win
1Password is going to rock on this machine.
Even logging on is going rock on this machine if it works as well as the iPhone Touch Id (I assume it is exactly the same device)
They said it was a second gen. Touch ID and it has the same sapphire surface as the iPhone's so I expect it's the same as the 6s & 7.
I LOVE Apple products! I treasure Iphone and it's safe and fun ecosysten. I love the simplicity of OSX. I love the professional appearance of a Macbook Pro... as a user. Or as an observer even.
Because professionally, I've been on Windows, Linux and Android for years. And with Windows where it's at now, I've never been more productive.
Just can't seem to get that across to my Apple-friends and Apple-coworkers.
Any recommendation for a MacBook Pro equivalent running Windows?
One reason I'm stuck with Mac is the need to use it for iOS app development.
Yes, it's called the MacBook Pro. It runs Windows, natively, just fine. In fact, PC World once ranked it as the best Windows laptop.
Macbooks run Windows, but the driver support is pretty horrendous from Apple. Basically, they say it runs and stop supporting it after that. I cannot get a graphics driver update at all. Another good example is that TRRS does not work at all for Windows and this is 100% a driver issue.
I have no problems installing the Radeon drivers on my mid 2015 MBP and not using the default Apple ones.
Graphics drivers are by no means the only drivers that require updates.
I haven't said they were, they are however the most important ones since everything else is pretty bog standard.
A Windows pc for a Mac price? What's not to like.
I'm not sure if the new MacBook Pro's Touch Bar is usable under Windows.
That's probably going to change with the new touch bar.
Given the popularity of Macs for running Windows, I would not assume this. There's no reason why Microsoft can't write drivers for the Touch Bar.
Dell XPS 15.
- Build quality is excellent
- The form factor is terrific (physical size of a 14-incher)
- You can get it with the latest desktop i7s and a boatload of RAM
- Good battery life (skip the 4k screen)
Lenovo t4 line for durability, Asus zenbook for power: price
If you get a lappy with a 1080 screen (no higher), you may be surprised how well osx runs in VMware. Higher dpi than that and the ui is too small, though.
And if you're adventurous, you could always convert a pc into a hackintosh. It's usually just fiddling with some drivers and swapping out a WiFi card.
All my iOS dev. is now done with Xamarin on Visual Studio on Windows with a headless Mac Mini sitting in the background.
A maxxed out MBP costs €5000, which is $5447.95. And you can't connect your iphone, your iphone headset, hdmi, magsafe, sd-card or usb. And you don't get tactile escape keys or function keys. Or Nvidia. Or even an OpenGL implementation from this decade! This show is over :(
> A maxxed out MBP costs €5000
That's quite dishonest considering a fair bit of that is the 1700€ 2TB SSD (which is not an unfair price, that's about what Samsung announced for the 960 Pro)
> which is $5447.95.
Also dishonest, most people expect USD prices to be without tax, you're including the ~20% european VATs in that by converting back from tax-included euro prices.
The 960 pro 2TB costs between 1200 and 1300 EUR (depending on the country and store, or ~1100 GBP in the UK) that's 400-500 EUR difference and it's unlikely that you'll get an NVME drive faster than the 960 Pro, in fact it would not surprise me if it's the 960 pro in it, and if it's not in all honesty it's likely to be inferior.
1700 EUR for an upgrade is ridiculous even if the 960 Pro would cost 1700 EUR which it doesn't even remotely do the upgrade should've been it's price minus the price of the 512GB SSD. Effectively Apple is charging you anywhere between 2100 and 2500 EUR (2100 if you use the 960 pro 512 price, 2500 if you use the "apple price") for that 2TB SSD.
This is by no shape or form acceptable, taxes or anything else be damned.
Fine, maxxed out except 1TB instead of 2TB SSD and the total is €4.039. The bump up/down from 2TB to 1TB is "only" €960.
Also sales tax isn't dishonest. I have to pay it to buy the machine!!
This is a ton more money than what maxxed out macbook pros were around 2013 in €, and to be honest the total package feels like a downgrade.
> Also sales tax isn't dishonest.
