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New 13-inch MacBook Pro

• missosoup 6y ago
  Is it just me or is Apple starting to fall woefully behind non-mac hardware competitors in both price and perf? I used to look forward to these announcements, now it's just 'we upgraded to a +1 generation config (still 1-2 generations behind what others are doing), that'll be 2000 bucks thanks'. Advertising 4 cores and 2018 Iris graphics as if it's some kind of achievement, when competitors have full dGpu solutions and 6 cores in same sized chassis at the same price bracket. They're taking a bit of a piss at this point.
  • dontbenebby 6y ago
    My issue is forcing terrible design decisions. No headphone port on the SE, forced touchbar on MBP. My next laptop may not be a Mac because of the touchbar.
  • jccalhoun 6y ago
    The "apple tax" has been a thing for decades now. I have never owned a mac but I listen to a mac-centric podcast and from their complaints I am not sure why I, a non-programmer, would ever pay the apple tax to buy one.
  • New_Horizon 6y ago
    It's not like pulling stuff like this is new for Apple but I think Jobs being dead has caused it to happen a LOT more.
  • explorigin 6y ago
    Perhaps, but show me build quality on the same level in the PC world. Even though I find Apple lagging behind it's previous standards in build quality, it's still better that most in the PC world. (I'm still on a mid 2015 MBP and completely content to stay with it.)
    • curiousgal 6y ago
      Dell XPS 15.
      • umanwizard 6y ago
        I own one and this is just not true.
      • tachion 6y ago
        Not even close. All plastic, much worse touchpad and coil whine in all models I cared to check up on.
        • theelous3 6y ago
          It's carbon fiber composite and machined aluminum. Yes, there is some plastic, but it's solid as shit. No coil whine in mine. Touchpad idk, because I don't care that much about miniscule differences in touchpads, but it does the job as well as any high end laptop. All touchpads are trash imo, so I find it hard to prefer one over the other. Most important for me when writing code is keyboard and screen. The kn is acceptable. The matte screen is a must for me. Even if it was all plastic, tbh I'd still take it for the matte screen.
          • feteru 6y ago
            I think we have different subjective tastes, I use my laptop docked most of the time, but the touchpad on macs is the only acceptable one I've used. All others fall that 5-10% below in performance and smoothness that makes them unusable. It's miniscule, but it's the most important final few percentage points. Not a huge fan of matte screens either, I like pretty colors that pop and rarely work outside. Although I did have a privacy screen on my computer for a bit which was fun.
            • theelous3 6y ago
              Even indoors I find the reflections awful on non matte monitors. If you have your laptop permadocked, why do you care about touchpad? Surely you use a mouse?
  • tsar9x 6y ago
    Well, competitors are still behind Apple. They offer worse touchpad, worse screens (it's either 16:9 or weird resolution), no macOS, worse speakers, worse microphone, worse battery.
    • nickcox 6y ago
      No sure that no macOS makes competitors objectively worse.
      • tsar9x 6y ago
        Objectively not, but in practice a lot of people are locked in Apple ecosystem, for long time MacBooks were the only good laptops for development with support of communicators, graphic tools etc. It's changing with Linux and WSL, but can't blame people to stay with macOS if it works for them. Personally I'm using linux and thinkpad, but even x1 carbon falls short to MacBooks in areas I mentioned before.
        • feteru 6y ago
          Yep, I'm using an X1 Yoga, still not nearly as nice to use as OSX on a Macbook Pro that's 3 years older than it, and that's with either Windows or Linux. Ubuntu touchpad drivers are pretty bad, the windows ones are tolerable but still fail at multi-finger gestures. I really like the touchscreen, but the display colors/look aren't nearly as good. Overally pretty disappointed for a system that's close to top-spec when compared to my base spec MBP from years earlier (but it does run my Windows applications for work which I need).
      • tachion 6y ago
        Laugh as much as you want but to me (and many others) it actually is. I would look at other manufacturers for their hardware, but sadly it's all non-MacOs and I value this operating system above anything else for my needs (work and personal).
        • Lammy 6y ago
  • ashtonkem 6y ago
    Apple has never been particularly great on the price/performance ratio of their laptops. You buy their laptops for the fully integrated package, not for the specs.
  • KingFelix 6y ago
    Now with quad core ability! Never been a mac person, but I do agree it appears to be a bit lackluster. Its not the same comparison, but for ~1800 a new home workstation with 2070 Super / 3900x 12 core CPU becomes a pretty powerful machine.
  • Waterluvian 6y ago
    I haven't owned a mac in a while since employment now supplies me with a laptop. But my experience with this point of view is that it's about holistic vs. non-holistic thinking. When someone points at specs and tells me that X is better than Y for price, they're getting to that conclusion by ignoring a whole bunch of variables. To take this to the extreme, I had a friend genuinely say, "Why did you spend $90 on a baby monitor? You can just get a RPi, Camera, microphone, and wire it together for like $45." I have an xps-15 for work and it's... it's okay. It's decent hardware. But I want a mac because I need a non-Windows environment and I'm just dead tired of all the jank in Ubuntu. I no-longer try to undock it because doing so is either a full reboot or the resolution/scaling gets messed up and video memory corrupts (my fonts became colour vomits). For me, buying a Mac is basically, "here's a ton of money. Now I don't have to think about these things for 7 years." (except the last few macs questionable hardware absolutely ruined this peace of mind...)
    • dylkil 6y ago
      >I'm just dead tired of all the jank in Ubuntu. im thinking about moving to ubuntu, what sort of jank is annoying you?
      • danogentili 6y ago
        Install arch i3
      • Tenoke 6y ago
        All OSs have their issues. I use Windows and Ubuntu daily and have had work macbooks. In a lot of cases it does come down to what you are used to, as there are design differences that aren't necessarily worse or better but when you get used to one the other feels janky. At any rate, in Ubuntu's case things like display support are worse - especially multiple different DPI screens (yes, there are workarounds). UI is less slick in places. Some software is better supported while some have worse support. Things like that.
        • ikeboy 6y ago
  • xxs 6y ago
    >Is it just me or is Apple starting to fall woefully behind non-mac hardware competitors in both price and perf? Since forever... Ok, perhaps adding the SSDs was a great touch. However, Apple is considered a fashion brand, where you pay more for the brand, itself. In virtually any regard Lenovo business laptops are a better price/value proposition: easily extensible - more memory, m2 slots, docking, pcb with conformal coating, easily serviceable keyboard, touch pads, replaceable battery, etc. A lot better thermals, like a lot. And when it comes to perf. it's not even remotely close. And yes, multiple USB-A slots, HDMI, display port, rj-45, no dongle nonsense.
    • ntsplnkv2 6y ago
      Honestly not a fan of the Lenovo line. I've always bought their tried and true models, and none of them have held up over time vs my MacBooks. Sure on the specs/$ they were better, but overall I preferred my macbooks.
      • xxs 6y ago
        Any particular reasons?
        • ntsplnkv2 6y ago
          They just didn't seem to last as long, for one reason or another. They were fine when functional. We just replaced them at a much greater rate than our Macbooks. BUT this was about 2 years ago, so a lot of our macbooks were older devices without the new keyboard mechanism. In my personal life, my 2010 pro is still going strong. My mother uses it now - no complaints. Some things have failed, the optical drive. But man is that thing a tank.
  • nothis 6y ago
    I can defend their "chassis" as being ahead of the competition and you basically paying for the time they spent shaving shit off until it's perfect. But that damn touch bar. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the most custom of custom random hardware part, adding like half a smartphone's production cost to it. How much productivity can that thing possibly add? Who on earth says, "yea that touch bar, certainly worth more than 1TB of SSD space and 16GB of RAM!".
    • hu3 6y ago
      I can't defend their chassis. Competition offers 14" machines in 13" form-factor with thin bezels for almost a decade now.
      • solarkraft 6y ago
        What decade old laptop would you compare to a Macbook in design? I have only started noticing attractive competitor laptops appearing around 2014.
        • hu3 6y ago
          I'm talking about form-factor specifically. Not "design" which is subjective. XPS 13 has had thin bezel for a long time now. Sporting smaller chassis than macs on same screen size. Here's first google result, from 2015: https://www.ibtimes.com/dell-xps-12-xps-13-xps-15-hands-ultra-thin-bezel-laptops-get-windows-10-intel-skylake-2133627 https://www.ibtimes.com/dell-xps-12-xps-13-xps-15-hands-ultr... And here is a list of various laptops with thin bezels from different brands: https://www.colourmylearning.com/2018/09/laptops-with-minimal-bezel-best-ultraportables-with-infinity-display/ https://www.colourmylearning.com/2018/09/laptops-with-minima...
  • paulcole 6y ago
    They don’t expect everyone who bought the last computer update to buy this one. I work on a 13” MacBook Air from 2014 and it’s time for an update. $1500 for this feels like exactly what I’ve been waiting for. When was the last time that over a period of years each update to a MacBook Pro was a monumental upgrade? Maybe early 2000s when they went from PowerPC to Intel? I think you’re just remembering this rosier than it really was.
  • mysticmode 6y ago
    Indeed. And the words that Apple puts to explain about their products is going really numb. They should change their ambiguous tone and show the real progress in these mac. I can absolutely get a better laptop at a reasonable price than these products and the features that offers and be more productive.
  • biktor_gj 6y ago
    It's even worse when you notice that two of the four "new" models come with an 8th gen Intel CPU, and DDR3 memory, it's like they replaced the keyboard from the previous model and they're calling it "new". Between selling cpu's 2 generations behind, the keyboard issues, and thermal problems in the Macbook Airs, it really seems like Apple is trying its best to alienate buyers from their laptop line. Just recommended a coworker a Macbook Air for her son, an i7, 16Gb of RAM and 512Gb SSD. From off to account creation, the fan was already running. By the time the laptop was showing the desktop it was burning to touch. Some more testing and I found out the CPU was at 94-98ºC after 4 minutes. Turns out it is by design (just take a look at the photos of the cpu cooler, separated from the fan https://www.ifixit.com/News/36480/theres-something-new-in-the-macbook-air https://www.ifixit.com/News/36480/theres-something-new-in-th...). She just returned the laptop and is exploring options from Dell and Lenovo. Even if you like MacOS, you now have to wait before buying anything Apple until you can see a teardown just to see if it's going to survive even casual use.
