He says dongles and cables are "a non-issue" and buys over 7 new dongles, 2 new custom cables, plus a new card reader?
And apparently can't use two adjacent USB ports! Non-issue indeed...
Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
221–228 of 228 posts
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
Me too. I wanted to move to a quad core. I was ready to get the new 15" but 16gb? My son has a hand-me-down 2010 MacBook Pro with 16gb. Anyway now I have a P50 quad core, with a 95whr battery, 7w idle power consumption, expandable to 3 HDD, two of which are as fast as the Mac, and a keyboard which is ridiculously good. It runs xubuntu. And I got change after selling my 18month old 13" MacBook pro. reality distortion bubble has been popped a bit.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you know why it breaks? Because Ubuntu 16.04 just works on my laptop. Things that require one-time technical setup: Function key (screen brightness) and Optimus/bumblebee. I also set up touchegg because Unity hates multi-touch trackpad. But since initial setup I never have to touch anything again, and can upgrade everything via Software Update. I would say it is no better than Windows at all (since you also need t…
This is probably why i'm going to be replacing my 2014 with a 2017 MBP (hopefully they're not worse...) , despite wanting to go with Linux. I can't stomach dealing with driver/etc issues. I can't handle paying $2k only to deal with debugging things that i want to "just work". Sure, it might work perfectly, or it might be a nightmare. I've had both experiences on desktop linux.
I reluctantly decided that my MacBook days were over with these 2016 machines. But moving to linux was a huge step. So I bought a $360 2011 ThinkPad W520. A quad core laptop (with 32gb ram capacity). To experiment. Well, it was a dream machine, so now I'm using a quadore ThinkPad p50 (xubuntu) (with NVIDIA graphics). This is a great experience. It runs VMware way better than macos, and the keyboard ....
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess the author has some perspective. They bought a >2.5k machine, the dongles aren't exactly going to break bank.
Until they get borrowed or even "borrowed". Every other day in my office has a mac user wandering around looking for some sort of video adapter dongle or similar, asking if anyone knows who borrowed theirs. Person A isn't in the office, so person B borrows their adaptor 'just for now' and then absent-mindedly takes it home, leaving person A scratching their head the next day. The problem with dongles is more than jus…
Who cares? Dongles cost peanuts (relatively). Just buy more than your shop needs and have spares onhand
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#225Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you know why it breaks? Because Ubuntu 16.04 just works on my laptop. Things that require one-time technical setup: Function key (screen brightness) and Optimus/bumblebee. I also set up touchegg because Unity hates multi-touch trackpad. But since initial setup I never have to touch anything again, and can upgrade everything via Software Update. I would say it is no better than Windows at all (since you also need t…
Cynically, I'd say it breaks because the only mistakes that we live with, try to work around or fix are the ones made no later than the mid-90s. Everything else, we live with for a while, then boldly proclaim that they're outdated, junk from another age, no longer appropriate for a modern system and then promptly rewrite -- so unsurprisingly, a lot of components of a major Linux desktop are basically beta-quality and…
I couldn't have said it better. The truth is, all my life, I wanted a Linux desktop that looks beautiful and just works. Simply, stupid, works. No magic involved. I work with Linux remotely almost everyday. I love to tinker, I love to learn - but it must be my choice what to tinker with and what I am going to learn next. I want to play with things that make me happy and give me satisfaction. And constantly maintaining my system and googling around for solution is not one of them. I tried... Crom help me, I've really tried. After yet another failure I just felt extremely disappointed and moved back to Windows at home. At work I am using MacBook Pro (previous one) and I am very happy about it - like it better than Windows. Honestly, OS X desktop is the best what happened to me so far. My last Linux desktop adventure happened few years ago, though, so maybe, just maybe, it got better recently... I still have hope, maybe there is some windows manager out there, but I'd need to thoroughly evaluate it on some spare machine before moving forward with it as my main desktop system.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#227I've also been a Mac user for 20 years and can totally relate to the conclusion he made: I felt betrayed by Apple's pricing on this machine. I decided to not get a Mac for the first time since 1996 and so far haven't regretted the move.
What did you get, out of interest?
ASUS ZenBook UX360UAK
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the thing: the HN crowd is a small segment of their user base. For most people, Cmd-P might as well be C-x M-c M-butterfly. The touch bar doesn't replace the function keys but rather the mouse.
Hmm, there's a touch of contempt for the average user in what you say... something that causes this current trend towards over-simplification. Users love clear, systematic, repeatable, stable. Anyone using a shortcut often enough, given enough time will learn to use it because anyone can appreciate the advantage. People that hunt-and-peck, or click around like seniors in a retirement-home absolutely hate the hostile…
It's not like I said they were "click[ing] around like seniors in a retirement-home". ;)
IMHO, users don't care about simple, clear, systematic, or repeatable, either; only stable. But keeping said workflow stable doesn't matter when your boss' bonus depends on how much innovation he fostered.