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MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

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Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

#231

Post by H1Supreme »

swebs wrote: post #97
nailer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're used to MacBooks, check out the Surface Laptop or Surface Book. - The hardware (particularly the keyboard and massive trackpad) is great - apt-get on WSL is better than homebrew will ever be (powershell too if you have the time to learn it) - Windows 10 has a dedicated team working on it (Apple has merged iOS and macOS teams since a few years ago, which may be because iOS makes a lot more money).

Sorry, but Windows 10 is godawful. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. If you want to sell the surface laptop to power users and developers, you're better off mentioning that you can install Ubuntu (as an actual host OS, not WSL bullshit with Microsoft's spyware still running in the background) just fine on certain models.

I disagree with this sentiment. What makes it "god awful" in your eyes? I've been using it at work for the past year or so, and I've had no real issues to speak of.

Do I like more than Ubuntu (which I use personally)? No, but I find it to be pretty easy to use.

Also, the Ubuntu subsystem has been fantastic for working on remote Linux servers. I was using git bash (or Ubuntu in Virtual Box) previously, but I don't need that anymore. It will freeze once in a while, but it's trivial to get going again.

Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

#232

Post by Spooky23 »

tvcgrid wrote: post #168
_bxg1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Macbook Pro has been the go-to software developer machine for years now, and that segment is seeing a massive exodus after the touch bar launch. I don't know how big a percentage that is of total sales, but it can't just be a trivial niche.

Is there a real, large exodus though? I don’t notice that, anecdotally, but others seem to (seemingly anecdotally too). Are there data about it? For the segment that are “professionals” or for work use, for example? At least broadly, 3Q saw Mac sales decline 7.5 percent YOY. But, the whole PC industry declined. So, I’m not sure what conclusions to draw — and in the absence of that it seems a bit hard to swing either…

The PC industry as a whole is declining from a sales perspective because refresh cycles moved from 30-40 months to 60-70 months. If you have 1000 computers, you needed to buy 200/year today, and would have needed 350 in 2005. Computers don't need to replaced as often, so slowdowns in momentum are very important because they indicate the institutions are slowing down purchases.

Microsoft is trying to push back on this by making it impossible to support Windows 10. We'll see how that goes.

When I was responsible for this at a large enterprise, I was buying 40k devices a year, every year. The Mac component was about 1,500/year. That dropped to 50 when the new keyboards came out and started failing. Losing a few hundred sales isn't a big deal, but some of that money that was going to MacBooks went elsewhere.

Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

#233

Post by modzu »

masklinn wrote: post #192
modzu wrote: post #165

all this talk about the specs and no mention whatsoever about ports. people. cpu speed has basically reached a plateau. its the least relevant thing to talk about.

It's an internals change, the case itself has not changed, what would be the point of mentioning that the connectivity is the exact same? They also didn't mention RAM on the 13", because the 13" remains on LPDDR3 and thus there was no change to the possible configurations set.

ah ok, well thats disappointing. still, glad to see larger ssds. its taking a very long time (years and years) for their capacities to grow

Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

#234

Post by GiorgioG »

tvcgrid wrote: post #168
_bxg1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Macbook Pro has been the go-to software developer machine for years now, and that segment is seeing a massive exodus after the touch bar launch. I don't know how big a percentage that is of total sales, but it can't just be a trivial niche.

Is there a real, large exodus though? I don’t notice that, anecdotally, but others seem to (seemingly anecdotally too). Are there data about it? For the segment that are “professionals” or for work use, for example? At least broadly, 3Q saw Mac sales decline 7.5 percent YOY. But, the whole PC industry declined. So, I’m not sure what conclusions to draw — and in the absence of that it seems a bit hard to swing either…

I bought a Dell XPS rather than buy a new 13" MBP because of the keyboard issues + touchbar.

Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

#235

Post by jihadjihad »

pornel wrote: post #47

It's not possible to buy it without the TouchBar any more :( I really wanted to like it, and the concept could perhaps eventually be good, but the current implementation is infuriatingly bad: • I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume or skip to the next song. • The buttons are in different locations depending on context, so it's not possible to use it by muscle memory. • TouchBar automatically goes…

The touchbar is awesome--you can immediately blow away all the worthless function keys and have a minimalist setup. I keep the escape key and the volume/brightness sliders, that's it. Keeps the entire setup feeling clean. People actually use the touchbar for context-dependent tasks?

Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

#236

Post by jaxondu »

eric_khun wrote: post #202

Deciding between with/without touchbar. Is there a real difference between both? I'm really bad comparing hardware. Here the main difference I've notice: Non-touchbar: • Up to 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i7, with 64MB of eDRAM • 2 USB-c ports • Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 With-touchbar: • Up to 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 with 128MB of eDRAM • Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 • 4 USB-c ports As a developer point of v…

13” inch non touch bar is last year model, no upgrade to keyboard and with 7th gen CPU. This refresh updates only the touchbar models with new keyboard design and 8th quad core CPU, which could means significant CPU performance improvement.

Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

#237

Post by _blz2 »

latch wrote: post #30

After ongoing problems and repairs with my gen 2 butterfly, I switched to Linux (Ubuntu). After many months, I'm still a little shocked at how much worse the desktop experience is. 11 year old OS X Leopard is more consistent, intuitive and usable. Hardware is slightly less polished, but no major complaints there (except for how poor the buying experience was). Still, keyboard works. It would take something amazing to…

You can change desktops very easily on the popular linux distros. Try r/linux and ask about what you want specifically. It's very likely there is a desktop out there for you. If you just want a macOS copy, most of that can be done by configuration. The development environment is really good on arch linux bdw.

Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

#238

Post by bigpeopleareold »

bunderbunder wrote: post #173
r0fl wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't do that because it is not what most people want. Apple has to make changes that will sell more laptops to the masses to maximize shareholder value. The niche developer/macrumors posters will never be happy regardless of what Apple does. Better to focus on the 90% of customers who buy products and make up 10% of the complaints then to focus on the 10% of customers who make up 90% of the complaints.

> The niche developer/macrumors posters will never be happy regardless of what Apple does. Haven't done a survey, but quite a few folks I know who work at Mac shops report that their employers have been steering clear of the new MacBooks and just trying to keep the older models they already have alive, while also looking seriously into the feasibility of switching to PCs running Linux if they don't get their act toge…

Maybe 2019 will be the year of the Linux desktop? :)

Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

#239

Post by quakenul »

swebs wrote: post #97
nailer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're used to MacBooks, check out the Surface Laptop or Surface Book. - The hardware (particularly the keyboard and massive trackpad) is great - apt-get on WSL is better than homebrew will ever be (powershell too if you have the time to learn it) - Windows 10 has a dedicated team working on it (Apple has merged iOS and macOS teams since a few years ago, which may be because iOS makes a lot more money).

Sorry, but Windows 10 is godawful. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. If you want to sell the surface laptop to power users and developers, you're better off mentioning that you can install Ubuntu (as an actual host OS, not WSL bullshit with Microsoft's spyware still running in the background) just fine on certain models.

I have little insight on spying issues (or how MS compares to what Apple, Google or everyone else is doing regarding that nowadays) but coming from Windows 7 I have zero practical complaints about using Windows 10 over it. I like the WSL bullshit a lot, too.

Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

#240

Post by andoma »

dijit wrote: post #93
princekolt wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the Touch Bar-less model 13" only? That's hardly a Pro machine anyway, since it has no discrete graphics.

depends what your definition of "pro" is, even if it's 50% of all users who do pro work that need a GPU (Video, photo, CAD) there's at least as many who need a lot of memory/CPU for various other things. Programming/compiling not-withstanding there are many tasks today that are CPU intensive. Plus, real professionals use slack, so that extra memory is needed.

Yup, The 32GB version should really be called Slackbook Pro.
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