MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch review: Apple’s mighty Macs | Hacker News Reader

MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch review: Apple’s mighty Macs

engadget.com

35 pointsBrentOzar98 comments

My impression is that the design team felt somewhat liberated from Jony Ive's design aesthetic, hence the elimination of the Touch Bar, the return of MagSafe, the SD slot, and (most jarringly to me) the curved under-body. Nevertheless, I welcome the changes (except for the curve).

But why do they then have to go and f##k things up with the damn notch...?

You get more screen estate with the notch, than without it, because they would have taken the entire horizontal space and make it a piano black bar. And because Apple controls the software too, I expect the integration will be good.

I am more concerned about the risk of cracking the screen, because it is so close to the edge now. Does anyone know how important the width of the edge is for the safety of the screen?

I wouldn't think the cracking risk is worse than my 2015 MBP: the glass runs all the way up to the bezel at the edge, which is maybe 2 - 3mm, so not that different to the new machines.

There is a nice symmetry in the fact that all apps/websites will need to take into account safe area insets to display properly on any apple device in all display modes.

That is not true, no app ever gets to interact with the notch on macOS.

If you're in desktop mode, it's reserved for the menu bar. No application can go above that line.

If you're in fullscreen mode, the screen does not render anything to pixels at or above the notched area judging by what early reviewers are saying. In other words, it all goes black and the notch "disappears," with content displaying in a rectangular area.

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/10/18/macos-hides-notch-on-ne...

The iPhone is the only Apple device where app developers need to take into account a notch and home bar safe area.

I was just guessing at this, but it seems I might be correct: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/10/19/apps-can-use-full...

Not a big fan of the notch, but I do like consistency.

Good point, I learned this today. It’s not that apps never get to interact above that line, it’s that developers must purposefully use a new development feature to do so intentionally.

I.e., a full screen application that isn’t updated to use the notch area simply won’t, it’ll be a nice perfect rectangle.

I do find the notch disappointing and ugly. But at least right now, it looks like they're hiding it in the menu bar in a way that's not too obnoxious.

I just wish they'd made the notch (and the menu bar) the old menu bar height, instead of almost double the size. Mainly because I think the new height looks a little chunky and unnecessary.

It's wild that he had that much control over their product designs.

I have to believe there were people at Apple who would have opposed the changes. Were they overruled or too scared to speak up?

In product design within a large (or even medium) organization it takes strong institutional restraint to avoid generating camels (horses designed by committee). The way that Apple appears to have consistently avoided that pitfall (for whatever other pitfalls they did fall into) is to heavily empower a single person to make the fundamental design decisions and to be the source of red light/green light for the rest of the designs. Both Jobs and Ives filled that role with varying degrees of success; it will be interesting to see what institutional structure arises with Ives mostly out of the picture.

Remember, Apple is sustaining the one of the highest-cap businesses on Earth, with ~200k employees, on approximately 10 hardware products. That takes an immense amount of focus.

These designs were probably made several years ago, perhaps when Jony was still working there. Also, he was definitely not the only one deciding on the design. Apple’s designers are now working on the stuff that comes out years from now, everything else has already been practically finished.

Ongoing related threads:

14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28988524 - Oct 2021 (126 comments)

Apple's M1 Pro, M1 Max SoCs Investigated - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28987276 - Oct 2021 (78 comments)

Previously:

New 16-inch MBP with M1 Max to feature High Power Mode for intensive workloads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28950733 - Oct 2021 (105 comments)

Apple M1 Max Geekbench Score - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28933663 - Oct 2021 (870 comments)

MacBook Pro 14-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28908383 - Oct 2021 (2056 comments)

Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28908031 - Oct 2021 (981 comments)

From the reviews I've seen so far, seems like Apples "Relative Perfomance Points" benchmarks were as misleading as expected for the GPU. The M1 Max is more like a 3060 in performance not a 3080.

