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MacBook Pro Launch: Perplexing

192 points by chmars 10y ago

dlevine 10y ago
It's of note that this post was written by Jean-Louis Gassee, former executive at Apple and creator of BeOS.
- secstate 10y ago
  I actually really appreciate JLG's tone when reporting on Apple. Given his history with the NeXT-BeOS debacle, I wouldn't expect him to be so charitable. Of course, time heals all wounds and I get the impression JLG is pretty well adjusted, but still. Man, BeOS was awesome.
  - ndesaulniers 10y ago
    As someone who knows nothing about BeOS, what was awesome about it?
    - mixmastamyk 10y ago
      It was incredibly responsive, more so than current products with 10x the power.
    - ksherlock 10y ago
      We used to say: BeOS combined the UI of Macintosh, the stability of Unix, and the Minesweeper of Windows.
    - zakki 10y ago
      What I remember in the past is, using the same Windows hardware, my friend played several multi media (video) files without performance degradation
    - ashark 10y ago
      It did scheduling magic to keep the UI responsive and media from skipping even under (at the time) heavy load. This was on single-core processors in the two or low three digits of MHz, mind you, with 128MB of RAM if you were really lucky. The OS itself also seemed to be snappier than its competitors. Windows on the same machine? MP3 playback would stutter when you hit refresh on a webpage (bearing in mind those were one hell of a lot lighter than the ones today) or any number of other minor actions. Hourglasses constantly. Linux? Window-smearing-on-drag as far as the eye can see. Even worse media performance than Windows(!), though maybe with some ricing/tweaking it was better. Macs at the time? Oh god. I don't know how they got a reputation for being more stable than contemporary Windows machines. Fewer system crashed maybe, but apps crashed constantly. Multitasking performance mediocre. Disk swap all over the place. BeOS? Buttery smooth UI and MP3 playback while running the Teapot 3D demo and browsing the web, all at the same time. It was awesome, and had the Unixy bits coupled with a good and consistent UI that we wouldn't see again until OSX. Faster booting than the competition. Neat extras like a built in web server (Poorman, IIRC) that could be run with a few clicks, too. I think BeOS was known for having an unusually pleasant and sane API in addition to performing so well, though I never wrote any software for it personally.
      - hcarvalhoalves 10y ago
        > This was on single-core processors in the two or low three digits of MHz, mind you, with 128MB of RAM if you were really lucky. Actually, BeOS ran at first on proprietary hardware (BeBox), which featured dual or quad PowerPCs, and it was initially designed to make use of the multiple processors. Only later it got ported for Intel platform where single-processor was more common, but it was meant to shine on multi-processor boards.
        acomjean 10y ago
        I had it running on a powerPC mac clone (Power computing machine) 200 mhz. Ran great but the lack of software made it hard. In historical context as Apple's internal OS upgrade program failed, and they bought Next Computer instead of Be (rumored to be an option). The rest is history.. "Power Computing, cognizant of (Apple CEO) Amelio’s attitude toward the clones, attempted to avoid keeping all its eggs in Apple’s basket. It began to actively support Jean Louis Gassée’s BeOS. Be’s first public demonstrations were on Power 120’s (upgraded versions of the Power 80), and Power Computing began selling machines outfitted with BeOS out of the box, thus bypassing Apple’s 7.25% royalty." from: http://lowendmac.com/2014/power-computing-fighting-back-for-the-mac-or-stealing-apples-customers/ http://lowendmac.com/2014/power-computing-fighting-back-for-...
    - xenadu02 10y ago
      It had good multi-threading and good I/O scheduling (the thing most OSes neglect only to "discover" that one low-priority process can flood the I/O subsystem, grinding everything to a halt). The GUI toolkit was multi-threaded; the only other one I know of is Win32 but hardly anyone takes advantage of it. Less awesomely it used a C++ API which had huge fragile-base-class problems. They tried to do the custom hardware thing and it went just about as well as NeXT, Amiga, etc. It was probably too late for Be to make it the day they started but by the time the ported to x86 it was already over. We only have two historical examples but they both follow the same overall trend: Windows ate the desktop, Mac hoarded the scraps, everyone else died. Mobile repeated the pattern: iOS eats the profits, Android eats almost everything else, and there is no room in the ecosystem for a significant third competitor. At this point it's the technology equivalent of a gravity problem... there is room for two but anyone else gets ejected from the system.
  - agildehaus 10y ago
    BeOS was amazing in its day. Sometimes I wish someone would just throw a lot of money towards Haiku (https://www.haiku-os.org/ https://www.haiku-os.org/) so we could get an open-source desktop OS that is entirely focused on desktop from the kernel on up.
    - jacquesc 10y ago
      I would have said the same thing about OSX a decade ago. I wish someone would throw a lot of money at it. Apple has money but OSX keeps getting worse.
- KKKKkkkk1 10y ago
  The author calls Craig Federighi "Hair Force One". I'm wondering if it's a loving nickname or maybe JLG is mocking Federighi... God knows there are plenty of reasons to mock Apple's senior VP of emojis.
  - comex 10y ago
    > Federighi likes to mock his thick, blown-out coiffure, referring to himself sometimes as "Hair Force One." http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/03/technology/apple-craig-federighi/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/03/technology/apple-craig-feder...
CraigJPerry 10y ago
My 13" ships back tomorrow. Keyboard befitting of a crappy laptop not a premium macbook pro, touchbar located where you hardly ever look (your keyboard), wifi borked on resume from sleep, fit and finish is poor - a disjoint ridge where the bottom panel and the unibody frame fail to meet accurately on the bottom rear, performance is below par regardless of what the reviews + benchmarks claim, intellij is not fast on this laptop. USB-C wasn't an issue for me personally even though i have tons of electronics dev boards + associated junk i plug in all the time.
- JoelTheSuperior 10y ago
  Out of curiosity, what will you be replacing it with?
- ArlenBales 10y ago
