8 ms·

Best comment [1] I read a couple of days ago: >One thing constantly said to founders here is "don't let a vocal minority come in, tell you they love your produ

by IBM 10y ago

Best comment [1] I read a couple of days ago: >One thing constantly said to founders here is "don't let a vocal minority come in, tell you they love your product, and then turn into bullies that tell you how you should make said product. You never made it for them; they aren't your market. Don't get confused into thinking they are, just because they're loud." I think that about sums up the relationship between Apple and software developers who use their hardware. Which is good advice for Tim Cook and all of Apple. You don't want to end up making the MBP version of this [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12818193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12818193 [2] https://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/2236.html https://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/2236.html

graeme 10y ago
Are professional users really a "vocal minority" of the MacBook Pro? I'm not a developer. I run an online business and use a MacBook Pro for video recording, editing, and general website admin. I needed the extra processing power, and the ports. The new model has me apprehensive, though I'll certainly look at it. What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though?
- sjtgraham 10y ago
  > What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though? Apple doesn't seem to know or care. I don't know who this MBP is for. Increasingly less people can justify an Apple macOS portable when an iOS device covers their requirements satisfactorily and it doesn't meet the needs of many professionals at all (present and anticipated needs for the machine's useful life). Apple is behaving as if they're a boutique OEM.
  - freehunter 10y ago
    >Apple is behaving as if they're a boutique OEM. That's how Apple has behaved since day 1, save for the few years when Sculley was at the helm.
  - initram 10y ago
    > Apple doesn't seem to know or care. Oh nonsense! They showed like a dozen ways that the new touch pad alone makes using professional apps easier, faster, and generally better in their keynote. They are clearly thinking specifically of the professional market. Whether they hit their mark or not is up to the market to decide. The new computers are already back-ordered by 4-5 weeks, so clearly someone's ordering them.
    - smrtinsert 10y ago
      The new touch pad looks ridiculous. It looks like novelty they're throwing out to placate the masses they get a real touch screen together behind the scenes. I have absolutely 0 desire to use a tiny strip of touch above a perfectly good keyboard.
      - sxcurry 10y ago
        And the good news is .... you don't have to!
        kalleboo 10y ago
        You'll still have to pay for it if you want a 15" macOS laptop though (unless you want to buy old hardware)
      - jhou2 10y ago
        I agree with you. But I think the touch pad is a harbinger of things to come. The eventual goal is probably a touch pad keyboard, one that reconfigures depending on the circumstances. It might even be like the Star Trek NG consoles eventually. I think it might be possible to use the haptic touch on a localized level such that each key press causes a sense of typing feedback.
    - cinquemb 10y ago
      >The new computers are already back-ordered by 4-5 weeks, so clearly someone's ordering them. Does them being back-ordered matter much (outside of annoyance to consumers)? Wouldn't it be more informative to see the absolute numbers of back orders now relative to the numbers for previous releases? For all we (public) know is that the back-ordered demand could be from smaller supply initial supply, not necessarily from record demand. Are such numbers public knowledge?
  - stomato 10y ago
    > Apple is behaving as if they're a boutique OEM. Not sure what you mean. If they made the computer much faster, I imagine it'd get too hot or noisy. The main failure IMO was that the only real innovation was a touch bar replacing function keys that as far as I can tell no one asked for or wanted. However, macOS still beats Windows 10 because it's more intuitive and usable and has fewer quirks. I don't want one of these because of the touchbar, though. It just seems unnecessary, and I wish they would've waited on a more practical innovation that would solve a problem and not remove physical keys and be a distraction and take away from design aesthetics.
    - NolF 10y ago
      MacOS has plenty quirks for me though... I cannot get it to reliably connect to a win10 samba server (my android or boot camp give me no trouble). I should probably blame Google, but the ATF app sucks and gives a lot of problems transferring large or numerous files (ended up using WiFi... I get periodic blue screens (kernel panics) from using Chrome. When finder crashes I can't seem to be able to initiate it without a hard restart... I have had it for 3 years and it's only been one thing after another. I love some features, but the trouble on a day to day basis is not worth it.
      - stomato 10y ago
        If they were so much trouble, why did IBM deploy them stating they are 3x less expensive overall including support? http://www.businessinsider.com/an-ibm-it-guy-macs-are-300-cheaper-to-own-than-windows-2016-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/an-ibm-it-guy-macs-are-300-ch...
        majewsky 10y ago
