I'll believe it when they produce a MacBook Pro that developers love again or a Mac Pro that (not yet independently wealthy) developers can afford again.
I was worried a bit about the keyboard but the latest generation seems to have a little more travel and Apple is backing it for four years. I mostly use it with a full size keyboard so the lack of ESC key is nuisance I can live with. Price is an issue but considering that I upgrade only every 4-6 years and value the smooth operation of the setup I'm ok with it - even if should be 20% less imho. I worry however about accessibility of Macs for people who can't afford to spend so much. Last year Apple PC sales shrunk by 3.8% which is o.k. as the market shrunk by 4.3 but is abysmal considering how superior their product is.
As far as a laptop? I'm not spending my own money on a development class laptop. I hate developing with just a laptop. I have a dual external monitor setup at home and at work. My next personal computer will definitely be a desktop. You still get more power and more thermal headroom on desktops than more expensive laptops.
As to what Apple could do with the hardware, the 2019 MBP outperforms 2018 MBPs in real world benchmarks due to its better cooling and some under the hood stuff in Mojave that is unclear. There was a good review posted today on Linus Tech Tips.
- Great touchpad (Apple are the only ones ticking that box)
- Good keyboard (Old apple and thinkpads are fine. New apples are terrible, just like the Asus UX430 I got at work).
- Great thermals (I want to be able to use my laptop as a laptop. Most of them nowadays burn during summer in hot areas).
- Good battery life (replaceable without power tools / health risks).
- Good-enough screen (so I can use it outdoors)
- Good connectivity (USB-C is good, but a couple regular USBs wouldn't hurt). Ethernet without dongle, please?
- Repairable / expandable (no soldered shit please, easy to open and clean).
- Affordable (as in <1500€)
- Either MacOS or Linux support (sorry but I quit Windows a long long time ago and I'm not coming back with all the telemetry and forced-update stuff).
I couldn't care less for 20% more/less cpu power, it being 5mm thicker than most laptops today, or it weighting even an extra pound more than usual.
That said, given the dearth of good options out there right now, I just replaced an old MacBook Air with a Surface Book 2, and with a few exceptions, I couldn't be happier right now:
1. This touchpad is just as good as pre-Force Touch ones from Apple. No joke. (If you must have the super-size ones with the Force Touch feedback instead of the "spring-board" style real button click, sorry...nobody else has that. But the non-Force Touch ones were "best in class" before, and that wasn't very long ago...)
2. The keyboard is easily the best laptop keyboard I have ever used. And that's coming from someone who used ThinkPads (I had the 770, the T42p, and the T60p) before switching to MacBooks, and who uses a Model M daily while at my desk. :-P
3. I have the base-model Surface Book. It's only a dual-core i5. But, again, I'm fine with that. The CPU is also housed in the screen, since the screen is made to be detachable from the keyboard. And since I have the base-model, I don't have the dGPU in my keyboard base either. So the base of the laptop stays cool while I use it on my lap. Oh...did I mention that the entire device (both keyboard base and screen) on the non-dGPU model is fanless? So no moving parts in the entire thing, noise-free, and isn't constantly sucking dust from the surrounding environment into itself.
4. There is a battery in both the screen and the keyboard base. Combined, I get amazing battery life, easily 8 hours or more depending. (I use it in laptop-mode 90% of the time.)
5. Screen on this is fantastic. Higher DPI than my 15" Retina MacBook Pro from 2012, way brighter, and the backlighting is more even. (I have the Samsung LCD on my 2012 rMBP...the model that never developed "image retention". I think the SB2 panel is made by Panasonic.)
6. It's got 2 USB-A, 1 USB-C (sadly no Thunderbolt, but it can handle DisplayPort), and a full-size SD.
7. Repairability is one area where it really falls flat, and in even bigger ways than the past MacBooks I own. :-( This thing I think got a repairability index of 1 (out of 10) from iFixIt. It's a sealed box for all intents and purposes. What really pisses me off, though, is that the SSD is not soldered onto the mainboard (it's a standard M.2 module), but there is absolutely no way of accessing it without basically destroying the computer in the process. If there was ONE area where I wish Microsoft had NOT taken any cues from Apple...gah, don't get me started. (And even then, at least with pre-2016 MacBook Pros, you could take the bottom cover off and get at the storage module in an emergency.)
8. The particular model I purchased ranges from $1,100 - 1,500 USD depending (list price is 1,500 but it's usually on sale). Don't know how that translates to your specific market.
9. I have not tried to use "desktop" Linux on it. I have booted SystemRescueCD off of a USB flash drive, though, in order to make a bit-for-bit image of my current Windows installation, and that worked fine (though to be fair I never bothered to start up X11). My understanding is that a lot of the hardware is supported even on current models; you can check out https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/7kazwp/curren... for more details.