    • danieldk 6y ago
      Between selling cpu's 2 generations behind, the keyboard issues, and thermal problems in the Macbook Airs, What thermal problems? I have had the Air 2020 in the Core i5 configuration for two weeks and the fan rarely spins up. Even when it does, I can touch the hottest part of the laptop without problems. From off to account creation, the fan was already running. That's not strange. Spotlight spends the first whatever amount of time on indexing the hard drive. Indexing implies parsing various files/file formats. This usually ends when indexing is done. With the fixed keyboard, the MacBook Air 2020 is finally a MacBook that I love again, which I can't really say of the two butterfly Pros I had before (with the first I really disliked the keyboard, the second had a Touch Bar and I always had trouble pressing the Esc key blindly).
    • wyxuan 6y ago
      Honestly since Intel chips have almost all flatlined into 14nm, with the only minute improvements coming from better binning, I don't think the selling CPUs 2gens behind is an issue. Edit-they're actually selling the 10th gen chip, not 8th gen like you describe
  • bluedino 6y ago
    >> I want to go back to the 2010 MBP when it was the best designed, highest perf device available. Not the 13". It was still packing a Core 2 Duo and the screen was 1280x800, when the Air was running 1440x900. The battery life was amazing, though!
  • theelous3 6y ago
    > starting It's been like this since forever. I can't remember a point in time where price per performance was a selling point for apple products, barring seriously oldschool machines. They had the build quality + trendy side of the market shored up for a small time, but even then thinkpads were an easy match, albeit extremely untrendy. For the last long while, since the regoodification of dell and the general shift towards catching up with mac in build quality across the market, they've been a poor choice for anyone looking to maximize their value. I'm frankly shocked that someone finds this surprising these days.
  • pjmlp 6y ago
    I guess so, a Thinkpad P graphical workstation series is cheaper than the top 13" model.
  • dangus 6y ago
    This is really typical “missing the point” when it comes to Apple hardware. First, Apple hardware was never bleeding edge even in 2010. That’s not ever how they operated. They’ve really never played the spec war. They don’t even publicly state the RAM spec in the iPhone while Android competitors make it into a price segmenting feature. What these computers give out is all the stuff people really care about. The computer’s shape and even the large ancient-looking top bezel are giving you a more comfortable typing surface compared to the XPS 13 where your palms slip off the edge if your hands are too big. https://youtu.be/5hMie-xZFzQ https://youtu.be/5hMie-xZFzQ Skip forward to the part talking about typing comfort. The speakers in the Air and Pro are best in class and nothing comes close. That’s something the customer will notice and care about. The microphones in Apple machines are incredible. Something the customer will notice and care about when they use the computer on conference calls. And nobody else has made a trackpad anywhere near as good. Still. I dispute the assertion that there’s a computer out there in this same form factor with a discrete GPU at a similar price point with similar specs, and if there is I’m sure it’s a GeForce MX and not a GTX or RTX, in other words, not really worth the trouble. In reality, nobody buying this class of computer gives a shit about the graphics card. Investing battery life into one is a bad trade-off. I’d also like to see this mythical computer you speak of, what model are you talking about? I also dispute your claims on pricing in general. Dell, for example, places a gate on 16GB of RAM and the high DPI display to the highest XPS 13 model. It’s way less configurable than a similar Mac. A lot of Windows computers that seem to be equivalent to Macs omit features like a high DPI display or make them an upgrade and act like 1080p is “good enough” for customer spending almost a grand or more and doing mostly text work. I find that oversight unacceptable: a high DPI display should absolutely be standard on any computer over $700 that isn’t intended for gaming, IMO. Expecting 6 cores or the very latest generation of every component is beside the point. Nobody notices that stuff. Only benchmarks can see the difference. What actually makes a good computer is good ergonomics, good display, good battery life, good speakers, good microphones. The hardware internals are, in 2020 when computer performance is improving at a slower rate than ever before, nearly a complete afterthought.
  • Hippocrates 6y ago
    Has Apple ever designed a product solely around just a couple of specs? No. Consumers unfortunately fail to realize this and compare A vs B based on cherry picked specs. The reason you can't get a top of the line CPU and GPU in the MacBook is that Apple would then have to increase the price past the point which the machine would have broad appeal, or make concessions in other important areas. What are those important areas? - Speakers, Mic, Webcam - Trackpad - Aluminum chassis and form factor - Touch ID - Mac OS (like it or not, this is perhaps the most important feature for those considering Macs.) It's very possible the competitive landscape has changed since 2010 and they are placing more focus on these ancillary features than before, but the strategy has always appeared to be to deliver a superior holistic machine. I, and their financials would argue they have been doing that from before 2010 through now.
  • dangus 6y ago
    The 10nm Intel Ice Lake CPUs found in the new 13-inch MacBook Pro are currently exclusive to Apple.
• bluedino 6y ago
  Just a spec bump and addition of the Magic Keyboard. Sure, 10th gen CPU and up to 4TB/32GB, but no 6-core CPU, no 14" screen. A lot of people are going to be disappointed.
  • aldanor 6y ago
    What's the target audience for 14'' 6-core? Perhaps not as wide as a 13'' 4-core that's significantly cheaper. Those looking for a highest spec mbp would probably look into 16'' anyway
    • bluedino 6y ago
      I agree - but competitors like the XPS 13 have a 6-core CPU.
  • jbverschoor 6y ago
    Yep.. 14”.. otherwise I’d have ordered the 32gb/2tb top version
  • bitcoinofficial 6y ago
    Yeah, I agree. These upgrades are kind of disappointing.
  • mmcconnell1618 6y ago
    Spec bump (not even wifi6) is an indicator of a major design upgrade coming in the fall. I expect a significant exterior change or the switch to Arm processors come October.
    • PedroBatista 6y ago
      Not this year, maybe next October and it's still a stretch.. Arrogance is an Apple trademark, but they now have become complacent regarding their products ( not their financial performance though.. )
• nivertech 6y ago
  4 cores? Pro? 2020? lol EDIT: maybe 4 cores are enough for development using non-compiled languages, and if you don't use Chrome and Electron apps, and not running several VMs and docker containers. Some programming languages like Julia and Erlang/Elixir will happily use all the cores available on your laptop to speed up calculations, run builds, tests and other development tasks.
  • lmilcin 6y ago
    4 cores is actually more than enough to do almost all development. I work on a four core PC right now (i7-4770k) running Linux and couple VMs and containers, one VM dedicated to running Windows 10 which is in turn running Citrix client. I have two 4K monitors and bunch of hardware. I work on webapps, backend software, have couple IDEs running at the same time and probably Zoom session, not to mention huge amount of Chrome tabs. It all works without hitch and if there is a hitch it is typically Chrome or Gnome misbehaving, not lack of cores.
    • rvz 6y ago
      Yes. Now just avoid running those poor Electron apps which actually impact battery life on all laptops. No user shouldn't need to get a laptop with a i7 CPU with 16GB to 32GB of RAM and a high end GPU to run your over-engineered chat app. I get this all the time with my MacBook that I use for development. Run 1 or 2 of them is fine, but 10 or more at the same time and it will run the machine down to the ground.
      • Jonnax 6y ago
        Okay. So today most desktop apps are electron. The advantage is that it allows people to make windows, Mac and Linux apps with ease. They're not going to go anywhere unless there is a better alternative. Coding native is a waste of money in most cases. Especially for a chat app. Hardware manufactures sell computers. The computers they sell need to be able to perform well on the applications that exist today. There's no point saying the apps are shitty if the laptop they're trying to sell doesn't run well with it. Maybe today laptops should have 16gb of ram at a minimum. AMD's resurgence has shown Intel in some cases dropping the price of their CPUs by 50%. Maybe cheaper computers need to be more powerful.
• shawndellysse 6y ago
  So glad they finally got rid of the butterfly keyboard! That said, I cannot wait until they retire the Touch Bar.
  • aldanor 6y ago
    And add the Esc to iPad keyboards while they're at it
    • ascagnel_ 6y ago
      13.4 added key remapping for hardware keyboards. I have caps lock mapped to control and the globe/international keyboard key mapped to escape.
  • bluedino 6y ago
    The Air has a perfectly sane keyboard.
    • shawndellysse 6y ago
      Yeah, if only I could get the 16" Pro with the keyboard of the Air. I need a bit more cpu power and ram than the Air can offer sadly. Eh, my mid-2015 MBP with an i7-4780HQ and 16gb of memory will do for now. I occasionally bump into the memory limit but hopefully I can hold out until a fully sane keyboard is an option. Either that or hacklapintosh it
      • dividedbyzero 6y ago
        Doesn't the 16" Pro have the new keyboard? Or are there multiple new keyboards around?
        • lukifer 6y ago
          I use both the 16" and the 2020 Air, the keyboards feel identical to me.
        • 6y ago
• lmilcin 6y ago
  I just looked to check. Still no physical Fn keys, still shallow butterfly keyboard. That's a pass. Hopefully Apple comes to its senses some day and creates a computer that is designed for actual work, where a single beard follicle is not going to make it unusable midday.
  • tomstuart 6y ago
    The Magic Keyboard uses scissor switches, not butterfly.
    • lmilcin 6y ago
      And how do these scissors work with beard follicle? It's all the same to me, really, if it can't survive piece of hair. For the past 20 years I have been using Thinkpads. My last one is T440s which I bought immediately it was available and still wait for it to die. I would like a MBP but seeing what the Thinkpad went through I just don't think so. I spilled stuff on it not once but twice, once hot latte and once a liter of mineral water in a bag. I had to open it and stand it on its side while open so that water drains out of it... Then I had to disassemble it and dry individual leaves of which the screen is composed of. I had to take the rest of the day off in both cases to save my laptop but other than that I was ready for work the next day, files intact, tools in place.
      • ubercow13 6y ago
        T440s also uses scissors like almost every laptop
        • lmilcin 6y ago
          Thinkpad keyboard is completely unlike Apple keyboards, however the technology is called. Just the key travel on Thinkpad is probably more than entire thickness of Apple keyboard.
          • pmart123 6y ago
• curiousgal 6y ago
  Another year, another laughable release with the same BS language trying to dazzle "Pro" wanna-be's. There is nothing Pro about these machines.
  • sturza 6y ago
    if 32 GB is not “pro”, i don’t know if we have the same understanding about what “pro” means
    • SnowflakeOnIce 6y ago
      That’s like... 1 Slack and a dozen Chrome tabs. :|
    • SparkleBunny 6y ago
      I have 64GB in my Thinkpad P71. I got it ~2 years ago. Why so much ram? I make money with this beast. How's your Starbucks?
      • pb7 6y ago
        I bet I make at least twice the money with half the RAM. ;) Weird thing to belittle someone over there man.
        • sturza 6y ago
          you basically did the same thing with your comment
          • pb7 6y ago
            I'm just speaking his language to deflate his ego a little bit by showing him that his point that RAM = money has no basis in reality.