If you look at Anandtech[0], you can get a clearer picture. In synthetic, isolated benchmarks, the GPU could have similar hardware performance to an RTX 3080 mobile. However... once you throw in the lack of games compiled for ARM and designed to run on Metal, most of that potential is wasted.

Having never owned an Apple product, these sound like excellent machines, but I still want to be able to play the games on my expensive, powerful hardware. So I'd like to see what they can do if they are targeted. The M1 from last year didn't seem to change anything. It'll be interesting to see if this does. Will increasing market share and consumer demand be enough to push some more development of games for these machines?

At least in theory the hardware is there now for reasonable gaming performance.

[0] https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performanc...

Wasted potential is a common theme between all of Apple's platforms now - lots of great benchmarks but little if anything that can exploit the hardware's capabilities.

On iOS/iPadOS the OS and walled garden restricts it, on the Macs looks like the old all games are on Windows problem made worse by Metal.

Apple should showcase real-world apps using the M1 and compare it to Windows/x64.

The pro media apps can exploit it. I suppose game developers are uninterested though.

Apple could reduce their commission on macOS to 5% now, wait until many developers play along, and after a few years return to 30%. A lot of uproar, maybe a small slap one the wrist, but a huge financial gain in the long run.

macOS is not a closed platform. You don't have to pay a penny to Apple. I would actually expect most developers to use Steam rather than App Store.

You don’t have to pay Apple any commission to distribute on macOS because you don’t have to use the App Store to install software. Steam works fine. That’s not why games aren’t made available on Mac.

> Apple should showcase real-world apps using the M1 and compare it to Windows/x64.

This reads as they should showcase apps I use. From Anandtech's review re: Adobe Premiere Pro:

> What we find is that both Macs perform well in this benchmark – a score near 1000 (the score is 955) would match a high-end, GTX 3080-equipped desktop – and from what I’ve seen from third party data, this is well, well ahead of the 2019 Intel CPU + AMD GPU 16-inch MacBook Pro.

That seems like it's unlocking the hardware's capabilities.

>However... once you throw in the lack of games compiled for ARM and designed to run on Metal, most of that potential is wasted.

If you build it, they will come? Has Apple ever had this much GPU ability to actualy run decent games (if they were available)?

Yes and no?

For example, the previous Macbook Pro had a Radeon 5600M which was plenty to run decent games.

But I don't know the breakdown across the Mac product line for ownership. In other words, how many Mac computers have the hardware to run decent games?

Even now, the M1 found in the Air/13" Pro can run "decent" games but comparable to a low level discrete GPU. So if most Apple users own those rather than something with an M1 Pro/Max, then this particular market still has a very small addressable market of gamers.

In terms of numbers, I'm sure the vast majority of Macs in active use are still Intel-based and will be for at least a few years.

World of Warcraft compiled for ARM and uses Metal. I'm very interested in benchmarks for this particular game. Right now I'm playing on desktop 1060 and it's more than enough for me (not on ultra settings, but I think that I'm limited my CPU). I expect M1 to keep up with it at least.

I'm going to be honest, I didn't have the expectations that any custom hardware would perform like a companies benchmarks claim they do. Since they would be cherry picked to hell and back, especially apple.

The fact it has a geekbench score that makes my gen2 threadripper look bad and can still have 3060 performance in a laptop is still very impressive to me.

As much as I give Apple crap for some of their marketing, their CPU and battery claims usually tend to be quite spot on and reproducible by reviewers. That's what I've noticed over the years.

> the MagSafe connection is less likely to cause accidental falls and you won't have to use a precious USB-C port just to stay powered up.

This is not quite true IMO. The prior line of MacBook Pros (not the M1 as I see that as a glorified Air) had 4 USB-c ports vs 3 on the newer ones.

I could also use one of the 4 (with a dongle) for both charging and pluggin in peripherals, so it's in essence one less USB-C port however I look at it.

