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Ask HN: What do you want to see most in the next iteration of the Macbook Pro?
Apart from the obvious 32GB ram, what else would you like to see in the next generation Macbook Pro?
I think it will be the first Macbook Pro I purchase and I really hope it lives up to expectations.
I really like the idea of Touch ID, I hope it's not replaced with Face ID. High Sierra should be interesting too.
Anyway, what would you personally like to see in the next Macbook Pro?
- shardinator 9y agoFinder app that actually finds stuff
- mtw 9y agoNvidia graphic cards
- billconan 9y agoExternal gpu support for Nvidia https://developer.apple.com/development-kit/external-graphics/ https://developer.apple.com/development-kit/external-graphic... Boot camp dual boot option for Linux Official command line package manager
- kogir 9y agoYou can already dual boot Linux. Just hold alt when turning on the computer and select the installation media, set it up to boot with EFI, and use the same alt trick to select your Linux partition on boot.
- billconan 9y agoI have done this myself too. but it's kinda hacky. For example, linux might not recognize 3 finger gestures. I also don't recall how it handled the apple/command keys. There might need to be some better driver support.
- clra 9y agoThis will sound trite, but I'm completely serious. The number one thing I want to see in the next MacBook Pro is the abandonment of the Touch Bar. Make it a row on the keyboard again. I didn't think that the Touch Bar was useful when I first saw it, and now, six months later, I haven't found one more reason that I'd want ever want it. I don't want haptic feedback or any other kind of improvement. Apple made a mistake and should own up to it. Just throw it out. Aside from that, I'd love to see a little better battery life and would have no problem whatsoever trading away a few more millimeters of thinness if I could get it. The MBP is thinner than I need already.
- johns 9y agoAgreed. But please keep the Touch ID button.
- _of 9y agoRemove the touch bar and reintroduce the magnetic power connector - it was such a great thing. And then please make the arrow up and down keys larger - I find myself hitting the wrong key several times every day.
- johns 9y agoI personally don’t miss MagSafe like I thought I would. I’d rather have charging ports on both sides like the current MBP.
- jacknews 9y agoI agree, I never want to see a proprietary apply power adapter ever again, especially given their history of disintegrating within a year or two. Charge ports on either side fix a real pain point for me - all my workspaces happen to have power on the right hand side. Also, if you need the safety of magsafe, you can get magnetic-connect usb-C cables, where the usb 'stub' fits into the female port, but connects magnetically to the rest of the cable.
- 9y ago
- itake 9y agoWater resistance. It would help with cleaning and spills.
- aeroevan 9y agoCoreboot and better Linux support. I can dream, right?
- rand77763 9y agoMore ram.
- nether 9y agonvidia gpu for ML training
- zmmmmm 9y ago32GB RAM - absolute must Standard, full size HDMI - main factor making me hang onto my current one now is actually this!
- graeme 9y agoMore ports. The new version only has four, and one is for power. My 2015 model has power, two thunderbolt, two usb, hdmi, sd card, audio in. I use all of them most days. I'd also want an option with the higher travel keyboard and function keys. I use those frequently. I tried the lower travel keyboard on a macbook, and it hurt my arms.
- stephenr 9y agoThe whole point of USB-C is that a single port can do multiple things at once. What four devices are you plugging in that none of them can also supply charge?
- graeme 9y agoSorry, missed replying to this earlier: *Audiobox and powered USB Hub, into the two USB Ports *Often an ethernet cable with adaptor into the thunderbolt port *Magsafe adaptor * HDMI cable to external monitor * Line in audio for speakers * SD Card into SD card slot * The USB Hub has: lightning cable for ios device, external keyboard, wacom tablet, usb mouse I haven't yet familiarized myself USB C. Would they solve this issue? I think I would need a lot more hubs, since I count 9-10 connections on a typical day.
- quantumhobbit 9y agoHeadphone jack. Escape key. MagSafe charger.
- jacknews 9y agoThe proprietary chargers were expensive and disintegrate within a couple of years. Also scavenging the office for someone with the right version, and wattage of charger when you left yours at home. No thanks. USB-C should become a standard, so they'll be ubiquitous, cheap, etc. If you need a safe cable you can get magnetically-connected USB-C cables.
