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Huh. They could offer better specs. It just seems they focussed all their energy on making the laptop thinner, as if this in any way a meaningful/useful attribu

by ant6n 10y ago

Huh. They could offer better specs. It just seems they focussed all their energy on making the laptop thinner, as if this in any way a meaningful/useful attribute for a laptop (compared to say, weight). This focus may also be the reason they're so 'brave' to provide a small set of ports which is completely disjoint from the previous model? Thinness is probably also the reason they're not offering 32GB of ram? In a way, Apple doesn't seem to agree with you that innovation has plateaued. I'd like them to improve the specs, maybe make the laptop fanless, reduce the reflectivity -- i.e., evolve the platform to make it better and remove issues. Instead they are trying so hard to revolutionize (touch bar...) that they don't bother improving the laptop.

nl 10y ago
The touch bar is hardly revolutionary. As others have pointed out there have been plenty of (barely working) implementations before. Really the touch bar is a UI element (a toolbar) made available elsewhere. I like it, but.. This is kind of the point: sustaining innovation over radical change. Incremental improvements will continue.
- mpweiher 10y ago
  >The touch bar is hardly revolutionary. Well... >there have been plenty of (barely working) implementations before. ...but that's the key point, isn't it? That the existing implementations don't really work. Just like there were plenty of "non-lame" MP3 players and plenty of smart phones and plenty of tablets...that all didn't really do the job. Making something work great that already kinda exists, that people have tried and failed to really make great, isn't that exactly Apple's MO? I certainly have an immediate application for the TouchBar for interactions that (a) have the potential to be really valuable but (b) have so far been too fiddly to do well. And that was only the immediately obvious one, my guess there are a lot more. So while I had the same immediate reaction (yawn, gimmicky, ...), I have revised that opinion. I think it has the potential of being more useful than a full touch screen would be, in a laptop setting, and that's despite the fact that I think a touch screen might be useful in addition, for example swipe for "casual" scrolling. In terms of hardware being not that amazingly more powerful (a point made elsewhere). Yes. That's what the end of Moore's Law looks like. What faster Intel CPUs was Apple to have used? Kaby Lake? Apparently not available yet in the configurations/quantities required, and also not really all that much faster And yes, the geek in me is always m/sad about the 13" not having a nice high-perf GPU to play with, but the actual user in me has never really needed it. Instead of seeking to be saved by faster hardware, we now have a lot more to gain from optimising the software side, and we're currently leaving that on the table. Hmm..."leaving on the table" is not really strong enough, more like pushing away with maximum force. As a small example the Swift compiler is tremendously slower than the clang based Objective-C/C compiler is. And that in turn is a lot slower than it should be, with a big part being LLVM (see Jonathan Blow's video on Jai compiler performance[1]). His goal is to compile a medium sized program in well under a second, and a larger one in a couple of seconds. Sound ridiculous? Really the only thing that's ridiculous is that we don't have that level of performance generally available, our machines are fast enough for it. For example, I tried tcc[2], and it compiled a (synthetic) 300KLOC C program in 0.269 seconds. Swift took 96.6 seconds, for a factor 359 difference. And that was purposely avoiding the various constructs that make the Swift compiler run into the weeds. In my upcoming book [3] I talk about various simple examples that get order(s) of magnitude difference from a bit of tuning love. One example went from 20 minutes using the "standard" accepted techniques to slightly under 1 second...all without any heroic optimisations, just straightforward tuning. So coming back to the MacBook Pros: yes, they're probably not going to get appreciably faster, that's the new reality. But maybe they don't really need to get appreciably faster, we just have to get off our collective derrieres. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ7-j1nK9gk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ7-j1nK9gk [2] http://bellard.org/tcc/ http://bellard.org/tcc/ [3] http://www.pearsoned.co.nz/9780321842848 http://www.pearsoned.co.nz/9780321842848
