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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

After having owned a new (non-Touchbar) Mac for the last few weeks, I cannot fathom what the meltdown on HN was about this thing. It's the best Macbook I've ever owned --- and I've used nothing but Apple laptops since the Titanium Powerbook.

I hate the USB-C dongle and do miss MagSafe, but I wouldn't trade the new machine for the old one.

After everything I'd heard, particularly about the keyboard, I put off buying a new Macbook. Ultimately, I was forced by circumstance to buy one, or I'd have coasted on my 2-year-old MBP for a few more years. I feel sheepish about that plan now.

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I own one and I agree it is great. These seem to be the issues others have with it:

1. The price - Personally I don't think it is justified to essentially bump the "actual" MBP (meaning touchbar and 29w processor) by $500 for what we get. The original retina 13" were similar price wise at release, but the display was a massive upgrade. The touchbar not so much.

2. No kaby lake - this is an intel release timing issue, if you want Kaby Lake wait a few more months.

3. Questionable utility of the touchbar - I own one and it is useful for anything with linear editing...so audio or video. Otherwise I just use it for media functions just like I would with physical keys (I don't use the function keys.) It could be more useful in the future given more software support.

4. Dongles - This is another temporary problem until devices are all USB-C.

5. No magsafe - Sad, but there is one advantage in that you can now do power/display/connectivity all over one port...and I can't go back from that. I have an LG 4k monitor with USB-C so I just plug in one cable and get my 4k display, mechanical keyboard, and speakers just from that. And I can rearrange my desk to put my laptop on either side of the screen. For me I'm either plugged in at my desk or wireless elsewhere, so tripping over a cable was never really an issue for me once we hit the 5+ hour battery mark.

6. The keyboard - I love it, and switch off from my Whitefox with Cherry mx blues on my desk. Most mobile keyboards feel squishy to me but the new switches they are using give a lot of stability and a pretty solid click as well, even though they have such little travel.

> 4. Dongles - This is another temporary problem until devices are all USB-C.

What I've learned from all this discussion about usb-c is that some people replace all their peripherals and secondary devices on a much more aggressive timescale than I do. For me dongles would likely be an annoying companion, with few or no usb-c devices ever plugging in to it, for the lifespan of this MPB if I bought one today.

My next one in 3-5 years, that might be a different story. But for this one, now? All-usb-c is a turn-off, as it'll be years before that's a "feature" that makes me say anything other than "oh, that's an unfortunate limitation".

And then there are probably quite a few people like me who essentially have no peripheral.

I don't have many peripherals, but traveling frequently I've acquired the habit of not carrying extra USB chargers, but charging iPhone and Apple Watch via the laptop overnight. Can't do that on the "cheap" (non-touchbar) model (while also charging) without extra hub. Worse now with the AirPods.

Why you can't? It has two ports.

Also, nobody does that, stop making excuses.

err, well, I do do that. And it's not an excuse, it's a complaint. Finally, let us count together:

1 port to charge the computer,

1 port (with USB-C to lightning cable, $19) for the iPhone,

1 port (with USB-C to plain old USB dongle, $9) for the Apple Watch,

1 port (with USB-C to lightning cable, $19) for the AirPods

That makes 4 ports, and I have 2. Thus, hub it is.

I think his/her complaint about your complaint (uh oh. we broke it.) is that this would be the case for any USB config. If you had the same situation with current USB cables, you'd still need to get a hub so the problem isn't actually USB-C, just the number of devices you're using at the same time.

But but but the old MacBook Air had one MagSafe and two USB ports (and SD card and Thunderbolt), so it had strictly more ports, and I could charge it all at the same time (except now AirPods).

But yes, the problem is not USB-C per se, the problem is the small number of ports unless you pony up for the TouchPad model.

USB-C to lightning cable?

I also find this strange. My switch (Ethernet) is 10 years old. My DAC (SPDIF) is 7 years old. My monitor (DisplayPort) is 5 years old. My hard drives (USB Type-A) are 3-5 years old. My thumb drives (USB Type-A) are 2-3 years old. My phone (USB Type-A) is 2 years old.

None of them are USB-C and I don't plan on replacing any of them soon.

With the possible exception of external hard drives, USB-C doesn't offer any benefits over my existing interfaces.

It offers the huge benefit that with the right accessory you can connect all those things, including power, at once with just one cable.

Almost everything you list are things that would be stationary on your desk, so either you are buying the wrong machine if you don't plan on removing it from the desk, or you'll benefit from having all connected to a dock that can connect via 1 cable to your machine.

One of the benefits of getting more expensive tech peripherals, especially in the Mac world is that there is a ton of resale value.

If one upgrades their mac with every new release, it usually ends up being a 200-500 hit per year depending on market conditions. The more expensive peripherals usually will fetch a decent amount on ebay as well.

So for the average cost of around ~$30/mo, one can basically have the latest mac with the latest peripherals all the time.

Or one could upgrade every 5 years as well...

Riding the edge, does seem to work with some products. But it is also a game of prediction. My Model M was a great investment, but my modems went obsolete in months. Now my DSL modem is 8 years old, and still using the model m. Professional style tools seem to fair the best.

How many of those do you use while traveling?

The only port I find myself missing so far is HDMI. Having to carry a USB-C to HDMI adapter (actually multiple since compatibility is an unmitigated disaster) is quite annoying. I rarely use thumbdrives, but carrying a USB-C<->female A adapter isn't a big deal since it's so rare and I can just toss it in my bag.

For a primarily desk-sitting laptop you're getting a docking station of some sort (monitor or actual) so you get all the above ports with it. I also don't upgrade components there very often either. I do admit this was annoying so far - as the release of the laptop far preceded any decent docks. Single-cable docking though is pretty neat, and a definite upgrade if minor.

Really it ended up being a USB-C to HDMI, female A, and ethernet that I need to toss in the bag. The latter two I expect to use a few times a year at most.

I don't get that, why wont you just use an adapter that has everything in one instead of 3 seperate ones? I use a Hooto Shuttle with USB, HDMI, Card reader and power in, thats all i need, ok it has no ethernet as i never use them but there are ones with ethernet inbuilt too.

I dont get all this so much dongle talk when you just need one good adapter.

Point of note: a lot of USB-C multi-port dongles that provide Ethernet don't support 1GbE. Quite a few of them cap out around 120Mbit/s.

I've asked our office admin to purchase the Juice Systems flat dongle with Ethernet, as that one handles gigabit, for anyone who gets the new Macbook.

Also, as far as I know, none of the all-in-one dongles, not even the normal adapter that Apple sells supports 4k/60Hz. Only 30.

Disclaimer: not affiliated, just a good product.

Yeah, I'm waiting on an Arc Hub, because it supposedly supports HDMI 2.0 and an extra USB-C port which could support 4K/60Hz.

Since I only have 2 ports on my non-Touch Bar model, I really wish someone just made a USB-C hub. All of the existing hubs have USB-A ports and one USB-C only for power pass through, but they can't handle the bandwidth required for certain things like 60Hz 4K. At least I have a gigabit USB 3.1 adapter that gets me ~930 Mbps on my local network.

Because I've yet to find one that works with every HDMI input I need to use. So I ended up having to carry around 3 different HDMI adapters.

So weight basically :)

You don't need to replace them, just get different cables, type-c is still USB and also happens to be thunderport so you get DisplayPort as well.

No need for a dongle for your DisplayPort monitor, just get a DP->USB-C cable, done, I'm running a 4k monitor at 60hz this way.

Same for your hard drive, it is probably micro-usb on the other side, just get a micro-USB to USB-C.

etc.. etc..

You don't need new stuff, just new cables, which is annoying but not anywhere near as bad. Protocol is the same, just a different shape.

So I should spend a load of money buying new cables, which do exactly the same as my existing ones, but also look the same as each other, so I can no longer tell them apart?

It's nice to know the protocols my devices use aren't redundant, but you won't find me rushing out to adopt USB Type-C cables.

It's more a case of now you don't need to replace thousands of dollars of equipment, but tens of dollars of cables.

Or buy something running Linux that is not Apple and don't bother with the mess?

Like what? The XPS 15 seems to be the leading alternative: https://blog.vrplumber.com/b/2016/12/14/review-dell-xps-15-9.... In the high DPI configuration in Linux it apparently gets just a few hours of battery life. And bad Q&A, such as coil whine is a recurring problem (including in the new XPS 15s). Why bother with that mess to avoid buying $50 of cables?

I still use a keyboard with a PS/2 connector (Hangs head in shame). It's an old (at least 10 years) Kensiko ergonomic one I rescued from a giveaway pile and have never been able to find a good enough replacement for.

Pretty sure they don't make USB Type C adapters for PS/2.

Just use two dongles at the same time. PS/2 to USB A, then USB A-to-C cable.

You don't have to "replace peripherals" in most cases. USB-C to USB2 and USB3 cables exist. Just buy a cable and enjoy not having to guess which way is up for the first time ever.

