Interested in trying out the new Black Magic eGPU. I freaking love Black Magic products and the price of this is very reasonable, like most of their products.
MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros
281–290 of 1001 posts
Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
The new XPS 13. It's fine. My disappointment is 98% software. The XPS has poor camera placement (but you know that going in), the buying experience is awful (here in Asia anyways). I see myself sticking with Linux, but no loyalty to hardware vendors. I'm hoping the MateBook or Chromebook become [relatively] cheap and powerful first class linux options.
Install Xubuntu on XPS, and set up i3 as your window manager - this is my current setup and I love it. Takes a bit to get used to a tiling window manager, but once you get it it's amazing - I never understood why people value overlapping windows anyway.
I like UIs that feel premium. Needless to say, Xubuntu and i3 do not make the cut. Left with Gnome 3 (ugh) or KDE (options galore). All other DEs feel clunky (graphical glitches, sub-par design) and are also usually buggy (which is normal for an open source project with such a big scope).
Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros
#283Earlier 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.
Internet hearsay (Apple store/reseller staff quoted in podcasts etc.) often mentions that the MacBook Air is (was?) their best-selling laptop. It has no TouchBar, more keyboard travel, a smaller trackpad, arguably more useful ports, and longer battery life. If the trade-offs in the latest MacBook Pro were universally loved, why wouldn't they spread into Apple's other, more popular product lines? I honestly don't see…
The Air is their best-selling laptop because: (1) it's by far the cheapest and (2) it's tiny. It's also extremely outdated -- people universally love the retina screen but the Air doesn't have that either. Also, rumor has it the Air is being replaced this fall, so we won't see what features make it downstream until then.
The above is to disagree with all of your specific arguments, but I do not disagree with your implied conclusion -- I don't think the touch bar is universally loved. I suspect most consumers do not care about it one way or the other, and I think it was a mistake that Apple should kill.
Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros
#284Looking at the specs on the sales pages: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/15-inch https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch It's interesting to me that they've widened the gap between the 13" and 15" -- it looks like the 15 has been updated to use DDR4 while the 13 is still on LPDDR3. I get where they're coming from in that the 15 has notably more battery to work with, but it seems surprisi…
I would love a discreet graphics option on the 13" version.
Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just remap Caps Lock to the escape key.
But then you can't use it for Ctrl!
You can set it up so that tapping caps lock is interpreted as escape, while holding it is interpreted as control. It's one of the first things I do whenever I get a new machine.
Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros
#286Radeon, so still no CUDA.
Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The only thing I can think of that's better on macOS is the touchpad, which to the best of my knowledge is a gift given to us mortals by the gods. I'm absolutely unwilling to give up the Mac trackpad. When I see people who aren't artists using mice I have to question their value system, or assume they haven't discovered the absolute joy that is "tap to click". Obviously the configuration matters a great deal.
I prefer the trackpad on my (personal) X1 carbon to the trackpad on my (work) Macbook Air
Configuration matters, but so does size. My built-in trackpad is fine, but the larger external one is the real joy.
Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
The niche developer/macrumors posters will never be happy regardless of what Apple does The "niche developer/macrumors posters" were extremely happy with it before, and were hearty advocates of it. Further, I would say that developers/enthusiasts comprise a very high percentage of macbook purchasers.
"Further, I would say that developers/enthusiasts comprise a very high percentage of macbook purchasers." And you base this assumption on? Every action from Apple in these last few years have gone towards the wishes of the average developer/enthusiast. Worse keyboards, useless gimmicks, gimped CPUs, fewer ports, less repairability/configurability. If they consider developers/enthusiasts as their main audience, they h…
I base it on the fact that among developers it is an extraordinarily popular laptop, and that there are a shitload more developers than most people seem to estimate. We are a pretty large "niche" nowadays. I have a Lenova Yoga 720 and I am almost always the single non Macbook user in any developer group.
"developers/enthusiasts have a really weird way of showing their discontent"
If you want to use xcode, you have no choice[1]. If you're in the ecosystem, you have no choice. So you complain about it and hope they change it the next time around.
[1]-I remote desktop to my desktop, but eh.
Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros
#289Earlier 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.
Internet hearsay (Apple store/reseller staff quoted in podcasts etc.) often mentions that the MacBook Air is (was?) their best-selling laptop. It has no TouchBar, more keyboard travel, a smaller trackpad, arguably more useful ports, and longer battery life. If the trade-offs in the latest MacBook Pro were universally loved, why wouldn't they spread into Apple's other, more popular product lines? I honestly don't see…
>If the TouchBar really makes it easier for non-nerds to find shortcuts, why only offer it in the top-end laptops?
Maybe it helps the laptop feel more highend/luxury?
Re: MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is all what you're used to. I switched from a Linux KDE desktop to a Mac 11 years ago. I ended up switching back to Linux & KDE after about 6 months of use, and giving the Mac to my inlaws. What it came down to for me is that I've been using the same window manager shortcuts since the late 80s, and I can't make them work with OSX. Eg, I use focus-follows mouse, and some strange mouse-button + ALT key combos to mov…
"It is all what you're used to" I don't think this is true. Ubuntu is far less consistent with keyboard shortcuts and menu bars from app to app (OSX has this nailed). This is overwhelming my biggest problem. cmd+c, cmd+v for copy and paste across all apps. Not all apps minus terminal. Double click URL portion in firefox, entire url is highlighted, double click url part in other places, only that word/segment is highl…
> This is overwhelming my biggest problem. cmd+c, cmd+v for copy and paste across all apps. Not all apps minus terminal.
I really wish one of the major *ix toolkits/desktops would make some effort to attract or accommodate Mac refugees or dual OS users. I just wanna type Ctrl-W to erase a word and GUI-W to close a window — consistently.