New MacBook Pro beckons fanbois to become strip pokers Apple confirmed Thursday that its new Macbook Pro line will feature a touchscreen display to replace function keys. The new models, offered in 13-inch (33-cm) and 15-inch (38-cm) flavors, will be the first to sport the Touch Bar, a small Retina display strip that will sit just above the number keys in an area previously …
Remap caps lock to Ctrl, then use Ctrl+[ to escape. That's what I already do today. You need both hands, sure, but it's not as hard on the hands, at least for me.
I sometimes also use Ctrl+C to exit insert mode, also fine.
The huge dealbreaker for me seems to be the lack of function keys... but I guess I could remap what I have currently mapped to function keys to a leader combination instead. Feels klunky, though!
I actually prefer that Apple make it easy to buy laptops with a US keyboard layout if you prefer: you get an actually usable left shift key and a nice big return key, the symbols are in logical places, and you can just press option+3 to get a £ sign instead. (The MacOS (and Linux) methods of composing special characters are far superior to the really primitive need to remember and enter alt+<character code> that Windows is stuck with.)
The MacOS (and Linux) methods of composing special characters are far superior to the really primitive need to remember and enter alt+<character code> that Windows is stuck with.
Em dash in Windows: Alt+0150 (5 keypresses)
Em dash in Linux: Ctrl+Shift+U then 2014 then Enter (8 keypresses)
Em dash on a Mac: Option+Shift+Hyphen (3 keypresses)
I'd say it's Linux that's stuck with redundant keystrokes here.
> I have to admit that in the <mumbles, counts on fingers> 9 years of Macbook Pro ownership I've never really used the Fn keys except for dimming the screen or adjusting the volume..
Well, in all my decades of Linux and Windows, I've never really had to mouse-click on mysterious shiny widgets.
OK, not exactly touchscreencolourtastic, but the slave owners gave me a Lenovo notebook with a multi function strip where the function keys should be which displays different commands depending on the context of what you're doing. Funny really, because what I'm usually doing is wondering why my function keys have been replaced by yet another bunch of meaningless icons every time I need F5.
previously occupied by the escape, function, and power buttons
Ok, missing Esc and function keys is a bit of an inconvenience but no power button? Is it going to be more iPhony and only actually go to sleep to be awakened by the gentle kiss of your finger? I'm sure it will be fine as the extra monitoring won't use any battery power.
The hivemind has found a solution!
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/59klj4/new_macbook_pro_accessory_only_6999/
...though you can get a mechanical keyboard for less...
The inconvenience for vim users was very much the first thing that came to mind for me, too! Given that Macs are understandably popular among web developers, I wonder whether removing the physical <esc> key is really a wise idea?
While the touchscreen key row is a clever idea for hotkeys that are occasionally used, I can't help but think that having to jab a non-physical key that will be used every few seconds will be quite an irritation (and a possible break to the train of thought) for programmers?
(I never came from the DOS/Windows world (Amiga, Linux, Mac for me), so was never really in the habit of using function keys, although I don't think they tend to get used quite as often as the <esc> key, so perhaps those becoming touch keys is not quite such a potential inconvenience. I think Apple should maybe have made an exception and kept a "real" <esc> key: I'm sure they must know its heritage and use.)
Some absolutley insane pricing on those new Macs.
£500 price hike overnight for the base macbook pro? before 6pm you could have the base model for £999 (899 in many retailers) now the base touch panel model is £1499. They've kept a low 'non-touch' model at £1250 but as far as i can see thats effectively the same model as existed previously at a 25% premium.
Some of the hardware decisions are poor as well - No Pro model can be specced with more than 16GB of memory across the entire range. Decreases in processor speed on like for like models. Dropping the SD card reader.
I've just read that apple sold less Pros that it did rose gold iwatches - its going to be a long slow death for the mac pro i think, apple clearly no longer care about selling them.
incidentally the pricing isn't just brexit as other countries (Canada and Germany in particular) seem to be complaining of similar% hikes on the mac forums.
You know there are plenty silver slim £300 Chromebooks that will do all the Facebook stuff in Starbucks as well as the £1300 Macbook.
I was in the Hoxton at Holborn Hotel as a guest a few months ago and it was full of hipsters all using Macbooks/Pros to mainly look at Facebook and Twitter.
