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16-inch MacBook Pro

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Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#791

Post by enriquto »

dashwav wrote: post #61
throwanem wrote: post #17

I'm astonished and pleased to see they walked back the two worst things about the original Touch Bar MBPs - the lack of a physical Escape key, and the full-size left and right arrow keys. The lack of physical function keys remains regrettable, and the Touch Bar is still no worthy substitute, but perhaps this is a sign that Apple is finally interested in listening to feedback from its long-term customer base, even if…

The escape key will be especially welcome by me, as I found the touchbar exceptionally hard to deal with, and I would often have to hit it three or four times to get vim to exit insert mode. I actually didn't have much trouble with the arrow keys, despite all the negative feedback I saw for them online. Hopefully this trend continues and they can iterate on this model even further.

you can map tab to esc inside vim so you dont need to type esc

    :imap

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#792

Post by dkonofalski »

wwweston wrote: post #712
throwanem wrote: post #17

I'm astonished and pleased to see they walked back the two worst things about the original Touch Bar MBPs - the lack of a physical Escape key, and the full-size left and right arrow keys. The lack of physical function keys remains regrettable, and the Touch Bar is still no worthy substitute, but perhaps this is a sign that Apple is finally interested in listening to feedback from its long-term customer base, even if…

It turns out that people who buy laptops -- a mobile-ish form factor differentiated from a tablet by its keyboard -- might really really care about keyboards as the main interface between user and device. I'd concluded that Apple didn't really think much of laptops anymore, and had simply moved on to caring more about other form factors: it seemed a logical conclusion if one assumed that people at Apple were in fact…

>It increases risk of data loss.

I realize that this is idealistic of me but data loss should never be an issue. This is 2019 and backups have been drilled into everyone's heads for years and years and years. You can still access the drives in these via Target Disk mode (and I've had to do a few recoveries through that so I know it works) and it's likely that the pros outweigh the cons.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#793

Post by acomjean »

pentae wrote: post #687
donkeyd wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things change, deal with it. I've swapped USB cables to USB-C cables. Only USB drives, which i rarely use anymore require an adapter. Meanwhile, I can use all 4 ports to: - Run a display - Charge my laptop - Charge a phone - Connect a drive I can even use a single port to both charge the laptop and run a screen with multiple USB devices attached to it. I now need to daisy chain converters to use my PS/2 mouse on my M…

Having 4 USB-C's is a bit like having 4 Ferraris. Sometimes you need something a bit more practical. People will still be using USB-A for the next 10 years. Having to use a dongle for USB-A on a 16" macbook is pretty ridiculous. There's still a billion USB-A accessories out there and will be for a long time. Apple jumped the gun in a major way. This wasn't like dropping the floppy disc or CD-rom drive considering how…

I agree.

As the guy who gave up my laptop( MacBook pro 2015) in a meeting to project because the 2 other MacBooks in the meeting only had usb c and the presentation was on a usb a stick.

At least they got the projector using usb c with a dongle now..

Nothing like having choices. Why my new personal machine was a linux based laptop.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#794

Post by yoz-y »

izolate wrote: post #538
snowwrestler wrote: post #52

11 years ago I bought a 15” MacBook Pro, the first model year with the unibody design. I’m still using it almost every day for web browsing, watching videos, editing documents, etc. In 2008, it cost $2,400. The new 16” released today costs... $2,400.

I have the same 15” from late 2008 sitting in storage at home. Surprised you’re still using it! What OS version? Sometimes I like to look at the price of Apple stock in 2008 and wonder how much money I would have today if I had instead bought 2.5k USD worth of shares in 2008 instead of the laptop - it’s depressing.

I'm using a 15" from mid 2009 every day still, it's on Mojave (with dos1dude's patch). Some software starts to flake out but it's still perfectly usable. (i need a custom homebrew patch because all new binaries require architecture beyond Penryn)

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#795

Post by liquidify »

dkonofalski wrote: post #792
wwweston wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out that people who buy laptops -- a mobile-ish form factor differentiated from a tablet by its keyboard -- might really really care about keyboards as the main interface between user and device. I'd concluded that Apple didn't really think much of laptops anymore, and had simply moved on to caring more about other form factors: it seemed a logical conclusion if one assumed that people at Apple were in fact…

>It increases risk of data loss. I realize that this is idealistic of me but data loss should never be an issue . This is 2019 and backups have been drilled into everyone's heads for years and years and years. You can still access the drives in these via Target Disk mode (and I've had to do a few recoveries through that so I know it works) and it's likely that the pros outweigh the cons.

