8 ms·

It's actually kind of amazing to see the discourse shift against Apple and the new MacBook Pro to the point where it seems almost self-reinforcing. Like someone

by m12k 10y ago

It's actually kind of amazing to see the discourse shift against Apple and the new MacBook Pro to the point where it seems almost self-reinforcing. Like someone turned the reality distortion field on backwards or something. I've been wanting a mac laptop the size and weight of a MacBook Air 13" but with a retina display for years, and the ability to connect usb, power and external display with just a single cable is just icing on the cake. The TouchBar - meh, but using TouchID to unlock 1Password is handy if not revolutionary. But the point is, by most standards the new MBPs are great laptops for most professionals, especially software developers - solid build quality, fast, great screens, long battery life and lightweight. Sure, there are undoubtedly some people who really need to plug a ton of USB-A devices every day or need more than 16gb to run a ton of VMs or something, and for those it must be an unwelcome regression. But honestly, I have a hard time believing that can make up more than 5-10% of the market of the previous models. I can't really see how that can explain the public opinion turning against them to quite the extent that it has. I'm guessing it's a combination of several other factors: 1) Apple hasn't made a really revolutionary product since Jobs died. (Apple Watch was an honest try, but the product category was as dead a fish as the nay-sayers predicted). We expect these people to produce magic every x years, and they are long over-due with their next miracle. They put out an evolutionary product but it gets judged against the revolution that we were longing for. 2) Microsoft's entry into the laptop market has been with some surprisingly solid, and even innovative products (e.g. the Surface Book). They might not quite be revolutionary, but they are at least more so than the new MBP is. And their willingness on taking on niche markets (e.g. a Cintiq-killer for graphic designers) is contrasting with Apple's 'regression to the mean' where niche audiences are increasingly being neglected in favor of the less demanding mainstream consumer. Those 5-10% Apple just pissed off might not make a big difference on the bottomline themselves, but they are part of the hip trendsetters that used to be the poster child for the mac platform.

