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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

#391

Post by mc10 »

qppo wrote: post #360
kevindong wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most cases, I fully agree. But there's the hefty edge case (for developers at least) of showing off a piece of code that essentially requires a developer environment to be running. It's simply not possible to create a developer environment quickly enough in a meeting room for it to be practical.

I'd question why you're running code in a meeting. That's some morning standup stuff for your team which can be done at your desk or placed in a gif in an email, not hauled off to a separate room. Meetings are for collaboration, not demos...

> Meetings are for collaboration, not demos...

Meetings can absolutely be used for demos. Maybe you're demoing for an audience that's large enough to not fit next to your desk. Maybe you're demoing something that you don't want other people to overhear. Maybe multiple people are all demoing projects to each other.

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

#393

Post by evan_ »

egypturnash wrote: post #390

I never needed an SD card until suddenly I needed one. And then there I was with one permanantly lodged in my old Air's SD port, with my music collection on it, because I needed more room on the HD. I have been enjoying being able to dock my current Pro to the desk setup with one cable that carries power/video/audio/USB but I keep on eyeing my slowly-filling hard drive and worrying about what I'll do when I need more…

There are a bunch of magnetic usb c adapters on Amazon for not very much money, I can’t speak to quality

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

#394

Post by studius »

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…

> I have never needed an SD card

I need to use SD cards for my camera and RPis. That's a significant amount of users that would buy Macs, even if you don't use them.

> and have gone all-in on USB-C

The move to Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C seemed to be hinged on the assumption that all new products would be USB-C. The prior removal of the headphone jack[1] and replacement of the lightning-adapter airbuds included with new iPhones set precedent to allow them to continue to simplify. But there's a big difference between (a) providing a replacement that effectively works the same way and (b) having a market based on being best and svelte, but expecting that the average customer can and will buy replacement lanky adapters and big ugly hubs that get in the way (especially when the cheaper ones can cause more interference[2]).

Apple once had a "Think Different" campaign, and perhaps that transmogrified to "Be the Change" in the 2010s. "Think Different" was about producing the best product, with a quality product that worked better, not about forcing customers to take on the burden of a mess, making their lives more difficult and looking out-of-control. "Be the Change" is activism which often causes problems for some, with a goal of things becoming better. "Think Different" works better in product design and development. "Be the Change" is for Human Resources and Marketing.

> 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 that love MagSafe: makes traveling a huge hassle, forcing me to carry a special charge brick that only works for ONE device. In 2021 going forward, I will flat refuse to spend money on anything that doesn't use USB-C or Qi charging

It's expected to have Thunderbolt 3 (in form of USB-C) on it. I'd assume that they will allow charging the computer from it, as that's part of the spec of Thunderbolt 3; I'm not 100% on that, but as keeping that capability would be part of the Thunderbolt 3 spec which includes Thunderbolt, USB, DisplayPort, and 100W power input[3]. It just wouldn't charge as quickly.

This MagSafe will probably be the Qi-supporting MagSafe[3][4] which can be 15W for faster charging or 7.5W for Qi and will probably support the ring chargers, probably under the touchpad, given design choices from existing charging stands[5].

> I can now travel with a single 2xUSB-C power brick

And you would probably be able to do that, but it will charge faster with MagSafe.

> I am all for removing the TouchBar

Yep. I couldn't easily change brightness or volume when in context specific mode with the settings I had by default, and it was distracting.

It can be emulated[6].

[1]- 1/8" headphone that in some Macs had optical out: https://support.apple.com/en-za/guide/mac-help/cpmh0052/11.0...

[2]- https://www.zdnet.com/article/usb-3-and-usb-c-devices-can-ca...

[3]- https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208368

[4]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagSafe

[5]- https://amazon.com/Kensington-SmartFit-Ergonomic-15-6-Inch-W...

[6]- https://github.com/sindresorhus/touch-bar-simulator

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

#395

Post by Cyph0n »

qppo wrote: post #360
kevindong wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most cases, I fully agree. But there's the hefty edge case (for developers at least) of showing off a piece of code that essentially requires a developer environment to be running. It's simply not possible to create a developer environment quickly enough in a meeting room for it to be practical.