I didn't say sales tax was dishonest, I said converting back a tax included price into USD was, and explained why. Aside from US sales tax being much lower than european ones (as low as 0%) US prices are pretty much always displayed without taxes, so you're making the machine look 20% more expensive than it actually is as far as american viewers understand it. A fair quote would have been to provide the regular USD price ($4300 maxxed out, or $3500 for 1TB).
Well if US sales taxes are as low as 0% then I think it IS a fair comparison.
Feature-wise, it feels like the 2013 device is worth the 2016 price and the 2016 device is worth the 2013 price.
> Well if US sales taxes are as low as 0% then I think it IS a fair comparison.
That's completely nonsensical, Apple doesn't decide where you live and they don't set how much VAT to apply, they've got a "manufacturer price" and add VAT on top.
> That's completely nonsensical, Apple doesn't decide where you live and they don't set how much VAT to apply
The point is that it is possible to buy it somewhere in the US without tax, whereas no such method exists in the EU.
Saying that you don't want to pay VAT is not a point.
My original point was that the € price for a maxed out machine appears much higher than previous MacBook Pro launches, regardless of sales tax. The USD conversion was just a side note.
> Also sales tax isn't dishonest. I have to pay it to buy the machine!!
What they mean to say is that VAT is included in the price tag in Europe, so when people see the € number they'll say "and that's exactly what it will cost" whereas in the US prices are before tax, so we will mentally inflate the number by ~10% when we see it.
It is if you're making a critique of the manufacturer. Apple has no control over where you choose to buy the machine.
US sales taxes vary depending on state. There is no direct comparison.
> *And you can't connect your iphone, your iphone headset, ...
This my biggest issue with the MBP. WTF are they thinking here?! Why didn't the iPhone7 port get switched to USB-C from lightning if they knew the MBP was going to USB-C/TB3? The whole point of Apple products is that they work better the more of them you have.
Not an Apple fan by any means but I've just gotten tired of the poor build quality of Windows laptops and terrible battery life year after year. So I've been patiently waiting to upgrade my 3-years-old XPS to a MBP. Heard that the price range will likely be fairly close to the old generation of MBP. Well, what i saw today is just too cost-prohibitive for very little reason. I'm now hoping that Surface Book or the new XPS are worth the money.
I'm in the same boat. I've been lifting any virtual rock for any decent affordable development laptop that isn't two generations old with a bad CPU (Read Celeron or Atom). But there aren't any, there's only the 600€ range and up.
Then comes Apple, which I've been waiting for - I have the Macbook Air and Macbook Pro. But for this price and with no 32GB RAM upgrade possibilities and 8GB RAM for 220€?
No... Just NO. This is the last straw, I'm going to try Linux for the iftiest time.
> I'm going to try Linux for the iftiest time.
When you do that please, please buy something where it's preloaded onto the system (e.g. Dell XPS) so that you get the same sort of hardware/software experience that you get from the integrated apple. It will cut out so much fiddling and possibilities of a terrible experience!
Thanks for the advice, that's actually the exact modell i plan on getting. But I was unsure if it was a modern CPU, seemed dated? Or are the newer XPS also called XPS?
The worst thing was that the linux version cost 2x more than the normal one here in Sweden...
I ended up purchasing Dell XPS 15 today. In terms of battery life, build quality and power there isn't much else besides it that compares to Macbook Pro (at least not until Surface Book 2 comes out but then it'll be horribly expensive too). I think what you're talking about is the Dell XPS developer edition. I'm not even sure if Dell sells them anymore. You might just get the Windows 10 Home Edition and throw a Linux distro on it. At least that's my plan.
Would you please let me know if Linux works just as well on the Windows version as the Developer version.
Somehow i imagined they where different, but they probably aren't.
Apple sells a USB-C to Lightning cable, so you don't need a dongle to connect an iPhone.
The rest of your points stand though.
For €5000 you can't connect your state-of-the-art iPhone to your state-of-the-art Mac out of the box. You have to pay extra, and you have to carry around an awkward dongle adapter and hope you don't forget it! Fucking lol.
> you have to carry around an awkward dongle adapter
Huh? It's not a dongle, it's just a cable. You do need a cable to connect your phone to your laptop.
But that's not a cable that everyone has everywhere.
So many times around me poor iPhone owners couldn't charge their phones at parties because nobody had their kind of cable around, while for microUSB you've got plenty of helpful charger and powerbank owners.
