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MacBook Pro

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Re: MacBook Pro

#891

Post by sundvor »

optionalparens wrote: post #255

Looking at the various missing keys and the touch strip, I couldn't help but laugh and cry. Less is more, right? I think we all know this is aimed at casual users, but it's still fun to poke at it. The first thing that came to mind is any time now that I walk into a coffee shop, if I see someone passing themselves off as a programmer on a new Macbook, I'll know they are just screwing around or otherwise extremely ang…

I'm fully with you. Programmers NEED physical function keys, and at the very least the escape key. Anything that requires you to look down is just a joke.

Lenovo quickly learned their lesson with their (imho, as a touch typer, brilliant) X1 Carbon, when they went fancy with the function row in Gen2. Suffice to say, the near perfect keyboard layout of Gen1 was back in Gen3.

Re: MacBook Pro

#892

Post by nodesocket »

ilyanep wrote: post #219

Still can't go above 16GB RAM. As someone who is frequently running a lot of servers on my development machine (but still values portability), this is pretty disappointing.

I agree, 32GB RAM should be an option.

Re: MacBook Pro

#893

Post by phil21 »

arihant wrote: post #586

This does not seem like a major announcement to me. They added a bar and touch ID. But they added force touch with taptic engine last year and it took 3 minutes to introduce. Between this and Surface with Bash built in, it's the first time since Windows 98 that I can see myself using a Windows computer. This machine is not pro, as in not for professionals. No self-respecting Musician, Artist, Writer, Programmer, Phot…

I agree with you here. Unfortunately I will still be buying one as I don't believe bash on windows is there yet. However it was a painful choice and if I hadn't dropped my old 2012 rMbP repeatedly I'd be holding out. I think in a year or two Windows is going to look far more compelling.

So apple won me with software. For now. The hardware is a step back though that I'm disappointed in. I'm strongly considering simply purchasing the latest rMBP release and use it for another couple years to see if anything meets my requirements then. That's a bad sign if you're Apple with a willing customer wanting to give you money whose primary driver is not cost.

I'm actually all for the move to USB-C, but that was enough. A HDMI port at a minimum is a requirement for a pro series laptop in today's business world. It's either resign myself to carrying a dongle around, or buy the older generation of hardware. Sounds trivial but it's the overhead of a mental tax that simply doesn't need to be there.

I run Windows 10 at home and it's getting pretty stellar as far as UI and features like high DPI. It sounds like they are rapidly making inroads on battery life (if not already surpassing Apple - the reason I switched to OSX in 2012 to begin with) on the same hardware, and as soon as they get some competent software like a terminal emulator that doesn't suck (assuming the linux subsystem development push continues) Apple really loses it's moat for this market segment. As far as I can tell though in the past couple years - they just don't care.

At this point the largest missing piece for me switching back to Windows is lack of a stellar terminal emulator. Everything I've tried so far on the desktop (@4k) still either annoys me for closed source reasons, or just does not look as good as iterm2 on the retina. It's a silly thing, but something I don't want to have to worry about. It's also an incredibly shallow moat.

Re: MacBook Pro

#894

Post by chadcmulligan »

dchuk wrote: 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.

> I hardly ever look down at my keyboard

I was thinking the same - If i need extra controls for my app then the app provides them and use my trackpad with my eyes fixed on my screen, like this isn't hard. Seems gadgetry for gadgets sake, disappointing.

If I'm paying hundreds of dollars extra for this to, which seems to be the case, then I think I'll pass unfortunately.

Re: MacBook Pro

#895

Post by sundvor »

Kequc wrote: post #674
collias wrote: post #284

It looks like I'll be waiting for the 2nd gen of this. Gen 2 wishlist: - Something more than 16GB RAM - Nvidia GPU (always had issues with ATI) - Cheaper option with no Touch Bar - MagSafe power

There is a no touch bar option currently. I think you'll get your first two wishes along with a vastly superior CPU if you wait for second generation.

The no touch bar option is only available as the weakest of the lot. Too bad if you like your CPU and memory.

