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Let me be contrarian for a moment when I tell you that I absolutely don't understand the negativity surrounding the newly announced MBPs. All the arguments I'm

by pilif 10y ago

Let me be contrarian for a moment when I tell you that I absolutely don't understand the negativity surrounding the newly announced MBPs. All the arguments I'm hearing about why the new machines are a step back, at least for me, are irrelevant or just the usual "I don't like change": Magsafe: Maybe I'm just lucky, but I have never been in the position where could be tripping over the power cable but not over another cable that was also attached to a device. That's the thing: I rarely ever have just the power connected, so magsafe doesn't really protect me much. Plus: With 10 hours of battery life, maybe I don't even need to connect the device outside of charging in the cases where I really only need power. On the other hand, by not having a proprietary power connector, I can share power adapters with other devices, and I finally reach the point where I only have to connect exactly one cable to the machine to both power it and to connect the USB hub where all the devices I use are already connected to. Touch Bar: This is finally a discoverable function row. Yes. I'm a developer and I'm using some shortcuts involving F-Keys. But I'd much rather just press the touch-screen button spelling the name of the function I'm using instead of fiddling with various modifier keys and a matching F-key. This is a huge improvement in discoverability of shortcuts and I can't wait for applications to take advantage of this and show me context-specific shortcuts. It will also make new application much easier to learn and to be maximally productive with them. The Esc-Key still exists, albeit only on a touch screen, but as it's to the top left, I assume I'll still be able to hit it blind. If an App decides not to show me the Esc button, I assume it also doesn't have a binding for it. And speaking of binding: If I have trouble hitting the virtual esc key, I'll be able to rebind caps lock. Touch ID comes at the cost of having another locked-down processor running in my machine. I don't like this 100% but on the other hand, I think this is the first time where there's crypto hardware built into a machine that then isn't used for DRM but to protect something of mine that I really, really don't want applications to have access to. I might even be using this. USB-C: Yes. Right now that's annoying because right now I only have maybe one or two USB-C cables. But as USB-C is so much superior to the other existing USB solutions, I fully expect USB-C to quickly become a standard and for cables to be bundled with the various devices. I already have more USB cables (A to Micro, A to Mini, A to B, A to lightning) than I can count and most devices I purchase come with more unneeded cables. It's just a matter of time before the collection completes itself. At that point I will finally have my reversible plug on my machine. No more fumbling and trying the correct orientation. Also in the really rare case when I really need to plug more than the monitor (which has a hub on its own), I now have a much more versatile solution as any device can be plugged into any slot. Much better. With regards to HDMI and DisplayPort, it was my experience so far that neither HDMI nor DisplayPort would actually work for me in all the cases where I wanted to plug in the laptop (with the exception of my desk in the office where I had a thunderbolt display): Whether it was at conferences or at customers for presentations: The selection of ports I had to deal with included the (Lenovo proprietary) Mini-HDMI, DVI and VGA. Only very rarely could I use HDMI and Display Port was never available. Which meant that I needed to have a collection of dongles with me anyways, so there, nothing changes. So now I'm left with the other two arguments I hear: One is the missing card-reader which, I can accept is annoying for some and we'll have to see how it plays out. Once everything is just USB-C, then maybe it's worth it to just connect the device instead of removing the card, dealing with card-size converters and all that crap. The other is the 16GB RAM restriction which, by now we have learned is a hardware restriction because there's no solution yet for low voltage RAM if more than 16GB are required. Sure. They could have gone with non-low-voltage RAM, but that would have come at the cost of either battery life or size and weight. And weight, honestly, so far was the only thing that was annoying me about my existing MBP (2012 retina). Every gram the can shave off is very welcome to me as it brings me closer to my optimal configuration which would be to just have one device and commute with it. The current machine is too heavy for that and who knows, the new one might be light enough. Being able to do serious development (which you totally can on these new boxes) and still commute with the machine, this would be a total dream of mine and maybe, just maybe, this machine is the one to finally make it possible - even at the cost of 16GB of maximum ram. The existing 16GB is enough for MacOS and a VM or two.