  - nl 10y ago
    ...but that's the key point, isn't it? That the existing implementations don't really work. Just like there were plenty of "non-lame" MP3 players and plenty of smart phones and plenty of tablets...that all didn't really do the job. Making something work great that already kinda exists, that people have tried and failed to really make great, isn't that exactly Apple's MO? I think we agree entirely. Incremental innovation - fixing things that are broken. The performance of Swift doesn't matter much to Apple. Swift is a demand-pull thing: Developers care about iOS, and will pay the horrible performance tax. The developer experience for iOS developers has always been horrible but it has one thing that matters more than that: users.
    - mpweiher 10y ago
      >Incremental innovation - fixing things that are broken. Yes and no. Yes in that it is incremental in a way. No in that all of Apple's "revolutionary innovations" have been of this sort, not that I am saying the Touch Bar is necessarily of that scope. > The developer experience for iOS developers has always been horrible Do you think there might be a point in making it less horrible?
  - rorykoehler 10y ago
    >Instead of seeking to be saved by faster hardware We're moving into the era of data led computing and software. More ram and cuda support is a necessity for any ambitious dev
    - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
      We're moving into a post-code world. Development ten years from now will be all about training ML/AI systems and chaining them together in interesting ways. That's going to need lots and lots of cycles and RAM. If Apple can't see that and wants to carry on selling jewellery with a keyboard and screen, Apple is going to be steamrollered by competitors who can.
- ant6n 10y ago
  > The touch bar is hardly revolutionary But Apple claims it is
  - devopsproject 10y ago
    Did you expect them to come out and say "The Touchbar is just ok. You might like it" ?
    - ant6n 10y ago
      No. If you go further up int he discussion, you'll not that I expected Apple to improve specs and evolve their 'pro' computer, instead they're trying desperately to appear like they're revolutionizing.
pm 10y ago
I'd like to see improvement too, but the problem is everytime Apple tries to improve a product, everyone talks how Apple have lost their way and haven't put out any revolutionary products in X years (admittedly, sometimes Apple's marketing department doesn't help). Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  So the alternative is to ship gimmicks? Honestly all I wanted was a mbp with 64gb ram. I would have settled for 32gb but now I'll just continue waiting. Can't justify that money for old limited tech.
  - malthaus 10y ago
    But try to put yourself in Apple's shoes - they know exactly who their customers are and what products sell how well. I'd argue that >90% of MBP sold never even come close to being fully utilized. I can't imagine the market of people needings 64gb RAM being significant enough to warrant its own product category. The only way to offer this would be the f1 racing / supercar comparison made in a different article's comments on HN today. I think the new Mac Pro was an attempt at that and apparently failed.
    - rorykoehler 10y ago