            • SparkleBunny 6y ago
• calin2k 6y ago
  So now all the MacBook Pro 13's have no physical function keys?
  • fastball 6y ago
    Yep. You can get a MBA though. Not nearly as "airy" as they used to be, given that the screen is 13" too and you can get a decent amount of RAM in there. CPU still isn't great, but probably you're not doing super CPU intensive stuff with a 13" MBP.
  • foldr 6y ago
    The MacBook Pro with function keys was retired when they introduced the new MacBook Air. So this is now a new development.
• ly 6y ago
  Interesting to see they upgraded the RAM, but still kept it LPDDR3, even though all other Macs have DDR4 (except for the MacBook Air, which as LPDDR4X). At this price point I would honestly expect DDR4 in a "Pro" machine.
  • t3rabytes 6y ago
    To get the 32GB of RAM option, you have to select the configs that have the 10th gen chips which change over to 3733MHz LPDDR4X.
  • solarkraft 6y ago
    Wait, what? Hasn't DDR3 been phased out nearly everywhere about 5 years ago?
    • ashtonkem 6y ago
      LP = low power. It gives Apple laptops incredible sleep times, and Apple will take LPDDR3 over DDR4 given that choice.
      • jfkebwjsbx 6y ago
        LPDDR4 (X) is a thing...
        • ashtonkem 6y ago
          IIRC there was some problem with LPDDR4 having issues with sleeping power consumption that slowed Apple’s adoption of it.
          • danieldk 6y ago
            That is DDR4 (no LP). MacBook Air 2020, MacBook Pro 16", and the most expensive MacBook Pro 13" configuration use LPDDR4.
            • 6y ago
• pandatigox 6y ago
  Interesting to see that coding is recognised on the landing page, something that a lot of people here thought that Apple tried to distance from.
  • marcinzm 6y ago
    >there is still no physical escape key Yes there is, it's clearly there in every picture of the keyboard.
    • pandatigox 6y ago
      My apologies, my eyes glossed over the tilde key and thought that was the end. My enthusiasm has returned!
  • gshakir 6y ago
    The page says there is a dedicated esc key on the newly designed keyboard
  • deleted 6y ago
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• thathndude 6y ago
  Disappointed we didn't see a 14" in a 13.3" body, or anything otherwise exciting here. I for one prefer the butterfly keyboard. So the magic keyboard is at best a neutral move (I think a downgrade). For those folks who loathe the butterfly, I'm sure they'll be delighted at a 13" with the new magic keyboard. For me, it looks like the 2018 will continue to be on my desk. Happy that I maxed it at time of purchase. Maybe an ARM Macbook in 2021 is in my future.
  • epanchin 6y ago
    Still a lot of bezel on these, I was expecting to see less, at least down the sides.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • neuronic 6y ago
    Probably have hard-coded screen paint calculations for typical macOS and a need for massive multi-year refactor to allow non-typical screen sizes (e.g. 1cm more when removing the bezels on 13"). Semi-sarcasm.
• jbverschoor 6y ago
  :/... no 14”. Still not a a proper FaceTime camera. Maybe they’ll announce something during wwdc
  • whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    Insane how poor the MacBook line cameras are for the machine price, even the $400 Surface Go puts them to shame.
• philipkiely 6y ago
  Now all Apple laptops feature magic keyboards. Butterfly switches are no more! I’m not convinced by the value of the thirteen inch pro versus the air. Same screen size, keyboard, and ports. Similar upgrade path. I know that not all i5/i7 etc are created equal, and the 13 inch pro uses chips that draw more power, but could someone explain the more concrete difference in performance that a user would see day to day?
  • freeone3000 6y ago
    The 13 inch pro will get hotter faster. The idea is that the additional room in the boost clock should allow you to open new chrome tabs and load GMail slightly faster, but if you're doing any sort of sustained performance task, you're going to hit thermal limits within a minute or two.
    • raihansaputra 6y ago
      That's only considering the boost clock though. The thermal package on the MacBook Air is __horrid__. The MBP can sustain longer periods of boost, albeit with fans spinning up. The new MBA will literally throttle in minutes on medium/high loads due to the dysfunctional semi-passive cooling design.
  • bluedino 6y ago
    Even the last Pro will destroy the Air when it comes to something like video encoding, 3D rendering, etc. Anything that will run full-tilt for longer than 20 seconds. It is faster in things like Geekbench or browser benchmarks, and if you're buying the Air you're probably not using it to do heavy lifting.
    • danieldk 6y ago
      Even the last Pro will destroy the Air when it comes to something like video encoding, 3D rendering, etc. Anything that will run full-tilt for longer than 20 seconds. The new Pro 13 (except for the most expensive configuration) have 8th generation CPUs, whereas the Air has 10th generation GPUs. Usually newer Intel generations have more extensive support for hardware encoding/decoding. The Air 2020 CPUs support AVX-512. The 2020 Airs have a faster GPU. Finally, the Airs have 3733 MHz LPDDR4X RAM and the Pros 2133 MHz LPDDR3. It's not always a given that these 8th generation Pros will be faster on a given task. Compiling on multiple cores, most probably. Video encoding, decoding, etc. Not necessarily. It is faster in things like Geekbench or browser benchmarks, Single core, the Air 2020's CPU is a tad faster than the 8th generation that they put in these MacBook Pros. Multicore the Pros win, but by not that wide a margin. For most people, the MacBook Pro 13" 2020 in the first two configurations (1499 and 1799) will be nearly equally fast for most practical purposes. So, it's mostly about whether you prefer the extra storage of the Air at the same price point or the Touch Bar. If you want something faster than ballpark Air, you should get the most expensive configuration or the Pro 16".
• jadamczyk 6y ago
  Good that they went for more less the same setup as in 16 inch model. The escape key and old keyboard switches really do make the difference for me.
  • jadamczyk 6y ago
    But the size of the 16 inch is huge compared to 13 inch. Not too comfy to hold it on my lap when travelling by train. Finally there's an option.
    • rbanffy 6y ago
      Also, you can't really open the 16" during a flight in economy class. Not that we are flying anytime soon. Could as well get an iMac...
    • andrewzah 6y ago
      I downgraded from a 2015 retina mbp 15" to a 13", and the 15" just seems monstrous now. I love the size of 12"-13" laptops. They weigh less, are much more portable, and I don't actually need all that real estate.
• mrzool 6y ago
  So, no model with physical F-keys available anymore… touchbar only.
  • tachion 6y ago
    MacBook Air still has the physical F keys.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • pier25 6y ago
      But shit cooling
• bnt 6y ago
  What I find irritating is the fact that you have to get the 2ghz CPU in order to be able to get 32gb RAM. It feels like artificial price inflation because the refresh is definitely not as exciting as people had hoped (no 14" micro LED screen, like every single "leak" suggested). Also, the base CPU is an 8th gen chip, you need to fork out a lot of extra $$$ to get to 10th gen.
  • ianhowson 6y ago
    Agreed. MacBook Air has quad-core in similar clock ranges but tops out at 16GB of RAM. Pay an extra $1300-ish for Pro, you can get 32GB of RAM. There's literally nothing else in this refresh that's compelling. And the only reason I want that RAM is for Chrome.
    • jbverschoor 6y ago
      Check out: The great suspender.
      • thanksforfish 6y ago
        https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspender/klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspende...
      • ianhowson 6y ago
        I use it. I wish I didn't need to.
    • j45 6y ago
      FWIW, Firefox on 32 gb got me to over 2000+ tabs the one time I tried.
  • AgloeDreams 6y ago
    32Gb of ram requires DDR4 which in this case, requires 10th gen chips. Reading through this, I can't help but think this feels like Apple's 2.5Ghz PowerMac G5 all over again, back in like 2004. Back then, they promised a 3Ghz G5 CPU in under a year and IBM just couldn't do it. Apple even noted it as why they were switching to Intel at the time. They couldn't keep promises and it seemingly pissed Steve off to the point of basically trashing them on stage. This order sheet only makes sense if you think: 'What would they do if Apple couldn't get enough 10th gen parts and they showed up late?' Obviously they would skew them to the high end models as they move mostly lower spec models. That way your product line still offers the fastest Intel hardware. But it makes for a messy nonsensical spec sheet that confuses customers. When should I get the 8th Gen i7 that Turbos to 4.5Ghz but then when should I get the 10th Gen i7 that Turbos to 4.1Ghz? You know what floored me? This press release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/05/apple-updates-13-inch-macbook-pro-with-magic-keyboard-double-the-storage-and-faster-performance/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/05/apple-updates-13-inch... It seems to not mention 'Intel' until nearly half way through and exclusively uses it as a technical descriptor twice. (not `Intel's newest processors`, but instead the `10th Generation Intel Core' and 'Intel Iris Plus') The first reference to the CPU just calls them '10th gen processors'. It's like watching a person refer to an ex. This is the first Macbook Pro with a 10nm processor...why don't they say that? This mess of product line just isn't Apple-like...And I think it has them pissed.
• corey_moncure 6y ago
  It's astonishing how far the MBP has fallen in ten years. My 2010 MBP was and still is the perfect laptop design. Look what Apple has taken away from us: MagSafe, SD card slot, optical audio I/O, RJ45, USB-A, even the top row of our keyboards. What have we gained? The same internal advances that are in every other computer, a gimmicky touch bar, fragile keyboard mechanism, and USB-C. What's really sad is that none of this decline was necessary. All they had to do was leave the perfect laptop alone, and go on upgrading the internals. Were they selling the 2010-2012 MBPs at a loss or something?
  • pentae 6y ago
    To be fair, they fixed the keyboard mechanism. But agree 100% on all other points.
    • whywhywhywhy 6y ago
      Could have been fixed much quicker, I don't see why we are saying they did a good job on that problem when they just replaced it in exactly the normal product cycle. Could have been fixed within a year but it would have cost more money so nah just ship a faulty product for 4 years they'll eat it up anyway and replace it when we were gonna do a redesign anyway.
  • nonane 6y ago
    MagSafe was flawed - I’m glad it’s gone. It had massive reliability issues due to dust getting in between the connectors - which ending up causing charging problems, excessive heat at the charging port and countless charging adapter replacements.
    • xhruso00 6y ago
      On MBP2015 and i love magsafe.
      • sefrost 6y ago
        It's saved me a fortune.
• StreamBright 6y ago
  I was hoping for a 14" version. Let's wait for the next version either with ARM or AMD CPUs and better graphics.