Agreed. I think adding back some legacy ports is a cover for not being able to add a 4th tb4 port to the M1.

I would have preferred to stick with 4 tb4 ports and none of the legacy ports.

I actually find more value in the current year's port setup but everybody's needs are different so some will gain, some will lose. I just found the statement in the article to be untrue.

I've never used 4 USB-C/TB ports at the same time, even when charging. I have used the same port for charging and HDMI via a dongle though. I also like the SD card slot, even though I mostly use micro-SDs. Depending on how much an SD protrudes on the side, keeping an adapter in permanently might solve for that though.

I used all 4 ports and would have liked more. The ports were used for power, external monitor, ethernet, and an USB hub (audio interface, backup drive). I could have used at least 2 additional ports to connect and iPhone and Android phone (for development).

I can't be the only one who thinks this new design is ugly. Just something about it feels off.

I feel the same. Although I appreciate all the cooling performance and ports, I kind of feel bad about the new design.

You are not the only one.

I bought one, really excited to replace my 2014 Macbook, but the design won't be what I like the most, I'm sure.

For me, it somehow already feels dated. The black background on the keyboard and the "curved but just slightly" bottom are not to my taste. I wish they would have gone full square like some of the leaks for the M2 Macbook Air show.

In the end, though, I'm still happy they didn't go with form over function for this one.

I've been holding on my old 2014 one just because from 2016 onwards Apple decided to cripple Macbook function for style.

I will take an ugly, powerful, useful Macbook anyday over a beautiful one full of limitations.

It is definitely an attempt to fill out the corners of the old design in order to make room for all the new stuff. It looks way thicker then the previous model.

I do like the keyboard and the rounded screen, but the overall shape is not particularly elegant.

I really want to purchase this, but I'm still waiting for clarity on the Windows on ARM licensing situation. It's not going to be possible for me to use this at work in the Insiders build licensing grey area.

It's regrettable that the only thing hindering Windows on Apple silicon is a silly business decision by Microsoft.

I guess that Parallels wouldn't spend engineering resources without some agreements from Microsoft.

I, personally, need properly virtualized x86 Windows. Might be slow, whatever, even Windows XP is enough for me. Without x86 Windows I would need to rent a VM and that's a nuisance.

Is it possible to just directly run qemu in some kind of emulation mode? I know that docker runs x86 containers, so there should be some way.

Emulating x86 is one thing that stops me from ordering Macbook.

Both Docker Desktop and Podman Machine run emulated x86 machines via QEMU. I never tried to run Windows on it but I imagine it's doable. I have no idea about performance though.

If Windows on x86 were important to me, there's no way I would be using some unsupported emulation. Even if I wanted Apple Silicon for some other reason, I'd still just run a Windows x86 laptop (or server) for applications where it's needed.

The review doesn't even mention continued absence of USB-A. Am I weird that I still need USB-A adapters all the time? Most of the new MBP is about solving problems people actually have instead of the ones Apple wishes they had.

Anecdotally, I barely use USB of any kind on my laptop (a gaming PC). Bluetooth mouse, headphones, built-in card reader.

On my desktop... I have 4-6 USB-A devices plugged in at any given moment.

If I was buying a Macbook Pro for work, it would absolutely be getting a Thunderbolt 4 compatible dock, full of all the port goodness I needed.

From TFA: “Sure, you’ll still need adapters to connect older USB Type-A devices…”

If you have to connect to a lot of third-party stuff that uses USB-A then I would say it’s not weird. I migrated all my personal devices and cables to USB-C though and it’s much better overall.

I’m not very happy with USB-C because it’s harder to plug in without looking. With USB-A, you can feel the port. With lightning, the tip of the connector is rounded so it’s easier as well.

After reading that USB-A is easier to plug in than USB-C for anyone I've just realized that we - as a species - will never agree 100% on anything.

Except that 50% of the time, you have the USB-A connector upside down.

