Comment by fluffything | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fluffything | Hacker News Reader

I also still have the same MacBook air as the author and have been wanting to upgrade for... 2 years or so.

Not only the Webcam is a downgrade. You also loose Magsafe. Not a big loss, but a downgrade none the less.

> The touchbar. [...] Regular users probably find it useful and cute.

No they don't. My GF bought herself a new Macbook because... she has an iPhone and thought "For what I use the computer, any computer suffices". She just needs a laptop for browsing the web and replying to emails, and got a 2k$ machine for it...

Anyways, it turns out she is super annoyed at the Touchbar because it registers accidental presses when she press a number key... so her windows will just scramble around in the middle of a sentence, and she hates that.

I'm trying to convince her to sell it used, take a couple of hundred dollars price hit, and buy something that would make her happier. For her needs, literally any laptop would do.

Any laptop but Apple's. I also thought that the Touchbar was only a "show" gimmick to get non-pro users buy pro laptops, but for users that can't figure out how to turn it off, its something that makes them regret buying an Apple product, which at least with my GF, its a first.

I'm either in the minority of people who aren't going to miss MagSafe, or there's a minority of people supporting it who happen to be particularly vocal. Here's why I think USB-C is an upgrade to MagSafe:

1. Apple doesn't do cables well; they've always been bad at it. I'm on my third Macbook Pro power cable in 6 years (and this one is now fraying too). Their attempt at strain relief is a good case study of form over function and the plastic along the entire length of the cable seems to deteriorate/yellow/become gummy/separate over time as well. The cynic in me makes me think that Apple is purposely making these a disposable wear part so that you have to keep buying replacements, and man are those replacements expensive because the part that frays the most (right near the MagSafe connector) is attached to the entire power brick! So now you're looking at a $79 replacement part!! Contrast with a good USB-C cable, which is superior in almost every way: It lasts longer, has better strain relief, is sturdier and won't come apart with age, and most importantly, it's not attached to the power brick itself so a replacement is much cheaper.

2. USB-C is way more useful and can do a lot more than just charge your computer. My phone is USB-C so when I travel with a laptop and a phone I can either bring just a single charger, or bring two and have a backup in case I lose one. MagSafe simply doesn't do anything else, but USB-C does a lot else.

So yeah, I'm not sad to see MagSafe go. All these other complaints I agree with in spades, but not this particular one.

I just had to send my macbook into repair and get a full logicboard replacement, because the USB-C cable fried my mac. So much for an upgrade that costs almost 1k in repair. I hope you have high quality USB-C cables everywhere.

Conversely, I know someone who fried their Macbook by using a counterfeit MagSafe charging cable. The charging cable was sold through Amazon (!!) and claimed to be genuine, but it was not.

So the advice to use only good cables is universal. With USB-C at least you can get a good cable for a lot less than $79.

Maybe I am dumb and stupid, but I actually like the Touch Bar... ESC key is a bit annoying but I don't mind it that much.

I was sceptical about the Touchbar at first, but then when I got my hand on it to test and really do some actual work, the usefulness of the contextual actions really grew on me. Then it dawned that I would only be using the Touchbar half of the time, since the other half I have my Macbook "docked" and am using an external keyboard. So I can probably never adapt the Touchbar into an daily workflow. Unless Apple releases an external keyboard with Touchbar, I wouldn't mind the cable, but the price will probably be a no-go.

In the keyboard settings on Mac they make it easy to re-map Caps Lock to Esc.

Pixelbook go is absolutely perfect for people like this https://www.google.com/chromebook/device/google-pixelbook-go....

Good Keyboard, good Screen, Fast and good battery life.

I have the ‘17 MacbookPro and detest the touchbar, especially for programming since I use the ESC key quite a bit. Changing the volume is a ridiculous 2-step process, and I never use any of the dynamic shortcut buttons. The butterfly keyboard is also obnoxious. I’d gladly forgo the gimmicks in exchange for more RAM or other hardware upgrades.

Can she disable the touchbar?

I've offered to help, but she doesn't want to mess with configuration. I've posted in other threads how she "fixed" it.

She actually bought one of those keyboard covers, cut off the touchbar part, and fixed it with tape.

She literally has a crappy piece of plastic on top of her keyboard that physically prevents here from accidentally touching the touchbar. A 10 dollar hack on a 2k$ machine.

I don't think she will buy an expensive Apple product, ever.

Agreed, it's terrible that that's required. At least it works for now, hopefully she can sell it and buy something much cheaper.

I have a Thinkpad Yoga 3rd gen with Linux that she loves, so she'll probably migrate to that.

I use my old macbook air 90% of the time, and the yoga so 10% of the time. So at least she gets to use it every now and then.

does it close properly and not damage the screen?

yes it does, she never removes it

The problem with disabling the Touch Bar is that it becomes difficult to adjust volume, brightness, and other things that were once easily accessible and addressable by muscle memory. Personally, I have encouraged those affected to return these machines and email Tim Cook (Apple) to let them know they refuse to pay extra money for something that makes the computer harder to use.

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