The only major pain point is really the monitor.

I think it's hugely ironic the 'U' in 'USB' stands for 'Universal'.

Guess they didn't mean it after all.

It's actually "universal" now, for the first time in history. You can run anything through it, including power and your 4/5K displays. It's far less "serial" than it used to be, though.

except there's already a bunch of different usb-c cables looking identical but being incompatible in subtle ways, including official Apple ones?

I've read about situations like this, and it's frustrating to think that something like this can occur.

I think it's reasonable to wonder how often this is actually in issue in practice. I don't have a new MBP (or any peripherals for that matter), so I can't speak to this directly.

Do you have a new MBP or know anyone personally who does? Have you or they had any issues with cable incompatibility?

This is just as true of any other cable. The Lightning cables you can buy at the corner store look like regular ones, but they don't have data lines, and they won't charge at full voltage. Cables are just awful. Or, one might say, knock-off cables are awful, and you shouldn't let them polute your junk drawer lest you never sort them back out.

you're missing the

> including official Apple ones

part here. If Apple had planned it better, all their USB-C cables (starting with the Macbook One) could do all the functions they need for any Apple product going forward. But even today, if you walk to an Apple store and buy a bunch of USB-C Apple products, you'll probably have to color code them yourself to not mix them up, because it won't work if you do. All Apple is helping here is saying "if you have a cable with an intsy tiny serial number print starting with X, use it only for Y". Gee thanks, that sure is a great ecosystem you got going here Apple.

There's a reason why Apple 1997 - 2007 pushed interoperable standards hard (examples: USB-A, 802.11B and then G, Firewire, mini-DP). None of these had connectors that you could confuse, including when switching between different Firewire standards, and these buses did fairly complex things as well. They even had a powerbook generation with two different Firewire ports so people don't get left hanging with their old Firewire devices. That's all under Steve Jobs and Jony Ive, just Ive not being the one in charge of doing these decisions.

As I understand it, there's a pretty significant tradeoff involved. If you want a USB-C cable that does everything, you're going to pay a lot more and get something that's much thicker than you need to, say, charge an iPhone.

So yes, ideally all Apple cables would do everything imaginable, but I understand why they didn't choose to do that.

But that's the thing, they don't even use it to charge iPhones, and your argument would be one for them to keep lightning, which seems like a fine connector to me. But Apple has been pushing USB-C on personal computers, and there IMO they should just have waited and then jumped on the first solution that does everything.

I'm not sure, but I would argue having a charging cable with no data pins is the best thing you can do for security (for an unassuming user) so people can just charge of random USB ports without worrying about potential exploits.

There's industry-wide confusion related to the USB-C plug

USB-C != USB 3.1

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/197145-reversible-usb-...

USB-C != Thunderbolt 3

http://blog.fosketts.net/2016/10/29/total-nightmare-usb-c-th...

The extremetech article really frustrates me. So, can I plug in a USB 3.0 device with USB-C connector to a USB-C Macbook Pro (that has USB 3.1)? What about the Macbook One?

sigh

> It's actually "universal" now, for the first time in history. You can run anything through it, including power and your 4/5K displays.

Well, anything but USB 1-3! :face-with-tears-of-pain:

Also, all the ports may look the same, even fit the same port, but they're not the same, which is a terrible user experience.

All in all, I can say I understand nothing about usb-c with confidence except I don't have any usb cables to stick in the ports and nowhere to stick the usb cables I do have.

> Also, all the ports may look the same, even fit the same port, but they're not the same, which is a terrible user experience.

Thats true of some laptops, but the new macbook pros allow any connection (power/display/whataver) to any of the usb-c ports. When I'm lying in bed I can now roll over and just swap which side of the laptop the power cable connects to.

(Well apparently the ports on one side of the machine are a bit faster, but I don't know of any USB devices which can take advantage of even the slower speed USB 3.1 provides. I certainly don't own any.)

It's still universal, that's why you can get a USB A to USB C cable that doesn't need any kind of chip in it.

You're crazy if you think that 4-conductor rectangular non-reversible connector was going to be the end-all be-all for USB forever. We had to upgrade eventually. Be thankful that this change is being relatively swift and reasonably future-proof. USB C should be good for quite a few more years.

If it's an upgrade, why are people still calling it "USB"? This isn't semver; people don't ask what version of the cable you have. I still don't understand the difference between USB-1 and USB-2 except I shouldn't charge over USB-1. I don't own any USB-3 peripherals, let alone USB-C.

This is going to haunt technical support for literally decades.

I just told you why: it's still universal.

USBC is no less Universal than micro USB.

> why are people still calling it "USB"?

Because you can still run the USB 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0 protocols over it

This may be true (and it's an important saving grace), but it's the ports and cables people interact with, NOT the protocol.

I wish they had simply called it "ngSB" or something like that. People understand the need for converters; it's the branding that's terrible.

Counterpoint: People call the USB ports on phones (micro/mini) USB, despite not being compatible with the full sized port.

Before USB Type C there were already at least four very common USB connectors I can think of off the top of my head. "Universal" was never intended to indicate that only one connector exists.

The side with the USB logo is always up. At least on all devices I ever used.

Cables? Yes, except where the logo is on both sides. Sockets? Seems to depend entirely on what's convenient for the hardware/PCB layout. From the last 48h: one of my chargers, my car, and two different model monitors all have "upside down" USB sockets...

> up

You realize that USB ports aren't always "up & down". Sometimes they're sideways. Sometimes they're reversed.

As someone with a USB C phone who is trying to convert all my devices to it: reversibility is far from a necessity, I did just fine for years with USB B on my phones, but it is extremely nice to not have to even think about direction. And now, it is noticeably annoying when I have to use MicroUSB.

I have at least one micro USB cable where the logo is on the bottom.

I have cables with two logos, neither of which is the USB one.

That seems worse than just buying dongles, because nothing else I'll want to plug anything into is USB-c. The cables would still be bound to the MacBook for all use cases.

Give it a year or two, and practically every computing device that had some form of USB before, will have at least some, if not majority or all USB-C.

You only need to replace the cables, not the devices...

Shhh, they are the "enthusiasts", they know more than the "Apple sheep that buys Apple's computers"

You don't have to buy new devices, you just buy the connecting cable, done.

It is really annoying if you have expensive gear, for instance professional audio interfaces.

The thing is that you rarely won't need to replace the entire peripheral, but can easily replace just the chord. There are mini/micro-usb to usb-c chords out there already, and they will be cheaper in a year.

What I've learned is that people are really into outrage signaling. So much teeth gnashing from having to buy a $100 hub for a $2000 laptop. Mostly a way of signaling "I'm not like those other Mac users who just sit at Starbucks. I'm inconvenienced because I have lots of peripherals for doing real work."

I don't think that's true. I don't like the idea of buying a laptop that for some reason is super thin but then I have to carry around adapters. I would much prefer a lot of common adapters built into the device even if it's thicker or heavier. Make the MacBook Air have only USB-C and thin but the "Pro" should be more utilitarian and practical.

Do you go to a presentation assuming someone will have an HDMI cable handy to plug into the projector? If you do, you're a braver person than I. But I can carry a USB-C to HDMI cable just as easily as a HDMI to HDMI.

At some point, inconvenience to part of the user base has to be outweighed by convenience to everyone else. The new MBP fits a 15" screen into a form factor that is edging in on where 13-14" laptops were not too long ago. The new 13" is edging into where 12" laptops used to be. Given that lots of "pros" and "road warriors" suffer through 12-13" laptops for size/weight reasons, that's a pretty huge benefit that might easily justify the loss of ports for a big segment of the user base.

In my company all projectors have an HDMI cable already so there is no need to carry one. I just think if you need really small go for an Air. With my current MBP I can walk around without adapters and have reasonable confidence that i can deal with most unexpected peripherals like USB devices or HDMI screens. In my view they should have put in a USB-C port but also left at least some legacy ports. My MBP 13 has an SD card reader , screen connector and USB ports and is still pretty small so I don't buy the size argument.

> My MBP 13 has an SD card reader , screen connector and USB ports and is still pretty small so I don't buy the size argument.

Why'd you get a 13"? If the 15" was close to the same size/weight would you have gotten the 15"?

I think the new 15 is still quite a bit bigger than the older 13. In any case, if some more connectors would have made the new MBP slightly thicker or heavier I would have preferred that. If you want super super thin, buy an Air.

Or, it may be an actual PITA to spend even more money on an already expensive laptop for what's a downgrade: less features and the inconvenience of carrying dongles everywhere, for the "benefit" of a laptop that's half a milimetre thinner.

Except it's not "half a millimeter thinner." The new 15" is halfway in size between the old 13" and the old 15". It makes it that much more practical to move up from an Air to a Pro, or from a 13" Pro to a 15" Pro.

2. No kaby lake - this is an intel release timing issue, if you want Kaby Lake wait a few more months.

Nvidia 1060 graphics! I don't need faster or more power efficient CPU as much as I need faster and more power efficient GPU!

