Apple’s expected Mac event on October 27 is official | Hacker News Reader

Apple’s expected Mac event on October 27 is official

9to5mac.com

76 pointschrisamanse101 comments

If an OLED panel replaces the function keys, that ruins it for me. I mostly run Windows on my late-2013 15" MBPR, and I use the function keys all the time. Especially for debugging. F5, F9, F10, F11 are burned into my brain.

I used to be a huge ThinkPad fan, but their wilderness years of bad displays and constant keyboard rearrangement turned me off, so I thought I'd try using my MBPR for Windows work instead. Turns out to be a very nice Windows machine, with the bonus of being able to boot into macOS too. (I can also run Windows under Parallels in macOS and that works pretty well, but running Windows native in a Boot Camp partition is more responsive.)

The only serious function key issue is the lack of the little gaps between F4-F5 and F8-F9. If you don't use the function keys much, you'd be surprised how important those gaps are for a touch typist. Lenovo even ditched the gaps for a while (and they had their own misguided experiment with a touch panel in the second gen X1 Carbon), but now the gaps are back - and they finally have good displays again.

ThinkPads also have the Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys instead of the crazy contorted Fn+arrow combinations you have to use on a Mac keyboard.

I've gotten pretty used to these Mac keyboard issues by now, but losing the function keys? That's a bit much. Looks like my next Windows machine will be another ThinkPad.

I'm not thrilled to lose "real" Fn keys. Nobody gets air time these days if they criticize Touch interfaces, but in many ways they are unpleasant to use:

- Lack of tactile feedback makes them imprecise (is my finger over the button?)

- Imperfect sensitivity means even if you touch the correct area, 5% of the time the touch won't register. If it does, there's still the problem of response time (eg: it's easier to quickly type "AAAAA" on a mechanical keyboard).

- "Hover hand": resting your fingers on a touch screen is risky, so the ergonomics aren't great. If you relax with your hand on a touchscreen, you're liable to accidentally trigger a command.

I can live with it, if it's just the Fn keys, but I consider it a slightly unfavorable trade-off.

What really ruined this event for me is the rumor sites. Nothing Apple announces this month could possibly interest me as much as the rumored 2018 E-Ink keyboard. I've wanted such a keyboard since the Lebedev first announced their LED model, back in 2007 (earlier even?). I can't wait!

I hope the OLED panel doesn't replace the physical function keys. I have ESC plus F1-12 mapped to stuff like turn on/off spellcheck, paste mode, switch language in vim which I use a lot for LaTeX. I don't want to remap them.

It's something Lenovo already tried and was hated for with the X1 Carbon (luckily they removed the useless OLED gimmick thing in a next iteration). [0]

[0] http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2014/04/lenovoca...

I just bought a new keyboard. There is literally none on the market that has the keys I want in the right places. This makes some sense since there are too many possibilities, but damn is it annoying to have to make tradeoffs. Please someone make a customized keyboard business. I ended up giving up on have a small (in width) keyboard with F keys, separate media keys, and pg up/dwn.

Now good luck finding a laptop with the right keyboard.

As I tell in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12679849 exist a whole sub-culture of build your own mechanical keyboard.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/

https://geekhack.org/

https://www.massdrop.com/mechanical-keyboards

So yes, exist people that build customized keyboards or (maybe) better, give info in how build your own.

> There is literally none on the market that has the keys I want in the right places.

If you're referring to laptop keyboard layouts, I agree. So much wasted space on your average macbook for the scrunched up keys they give you. If you're referring to keyboards in general, well, I disagree. There's a lot of custom options out there for almost every keyboard layout you could ever want.

I was referring to a standalone keyboard. You're right that there are some customizable keyboards out there (this one looks particularly good [1]), but unlike most people looking for a customizable keyboard, I'd like it to be both wireless and without mechanical keyswitches. I haven't seen those available. And for mechanical keyboards you tend not to have dedicated media keys (ideally, they'd feel differently so that you can hit them without looking or in the dark -- I'll never remember which order the volume keys, mute, and pause song buttons are in since it's non-standard).

