Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need | Hacker News Reader

Apple’s new MacBook Pro kills off most of the ports you probably need

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It's pretty bad. We use YubiKeys a lot, and there are no ports for them.

So sad.

Also: Magsafe is great (it's saved my bacon a few times). Gone. ESC key, gone. Don't know about the keyboard yet, but everything I've read doesn't point to it being decent.

Probably not buying this generation of MacBooks. Might just bite the bullet and finally go to Linux on some decent hardware.

So, what's a decent laptop for running Linux? Good keyboard, good trackpad support, good sound . . .

I'll add my reply from another thread(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12807826):

I have been using the Dell Developer Edition (Precision 5510) since April. There were a few hiccups because of some driver issues related to their USB-C dock (Correct me if i'm wrong, but I guess this problem was not limited to just their linux laptop?) Ever since upgrading to Ubuntu 16.04 things have been pretty smooth. I believe any distro with a 4.4 series kernel or higher will behave pretty well. Before this I had a Thinkpad T series (The best keyboard experience on a laptop that I have come across), and I never had any problem with running any distribution of Linux. In Summary: I think you cannot go wrong with either a Thinkpad or the Dell Developer edition. They are well made machines with good support for linux.

Have they fixed the coil whine[0] issues with them? From what I've seen, a lot of Dell laptops have this issue. I have really sensitive hearing and high-pitched sounds like this drive me crazy.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/3zau8b/coil_whine_pro...

I read a lot of posts about the coil while, but I haven't noticed any coil whine in mine.

Battery life?

I have the 1080p display and with tlp installed I can get somewhere in the range of 7-9 hours.

Oh crap! I didn't even think of my yubikeys! Thank you for posting this.

Edit: a link for ubikey usbc adapter. There's hopefully something cheaper. https://www.yubico.com/product/yubikey-4-nano-usbc-bundle/

> So, what's a decent laptop for running Linux? Good keyboard, good trackpad support, good sound . . .

Sadly enough, I think the lack of really great options is what may have pushed some engineers to macs in the first place. :)

Admittedly, last I looked was several years ago -- I'm interested to know too! Keep hearing good things about the XPS series, but last I had one it ran hot enough that I couldn't comfortably keep it on my lap.

My current XPS13 has the opposite problem - it can be uncomfortably cold to the point that I'll often put a cushion or something under it.

>I think the lack of really great options is what may have pushed some engineers to macs in the first place

Is this what we're calling web developers now?

Don't know what you're prerequisite for an engineer is but my brother, an aerospace engineer, has been using mac laptops since the 90s. And in the classes he teaches, nearly all the students are using Apple laptops.

> web developers

Dunno about you. I develop native code.

magsafe saves my macbook every 6-8 months

I would need at least one if not two extra chargers (one for the office, one I leave in my bag, one for the other room I work in); dongles to connect to an external monitor; and dongles to connect to projectors. All told probably another $350+ on top of the $2.9k (w/o applecare!) the 15-in model costs.

They're probably going to save me $3500 by causing me to buy a mid-2015 laptop though.

I do love how you can't plug lightning headphones into this thing without another $19 adapter.

Actually that connector is at $25... http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MK0X2AM/A/usb-c-to-lightni...

There will be USB-C YubiKeys in 2017, and in the meanwhile you can still use your adapter.

Esc key is still there, it's just not a physical key. You'll have to try it for yourself of course, but since it's on the edge of the strip it's still pretty easy to touch-type it.

They keyboard divides users. Some people hate it but I really like my 12" Macbook butterfly keyboard. I can type on it just fine at almost any speed. I do have to admit that it took a while to get used to it.

Personally, I am extremely happy it's USB-C only and it has no USB-A ports. USB-A is one of the worst popular connectors in history. USB-C is great. Going full USB-C gives the manufacturers the incentive to produce native USB-C hardware. Don't worry, eventually all hardware will be USB-C and the world will be better off.

Yes, you will need to buy new hardware. You're buying a multi thousand dollar machine and you are concerned about the price of a YubiKey?! And for expensive stuff, like professional audio interfaces you can just use a dongle. With a YubiKey dongles are a PITA. For stuff that stays on your desk, not so much. I still use a FireWire audio interface.

On the other hand I regret the loss of HDMI. While I can expect to get a new YubiKey, it will take at least a decade for all the HDMI-only TVs and projectors and whatnot to be replaced. Carrying that dongle is a PITA, just like carrying the ethernet dongle.

Going linux on decent hardware isn't biting the bullet one bit. Thinkpads are seriously nice and the days where you couldn't get your audio and wifi working on linux have been over for ~5 years. Give it a shot, and you just might like it.

> Thinkpads are seriously nice

I use a T450s for work. My wife took one look at the FHD screen (she uses a 15" rMBP) and said "can't the firm spring for something less shitty?" The backlight bleeds, the keyboard is warped near the touchpad, and the touchpad isn't that precise. I bought my own for personal use and then sold it because it was so underwhelming.

The one redeeming quality of the machine is sick battery life with the extended battery. But on the T460 series, you can either have the high-resolution screen or the giant battery, but not both. Doh!

Thanks for posting this.

I have about 14 ThinkPads at last count. The earliest functional ThinkPad I still have is a T42p. The newest one is a X250. My favorite one is the high-resolution X61T (I have two).

There was a time when the build quality of ThinkPads was great, that time has passed. The quality has declined, while the Mac quality has increased. There is simply no comparison on this front anymore.

What is sad is that ThinkPads are still better than other, non-mac laptops. I feel sorry for anyone who uses a non-ThinkPad, or a non-Mac laptop.

You don't need to be. I'm still amazed by the build quality of my ZenBook after four years of daily usage.

How's the build quality though? I was under the impression that Thinkpads are mostly plastic. Honestly, one of the best perks of a MacBook is the machined aluminum body. Does Lenovo have anything like that?

