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Roboprog

Dear Apple,

Here is my list of things your laptop should have:

* A headphone jack that supports the built-in microphone (conferencing, anyone?)

* The magsafe power connector - my kids are rough on stuff, even my stuff.

* USB ports, perhaps at least one of each old and new plug. As many as you can fit on the sides, cuteness be damned.

* an ethernet plug.

* function keys on the keyboard. E.g. - I use F1 and F6 A LOT in Jetbrains IDEA.

Here are things I could live without:

* an SD card reader

* any particular video plug form, as long as I can hook a monitor to something with an inexpensive adapter plug.

* CD/DVD drive - nice to have, but I understand about space and cost.

This is for work, not a fashion show. It's not supposed to be a tablet. I already have an iPad mini, and want something more, a lot more, in my work computer.

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Oh god, why would you trade Ethernet for an SD card or video? I actually have the ethernet adapter as well as a VGA adapter, as I'm a traveling consultant who deals with many different environments and not all of them are state of the art. I've never used the Ethernet adapter, but I use the VGA adapter several times per year. I use the SD slot more than all of them combined, though, as my Time Machine disk goes in there.

Really though, this just highlights the difference between how people use things. I cannot imagine why in the world you would want Ethernet, as it never gets used. You probably have a hard time wondering why they include an SD card reader. There are plenty of professionals out there who never use any of them. I've only had a 3.5mm plug in my Macbook Pro once or twice.

For as much hate as adapters get, professional users are the least likely to lose them and the most likely to buy them. It doesn't make sense to make consumers buy adapters for things they use every day, but how many device-specific things do each of us have? How many of us have a box of cables, dongles, and plugs in our closet? All of us. There are a ton of different use cases for a pro device, and modularity really does make sense. I don't need Ethernet. I don't need a 3.5mm jack. I don't need HDMI. If I do need them (rarely), Apple makes a Thunderbolt adapter for it. It's the same reason many of us build our own PCs, so we can pick exactly what we want or do not want in our computers.

You time-machine to an SD card? That's interesting to me. How big is your card?

I have a 128GB SD card backing up just my documents directory, so it's able to hold about a month of data before it starts rolling off.

Note that the parent comment was emphatically speaking for himself, not all people. He is not pretending his list is universal. If the parent comment says he'd rather have Ethernet, well that's just his personal use.

The parent comment was a nice start for a conversation: rather than trying to argue over the perfect computer for everyone, the parent starts a conversation with a list of things which are true for him.

Right. If you read my entire comment, you'd see the first part was my (intentionally heavy-handed) reaction to his personal preferences and the second part was my contribution to that broader conversation. My opinion is that modular machines are inherently professional. Anything that needs an adapter for daily use is not, in my opinion, consumer oriented. Professionals put up with modularity all the time, because "professional" is a very broad term and we all have wildly different needs.

I'm agreeing that his needs are different from mine, and offering the opinion that this is exactly the reason I'm not upset about needing adapters for a Macbook Pro. I'd rather need an adapter for the few times I use VGA than sacrifice portability just to have a (for me) rarely-used port. I don't need a professional-level DAC integrated. What I do need is a serial port, but it would be crazy for me to demand Apple put in a serial port when a USB adapter works just fine for the very few people who actually need serial.

I like the idea of a large SD card for Time Machine. I have external USB connected drives, though. I use wired networking every day at work (alas, with a USB adapter now, since the hardware that hooked everything up to thunderbolt broke) - wifi is frowned upon in that environment.

Sorry to break this news to you: you are not Apple's target market.

I agree about your points, but ask your average consumer when the last time they used a Cat5 Ethernet connection was and you'll probably get a blank stare. Likewise, function keys. Anyone that's not a developer is likely to not even care about them.

This should pretty much be a solved-problem. They have a non-pro line where small, sexy and fashionable are the order of the day (lets assume the 'new macbook' will absorb the Air line), and a Pro line that's verging on desktop-replacement.

One thing I always loved was that apple's lineup was so clear-cut that I never had to put a moment of thought into which model I needed.

If they go this direction, what's the differentiator between the Pro and non-Pro lines? non-pro doesn't get a 15" option and Pro doesn't get a 12" option? That's it?

I think the 'new macbook' is going to absorb the Air line and become "the perfect starbucks machine" in a couple of iterations (everything that currently holds it back, is everything that held the 1stgen Air back). They have the 'average consumer' machine right there. Don't try to make the Pro the 'average consumer' machine too.

