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Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

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Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#151

Post by daigoba66 »

hmigneron wrote: post #42

I'm always surprised when developers don't talk about the F keys in their reviews of the new MBP. I mostly agree with the author regarding the escape key, the touch bar isn't really a problem in that regard, it still works and I got used to "pressing" it on the touchbar really quickly. I really really miss physical F keys though. I spend a lot of time debugging (either in the Chrome debugger or in IDEs) where pressin…

It's particularly bad for those of use that run Windows/Visual Studio from a Mac. Microsoft products are historically heavily dependent on the F keys with well known conventions (F1=help,F2=rename,F3=find/next,etc).

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#153

Post by golergka »

WildUtah wrote: post #44
hmigneron wrote: post #42

I'm always surprised when developers don't talk about the F keys in their reviews of the new MBP. I mostly agree with the author regarding the escape key, the touch bar isn't really a problem in that regard, it still works and I got used to "pressing" it on the touchbar really quickly. I really really miss physical F keys though. I spend a lot of time debugging (either in the Chrome debugger or in IDEs) where pressin…

It's a real detriment to UI, it costs you battery life, it's a distracting gimmick, and it adds $200 to the cost of your machine. And Apple will never give up on it. Every Mac is going to be worse for years and years because of it. Enjoy.

> It's a real detriment to UI, it costs you battery life, it's a distracting gimmick, and it adds $200 to the cost of your machine.

Apart from the battery thing, the same could be (and was) said about a mouse.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#154

Post by chrisseaton »

Wildgoose wrote: post #105
nicky0 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have made my living for the past 8 years as a macOS software developer. I never use the F keys.

Seriously? I use them ALL the time.

I'm a programmer and I don't use keyboard shortcuts either, apart from Control-C, Control-V and Control-Z.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#155

Post by epaga »

Wow, until this article I had no idea BetterTouchTool now supported touch bar customization. This is huge. Next to the crazy price, the touch bar was my only other gripe about my 15" tMBP - I absolutely love the keyboard, the huge touch pad, and everything else about it. But now with this tool (I've been tinkering around with it for a bit now), that last complaint is entirely gone.

The touch bar is finally useful now - contextual, customizable, visual shortcuts for anything I'd want to do on the Mac. Super powerful.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#156

Post by hellofunk »

contergan wrote: post #80
yaegers wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Battery life seems not like a surprise. Isn't Apple only selling 2015 MacBooks without a discrete GPU? So you basically only have Intel Graphics in there which would mean a charge lasts much longer if it doesn't need to drive an NVidia or AMD card as well.

I'm inclined not to believe the 15 hour claim. I've had the 2015 MBP since it came out and get maybe 4-5 hours of battery life doing non-heavy web development nowadays. After I newly bought it I got maybe around 7 hours at most. With integrated graphics only of course - with the dedicated GPU active I get around 3 hours or so only.

I'm not inflating my claim, but it's possible that I use really efficient apps most of the time compared to the average user. I am also not watching movies or YouTube or listening to music. Just writing code in a very efficient editor (emacs), and doing very little web browsing.

Also perhaps they improved their batteries in the most recent iteration? Just guessing because your experience is definitely different than mine.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#157

Post by pier25 »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #115

I don't hear much about the display on the MBP, it's as near to perfect as any display I've ever seen, using text is beautiful, the colour depth is extraordinary - and its a laptop. I plugged in a new external 1080p monitor and thought at first there was something wrong with it, but no it's just the difference in crispness. Not only that you can run 2 external 5K monitors! from a laptop! The SSD's are so fast, it's a…

> I don't hear much about the display on the MBP, it's as near to perfect as any display I've ever seen

I mentioned it in my article. It has a wider gamut and brighter panel, but color fidelity wise it's worse than it's predecessors.

https://medium.com/@Pier/why-i-bought-a-2015-macbook-pro-fad...

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#158

Post by yokohummer7 »

matthewking wrote: post #145
yokohummer7 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Windows Subsystem for Linux! While all my server and development stuffs are based on Linux, I wasn't particularly a fan of the Linux GUIs. The reason MacBook was attractive was that it runs POSIX. But now Windows can do that too thanks to WSL. It's not complete but even the current partial support does enough for me. It's a cheap, lightweight alternative to Linux VMs. I guess I would go with a Windows-based lapto…

I'm considering this too, Windows 10 still has some annoying UI inconsistencies but its getting there, and with the Ubuntu subsystem its viable for Linux based dev's without setting up a VM. I mean technically its closer to my target production environment than macOS is. I haven't spent that long trying it out but managed to get a Rails 5 app up and running without much fuss, I'm with you on it being a game changer.

> I mean technically its closer to my target production environment than macOS is.

Huh, I didn't think about that, but you're right. Yeah, I won't have to deal with slightly different shell tools that are bundled with macOS. I'm not saying those tools are bad, it's just that I'm so used to GNU tools. Also, the directory structures and the kernel interfaces will exactly be the same as Ubuntu. Good point.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#160

Post by pythonaut_16 »

notalaser wrote: post #93
routelastresort wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good thing that can come of this would be the resurgence of the Linux desktop. Apple just crossed the line for me (<32GB, no SSD upgrade, messing with the keyboard). I'll miss the almost perfect trackpad, but there's no way I'll support these choices.

Historically, the side effect this tends to have is that a lot of programmers flock to a new platform but bring the way they use and write programs with them. Fifteen years ago we ended up with CORBA- and Window Registry-like components bolted on top of Linux desktops. On the other hand, seeing how nowadays the Linux "community" is mostly a bunch of big cloud, automotive and IoT/vaporware companies, this could be the…

I've read about i3 several times over the past few years but finally checked it out a few weeks ago, and it fits exactly what I've been looking for in a Linux desktop for so long.

All I've ever wanted from Ubuntu/Gnome/KDE/XFCE (at least while developing) was the ability to launch programs easily from the keyboard, to tile windows in various configurations, and to manage virtual desktops.

i3 makes all of this easy with an incredibly simple and logical set of keyboard shortcuts. To anyone thinking about trying out i3, the learning curve isn't as bad as it seems, especially if you use a distro like Manjaro-i3 that can take care of some of the harder parts for you.

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