Introducing the next generation of Mac • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#201

Post by threeseed » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

AnonHP wrote: post #118

KMnO4 wrote: post #47

Surprisingly, the dealbreaker for me on this current generation is 2x TB3 ports on one side. I really like being able to charge from either side.

On a tangential note, there were reports about the Intel based MacBook Pro from earlier this year having CPU usage spikes and heating issues when charging from the left side port. For users with this problem, it was effectively “charge using the right side port”.

As a MacBook Pro owner this is nonsense.

It throttles badly and overheats no matter which side you charge on.

Actually surprised it didn't get more attention. If you're downloading and charging at the same time then your computer is unusable.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#202

Post by dtech » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

blux wrote: post #194

Lots of comments from people complaining about the lack of 32GB of RAM. Can someone explain to me the need for 32GB of RAM as a developer? Is it the IDE or your particular application area? As for me, I do all my professional development (C++17/Linux, Vim, EDA industry) on a five year old T450s with 12GB of RAM. For me the limiting factor is CPU power for sure. I only run out of RAM running some of the larger custome…

docker, JVM VMs, IDEs that take a couple gigs. You can always use it.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#203

Post by twalla » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

blux wrote: post #194

Lots of comments from people complaining about the lack of 32GB of RAM. Can someone explain to me the need for 32GB of RAM as a developer? Is it the IDE or your particular application area? As for me, I do all my professional development (C++17/Linux, Vim, EDA industry) on a five year old T450s with 12GB of RAM. For me the limiting factor is CPU power for sure. I only run out of RAM running some of the larger custome…

I know Android Studio will basically eat up however much RAM is on your system. Also, with containers becoming more common, lots of people use something like Docker Compose locally to mock multiple services or parts of a system, which, depending on how well optimized those containers are, can add up quickly.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#204

Post by seanalexander » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

blux wrote: post #194

Lots of comments from people complaining about the lack of 32GB of RAM. Can someone explain to me the need for 32GB of RAM as a developer? Is it the IDE or your particular application area? As for me, I do all my professional development (C++17/Linux, Vim, EDA industry) on a five year old T450s with 12GB of RAM. For me the limiting factor is CPU power for sure. I only run out of RAM running some of the larger custome…

As a developer, I routinely need over 128GB. 32GB is cutting is short.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#205

Post by gknoy » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

api wrote: post #8

SamuelAdams wrote: post #6

Super interesting how they kept the touchbar on the Macbook Pro keyboard but not on the Air. As a software developer, I'm going to be more likely to buy an Air just due to the keyboard.

Has anyone ever seen anyone use the Touch Bar? Like really use it?

I only use it for brightness and volume controls (and TIL about the Emoji picker thanks to a sibling comment). I LOVE the analog-feeling controls on brightness and volume. Even though I know it's the same under the hood as an incrementation button, the UX of it makes me feel substantially happier. I absolutely miss the volume and brightness sliders when I go to use my Chromebook or my wife's laptop.

I normally keep the touchbar configured to only show the ~4 most used buttons (night mode, brightness, volume, and mute), and find that I use the other buttons rarely enough that I forgot what else was on there -- mainly because I use touchpad gestures instead.

I rarely (never?) used F-keys in my IDE (Jetbrains) or other apps, so I don't miss them. I have a physical Esc key (which is nice), though I used it rarely enough on my previous generation touchbar mac that it wasn't very infuriating. Having the physical escape + power keys removed any complaints I previously had about it.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#206

Post by ogre_codes » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

Darmody wrote: post #65

I backed a game a while ago on Kickstarter with native support for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Several weeks ago they sent us a message saying they were ditching the MacOS version due the architecture change. I wonder how it'll affect the whole ecosystem. I think it'll end being like an iOS on steroids.

Considering most developers who have ported from x86 to MacOS have had few issues, it seems like the ecosystem will be just fine. Also, all the big pro software developers—Adobe, Microsoft, Apple—are onboard.

Hard to say what this will do to gaming on MacOS, but gaming has never been the big strength of MacOS.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#207

Post by onepointsixC » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:52 PM UTC

regulation_d wrote: post #46

Did I miss something, or are they, once again, not upgrading the camera? The low light performance of the current version is real bad. Since we're all using these cameras way more, I really thought there would a hardware bump. You can only squeeze so much detail out of an under-exposed, noisy image with software.

No, I don't think you're wrong. Apple has a bizarre product offering which combines an 8 core processor with a 720P camera and 8GB RAM.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#208

Post by andybak » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:52 PM UTC

kzrdude wrote: post #17

Is this the first time they call their laptops "notebooks"?

This is a bugbear of mine. I've never met a real human being who uses that term. I don't even know if people would understand me if I started using it in normal conversation.

They are laptops outside of industry marketing material. Why can't they just admit they lost this rebranding battle?

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#209

Post by Jtsummers » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:52 PM UTC

blux wrote: post #194

Lots of comments from people complaining about the lack of 32GB of RAM. Can someone explain to me the need for 32GB of RAM as a developer? Is it the IDE or your particular application area? As for me, I do all my professional development (C++17/Linux, Vim, EDA industry) on a five year old T450s with 12GB of RAM. For me the limiting factor is CPU power for sure. I only run out of RAM running some of the larger custome…

I asked the same question. I get why people need more than 16GB of RAM, but honestly a lot of the answers seem to neglect that RAM (in most laptops) is not going to be your limiter, the CPU and/or GPU will be the limiter first for many of the cases people list. At that point, no amount of RAM will save you (though it may help).

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#210

Post by capableweb » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 7:52 PM UTC

amiga-workbench wrote: post #181

capableweb wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange, they list the resolution you can use if you use one external display. What about two monitors? I don't believe you could only have one display connected, that would be ridiculous, but I also don't understand why they only write about one display and not about many?

Possibly because OSX still doesn't support DisplayPort multi-stream and you can't plug multiple monitors into one USB-C port.

Thanks, didn't realize the laptop only had one port on it.