Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

perpetual-beta.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 228 posts

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#91

Post by stickfigure »

hmigneron wrote: post #42

I'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…

Interesting that you mention this. I was tempted to buy a new MBP hoping that I could map the touchbar to debugger functions - I can never remember which F key is which. Little icons would be amazing.

Is it not possible to make the touchbar work with IDEA? That would be a major disappointment.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#93

Post by notalaser »

routelastresort wrote: post #67
WildUtah wrote: post #44

Earlier 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.

Historically, the side effect this tends to have is that a lot of programmers flock to a new platform but bring the way they use and write programs with them. Fifteen years ago we ended up with CORBA- and Window Registry-like components bolted on top of Linux desktops. On the other hand, seeing how nowadays the Linux "community" is mostly a bunch of big cloud, automotive and IoT/vaporware companies, this could be the closest the Linux desktop has to salvation.

So far, the attempts to bring elements of the OS X experience to the Linux desktop have been very... cargo cult, in the absence of a more forgiving word. Fetishizing design choices and simplicity has made it very unpleasant to deal with a modern Linux system. Many users of tiling-wm-and-terminal-only desktops don't do so "just" because it's the most efficient option, they do it because the alternatives are horrifyingly bad.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#94

Post by tachion »

SEMW wrote: post #90
tachion wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't really, because I wasn't just talking about return rights or periods, I was talking about rights when the device fails in whatever way within 6 years. http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/

> when the device fails in whatever way It's still not that simple. It's not like you get six years of unlimited state-mandated insurance. The 'six years' is just from the statute of limitations -- it's just the limit after which you can no longer do anything about a violation of a contract of sale. [0] But there still has to be violation of the contract of sale. Which means it only applies to defective products. (Or…

I never mentioned anything about accidental damage, so I am not sure why you've brought it and why you're mentioning state mandated insurance. As far as I am aware, neither Apple's warranty nor Apple Care does cover accidental damage, so when compared to free 6 years consumer right to have the device operating without faults during normal usage barring any accidents, buying Apple Care makes no sense.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#96

Post by SEMW »

tachion wrote: post #94
SEMW wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when the device fails in whatever way It's still not that simple. It's not like you get six years of unlimited state-mandated insurance. The 'six years' is just from the statute of limitations -- it's just the limit after which you can no longer do anything about a violation of a contract of sale. [0] But there still has to be violation of the contract of sale. Which means it only applies to defective products. (Or…

I never mentioned anything about accidental damage, so I am not sure why you've brought it and why you're mentioning state mandated insurance. As far as I am aware, neither Apple's warranty nor Apple Care does cover accidental damage, so when compared to free 6 years consumer right to have the device operating without faults during normal usage barring any accidents, buying Apple Care makes no sense.

> As far as I am aware, neither Apple's warranty nor Apple Care does cover accidental damage

I was going off the page you linked to[0], which describes it as: "an insurance product which provides up to two incidents of accidental damage coverage"...

Looking more closely though, it looks like AppleCare and AppleCare+ are different products (which I hadn't previously grokked), and that sentence applies to AppleCare+ only. My bad, sorry for the confusion.

[0] https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#97

Post by smnscu »

djmobley wrote: post #6

£3,700 is just a monumental amount of money. You'd be much better off buying a cheaper laptop (even a MacBook, or MBP without TouchBar) and a more powerful desktop (Hackintosh if you will)

You could buy a used Mazda MX-5 and a Chromebook.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/20170111122165...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Chromebook-C201PA-FD0009-Proce...

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#98

Post by kristiandupont »

hmigneron wrote: post #42

I'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…

This bothers me as well. I also have issues with the esc key though. Apparently, I tend to rest my finger on it without noticing (I had no idea). So my subconscious experience with this new laptop is that it seems quite neurotic, constantly closing windows in front of me for no apparent reason, until I discover my finger on the touchbar.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#99

Post by jonaswi »

brentis wrote: post #58

I saw the new MacBooks in person 2 days ago and kept asking, "why would I buy one of these?" Cheap feeling keyboard, useless difference in thickness, and only 16gb. Not going back under 32 with Photoshop ever. I'll stick with my 2013 and look at a Lenovo 2-1 next. Pretty tired of OS X too.

I was in the exact same situation. I was so tired of being forced to buy overpriced hardware from apple that I'm not even happy with just because I work with OS X.

I then bought a new Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition and was really surprised that a) the scaling doe snot even work with dells own "tweaked" Ubuntu (even the installer looked horrible) and b) "coil whine" is a thing at this price point. I was so unhappy with it that I sold it weeks later. To replace the Dell I bought an HP spectre x360 and was really happy with the hardware but could not get the thunderbolt ports to work with ubuntu. Eventually I also returned it. I "surrendered" and bought the new MBP and so far I'm quite happy with it. But it still feels very uncomfortable to be so "dependant" on one manufacturer.

Other than the thunderbolt problem (which I'm sure will be fixed soon) I was really happy with Ubuntu as my main OS. I really do hope that other manufactures step up their game so I can finally switch without too much compromises.

Re: Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro

#100

Post by yokohummer7 »

hmigneron wrote: post #42

I'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…

Well, my experience is the opposite: while using the new MacBook I realized how infrequent I was using the function keys. The only times that I noticed the "missing" function keys were when I tried to open up the web developer console (F12), or rename a file (F2). I did see Apple's rationale here: ordinary users won't miss them, given I, being a developer, didn't miss them either.

But unlike you and the OP, pressing the Esc key did affect me. I couldn't completely get used to the soft key even after using it for more than one month (currently). Every time I try to press Esc, I'm a bit hesitant. The inertia was higher than I expected. So I can't agree with the phrasing that "there is no justification for the apparent panic." The annoyance exists and I'm the living proof.

Post reply on HN