  Just wondering, when did you place your order? I ordered a new 2016 Macbook Pro 1 week after the Macbooks released, and my order is still processing with a shipping date of this week. I'm sure it will process, but the idleness (no credit card charges) and lack of emails from Apple has made me think it's in limbo.
  - uptown 10y ago
    One thing you should be aware of -- apparently Apple's 14 day return window begins when you place your order, not when you receive your order. So for pre-orders that took awhile to ship, your return window is probably zero days. Source: https://twitter.com/kerem/status/808482774298468352 https://twitter.com/kerem/status/808482774298468352
    - mgkimsal 10y ago
      "You have 14 calendar days to return an item from the date you received it." Source: http://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund http://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund
      - 10y ago
jld 10y ago
Apple's support page on USB-C power seems to be a sign that all is not well at Apple. > https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700 You can verify that you're using the correct version of the Apple USB-C Charge Cable with your Mac notebook and its USB-C AC Adapter. The cable's serial number is printed on its external housing, next to the words "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." • If the first three characters of the serial number are C4M or FL4, the cable is for use with the Apple 29W USB-C Power Adapter. • If the first three characters of the serial number are DLC or CTC, the cable is for use with the Apple 61W or 87W USB-C Power Adapter. • If the cable says "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China" but has no serial number, you might be eligible for a replacement USB-C charge cable. For a company whose brand was for quite some time "It just works" to ask you to read a serial number, printed in gray, in 4 or 6 point font, off a light gray cable is dumbfounding. Here's a photo of an Apple USB-C charging cable to illustrate what finding the serial number looks like. http://i.imgur.com/ffVLDYl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ffVLDYl.jpg The serial number is right below the control key, if you're curious.
- kylec 10y ago
  I knew the power bricks were different between the 12", 13", and 15", but I had no idea that the completely identical cables were also different and potentially incompatible. This whole transition has been a huge mess so far.
  - phil21 10y ago
    And absolutely needlessly so. You can ship a fully compliant USB-C 3.1 cable for probably 40 cents more than a cheap version. It makes no sense to start a rollout this way, especially from a company like Apple.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      What about Apple's cables makes them noncompliant?
cjslep 10y ago
I have a unibody aluminum model MacBook (not Pro) from late 2008 that still chugs along. I had to replace the battery twice in its lifetime via an Apple support store. I also replaced the harddisk myself to put in a SSD. It's been incredibly reliable as a consumer laptop (dev work is on a desktop). I have had zero incentive to upgrade, except the difficulty of finding chargers whose cables don't fray. This was before the magnetic attachments. I've finally been entertaining about getting another laptop/tablet for consumer non-dev use, and none of the options I'm considering are Apple.
- rz2k 10y ago
  Have you tried replacing the batteries yourself? A cheap battery I got off of eBay for a 2012 model registered over 100% of the stock battery capacity for at least six months. It looks like they only run $30 for your model. To make the charging cables more durable you might try liquid electrical tape[1] which you can find at almost every hardware store. The trick to making this custom cable boot adhere the best is painting all the way around the cable and connector back to where you started before it sets. That way the material bonds to itself rather than only the cord and connector. [1] - http://www.gardnerbender.com/en/ltw-400 http://www.gardnerbender.com/en/ltw-400
  - smitherfield 10y ago
    Not the parent, but personally, when it comes to extremely volatile and explosive components that go directly on top of my most vital regions, I think it's best to focus my money-saving efforts elsewhere.
  - nether 10y ago
    A shop wanted to replace my mid-2011 MacBook Air battery for $250. Found the battery on Amazon, including the star screwdrivers, for $60. Glad I didn't totally write off the DIY route with Apple repairs.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > except the difficulty of finding chargers whose cables don't fray. Yup. Those charger cables are such shit. They keep working since just the insulation frays, but I have to use more and more electrical tape to keep them covered.
blinkingled 10y ago
It's a matter of resources - Apple has limited resources and history of execution glitches even when they aren't stretched out. With the continuous strain to find the next new thing, put out an iPhone release every year, improve iOS and also dabble in cars - even though these sound like separate things different teams should be able to do, the integration aspect and company culture makes it very hard for Apple. It is very logical that Apple will dump or merge some product categories sooner rather than later. There's little chance macOS will be made touch friendly and with little resources to keep the Mac updated (see Mac Pro) it just makes sense for them to sell the iPad Pro somewhat like Microsoft does for Surface line - lower cost model without physical keyboard and a Macbook like one that shares the same SoC and runs the same iOS. Get XCode running on it and that solves the problem of iOS App Developers. Make the Pro version of iOS little less restrictive and add better multitasking and that helps the regular iPad line as well. Much easier than redoing macOS for touch. It also solves the margin and control issues for Apple. One OS, shared CPU/SoC, no need to do Mac and macOS development anymore and that frees up a ton of resources. It's just too good for Apple to not do it. And if they could solve the problem of pesky "pros" wanting to control their hardware and OS better by slowly making the Mac more and more inconvenient/unattractive - they are going to do it.
- appleiigs 10y ago
  "Apple" and "limited resources" does not go together.
  - blinkingled 10y ago
    I meant human resources - there's not a ton of Engineering/Product Management talent sitting around even if Apple has a ton of money to pay for it. If they did have unlimited resources you would have seen more attention to Mac product lineup and they wouldn't have gotten rid of the Airport unit after not updating it for a while.