That never happens to me. All ports that I encountered have identical configuration. I need to make a quick look on cable and I know how to position it.

The OP was saying he didn't need to look...

More like 66% of the time... you need to try it, fail, turn it over, try it again, fail again, and then turn it back, and it'll fit.

No, you are not weird, it's just Apple's idea of fostering progress by creating e-waste. It is a coherent strategy (irreplaceable parts etc.) that makes perfect sense form business point of view but is bad for users and terrible for the environment.

Technology moves on. It's reasonable to argue at what point you discontinue the direct legacy support but it's absolutely a question of when not if. There are other laptops out there with only USB-C at this point.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. At the size of Apple, the decision as to when they drop a particular interface or service is the day millions of devices get useless.

Unfortunately, we are still very bad ad recycling e-waste and only a part of it can be recovered successfully. As choosing the date has huge impact on the environment, a company that truly cares would take it into account.

> As choosing the date has huge impact on the environment, a company that truly cares would take it into account.

And you think they haven't because it doesn't align with when you want to move on. You are not the only user in the world.

I have a single item that uses USB A (my mouse). I plug it into a dock that I would have purchased anyway to handle multiple monitors, and that resolves my waste issues. YMMV.

USB-A is the one thing I sort of miss--mostly in the vein of (as in the case of SD and HDMI) it would be nice when traveling or in a random conference room to not be dependent on a dongle/hub to plug various things into my laptop.

The need will certainly decrease over time--probably to a greater degree than HDMI and SD. But in the meantime it will be a minor inconvenience now and then.

I don't have a single USB-C device yet (except for iPhone power cable). All my devices that I plug in are USB-A. Few mices, few keyboards, STM32 board, Arduino board, few usb drives, usb crypto token, usb ssd.

That's not a big issue, IMO. Dongles are fine.

Indeed. Surely USB-A is far more commonly used than SD cards.

If I take away anything from the new MBPs it's that they are the product of groupthink. A notch and 120Hz only makes sense for phones that scroll and use faceid. That screen would've been a win if the camera had been pinhole, which it could've had, because there is no faceid. Dropping in a cheaper keyboard and cutting the touch bar is a mistake. As is including HDMI and a SD card reader and losing a thunderbolt port. Magsafe is nice. The SoC has been optimized for video editing. The space used for 32 graphics cores could've been used to add more regular cores. So it's faster than the M1 to be sure, especially for multi threaded apps but not enough for me as a developer. And the extended battery life is a great plus but as with the 17 inch MBP of 2011, it's heavy AF.

Then there is the marketing, which is getting borderline offensive. Why is everything 'Pro'? What does pro even mean? and why is it carved into the metal of the base of the laptop. Wouldn't it have been nice to ditch the marketing at this point? Apple is the largest computing company, everyone knows what that is now. Perhaps I don't want nonsense calved into my product. As far as I can see Pro means OverPRiced.

So to summarize an overpriced, heavy, video editing workstation, with legacy ports nobody has used since 2015. $5000 waste.

I think that for a lot of professionals, dropping the touch bar, including HDMI, more graphics processing power (which is especially useful for those in the graphics/video industry), and more battery life, at the cost of a higher weight and price, provide the right trade-offs.

So it's a graphics editing workstation for the laymen with too much money. And that's fine. But it's not a developer system.

> But it's not a developer system.

I think Apple's idea of a "pro" is not necessarily someone who spends time inside of a text editor all day.

> I think Apple's idea of a "pro" is not necessarily someone who spends time inside of a text editor all day.

I think Apple's notion of "pro" includes people who spend time in front of a text editor all day. It just doesn't include ALL people who spend time in front of a text editor all day.

Developer is a very broad term. I am no Apple fan, but I would be lying if these new Macs aren't more than satisfactory for a large number of developers. Maybe not for developers who have specific or advanced needs, but I think plenty of developers would be super happy with these new Macs.