        My guess (from experience with using a Macbook at work in a similarly large IT company) is that their corporate Windows image has a huge pile of shit bundled into it for historical reasons that breaks all the time, while the Mac image is relatively frugal. I can observe a slow tendency that our corporate Mac image piles on more and more junk over time, probably because more people are using Macs than the year before and thus IT allocates more headcount to work on Mac customizations.
- c0nducktr 10y ago
  > What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I think the new MBPs are, well... not good, considering the price. I really like my 2012 MacBook Air. It's still going strong, although I wish I had went for the 8GB of RAM instead of just 4. But when I was talking about the new models with my friends and coworkers, a lot of us shared one thought: We don't think it's worth the money, but we can't spend $2000 on a laptop anyway, so whatever. So we're not the target market. It seems that people here don't really want one either, so 'Developers who frequent Hacker News' also doesn't seem to be the target... It seems like maybe it's just 'wealthy people who want a sleek-looking, well made piece of hardware', which it is. Maybe it includes businesses that will provide one to their employees, and will buy the extra dongles and whatnot. There's probably a lot of them in each group. If I had the money, and didn't care that it didn't have the fastest processor, the ability to have a crazy amount of RAM, and would need an extra damn cable just to connect my iPhone, I would love to buy one too. One thing seems pretty certain, and it's that there is room for a competitor to jump in and make a great laptop for the people who are looking for something different. I really hope someone can make it work.
  - DanHulton 10y ago
    I really wish I agreed with you. Unfortunately, there's literally nobody who can step in here and make a truly competitive product, since it won't run the same OS. I mean, I develop for the web, so I could very well switch to Windows or Linux at this point, and after some pain points, I'd probably be back up and running and around 90% as happy as I was before. But that last 10%, where things don't work quite like I want them to, well, that would grate. And over time, I'm probably going to grow to hate that machine. Plus, what about people who make iOS apps? Or heck, even just develop for the Mac? There's literally no other option than a Mac. This is a big part of why people are so upset, is because we can't just wait for a competitor to jump in and save us. We've let ourselves become dependant on Apple, and -- like you put it -- we seem not to be the target market anymore. As much our fault as theirs maybe, I'm not one to judge, but it still sucks.
    - rukuu001 10y ago
- jsz0 10y ago
  > Are professional users really a "vocal minority" of the MacBook Pro? A lot of professionals have workflows / infrastructure that does not rely on the specs of any individual computer. Past a certain point it's the only practical approach for scaling. I suspect the vocal minority are the users in the upper end of the prosumer range who can't really justify moving to truly pro workflows / infrastructure.
  - sangnoir 10y ago
    > I suspect the vocal minority are the users in the upper end of the prosumer range who can't really justify moving to truly pro workflows / infrastructure. Are you suggesting that they are Pro'ing it wrong?! Your comment reeks of no True Scotsman: if a persons workflow is local, then it's not "truly pro". You seem to be forgetting that not all people can be wired into the pro infrastructure all every time they need to do work (travel, connectivity).
    - jsz0 10y ago
      > Are you suggesting that they are Pro'ing it wrong?! If what they're doing works for them it's not wrong but in this case it's not working anymore. Now they have to switch operating systems, software and workflows just because a specific model of laptop wasn't updated at exactly the right time. Switching to PC laptops may be an option for some but they will still have to depend on Intel/AMD and PC OEMs to provide them with an option that perfectly fits their needs. That's only a slightly safer bet. It's not practical for everyone to build out a pro infrastructure for themselves but (especially in the case of developers) it's at least something they need to consider.
- addicted 10y ago
  A different way to put your question, is how do the design goals of the MacBook differ from the MacBook Pro? As far as I can tell, the design goals are the same. The difference is that the Pros are more expensive.
- pabloski 10y ago
  "Are professional users really a "vocal minority" of the MacBook Pro?". NO!!! They are the target of this machine. After all it is called Macbook Pro for a reason. Consumers don't need Macbook Pros, they need at max Macbook Airs. A lot of them can be served by iPad Pros. And the vast majority by iPhones. So yes, Apple is shooting itself in the foot.
sjtgraham 10y ago
People are mostly concerned about: - 16GB max RAM - Function keys Personally I am only concerned about the RAM, I don't use the function keys ever and I can remap another key to replace ESC. I would have gladly forked over for a 32GB MBP, instead I just ordered an i7 ThinkPad x220, extra RAM and an SSD to see if I can do my day to day work on it before buying a top spec non-Apple X86 laptop.
- nvk 10y ago
  .
  - lucisferre 10y ago
    You can and I do and have for years. This is becoming the most tired criticism around here regarding the new Pros.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - freehunter 10y ago
      Not to mention the Esc and function keys still exist.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
    Me neither. Thankfully the 13 inch mode doesn't have a toxh strip so the upgrade is clear.
    - abhinavk 10y ago
