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>>> "Meanwhile, the audio/video-engineer types still seem to like the MBP"

I can't speak to the professional video world, but that's absolutely false in the professional audio world.

My experience is in the world of composition and sound design; the attitude towards using Mac for that shifted a while back, due to the lackluster and non-existent upgrades to the Mac Pro.

No one in the professional audio world that I know, or anything that I have read, has suggested they are liking the new laptop (which wouldn't get much use from them anyway).

Well if we're sharing annecdata: literally everyone I know who works in audio would give up their Mac only on death.

That covers several DJs, Producers, VO Artists, Audio Editors, and quite a few Sound Designers...

If we're sharing annecdata: Almost every programmer I know owns a Mac and loves it, and prefers working on them.

Except me. My employer doesn't let me use my own computer and refuses to buy me one.

> My employer doesn't let me use my own computer and refuses to buy me one.

? Then what are you using?

Refuses to buy them a Mac obviously. As in "doesn't let me use my own mac and refuses to buy me a mac of his own".

So, parent is using the computer the employer doesn't refuse to buy them, a PC.

Now it makes sense. I really wondered.

Here in my little corner in Europe, I hardly know anyone, other than management and colleagues doing iOS/Appstore projects, having one.

At my company they belong to a pool for iOS projects.

What would be the alternative anyway? Imagine a DJ playing a set and suddenly having Windows force an update on them. Linux during some periods barely played audio for regular use cases.

If you want good hardware and a reliable operating system, you go with a Mac. A few annoyances with adapters it might require won't change that at all.

Anecdotally the surprising answer might be rather old BeOS based systems. At least that's what I saw once and apparently some people still use some old tools that are BeOS only for audio (from talking to the DJ) :D

I'm sure you'll find 2 or even 20. I doubt you'll find 100 of those people.

>I can't speak to the professional video world, but that's absolutely false in the professional audio world.

Depends on what you mean "professional audio world". If you mean heavy old style studios, the kind Led Zeppelin might have recorded on back in the day, yes, but these are on the go (profits and usage wise) anyway, as the industry shifts.

Musicians, producers, DJs, etc most carry laptops and have home studios based around them, and most use MacBook Pro's for their stuff (as evident in all kinds of interviews and live scenarios).

That's more a case of the MacBook Pro being "good enough" and Apple, and PC manufacturers too for that matter, have successfully segmented the market (with things like ports). Even Macworld will tell you these days that "whether you choose a Mac or PC for music production is largely down to the platform you prefer and who you’re collaborating with. There’s little inherent advantage to using Macs, beyond familiarity with the system, and the general robustness of the hardware" [1].

[1] http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/mac-software/best-mac-maki...

I was referring to the composition and post production (sound design, engineering) world. Mostly because that is the industry I worked in for many years and still continue to work in (much more sporadically these days).

That's a world that was dominated by Mac Pros around 2010. Around 2013 I started seeing a shift, myself included, to custom built PC workstations and that trend is just increasing now. The initial switch, I believe, started with the lackluster cylinder Mac Pro, but continued due to the obvious failings in the Mac desktop market.

You speak of home based studios using MacBook pros, but anyone doing that is obviously not a professional. I will give you the fact that many DJs are using MacBooks for the mobile rigs, but at home, anyone actually doing professional audio work is likely using a massive powerful workstation or a number of PCs (master/slaves).

This notion that MacBooks (or even laptops in general) are super popular in the professional audio world is fiction made for advertising.

>You speak of home based studios using MacBook pros, but anyone doing that is obviously not a professional.

Tons of musicians/producers/etc have those, while making more money than professional studios from their productions -- and not just in EDM.

Lots of the work that studios did for even superstar musicians (pop, etc), nowadays happens in the box, and not just demos and early sketches.

>This notion that MacBooks (or even laptops in general) are super popular in the professional audio world is fiction made for advertising.

Rather the professional audio world is not what it used to be.