1060 GPUs are power hungry, and MacBook Pros have generally not included this class of graphics hardware. It would be more likely, if they were to move to Nvidia, to use the 1050 instead.

> MacBook Pros have generally not included this class of graphics hardware

Isn't this a larger problem? It's not just graphics anymore; it's the ability to work on basic ML. Even the top of the line GPU you can fit in a laptop is barely enough to handle this, and Apple seems to prefer to believe that need doesn't exist.

Hell, even the Mac Pro has anemic and HUGELY overpriced compute options.

And forget about Vulcan.

granted, while it's great in concept to work on ML everywhere, given that it is such a data and GPU-hungry process, the tradeoffs for an ML capable machine would make a shitty laptop. All the nVidia engineers that I see use a large "portable desktop" that has to accommodate the increased cooling and power contraints for a discrete GPU.

And, after having a number of laptops (and an iMac) die from heat death due to the ball grid array solders of the GPU wearing out, I'm done with discrete GPU's in anything other than a desktop box.

Better in this day and age to prototype on the macbook, then offload the heavy lifting to a dedicated ML box or, at the rate things are going, to Amazon...

I generally do agree, but 'laptop' is a little disingenuous when you're talking about an engineer's workstation—I get very little code written out of reach of a power socket. I'd even put up with a heavier/clunkier/louder machine (slightly) for a gpu/power boost.

They did use to make 17" laptops; calling those portable was really stretching the word.

I'm still holding out for official support of external GPU enclosures. The hardware already supports driving an external GPU over thunderbolt. People have hacked the software to work, but its still buggy. And right now it requires turning off some macos security features so they can inject 3rd party kexts.

I'd love to have an external desktop class GPU at home so I can play games or goof around with OpenCL and VR. Then I can simply unplug the laptop & use the integrated graphics chip when I'm on the road and need power efficiency.

1060 GPUs are power hungry, and MacBook Pros have generally not included this class of graphics hardware.

Fine. Shut off the 1060 when I'm running on battery, but let me have it when I'm plugged in! Let me have the best of both worlds!

No thanks. You are not the intended market.

Yet NVidia graphics were found on Macbooks as recently as 2010. And it worked great. My 2015 Air w/ Intel integrated graphics is slower on most anything 3D, and renders glitches that I never saw on my 2010 Air w/ Nvidia.

> I'm either plugged in at my desk or wireless elsewhere, so tripping over a cable was never really an issue for me once we hit the 5+ hour battery mark

I had the same reaction to the loss of magsafe. It was such a cool hardware feature, but ever since all-day batteries became the norm it's just not the same world as when we had to be constantly plugged in at every meeting, cafe, etc. Remember those days of always searching for outlets at cafes, and the rats nest? Mostly gone.

You forget the one probably underlying problem: the feeling that Apple has given up or on its way to give up the Mac.

As you said, there is not major failings in the new MBP ... but it comes after 2 years wait, in a side event (i.e. not really the big front stage for this "Back to the Mac"), with muddled message. Apple has made bold decisions in this Mac but didn't follow up by giving the impression it was behind it. You get USB-C, yeah, hopefully maybe some third party will do cool stuff, like screens because Apple is not doing those anymore, ... It is also bad timing with the phasing out of the Wifi Router dropped like that as an unremarkable footnote despite being key in cloud feature like "Back to my Mac" or "Time machine". There was a definitive feeling that something was off.

MacRumors all black buying guide, Apple regular lack of comment about its future plan made that feeling even worse.

Twice in a month after that, Apple had had to confirm that they are still committed to the Mac, both to the public and to their own employees ! That's what people are concerned about. Nobody wants to buy into a dying ecosystem and Apple 2016 has done very little for the Mac. We will see how 2017 turns out, but I'm part of the people that prefer to wait until November 2017 to see if Apple is now sliding the MBP into a bi-yearly release cycle to decide if it is time to think about a plan B.

edit: Forgot to mention. I think on its own that the new MBP is a great machine, I'm itching to get one. I'm actually delaying the purchase decision as much as possible for the reason mentioned above.

You forget the one probably underlying problem: the feeling that Apple has given up or on its way to give up the Mac.

While I've had this feeling at times in the recent past myself, there's a kind of irony in this conversation being reinforced by the new MBP. Apple committed the time and resources necessary to essentially build an entire new iOS device and integrate it into the Mac, including the Touch ID sensor, and add explicit support for it in the majority of their applications (over two dozen, ranging from the little freebies like Notes and Preview up to all of iWork, FCP, Motion and Logic).

Whether one thinks the Touch Bar is "worth it" -- or even the right approach to adding touch support to the Mac -- is a different debate, of course, and worth arguing about. But if Apple wasn't committed to the Mac product line, it's hard to see why they would have bothered. This isn't something they just hacked together at the last minute to make it look like they've been doing something; they've really been doing something. For the Touch Bar to make sense it's going to have to show up on the non-pro Macbook this year, and I suspect on the Magic Keyboard.

I think the real anger is around what's going on with the desktop Mac line, particularly the Mac Pro and the Mac mini. I suspect that the new "trashcan" design had some kind of critical flaw that left Apple in a Catch-22 situation: they can't upgrade it without changing the design, but the market is too small for them to spend a lot of money changing the design again.

> I suspect that the new "trashcan" design had some kind of critical flaw that left Apple in a Catch-22 situation

I suspect that the custom hardware has something to do about it. They have basically custom everything and a cooling solution that probably prevent them to shop around for easy GPU upgrade. The engineering cost must be awful just to duplicate the performance level you can get with off-the-shelves component. Even server grade components can fit in tiny "alright looking" cases nowadays.

Yeah, that's about my guess, too. They had a design that worked fine for the components they had when they made it, but the next generation of components changed just enough that things went south. Maybe the cooling didn't quite work reliably anymore, or they couldn't get the support hardware on the same tiny boards...who knows. But I'm betting it's not that they just ignored the Mac Pro and never thought about revving it--it's that they tried a revision and never got it to work reliably, and they realized that they'd innovated their asses into a corner.

Nothing is off. Everyone who has even a bit of business sense can very clearly see that Apple is maxing its profit margins. They're dropping anything (relatively) low margin like Airport and Cinema Displays. They're charging an arm and a leg for dongles they know people will need. iCloud is still capped @ 5Gb, yet iCloud sync now by default also syncs your Desktop and Documents folder. That's on top of iPhone and iPad backups, app data (both iDevice and Mac) and iCloud mail. And the price for more storage is not cheap compared to competitors.

But then, why have they invested so much R&D in the Touch Bar or the trashcan Mac Pro? Why not just upgrade their existing form factors for maximum profit? Why release a new OS every year that needs gimmicky headlining features when they could spend less $$$ on bugfixes?

Apple seems like it's lazily milking its userbase, but I think the truth is that it spends so much time and attention on pointless crap that all the stuff we care about on HN looks half-assed in comparison.

I care about Swift, Objective-C, OS X and iOS Frameworks.

It looks going pretty ok to me.

Last time I checked, most cloud storage services free tiers are capped at around that mark. In fact Dropbox is still only offer 2GB! Onedrive is the same at 5GB and Google Drive offer 15GB. The price is on a par with the market and it offeres more incremental tiers than most.

Dropbox isn't an OS storage, photo storage, mail storage, mobile devices backup all rolled into one (and all of that switched on by default) Comparing with Google Drive is fair, but the aforementioned stuff is why Google offers a fair 15Gb that you won't cap out soon.

I have almost 50Gb of free Dropbox storage btw, through referrals + events like the space race. But that's not really a fair fight anyway, since (aside from Dropbox) no one offers free space in exchange for actions..

"I have almost 50Gb of free Dropbox storage btw, through referrals + events like the space race.!" which, I can assure you[0], the significant amount of Dropbox users don't have.

For cost comparison (UK pricing);

iCloud: 50GB: £0.79 200GB: £2.49 1TB: £6.99 2TB: £13.99

Google Drive: 100GB: £1.59 1TB: £7.99

So, Google wins on free tier, but Apple takes it on options and cost thereafter, and 15GB arguably is still insufficient for "OS storage" in any real tangible terms.

[0] no I don't have data. I do know plenty of Dropbox users though, and next to none of them have any extras.

50 GB for just .99 per month I think it's absolutely perfect for covering Desktop/Documents syncing and all backups data. 1 TB from Apple is around 120€ per year, while on Dropbox is 99€ if billed yearly or still 120€ if paid monthly...I don't really see a huge difference here. On top of that if I wanted to I could easily upgrade my plan to 2 TB while on Dropbox you must join as a business which forces you to have at least 5 members.

> No magsafe:

You might be interested in this:

https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...

It's not the same as having the builtin magsafe, but if you NEED safetly (eg: people tend to trip over your wire), it's wook.

Apple owns patents on Magsafe which won't run out for many years to come. So, the knockoffs are inferior. I really despise this move by Apple. Steve is rolling in his grave.