[1] http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/

> I mostly run Windows on my late-2013 15" MBPR

It's safe to say you're not really Apple's target market :)

Personally, I won't believe this OLED thingie until I actually see it with my own eyes, but with the right support in the OS APIs, might turn out to be a shot in the arm for the laptop concept. Imagine replacing the whole keyboard with an ipad-like touchscreen? Sure, abhorrent for a programmer, but quite exciting for everyone else. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the actual long-term endgame, for which an OLED strip is just a trial balloon.

Sorry you got downvoted. FWIW, I upvoted your comment - I pretty much always upvote replies to my comments, whether I agree or not, just to thank people for engaging in a conversation with me. The only exception is when someone is rude or nasty, which you certainly weren't. :-)

That said, I'm not sure I agree. It's not just programmers who benefit from physical keyboards, but everyone who types. And that's a lot of people. I've tried typing on an iPad and an Android tablet, and it's pretty awkward compared with a physical keyboard.

OTOH, a friend has a touchscreen ThinkPad, and while she is a touch typist, she uses the touchscreen all the time. It makes me a little crazy to see her tapping the screen to do things that would be much easier with the TrackPoint or touchpad and buttons, but I just bite my tongue and let her have at it. :-)

Or maybe replacing/expanding the trackpad, something similar to 10gui?[0] Less downside to replace the function row as a trial balloon than the trackpad. And keep the keyboard!

[0]: http://10gui.com

You might find this interesting:

https://www.cnet.com/products/lenovo-yoga-book/review/

Ars Technica has a summary of what is expected: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/10/report-new-macs-still-c...

tl;dr USB Type-C, Thunderbolt 3

So, new macs = different plugs. Awesome.

Taking away MagSafe will be very unfortunate. MagSafe is one of the best things about Macs.

Personally I'm glad to see MagSafe go away if that means I can use charging ports on either sides of the laptop. Sitting on the right side of the bed with the charger connected is a huge hassle when you only have a charging port on the left side.

The cables of Apple's MagSafe charger are also quite crappy, they tend to fray after 2-3 years of use. I hope that gets better with USB-C and if not at least you'll have better third-party chargers available.

Yes, this is something that I absolutely love about the Chromebook Pixel. Having two fully functional type c ports on both the left and right side of the laptop offers an unexpectedly amazing degree of convenience. The ability to daisy-chain several devices for charging is pretty cool as well. I'm never going back to a laptop that doesn't offer charging ports on both sides of the computer.

While I don't disagree with the annoyance as to laying things on the left side, magsafe is more nice in that if you hit the cable or accidentally have torque on the charging cable it just disconnects, not causes a ton of pcb or connector damage.

  > Personally I'm glad to see MagSafe go away if that means I can

… buy cables with strain relief, and/or replace a $10 cable instead of an $80 power supply.

I've bought 4 of 5 of these goddamned Magsafe1 to Magsafe2 adapters, and they ALL fail over (a very short amount of) time. Sorta non-sequiter, but god it's terrible.

Conversely, I have several adapters permanently attached to chargers and have never had a problem.

With what you've spent in adapters by now, you could have bought an actual M2 brick. Just sayin' ;)

(In 4 years I had to buy two bricks. Those thin cables are shocking. Still, Magsafe is such a nice connector, I wish they were all like that... instead of these large phallic daggers that will inevitably break their precariously-soldered ports.)

I won't argue that it might be the best thing about a Mac, but at the same time it isn't a great feature. They get dirty way too often and will lose contact, the size difference between old and new always bites me (my wife has the older size), and I've never seen a time where it saved my laptop (and I have four crazy kids running around and work remotely some).

It doesn't apply to a lot of people, but I have a mobility disability that makes plugging into ports difficult or impossible without getting someone to help. With MagSafe I really appreciate just lining up the cable imprecisely and letting magnetism do the rest.

There was a Kickstarter a while back for a Magsafe-like solution for USB-C. You might want to check it out if you haven't seen it already. Wish I remembered the name...

Do you mean this? http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/4/10702516/griffin-breaksafe-...

I like it, but leaving a dongle there all the time is dangerous, so you'll end up taking it out and back in every time, defeating much of the convenience. Still good for safety though.

The size change was really unfortunate, that has been a pain in the butt. But other than that, I disagree. I find magsafe works great and has saved my laptop many times.

