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Apple October Event [video]

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I can't believe they're doubling down on the notch. The absolute best thing I can say about the iPhone notch is: I don't hate it enough to switch to Android. It's by far the thing that bothers me the most about the design. It's ugly and lacking harmony with the UI.

It's a much better compromise than the pop-up selfie cameras that were a fad for a sec, but then died because of the extra compromises needed for water resistance, battery, extra motor, etc.

There are under-display cameras these days.

https://www.smartprix.com/bytes/under-display-camera-phones/

And reviews say they're terrible.

Of all tech giants, I expect Apple to improve the status quo the most. They are really good at it.

The pop-up cameras proved reliable and I used a OnePlus 7 Pro for two years, and found it adequately water resistant (good enough for me to give it a rinse in the sink every now and then).

The internal space that the module occupied was the only real disadvantage of the pop-up camera, restricting the space available for the battery. Although I didn't have any complaints about the battery life of this phone.

Not to mention that I, for example, have the top bar automatically hidden on my mac. Meaning, if I ever decided to buy one of these, I'd have to have it always shown, or I won't be able to click on some of my browser tabs?

How does full screen mode work with this, I wonder?

I would imagine that it letterboxes the display for any apps that don't support the extended display.

Hopefully they will stop the mouse at the letterbox border, otherwise it would be terrible UX.

I would imagine that this would be determined on an application level. Some apps may want a fullscreen version that has controls at the top.

I think I stopped "seeing" the notch a few days after upgrading to a model with one. It is not "there" for me cognitively.

I imagine the same will be true with a notched laptop display, especially if it is "hiding" in the menu bar.

But I am also surprised it's so big, I wonder if once you commit to notching there is a minimum width that becomes harder to mask perceptually...

I don't understand why you'd have an issue with it? The screen area cuts into the previous gen's bezel so, at worst, you'd just black out the top of the screen to have the exact same screen size as before and, at best, you can use the extra display for things like the menu bar. What's the issue?

If you don't "get it" just by looking at it, then good for you. There are no technical arguments to make me "unsee" it. It's ugly. It displeases my sense of aesthetics. It's the Hitler mustache of industrial design.

>It displeases my sense of aesthetics.

Or lack thereof.

No, you!

Seriously, look at the promo images that Apple created for this product:

https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/

The vast majority of these images hide the notch by not showing the menu bar at all, which is not how a Mac is generally used. The other images make it less noticable by putting it over a dark background. Does that convey confidence in the design, by the designers that were tasked to make it look good?

The best thing you can say is: It's not that noticeable under certain conditions.

The notch reminds me of Macron: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DO0bQ83UMAAUabp.jpg:large

It’s not only a joke, it’s also that once you see it, you understand that the aesthetics of a notch aren’t based in sleek features, but in function-over-form.

Or, you know, under nearly every normal use case, it will just blend into the display. It causes no issues on the iPhones and looks just fine for what it is and, aesthetically, I'd prefer to have the slight bit of extra screen space for status icons and menus as opposed to a larger bevel. I don't see you proposing any better, more aesthetically pleasing solution, only complaining.

> I don't see you proposing any better, more aesthetically pleasing solution, only complaining.

How about not having a notch, like literally every other Apple (and non-Apple) laptop? Is that even conceivable?

If you think a useless bar of metal at the top of your screen instead of useful display area is attractive then sure.

Then where would you put the camera and the sensors that are in there? If you don't have the notch, you have to increase the size of the bezel. Since the notch lives in the empty area of the menu bar, it's a better solution than a bezel and gives more screen real estate in the same form factor.

Edit: 'Notch' not 'not'

Yes, have a slightly larger Bezel instead of a huge unappealing notch. Did I mention how much I do not like the notch? Look in any of the comments sections of this new product, how many people are commenting on how this notch is off-putting? Does it seem like a worthy tradeoff? I do not think so.

Literally everyone, besides you, in this HN thread is commenting on how it's a good solution and gives more screen real estate while maintaining the aspect ratio. The only people complaining about it, including you, haven't really specified what about it is unappealing.

