Apple Rumors Point to 31.6-inch 6K Display, All-New 16-inch MacBook Pro for 2019 | Hacker News Reader

Apple Rumors Point to 31.6-inch 6K Display, All-New 16-inch MacBook Pro for 2019

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50 pointsrbanffy75 comments

I work in the live events industry, and like many of my colleagues I use my old 15" Pro every day, often in some pretty wildly varying conditions. Within the past few months I've used it on beaches, in underground tunnels, and in the roof of dusty old church. I take it to client meetings to talk about graphic design work, it's running presentations when people forget their own, it's with me underneath outdoor festival stages configuring show-control networks. It's simultaneously standardised enough that I never have to worry about device drivers when an artist needs to replace their own on stage at the last minute, but with enough flexibility to make it an enjoyable programming experience in my spare time.

It's over five years old now, and starting to feel the strain, but I'll get a few years out of it yet. Some colleagues deeply regret "upgrading" to the newer MBPs. The keyboard and the constant dongle switching are the main bugbears, but there's other build quality issues as well.

Either Apple gets it right with this revision, or ours is one industry that will inevitably move to other machines. There's not that many of us, but Apples dominance of the creative industries has been a huge part of it's marketing appeal to a more general audience. It'll be interesting to see if they'll regret alienating it down the line.

An improved MBP would be great, but they've lost me. Those ridiculous keyboards (butterfly keys, touchbar), the general falloff in quality, and the insane prices sent me searching elsewhere. My main machine is now a System76 Darter. $2100 buys an 8-core i7, 32GB, 1TB SSD, running Pop OS (a very good-looking variant of Ubuntu). The hardware is not quite as stunning as a Mac, but it's nice, and the keyboard is excellent.

How's the trackpad compared to the Mac's? I don't need force touch. Just smooth precise scrolling. The trackpad is actually one of my top considerations when buying a laptop because I rarely use a mouse any more.

I think it's very good. It feels very slightly less glassy than the MBP.

Actually, I first bought a Galago, just before the Darter came out. They have a 30-day return policy, and the Darter was a better match for what I was looking for, so I traded. In a progression of "glassiness", I would put the Darter between the Galago and the MBP.

I've yet to find a monitor that "just works" with my MBP. I'll take whatever they release.

My LG is nice, but often gets confused about when my laptop is plugged in. Both of my Dells are ok, but randomly lose signal and can't control the volume from the Apple keyboard or from the OS. It would also be nice to not need a docking station and or adapter anymore.

My LG Ultrafine 4K works splendidly.

This is something I cannot stand. I have two external monitors, and each time it wakes from display sleep they switch around - so the desktops are reversed. It's infuriating. I have tried and tried to find a solution but so far have nothing.

I had the same, though after three days I just gave up and physically switched the monitors. It shouldn't be necessary, but at least I don't have to deal with it anymore.

The problem is they always switch around between each other so I'm not sure that would solve the problem.

+1 most annoying thing. There is a workaround. Create a new desktop on one of the display, this will then give you options to move app around when you right click on the app icon. Still pretty bad but it beats moving around windows manually.

This is what I'm doing at the moment, but dragging around 2-3 desktops every time I wake my laptop is an extremely draining experience.

IIRC this happens because some monitor companies are cheap/lazy and assign the same EDID to all monitors of a particular model (EDIDs are supposed to be unique), making it difficult for operating systems to distinguish between them.

This does not appear to be the case, the serial numbers reported in System Information are different.

Are you all using TB3 monitors? My experience with an eGPU using TB3 has been that TB is an awkward technology in any operating system so far, I have to routinely power down in specific order all the way to disconnecting from the wall to ensure the device is detached correctly and will attach correctly next time.

Not for the monitor, but for the dock that's connected to all the monitors (belkin thing)

physically swap the two monitors?

I've found since Mojave it is unreliable whether my screen will wake up

unplugging and re-plugging the mDP cable doesn't help, I have to reboot the laptop to get the screen to turn on (Dell U2415)

Same here with my LG 27UD68P-B. Endlessly annoying. Wakes up probably around ~70% of the time.

The 27” Dell I have at work won’t see my Mac’s signal if I install an update and reboot or boot up from cold shutdown — I have to physically unplug the monitor from power and then replug it and then it’ll pick up the signal. Feels like a monitor firmware issue.