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/06/this-magsafe-ripoff-cable-...

Yes but they've just switched to a universal USB-C charging standard. Jeeze it's like they can't win no matter what they do.

And no matter what they do, Jobs will be rolling in his grave. It's the law.

Well, they won't win with this crowd. The parent article shows they're still winning so they're obviously doing something right.

I have the BreakSafe cable and it's not great. The magnet is much weaker, so it breaks the connection really easily.

Apple should make a MagSafe USB-C connector. I would buy that in a heartbeat.

"wook"? I tried googling for it but all I found was "dirty hippy".

Seems to be a truncated version of worth a look.

Note that it only supports 60 watts and they only list the MacBook and MBP 2016 13-inch as supported.

Between the ability to plug power on either side of the laptop, and getting a nearly full charge in thirty minutes, I don't really miss Magsafe at all.

I purchased a new Macbook and the magsafe is the feature i miss most about my old Macbook. The current USB-C connector doesn't have a light to indicate that the Macbook is charging, it only has a faint beep when you plugin the USB-C.

> No magsafe

Has anyone seen or personally heard of someone yanking their laptop, of any brand or model, onto the floor via the power cable? I haven't. I instinctively think it's a risk, but reality says otherwise. It seems to me like a solution looking for a problem; the only reason I ever suspected that it's a real problem is that Apple made the Magsafe connectors - maybe they had some data that I didn't. Now I suspect it was all to address unfounded fears in consumers.

I've seen it happen plenty of times with cell phones, however. I wouldn't mind a Magsafe connector for an iPhone.

I actually did it to a Dell laptop about 4-5 years ago. Somehow I got the power cable tangled in the office chair I was sitting on, and when I moved the chair the laptop fell to the floor. Managed to put a small crack in the body, although I didn't notice any other damage, and everything appeared to function fine after that. Never bothered trying to get it fixed, I just lived with the crack for a few more months until I got the laptop replaced (for completely unrelated reasons – I moved to a different team at work, and members of my new team were eligible for beefier machines than my old team were.) I was lucky, could easily have resulted in much worse damage than it did.

I would have killed 3 macbooks if I didn't have magsafe.

I haven't, but having my MagSafe cable ripped out of my laptop thanks to one of the house dogs running through it is a semi-regular occurrence. Not really looking forward to upgrading.

I've seen a friend Dell completely destroyed by someone stumbling over the cable.

Magsafe protects the laptop. But more directly, it protects physical power port from damage and wear.

The magsafe connection gets pulled out of my Macbook with enough frequency that I know I'd otherwise be slowly bending the power port on a standard DC adapter.

> more directly, it protects physical power port from damage and wear.

I've never seen a problem with that either. I've seen plenty of wear on the jackets around connectors on cables.

Yes, actually, happened to me multiple times before MagSafe. I've also encountered pre-MagSafe MacBooks with broken power jacks.

You could really beat them up. The hole became a sort of ragged edged crater you mashed the cable into. Probably not the look Ive is after, but it seemed effective.

Multiple Thinkpads had to have complete motherboard changes because someone stumbled over the power cable, which broke the female power jack which was soldered directly onto the motherboard. :(

>I instinctively think it's a risk, but reality says otherwise.

What an argument. Do you happen to have Auto insurance? How about fire insurance? Did your house burn down even once? Mine didn't so far and yet here I am still saying fire insurance is very much needed if you own a house.

And that is exactly what the MagSafe was. Insurance incase this happens. And as you can already tell by the other responses, this does happen. And even if it only happens once, you will look at thousands of dollars worth of damage.

So, no thank you with the non MagSafe MacBooks. Having a choice if I want that yanked off my table to the left or the right depending on which USB-C connector I used to charge it is not a selling point.

MagSafe made sense when laptops had such terrible life they were almost always plugged in out of necessity.

Now if you're at your desk you're probably plugged in to power and a few other things that aren't break-away. If you're not at your desk you're probably not plugged in. The biggest snag I've always hit is the headphone connection. It's the most likely to get yanked if your headphones get caught up on a chair.

It was a convenient solution at the time. Now it's a bit of an anachronism.

If you like insurance, get a break-away USB-C cable for each of your devices: https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...

I stepped into someone's magsafe cable a few days ago and disconnected it. I don't know if I would have dropped the mac to the floor because it prevented us from discovering it :-)

I'm much more careful at placing my HP power cable on the ground and up to the desk and never got my pc pulled to the ground.

For me it happened quite often back when I was going to University. Often other students could accidentally hit the cable in class. It was really neat in those kinds of situations.

> the touchbar is useful for anything with linear editing

If there only was a dedicated surface capable of recording movement, linear or otherwise.

You mean, like a pad that can track input movements? Wow, that'd be rather revolutionary.

If you believe the rumours [1], the Kaby Lake MacBook Pros are more than 5 months away from being released. Apple will no doubt wait until September/October 2017 to release the updated models considering how well the current versions are selling.

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2017/01/16/kaby-lake-macbooks-ming...

The meltdown is about the HN audience in particular. From my perspective, the new MBP is not very compelling from a hardware perspective. It's high price is not reflective of the computing power (in my mind). The lack of physical buttons (15" is my preferred size) is annoying to scary considering how many shortcuts I rely on use fn keys or esc (Emacs man myself).

Computer power relative to what? A desktop class super computer?

This has been discussed before: similarly configured PC laptops cost just as much or more.

> This has been discussed before: similarly configured PC laptops cost just as much or more.

What?

* Razer Blade 14" [http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade]

* Alienware 13" [http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/alienware-13-l...]

* Alienware 15" [http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/alienware-15-l...]

* Dell DE workstation [http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-lapt...] [1]

So basically every other power machine in that price range has better specifications for less or equal pricing (including premium niche brands like Razer)

[1] These come with Ubuntu preinstalled if you want too!

---

Edit: Just for grins I thought I would break down the comparison of the Macbook Pro 13" against the Razer Blade.

Stats: MBP 13 (max configured), Razer Blade

Price: $2,499, $2,299

CPU: i7 DUAL core, i7 QUAD core

GPU: Intel Iris (integrated), Nvidia GTX 1060

RAM: 16 GB LPDDR3, 16 GB DDR4

Disk: 512 GB PCIE SSD, 512 GB PCIE SSD

Display: Retina (2560 x 1600), QHD w/ Touch (3200 x 1800)

Basically, the Razer Blade destroys the performance of the MBP for $200 LESS.

---

Edit 2: The price discrepancies get even worse when talking about the 15" laptop...just saying.

Take any of your 15" options and try to satisfy the following requirements:

* Quad core CPU

* >= 16 GB RAM

* >= 1 TB SSD

* Retina display with resolution at least as good as the MacBook 15"

* Battery life at least as good as the MacBook 15"

* Weight at least as good as the MacBook 15"

With those requirements---if you can meet them at all, which most can't---the price gap shrinks substantially.

The Razer Blade, for example, is $2700 for the QHD+/1TB option, and it's not obvious if it can meet the last two requirements.

The Alienware in a similar configuration is $2600 depending on the graphics card but the best screen option is 1080p and again, not obvious if battery is good and the weight is just a joke. No amount of money is going to get me to carry a > 7 pound laptop.

And that's without going into more subtle issues like build quality, track pad quality, etc.

Dell's XPS 15 comes closest to that, although perhaps doesn't have quite the same battery life, it does have: Quad Core i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SDD, higher resolution, approximately same weight, and a more powerful GPU.

I would check into the battery life. But I did recall hearing that the new MBPs had battery issues?

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/03/macbook-pro-battery-life...

As I understand it, they fixed whatever issue was causing the battery life issues through a software patch.

I've got a XPS 15 9560 and the battery life sits around 7 to 8 hours for "basic" tasks at around 30% brightness (which is still quite bright). This is running Fedora 25, so it's probably a bit longer under Windows. Not going to reach the 10 hours of a MBP, but it's still quite good.

I can confirm that whatever battery life issues I was seeing in my 2016 15" MBP before seem to have been resolved. I was in Xcode all day Saturday without being plugged in at all and still had like 60% left at around 6:30pm Saturday after having been on my computer since like 10:30am.

Last I checked, your last three conditions (display, battery, weight) are simply impossible to satisfy simultaneously in any of the available 15" Windows laptops, regardless of price. You mostly get to choose between 1080p with good battery life, and QHD+, which is admittedly a much higher resolution than the MBP has, accompanied with much worse battery life (Apple advertises 10 hours with light usage). Or, of course, you can get a thick and heavy laptop with everything. None of those options are to my liking, so I'd love to learn about anything that can fit the bill...

Hey I think I got the laptop you are looking for:

http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/xps-15-9560-la...

Also regarding

> Apple advertises 10 hours with light usage

I heard a lot of users were reporting less:

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/03/macbook-pro-battery-life...

I've been seeing about 12 hours of battery life with my 13" tbmbp, though I've switched to safari to make that happen.