      I think it is dangerous to look at sales only as the driving value of their brand. Apple became what it is today because they made amazing tools for artists and creators in general. This has a major impact on how their brand is perceived. By ignoring the product categories that cater to their core minority they risk destroying their whole brand. So what if their mac pros and their top tier macbook pros only sell a few million? It's a worthwhile investment to ensure that they remain the makers choice and by proxy remain perceived as not only superficially trendy but also actually top notch. The situation reminds me a little of neighborhoods made trendy by artists who are then pushed out by gentrification.
    - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
mitchty 10y ago
The ram is more that skylake doesn't support the right lpddr3 ram thus maxed out at 16gb. Thinness is part of it, but only due to energy use and chipset support. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/skylake-for-laptops-faster-core-m-and-ultrabook-gpus-with-edram/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/skylake-for-laptops-f... If its lpddr3, all we'll ever get is 16gb. I think the kaby lake mobiles will do lpddr4 which will allow for 32.
- asadkn 10y ago
  Not entirely true. The fact is they could have used SODIMM DDR4 which is 1.2v and has a power usage close to LPDDR3 (also 1.2v). But they would have to redesign and they would lose a very few mm in thinness.
  - mitchty 10y ago
    DDR4 uses about 30% more energy in general though, hence the thickness bit as to get a 10 hour lifetime means more battery. Presumably Apple means that lpddr is the only choice they care about for a laptop. Which while I would love more ram, understand. And that explains why if you see laptops with more than 16g of ram they generally have giant batteries and are using desktop ram.
imtringued 10y ago
>This focus may also be the reason they're so 'brave' to provide a small set of ports which is completely disjoint from the previous model? By the time USB C is widely used they will move on to a different standard which means the hassle of dealing with adapters has been for nothing. USB D will probably out by then. I look forward to the day I can power a kettle with a laptop. Since the MBP only supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 and Thunderbolt 3 users will be fed up with being constrained to only 8 4k displays. Heck, even if they keep USB C for the next MPB and support display port 1.4 it can only drive a 8k display at 60hz per port. But what about the power users with their 16k display? Sure, they could get away with using all 4 ports but that is a hacky solution. Apple is clearly not thinking ahead. I don't see the problem with dealing with adapters. In the current status quo you already have to deal with adapters. The only way is to add a native port which is going to make the device larger and it still may have the wrong port. There are only three choices. Support all ports (DVI, VGA, HDM, DP) or support only port X with an active adapter to the other ports. The former is clearly not desirable and the latter is what is already happening anyway. USB C with Thunderbolt 3 and DP 1.4 is probably going to be the last physical port we will ever need unless we suddenly have a need to go beyond 8k.
- gambiting 10y ago
  "I look forward to the day I can power a kettle with a laptop" Unless you cheat physics, I don't see that happening ever. Your average kettle(in EU) is 2500-3000W. Even at 220V, that's about 10-15Amps, which requires a seriously thick cable. Now I don't know about you, but I can't imagine portable devices having ports that can support 10 or more amps, purely because such ports would be very heavy and completely unnecessary. Not to mention having a power supply that could provide that much power, or a battery which can discharge that quickly without overheating and/or damaging itself.
  - temac 10y ago
    The kettle part was a joke I guess, however USB Power Delivery already does 5A @ 20V. Now increasing either with that kind of connector would not be practical and/or safe, so I guess (the order of) 100W will be the max we will get on that kind of plug.
elcct 10y ago
They are going to get to a point where it will be laptop will be useful for chefs to cut onions or for developers living in rough areas to use them as a weapon.