    - chx 10y ago
      I find it very, very hard to believe that a company with two hundred billion dollars in cash would have a problem hiring any amount of people at any level. Everyone has a price. In other words, if you need to hire super engineers at a staggering million bucks a year, well, didn't Apple make 45B last year? That's enough for 45 000 such super people while I bet a few dozens would make big changes.
spudlyo 10y ago
As a somewhat unrelated aside, as a Logic Pro user I thought it was odd to read Logic described as "memory hungry". For my small projects (16-32 tracks) logic uses just under 1G. For me it's Logic's CPU hunger that turns my MBP into a noisy space heater that I'd like to see tamed, although it's actually somewhat nice when recording in my car in winter.
- charlesism 10y ago
  It's a pro app that has amassed hundreds of features over a two decade period. People use it for different things. You can exhaust resources more quickly if use a bunch of cutting edge plug-ins, or sync your project to video, or record a dozen tracks at the same time, etc.
- smilekzs 10y ago
  The DAW itself is usually highly optimized. What eats the CPU: synths and effects (because your CPU is not a dedicated DSP). What eats the RAM: Samplers (by GiBs).
  - S_A_P 10y ago
    This- I have tried to strike a balance by using software efx, external dsp (Apollo 8 duo) and some hardware/ mic'Ed instruments so that I'm "load balancing" my music making. (Ok I admit it's just gear lust). I have a late 2014 with the 512 ssd and I notice a lot of peaking in hd activity during and for a few seconds after recording. It's somewhat related to latency but still more than I expect. Anyone else see this?
    - twostoned 10y ago
      As a musician, this post turned me on a bit.
hackuser 10y ago
Off the cuff social theory, FWIW (not too much, but interesting to consider more generally): My guess is that the real issue and discussion is a subtext, that Apple has lost its cache, and that people are testing and exploring the shape and boundaries of the new social dynamic/norm around Apple. How far has their social position slipped? If I say X will I get a strong response, or is it going too and will it receive a negative response, or does it go not far enough and will it seem bland and be ignored. It's like gossip - or it is actually gossip. It's the currency (or securities market) of social status. I used to follow a sports team where the head coach and one chief assistant were beloved. I said that if they don't play well then the other chief assistant is in trouble, because he had little reputation with the fans and would be blamed by process of elimination, whether or not it was his fault. Sure enough, despite undeniable, simple evidence that his area of responsibility was performing well (points are a very easy metric), he got the blame and then the shaft. If Jobs was still around, unconventional decisions would be seen much more positively; Cook and Apple no longer have that cache and now their position will be tested until their new social position is established.
- overgard 10y ago
  I can only speak for myself, but I dont really buy it. As early as two years ago I was super excited to buy the retina iMac, and my perception of the company then was about the same as it is now. I think this new generation of products has just had too many issues, and apple gets judged more harshly because the tight lockdown of their ecosystem makes moving harder. If dell came out with a bad laptop I can go buy an HP, but if apple comes out with a bad laptop I have to switch all my software.
  - jeffjose 10y ago
    Tight lockdown of their ecosystem should make it easier not harder. A more open company, such as Microsoft, would have customers that use all sorts of compatible devices and accessories to worry about. One could argue Apple has it easy. Most people use their devices in predictable configuration.
    - 10y ago
hogrammer 10y ago
It's telling that HN pulled this from the index. Did Tim call up ycombinator?
nawtacawp 10y ago
I have been on a MBP since they were introduced. This was the first time I wanted to upgrade my laptop and switched away from Apple. The lack of ports coupled with consumer complaints and lack of anything innovative drove me away. I would have never guessed I would have ever left Mac after so many years of a good user experience.
- tomatoman 10y ago
  What did you switch to?
  - nawtacawp 10y ago
    I switched to a Razer Blade Stealth. I'm not a gamer and I've never used a Razer product, but I like this laptop. I had to ditch Windows, running Debian.
    - jalfresi 10y ago
      Interesting, as hardware-wise that is the closest to a non-apple air that I can find. Does anyone have any links to someone running Linux on a razor blade stealth as their daily driver?
      - nawtacawp 10y ago
        MBP Retina, 13", 2015: 12.35" x 8.62" x .71" -- 3.48 lbs Air: 12.8" x 8.94" x .68" -- 2.96 lbs RB Stealth: 12.6" x 8.1" x .52" -- 2.84 lbs I bought the late 2016 edition, i7 kaby lake, 16GB RAM, 256GB M.2 PCIe, 12.5" IPS touch QHD (2560 x 1440 px). It really does run well and I'm using it as a daily driver.
    - pault 10y ago
      Have you been able to get good hardware support? Trackpad, function keys, etc. Can you sleep and restore?
      - 10y ago
resist_futility 10y ago
Would have loved to get a new MBP but Apple seems content to ignore the reason people buy their laptops. Now I'm waiting for the new iMacs instead, losing portability but hopefully getting more for the money.
vacri 10y ago
I don't understand why the author thinks that people aren't allowed to complain about RAM limitations at the launch, and instead expects them to wait the 2-3 weeks before the items ship and then use certain software on them long enough for usage patterns to come through. If 16GB ram isn't enough for you now, it's utter nonsense that "maybe Photoshop will run just fine on 16GB on the new hardware". I would also have made a bigger point of Apple not having enough USB dongles to supply their 'new, modern' laptops. It's a pretty big complaint to level against the "so what, it's one dongle" apologists, if you can't get one in the first place.
- rz2k 10y ago