My comment is the most up-voted comment. Multiple people complain about the notch in this thread. There's no point in explaining why it looks bad, because if you don't see it, no explanation will make you see it. You are immune to it. Good for you. I'm not saying you should find it ugly.

> How about not having a notch, like literally every other Apple (and non-Apple) laptop? Is that even conceivable?

So literally the least functional and useful of all possible options?

The notch isn't subtractive from previous generations' screen space. The bezel was removed except for the area where the notch is, adding a menu bar's worth of screen space. And the center of that menu bar is virtually always empty space. Your proposal is to add extra bezels back and subtract away a menu bar's worth of vertical space, just to remove a small protrusion that you won't even notice half a week into using the device.

“The design is not just what it looks like and feels like. The design is how it works.”

Let me tell you how this design is dysfunctional: It puts a piece of hardware that many people don't even use regularly in a very prominent place, in a way that many people find disturbing and unappealing. The UI needs to accommodate for this ("looks great in dark mode") to lessen the impact. The best thing you can say about it is "it's not that noticable" and "you'll get used to it".

There's another foolproof way to tell that the notch (on the iPhone) is a bad design: Nobody is copying it.

Maybe everyone has stopped copying the notch (I’m honestly not sure), but numerous manufacturers were copying it soonafter the iPhone X release. See: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/2/28/17062030/i...

Edit, to finish the thought: so it remains to be seen if other manufacturers will follow-suit this time.

> It puts a piece of hardware that many people don't even use regularly in a very prominent place…

Perhaps you’ve heard of this “pandemic” thing where an absurd number of professionals are working remotely and participating in virtual meetings?

> …in a way that many people find disturbing and unappealing.

But that the clearly overwhelming majority—if the iPhone is any evidence—simply do not notice enough to care about. iPhones with the notch have continued to sell in record-setting numbers, despite your own personal sensibilities.

> The best thing you can say about it is "it's not that noticable" and "you'll get used to it".

The best thing I can say about it is that it’s a phenomenally well-executed compromise that leaves a frequently-needed piece of hardware in an ideal place while reducing useless bezels, adding screen real estate, and cleverly occupying an area of the screen that is almost certainly the most underutilized in all of macOS. Compared to the alternatives (a thicker bezel with lost screen real-estate, a thicker lid with a worse-quality camera, or a camera placed elsewhere) it is quite literally the optimal technical choice.

That it’s aesthetically unpleasant to some people is actually the worst thing you can say about it, and if it’s anything like the one on my phone, I literally won’t notice it unless someone is actively pointing it out.

> There's another foolproof way to tell that the notch (on the iPhone) is a bad design: Nobody is copying it.

You are one quick Google search away from enlightenment, friend.

> Perhaps you’ve heard of this “pandemic” thing where an absurd number of professionals are working remotely and participating in virtual meetings?

Perhaps, but having cameras on during a teleconference is counter-productive.

> But that the clearly overwhelming majority—if the iPhone is any evidence—simply do not notice enough to care about. iPhones with the notch have continued to sell in record-setting numbers, despite your own personal sensibilities.

I use an iPhone. I hate the notch. It doesn't bother me enough to switch platforms after a decade of iPhone usage, or getting an outdated iPhone, but it does bother me. With every new iPhone release, people like me are awaiting the end of the notch. Apple doubling down on this nonsense tells me: The notch is here to stay. They're trying to turn a flaw into brand identity. It's working, at least on people like you.

> The best thing I can say about it is that it’s a phenomenally well-executed compromise...

The reality distortion field at work. They could have made the notch massively smaller. They didn't because that notch is part of the brand. They could have just shrunk the bezel a tiny bit less to accomodate for a camera. They didn't, because again, they'd rather make it about the brand. The screen real estate argument is bogus. If that screen estate made a difference, they could've made the thing just a tiny bit larger.

> You are one quick Google search away from enlightenment, friend.

I'm not saying nobody ever copied it. I'm saying nobody is (still) copying it. It has been tested on the market, and the market said: No. Nobody wants a notch.

What's the other option? Under the screen has image quality issues. A thicker bezel means less screen space. Sticking up over the display is a worse compromise. Putting it on the bottom of the display really isn't ideal.