by ant6n 10y ago

nl 10y ago

The touch bar is hardly revolutionary. As others have pointed out there have been plenty of (barely working) implementations before. Really the touch bar is a UI element (a toolbar) made available elsewhere. I like it, but.. This is kind of the point: sustaining innovation over radical change. Incremental improvements will continue.

mpweiher 10y ago
>The touch bar is hardly revolutionary. Well... >there have been plenty of (barely working) implementations before. ...but that's the key point, isn't it? That the existing implementations don't really work. Just like there were plenty of "non-lame" MP3 players and plenty of smart phones and plenty of tablets...that all didn't really do the job. Making something work great that already kinda exists, that people have tried and failed to really make great, isn't that exactly Apple's MO? I certainly have an immediate application for the TouchBar for interactions that (a) have the potential to be really valuable but (b) have so far been too fiddly to do well. And that was only the immediately obvious one, my guess there are a lot more. So while I had the same immediate reaction (yawn, gimmicky, ...), I have revised that opinion. I think it has the potential of being more useful than a full touch screen would be, in a laptop setting, and that's despite the fact that I think a touch screen might be useful in addition, for example swipe for "casual" scrolling. In terms of hardware being not that amazingly more powerful (a point made elsewhere). Yes. That's what the end of Moore's Law looks like. What faster Intel CPUs was Apple to have used? Kaby Lake? Apparently not available yet in the configurations/quantities required, and also not really all that much faster And yes, the geek in me is always m/sad about the 13" not having a nice high-perf GPU to play with, but the actual user in me has never really needed it. Instead of seeking to be saved by faster hardware, we now have a lot more to gain from optimising the software side, and we're currently leaving that on the table. Hmm..."leaving on the table" is not really strong enough, more like pushing away with maximum force. As a small example the Swift compiler is tremendously slower than the clang based Objective-C/C compiler is. And that in turn is a lot slower than it should be, with a big part being LLVM (see Jonathan Blow's video on Jai compiler performance[1]). His goal is to compile a medium sized program in well under a second, and a larger one in a couple of seconds. Sound ridiculous? Really the only thing that's ridiculous is that we don't have that level of performance generally available, our machines are fast enough for it. For example, I tried tcc[2], and it compiled a (synthetic) 300KLOC C program in 0.269 seconds. Swift took 96.6 seconds, for a factor 359 difference. And that was purposely avoiding the various constructs that make the Swift compiler run into the weeds. In my upcoming book [3] I talk about various simple examples that get order(s) of magnitude difference from a bit of tuning love. One example went from 20 minutes using the "standard" accepted techniques to slightly under 1 second...all without any heroic optimisations, just straightforward tuning. So coming back to the MacBook Pros: yes, they're probably not going to get appreciably faster, that's the new reality. But maybe they don't really need to get appreciably faster, we just have to get off our collective derrieres. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ7-j1nK9gk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ7-j1nK9gk [2] http://bellard.org/tcc/ http://bellard.org/tcc/ [3] http://www.pearsoned.co.nz/9780321842848 http://www.pearsoned.co.nz/9780321842848
- nl 10y ago
  ...but that's the key point, isn't it? That the existing implementations don't really work. Just like there were plenty of "non-lame" MP3 players and plenty of smart phones and plenty of tablets...that all didn't really do the job. Making something work great that already kinda exists, that people have tried and failed to really make great, isn't that exactly Apple's MO? I think we agree entirely. Incremental innovation - fixing things that are broken. The performance of Swift doesn't matter much to Apple. Swift is a demand-pull thing: Developers care about iOS, and will pay the horrible performance tax. The developer experience for iOS developers has always been horrible but it has one thing that matters more than that: users.
  - mpweiher 10y ago
    >Incremental innovation - fixing things that are broken. Yes and no. Yes in that it is incremental in a way. No in that all of Apple's "revolutionary innovations" have been of this sort, not that I am saying the Touch Bar is necessarily of that scope. > The developer experience for iOS developers has always been horrible Do you think there might be a point in making it less horrible?
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  >Instead of seeking to be saved by faster hardware We're moving into the era of data led computing and software. More ram and cuda support is a necessity for any ambitious dev
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    We're moving into a post-code world. Development ten years from now will be all about training ML/AI systems and chaining them together in interesting ways. That's going to need lots and lots of cycles and RAM. If Apple can't see that and wants to carry on selling jewellery with a keyboard and screen, Apple is going to be steamrollered by competitors who can.
ant6n 10y ago
> The touch bar is hardly revolutionary But Apple claims it is
- devopsproject 10y ago
  Did you expect them to come out and say "The Touchbar is just ok. You might like it" ?
  - ant6n 10y ago
    No. If you go further up int he discussion, you'll not that I expected Apple to improve specs and evolve their 'pro' computer, instead they're trying desperately to appear like they're revolutionizing.