It has always been unreliable for me. On multiple macbooks and adapters. Sometimes it does not light up at all. Sometimes lights up faintly. No major issues (just detach and re attach) but not as good as the physical grip of a USB port. Maybe I've been unlucky.

Edit: Reading other comments, I guess I was lucky.

If this turns out to be true, I will not purchase Apple laptops for myself again and I will seriously investigate switching our whole company.

... to other products which also lack magsafe?

> ... to other products which also lack magsafe?

Well, depending if these new macs use the USB-C port for charging _and_ regular USB usage, another laptop with a standard non-magsafe charging port could actually be more optimal for some/most.

I'm voting with my wallet, as they say. If enough people do the same, perhaps they'll come around after an iteration or two.

I'm voting with my wallet by not buying the headphone-jack-less iPhone 7, but I don't think enough people will care about the lack of MagSafe. It doesn't prevent you from doing anything, and with everything going SSD (i.e. no data loss if dropped) it's probably easier for Apple to just offer an AppleCare replacement policy if the products do get damaged by being yanked to the floor.

> AppleCare replacement policy if the products do get damaged by being yanked to the floor.

For some reason Macs are the only Apple product not covered for accidental damage by AppleCare. I'm not sure why.

It's not even about margins, the top of the line iPhone costs more than the MacBook Air and it's much prone to accidental damage.

> I'm voting with my wallet by not buying the headphone-jack-less iPhone 7

Same here, I'm fine with the 6S+ for another year.

USB-C charging might actually be a step forward... unless Apple adds DRM for chargers and refuses to charge from non-Apple ones.

There's already a USB-C charging laptop from Apple and that does not have any DRM in it...I highly doubt they'd do the same for chargers for the rest of the family.

I'm about as heavily invested in MagSafe as a single person can semi-reasonably be, but I have pretty strongly mixed feelings about dropping MagSafe, so when I hear that people are upset (and I admittedly presume that those individual people can't possibly be more deeply invested in continuing with MagSafe than I am (although I make no claims about people making decisions for groups of people, like IT staff)), I see an opportunity to point out that there's at least some merit to this. I want to be clear upfront that I'm not saying it's a landslide in favor of Type C, but that there is at worst a silver lining and perhaps at best this is a net win.

First, it's a good thing that we're converging on a standard. Standards mean not only that we can safely buy components from third parties (for instance, buying reputable, reliable USB Type C cables from places like Monoprice or whomever), but that we can borrow charging cables from others relatively easily. We've had a taste of that thanks to MagSafe's ubiquity, but a USB-based spec potentially broadens that.

Second, USB battery packs (admittedly a slightly niche product category, but one that's been growing rapidly in the past few years) could potentially be made to charge Macbook Pros now. There are some battery packs out there that support MagSafe today, but my sense from shopping around every few months is that the best option continues to be to buy a battery pack that has a standard electrical outlet, and carrying that big bulky MagSafe AC adapter with me. Transitioning to a USB spec (should) permanently open the door to portable battery packs, third party AC adapters, etc...

Third, USB power hubs (again a slightly niche product category, depending on whom you ask) can consolidate all of the AC adapter functions that devices need for charging. I'm already nearly there --- my tablet, battery pack, bike lights, phone, and watch all charge by USB (heck, I have a charger for my DSLR's batteries that uses Micro USB), and a single AC adapter for those devices is both tidier and easier to pack and travel with.

I agree that MagSafe's really nice and I'll be sad to see some of the benefits go, but particularly with MagSafe 2 they've overcorrected in my opinion by making the threshold strength necessary to break away too low, and it's caused me to seriously reconsider whether the frustration of all these inadvertent disconnections is worth the benefit. I see at least a few reasons to be glad that the next laptop I buy (maybe in a year, certainly in three) will probably be able to charge via the same (reasonably priced!) AC adapters and battery packs that I'll own for my peripherals, and that if I'm really up a creek it'll be more likely that I find someone with a compatible charging cable, since USB is (and will continue to be) pretty much ubiquitous.

Apple doesn't like to charge my iPad "Air" as quickly as it can with a Monoprice charger. It even puts a nastygram on the screen when you connect the iPad to the charger.

I'm assuming that they will do this with USB-C.