jest3r1 10y ago
It's easy to explain. Price. I've been wanting a mac laptop the size and weight of a MacBook Air 13" ... how about the size and weight and price?? They removed a bunch of ports, reduced battery life and upped the price. USD $1799 to $2799 (with touch bar). Pricing is out of reach. Especially if you live outside of the USA where exchange rate kills it completely. I love the 13" Macbook Air, just wish they would add retina, retain the ports, AND the price point.
- w0utert 10y ago
  >> It's easy to explain. Price I second that. I also agree with the OP that the amount of complaining about the MBP is a little weird considering it's still one of the nicest laptops you can get for the vast majority of users, but the fact that they found it necessary to increase the price even further really is somehwat insulting considering the few improvements they added compared to the (already very good) Macbook Pro. For all the waiting, I either expected more innovation, or better pricing. I'm not saying they should have decreased their prices, but they could at least have provided better and more options at the lower end. Apple could have saved itself so much negative sentiment by simply not being so damn greedy, and by updating their existing desktop hardware (Mac Pro and Mac Mini) more often. They've now painted themselves in a corner where they can't serve a sizeable part of their target audience, but are asking crazy prices for them, even by Apple's standards.
  - jasonsync 10y ago
    Apple actually recognized that price is the issue. By lowering the price of all the dongles shortly after launch, they confirmed that they may have underestimated how price sensitive their "Pro" market has become. Mostly because the Pro market now encompasses everyone wanting to upgrade their lower-end MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs. Because there's no upgrade path for these users at the moment (other than the iPad Pro which is a non starter for so many reasons). A new, 13" MacBook would be a good step towards bridging the gap, and providing an upgrade path for everyone else.
    - w0utert 10y ago
      >> Mostly because the Pro market now encompasses everyone wanting to upgrade their lower-end MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs. Because there's no upgrade path for these users at the moment That's exactly the boat I was in myself, my 2012 MacBook Air just wasn't cutting it anymore for my light Xcode use, but none of the MacBooks would have been much of an improvement in terms of computing power. Because I'm really not prepared to give up OS X yet I was basically forced to stick with the MBA, or buy a MBP at an even higher premium than before. That said, I decided to close my eyes and plunk down the cash for a tbMBP anyway, and from a hardware perspective I love the machine, as I'm not affected by any of the (IMO for most people mostly artificial/overblown) 'problems' people are complaining about. None, except the price, which still leaves me with a bad taste. Something I haven't experienced with any of my numerous previous Apple purchases...
toyg 10y ago
> I've been wanting a mac laptop the size and weight of a MacBook Air 13" but with a retina display for years If they'd sold these new models as New Air, everyone would be fine; Air customers would be ecstatic and Pro customers would be interested. But they called them Pro and slapped (raised) Pro prices on them, which is basically trying to sell me shit for chocolate. It's an utter failure of branding and marketing, which is what Apple is supposed to be the best at.
ebbv 10y ago
The previous 13" rMBP was already close enough to the Air, IMHO. And MagSafe has literally saved my laptops from destruction dozens of times over the years. The TouchBar is a stupid gimmick. These new MBPs won't have the shelf life of the old ones because the specs aren't improved enough. And the battery time is reduced and the price is increased over the old ones. They are a worse product in every way for me over my current rMBP. Literally the only advantage is they are thinner and lighter and the display has a wider color gamut. Not worth all the trade offs. The old ones already had plenty of USB ports which today are more useful than USB-C.
d3ckard 10y ago
I do not agree. It is not about magic, it's about neglecting the user group that made them rich in the first place. Apple actually stopped making pro hardware. They're unpredictable when it comes to upgrades(15 Retina ethernal Haswell, 2013 Mac Pro, even iMacs), they do not seem to have an idea how the platform should evolve and they're obsessed with thinness, while in the pro market performance and battery life are vastly more important. Last but not least, their recent idea of progress is gimmicky touch bar and emoticons everywhere. Sorry, it just does not fit. Add to it degrading software quality (iOS10 sucks, MacOS just got rid of battery prediction, because they couldn't work with new processors - come on!), frozen progress on software front in general and there is not much left. Currently Apple is a company sitting on an extremely large pile of cash and they have not idea what to do with it. Not sexy at all.
- adamlett 10y ago
  It was not the pro users who made Apple rich. It was the consumers buying iPods, and later iPhones. Pro users are at the same time extremely demanding and extremely conservative. Apple has never done much to cater to that market, and the fact that they have so many pro users these days is a happy accident which has more to do with how awful these people used to be treated when they were Windows users, and not a lot to do with anything Apple did specifically for their sake. Apple doesn't care about pro users, whom they rightly consider demanding and ungrateful. Apple cares about ordinary people, the ones lots of pro users talk about often in the most condescending of manners. Apple's mission has always been to make computing accessible to the masses (remember the slogan: "The computer for the rest of us"?), not to make it better for the elite few who already know how to use one.
