Live data from Hacker News

New 13-inch MacBook Pro

apple.com

841–850 of 1001 posts

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#841
post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone keeps talking about vi/emacs stuff. While that was annoying, the more annoying aspect was when macOS softlocked and I was unable to hit the chord (cmd+opt+esc) to get the kill task window because the touchbar froze as well. Having a virtual ESC key in software that can be frozen, where part of your keyboard chord to kill apps includes the ESC key is really, really, stupid and caused me lots of wasted time th…

Real Vi/emac users don’t use the esc key. It’s way too far frome home row.

Mapping the sequence 'jk' to Esc supercharged vim for me. Faster, but also helps me stay in the flow longer.

Run `:inoremap jk ` to try it out.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real Vi/emac users don’t use the esc key. It’s way too far frome home row.

Right! Real vi users have a foot pedal for escape. :__) *yes, fingers pointing at me

I think most people actually remap to the ~ key, or if they're extreme they'll use tab. On my keyboard Escape already came as the ~ key and you have to use fn to access ~ or `.

The ergonomics of moving it closer far outweigh any benefits from it being physical vs touchscreen.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real Vi/emac users don’t use the esc key. It’s way too far frome home row.

Mapping the sequence 'jk' to Esc supercharged vim for me. Faster, but also helps me stay in the flow longer. Run `:inoremap jk ` to try it out.

I wonder if any people remap hjkl to jkl;. Having to shift my hands one key over always annoyed me.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tried something, failed, now they are changing course. That is a plus in my book. I have a 2016 15" MBP and I hate the keyboard. One of the worst laptops ever made by Apple. I hope next they bring back letting user upgrade components (like let me install my own RAM and SSD upgrades.)

Next press release may read as follows: "The new magic keyboard, not only with the new inverted T arrangement of arrow keys, but also with absolutely brand new physical function keys featuring all new haptic feedback experience."

If Apple had released computers with the touch bar above the existing physical function keys, everyone would love it and other companies would provide a similar feature, the same way that they have all converged on the same industrial design as what Apple pioneered 20 years ago.

Instead, Jony Ive insisted on the touch bar replacing the function keys, and here we are. At least the butterfly switches are finally dead.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#845

Now all Apple laptops feature magic keyboards. Butterfly switches are no more! I’m not convinced by the value of the thirteen inch pro versus the air. Same screen size, keyboard, and ports. Similar upgrade path. I know that not all i5/i7 etc are created equal, and the 13 inch pro uses chips that draw more power, but could someone explain the more concrete difference in performance that a user would see day to day?

The 13 inch pro will get hotter faster. The idea is that the additional room in the boost clock should allow you to open new chrome tabs and load GMail slightly faster, but if you're doing any sort of sustained performance task, you're going to hit thermal limits within a minute or two.

That's only considering the boost clock though. The thermal package on the MacBook Air is __horrid__. The MBP can sustain longer periods of boost, albeit with fans spinning up. The new MBA will literally throttle in minutes on medium/high loads due to the dysfunctional semi-passive cooling design.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#846
post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, good to know. You have one?

I wanted one because on paper it looked great for my needs. But it turns out the CPU has passive cooling and the case fan needs to work very hard to keep it cool. At least the i5 model which is the one I was considering. I don't know about the i3.

Do you know where to find out more about this? I like that the fan practically never spins up on my 2017 MBP, but of course the keyboard is garbage. I'm not a dev so perhaps I could get by with a lesser processor, but I wouldn't want to go to the trouble of swapping to get something that is actually slower than my current machine.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#847

I recently got an 11" ipad pro with the new keyboard/touchpad. After using it for some time, I don't think I'll have a need for a personal mpb anymore. I have a tower with windows/linux and a 1080ti for heavy lifting when needed. There's just a freeing feeling to getting a device with a small form factor that can be just a screen if needed.

I'm in a similar boat, really enjoy using my older iPad pro. I'm more interested in a desktop for a daily driver that I can also remote into from the iPad. Still need Apple hardware because of my work. The 5K retina iMacs are awfully tempting.

That would be a similar workstation that I have, just as a iMac instead of a tower. For portability, ease, and ability to switch between a "dock" mode and a tablet mode I'm all-in with the ipad now.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#848
post #831

The problem with the touchbar is that you cannot build muscle memory with it. You have to look down to do anything with it. That goes against the entire UX of a keyboard. How Apple hasn’t understood that basic fact yet is beyond me. This new MacBook is nothing special. A Ryzen 4000HS surface is more attractive now. The cheaper CPU Ryzen has 8 cores and is faster than the current 16” 6 core i7. Time to get rid of Inte…

I have new MBP16 2019 upgraded from MBP13 2015, avoided whole butterfly keyboard, I have got it with touch bar... few problem: - sometimes I do not realize I have touched something on touch bar --- maybe it should have click sound? - I had to remove back button (for browser apps) because I kept messing with it - sometimes I click, I see feedback of click, yet nothing happen

that said, touch bar is awesome, I'm currently typing this and it is correcting or completing my sentence, emoji as well

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#849
post #831

The problem with the touchbar is that you cannot build muscle memory with it. You have to look down to do anything with it. That goes against the entire UX of a keyboard. How Apple hasn’t understood that basic fact yet is beyond me. This new MacBook is nothing special. A Ryzen 4000HS surface is more attractive now. The cheaper CPU Ryzen has 8 cores and is faster than the current 16” 6 core i7. Time to get rid of Inte…

Completely agree. If I get an MBP with a touchbar I have to completely rework my muscle memory for "step over", "step in", "step out", and "run" that I've been using for over 20 years. Put little OLED displays on the keycaps if you want to do something gratuitously dynamic, but leave me the damn keycaps.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#850
post #831

The problem with the touchbar is that you cannot build muscle memory with it. You have to look down to do anything with it. That goes against the entire UX of a keyboard. How Apple hasn’t understood that basic fact yet is beyond me. This new MacBook is nothing special. A Ryzen 4000HS surface is more attractive now. The cheaper CPU Ryzen has 8 cores and is faster than the current 16” 6 core i7. Time to get rid of Inte…

> Time to get rid of Intel and it’s over heating 14nm CPU’s

Current rumblings in the rumour mill say the ARM transition starts next year. Which makes sense, the $399 iPhone SE has better single-threaded performance than the fastest MacBook you can buy. An Apple A-series CPU with 4-5x the TDP of what they can put in a fanless phone or tablet is something I would very much like to see.

Post reply on HN