pm 10y ago

I'd like to see improvement too, but the problem is everytime Apple tries to improve a product, everyone talks how Apple have lost their way and haven't put out any revolutionary products in X years (admittedly, sometimes Apple's marketing department doesn't help). Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

rorykoehler 10y ago
So the alternative is to ship gimmicks? Honestly all I wanted was a mbp with 64gb ram. I would have settled for 32gb but now I'll just continue waiting. Can't justify that money for old limited tech.
- malthaus 10y ago
  But try to put yourself in Apple's shoes - they know exactly who their customers are and what products sell how well. I'd argue that >90% of MBP sold never even come close to being fully utilized. I can't imagine the market of people needings 64gb RAM being significant enough to warrant its own product category. The only way to offer this would be the f1 racing / supercar comparison made in a different article's comments on HN today. I think the new Mac Pro was an attempt at that and apparently failed.
  - rorykoehler 10y ago
    I think it is dangerous to look at sales only as the driving value of their brand. Apple became what it is today because they made amazing tools for artists and creators in general. This has a major impact on how their brand is perceived. By ignoring the product categories that cater to their core minority they risk destroying their whole brand. So what if their mac pros and their top tier macbook pros only sell a few million? It's a worthwhile investment to ensure that they remain the makers choice and by proxy remain perceived as not only superficially trendy but also actually top notch. The situation reminds me a little of neighborhoods made trendy by artists who are then pushed out by gentrification.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago

mitchty 10y ago

The ram is more that skylake doesn't support the right lpddr3 ram thus maxed out at 16gb. Thinness is part of it, but only due to energy use and chipset support. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/skylake-for-laptops-faster-core-m-and-ultrabook-gpus-with-edram/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/skylake-for-laptops-f... If its lpddr3, all we'll ever get is 16gb. I think the kaby lake mobiles will do lpddr4 which will allow for 32.

asadkn 10y ago
Not entirely true. The fact is they could have used SODIMM DDR4 which is 1.2v and has a power usage close to LPDDR3 (also 1.2v). But they would have to redesign and they would lose a very few mm in thinness.
- mitchty 10y ago
  DDR4 uses about 30% more energy in general though, hence the thickness bit as to get a 10 hour lifetime means more battery. Presumably Apple means that lpddr is the only choice they care about for a laptop. Which while I would love more ram, understand. And that explains why if you see laptops with more than 16g of ram they generally have giant batteries and are using desktop ram.

imtringued 10y ago

>This focus may also be the reason they're so 'brave' to provide a small set of ports which is completely disjoint from the previous model? By the time USB C is widely used they will move on to a different standard which means the hassle of dealing with adapters has been for nothing. USB D will probably out by then. I look forward to the day I can power a kettle with a laptop. Since the MBP only supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 and Thunderbolt 3 users will be fed up with being constrained to only 8 4k displays. Heck, even if they keep USB C for the next MPB and support display port 1.4 it can only drive a 8k display at 60hz per port. But what about the power users with their 16k display? Sure, they could get away with using all 4 ports but that is a hacky solution. Apple is clearly not thinking ahead. I don't see the problem with dealing with adapters. In the current status quo you already have to deal with adapters. The only way is to add a native port which is going to make the device larger and it still may have the wrong port. There are only three choices. Support all ports (DVI, VGA, HDM, DP) or support only port X with an active adapter to the other ports. The former is clearly not desirable and the latter is what is already happening anyway. USB C with Thunderbolt 3 and DP 1.4 is probably going to be the last physical port we will ever need unless we suddenly have a need to go beyond 8k.

gambiting 10y ago
"I look forward to the day I can power a kettle with a laptop" Unless you cheat physics, I don't see that happening ever. Your average kettle(in EU) is 2500-3000W. Even at 220V, that's about 10-15Amps, which requires a seriously thick cable. Now I don't know about you, but I can't imagine portable devices having ports that can support 10 or more amps, purely because such ports would be very heavy and completely unnecessary. Not to mention having a power supply that could provide that much power, or a battery which can discharge that quickly without overheating and/or damaging itself.
- temac 10y ago
  The kettle part was a joke I guess, however USB Power Delivery already does 5A @ 20V. Now increasing either with that kind of connector would not be practical and/or safe, so I guess (the order of) 100W will be the max we will get on that kind of plug.

elcct 10y ago

They are going to get to a point where it will be laptop will be useful for chefs to cut onions or for developers living in rough areas to use them as a weapon.