I'd consider million-making Bjork or whatever working on their laptop, as equally (or more) professional than some struggling studio or post-processing facility.

I recall senior players (ie work at Air 1, Abby Road etc) in the audio world saying this 5 years ago in sound on sound

I got the strong impression that those self-proclaimed "professionals" are more or less exactly the opposite: people who spend an inordinate amount of time plugging in dozens of different peripherals with random port requirements, fiddling around with the hardware, and running benchmarks.

For what it's worth, a Mac today is still as useful (at least for web development) as it has always been. Much more so actually because homebrew has evolved to be completely stable.

And while CPU speeds have been stagnating (mostly because they've reached "good enough" and then some), people are ignoring two major shifts in hardware that have significantly improved the dev experience: Retina screens and SSDs.

The absence of SD card slot and general lack of periphery ports is universally lamented by AV professionals. There are also reports of poor battery life although I suspect it is a side effect of a brighter backlight.

No that is not mythology, Apple specifically targeted developers in the past, such as in this 2002 commercial featuring a stereotypical grey-bearded UNIX guru:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4AgFhIm1qs

Quote: "It's not just for artists. It's not just for pointy-headed intellectuals from California. It's for us, it's for programmers, it's for developers."

So then the pro applications are supposed to come from? And beyond that, where are their iOS applications supposed to come from?

That was then. But now that Apple does know that the MBP is perceived as dev-friendly, based on the type of people in that market segment that buy them, why would they let that slice of the market go?

Who said that slice of the market will go? Complainers are always amplified on the internet. Check back in 2 years.

The perception, as displayed in this thread, is that they are. Plus the overwhelming negativity from developers regarding the new MBP, as seen in numerous HN threads and other tech news stories.

I don't really have any stock in whether the perception is a reality or not, so I'm willing to be persuaded. Hopefully in the next iteration the MBP will have at least 32GB RAM, and they will make a move that will please the software developer market.

>I don't really have any stock in whether the perception is a reality or not, so I'm willing to be persuaded. Hopefully in the next iteration the MBP will have at least 32GB RAM,

The people lamenting the missing option for 32GB RAM as devastating for pros, never had it in the first place, as the previous generation didn't support 32GB either (and yet, they still worked just fine).

Second, the limitation to 16GB is from Intel, not Apple. Intel didn't have 32GB compatible modules with low energy consumption ready -- and without those, Apple using the energy sucking 32GB option would reduce battery life 20% or more.

Not to mention that the overwhelming majority of PC laptops developers buy don't have 32GB at this point in time either, including the most famous models (XPS etc).

Well people who are lamenting the lack of the 32GB ram bought a 16GB ram a while ago and are looking to upgrade.

Apple could have kept the previous form factor and not made the battery 20% smaller which would have allowed them to have an energy sucking 32GB option. Plus the new form factor is useless anyway, since we end up having to carry adapters which take as much space and weight as what was saved.

Anyway, I've developed a wait and see approach and reserve judgement next year when the next iteration of machines come out. Maybe I'm lucky and Apple even decides to bring back the 17 inch macbook pro

>Apple could have kept the previous form factor and not made the battery 20% smaller which would have allowed them to have an energy sucking 32GB option.

More people like thinness though, than 32GB RAM (which would have been a built-to-order option that few would have clicked). Remember, Apple has those numbers too.

To quote a programmer on thinness:

"I’m have to admit being a bit baffled by how nobody else seems to have done what Apple did with the Macbook Air – even several years after the first release, the other notebook vendors continue to push those ugly and clunky things. Yes, there are vendors that have tried to emulate it, but usually pretty badly. I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light. (...) I’m personally just hoping that I’m ahead of the curve in my strict requirement for “small and silent”. It’s not just laptops, btw – Intel sometimes gives me pre-release hardware, and the people inside Intel I work with have learnt that being whisper-quiet is one of my primary requirements for desktops too. I am sometimes surprised at what leaf-blowers some people seem to put up with under their desks. (...) I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing in the room – by far – should be the occasional purring of the cat. And when I travel, I want to travel light. A notebook that weighs more than a kilo is simply not a good thing (yeah, I’m using the smaller 11″ macbook air, and I think weight could still be improved on, but at least it’s very close to the magical 1kg limit)"

Linus Torvalds, APRIL 24, 2012

Iirc, Intel shipped custom CPUs to Apple for the Macbook Air. Once those CPUs became more generally available other brands followed suit quite quickly.