I'd question why you're running code in a meeting. That's some morning standup stuff for your team which can be done at your desk or placed in a gif in an email, not hauled off to a separate room. Meetings are for collaboration, not demos...

The parent provided a personal example of why they think laptops are useful for developers, and you attacked the example.

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

#396

Post by strogonoff »

mc10 wrote: post #384
strogonoff wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a dock that has all the connectivity options I need (an entirety of which can’t possibly fit in a portable device) while stationary, and it also charges my laptop. While on the go, I can pick dongles for what I need at the time. Most of the time it’s either nothing or a memory card reader. The need for memory card reader becomes increasingly rare, as devices have AirDrop, cameras have Wi-Fi, and for larger fil…

> built-in card reader dies and part of my laptop is dead weight until I send the whole thing in for service. Is this a frequent occurrence for you? I have a 6 year old MBP and all of the ports still work great. I would naively guess that P(port breaking) << P(dongle breaking).

Card reader in my old MBP died from what I presume is small debris stuck inside, and can’t be resurrected by manual cleaning anymore. For a time it was possible to use by inserting an SD card in a particular way, but that did not work reliably.

Ironically, that reader didn’t support microSD cards used by my audio recorder (Tascam DR-05), so once I lost the microSD to SD size adapter (which happened very quickly) I had to use a universal memory card reader dongle anyway.

I never sent it for repair: this was my daily driver so I had to have a backup machine in meantime, but when I got another laptop I simply switched to it.

My latest USB-C SD/microSD reader dongle feels surprisingly sturdy, though admittedly it is liable to getting lost (it’s been a year and it did not happen yet, but I’m sure it will at some point).

I’d say definitely P(port breaking) < P(dongle breaking or getting lost), but on the other hand port breaking has higher cost.

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

#397

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

simonh wrote: post #279
exhilaration wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dramatic decline in camera sales has been discussed a few times on HN, here's a random google result: https://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/dont-look-at-this-graph-sho... Cameras are rapidly turning into a niche product, it makes no sense for any laptop manufacturer to include an SD card reader at this point.

On the other hand Macs are heavily used by audio and video professionals, the Pro in the name doesn’t just refer to developers.

In fact doesn’t nearly every story on Mac dissatisfaction always have someone mentioning that high end A/V users are the real Mac target demo, not devs?

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

#398

Post by jessriedel »

escapecharacter wrote: post #355
jessriedel wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, what I really want is physical keys that travel but also have OLED screens built in on the top. Expensive, but best of both worlds.

I hope this is Apple's eventual goal; "expensive and best of both worlds" sounds exactly like something Apple would do.

Me too, but I'm not holding my breath. The idea has been out there for a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard

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

#399

Post by harel »

Apple hardware is really top notch. I am a Linux person but if I squint hard enough I can use the Mac OS (with some swearing weaved in). But I cannot use that terrible keyboard. Why do I need key combos for page up/down? Why are they useless buttons like that top squiggle on the top left but no page up/down buttons (there is space for them). Why some things are Cmd+ and some are Ctrl+? Why no key travel?

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

#400

Post by stirner »

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…

I’m with you. Maybe it’s something specific to being a techie and having a ton of peripherals, but being able to connect power, display, keyboard, mouse, webcam, backup drive, Ethernet, etc. with a single cable when I sit down at my desk was absolutely worth the somewhat pricey TB3 dock, especially when switching between work and personal devices.

I’m fine with them adding ports back as long as they still let you do PD into the TB3 ports. It’s still not super easy to determine exactly what features are supported by different devices/adapters/cables, especially when dealing with USB-C. However, it seems like a bit of a backslide on a bold move to push the state of the art forward that I believe was the right move.

Re: MagSafe, I honestly think they would be better off making a MagSafe adapter—a pair of small terminals which connect to the end of the power cable and the port that connect to each other magnetically. I imagine they could make this pretty low-profile and clean. But then it wouldn’t be exclusive to Apple’s own hardware, so I doubt they would ever go this route. A quick search turned up an existing adapter [1] that supports 100W PD and 40 GBPs data transfer so it’s definitely doable.

[1] https://www.newsshooter.com/2020/03/30/magrig-magnetic-usb-c...

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