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2016 Retina MacBook Pro Caveats

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Re: 2016 Retina MacBook Pro Caveats

#131

Post by TekMol »

Jesus. My friends who use Apple computers always make fun of the "tech shit" that "dos users" like me have to deal with. And how Apple "just works". (Yeah, they say "Dos" when they mean "Linux". Because they think text on a screen equals DOS, the old terminal based OS by Microsoft).

And now I read this:

System Integrity Protection (SIP) was disabled ... csrutil status ... boot into the recovery mode... hold ⌘-R when booting ... open a terminal ...type csrutil enable and reboot ... DisplayPort-to-mDP2 cable to connect to the Thunderbolt 2 port ... get a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 dongle ... Thunderbolt 2 means 4 PCI Express 2.0 lanes with DisplayPort 1.2 ... Change the monitor to MST mode ... recover via HDMI ... Apple Digital AV Adapter ... HDMI instead of mDP2 ... third-party DisplayPort adapter ...

And so on and so on. "Just works"?

Re: 2016 Retina MacBook Pro Caveats

#132

Post by scottlamb »

mikeash wrote: post #5

Not supporting DisplayPort with an adapter is just insane. Apple's new top-end laptop is incompatible with the most common way to connect external monitors? I've been willing to give Apple and the new MBP the benefit of the doubt on this stuff, and in particular I don't mind that it needs dongles now if that means we get universal USB-C adoption faster. But the dongles need to actually exist and work now!

They exist. I bought a Plugable USB 3.1 Type-C to DisplayPort adapter off Amazon. It works with my new 15" Macbook Pro and my new LG 27UD68-W 4K display; full resolution, 60Hz. There are also various adapters to plug in HDMI, but they don't seem to do 4K at 60Hz, so I avoided them.

The article is saying that a TB3 -> TB2 adapter and a mini-DisplayPort -> DisplayPort adapter don't chain correctly. I haven't tried that; I assume the author is correct.

Re: 2016 Retina MacBook Pro Caveats

#133

Post by taurath »

teilo wrote: post #126
taurath wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a $2500 laptop. Apple should ship the cable.

They could do that, and then listen to a different group of people whining about why they have to pay $30 for a cable that is only ever going to be used for power.

They've got like a 30% margin on these laptops, and have told everyone that USB-C is the future. So they ship with a gimped cable which will only confuse people because it doesn't have any of the capabilities they're touting.

Re: 2016 Retina MacBook Pro Caveats

#134

Post by Rezo »

MitjaBezensek wrote: post #65

A few other problems I came across: 1. Battery life is much lower than specified: http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/battery-life-for-13-and-... 2. Some users report graphic card problems: http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pool-do-you-have-graphic... Here is how it looks like: http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/graphic-card-freaks-out-... 3. TouchBar graphics sometimes display on the screen instead of on the Touc…

The 2015 13" Pro has a 74.9-watt-hour battery.

The 2016 13" non-Touch Bar Pro has a 54.5-watt-hour battery.

The 2016 13" Touch Bar Pro has a 49.2-watt-hour-battery!

The components in the 2016 models are more power efficient. But at some point you'll run into physics.

Apple may claim the battery life is the same as before when watching a movie (probably entirely HW accelerator offloaded by now), but if you're compiling code all day I wouldn't expect the new laptop to match the previous battery life based on the raw numbers alone.

Re: 2016 Retina MacBook Pro Caveats

#135

Post by CountSessine »

Elizer0x0309 wrote: post #123

Any serious developer worth his salt is not going to put up with the utter shit the new MB(P) are. I know they're catering to "media" types but for any engineer who also happens to be a 10x and well rounded, doing art, music and other fields will feel constrained. Apple has left the golden middle ground a long time ago and is going after the "media" types only. News flash: the margins in those youtubers-sectors are v…

Apple has left the golden middle ground a long time ago and is going after the "media" types only. News flash: the margins in those youtubers-sectors are very low, hence the spending will dry sooner rather then later.

I don't think that this is a very good good laptop for media-youtuber types either. Just watch Casey Neistat's review of the new rMBP. He really wants to like it, but it's really clear from what he's saying that it's completely unsuited to his needs. In particular, the loss of the SD card slot is going to hurt anyone who uses pro camera equipment.