This has been a repeating pattern with Apple since the iPod success fattened their wallet. They would routinely single out parts they wanted, and then basically order the factory capacity for that year in one go.

Palm/HP execs lamented this fact when they unveiled the Pre 3 and Touchpad, as they often wanted to use the same parts but found Apple had gotten there before them.

>Palm/HP execs lamented this fact when they unveiled the Pre 3 and Touchpad, as they often wanted to use the same parts but found Apple had gotten there before them.

Isn't that how economies of scale and bulk ordering is supposed to work?

A rev of the original MacBook Air (the 2008-2010 one) got a custom package of an Intel CPU before it was available commercially.

The original MBA was expensive and underpowered, a niche product at the time. PC vendors responded with equally niche designs (remember the Dell Adamo?)

The Late 2010 MacBook Air introduced the current case design at a reasonable price, used 2+ year old internals (Core 2 Duo + 330m graphics), and set the world on fire.

> set the world on fire.

Yeah i can smell the bonfires from here...

Well, considered it went top selling, got huge profits, was mimicked by almost every other manufacturer, and Intel even gave money to OEMs to make a competitive PC laptop, I don't see the sarcasm as warranted.

> I don't really have any stock in whether the perception is a reality or not, so I'm willing to be persuaded.

Apple said it was their best laptop launch by sales volume ever. (Although that is partially due to such a long wait from their previous model.) Honestly I'm not that surprised - despite all the hate online I know 2-3 developers who bought them on or near launch day and several others who started salivating when mine arrived. The public internet opinion seems shockingly disconnected from that of everyone I've spoken to in person about it. Although, doing mostly web development more than 16 gigs just isn't important for me or my coworkers. My last laptop had 8 and it was more than fine.

Most people are much more curious about the touchbar (its a bit gimmicky), the screen (gorgeous but no touch-based scroll in browsers sucks) and the price (yowch!). I get a few comments both ways about the new charger (oh cool no more proprietary connecters!) (whaaat no magsafe? Boo!).

Oh, and being a Gen1 apple product there's all sorts of dumb stability problems - which is a much bigger problem than the ram! My touchbar has been glitching out sometimes and the whole system has hard-crashed a half a dozen times since getting it from connecting and disconnecting my 4k monitor. I'll be very disappointed if the software doesn't improve over the next few months.

The constant crashing, touchbar bugs (a few times it didn't even turn on!), graphical corruption, obvious cheapskating (no extension cable, non-data charging USB cable, bad keyboard backlight, no more cable holders on power brick and more) are the larger disappointments with this machine :/

Given those issues, I'm wondering if returning the laptop for a new one might be in order? For what it's worth, I've been using the new MacBook Pro with the touch bar for a few weeks now, and have only experienced one hard freeze.

Contrast that with the steady stream of issues I experienced with a similarly specced high-end Dell XPS 15"--power cord whine, wobbly and noisy fan on the graphics card, severe overheating to the point that the BIOS trigged shutdowns, repeated keys (an ongoing issue affecting multiple Dell models based on support forums), suspend/resume failures, laggy touchpad, and numerous issues with Wifi & sound across several distributions of linux--the new MacBook Pro has been a delight. To Dell's credit, they've released BIOS updates on a regular basis, but the laptop is still plagued with annoying issues, even on Windows.

True. But they do seem to have created a niche in the market for someone else to fill, due also to their high markups. Most "developers" don't actually need Macs, many of them just haven't realized it yet.

Honestly I'm fed up of how video editors act like they're the whole damn "pro" market and nothing else matters.