14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack • Hacker News Board

Re: 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack

#141

Post by Hamuko » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

spicybright wrote: post #135

beaner wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I dislike this bit. Thinness isn't everything, but it's something. I don't know that the new models really needed to look as brick-ish as they do, and the previous design was certainly sexier.

I actually like the throwback, personally. I'm guessing they did that to differentiate it in the market. What I have trouble getting over is the flipping notch to the top. Just why. The bezel on my 2019 macbook looks the same, if not skinnier. Do people really not watch fullscreen videos anymore or something?

>Do people really not watch fullscreen videos anymore or something?

How many of the videos you watch are taller than 16:10? Are any of them even taller than 16:9?

Re: 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack

#142

Post by cjbconnor » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

torstenvl wrote: post #139

seanalltogether wrote: post #74

Can anyone recommend a good thunderbolt dock they've been using. Ideally I would like a dock that at least provides for displayport, ethernet, audio, and 1 or 2 usb-a ports. I'm fine with using the magsafe if power through the dock is not available.

I also use the CalDigit dock, but I am annoyed that it has compatibility issues with Catalina (I am holding out from Big Sur as long as I can). Unplug the dock and, on next plug-in, macOS can no longer see the dock's USB bus. External keyboard, mouse, backup drive, etc. won't work unless you reboot macOS. I've heard mixed reports on whether Big Sur has fixed this entirely.

FWIW I never had any issues with either Catalina or Big Sur

Re: 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack

#143

Post by mrtksn » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

reilly3000 wrote: post #39

Much has already been said about this, but this achievement of shipping a MBP that pro users seem to love is a triumph of user feedback over design purity. I suspect that Jony Ives’ departure may have facilitated this. I suspect it will be a breakout success and I aspire to contribute to their sales figures some day. Of all of Apple’s revenue streams I know their pro products are now merely an afterthought, but they…

My guess is that Apple bet on something that did not materialise, it wasn't about Jony Ive not caring about user feedback.

What was the bet you say? I think they bet that the shift to USB-C/Thunderbolt/Wireless will happen quickly and they can help with the push and increase their margins.

IMHO It wasn't a design decision but a business one and I think the removal of mag-safe is a giveaway. Every little thing that they add makes the thing more complicated to manufacture, thus more expensive. Every non-off-the-shelf piece puts multiple teams in to work on multiple continents and this costs money. I think they aimed for the simplicity at management level and not at design level. They did some calculation based on how well people are locked in and how many will buy a new mac and went with the most profitable option up until the time for the great transition comes. Until very recently the PC industry was racing to the bottom and Apple did not have a reason to compete on features. Nice Windows laptops are a very new phenomenon, up until very recently the best trackpad on a PC laptop wasn't even on the same league with Apple's.

Re: 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack

#144

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

HiroProtagonist wrote: post #114

nitins_jakta wrote: post #105

Apple still won't take some accessibility issues seriously, which is unfortunate given they are a leader in this space. They don't test their devices on people with binocular vision dysfunction, although I've asked them to. There is a whole community of people on LEDStrain.org who suffer from severe eyestrain, vertigo, headaches and migraines to the point where these devices are unusable for a minority of people. One…

I think it is unfair to generally state 'Apple still refuses to take accessibility issues seriously' because the one issue you care about most isn't addressed to your satisfaction. I think you'll find that generally speaking, Apple cares a lot about accessibility.

[deleted]

Re: 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack

#145

Post by smoldesu » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #21

fayten wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it's very rare now a days. I live in JVM land and there are quite a few native JNA libraries that I have run into issues with. One example is vlcj [1] I just ran into yesterday. I have yet to dig deeply into the issue just yet, but it's giving me the fun "no compatible architecture found error". SWT and JavaFX both fully works with arm now though, so I am pretty happy on that front. GraalVM native-image also…

They really need to get on and support macOS ARM for GraalVM. It's clearly not going away - it just needs doing.

While we're asking, would it really be that much trouble getting Vulkan working? It falls in the same category of 'not going away but needs doing'.

Re: 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack

#146

Post by nitins_jakta » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #140

nitins_jakta wrote: post #105

Apple still won't take some accessibility issues seriously, which is unfortunate given they are a leader in this space. They don't test their devices on people with binocular vision dysfunction, although I've asked them to. There is a whole community of people on LEDStrain.org who suffer from severe eyestrain, vertigo, headaches and migraines to the point where these devices are unusable for a minority of people. One…

Can you identify a system that doesn’t cause these issues for you?

Older systems like a ThinkPad from 2013 work. Something changed around then for the display tech.

Re: 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack

#147

Post by nitins_jakta » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

HiroProtagonist wrote: post #114

nitins_jakta wrote: post #105

Apple still won't take some accessibility issues seriously, which is unfortunate given they are a leader in this space. They don't test their devices on people with binocular vision dysfunction, although I've asked them to. There is a whole community of people on LEDStrain.org who suffer from severe eyestrain, vertigo, headaches and migraines to the point where these devices are unusable for a minority of people. One…

I think it is unfair to generally state 'Apple still refuses to take accessibility issues seriously' because the one issue you care about most isn't addressed to your satisfaction. I think you'll find that generally speaking, Apple cares a lot about accessibility.

I agree, apple has done great with things like VoiceOver.

There is other stuff they can do, like a toggle to disable temporal dithering. Or actually test their devices with people with binocular vision dysfunction.

Re: 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack

#148

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

shp0ngle wrote: post #88

moneywoes wrote: post #2

Do ARM compatibility issues still exist?

Yes, and they will never go away entirely You can never run x86 dockers as easily and as quickly as on intel. If you have bunch of scripts in some deployment/development pipeline that depend on docker being x86, they will fail. Other things…I’m not sure about October 2021, but last time I looked, R was still only available through Rosetta, because parts of R are in FORTRAN and that does not have native M1 support (ye…

There's no problem with either scipy or numpy running natively on Apple Silicon. The problem is with the 3rd-party package managers, which are all junk, and that's not new: they've always been hot garbage, especially homebrew. Just don't use homebrew, and then after you get used to that, don't use it on x86, either.

Re: 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack

#149

Post by novaRom » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

chomp wrote: post #48

toisanji wrote: post #22

which is the right one to get, 14 or 16?

Depends on your workflow. Do you find yourself working away from your monitors a lot? Do you move from place to place, or do you set up and not move for a while? How's your eyesight? Do you use the native screen at all while docked? I find 14" to be good for mostly docked work, or very mobile work. I use reading glasses anyway, so the smaller screen doesn't bother me much, but I find it difficult to side-by-side 2 wi…

>side-by-side 2 windows

I never use that even on 40" display. In general where size matters: terminal window is much easier to use if you write long one-liners, reading logs, editing in vim; I do set fonts to be large to have 240x70 characters on the full screen.

Even 16" is too small for any productive work, not mentioning ugly Apple German keyboard layout is absolutely terrible for any serious programming (square and round brackets are in very hard locations).

Re: 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack

#150

Post by dkonofalski » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

losvedir wrote: post #69

I ordered mine on release day and am eagerly awaiting its delivery. Glad to hear that about the notch. I couldn't for the life of me think why it mattered. When the presentation showed it, I looked at the very display of the Mac laptop I was watching it on and sure enough, there was a gap in the menu bar where the notch would be, with the menu items on the left and the clock and all those little widget icons on the r…

There may even be an option in System Preferences somewhere to lower the menu bar when there's overflow and just treat the extra area as a bezel. Since that's what it does for full-screen apps that aren't updated, it seems like it would be a good compromise in those situations.