Had they bought a Chromebook they might have been able to buy more than one coffee in the 8 hours they were sat there or even decent broadband at home.
Fanboi mindset explained:
1) It's a new Mac.
2) Yes, I know the speed hike is negligible, but ..
3) I want one.
4) Why can't I have it now?
5) [post 4 weeks wait] OMG I've just got the new MacBook Pro!
6) [post 6 months] Yes, I KNOW that I've only had the MBP 2016 for 6 months but we all know the first of a new line is always faulty so I need a MacBook Pro 2017!
Trust me, I employ staff exactly like the above. Funny how you never hear this sort of shite from Dell users ...
I like the strip idea, it's a sort of evolved derivative of the Art Lebedev Optimus Maximus keyboard which was interesting, but far too expensive to be of any use for normal mortals. Or maybe Apple's inspiration came from Tactus?
I recall a HP laptop having this idea for volume, but it was a pain to use. That said, it was long ago and we've learned a lot since about making touch buttons.
For the rest, meh. Maybe. I'm no big touchpad user so that won't tickle me much, and the whole connector saga has as disadvantage that you'll need an interface for all your legacy kit. That said, it means that all sound I/O is now digitised and may even happen in sync with each other.
I may get one next year when the hype has died down and any hardware problems have been ironed out - definitely not right now :).
It's also worth waiting till the bear market in Sterling disappears, which should be sometime between March of next year and around 2 decades from now, depending on how stupid Number 10 decides they want brexit to be (currently, the stupidometer is at 11, so not good!)
Though on the plus side, I never thought I'd see the day when Apple started pricing in £ at the proper exchange rate for the USD :-)
Agreed. My Firm has used HP for years and hardware problems are pretty much non existant.
My Probook 6470 has been al round the world, pretty much never gets turned off and I run it into the ground with various tools all day.
It i still as fast and responsive as the day I imaged it and the battery still gives me enough for a two hour meeting (just).
No need to replace it, and I dont think it will ever die.
Friends don't let friends buy HP laptops.
I think that statement needs adjustment. I've had quite a few HP laptops and they have been very good and reliable. With one exception. The Pavilion line of "entertainment" (or whatever they decide to call it on any day) line tends to be very unreliable whereas the business oriented lines (at least in my experience) work very well.
Yep, there's a Lenovo ultrabook in the office that features touch buttons for the function keys. Surprisingly they work fine under Ubuntu as regular function keys, something I fear will not immediately be the case for the Apple offering, but it's still a very weird feel to be pressing against an immobile piece of plastic instead of a moving key cap.
Blind users? Seriously, that's the best shade you can throw? They do actually make a model with F-keys.
Even as someone with near 20:20 vision, I sometimes aren't looking directly at the keyboard when I reach for one of the function keys.
A good example is when I just want to turn the screen brightness down to get some sleep: I know second from the left will get me the "Brightness Dimmer" button. I won't hit anything else by accident.
The thing is, it's the latest model that will lack the function keys, just as all current models lack Ethernet ports now. (Thus one requires a silly little dongle like the PCMCIA cards for pre-network-equipped laptops of the 90s.)
So you can bet that soon, you won't be able to buy anything from Apple but the ones with this silly "emoji" bar.
The Western Digital HD in my HP desktop, OTOH, crapped out after 5 years.Same with the WD HD in my Macbook Pro. Replaced it with the same drive though. These things do seem to have a shelf-life.
The two WDC WD5002ABYS-0s in my server here seem to be chugging along just fine. They were bought new in mid 2010.
"...PCMCIA = People Can't Memorise Complex Industry Acronyms..."The original version was People Can't Memorise Computer Industry Acronyms ca. 1994.Out of interest Astrohead, did you pick that up on a 90's Toshiba laptop servicing course? That was the first time I ever heard it :)
You say "I like the strip idea, it's a sort of evolved derivative of the Art Lebedev Optimus Maximus keyboard which was interesting, but far too expensive to be of any use for normal mortals. Or maybe Apple's inspiration came from Tactus?"
I say, as does the article, they copied it from Lenovo.
In other words, Mac fans (I have a MacBook Air myself alongside my ThinkPad) have waited several years to get new machines which offer 2010 performance at a higher price, need dongles for everything you want to connect, but have the innovative key strip that Lenovo already tried and abandoned.
That was really worth the wait.
Well they'd prefer the screen, but the OS doesn't do that.