      The 13-inch model has only two USB-C ports instead of four.
      - 10y ago
charlesism 10y ago
That sounds nice, but it's actually insane in this context. "Don't listen to developers" is fine is you're making some web thing, or an Uber for tubers. If you think you can run a computing platform without support from developers... good luck!
tensor 10y ago
For every rule of thumb there are exceptions. In this case, if you lose the professional market, which is more than just developers, also designers, photographers, videographers, architects, scientists, you risk a sort of negative network affect. In most families and circles people go to the person in the group who knows the most about tech, usually professional user. This person will often recommend products they themselves value and are familiar with. Obviously I can't prove this effect was partly responsible for Apple's come back, but it's certainly true in all the social circles I'm a part of and I think a decent hypothesis. I don't think anyone is asking for your number two reference. It's more that people simply want their use cases considered. In many cases they are not. You can argue that the key changes are not crucial, and that the USB ports are future looking. But what about the lack of 32gb ram? The lack of new processors? What about the sdcard reader (yes, consumers mostly use phones now and don't need it, but professional cameras are going to be using sdcards for the foreseeable future)?
- prawn 10y ago
  Exactly. Those people pushed Altavista early on, then Google. They got people off IE and into Firefox, then Chrome. It'd be risky to ignore them.
- richie5um 10y ago
  I agree. We can't prove it, but recommendations of "it just works" are what I feel has helped drive Apple - especially the Mac, but in the early years, also the iPhone. Every year they seem to continue to introduce (via neglect/decisions/priorities) more reasons to pause at purchase time. And, recommendation time.
- SiVal 10y ago
  Exactly. As a developer, what I decide to build depends in part on the market "out there" and in part on what tools I have. When I had an early Mac, I talked my office into using more Macs (despite a corporate "Windows only" directive) by using my own Mac at work (I bought it myself) and building some useful things with it that others wanted to use. When I switched to Windows, I learned Visual Studio and C# and built several customized tools that coworkers could only use on Windows. I also recommended Windows machines to family and friends, who almost all went with my recommendation. When OSX came out, I and many other developers switched to it. Finally, a serious OS from Apple. When we did, we pulled lots of families and friends with us, and we made a lot more things (open source installers, for example) available for Mac users. If Apple succeeds at restricting Macs to people who want lightweight, fashionable, "Apple lifestyle" accessories and need confusing things like folder hierarchies removed from the OS, many of us will move again and take those IT decisions we influence with us. If I get off the Mac, for example, I will quickly forget how to do things I need to do to provide tech support to Mac-using family and friends, so I'll probably begin recommending Chromebooks to many of them, shifting some of my support away from their individual machines and onto web portals and web apps I build for them on my own servers. And I went with iPhone because I was a Mac user, and I figured I would get some benefits from using the two together, which I did. If I'm no longer a Mac user, those benefits vanish, and I'll probably switch to an Android phone with an audio plug. (Maybe we developers are just a vocal minority, but we'll probably get pretty vocal to others about why we're leaving Apple if we do.)
jrs95 10y ago
I think developers aren't as upset about it as they may seem, it's more of a vocal minority within developers as a whole. There have already been threads on github+youtrack for adding touch bar support and features to Atom and IntelliJ, which should alleviate many issues you'd see from the lack of function keys imo.
ajmurmann 10y ago
I am not sure if developers and designers fill a similar function as sneaker heads do for Nike. Those savvy consumers are also influencers and trendsetters who keep the brand strong.
cameldrv 10y ago
It's fine for Apple to make the current MBP, it fits the needs of many people, I'm sure. Creative and software professionals though, want a truly high-end model to exist, even if it weighs a bit more and is a little thicker. People developing iPhone apps in Swift are hurting because compile times are too slow, and there is no Apple laptop they can buy with high-end CPU.
guelo 10y ago
Right. They don't give a fuck about us so it's hard to continue giving a fuck about them. But the question for them is, will they really be better off in the long term giving the creatives the middle finger?
WalterBright 10y ago
I get constantly told I'm a unique snowflake and nobody wants the features I want. My response has morphed into one of: 1. I don't bother giving feedback much anymore 2. I invented my own programming language I keep wanting to invent my own Kindle. Amazon comes out with new version after new version, and they've implemented 0 of my feature suggestions :-(
moon4u 10y ago
I've gotta say. I'd use that device (on your [2] link) way more than my phone. Well... I wouldn't use it as a phone, but still.
inimino 10y ago
But creative pros are and always have been their market. I can only assume that Apple either knows what we need better than we do, and people are going to eventually really love these, or this really is a stumble.

