20 ms·

Apple is ready to admit it was wrong about the future of laptops

56 points by anyonecancode 5y ago

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
To me it feels more as if they are losing their vision. The design of the new MacBooks looks a bit dated, too. The SoC seems to be fantastic, though. As for ports, who still uses SD cards? Most people only take photographs with their phones and sync to the cloud directly.
- e-clinton 5y ago
  What Apple has done here is accept that MacBook Pros are indeed for Pros. Who uses SD cards? Pros! In Apple’s view, the people who use only their phones for photos will be perfectly served with the M1 machines (Air, Pro 13, iPads). The ugly design is because they realize that it’s the lowest priority for Pros… performance and ports are far more important.
  - least 5y ago
    Both the SD card slot and HDMI port are on release outdated. SD card reader is limited to UHS-II when UHS-III is out and the HDMI connector is 2.0 instead of 2.1. I'm assuming they're using the pci-e lanes that would've been consumed by the thunderbolt 4 connector it replaces which would mean it'd require an additional controller to meet the bandwidth requirements for both UHS-III and HDMI 2.1 (which consumes 48gbps on its own), but I wouldn't exactly describe either of these connectors more "pro." I'd describe them as convenient.
- goalieca 5y ago
  The pro is for professionals which include photographers.
  - Godel_unicode 5y ago
    Also 3d printing, single board computers, drones...
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      All fringe hobbyist activities, not "pro" stuff (except perhaps photo drones). I don't think that many people are photographers, overall. Most people who buy "Pros" probably work in an office and their company buys the computers for them.
      - Godel_unicode 5y ago
        Where to even start with this. What if I told you that just because you can't imagine it doesn't mean it doesn't exist? There are tons of small businesses in the physical automation space that run on hooking SBCs up to various things. Many of their components are 3d-printed, by them, until they get everything laid out just right. Source: security evaluations for the software those people write is an extremely lucrative side-hustle, and it's all word of mouth. The photography business you casually ignore is quite large (Google "wedding photographer" in your city and then realize that most photographers don't even shoot weddings). Or just realize that on the order of 200k DSLRs ship in a given month, almost all using SD as at least one of the onboard cards. Add to that the high-end mirrorless segment which is about the same size, plus all the GoPro addicts (and just to head off the inevitable "what pro uses GoPros" comment, go look at b-roll in any car review). Then round it out with the dashcam/security camera crowd that either doesn't trust wifi or is required to have on-device recording for regulatory reasons. There are also lots of scientific instruments which use SD cards for data logging in remote locations, especially since they're cheap so you can buy 2-3 from different manufacturers and duplicate the writes without appreciably increasing cost. Ditto other kinds of data loggers like IoT stuff that actually uses an air gap.
        kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
        Can't you connect modern cameras to USB-C directly, though?
  - amelius 5y ago
    Perhaps time for pro cameras to include better connectivity options such as WiFi?
    - detaro 5y ago
      I very much doubt that'd be "better" in any meaningful way, at least for the use case that a card reader covers. You still want removable storage, it's useful to be able to read that storage without the camera, ...
    - JKCalhoun 5y ago
      Kind of don't want that. Out "in the field" there may be (will often be) no WiFi. I want removable storage.
      - amelius 5y ago
        Yeah, but you can use your camera as a storage drive which you access over WiFi.
    - hstaab 5y ago
      I prefer physical mediums to sending data over the network. Especially when there are no benefits in doing so.
    - wbsss4412 5y ago
      In what way would WIFI be better? SD cards work and work well.
      - amelius 5y ago
        You still use SD cards. But you access them through WiFI and your camera.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Everyone is a 'pro' at something. The term's meaningless. Vast majority of pros don't need any ports whatsoever and can do with a MacBook Air.
    - e-clinton 5y ago
      Yes, if you believe everyone is a “pro”, then I agree most pros don’t need any ports. Hence why the IPad Pro and iPhone Pro exists. That should be enough computing power for most “pros”
- Anechoic 5y ago
  As for ports, who still uses SD cards? SD cards are used for a lot more than just cameras, especially among pros of many different stripes.
  - hellweaver666 5y ago
    Agreed. I spend a lot of time writing SD cards for use in various projects I do using the Raspberry Pi. Unusual for a week to go by when I'm not doing it.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      Yeah they don't have to add ugly SD card readers in there MacBooks for people who want to use Raspberry Pis.
- yreg 5y ago
  Less than 50% of people using SD cards is not a great argument for removing the SD card slot from the 'Pro' MacBook.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    What about less than 5% of people using it?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- svantana 5y ago
  I've used the SD slot to flash the OS for raspberry pi's, not sure how I would have solved it otherwise.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Dongle. But, yeah, I prefer the convenience of an integrated slot.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    You can buy a card reader for 5$.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  If you go down the "most people" path, all the ports go away. I am certainly not most people but still use SD cards as a "thumb drive", to format for the Raspberry Pi, for my wife's dash cam, and I also have a few digital cameras I still use that are SD-card based. I do however expect this will be the last MacBook with an SD card slot.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    "If you go down the "most people" path, all the ports go away." Exactly.
- dylan604 5y ago
  GoPros and other action cams. Wild life cameras. Dashcams. RaspberryPi. These are things that just popped to the front of mind. I'm sure there's plenty of other things that we could find that you were also unable to think about.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    I can think of things that use SD cards. Just not very relevant things. Like if you read the card from your wild life camera once per month, you can easily attach a card reader.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      >Just not very relevant things to you. FTFY. Luckily, you're not in charge of what other people think are relevant and find useful.