Maybe one day it will... Maybe by the next refresh of the macbook pro in another 4 years....
Till then, head over to the verge for hilarious coverage of this 'magical' new strip. That Vlad bloke has clearly got a quota of bullshit to produce!
Not having touchscreens in their laptops and PCs is a conscious decision on the part of Apple. Not everyone considers them a good thing as you apparently do. I find them detestable, personally. It is becoming harder and harder to find a quality laptop that doesn't have a touch screen, unfortunately.
Don't touch it then, it's not compulsory on a laptop. Seems a bit weird that a capability you don't have to use provokes that reaction.
I was given a Lenovo laptop with a touch screen by work a while ago and, though initially indifferent, I grew to like it. "See the thing you want to activate, poke the thing you want to activate", is much more direct than "See the thing you want to activate, move the pointer to see where it is, guide it to the thing you want to activate, poke the thing you want to activate". It still works fine with keyboard and touchpad or external mouse. (And it folds back to use like a tablet, which Windows 8.1 then fails miserably at....)
But that's the whole point! Everybody hammered MS with Win 8 and touch interface, now Apple are producing tiny strips for DJing, how cool. Couldn't help but think 'just put your hands on the bloody screen man'.
The roles have reversed, MS are producing future fantasy tech that very few need today and takes bloody ages to remove gremlins and work out proper future uses. Apple are producing recycled tech and trying to look cool about it.
"Couldn't help but think 'just put your hands on the bloody screen man'."
Oh, screw that for a lark. I'm forever using screen wipes to get rid of fingermarks where people jab at *my* non touchscreen display to point out something. Don't know what they've put on it but Macbook displays are *extremely* susceptible to greasy fingerprints.
I sometimes use a dell XPS with touch screen at a corporate I am currently working at. I personally don't use the touch screen, but get interesting responses when other people jab at the screen when they are trying to point something out. The biggest fun is when you try to clean all the greasy finger marks off the scrre, W10 then takes you to strange and previously unknown places
> ...tiny strips for DJing, how cool. Couldn't help but think 'just put your hands on the bloody screen man'.
It was just to demonstrate that the touchstrip had ten-point multitouch, and had low latency. If the DJ wanted more room for virtual knobs and sliders, he could use a variety of kit, including an iPad - which, like the original iPhone, has low latency and wireless MIDI baked into its OS (so the iPad can easily control the software on the Macbook).
In essence, the touchstrip is a thin iPad screen. Indeed, Adobe have had an iPad app for Photoshop tool palettes (controlling the host application on OSX) for a few years now.
It's curious that in two days we've had two different answers to 'How can I change the size of my Photoshop brush on the fly?' - MS's Knob, and Apple's Touchstrip.
MS are producing future fantasy tech that very few need today and takes bloody ages to remove gremlins and work out proper future uses. Apple are producing recycled tech and trying to look cool about it.
I think this was being talked about by the bloke who wrote the Book of Revelations. And then the beast-riding wench takes WashingtonBabylon.
'just put your hands on the bloody screen man'.
Putting your hands/fingers anywhere near my screen is a good way to lose them. Can't stand the greasy fingermarks!
And as to what happened to the person who stuck several PostIt notes on the screen.. well, we don't talk about it. But it's never happened again.
Well they'd prefer the screen, but the OS doesn't do that.
OK, my experience may have been marred by it being implemented on Windows, but I *hated* touchscreen laptops so I'm quite glad it isn't on the MacBook. For a start, if I want a touchscreen they have some large iPad for that which doesn't come with all the weight you need to lug around to make it usable as a PC (batteries and fans for powerful chips are still heavy).
Secondly, if 90% of what I do is typing I want to do that on a keyboard, not on glass, and even more, I want software developers to leave keyboard shortcuts in place so I don't have to grab for the mouse all the time (in that respect Windows has one over on macOS because there are more commands to initiate UI manipulations).
Lastly, if I DO do something on a screen I want it to be easy to use, and I'm used to writing on paper. In other words, on a surface that is lying down or slightly angled, not in front of me in a 45-90º angle and that is right in front of me instead of a keyboard away. In that respect I'm not even a huge fan of Wacom's Cintiq because it's too thick, and here too Microsoft offers more interesting ideas if it wasn't for the fact that I'd have to run Windows again, and Hell has apparently not frozen over yet.