That does trouble me a bit, but if they stick to the spec (and I assume the retina Macbook hasn't deviated in any way to suggest they will for future models), then I see no reason not to remain tentatively optimistic.

I don't see any reason to go off spec given that they should be able to go up to 100W, but I may be wrong. Or Apple might come up with some hazy excuse for why the existing standard was no good. It'd be a real shame, though.

The CPU bump will be nice, especially in the 15" models - the current 15" Macbook Pro has a CPU from 2013.

As long as there's at least one standard USB-A port, I'm OK with this. I can just replace my Thunderbolt cables and dongles.

I need USB-A so I can plug in my ethernet dongle! Otherwise it's dongles all the way down...

USB-C to USB-A dongle, then USB-A to Ethernet dongle.

Or like the fanboys on the Apple subreddit have pointed out, "who the hell uses wires in 2016". Not sure if certain people are complete apologists or simply out of touch with the real world.

Eight or nine years ago, I conceived a plan that I was going to have CAT-5 run through my house someday, once I found someone to do it. Here it is 2016, I have trade workers throughout my house doing a renovation and I won't bother. I'm not sure why I'm going to the trouble of bringing indoors the twisted pairs of the phone jacks so I can use POTS from every room. Everything I have, as a 57-yo fuddy-duddy, is wireless.

Conversely, we're planning on rewiring a 1950s house and shielded Cat6 is definitely in the requirements.

Once a family start using wireless devices, even on two channels ( one each on 2.5 and 5 GHz ) the throughput drops dramatically. On more than one occasion I've been found sitting on the stairs near the router with a cable plugged into my laptop...

No doubt you'll be able to get a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 ethernet adapter

Sorry, no USB A ports on the new macbooks

I just hope we get 32G of RAM on the MBP. It's desperately needed.

You could consider getting a laptop that doesn't solder in the DIMM sticks...

With the current generation of laptops, the problem is the controller chipset. If you're not extremely careful, you will likely buy a machine that can only take up to 16 GB, no matter how many sticks you can attach - only the very few top-spec big-ass "portable workstation" models can run up to 32 GB, and if you're dropping money on those, you're likely to go full-spec straight on anyway. That's been the situation for several years now.

So no, sticks vs soldered DIMM doesn't really make any difference in today's market for people who want more than 16 GB of memory.

(On the other hand, soldered battery is stupid and I tolerate it only because they're really good batteries.)

A 1.5TB or 2TB drive would be nice too. My 1TB is full.

Is it?

I doubt it. Very few people have a legitimate need for 32 GB of RAM in any device, let alone a laptop.

Apple doesn't really build their hardware so that it's "developer-oriented", so it's unlikely you'll see 32 GB of RAM anytime soon. Perhaps 8, 12 or 16 GB.

As a VMware developer, hehehe, you're funny.

As a user of a modern web browser, yeah, 8GB by default isn't going to cut it anymore. Browsers leak like sieves and routinely I have to kill them once they hit 10+GB.

32GB is not even outlandish. It's a simple upgrade. The memory controllers support it. Apple can charge a fortune for it since it's "memory down" instead of DIMMs. Why wouldn't they do it?

> As a VMware developer, hehehe, you're funny.

You seemingly missed my comment about Apple machines not being developer-oriented. A developer isn't Apple's target user.

> As a user of a modern web browser, yeah, 8GB by default isn't going to cut it anymore

You're clearly exaggerating this by quite a bit. Everyone knows modern browsers consume more RAM than ever before, but 8 GB's is extreme.

(Anecdotally, I tend to have hundreds of tabs open across multiple windows for weeks-on-end, and never have hit 8 GB's consumed by Chrome or Firefox, usually in the 1-3 GB range, and that's when I start to get concerned some tab has a broken script running).

> 32GB is not even outlandish. It's a simple upgrade.

Not really. If maybe 10% of their customers will use it, why include it? Especially right now when Apple seem to be in this kick of removing everything except exactly what they anticipate most of their users need.

> Apple can charge a fortune for it since it's "memory down" instead of DIMMs

I assume you're referencing the chips being soldered onto the mobo instead of being removable DIMM's - Adding way more RAM than necessary today may in fact preclude "upgrade" revenues later when Apple releases a line-up refresh in a few year's time (when average Joe might actually need 32 GB on his laptop).