Thinkpads are traditionally made with a cage of magnesium covered with plastic. Best of both worlds: the strength durability and protection of metal combined with the light weight and ability to absorb drops and dings of plastic.

Dunno how many still do that, the system may have been dropped in the pursuit of thinness.

It's been sliding. The T450s is a rock: carbon fiber lid, magnesium body covered in soft-touch plastic. The T460 is a step back--glass-fiber plastic on top of magnesium roll cage. The T460s is not a viable replacement for the T450s because it has no removable battery.

The metal body of the MacBook means that if you drop it one time the lid never closes right again. Plastic thinkpads don't have that problem. They have different problems that I happen to prefer, like the doors to ports that I never used break off.

Thinkpads are built pretty well. I can't comment on the latest series but i've had good experience with the T series of thinkpads. I still have my T430s around. The hinges and latches are solid, the keyboard is still a joy to type on.

> Going linux on decent hardware isn't biting the bullet one bit.

I've tried before. I've got a couple of laptops at home running Linux, but they didn't stick. I didn't actually move to them. Moving is a kind of commitment, you're saying "Well, this is probably good enough that I can make it work for the next decade or two." And that's unclear.

Moving platforms means changing some everyday tools. Visual Studio on Windows == XCode on OSX, but I'm not really happy with IDEs on Linux. (Visual Studio is really difficult to beat in terms of debugging experience, in my experience).

It's not necessarily worse, though some things are. OSX has some nice creature comforts where things just work and I don't want to waste time tweaking the environment any more than I have to.

So moving to Linux with the intent of staying there for the next decade or more is, indeed, biting the bullet.

Thinkpads are really good when it comes to laptops that play nice with linux. I still have my T430s around and I love the keyboard and form factor.

Dell Precision mobile workstations can be ordered online [in the US] with Linux. Three year NBD onsite warranty, beefy GPU, and more CPU than will probably fit in your wallet.

I really don't understand why everybody seems to think the Escape key is so important. I almost never hit mine, and since the Touch Bar has a virtual escape key, I don't really see the problem. The best I can figure is everybody complaining is a Vim user, but if you're a Vim user I don't know why you haven't already replaced the cumbersome Escape key with something easier, like binding `jk`, or binding Caps Lock to Control and then using Control-[.

So can you explain why everybody is so upset that they don't have a physical Escape key?

Muscle memory. Nearly 40 years of Emacs muscle memory.

Sure, you can rebind it. But this starts to interrupt flow when you switch keyboards.

ESC wasn't broken. They broke it. I'm done.

Your argument consists of "people who don't work like I do are wrong" and you imply they should pay the price... for using a key that's been ubiquitous since the beginning of computing time.

You could say the same thing for removing serial ports, or floppy drives, or CD drives. People used them when Apple got rid of them. People whined. Apple still did it. We don't miss them anymore.

Its possible Apple could go too far, but I don't think its fair to say Apple did anything wrong _yet_. They're always early on removing this stuff, but they've never been wrong. Literally never.

Ooh, there's a reference to floppy drives. Apple distortion reality bingo hit!

I miss my CD drive. On a almost daily basis. USB drive to the rescue, oh, wait. Serial ports are fantastic for interfacing with low level electronics. USB dongle for, oh, wait.

> but they've never been wrong. Literally never.

Riiight. That's why they sell so many dongles which replace all of these missing parts.

> They're always early on removing this stuff, but they've never been wrong. Literally never.

"Technology X will be obsolete at some point in the future" is almost tautologically true. They could remove the screens and the keyboards from their laptops today, and that might be a good idea in 50 years time when we're all using direct-brain interfaces, but I would still describe that as being wrong today.

Pay what price, though? That's the question I'm asking. What the heck are people using the Escape key for that's so important that they can't tolerate having to tap the Touch Bar instead of having a physical key?

As for ubiquity, that doesn't mean anything. Just because we've had something for a long time doesn't mean we need to keep having it. For example, my current physical keyboard has no Insert key, but that's a key that keyboards had for a long time (my keyboard replaced that with the Eject key). And yet I didn't even notice its lack until I looked at my keyboard just now.

Says the emacs user.

I'm a Vim user. And as I implied in my original comment, I have `jk` bound to Escape, and if I'm ssh'd into a machine without my config, since I have Caps Lock bound to Control, it's still easier to hit Control-[ than it is to hit the Escape key.

I use the keys on that row, and having physical keys gives me the useful tactile feedback that I've pressed a key. Sounds dumb, but it's real - it's the reason that keyboards are much better to type on than touchscreens.

Not sure why you're downvoted. I am a vim user and the first thing I do is bind escape to caps lick on any new keyboard. Reaching for the escape key would be terrible for my RSI.

They are releasing a new model with normal top row keys too.

... the model with the smaller screen. Not really a great option.

And it doesn't address the lack of standard USB ports (for folks with YubiKeys, etc.), MagSafe, and the jury is out on the actual keyboard until I can type on it. I physically recoiled from the latest MacBook thin keyboard.

What about leaving fullscreen mode while playing video?

The key is still there, on the touch bar. The only problem is that it may be difficult to hit it without looking. That's not a big deal for exiting fullscreen mode.

Pretty sure Cmd+F or similar usually works for that.

Esc closes dialogs.

It doesn't have to be a physical key to do that. The Touch Bar still has a virtual Esc key.

I run Ubuntu on a Dell Inspiron 7000 2-in-1. Everything as a laptop works including the touch screen. Sound took an extra driver install, but that was easy. The only thing that doesnt work is the automatic keyboard locking when in tablet mode, but honestly the tablet mode is a bit of a gimmick. It's too heavy for long use as a tablet. I bought it as a laptop, and for that its been really great. I was actually quite surprised. And the price is amazing. $600 USD.

Dell xps laptops look sweet. That's what I want next.

XPS 13, XPS 15, Precision 5100 (same as XPS 15 but configurable in every way)

and you can get 32g ram on a $2600 xps 15

Honestly I like the Macbook Air for Linux... Alas.