I'm a developer and these laptops are exactly what I was hoping they were going to release. Perfect in every way.

> But it's not a developer system.

Define developer system. I've exclusively used Macs for development for over a decade.

If they don't have the notch, then you get the same real estate as of the current macs. Instead with the notch they are able to cut out more space out of the top bezels that can now be used for the menu bar. So you are just getting more available space than you would have otherwise. The didn't add a notch that goes down further than existing MBP bezels go, so they didn't add it to add more things such as Face ID. They just simply removed the bezel from the left and right.

I get that, but what about aesthetics? I stare at that part of the screen every time I use the computer. Now I'm looking at a black square hole.

You stare at the bezel all day long? Or you stare at the empty spot in the menu all day long? Either way makes no sense to me. What is it you are staring at all day long?

99% sure this user is just trolling you.

Most of the hyperbolic Apple complainers seem to be trolls to me. "But the notch!" You mean, the option they chose which gives you more screen real estate (if you show your menu bar) and no loss of screen real estate (if you default hide it, like me)? "But USB-A!" You mean the port that doesn't support as much throughput (power or data) as USB-C? The one you can get a cheap adaptor for if you really need it? The one you haven't had on your MBP for 6 years anyways?

I think what's happening here is "if you're going to give me 75 cents, you may as well have given me the full dollar".

For most people, that notch tradeoff is fine, but there will be a segment of people who care more about having those extra pixels.

There's other options. The Dell XPS has top bezels smaller than the previous MBP while still having a front facing camera up top. I think it's an extra 1 mm across the top compared to the notchless part of the new MBPs. Based on my shitty photo measurements the notch actually takes up MORE surface area than just having a consistent slightly thicker bezel across.

Or perhaps they could have opted for an underscreen camera like the Fold 3 or something else?

I feel like this was done for branding to tie it into the iPhone.

"Dropping in a cheaper keyboard and cutting the touch bar is a mistake."

Sometimes people state their opinions as facts. Sometimes people don't say anything to defend or explain their opinions. They just blurt them out. An it makes the internet so fun!!

Doesn't need more explanation. That touch bar was very useful.

> That touch bar was very useful.

To some people, not all. There was probably just as large a contingent of people who hated it as there was who loved it.

I think Apple should have made it an optional BYO feature, but they didn't so that's what we're stuck with.

For what? I've never seen any use case. Were there specific apps for specific markets that made use of it?

My favorite one was MS Word/MS Office. It was always contextual, just quick tap on touchbar without reaching mouse and clicking option on ribbon menu. TBH I think that from apps that I used daily only MS and Apple tried to figure out how to make touch bar usable.

> What does pro even mean?

It means “the materials and manufacturing budget is increased to allow the designers to push the diminishing-returns boundary further.”

For competitive use-cases, where an increase in capability makes the difference between winning and losing, paying the increased cost of the more capable tool is a sound tactic.

That's meaningless marketing nonsense.

And it's been called the MacBook Pro for 15 years, I think it's time to get over it.

It was admittedly likely a more meaningful distinction when a plain (white) MacBook was clearly much more oriented towards students and casual users than professionals using it day to day for business purposes.

Apple is expensive, they don't know what they're doing, it's not really Pro, etc, etc, etc. These unique and new complaints about Apple must keep their executives up at night as they execute mistake after mistake, only becoming the most valuable company in the world through continual Acts of God.

Show me another laptop that does all these things:

1. Benchmarks >12000 in Cinebench R23 (i.e., very solid CPU performance)

2. GPU benchmarks at or above an RTX 3060 laptop

3. Over 10 hours battery life for typical light web browsing tasks

4. Under 40dB of noise at full fan speed

5. No loss of benchmarking performance after 30 minutes of load (i.e., no thermal throttling)

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhqCC70ZfDM)

They don't exist. Apple is selling a literal unicorn and you're complaining that the unicorn should come with glitter.

