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Comment by muninn_ | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why people are still going on about this

Because the de facto "best tool" for professional personal computing since at least 5 years now (longer if you include other models) is broken, forcing a bunch of people who hadn't had to think about this stuff for ages to start asking "what next?"

Sure, and that was a great discussion we had like 2 months ago, but every day we get posts about how some no-name person returned their computer because they didn't like it, or some person finds the touch bar is great for them.

This isn't Hacker News, or even news. It's just a reblog of somebody's opinion about something that is already overly discussed. Their opinion is irrelevant. It's just another opinion. It's no different than if any one of us made a silly blog post about how we did or didn't return some product that we did or didn't like.

It's just a waste.

It's not a waste. It is developers reconsidering their investment towards a platform in the light of new facts and their own tolerance levels.

It also means that developers will start using a Linux based OS, which is pleasing to me.

It's pretty funny how much of a non-issue this is outside of a select group of loud people. I know a lot of people that have the new MacBook and love it. The main complaint I hear is the wait time to get one.

There's several obvious reasons:

1. Every time someone brings this up other people say "It's fine." and it really isn't fine.

2. We want Apple to hear that their core customers are unhappy and they should rethink the current course for their hardware.

I love Apple computers but they currently don't provide a serious upgrade option for my 2012 15" rMBP. The 2016 15" is a joke by comparison.

> their core customers are unhappy

I honestly don't think HN posters (nor bloggers) are anywhere near Apple's "core customers" - that's the millions of people who just want something workable from a shop they trust, not a few thousand (being optimistic) forum posters and bloggers.

e.g. After 5 days, it was already crushing the competition and approaching 18 months of Macbook 2015 sales.

https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/apple-macbook-pro-sales-already...

I can't even begin to read that graph.

"Indexed revenue" instead of number of units sold? "n=16,754 online shoppers" but the article says "panel of 4.4 million online shoppers"?

Developers are the core customers for MacBook Pros. In volume the Air used to be the top seller, because yes there are more people who just want "a computer" that works and don't care about specs and won't look at battery life, etc. before buying.

But do you know what those people base their purchasing decisions on? The recommendations of the developers and engineers they know who do care about those specs.

I can't tell you how many people have moved over to Apple computers on my recommendations over the years. It's a lot. Right now I have a hard time recommending the 2016 models. If people can get a refurbished 2015 on the cheap I honestly think it's a better choice.

> After 5 days, it was already crushing the competition and approaching 18 months of Macbook 2015 sales.

This statistic is very popular but it's also extremely misleading. Everybody knew the lineup was due for a refresh so 2015 sales were lagging because of that, the higher numbers represent a dam of pent up purchases waiting for upgrades bursting. It's like pointing out that the number of people complaining about the 2016 models is way higher than the people complaining about the 2015 models. Of course it is. That doesn't tell the whole story and is somewhat misleading on its own.

My point is just because initial sales of the 2016 models is high, doesn't mean that it will stay that way. Once they get into people's hands and people find out "Oh the battery life is terrible and I really don't like the TouchBar." those sales may plummet (if that indeed is people's reaction.)

Apple needs to really re-examine. The current 13" and 15" MBP models should be the base "MacBook" models, and they should come out with a serious pro machine and label it as such (which restores MagSafe and has higher battery life.) The TouchBar should just be thrown off a bridge. It's a terrible gimmicky attempt at stuffing a touch screen onto a laptop.

> The recommendations of the developers and engineers they know who do care about those specs.

None of the non-technical people I know (and I'll admit that's a small number) who buy Apple kit do not take recommendations from developers and engineers because they're non-technical people - they don't read HN or tech blogs. They look at things like Which? reviews or BBC think pieces or that glossy insert that comes with the Sunday paper.

Or they go into an Apple store where they can touch the machines, use them for browsing the web, get answers to their questions (ok, bit slow at peak times) vs something like a PC World where you can't use the machine or they don't have that particular model in stock despite it being on display or there's no-one around to answer your question or you can't tell which particular constellation of stickers on the laptop means it'll work for you or ...

> Apple needs to [...]

People have been saying this since 2005. They're still here, printing money. shrug

> My point is just because initial sales of the 2016 models is high, doesn't mean that it will stay that way. Once they get into people's hands and people find out "Oh the battery life is terrible and I really don't like the TouchBar." those sales may plummet (if that indeed is people's reaction.)

Also don't forget returns. Which is what I'm going to do with my top spec MBP 15". Oh well.