The pros are only size related. Size at all costs is excusable as a consumer or prosumer product, but most of the users of the high end pro's want power, cooling, good ports, reliability, and certainly upgradability. The 2012's were so nice featuring 2 internal sata connections and removable ram. Those computers weren't too thick in my mind, so for a pro, I think they have their objectives mixed up.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#796

Post by alexashka »

I'm a bit surprised no one has talked about the price. Starting at 2400$US? That's... a lot.

For anyone who is going to use this as their primary computer, the real price is 2800$.

That's a lot... Who is the end consumer here? Folks who are computer illiterate and want 'the best' laptop apple has to offer?

Laptops promote poor posture, can't match desktop speeds and are expensive! Their use-case to me is limited to business people who hop from meeting to meeting all day, but then you don't need the horsepower and will be fine with a 500$ option.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#797

Post by tbabb »

munificent wrote: post #678
Reason077 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "the two worst things about the original Touch Bar MBPs - the lack of a physical Escape key, and the full-size left and right arrow keys." The "butterfly mechanism" keyboards are awful, unreliable, and get worse with time, so I'm very glad to see them go. Likewise, the return of the physical Escape key is very welcome. But honestly, the design of the arrow keys has never bothered me in the slightest. If anything, t…

I hate the full-size left and right arrow keys because it means I can't easily use my sense of touch to find the arrow keys. I mistype them all the time now, even after months of use. That was never a problem with the previous inverted-T design.

Seconded. I frequently mistype L/R as up/down, and this is infuriating when striking 'command' + arrow to go to the beginning/end of the line (an extremely common op for me), and instead going to the top/bottom of the file, completely losing my place.

(Of course that particular problem would be less of an issue if the keyboard had home/end/pgUp/pgDn, which I'm still sore about, years after they got rid of them).

Arrow keys are so important I might almost want them all full size, in a "+" configuration.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#798

Post by skratchpixels »

enriquto wrote: post #791
dashwav wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The escape key will be especially welcome by me, as I found the touchbar exceptionally hard to deal with, and I would often have to hit it three or four times to get vim to exit insert mode. I actually didn't have much trouble with the arrow keys, despite all the negative feedback I saw for them online. Hopefully this trend continues and they can iterate on this model even further.

you can map tab to esc inside vim so you dont need to type esc :imap

Tab is still important to programmers.

Developers with a new MBP manage by changing Caps Lock Key to Escape. Less pinky travel too.

If you need caps, you can download Karabiner and move caps to something else. I changed mine to pressing both Shift buttons.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#799

Post by liquidify »

Zenst wrote: post #136
throwanem wrote: post #17

I'm astonished and pleased to see they walked back the two worst things about the original Touch Bar MBPs - the lack of a physical Escape key, and the full-size left and right arrow keys. The lack of physical function keys remains regrettable, and the Touch Bar is still no worthy substitute, but perhaps this is a sign that Apple is finally interested in listening to feedback from its long-term customer base, even if…

When it comes to function keys, you either use them lots or rarely and for the former, yes - a physical key is prefered by far. However I see the advantages in other situations with the touchbar, however it would be great if the users had a choice. How hard would it be to have the touchbar in a modular design form that was user changeable and they could fit a row of keys instead? However, there is always the option o…

There is plenty of room to do both if they insist upon the stupid touch bar.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#800

Post by jonhohle »

blhack wrote: post #373

It's hilarious to me that their own marketing image has two dongles plugged into the laptop so that the user can still use USB. Apple please for the love of usability: please give me back USB. I AM the pro that you want to feature in every one of your marketing videos. I have a music studio in my house, I build interactive lighting installations for the biggest music festivals in the world, I build custom hardware co…

Except for devices which have a hardwired cable, you can get USB-C to USB-whatever and nearly all, if not all, professional equipment I know of does not have hardwired cables. So in the worst case, you need to replace your cables and in the best case, you now have four direct ports, more than any portable Mac has had since the transition to USB-C. And for the cases where the connection must be USB-A adapters are small and reliable.

If you haven't used a USB-C/Thunderbolt-3 notebook, being able to go from portable to charging, full size monitor, peripherals, external storage, etc. with one cable is a welcome change.

Apple's commitment to supporting legacy ports (albeit through adapters) is pretty good, in my experience. As an anecdote, I needed to get some data off of an old Firewire 400 hard drive and linked Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2, Thunderbolt 2 to Firewire 800, Firewire 800 to 400 cable into the drive and it mounts like it would on a direct connection.

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