  I am curious about how the morale within the Mac group must be. In an alternate universe the last iPhone would have ditched Lightning for USB-C, and Skylake MacBook Pros similar to the ones just released ones would have come out two or three quarters ago instead. While it's okay if not everyone at Apple is interested in the MacBook Pros, the people designing them have to be disheartened by the reactions. Decisions to put off this release for so long seems like it must have been a strategic one made outside of the group which probably wanted to ship a Skylake MacBook Pro a long time ago. Imagine (over-)simplified analysis that showed customers keeping their machines for an average of three years, or four product generations that were each about three quarters long. If Apple changed the time between generations to six quarters, then they would have retooling costs for only two cohorts of customers rather than four, and it would also get economies of scale similar to having twice as many customers buying each release. Now imagine that suitable Kaby Lake CPUs with Iris graphics turned out to much further off in the future than originally expected, and Apple ended up deciding they had to release a Skylake MacBook Pro rather than being able to skip the microarchitecture. So they do, but it's later than it might have been, and there end up being some issues that make it seem like it was designed and released quickly rather than like it had been refined even more than usual. And, on top of it all, the difficult, but ultimately beneficial, transition to all USB-C everywhere ends up being needlessly antagonizing to customers due to a cheap decision not to toss free legacy adapters and free USB-C/Lighting cables in the box of every new MacBook Pro.
nsxwolf 10y ago
The intensity 16GB RAM limit complaints really surprised me. I don't remember such complaints about the 2015 model lacking a 32GB option. We've been stuck at 16GB on the MacBook Pro for years now. Did something happen in the last year that made everyone demand 32GB?
- sixothree 10y ago
  16GB SODIMMs. Actually it was about this time last year that they started to become available.
  - yuhong 10y ago
    More precisely, 8Gbit DDR4 which is beginning to reach crossover now. There is also 8Gbit DDR3 that is less popular (and I think only made by Micron and Intelligent Memory), but Broadwell supports it for example.
- veidr 10y ago
  The opposite; nothing happened for many years and people kind of accepted that the "new" models were just slight refreshes to the existing 16GB-limited line. But when Apple finally introduced a brand new generation, and it was still limited to 16 GB, that really set everybody off.
- protomyth 10y ago
  My memory usage under Sierra and El Capitan really went up to the point a 4gb Mac is painful to non-usable. Not sure the cause, but what could be upgrade got upgraded and what couldn't (MacBook Air) got retired.
- pentae 10y ago
  Me personally I could care less about the extra memory, but what I really wanted was a quad core in a 13" form factor
  - tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
    Judging from Apple’s focus on silent, 10-hour-battery-life laptops, you’ll see quad-core CPUs in Apple 13" laptops only when the chip’s TDP drops to 15 W. In my opinion, it is sad that Apple changed the meaning of its Pro label from “professionals” to “consumers with lots of money”. As another commenter once said, replace “Pro” with “Deluxe” in your head, e.g. MacBook Deluxe, and suddenly it all makes sense. The machines trade potential increases in performance for increases in thinness.
frik 10y ago
I got a new MacBookPro 13" without the touchbar. It's a good device. The only strange thing is it has only two USB-C ports and an analog audio ports. One of the USB-C ports is used for the power adapter, so one port left.
EGreg 10y ago
This guy speaks like he used to introduce Apple's products or something. Come on dude, this stuff ain't easy! Try introducing successors to the Mac. That was some genius work right there ;-)
donmb 10y ago
Am I the only one here who is happy with the new Macbook? I find the speed incredible - the keyboard feels much more "natural". The touchbar saves me a lot of time. Downsides are that it's not supported yet in lot of important applications I use (Slack, Atom). I'm not bothered at all by the USB-C ports. USB dongles are on sale for 2€ on Amazon/ebay and work properly. Besides that I have nearly no more external devices I have to attach (except external HD sometimes but even those are Wifi connected nowadays). + not a real benefit but the design of the MBP is amazing and a real eye catcher again. For me this is a shitstorm for nothing.
- iwritestuff 10y ago
  No. I am wondering the exact same thing. The MBP bash on reddit/HN seems like a cry for easy karma. I love everything about the new MBP and even have good battery life with it!
godmodus 10y ago
So now mbp folk feel about apple the same way thinkpad old folk feel about lenovo. There's a huge market opening here. We may see the rise of a third hardware giant just yet.
- m_mueller 10y ago
  I think Google would be in a prime position. If they'd release a killer Chromebook Pro geared for developers I think people would eat it up. There's millions of developers world wide, with none of the big companies really catering for them anymore - more than enough for a decent computer market.
cptskippy 10y ago
The author spends $2000 on a laptop but can't wait 30 days for it to arrive so he spends $2800 on another laptop and says he'll just give the other one to his wife when it arrives. He also buys a $600 monitor and it doesn't work properly and so he returns it an vows to buy the $1000 model when it becomes available. I don't know what to make of that exactly.
- holman 10y ago
  He was an early exec at Apple, and he founded Be and BeOS. I think we can allow him to be a bit out of the ordinary when it comes to his computing. :)
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    It doesn't make doubling down on something with in burns you any less strange.
Sideloader 10y ago
Why do so many "critical" stories about Apple products come across like ads for Apple stuff? Even this piece starts with a run down of features even though it's not relevant to the main point being made.
chmaynard 10y ago
> A knowledgeable individual tells me that [the battery problem in the 2016 15" MBP] is probably a curable software problem. I'm experiencing the same battery life problems reported by JLG. Activity Monitor doesn't report anything unusual, so I suspect the CPU is not the culprit. When I reported the problem to Apple Support, they asked me to run sysdiagnose and send them the output. Apple cranks out a new beta of MacOS 10.12.2 every week or so, and I install them immediately because of the possibility of a software fix. I recall that the first Retina MacBook Pro (mid-2012) had some problems too, so I'm not too surprised about this. I plan to be patient and see how responsive Apple is to the fast battery drain issue. I'm very happy with the machine otherwise.