zaphoyd 10y ago
I agree. Particularly with the USB-C and Magsafe points here. I definitely have had cases where magsafe has helped, but it was primarily with the older macbooks with 4 hour batteries. The benefits of a non-proprietary connector shared with the rest of the industry seems to me a tradeoff worth making. With respect to dongles, I know people hate dongles, and I agree that dongles for no purpose other than thin-ness (i.e. mini-vga and mini-dvi that Apple had for awhile) are terrible. But the move from single purpose semi-proprietary ports to universal use industry standard ports that also happen to have nice physical properties (small, reversible) is a great development.
iainmerrick 10y ago
I think the new MBPs are simultaneously trying to a) be all things to all people, and b) push the envelope a little and encourage everyone to adopt USB-C. a) means it has to be reasonably powerful, but also thin and light for road warriors. But why is a single device better than a range of device -- really light Air for those who need portability, and a beefy 17" for people who need power? b) is fine as far as it goes, but taking away all the other ports, and doing this in the same machine that ticks all the boxes in part a), just means it's a compromise that's awkward for everyone. If I buy Apple's latest laptop and their latest phone right now, they have different connectors, so I still need the same number of cables as before, I just need a whole set of new ones. If the next iPhone switches to USB-C, that would start to make sense (but then all those Lightning headphones suddenly become obsolete, so that's a bit awkward...) It's not that the new MBPs are really bad, they're just underwhelming. If I needed a new Mac right now I'd be feeling resigned rather than excited about it. (Which is a strange feeling! Who doesn't like getting brand-new Apple kit?)
- lmm 10y ago
  > a) means it has to be reasonably powerful, but also thin and light for road warriors. But why is a single device better than a range of device -- really light Air for those who need portability, and a beefy 17" for people who need power? Computers are finally powerful enough that they think they can manage both at the same time. Having replaced both my travel netbook and my 18" gaming laptop with a Surface Book, I think they're right.

by pilif 10y ago

zaphoyd 10y ago

I agree. Particularly with the USB-C and Magsafe points here. I definitely have had cases where magsafe has helped, but it was primarily with the older macbooks with 4 hour batteries. The benefits of a non-proprietary connector shared with the rest of the industry seems to me a tradeoff worth making. With respect to dongles, I know people hate dongles, and I agree that dongles for no purpose other than thin-ness (i.e. mini-vga and mini-dvi that Apple had for awhile) are terrible. But the move from single purpose semi-proprietary ports to universal use industry standard ports that also happen to have nice physical properties (small, reversible) is a great development.

iainmerrick 10y ago

I think the new MBPs are simultaneously trying to a) be all things to all people, and b) push the envelope a little and encourage everyone to adopt USB-C. a) means it has to be reasonably powerful, but also thin and light for road warriors. But why is a single device better than a range of device -- really light Air for those who need portability, and a beefy 17" for people who need power? b) is fine as far as it goes, but taking away all the other ports, and doing this in the same machine that ticks all the boxes in part a), just means it's a compromise that's awkward for everyone. If I buy Apple's latest laptop and their latest phone right now, they have different connectors, so I still need the same number of cables as before, I just need a whole set of new ones. If the next iPhone switches to USB-C, that would start to make sense (but then all those Lightning headphones suddenly become obsolete, so that's a bit awkward...) It's not that the new MBPs are really bad, they're just underwhelming. If I needed a new Mac right now I'd be feeling resigned rather than excited about it. (Which is a strange feeling! Who doesn't like getting brand-new Apple kit?)

lmm 10y ago
> a) means it has to be reasonably powerful, but also thin and light for road warriors. But why is a single device better than a range of device -- really light Air for those who need portability, and a beefy 17" for people who need power? Computers are finally powerful enough that they think they can manage both at the same time. Having replaced both my travel netbook and my 18" gaming laptop with a Surface Book, I think they're right.