For most people, the only thing it covers is the menu bar.

> Under the screen has image quality issues.

I don't care. You need to process the hell out of a selfie image so you don't look like a goblin anyway. I'm sure the ML wizards at Apple can figure this out.

> A thicker bezel means less screen space.

The notch is a huge bezel with cutouts.

> Sticking up over the display is a worse compromise. Putting it on the bottom of the display really isn't ideal.

I agree.

> For most people, the only thing it covers is the menu bar.

It's not about what it covers, it's about harmony. A small hole is also superior, though most Android phones do not get the positioning right either. No, I don't care about Face ID, especially in the era of COVID. A finger print reader on the side or on the back is superior.

> No, I don't care about Face ID, especially in the era of COVID. A finger print reader on the side or on the back is superior.

Conveniently, these have a fingerprint reader still on the device.

> The notch is a huge bezel with cutouts.

The notch is a tiny part of what remains of the previous bezel. That space isn't usable on an older M1 MBP, either.

It's not about usable space. It's about the look. A smaller bezel doesn't lead to a better appearance by itself, but even then I'm sure they could've made the bezel smaller either way. However, the notch isn't made to be of minimal size. It's intrusive. It's telling me: I'm here, deal with it.

Maybe someone can make an extension that will keep the rows where the notch lives black, and tell the OS that those rows aren't there. Problem solved.

> It's not about usable space.

Why shouldn't it be?

That space was black on the old MBP. It's black on the new MBP. I've now got two newly usable strips where the bezel used to be. The top menu bar is already left/right split, so it fits fairly naturally in there; my movies won't be any bigger or smaller with it.

I went from iPhone SE to 13 and the notch there was a nothingburger. Thirty seconds after the "oh right, there's a notch" it's mostly forgotten.

It's very likely they'll include an option to have a black bar at the top of the screen, so that the notch is not visible. With the new Mini-LED screen it will be hopefully be dark enough to hide it well.

However one feels about extra usable screen space in iDevices, doesn't seem like as big a deal on the Mac. macOS has and has always had the core menu bar taking up the entire top of the screen. And even with a significant number of user menubar add-ons, the middle is often blank space since the menus from the left and add-ons from the right don't meet. Eyeballing the resolutions (about 1.54:1) it looks like this is pure gain, they took previous dead space and turned it into screen then stuck the general fixed UI element in there, with the camera taking up what is commonly blank space. Seems pretty function-driving-form as it should be.

Also, particularly given the new improved local dimming, for any content that wants a plain rectangle (video, games) seems like just blacking the menu bar area will work well. Macs aren't rotating devices either, so the notch is always going to be in the same semi-dead-space spot and easy to work around. That's quite different than iOS devices (even the iPad). And even with Apple's regrettable increasing of barriers to modifiability, on macOS there remains plenty of freedom to do UX adjustments and for developers to do whatever they want outside of Apple's rules. IIRC for example Apple forbid just "hiding" the notch with black on iDevices at least initially, but no such issues here. So overall really doesn't seem like it's a problem in this case, even for those who are fairly bothered on phones/tablets. A Mac screen isn't bad for it.

And of course, part of the highlighted point of these new machines is being able to drive a bunch of external displays too.

The notch is a transition technology. Suck it up now and in a couple of years the camera and other sensors should all be behind the screen like they are on the more out-there Android devices right now.

The cynic in me wants to dismiss the leaps and bounds of the M1 chips. The reality is I own one of these laptops and am constantly surprised at how much better it is than the intel chips. Its going to be hard not to turn my current M1 laptop in and upgrade to the newer M1 Max.

I'm in the same boat. I really like my 14 inch M1. the M1Max specwise seems insane.

I think you mean 13 inch. The 14 inch today is the first 14 inch model they've released.

The M1 stuff is amazing but it's kind of a sad state of affairs when I'm unreasonably happy about having things (decent keyboard, connectivity) that should be table stakes for a professional level laptop.

Mostly just bummed that we appear to have traded one gimmick - the touchbar, for another - the notch.

The notch is a design tradeoff, not a gimmick.