- apple4ever 9y agoNo they didn't. I have MagSafe chargers nearly a decade old, and they work fine still. Magnetically connected USB-C cables are a poor solution. A dedicated port for power is still the best option.
- chrisparton1991 9y agoThe MBP still has a headphone jack, as far as I'm aware.
- trizic 9y agoQuadcore with HT 13inch. With Intel 8th generation CPUs, i5 and i7 will become quadcore. Now the question is will Apple use i3 or older generation CPUs for the 13inch or give the 13inch quadcore+ht like the current 15inch.
- thinkythought 9y agoI would honestly switch back to a 13 if i could get a real quad core in it. All my work is purely CPU stuff, so all the GPU does is cook my legs and waste battery(and some apps that absolutely have no business switching on the dGPU still do, even years in, and the tray apps that let you restrict this are long since broken... grrr) I'm still plugging away on a 2012 rMBP, so i'm a prime customer to pitch this hypothetical quad 13in model too. I like the size! I don't need the big screen! I would bite even if this was a BTO or higher end model!
- NotSammyHagar 9y agoThese are all obvious fixes. 1. 32+gb ram, don't be stupid 2. 2+ usb-c, plus at least one legacy usb-a 3. hdmi 4. either drop touch bar or make it easily support normal top row buttons
- Bud 9y agoHDMI 4 doesn't even exist. What are you talking about?
- jsjohnst 9y agoThe 4 is a list entry number. He wants an HDMI port back on the MBP.
- NotSammyHagar 9y agoright, sorry for the mistype.
- jsjohnst 9y agoRe: #1 Go rant to Intel. It’s their fault they don’t support LP-DDR4 or DDR4L.
- NotSammyHagar 9y agoon the ram limitation, other laptops have more than 16 gig, like the lenovo laptops my company uses for ubuntu dev with 32 gig. so apple could make other choices. these other laptops work just fine.
- aphextron 9y ago17 inch >4k retina display (>300PPI) with GTX1070m or better.
- DanHulton 9y agoI know you say "apart from the obvious 32 GB ram", but I'm gonna say it anyway. On the off chance anyone from Apple reads this, I want to signal boost that as much as I can. It gets in the way daily, and as more places adopt docker (and Mac not having a native docker layer worth using), the RAM limit is stifling. A keyboard nobody complains about again. Better battery life. A return to Magsafe.
- smt88 9y agoTwo questions: 1) What are you doing that requires 32 GB RAM? I assume it's for work -- what kind of products are you building? 2) Is a cloud desktop not an optional? I have a few friends who connect to powerful cloud machines from Chromebooks and Airs, and they seem to love it.
- 6nf 9y agoSome devs these days are using VMs extensively to develop on different projects and environments, and those devs need more RAM. Cloud desktop works iff you have a good internet connection at the time
- jlgaddis 9y agoIndeed, RAM. I have a two-year-old MBP that has 16 GB. I have an almost five-year-old ThinkPad that has had 32 GB since the day I got it. My workstation has 128 GB. Actually, I should just sell the MBP. I've probably used it two or three times -- and for maybe two hours altogether -- in the last year or so.
- milkytron 9y agoJust out of curiosity, what do you do with all that RAM?
- Bud 9y agoIt is not, and was never Apple's choice to limit the MB Pro to 16 GB. Educate yourself: https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/ https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/
- faramarz 9y agoTouch screen? I don't have any complaints. actually, easier way of switching between screen resolutions. I find night time with my contact on, the highest resolution on my 15" is very hard to navigate and read; I'd like instant resolution switch-ups or downs
- QML 9y agoAfter some research for my next anticipated laptop, a lot of people in the Mac community seem to want a 14" MacBook Pro that combines the portability of the 13" with the power of the 15". Personally, I would like Apple to match the amount of ports in the lower spec MacBooks as there are in higher spec ones; seriously, why do the non-touch bar 13" MacBooks have only two thunderbolt ports while the touch bar model has four!?
- Bud 9y agoBecause those ports are not free, and neither is the internal real estate that they consume.
- jsjohnst 9y agoBecause each of those Thunderbolt 3 ports adds significant cost. I guess they could’ve added two USB-C ports, but that likely would’ve caused major confusion for customers (the confusion is already bad enough in the USB-C port form factor imho).
- locusm 9y agoThe 2013 MBP was perfect, regret selling it when thinking the new 16 model would be reasonably priced.