  - scholia 10y ago
    > Apple's mission has always been to make computing accessible to the masses (remember the slogan: "The computer for the rest of us"?), not to make it better for the elite few who already know how to use one. Except the masses buy Windows 10 laptops that cost $199 or whatever. The Mac has never been "accessible to the masses" because they won't pay Apple's prosumer prices...
tajen 10y ago
I'd say the lack of hardware function keys is an utter annoyance for 80% of existing Mac users, maybe 40% like you who can be convinced by the Touchbar provided as a replacement. Remains 40% annoyed users, minimum. Don't forget Macbooks are sold at a prime, so users are mostly people who use it professionnaly, >8 hrs a day, who expect something from it and are experts in using it (even the basic photographer ends up mastering the keyboard shortcuts of Adobe, starting with... the Esc key). Since the Touchbar may convince noobs like my 15-year-old, provided they're spoiled with laptops no-one can afford, you may end up with a situation where old farts are only 5-10% still cursing at the lack of hardware Esc/Function keys. But that's because of the attrition of professionals, not because you've made a good product. Face it, the market actively rejects this innovation. A lot of people who wanted to renew held off, and are replacing their Macbook with... nothing. It's a bit like if your boyfriend leaves you, and if he doesn't have anyone else to date. He just leaves you because you're bad, because your prices increased too much, and because your features are missing. I don't even thing Microsoft's innovation plays much of a role in Apple's attrition. Now let's talk about the missing battery life incidator, the missing battery life, the missing magsafe, the missing USB ports, the missing compatibility with iPhone 7's USB key. One more thing. The new Macbook isn't on display in stores (in France at least), 6 weeks after the keynote and one week before Christmas. Apple really has a problem with procurement.
- mpswardle 10y ago
  You can literally set the Touchbar to just show the function keys. I keep mine dynamic, have been using the laptop for a month now, and can say there has not been one occasion when the escape key wasn't there when i wanted it. And having TouchID sensor more than makes up for it. Of all you criticism not one has been a problem to me except battery life which is quite bad on mine.
colomon 10y ago
It feels to me like you are putting this backwards. I've been using the MBP as my main software development platform for eight years now. My current machine is a maxed out mid 2014 15" MBPr. What does the new MBP offer me over that? 1) Very slightly faster. (2.9 vs 2.8) 2) 2 TB SSD instead of 1 TB. 3) Ability to charge and drive monitor over single cable. But what is the price? 1) $4,199 -- nearly $1000 more expensive than the last one. 2) Complete inability to plug in any peripheral I already own without a dongle. 3) No physical ESC key. It's only $150 more if I stick with a 1TB SSD. But if I do that, literally the only significant benefit I get from the new machine is the ability to drive monitor and charge over a single cable -- and of course, I've got to replace my existing (expensive, beautiful) monitor to do that. Plus as an added bonus, they're discontinuing the Time Capsule, which has been my main local backup solution for years.
- Ensorceled 10y ago
  I plan to map caps lock to ESC (currently it's mapped to the command key)
  - e40 10y ago
    For people with ESC in muscle memory, that's a non starter.
    - neolefty 10y ago
      It will take you a couple of days to adapt, and it's good for your brain plasticity.
      - e40 10y ago
        You must be young. I've been using the same Emacs bindings for 35 years. I've changed my muscle memory before, and it took far longer than "a couple of days to adapt."
- rz2k 10y ago
  For $150 the ssd is twice as fast at the least. The options for external monitors are also much, much better.
tdkl 10y ago
> Apple hasn't made a really revolutionary product since Jobs died. It's more about regression for cosmetic reasons then not being revolutionary. There's potential with development of newer hardware and yet they use it to make slimmer devices and with less ports. Smaller motherboard ? Instead of slimming the shell, make it thicker and use the rest for batteries. 50 hour battery laptop, now that's revolutionary.
1_2__3 10y ago
I think this has little to do with the "reality distortion field" and everything to do with Apple steadily and irreversibly appliance-ifying their product line combined with a distinct lack of any kind of indication of direction for Apple and actual computers for people who do work. A lot of people were waiting for the MacBook announcement to give some hint, and a lot of them think they got one: Not a peep about anything besides a slightly more appliance-ified (and nothing else) laptop. Regardless of strategic Cook leaks: Apple is deprecating macs-as-computers-for-professionals. It should be obvious why; so many HNers love to cheer market forces. Apple makes way more money on phones and shiny things, so that's all they're going to make from now on. Because the market cannot afford inefficiencies, and anywhere someone is making $0.99 when they could be making $1.00 is an inefficiency that must be corrected.