To be honest, lately owners of phones with USB-C were having the same problem, but I guess it's gonna change faster than with Lightning cables.
It isn't a dongle adapter, it is a usb cable with usb-c on one side and lightning on the other.
A cable of rather limited uses is the moral equivalent of a dongle.
Except that it increases utility.
I can now bring a single charger that can charge my MacBook Pro and my iPhone. I just need a USB-C to USB-C cable and a USB-C to Lightning cable.
Charge my laptop or charge my iPhone or charge both (use the laptop as a passthrough).
It will reduce the amount of stuff I carry, I tend to carry just an iPhone charger while traveling in case I want to bring it with me where I don't bring my laptop, extra space in luggage and weight.
Increases utility over what? If the ports all match, you can choose to carry 1 or 2 cables depending on whether you want to make 1 or 2 connections. Since the ports don't match, you need a cable for each type of connection you might want to make.
Can you plug this particular cable into a wall adapter iOS charger? If not, then you still need two different cables depending on whether you want to charge from the wall or the mac.
You can't plug it into the wall adapter iOS charger, but you can plug it into a USB-C charger that comes with the MBP.
It is just another cable\dongle\adapter\hub we must buy again and again. These products should "just work" together.
Ok, great. Then let's all go back to 2001 and use 10Mbps first-generation USB for everything. Oops! It won't supply enough power, it's now FOUR THOUSAND times slower than modern interfaces, it can't drive monitors, etc.
Maybe your idea isn't so great.
Have fun playing with your dongles
"I liked your products. You changed things. I'm stating as a fact they're worse without providing any evidence or opinions to back that up."
This is a low quality post.
> This is a low quality post.
Good demonstration.
I wager that most posts headlining something like "[Corporate Entity], this time you [past tense verb]" after an announcement of [Corporate Entity] are of relatively poor quality.
I think there are a lot of legit complaints about the new announcements and lack of improvements, but this post seems pretty weak. Fn keys aren't really gone, they're just present in another form (the touch bar). The other complaint is just about ports. It's not so hard to have a dongle that has these ports, and just plugs into the new one. Sure, a little annoying, but it doesn't exactly kill your workflow.
> The other complaint is just about ports. It's not so hard to have a dongle that has these ports
And the keikaku[0] is quite obviously to provide incentive for accessory manufacturers to build type-c native stuff, and eventually have an all-type-c ecosystem and little to no need for "dongles" (which incidentally should mostly be basic cables)
[0] keikaku means plan
It's nice that you're learning Japanese, but why not use "plan" instead of adding a footnote?
It's a joke/dumb reference from the internets: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/just-according-to-keikaku
I think they're screwing with the kwijibo[0] too much and will end up with a professional user base that won't be large enough in number for accessory manufacturers to care.
[0] kwijibo means product
> [0] kwijibo means product
I'm on to your lies, boyo.
:)
The fact that the new iPhone doesn't use USB C and they are trying to push headphone manufacturers to make lightning headphones kind of goes against this _assumed plan_
I'm genuinely amazed every time there's an Apple keynote and people act this surprised. With every major new release Apple has been taking away legacy and pushing forward, often compromising compatibility.
> pushing forward
forward to what ? design over usability ? surely you understand why a lot of people are pissed off. The touch bar is a gimmick, the lack of inputs make the MBP only PRO in name, this isn't a "PRO" machine. This is just a Macbook air rebranded as Pro. But to understand that you need to be able to read through Apple's bullshit, which is hard for Apple fans that see the brand as part of their own identity.
FFS, they didn't remove the F-keys, you can still have F-keys if you want...and they made all the ports do everything. They removed the card reader. Whiny posts by people who didn't even pay attention are more annoying than Apple.
But you can't FEEL them. So you can't use them without looking down at your keyboard. Which is a pretty horrible proposition for touch typists.
Uh, I have to look down to know where my F2 key is right now anyway.
Also - external keyboards are still possible!
I'm hopeful that the customization of TouchBar will have some perks that weren't quite made loud & clear in the preso.
Touch typing doesn't involve the Escape key, really, which is the only key that's relevant here.