I've found the Dell XPS13 to be pretty great.

System76 only offers Ubuntu as stock OS.

Why is everyone keep saying that Esc key is gone, OS X allows you to customize that new touch bar, you can make the Esc button to always show on the same spot you had it before...

From a tactile point, not the same. I've rage-quit keyboards because of nerfed ESC keys before, so this one won't be the first.

I put a piece of double-sided sticky tape on my ESC key just to make me notice how often I hit it. When I'm editing, it's all the time.

The seeming last-minute addition of a remapping feature for ESC in OSX leads me to believe that the software people at Apple were railroaded by some hardware folks. Hard to believe that whole teams using Emacs / vim were ignored, but I've seen it happen before.

> leads me to believe that the software people at Apple were railroaded by some hardware folks

Well, the guy in charge (Ive) is basically a hardware person.

> Hard to believe that whole teams using Emacs / vim were ignored

What do you use ESC for in Emacs? I used to occasionally use it to hit M-x, but now I use key-chord.el to map 'xx' to M-x and it's all good.

I used ESC as a M- prefix, of course. Also I use the command key. It's a mix of whatever is convenient and whatever my fingers have learned over a few decades.

Maybe Apple has decided to kill off the pesky Emacs and vim users. Yeah. :-)

I was thinking "meh I don't use esc at all". Until you reminded me of vim. Then I realized it may well be one of the top 5 most used keys for me.

Because physical feedback and muscle memory are very nice things to have. Touch screens lack the former, which makes it hard to build the latter.

Touch typing. Unless they added some haptic feedback it's not gonna be enough.

It's funny how Americans (USA) use the freedom as in this situation "they are necessary connections that offer you freedom" but don't even realize that's the same "freedom" they are stuck in the Imperial system; lack of standardization.

I for once welcome these changes; if companies were not brave enough to let go of old ports to standarize the USB we'd be stuck in the old days with dozens of dongles. At the speed of USB-C adoption, in ~5 years I hope it's the most used port and in ~10-15 I hope not to need any other port for any peripheral.

I wrote a small article about USB-C adoption: https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/apples-new-macbook-pro-jus...

You mean instead of the new days with dozens of dongles?

Gigabit ethernet. Video converters for each external monitor type, plus for the projector that you only use twice a year. The external mouse that you really like. The phone. The 2TB USB3 hard disk that you already have. The external DAC and pre-amp that turned your Mac into a high-quality 4 channel recorder. The non-bluetooth wireless mouse that you like so much better than Apple's. The SD card for the video camera that your kids use.

Now you have to carry dozens of dongles, but the objective is long-term. I almost never need VGA/DisplayPort/etc for instance because it was standardized to HDMI (and now to USB-C). What port does that non-bluetooth mouse use? USB, right? Well before you'd have to check, because it could be using a PS2 as the keyboard. But now you know for sure they use USB if they use any port, which is a good thing. I remember my older cousin complaining about me having a USB mouse when I should have a PS/2 back in the day.

Forgot your phone/laptop charger? You can borrow mine as it will be the same USB-C. Yes, now it's painful, but in ~10 years it will be glorious. However, the problems of the switch are happening now while the benefits will come unannounced, which is a pity.

In ten years, Apple will have already issued ten different formats of phone and laptop chargers.

In 10 years I'll need to buy a new machine to replace the one I have now.

Exactly, I don't understand how "thin laptop" is an admirable goal when you have to carry around 1-3 dongles to get anything done. The regular Macbook with only one port is a fine machine for most people but these are billed as professional tools.

The goal is to fit in people's idealized, aspirational lives, because you can charge a higher premium for that over practical stuff.

Honestly, this is one part where I don't see the big deal.

Currently for me, your list of examples is already three dongles (minidp-hdmi for hijacking hotel TVs when I'm travelling, minidp-dvi for my monitor at the office, minidp-vga for the projectors in the meetings rooms), and five different USB cables - usb-B for the usb hub in my monitor, lightning for my phone, micro-usb for my SD card, mini-usb for my camera, and micro-usb3 for my harddrive).

Everyone's annoyed that they're replacing 'The One Plug' with usb-c. But 'The One Plug' is a myth. For me, the only difference between a different connector for each device, and a different dongle for each device, is what spin you're putting on it. Either way I'm still going to need 8 cables in the bottom of my bag. The donglepocalypse is just the same list s/usb/usb-c/.

Wow, totally wrong article and I didn't even realize until now; I don't work for Tech Crunch, my bad. This is my article: https://medium.com/@fpresencia/the-usb-type-c-revolution-66d...

Its not an all or nothing thing. Apple could provide at least one "old-style" usb for legacy devices and would alleviate a lot of pain.

Throughly enjoyed the Apple ecosystem for the past 13 years. Multiple AirPorts, Watch, iPhones, iPads, Macs. Never have I ever been so extremely disappointed with Apple. Actually, I'm not sure that I've ever before been rather disappointed Apple. I wasn't a fan of the Sierra release because I don't like using Siri but ultimately it didn't ruin then OS, it was just a new feature that I wouldn't use.

But now? The pricing is insane. The max at 16GB of RAM is a joke. I was looking to buy a MacBook to last me years of heavy power-use. Has Apple forgotten about me?

When the Mac is less than 10% of their revenue, why should they bother to care? They can coast on their reputation and they have a captive audience of iOS developers who will buy any Mac because they have to.

This was a company that said they cared. That made products which were far and away better than the competitors. I paid the Apple Tax, but it was worth it because I didn't have Windows headaches and because I had a better quality system that was truly optimized for both easy use and for power users. It was great. I actually feel crushed by this news. I valued the trust I had in Apple.

And I don't say all of this lightly. I've read the threads the occur after every major Apple release. They're always replete with naysayers. I've never been one of those people. This seems different.