> Why wouldn't they do it?

Because 32 GB is overkill in 2016 for majority of their customers. "Upgrading" to 32 GB today prevents them from doing so in the future in another line-up refresh (when 32 GB might be more reasonable for the average Mac purchaser).

    You seemingly missed my comment about Apple machines not being
    developer-oriented. A developer isn't Apple's target user.

Why not? A MacBook Pro is standard issue for developers at most companies, and there are probably more developers buying Macs than designers, photographers, or video editors. Also, Apple's flagship products, the iPhone and iPad, require a Mac to develop for, so selling a computer that's good for software development is also an investment in the future of those platforms.

> so selling a computer that's good for software development is also an investment in the future of those platforms

I'm at a loss as-to why folks still don't "get it" that Apple has never been friendly to their developers. They still don't see developers as their primary target, evidenced by all of the things they've done lately to OSX/macOS, the until-recent ban of virtualizing OSX/macOS, non-replaceable hardware components, etc.

> Also, Apple's flagship products, the iPhone and iPad, require a Mac to develop for

That's not a technical limitation - that's a planned sales channel limitation. Forcefully compelled to purchase their hardware every few years. It's very smart, from a sales perspective, but has nothing to do with Apple favoring developers (actually, one could strongly argue the opposite simply due to this fact).

> A MacBook Pro is standard issue for developers at most companies

Just because this occurs doesn't mean Apple thinks developers are their primary target for their hardware.

It's likely safe to say that no one on HN is in the target demographic for Apple hardware. We aren't "normal" users, and we must admit it. Calls for developer-oriented gear isn't going to come to fruition simply by wishing it.

I agree, it would be nice if they did view developers as being an important demographic, but sadly, there is more evidence to the contrary.

> Why not?

That seems to be a good question for Mr. Cook and gang.

> Apple machines not being developer-oriented.

Considering they're less and less art-professional-oriented (losing SD ports and HDMI, losing jacks, losing dedicated software...), what would these "Pro" machines actually be oriented to? Consumers buy tablets and phones (the laptop market is shrinking); companies buy plasticware with support contracts. Who else is left?

Apple machines are developer-oriented - in fact, I'd argue developers are now their most consistent target market for MBPs. But it's web and app developers we are talking about, so they have no need for special ports and software; they just want basic stuff (cpu/ram/keyboard/screen/usb/wifi) done extremely well so they can show off a bit. And this suits Apple absolutely fine, since they can sell relatively basic machines as "premium" and get nice margins out of it.

As it happens, several sub-segments of the developer category do, in fact, need more ram for VM and suchlike. The necessary chips have been around for some time now, so they're small enough to fit. And there's history: when the current MBPr debuted, in 2012, no other "pro" machine had 16gb in such a slim body; 16gb configurations were all as bulky as 32gb laptops are today.

The 16gb market has caught up now (see Dell XPS et al), so it makes perfect sense to jump ahead again. After all, they had 4 years to prepare.

> may in fact preclude "upgrade" revenues later

The 16gb option has been there since the very first MBPr in 2012. It didn't preclude anything - in fact, it was almost necessary to drive such a huge screen, animations were terrible otherwise. The 15'' was unusable with 4gb (do they even sell that option anymore? nope), and just ok with 8gb. I remember the long line of reddit posts from people who bought the 4gb only to exchange it for the 8gb shortly after (or endlessly moan they had bought a lemon).

> Because 32 GB is overkill in 2016 for majority of their customers.

That's like, your opinion, man. I'm sure that driving a large OLED strip will need a bit of extra memory, for example. And touting the capabilities of Thunderbolt 3 will require very large external screens in cascaded configurations. That stuff ain't gonna work without some serious kick.

Personally, I think the Pro line should (and likely will) have 8/16/32 options. Anything below that is really just for consumers and students, in this day and age - not for people ready to drop $3k on a laptop.

> You're clearly exaggerating this by quite a bit.

No, I'm really not.

2785 waltona 20 0 9812.0m 6.289g 144100 R 74.5 40.2 13309:18 firefox

112 tabs right now.

That implies every tab is using around 73 MB's of RAM. That's ridiculous!