Re: MacBook Pro

#896

Post by developer2 »

swang wrote: post #341

I have the early 2013 MacBook Pro. It is still pretty fast. Nothing I saw today makes me happy to upgrade as a developer. Sure it's lighter and thinner and HUUGE trackpad that's a nice to have when I'm traveling. But the TouchBar requires me to look down at my keyboard which slows me down. And they can't even leave the keyboard itself alone with the terrible butterfly implementation coming over from the 12" MacBook.…

>> with the terrible butterfly implementation coming over from the 12" MacBook

You missed the part where Tim mentioned that the butterfly mechanism is a second-generation upgrade with more travel time on the keys. It remains to be seen just how large of an improvement it is.

>> People still use SD-cards Apple!

I'm fine with the SD slot being gone. Just another space-wasting component most of us haven't used in a decade.

This is a portable series of laptops. If you're in a position that you are lugging around a DSLR camera and 5+ lenses (that's why you need SD reader, right?), and a host of other devices you seem to need USB for, you have enough space in your bag for a larger adapter[1] - it even has the SD card reader!

The kind of people who need so much aren't lugging around a laptop to a cafe. They're sitting in professional studios with million dollar hardware, and rendering their IMAX videos on external server clusters. Or at least at home/office with a proper desktop machine that better matches their profession.

Next I'll be hearing about how terrible it is that the Apple Watch can't edit 4k video.

[1] http://www.satechi.net/index.php/computer/connectivity/card-...

Re: MacBook Pro

#897

Post by agumonkey »

rayiner wrote: post #259
npgatech wrote: post #165

This event was by far the most disappointing Mac event in the history. A lot of the time was wasted in: - Mildly funny jokes and comparison with 90's technology. - 90% of the talk was about the touch bar. - Awful demos of Photoshop & some cringy DJ. I was hoping we would see: - A new MacBook with all day battery life and touch bar, even thinner design. Ok, I understand that they are trying to consolidate their produc…

> Microsoft really hit it out of the park yesterday. Did we watch the same event? Microsoft introduced a $3,000 desktop PC in an era when nobody uses desktops anymore. It introduced a minor update to the Surface Book that starts at $2,300 with dual-core CPU, only 8GB of RAM, and last-gen graphics hardware. For the same price as the new Surface Book i7, I can get an MBP 15" with bigger screen, twice the RAM, and a qua…

Maybe a relative perception. Apple has a historical relationship with content creation personal workstation landmarks, so a mild event is a let down; Microsoft is new in this, so triggering excitement there is a very positive surprise.

Re: MacBook Pro

#898

Post by overgard »

throwanem wrote: post #324
rayiner wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft really hit it out of the park yesterday. Did we watch the same event? Microsoft introduced a $3,000 desktop PC in an era when nobody uses desktops anymore. It introduced a minor update to the Surface Book that starts at $2,300 with dual-core CPU, only 8GB of RAM, and last-gen graphics hardware. For the same price as the new Surface Book i7, I can get an MBP 15" with bigger screen, twice the RAM, and a qua…

> Microsoft introduced a 28" desktop PC No. Microsoft introduced an entirely new kind of tool for digital artists. I'm not one myself, but the Surface Studio makes me wish I were. And the people I know who are, are over the moon about it. They can't wait to get their hands on one. Yes, it's Microsoft that hit it out of the park, and made Apple look amazingly weak by comparison. Today's event wouldn't have been partic…

> Microsoft introduced an entirely new kind of tool for digital artists.

Not really, you could buy a Wacom Cintiq since about forever. I'm glad they're giving wacom some competition though.

Re: MacBook Pro

#899

Post by overgard »

So as a programmer, this stupid touch bar thing is a huge downgrade. I use the function keys all the time in my development tools. Now I'm supposed to use some stupid tiny touchscreen with no tactile feedback? And I have to look down at it every time I want to tap something?

This thing solves approximately zero problems I had, but creates a bunch more.

Re: MacBook Pro

#900

Post by chadcmulligan »

dguaraglia wrote: post #410

As a heavy Vim user, this might be my last Apple development machine. I can always remap Caps Lock to Esc, but years of muscle memory > a flashy feature I have little use for. There's nothing I'd pay extra for in this new machine: touchbar is a meh, biometric authentication has been around since ~2005, the hardware specs are finally catching up with what everyone else has been shipping for a couple years, the new key…

> As a heavy Vim user,

As productive as Vim is for some, I think there'd be very few people in Apple asking the question "How can we make Vim more productive", there probably hasn't been for the last 20 years

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