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Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

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Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#201

Post by SomeHacker44 »

jwilliams wrote: post #15

I'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 _…

Amen to the loud comment. I have been kicked out of the bedroom several times over it already.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#202

Post by SomeHacker44 »

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…

Your points are largely moot, IMO. Nearly any laptop you can buy has super quick NVMe SSDs, super quick CPUs, and even great monitors. Heck, my Alienware 13R3 has an OLED monitor that puts the 13" MBP TB that I have to total shame.

Since everyone is running essentially commodity Intel hardware with commodity SSDs and commodity RAM and commodity GPUs with third-party sourced flat panels, the only thing that matters is the Touch Bar, keyboard and trackpad, and no matter how great the trackpad is, the Touch Bar is so bad it destroys everything else, and the keyboard and how loud it is destroys the rest.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#203

Post by muninn_ »

chvid wrote: post #63
muninn_ wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit. Why?? Is it around the same cost in Euros? I don't understand this. I literally paid half of that for mine.

The version that is referred to has to be the 15" with extra SSD and more expensive CPU. Before taxes Apple's prices varies around 10% with Japan and USA consistently being the cheapest. (Excluding "special" cases like Venezuela or mainland China with has either special import taxes or a failing currency.) VAT (sales tax) in Europe is in general around 20%; for a company this tax is fully deductible.

Could you explain the VAT tax deduction? When I was in Europe I purchased one expensive thing, and I got a refund for VAT at the airport. This was nice and made sense. But otherwise I don't understand it.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#204

Post by OskarS »

chrisseaton wrote: post #195
nicky0 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What for? I don't know a single F key shortcut. People say debugging, which seems fair enough. I guess I've always found the mouse-based controls sufficient to use the Xcode debugger. Apart from the debugger, what do people need the F keys for? Are people really debugging that often? I use a hell of a lot of keyboard shortcuts, mind you. But none of them are F keys.

> Are people really debugging that often? Don't people say that debugging is the longest part of development?

"Debugging" as a general term maybe, but "using a literal debugger with breakpoints and stuff" is much rarer. At least for me.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#205

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #200
jrs95 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually, on a per application basis: http://m.imore.com/how-make-function-keys-default-touch-bar-...

You can't, actually. This only works for some applications. None of my WINE apps, for example, can have this enabled. Apple failed.

Couldn't WINE be updated to support this? Coming to the conclusion that Apple has 'failed' because function keys are not available in WINE is a bit of a leap.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#206

Post by neilzo »

chrisseaton wrote: post #191
apricot wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I play the piano and I never use the black keys, except C# once in a while.

That analogy is nonsensical. A pianist that doesn't use some keys is limited in the music they can produce. I can write exactly the same code as you without using shortcuts. I think the advantage is that I don't have to learn completely arbitrary lists of silly little keys to press, and I can keep my brain-space for useful things.

I'm fairly certain that was a programming/music joke.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#207

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

WildUtah wrote: post #46
geerlingguy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

The card reader was killed because people were using them to expand the nose-bleedingly expensive to upgrade soldered on 128k hard drives. Apple's seeking to drive up the selling price without adding quality.

Nah, it definitely wasn't.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#208

Post by bartread »

rayiner wrote: post #176
bartread wrote: post #170

I'm currently running a late-2015 15-inch Macbook Pro, with all specs maxxed out, and have no plans to upgrade until probably next year. Still, even in 2015 the 16GB RAM limit annoyed me because I often run OSX and Windows side-by-side with Parallels. Whilst SSD is fast, it still ain't no RAM, and with 2 x VS instances, different versions of SQL Server, Couchbase, Oracle, and Tibco all running at the same time I'd re…

How often do you work out of LTE range? RDP is very usable if you need to use Windows for work.

For sure, but too often to make it something I could rely on unfortunately. I run Windows enough that I've considered buying a second laptop just to run it but it's things like the trackpad and the generally decent battery life that make the MBP such a joy to use, and I really don't want to carry two laptops around with me all the time.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#209

Post by lcedp »

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…

You can add custom programs to the exception list and F keys would be always shown. It's even better because you don't have to press fn key. That functionality is by default.

Xcode debugger looks pretty nice on touchbar IMHO. It would be great if other debugging tools catch up.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#210

Post by mgkimsal »

jrs95 wrote: post #148
mgkimsal wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if there was even a way to just have the f-keys on all the time by default, that would have helped. Last I looked, that was not an option - you needed to hold down the fn key (or control?)

You can actually, on a per application basis: http://m.imore.com/how-make-function-keys-default-touch-bar-...

I don't want them on a 'per-application' basis.

The older macs, you could have f-key 'default' with the other options activated by holding the FN key, or reverse it, so that the brightness/etc were default, and f-keys activated by holding down the FN key.

There is no option to just have f-keys defaulted, with other touchbar stuff activated by FN key. For people who simply want standard f-keys as default all the time (like you could have in the previous macs), there is no option right now.

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