Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#351

Post by TacticalTable » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

mcot2 wrote: post #347

acd wrote: post #344

I think Apple needs to rethink and design products that are built for serviceability. That means the end user should be able to service most parts of the laptop themselves. No plastic prying tools should ever be needed to service a laptop. Battery -> User replaceable under a hatch. SSD -> User replaceable RAM -> User replaceable Screen -> User replaceable Motherboard -> User replaceable Keyboard -> User replaceable.…

Isn’t the RAM basically integrated onto the SoC now?

With the M1 as-is, yes. However, it's entirely possible that future M1X or the like will keep RAM separate.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#352

Post by pushrax » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #251

waheoo wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit myopic. You can strike a balance. You're argument is the same thing that led to "we should get rid of headphone jacks because we have Bluetooth." Bluetooth is an option, its not the best option, but I wouldn't suggest removing Bluetooth because we have a headphone jack.

> You're argument is the same thing that led to "we should get rid of headphone jacks because we have Bluetooth." I mean... yeah it's the same argument and I agree with both. When we got Bluetooth and decent ear pods... time to get rid of the headphone jack we don't want both, one is redundant. Simpler, cleaner, more uniform is better for these devices in my opinion.

Wireless headphones are an e-waste nightmare (in particular Airpods, designed to never be disassembled). When used with a mobile phone, their convenience is incredibly minor, and for me is more than offset by the need to keep them charged.

I agree with getting rid of dying interfaces, but this is a case where it makes way more sense to keep options available. Almost everyone uses audio, and different people have different priorities. Waterproofing the jack is easy, and phones still have enough space for them. The only way I can interpret their decision to remove that jack was to incentivize wireless headphone sales, and perhaps appeal to the small ultra minimalist crowd.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#353

Post by yarcob » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #276

minikites wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The extra port competes with USB-C. If Apple wants to make USB-C more valuable to users, they must ensure companies make more products for it and, therefore, remove such redundant ports. The userbase of all tech products is too big for this to be reasonable now. This attitude was only successful during a time when fewer people overall each owned fewer devices individually. USB-A won and it will be around forever. HD…

HDMI will probably be around for TVs, but with USB 4 I imagine we're 5-10 years from most of the current ports going away completely, except for a collection of USB C ports of different levels (3, 3.x, 4).

Importantly, HDMI will be around for projectors. Almost every meeting room and every class room everywhere in the world has a beamer and an HDMI cable on the desk. I don't think this is going to change in the next 5 years. It took more than 10 years for most of the world to upgrade from VGA to HDMI cables, and HDMI works fine technically, so there's less pressure to upgrade to USB-C.

So for the foreseeable future, if you ever do a presentation, and you have a Mac, you are going to bring a dongle.

If you're a teacher and you don't want to deal with an unreliable dongle 5 times a day, the most convenient Mac for you is currently the 2015 Macbook Pro with its built-in HDMI port.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#354

Post by usaphp » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

acd wrote: post #344

I think Apple needs to rethink and design products that are built for serviceability. That means the end user should be able to service most parts of the laptop themselves. No plastic prying tools should ever be needed to service a laptop. Battery -> User replaceable under a hatch. SSD -> User replaceable RAM -> User replaceable Screen -> User replaceable Motherboard -> User replaceable Keyboard -> User replaceable.…

> Current Apple products means using a lots of dongles for what should be built in.

Who decides what should be built in? Some people might need SD card reader, others will need HDMI out, lan port is requested by others, I on the other hand don’t use any of that and would rather have my laptop to be lighter and thinner.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#355

Post by escapecharacter » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #298

hatchnyc wrote: post #137

I use two MacBooks for programming for several hours each every single day, my personal machine has a touchbar, my work machine does not. I realize this is blasphemous to say and I did think I would hate the touchbar for all the reasons, but I actually ended up liking it. I had imagined myself tapping virtual function buttons and the whole thing seemed silly and useless and worse than having physical keys, but VS Cod…

Yea, what I really want is physical keys that travel but also have OLED screens built in on the top. Expensive, but best of both worlds.

I hope this is Apple's eventual goal; "expensive and best of both worlds" sounds exactly like something Apple would do.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#356

Post by eknkc » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

acd wrote: post #344

I think Apple needs to rethink and design products that are built for serviceability. That means the end user should be able to service most parts of the laptop themselves. No plastic prying tools should ever be needed to service a laptop. Battery -> User replaceable under a hatch. SSD -> User replaceable RAM -> User replaceable Screen -> User replaceable Motherboard -> User replaceable Keyboard -> User replaceable.…

I don’t think most if these are possible with the recent form factors. I mean battery hatch / battery case itself would be a huge volume loss in the chasis.

People talk about repairability etc but at the end, most will demand the sexy and thin laptops.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#357

Post by csomar » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

jimnotgym wrote: post #236

m463 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An extra port is not inconvenient - you just won't use it. A missing port is SUPER inconvenient. Can't tell you how annoying it is to require a USB-A dongle or adapter, same with HDMI.

Since 2015 we have had all this clutter in the meeting rooms with different chargers, adaptors for monitors, projectors etc. In fact every mac user I know has a little hub to run everything! I'm currently using a Thinkpad and I have never felt that I had too many ports! I don't carry any adaptors.

Isn't this the reason to push for no more ports than the USB-C. After the Macbook become USB-C only, manufacturers started to move to USB-C instead of USB-A and some of them include an adapter.

The quicker we move, the better. It'll be a little painful at first, but then we'll have only USB-C for everything.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#358

Post by p_l » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #340

p_l wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on site at a client fresh after they started upgrading people to USB-C/thunderbolt MBPs/Airs... Very quickly meetings started with question of "who has a laptop with real HDMI/DisplayPort? We would like to start in 15s instead of 15 minutes of fighting with dongles..."

Very quickly meetings started with question of "who has a laptop with real HDMI/DisplayPort? We would like to start in 15s instead of 15 minutes of fighting with dongles..." I don't understand this. There are plenty of arguments against against going all-in on USB-C and forcing people to buy/carry multiple dongles. I don't like dongles myself! I still use a (pre-USB C) 2015 MacBook Pro, partially for that reason. I g…

The reality was that quite often the dongles did not work properly. Using official Apple USB-C AV dongle (with USB-C, USB-A and HDMI) had people scrambling for "oh, maybe this one will work", screens randomly not displaying, etc.

I personally strongly suspect that they had a broken batch of dongles, seeing as how trying to use them on other systems often resulted in display detection issues too.

Then there was of course "oh, I forgot the HDMI dongle"/"Someone took the one that was in the meeting room" and so on.

The end result was that it soon become normal for people to push against updating the laptops.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#359

Post by esoterica » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

kevindong wrote: post #268

qppo wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my presentation materials are in the cloud somewhere, I don't need to bring a computer anywhere these days.

In most cases, I fully agree. But there's the hefty edge case (for developers at least) of showing off a piece of code that essentially requires a developer environment to be running. It's simply not possible to create a developer environment quickly enough in a meeting room for it to be practical.

You an remote into your machine.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#360

Post by qppo » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

kevindong wrote: post #268

qppo wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my presentation materials are in the cloud somewhere, I don't need to bring a computer anywhere these days.

In most cases, I fully agree. But there's the hefty edge case (for developers at least) of showing off a piece of code that essentially requires a developer environment to be running. It's simply not possible to create a developer environment quickly enough in a meeting room for it to be practical.

I'd question why you're running code in a meeting. That's some morning standup stuff for your team which can be done at your desk or placed in a gif in an email, not hauled off to a separate room.

Meetings are for collaboration, not demos...