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Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

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Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#71

Post by MrRiddle »

asiachick wrote: post #38
cpgonzalez wrote: post #8

The article's criticism of the 12-inch MacBook are preposterous. The 2 lb Macbook is the best laptop I've ever owned, by far. Maybe I'm too sensitive about weight, but I feel an incredible difference between 3 lb and 2 lb laptops, especially if its sitting on your lap for extended periods of time. The keyboard and charger have never once been a hindrance to my workflow, as the article makes it out be. I really wish A…

I agree I wish Apple would find a way to make a 16inch MBP weight 3lbs and an Air weigh 2lbs. It *seems* possible given an 12.9 inch iPad Pro only weighs 1.4lbs and other manufacturers have entries in that range. For whatever reason this idea always gets downvoted but I believe it will happen someday and every who downvoted will suddenly "get it".

I assume they could do it, but by reducing battery life to what it was before.

However, if you can’t bare a laptop heavier than 2lbs may I suggest you’re in the wrong line of work.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#72

Post by speedgoose »

grishka wrote: post #59
speedgoose wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give a MacBook to a child and she will likely try to touch the screen. Because at this point a touch interface is expected by people. Even me who is used to non touch screens user interfaces, I tend to touch the screen on a non touchscreen laptop once in a while. It's frustrating that it doesn't work, because it does work on my ThinkPad and I enjoy it. Apple not having a touchscreen option on their high end laptops i…

IMO it's important to maintain a clear separation and not blur the line between desktops and tablets. Desktop UIs are dense, they're your tools to get your job done as efficiently as possible. You can position the mouse pointer quickly and with great precision, so there is no need for ample spacing between the controls. It's okay when a professional tool has some learning curve to it, but after you're past that, it's…

The current trend in user interfaces is not to design for desktop but for mobile first, because that's where the large majority of users are.

Of course you have exceptions, when a company develops an application only for desktop for example or when a company can afford developing and maintaining many versions of one user interface.

Already today it's very fine to use a laptop with a touchscreen on most websites. And actually most of desktop apps are also possible to use while not always super nice. The screens are quite large so it's not that bad to hit a specific area.

I agree the mouse is a lot more precise when you are good with a mouse, but a mouse also needs more training than a touch screen to be used fast and accurately.

It will always be a market for old fashioned desktop apps, maybe Apple is going for it, perhaps some GNU/Linux folks too, but I think the industry is not targeting devices without touch interfaces.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#73

Post by mbirth »

MrRiddle wrote: post #68
tornato7 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My camera, like many modern ones, has USB-C and can transfer photos over Wi-Fi, so I find it pretty convenient to connect to a Mac.

Some, but not most. And cameras have a lot longer life than other tech, so my guess would be that 99% of cameras in use don’t have the ability to connect via USB-C.

Just permanently stick a tiny USB-A to USB-C adapter on the cable and they instantly do have the ability to connect via USB-C. It's that easy!

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#74

Post by grishka »

speedgoose wrote: post #72
grishka wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it's important to maintain a clear separation and not blur the line between desktops and tablets. Desktop UIs are dense, they're your tools to get your job done as efficiently as possible. You can position the mouse pointer quickly and with great precision, so there is no need for ample spacing between the controls. It's okay when a professional tool has some learning curve to it, but after you're past that, it's…

The current trend in user interfaces is not to design for desktop but for mobile first, because that's where the large majority of users are. Of course you have exceptions, when a company develops an application only for desktop for example or when a company can afford developing and maintaining many versions of one user interface. Already today it's very fine to use a laptop with a touchscreen on most websites. And…

You aren't making much sense.

If someone is making a desktop app, how could it possibly be mobile first? Even if you're using the cancer that is Electron, that design with a lot of whitespace is always deliberate.

