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Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

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Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big news to me is that replacements of older butterfly keyboards (program extended again) will receive new 4th-generation keyboards. Previously if you brought a 1st-gen in, you'd get a new 1st-gen keyboard.

The articles make clear that only 3rd-gen replacements (the ones with last year's new membrane) will get today’s new keyboards. 1st and 2nd-gen customers are still stuck (no pun intended) with their original problem designs.

I just had the keyboard (really the entire top assembly) replaced on my 13" 2016 mbp, and I'm pretty sure it got the 4th gen keyboard. The keys feel and sound significantly different, and the Apple employee who did the replacement (or I think that's who I talked to) said that they were putting redesigned keyboards in for the replacements. I was pretty unhappy that I had to get this done and I'm still not in love with the machine, but I will say that with less than 24-hour turnaround and the new key feel, the replacement process left me with a good impression.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#103

We repair these as part of our business, and to be clear, both the keyboards and the screens are failing on these at an alarming rate. iFixit detailed the issues with the screens, which (in Apple's unending quest for "thinness") use a thinner flex cable to connect the display to the rest of the laptop. This thinner cable is prone to breakage, and we are already seeing 2016-2017 MacBook Pros in our shop regularly for…

Louis Rossman does a great job documenting Apple's stupid (greedy?) design decisions.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want a MBP that is a late 2013 body with modern hardware inside it. I know there are many others like me.

It's probably time to start banging the ThinkPad drum again, but first they need to put their RAM back in sockets.

I think it's time to make peace with changes like this, proportionate to their importance to overall impact on functionality. One free slot (with a maximum amount of RAM determined by Intel, not soldering) is probably good enough. Same with removable batteries (the need for which is obviated by USB charging). Indicator LEDs, probably not worth it. Screen aspect ratio, and so on, are probably worth complaining about though.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#106
post #82

1. No OLED 2. No keyboard fix 3. No thin bezels 4. Still annoying touchbar. 5. $2799 for the 8-core with 16GB RAM and only 512GB SSD. Hahaha.. No, thanks.

FWIW, this update includes an updated keyboard. Whether or not that's a fix remains to be seen.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#107
post #73

As a Vim user: no physical escape key, no deal. I've recently tried working on one of these, and the bar is really annoying for another reason: as you switch between apps it keeps changing right in the corner of your vision, distracting from what's going on on the screen. WTF were they thinking?

I was also of this mind but I'm really pleased with the workaround of mapping Caps Lock to Escape (more ergonomic when using Escape) and mapping Left Shift + Right Shift to Caps Lock when pressed simultaneously. I use Karabiner-Elements (https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/document.html) to implement these remaps in addition to some others such as Shift + Delete/Backspace for forward delete.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#108
post #67
post #46

I checked their store out of curiosity. Switching from 512MB to 1TB SSD: +$400 WHY? This is literally the only thing that bothers me about Apple pricing. I get that you pay for the design, I get the quirks like introducing touch bar, everything. But I don't get why upgrading from a $50 to a $100 SSD adds 400 dollars.

Because they don't use slow SSDs. The read / write speeds on the SSD in the Macbook Pro are insane. see: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/2018-macbook-pro-fastes... we are talking at least 6x what other laptops use.

I don’t doubt they are faster than other laptop SSDs, but those results look quite suspicious.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while software driven, there is a program you can get called Haptic Touch Bar, which vibrates when you hit the touchbar buttons. Not perfect, but at least sort of helpful. The main point, let me have a nice version without the touchbar is shared.

How does that work? I thought the haptic feedback is only in the trackpad.

It vibrates the trackpad. Works surprisingly well.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#110
post #47

8-core CPU, even presumably with HT off after all the recent Intel vulnerabilities, makes me laugh after my personal experience with my late 2016 MacBook Pro 13 touch bar with fastest (at that time) i7. During normal browsing especially with plugged charger, it was heating so much that something in the keyboard was unglueing. The space bar and 'c' produced different clicking sound. I was quite unhappy with that since…

Using Safari with an adblocking extension that makes use of WebKit’s native content blocking capabilities makes an enormous difference when it comes to heat and power draw. I’ve tried Chrome and Firefox with uBlock Origin and both are considerably more demanding in CPU use while not being that much faster. Where Chrome and Firefox has my fans ramped up to 60%, Safari has them running at 10% or switched off.

Really wish both Google and Mozilla would press pause on feature development for a couple of years and make efficiency the top priority.

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