For those who need it, Esc will be readily-mappable to a hardware key combo.
Also, it's simply false that you can't use a Touch Bar key without looking down. It's just a simple motor skill like anything else. Very very slightly harder than having a hardware Esc key. Trivial.
I don't know about you but I "touch-type" F6, F7, F8, F9, F10 all the time while single-step debugging. It looks like the Touch Bar can change to anything at any moment, such as "answer facetime call" so I wouldn't trust blindly touching it. And I don't have a spare physical button to map escape onto because I already use all the remaining buttons for their intended purpose, including caps-lock.
I use my volume keys without looking also, 10s of times per day.
If you say (in effect) "The latest macbooks would mess with details of my high-end pro workflow...so I'm thinking of switching to Linux" you either live in the terminal or you're not really thinking this through.
That's a pretty outdated viewpoint. Linux has been my professional platform for 6 years, and I find it to be vastly superior to Windows or Mac. The short time I had to use OS X for iOS development was very painful.
I'm not saying Linux is bad. I'm saying switching from Mac to Linux is going to be a much bigger adjustment to your workflow than getting a new dongle or a few different shortcut keys (considering that at a minimum you're going to be switching cmd to ctrl for nearly everything--unless you already live in the terminal).
It's really not that hard. I am forced to use Mac at work, while using Linux at home (also with very different keyboards), and getting use of making a mental switch when needed is matter of months. It is not much different than learning to use more than a single keyboard layout.
Yes, but the switch is a one time inconvenience. If it's stressful, they can ease that with a $1,500 vacation with the price difference.
I'm reminded of all the people who think saying they'll leave the US if a given person is elected president is actually meaningful
I have two problems with the new keyboard/touch bar layout. One, the ESC key is not on the far left of the touch bar - it ignores the "Mile High Menubar" concept. Now instead of just reaching up and blindly smashing the top-most left-most key on the keyboard, I have to look down to find the ESC key that's close to, but not quite in, the upper lefthand corner of the keyboard area.
The other problem is that they left in the Fn key. Why would I need a Fn key when I have a touch bar? Maybe we can map ESC to the Fn key. :/
Do we know why they removed the MagSafe power cord?
I always thought it was a smart design. It seems kind of silly to remove it.
Tradeoff between the break-away design for a single-purpose port and the multiple multi-purpose ThunderBolt 3 ports.
Personally if they could've had an Apple accessory that mitigated that (ie, something built-in like Griffin's breaksafe - maybe recess the port so the accessory could be flush), it would've been a coup.
Everyone needs to plug in their laptop; Not every one needs 4 connectivity ports.
I'm a MagSafe fan myself. I remember pre-MagSafe laptops taking a flyer now and again, and being the worse for it.
That said, I can understand why they did it. Laptops are lighter now, so the corresponding damage may be less as well. And I don't know how snugly the TB3 ports fit. Maybe they disconnect more easily than, say, Firewire 400.
I've got a couple of years left in my current laptop. I'm hoping there's a solution that incorporates some type of break-away power connector.
I've been noticing a trend toward linux among devs for a while now, so this will just hasten that. The lenovos are really sweet with linux, as an example, and I'm seeing them increasingly at programming events.
Apple has been moving it's product line towards catering to the idiocracy, anyways, so it's not surprise. Add to that the increasing loss of interest in iphone and devs moving to android, in spite of all it's problems, and you have a sea shift.
I think it's been an interesting dichotomy all along. There were the consumer apple products, and the professional ones. The professional products were used to build for the consumer ones. I think Jobs really understood the need to have a two pronged approach in this way. It seems that new management now is trying to unify it all, and the wind up is that apple will no longer be the cool dev's choice, and the result will be a rapidly declining ecosystem, offering, popularity, and, finally, revenue.
I have to agree on all points. As a vim addict losing the ESC key is bad, although I've been trying to re-learn to use ctrl-[ instead which is more ergonomic anyway. Touch bar for volume, brightness, etc. is going to take some getting used to.
As for losing the ports -- seems like a great opportunity for someone to come up with an all-in-one usb-C to SD, HDMI, VGA, DVI, USB3, etc. Wouldn't need to be very big or expensive...