by m12k 10y ago

jest3r1 10y ago

It's easy to explain. Price. I've been wanting a mac laptop the size and weight of a MacBook Air 13" ... how about the size and weight and price?? They removed a bunch of ports, reduced battery life and upped the price. USD $1799 to $2799 (with touch bar). Pricing is out of reach. Especially if you live outside of the USA where exchange rate kills it completely. I love the 13" Macbook Air, just wish they would add retina, retain the ports, AND the price point.

w0utert 10y ago
>> It's easy to explain. Price I second that. I also agree with the OP that the amount of complaining about the MBP is a little weird considering it's still one of the nicest laptops you can get for the vast majority of users, but the fact that they found it necessary to increase the price even further really is somehwat insulting considering the few improvements they added compared to the (already very good) Macbook Pro. For all the waiting, I either expected more innovation, or better pricing. I'm not saying they should have decreased their prices, but they could at least have provided better and more options at the lower end. Apple could have saved itself so much negative sentiment by simply not being so damn greedy, and by updating their existing desktop hardware (Mac Pro and Mac Mini) more often. They've now painted themselves in a corner where they can't serve a sizeable part of their target audience, but are asking crazy prices for them, even by Apple's standards.
- jasonsync 10y ago
  Apple actually recognized that price is the issue. By lowering the price of all the dongles shortly after launch, they confirmed that they may have underestimated how price sensitive their "Pro" market has become. Mostly because the Pro market now encompasses everyone wanting to upgrade their lower-end MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs. Because there's no upgrade path for these users at the moment (other than the iPad Pro which is a non starter for so many reasons). A new, 13" MacBook would be a good step towards bridging the gap, and providing an upgrade path for everyone else.
  - w0utert 10y ago
    >> Mostly because the Pro market now encompasses everyone wanting to upgrade their lower-end MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs. Because there's no upgrade path for these users at the moment That's exactly the boat I was in myself, my 2012 MacBook Air just wasn't cutting it anymore for my light Xcode use, but none of the MacBooks would have been much of an improvement in terms of computing power. Because I'm really not prepared to give up OS X yet I was basically forced to stick with the MBA, or buy a MBP at an even higher premium than before. That said, I decided to close my eyes and plunk down the cash for a tbMBP anyway, and from a hardware perspective I love the machine, as I'm not affected by any of the (IMO for most people mostly artificial/overblown) 'problems' people are complaining about. None, except the price, which still leaves me with a bad taste. Something I haven't experienced with any of my numerous previous Apple purchases...

toyg 10y ago

> I've been wanting a mac laptop the size and weight of a MacBook Air 13" but with a retina display for years If they'd sold these new models as New Air, everyone would be fine; Air customers would be ecstatic and Pro customers would be interested. But they called them Pro and slapped (raised) Pro prices on them, which is basically trying to sell me shit for chocolate. It's an utter failure of branding and marketing, which is what Apple is supposed to be the best at.

ebbv 10y ago

The previous 13" rMBP was already close enough to the Air, IMHO. And MagSafe has literally saved my laptops from destruction dozens of times over the years. The TouchBar is a stupid gimmick. These new MBPs won't have the shelf life of the old ones because the specs aren't improved enough. And the battery time is reduced and the price is increased over the old ones. They are a worse product in every way for me over my current rMBP. Literally the only advantage is they are thinner and lighter and the display has a wider color gamut. Not worth all the trade offs. The old ones already had plenty of USB ports which today are more useful than USB-C.

d3ckard 10y ago

I do not agree. It is not about magic, it's about neglecting the user group that made them rich in the first place. Apple actually stopped making pro hardware. They're unpredictable when it comes to upgrades(15 Retina ethernal Haswell, 2013 Mac Pro, even iMacs), they do not seem to have an idea how the platform should evolve and they're obsessed with thinness, while in the pro market performance and battery life are vastly more important. Last but not least, their recent idea of progress is gimmicky touch bar and emoticons everywhere. Sorry, it just does not fit. Add to it degrading software quality (iOS10 sucks, MacOS just got rid of battery prediction, because they couldn't work with new processors - come on!), frozen progress on software front in general and there is not much left. Currently Apple is a company sitting on an extremely large pile of cash and they have not idea what to do with it. Not sexy at all.

adamlett 10y ago
It was not the pro users who made Apple rich. It was the consumers buying iPods, and later iPhones. Pro users are at the same time extremely demanding and extremely conservative. Apple has never done much to cater to that market, and the fact that they have so many pro users these days is a happy accident which has more to do with how awful these people used to be treated when they were Windows users, and not a lot to do with anything Apple did specifically for their sake. Apple doesn't care about pro users, whom they rightly consider demanding and ungrateful. Apple cares about ordinary people, the ones lots of pro users talk about often in the most condescending of manners. Apple's mission has always been to make computing accessible to the masses (remember the slogan: "The computer for the rest of us"?), not to make it better for the elite few who already know how to use one.
- scholia 10y ago
  > Apple's mission has always been to make computing accessible to the masses (remember the slogan: "The computer for the rest of us"?), not to make it better for the elite few who already know how to use one. Except the masses buy Windows 10 laptops that cost $199 or whatever. The Mac has never been "accessible to the masses" because they won't pay Apple's prosumer prices...

