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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

#471

Post by uncledave »

yarcob wrote: post #463
shrimpx wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take is Jony Ive went extreme on form factor and totally lost his grip on users. He wanted an objectively perfect, extremely thin portless wireless machine. Now that he’s gone the design team is descending from the Ivery tower and undoing his work, meeting users halfway again.

I really hope that you're right, but to be honest I'm not holding my breath. I also don't think the 2015 Macbooks were perfect, it's just that I don't care about any of the new things Apple has introduced. What I would really like would be a cellular modem so I don't have to bother with hotspots on the train and maybe a stylus for marking up screenshots. For my use cases, Apple expects me to carry a Macbook, an iPad,…

I just moved away from windows because while the devices do everything they don't work properly.

I've now switched to a Mac Mini for a desktop and I use an 11" iPad Pro and apple pencil for everything that isn't code on the road.

I've got to the age where I'm not sitting hunched over a laptop working for half a day and there's not much point in having a laptop if it's going to be docked all day.

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

#472

Post by novok »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #139
sneak wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who shoots photos or videos on a real camera uses SD cards near-constantly. It wouldn't affect your not using the port for them to include it. Adding magsafe doesn't mean not supporting usb-c charging, or removing any usb-c ports. Your take obviously isn't that controversial: the maker of the best laptops in the world agrees with you, or at least they did at one time.

It's really annoying though that I still have to stick SD cards into readers; my Fuji X-T4 doesn't support acting as a proper SD card reader and CaptureOne 20 can't fetch images off camera devices ... meanwhile the camera is plugged in for USB-C charging anyway...

It sucks that camera manufacturers don't do basic shit half the time like act like an SD card reader when plugged in, or use USB 3 speeds vs save $3 by making their interface USB 2 speed vs USB 3.

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

#473

Post by i_am_proteus »

yarcob wrote: post #463
shrimpx wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take is Jony Ive went extreme on form factor and totally lost his grip on users. He wanted an objectively perfect, extremely thin portless wireless machine. Now that he’s gone the design team is descending from the Ivery tower and undoing his work, meeting users halfway again.

I really hope that you're right, but to be honest I'm not holding my breath. I also don't think the 2015 Macbooks were perfect, it's just that I don't care about any of the new things Apple has introduced. What I would really like would be a cellular modem so I don't have to bother with hotspots on the train and maybe a stylus for marking up screenshots. For my use cases, Apple expects me to carry a Macbook, an iPad,…

Why are you envious of Windows folks? Windows hardware is generally cheaper, so if you're using Macintosh, you could ostensibly afford Windows.

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

#474

Post by behnamoh »

angott wrote: post #466
behnamoh wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a couple years and you can say goodbye to your MBA superb battery capacity. Mine is now at 70% after only 3 years and less than 400 cycles. For all the buzz it receives, Apple does not really provide the highest quality. I’ve concluded that: “Apple gives you awesome first impression and terrible relationship in the long term.”

This is a problem with all laptop batteries, not just Apple batteries.

I'm saying that the OP's reasoning for lack of magsafe is not relevant.

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

#475

Post by Jonovono »

hatchnyc wrote: post #137

I use two MacBooks for programming for several hours each every single day, my personal machine has a touchbar, my work machine does not. I realize this is blasphemous to say and I did think I would hate the touchbar for all the reasons, but I actually ended up liking it. I had imagined myself tapping virtual function buttons and the whole thing seemed silly and useless and worse than having physical keys, but VS Cod…

Interesting, I would think most programmers touch type which at least for me make the touch bar useless. Since it's always changing I have to look down to see what button I am about to press. For me, if it's something common enough that the touchbars ability to change makes that functionality useful I would have found or made a keyboard shortcut for it.

I just upgraded from a MacBook pro to a MacBook air for the main reason it not having a touchbar, and it's much better (for me)!

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

#476

Post by novok »

weaksauce wrote: post #470
shrimpx wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take is Jony Ive went extreme on form factor and totally lost his grip on users. He wanted an objectively perfect, extremely thin portless wireless machine. Now that he’s gone the design team is descending from the Ivery tower and undoing his work, meeting users halfway again.

> He wanted an objectively perfect, extremely thin portless wireless machine. i mean that is the ipad pro with a keyboard. (not perfect comparison i guess but is closer to that ideal) The mbp is supposed to be for professionals and that comes with a need for flexibility and functionality. the quest for thinness was misguided in my opinion.

The iPad Pro fails at many laptop-esque tasks. I tried during a vacation, and it was way more work and way slower than it needed to be, and it wasn't because it wasn't powerful enough, it was the OS. Dumping photos from an SD card with not apple photos ran into a lot of annoyances and was a lot slower than doing the same thing with a 5 year macbook pro at that point, something that is objectively slower in the CPU realm and were both using USB2 speed SD card readers of some sort. Not to mention iOS's hostility to backgroup apps, making my file syncing app need to be on the foreground all the time for it to sync my photos to my E2E encrypted cloud drive.

A convertible M1 MacBook Air would probably be a better iPad Pro than that iPad Pro would be, and I think that is where apple is going with the "touch-size-ification" of macOS. iPad Procreate running full screen on a macOS convertable would give you %95 of the iPad experience TBH. A laptop is better than an iPad for videos and web browsing TBH.

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

#477

Post by faichai »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #464

Typing on our 2013 Mac Pro is downright luxurious and I wouldn’t trade it for any super thin anything. Would also pay thousands for an M2 motherboard upgrade. :D

Was thinking the same thing, given thermal envelope improvements made possible by M1/M1X/M2 would be so cool to be able to upgrade my perfectly viable MacBook Pro 2015 with a new logic board. Upgrade cycles are so wasteful.

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

#478

Post by gxnxcxcx »

yarcob wrote: post #381

The nice thing about my 2015 Macbook Pro is that it's useful without any accessories. I can just throw it in a bag and walk out the door. It's got enough battery life that I usually don't need to bring a charger. It has all the ports that I ever need. I can hook it up to a projector with the built in HDMI port, I can put in the SD card from my camera, or I can quickly copy files from someones thumb drive. I don't nee…

The 2015 MBP is also the last one that still has built-in optical audio output, via mini-TOSLINK.

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

#479

Post by kube-system »

behnamoh wrote: post #446
kube-system wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tripping over a power cable was a problem created by a battery life that was shorter than a work day, IMO. I have been charging my M1 Mac at night, like my phone.

Wait a couple years and you can say goodbye to your MBA superb battery capacity. Mine is now at 70% after only 3 years and less than 400 cycles. For all the buzz it receives, Apple does not really provide the highest quality. I’ve concluded that: “Apple gives you awesome first impression and terrible relationship in the long term.”

> “Apple gives you awesome first impression and terrible relationship in the long term.”

I’ve always heard the opposite. And in fact, my M1 Mac replaces an almost decade old MacBook.

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

#480

Post by novok »

manicpolymath wrote: post #454
jessriedel wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The Optimus Maximus keyboard showed why OLED was a bad choice for the keyboard. Chyrosran22 did a review of a used one that had severe burn in on all the keys. It would be interesting if someone could make a screen key cap that was compatible with Cherry MX or Alps switches. The problem is with communication and power delivery, though. Could NFC power a tiny E-Ink display? https://youtu.be/qj7GYU-wedo

I think mini/micro LED displays are the future of making something like that work without burn in issues. They are small and flat enough that you could fit in whatever key you want to. There will be a lot more wires involved although, as each key cap will have a mini display in them in front of the switch, and I'd worry about that wire eventually breaking from the constant moving of that wire inside the keyboard key.
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