192 points by chmars 10y ago

dlevine 10y ago

It's of note that this post was written by Jean-Louis Gassee, former executive at Apple and creator of BeOS.

secstate 10y ago
I actually really appreciate JLG's tone when reporting on Apple. Given his history with the NeXT-BeOS debacle, I wouldn't expect him to be so charitable. Of course, time heals all wounds and I get the impression JLG is pretty well adjusted, but still. Man, BeOS was awesome.
- ndesaulniers 10y ago
  As someone who knows nothing about BeOS, what was awesome about it?
  - mixmastamyk 10y ago
    It was incredibly responsive, more so than current products with 10x the power.
  - ksherlock 10y ago
    We used to say: BeOS combined the UI of Macintosh, the stability of Unix, and the Minesweeper of Windows.
  - zakki 10y ago
    What I remember in the past is, using the same Windows hardware, my friend played several multi media (video) files without performance degradation
  - ashark 10y ago
    It did scheduling magic to keep the UI responsive and media from skipping even under (at the time) heavy load. This was on single-core processors in the two or low three digits of MHz, mind you, with 128MB of RAM if you were really lucky. The OS itself also seemed to be snappier than its competitors. Windows on the same machine? MP3 playback would stutter when you hit refresh on a webpage (bearing in mind those were one hell of a lot lighter than the ones today) or any number of other minor actions. Hourglasses constantly. Linux? Window-smearing-on-drag as far as the eye can see. Even worse media performance than Windows(!), though maybe with some ricing/tweaking it was better. Macs at the time? Oh god. I don't know how they got a reputation for being more stable than contemporary Windows machines. Fewer system crashed maybe, but apps crashed constantly. Multitasking performance mediocre. Disk swap all over the place. BeOS? Buttery smooth UI and MP3 playback while running the Teapot 3D demo and browsing the web, all at the same time. It was awesome, and had the Unixy bits coupled with a good and consistent UI that we wouldn't see again until OSX. Faster booting than the competition. Neat extras like a built in web server (Poorman, IIRC) that could be run with a few clicks, too. I think BeOS was known for having an unusually pleasant and sane API in addition to performing so well, though I never wrote any software for it personally.
    - hcarvalhoalves 10y ago
      > This was on single-core processors in the two or low three digits of MHz, mind you, with 128MB of RAM if you were really lucky. Actually, BeOS ran at first on proprietary hardware (BeBox), which featured dual or quad PowerPCs, and it was initially designed to make use of the multiple processors. Only later it got ported for Intel platform where single-processor was more common, but it was meant to shine on multi-processor boards.
      - acomjean 10y ago
        I had it running on a powerPC mac clone (Power computing machine) 200 mhz. Ran great but the lack of software made it hard. In historical context as Apple's internal OS upgrade program failed, and they bought Next Computer instead of Be (rumored to be an option). The rest is history.. "Power Computing, cognizant of (Apple CEO) Amelio’s attitude toward the clones, attempted to avoid keeping all its eggs in Apple’s basket. It began to actively support Jean Louis Gassée’s BeOS. Be’s first public demonstrations were on Power 120’s (upgraded versions of the Power 80), and Power Computing began selling machines outfitted with BeOS out of the box, thus bypassing Apple’s 7.25% royalty." from: http://lowendmac.com/2014/power-computing-fighting-back-for-the-mac-or-stealing-apples-customers/ http://lowendmac.com/2014/power-computing-fighting-back-for-...
  - xenadu02 10y ago
    It had good multi-threading and good I/O scheduling (the thing most OSes neglect only to "discover" that one low-priority process can flood the I/O subsystem, grinding everything to a halt). The GUI toolkit was multi-threaded; the only other one I know of is Win32 but hardly anyone takes advantage of it. Less awesomely it used a C++ API which had huge fragile-base-class problems. They tried to do the custom hardware thing and it went just about as well as NeXT, Amiga, etc. It was probably too late for Be to make it the day they started but by the time the ported to x86 it was already over. We only have two historical examples but they both follow the same overall trend: Windows ate the desktop, Mac hoarded the scraps, everyone else died. Mobile repeated the pattern: iOS eats the profits, Android eats almost everything else, and there is no room in the ecosystem for a significant third competitor. At this point it's the technology equivalent of a gravity problem... there is room for two but anyone else gets ejected from the system.
- agildehaus 10y ago
  BeOS was amazing in its day. Sometimes I wish someone would just throw a lot of money towards Haiku (https://www.haiku-os.org/ https://www.haiku-os.org/) so we could get an open-source desktop OS that is entirely focused on desktop from the kernel on up.
  - jacquesc 10y ago
    I would have said the same thing about OSX a decade ago. I wish someone would throw a lot of money at it. Apple has money but OSX keeps getting worse.
KKKKkkkk1 10y ago
The author calls Craig Federighi "Hair Force One". I'm wondering if it's a loving nickname or maybe JLG is mocking Federighi... God knows there are plenty of reasons to mock Apple's senior VP of emojis.
- comex 10y ago
  > Federighi likes to mock his thick, blown-out coiffure, referring to himself sometimes as "Hair Force One." http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/03/technology/apple-craig-federighi/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/03/technology/apple-craig-feder...

CraigJPerry 10y ago

My 13" ships back tomorrow. Keyboard befitting of a crappy laptop not a premium macbook pro, touchbar located where you hardly ever look (your keyboard), wifi borked on resume from sleep, fit and finish is poor - a disjoint ridge where the bottom panel and the unibody frame fail to meet accurately on the bottom rear, performance is below par regardless of what the reviews + benchmarks claim, intellij is not fast on this laptop. USB-C wasn't an issue for me personally even though i have tons of electronics dev boards + associated junk i plug in all the time.