It is a gimmick. There are laptops with slim bezels, HD cameras and no notch whatsoever. If it was a tradeoff, they would've made it smaller. It's a branding effort. Remember, they're referring to the notch as iconic.

Which laptops are you thinking of?

Wouldn’t removing the notch require either the bezel to become wider or the display thickness to increase to fit the camera hardware? The older macbooks just have a wider bezel and that’s where the camera goes. Which laptops have neither?

This new macbook has a 3.5mm bezel and achieves it with the camera in the "notch". By comparison, the thinnest non-mac bezel I've seen is the Huawei Matebook at 4.4mm but it puts in the camera in the keyboard facing upwards towards your face (awkward angle "nosecam"). Which means your fingers can show up in the camera if you're typing during a video call.

The current Dell XPS has slim bezels, way slimmer than a current Macbook. Perhaps not as slim as this one, but it's not a meaningful difference, I'd take it over a notch any day. The camera is at the top.

The XPS also compromised - the camera quality is terrible, especially in non-optimal lighting.

"That camera is really embarrassing given the price tag. We got one for our CEO as a replacement.... everything was working well until he had a video meeting.... so embarrassing"

extensive thread on this discussion: https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS13-9300-2020-version-w...

You can see the difference for yourself at 3:13 here

https://youtu.be/QgFd_w2n1es?t=193

Grainy, ghosting, compression artifacts, and looks like the FPS is lower too.

Here's more comical discussion of the XPS camera:

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS-15-9500-camera-webcam...

"This webcam is disgusting. They won’t admit it when you call. They keep telling you to install drivers and redo every install you have."

"It's the image sensor they went with... Bottom of the barrel $0.52 sensor. I'm skipping this generation of XPS entirely and keeping with my Macbook Pro for a number of reasons.

1. The trackpad is horrible 2. The software had too many bugs (brightness, sound crackles, fans) 3. The keyboard isn't that great 4. The camera quality"

"I have this same problem with a new XPS 15 9500: blurry & grainy camera/webcam. Lots of complaints with those on Zoom, Goggle Meets, etc. with me. Help! Can this be fixed or should I return my 2-month old computer??"

"The stock webcam is by far the worst feature of the XPS. I’m also disappointed with the unreliability of the trackpad."

"Same here, everything that has been said. Camera is <Profanity removed. Dell-Admin>, embarrassing for Dell and for me, should I choose to use it"

Macbook cameras are awful as well. That's besides the point. It doesn't mean it "can't be done". You could have a 4K front-facing camera in a tiny pinhole, like in many Android phones. It's just not something laptop makers put a focus on, because customers tend to not care, or at least they didn't until video-conferencing became ubiquitous.

> That's besides the point

No, the point I was making at the beginning was "it's a design tradeoff, not a gimmick". The macbook camera is leaps and bounds better than the super tiny XPS camera they used to achieve a notch-free slim bezel. The notch isn't a gimmick. They made a design tradeoff to avoid going to a terrible camera.

Interesting to see them going back to human curated Apple Music playlists. They started that way when they rebranded Beats Music and it was amazing, but once they switched to ""AI"" recommendations their quality tanked massively and I cancelled my subscription few weeks later.

Might give them another chance now.

Seeing them promote another subscription is kind of sad.

Would have been nice to see them announce a new ipod nano so that I could stop having to strap a tablet sized phone to my arm when I go to exercise.

They would rather you buy apple watch + airpods

I have both, unfortunately I can't store any music on the watch unless I use apple music.

sounds like WAI

Spotify now also allows downloading music to the Apple Watch https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-05-21/enjoy-more-ways-than...

Speaking of Apple:

Hetzner is going live tomorrow with hosted M1 Mac Minis for 49€ excl. VAT (same added for setup) - available at https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-apple (link is not live at the time of writing, probably either at midnight CEST or early morning tomorrow)

Quote from their forums: Get ready for Apple Mac mini M1 (2020) with 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD and optional 2x 1 TB NVMe SSD.

Finally, the touch bar of the Macbook is gone.

I'm going to miss it :( i know that's super unpopular and understand why people don't like it.