- jbl 9y agoI'd really like to see the inverted-T cursor block back... I can almost live with the low-travel keyboard and actually kind of like the Touch Bar (especially with iTerm2 support now). The arrow keys, however, I just can't get used to.
- taylodl 9y agoThe MacBook Pro should be Apple's tank. It should be able to handle the most arduous, demanding tasks and still go 8-10 hours on its battery. Sorry if that's adds a little more weight, it's a pro machine - if you want something ultraportable, svelte and light then you should get a MacBook Air. As far as ports are concerned USB-C is great, however a USB 3.0 port and an SD card reader would be super handy for a pro machine. Seriously, people are making a living using these machines and it needs to be a little more convenient to transfer data using different media which happen to be extremely common. I've found the new keyboard usable once you get the hang of it, though I prefer the older keyboards with a little more travel. The trackpad though - it needs to be shrunk back down in size. It registers too many false inputs and its really annoying especially since the trackpad is hands-down one of the best features of the entire MacBook product line.
- nerdwaller 9y agoI can definitely echo the “getting used to” the keyboard phase and the trackpad issues. I’ve found it hard to stray from my historic MacBook usage due to the awesome trackpads, until the current one. It’s still a great trackpad (generally), but the false inputs and palm detection are certainly a weak point for the current series and software.
- ajeet_dhaliwal 9y agopeople are making a living using these machines I think that cuts to the heart of the matter. They have forgotten who the customers are. Everything is designed for sleekness and entertainment.
- synicalx 9y agoAs everyone else has said - ditch the Touch Bar, double the RAM. Also, crazy suggestion but I think it's a much better solution than jumping on board the bizarre "everything needs a touchscreen and 48 hinges" bandwagon; make the trackpad even bigger AND also make it something comparable to a Wacom tablet - stylus and all.
- jseliger 9y agoI'm surprised no one has mentioned an OLED screen yet. Lenovo has been making some laptops with them: https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/133452/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-yoga-2017-oled-first-impressions https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/133452/lenovo-th.... Still, Apple ships so many units and has likely locked up so much capacity for the iPhone X that I suspect we're unlikely to see OLED displays in their laptops this year.
- Jayakumark 9y agoLower end i5 model starting at $999 Higher end model with Option to have OLED display with almost no bezel design kind of like iPhone X
- thijsvandien 9y agoFor the MBP as we know it, I'd love to get a 15" model without the Touch Bar / Touch ID. To me, it's a deal breaker. The 13" looks nice, but it's just too small. I'm not sure what to make of the gigant trackpad – not putting it under your palms is just so much more sensible than palm detection. (For the same reason I'm not fond of edge to edge phone displays.) Sad to see MagSafe go, as well as many other connectors. The previous model was pretty great and it's unfortunate it can't be bought (new) anymore with decent graphics. 32GB of RAM is welcome, as well as some more screen estate. I'd now probably get a 17" model if I could, but lacking that, thinner screen edges. If it can be done on the Dell XPS (and the iPhone X), so can it on the MBP. The MBP doesn't feel all that pro anymore, though. When the MBPr was first released, it truly set itself apart from the MBP at the time. It was an insta-buy and I'm still using it for the lack of better options. Now that the consumer line has caught up, what I'd really like to see is the introduction of a legitimate mobile workstation with similarly sized innovations at a similarly reasonable price. Where is my Xeon with ECC? Completely in vain, I'll close by stating that a bit of water/dirt-proofing would be great, but I don't expect to ever see that happen.
- grzm 9y agoWhat are the last two laptops you've owned? When are you planning to replace your current laptop? What will the next one be if the next MBP includes Touch Bar and Touch ID? If not a Mac, what OS will you run?
- thijsvandien 9y agoThis MBPr 2012 made me move back from MBA + iMac to just a laptop. Before that, MBP. Right now I'm trying to find a lightly used MBP 2015 with R9 and ~2 years of AppleCare left, to buy myself some time to either migrate away from Apple or be positively surprised with a new product that convinces me to stick with them longer. Been a Mac user for well over 10 years now, so the final decision won't be taken lightly. I keep a list of candidates to try, including the Dell Precision 5520 and some Lenovo models. Still I'm bitter about it. As far as I can tell, nothing else I can buy at this moment will match the build quality I've come accustomed to. The user experience of (now) macOS is steadily declining too, but not to the point yet that Linux looks like an improvement. I'd fancy BSD more, but that limits the hardware options even further.