beckler 5y ago
Good. Aiming for USB-C sounded like a solid goal on paper, but it's become so fragmented with all the protocols, data rates, and variations in cable capabilities and it becomes obvious that compatibility is significantly worse than what we had before. If you can't hit the lowest common denominator when it comes to USB-C you'll end up frustrated if you ever have a cable that doesn't meet your needs.
- apocalyptic0n3 5y ago
  > it's become so fragmented with all the protocols, data rates, and variations in cable capabilities I thought this was overblown until recently. I purchased a new car with Android Auto. I have a bunch of USB-A to USB-C cables at home and it took me 9 tries to find one that allowed my phone to connect. Seems the others were only good for charging. Was really surprised by that.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Throw those other 8 away. A pox upon them and their manufacturers.
    - apocalyptic0n3 5y ago
      I threw away all but the best one, which I'm using for charging some peripherals (mainly my mouse).
  - neogodless 5y ago
    Oh my! That's also unlucky though. When I updated my 2015 Mazda to work with Android Auto, I ran to Best Buy and bought their store brand (Insignia) USB-C to USB-A cable, and it worked fine. What were the sources of these cables that didn't include that capability? Included with other devices? It's a shame they went so cheap on those, though not surprising!
    - apocalyptic0n3 5y ago
      Some came with phones for charging. Some came from Monoprice. Some from Best Buy. Most of them were no name brands. You get what you pay for, I suppose. Learned my lesson, though.
flerchin 5y ago
The notch is an abomination.
- Eric_WVGG 5y ago
  The edge-to-edge Mini LED display is magnificent.
- zellyn 5y ago
  I don't understand the anger/disgust at the addition of new addressable pixels to the left and right of the camera. The remaining screen area has the same aspect ratio as before, the entire extra space is black during full screen video, etc. Would you prefer a screen where the areas to the left and right of the camera were black plastic/glass instead of pixels?
  - wayneftw 5y ago
    It's pretty simple - we've been using rectangular screens since forever. With rectangular screens there are no compromises within our software and there are no compromises in our field of vision. Obviously, the notch stands out. It juts into the rectangle, making it no longer a rectangle. The OS now must make all sorts of compromises and implement extra functionality and options (like compatibility mode). And they aren't working perfectly [0] (LOL - And for what? A thinner fucking bezel? There's plenty of bezel beneath the dock - they should have shifted everything down.) The users must make compromises as the size of usable screen area actually changes depending on what mode the application is in. With the notch, if you use any apps that have a long list of menus your eyeballs must now be trained to skip over the notch as you scan the list of top menu items. The whole thing is a byzantine nightmare. Most people get this immediately and they don't like it. In all the comments on all the articles and forums that I've read - the vast majority of people don't like the notch on this Macbook and they don't like it on the iPhone either. However, they do put up with it and learn to ignore it given that they have no choice if they want to stay in the Apple ecosystem that they're probably locked into anyway. Lucky for me - I'm somewhat of a minimalist on my smartphone. I can still buy a new iPhone without the notch (AND with a home button which is way better for quickly switching apps) because I don't need the greatest camera. For my computers, I'm not locked into any one platform but a Mac would certainly be my last choice because of this kind of garbage. [0] "Apple’s new MacBook Pro notch is misbehaving. Early adopters have discovered inconsistencies in how Apple handles the notch across macOS and in individual apps, resulting in unexpected behavior where status bar items can get hidden under the notch." - https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/27/22748371/apple-macbook-pro-notch-issues-inconsistencies-apps https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/27/22748371/apple-macbook-p...
mark_l_watson 5y ago
I think this discussion is interesting but misguided. For consumer laptops, light, very thin, and a single USB-C port makes sense to me. On the other hand, if you are building a larger form factor laptop for professional use, why not add additional ports, they are easy to fit into the design. My Dad is 100 years old, and we were having a friendly disagreement over Apple gear: he is a fan of the desktop Mac Pros, just bought another new one in the last year. I was trying to point out that my wife’s new iPhone 13 Pro can probably process video competitively with Intel chips and conventional GPUs. I based this on the real time video effects, driven by deep learning models, that the new iPhone can do in real time. My Dad uses his desktop Mac Pro exclusively for video editing and 3D rendering. I was stating an opinion that I thought one of the new laptops with 64G ram in the SOC, with the extra GPUs and neural processing units would be better for video editing.
- FirstLvR 5y ago
  100 years old and using the Mac for editing and rendering? teach me master, am 35 and can barely wake up in the morning
  - bartread 5y ago
    I had a similar thought. I'm 45 and GP's dad sounds like the guy I want to be when I grow up.
  - sto_hristo 5y ago
    If you overspent that much on a shiny Mac, you'd force yourself to make up for it even from the grave.
    - BizarroLand 5y ago
      If you're 100 and still using the latest and greatest for video editing you're either making money off of it or enjoy it enough that the cost doesn't matter.
  - yoyohello13 5y ago
    Exercise, eat healthy, be lucky.
retskrad 5y ago
I took a look at a colleague’s M1 Macbook Air after using an iPad Pro exclusively for 3 years and I was shocked to see how outdated MacOS looks compared to iPadOS. Animations and the UI are nowhere near as polished. Apple has clearly focused on iOS and iPadOS the last 10 years and they tried to slowly phase out the Mac but people kept buying Macs so they begrudgingly started focusing on it again around 2016-2018.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  Laptops don't need animations because they have enough real estate that they don't need constantly reflowing UIs to fit the most important information in the tiny bit of screen space, while maintaining a sense of spatial organization. A laptop can just show you everything.