JoelTheSuperior 10y ago
Out of curiosity, what will you be replacing it with?
ArlenBales 10y ago
Just wondering, when did you place your order? I ordered a new 2016 Macbook Pro 1 week after the Macbooks released, and my order is still processing with a shipping date of this week. I'm sure it will process, but the idleness (no credit card charges) and lack of emails from Apple has made me think it's in limbo.
- uptown 10y ago
  One thing you should be aware of -- apparently Apple's 14 day return window begins when you place your order, not when you receive your order. So for pre-orders that took awhile to ship, your return window is probably zero days. Source: https://twitter.com/kerem/status/808482774298468352 https://twitter.com/kerem/status/808482774298468352
  - mgkimsal 10y ago
    "You have 14 calendar days to return an item from the date you received it." Source: http://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund http://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund
    - 10y ago

jld 10y ago

Apple's support page on USB-C power seems to be a sign that all is not well at Apple. > https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700 You can verify that you're using the correct version of the Apple USB-C Charge Cable with your Mac notebook and its USB-C AC Adapter. The cable's serial number is printed on its external housing, next to the words "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." • If the first three characters of the serial number are C4M or FL4, the cable is for use with the Apple 29W USB-C Power Adapter. • If the first three characters of the serial number are DLC or CTC, the cable is for use with the Apple 61W or 87W USB-C Power Adapter. • If the cable says "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China" but has no serial number, you might be eligible for a replacement USB-C charge cable. For a company whose brand was for quite some time "It just works" to ask you to read a serial number, printed in gray, in 4 or 6 point font, off a light gray cable is dumbfounding. Here's a photo of an Apple USB-C charging cable to illustrate what finding the serial number looks like. http://i.imgur.com/ffVLDYl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ffVLDYl.jpg The serial number is right below the control key, if you're curious.

kylec 10y ago
I knew the power bricks were different between the 12", 13", and 15", but I had no idea that the completely identical cables were also different and potentially incompatible. This whole transition has been a huge mess so far.
- phil21 10y ago
  And absolutely needlessly so. You can ship a fully compliant USB-C 3.1 cable for probably 40 cents more than a cheap version. It makes no sense to start a rollout this way, especially from a company like Apple.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    What about Apple's cables makes them noncompliant?

cjslep 10y ago

I have a unibody aluminum model MacBook (not Pro) from late 2008 that still chugs along. I had to replace the battery twice in its lifetime via an Apple support store. I also replaced the harddisk myself to put in a SSD. It's been incredibly reliable as a consumer laptop (dev work is on a desktop). I have had zero incentive to upgrade, except the difficulty of finding chargers whose cables don't fray. This was before the magnetic attachments. I've finally been entertaining about getting another laptop/tablet for consumer non-dev use, and none of the options I'm considering are Apple.

rz2k 10y ago
Have you tried replacing the batteries yourself? A cheap battery I got off of eBay for a 2012 model registered over 100% of the stock battery capacity for at least six months. It looks like they only run $30 for your model. To make the charging cables more durable you might try liquid electrical tape[1] which you can find at almost every hardware store. The trick to making this custom cable boot adhere the best is painting all the way around the cable and connector back to where you started before it sets. That way the material bonds to itself rather than only the cord and connector. [1] - http://www.gardnerbender.com/en/ltw-400 http://www.gardnerbender.com/en/ltw-400
- smitherfield 10y ago
  Not the parent, but personally, when it comes to extremely volatile and explosive components that go directly on top of my most vital regions, I think it's best to focus my money-saving efforts elsewhere.
- nether 10y ago
  A shop wanted to replace my mid-2011 MacBook Air battery for $250. Found the battery on Amazon, including the star screwdrivers, for $60. Glad I didn't totally write off the DIY route with Apple repairs.
serge2k 10y ago
> except the difficulty of finding chargers whose cables don't fray. Yup. Those charger cables are such shit. They keep working since just the insulation frays, but I have to use more and more electrical tape to keep them covered.

blinkingled 10y ago

It's a matter of resources - Apple has limited resources and history of execution glitches even when they aren't stretched out. With the continuous strain to find the next new thing, put out an iPhone release every year, improve iOS and also dabble in cars - even though these sound like separate things different teams should be able to do, the integration aspect and company culture makes it very hard for Apple. It is very logical that Apple will dump or merge some product categories sooner rather than later. There's little chance macOS will be made touch friendly and with little resources to keep the Mac updated (see Mac Pro) it just makes sense for them to sell the iPad Pro somewhat like Microsoft does for Surface line - lower cost model without physical keyboard and a Macbook like one that shares the same SoC and runs the same iOS. Get XCode running on it and that solves the problem of iOS App Developers. Make the Pro version of iOS little less restrictive and add better multitasking and that helps the regular iPad line as well. Much easier than redoing macOS for touch. It also solves the margin and control issues for Apple. One OS, shared CPU/SoC, no need to do Mac and macOS development anymore and that frees up a ton of resources. It's just too good for Apple to not do it. And if they could solve the problem of pesky "pros" wanting to control their hardware and OS better by slowly making the Mac more and more inconvenient/unattractive - they are going to do it.

appleiigs 10y ago
"Apple" and "limited resources" does not go together.
- blinkingled 10y ago
  I meant human resources - there's not a ton of Engineering/Product Management talent sitting around even if Apple has a ton of money to pay for it. If they did have unlimited resources you would have seen more attention to Mac product lineup and they wouldn't have gotten rid of the Airport unit after not updating it for a while.
  - chx 10y ago
    I find it very, very hard to believe that a company with two hundred billion dollars in cash would have a problem hiring any amount of people at any level. Everyone has a price. In other words, if you need to hire super engineers at a staggering million bucks a year, well, didn't Apple make 45B last year? That's enough for 45 000 such super people while I bet a few dozens would make big changes.

