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Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

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Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#121

Post by nxc182 »

bane wrote: post #48
erwinkle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been developing using the bash shell on Windows. It's got a couple quirks (like a couple second startup time on first startup, or docker issues) but it has performed exceptionally otherwise. I've primarily been doing nodejs development and installing random unix packages I need.

Out of curiosity have you thought about just running a linux server in a VM and sshing into it from the shell? It seems bizarre I know, but you get a "real" linux then, while still keeping a major OS for software compatibility with user apps.

The point of the Windows Subsystem for Linux is that you don't need to run a VM. It is much more efficient in terms of speed (you're not keeping a whole virtualized Linux kernel and everything else running) but also in terms of energy. I can run bash on my Surface (not pro) 3 without any noticeable hit to battery life and without hurting performance.

If 'real linux' is the Linux userspace, then that's what you're getting with Ubuntu - all of 'Linux' except the Linux kernel. WSL allows the NT kernel to handle all of the Linux syscalls. If you consider just the public interface, then WSL is also 'real linux'.

Of course this is all theoretical because there are still some bugs here and there. Those are being dealt with and WSL is making great progress.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#122

Post by dsr_ »

franciscop wrote: post #78

It's funny how Americans (USA) use the freedom as in this situation "they are necessary connections that offer you freedom" but don't even realize that's the same " freedom " they are stuck in the Imperial system; lack of standardization. I for once welcome these changes; if companies were not brave enough to let go of old ports to standarize the USB we'd be stuck in the old days with dozens of dongles. At the speed…

You mean instead of the new days with dozens of dongles?

Gigabit ethernet. Video converters for each external monitor type, plus for the projector that you only use twice a year. The external mouse that you really like. The phone. The 2TB USB3 hard disk that you already have. The external DAC and pre-amp that turned your Mac into a high-quality 4 channel recorder. The non-bluetooth wireless mouse that you like so much better than Apple's. The SD card for the video camera that your kids use.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#123

Post by rashkov »

rayiner wrote: post #76

I'm okay with the port situation--there is an elegance to the 4 completely symmetrical USB-C ports. Also super excited to ditch Magsafe. It'll be awesome to be able to just replace a USB-C charger cable instead of the whole brick when it inevitably frays. I'm bummed out about the huge reduction in battery capacity. The 13" model loses 1/3, and the 15" loses 1/4. With the addition of the touch bar, this will probably…

wouldn't you still need a brick at the other end of that usb-c cable?

Very surprised to hear of the battery capacity reduction. Is that confirmed? I haven't looked at the numbers. Anyway, I always felt like that is a red line that Apple would not cross.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#124

Post by minikites »

kobayashi wrote: post #79
minikites wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the Mac is less than 10% of their revenue, why should they bother to care? They can coast on their reputation and they have a captive audience of iOS developers who will buy any Mac because they have to.

This was a company that said they cared. That made products which were far and away better than the competitors. I paid the Apple Tax, but it was worth it because I didn't have Windows headaches and because I had a better quality system that was truly optimized for both easy use and for power users. It was great. I actually feel crushed by this news. I valued the trust I had in Apple. And I don't say all of this ligh…

I come from a similar background but I started to feel this way a bit sooner, near the beginning of this year, when I realized that almost all of Apple's computers were 2-3 years out of date. The Mac Pro hasn't been updated in any way since 2013. The Mac Mini is almost as old. They used to do "silent speed bumps" all the time to keep up with technology advances without the needless expense and effort to redesign everything every 8-12 months. So if they can't even put in the minimal effort to ship a newer processor, why should we expect actual greatness at this point?

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#125

Post by MereInterest »

dlevine wrote: post #2

To be fair, if you need these ports, it is easy to get a hub that provides them: https://www.amazon.com/HyperDrive-Through-Charging-MacBook-C... And over the next several years, it is likely that people will switch to USB-C peripherals.

You mean the same way that everybody switched to DisplayPort and dumped HDMI? Wait, no, that didn't happen. Every mac user needs to carry around another dongle instead to convert.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#126

Post by [deleted] »

BigJono wrote: post #47
dlevine wrote: post #2

To be fair, if you need these ports, it is easy to get a hub that provides them: https://www.amazon.com/HyperDrive-Through-Charging-MacBook-C... And over the next several years, it is likely that people will switch to USB-C peripherals.

I'm completely out of the loop here. Why would peripheral makers choose USB-C over USB 3?

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#127

Post by ethbro »

rayiner wrote: post #76

I'm okay with the port situation--there is an elegance to the 4 completely symmetrical USB-C ports. Also super excited to ditch Magsafe. It'll be awesome to be able to just replace a USB-C charger cable instead of the whole brick when it inevitably frays. I'm bummed out about the huge reduction in battery capacity. The 13" model loses 1/3, and the 15" loses 1/4. With the addition of the touch bar, this will probably…

> there is an elegance to the 4 completely symmetrical USB-C ports

shudders You might not be the target demographic if your brain has trouble parsing this sentence.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#128

Post by milesf »

Third-party cables, docks, and maybe even specialty slim side dongles will fill the gap quite nicely. I'll still wait for the second iteration of this lot simply because I've been bit too many times in the past by first-gen Apple products.

I'm going to let time decide for me if this is a good decision or not. For decades I have grumped about the death of so many things, that in the end they didn't really matter.

Re: Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

#130

Post by caf »

thomaslee wrote: post #60
kabdib wrote: post #24

It's pretty bad. We use YubiKeys a lot, and there are no ports for them. So sad. Also: Magsafe is great (it's saved my bacon a few times). Gone. ESC key, gone. Don't know about the keyboard yet, but everything I've read doesn't point to it being decent. Probably not buying this generation of MacBooks. Might just bite the bullet and finally go to Linux on some decent hardware. So, what's a decent laptop for running Li…

> So, what's a decent laptop for running Linux? Good keyboard, good trackpad support, good sound . . . Sadly enough, I think the lack of really great options is what may have pushed some engineers to macs in the first place. :) Admittedly, last I looked was several years ago -- I'm interested to know too! Keep hearing good things about the XPS series, but last I had one it ran hot enough that I couldn't comfortably k…

My current XPS13 has the opposite problem - it can be uncomfortably cold to the point that I'll often put a cushion or something under it.
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