This is completely anecdotal, but I work with several clients that all just refreshed their entire hardware stock with the new MacBook Pros for a good percentage of their employees (if not for every employee). The only people I've yet to hear complain about the Touch Bar or the computers in general are people on HN and Reddit. Every person I've interacted with that has used it loves the Touch Bar and a not-insignificant population of those people are developers. To say that "core customers are unhappy" is a gross generalization that, to me, doesn't have any basis in reality.

I don't think it's so obvious. Most people seem to be obsessing about the Touch Bar, which really doesn't seem like a deal-breaker to me (caveat: haven't tried it), especially with models available with real keys. If you'd only skim the comments you'd definitely be left with the impression that a bigger than warranted fuss is being made.

However, this is the first time I've been aware that battery life is genuinely crippled. My perception since just after launch was "occasional problem due to Safari bug".

While only the base model 13 is available without a touch bar, I don't consider it to be a deal-breaker at all. At worst for me it is this thing that I have mostly learned not to accidentally hit while typing and occasionally find useful.

On the battery issues: the battery in the new MBP is (I think) up to 30% smaller compared to the previous generation. To balance that, Apple is using displays that consume less power. The problem there is that the CPU still consumes the same amount of power under load. I think most devs have experienced the rapid battery drain that comes from running CPU intensive tasks. Given all of this, the results of his tests don't really surprise me.

Today I'm reading (again) that the only battery issues are a Safari bug (which is bad at release, but presumably easily rectified). Is the CPU not also more efficient, or is the bug in power-saving, so load remains the same?

Well, you can't get a 15" model with real function keys, and the model with real function keys doesn't have as many USB-C ports. Which are the only ports (other than the headphone socket), so quite important.

For Apple the TouchBar model is selling well. So I predict by the end of the year all MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks are TouchBar only. No option for physical function key model. And they will kill MacBook Air

I wonder how much of that is due to crippling the fn key 2016 MBP (only 2 ports[?!?!], different CPU, no 15" model) rather than people actually being willing to pay extra for the touchbar per se.

[EDIT] not that it makes a difference to their revenue immediately, but I wouldn't take touchbar mac purchases as expressions of love of/interest in the touchbar.

It is very interesting/helpful to me as I have held off buying a new MBP for exactly the reasons the author complains about. I suspected there would be issues and I didn't want to be the guinea pig so I appreciate the author taking the time to write and post this.

I can only assume people like to be heard, and repeating the ideas heard in the echo chamber can be very reassuring when everyone agrees with you.

Not in this instance. I know that there were still a lot of unanswered questions, like exactly how badly is battery life affected (not just measured in Wh), and how does real world performance compare (not just Geekbench numbers).

Also, for those making a $2k+ purchasing decision, it pays to do a little research as to what other people who work in similar situations think about the different options.

I read a lot of reviews for MacBooks, Lenovo T4xx series, Dell XPS models, etc. Just like with any other topic, the color of varied opinions helps one arrive at a better understanding.

Complaining about Apple and the MacBook Pro has become a pretty dominant topic on Hacker News from the last few months. I really do think this negativity about the product has become excessive, and it's the first time I've personally been annoyed about something like this on HN in four years of reading the site more or less daily.

---

Since my comment is abrasive -- much more so than normal for me here on HN -- I figured it was worth it for me to put some more effort into this and provide some evidence. I easily came up with the following list of topics here from the last month:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13315262

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13244357

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13251401

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13253390

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13157832

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13172903

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13214754

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13164534

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13220623

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13217008

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13337727 (note that, while the headline is a bit general, much of the discussion is related to the new MBP)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13169060

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13185428

I just stopped after this point. There were more.

It's almost as if....people are really unhappy and disappointed.

Imagine being on a Muscle Car Enthusiast forum, and Ford released a V8 Mustang that had less horsepower than it's predecessor, and worse handling, but just came with minor stylistic upgrades. The same thing would be happening.

HN is a cesspool of negativity. I can see how different people would be turned away by hate for Yahoo/Twitter doing badly, hate for fb/uber, constant jealousy against startups that had an exit in the past few days (pretending as sanity about valuations), etc.

Thankfully there is a lot of positivity, though you have to look harder for it.

You're right. There seems to be a group of people who really like talking about the new MBP, particularly what a travesty they feel it is.

For the rest of us, it is an equipment choice that might have to make at some point, and the we'll go back to work on our code ;).

Thanks. I even posted on some of these as I was caught up in the discussion, but the discussion is over. There's nothing new to be added right now, and certainly nothing new to be added by some random person's irrelevant opinion.

Well, I guess we'd just have to go back to reposting Aaron Swartz articles.

People love their Macs very much, hence all the venting. All they want is Apple to build them the proverbial faster horse.

Nah, it only shows the amount of frustration over it and fear for the future.

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