  - cptskippy 5y ago
    I think the animations being referred to are more usability/accessibility elements that acknowledge user interactions. Often times users are confused by how the UI responds or doesn't and the last few years of iOS/Android releases have focused heavily on UI refinement to effectively communicate visually what's happening.
- cptskippy 5y ago
  I'm not sure why everyone thinks Apple was caught off guard by this, it was a decade/generation in the making. Apple dumped dollars into iOS/iPadOS because that's what had inertia and they wanted to keep it rolling. At the same time they required you to own or have access to a MacBook if you wanted to write Apps for those platforms, ensuring there would at least be some demand for the platform. They also transitioned from a proprietary and dated Power CPU to the commodity Intel x64 CPUs reducing their development costs. MacBooks got adopted at places like MIT as cheap powerful Unix machines and as the LAMP stack took over the internet they became the preferred developer's box. These were the seeds planted. Now days they're a lifestyle/prestige item for college kids, soccer moms, and corporate executives. They're focusing on it because the platform is approaching critical mass.
bilbyx 5y ago
It appears that Apple has lost its "courage".
- dj_gitmo 5y ago
  They've been right about so many things, but if you make the kind of big moves they do you're going to be wrong from time to time.
jordache 5y ago
jony ive - good riddance. What a terrible era of crappy form over function.
- amelius 5y ago
  Yeah, my Logitech keyboard looks way more organic than those "perfectly" arranged square keys on their laptops.
- simonh 5y ago
  Whatever his responsibility for some of the mistakes over the last few years, that doesn't wipe away his incredible contributions over several decades.
  - jordache 5y ago
    a 2 min video of him against a white backdrop acclaiming the chamfered edges?
- aeortiz 5y ago
  Jobs probably held him back in the past, since he was the user-focused one in the design partnership.
- arthur_sav 5y ago
  Yeah but now you get these ugly macbooks. When Jobs died, they lost the vision. When Ive left, they lost taste. I'm afraid it's not going to get any better from here on.
  - mcphage 5y ago
    > I'm afraid it's not going to get any better from here on. But like—it has been getting better. They fixed the keyboard, they added back some missing ports, they got rid of the touchbar. So it they are currently, actively in the process of getting better, and it is working.
nerdjon 5y ago
I have a ton of mixed feelings on this one, but by no means do I think Apple was "Wrong". If apple was wrong, so is/was Google and Microsoft. Realistically there is no reason USB-C could not be what all 3 were pushing it to be, the standard port for most things. Especially with more and more being wireless. I know people constantly complain about dongles, but when I plug in my laptop to work work area I have a single plug and it connects 2 monitors, my keyboard and mouse, webcam, ethernet, etc. That is... really nice. But is also something I don't need when I am traveling. The only dongle I carry with me is my ethernet adapter and even then, I am most likely using wifi. That all being said, it think where this fell apart was a few things. The first being the transition period, that was always going to be painful. As a large industry of cheap products was carried kicking and screaming into the future while also needing to maintain support for older products. The second being... the USB-C "Standard" is a complete mess. Mixed with manufactures cutting corners all over the place on cables. Maybe it was too soon? Idk, ultimately the conversation would have never happened had these companies tried to push it but even with all of their backing. The industry did not follow this time. I wish it had, but I guess here we are... just as fragmented as we always were, if not more. TLDR, Apple was not wrong. The industry just did not follow as Apple (and others) were pushing for.
- muro 5y ago
  +1. It might have been annoying at the start, but I haven't had a problem with just USB-C in years. If anything, the new MacBooks seem backwards with SD slot and HDMI. If I get one, I imagine I'll use USB-C exclusively - I'll only carry an USB-C charger, as it charges my phone, kids' Nintendo Switch and iPad.
- callamdelaney 5y ago
  From a professional perspective they were wrong. Say you want to go through some slides with a new client but their meeting room doesn't support new-fangled USB-C video input? You're out of luck if you didn't bring some weird dongle. So from the perspective of ease of use, they were very wrong. The touch bar was stupid. Ridiculously dumb and completely useless. It got in the way, and removed functionality so I'd say they were wrong on that count too. The keyboard is now bad, so they were wrong on that too. I still have a mbp I bought in 2015 which is the 'old' design and it plugs into everything I need it to. I've been given a few of these new macbooks for work and frankly it was a horrible experience. They went from 'it just works' to 'it works if you have a dozen dongles'.
madoublet 5y ago
Apple on the desktop is not in a good space. If you take performance out of the equation, the new Pro laptops just look and feel years behind what Microsoft is doing with Windows 11 and the Surface. MacOS was really fantastic a few years ago. It was lightweight and great for development and design. But, now it just feels old and bloated.
- supernovae 5y ago
  I agree, and it feels like a notch on such an expensive device is the perfect troll. I am happy though that real keyboards are back.. I hope the notch doesn't make it to other devices... It's my hopes that M1 and ARM in general can make massive inroads simply because of power efficiency, but I hope for it to be done outside a walled garden and I hope it can adapt to the X86 "builder" space... Otherwise its just a matter of time before Intel/AMD catch up (and bechmarks of new Intel leaks appear to be doing well - and i'll be honest, i have no complaints on my current gen intel or amd either)
- baal80spam 5y ago
  > If you take performance out of the equation But why would you take _the most important metric_ out of the equation...?
  - madoublet 5y ago
    Strongly disagree. I think there are certainly use cases around video and 3D design that performance is _the most important metric_. But, hardware performance has not been an issue for general computing or software development in a few years. The problem with MacOS is around usability. It is just not on par with Windows 11, ChromeOS, or even iOS. They haven't evolved the software to meet modern computing and it really shows.
