Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MacBook Pro with faster performance and new features for pros

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 1001 posts

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

#421

Post by benwaffle »

jamiek88 wrote: post #344
jihadjihad wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Its great for scrubbing through video. Tap and hold for fast, fine grained control. My only complaint with the touchbar is its too easy to accidentally engage Siri. Other than that it’s a good idea IMO.

you can remove Siri from the touchbar

System Preferences > Keyboard > Customize Control Strip

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

#422

Post by semigroupoid »

jamiek88 wrote: post #344
jihadjihad wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Its great for scrubbing through video. Tap and hold for fast, fine grained control. My only complaint with the touchbar is its too easy to accidentally engage Siri. Other than that it’s a good idea IMO.

> My only complaint with the touchbar is its too easy to accidentally engage Siri.

You can remove the Siri shortcut in the system preferences.

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

#423

Post by rz2k »

foldr wrote: post #365
originalbryan2 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, I switched Caps Lock to ESC a few years ago and after the 6 weeks(?) or however long it took to fully adjust, it's fantastic. I wish I could bring Caps Lock -> ESC joy to everyone.

The only issue with that for me is that Caps Lock as Control is also a useful mapping.

I do caps lock to control, and control to escape. I also set right_shift when pressed alone and not a modifier to forward_delete.

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

#424

Post by djsumdog »

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.

If you use Windows 10 Pro in an enterprise environment, AD policies can turn off most of the spying (although there have been various issues on that and plenty of other HN threads).

That being said, I don't mind Win 10 when I have to use it. I use it for games and Adobe products and I find it really nice and prefer it to macOS easily.

My main box at home and my laptop at work are both Linux though. Gentoo for life! When it comes to development nothing compares to a good tiling window manager and a solid Linux ecosystem.

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

#425

Post by sbuk »

nailer wrote: post #38
no1youknowz wrote: post #20

> The new keyboard has the same dimensions and look as its two predecessors, but the keys feel just a little bit different. They're quieter, for one thing. They have a softer, less click-y feel that is a little closer to the pre-2016 models' chiclet keys. We found the new keyboard to be a little nicer to type on, but it's not a radical difference. It's unlikely to convert the detractors, but it's a welcome iteration…

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).

Having managed a suite of them (SP4's) I disagree veheremently with your assesment. of the 30 I had, 26 had to be returned for repair; fan falures followed by battery issues were the main faults. To add, the dock is just a pile of junk. Utterly worthless, despite an endless series of updates. The Windows 10 team are responsible for Server and Embedded versions of Windows as well as the desktop version. Suggesting that the have a "dedicated" team is mileading.

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

#426

Post by lloeki »

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…

Hopefully see this article? [0] I don't have on-hands feedback on this but it sounded kind of promising (or at least a possible stairway to escape that special circle of hell)

[0]: http://vas3k.com/blog/touchbar/

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

#427

Post by 394549 »

r0fl wrote: post #36
no1youknowz wrote: post #20

> The new keyboard has the same dimensions and look as its two predecessors, but the keys feel just a little bit different. They're quieter, for one thing. They have a softer, less click-y feel that is a little closer to the pre-2016 models' chiclet keys. We found the new keyboard to be a little nicer to type on, but it's not a radical difference. It's unlikely to convert the detractors, but it's a welcome iteration…

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.

>> Why they couldn't grab a 2012-2015 model and upgrade the guts? No touchbar, smaller touchpad than the newer macbooks, but updated specs? Call it Macbook Developer... We build the software for the "Pros" after all.

> They didn't do that because it is not what most people want.

What's your basis for saying that, besides the assumption that Apple can't be wrong, so whatever it's doing must be what people actually want?

Apple has a habit of designing from an ivory tower and not admitting to its mistakes. I would say it's arguable that their design priorities are currently out of whack: chasing thinness when you're going from 1.5in to 0.75in is one thing, it's quite another when you're going from 18mm to 15mm. It may not be a fatal mistake for them, but it's evidence that they may longer deserve the design deference they've traditionally gotten.

> Apple has to make changes that will sell more laptops to the masses to maximize shareholder value.

Many of those changes could be characterized as pointless sidegrades: merely change for change's sake.

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

#428

Post by asafira »

philjohn wrote: post #223
artimaeis wrote: post #112

Looking 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…

There's not a million miles between LPDDR3 and DDR4

This. If I remember right, RAM hasn't changed much in performance between LPDDR3 and DDR4.

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

#430

Post by thesephist »

mgkimsal wrote: post #77
varrock wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 15-inch 2015 Retina model is no longer being sold on their website, too. It was there as an option for some time, but it appears this new update called for getting rid of it. I was planning on saving up to finance that as my next laptop purchase, but seems as if I'll have to go through a third party seller.

Bought a 2016, then returned it and got a refurb 2015. My only regret was getting the 500g SSD vs waiting for a 1tb model (which my friend got). The refurb levels were changing daily, and I kept missing the 1tb models, so I pulled the trigger on a 500g. Didn't care for the touch bar - yes, hey, apparently all the cool kids 'remap' their ESC key, and many did it I guess 20 years ago(!), but I've got decades of muscle…

The battery increase for the high end i7/i9 models is to offset the increased power draw -- it supposedly won't give you much in terms of battery life in actual usage.
Post reply on HN