by IBM 10y ago

graeme 10y ago

Are professional users really a "vocal minority" of the MacBook Pro? I'm not a developer. I run an online business and use a MacBook Pro for video recording, editing, and general website admin. I needed the extra processing power, and the ports. The new model has me apprehensive, though I'll certainly look at it. What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though?

sjtgraham 10y ago
> What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though? Apple doesn't seem to know or care. I don't know who this MBP is for. Increasingly less people can justify an Apple macOS portable when an iOS device covers their requirements satisfactorily and it doesn't meet the needs of many professionals at all (present and anticipated needs for the machine's useful life). Apple is behaving as if they're a boutique OEM.
- freehunter 10y ago
  >Apple is behaving as if they're a boutique OEM. That's how Apple has behaved since day 1, save for the few years when Sculley was at the helm.
- initram 10y ago
  > Apple doesn't seem to know or care. Oh nonsense! They showed like a dozen ways that the new touch pad alone makes using professional apps easier, faster, and generally better in their keynote. They are clearly thinking specifically of the professional market. Whether they hit their mark or not is up to the market to decide. The new computers are already back-ordered by 4-5 weeks, so clearly someone's ordering them.
  - smrtinsert 10y ago
    The new touch pad looks ridiculous. It looks like novelty they're throwing out to placate the masses they get a real touch screen together behind the scenes. I have absolutely 0 desire to use a tiny strip of touch above a perfectly good keyboard.
    - sxcurry 10y ago
      And the good news is .... you don't have to!
      - kalleboo 10y ago
        You'll still have to pay for it if you want a 15" macOS laptop though (unless you want to buy old hardware)
    - jhou2 10y ago
      I agree with you. But I think the touch pad is a harbinger of things to come. The eventual goal is probably a touch pad keyboard, one that reconfigures depending on the circumstances. It might even be like the Star Trek NG consoles eventually. I think it might be possible to use the haptic touch on a localized level such that each key press causes a sense of typing feedback.
  - cinquemb 10y ago
    >The new computers are already back-ordered by 4-5 weeks, so clearly someone's ordering them. Does them being back-ordered matter much (outside of annoyance to consumers)? Wouldn't it be more informative to see the absolute numbers of back orders now relative to the numbers for previous releases? For all we (public) know is that the back-ordered demand could be from smaller supply initial supply, not necessarily from record demand. Are such numbers public knowledge?
- stomato 10y ago
  > Apple is behaving as if they're a boutique OEM. Not sure what you mean. If they made the computer much faster, I imagine it'd get too hot or noisy. The main failure IMO was that the only real innovation was a touch bar replacing function keys that as far as I can tell no one asked for or wanted. However, macOS still beats Windows 10 because it's more intuitive and usable and has fewer quirks. I don't want one of these because of the touchbar, though. It just seems unnecessary, and I wish they would've waited on a more practical innovation that would solve a problem and not remove physical keys and be a distraction and take away from design aesthetics.
  - NolF 10y ago
    MacOS has plenty quirks for me though... I cannot get it to reliably connect to a win10 samba server (my android or boot camp give me no trouble). I should probably blame Google, but the ATF app sucks and gives a lot of problems transferring large or numerous files (ended up using WiFi... I get periodic blue screens (kernel panics) from using Chrome. When finder crashes I can't seem to be able to initiate it without a hard restart... I have had it for 3 years and it's only been one thing after another. I love some features, but the trouble on a day to day basis is not worth it.
    - stomato 10y ago
      If they were so much trouble, why did IBM deploy them stating they are 3x less expensive overall including support? http://www.businessinsider.com/an-ibm-it-guy-macs-are-300-cheaper-to-own-than-windows-2016-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/an-ibm-it-guy-macs-are-300-ch...
      - majewsky 10y ago
        My guess (from experience with using a Macbook at work in a similarly large IT company) is that their corporate Windows image has a huge pile of shit bundled into it for historical reasons that breaks all the time, while the Mac image is relatively frugal. I can observe a slow tendency that our corporate Mac image piles on more and more junk over time, probably because more people are using Macs than the year before and thus IT allocates more headcount to work on Mac customizations.
