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

781–790 of 1001 posts

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

#781

Post by rcdmd »

fcbrooklyn wrote: post #744
reificator wrote: post #644

Biggest new feature they could add would be to not have an additional screen taking up battery life and shining in my face, unable to be dimmed with f.lux. Maybe instead we could have a row of keys that provide some sort of function, and maybe a key that allows the user to escape. That would be a pretty useful feature that I can guarantee I would use dozens or hundreds of times a day. I'm considering replacing my Mac…

I had to replace my 2015 MBP last week, because the kb started failing (it wasn't one of the ones eligible for a free repair, sadly, and I can't live without a machine for however long it takes them to fix it anyway). I was really torn, because although I could reluctantly live without the function keys, the escape key is a complete dealbreaker. After much debate I decided to take a chance on a surface book. I figure…

I cut my teeth on Windows with Microsoft Visual Studio Basic in the 2000s, then Windows/Dev-Cpp because of poor MSVC++ support for some C++ features I thought I needed at the time, switched to Mac/Vim, then had a 6ish year stent with Ubuntu and Vim as an IDE. But then a botched upgrade from 14.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS lead to a few frustrating hours of my time to get X to even load. I'll never see that time again. Now I'm back on Windows, and somehow have drudged along without installing Cygwin yet, although that's coming. Developing Java has been a pleasant experience with IntelliJ IDEA. The GUI use is taking getting used too-- but configuring IDE things like language servers is mostly automagic and have very reasonable defaults. The biggest issue I've had is Windows upgrades requiring random restarts completely interrupting my workflow. But, overall, rediscovering Windows has been a pleasant experience for me too.

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

#782

Post by DennisAleynikov »

zerr wrote: post #707
tjohns wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's trendy to hate on the touchbar... but for what it's worth, I personally find it more useful than the old function keys. Most mac apps don't use function keys as shortcuts, so the old keyboard ended up being used for media keys (volume, brightness, play/pause, etc.). The touch bar gives me a better version of that (I actually get a volume slider ), plus more apps actually make use of that space to provide…

> Most mac apps don't use function keys as shortcuts Many buy MBPs for the perceived quality of hardware, and install Windows or Linux as their primary OS.

in bootcamp the touchbar continues to function independently and acts like the function row of keys

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

#783

Post by ouid »

tjohns wrote: post #651
reificator wrote: post #644

Biggest new feature they could add would be to not have an additional screen taking up battery life and shining in my face, unable to be dimmed with f.lux. Maybe instead we could have a row of keys that provide some sort of function, and maybe a key that allows the user to escape. That would be a pretty useful feature that I can guarantee I would use dozens or hundreds of times a day. I'm considering replacing my Mac…

I know it's trendy to hate on the touchbar... but for what it's worth, I personally find it more useful than the old function keys. Most mac apps don't use function keys as shortcuts, so the old keyboard ended up being used for media keys (volume, brightness, play/pause, etc.). The touch bar gives me a better version of that (I actually get a volume slider ), plus more apps actually make use of that space to provide…

Imagine not being able to mute your sound in public because your finger doesn't have enough capacitance for some reason.

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

#784

Post by fcbrooklyn »

hmottestad wrote: post #767
some_account wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Window sucks for me even before I log in first time, with stuff like "wait while we are setting you up, just relax...". I switched to Linux and felt the same feeling you did though. Happiness to be back in a nice new system where I feel at home!

Not my experience. I have to use windows at work. Got ubuntu running in a vm. Buggy as shit. - sharing screen in hangouts puts chrome on every virtual desktop so now you can't click on chrome to navigate to that desktop - slack crashes silently every 24 hours - virtual desktops is a mess, if one window overflows into another desktop, then when you click on that app ubuntu will take you to the desktop where you see th…

I was a windows guy for many years before switching to OSX in 2006 (I actually worked for microsoft in the early 90's, but we all hated windows as much as the rest of the world, maybe moreso, because we had to develop on weekly builds). Therefore I have seen windows suck in a wide variety of ways, hence my desire to try it for 30 days and return it if needs be. In all my years in the windows world. I've never seen an app use anything other than ctrl-c/ctrl-v for copy paste (ok, I think you used to be able to do ctrl-ins, shift-ins, but that was optional), but the rest of your experiences sound quite plausible. I haven't run into any of them.

Also, I don't have to restart my wifi 5 times a day anymore, which is kind of a nice win.

EDIT: Oops, I thought these were complaints about windows (highly plausible!). actually it's unix under windows. Apologies.

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

#785

Post by herbst »

hmottestad wrote: post #767
some_account wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Window sucks for me even before I log in first time, with stuff like "wait while we are setting you up, just relax...". I switched to Linux and felt the same feeling you did though. Happiness to be back in a nice new system where I feel at home!