• djhworld 6y ago
  A bit disappointing the 32GB ram option is only available on the £1,799 model (which, when added, bumps the price to £2,199) Interestingly on that model the RAM is running at a higher speed (3733MHz LPDDR4X vs. 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory) I'm still running my MBP from 2015 which is mostly fine, but Firefox and co. eat the RAM so would be good for an update. Although for work I use the 16" 2019 model with 32GB and Firefox uses 27GB of that quite easily... > djhworld
  • shoo_pl 6y ago
    The ram difference is most likely because the lower-end models use 8th gen CPU, whereas the top tier uses 10th gen.
• idlewords 6y ago
  Bragging about a "dedicated escape key", T-shaped arrow pad and better keyboard in the marketing materials for this thing is the very definition of chutzpah.
  • paulcole 6y ago
    So when they leave the escape key out people complain and when they include an escape key people complain? At least Apple seems to have listened to customer feedback here.
  • ngcc_hk 6y ago
    Crazy. Heard of the communist pig story. We all thank for the supreme leader to remove the pig which we do not ask for in the first place. Thank you.
  • simonh 6y ago
    Now without missing an Escape key!
• sibane 6y ago
  If they were serious about speed, they'd have something to show regarding how well they can manage core temperatures.
• kstenerud 6y ago
  I bought an Honor Magicbook for half the price. It's lightweight, has a beautiful case, proper touchpad (so I don't use my external apple touchpad anymore), nice keyboard, long battery life, and I can run whatever OS I want on it (I'm using Ubuntu atm, but I might try Fedora). It has usb-c, usb-a, hdmi, and headphone jacks. Everything just works. I gave up on Mac when they broke their keyboards and started locking me out of everything. Once my macbook died, I never looked back.
• Karupan 6y ago
  A little disappointed it’s not the rumoured 14” model as I’ve been looking to replace both my 15” and 13” MacBooks. Also, regarding other comments on “just” the 4 core CPU - it’s probably all they could squeeze in without having to redesign the chassis/thermal design. I’m going to hold off for a tear down to see if they have improved the cooling system like they did (Or claimed to) with the 16” version.
  • sigzero 6y ago
    The 14" was just that, a rumor. MKHD had an interview with Phil S. and he said they were not coming out with a 14" point blank.
    • natch 6y ago
      Yeah. But coming from a marketing executive like Phil, this kind of "not coming out with it" doesn't mean "never." It means "not coming out with it this next upcoming version." I think the rumor will stay alive.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • Eric_WVGG 6y ago
    I’ve always found the 13” Pros to be the “worst of both worlds” compromise. You don’t get the svelte lightness of the Air, or the generous desktop or raw power of the big boy. Whatever your priority is, it’s just not there. A 14” screen would have at least differentiated the product. I think a lot of these are bought by corporate bean counters and people who assume that Airs must be awful if they’re the most affordable. (Yes, I’ve used them, my current “burner” is a ‘17 escape key model)
    • vzidex 6y ago
      Having used a '15 (I think) 13" Pro for two internships, I actually found it met my needs really well. I personally can't stand any 14"+ laptop, so the 13" Pro hit a great spot for me of being: * Svelte enough to watch Netflix in bed with or throw in my bag to take on a commute * Powerful enough that I never had major performance issues when plugged in at my desk at work, driving an external monitor I look back on that machine and those internships fondly, and I could see myself going for a 13" MBP (or 14", if they ever release it) when I next need to upgrade my laptop - after I finish undergrad :)
• threatofrain 6y ago
  To me this pricing sits too closely with the iPad Pro plus magic keyboard, which Apple has been trying to sell as good enough to be your next Computer. What’s also puzzling is that the new iPad Pro and magic keyboard combo is so heavy it’s basically a laptop.
  • fluffything 6y ago
    The iPad Pro is heavier than the 2020 Macbook air, so.. yeah...
• alexggordon 6y ago
  I was curious how the 13 inch was priced so I compared it to a new Dell XPS 13. Dell has a better processor (maybe, [2]) , but I couldn't find the option to upgrade the Dell to 4TB internal SSD, so I compared both with the 2 TB option. Ram is the same at 32GB. Dell came out to $2399[0] USD and Apple came out to $2999[1] USD. Dell Pros: * Row of function buttons (I've used BTT to customize my touch-bar to the point where it's a little bit of a tossup, but years of muscle memory still haunt me) * Better processor (maybe [2]) * Cheaper * MicroSD reader Apple Pros: * Better Trackpad * More Ports (Upgraded Dell only has 2 USB-C, while Upgraded MBP has 4) * Better hardware support * Better resale value Objectively, seems to me that list used to be a lot longer on the Apple side. IMHO I think the Touch Bar disappointment is probably over dramatized by developers, it's not too bad a couple years in and BTT has made it so I can run whatever macros I want in any application, so overall tossup in my mind. I still miss mag-safe adapters though. I still don't understand that decision. Also, I'm happy with the new Magic Keyboard. I have the 16 inch MBP right now, and I will say that even though I prefer the travel of the '12-'15 era keyboards, this typing experience is far superior than the faulty butterfly keys. I'm hoping given how they've walked the keyboard back, and how the new Mac Pro is actually a Pro machine that they're headed back in the right direction (post Jony Ive). A $600 price difference for this machine is probably worth it in my mind, just given my experience with resale value, longevity and lack of competitors, but there's a lot of room improvement. [0] https://imgur.com/a/p6RA9HF https://imgur.com/a/p6RA9HF [1] https://imgur.com/a/f6ii7h9 https://imgur.com/a/f6ii7h9 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23067768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23067768
  • t3rabytes 6y ago
    I think "better processor" can only fall into the Dell camp if it's confirmed that they're running it at a 25W TDP all-the-time and not the default 15W, or else Apple's chip choices will likely win because they can consume more power (but I don't know the actual model #s Apple is using).
    • alexggordon 6y ago
      Yeah, that's the stupid part about tech specs honestly--so many hidden caveats--I always thought it was interesting that Apple benchmarks usually outperform competitors when comparing similar hardware, usually to things like this. Mostly annoyed now, because you are correct, it's running at 15W[0][1]. [0] https://imgur.com/a/ry5eAIy https://imgur.com/a/ry5eAIy [1] source for [0] (pg 11) https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/xps-13-7390-2-in-1-laptop_setup-guide_en-us.pdf https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/xps-13-7390-2-in-1-laptop_se...
• jbverschoor 6y ago
  I actually think it’s just a way to get the ordered components out of inventory. No big announcement, 14” will come at wwdc
• hhjinks 6y ago
  Happy to see they're back to having a physical escape key. That's my biggest gripe with my current 13".
• wildchild 6y ago
  what a scam.
• hidiegomariani 6y ago
  I've a macbook pro 13' 2017 - It's the worst laptop I've used in the past 10 years. It continuously gets smoking hot lot of fan noise and very often kernel panics. I have lost faith in apple macbook especially when price to hardware ratio is higher than anyone else in the industry I expect the machine to just work seamlessly. I'm very soon disposing the laptop and buy a dell or a thinkpad. I'm not looking at apple again for a very long time at least for macbooks
  • whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    I have same model at work and even ignoring the keyboard the thing has been awful to use. The two ports are a complete nightmare making you have to juggle between power/screen and reliable storage (Tried 5 dongles, none can hold a drive reliably under heavy use). Kernel Panics on waking from sleep almost every day, bluetooth chip crashes and requires restarts to get working again. Not to mention the disgustingly low storage in the base model that my company thinks is fine makes the thing almost unusable for any semblance of "Professional" work other than being a journalist. The design doesn't even feel modern and the bezels are janky compared to whats normal now on the windows side. I understand the new model fixes some of this, but they still thought this thing was absolutely fine to ship for several years now speaks volumes to me.
    • bambataa 6y ago
      I have the same and it’s making me want to move to a Linux laptop. With the bluetooth chip, do you get an error when it crashes? Airdrop basically never works on mine and I was wondering if it might be a related problem.
      • whywhywhywhy 6y ago
        Nope it's completely silent failure, only thing noticeable is I think if I toggle it on and off in the menu a few times it will freeze coming back on. But rebooting fixes it. But yeah AirDrop wont work in the state so it's likely the same issue because on a long enough uptime the chip crashes without fail.
• emilfihlman 6y ago
  Can we comment on the web design on the page? That mouseover highlight and share option is obnoxious. It's strange that Apple went that route.
• Tepix 6y ago
  Funny anecdote: Apple offers a trade-in when buying a new Macbook. I decided to have a look. I entered the serial number of my Macbook Air 11" (Late 2010). I confirmed that it boots up, has no defects, has no optical faults and that I will include the power supply. Apple offered 10€ ($12). Yay?! PS: This ancient notebook runs macOS High Sierra with the current 2020-2 security patch and sells for an astonishing 200€ on eBay.
  • decafninja 6y ago
    I have the same machine, which served as my ultra-portable unit until say...2018. Now it's gathering dust. It's just too slow now. Even browing web pages is unbearably slow. I wish it wasn't because I love the 11" form factor. If Apple were to offer something in that size again, I'd buy it.
  • geerlingguy 6y ago
    Most trade-in or authorized reseller values they'll give is 70-80% below what you'd get private party. I usually sell my laptop at a 30-50% discount to a friend, or get a little more value selling it on Craigslist. The nice thing about Macs is even at 5 or 10 years old, there's a market for used Macs.
  • dagmx 6y ago
    You’ll always get a better resale value by selling it yourself versus going through Apple. The difference will be down to convenience for many people and potentially the lower upfront cost of purchase if you haven’t sold the previous device yet.
  • ConfusedDog 6y ago
    I got a brand new one evaled for free disposal. That was really generous of Apple.
    • interestica 6y ago
      "You're welcome" This is my favourite. Don't we (Canada/Ontario) already pay an e-waste fee on purchase?
• jdlyga 6y ago
  Does this use the 2020 redesigned keyboard with longer travel? That's literally the only thing I care about that they can potentially change.
  • geerlingguy 6y ago
    Yes.
  • AgharaShyam 6y ago
    Yes
• q92z8oeif 6y ago
  summary: minimally updated cpu and storage. AND WE PUT BACK THE ESCAPE KEY LOT AT THE NICE PICURE (but don't us to explicitly say it). also we swear the keyboard might be fixed this time and we will leave you hanging if there's still a headphone port.
• DSingularity 6y ago
  My new 16 inch crashes once every 48-72 hours. Been pretty upset with it so far.
  • dziulius 6y ago
    Mine did too occasionally also had other issues (like random wakes and not returning to sleep), but the upgrade to 15.4 fixed everything.