I'm using an LG 4k and while I have no idea what model yours is I had an interesting revelation that made the coexistence of my monitor with my MBP more palatable. I turned off the "Buzzer" setting (it's more of a beep) and now that I am not being confused by the beep I feel perfectly satisfied with the monitor and the laptop recognizing one another. Nothing changed except my perception but I think that beep was just noise (in the sense of irrelevant information) and I have since developed a sense for the time that it takes for my monitor to wake up and take the display off of sleep mode after I press a key.

All I wanted was to stick the laptop under my desk and run a keyboard, a mouse, two monitors, speakers and an external hard drive off of a single USB-C port and that one small change to silence the monitor's "wake-up beep" made a huge difference in the experience.

I’ve got an old (as in, no Thunderbolt) 27” Cinema Display that just keeps chugging away. It won’t do 4K or anything, and won’t be much good for modern Macs, but it has without fail worked as expected. Oh, and it makes a great docking, station, too, for period Macs. I want one of those again, only bigger and moar pixels.

Have you tried the Ultrafine displays? I use the Ultrafine 4k with my 13" tbMBP and it is pretty streamlined. Even features like True Tone work. Volume control and Brightness control is controlled by MacOS itself natively. Also works as a dock for my keyboard, mouse, webcam etc and charges my Mac. One cable is all I need.

The fix for me was to use DisplayPort, if HDMI was in the mix it would have the reliability of a 90s monitor.

I really don't care about USB-A port. USB-C is the future, and all my cable connect natively to USB-C now. The only thing I have is a 10€ dongle for my screen.

The 16.5" screen I would have never seen coming. I wonder what the target is or if they are just going edge to edge on a smilar size to what we have now in the 15

The 6K screen I predicted. It's the most data you can send over ThunderBolt 3. It does however, gimp any dock you could be able to use.

Now, will other manufacturers be quick to copy the 16" laptop?

You already have the Asus StudioBook: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/1/7/18171395/as... , though it’s not a retina screen

Also the LG gram: https://www.lg.com/us/laptops/lg-17Z990-RAAS8U1-ultra-slim-l...

Oh wow...and they said 16:10 was dead! What a surprise to behold for all 10 of us that prefer it over 16:9.

I bet the 16.5" is from maximizing the screen size while keeping the same form factor

Finger's crossed for Magic Keyboard-style keys and no butterfly nonsense.

Fingers crossed but don't bet on it

Our best case scenario is such a laptop came out with an optional touch bar, but really Cook's probably shaking his head laughing while the only thing they're working on is quadrupling their bet on MRR from services people are going to use for decades.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/22/explosive-apple-s...

Excited for the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Hopefully they will bump the pixel density and keep the 15” footprint by just using the black bezels around the screen. It’s kind of a shame that’s the current 15” doesn’t have a pixel density high enought to support 1:4 pixel matching in their default resolution. It results in blurry text.

This. Would expect a similar bump where the 13” mbp fills its bezels to be more like a 14”, products like the matebook seemingly do this.

Just need to add a notch for the Webcam

Don't give them ideas, please!

I think it's a great idea. There's dead space between the menu bar and the icon area. Why not use it for the webcam and shrink that top bezel?

Full screen apps?

I'm on one of my Macs pretty much every day

Only thing I ever fullscreen is Netflix/Hulu/etc

can't imagine a miniscule dark spot at the top of the image bothering me

Working keyboard would be sweet

At CES, "Samsung Unveil[ed a] 15.6-Inch Ultra-HD OLED Display for Laptops," https://www.anandtech.com/show/13896/samsung-unveils-15-6-in.... I wonder if Apple is going to round 15.6 inches up and call it 16".

> I wonder if Apple is going to round 15.6 inches up and call it 16".

The current MacBook Pros are 15.4” and 13.3”.

11.6" MacBook Air was called MacBook Air 11, so I doubt that.

I don't see Macs going to OLED for a long time. OLED is very hard to control burn in for system with static GUI elements. All brands pulled their OLED laptops last year (2017 OLED laptops went back to LCD in 2018) and they just restarted their efforts this year. Macs don't even have touch screens.

The last two claims of the article are deceptive in my opinion. Starting Apple "could" fix the flex cable, and has "addressed" the keyboard issue. Apple technically "could" , but will they? Also even though they have addressed the keyboard problem, they have not actually fixed it yet.

Sweet. Sounds like a $200 monitor cable is in our future.

can someone do e-ink 24" monitor

Eink looks great, but the refresh rate puts it out of the useful zone for a main display. People want more than 60hz and I don't think Eink can do 6

It would be ok for the code editor if you primarily reading

Would be a really niche monitor

could be priced accordingly

Scrolling is also horrible, as would be quickly switching between different files.