I'm not saying that it's not fine to use a touchscreen laptop for something. I'm saying that no one uses them like that with any kind of seriousness because it's awkward and physically inconvenient to poke your fingers into a vertical surface in front of you for any extended period of time. There are laptops capable of folding such that the screen faces outward, but these are as rare as they were 8 years ago, so this has never caught on either.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#75

Post by mbirth »

johnwalkr wrote: post #63
BluSyn wrote: post #14

My controversial hot take-- I have never needed an SD card, and have gone all-in on USB-C. I will be very disappointed if they add back in USB-A/HDMI/SD ports, or remove USB-C charging in favor of proprietary charge port. Sounds like unnecessary feature bloat. Please just do MagSage + USB-C, so I can maintain my one-cable-for-everything, making traveling lighter and simpler. Here's my counter argument to all those th…

Same here. I like the touch bar but unless they find a way to make it feasible on a Bluetooth magic keyboard, I’d rather have no touch bar for consistency. If they are going to kill it they should have killed it with the first M1 MacBooks. I’m also all in on USB-c (even my shaver uses it for charging) and don’t miss MagSafe at all. Charging from either side is surprisingly handy. One charger for everything is a trave…

If you use an iPad as a sidecar, there's a touchbar there. However, that touchbar only works for apps you've moved onto the sidecar display for some reason.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#76

Post by mbirth »

grishka wrote: post #42

The last paragraph mentioning touchscreens is weird. Please don't add a touchscreen to a device running a desktop OS. 99% of people won't be using it anyway, but it would lead to those atrocious spacious phone-style UIs I despise so much.

Think of the new M1 macs and how they can run iPad apps and how lots of developers opted out of their apps being offered for those new Macs because their apps are meant to be used on a touchscreen, not via trackpad and keyboard.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#78

Post by underseacables »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #44

Cool! On top of this if they would reintroduce the headphone jack on the iPhone, they would completely redeem themselves in my books.

Now that’s just crazy talk. Apple? Never. That is one mistake they will ever walk back on. It took a LOT of courage[0] to remove it.

[0]. https://splinternews.com/profiles-in-courage-the-product-man...

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#79

Post by pdimitar »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #19
BluSyn wrote: post #14

My controversial hot take-- I have never needed an SD card, and have gone all-in on USB-C. I will be very disappointed if they add back in USB-A/HDMI/SD ports, or remove USB-C charging in favor of proprietary charge port. Sounds like unnecessary feature bloat. Please just do MagSage + USB-C, so I can maintain my one-cable-for-everything, making traveling lighter and simpler. Here's my counter argument to all those th…

May I suggest a little different look at the use of SD Card slot on your MacBook (Pro). About 5 years back, I had one of those SD Drive stick-in for MacBook Pro that stays there. There were few (Nifty Drive, MiniDrive, etc). The primary use I see are; 1. Have a clone backup of your primary drive. (Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper, Time Machine). 2. Have an extra storage handy for a rather economical price without luggi…

I have a 512GB SD card plugged at all times in my iMac Pro and I use it as an entry point for various backups (which get distributed to cloud storage for redundancy after).

I too am a bit confused by the non-popularity of such a setup. SD cards are okay for rarely changing data (or data that changes little, exactly like the incremental backups) and are extremely compact.

I view SD cards as the diskettes I always wanted to have some 26 or so years ago.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#80

Post by KptMarchewa »

lovelyviking wrote: post #66
BluSyn wrote: post #14

My controversial hot take-- I have never needed an SD card, and have gone all-in on USB-C. I will be very disappointed if they add back in USB-A/HDMI/SD ports, or remove USB-C charging in favor of proprietary charge port. Sounds like unnecessary feature bloat. Please just do MagSage + USB-C, so I can maintain my one-cable-for-everything, making traveling lighter and simpler. Here's my counter argument to all those th…

>However vast majority of the time I use external keyboard+trackpad+monitor ... > one-cable-for-everything, making traveling lighter How those two work together? Do you take external monitor , trackpad and keyboard with you ? It looks like most of the time you are not using your laptop as a laptop, when you need everything on the go and you wish to be prepared for diff scenarios. Then you wish laptop as much packed a…

You can have your stuff in many places, and travel between them. I have monitors and keyboards in my home, my office and my parents home.
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