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damnyou

Every MacBook Pro these days has the glaring issues of

* not having a top row of physical keys

* not being able to run Linux natively

* not integrating with any phones except the ones it makes

Apple just doesn't have the caliber of engineering or management to compete with PC manufacturers.

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These are not glaring issues to most mac buyers, with the possible exception of the touchbar.

Most Mac buyers both want OSX, and use iPhones. If you want Linux, don't buy a Macbook Pro, you'll save a ton of money on features you don't need, and get better hardware support.

What I'm saying is that — while the fact that all PC laptops have glaring issues is true, Macs just have a different set of glaring issues.

Doing my bit to counteract the rampant sycophancy here.

You don’t have to like Macs, but calling everyone else sycophants is out of line.

I love the Touch Bar and the fact that the new Macbooks have a physical escape key should pretty much silence any devs that were screaming about losing one.

I hate the lack of function keys. I hate the lack of touch typing support. It's a huge, glaring issue.

Unfortunately for you, you're in the minority. The Touch Bar is infinitely more useful than unlabelled function keys.

All laptop keyboards are awful, and they encourage horrible posture. If you’re going to do extended typing in a fixed position, get an external keyboard monitor. The laptop keyboard should be for short term, mobile use only.

Buy the i5 air, it's a great little dev machine if you have access to some remote horsepower.

>not having a top row of physical keys

They instead get an adaptable keybed, that can be used as sliders, piano keys, timeline managers, and other controls, plus a fast and secure fingerprint sensor (PC ones are laughable), and a physical escape key again.

>not being able to run Linux natively

On exchange they get stronger security from the T2 controller handgling they keyboard, etc. Besides, most dodn't buy Macbooks to run Linux on them (though Linus used to love them for that purpose).

That said, if they're willing to turn it off, there's ongoing work from the Linux side to let it boot, talk to the SSD, keyboard, etc.

>not integrating with any phones except the ones it makes

I'm pretty sure it integrates just fine with my Android phone. Do you know something I don't know?

I downvoted you before you added your second and third bullet points, because you were taking a cheap shot. Even with the additional points, you're comparing apples to oranges.

Apple chose to remove physical function keys. No other manufacturer has previously had a smooth trackpad and chosen to remove it.

I genuinely don’t get what the big deal about function keys are. I never used them heavily, even on external keyboards. I actually transitioned to external keyboards that don’t have them, to save space.

The only key that’s useful on that top row is escape, IMHO. They should make that a key. Everything else is low utility.

"Everything else is low utility." - says who? I can't imagine working without function keys.

Says me. This is a personal observation about how I use my keyboards.

"Low" is the right idea for me.

When I buy (or build) a kb, I have the expectation to be able to tell it how to operate; that's why I needed it, after all. I find it tedious to remap lots of keybindings (was super+... global? shit.) when I can simply assign 24-48 non-conflicting commands to function keys.

Some map to scripts, others to specific actions in the tools I use, some are used to turn on cameras, switch users, chance resolutions, pull all logs, push commands to restart devices in VMs or bring up or take down containers, start or stop services, reset PCI or storage devices, or semi-automate git. It's really whatever I want to press a button and make happen. It was much worse when I first got clever with udev and dbus years and years ago.

I've always hated clicking and menu-hunting. If I know what I want to do, I don't want to wade through someone else's idea of UX to get to it.

Abjure the cruft. Embrace Function.

> I have the expectation to be able to tell it how to operate

This isn’t a reasonable expectation! Use the product as it’s designed! Work with it not against it!

> I find it tedious to remap lots of keybindings

Well don’t do this then. Why make things so complicated and custom?

I mean, you can add your own things to the Touch Bar for such tasks, but you’re already pushing the limits of any laptop keyboard. At that point you’re better off using something with programmable firmware, not the built in.

Maybe your particular development environment(s) don't use function keys, but I find function keys indispensable when debugging. Most debuggers I use have the function keys mapped for step-over, step-out, and step-into.

The editors and IDEs I use also generally use the function keys for code-search, goto-defintion, and symbol-rename.

For me (and I suspect many others), the lack of tactile function keys is a productivity hit.

My two development environments have been Emacs and IntelliJ. The latter does depend on function keys for the actions you’re describing, but I’ve found it utterly impossible to memorize them. There’s no mnemonic available for F keys; so remember which is step over and which is step in just does not stick. I ended up rebinding those long before the touchbar arrived.

This is also why I miss my f keys.

Yes, and it's a glaring issue with management that they "chose" to do that. New shiny thing that compromises on fundamentals like touch typing support.

None of these things even remotely matter to me. They aren't issues when I'm looking at what to buy.

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