  • maktouch 6y ago
    Do you have any USB-C hubs attached to it? It happened to me, and it stopped when I switched hubs (tried over 4 of them)
• Traster 6y ago
  Man, it's a really good thing none of us are using video conferencing much these days, otherwise it would be really embarrassing for Apple to release a laptop with a 720p webcam.
• rad_gruchalski 6y ago
  Is it right about time to switch to Catalina? I was excited until I read “comes with Catalina”. Suggestions?
• FillardMillmore 6y ago
  What's the real value in paying more for this compared to getting a new MacBook Air?
  • uberduper 6y ago
    I'm wondering the same. My wife has an i5, 16GB, 256GB air showing up today. At the same price of the base 13 pro, I think the air is the better buy. I don't understand why they still sell anything with < 16GB ram in the base config.
    • neuronic 6y ago
      This and "why is it DDR3 and therefore why is it a Gen8 CPU?" and "why is the storage so bad?" (256GB base is doubled now but still laughable) and "why cant you just drop the useless TouchBar or at least offer that option?" and maybe also "why do we have 1" bezels in 2020?"
      • sixothree 6y ago
        "with standard storage starting at 256GB all the way up to 1TB" This has to be a joke right?
  • pier25 6y ago
    Better cooling.
  • vehemenz 6y ago
    The big thing is thermal design. In the new MBA, a moderate load spins up the fans really loud, whereas in the MBPs, it takes a pegged CPU/GPU to even turn the fans on. Honorable mention: better screen in terms of colors and brightness. Probably a faster SSD. More TB3 ports.
    • climb_stealth 6y ago
      I'd love to see this tested with the new MBP. My 2015 13" MBP behaves as you describe, you pretty much never hear the fan unless you are pegging the CPU. But on my 2018 13" MBP the slightest load will get the fan going and it's terrible.
• eschneider 6y ago
  Wait...is that a hard escape key on there?! Emacs users rejoice! :)
  • als0 6y ago
    Vim users too.
• ateevchopra 6y ago
  The great things: The new keyboard is always welcome. The butterfly keyboard was a huge pain. An escape key is definitely something that most of us have been waiting for ! The bad: I don't get it why Apple is still sticking with a sub-standard 720p facetime camera when they can easily upgrade that. For this video-call covid situation, a nice camera would have been nice
• pbnjay 6y ago
  Only two USB-C ports?!? That's really disappointing, I always have a yubikey in one so that only leaves one free. Seeing this, I'm actually more inclined to get the Air since it has faster ram, a newer processor, and no touch bar. (I'd love 32gb but at Apple prices I could VPN to a custom built rig and still be under budget)
  • bambataa 6y ago
    Last time I complained about this on HN I just got told that I should have bought a higher specced version. Guess my £1800 wasn’t enough for more than two ports on a “Pro” device, thanks fanboys!
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• trhaynes 6y ago
  The escape button escaped from the touchbar!
• btbuildem 6y ago
  Wake me up when the new Macbook has more ports and better cooling.. the other improvements seem a little superficial.
• pr0duktiv 6y ago
  Really glad I bought this year's MacBook Air instead of waiting for this. Seems like a much better deal to me
  • m12k 6y ago
    Are you coding on it? I'm a bit worried about the thermals, and whether I would get fan noise when I'm compiling or running my 3 minute test suite.
    • SnowflakeOnIce 6y ago
      I’ll tell you a little secret: when compiling or running multi-minute test suites, or sometimes even just being in a videochat, the fans rev up, and sound like a weak hair dryer, even on the 16” MBP (which is what I currently use). The thermals on Apple laptops from the last several years don’t seem to be designed to work without frequently revving the fans way up.
      • m12k 6y ago
        Ugh, I was afraid of that. I've been clinging to my 2013 MBP, waiting for an upgrade with a bearable keyboard, and then when the 2020 MBA came along I thought I might have the ideal machine, but then I started hearing about the thermals. Was hoping the new 13 inch MBP might fit the bill instead, but it sounds like the thermals are just kinda crappy these days.
    • pr0duktiv 6y ago
      I am, I don't see much a difference at all compared to my 2016 15" MacBook Pro for Xcode projects. Whenever I need more power, I just ssh into my server with strong specs and start the process.
• gnicholas 6y ago
  $1800 if you want more than 2 ports (one of which is for charging). Between this and the Touch Bar, I’ll probably get an MBA instead to replace my 2017 Pro.
  • pier25 6y ago
    If you don't mind fan noise that is. The 2020 Air has shit cooling.
    • gnicholas 6y ago
      Ugh, good to know. You have one?
      • pier25 6y ago
        I wanted one because on paper it looked great for my needs. But it turns out the CPU has passive cooling and the case fan needs to work very hard to keep it cool. At least the i5 model which is the one I was considering. I don't know about the i3.
        • gnicholas 6y ago
          Do you know where to find out more about this? I like that the fan practically never spins up on my 2017 MBP, but of course the keyboard is garbage. I'm not a dev so perhaps I could get by with a lesser processor, but I wouldn't want to go to the trouble of swapping to get something that is actually slower than my current machine.
          • pier25 6y ago
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSgi2deRivc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSgi2deRivc > At around 30% CPU load (installation of OS updates), the fan is clearly audible and we are already above 40 dB(A), which is hard to understand considering the low performance level. https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-new-2020-MacBook-Air-Core-i5-has-arrived-Faster-CPU-but-still-way-too-loud.459603.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-new-2020-MacBook-Air-Core-...
• PedroBatista 6y ago
  The Apple Tax is becoming so ridiculous even the hardcore fans are getting pissed.. The price/specs don't make any sense even when compared to Apple a couple years ago.
  • tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    The price/specs don't make any sense even when compared to Apple a couple years ago. Two years ago the prices were $1299, $1499, $1799 and $1999 for the off the shelf models. Currently the prices are $1299, $1499, $1799 and $1999. https://web.archive.org/web/20180503185423/https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch https://web.archive.org/web/20180503185423/https://www.apple...
• swyx 6y ago
  really gotta love how "Physical Escape Key" is a feature they promote now.
• surfsvammel 6y ago
  Please Apple, let me choose one without touchbar. I have had a touchbar for over a year now and still haven’t figured out any use for it. Edit: spelling
  • pcshah1996 6y ago
    Something that I've found useful is https://pock.dev/ https://pock.dev/ . It lets the touchbar replace the on-screen dock
    • DenisM 6y ago
      I think this might deserve its own submission.
      • sixstringtheory 6y ago
        It was submitted here [0]. Let the MBP bikeshedding continue... ;) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20229123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20229123
• j45 6y ago
  I’d love to hear anyone’s experience who has recently switched away from, or to a Mac. Nice to see pro class features: - 32 GB Ram is overdue, nice speed. - 4 years to get a working keyboard that is reliable. Missing pro class features: - Selling a 10th gen CPU 9 months after it’s released at full price is disappointing. - No 6 core option like Dell or Lenovo. - The MacBook Pro is the first laptop that has claimed its pro, but has never offered its own docking solution. Surprising for a company that likes proprietary connectors. Professionals quite often dock to a desktop setup. - Not sure if the battery life can be trusted on the i7. I have yet to own an i7 13” MBP that delivers battery life as advertised. - Not going to a 14” (or waiting for the last possible moment to switch to 14”) is a potential big miss. Lenovo and others have this figured out. - Unlike the MacBook Air, the MacBook Pro did not evolve its 13” design to offer something. The a Dell XPS 13 seems to have and offers a compelling package. Having carried a MacBook for the better part of 15 years.. I switched when Windows Vista arrived and destroyed my computing environment with forced upgrades, In terms of performance and reliability, the 2014 13” i7 MacBook Pro could be the peak of Apple laptop quality and performance. After 2015, the MBP continued its eating disorder obsession with thinness, which invited thermal issues as well as a keyboard that was never really ready for the real or professional world. Current setup: I purchased a i9 15” MBP a little over a year ago with 32 GB RAM. The ram has been nice, otherwise its generally been underwhelming and disappointing. When picking this up, the Apple employee asked if I was excited because he personally hadn’t see many of this spec sold. I mentioned to him after ones 10th or 15th laptop, you are more buying the death of a new device down the road.. than buying a new laptop... and I wasn’t looking forward to migrating. So far, it has needed a replaced screen, battery, keyboard. It suffers like many from the phantom kernel_task cpu issue if you plug the power and an accessory on the left side of the laptop that instantly goes away if you plug in one on each side. I might tolerate this from an inferiorly priced machine. I carry a large PD battery to top up the 3-4 hour battery life and keep the laptop charged when carrying it between meetings. I wonder if it’s normal for so many of my MacBooks to have gone in for repair, so many times, even though they remain in flawless condition physically years later. I don’t buy a laptop, I buy a warranty and a guarantee of a working laptop so my laptop is can become invisible, just work, etc. All this.. to say I tried out Ubuntu 20 last week on a Lenovo Tiny PC. Which turned into 2 monitors. And multiple days of higher productivity than I may have had in a very long time. No fighting with docker, only using. It feels like the clarity older OS X environments provided. I expected to try out windows again because I like the Surface Pro so much. Now I’m only using the MacBook for business/research/communication tasks, no more external screens or keyboard, and no longer development and it’s much more enjoyable to use. I’m seeing many who were early converts to the Mac moving back to X1 Carbons and XPS 13’s and the comments here are encouraging for me to consider other options.
• creativecupcak3 6y ago
  Until you remove the touchbar and let me run Linux on it, I will NOT give you a penny.
• fluffything 6y ago
  What about the quality of the webcam? I need to do a lot of video conferencing nowadays, and the macbook air 2020 webcam is worse than the rear facing camera of a Nokia 3210.
  • Saaster 6y ago
    It's still the exact same potato-cam in every model, from the Air to the $$$ MacBook Pro "16.
    • fluffything 6y ago
      How do people WFH with their new $$$ macbooks ? Is there any external cam you would recommend ?
      • dddddaviddddd 6y ago
        I use a Pixel 3a (rear camera) connected over USB + Droidcam as my webcam.
        • AdamGibbins 6y ago
          Droidcam doesn't exist for MacOS?
• DonHopkins 6y ago
  What are the most essential or coolest add-ons to get for a new MacBook Pro? Is there a good all-or-many-in-one dongle with several USB or other ports? Are the any options for extra power supplies? Is there a good dock for using it with a big display on a desktop?
  • fluffything 6y ago
    As others have mentioned, get a silicone keyboard cover, cut the touch bar part of it, and use a hot glue gun to glue it over the touchbar. If you happen to buy a 2019 macbook pro, then don't worry with that, just type on the silicon keyboard cover. It will be bad, but not as bad as using the actual keyboard directly.
  • whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    >Is there a good all-or-many-in-one dongle with several USB or other ports? After struggling for a few years trying to use dongles I'm actually becoming convinced such a thing might not be possible. My screens flicker, my drives drop out all sorts of issues no matter what the dongle or the devices. The other thing that points to this is the fact Apple doesn't just sell one, they could easily sell a USB-A/Display port/Power dock for around $400 and people would lap it up but curiously they don't because I think deep down they have realized the only reliable way to use a USB-C port is a one to one conversion.
• insulanian 6y ago
  I was so looking forward to the rumored 14-inch MBP, in which case I would have upgraded my MBP Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015. Also, having no option for a keyboard with function keys on any MBP model anymore is just disappointing. Why are they so stubborn with that touchbar?!
  • mojo982 6y ago
    If you’re living with a 2015 13” Pro the MacBook Air is a huge upgrade if you opt for 16 RAM and the quad core CPU. I just upgraded and it can handle anything I throw at it (.NET Core, Angular, Docker, JetBrains IDEs)
    • insulanian 6y ago
      i5 or i7? How is the temperature? There are reports that Air has issues with overheating.
• rukittenme 6y ago
  I recently bought the 2020 Macbook Air after breaking my 2017 (18?) Macbook Pro. No touch bar, new "magic" keyboard. Keyboard is great. I think I still prefer the chiclet keys but these are close enough. Function row is far superior to the touch bar. The touch ID button is great too. Makes using 1password much more convenient. Small battery (which means fast charge times) and long battery life are huge for me. I've got 8 1/2 hours remaining on 91% after >1 hour of usage. I unfortunately haven't done any local development on the machine. I ssh into a linux machine on the network. But I don't think the fans ever spin up. And it never feels hot to the touch. I spent two weeks doing remote dev work with a 2012 Macbook Air and another week doing remote dev work with the 2020 Macbook Air. Since processing power was irrelevant my experience between the two was mixed. The 2020 Air has a better trackpad and screen. But the 2012 Air has the better keyboard. I could have used the 2012 for the rest of my life had it had a better screen. Anyway... just some thoughts for anyone looking for a new macbook.
• harha 6y ago
  Is there a good way to figure out how much performance is best suited? I’m considering an upgrade to my 2013 MBP retina and it would be great to know how different configurations play out in terms of speed and battery life. Typical benchmarks are quite difficult to translate to real life usage.
• AnonC 6y ago
  It looks like the frustrations just add up when you look at different factors. In this lineup, the first two models are the 8th generation processors whereas the top model (starting at $1799) is the one with the latest 10th generation processors (but that still comes with a stingy 512GB SSD). Another thing is that SSD storage on Apple Macs is expensive, and they can no longer be upgraded after purchase (since they have the T2 chip and are soldered on to the logic board). This would be kinda ok to put up with just for the combination of hardware and software, but poorly designed software makes the experience worse. Photos and videos take up a lot of space, and Apple's default app, Photos really sucks. You can't move the photos library to an external (cheaper hard) drive and live peacefully. If you do, then you might find yourself unable to eject said drive because there are background processes that launch themselves and keep your photos library in use even if nothing has changed and even when you've let them run for a day or a few days before to finish). Apple seems to be doing a terrible job on the software front (I don't even want to talk about other issues in Catalina). Is there any other alternative for photos on Mac that works well and can also import photos and videos from iOS devices (on to an external drive)?
  • msie 6y ago
    Image Capture, included with OSX.
  • mceachen 6y ago
    I've tested Resilio Sync on my iOS devices and SyncThing on my Android devices to get my photos and videos to my home NAS. PhotoStructure (running in a docker image, but there are other ways to install it) then imports the new files and shows them in my library. (Disclaimer: I'm the author of PhotoStructure, details in my profile) Correction from the original post: I've tested Resilio on iOS and Android. SyncThing doesn't have an iOS port.
    • teejmya 6y ago
      How are you running Syncthing on iOS?
      • 6y ago
• leowoo91 6y ago
  Is there any good use of touch bar for coders?
  • ojagodzinski 6y ago
    simply no.
  • hombre_fatal 6y ago
    I went in trying to be as charitable as possible, looked for workflows that might have opened up. Unfortunately the answer is no. The problem with trying to find a use for the touchbar can be illustrated with what the touchbar does when you're using Google Chrome: it shows you the current URL, and tapping it focuses Chrome's navigation bar. So it's basically a completely pointless round-trip from screen->touchbar->screen. Any compelling touchbar feature has to somehow overcome that massive drawback.
• sasasassy 6y ago
  No one will acknowledge the use of "faster performance"? Alright.
• flomk 6y ago
  I just don't understand what market Apple thinks they are targeting with the past few years of MacBook Pro releases, and I say this while on an early 2015 13" Pro. If the Pro line is truly meant for professionals what does apple think they are accomplishing by getting rid of features that set them apart from the competition? As a former Thinkpad x220 user the 2015's keys are not as good but they are good enough. When I contrast that to the absolutely horrendous keyboard on the 2017 model, I long for 2015 style keys with their somewhat existent key travel. The fact that a dedicated escape key was missing on the first keyboard revision baffles me, and makes me wonder what is going on in product design at Apple. I have not experienced their newest revision of the keyboard on the 16" so I cannot speak to that, but it seems to be received more positively than the 2017 model. If the touch-bar were there to compliment the function keys instead of replace them I don't think it would be nearly as hated. As alexggordon mentioned, with BTT[0] much of the functionality of missing function keys is restored but why is third party software needed to give back full functionality on what is supposed to be a laptop for professionals? On the IO port front, the loss of MagSafe charging is still felt, and while there are MagSafe like adapters for USB-C, I ask myself why does each new generation feel full of unneeded and unwanted compromise? Why can't Apple just stop at replacing the USB-3.0 & Thunderbolt ports with USB-C? A dongle for ethernet makes sense, a dongle for what seems to be everything is madness. And what is Apples obsession with making their laptops ever-thinner? The Pro's are not netbooks from the early 2010s that you can fit in your pocket. Their obsession with making each generation thinner seems to cause thermal throttling, with the culprit always being... insufficient cooling. Shocker. Yet this is supposed to be laptop for professionals? This isn't to say there haven't been improvements. Thinner bezels are always welcome and Apple clearly puts a great amount of thought into their displays and it does not go unnoticed. In addition MacBooks only seem to get better at increasing battery life at levels above the competition. For the time being the it just works factor of Mac OS and being able to use almost any linux package/program thanks to homebrew will probably keep me as a user, but I can't help but notice their Pro lineup seems to less and less useful for professionals and makes me wonder who Apple thinks wants any of these changes. [0] https://folivora.ai/ https://folivora.ai/
• xchaotic 6y ago
  It’s not easy to iterate in hardware and even harder to go back on a failed design. but agreed that Touch Bar needs to be revisited somehow.
• amiga_500 6y ago
  I always find it so weird with laptops and TVs that they have loads of glossy pictures of just the screen, with some colourful picture, that I'm looking at on my monitor. Are people looking at this and thinking "that is so much better than my monitor"?
• nakodari 6y ago
  I have Macbook Pro 13 inch model from 2013 and was really looking forward to upgrading to this year's rumored Macbook Pro 14 inch laptop. Sigh! Now I will wait another year. I don't see anything in this refreshed Macbook Pro 13 inch model that is worth upgrading from my current Macbook.
• DonHopkins 6y ago
  >Magic Keyboard also features a physical Escape key Physical escape is what we all need right now, but like people with pre-Magic Keyboard touch bars, we're all going to have to settle for mental Escape for a while.
• hesk 6y ago
  "the new inverted-“T” arrangement". ROFL.
• downvoteme1 6y ago
  The base 1299 model offers a three year old punt 1.4GhZ 8th gen processors and DDR3 ram .
• Helloworldboy 6y ago
  What’s up with the insane amount of blatant astroturfing in all of these threads?
• nbrempel 6y ago
  I’ve been a Big Mac user for the last 7 years or so. I initially moved over from Linux after experiencing the ease of the OSX operating system when working in software development without the overhead of maintaining something like Arch Linux. I’m now looking at system76 and Pop!_OS for my next machine. They seem to be doing a really good job of creating compelling hardware and software that works well together. From the sounds of it, Pop!_OS does a really good job creating that Apple “just works” experience without all the cruft.
  • truculent 6y ago
    Pop!_OS looks interesting. Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve been using Linux since switching from MacOS and have been finding the additional setup and configuration an extra hassle I don’t want. Although not enough of a hassle to drop $1,500+ on a new machine. I might have to give this a spin.
  • gowld 6y ago
    I doubt you'll get a decently comfortable touchpad. That's the Achilles heel of the PC world, especially the generic Clevo world.
• rajacombinator 6y ago
  No 14” ... why even bother? Major fail by Apple.
• brookside 6y ago
  Is the headphone jack still on the right? (Rhetorical question.) Still an insane choice as headphones have their wires on the left ear so when on my work macbook i have a wire either under or over my wrists. (Or behind the display, which shortens cable length significantly and pulls a sharp angle which will ruin my Sony MDR 7506 soon enough.
  • lukifer 6y ago
    I'm grateful we still have the headphone jack at all.
  • wilsonnb3 6y ago
    A $12 usb c DAC will fix this, unless you are already using all of your thunderbolt ports.
• willis936 6y ago
  If only it had an AMD processor and Nvidia GPU, then we might see some actual improvement to user experience.
• sahoo 6y ago
  ₹200,000 indian rupee for 16inch model which is 2399$, ₹175,000 for 1799$ 13inch. Bad pricing will pass.
• tlapinsk 6y ago
  Someone else has probably mentioned this, but looks like they're trying to sell off old inventory (8th gen, two ports, etc.) with the lower spec versions. Hopefully they'll refine the product line once those are all gone. Coming from a 2010 MacBook Pro, I'll be stoked to snag one of the higher end 13" Pros sometime this year. The 16" just isn't portable enough for my taste unfortunately.
• greendave 6y ago
  Still limited to 2 USB/TB ports on the base model (and precious little else). Want more than that and you're paying a minimum of $1800. Between limited ports and soldered in storage/memory, it feels like Apple has gone all-in on disposable computers.
• lai 6y ago
  I like how dota2 gameplay was featured on there!
• tosh 6y ago
  When you consider that Apple had a 12” Macbook (w/ Retina Display) in the lineup 5 years ago the current lineup is a bit disappointing. Also the distinction between the Air and the 13” Macbook is not clear. That said: this is a decent update for a decent laptop and I’m looking forward to what is to come. The rumors re 14” form factor and ARM based Macbooks do sound intriguing. In the meantime I think the recommendation re when to buy a new Mac is as it always has been: when you need one. Don’t wait for a specific update or rumor, otherwise you might have to wait for years in some cases :)
• ranza 6y ago
  I literally just bought a new 13" macbook pro. It arrived just a few days ago! Do anyone know if they have any type of exchange service or am i stuck with the one a bought?