hagonzalez94 5y ago
I don't get why everyone is so hyped about this. The MBP still doesn't have VHS support so they're literally gate keeping an entire medium behind a dongle. They have some serious nerve >:(
- petecooper 5y ago
  >VHS support I'm not astute enough to tell if this is /s, but the idea of a USB-C to VHS dongle is highly amusing to me.
  - Ancapistani 5y ago
    My setup is USB-C -> USB-A -> VGA -> VCR. It’s an obsolete medium, so that seems reasonable to me. Then again, I distinctly remember my amusement when I got my first MP3 player - a Diamond Rio PMP300 - to work with the stereo in my room when I was in high school. It was a console record player with an 8-track deck, and I used an 8-track to cassette adapter, a cassette to 1/8” stereo adapter, and plugged that into the headphone port of the Rio.
    - petecooper 5y ago
      Could also try (untested): USB-C -> FireWire -> hardware encoder -> SCART or RGB + RCA.
Mikeb85 5y ago
Apple doesn't care about the future of anything except their bottom line. They wanted sleek and different to sell a new generation of laptops, now they're adding features again to sell a new generation of laptops. Planned obsolescence and creating churn to sell more units, the Apple way.
- scarface74 5y ago
  Apple improving features on new products and still supporting older devices is “planned obsolescence”?
  - Mikeb85 5y ago
    The constant churn of non-functional features is designed to push more units. And the newest macOS doesn't support some pretty recent laptops.
    - misnome 5y ago
      The newest unsupported laptop is from 2015. I mean maybe there has been longer support for previous operating systems but I'm not sure anyone would be calling "six years old" "pretty recent". Six years, incidentally, matches the age of their oldest phone that is still supported by the latest iOS, the 6s. And... different people buy devices at different times. What are they supposed to do to satisfy your standards, release one laptop every eight years?
      - Mikeb85 5y ago
        > And... different people buy devices at different times. What are they supposed to do to satisfy your standards, release one laptop every eight years? Not constantly break and re-implement standards. Just stick with a nice evolutionary product line. It's a known marketing tactic to constantly introduce useless features in order to push more units. Also, the standard for PCs is that support basically never ends, you can always install the newest OS until the computer literally can't run it anymore.
jeffrallen 5y ago
If this headline is true, I'm ready to admit I was wrong thinking that Apple would never admit it was wrong about anything, ever.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  they already did with the trash can mac pro design a few years back
gog 5y ago
I welcome getting rid of the Touchbar, but to be honest I would preferred a thinner laptop without HDMI and SD card reader. The new Macbook Pro looks and feels like a brick compared to my old 2018 Macbook Pro.
heavymark 5y ago
Not sure they were wrong about the future of laptops, rather wrong about the future of pro laptops that have specific needs that favor function over style. Most of us I think thought once they removed ports and MagSafe, and added Touch Bar, etc there was no going back and we had to get use to it. Haven't been this excited and love using in a long time. Always has been a great machine that rely on every day, but now it's a true joy. Sure would have loved FaceID and CFExpress and if MagSafe was also thunderbolt data cable (since many of us use docks), but otherwise it's incredible.
trinsic2 5y ago
This is why I think a Framework Laptop is a better option as you can customize the kind of ports you want to have for your needs instead of being held hostage to design decisions that require USB docks/adapters.
tjansen 5y ago
I think nobody would have complained about the Macbook's lack of ports if Apple would have offered (and promoted!) a portable docking station and a Thunderbolt screen equivalent for USB-C. Unfortunately that never happened, and most users don't even seem to know that there are docking stations and USB-C screens with power delivery from third parties. So lots of people used Apple's ridiculous adapters and plugged in 3 or more cables for power, external screens and USB-A devices like webcams.
hairofadog 5y ago
Tiny nit, but it bugs me that the word "admit" has been bastardized and is now a standard tool in the clickbait-writer's toolbox. I know that language changes and I'm no prescriptivist, but to admit something means to acknowledge it. The most common use I see, in headlines at least, is along the lines of "Notable Person says something which, if you analyze it, suggests they are a hypocrite." Or worse, "Notable Person stumbles over words during an interview. Zing!" This headline would imply that there's a high-level Apple exec on record saying the Touch Bar was a mistake. This is the opposite of that: Apple is pretending like it never happened.
lemonade5117 5y ago
hey this is kind of off topic but it’s about apple so here goes: Does anyone know what happened to the whole csam thing from a few months ago? I know they delayed the feature but iirc they didn’t cancel it completely. Does anyone have any updates?
addicted 5y ago
It's not that Apple's admitting it's wrong about the future of laptops. It's probably still right about it. The problem is this is Apple remembering what a Pro user is, and as a result, what a Pro laptop should be. Or to put it another way, this is Apple remembering that they can't just sell farmers a faster and more expensive car. It still needs to sell them trucks. The Pro (or the Powerbook before that) line distinguished itself from the non Pro, Air and iBook lines not just through price and power, but also, very significantly, by providing everything it's fairly niche and specialized users needed. This used to include stuff like optical audio in/out, FW 400/800, SD Card readers, etc. Because that's what their Pro users needed, and Apple wanted to create a device that gave them everything they could without making them buy other stuff, making it a great user experience. Once their Pro users' needs changed, so for example, once FW became far less popular even among pro users than it used to be, it was then that they changed their device. With the USB-C transition Apple had to have known that it would take years, if not decades for their Pro users to completely change their workflow. So eliminating ports that they used daily was extremely user hostile.

