Pro users that I know want:
- A great keyboard (yes with an actual physical Escape key)
- 32 GB RAM, with 64 GB optional
- Common ports including boring old USB and HDMI, and a headphone jack
- Good battery life at a reasonable weight compromise
I hope Apple realizes the current MacBook Pro is a flop and backtracks on the many poor decisions that went into it.
Worse, the keyboard is fragile. Mine recently had its left arrow key become stiff in one corner. I couldn't do anything to get it to go back to normal nor pry the key cap off to see if a bit of dirt had got underneath. I went to the Genius Bar which told me the keyboard was unrepairable and the only way to fix it was, literally, to replace the entire top case of the computer. He did say they could try something to fix it in the back with some special tools. The first try it was fixed, but the key cap was only half attached. The second try it was basically entirely broken and only worked with extremely hard presses. At this point the Rep said it had to be sent in for repairs. I said try it one more time. This final time it was better but still terrible and worse than when I brought it in. So I took it home, dd'd the disk to another one (use rdisk!) and dropped it off for repair. Well, a few days later I am told I need to pay $99 and use an AppleCare+ incident to fix the broken keyboard that the Genius broke. I spent hours on the phone with Apple explaining what happened. Well, two weeks later I got the laptop back because their system kept saying it's not ready despite being back at the Apple Store four days after drop off. What a total joke.
I hate the new MBP, keyboard and touch bar. Give me a bit more thickness, a regular keyboard, and high repairability.
However other keys randomly feel "smushy", "not clicking" as I press them. There can't be any dirt in the keyboard, I'm very strict on keeping my keyboards clean. Until now, the issue was resolved by bashing the keys a few times on all corners. However I'm worried that the keyboard won't last as long as to be expected of a laptop.
Yay on the repairability and reliability of these new keyboards.
It's a useless gimmick that removed some major functionality for me (a physical escape key). The touchid is amazing and I wouldn't ever want to go back to a device without it. It's use is a $50 gimmick used for volume and brightness controls which is neato at best and frustrating at worst.
Other than the touchbar the laptop would have been a solid "meh" as well. I actually enjoy USB-C only, and the large trackpad hasn't offended me like I thought it would. I don't really notice a difference though, so I don't know why it needed to be bigger. The keyboard also was a step back, but I'm pretty firmly convinced it's one step in the direction of haptic keyboards for Apple as they continue to remove physical components that break. If this holds true I'll be more forgiving as I see that is interesting tech someone needs to pursue. Battery life can also be an issue, since it's now so tied to workload.
All in all a pretty disappointing extremely overpriced device that was a step back from the previous generation. If I were doing it all over again I would have picked up a 2015 rMBP (the 2012 being amongst the best laptops I've ever owned) and waited a few years to see if Apple gets it's act together again.
I love the Touch Bar. It can be unexpectedly convenient and, once you allow yourself to get used to it, going back to a keyboard without one feels very antiquated actually.
- Changing brightness or volume by swiping in a single motion.
- When you’re typing and get a dialog/alert, tapping on the Touch Bar is much quicker and requires less movement than moving your hand to the trackpad or mouse and clicking on a screen button.
- When typing and having to choose something from a list, like the label for a contact (“Home”, “Work”), it’s again quicker to just tap on the Touch Bar than to move the mouse pointer to open the dropdown box and click on an item onscreen.
- Ability to have more shortcuts with different types of controls (sliders etc.) than you can with Fn keys + modifiers, and labels/icons make it unnecessary to remember which Fn number with which modifier does what.
- Show various status items on the Touch Bar and other customization with BetterTouchTool [2].
The Touch Bar is a replacement of the Fn keys, not the keyboard. It’s a complement to the keyboard and trackpad, not a secondary screen (although you can hack it to use it as one [2]).
[1] https://www.duetdisplay.com
[2] https://www.boastr.net/bettertouchtool-touch-bar-customizati...
For example, it is currently not possible for anyone other than Apple to replace any part of the Touch Bar. And I've not seen a disassembly of the new MacBook which didn't result in damage to the Touch Bar -- requiring it to be replaced.