Same. I absolutely loved it for video and audio editing but I can understand why most people didn't like it. The new Intel commercials where they try to pass off a few laptops as Macbooks and then "surprise" the people when they're not Macs just reinforced for me how stupid a touchscreen on a laptop is.

Touchscreen is not that bad for laptops that can transform into a tablet, but that's a fairly different class of devices.

Me too. I'm not sure I'll get this new hardware or look for a different laptop, but I'm going to miss the touch bar.

It was incredible for volume and brightness control, occasional uncommon characters input and switching between application tabs.

Yea, it sucked really hard when I needed F-keys, but it had its utility. Honestly, it was a bad idea as a replacement for the F-keys - it should've rather been a separate addition above those. It's not like there isn't enough space for both on a 16" chassis.

...and the dreaded notch is back. Time to wait again.

Curious as to why? You get more screen real estate with the notch and, at worst, you have the same display size as before? What's the issue?

Not only the notch is an absolute disaster, the thickness is at most; woeful.

The CPUs are outstanding, but that laptop itself is a monstrosity from the 2006 Macbook Pro days. Finally the price makes it even more disappointing for what is on offer.

Another missed opportunity.

I'm not bothered by the notch, but I understand people having different aesthetic preferences. Thickness seems like an odd complaint though. As far as I can tell they are about the same thickness as the previous models (1.55 cm). Am I missing something?

Get a MacBook Air then?

It's about time Apple gave up on things that don't work. I'm curious about Force Touch though. The only times I've ever used it it's gotten in the way of what I really meant to do. The only good(?) thing I can say for it, is that like 'the notch', it's an Apple brand.

So, as far as I can tell, they listened to every single complaint people had about the last generation of pro Macs. These are in every meaning of the word pro machines. Now, they're so pro, I can't imagine why anyone would need one, unless they do multi-media professionally, or work exclusively in Xcode.

I can't even believe they compromised on size and weight in order to deliver something more pro. It's a complaint I've been hearing for years, how people would gladly accept a bigger laptop if it were a "true" pro machine. Well, wishes granted.

Edit: (quick comparison in thickness and weight) Previous MB Pros were (respectively):

* 15.49mm/1.49kg

* 16.51mm/1.95kg

New M1 Pro Macs are:

* 15.49mm/1.65kg

* 16.67mm/2.1kg (or 2.2kg for the "max")

Unfortunately, they compromised on price. A 16GB version is immediately 3000€ in Europe, which is a lot for a less well-off area than USA.

I just compared some prices in Italy.

* Lowest spec 14 inch MBP (16/512 GB) 2349€

* 15 inch XPS, i9, 16/512 GB, RTX 3050 Ti, maxed out screen (with Windows Home, heh) - 2849€, this computer is a joke compared to what we can expect from even the cheapest 14 MBP

* For a bit more fairer comparison, an XPS 17, i9 16/512 GB, RTX 3060, maxed screen (still with Windows Home) - 3549€, but even this probably can't hold a candle to the cheapest 14 MBP

For reference, an almost maxed out 16 MBP (4 TB disk, instead of 8) is 5559€, a maxed out 17 inch XPS 4999€. I think Apple has been more than fair with prices in this case. These machines are usually bought as tools, a business expense, it's not much in the grand scheme of things.

I would love to see you provide a link to a laptop with comparable specs to the 14" MBP at a cheaper price.

So, 0 and 160um thickness change, or around two human hairs thicker.

And 160g and 150g weight change, or one iPhone mini heavier. One iPhone Pro Max heavier for the for "max" version.

Personally, I don't think I would notice.

The way that Apple has scaled the original M1 architecture to the M1 Pro/Pro Max bodes extremely well for the future.

This has always been the thing to watch for me -- performance on its own hasn't been equivalent to "best of the best" (one of these new laptops isn't going to be beating a 3090), but what they're doing is being done in such a smaller thermal envelope that nothing really compares.

Looks like they are bringing back the HDMI port and sd card slot on the pro. Wonder if they got enough complaints about those I/Os being missing on a "pro" machine

Adding more value by taking away less and bringing back more.

The specs on the new MacBook Pro are incredible, especially considering people were already blown away by the performance of the first M1 MacBook. It’s a seriously powerful machine. And the additional ports are a very welcome change.

