One of my team got a new MBP in December. He turned it on yesterday and the hard drive isn't recognized and the machine refuses to boot. The Apple store can't do anything but exchange it, there's no way to get to the disk short of taking it to a data recovery shop, which is a dicey proposition at best. I haven't seen many reports of this particular problem elsewhere, but I've had a feeling that apple's quality has been falling, and this is yet another point of anecdata. I think he'll return it and get a Thinkpad, and go full Linux. The MBPs are sexy, but, imho, the price:value ratio has tipped.
Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
21–30 of 228 posts
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#22I've got the 13" maxed out Late 2016. I've owned every form factor of the MacBook Pro and this is my least favorite. I like the USB-C and have bought into the tradeoff of having no Magsafe. It's also a minor plus to be able to plug in either side of the machine. The TouchID is good too. However, I've found the TouchID extremely laggy for some reason (esp. on unlock) which really reduced the benefit. The keyboard is _…
I suspect I'd use the touch bar in Notes where I frequently want to use title and header and normal formatting, but have trouble remembering the keyboard shortcuts for those three functions (I'm not in Notes much).
In other apps, I don't know how much I'd use it.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#23I accidentally dropped my MacBook Pro and after looking at the price of a Retina repair, I found myself in the market for a new MacBook. However, instead of the MBP, I downgraded to the Air. I do not miss Retina and I would have missed USB. The Air was $800 all up since I got an exceptionally good Presidents' Day deal.
I miss, dearly, being able to throw more RAM and bigger SSDs in my retina -- especially since the machines last so long that prices fall substantially over course of ownership. My eyes would hate me for going back in DPI though -- I even had to switch my desktop monitors out, its just that much less eye strain for me.
128GB/8GB is enough for me for now.
Retina on my iPhone SE is a major plus because it has a smaller screen and I hold it closer, 8" away. On a laptop, I'm reading 24" away. I'm not saying Retina on the MBP isn't nice. But price/USB/retina/weight/memory/storage in totality came out in the Air's favor. If Apple had kept USB and not jacked the price, I probably would have bought another MBP.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#24One of my team got a new MBP in December. He turned it on yesterday and the hard drive isn't recognized and the machine refuses to boot. The Apple store can't do anything but exchange it, there's no way to get to the disk short of taking it to a data recovery shop, which is a dicey proposition at best. I haven't seen many reports of this particular problem elsewhere, but I've had a feeling that apple's quality has be…
The thumb, in this scale metaphor, is requiring an Apple computer to create software for the iPhone. From what I've seen, there is little to correct this. Even remoting into a Mac Mini won't help, it just makes things harder. So if you need to tap that particular segment, you have to have an Apple computer, and it will probably be a MBP due to convenience.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#25He says dongles and cables are "a non-issue" and buys over 7 new dongles, 2 new custom cables, plus a new card reader?
Maybe what he meant was that he had no issue trading money for dongles, cables & a card reader.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#26This may be the Apple fanboy in me talking, but I think Apple was in a tough spot- seems like the tMBP has supplied-constrained components (I think it was hard to get in-store even 3 months after the launch), so their options were- delay it until they had a large number of laptops built already, charge an "acceptable" price and have people wait months for one, or charge more and have the price keep demand down. They went with the last option because, well, they can. I'm guessing the price should go down soon now that supply has somewhat caught up with demand.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#27He says dongles and cables are "a non-issue" and buys over 7 new dongles, 2 new custom cables, plus a new card reader?
If you have UHS-II cards and a nice USB-C card reader, that alone can make the experience a positive one, dongles or no. Truth is, I really really like USB-C so far (two months in), and will be happy once a few more of my legacy devices are USB-C native (or replaceable by a model that is).
I just wish someone made a multiple port USB-C hub, not just another dumb USB-C-to-USB-A hub. I preordered an Arc Hub, but just as with stock options at a startup, there's a 50/50 chance I'll ever see any value there...
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#28I've got the 13" maxed out Late 2016. I've owned every form factor of the MacBook Pro and this is my least favorite. I like the USB-C and have bought into the tradeoff of having no Magsafe. It's also a minor plus to be able to plug in either side of the machine. The TouchID is good too. However, I've found the TouchID extremely laggy for some reason (esp. on unlock) which really reduced the benefit. The keyboard is _…
IMHO, the touchbar had more to with competitive positioning against microsoft's touchscreen than optimising benefit for the user. It's the new 'one button mouse'.
Bret Victor tweeted that the TouchBar took 8 years of work to go from conception to production. https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848
You sure it was a reaction to MS?
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#29I've got the 13" maxed out Late 2016. I've owned every form factor of the MacBook Pro and this is my least favorite. I like the USB-C and have bought into the tradeoff of having no Magsafe. It's also a minor plus to be able to plug in either side of the machine. The TouchID is good too. However, I've found the TouchID extremely laggy for some reason (esp. on unlock) which really reduced the benefit. The keyboard is _…
The main problem I have with the keyboard is that the small travel gives it very small tolerances for to achieve the "clickiness", and after a few months use I can already feel that some keys are less clicky than others, due apparently to uneven wear in the mechanism among different keys... I wonder if there'll be a "keyboard-gate" situation in a year as more people notice this, or if I'm an outlier.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMHO, the touchbar had more to with competitive positioning against microsoft's touchscreen than optimising benefit for the user. It's the new 'one button mouse'.
Bret Victor tweeted that the TouchBar took 8 years of work to go from conception to production. https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848 You sure it was a reaction to MS?
An 8 year release process lines up with the release of touchscreen-enabled windows 7 and 8. Sure, they may have been investigating it before the windows release, but the choice to produce this hamfisted feature, rather than a touchscreen, still looks like a competitive reaction.
Many things take lots of time to develop, and lots of things never make it into an actual release.
EDIT: khaledtaha's comment above sounds even more plausible, give the strategy Apple currently appears to be pursuing.