- aklemm 9y agoTouch and stylus! I want to be able to touch the screen I do real work on. Then my tablet can be consume/entertain only.
- phoobahr 9y agoDifferentiation. I don’t like the touch bar but I like that they tried. Now please take it a little further and clean up the line-up. I want all the weird future bits to go in a ‘modern’ ultra portable. Take the 12” macbook and put an A11 or theoretical A12 in it. If there’s a non keyboard touch input in the macbook line try it there. Take the macbook pro and stuff it full of ports. And shit on intel until they produce an appropriate chipset that’ll support more than 16gb. Or at least threaten them with the above mentioned ultraportable until they get off the pot and get it done. Ports, ram, a small concession on form factor & weight so a 13-14ish inch model can be useful for 8 hours on a train. Oh and more ports. Everything else tht’s a little more mass market, a little more beige, that can go in the macbook air line. Set a reasonable price point and sell little-better-than-entry-level spec’ed machine with modern components to every Tom, Dick & Harry who gives them money for the current air but really shouldn’t. Have courage Apple, take a little risk, leverage some branding to make a statement and let the pro moniker mean something.
- mamcx 9y agoThe one thing I want from any mac is ALL SSD. And >512GB. This is the thing that make me consider using a hackintosh. I totally will not buy a mac without a decently sized SSD disk, hopefully starting at 1TB. I can live with the rest.... and for the keyboard? I have never like the modern mac keyboard (never used the old ALPS) so I use a external one. However, how about put a mechanical at least for the iMac/MacPro?
- twobyfour 9y agoThe iMac and Mac Pro you're going to be using with an external keyboard regardless, so you can just swap in whatever keyboard suits you. I for one don't mind shallow travel keyboards but people who complain about the keyboards on laptops do so because most of us don't lug an external keyboard with us to the proverbial coffee shop.
- mamcx 9y agoThats clear, and I agree. But if that is the common case why not build a better keyboard? Apple take a lot of pride in the interfacing of the technology, and certainly keyboards and mouses is not part of that vision, sadly...
- tenzero 9y agoDiscard the touchbar. Keep the fingerprint reader. Give a better quality keyboard. Give back a proper escape key. Quad Core cpu in the 13” model and ideally an actual GPU. 10-20% thicker body for more battery. It’s already thinner than actually adds value. Sim slot/radios for LTE data like the iPad. A mechanical switch/shutter to physically block & electrically disconnect the camera.
- sliken 9y agoMagsafe power cord. USB and USB-c. At least a 32GB ram option.
- peki 9y agoWould like Apple to adopt an OLED screen and use two of the next A11x CPUs in the macbook pro
- qw 9y agoI'd like all keys to be a small OLED screen or something similar. This would make it much easier to customise keyboards, avoid language issues and would also help with learning shortcuts. (pressing command, would change "C" to a copy symbol for example)
- mstaoru 9y agoI have top of the line late-2013 model, i7 with 1T SSD and 16G RAM. There was no reason to upgrade whatsoever so far, and current MacBooks are not appealing to me at all. Mostly I would like them to return good things back and introduce new things they implemented in other products. Absolutely NO WAY to the Touch Bar. As long as it's there, I'm not even looking further. It can have 512GB RAM or all-gold unibody or whatever, Touch Bar = no buy. One thing I use extensively is the Toslink digital out, I love music and being able to connect portable DACs over Toslink is (was) beautiful. I'm sure the sound system could be improved. It's nice to watch a movie in bed sometimes, but the sound is bad on 2013 model and somehow even worse (very synthetic?) on 2017. It would be nice to have a screen that doesn't have all your keyboard imprinted all over it in a year or so. A way to disable Apple logo glowing. 32G RAM goes without saying. I'm a developer and even without 1-2 VMs I sometimes run out of memory. To conclude, we need faster horses, Mr Ford.
- ixacto 9y agoI have the 2015 model, and basically the same. (1) No touchbar. (2) intel GPU on the 15inch models. I don't like switching gpu. (2) True 4k display with wide color like the 4k imac. (3) Fanless if possible. The fan went out on my current MBP and if thing is going to last me until 2022 hopefully the next one will have less moving parts.