c0nducktr 10y ago
> What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I think the new MBPs are, well... not good, considering the price. I really like my 2012 MacBook Air. It's still going strong, although I wish I had went for the 8GB of RAM instead of just 4. But when I was talking about the new models with my friends and coworkers, a lot of us shared one thought: We don't think it's worth the money, but we can't spend $2000 on a laptop anyway, so whatever. So we're not the target market. It seems that people here don't really want one either, so 'Developers who frequent Hacker News' also doesn't seem to be the target... It seems like maybe it's just 'wealthy people who want a sleek-looking, well made piece of hardware', which it is. Maybe it includes businesses that will provide one to their employees, and will buy the extra dongles and whatnot. There's probably a lot of them in each group. If I had the money, and didn't care that it didn't have the fastest processor, the ability to have a crazy amount of RAM, and would need an extra damn cable just to connect my iPhone, I would love to buy one too. One thing seems pretty certain, and it's that there is room for a competitor to jump in and make a great laptop for the people who are looking for something different. I really hope someone can make it work.
- DanHulton 10y ago
  I really wish I agreed with you. Unfortunately, there's literally nobody who can step in here and make a truly competitive product, since it won't run the same OS. I mean, I develop for the web, so I could very well switch to Windows or Linux at this point, and after some pain points, I'd probably be back up and running and around 90% as happy as I was before. But that last 10%, where things don't work quite like I want them to, well, that would grate. And over time, I'm probably going to grow to hate that machine. Plus, what about people who make iOS apps? Or heck, even just develop for the Mac? There's literally no other option than a Mac. This is a big part of why people are so upset, is because we can't just wait for a competitor to jump in and save us. We've let ourselves become dependant on Apple, and -- like you put it -- we seem not to be the target market anymore. As much our fault as theirs maybe, I'm not one to judge, but it still sucks.
  - rukuu001 10y ago
jsz0 10y ago
> Are professional users really a "vocal minority" of the MacBook Pro? A lot of professionals have workflows / infrastructure that does not rely on the specs of any individual computer. Past a certain point it's the only practical approach for scaling. I suspect the vocal minority are the users in the upper end of the prosumer range who can't really justify moving to truly pro workflows / infrastructure.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > I suspect the vocal minority are the users in the upper end of the prosumer range who can't really justify moving to truly pro workflows / infrastructure. Are you suggesting that they are Pro'ing it wrong?! Your comment reeks of no True Scotsman: if a persons workflow is local, then it's not "truly pro". You seem to be forgetting that not all people can be wired into the pro infrastructure all every time they need to do work (travel, connectivity).
  - jsz0 10y ago
    > Are you suggesting that they are Pro'ing it wrong?! If what they're doing works for them it's not wrong but in this case it's not working anymore. Now they have to switch operating systems, software and workflows just because a specific model of laptop wasn't updated at exactly the right time. Switching to PC laptops may be an option for some but they will still have to depend on Intel/AMD and PC OEMs to provide them with an option that perfectly fits their needs. That's only a slightly safer bet. It's not practical for everyone to build out a pro infrastructure for themselves but (especially in the case of developers) it's at least something they need to consider.
addicted 10y ago
A different way to put your question, is how do the design goals of the MacBook differ from the MacBook Pro? As far as I can tell, the design goals are the same. The difference is that the Pros are more expensive.
pabloski 10y ago
"Are professional users really a "vocal minority" of the MacBook Pro?". NO!!! They are the target of this machine. After all it is called Macbook Pro for a reason. Consumers don't need Macbook Pros, they need at max Macbook Airs. A lot of them can be served by iPad Pros. And the vast majority by iPhones. So yes, Apple is shooting itself in the foot.