I want my ports back.

I want the same ports on the iphone as on the macbook.

No one cares about the damn touch bar. No one cares to have another few tenths of a mm shaved off the thickness.

I can plug in my Galaxy S8 to the MBP via the... power cable(male-male USB-C), but can't do the same with my SO's iPhone SE.

My phone came with a USB to USB-C adapter so now I can plug in the mouse as well.

Yup, I have a by-now pretty trashed-up Pixel One, and when I travel I only need to take my mac power adapter and a couple of USB-C cables (although one is fine for short trips). Everything connects to everything seamlessly and charges rapidly.

I'm living the one-port-to-rule-them-all dream with my ancient Google phone, and I find it weird that even current-gen iPhones still required a weird proprietary Lightning cable.

> No one cares to have another few tenths of a mm shaved off the thickness.

Apple's marketing department cares.

And why do you think they care? I bet they've done a lot of extremely careful market analysis and are pretty certain it's an important factor for consumers.

> No one cares to have another few tenths of a mm shaved off the thickness

I do. (To be fair, it's why I use a MacBook Air.)

Apple's R&D department also does. Miniaturization is still a trend. By pushing the envelope on the iPhone they were well positioned for watches.

Did you skip latest iPhones because previous generations are thinner?

That's a good example though: they should have the Air focus on thinness and portability. But have the Pro focus on a workstation-like setup.

Very true. They should have pushed the limits of portability with the Air and then moved the Pro in the other direction in terms of speed and versatility. I don't even understand what the MacBook (not Air, not Pro) does in the middle.

One of the three is bound to disappear from their product lineup soon, right?

What about people who want a workstation-like setup and also portability?

The technology is there to allow us to have both without too much compromise either way. That's great!

Yes, there are a minority of people who want to fully optimise for one at the expense of the other, but Apple are serving the majority of the market, and the majority of market wants both in one machine, compromises included.

>The technology is there to allow us to have both without too much compromise either way. That's great!

Except it's not there, there are compromises, mainly around durability and repair costs. In my experience modern macs laptops are more fragile than older ones and cost a lot of money to fix when they break. Sometimes they break due to design compromises and even more design compromises up the repair cost through the roof (see complaints about the display cable for an example).

> there are compromises, mainly around durability and repair costs.

Apple has proven that they will trade repair cost & repair-ability away for anything. Even nothing.

I don’t! I love the new form factor, the new keyboard, and I don’t need ports I use once a month, if ever, to create clutter on my machine. Those few MMs are huge savings. I love the new style pro. Looking forward to a bigger model and especially LOWER PRICES, which they’ll hopefully do. The prices are a bit outrageous and dont signal an intent to movie inventory, which hopefully now will change that the iPhone is stumbling. Though, maybe not, since the iPhone may recover.

Is there any particular reason you use a Pro as opposed to an Air?

Much more power. I used an Air, on principle, for way too long. A very old Air at that. It was stupid of me. I got a beefy late-2015 MPB, the last model with the ports, and it was life changing. I then tried a 2016 (I think) new style MBP and it was even better. It was as light as my old air, but with the MBP specs. Liked it, but it was just a loaner so I had to return it.

I don't need it thinner but I do need it lighter. LG makes a 17" that weighs 2.95bs. Their 15" weighs 2.4lbs and their 13.1 inch at 2.1lbs. Those effectively put Apple's Macbook/Macbook Air/Macbook Pro lines to shame. Of course I don't personally want to run Windows but damit Apple used to gloat at how light their laptops were. They are no longer competitively light.

To be fair, I have both 2018 MBP 15 (work) and 2015 MBP (home), I notice the weight of the 2015 a lot. Performance has been relatively the same - hasn't been mind blowing if I'm honest.

I really do hate the new keyboard to the point where I simply don't do any dev work until I plug in my dongle with my screen/keyboard. It's really that bad. The touch bar has been useless as well and more of an announce sometimes, especially when it would freeze randomly.

Yeah, i was eying the Lenovo Yoga s940 but it has 3x USB C vs the 2X USBC and a USB A in the older c930. Might just get the older one because of that.

But does it have a USB port?

If the 16 is like the 15, then it will have 4 USB-C ports.

All Apple laptops come with multiple standard USB ports.

I think you must mean USB-C ports. There are no standard USB-A ports on the MacBook Pro any longer. https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/

But USB C ports are standard USB ports. They’re not some proprietary thing. They’re standard USB.

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