Or, better for marketing, a 'Pro' SKU which is actually targeted towards their bread and butter 'I don't know what an ethernet port is, but want "the best"', which removes anything and everything in the name of weight, power, and industrial design. _And_ an innocuous 'Developer Essentials' or something SKU that actually unashamedly focuses on being a work horse.

I'm curious, what would you put in a developer SKU? To my mind it'd just be the option to put a quad-core i7 in the consumer model, but perhaps we have different priorities?

Keep the Ethernet port, and USB-A ports (I'm sure those are next on the chopping block). If you're not trying to shave every gram and millimeter off, you can have a bigger battery. Function keys, and a 10 key would be nice too.

Actually Ethernet Port is not needed. I have a MacBook Pro 11,3 and it hasn't one. I can live with that. At my company it's stick into a Thunderbolt Docking Station with Ethernet. And at Home I probably don't need it.

I also have an MacBookPro12,1 and the Thunderbolt adapter was the first accessory I bought. You are right that you don't need it at home, but many customers do not have wifi at all and the only way to connect at their site is Ethernet.

actually I have the thunderbolt adapter as well. But I barly need it.

You are lucky, then.

I need it at customers place and also in the office - the WiFi is unreliable (but only on Macs, Thinkpads do not seem have that problem, go figure), I'm losing connection and the only way to reconnect is to toggle the WiFi off and on. It quickly gets tiring and the thunderbolt adapter solves that.

You may be interested to read this, though the end result is somewhat disappointing / amusing: http://www.kmjn.org/notes/broken_wifi_access_points.html

Thanks for the tip. Now here is the funny part: the router is Netgear WNDR3700(v1) running OpenWrt. I have exactly the same router with exactly the same software at home - and it doesn't behave the same. It runs great at home, no dropouts.

That's awesome for your use case, but I've come across tons of times where it be useful, forgot the thunderbolt adapter, and was weary of thunderbolt adapters just laying around.

Think not relying on WiFi while giving a presentation.

yeah it's useful to have the adapter, but do you need it so often that your ethernet cable is 100% attached to your notebook? I mean I actually don't want only 4 USB-C's. But I'm fine with having, MagSafe, 1-2 Thunderbolt, 1-2 USB-C's (depending on how many Thunderbolt), SD Card (I have a 256 GB extension card), maybe HDMI. However Ethernet falls short cause it's so big. I mean the smallness of the Mac is a pro and a contra (it's too heaty I actually needed to clean my MacBook Pro since it got slower after there was too much dust in it). But just having it bigger caused by one port would be bad.

100%? No. More than USB? Yes.

If we are not the target market, then who is?

I mean, yes, I agree, the average consumer is not going to use ethernet nor function keys. The average consumer is going to use the laptop to browse, write documents, watch videos and, maybe, do some basic media editing.

And that precisely is who the macbook line is for: slim, portable, affordable (in apple terms) and, let's be honest here, more than powerful enough to do anything you might want to do with it.

The pro line, as I understand it, was always oriented to professionals; people that maybe needed more from their computers. That usually means much more horsepower: More powerful chipsets, definitely more memory, in many cases a better/dedicated graphics card, better and larger drives... And yes, sometimes, function keys.

Usually, it also means having the ability to connect external stuff: a standard media output for meetings and presentations, a network connection (even today, plenty of companies don't have wifi, or if they have, it's a guest one), external storage, graphic tablets and plenty of other stuff. Sometimes you need all this at the same time.

Personally, I've found the sd card reader useful a few of times but I could do without it, the hdmi port has always been very useful, I'd like more than two usb ports, but they are usually enough and the only times I've used the lightning ports has been to use adapters for other stuff (like an ethernet cable).

He must be in some part of their target market, considering that Apple has offered the MacBook Pro 13-inch form factor essentially unchanged for the last 10 years. (...with non-retina display, superdrive, ethernet jack, kensington lock slot, etc.)

Don't macs still have screen and volume keys mapped to the function keys? Would be a shame to lose those.

Doesn't everyone use F5 daily when browsing?

Cmd + R or Ctrl + R do the same thing in Chrome without having to reach up to the F keys, so probably not.

Firefox + VimFx provides r/R for refresh.

Cmd+R on Mac

F5 does nothing in Safari.

cmd-R. I don't think I've ever refreshed via F5

What does F5 do?

"Reload"/"Refresh" on Windows. As others noted, Command-R on OSX.