spudlyo 10y ago

As a somewhat unrelated aside, as a Logic Pro user I thought it was odd to read Logic described as "memory hungry". For my small projects (16-32 tracks) logic uses just under 1G. For me it's Logic's CPU hunger that turns my MBP into a noisy space heater that I'd like to see tamed, although it's actually somewhat nice when recording in my car in winter.

charlesism 10y ago
It's a pro app that has amassed hundreds of features over a two decade period. People use it for different things. You can exhaust resources more quickly if use a bunch of cutting edge plug-ins, or sync your project to video, or record a dozen tracks at the same time, etc.
smilekzs 10y ago
The DAW itself is usually highly optimized. What eats the CPU: synths and effects (because your CPU is not a dedicated DSP). What eats the RAM: Samplers (by GiBs).
- S_A_P 10y ago
  This- I have tried to strike a balance by using software efx, external dsp (Apollo 8 duo) and some hardware/ mic'Ed instruments so that I'm "load balancing" my music making. (Ok I admit it's just gear lust). I have a late 2014 with the 512 ssd and I notice a lot of peaking in hd activity during and for a few seconds after recording. It's somewhat related to latency but still more than I expect. Anyone else see this?
  - twostoned 10y ago
    As a musician, this post turned me on a bit.

hackuser 10y ago

Off the cuff social theory, FWIW (not too much, but interesting to consider more generally): My guess is that the real issue and discussion is a subtext, that Apple has lost its cache, and that people are testing and exploring the shape and boundaries of the new social dynamic/norm around Apple. How far has their social position slipped? If I say X will I get a strong response, or is it going too and will it receive a negative response, or does it go not far enough and will it seem bland and be ignored. It's like gossip - or it is actually gossip. It's the currency (or securities market) of social status. I used to follow a sports team where the head coach and one chief assistant were beloved. I said that if they don't play well then the other chief assistant is in trouble, because he had little reputation with the fans and would be blamed by process of elimination, whether or not it was his fault. Sure enough, despite undeniable, simple evidence that his area of responsibility was performing well (points are a very easy metric), he got the blame and then the shaft. If Jobs was still around, unconventional decisions would be seen much more positively; Cook and Apple no longer have that cache and now their position will be tested until their new social position is established.

overgard 10y ago
I can only speak for myself, but I dont really buy it. As early as two years ago I was super excited to buy the retina iMac, and my perception of the company then was about the same as it is now. I think this new generation of products has just had too many issues, and apple gets judged more harshly because the tight lockdown of their ecosystem makes moving harder. If dell came out with a bad laptop I can go buy an HP, but if apple comes out with a bad laptop I have to switch all my software.
- jeffjose 10y ago
  Tight lockdown of their ecosystem should make it easier not harder. A more open company, such as Microsoft, would have customers that use all sorts of compatible devices and accessories to worry about. One could argue Apple has it easy. Most people use their devices in predictable configuration.
  - 10y ago

hogrammer 10y ago

It's telling that HN pulled this from the index. Did Tim call up ycombinator?

nawtacawp 10y ago

I have been on a MBP since they were introduced. This was the first time I wanted to upgrade my laptop and switched away from Apple. The lack of ports coupled with consumer complaints and lack of anything innovative drove me away. I would have never guessed I would have ever left Mac after so many years of a good user experience.

tomatoman 10y ago
What did you switch to?
- nawtacawp 10y ago
  I switched to a Razer Blade Stealth. I'm not a gamer and I've never used a Razer product, but I like this laptop. I had to ditch Windows, running Debian.
  - jalfresi 10y ago
    Interesting, as hardware-wise that is the closest to a non-apple air that I can find. Does anyone have any links to someone running Linux on a razor blade stealth as their daily driver?
    - nawtacawp 10y ago
      MBP Retina, 13", 2015: 12.35" x 8.62" x .71" -- 3.48 lbs Air: 12.8" x 8.94" x .68" -- 2.96 lbs RB Stealth: 12.6" x 8.1" x .52" -- 2.84 lbs I bought the late 2016 edition, i7 kaby lake, 16GB RAM, 256GB M.2 PCIe, 12.5" IPS touch QHD (2560 x 1440 px). It really does run well and I'm using it as a daily driver.
  - pault 10y ago
    Have you been able to get good hardware support? Trackpad, function keys, etc. Can you sleep and restore?
    - 10y ago

resist_futility 10y ago

Would have loved to get a new MBP but Apple seems content to ignore the reason people buy their laptops. Now I'm waiting for the new iMacs instead, losing portability but hopefully getting more for the money.

vacri 10y ago

I don't understand why the author thinks that people aren't allowed to complain about RAM limitations at the launch, and instead expects them to wait the 2-3 weeks before the items ship and then use certain software on them long enough for usage patterns to come through. If 16GB ram isn't enough for you now, it's utter nonsense that "maybe Photoshop will run just fine on 16GB on the new hardware". I would also have made a bigger point of Apple not having enough USB dongles to supply their 'new, modern' laptops. It's a pretty big complaint to level against the "so what, it's one dongle" apologists, if you can't get one in the first place.