Do you have a certain tab that consumes more? Or an extension that's not friendly to memory (such as AdBlock). Regardless, 8 GB is not normal.

112 tabs isn't normal either, for an "average joe". Apple sells to, and caters towards, "average joe's".

> Because 32 GB is overkill in 2016 for majority of their customers. "Upgrading" to 32 GB today prevents them from doing so in the future in another line-up refresh (when 32 GB might be more reasonable for the average Mac purchaser).

So yeah, planned obsolescence. And this is a good thing how, exactly?

> So yeah, planned obsolescence. And this is a good thing how, exactly?

I see no one here making the claim that it is good.

However, planned obsolescence has been Apple's MO for as long as I can recall.

They are a hardware company, after all, and selling you new hardware is exactly how they make revenue.

Bottom line really is - if you want a developer-oriented laptop (with many high performance CPU, GPU, RAM, Disk and I/O Port options), Apple isn't really the place to get it. Apple is a consumer hardware company.

Even for developer 16GB works fine.

Depends if you're running multiple VM's concurrently, but yes, most of the time, 16 GB is more than enough.

squarf's predictions

>mac mini with A10 CPU

>MacBook air with the same guts as arm mini

>MacBook pros that are more powerful but not more powerfuller enough to satiate tech bloggers

>RIP in peace Mac Pro tower

>a Siri box for your house

I'm not sure how seriously to take your predictions, but although Apple is making some fast and efficient processors these days I think seeing it cross over to their lap/desktop line ups is pretty far out in the future because of software reasons.

It's not like a program made for amd64 processor could just run on an ARM one, so most programs people know and love just wont work. Also, emulating 64/32 bit is a pain and very slow for ARM.

It seems quite possible that Apple is pushing iPad pro for work to get "desktop" programs working well on the chip, but it seems a bit of a ways offs to have those power efficient A chips anywhere outside of mobile...

Actually I think their long term plan will be to switch to ARM processors. Probably not just yet though. They have already made their software compile to platform independent code (I may have the terminology wrong, I'm not super familiar with it), which means all current software should be able to run on ARM. You can check out some more in-depth discussion about this topic here https://www.macobserver.com/columns-opinions/particle-debris...

People have been predicting MacOS/OSX on ARM for a long time now (at least since the A6).

If Apple really wanted it to happen, they'd make the Mac App Store suck less.

I don't see them making a Mac with a A10. But we'll know for sure on the 27th.

VR ready? Thoughts? Alienware is VR ready for around £1K, much cheaper than current apple laptop.

I think not, given Tim Cook's recent comments. They are much more interested in AR than VR.

http://mashable.com/2016/10/03/tim-cook-augmented-reality/#Z...

Perhaps they could release a usb c charging cable with a magnetic disconnect in the cable itself (sort of like a cable with a smaller-magsafe-to-usb-c dongle built into it). No reason to suspect they will do this but it should be technically feasible and would allow a migration to USB C without losing all of the benefits of magnetic disconnection.

It's on sale already: https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...

There's a third-party solution for this, or at least one was working on it.

> The new MacBook Pro is said to include a redesigned, thinner body with a flatter MacBook-style keyboard, an OLED touch panel that replaces the physical function keys at the top of the keyboard, and Touch ID support.

> It is expected to do away with the USB-A port, HDMI port, and SD card slot, featuring just four USB-C ports based on part leaks, and it is said to include support for USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt 3.

The four USB-C port configuration will be interesting. As far as I can tell the rumor stems from leaked housing shots (maybe prototypes) [1] which show four slots, two on each side.

The Wikipedia page about Thunderbolt[2] says:

> Intel offers three versions of the controller:

> - one "DP" version that uses a PCIe 3.0 ×4 link to provide two Thunderbolt 3 ports (DSL6540)

>- one "SP" version that uses a PCIe 3.0 ×4 link to provide one Thunderbolt 3 port (DSL6340)

>- an "LP" (Low Power) version that uses a PCIe 3.0 ×2 link to provide one Thunderbolt 3 port (JHL6240).

This means either not all USB-C ports will be Thunderbolt 3 ports or the machines will have to have two DSL6540's on board. I don't know the cost of this chips but I think this could be expensive. On the other hand: same connector with different capabilities? - not Apple's style.