56 points by anyonecancode 5y ago

To me it feels more as if they are losing their vision. The design of the new MacBooks looks a bit dated, too. The SoC seems to be fantastic, though. As for ports, who still uses SD cards? Most people only take photographs with their phones and sync to the cloud directly.

e-clinton 5y ago
What Apple has done here is accept that MacBook Pros are indeed for Pros. Who uses SD cards? Pros! In Apple’s view, the people who use only their phones for photos will be perfectly served with the M1 machines (Air, Pro 13, iPads). The ugly design is because they realize that it’s the lowest priority for Pros… performance and ports are far more important.
- least 5y ago
  Both the SD card slot and HDMI port are on release outdated. SD card reader is limited to UHS-II when UHS-III is out and the HDMI connector is 2.0 instead of 2.1. I'm assuming they're using the pci-e lanes that would've been consumed by the thunderbolt 4 connector it replaces which would mean it'd require an additional controller to meet the bandwidth requirements for both UHS-III and HDMI 2.1 (which consumes 48gbps on its own), but I wouldn't exactly describe either of these connectors more "pro." I'd describe them as convenient.
goalieca 5y ago
The pro is for professionals which include photographers.
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  Also 3d printing, single board computers, drones...
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    All fringe hobbyist activities, not "pro" stuff (except perhaps photo drones). I don't think that many people are photographers, overall. Most people who buy "Pros" probably work in an office and their company buys the computers for them.
    - Godel_unicode 5y ago
      Where to even start with this. What if I told you that just because you can't imagine it doesn't mean it doesn't exist? There are tons of small businesses in the physical automation space that run on hooking SBCs up to various things. Many of their components are 3d-printed, by them, until they get everything laid out just right. Source: security evaluations for the software those people write is an extremely lucrative side-hustle, and it's all word of mouth. The photography business you casually ignore is quite large (Google "wedding photographer" in your city and then realize that most photographers don't even shoot weddings). Or just realize that on the order of 200k DSLRs ship in a given month, almost all using SD as at least one of the onboard cards. Add to that the high-end mirrorless segment which is about the same size, plus all the GoPro addicts (and just to head off the inevitable "what pro uses GoPros" comment, go look at b-roll in any car review). Then round it out with the dashcam/security camera crowd that either doesn't trust wifi or is required to have on-device recording for regulatory reasons. There are also lots of scientific instruments which use SD cards for data logging in remote locations, especially since they're cheap so you can buy 2-3 from different manufacturers and duplicate the writes without appreciably increasing cost. Ditto other kinds of data loggers like IoT stuff that actually uses an air gap.
      - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
        Can't you connect modern cameras to USB-C directly, though?
- amelius 5y ago
  Perhaps time for pro cameras to include better connectivity options such as WiFi?
  - detaro 5y ago
    I very much doubt that'd be "better" in any meaningful way, at least for the use case that a card reader covers. You still want removable storage, it's useful to be able to read that storage without the camera, ...
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Kind of don't want that. Out "in the field" there may be (will often be) no WiFi. I want removable storage.
    - amelius 5y ago
      Yeah, but you can use your camera as a storage drive which you access over WiFi.
  - hstaab 5y ago
    I prefer physical mediums to sending data over the network. Especially when there are no benefits in doing so.
  - wbsss4412 5y ago
    In what way would WIFI be better? SD cards work and work well.
    - amelius 5y ago
      You still use SD cards. But you access them through WiFI and your camera.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Everyone is a 'pro' at something. The term's meaningless. Vast majority of pros don't need any ports whatsoever and can do with a MacBook Air.
  - e-clinton 5y ago
    Yes, if you believe everyone is a “pro”, then I agree most pros don’t need any ports. Hence why the IPad Pro and iPhone Pro exists. That should be enough computing power for most “pros”
Anechoic 5y ago
As for ports, who still uses SD cards? SD cards are used for a lot more than just cameras, especially among pros of many different stripes.
- hellweaver666 5y ago
  Agreed. I spend a lot of time writing SD cards for use in various projects I do using the Raspberry Pi. Unusual for a week to go by when I'm not doing it.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    Yeah they don't have to add ugly SD card readers in there MacBooks for people who want to use Raspberry Pis.
yreg 5y ago
Less than 50% of people using SD cards is not a great argument for removing the SD card slot from the 'Pro' MacBook.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  What about less than 5% of people using it?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
svantana 5y ago
I've used the SD slot to flash the OS for raspberry pi's, not sure how I would have solved it otherwise.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Dongle. But, yeah, I prefer the convenience of an integrated slot.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  You can buy a card reader for 5$.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
If you go down the "most people" path, all the ports go away. I am certainly not most people but still use SD cards as a "thumb drive", to format for the Raspberry Pi, for my wife's dash cam, and I also have a few digital cameras I still use that are SD-card based. I do however expect this will be the last MacBook with an SD card slot.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  "If you go down the "most people" path, all the ports go away." Exactly.
dylan604 5y ago
GoPros and other action cams. Wild life cameras. Dashcams. RaspberryPi. These are things that just popped to the front of mind. I'm sure there's plenty of other things that we could find that you were also unable to think about.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  I can think of things that use SD cards. Just not very relevant things. Like if you read the card from your wild life camera once per month, you can easily attach a card reader.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    >Just not very relevant things to you. FTFY. Luckily, you're not in charge of what other people think are relevant and find useful.