rz2k 10y ago
I am curious about how the morale within the Mac group must be. In an alternate universe the last iPhone would have ditched Lightning for USB-C, and Skylake MacBook Pros similar to the ones just released ones would have come out two or three quarters ago instead. While it's okay if not everyone at Apple is interested in the MacBook Pros, the people designing them have to be disheartened by the reactions. Decisions to put off this release for so long seems like it must have been a strategic one made outside of the group which probably wanted to ship a Skylake MacBook Pro a long time ago. Imagine (over-)simplified analysis that showed customers keeping their machines for an average of three years, or four product generations that were each about three quarters long. If Apple changed the time between generations to six quarters, then they would have retooling costs for only two cohorts of customers rather than four, and it would also get economies of scale similar to having twice as many customers buying each release. Now imagine that suitable Kaby Lake CPUs with Iris graphics turned out to much further off in the future than originally expected, and Apple ended up deciding they had to release a Skylake MacBook Pro rather than being able to skip the microarchitecture. So they do, but it's later than it might have been, and there end up being some issues that make it seem like it was designed and released quickly rather than like it had been refined even more than usual. And, on top of it all, the difficult, but ultimately beneficial, transition to all USB-C everywhere ends up being needlessly antagonizing to customers due to a cheap decision not to toss free legacy adapters and free USB-C/Lighting cables in the box of every new MacBook Pro.

nsxwolf 10y ago

The intensity 16GB RAM limit complaints really surprised me. I don't remember such complaints about the 2015 model lacking a 32GB option. We've been stuck at 16GB on the MacBook Pro for years now. Did something happen in the last year that made everyone demand 32GB?

sixothree 10y ago
16GB SODIMMs. Actually it was about this time last year that they started to become available.
- yuhong 10y ago
  More precisely, 8Gbit DDR4 which is beginning to reach crossover now. There is also 8Gbit DDR3 that is less popular (and I think only made by Micron and Intelligent Memory), but Broadwell supports it for example.
veidr 10y ago
The opposite; nothing happened for many years and people kind of accepted that the "new" models were just slight refreshes to the existing 16GB-limited line. But when Apple finally introduced a brand new generation, and it was still limited to 16 GB, that really set everybody off.
protomyth 10y ago
My memory usage under Sierra and El Capitan really went up to the point a 4gb Mac is painful to non-usable. Not sure the cause, but what could be upgrade got upgraded and what couldn't (MacBook Air) got retired.
pentae 10y ago
Me personally I could care less about the extra memory, but what I really wanted was a quad core in a 13" form factor
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
  Judging from Apple’s focus on silent, 10-hour-battery-life laptops, you’ll see quad-core CPUs in Apple 13" laptops only when the chip’s TDP drops to 15 W. In my opinion, it is sad that Apple changed the meaning of its Pro label from “professionals” to “consumers with lots of money”. As another commenter once said, replace “Pro” with “Deluxe” in your head, e.g. MacBook Deluxe, and suddenly it all makes sense. The machines trade potential increases in performance for increases in thinness.

frik 10y ago

I got a new MacBookPro 13" without the touchbar. It's a good device. The only strange thing is it has only two USB-C ports and an analog audio ports. One of the USB-C ports is used for the power adapter, so one port left.

EGreg 10y ago

This guy speaks like he used to introduce Apple's products or something. Come on dude, this stuff ain't easy! Try introducing successors to the Mac. That was some genius work right there ;-)

donmb 10y ago

Am I the only one here who is happy with the new Macbook? I find the speed incredible - the keyboard feels much more "natural". The touchbar saves me a lot of time. Downsides are that it's not supported yet in lot of important applications I use (Slack, Atom). I'm not bothered at all by the USB-C ports. USB dongles are on sale for 2€ on Amazon/ebay and work properly. Besides that I have nearly no more external devices I have to attach (except external HD sometimes but even those are Wifi connected nowadays). + not a real benefit but the design of the MBP is amazing and a real eye catcher again. For me this is a shitstorm for nothing.

iwritestuff 10y ago
No. I am wondering the exact same thing. The MBP bash on reddit/HN seems like a cry for easy karma. I love everything about the new MBP and even have good battery life with it!

godmodus 10y ago

So now mbp folk feel about apple the same way thinkpad old folk feel about lenovo. There's a huge market opening here. We may see the rise of a third hardware giant just yet.

m_mueller 10y ago
I think Google would be in a prime position. If they'd release a killer Chromebook Pro geared for developers I think people would eat it up. There's millions of developers world wide, with none of the big companies really catering for them anymore - more than enough for a decent computer market.

cptskippy 10y ago

The author spends $2000 on a laptop but can't wait 30 days for it to arrive so he spends $2800 on another laptop and says he'll just give the other one to his wife when it arrives. He also buys a $600 monitor and it doesn't work properly and so he returns it an vows to buy the $1000 model when it becomes available. I don't know what to make of that exactly.

holman 10y ago
He was an early exec at Apple, and he founded Be and BeOS. I think we can allow him to be a bit out of the ordinary when it comes to his computing. :)
- cptskippy 10y ago
  It doesn't make doubling down on something with in burns you any less strange.

Sideloader 10y ago

Why do so many "critical" stories about Apple products come across like ads for Apple stuff? Even this piece starts with a run down of features even though it's not relevant to the main point being made.

chmaynard 10y ago

> A knowledgeable individual tells me that [the battery problem in the 2016 15" MBP] is probably a curable software problem. I'm experiencing the same battery life problems reported by JLG. Activity Monitor doesn't report anything unusual, so I suspect the CPU is not the culprit. When I reported the problem to Apple Support, they asked me to run sysdiagnose and send them the output. Apple cranks out a new beta of MacOS 10.12.2 every week or so, and I install them immediately because of the possibility of a software fix. I recall that the first Retina MacBook Pro (mid-2012) had some problems too, so I'm not too surprised about this. I plan to be patient and see how responsive Apple is to the fast battery drain issue. I'm very happy with the machine otherwise.