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16-inch MacBook Pro

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Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#391

Post by stetrain »

Reason077 wrote: post #347
throwanem wrote: post #17

I'm astonished and pleased to see they walked back the two worst things about the original Touch Bar MBPs - the lack of a physical Escape key, and the full-size left and right arrow keys. The lack of physical function keys remains regrettable, and the Touch Bar is still no worthy substitute, but perhaps this is a sign that Apple is finally interested in listening to feedback from its long-term customer base, even if…

> "the two worst things about the original Touch Bar MBPs - the lack of a physical Escape key, and the full-size left and right arrow keys." The "butterfly mechanism" keyboards are awful, unreliable, and get worse with time, so I'm very glad to see them go. Likewise, the return of the physical Escape key is very welcome. But honestly, the design of the arrow keys has never bothered me in the slightest. If anything, t…

But when not looking at the keyboard, having full height left and right arrow keys makes them feel just like the nearby Option and ? keys. Having a distinct arrow-key-group shape makes them easier to locate by touch.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#392

Post by scarface74 »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #366
scarface74 wrote: post #311

John Gruber’s review https://daringfireball.net/ And before everyone accuses him of being an Apple fanboy and biased, there is no disputing that he is very much a keyboard snob. He hated the last generation keyboard and he called it out during his initial review. He also famously still prefers an old ADB Apple Keyboard and he never bought a laptop with the old one. He’s also linked to a lot of articles criticizing it…

The issue with the keyboard is whether it's good after a month or more of use, not how good it is fresh out of the box. I thought the previous macbook pro felt great for a week out of the box. Then switches started breaking and keycaps started coming off within the first three months. In fact, the issue seemed to be that it feeling good out of the box was the only testing Apple did on it.

True.

But neither Gruber nor Marco Arment [1] liked it out of the box. Marco did buy one - he buys everything. You can listen to his review on the latest Accidental Tech Podcast.

[1] just for those who don’t know, Arment is probably one of the best known indie IOS developers and the creator of Instapaper and the first developer for Tumblr.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#393

Post by adrr »

throwanem wrote: post #17

I'm astonished and pleased to see they walked back the two worst things about the original Touch Bar MBPs - the lack of a physical Escape key, and the full-size left and right arrow keys. The lack of physical function keys remains regrettable, and the Touch Bar is still no worthy substitute, but perhaps this is a sign that Apple is finally interested in listening to feedback from its long-term customer base, even if…

Escape key issue was so bad that a lot of my devs mapped caps lock to the escape key. Butterfly keyboard also has some weird workarounds with people carrying around mechanical keyboard.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#394

Post by pwthornton »

throwanem wrote: post #17

I'm astonished and pleased to see they walked back the two worst things about the original Touch Bar MBPs - the lack of a physical Escape key, and the full-size left and right arrow keys. The lack of physical function keys remains regrettable, and the Touch Bar is still no worthy substitute, but perhaps this is a sign that Apple is finally interested in listening to feedback from its long-term customer base, even if…

The touchbar has a lot of uses for many people. Developers may not see that much benefit from it (unless they use a native IDE or text editor), but for people who use native apps, the touchbar can be really useful.

Getting a physical escape key back and going with a more reliable keyboard design are big wins.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#395

Post by Ecco »

8draco8 wrote: post #70
Ecco wrote: post #12

I was so hoping for a constant bezel width. Unfortunately the top bezel is still a lot larger than the side ones. I know it's because of the camera, but that makes for an awkward looking device…

Can you elaborate on why constant bezel width is so important? Most devices (phones, tablets, TVs, laptops) don't have constant bezel width.

I just find uneven bezels ugly. And I think symmetry as a beauty factor is quite widespread :)

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#396

Post by geerlingguy »

adrr wrote: post #393
throwanem wrote: post #17

I'm astonished and pleased to see they walked back the two worst things about the original Touch Bar MBPs - the lack of a physical Escape key, and the full-size left and right arrow keys. The lack of physical function keys remains regrettable, and the Touch Bar is still no worthy substitute, but perhaps this is a sign that Apple is finally interested in listening to feedback from its long-term customer base, even if…

Escape key issue was so bad that a lot of my devs mapped caps lock to the escape key. Butterfly keyboard also has some weird workarounds with people carrying around mechanical keyboard.

To be fair, mapping caps to escape has been a thing for years and years. I started doing that once I learned vim about five years back, when I still had an older MacBook Air with a physical escape key.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#397

Post by [deleted] »

criddell wrote: post #292
charleshan wrote: post #184

Don't forget that the Touch Bar costs an additional $400 for consumers. The 2015 model was the best MacBook Pro. Perhaps the best laptop yet.

It always seemed backwards that the touch bar is a pro feature. Aren't pros the group that learn all the keyboard commands? The touch bar seems like it would be most useful to non-pro users.

[deleted]

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#398

Post by mtnGoat »

ses1984 wrote: post #80

"I'm so glad this model has a touchbar" "I would buy a dell xps but only if it had a touchbar" things no one ever said.

Speak for yourself, I love my touchbar, add was hoping they'd keep it.

Rather then getting hung up on hating, learn to like it. Pretty useful if you give it a chance.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#399

Post by trymas »

throwanem wrote: post #17

I'm astonished and pleased to see they walked back the two worst things about the original Touch Bar MBPs - the lack of a physical Escape key, and the full-size left and right arrow keys. The lack of physical function keys remains regrettable, and the Touch Bar is still no worthy substitute, but perhaps this is a sign that Apple is finally interested in listening to feedback from its long-term customer base, even if…

I wonder if the screen reflective coating is better too. AFAIK, since introduction of retina screens of MacBooks (2012) it's a matter of time that the reflective coating will start to peel off and will leave ugly blotches.
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