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Comment by jclardy | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

> 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.

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:

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.

> 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.

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...

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.

> 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.

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.

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