Not my experience. I have to use windows at work. Got ubuntu running in a vm. Buggy as shit. - sharing screen in hangouts puts chrome on every virtual desktop so now you can't click on chrome to navigate to that desktop - slack crashes silently every 24 hours - virtual desktops is a mess, if one window overflows into another desktop, then when you click on that app ubuntu will take you to the desktop where you see th…

I know classic Linux defense bullshit but these all aren't typical 'Linux issues'.

I can only guess the desktop you used but I assume we talk about Unity/Wayland. Ubuntu removed Unity meanwhile for the Way cleaner Gnome Shell (however I don't know if they have some custom bullshit in there again)

Shortcuts are often miss configured on system level. I noticed nonsense issues therelike as well on Ubuntu.

There are highly different software repository concepts like pacman and the AUR on arch where you have a package selection right there you could never experience anywhere else.

What I am trying to say is that there is no one Linux, I don't like vanilla Ubuntu. However having used any OS in the recent years I love going back to MY Linux.

Edit:// oh the shortcuts are also likely due to the VM I just realized

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

#786

Post by fcbrooklyn »

DennisAleynikov wrote: post #766
some_account wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Window sucks for me even before I log in first time, with stuff like "wait while we are setting you up, just relax...". I switched to Linux and felt the same feeling you did though. Happiness to be back in a nice new system where I feel at home!

I was extremely unsatisfied with the promise and then the delivery of my surface pro, ended up selling it to a friend with lighter computing needs. The touch bar macbook seems pretty useful itself considering how insanely good its IO is (4 thunderbolt ports!!!). I haven't been able to use it as much and im waiting for better eGPU options to come out. in the mean time I'm stuck just like you in the world of linux. My…

Yeah, I looked at the pros too. I don't think they were powerful enough for me, and I went with the SB2 instead.

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

#787

Post by fcbrooklyn »

malnourish wrote: post #757
fcbrooklyn wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to replace my 2015 MBP last week, because the kb started failing (it wasn't one of the ones eligible for a free repair, sadly, and I can't live without a machine for however long it takes them to fix it anyway). I was really torn, because although I could reluctantly live without the function keys, the escape key is a complete dealbreaker. After much debate I decided to take a chance on a surface book. I figure…

Surface Book is really great; I quite liked my SOs surface. I decided to go with an XPS 13 and have been incredibly happy.

I was considering the XPS series myself. Heard great things about it. Are you running windows or unix?

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

#788

Post by wepple »

briandear wrote: post #768
fcbrooklyn wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to replace my 2015 MBP last week, because the kb started failing (it wasn't one of the ones eligible for a free repair, sadly, and I can't live without a machine for however long it takes them to fix it anyway). I was really torn, because although I could reluctantly live without the function keys, the escape key is a complete dealbreaker. After much debate I decided to take a chance on a surface book. I figure…

Trading a touchbar escape key for Windows? As a Mac user that uses Vim, that touchbar escape seems easy to adapt to compared to adapting to an entirely different OS (and Windows at that!)

I recall when touchbar first launched, someone on HN pointed out that Esc is a poor way to use Vim anyway and there are far better mappings. I swapped to Ctrl-[ before I even had a new MBP and much prefer it. The “Esc problem” is a drastic reason to throw your whole hardware/OS stack our the window IMO.

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

#789

Post by fcbrooklyn »

briandear wrote: post #768
fcbrooklyn wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to replace my 2015 MBP last week, because the kb started failing (it wasn't one of the ones eligible for a free repair, sadly, and I can't live without a machine for however long it takes them to fix it anyway). I was really torn, because although I could reluctantly live without the function keys, the escape key is a complete dealbreaker. After much debate I decided to take a chance on a surface book. I figure…

Trading a touchbar escape key for Windows? As a Mac user that uses Vim, that touchbar escape seems easy to adapt to compared to adapting to an entirely different OS (and Windows at that!)

Escape key is non negotiable. Sorry, you won't change my mind on that point.

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

#790

Post by gehwartzen »

roryisok wrote: post #686
reificator wrote: post #644

Biggest new feature they could add would be to not have an additional screen taking up battery life and shining in my face, unable to be dimmed with f.lux. Maybe instead we could have a row of keys that provide some sort of function, and maybe a key that allows the user to escape. That would be a pretty useful feature that I can guarantee I would use dozens or hundreds of times a day. I'm considering replacing my Mac…

When I'm wearing my cynic hat, the touch bar is the beginning of a plot to replace our physical keys with another screen with an image of keys. The 2030 MacBook will basically be two iPads taped together

For me the only acceptable improvement would be if each individual mechanical key had a OLED display integrated and was fully programmable.
Post reply on HN