- lj3 9y agoWith all of this kvetching over the keyboard, what I'd like to see in the next version of the Macbook Pro is no keyboard at all. Go the way of Microsoft Surface Pro and make it a tablet with a full OS, great screen, battery life and let everybody use the keyboard of their choice.
- twobyfour 9y agoUgh, no. Do that with the MacBook ultraportable, which is basically a glorified tablet anyway. But not with a workhorse machine for keyboard-driven occupations like programming.
- kevinherron 9y ago- A slight increase in resolution so that the defaults are once again pixel-doubled. - FaceID - 32gb ram, I guess. I'd buy it if available, but if not... meh. I like the new keyboard. I don't care one way or the other about the touch bar.
- thecolorblue 9y agoUser replaceable parts. I had a 2011 MBP that lasted 5 years after a hard drive upgrade and increased ram. Without this, any MBP life span is limited to a couple years.
- dagw 9y agoDecent Nvidia GPU (GTX 10xx or equiv.). I want/need to be able to write CUDA code on my main work machine. I'm also not buying a machine with less than 64 GB of RAM as my main work machine any more. Without that I cannot justify the price of a MBP, since I'll have to buy a second machine to complement it.
- aphextron 9y ago>I'm also not buying a machine with less than 64 GB of RAM as my main work machine any more. Who is offering 64GB laptops right now?
- dagw 9y agoCertainly Lenovo, HP and Dell are. Asus and Acer probably have something as well. Even Clevo/Sager offer some 64GB laptops so everybody who resells Clevo machines can also offer 64 GB of RAM
- apple4ever 9y agoMagSafe! Its the biggest reason I haven't upgraded.
- tmarman 9y ago32-64gb RAM. That alone is why I haven't upgraded my now 5+ yr old MacBook Pro.
- juancn 9y ago32GB of RAM, an F-function row below the touch bar and a mag safe port next to the USB-C
- seanwilson 9y agoWaterproofing! Drinks near my laptop terrify me. A drop of water in the wrong place means your expensive work critical computer get its warranty voided and needs an immediate replacement.
- twobyfour 9y agoA real function key row on the high end models. I'm very hesitant to buy at all without one. That and the aforementioned 32GB. Other than that I'm more than happy with my 2012 model. Edited to add: oh and bring MagSafe back. I forgot about that. Can't count the number of times it's saved my computer. On the lookout for third party adapters....
- cjcampbell 9y agoExcept for some hardware issues (stuck on my 2013 MBA for 3-5 days), I have been generally happy with my 2016 MBP. Performance is solid, even for processor and memory intensive tasks. I attribute this in part to the memory management improvements to macOS in the past 5 years (without which, 16GB would be quite horrid). Battery life is generally acceptable as long as I reboot occasionally. The keyboard is a bit louder than my prior Macbook's, but I find that I type more accurately. The 15" screen is beautiful, especially given that I won't need to break my back to lug it around. 32GB RAM option (at price point of current 16GB configuration) Face ID (in addition to retaining Touch ID) Integrated FIDO U2F Upgradeable SSD (or M.2 expansion slot) Improve battery life by 30 - 40% Don't be cheap ... put the wall cord back in the box High-speed SD slot In terms of the Touch Bar, I'm fine with it as long as I have a way to pad some dead space in the top right (where Siri is by default). I have a couple of software quibbles as well, including: Bring back Ctrl-Shift-Power shortcut Enable U2F support in Safari Disable Touch ID for unlock while continuing to use it for authorizing privileged actions Integrated Touch ID for sudo
- firelemissiles 9y agoMagsafe, my new MacBook have been on the floor already because someone stepped in the charger. Fortunately it landed flat down on the bottom, so no damage was done, but I got a heart attack when it happened..
- subinsebastien 9y agoTo conclude all - Magnetic-USB-C OR Magsafe power connector on both sides - Remove touch bar - A lot more battery life, even if the MBP is a little more thicker - A cutting edge silicon lottery intel processor, ideally Xeon - Face ID - Super Retina OLED Display - Inverted T cursor block (arrow keys) - A powerful GPU - Multi-boot support for Linux also - At least 32GB Ram - Fast charging People like us makes a living out of these machines. We are not here to "getting used to" all the shit Apple produces.
- ashildr 9y agoKeep the FN-Keyboard-Version, add Force-Feedback to the Touchbar.