tajen 10y ago

I'd say the lack of hardware function keys is an utter annoyance for 80% of existing Mac users, maybe 40% like you who can be convinced by the Touchbar provided as a replacement. Remains 40% annoyed users, minimum. Don't forget Macbooks are sold at a prime, so users are mostly people who use it professionnaly, >8 hrs a day, who expect something from it and are experts in using it (even the basic photographer ends up mastering the keyboard shortcuts of Adobe, starting with... the Esc key). Since the Touchbar may convince noobs like my 15-year-old, provided they're spoiled with laptops no-one can afford, you may end up with a situation where old farts are only 5-10% still cursing at the lack of hardware Esc/Function keys. But that's because of the attrition of professionals, not because you've made a good product. Face it, the market actively rejects this innovation. A lot of people who wanted to renew held off, and are replacing their Macbook with... nothing. It's a bit like if your boyfriend leaves you, and if he doesn't have anyone else to date. He just leaves you because you're bad, because your prices increased too much, and because your features are missing. I don't even thing Microsoft's innovation plays much of a role in Apple's attrition. Now let's talk about the missing battery life incidator, the missing battery life, the missing magsafe, the missing USB ports, the missing compatibility with iPhone 7's USB key. One more thing. The new Macbook isn't on display in stores (in France at least), 6 weeks after the keynote and one week before Christmas. Apple really has a problem with procurement.

mpswardle 10y ago
You can literally set the Touchbar to just show the function keys. I keep mine dynamic, have been using the laptop for a month now, and can say there has not been one occasion when the escape key wasn't there when i wanted it. And having TouchID sensor more than makes up for it. Of all you criticism not one has been a problem to me except battery life which is quite bad on mine.

colomon 10y ago

It feels to me like you are putting this backwards. I've been using the MBP as my main software development platform for eight years now. My current machine is a maxed out mid 2014 15" MBPr. What does the new MBP offer me over that? 1) Very slightly faster. (2.9 vs 2.8) 2) 2 TB SSD instead of 1 TB. 3) Ability to charge and drive monitor over single cable. But what is the price? 1) $4,199 -- nearly $1000 more expensive than the last one. 2) Complete inability to plug in any peripheral I already own without a dongle. 3) No physical ESC key. It's only $150 more if I stick with a 1TB SSD. But if I do that, literally the only significant benefit I get from the new machine is the ability to drive monitor and charge over a single cable -- and of course, I've got to replace my existing (expensive, beautiful) monitor to do that. Plus as an added bonus, they're discontinuing the Time Capsule, which has been my main local backup solution for years.

Ensorceled 10y ago
I plan to map caps lock to ESC (currently it's mapped to the command key)
- e40 10y ago
  For people with ESC in muscle memory, that's a non starter.
  - neolefty 10y ago
    It will take you a couple of days to adapt, and it's good for your brain plasticity.
    - e40 10y ago
      You must be young. I've been using the same Emacs bindings for 35 years. I've changed my muscle memory before, and it took far longer than "a couple of days to adapt."
rz2k 10y ago
For $150 the ssd is twice as fast at the least. The options for external monitors are also much, much better.

tdkl 10y ago

> Apple hasn't made a really revolutionary product since Jobs died. It's more about regression for cosmetic reasons then not being revolutionary. There's potential with development of newer hardware and yet they use it to make slimmer devices and with less ports. Smaller motherboard ? Instead of slimming the shell, make it thicker and use the rest for batteries. 50 hour battery laptop, now that's revolutionary.

1_2__3 10y ago

I think this has little to do with the "reality distortion field" and everything to do with Apple steadily and irreversibly appliance-ifying their product line combined with a distinct lack of any kind of indication of direction for Apple and actual computers for people who do work. A lot of people were waiting for the MacBook announcement to give some hint, and a lot of them think they got one: Not a peep about anything besides a slightly more appliance-ified (and nothing else) laptop. Regardless of strategic Cook leaks: Apple is deprecating macs-as-computers-for-professionals. It should be obvious why; so many HNers love to cheer market forces. Apple makes way more money on phones and shiny things, so that's all they're going to make from now on. Because the market cannot afford inefficiencies, and anywhere someone is making $0.99 when they could be making $1.00 is an inefficiency that must be corrected.