Even so, the old macbooks and macbook airs with SD slots could be "upgraded" with a low-profile SD card that is left in all the time. This series of macbook pros appears to be completely bereft of renegade upgrade opportunities.
I use a mac now, and like the tight integration with ipad and iphone, but unless they come out with a better macbook that restores some of what has been taken away my next laptop will likely be running Linux.
I am really concerned about where the whole mac train goes.
It is so clear they did not consider touch-typists when they designed touch bar. They could have used textured glass to cover it, or aligned its keys to 0-9 row, or added haptic feedback, or at least kept 2 options for keyboard as they did with 13 inch model.
Seeing Craig Federighi when he tried his best to show the demo was hilarious. Is it how they see professionals working in the next decade? It turned out that Microsoft has better understanding of it. At least is see Surface Dial being used.
I can cover that ugly "MacBook Pro" branding by duct tape. I can buy dongles for SD/HDMI and magsafe-like USB-C cable. But... the whole story of giving up on professionals seems to be unforgettable.
I agree. I have no plans on upgrading my MacBook Pro (2015). I'm very forgetful, so I know that I'd lose any adapter dongles due to the USB-C/Thunderbolt ports replacing everything else.
Well, it makes it easy to save a few thousand dollars this year.
Can anybody recommend a good laptop to replace my current macbook -
I would like 17inch screen, and runs Ubuntu ... bonus for NVidia GPU - I deep learn in the cloud but having a GPU to test on would be great.
Anybody know of this mythical unicorn?
Here you go, pal! http://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/predator-17x-series
17in 4K IPS display, desktop-equivalent GTX 980.
Wow, I'm in love. Thanks.
Just know that Acer laptops have a history of overheating. I even experienced that myself.
Nine pounds? Woah - I remember the days of lugging something that heavy through airports. Ugh.
Desktop graphics cards are pretty heavy. LinusTechTips put one on someone's back as part of a VR-on-your-person build, though, and they said it was perfectly fine.
If they just upgraded it to a 1080
Yeah, the $3100 sticker price just isn't enough, huh?
I don't know if you are being sarcastic because you exactly described the specs of this https://system76.com/laptops/kudu in either case I fell for it
Ah I should have mentioned > 1080p (but thanks for suggestion)
17" screen + powerful GPU doesn't leave too many sleek options a la macbook. But if you look towards gaming laptops you'll find plentiful options.
Ubuntu might be a little more difficult, depends on driver support I suppose. Most come with either no OS or Windows.
Here's a search for 17" + 1060/1070 + 4k. I'd probably stick with 1060 to keep some sort of handle on heat management unless you really need more. I've had a good experience ordering from here in the past (Sager NP8660, great machine with an unfortunately large power brick).
http://www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-gamin...
Thinkpad P70 http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/p70/?...
Precision 17 7000 Series (7710) http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m7710-workstatio...
ZBook 17 ? http://www8.hp.com/us/en/workstations/zbook-17.html
take note that these all have Quadro cards, not their lower end GForce cards.
Typing this from my maxxed-out surface pro 4, in tablet mode, while I do sketching on the couch, after having done some pretty intense Visual Studio Typescript debugging. I would recommand this to anybody. <3
Great answer fulfilling literally none of GP's wishes or requirements.
Radical, dude.
http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro
Has a desktop Geforce 1080 in it, mechanical keyboard, Gsync display... drool.
Thinkpads sound like something for you.
I'm pretty ambivalent about everything but the usb ports. I get they its an overloaded standard and probably needs a replacement, but its a lot to give up in the name of progress...
The hard fact is that there's still a LOT of usb devices out there. Even one USB port would greatly alleviate the pain.
If they don't include a usbc->usb+hdmi adapter in the box, it's going to be extremely painful for users with workstations who find out that their peripherals don't work.
No adapters in the box.
That's what people said when the very first iMac replaced ADB and Mini-DIN8 with USB ports. This isn't even exactly replacing the USB standard, just the connector type. USB1/2/3 devices will still work, you just need a Type-A to Type-C adapter; much simpler than, say, Thunderbolt to FireWire. The best outcome will be a "rip off the Band-Aid" approach with everyone else adopting USB Type-C (or Thunderbolt 3) as quickly as possible.