I come from a similar background but I started to feel this way a bit sooner, near the beginning of this year, when I realized that almost all of Apple's computers were 2-3 years out of date. The Mac Pro hasn't been updated in any way since 2013. The Mac Mini is almost as old. They used to do "silent speed bumps" all the time to keep up with technology advances without the needless expense and effort to redesign everything every 8-12 months. So if they can't even put in the minimal effort to ship a newer processor, why should we expect actual greatness at this point?

I held out hope for this reveal. Did I mention that I'm tremendously disappointed?

I think since I came to our shared conclusion sooner, I did not hold out hope, as it was replaced by cynicism.

> This was a company that said they cared.

Has any company ever said that they didn't care?

I'm okay with the port situation--there is an elegance to the 4 completely symmetrical USB-C ports. Also super excited to ditch Magsafe. It'll be awesome to be able to just replace a USB-C charger cable instead of the whole brick when it inevitably frays.

I'm bummed out about the huge reduction in battery capacity. The 13" model loses 1/3, and the 15" loses 1/4. With the addition of the touch bar, this will probably be the first MBP to see a battery life regression.

Good point on not needing to replace the entire power brick but couldn't this have been solved by keeping the MagSafe port and releasing a cable with the MagSafe connector on one end and USB-C on the other?

I'm wondering if the lack of a 32gb option is due to battery life marketing constraints. Double the RAM is going to have a higher power draw during operation as well as standby.

> there is an elegance to the 4 completely symmetrical USB-C ports

shudders You might not be the target demographic if your brain has trouble parsing this sentence.

wouldn't you still need a brick at the other end of that usb-c cable?

Very surprised to hear of the battery capacity reduction. Is that confirmed? I haven't looked at the numbers. Anyway, I always felt like that is a red line that Apple would not cross.

The USB-C charger is like the iPad charger--the USB-C cable detaches.

The battery capacity is under "tech specs."

Up to 10 hours wireless web Up to 10 hours iTunes movie playback Up to 30 days standby time Built-in 76.0-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery 87W USB-C Power Adapter

Up to 10 hours wireless web Up to 10 hours iTunes movie playback Up to 30 days of standby time Built-in 49.2-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery 61W USB-C Power Adapter

Thanks very much. I was on a phone so I couldn't look this up as much as I liked. Much appreciated

So disappointed. I had my wallet ready to order but this is no different than my current MBP.

A half baked touch screen!!! Not worth the $3500 I was going to drop on a new MBP.

I can't imagine going back to windows because I enjoy the terminal and vim but seriously considering it specially that now I can run bash on windows

I have been developing using the bash shell on Windows. It's got a couple quirks (like a couple second startup time on first startup, or docker issues) but it has performed exceptionally otherwise. I've primarily been doing nodejs development and installing random unix packages I need.

Out of curiosity have you thought about just running a linux server in a VM and sshing into it from the shell? It seems bizarre I know, but you get a "real" linux then, while still keeping a major OS for software compatibility with user apps.

The point of the Windows Subsystem for Linux is that you don't need to run a VM. It is much more efficient in terms of speed (you're not keeping a whole virtualized Linux kernel and everything else running) but also in terms of energy. I can run bash on my Surface (not pro) 3 without any noticeable hit to battery life and without hurting performance.

If 'real linux' is the Linux userspace, then that's what you're getting with Ubuntu - all of 'Linux' except the Linux kernel. WSL allows the NT kernel to handle all of the Linux syscalls. If you consider just the public interface, then WSL is also 'real linux'.

Of course this is all theoretical because there are still some bugs here and there. Those are being dealt with and WSL is making great progress.

I used to do exactly what you're suggesting. I had a headless vm always running in my laptop and I used to ssh into it. I have turned the vm off since I started using bash on Ubuntu on windows. There are hiccups, but 99% of the time I don't notice that it isn't "real" Linux.

It's faster to not have to have a separate filesystem, and with the new update or cbwin [1] you can launch native Windows apps from the command line.

[1]: https://github.com/xilun/cbwin

I've had 0 need to do that as a web developer, and I much prefer developing on windows 10 than Ubuntu. The bash shell does everything I need it to. The small things that don't work in the bash shell, I can just run the windows version. It basically just boils down to the tools and environment you need, but I have everything I want and need on windows 10 now.

And you can run a VM on a Surface Book with as much RAM as the MBP.

That is what I am thinking about doing.

Why don't you keep using your current mbp if it has everything you need and runs OS X?

It's really quite absurd to spend $3500 on a laptop. That's baffling.

That's more than the down-payment on my pickup truck.

That's more than we paid for the last two blade servers at work, that have a combined 96 cores and, I think, 288 GB of RAM.

That's just a little less than the seven laptops I have owned in my entire life.

The laptop is a tool that many people use all day everyday. If the machine lasts you three years, that's about $5 per day which is pretty affordable.

If playing with software is your hobby, then spending $3500 over a couple of years on your hobby isn't outrageous. I know people that play guitar for fun and they wouldn't think twice about dropping that much on a used guitar.

My laptop is my primary tool I used in my job, which allow me to support my family and myself. I spend around fifty hours a week using it. Investing in a good tool, when there is a guaranteed pay-off and productivity (or living quality) increase isn't unreasonable at all.

I've said it elsewhere - the problem isn't the price, but rather that what all that money buys you is very little compared to the competition. Not just "a bit worse for the same money" or a "a bit better for a bit more money", but rather "a bit worse for a ton of extra money". That's unacceptable.

I find it annoying that people switch OS's and compare them based on feel and "features"... If anything at least say OSX is architecturally better than windows... or get a Chromebook and Croton. This way you can use the terminal and vim, and still get amazing features thru ChromeOS

> I find it annoying that people switch OS's and compare them based on feel and "features"

I think it's interesting. It implies that the important software packages are now available everywhere. If there were key applications you needed, you probably wouldn't switch.

