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Comment by throwaway_ab | Hacker News Reader

> Apple has always chosen form over function

Having used an M1 MacBook Pro and iPad Pro I can't say I agree with you on this.

Apple silicon MacBook Pro's are incredible - powerful, long battery life, fan-less most of the time, they are the breath of fresh air and kick in the butt the laptop/pc industry out of the stale state it was in.

The iPad Pro is an impressive device for digital art and other creative applications, giving Adobe and Wacom a bit of much needed competition.

I know many small business owners who use iPhone due to its stability and ease of use out the box.

Apple have many issues but I feel they have an impressive lineup of computing products of which are very functional.

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the m1 macbook pro with the touch bar and usbc only, or the m1 macbook pro where apple went from that to a refresh of the 2012-15 design as a capitulation to years of complaints about form-over-function?

You seem to be equating imperfection with complete failure.

That's a little under-nuanced for this forum.

If those Macs were really so flawed complaints would have died off as everyone migrated away from them. Instead, people loved them enough to put up with rough edges, while passionately posting their frustrations.

i didn't say anything about perfection or failure. i don't know how a generous/good-faith interpretation led you to that

i agree with you that the computers were good, but i was responding to a post that used an m1 macbook pro as a counterexample to apple choosing form over function, when really it's emblematic of their pattern of occasionally going obviously too far toward form

I bought the M1 with the Touch Bar intentionally because I like the Touch Bar. Even apart from the Touch Bar, it’s the best new laptop I’ve bought since I first switched to Macs in ‘07

Now we're getting into a different topic. They were really well-rounded machines—I just upgraded to 14" from an M1 Air myself, and only for compile + transcode times—but I wouldn't rank them higher than most others I've had:

- Core 2 Duo Pros proved to me you can have a laptop as your main computer for real dev + video work

- First-gen Retina 15" saved me from daily tension headaches

- Second-gen 12" MacBook, after only having a maxed out 15", changed the way I structure my days and where I consider going to work

I briefly had a Touch Bar supplied by a job; initially it was cool, but after the first month my only use for it was volume and brightness. I thought I wouldn't like going back to function keys but when I got the M1 Air I realized I prefer them

> m1 macbook pro with the touch bar and usbc only

I have one of these. Hands down the best laptop I've ever owned. Fast, quiet, and I literally had to check system settings again to confirm that it's close to three years old. (And I'm the guy who tosses it in a briefcase that inevitably falls off my carry-on at least three times per trip.)

MacBook M1 Pro Max 2021

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