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MacBook Pro

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Re: MacBook Pro

#71
post #12

(Posted in another thread, that probably will not make it as high as this) I think conceptually this is really neat, but it could potentially suffer from one major flaw: I hardly ever look down at my keyboard. A flat, digital screen containing changing buttons does not cater well to touch typists, of which you can reasonably assume most are who use a macbook pro. Touch ID is sweet though.

You are making the assumption that they care about sophisticated users, and I can't see any evidence that they have for quite a while.

Not only does apple not care about sophisticated, or "power" users, it's becoming more and more clear that there are not many sophisticated users within apple itself.

Let's take multiple monitor support as an example - something that vacillates between barely working and a dumpster fire, depending on the release of OSX. Aren't there people within apple that need three screens ? Aren't there power users within apple that demand this functionality ? We are left to conclude that zero, or almost zero, people inside of apple are using this kind of configuration[1] - otherwise there is no way it would be allowed this kind of dysfunction.

Some other things that we are forced to conclude nobody at apple does:

- use USB cellular modems/dongles

- tile windows to hide unnecessary desktop

- primarily mouse-free usage

- move files in the finder with 'cut'

- use the god damned escape key, for the love of christ

We all knew this was coming - the day that Apple "mac pro'd" the rest of the lineup. We got a sneak peak with the 12" macbook. Now the other shoe drops.

[1] For instance, this relatively boring use-case: three primary screens on a desktop and a large flat panel connected as a secondary display. Kind of sort of works in snow leopard. Various, random dysfunction in each release of OSX thereafter.

Re: MacBook Pro

#72
post #45

"6th-generation Intel processor" So in other words it's using Skylake, not Kaby Lake (7th-generation). No mention of display resolution either, which leads me to believe the 15" model won't feature a 4K display. It's using an unspecified AMD Polaris GPU. There's also a 13" MBP sans Touch Bar, featuring normal function keys.

"6th-generation Intel processor"

(Audience claps)

Re: MacBook Pro

#73

Unbelievably unimpressive compared to Microsoft's announcement yesterday, and 45 minutes into the keynote I still have no idea what the specs are. I don't need some stupid touch strip on my Mac, I need a touch screen. I haven't been this let down by product announcements ever as I have been this year with everything Apple's done. Now we get all our standard USB ports removed, very little by way of actual hardware imp…

[deleted]

Re: MacBook Pro

#74
Four Thunderbolt 3 ports that support USB-C. Any one of the four ports can be a charging port.

/win

Hopefully, this will disrupt the rest of the industry. The XPS 13 is a brilliant machine (IMHO better than the Mac) but why did they not use the USB-C for charging is beyond me.

Re: MacBook Pro

#75

4 USB-C ports. Kind of a bummer that I have to get a dongle to charge my iPhone SE with this thing.

They really screwed over iOS devs here. I have multiple cables as backups and in different bags etc - all need replacing now...except that I can't use the USB-C variant in the power brick :( I also do Android dev...need to get a USB-C to Micro-USB too just for that! Just one big mess.

Re: MacBook Pro

#77

4 USB-C ports. Kind of a bummer that I have to get a dongle to charge my iPhone SE with this thing.

I imagine they'll happily sell you a USB-C->lightning cable at an inconvenient price.

I wonder how long until the cables bundled with new iPhones/iPads have USB-C instead of USB-A. I suspect they'll start doing this with the next generation of devices, maybe with a bundled USB A to C adapter.

Re: MacBook Pro

#78
When I am at a desk, the lid is closed so both TouchID and touch-anything effectively don’t matter, including any display information. In fact, I am worried about applications gradually putting information only on the Touch Bar that cannot be found anywhere else.

Perhaps they could have placed a TouchID button on the SIDE of the laptop (usable when open or closed). And hopefully the ENTIRE Touch Bar display is also available as a global window ON the screen so that it is still able to display/activate things when you are lid-closed connected to an external display.

The real shock though is that a lot of these changes show a lack of usability testing. Like, “10 minutes in the hallway” level of testing. How much serious work can actually be accomplished with such tiny touch keys that require you to look down at them, constantly changing and mostly unpredictable? Before ever creating new hardware for this, they should have enhanced macOS to provide an on-screen version of this ever-changing toolbar to encourage more universal support from developers and work out the usability kinks. Instead, now they’re stuck: this thing is in your laptop, with all its flaws.

Re: MacBook Pro

#80
post #68

The touch bar could do with being a little taller. Considering there is space above it it is a shame they couldn't make it 3-4mm bigger. I find it amusing Apple makes such a big deal of adding a fingerprint reader to a laptop, I have had that for about a decade on all my Windows machines. Hardly anything special these days. So it is thinner, yay!(?), but it was pretty damn thin anyway, would have been nice to have a…

"I find it amusing Apple makes such a big deal of adding a fingerprint reader to a laptop, I have had that for about a decade on all my Windows machines."

I think it's more than just the the fingerprint reader though, right? The secure enclave and integration with a payment system is pretty compelling as well, isn't it?

Granted, I'm not familiar with the fingerprint readers you've been using. Are they integrated into the machine? Do they have the equivalent of these secure enclave hardware?

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