At that weight and price it's competing with desktops. They're cheating. That thing is as portable as stone henge.

Sure, okay, then find me a competitor that does all the things I listed that this machine can do in an equivalent or smaller size.

I presented sourced evidence showing why I think this computer is in a class of its own, so I'd be really excited to be proven wrong.

3.5 pounds is "as portable as stone henge"? If you prioritize lightness you can maybe shave about a pound off that--and for travel I sort of wish Apple would still make a sub-13" model. But that's squarely in the weight range of laptops in general.

It is expensive. I give you that. And for many people it's probably overkill.

This person is obviously trolling

They are impressive machines, but you can’t run Windows on it … yet, which is a big deal for many. Very few games are optimized for it, which is a primary use case for most average users to require horsepower like this.

Hopefully, these drawbacks will change if enough people buy these M1 machines, but there is no guarantee.

> which is a primary use case for most average users to require horsepower like this

I think this is a big misunderstanding of Apple's customer base for these systems.

These GPUs are optimized for rendering tasks, not for FPS count for gaming.

> Very few games are optimized for it...Hopefully, these drawbacks will change if enough people buy these M1 machines, but there is no guarantee.

There is a guarantee, and that guarantee is hardware-level compatibility with iOS and iPad platforms.

There's a whole section of the Mac App Store called "Great iPhone and iPad Games for Mac with M1"

iOS and iPad probably represent a larger gaming installed base and revenue than PC and consoles combined.

Opinions may vary, but personally I think that being able to run Windows on your Mac is far, far down on the list on reasons to purchase a Mac. It was a very handy tool to have especially 15 years ago when the Mac didn't have as much commercial support, but in 2021 I don't think a lot of potential Mac customers really care about Windows compatibility.

“These GPUs are optimized for rendering tasks, not for FPS count for gaming.”

A small market indeed. Very few people need this powerful of a computer. Most people browse the internet, use a word processor, and some play demanding video games. Video games is the only category that remotely approaches the need for these powerful machines by John Q Public.

I don't like the notch, but the 120Hz is nice to have (we also scroll and have transitions on a computer). I don't use HDMI anymore, but it doesn't hurt to have it. SD Cards? That's what my camera uses, so it will be used. Touch bar? I have no use for it (in fact I use it with the old style layout). PR? Ignore it. My main "issue" with the new laptops is the price and the notch (I don't mind the lack of face ID).

Different people have different needs. This laptop probably isn't for you.

It's a shame that manufacturers nor the reviewers no longer publish where tested equipment has been made. Why hiding such a fact?

These days you really have to dig deep to find this seemingly basic information. Often you can only learn when you actually purchase the product and look at labelling.

What would be the reason for that?

The only thing that matters is that it was "Designed in California". Who cares where it's made?

Is not as if USA can still manufacture high technology products. That's a skill best outsourced to the cheapest locations.

I don't want to buy products made in a country that facilitates concentration camps and slave labour.

So no made in USA products either ? The US regularly uses prisoners as a cheap labor force and it’s not like they have much choice in the matter.

All of Apple’s hardware devices sold in the US are manufactured in China, with the exception (I think?) of the Mac Pro. Their chips are fabbed in Taiwan. This has been the case the decades and is pretty much common knowledge. Nobody is hiding anything.

I asked a few of my friends where they think Apple products are made and all of them but one said they make it in California or Silicon Valley. It's not a common knowledge.

It said right there on the box: made in China, assembled in California, and has been that way for 10 year-ish

If it is not common knowledge in your circle of friends, it is not Apple’s fault

Maybe it's not common knowledge for you either? I don't own any iDevices but doesn't it say "Designed in California, Assembled in China"?

The link to China is common knowledge. I made no claim on the particular wording of the statement :-)

I would like to know that _before_ I buy the product. It's a hassle to do a return when you learn about it only after you buy it. It's also not healthy for the environment.

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