I really want to get one of these, but I can't get myself to. I have a 2015 Macbook and I hate the keyboard. I thought I'd get used to it but never did, the one in an older Air is so much more comfortable to me. I went to the Apple Store twice to try out the new keyboard and, while it's better, I can't imagine being happy with it. Does anyone else feel the same way or is it just me?
Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
41–50 of 228 posts
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#42I'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 pressing F-Something seems to be the norm to step into / step over. The lack of feedback makes it a lot harder to use these keys repeatedly (in my experience anyway). I know I could change the keys but...
To be honest, that's the one thing that really bothers me about the new machine, I got used to everything else pretty quickly. I should note that I was forced to switch to the new model (my 2014 MBP was stolen). I didn't want a new machine, wasn't happy about getting one and started using it in the worst circumstances which probably didn't help me "learn to love the touchbar". Insurance paid for the new machine so price wasn't an issue for me.
I don't think it's an abomination or anything, I just never find it better than a normal keyboard with F keys (I don't do video editing or anything where a timeline might help me).
Other developers who use the touchbar MBP, do you not miss the F-Keys ? Have you changed the keys you use to debug ?
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#43This 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…
They don't often lower prices. Their justification for that is, "Well we don't raise prices either..." but I don't expect them to drop prices at any point before announcing the next gen of MBP. This has been their model forever.
Never raise prices? Ha! Try living overseas. Apple regularly raises and lowers prices to match local currency to USD exchange rates. They also seem quicker to raise them in response to exchange rates than to lower them. I can't blame them for the adjustments themselves but the raise fast, lower slow, behaviour is irritating and stinks of profiteering.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#44I'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.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#45My work recently offered to replace my 2013 retina MBP, at no cost to myself, as it went out of (extended) warranty. I declined. I'd rather wait and see if they improve the offering later this year.
Come on Apple, lift your game.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#46He 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 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.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#47I really want to get one of these, but I can't get myself to. I have a 2015 Macbook and I hate the keyboard. I thought I'd get used to it but never did, the one in an older Air is so much more comfortable to me. I went to the Apple Store twice to try out the new keyboard and, while it's better, I can't imagine being happy with it. Does anyone else feel the same way or is it just me?
same. without f keys and with fewer connectors, this generation is almost strictly a downgrade from the 2015 version.
also.. the touch bar.. I'm a programmer, I don't look at my fingers when I type, why would I want to have a screen there
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#48I'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 _…
Same. The TouchBar needs a lot of tweaking at a software level. My problem is when I hit "Play" or "Pause" I expect my music to play or pause. The problem is that it's possible for other apps to steal focus for play and pause. For example if you're watching a video clip in Safari and hit Pause to stop your music after you started playing the video, it will pause the video.
The most annoying thing I'm dealing with at the moment is HipChat stealing focus of the play button. When that happens and I hit that play button, HipChat just plays the new message sound. Its so dumb.
The TouchBar is more complicated and awkward at the moment. In my opinion Apple needs to tweak the Keyboard settings to let me deal with these "stupid apps" and we all need to report TouchBar issues to third party apps doing it wrong like HipChat.
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#49At the end of the day, it's just a so-so offering from Apple that has more than a so-so price tag attached.
But, in it's defense, I will say one thing: I thought I would hate the keyboard. I'm the guy who spends hundreds on the best mechanical keyboards, but I was left completely impressed with the new keyboard and how well it just works. Everything about is wrong on paper, but when you begin typing, the results are undeniable. The old macbooks had the best laptop keyboard bar none and this generation's is even better.
Now that I'm done praising one thing about it, I'll go back to beating the dead horse: Where's the 32GB model? :)
Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro
#50This 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…
They don't often lower prices. Their justification for that is, "Well we don't raise prices either..." but I don't expect them to drop prices at any point before announcing the next gen of MBP. This has been their model forever.
They significantly dropped the price of the MacBook Air and retina a couple of iterations in.