It really depends what you're doing. I have a cpu meter running all the time and often see electron based apps (spotify, slack, atom) idle on 5-10% cpu usage for no reason. Just having one of those programs will eviscerate your battery life - its impossible to get 10 hours if the CPU isn't asleep most of the time.

That said, in fairness Atom seems to be getting better with each release. But spotify seems to keep getting worse. I've caught it pegging an entire core a couple of times in the last few weeks - just sitting on 100% cpu usage despite having no music playing. I think it was rendering an animated ad in the background or something, despite my paid account. Its really no wonder people don't get 10 hours battery life out of their machines. This shit is the new flash.

According to reviews, the XPS 15 lasts about five and a half hours on battery with the 4K screen. Pass.

There are two battery sizes: 56 or 97 whr. Just be careful you aren't seeing reviews on the 56.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5q37wd/xps_15_9560_te...

Anecdotally a redditor is claiming ~7 hours?

MBP:

CPU: I7-6820HQ [1]

RAM: 16 GB LPDDR3 (LPDDR3 is important here...it is "low power" DDR3...so it is under clocked for batter life)

DISK: 1 TB PCIE SSD

GRAPHICS: Radeon Pro 455 w/ 2GB mem

PRICE: $3199

DELL Alienware 15:

CPU: I7-7820HK

RAM: 32 GB DDR4

DISK: 1 TB PCIE SSD + 1 TB 7200 RPM HD

GRAPHICS: GTX 1070 w/ 8GB RAM

PRICE: $2,999

Notes:

* Build quality is subjective and the MBP is certainly thin but the Alienware r3's are sturdy and well-regarded

* Battery life, the Alienware 15 r3 has a 99 whr battery that gets ~6 hr of light use [2] which I think is very comparable given the purported 3hrs of use users are reporting for Apple [3]

* Every computing stat is better than the MBP by a large margin

* Alienware is $200 cheaper (the unit I configured had a G-Sync panel on it so I would guess the price goes down or stays same for 4k IGZO version...)

* Note: Alienware rotates the models it has on it's sight and currently the IGZO 4k screen is not available but that model is out there and will probably be back soon. The review I linked to reviews the IGZO 4k configuration.

---

But hey, it sounds like you aren't a compute power focused person (like me...I am irrationally so)...so check out the XPS 15 (9650):

http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/xps-15-9560-la...

Max model is $2499 which is $700 cheaper! And, quite honestly hits every point you want...including build quality, track pad, and weight!

---

[1] http://www.everymac.com/systems/by_processor/intel-core-i7-m...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDPs9o_L1GI

[3] http://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/03/macbook-pro-battery-life...

Don't forget the speed difference between the MBP SSD and a normal SATA SSD. The MBP uses NVMe and super-fast flash chips.

That one repair dude with the 4+ hour YouTube videos that's always bashing Apple did a Razer Blade/MBP comparison video and the MBP disk transfer speeds blew the Razer out of the water.

I agree the MBP is super ridiculously expensive, but no one for a second should think there's an alternative in any price bracket.

edit:

Razer Blaze SSD test: https://youtu.be/bOXxyeKWd80?t=2254

MBP SSD test: https://youtu.be/bOXxyeKWd80?t=2669

I'm usually on the apple-defending side of this discusion, but: "MBP wins in disk speed and battery" doesn't match "there is no alternative in any price bracket".

For the same price, other laptops seem to offer more power, in exchange for less battery and a few other niceties.

I'm writing this from a MBP (magsafe-and-escape-key mbp) that I love. To me, it makes no sense to say "Macbooks are just like these windows pcs but way more expensive", but neither does saying "there is no alternative to a MBP".

A lot of laptops are competing. Some of them are premium, expensive machines, with high price tags and nice features and quality. The macbook is one of them, with its own set of unique advantages, but also compromises. Some people think they are the best. That's it.

> "MBP wins in disk speed and battery" doesn't match "there is no alternative in any price bracket"

Disk speed, battery, build quality, and screen resolution seem to be the big ones. There don't seem to be any alternatives with the same set of features. All of the machines brought up as an "alternative" are missing one or more of those which means they aren't really an alternative.

I do agree that you're also signing up for a set of compromises when you buy a MBP, but AFAIK there's not an "equivalent" machine elsewhere that I can find, which to me seems a bit strange.

I hate analogies, especially car ones, but for this situation it really does seem to fit. There are three big German car makers. BMW, Audi, and Mercedes each have "equivalent" sets of cars. You can pick and choose between them and while there are might be small features that one offers over the others there are definitely "alternatives".

With the MBP it feels like there's only one, and when looking for an alternative everyone's suggesting a Toyota Camry. Yes, it will get the job done but it's not really the same class of thing.

Not having used any of their laptops, I can't really comment, but I HAVE sworn off Razer mice and keyboards....plastic pieces of crap...

The 1060 is monster card. I don't know if it was meant to be put in such a thin and small frame. The blade 14 has issues with throttling.

Any Nvidia is better than no Nvidia (All Apple machines currently) in a world where almost all GPU based computing is CUDA not OpenCL.

It is often the factors you cannot put that easily in numbers that make the difference. I googled for the razer blade and found pretty fast those issues:

- It seems to have around 6 hours surfing time on a battery while the macbook has 10.

- It seems to have a worse screen with bad viewing angles.

- The razor weighs 1.93 kg while the macbook weighs 1.37 kg. This makes quite a difference when you e.g. travel a lot by public transport or by aeroplane. The razor also is marginally thicker (3 mm)

- The razor has USB 3.0 while the macbook has USB 3.1

- The razor has a drastically slower SSD than the one of the macbook

- The razor has shitty speakers, while the macbook has pretty good ones.

- The keyboard seems to have some issues like the function and mediakeys not being lit.

In the end it is pretty obvious, that they are completely different machines. The razor is a mobile gaming machine optimized for gaming performance, while the macbook is a high quality general purpose laptop, optimized for performance in general.

- Battery life is going to be a trade off for performance. Things like the 4k screen as well as the DDR4 (vs LPDDR3) RAM are going to come at a cost to battery life.

- I don't know about the screen, but having owned both, viewing angles are not an issue on either. I _believe_ the MBP has better color accuracy, but the blade is no slouch with full sRGB coverage and 75% Adobe RGB [1]

- I travel a lot by airplane and weights are going to be a personal preference, but I don't notice a difference...and I take public transit for 40 minutes and have a 2 mile walk to work. But again, personal preference.

- Perhaps I am not in the know, but the Razer Blade has USB type-C (TB3) as well as USB type-A (ostensibly serving 3.0). MBP has 4 TB3 ports if I understand it correctly, so it has more, but I don't think it fair to say the Blade has none.

- I don't know if the SSD is "drastically slower"...but it might be slower. Both are PCIE nVME SSD drives, the blade specifically has a Samsung SM951. Not the top of the line, but certainly not a bargin bin drive[1]. And for the price difference, you could replace the drive in the Razer with something better if you want...whereas the MBP is soldered on[2].

- I don't know, I am not terribly impressed by any laptop speakers in 13" form factors...but personal preference. I would have to agree, owning both, that I think the MBP has a slight edge as they don't distort at Max volume and the Blade does slightly...but I wouldn't say the difference between is huge.

- Razer blade media keys are lit, the function labels are not...which is terribly annoying for me (but media _are_ lit).

> In the end it is pretty obvious, that they are completely different machines. The razor is a mobile gaming machine optimized for gaming performance, while the macbook is a high quality general purpose laptop, optimized for performance in general.

I would amend this slightly by saying the Macbook is a high quality general use laptop. Nothing about it is optimized for performance in my mind (LPDDR3, Retina not 4k, etc.). Most of the choices trade performance for battery (IMO). To be clear, this is not bad.

The Razer is definitely a mobile performance focused machine...

But the only reason I bring it up is because I was refuting the claim:

> This has been discussed before: similarly configured PC laptops cost just as much or more.

And I think it is pretty clear that for the hardware, the MBP is definitely more expensive than other options (by significant margins).

[1] http://www.mobiletechreview.com/notebooks/2016-Razer-Blade.h...

[2] http://blog.macsales.com/38719-commentary-soldered-ssd-in-to...

> Battery life is going to be a trade off for performance.

I totally agree and in my opinion this makes the laptops not really comparable. Battery life can also lead to higher cost (e.g. display with lower energy consumption). But I would also qualify the performance statement a bit. If you neither play games nor use Cuda, a graphic card is unimportant. If the applications you use are not or hardly parallel, a dual core might even perform better.

BTW: I checked again and the Samsung SSD has read speeds of 2.150 GBps and write speeds of 1.550 GBps, while the Apple one has read speeds of 3.1 GBps and 2.1 GBps write speed.

Definitely.

I think there is a lot of confusion with what I was trying to say. I wasn't claiming MBPs are "bad"...just refuting the claim that similarly spec'd laptops are about the same price. And I still believe that is a reasonable point.