beckler 5y ago

Good. Aiming for USB-C sounded like a solid goal on paper, but it's become so fragmented with all the protocols, data rates, and variations in cable capabilities and it becomes obvious that compatibility is significantly worse than what we had before. If you can't hit the lowest common denominator when it comes to USB-C you'll end up frustrated if you ever have a cable that doesn't meet your needs.

apocalyptic0n3 5y ago
> it's become so fragmented with all the protocols, data rates, and variations in cable capabilities I thought this was overblown until recently. I purchased a new car with Android Auto. I have a bunch of USB-A to USB-C cables at home and it took me 9 tries to find one that allowed my phone to connect. Seems the others were only good for charging. Was really surprised by that.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Throw those other 8 away. A pox upon them and their manufacturers.
  - apocalyptic0n3 5y ago
    I threw away all but the best one, which I'm using for charging some peripherals (mainly my mouse).
- neogodless 5y ago
  Oh my! That's also unlucky though. When I updated my 2015 Mazda to work with Android Auto, I ran to Best Buy and bought their store brand (Insignia) USB-C to USB-A cable, and it worked fine. What were the sources of these cables that didn't include that capability? Included with other devices? It's a shame they went so cheap on those, though not surprising!
  - apocalyptic0n3 5y ago
    Some came with phones for charging. Some came from Monoprice. Some from Best Buy. Most of them were no name brands. You get what you pay for, I suppose. Learned my lesson, though.

flerchin 5y ago

The notch is an abomination.

Eric_WVGG 5y ago
The edge-to-edge Mini LED display is magnificent.
zellyn 5y ago
I don't understand the anger/disgust at the addition of new addressable pixels to the left and right of the camera. The remaining screen area has the same aspect ratio as before, the entire extra space is black during full screen video, etc. Would you prefer a screen where the areas to the left and right of the camera were black plastic/glass instead of pixels?
- wayneftw 5y ago
  It's pretty simple - we've been using rectangular screens since forever. With rectangular screens there are no compromises within our software and there are no compromises in our field of vision. Obviously, the notch stands out. It juts into the rectangle, making it no longer a rectangle. The OS now must make all sorts of compromises and implement extra functionality and options (like compatibility mode). And they aren't working perfectly [0] (LOL - And for what? A thinner fucking bezel? There's plenty of bezel beneath the dock - they should have shifted everything down.) The users must make compromises as the size of usable screen area actually changes depending on what mode the application is in. With the notch, if you use any apps that have a long list of menus your eyeballs must now be trained to skip over the notch as you scan the list of top menu items. The whole thing is a byzantine nightmare. Most people get this immediately and they don't like it. In all the comments on all the articles and forums that I've read - the vast majority of people don't like the notch on this Macbook and they don't like it on the iPhone either. However, they do put up with it and learn to ignore it given that they have no choice if they want to stay in the Apple ecosystem that they're probably locked into anyway. Lucky for me - I'm somewhat of a minimalist on my smartphone. I can still buy a new iPhone without the notch (AND with a home button which is way better for quickly switching apps) because I don't need the greatest camera. For my computers, I'm not locked into any one platform but a Mac would certainly be my last choice because of this kind of garbage. [0] "Apple’s new MacBook Pro notch is misbehaving. Early adopters have discovered inconsistencies in how Apple handles the notch across macOS and in individual apps, resulting in unexpected behavior where status bar items can get hidden under the notch." - https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/27/22748371/apple-macbook-pro-notch-issues-inconsistencies-apps https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/27/22748371/apple-macbook-p...

mark_l_watson 5y ago

I think this discussion is interesting but misguided. For consumer laptops, light, very thin, and a single USB-C port makes sense to me. On the other hand, if you are building a larger form factor laptop for professional use, why not add additional ports, they are easy to fit into the design. My Dad is 100 years old, and we were having a friendly disagreement over Apple gear: he is a fan of the desktop Mac Pros, just bought another new one in the last year. I was trying to point out that my wife’s new iPhone 13 Pro can probably process video competitively with Intel chips and conventional GPUs. I based this on the real time video effects, driven by deep learning models, that the new iPhone can do in real time. My Dad uses his desktop Mac Pro exclusively for video editing and 3D rendering. I was stating an opinion that I thought one of the new laptops with 64G ram in the SOC, with the extra GPUs and neural processing units would be better for video editing.

FirstLvR 5y ago
100 years old and using the Mac for editing and rendering? teach me master, am 35 and can barely wake up in the morning
- bartread 5y ago
  I had a similar thought. I'm 45 and GP's dad sounds like the guy I want to be when I grow up.
- sto_hristo 5y ago
  If you overspent that much on a shiny Mac, you'd force yourself to make up for it even from the grave.
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    If you're 100 and still using the latest and greatest for video editing you're either making money off of it or enjoy it enough that the cost doesn't matter.
- yoyohello13 5y ago
  Exercise, eat healthy, be lucky.

retskrad 5y ago

I took a look at a colleague’s M1 Macbook Air after using an iPad Pro exclusively for 3 years and I was shocked to see how outdated MacOS looks compared to iPadOS. Animations and the UI are nowhere near as polished. Apple has clearly focused on iOS and iPadOS the last 10 years and they tried to slowly phase out the Mac but people kept buying Macs so they begrudgingly started focusing on it again around 2016-2018.