Yeah but shitty screens. The closest I got to programming nirvana was my Samsung Tab S 10.5. Glorious terminal in Super Amoled glory. It pains me to use any desktop panel. It's just old at this point, a little low and small.

I would probably go ipad if I was interested in rekindling my Apple relationship (which I'm not since they continue to screw users it seems)

There was the chrome pixel, with high-res display, but that died off.

Depending on your use the XPS 13 Dev Edition might fit your needs. I got one recently, and I can say Dell has put a lot of effort in making a good working laptop. It works pretty well with Dell's dock station, but keep in mind the WD15 dongle just doesn't work at all(at least for now).

Anyone tried the Windows 10 Linux Subsystem?

I love it, personally. I installed it and VcXsrv and put a link to 'bash.exe -c "DISPLAY=:0 xfce4-terminal"' on the panel. gVim on Linux works great for code editing.

Yes. It is great. Issues are handle very nicely via their github Repo so you dont feel left out while using it. It's currently in Beta but most of the things that I use (python3 ,pip, npm...) work like a charm

I do. Support is definitely there for me but I mostly do Ruby/javascript. YMMV.

Ubuntu

For odd some reason, I find myself most annoyed by the headphone situation, aka, lack of Lightning jack.

Why not just make the iPhone 7 USB-C instead?

>Why not just make the iPhone 7 USB-C instead?

It's too thick going forward. It's already too thick for the Pencil.

Sorry could you elaborate? Not understanding what you mean. Very much wondering the answer to this question

The USB-C plug is larger than the Lightning plug. Putting a USB-C plug on the Apple Pencil would have made it not as sleek.

It's ridiculous that the stylus needs a port.

Ok, well USB C is too thick for the AppleTV remote too.

My guess is the next iPhone or the one after that will drop lightning altogether, and just use induction charging, and wireless for all I/O.

MagSafe was one of my favorite things about Apple laptops. I'm sorry to see that go.

Here's an alternative... surprised Apple didn't introduce something similar today https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...

Thanks, that looks nice.

It's a solution nobody asked for.

Has anybody used these?

Yeah. This is a MAJOR regression in quality.

What in particular? Reviews on Amazon are mixed. 3.3/5 stars with 88 reviews. Looks like complaints are a mix of:

- weak magnets

- cosmetic (black, thicker, stiffer cable, bulky connector)

Does this square with your experience?

I was referring to the MagSafe feature being removed. Seems small but it actually prevents accidents. As my colleague said today: "hope apple care includes drops"

Gotcha. I misunderstood. Thanks for clarifying.

I was hoping for more RAM capacity. I don't really run into issues but I feel like I've been running 16 for 8 years or something like that.

Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. The chipset now accepts up to 64gb, there are plenty of similarly-thin laptops on the market already shipping with 32gb -- there is just no excuse for not having a 32gb option in a flagship model in 2016. It might come with a refresh after Christmas, maybe, but to be honest today I've just lost patience with Apple.

Absolutely absurd. I bought my 2014 rMBP for $1700 with 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD - the same setup with the new model is $2K. And if I add 16GB RAM to the base model without the OLED strip, it's still $1700 with only 2 ports!

Looks like apple is indeed going all-in on USB-C. What's interesting is:

> People won’t even be able to physically connect their iPhones to Apple’s flagship laptops without a $25 new cord.

I wonder if this means that Apple's going to switch the iPhone and iPad over to USB-C? It'd be a pain for everybody invested in Lightning ports, but Android phones seem to be slowly converging on it. It'd be pretty cool if USB-C became a real standard port for everything. And they have done it before, when they switched to Lightning in the first place.

I was really hoping the iPhone 7 would ship with usb-c. But after watching Apple promote their lighting headphones I can't really see them switching to USB-c in the foreseeable future.

> People won’t even be able to physically connect their iPhones to Apple’s flagship laptops without a $25 new cord.

Amazon and Monoprice have USB-A to C dongles for about $8. They're nice and small, too.

The USB-C connector is significantly larger than the Lightning connector.

I've got a Cinema Display, though it's been relegated to my second monitor it is pretty nice to have all my cables routed cleanly to that and just plug in the MagSafe/T2 connection and my MiniDP connection from my big monitor every morning and just be done with it.

Some cursory searches suggest I'll be anywhere from $80-150 in getting a Thunderbolt 3 -> Thunderbolt 2 adapter. This, just to get back to even after an upgrade.

I love my MBP, I've gotten one every other year since 2008, except for that time I lost my laptop bag off the motorcycle on the freeway. It's the best blend (for me) of *nix and 'Just Works'. I can't even fathom going back to Windows, but I might go see what Ubuntu, Mint, and Fedora desktops look like these days, and I hear Dell has some decent upper end hardware again...

> Some cursory searches suggest I'll be anywhere from $80-150 in getting a Thunderbolt 3 -> Thunderbolt 2 adapter.

It's $49 on Apple's store: http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-us...

Well I guess I should've looked straight at the source first!

So who is making good laptops that run Linux well these days?

Dell. The Dell XPS 13 is the best line of laptops I've owned. They come with Linux preinstalled, and all the drivers that they write to support the hardware are pushed upstream to the kernel, so you can run whatever distro you want.

Seconded. I picked one up off Dell Outlet as a disposable machine, but it ends up going with me more than anything else. Actually having Dell dedicate support resources to Linux makes a huge difference in compatibility too.

I've been eyeing one of these off and now they have a higher specification developer edition, I think it's game off.

Been wanting to move back to Linux for a while now anyway.

The Lenovo T460s is pretty great all around. I suggest Debian Testing and Gnome 3.

New Lenovo trackpads are an absolute pain in the ass to use. I rage quit my T440s for this alone because on the long run in starts grinding your gears pretty hard. I am glad you had a good experience with it but I strongly recommend anyone considering it to actually try and experiment with it for a couple hours.

And I'm in the middle of you two:

My t460 is OK. It's not the worst laptop I've had, but it's not even close to the best. Took a little wrangling to get wifi and sound working, but wasn't too bad.