Regarding the drives, I found some links quoting those figures [1]...although synthetic benchmarks in the wild seem to give different results (~2.0 GBs read and 1.3 GBps write)[2][3]. I wonder what a synthetic benchmark with those two laptops would be like side to side. It may very well be the benchmark tool in both videos is artificially limiting drive performance...which would also be reflected on the Blade who knows.

(As an aside, even at 2.0 GBps read and 1.3 GBps write that is still very fast)

[1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/11/01/early-benchmarks-o...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoMHYFIUp5I

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnk1YUdV0gI

Razr 13" sports a 1080p display, and below average battery life. Please add that to your list.

>similarly configured PC laptops cost just as much or more.

I guess that depends on what "similarly" means.

The Dell XPS 15", for the same price has a far better processor, far better video card, 32GB of RAM, 4k screen and a 1TB SSD. The Macbook has a touchbar?

http://www.dell.com/ca/p/xps-15-9560-laptop/pd?oc=nxps159560...

I'd love to see the laptops that cost more...

As one of the people who penned an article slamming Apple, I also wouldn't trade my 2016 Fn-key MBP for anything. But what concerns me more is where this Mac ship is headed, and if the Touch Bar is any indication, I hope Apple course-corrects soon.

The non-Touch Bar laptop with four TB3 ports and Touch ID would've been the _absolute_ best Mac for pretty much everyone who was waiting for a new one (battery life sacrifices for weight/size savings aside).

That 15" users _have_ to get a Touch Bar is a slap in the face to those users, imo.

I've got a touch bar. I don't really use it, but I don't feel like I've been slapped in the face.

People who hunt-and-peck and haven't memorized keyboard shortcuts (basically everyone) are going to love the touch bar.

>People who hunt-and-peck and haven't memorized keyboard shortcuts (basically everyone) are going to love the touch bar.

How many Macbook Pro users fit that profile?

>How many Macbook Pro users fit that profile?

The vast majority.

Really? What are their use cases?

Mac users, sure. But almost all macbook pro users I know tend to be saavy.

Some corporations have a policy of buying MacBooks Pro for their employees, regardless of job requirements. I have met many who aren't aware of ... well ... they're not power users.

I consider myself pretty adept at typing but I am not able to reliably hit the fn keys without looking down save for maybe f1 and f5. Though, I am on a full size keyboard so the distance to travel to the top row is further.

Function-keys aren't really useful for touch typing and are hard or impossible to memorize (in my experience) so I imagine the population of potential beneficiaries for the touchbar is larger than merely hunt-and-peck typists (I'm a twoish-fingered touch typist who gets 60wpm; I've tried to learn to touch-type but it slows me down for too long I always revert).

That said, I think that putting a display under the trackpad as well or instead would have a bigger payoff.

You lost 8 fingers in a terrible accident? :-)

I have trouble with the pinky finger on my right hand. I should be using it to hit the "p" but... I dunno, it just doesn't happen that way. Sorry, Mavis Beacon, I tried.

I've got a handful of function keys memorized, but I frequently miss if I'm not looking down. I'd never try to Alt-F5 on Windows without looking.

I think the function keys are much easier to touch-find on a full size keyboard because they are often in banks of 4 with a gap between them.

> memorized keyboard shortcuts

What keyboard shortcuts? I touch type, but nearly all the keyboard shortcuts I know use the lower part of the keyboard (ctrl- or cmd- or alt- some letter or number). I know F5 to refresh, but never used it on my Mac since the media keys were set to be the default and were more useful to me anyway.

The only thing that occasionally causes me to do a double-take about the touch bar is the non-physical escape key. And even that has not honestly been much of an issue for me.

> I know F5 to refresh, but never used it on my Mac since the media keys were set to be the default and were more useful to me anyway.

Probably a good thing, since F5 to refresh is a Windows thing and does nothing on the Mac.

Ctrl-F2 for the menu bar, use it all the time. Ctrl-F3 for the dock, use it all the time. F6 to continue, F7 to step into within Xcode.

I'd miss them I think.

Then it's a good thing that all the function keys pop right back up when you hit the FN key on the keyboard...

Thank you for this info. I have been fearful of this new change but need to try it out.

Not enough money (or an actual need) to upgrade at the moment, thankfully.

Ah: 'non-Touchbar'. Apple has gone touchbar-only on the higher-spec'd MB Pros. Those of us who touch type and want a fast developer machine to last a few years have been left behind. MacOS is my OS of choice, but the touch bar makes Apple's hardware irrelevant to me -- I literally have no available Apple option when my current MB Pro needs replacing.

Do you touch-type on the function keys as well?

I do. IntelliJ is my tool of choice, and I use the default keybindings.

I see -- yes, I can see how the TB models would cause issues then...

FYI: BetterTouchTool allows you to customize your touchbar to add custom buttons. You could create buttons for your most commonly used keystrokes in IntelliJ.

https://www.boastr.net/

    non-Touchbar

I've configured some of the new MBPs with touchbar and I really dislike the bar. No ESC for me is a complete no-go. Otherwise I haven't used the huge trackpad enough to know if I like it or not. And the keyboard, well, I found it just ordinary. For me, especially in a work environment where lots of people move around, MagSafe is essential.

I can understand a company buying the new MBPs simply to replace old ones, but personally I will wait a year. My 2009 MBP still does the job.

This is of course subjective but I personally also hate the keyboard (on top of USB-C only and the loss of MagSafe). The new Trackpad sucks as well.

I have seen the Touch Bar in person and I don't hate it but it does seem like an unnecessary cost and battery drain (just like Force Touch come to think of it).

My biggest problem with the latest Macbook "Pros" is that they don't give me what I want. All I wanted is a Macbook Air with a screen that isn't 6 years old. For me the 13" Air was the perfect form factor and compromise between power and portability (eg the 12" Macbook is too much of a compromise).

And while not giving me what I want they went and made everything more expensive.

I'm sitting here typing this on an Dell XPS 15, a laptop I bought late last year when it became clear Apple wasn't going to produce what I wanted. It's reasonably nice but honestly I hate it as it's just not polished like a Mac and OSX is (I'm using Windows 10). Even simple things like forwarding videos with a two finger swipe on a Mac just works (even on VLC). On Windows it's just... horrible.

Then again I do have 32GB of RAM and a 512GB Samsung Pro 850 in it and all up I think it cost like $1400. Oh and I can play Civ6 on it.

IMHO the real cause of this backlash against the new MBPs is a combination of frustration and even a sense of betrayal. That may sound like hyperbole but people love their Macs. My 13" Air was the best laptop I ever owned and it vexes me no end that Apple (again IMHO) screwed it up.

My (non-Touchbar, 13 inch) MBP loses (2.4 GHz) WiFi when you plug in a USB-C hub, or Apple dongle with hard disk (noise goes up by about 25 to 30 dB -- depending on how good the WiFi is it's barely to not usable). The left shift key is unpleasantly sticky and non-clicky.

It's by no means a bad machine (retina is nice, keyboard is generally quite nice and crisp), but I'm not elated, particularly given that it was some $500 more expensive than the MacBook Air that it replaced.

That is a bummer. I'd try a heavily shielded USB C cable, but I'm not sure if they exist yet. You may have some improvement by installing a ferrite choke on the cable(s). Something like this: https://www.dataq.com/products/accessories/ferrite-choke/

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have a look, though at first glance I can't tell whether this is some sort of esoteric voodoo (remember the red transparent pens with which to paint patterns on a CD to get more natural music...)

I'm a bit disheartened that even the original Apple dongle effects this problem.

More details (and screenshot of the WiFi performance) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13494910

The WiFi thing sounds like it could be a hardware fault - take it in to the genius bar and they'll fix/replace the machine. Hell, from my experience with Apple support they'd almost replace the machine just because of the shift key if you're polite enough.

When my 2011 MacBook Pro (the one with the faulty graphics card that would eventually die) was in for service, before the replacement program, they called me and said "Oh, we noticed that your trackpad button felt a little weird, so we're replacing it, free of charge". This was on top of replacing the logic board for free as well, even though at that point the replacement program hadn't been announced yet. The next time the graphics chip failed they just ended up replacing the laptop with a brand new 2015 model for free (top of the line model too, which was nice).

Thanks, will do - in particular because this time I also got Apple Care on the machine. Remaining problem is to actually get an appointment in the genius bar (I'm traveling a bit these days, and they tend to booked out here for a week in advance).

I'm really curious as to the WiFi thing - I'm definitely not the only one with the problem (see my post here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13494910 with some links), but I haven't seen it widely reported at all.

If you walk in on a weekday near the end of the day, generally you can get an appointment with a 20 - 30 minute wait time right there in the store.

I always do this because I know they will have a cancelation, and I really hate booking a week out for something that is bothering me today.

I'll try - not sure they're as flexible here in Germany. Yes, the one week+ booking thing is annoying.