alisonkisk 5y ago
Laptops don't need animations because they have enough real estate that they don't need constantly reflowing UIs to fit the most important information in the tiny bit of screen space, while maintaining a sense of spatial organization. A laptop can just show you everything.
- cptskippy 5y ago
  I think the animations being referred to are more usability/accessibility elements that acknowledge user interactions. Often times users are confused by how the UI responds or doesn't and the last few years of iOS/Android releases have focused heavily on UI refinement to effectively communicate visually what's happening.
cptskippy 5y ago
I'm not sure why everyone thinks Apple was caught off guard by this, it was a decade/generation in the making. Apple dumped dollars into iOS/iPadOS because that's what had inertia and they wanted to keep it rolling. At the same time they required you to own or have access to a MacBook if you wanted to write Apps for those platforms, ensuring there would at least be some demand for the platform. They also transitioned from a proprietary and dated Power CPU to the commodity Intel x64 CPUs reducing their development costs. MacBooks got adopted at places like MIT as cheap powerful Unix machines and as the LAMP stack took over the internet they became the preferred developer's box. These were the seeds planted. Now days they're a lifestyle/prestige item for college kids, soccer moms, and corporate executives. They're focusing on it because the platform is approaching critical mass.

bilbyx 5y ago

It appears that Apple has lost its "courage".

dj_gitmo 5y ago
They've been right about so many things, but if you make the kind of big moves they do you're going to be wrong from time to time.

jordache 5y ago

jony ive - good riddance. What a terrible era of crappy form over function.

amelius 5y ago
Yeah, my Logitech keyboard looks way more organic than those "perfectly" arranged square keys on their laptops.
simonh 5y ago
Whatever his responsibility for some of the mistakes over the last few years, that doesn't wipe away his incredible contributions over several decades.
- jordache 5y ago
  a 2 min video of him against a white backdrop acclaiming the chamfered edges?
aeortiz 5y ago
Jobs probably held him back in the past, since he was the user-focused one in the design partnership.
arthur_sav 5y ago
Yeah but now you get these ugly macbooks. When Jobs died, they lost the vision. When Ive left, they lost taste. I'm afraid it's not going to get any better from here on.
- mcphage 5y ago
  > I'm afraid it's not going to get any better from here on. But like—it has been getting better. They fixed the keyboard, they added back some missing ports, they got rid of the touchbar. So it they are currently, actively in the process of getting better, and it is working.

nerdjon 5y ago

I have a ton of mixed feelings on this one, but by no means do I think Apple was "Wrong". If apple was wrong, so is/was Google and Microsoft. Realistically there is no reason USB-C could not be what all 3 were pushing it to be, the standard port for most things. Especially with more and more being wireless. I know people constantly complain about dongles, but when I plug in my laptop to work work area I have a single plug and it connects 2 monitors, my keyboard and mouse, webcam, ethernet, etc. That is... really nice. But is also something I don't need when I am traveling. The only dongle I carry with me is my ethernet adapter and even then, I am most likely using wifi. That all being said, it think where this fell apart was a few things. The first being the transition period, that was always going to be painful. As a large industry of cheap products was carried kicking and screaming into the future while also needing to maintain support for older products. The second being... the USB-C "Standard" is a complete mess. Mixed with manufactures cutting corners all over the place on cables. Maybe it was too soon? Idk, ultimately the conversation would have never happened had these companies tried to push it but even with all of their backing. The industry did not follow this time. I wish it had, but I guess here we are... just as fragmented as we always were, if not more. TLDR, Apple was not wrong. The industry just did not follow as Apple (and others) were pushing for.

muro 5y ago
+1. It might have been annoying at the start, but I haven't had a problem with just USB-C in years. If anything, the new MacBooks seem backwards with SD slot and HDMI. If I get one, I imagine I'll use USB-C exclusively - I'll only carry an USB-C charger, as it charges my phone, kids' Nintendo Switch and iPad.
callamdelaney 5y ago
From a professional perspective they were wrong. Say you want to go through some slides with a new client but their meeting room doesn't support new-fangled USB-C video input? You're out of luck if you didn't bring some weird dongle. So from the perspective of ease of use, they were very wrong. The touch bar was stupid. Ridiculously dumb and completely useless. It got in the way, and removed functionality so I'd say they were wrong on that count too. The keyboard is now bad, so they were wrong on that too. I still have a mbp I bought in 2015 which is the 'old' design and it plugs into everything I need it to. I've been given a few of these new macbooks for work and frankly it was a horrible experience. They went from 'it just works' to 'it works if you have a dozen dongles'.

madoublet 5y ago

Apple on the desktop is not in a good space. If you take performance out of the equation, the new Pro laptops just look and feel years behind what Microsoft is doing with Windows 11 and the Surface. MacOS was really fantastic a few years ago. It was lightweight and great for development and design. But, now it just feels old and bloated.

supernovae 5y ago
I agree, and it feels like a notch on such an expensive device is the perfect troll. I am happy though that real keyboards are back.. I hope the notch doesn't make it to other devices... It's my hopes that M1 and ARM in general can make massive inroads simply because of power efficiency, but I hope for it to be done outside a walled garden and I hope it can adapt to the X86 "builder" space... Otherwise its just a matter of time before Intel/AMD catch up (and bechmarks of new Intel leaks appear to be doing well - and i'll be honest, i have no complaints on my current gen intel or amd either)
baal80spam 5y ago
> If you take performance out of the equation But why would you take _the most important metric_ out of the equation...?
- madoublet 5y ago
  Strongly disagree. I think there are certainly use cases around video and 3D design that performance is _the most important metric_. But, hardware performance has not been an issue for general computing or software development in a few years. The problem with MacOS is around usability. It is just not on par with Windows 11, ChromeOS, or even iOS. They haven't evolved the software to meet modern computing and it really shows.