I can't wait to have a macbook pro with unlimited energy and slim as a piece of paper... (read I'm pretty sure the next upgrade is gonna be a "batteryless" laptop)
> function keys, MagSafe, HDMI, SD Card AND the Escape key
I'm an HDMI guy too, SD cards are great, and MagSafe has saved my bacon more than once. But the function keys are being transformed into something a bit more interactive and app-specific, and if you need Escape in a terminal emulator, Ctrl-] has been around just about forever.
I think Apple's doing something new and interesting with function keys.
(But I agree, I'm not sure I agree with their all-in strategy on Thunderbolt/USB-C either.)
While it's nice that Unix systems have an alternative (^]), many people don't know about that, and you'd probably be hard pressed to find anyone who prefers it over just <Esc>.
You can use it with both hands on the home row, though. Left pinkie down to Ctrl, right pinkie up to ]. You don't need to move your hand up or rotate at the wrist. So in a sense it's actually kind of an improvement.
> But I agree, I'm not sure I agree with their all-in strategy on Thunderbolt/USB-C either
Same thing people said when they went all-in on USB 1.0. It will be rough for some people for a while but the new port has some obvious benefits. In two years everyone will take it for granted that most new laptops/desktops come with at least some USB C ports.
So does this mean that the Emacs folks have finally won the battle on Macs?
I think that a cellphone with one button was also a mistake but I've never been a fan of Apple... I wish cellphones still had a slide out keyboard...
While I appreciate USB-C, it's still too early to go USB-C only, especially on a "professional" laptop. And, the transition to lightning headphones is a glaring example of the left hand SOMEHOW not being aware of what the right hand is doing.
Plus, the touch bar sucks. Compensating with indentations and force touch could have made it an amazing and useful tool.
That's how Apple does things. When they see something new that they want to push, they jump on it even if it seems premature. Before long, they're just ahead of the curve.
1998 seemed too early to go USB-only, but it turned out to be a great move. And that was a situation where you often needed all-new peripherals, versus this machine where you just need a cheap adapter or a new cable.
I fully agree, but the situation two decades ago is extremely different today. Also, I wasn't clear but I was specifically thinking of the lack of HDMI/display port unless I missed that it has it (which is possible).
I already have a laptop that lacks hdmi and has usb c, and i miss it on a regular basis. Carrying dongles really sucks.
It doesn't have those, no. The adapters are apparently pretty simple, but you do need them.
"it's still too early to go USB-C only"
It does seem odd to have only one kind of port. That said, you can also look at it as "you only need one kind of port". No need to mix and match adapters. Just X to TB3.
As for too early, it's a chicken-egg thing. Someone is going to be early to market, and the market needs pressure to make the change.
"Compensating with indentations and force touch could have made it an amazing and useful tool."
I agree that force touch would be great. I think this is an iteration thing that we'll see in the future.
As for indentations, yeah, it would be nice to have something to know where one key ends and the next begins. It does limit flexibility though. And it's also a screen, not just a keyboard. Not sure how the indentations would work with the display.
a) you haven't used the Touch Bar. Seems a tad early to conclude that it sucks. b) what transition to Lightning headphones? The MacBook Pro keeps the old headphone jack. Do your homework before reflexively criticizing, please.
You can't use the headphones that came with an iPhone 7 to listen to anything other than another iOS device, including this new MBP.
The mistake people are making is thinking the iPhone's transition is from 3.5mm analog audio to Lightning digital audio. It isn't, it's a transition to wireless audio, including the Lightning headphones is a compromise.
a) i develop for touch interfaces. Short of any unannounced magic, I know how they work. You have to look at them, and keyboards are input devices based around not looking at them. I'm sure they'll be useful in their current incarnation for some users, but very detrimental for others.
b) I was referring to the transition to non-wireless lightning headphones on the iphone 7, which they proposed as an alternative. It looks and feels sloppy in that regard. One hand working on macbooks isn't aware what the hand working on iphones is doing.
Do your homework before reflexively criticizing, please.
Google trends "macbook alternative" and "macbook windows" shows clear spike after the announcemenet.
https://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore?date=now%201-d&q=mac...
Any comparison with previous MacBook announcements?