Couldn't agree more. I've had my non-Touchbar MBP since just after launch, and I couldn't be happier. The form factor is great and the screen is better than anything I've encountered.

Prior to this machine, I was unhealthily attached to an MBA 11" from 2012 and I was more than dubious that I'd break that attachment. Since I got the new MBP, the MBA hasn't moved once from the spot where is waiting for a re-install ready to give away.

Keyboard mostly a non-issue, as I use a mech, but it's not bad, just different. My Logitech BT mouse disconnects, but that's a Sierra issue, as it happened on my previous machine (and is a documented issue with Logitech apparently). Monitor support is wonky, but not too bad if you stick with only DisplayPort with a DP->USBC cable or use the official Apple dongle with HDMI. Apple's TB display works great with the TB2->TB3 adapter. (Eagerly anticipating the TB3 docks coming out later in the year)

On TouchBar: Yes, it definitely has its advantages and disadvantages. I dig the touch ID login. Escape key issue only annoyed me a time or two, but I'm not a heavy VIM user, and the ESC key is actually wider than most people realize (space to left of it is actually additional touch target for the key, so you actually have an easier to type ESC key in actuality)

The magnetic power adapter was probably the best feature exclusive to apple products, and I assume that the reason other laptops do not have them was vicious patent guarding. It improves longevity by so much to not have a piece of the motherboard under constant torque.

It was such a superior idea that there can only be one possible philosophy behind the move to abandon it, and that is that longevity is actually bad for apple, especially during the end of Moore's law for personal computing. My 2011 MBP is very unlikely to become obsolete in a technical sense. The battery life is still good, and the processing power is more than sufficient for anything that would not be more cost-effectively computed on a cloud instance or a desktop anyway.

That may seem like a great deal of inference, but I don't think it's unjustified. Why else would they opt for inferior technology?

MagSafe was great for dealing with cables draped across the floor in front of you. With 4 USB-C ports, so you can plug your power in to either side, this is no longer an issue. And it looks like doing a MagSafe-style plug for USB-C is actually pretty bulky, as you can see in this Griffin product (https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...).

There's also another good reason why specifically Apple wants to get rid of MagSafe (as opposed to it just not being worth it anymore). And that's the fact that MagSafe has insidious problem of laptops sometimes just not charging, and you often don't even notice. I myself have started experiencing this issue with my current laptop and external display - I went for almost a whole day without it charging and didn't realize until I hit 10% battery, and since then, it's been a bit finicky, sometimes requiring me to poke at it several times before it charges properly. I don't know if it's the port or the cable that's having the issue. In any case, I would imagine this issue makes for a non-trivial amount of AppleCare support. And since MagSafe isn't really pulling its weight anymore, now that we have long batteries and can plug the cable on either side, the downsides outweigh the upsides.

No, the problem is not that I don't have enough decision about which side my charger goes on.

The problem is that my computer, which resides on a table, is connected to the wall, which does not reside on the table. If there is a gap between the wall and the table, and the computer must be connected to the wall in order to accumulate energy, then the cord must necessarily cross that gap.

Since the table and the wall are not connected, they are not path connected, which you will note, is a statement which only relies on the topology of the space in which my computer is embedded. Which side I connect my charger to does not change the topology of space-time, so your argument doesn't seem relevant.

Charging a laptop in the middle of a room with the cord stretched across where people normally walk is mostly a relic of the past now that we have much longer battery lives than we used to. These days most people charge their laptop in a situation where the charger is not stretched across the room (e.g. when sitting on a desk against a wall).

Why should it matter how often I charge my computer? The matter at hand is, when my computer requires charging, what is the best way to accomplish it. So you have constructed a use case which is neither based in reality, nor relevant.

First, there is no such animal as a person sitting in a cafe with a laptop who is not plugged into the wall.

This is easily observed by simply entering a cafe and looking at the people in it. It doesn't matter that people's batteries CAN last a long time without being charged, most people simply don't do that unless there is no other option.

Second, I don't bring my computer home and plug it into a stationary dock to allow it to charge like some kind of cordless phone from the 90s. I pick a spot where I want to perform my computer tasks, and when my battery gets low (as it often does because claims of long battery life are largely based on some wildly ideal case) I go grab my charger from the other room and plug it in wherever I am sitting.

This is THE typical use case for a laptop computer. Note my use of capital letters. The use case that you have described is strange to the point of being an anomaly. A person who behaves this way is likely not a person at all, but rather a character in the sims.

My charger comes to me. My house was built with outlets every 10 feet or so along the walls for almost exactly this purpose. I do not do all of my computing immediately adjacent the walls, and I frequently just leave my computer where it is while I go do something else.

Do you not behave this way? If your laptop gets low, do you resignedly go back to your safe table, or do you stay on your couch, like a god damned American.

> First, there is no such animal as a person sitting in a cafe with a laptop who is not plugged into the wall.

Then you should not come to European cafes where you don't get a power socket, unless you happen to be luckily seated close to the one used for the vacuum cleaner.

> It doesn't matter that people's batteries CAN last a long time without being charged, most people simply don't do that unless there is no other option.

Zero sympathy for anyone whose laptop is destroyed tripping over the power cable while charging a half-full 12-hour battery at a coffee shop.

Charge-over-USB beats one-side MagSafe for nearly all of us.

What in the world are you on about?

Do you really think a bunch of engineers are sitting around talking about how to make things obsolete faster? We found out who Deep Throat was. Surely someone would come out and expose this big scam. And we hear this about pretty much every category of product.

I know for a fact people do sit around and talk about how to make things cheaper.

Don't be ridiculous, people sit around and talk about how to maximize profits. That is the MO of a company. Engineers are not excluded from this, and a great many companies have destroyed themselves by making products which have no calculable lifespan. Shitty disposables make companies more money. Really expensive disposables even more. There doesn't have to be a grand conspiracy, it's just the only way to successfully do business. Personal computers very conveniently went obsolete all by themselves for decades. Now Apple has to push software updates which reduce battery life in order to convince you that there is any reason at all to get a new phone. Those updates have gotten a lot less optional, and the "improvements" a lot more marginal.

It's a philosophy that is reflected at apple through just about every corporate decision they have made. The inability to make incremental upgrades to any apple product, or perform repairs without it being a part of the apple business model. Or Air pods, which are basically an off season april fools joke.

The MagSafe adapter has itself gone through iterations which make them less backwards compatible and less functional. A major problem for power cables is that force at the joint between the rigid connector and flexible wire is prone to failure.

The original magsafe adapter solved this problem [1]. a small amount of force at the problem area provided sufficient leverage to disconnect the power. This ensured that it was hard to use the power cord in such a way that promoted early failure, and gave the user the option of two orientations, potentially lessening the stress to the affected joint. They phased this design out for the much less sleek looking bulky orthogonal connector, which stays firmly locked in place through all sorts of damaging configurations, while providing no other justification for the "design" choice.

That this product was particularly prone to failure is made evident in the class action settlement, although you may read this as you like. https://www.adaptersettlement.com/

So before you accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist for proposing that computer companies sometimes break your property for profit, You might actually want to read about what the courts are saying, although the case in regards to the deceptive trade practices when rolling out iOS 9 on older phones is still unsettled, the facts very much are settled, and only the courts and the defense lag.

[1] http://warungmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/original-app...

I'm glad to hear that. I've played with the new macbooks a few times at a local Apple Store and have been delighted with them, and can't wait to get a new one at work. The keyboard was probably my favorite part as well, and that black one is really nice looking.

People who complain about MacBooks either haven't dealt with other laptops or I just haters. I tried lots of laptops and Macs are a species of their own kind.

The very fact that MacBook pro doesn't make fan noise is enough for me to pay the premium.

2 years old? Most people would consider themselves lucky to have such a nice, modern laptop.

What makes it the best Macbook you've ever owned?

Not the above commenter but I have the new 15 and I second that. Speakers are better, trackpad is better, keyboard is (in my opinion, anyway) better, touchID is nice, and it is lighter and thinner. I don't use peripherals much at all, so the lack of legacy ports doesn't bother me. Only downsides are slightly worse battery life overall and occasional accidental activation of the emojibar.

I honestly wasn't too concerned with the touchpad issue as others. But I recently got a chance to play with one and man did I hate that keyboard.

It feels cheap and wasn't as productive on it. I played with it for 5 minutes so take this with a grain of salt

Most of the hate I see on the keyboard is from people who've only spent a few minutes on it. After a few days you get used to it and don't even think twice about it. I've regularly measured my typing speed with my old retina MBP and my new one as well as my DAS keyboard with cherry red switches, and I get about the same speed +/-5 wpm across all of them.

I'm going to rant here for a minute: IMO keyboards are a great example of "bike shedding" and the law of triviality. There are tons of options for layouts, key mechanics/switches, etc and everyone has to use a keyboard, so everyone has their preferences. At the end of the day, the only objective way to compare keyboards is by your max typing speed, but this metric is almost 100% irrelevant. When does anyone ever type at their max speed for any practical purpose? For most people, the worst a keyboard can be is mildly annoying. At best, you'll forget you're even using one. Don't even get me started on people who learn Dvorak for speed or practicality...