Heh, my "upgrade" planned for this year is going to be a maxed out 2015 Macbook. Hope it lasts forever.

Apple, there is no ESC!

Well, there is, but it's not real. :)

Even worse is that there is no real option if you're developing for IOS.

Imac is a no go due to not wanting desktop and other macbooks don't seem the right type for heavy multitasking, compiling etc.

It's MBP or bust.

This is the most interesting point I've seen raised today. How can you lock developers into your OS with Xcode and then not give them a viable, portable option. If they could just beef up the '12 MBP I'd be soo happy.

How is it not viable?

16 GB memory for starters

If you can't develop with 16gigs something else is wrong.

go tell google

Can you tell me you usage scenario if you are a developer for iOS, what exactly is prohibiting you from using this new generation of MacBook pros? I have not used my USB or hdmi ports on my 15" retina for years, the only port I am using is the thunderbolt to connect 4K display, but the only time I am using it is when I am at my desk, attaching a dongle to the desk monitor is quite easy and solves the only possibly issue I might have...seems like most people who complain here are just trying to find a reason to complain

It's not that im prohibited from developing, its that the value proposition of a macbook pro is going down and I have no other option other than a macbook pro, all these changes are detrimental to me and I have no alternative.

Can't use (now) old magsafe, can't simply connect hdmi to current screen without an adaptor, yubikey will be useless and will need a replacement, adaptor for headphones because I use hd598s and will never use wireless headphones, need to get used to new f keys when using vscode shortcuts when meddling with non ios or react native code.

Nothing is a death knell, but feels like they're choosing a death by 1000 paper cuts with these incremental changes.

I honestly can't point to a gain except maybe able to click on a emote faster using the magic bar and other odds and sods that a magic bar offers.

> adaptor for headphones because I use hd598s and will never use wireless headphones

The MBP has the standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

> I honestly can't point to a gain except maybe able to click on a emote faster using the magic bar and other odds and sods that a magic bar offers.

You're sounding awfully negative about something you haven't even used. For example, the F-key shortcuts you mentioned, if Microsoft is smart they'll add Touch Bar support so you get even better shortcuts than having to remember which F-key does what with what modifiers.

> yubikey will be useless and will need a replacement

The whole world is slowly moving to USB-C, this had to happen eventually. The fact that Yubikey doesn't have a version that supports USB-C is their own fault. And in fact 3 months ago they had a whole post about how they have a prototype but don't want to bother actually bringing it to market yet (https://www.yubico.com/2016/07/yubikey-route-usb-c/). I sure hope that today's announcement makes them realize that they do need to get off their ass and release the USB-C version.

What's your current set up? Is there something about what you're using now that prevents you from continuing to use it going forward?

Macbook pro (2014) and a windows desktop.

3 screens.

usually connect 2 screens to my macbook (hdmi & display port) along with my k70 keyboard and my g600 mouse.

Im mainly good, I keep my F keys when im at my desk, only when im mobile and about they go and never done any heavy lifting through that way.

I don't understand how people are treating this as if im the grim reaper taking a swing at the macbook pro 2016.

It's just many different annoying things that I don't see the positive side to losing, can someone point to the positive side?

I don't think you're the grim reaper :) Personally, I'm reacting to statements you've made like:

"there is no real option if you're developing for IOS"

"other macbooks don't seem the right type for heavy multitasking"

"the value proposition of a macbook pro is going down"

Those read like universal absolutes rather than nuanced criticisms. You do make a point with respect to adapters. I've been using Apple laptops since my first G3 (that's not me trying to display street cred, just trying to establish that I've been through a lot of different port changes over the years).

And that's why I asked about your current setup. If you're currently developing for iOS and it's working fine, then one option is to keep using what you have. If you have a legitimate reason to need to upgrade, i.e., developer tools you need to use are no longer supported for your machine, that's a legitimate complaint. If you want a new machine because you want the new hotness (and hey, that can be fun), but the new hotness doesn't match your expectations, well, I'm sorry you're disappointed. That however is different from "no real option" or "not the right type".

Another option for you to consider is buy one of the current gen machines or a refurbished model. Might be a compromise that works for you.

Thank you for your insight (G3 is a long time), genuinely helpful and levelled my head out!

I never meant them in absolute terms, it's just me venting that im missing reasons to want this version (after always wanting a mac after any keynote in the past but never being able to afford when back then) after waiting a little while and just disappointed this time around.

That G3 was a beast :) Swappable batteries, drives, all kinds of stuff. And so heavy!

Glad to share my thoughts, and glad to help. I can understand the disappointment, too. I wish there were some MagSafe-like feature. I like the larger trackpad. I like the opportunities the Touch Bar provides, though I will miss the physical escape key and the hardware volume keys and brightness keys. Force Touch for the Touch Bar would be great. I'd also like to see more RAM available. But, that's not what's available now, and what I've got is good enough for at least another couple of years.

Hope you can find a good solution for your next system!

> If you want a new machine because you want the new hotness (and hey, that can be fun), but the new hotness doesn't match your expectations, well, I'm sorry you're disappointed.

This wouldn't be so much of a problem if Apple would just update their MBP lineup regularly. The real issue will crop up in ~2 years, where the only option will still be to get the current (by then outdated) MBP for probably the same price as it is now.

For me, 16GB ram and missing ESC key are big limitations. I think a lot of frustration here is if your time is money (aka a professional) and you have a big budget, you are still stuck with general consumer level hardware. There aren't any other options from Apple right now, and likely not for at least another year.

I love my Apple watch, iPad, and iPhone...but those are all "best of breed" imho. I was waiting to purchase the Macbook Pro, but it's pretty mediocre by my measure.

I have a hard time believing that you're an iOS developer, given that you don't know it's called "iOS" and not "IOS", or that you think the desktop is called an "Imac".