sjtgraham 10y ago

People are mostly concerned about: - 16GB max RAM - Function keys Personally I am only concerned about the RAM, I don't use the function keys ever and I can remap another key to replace ESC. I would have gladly forked over for a 32GB MBP, instead I just ordered an i7 ThinkPad x220, extra RAM and an SSD to see if I can do my day to day work on it before buying a top spec non-Apple X86 laptop.

nvk 10y ago
.
- lucisferre 10y ago
  You can and I do and have for years. This is becoming the most tired criticism around here regarding the new Pros.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - freehunter 10y ago
    Not to mention the Esc and function keys still exist.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  Me neither. Thankfully the 13 inch mode doesn't have a toxh strip so the upgrade is clear.
  - abhinavk 10y ago
    The 13-inch model has only two USB-C ports instead of four.
    - 10y ago

charlesism 10y ago

That sounds nice, but it's actually insane in this context. "Don't listen to developers" is fine is you're making some web thing, or an Uber for tubers. If you think you can run a computing platform without support from developers... good luck!

tensor 10y ago

For every rule of thumb there are exceptions. In this case, if you lose the professional market, which is more than just developers, also designers, photographers, videographers, architects, scientists, you risk a sort of negative network affect. In most families and circles people go to the person in the group who knows the most about tech, usually professional user. This person will often recommend products they themselves value and are familiar with. Obviously I can't prove this effect was partly responsible for Apple's come back, but it's certainly true in all the social circles I'm a part of and I think a decent hypothesis. I don't think anyone is asking for your number two reference. It's more that people simply want their use cases considered. In many cases they are not. You can argue that the key changes are not crucial, and that the USB ports are future looking. But what about the lack of 32gb ram? The lack of new processors? What about the sdcard reader (yes, consumers mostly use phones now and don't need it, but professional cameras are going to be using sdcards for the foreseeable future)?

prawn 10y ago
Exactly. Those people pushed Altavista early on, then Google. They got people off IE and into Firefox, then Chrome. It'd be risky to ignore them.
richie5um 10y ago
I agree. We can't prove it, but recommendations of "it just works" are what I feel has helped drive Apple - especially the Mac, but in the early years, also the iPhone. Every year they seem to continue to introduce (via neglect/decisions/priorities) more reasons to pause at purchase time. And, recommendation time.
SiVal 10y ago
Exactly. As a developer, what I decide to build depends in part on the market "out there" and in part on what tools I have. When I had an early Mac, I talked my office into using more Macs (despite a corporate "Windows only" directive) by using my own Mac at work (I bought it myself) and building some useful things with it that others wanted to use. When I switched to Windows, I learned Visual Studio and C# and built several customized tools that coworkers could only use on Windows. I also recommended Windows machines to family and friends, who almost all went with my recommendation. When OSX came out, I and many other developers switched to it. Finally, a serious OS from Apple. When we did, we pulled lots of families and friends with us, and we made a lot more things (open source installers, for example) available for Mac users. If Apple succeeds at restricting Macs to people who want lightweight, fashionable, "Apple lifestyle" accessories and need confusing things like folder hierarchies removed from the OS, many of us will move again and take those IT decisions we influence with us. If I get off the Mac, for example, I will quickly forget how to do things I need to do to provide tech support to Mac-using family and friends, so I'll probably begin recommending Chromebooks to many of them, shifting some of my support away from their individual machines and onto web portals and web apps I build for them on my own servers. And I went with iPhone because I was a Mac user, and I figured I would get some benefits from using the two together, which I did. If I'm no longer a Mac user, those benefits vanish, and I'll probably switch to an Android phone with an audio plug. (Maybe we developers are just a vocal minority, but we'll probably get pretty vocal to others about why we're leaving Apple if we do.)

jrs95 10y ago

I think developers aren't as upset about it as they may seem, it's more of a vocal minority within developers as a whole. There have already been threads on github+youtrack for adding touch bar support and features to Atom and IntelliJ, which should alleviate many issues you'd see from the lack of function keys imo.

ajmurmann 10y ago

I am not sure if developers and designers fill a similar function as sneaker heads do for Nike. Those savvy consumers are also influencers and trendsetters who keep the brand strong.

cameldrv 10y ago

It's fine for Apple to make the current MBP, it fits the needs of many people, I'm sure. Creative and software professionals though, want a truly high-end model to exist, even if it weighs a bit more and is a little thicker. People developing iPhone apps in Swift are hurting because compile times are too slow, and there is no Apple laptop they can buy with high-end CPU.

guelo 10y ago

Right. They don't give a fuck about us so it's hard to continue giving a fuck about them. But the question for them is, will they really be better off in the long term giving the creatives the middle finger?

WalterBright 10y ago

I get constantly told I'm a unique snowflake and nobody wants the features I want. My response has morphed into one of: 1. I don't bother giving feedback much anymore 2. I invented my own programming language I keep wanting to invent my own Kindle. Amazon comes out with new version after new version, and they've implemented 0 of my feature suggestions :-(

moon4u 10y ago

I've gotta say. I'd use that device (on your [2] link) way more than my phone. Well... I wouldn't use it as a phone, but still.

inimino 10y ago

But creative pros are and always have been their market. I can only assume that Apple either knows what we need better than we do, and people are going to eventually really love these, or this really is a stumble.