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MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

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Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#111
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. Maybe for spoiling the end result? Haha. Having the lowest repairability possible should not be acceptable for such a high-end machine. Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 got 5/10 (23 October 2019) https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Laptop+3+(...

Why shouldn’t it be acceptable? I for one accept to trade repairability for less footprint/weight. And I also admire my ThinkPad T420 that I thoroughly hacked. Let the market decide what it wants. There’s space for all kinds os laptops and gadgets.

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” -Henry Ford

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#113
post #50

Call me crazy but I must be the only person who enjoys typing on the old butterfly keyboard. Yes I was one of those people who originally thought the travel was too small but after using it for a couple hours I found the low travel was a huge relief to Carpal Tunnel and I also typed much faster. Maybe I have the only keyboard that “works” but I love me some butterfly keyboards.

I'm with you. I have an old Macbook Pro at home with the original scissors keyboard, as well as some old bluetooth Mac keyboards with scissor switches, and a 2017 Pro with the butterfly switches, so I get plenty of experience with both styles. I prefer the butterfly keyboard.

But like you, I haven't had a key go bad (yet?). I'm sure some folks did not like the butterfly feel, but I think a lot of the frustration started with how easily it broke.

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#114

Why doesn't apple make the touchbar out of keys? The keys could be flat on top and seamlessly adjacent to one another to make a "bar", for sliders and such. But pressable like regular keys to make great buttons (most common use-case). I feel like that is inventable.

Like the Chromebook Pixel? I don't think sliding on that would work very well, since you'd end up pressing the keys…

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#115
post #29
post #11

It‘s not a very professional device if you can‘t upgrade the storage and the memory. The Mac Pro will feature modular SSDs (and they aren‘t even super fast). I wonder if Apple will use something proprietary or standard M.2 NVMe modules. They probably can‘t offer PCIe 4.0 slots since they‘re using Intel which is trailing behind.

The Mac Pro has similar proprietary, non-upgradable, non-replaceable modules to the iMac Pro.

The Mac Pro has standard DIMM slots, same as the iMac Pro. The latter are not officially user-accessible, but they're too hard to access.

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#116

Wait, so are individual keys repairable, or not? This ifixit article says, "Once again, the keyboard assembly is riveted down. Though the switches are likely less vulnerable to crumbly assailants, the keyboard itself isn't any more repairable than the Butterfly boards." That directly contradicts statements from Apple to The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/13/20962380/apples-16-inch-... "Apple says that it has…

The keycaps are replacable but the keyswitches are not. I don't know of any Apple laptop that ever had replacable keyswitches.

It looks like the white piece beneath the keycap (I guess that's the "scissor mechanism") is replaceable too.

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. Maybe for spoiling the end result? Haha. Having the lowest repairability possible should not be acceptable for such a high-end machine. Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 got 5/10 (23 October 2019) https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Laptop+3+(...

> Having the lowest repairability possible should not be acceptable for such a high-end machine. Just wait until you see cell phones.

At least my cell phone has expandable storage.

Edit: I thought this was implied, but to clarify I meant "expandable without increasing the footprint of the device".

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#118

Why doesn't apple make the touchbar out of keys? The keys could be flat on top and seamlessly adjacent to one another to make a "bar", for sliders and such. But pressable like regular keys to make great buttons (most common use-case). I feel like that is inventable.

Like the Chromebook Pixel? I don't think sliding on that would work very well, since you'd end up pressing the keys…

You could have a locking mechanism that is activated when in bar mode.

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#119
post #82

Those half sized up/down cursor keys - does nobody within Apple use spreadsheets? I get that it's not their primary audience but surely of all the keys you'd want to mini-fy cursor would be one of the last?

I really like the inverted-T arrangement. I have literally held off on buying a new Mac until they went back to that layout, since it lets me position my fingers on the keys better.

Yeah same here, I tried using keyboards with full-size left right arrow keys and I don't know why but I found that to be one of the hardest things to adjust to. And I type on lots of different keyboards.

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can totally run Windows or Linux on a macbook with some effort. Apple even built Bootcamp to make it easy to dual boot... Or are you saying you should be able to take OSX elsewhere? it's not a "monopoly" that Apple built OSX and only support it on their own hardware. It is not monopolistic to build something supported on one platform and not others.

I think there were issues with Linux at some point because of the nonstandard NVMe drive that Apple was using. Were those ever fixed?

I'm not sure, I've never tried installing Linux on a Macbook Pro. I know that it is/was possible for certain hardware but also that it was never easy or straight forward. Apple doesn't help but they aren't making their laptops reject unsigned code or anything like they do for the phones.

Given that OSX and Linux are so similar under the hood and that standing up a VM is so easy, I've never really seen the point of installing linux except to say you can.

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