[1] https://www.idropnews.com/2016/06/01/photos-of-new-macbook-p...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Thunde...

DSL6540s are $10 in 1000 quantity if you're not Apple. If you're Apple or another OEM integrator, you can probably get Intel to give you a pretty healthy shave off that even. $15-20 bucks to make all four ports Thunderbolt is nothing to Apple's bottom line, especially when they can (and probably will) just tack on another $100 to the price to cover it.

This is Apple hardware - even if it's not the best, most advanced hardware out there, it will still fly off the shelves because of the fans/fanboys/startups.

sigh Apple, can we have at least one USB-A port left on the Pro machines? Please? So we can plug in bunch of useful devices and TheyJustWork(tm)? It's sad enough that quarter of talks I visit start with "Does anyone have their Mac video dongle with them? Anyone? ... " shtick.

Vote with your $. According to $, they're doing pretty great.

So how do I vote with my $ when I need a OSX machine for work with good CPU performance?

You don't NEED an OSX machine (unless you work on stuff that need OSX, in that case probably is your fault). It's like consoles, they are bad for everyone except the console-makers. Don't get yourself locked homie.

https://github.com/AndrewDryga/vagrant-box-osx

The new Macbook Pro is widely rumored to have a fingerprint sensor.

I haven't seen anybody exploring how this will be implemented though: is Apple likely to borrow the secure enclave or other tech they use in the iPhone?

Apple seem to seriously care about security†, it would be surprising if they deployed a MacBook implementation which has less security than the iPhone's. So, presumably it would use the Secure Enclave or something similar?

†I mean, they have a public document detailing the iOS security architecture, so they're at least proud of it. And of course, they went to court over it.

"The new Macbook Pro is widely rumored to have a fingerprint sensor."

Wouldn't be happy with this carrying an mbp around with instant LEO access ~ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fingerprints+iphone+fbi

Sure, but the reason I ask about the implementation is that I'm not particularly interested in the actual fingerprint reader (which I assume I'll be able to disable).

If Apple starts shipping a Secure Enclave or some kind of hardware-backed crypto store it will enable a bunch of interesting use cases that are decoupled from the fingerprint reader itself.

For example it might be possible to build tooling allowing an AWS signing key to be stored in-hardware where it can't be scraped by malware on a developer's laptop. Same for SSH keys. And once you have those primitives you can build whole new protocols on top (eg, https://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/02/09/tidas-a-new-service-...).

I'm pretty sure you could turn it off. Even iPhones don't require TouchID.

Might it be as simple as adding a cheap A-series chip to the motherboard?

Or they could be boring and just exploit the SGX on Skylake chips.

Seems very likely, and they'll probably go over that aspect in the address.

Wish the upgrades will be like 2016 specs and not year behind. (smoke)

Finally the switch to ARM?! The invite suggests!

How does it suggest a switch to ARM? I'm not seeing any indications to suggest such a claim.

Parent probably saw "A10" in the mac mini and assumed that mean some ARM type processor.

A10 is an APU from AMD, and is x86_64 based with an GPU on the same die.[1]

[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-an-AMD-...

The word "hello".

And the orange smoke, suggesting burning bridges.

Or Note 7 phones burning, obviously

A new Air finally? That will be the day!

I imagine the Airs being eaten by the new MacBook.

Just an anecdote but none of the college kids I see get a MacBook , but still opt for the Air, or pay the $100 more to get a pro. USB ports and all that.

I see this as well. Students particularly. The Air got popular when the price dropped. Initially, everyone also criticized it for being too expensive and underpowered. Look at this thread and tell me it doesn't sound like they're talking about the new Macbook: http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/why-is-the-macbook-air-s...

My speculation: No upgrade for the Air but I think they'll announce a new lower price for the new Macbook as well as somewhat upgraded internals. They may lower the Air price a bit and keep it around or perhaps kill it outright. Everything about the Macbook seems like it's made to replace the Air apart from the price.

I don't think Apple can drop the Air until the MacBook is at the same price point.

Let's see what they bring to the table with a possible new Air. If they let down, it's a possibility where Macbook will continue on and Airs rest in piece.

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