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>> The MacBook line is going through a dark age right now, where seemingly people who design them are not the same people that use them. That might be true, at

>> The MacBook line is going through a dark age right now, where seemingly people who design them are not the same people that use them. That might be true, at least for some subset of MacBook Pro users, but it is also possible to have a slightly more optimistic view. Instead of being in a 'dark age' you could also see the current models as 'transitional', in the sense that the long-term goal is to have a MBP that is very powerful and thin and caters to all target audiences. Look at the very first MacBook Air for example, that was a pretty shitty laptop in almost every way, except for thinness. In fact, I don't think it improved on earlier Apple laptops in any other way. And it was ridiculously expensive to boot. But it did set a precedent: in terms of size, Apple laptops would from that point on be measured against the MBA, and technology just had to catch up, eventually resulting in the later MBA's. Which I actually think are one of the best laptop series Apple ever made. I don't disagree that for some people the current MBP line-up is a regression, even though I absolutely love mine and have no problems with it except its cost. And I consider myself relatively far towards the power-user demographic, using my laptop primarily for development and heavy compute loads. But my feeling is that the MBP we will see one or two generations from now will be much better and thin, and everyone will have forgotten about USB-A ports and keyboard design flaws.

jandrese 8y ago
Ultimately building ultra-thing requires design tradeoffs. If you can build a thin machine with a powerful processor, lots of ram, huge SSD, powerful graphics, long battery life, and big beautiful screen you could build a thicker laptop that's even more powerful and has better expansion options. You can do a lot with good design, but it's asking too much of Apple's engineers to break the laws of thermodynamics.
- w0utert 8y ago
  By that logic a laptop is never big enough, as you can always cram more and more into it, until you end up with a desktop workstation. The premise is that at some point the components you can fit in a thin and light laptop, are powerful enough for any use case people realistically expect to be able to use a laptop for. Obviously you can still make something even more powerful, but the people who care about these things are very likely to go for a workstation anyway. It has always been like this, but now it looks like we are almost at the point where CPU's and GPU's are becoming power-efficient enough that the law of diminishing returns says you actually can cram enough power in a thin and light laptop like the MBP to satisfy just about anyone who wouldn't get a desktop workstation anyway. Case in point: just have a look at gaming laptops. While you can still get ridiculous monstrosities that weigh 12 kg and run less than one hour on a single charge under load, the trend is thinner and lighter for this category as well.
  - jandrese 8y ago
    > By that logic a laptop is never big enough, as you can always cram more and more into it, until you end up with a desktop workstation. That's right on the nose. The tradeoff is portability. You sacrifice performance to make it easier to carry around. Sometimes people are ok with something that's harder to transport to have more power.
jwr 8y ago
Engineering is about compromises. You can't have a laptop toat is both very powerful and very thin and caters to all audiences. If this were possible, Apple with their resources would have already created this super-laptop and there would be only one product in their lineup.

jandrese 8y ago

Ultimately building ultra-thing requires design tradeoffs. If you can build a thin machine with a powerful processor, lots of ram, huge SSD, powerful graphics, long battery life, and big beautiful screen you could build a thicker laptop that's even more powerful and has better expansion options. You can do a lot with good design, but it's asking too much of Apple's engineers to break the laws of thermodynamics.

w0utert 8y ago
By that logic a laptop is never big enough, as you can always cram more and more into it, until you end up with a desktop workstation. The premise is that at some point the components you can fit in a thin and light laptop, are powerful enough for any use case people realistically expect to be able to use a laptop for. Obviously you can still make something even more powerful, but the people who care about these things are very likely to go for a workstation anyway. It has always been like this, but now it looks like we are almost at the point where CPU's and GPU's are becoming power-efficient enough that the law of diminishing returns says you actually can cram enough power in a thin and light laptop like the MBP to satisfy just about anyone who wouldn't get a desktop workstation anyway. Case in point: just have a look at gaming laptops. While you can still get ridiculous monstrosities that weigh 12 kg and run less than one hour on a single charge under load, the trend is thinner and lighter for this category as well.
- jandrese 8y ago
  > By that logic a laptop is never big enough, as you can always cram more and more into it, until you end up with a desktop workstation. That's right on the nose. The tradeoff is portability. You sacrifice performance to make it easier to carry around. Sometimes people are ok with something that's harder to transport to have more power.

jwr 8y ago

Engineering is about compromises. You can't have a laptop toat is both very powerful and very thin and caters to all audiences. If this were possible, Apple with their resources would have already created this super-laptop and there would be only one product in their lineup.