  • ekzy 6y ago
    you should have a couple of weeks to return the item, if you still have the original packaging I think
  • berdario 6y ago
    You can return anything you bought online within 14 days, no need to provide a justification. https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...
• dzonga 6y ago
  I don't know why people in this thread, keep comparing macbooks to dell xps. they're not equivalent. Thinkpad's X & T series are probably the only machines hardware wise that compare to macbook from durability and working out of the box with Linux. a t490 released last year, has better specs than the new 13" macbook. And I will applaud apple for bringing back a saner keyboard n eSC key.
• iphone_elegance 6y ago
  What's with the 8th gen processors on the first two models? also the Dota2 screenshot is cool hah
  • drdaeman 6y ago
    It's unbelievable, and feels like potentially misleading advertising. My 2019's MBP 16" can't really run Dota2 at the native resolution. The framerate is fluctuating widely, and it frequently drops to less than 30fps for me - without any real action going on and cosmetics equipped. And that's on supposedly much more performant Radeon Pro 5500M, not Intel Iris Plus. Also, not really cool as the "player" isn't even pretending to play. Sort of dual signalling going on "if you know what's going on in the picture - you get that it's all BS, otherwise look - you can play* games* on this laptop! shiny!"
    • iphone_elegance 6y ago
      I've been playing it on mine without much issue, have you tried setting the graphics api to vulkan so it renders with metal instead of opengl?
• freediver 6y ago
  The press release lost me at 'physical escape key'. I remember I had the same feeling seeing the ads for iPhone 3g with 'copy/paste'. Not many companies in the world can get away with advertising a technology that existed for decades as top product features in current lineup. Back to Mac laptops, hardware is really not that exciting. It feels as the one major thing Apple has over the competition is macOS. So the combination of hardware and software is still the best one on the market (like IBM P series laptops were in the decade before Lenovo took over).
• anorphirith 6y ago
  so the new -macbook air has very poor cooling and throttles the cpu well below max capacity. -macbook 13" now costs 1800 solely for an up to date processor, a whopping 400$ to add 16gb of ram, no speaker upgrade, no 14" screen, no mini-led -macbook 16" seems like a good option but I returned it because it's just too heavy more unbearably so than the previous 15" I spent 3 years with. It is also already deprecated since the 10th gen upgrade and mini-led are around the corner
• romanovcode 6y ago
  Still the shitty touch bar - no thank you.
• aczerepinski 6y ago
  I bought this in the high end configuration To be my primary personal computer. I haven’t figured out what dock I’m going to buy yet, but will definitely be looking for a one-plug-for-everything setup.
  • whalesalad 6y ago
    I have an HP Z27 display that I really like for this reason. It’s got one (usb-c) umbilical cord to my 15” MBP which provides power to the Mac, delivers video to the display, and then the display itself is a hub. You can saturate one link though so I ended up having a second usb-c cord to a hub mounted with Velcro to the bottom of my desk for the situations where I need something like gigabit Ethernet or another peripheral.
• Rebelgecko 6y ago
  "the best typing experience ever on a Mac notebook" I guess this is a bit subjective, but a greatly prefer the keyboard on my 2010 MBP to the latest "magic" keyboard in the 16' MBPs
• shrimpx 6y ago
  I’ve been dreaming of a 32G 13” for years but now that it’s here I wish it were 64G. This for me sums up the problem with the 13” offering. Attractive form factor (for me), always 2-4 years behind on specs. Apple apparently thinks that smaller form factor means the audience is “junior pro” or something. People who want smaller laptops are probably also running proportionally smaller workloads, thinks Apple. It makes zero sense to me.
  • troyk 6y ago
    co-dreamer here, do you have a recommendation for a 64G 13"?
    • akudha 6y ago
      Same, I'd like to get a 64G 13" too. system76 has galago, but it is 14"
    • shrimpx 6y ago
      I don’t know a good option. Currently I own a 15” mbp 32G, best compromise I could find when upgrading from my 2015 13” (I strongly considered a dell xps 13” at the time but the build quality and trackpad were a no go for me). If I were to upgrade I’d reluctantly get a 16” 64G mbpro. I keep sacrificing on size in exchange for build quality and specs.
  • hinkley 6y ago
    My gateway MacBook was the old 13" with a discrete GPU. As far as I'm aware that was the first and the last model to have one. It was, you might imagine, quite loud when playing a video game, but it did ok. I was hoping the rumors of a 14" were going to pan out. Maybe next time.
  • mekster 6y ago
    Not every "pro" needs huge amount of ram. I'm living fine with 8GB as a web developer. Though thinking to go 16GB on the next machine, just because.
• creativecupcak3 6y ago
  Until you remove the touchbar and let me run linux on it, I will NOT give you a penny.
• lighthammer 6y ago
  I'm still using the 2015 Macbook Pro (i7, 16GB RAM, 512 SSD) with an iPhone 6S to supplement. So far, there has not been a reason to upgrade to any newer version of each. Maybe I'm just one of those in a small group that is content with the current experience.
  • ruffrey 6y ago
    I had the same setup, but the 2015 MBP died. Repair shop said it was the touchpad, then touchpad ribbon. neither fixed it. 2020 MBP 16 "feels" the same just a little faster.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• MaintenanceMode 6y ago
  Bringing back the escape key is such a admission of their original screw up. I'm glad they admitted it and reversed the design decision. But I'm still on a 2012 15" MacBook that's running strong. I normally would have updated but using my work 15" has been horrific between the dongles, the keyboard randomly dropping keys (last week "G" would not work, now it's back. The most infuriating thing about the touch bar, out of many things, is the fact that the Escape Key doesn't line up with the upper left, it's offset. So decades of muscle memory has to change by s quarter inch. What a pain in the ass. Yes I'm a vi user.
  • dkonofalski 6y ago
    I'm still surprised that so many people are stuck on the Escape key but it's probably no surprise that the ones that are stuck are all developers using vi or emacs. I love the Touch Bar and had no problem adjusting/remapping and find the utility of the Touch Bar for video and audio editing to be invaluable now. I wasn't sold on it before but, over the last year or so, I'll be really disappointed if they remove it. Adding the escape key back seems like a good compromise for both parties, imho.
    • TheRealPomax 6y ago
      Or, you know, literally any app where `esc` is the "cancel and exit this dialog" key. Which is every Adobe application, all DAWs, etc. etc.
      • dkonofalski 6y ago
        I don't see how that's a negative. The Touch Bar still has an ESC segment that works exactly the same as the button and literally no one in any of the companies that I've worked with that's not a developer has ever had an issue with it while simultaneously finding the Touch Bar far more useful than unlabelled function keys.
        • samatman 6y ago
          I'm glad Apple disagrees with you and is no longer making computers which lack a physical escape key. I got used to it pretty quickly, and I've had press-Alt mapped to Esc for many years. It was always annoying, and the 16" with a physical Esc is much nicer. Now all Apple has to do is add some haptic feedback to the damnable thing and I'll actually like it.
• throwawaysea 6y ago
  What I am really hoping for is a 14" laptop that includes a discrete GPU. Hopefully an Nvidia one to allow CUDA work.
• trboyden 6y ago
  $2k for an i5? No thanks. I can max out a HP Spectre x360 with an i7, 16GB, 4K OLED touchscreen, and 2TB NVMe and come in under $1900. Plus its lighter, has better battery life, better cameras, and a better keyboard. Get it with just the 256GB NVMe, and I can pare that down to $1570. https://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/spectre-x360-211501--1 https://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/spectre-x360-211501--1
  • rooam-dev 6y ago
    But can it run MacOS? :)
    • milkytron 6y ago
      It probably can, although some tinkering is involved. https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-high-sierra-on-hp-spectre-x360-8th-gen-coffee-lake.251330/ https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-high-sierra-on-hp-s... https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xznw4/how-to-make-a-hackintosh-laptop https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xznw4/how-to-make-a-hack... But yeah... not easily enough that many consumers would consider doing it over directly buying a mac.
      • rooam-dev 6y ago
        There is a legal aspect too. How long Apple will allow/tolerate this?
        • milkytron 6y ago
          I don't think they allow it necessarily. They have explicit licensing terms which say that MacOS can only be installed and used on Apple hardware. How long they tolerate it is another question, and I don't think anyone knows for sure. But if hackintoshing becomes easier (imagine a one click installer on a Dell/HP/ASUS PC), I'd imagine they'd start pursuing people. I think there was also an individual/company that would build PCs, install MacOS, and sell them for a profit. IIRC, they were shut down.
    • 6y ago
• hn_check 6y ago
  As always, the HN illuminati give their incredibly negative hot takes to every Apple release. (My posts are auto-flagged because dang is an alt-right, anti-AGW enabler)
• starbugs 6y ago
  Sitting in front of my beloved 2013 MBP 15". Reading "the new inverted T-arrangement for arrow keys". Looking down at my keyboard. Seeing said inverted T-arrangement on my seven year old MBP. Deception and lies.
  • kristianp 6y ago
    I was struck by that too. How can they say it's a new inverted-T?
  • riversflow 6y ago
    >Beloved 2013 MBP 15" This is the exact relationship I have with mine. I love this thing. Reading how frustrated people are with their newer macs makes me kind of sad, because my late 2013 15" dGPU might be the best piece of hardware I've ever bought.
• nachteilig 6y ago
  Anyone have any insight into why they might not have included "Wi-Fi 6" aka 802.11ax? I was under the impression that it's current get now even if there's not a lot of support yet. Are we still lacking good chipsets with support?
• rconti 6y ago
  Very interesting. I had assumed I'd buy a 13" Pro as a personal laptop replacement for my 2011 Air when they updated the keyboard. However, when the 2020 Air dropped, I snapped one up because it ticked all the boxes, and I really don't need the "power" of the Pro, especially given its presumed expense. I bought a loaded Air with 512gb which was I think $1650. Speccing out the Pro, the pricepoint for a similar machine is actually $1600; $50 cheaper. Air is 1.2ghz quad core i7 10th gen / 16gb 3733mhz memory / 512gb Pro is 1.4ghz quad core i5 8th gen / 16gb 2133mhz memory / 512gb. In the Pro, you also get the touch bar (for better or for worse; I kind of like it, but no big deal). But its' also a heavier, thicker machine. Also, that Pro is limited in the same way my Air is -- only 2 ports. So I suspect it's kind of a wash. I bet we'll start seeing benchmarks soon comparing these 2 machines. I haven't dug into bus speed or cache amounts, but it's interesting how much faster the RAM on the Air is; I'm guessing slower bus speed but a higher multiple or something? For my (home) use case, it really doesn't much matter, I just figured an 'acceptable' Pro would be $1800+, and figured the Air would be more in the $1400 range. FWIW I only really paid for the $150 CPU upgrade on the Air to get it a couple weeks sooner, I'm sure the 1.1ghz quad core i5 was the sweet spot in the lineup for price/performance.