Apple only cares about impressing Apple newbies who walk into their stores, and this laptop is a prime example of that attitude. They haven't given half a damn about power users, enterprise users, or developers since Steve died. It's all about the bling now.
Serious question: how will us vim users get by w/o physical escape key? If it's just a touch in the same position as old physical key, I think it'll be fine (may actually be nice, as it will _feel_ different, for a very special key).
I never thought I could move to a touch only phone because I do a lot of "proper" typing on my phone, which is why I stuck to my Blackberry until my first iPhone which was a 5 (yes that long). Which is to say, I don't think we will miss the tactile escape and function keys. And same goes for dedicated HDMI port and microsd card slot (seriously how often does one use the latter)
Remember when apple got rid of the floppy drive and then the disk drive? Do we still complain about those?
Headphone jack on iPhone is a different concern, since bluetooth headphones are still not as ubiquitous and having something else to charge a headache.
But none of these concerns (except for maybe the absence of Magsafe) is really a dealbreaker.
"it’s not like I can buy laptops with MacOS (which I’m completely addicted to) from someone else." <- No, you can. Just check Microsoft Surface Pro running macOS ;)
I see a lot of comments about apple getting rid of USB. Thats not exactly true at all. They have removed the USB-A ports and replaced them with the updated USB-C ports. Which also double as charging ports, thunderbolt ports, and HDMI (with a dongle yes). I think its dishonest to say they did away with USB because they haven't they have done away with the port you are used to. Doesn't mean USB is gone. Its still there with a better connector!
I've been holding on my 2012 non retina. I hate that every newer model comes with almost everything soldered.
I'd love to see a plot of resale prices for the 2012 15" non-retina - I bet they go up from here. The 13" is still for sale, but the 15" is gone.
If your a professional using your computer all day, then you shouldn't be using the crappy built-in keyboard or crappy built-in display in the first place. The Macbook is your computer - add the display and keyboard and mouse that make you productive.
am I missing something? the demo clearly showed an esc key configured on the touchbar. I could care less about removing the ports.
Did they remove the USB port? That's pretty brain-dead stupid.
> Did they remove the USB port?
No, they put 4 instead of the old 2, and they quadruple up as charging, video and high-speed interconnect.
And also made them incompatible with practically all existing USB devices.
And yet forwards-compatible with practically all USB devices that will be made going forward.
In other words, they did what you must do in order to move forward to a new, superior standard which gives 40 Gbps performance plus power in AND out on all 4 ports.
I don't need 40Gbps to run my mouse, and I shouldn't have to spend more money on an already egregiously overpriced machine to get an adapter. I don't want another adapter to output to my monitor. I don't want another adapter to connect to ethernet.
USB C doesn't need to be all or nothing. They could include 2 USB C and 2 USB A and solve half of these problems. Throw in a MiniDisplayPort or an HDMI and we're set.
> I don't want another adapter to connect to ethernet.
You're about 4 years too late there.
> USB C doesn't need to be all or nothing.
It has to be if your ultimate goal is for it to become universal eventually. As long as legacy interfaces are available accessory manufacturers have little incentive to build type C devices as they can keep plugging away without, so they won't.
> They could include 2 USB C and 2 USB A and solve half of these problems. Throw in a MiniDisplayPort or an HDMI and we're set.
You're set, and they have to support these interfaces they don't want forever. Because don't be mistaken, that's what their endgame is, that's what Apple has been looking for since they removed the floppy drive and started moving "slow" IO to USB back in 1998.
If the only reason an accessory would use USB C is because no alternatives exist, it doesn't need USB C.
Also, I don't care what Apple wants to do here. I want a computer that I can use comfortably.
Incompatible? It's still USB, just bring a dongle. Wait a year or so, that dongle will be obsolete except for older tech.
So, all the tech we use that uses USB A will disappear in the next year? It's ok, I can just spend more money so my keyboard and mouse can work with my $2400 machine.
Get a USB-C to USB A adapter for the keyboard ($19 from Apple, less than $10 from others). My stuff is all plugged into a relatively new Thunderbolt dock, I'll get a $49 Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter.
USB-C is a better connector that can sweep away all the USB connector types that have come before. Products can't switch fast enough. I wish the iPhone 7 used it instead of Lightning but Lightning is thinner so they probably never will.