Anyway, just FYI.
Unfortunately, the surface book base model is now on sale for 1499€ here (with a pen for "free"). With only 8Gb RAM, 256Gb HDD and 0 upgradability it'll be a pass from me. It is good to know that PC's are starting to get good trackpads though!
I am also ashamed of Slack and how they dont even take advantage of Electron to add things that Chromium supports, might as well convert it to a native app and make it worthwhile. I feel like Slack could do so much more and yet it sits there nothing new or special. Theres plenty that could be improved for Slack. I could share a dozen ideas but I rather see them get off their own lazy butts and give everybody their moneys worth.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/imac-2019-27-inch
I refuse to use Slack or Outlook on my computer. I keep them both running on my phone.
I wish I could buy 3rd party RAM for a MacBook Pro unless they finally stopped soldering on the RAM recently, then I would love to buy a new MBP with my own cash if I can get a normal keyboard.
You would probably only save up to $200 on third party memory. Which is not nothing but if you get a 15 inch you’re already talking about $2400
On the other hand, the price delta between Apple prices for the 16GB -> 32GB upgrade is about $250 more for the 15 inch than you could get from a third party if that were an option but you’re already spending at least $2400 on a 15 inch MacBook Pro.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m arguing hypothetically. I’m not spending my own money for an expensive laptop. I don’t need portability for my personal computer. I need portability for my work computer and a job will give you a work computer - and hopefully one that is beefy enough to do what you need.
My personal development computer will always be a desktop. You get more bang for your buck and I hate developing on just a laptop without external peripherals anyway. I’ve never been interested in Apple laptops enough to spend my own money over just getting a much cheaper mid range Dell when I needed the portability.
Three pycharm instances (=yay microservices) 9 docker containers (=hyperkit =vm =yay for microservices with dependencies)
Slack, ms teams, no outlook though.
It all runs smooth. The thing which makes my workflow slow is the switching between code of and keeping shared code in sync of those goddamn microservices.
I was surprised Firefox tells me Jira uses half a gig of RAM and its not even a proper SPA. I hope they optimize their frontend to be less memory hungry.
It runs smooth till I need 3 of my own services plus 8 plus vendor services running then the 16GB MBP runs out of RAM.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/external-vs-internal-ss...
This is another case with macs where the situation 8 years ago was much better since they used to have target display mode. From what I understand, they killed it because they needed to use a custom format to drive the 5k screen initially. Now regular DisplayPort 1.3 and 1.4 have enough bandwidth for it but there’s been no mention of bringing the feature back.
Only if the external expansion bus is as fast as PCIE3.
It is soul crushingly inconvenient and annoying when the keyboard breaks and you have to have it replaced.
I’ve had mine replaced twice so far both times under warranty. Because Apple provides the extended 4-year warranty for free on the keyboard it is no longer a financial risk to own the computer, only an inconvenience if it breaks again.
On the plus-side, because the whole computer is glued together I got a fresh new battery installed every time they replaced the keyboard.
Neither of us have any issues with the keyboard other than the clearly above average failure rates and the hassle of getting it repaired. My 15" has not exhibited any issues at all, the slightly older 13" has started to develop some stickiness with the arrow keys.
Obviously there are issues with this keyboard and I eagerly await a redesign on it (as well as haptic feedback on the touchbar and making the touchbar option across all models).
On the whole I'm quite happy with the extended warranty as it essentially amounts to free AppleCare+, and given their insistence on making the overall device unserviceable it also amounts to a deductible free midlife battery replacement.
It's an elegant solution to the whole fiasco in my mind-- the cost of servicing all these keyboards has to be painful beyond normal for them given that ridiculous design, magnified further by the fact that end users should have no problems encouraging the keyboard to fail if/when they want a scratch free case or 0 cycle battery. To say nothing of how it undermines the value of AppleCare as a service, both because you can get nearly the same thing for free, and the existence of the keyboard program is straining their staff resources on repairs, which are otherwise almost exclusively devoted to AppleCare customers.
However, the touchbar...still a pointless gimick.
Because it has a large, accurate trackpad with multitasking gestures, I’ve all but abandoned my combo of Kenesis Advantage and Logitech Pro MX - it feels more efficient to move my hand less.
If you just want a really powerful desktop computer for dev work - get a souped up Mac Mini If you want it with a nice screen - get an iMac Pro If you're a video professional - get a Mac Pro
The Macbook Pro keyboard situation is a garbage fire, though I will say that I'm quite happy with my 2016 keyboard after it got replaced for free through the program.
I want 16 core CPU (probably Threadripper, as Intel is unable to produce anything competitive recently) with Nvidia 2080 Ti or better GPU, and 32GB ECC memory for $2k.