Re: 2016 Retina MacBook Pro Caveats

#136

Post by slantyyz »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #40

"Most dongles don't work" was what killed it for me, after reading several reports that it was really hard to hook up anything reliably to the USB-C ports given the churn in the dongle market I decided to skip this generation and go for the next rev.

>> after reading several reports

We HN users are fortunate to be "in the know" about these issues, because we keep up with this information.

Can you imagine how the out of the box experience would feel like for less-informed early buyers of the new MBP who find out about these issues post purchase?

I get the impression it's going to hurt the "everything just works" reputation that Macs have had for the longest time.

Re: 2016 Retina MacBook Pro Caveats

#137

Post by Lio »

Caballera wrote: post #30
Tom1971 wrote: post #8

While, over time, a lot of today's annoyances with the new Macabook's will fade away, the lack of ESC key is a deal breaker for me. I tried it at the Apple Store and it's pretty much unusable. (It had the seen issue as the writer, apparently relying on the physical click to know whether or not I had pressed it. In addition, I also mistyped it a lot. Maybe hack to replace the whole touch bar as one single ESC key will…

The escape key is still there, it's on the Touch Bar, I have no issues with using it, and I haven't had to re-map it. Also you can hit the 'fn' key and the 'Function' bar and escape key will appear while using any other 'app' that changes the Touch Bar.

Does it toggle or is only when the fn key is held?

If it's only whilst the key is held it effectively means you'd have to use your right hand to press the escape key ...which doesn't sound ideal to me.

Re: 2016 Retina MacBook Pro Caveats

#138

Post by netsharc »

ryanlol wrote: post #115
taurath wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a $2500 laptop. Apple should ship the cable.

If I buy a $2500 flight I get a toothbrush, why does the $2500 macbook not come with a toothbrush? Edit: In case it wasn't obvious to the readers, the reason behind the missing toothbrush and missing USB-C 3.1 cable are the same. Who the hell expects a toothbrush with their laptop? Or a random USB cable in that matter?

Because a lot of people fall asleep on flights, and want to refresh their oral hygiene when waking up, and the airline realizes this extra will be appreciated.

Now, do people need USB-cables when using their electronic devices? And would that little extra be appreciated?

Re: 2016 Retina MacBook Pro Caveats

#139

Post by aabajian »

Veen wrote: post #36
Tom1971 wrote: post #8

While, over time, a lot of today's annoyances with the new Macabook's will fade away, the lack of ESC key is a deal breaker for me. I tried it at the Apple Store and it's pretty much unusable. (It had the seen issue as the writer, apparently relying on the physical click to know whether or not I had pressed it. In addition, I also mistyped it a lot. Maybe hack to replace the whole touch bar as one single ESC key will…

> I've been told to remap the ESC to CAPS LOCK to vim usage, but I seem to be one of a rare breed who uses the latter the way it was intended to be, so that's a no go for me. Not really relevant, but when Vi was originally developed, the escape key was in a more convenient location — right where the tab key is now. It was never intended for users to have to reach that far to hit such an essential key. https://en.wiki…

I actually think this is very relevant, just unknown! It's something I always wondered about Vi, the ESC key is just out of reach of the home row, making it a strange choice for a fundamental operation.

Re: 2016 Retina MacBook Pro Caveats

#140

Post by xienze »

benvds wrote: post #13
revelation wrote: post #4

He has a brand new display (which in displays, is Display DisplayPort-to-mDP2 TB 3 to 2 USB-C to TB 3 MacBook What is going on?

I've been a mac user for 12 years, have my current retina macbook for 4 years, consider myself a pro user and want to buy a new "mobile computer". I'm no longer considering buying an apple macbook. OS X is great but with these prices I can no longer validate it's value anymore and looking into buying an xps.

Yeah they've completely lost me with this update. Want a 15" model with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD (i.e., something that will last a reasonable amount of time)? Toss in AppleCare and you're looking at $3K. I have a mental barrier at around the $2200 mark -- I could afford it, but I just can't justify spending that much on a laptop with fairly pedestrian specs.
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