In any case, as an iOS developer, the new MBP actually looks really great. The only issue is the need to buy a $25 cable to plug my iOS device into the computer, but if I can afford to buy a brand new computer to work with my pretty new iPhone 7, I can afford to buy a cable (or more accurately, my employer can afford to buy one). Besides that, the only other issue I can see someone raising is the 16GB RAM limit, but I don't see how that's a problem for iOS development. My current MBP has 16GB of RAM and that's never been a limiting factor.

Edit: I actually don't need to buy a new cable, since my external display has USB, as does my keyboard, but I do need a Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adaptor for my display (since I probably can't convince my employer that I need a 5k display).

I call my windows desktop a desktop and an Imac desktop an Imac or 'imac' because that's how I make the distinction because I have used Windows for the majority of my life, don't care as long as people know what I mean when Im saying something.

Im not some elitist 'iOS' developer, I don't even put 'iOS' first on my CV yet I enjoy it and even had put out an app related to a hobby as a CV filler and for the fun of it.

None that doesn't lessen that I'd rather use different hardware but cant.

> Im not some elitist 'iOS' developer

...huh? If you develop for iOS, you're an iOS developer. Where does elitism come in?

As for the computer, I wasn't complaining that you didn't call it a "desktop", I was trying to point out that the computer is called an iMac, not an Imac. Do you also call your iOS device an Iphone? And do you call Xcode xCode? These kinds of careless mis-capitalizations are a strong sign that you don't actually do much with the platform. And if you're not a serious iOS developer, then why are you trying to argue that the new computer isn't good for iOS developers?

I feel getting angry about capitalisation of a product (which some may see as being a 'grammar nazi') is very much a sign of elitism.

Looking down on me for not being a 'serious' IOS developer therefore implying I cant have opinion and voice it is doubly so.

It is not even remotely elitism to say "you don't have much experience doing iOS development, therefore you're not qualified to talk about what is or is not good hardware for doing iOS development on".

I can discuss and hold and opinion then voice it in this thread, which I did which has given me useful advice and perspective, you can just say i'm wrong and point out why possibly anchored by pointing out your experience.

Don't go low and pick on grammar then imply the person you're in discussion can't have an opinion in this hacker news thread because I'm not as serious as you and even previously calling me a lair due to my grammar not being satisfactory.

You've clearly got experience that can help people, instead of trying to make people feel small, hows about using it as an anchor for real points in a discussion and then people like me can learn something good instead of learning how to inspire this torrent of vitriol bouncing back and forth.

Good luck on your coding endeavours.

Vitriol? I think you're taking this thread far too personally.

Recently bought a Macbook Pro Retina (3 months ago), the charging cable is already dying and the ethernet - usb adapter they provide is utter crap. Each of those cost an arm and honestly, maintenance costs isn't something I factored in when I bought this 1800$ laptop.

All around, the laptop is OK but not great. That experience really contrasts the very positive one I had five years ago. What went wrong? How can basic manufacturing quality tank this hard in such a small timeframe? Did they fire the wrong guy?

I've used a few usb ethernet adapters over the years, and the most reliable and performant one in my experience is the StarTech USB31000S which is based on the ASIX AX88179.

It's been around for a few years so the driver for it is included in all recent linux distros, and you can download surprisingly up-to-date and maintained drivers for OS X and windows from the chip manufacturer's website: http://www.asix.com.tw/products.php?op=pItemdetail&PItemID=1...

I use it mostly with OS X. I've actually bought about 5 of them, because some coworkers had problems that turned out to be caused by flaky usb ethernet adapters, and it was well worth my debugging time to get them better (but still cheap!) hardware.

> charging cable is already dying ... How can basic manufacturing quality tank this hard in such a small timeframe?

You just lucked out with the original adapter.

The cables are delicate now, but the original version was actually worse. Since so many customers broke them, Apple revised the design with a slightly longer piece of rubber shielding.

> Did they fire the wrong guy?

No, the wrong guy died.

I'm okay with the ports but 16 GB max RAM is a f-in joke. My mom's computer has 16 GB of RAM

What exactly are you and you're mum doing that necessitates more than 16GB?

40 browser tabs, two build daemons (gulp and gradle), three IntelliJ ultimate instances, 2 vagrant VMs, 3 more vagrant VMs I forgot to shut down, Spotify, Tomcat, and an IntelliJ debug Tomcat.

And that was just what my mom was running!

But then where do you store the nuclear waste from the reactor you had to set-up in your backyard to power your macbook?

You could have just said java ;)

It's not only the fact that it's 16gb, it's that it's soldered in, so 16gb must last for another five years or however often it is you upgrade.

Edit some movies, run some servers, launch Atom, repeatedly read lots of files, do some gaming, and it's nice to have a lot. Or just open a couple Chrome tabs.

Even if the ram is soldered in, nothing stops them from providing am expansion dimm slot. In fact I'd be surprised if they haven't included that.

Manufacturing costs -- it's cheaper to not include a DIMM than to include one, so why would they?

Also, this way, you have to buy another whole computer in five years when 16 GB is no longer enough.

It's cheaper not to include a screen but they still include it. Because users want it. So they can include the dimm slot too.

A typical user needs the screen but will never need more than 16GB of RAM.

If the typical user of a "pro" laptop doesn't need more than 16 gb then the typical user isn't a pro.

What exactly do you think "pro" means?

Expensive

Running machine learning on medium sized datasets I often run into memory issues.

I don't know if this is a thing on OSX, but tmpfs can be pretty sweet for speeding up various storage-IO-heavy tasks. (In essence, it's a filesystem partition mounted in RAM)

Data mining. My mom just sends emails but inherited my old computer...

Fair enough, you need the RAM, but you should probably realize how atypical your usage is. 16GB is more than enough for 99+% of people.

Macbook Pro should be for people like me, and people editing HD video, and creating deep learning tools and running 12-node security network labs.

Also, MBPs are expensive, but long lasting. People use them for 5 years. 16 GB will be nothing in 5 years.