It's the same for computers. You shouldn't need to fix your computer. It should Just Work throughout its entire service lifetime. Especially if it's as well built as an Apple.
And what if you want it to last beyond its service lifetime?
You can buy specialized equipment (well, not from Apple) and learn expertise. There is a plethora of evidence that the third-party repair community of car mechanics and repair technicians have more expertise in repair products than the original manufacturers. This isn't just about "car guys" this is about being able to go to a repair shop and have your car fixed, and not requiring you to send it back to Tesla for them to fix it. Same thing for computers.
> They're great for everyone else since they need so little repair compared to cars in the past.
But they still need regular servicing. So making it less repairable is counteracting the needs of the market. All car insurance companies require drivers to have their car serviced at a particular cadence. Un-repairable cars (regardless of reliability) could be seen as a public safety hazard and/or an attempt to monopolize an industry that exists because of pre-existing laws.
> You shouldn't need to fix your computer. It should Just Work throughout its entire service lifetime.
You're confusing reliability with repairability. Of course products shouldn't break in their service lifetime, but that has nothing to do with whether it should be possible for someone to repair a product. Products _will_ break regardless of how reliable they are, and trying to side-step that by saying "they break far less these days" is not an answer.
Also, "modern" laptops make it very hard to upgrade components. If you want more memory, buy a whole new computer (RAM is soldered). If you want more storage, buy a whole new computer (SSD is soldered). If you want a newer CPU, buy a whole new computer (CPU is soldered).
Not to mention that Apple is not just applying technical measures to make it hard to repair their products, they're also trying to apply legal restrictions to make it hard to repair their products.
> Especially if it's as well built as an Apple.
Except that's not true. Apple products incredibly frequently break (usually due to thermal stress because they don't have sufficient cooling). For the past 8 years or so, every Macbook Pro version has had recalls because the GPU or nearby components die from thermal stress. The amusing thing is that Apple didn't actually know how to fix the problem, so they would sell refurbished laptops that were sent in for GPU repair that still had faulty components (the third-party repair community figured out that it was caused by Apple using the wrong type of capacitor near the hot GPU).
Oh, and Apple doesn't do data recovery at all. So if you need data recovery, you cannot get it the "official way". And remember that in new Macbooks, the SSD is soldered onto the board -- so you cannot remove it and copy the data off. By trying to create a monopoly on product repair and creating unrepairable products, they've created one of the most anti-consumer devices.
1. http://www.anandtech.com/show/11245/apple-to-redesign-mac-pr...
That’s the only real instance I can think of though!
One minor issue is that it's too easy to bump against the trackpad or touch bar when resting your hands on the keyboard, which is slightly frustrating.
I'm a huge fan of TouchID. It makes using a password manager way easier.
The MacBook Pro already has a headphone jack. To share a different perspective, I'd actually disagree with you on supporting old USB and HDMI. By having 2 USB-C ports on each side you can choose what side you prefer to plug stuff in. Carrying around a dongle isn't a problem for me.
Kept the 2015 version. Am waiting to see what comes next. I don't want a touch bar, and I don't relish getting a half/dozen dongles for all my peripherals.
So I'm an invisible sale they should have had, but didn't.
I don't want a walled garden of software. I don't mind a distinct authorization to run non-app store software (I break it, I own it...), but I want to run it easily. For example, I want an OS will easily let me install and run R and a current Python distribution like Anaconda.
While I want my phone, iPad, and MacBook to play nicely together, I want each to be optimized for a different set of tasks.
My Mac is in the process of dying and I am struggling to commit to buying the lower end non-touch 15" MacBook Pro. I think the feature is stupid because I am a touch typist. I don't want to be hunting for an ever changing soft key. Fortunately I have a back up machine that works okay-ish but I don't like it in the same way as I enjoy working on the Mac.
Would enjoy your input!
Given that Visual Studio, Netbeans/Eclipse, Android Studio work with about 4GB, what would I use all that memory for?!