  • RussianCow 6y ago
    > it's interesting how much faster the RAM on the Air is Isn't that just the difference between DDR4 and DDR3? Edit: Yes, I just confirmed that the last generation of MacBook Pros used DDR3 memory, whereas these new ones will use DDR4, so that's why there is such a big difference in speed. The new ones run at 3733MHz.
    • rconti 6y ago
      Ah. Looks like the store's "upgrade" button hasn't been updated to reflect the actual RAM speed. Or wasn't when i looked.
  • trymas 6y ago
    I wonder if TDP of MBA vs MBP cpus is different and if yes - how much difference does it make?
• miguelbemartin 6y ago
  I am surprised to don't see so much difference between the 13" and 16" prices. Other than that, good movement from Apple, listening to what the people wanted.
• tolmasky 6y ago
  I decided to switch back to the (new) MacBook Air instead. I feel that had the butterfly fiasco never happened, this generation of laptops may have just dumped the Touch Bar entirely, but instead, there were so many general keyboard complaints (escape key specifically, general Touch Bar complaints, and of course the butterfly keyboard complaints), that it is reasonable that they are trying to see if this new "reduced" Touch Bar will stick, but it's just not for me. I feel that the fact that the Touch Bar has not made its way into any other keyboard (desktop keyboards or even iPad keyboards), is somewhat of an admission that it's not that crucial. It's a really weird feeling, because on the Air the keyboard has once again returned to just being something I don't think about. I'm not ecstatic or something. Just overnight I stopped getting infuriated at my machine and feeling like a complete idiot when I'd see an email where I sent "butt" instead of "but" due to repeated keys. But it's like fixing a dead pixel, my experience is not amazing now, it's just not an issue anymore. The problem I've always had with the Touch Bar is that I'd lightly brush some random button and all of sudden I would have triggered some action. When I first got a Touch Bar MacBook Pro, I could swear we had some weird state-resetting bug in our website. Turned out, I would just every so often accidentally hit the refresh button on the Touch Bar. Do "normal people" ever refresh a website? I feel that refresh has basically become a pro-level feature now for development. Anyways, I ended up just manually removing just about every button from the Touch Bar. So, back to where we were 3 years ago as far as I'm concerned (on the Air).
  • Gaelan 6y ago
    > I feel that the fact that the Touch Bar has not made its way into any other keyboard (desktop keyboards or even iPad keyboards), is somewhat of an admission that it's not that crucial It's worth noting that the Touch Bar is driven by an entirely separate processor that also handles Touch ID and some other security stuff, so porting it to an external accessory is probably nontrivial.
  • dreamcompiler 6y ago
    The Touch Bar feels to me like a stopgap measure from Apple because they don't yet have touch-sensitive screens on their laptops. Eventually Apple will have to put touch-sensitive screens on their laptops -- just like everybody else does -- and on that day the Touch Bar will be history. I know Apple doesn't think touch-sensitive screens on laptops are a good idea. I would have agreed with them 5 years ago. But every time I have to show my MBP screen to a colleague who's not an Apple user, they try to scroll the window by touching the screen with their finger. Every time. Apple is out of step with the world on this issue.
• morsch 6y ago
  Honestly, the take away from these discussions is to get a desktop PC.
  • NathanWilliams 6y ago
    I hope one day you grow as a person, and realise different people have different requirements, preferences and trade-offs. I value macOS, I work away from a desk more often than on one, and my past Mac computers have lasted for longer than any other commodity desktop or laptop. I'm currently replacing a perfectly functional 2011 MBP, and only because I have some bonus money, otherwise it would have gone another couple years without issue.
    • morsch 6y ago
      I realize that, of course. No need to insult me.
• sylens 6y ago
  I wonder how many people buying Macbook Pro's this year are trying to load up before Apple starts the ARM migration, thereby avoiding what may be a rough first year or two
  • mekster 6y ago
    In that sense, the resell value may be quite high on this one as one of the last working x86 machines where some apps may not migrate or migrate very slowly to ARM architecture in the coming years.
• cpearce 6y ago
  Dear Apple... I will pay $200 extra for the option of a keyboard with physical function keys and no touchbar. Sincerely, Disappointed Customer.
• kevindong 6y ago
  Everyone whined about the touchbar and keyboard of the more recent models a lot. But personally, I was fine with them. I don't really have a preference between the non-touchbar vs. touchbar models. Same goes for butterfly vs. scissor keyboards. They were all fine for me. My person MBP is from 2015 and I've had a 2018 and 2017 15" MBP (with touchbar/butterfly switches) for work and they've all been thoroughly acceptable.
• athenot 6y ago
  I'm no fan of the TouchBar but once I rearranged it to my liking with BetterTouchTool[0], at least it's out of my way and has a modicum of usefulness. The Escape key is the one key that even BTT didn't fix… because accidentally hitting the key does actions. I like to rest the fingers of my left hand around the upper-left corner of the keyboard, relying on touch. And triggering the escape key without pressing has been very annoying. So seeing Apple bring back the hardware escape key fixes most of my gripes. The other improvement I'd like to see is force-touch on the touchbar. That would require some pressing in order to prevent triggering actions by simply brushing the fingers. [0] https://folivora.ai https://folivora.ai
• jupp0r 6y ago
  I don't get the craze. Just remap caps lock. If you use ESC enough to complain, caps lock is the more ergonomic location anyway.
• eanzenberg 6y ago
  I recently got an 11" ipad pro with the new keyboard/touchpad. After using it for some time, I don't think I'll have a need for a personal mpb anymore. I have a tower with windows/linux and a 1080ti for heavy lifting when needed. There's just a freeing feeling to getting a device with a small form factor that can be just a screen if needed.
  • sixstringtheory 6y ago
    I'm in a similar boat, really enjoy using my older iPad pro. I'm more interested in a desktop for a daily driver that I can also remote into from the iPad. Still need Apple hardware because of my work. The 5K retina iMacs are awfully tempting.
    • eanzenberg 6y ago
      That would be a similar workstation that I have, just as a iMac instead of a tower. For portability, ease, and ability to switch between a "dock" mode and a tablet mode I'm all-in with the ipad now.
• SpookyBits 6y ago
  Someone reading this thread would wonder how Apple is still in business.
• uyuioi 6y ago
  The problem with the touchbar is that you cannot build muscle memory with it. You have to look down to do anything with it. That goes against the entire UX of a keyboard. How Apple hasn’t understood that basic fact yet is beyond me. This new MacBook is nothing special. A Ryzen 4000HS surface is more attractive now. The cheaper CPU Ryzen has 8 cores and is faster than the current 16” 6 core i7. Time to get rid of Intel and it’s over heating 14nm CPU’s.
  • sedatk 6y ago
    Not only that, my fingers also occasionally hover over touchbar and create accidental touches constantly creating chaos. I actually got cold feet of using my Mac because of that and sticking to my PC most of the time.
  • netdur 6y ago
    I have new MBP16 2019 upgraded from MBP13 2015, avoided whole butterfly keyboard, I have got it with touch bar... few problem: - sometimes I do not realize I have touched something on touch bar --- maybe it should have click sound? - I had to remove back button (for browser apps) because I kept messing with it - sometimes I click, I see feedback of click, yet nothing happen that said, touch bar is awesome, I'm currently typing this and it is correcting or completing my sentence, emoji as well
  • heleninboodler 6y ago
    Completely agree. If I get an MBP with a touchbar I have to completely rework my muscle memory for "step over", "step in", "step out", and "run" that I've been using for over 20 years. Put little OLED displays on the keycaps if you want to do something gratuitously dynamic, but leave me the damn keycaps.
  • deergomoo 6y ago
    > Time to get rid of Intel and it’s over heating 14nm CPU’s Current rumblings in the rumour mill say the ARM transition starts next year. Which makes sense, the $399 iPhone SE has better single-threaded performance than the fastest MacBook you can buy. An Apple A-series CPU with 4-5x the TDP of what they can put in a fanless phone or tablet is something I would very much like to see.
• gigatexal 6y ago
  So the question becomes now: who is buying this instead of a thinkpad/Linux equivalent laptop? Who is coming back to OSX now that the keyboards are better?
• mleonhard 6y ago
  What's the CPU model number and TDP?
• dxxvi 6y ago
  I have to work with a Windows/Linux laptop and a MacBook Pro. It's very inconvenient when the MBP keyboard doesn't have Home, End, PageUp, PageDown and Delete.
  • kayodelycaon 6y ago
    Fn+arrow keys and Command+arrow keys will give you most of the function you want. Command+Delete functions like the Delete key you are used to.
  • kristianp 6y ago
    I agree, however most of the hn crowd learnt to type on that keyboard layout so you won't have much sympathy here. Thank goodness for Lenovo keyboards.
• jimnotgym 6y ago
  I see $1,299 translates to £1,299 as usual in the Apple world. I'm glad hipsters have a new toy to sit in coffee shops with while browsing the web. I truly don't understand why people put up with them.
  • cjohnson318 6y ago
    You don't understand why people put up with Apple consumers? Or Apple the company? Or specifically MacBook Pros?
• always_left 6y ago
  >Magic Keyboard also features a physical Escape key Maybe next year we'll get a new feature, physical F1 key.
• ilyas121 6y ago
  For the ppl complaining about the ESC key, real vi users use a separate racing wheel with haptic feedback to get back to normal mode.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• abinaya_rl 6y ago
  > Better Trackpad I've been using Dell for the last 6 months. This is the deal-breaker for me.
• lightbulbjim 6y ago
  Hmm. If this had a ~14" display in roughly the current chassis size then it would be an instant buy for me. Now I'm not sure - is the 14" still happening? Or should I go for this one?
• jakobov 6y ago
  Disappointing. Not 14", bezels look like they are from the 90's and the machine is rather heavy. I am switching to XPS 13 developer edition. Goodbye Apple. Hello Linux and a menu key on my keyboard. The greatest key that no one knows about.
• neycoda 6y ago
  Why is anyone excited about a new MacBook? I'd be excited to know they make them last over 5 years.