881–890 of 1001 posts
I think there's one fact that a lot of people overlooked here. The new touchbar is optional. The new MBP comes in two models and one still has your typical function row. I do agree that the announcement was disappointing, leaving me questioning if I'd get a new macbook anytime soon. I would have liked some more ram but its not work flow changing for those of us who are already accustomed to mac laptops.
This event was by far the most disappointing Mac event in the history. A lot of the time was wasted in: - Mildly funny jokes and comparison with 90's technology. - 90% of the talk was about the touch bar. - Awful demos of Photoshop & some cringy DJ. I was hoping we would see: - A new MacBook with all day battery life and touch bar, even thinner design. Ok, I understand that they are trying to consolidate their produc…
Without taking a side, can I just say that this entire thread is bringing a little tear of nostalgia to my eye? I love that even in 2016-- with all the new companies and platforms and wars, and desktops arguably being the least important battleground-- we can still have an old-fashioned bitter Mac-vs-PC argument thread once in a while, with all the swearing and name-calling, just like when I was on Slashdot in 2003.…
There is something about this topic that really gets the comments going, and I wonder what it is.
It's not just Apple vs. Microsoft. It is also Apple vs. what Apple should have done, or Microsoft vs. what its competitors are doing.
I propose that a simple A vs. B discussion isn't enough to provoke all this. Today's Apple announcement is being taken as a kind of indirect referendum on the future of nerd-friendly high-end computing hardware as a whole. As you point out, the waning significance of this question (with the rise of phones and tablets) has caused a lot of anxiety out there!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Microsoft really hit it out of the park yesterday. Did we watch the same event? Microsoft introduced a $3,000 desktop PC in an era when nobody uses desktops anymore. It introduced a minor update to the Surface Book that starts at $2,300 with dual-core CPU, only 8GB of RAM, and last-gen graphics hardware. For the same price as the new Surface Book i7, I can get an MBP 15" with bigger screen, twice the RAM, and a qua…
Dude, I use a desktop. A Mac mini, in fact, which has been struggling for the latter half of the past 6 years. I'm seriously considering getting a PC instead, even though I've written http://taoofmac.com for 14 years. (I do happen to work for Microsoft, by the way, but would very much prefer to keep my home setup on a separate tech stack for the sake of keeping an open view. I'm now ogling the Skullcandy NUC and wond…
I would guess that just here on HN there are tens of thousands of us who could describe ourselves as "Unix-centric pros", who want powerful unixy client machines that match our unixy servers and who also want all the client-side stuff everyone needs (excellent video, audio, wifi, battery mgt., etc., drivers perfectly matched to hardware and working out of the box) plus a full range of apps. We can get the unixy client from Linux, BSD, or Mac. We can get the reliable, everything works consumer client stuff from Windows or Mac. The only overlap is Mac.
Unfortunately for us, this power user unix workstation stuff is just a historical accident for Apple, not a corporate objective. They're trying to get out of the computer business so they can focus on fashionable, high-margin, designer "lifestyle" products and services for the hip ones who consume stuff, not the old drudges in the back room who make stuff.
Microsoft holds their Windows legacy so dear that they'll slap more layers on the papier-mache balloon that is Windows but never put unix at its core, and all the nifty client-side Linux systems out there seem to have the motto "before you complain, realize that how much of it ends up working depends on how smart you are".
I would wish for Google to develop a line of powerful Linux-based workstations, but they would just spy on me until Google canceled the project altogether.
I wish Apple would create a wholly-owned subsidiary called "Apple Computer, Inc." that would have access to Apple's manufacturing expertise but would build a line of computers for power users who produce stuff--computers that weren't "thinner".
Makes me wonder how people here feel about the USB-C and basically all gadgets requiring adapters. I like Apple and Mac, but this piece.. Isn't it ugly at the end, that if you want to use an SD card from your camera you must get an adapter, adapter for your iPhone 7 lighting headphones and adapter for your $1k 27" Retina display which isn't 5k, but still pretty freaking good. That's 3 ports, and 1 USB-C port left you…
Also 2 not 4 USB-C ports and a Headphone Jack ports on the lower end model (still $1500), are you freaking kidding me?
The 2015 MBP has: 1x MagSafe, 2x USB3, 2x Thunderbolt/DisplayPort, 1x HDMI, SD Card Reader, Headphone Jack.
The USB-C charging option is fine, but why not also include MagSafe? I tripped over the charger cable plenty of times, it just unplugs, now that's actually a great feature.
I have a camera and plenty of SD cards so I use the SD card reader all the time, I actually think I wouldn't want a laptop without it anymore.
My Monitor supports DP, HDMI and DVI, I can pretty much plug it straight into any current laptop on this planet except for the MBP 2016 and MacBook 12".
This is a bit underwhelming.
Also judging by se size difference of the ports, USB-A to C adapters are going to be pretty clunky.
In fact, extrapolating further, perhaps in 10 years, the entire keyboard (and touchpad) will eventually become one giant touch screen, with location specific haptic feedback. By then, the younger generation of programmers who grew up in the age of touch screen phones and ipads will not miss the real keyboards (like we don't miss the blackberries). And that one giant touchscreen will be infinitely more customizable.
Lenovo quickly learned their lesson about that with the Gen2 of the X1C, and reverted to Gen1-style layout in the third generation. I could see myself upgrading then, if my 1st gen still didn't work so well (i7/8/256).
Is there really a GPU-4gb guideline on Oculus or is it mostly to do with the power of the cards. If so, is there any speculation about how these "Radeon Pro" 450/455/460 cards map to the prevailing laptop GPUs?