Besides max typing speed, there's another objective metric: noise. Loud typing is mildly annoying in the office, it's offensively annoying on a train, it's distracting in a conference.

Even if I could get used to everything about the new MBP's keyboard, buying a laptop that is noticeably louder feels like a really selfish move.

Lighter, tighter, better screen, fantastic keyboard, better speakers --- and is this really the MBP without a "real" touchpad? Like, this is simulated clicking?

The 2015 model has the trackpad too, it's amazing - try using it powered off and you'll see!

Think MacBook Air 11" with an amazing, actually usable screen (compared to the old 768p screen), and even trimmer size.

Were there negative things said about the keyboard? I was playing around with the new MBP's in the Apple Store last week and I found the keyboards to be fantastic. I was actually surprised because I bought the family an iMac for Christmas and I really don't like the new wireless keyboards. The whole thing feels cheep in part because the keys feel poorly seated.

> Were there negative things said about the keyboard? I was playing around with the new MBP's in the Apple Store last week and I found the keyboards to be fantastic.

I guess there are just segments of people that disagree then. I find the new MBP keyboard abhorrent. The keys are too shallow, and they have far too little give; you're literally typing on a hard plastic surface. I love going home in the evening and getting my Thinkpad's keyboard, even though I'm not really a fan of that keyboard.

This is why I recommend that anyone wanting to purchase a MBP visit the Apple store and type on one. Maybe it won't bother you, but it bothers me, hence, I think folks should try it before they buy it, and Apple makes that fairly easy to do.

My biggest complaint is how inconsistent the butterfly switches are. Some days the keys don't want to pop back up all the way, the keys feel/sound different, they're easily made 'sticky'...

Best case the keyboard feels great but a day later and it feels terrible.

It's not HN specific, many websites reported returning the laptop or being very very disappointed, which was rarely the case before.

Now it's possible that it was just mass web hysteria. My cynical brain thinks that 1) people are gullible and want shiney 2) their previous MBP was getting too old so they bought the new

It's possible that sales != love

>It's the best Macbook I've ever owned

What's so good about it?

How old was your old one. Recent macbooks had HDMI and USB magsafe - you lose all 3 with the USB-C macbook.

What happens when you trip on your charging cord and destroy a USB-C port?

Get a magnet USB-C charging cable.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01CQTK6GU/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=...

Not even close to a replacement.

Are there other options? That cable doesn't have particularly good reviews.

This has been my concern, but you can find magnetic detach USB-C cables.

https://www.amazon.com/Griffin-BreakSafe-Magnetic-Breakaway-...

The ports are on a separate board I think.

Not OP, but I replied above - basically I never used HDMI other than plugging in my monitor, only at my desk. Now I plug in power, 4k display, keyboard and speakers with a single cable, so a much better solution for my setup (Especially considering I grab and go a lot since I work from home.)

Also as far as tripping over a cable it is unlikely to happen to me, given I leave my laptop at my desk charging overnight so I rarely ever use a power cord away from my desk (given the average 8 or so hours of battery.) Pretty much only when traveling, but even then it will likely just be charging while I'm not using it.

And USB? You don't use normal USB ports? Yubikey nano?

I've owned every Macbook/Powerbook from the Titanium up until the Mid-2014 MBP (while I was at Matasano, I got every refresh; on my own, I try to make machines last). My 2014 has HDMI. But then: the new one has an HDMI+USBC+USB dongle.

On the one hand: I miss MagSafe.

On the other hand: I will not miss the stack of old frayed MagSafe cables I've collected over the years, and am hopeful that the aftermarket will finally provide me with a reliable power cable.

Worth knowing about me to qualify my opinion is: I don't use external monitors or keyboards. I don't ever want to use a configuration of my computer that will make me unhappy or feel less productive when I'm not at a desk, because I strongly prefer being able to work wherever I happen to be.

I don't have a 2016, but I won't miss Magsafe. In every situation where Magsafe would have protected my laptop, it has failed to do so. If I grab my cable and yank as hard as I can, all that happens is the laptop slides across the desk. Every time I have tripped on the cable, it's pulled the laptop to the edge of the table, not unplugged. I imagine this problem becomes more common the lighter the laptop gets.

The only time Magsafe breaks like it's supposed to is when it's sitting on my lap and my leg bumps it, pushing it straight up. Which is just an annoyance, not a safety feature.

Lots of people seem to like it, but same experience here -- I don't recall an instance of the machine being "saved" by MagSafe, but oh boy do I recall plugging it back in all the time when something moved a bit.

My guess is the typical scenario magsafe protects from is when you have your laptop on the side of the table, charging cable to the side and you step on it or pull it down. Don't have one, so can't test this theory.

Yeah if you pull it down, it snaps out pretty easy. Whenever I end up tripping on it, though, it's usually catching my foot and being pulled nearly straight out. I can actually push the Magsafe connector down until it bends far enough to touch the desk and then pull on it from that angle and it still just drags the laptop.

Maybe it's useful to some, and I agree it's great engineering... but it's never once worked for me in practice. I only find myself cursing when my leg bumps it and it stops charging.

I work remote, so I spend quite a bit of time at coffee shops and other places like that... MagSafe on my laptop has saved my laptop countless times. Sitting on a small table the rubber feet provide enough grip that if you give the cable a quick tug it becomes unplugged.

I am definitely going to miss MagSafe and am hoping the third party market comes up with something that will emulate it enough to where I don't have to worry about my laptop going flying because some cut doesn't watch where he is walking and accidentally kicks the cord.

Yeah, if you have it sitting on your desk and slowly pull on it the magnet will hold... but give it a quick tug, laptop will stay, cord will come with you.

The push for lighter laptops has probably meant that the force needed to disconnect the magsafe is greater than the force needed to drag your ultralight laptop along.

For me, I have a 2012 non-retina MacBook Pro and the magsafe works fine for me on that. I think this is one laptop people consider heavy though. (Personally I am alright with the weight and love its plethora of ports).

Except that I'm pretty sure that's one of the top use cases for Magsafe. Imagine if you didn't have a Magsafe connector and your leg bumped it, pushing it straight up. You'd have a ruined power connector... My Dell and Sony laptops both had that happen and stopped getting a consistent connection. With the Dell, the power connector was internally soldered on to the mobo too, so the repair was not cheap at all. :(

Every other laptop I've ever had, the power connector was at the back so you could avoid hitting it with your leg. With the MBP, its on the side and it's small enough that my lap is wider than the laptop, so my leg pushes on the power connector.

Magsafe might be better than breaking a connector, but those aren't the only choices that exist. There is a far better solution, and it's really odd that Apple hasn't figured it out.

I tripped on my charging cord and the USB-C cable unplugged without damaging my laptop.

However, the other day I put my laptop down on a wooden chair which I thought was flat... :-(

Is there a reason they got rid of the MagSafe? I don't own a Mac, but I always thought that was a cool feature.

Because USB-C is awesome.

Having used a MacBook 12 as my main machine for the last 3 months the main reason is that it's redundant. Most days the battery lasts the entire day so you end up plugging it into recharge overnight just like a cellphone.

So it ends up being rare that you have the laptop plugged in while you are actually working with it.

The MacBook 12 is probably the best laptop I've owned even if spec wise it was a downgrade from the MacBook Pro 13 I was previously using.

I second your points. I have the Macbook 12" and even though I don't use it daily (I work from home and my dev/gaming beast PC with a 35" wide screen does the job perfectly), every time I use it at home or carry it outside, I am marvelled by that small, beautiful, and very functional laptop.

It's compact, extremely light, the keyboard is okay-ish (you get used to it), the display is the best I've ever seen anywhere on any kind of machine, and the battery longevity for casual browsing, some video/music, and coding, is out of this world. It can easily last me at least 6 hours of medium usage; if I use it sparingly (not much video for example) it can easily go to 8+ hours.

I have nothing bad to say about this laptop. The keyboard could've been slightly better but at the thinness of it, it's pretty adequate.

I'm guessing thinness - sure, the could have made 'Magsafe 4' or something but there's no way you'd fit the current connector on a MacBook.

Magsafe was one of my favorite features on the old laptops, but I don't really see how it would work on the new ones. They're so light that any of the force that normally would've been needed to "anchor" the computer so that a trip on the cord would disconnect it is pretty much gone. At this point, the magnet would have to be so weak that it may just be unusable. Any stronger magnet would just pull the light computer right along with it.

You only detailed the things you dislike on the new one, so why is the best macbook?

we all got new mbp 15 touchbar models at work. it was christmas day. Super geeked out. The new mbp is sweet, compared to my 2013 MBA and MBP.

4K video out is flaky as hell. Hope Apple can address this with future software updates

I think the biggest contention, is what you have to pay for what you get.

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