This laptop seems to have 0 compromises, I'm buying one instantly.

It has a notch. That is one heck of a compromise.

Is it? I think the notch is just where the menu already is, so it's sort of a moot point. I'd love if my current Mac camera were integrated into the space that I already use for the menu bar.

Some people, like me, have the top menu bar on auto-hide. So, the notch there is definitely not a universally good thing.

I pretty much live in a fullscreen tmux session and a fullscreen browser window so the notch is pretty lame in my opinion, maybe iterm can put some fun stats or a clock there but to me it's basically like 2 lines of lost screen real estate - not enough to dissuade me from getting it since they put the touch bar where it belongs (the trash), added real ports and fixed the keyboard.

From the screenshots and images, it won't impact users like us. When in fullscreen with a hidden menubar, the area left and right of the notch goes black. It's exactly like the current situation in that case, and the only benefit is that when you choose to view the menubar it doesn't eat into the space occupied by the program-in-use.

How is that a compromise? You either have a massive black bar at the top of the laptop, or a small notch that allows for more screen real estate.

I suspect this notch is going to be a problem for a significant number of full-screen applications that never assumed there would be something like that.

Although that'd be probably mostly games, and I don't think notch is going to be a primary issue for those.

It was mentioned in the keynote that you can disable the entire top region of the screen that aligns with the notch. That makes this equivalent to any notchless laptop.

I'm sure old fullscreen apps won't even be told about the new areas at the top of the screen. They'll just think they're on a regular 16x10 display.

I tend to be hypercritical of Apple these days, and even I'm excited about this machine. Removing the touchbar, bringing back MagSafe, useful ports, etc. vastly overshadows the notch.

Yes, in a menu bar you typically can't control and usually has a few icons (battery, wifi, date, bluetooth, VPN) and a few words, something like Outlook, file, edit, view, message, format, tools, window, help).

I watched in side of several apps I used and never saw anything useful in the top center.

I love this take. It's the ultimate HN critique.

Am I the only one bothered by the thickness? I mean, the new macs are going to be amazing machines but....it's just so un-Apple, you know? Still, gonna pick one up as soon as I can :)

Personally not. They've been optimising for thinness at the cost of pro-ness for too long I think. This seems like a more sensible balance to me.

Hard agree. I've been mildly on the side of "enough with losing features in pursuit of thinness" for a good while, and while I appreciate the heft of my 13", I'll let them worry about that for the next New Thing when it comes in Goldest Gold.

For now, magsafe! HDMI! A keyboard that works!!!

Absolutely not. The 16 inch is a huge laptop even if it's thin. Might as well make it a touch thicker if it means better thermals/battery life.

I thought it looked thicker too but it turns out the new models are even 0.01cm thinner (if you want to call it that).

Oh wow, it certainly doesn't look that way but the new ones actually are thinner. That's interesting.

Apple page for the new 16 inch says it is 1.68 cm thick and the old 2019 16 inch was 1.62 cm so at least the larger model actually got thicker. I previously assumed that both sizes had at least the same thickness.

I'd much rather them make it a little thicker and have better cooling and features.

I'm not bothered about it and if that's the space they need to put their tech into it, then this is it. Would be a shame if anyone would make something thinner on the cost of tech specs. Not that that ever happened...

I can't imagine many people would be bothered by 0.160mm greater thickness, for the larger model. The smaller model is the same thickness.

How does memory bandwidth between M1 Pro and M1 Max affect CPU (not GPU) performance?

Apple store is crashing after this event.

Not a notch!

The notch gets a "meh" from me. I mostly use my MBP with everything in fullscreen and a hidden menubar. However, this does come with a thinner bezel and extends the screen into that bezel space so it's kind of a wash. It still beats the 1.5" top bezel (with the camera) on my work laptops (HPs).

no one cares

As a developer with a mobile app all of the different notches have been a pain to deal with.

I do care about it a lot.

good 4 u

Oh, notch you again. I'd rather they had a camera slide up from behind but am not sure how a good idea that is either, moving parts are fragile..

Oh well, at least the machine is performant and they got rid of the fancy but useless touch bar.

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