"Copy File" in Norton Commander clones.

As a counterpoint, I use my MBP for work (both coding and photo editing) and my list would be:

Should have:

* Headphone jack

* SD Reader

* Two USB ports, one on each side

Don't care:

* Video output ports - the few times I've needed a second/larger monitor AirPlay worked fine for me

* Function keys - I don't mind having to use fn to use the function keys

Don't want:

* Ethernet

* CD/DVD drive

* A dozen built in USB ports - if I need more than two I'll buy a hub

Not including a headphone jack would be really annoying but I would probably still buy one. I could buy a cheap pair of blue tooth headphones and be fairly sure they'll last for a while.

On the other hand, no headphone jack on the iPhone 7 means I absolutely will not buy one.

Getting rid of a video out would be the single dumbest idea they could ever have. You will literally lose every professional on the planet who needs to present. I don't know of a projector in a corporate environment that supports airplay. 90% of them are still stuck with vga.

I agree, but aren't there several USB -> (vga/hdmi/what have you) devices on the market? I'm assuming that most people who need video out functionality need a dongle, but maybe HDMI is enough these days.

And they all suck... the mini-DV ports double as thunderbolt, which is fine imho.

USB-C connectors carry HDMI and in the next revision probably Thunderbolt too.

You can use options in Keyboard preferences to default the combo-function keys to actual function keys (where you'd press fn to use them as hotkeys rather than the other way around)

The built-in mic can be set as the audio input in Audio & MIDI settings.

Hope that helps with some of that list.

Thanks for the F key toggling tip!

I love MagSafe. Very skeptical about USB-C. We'll see.

I love Lightning. I'd happily swap Lightning for all the USBs. I'd happily use lightning headphones.

I don't remember ever using Thunderbolt, so those can go.

I've never had a second (or third) screen. I've always just used Teleport span to my iMac. I'd probably feel different if I was doing video or something. So I'm ambivalent about HDMI.

I bought one of those flush Mini SD adapters. Which is cool. But I could live without it.

In short, for my work, I just need Retina, keyboard & touchpad, SSD, power, wifi, bluetooth, and some lightning ports.

I like magsafe as well, apparently making the cable that goes from the charger to the computer should be user replaceable, as some have issues with fraying and it's very costly.

Lightning, I'm kind of meh on, I don't use external drives, and only use it for ethernet and external displays (mini-dv to X), but would like to keep 2 of said ports... USB would prefer 2x A and 2x C if possible as a migration step intermediately.. and I ABSOLUTELY use the headphone jack gor analog headphones.

The rest, SD/Mini-SD are sometimes useful, but could make do with USB adapter... Retina, Keyboard, touchpad, SSD are essential... in fact, I want the older travel for the thouchpad back... user serviceable ram and a standard ssd interface (m.2) and size would be nice. Was so pissed my current MBP is stuck with the ram soldered on. Don't know that I'll purchase another mbp if I can't upgrade the ram and drive later with standard parts.

Hah. There you go: you need almost the opposite mix as me, except for not wanting an easy-to-break charging port, either :-)

Just to clarify, my old MBP has all of these things (and then some). I want its eventual replacement to as well, rather than being minified/brutalized to an aluminum brick with a dinky keyboard, ZERO plugs, induction charging and wife/bluetooth only connections.

The Air I was given at work has no ethernet plug, even though I use wired networking every day, and the "College Humor" iPhone 7 review hits too close to home.

Which of these currently aren't true?

Headphone with microphone yes? MagSafe yes, multiple USB and thunderbolt/mini-DisplayPort ports, function keys can be set to function like that by default.

I just got a MacBook Pro and I don't think anything is missing from your list. Not 100% on the headphones.

And I'd like to keep it that way when the one I have wears out.

I dunno, I'm an engineer that dual boot OS X and Windows 10, and I get a hell of a lot of work done with my MBP. I've never felt like it was a tablet.

You really don't sound like you're Apple's target customer at all. You should consider a business notebook from Lenovo, Dell, or HP.

He sounds exactly like the target market for the MacBook Pro to me. That's the one Mac Laptop with the horsepower for programming, photo editing, video editing, and other professionals. The average user you are imagining can save money by using the Air or MacBook-1.

Apple is not reading this. you should find a way to submit to the "official" channel

I'm too lazy. Perhaps they have something crawling the web to gather "big data" about their public image, etc. If not, oh well :-)

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