hagonzalez94 5y ago

I don't get why everyone is so hyped about this. The MBP still doesn't have VHS support so they're literally gate keeping an entire medium behind a dongle. They have some serious nerve >:(

petecooper 5y ago
>VHS support I'm not astute enough to tell if this is /s, but the idea of a USB-C to VHS dongle is highly amusing to me.
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  My setup is USB-C -> USB-A -> VGA -> VCR. It’s an obsolete medium, so that seems reasonable to me. Then again, I distinctly remember my amusement when I got my first MP3 player - a Diamond Rio PMP300 - to work with the stereo in my room when I was in high school. It was a console record player with an 8-track deck, and I used an 8-track to cassette adapter, a cassette to 1/8” stereo adapter, and plugged that into the headphone port of the Rio.
  - petecooper 5y ago
    Could also try (untested): USB-C -> FireWire -> hardware encoder -> SCART or RGB + RCA.

Mikeb85 5y ago

Apple doesn't care about the future of anything except their bottom line. They wanted sleek and different to sell a new generation of laptops, now they're adding features again to sell a new generation of laptops. Planned obsolescence and creating churn to sell more units, the Apple way.

scarface74 5y ago
Apple improving features on new products and still supporting older devices is “planned obsolescence”?
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  The constant churn of non-functional features is designed to push more units. And the newest macOS doesn't support some pretty recent laptops.
  - misnome 5y ago
    The newest unsupported laptop is from 2015. I mean maybe there has been longer support for previous operating systems but I'm not sure anyone would be calling "six years old" "pretty recent". Six years, incidentally, matches the age of their oldest phone that is still supported by the latest iOS, the 6s. And... different people buy devices at different times. What are they supposed to do to satisfy your standards, release one laptop every eight years?
    - Mikeb85 5y ago
      > And... different people buy devices at different times. What are they supposed to do to satisfy your standards, release one laptop every eight years? Not constantly break and re-implement standards. Just stick with a nice evolutionary product line. It's a known marketing tactic to constantly introduce useless features in order to push more units. Also, the standard for PCs is that support basically never ends, you can always install the newest OS until the computer literally can't run it anymore.

jeffrallen 5y ago

If this headline is true, I'm ready to admit I was wrong thinking that Apple would never admit it was wrong about anything, ever.

micromacrofoot 5y ago
they already did with the trash can mac pro design a few years back

gog 5y ago

I welcome getting rid of the Touchbar, but to be honest I would preferred a thinner laptop without HDMI and SD card reader. The new Macbook Pro looks and feels like a brick compared to my old 2018 Macbook Pro.

heavymark 5y ago

Not sure they were wrong about the future of laptops, rather wrong about the future of pro laptops that have specific needs that favor function over style. Most of us I think thought once they removed ports and MagSafe, and added Touch Bar, etc there was no going back and we had to get use to it. Haven't been this excited and love using in a long time. Always has been a great machine that rely on every day, but now it's a true joy. Sure would have loved FaceID and CFExpress and if MagSafe was also thunderbolt data cable (since many of us use docks), but otherwise it's incredible.

trinsic2 5y ago

This is why I think a Framework Laptop is a better option as you can customize the kind of ports you want to have for your needs instead of being held hostage to design decisions that require USB docks/adapters.

tjansen 5y ago

I think nobody would have complained about the Macbook's lack of ports if Apple would have offered (and promoted!) a portable docking station and a Thunderbolt screen equivalent for USB-C. Unfortunately that never happened, and most users don't even seem to know that there are docking stations and USB-C screens with power delivery from third parties. So lots of people used Apple's ridiculous adapters and plugged in 3 or more cables for power, external screens and USB-A devices like webcams.

hairofadog 5y ago

Tiny nit, but it bugs me that the word "admit" has been bastardized and is now a standard tool in the clickbait-writer's toolbox. I know that language changes and I'm no prescriptivist, but to admit something means to acknowledge it. The most common use I see, in headlines at least, is along the lines of "Notable Person says something which, if you analyze it, suggests they are a hypocrite." Or worse, "Notable Person stumbles over words during an interview. Zing!" This headline would imply that there's a high-level Apple exec on record saying the Touch Bar was a mistake. This is the opposite of that: Apple is pretending like it never happened.

lemonade5117 5y ago

hey this is kind of off topic but it’s about apple so here goes: Does anyone know what happened to the whole csam thing from a few months ago? I know they delayed the feature but iirc they didn’t cancel it completely. Does anyone have any updates?

addicted 5y ago

It's not that Apple's admitting it's wrong about the future of laptops. It's probably still right about it. The problem is this is Apple remembering what a Pro user is, and as a result, what a Pro laptop should be. Or to put it another way, this is Apple remembering that they can't just sell farmers a faster and more expensive car. It still needs to sell them trucks. The Pro (or the Powerbook before that) line distinguished itself from the non Pro, Air and iBook lines not just through price and power, but also, very significantly, by providing everything it's fairly niche and specialized users needed. This used to include stuff like optical audio in/out, FW 400/800, SD Card readers, etc. Because that's what their Pro users needed, and Apple wanted to create a device that gave them everything they could without making them buy other stuff, making it a great user experience. Once their Pro users' needs changed, so for example, once FW became far less popular even among pro users than it used to be, it was then that they changed their device. With the USB-C transition Apple had to have known that it would take years, if not decades for their Pro users to completely change their workflow. So eliminating ports that they used daily was extremely user hostile.