It might cost Apple like $0.50 to add a SODIMM slot. I think it was a mistake on their part

Honestly, ports is one thing in new MacBooks I do not understand why everyone seems to nag about. Right, you will likely need some accessories for now. But in two years, when basically everything will work on USB-C and your computer will be in half of reasonable lifetime, it will be a bliss. I hate port multiplication and I'm happy Apple is in the front of moving to one standard.

On the other hand, I cannot seem to understand decision behind MagSafe, card reader and keyboard. Why? Everybody with a MacBook has a story about MagSafe saving his laptop from a fall. Cards are important for many people and they are not likely to go away. Esc is important and it could be incorporated in the new design - if they wanted to get rid of function keys, they could go all-in and just change the whole freaking design.

Also, I do not get their priorities. They made thing thinner, but I would much more appreciate if they made it smaller (smaller as bezel-free display like Dell did). I would gladly accept a bit thicker MacBook, if they put better battery in it and even better fans, so it stays cool.

To be fair, if you need these ports, it is easy to get a hub that provides them: https://www.amazon.com/HyperDrive-Through-Charging-MacBook-C...

And over the next several years, it is likely that people will switch to USB-C peripherals.

Sorry, I'd rather have this integrated into the 3000$ dollar device. Maybe they can make it 2mm thicker without increasing weight - oh and then also, maybe we get the key travel back.

You mean the same way that everybody switched to DisplayPort and dumped HDMI? Wait, no, that didn't happen. Every mac user needs to carry around another dongle instead to convert.

I'm completely out of the loop here. Why would peripheral makers choose USB-C over USB 3?

USB-C and USB-3 aren't mutually exclusive. One describes the shape (Type-A, Type-C) of the connector. The other describes the speeds supported by the port (USB2, USB3, USB3.1).

Bidirectional power, reversible cables, ability to add extra modes (eg. Thunderbolt 3) to the same port with USB 3 fallback.

No Magsafe? it was one of the coolest feature on macbooks. No HDMI? No USB ports? No SD card? No Escape key.. negatively impact vi/vim experience.

Basically they want you to buy adapters for everything (maybe next version will also drop the audio jack).

and they call it a step forward? Surface book looks a lot better to me despite lacking in graphics specs.

I think surface book graphics are better but I'm not sure.

I genuinely don't understand the drive to make all these sacrifices just to make the computer a couple millimeters thinner. Are there people who look at the previous generation of MBP and said "that's too thick"? If so, why?

I forget who said this, but "Apple used to make good products that were mostly thin and now they make thin products that are mostly good."

I do, after using macbook air.

Really disappointed, seems like they are forcing 2020 connectors in 2016

USB-C isn't some new fancy connector technology that will fully mature in 2020, it's just USB3 + power + pass-through for a bunch of other connectors.

It's not a new connector, it's a connector transformer rather. Only that doesn't actually work in practice, you can't connect four HDMI<->USB-C adapter to the four USB-C ports of the MBP and expect them all to work. Similarly, I can't imagine you can connect four power supplies simultaneously and have it charge through all of them. Add a bunch of other similar non-obvious restrictions.

Why can't I do that? GPU can't drive five displays?

Answering my own question: this late-2016 MacBook Pro does support four external monitors using its four USB-C ports.

I wish they'd just replaced 2 thunderbolt ports and magsave with 3 usb-c ports (leaving two usb, a hdmi port and sd card reader), made the screen matte, gave me 32gb and a fanless design.

Fanless design means performance is seriously crippled. The fact that the fanless MacBook works at all is impressive.

Well, finally a worthwhile problem for Apple to solve. They're pretty good at solving engineering issues, they've mostly been focussed on making shit thinner though.

I wonder how much thinner helps with heat dissipation?

Agree, save for the matte screen. That plus at least a newer chipset would have been perfect.

But nope.

Well, matte screens should always be optional, people are divided over the issue.

For me, right now the screens appear like mirrors, if I have anything behind me besides a wall then I constantly adjust the angle of the laptop to minimize reflections.

Third-party cables, docks, and maybe even specialty slim side dongles will fill the gap quite nicely. I'll still wait for the second iteration of this lot simply because I've been bit too many times in the past by first-gen Apple products.

I'm going to let time decide for me if this is a good decision or not. For decades I have grumped about the death of so many things, that in the end they didn't really matter.

Next up, $500 external keyboard with Touch Bar?

Seems like they'll have to do an external keyboard with a touch strip, so that folks can access the cool UI stuff when they're docked at a big display.

I wish they would have kept MagSafe in addition to adding charging via USB-C. I doubt MagSafe adds much cost to the BOM or that it would have presented much of an engineering challenge to keep both. It seems like that solution would have pleased most people while also keeping a unique selling point for MacBooks.

One thing I find annoying is in a lot of their promo images and images I've seen from various first looks, the escape key isn't at the very edge of the touch pad. Why couldn't they have just made a flush key on the left like they did with the TouchID sensor on the right? Now you have to hope that clicking the escape key without looking works, unless there's ways around it.

Thankfully I don't have any plans or any need to upgrade my laptop anytime soon, but I will miss the SD card slot and the HDMI output slot if I end up upgrading to a new MacBook Pro in the future. Was it really that much space to keep the SD card? It's thinner than the headphone jack and the headphone jack is still there.

I'll also be a little curious how the teardown looks. The MacBook uses up barely any space inside of the chassis for motherboard (barely larger than a phone motherboard), and I'm curious how much space the MacBook Pro uses...

I could have got over the ports loss -- or even turned it into a net positive by finally buying a dock (I literally use all ports on my 2012 mbpr).

... but I'm not going through the pain just to "enjoy" a machine that is only marginally faster than what I already have (which still works perfectly fine), with a paltry 16gb of ram and a crappy gpu, and spending almost twice what direct competitors would charge for better hardware without the ports hassle.

Who enjoys getting mugged?

I want all my devices to use USB.

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