Your needs may differ, of course, but for me it would be a pointless gimmick that would only drive up the price.
"for me (a touchscreen) would be a pointless gimmick that would only drive up the price."
Fair enough... These macbooks with their lack of a touchscreen are cheap as chips!
I'll tell you what is pointless and drives up the price for the customer. Removing industry standard ports and forcing you to buy dongles and a man bag to put them in!
I have a small confession to make. I'd been reading El Reg and the papers on my iPad at home. Finished and picked up a book - and at one point I'd got near the bottom of a page, and rather than move the book up to a more comfortable height, I put my finger on the page and slid it trying to scroll up instead...
D'oh!
No, because euro prices are up too. Typical case of "I'm selling fewer so I'll put the price up a bit".
And still they match onwards down the path of pointless thinness, no ports, no upgradability, and non-reparability.
They still haven't put the two together. The only thing pro about these machines is the name. By all means glue up the low end machines if you think you must (it even works in the Air's favour as a small lightweight travelling laptop), but not the high end ones.
By all means glue up the low end machines if you think you must (it even works in the Air's favour as a small lightweight travelling laptop), but not the high end ones.
Ah, but we like them PRECISELY because the expensive ones are glued (and soldered) together. All people who deal with sensitive matters in our setup now have them, because if you set a boot password, activate Filevault and set sensible login passwords, theft of the machine becomes pointless.
You can't get to the sensitive data so it's pointless to lift it for espionage, and you cannot reformat it so you can't sell it on to someone else either as the parts are soldered in - it's not like the older machines where you could swap the harddisk and then reinstall. We even have a backup process for those who travel which backs up to a Filevault encrypted USB drive without them having to enter the password as that can be set in OSX, sorry, macOS (aaargh).
Add to that a finders fee and it's actually quite a sensible way to protect information - all built in. And before you mention it, a fingerprint should in our opinion only ever augment an already good password, and the reader on the MacBook has as yet not been examined for quality - it is quite possible that we may disable it instead..
Watch the decline of laptop makers starting to drop their USB-A ports and it all becomes fine. #LackofUSB-AGate is officially over. Because Apple have done it first, it's a huge pain for some reason. And we've all been used to adapters for Displayport/Thunderbolt for a while now across laptops, so again; such a crud reason to complain. Same with 30-pin to Lightning switch. Same with dropping Firewire. Same with dropping CD-Drives.
Being realistic, the design choices will work or not work for Apple. They've always ditched legacy ports (or what they deem legacy) in redesigns.
I don't like Apple's step back from proper professionals and targeting pro-sumers who will by anything with the Apple name. Sign of rocky times.
On the plus side, I would now have 4 identical ports which provides quite some redundancy in case one fails. I've had plenty of trouble with USB jacks, especially on laptops which are constantly in and out of offices where they need to be jacked in.
Four identical ports will massively simplify that circus - there are already some all in one adaptors that seem to do the trick. Add to that that the connector is reversible and I can even let sales people loose on that.
So, yes, VERY annoying that it's yet another slew of adaptors I can bin, but this seems to be a fairly good move towards some unity in that department.
@AC
RE: #LackofUSB-AGate is officially over. Because Apple have done it first, it's a huge pain for some reason. And we've all been used to adapters for Displayport/Thunderbolt for a while now across laptops, so again; such a crud reason to complain. Same with 30-pin to Lightning switch. Same with dropping Firewire.
You are seriously defending the port crap that Apple have pulled over the last 20 years? the USB format started in 1994. Since then (over 20 years), the speeds have increased 4 times. 3 of those times, the form factor for the connector to the PC did not change AND the new versions were all backwards compatible.Can't say that for Apple.
How many form factors have Apple had in the same time? FireWire, Thunderbolt. Lightening. More I'm sure, but I don't own one so have never been tortured by their up-selling insanity.
Your argument is weak and your fanboi is showing.
Your argument is weak and your fanboi is showing.
Honestly? So your own limited world view must apply to everyone? Oh dear, another instance of that rapidly spreading global mental disease that only permits a black and white view, a for or against. Woe betide anyone who disagrees with ye presumed godly opinion, I guess?
Frankly, I couldn't care less about what needs "defending" - I gave you my perspective. We mostly deploy Apple gear for simple business reasons (and no, I'm not going into an argument there either - a 3 year TCO that includes addressing high grade security needs, license management overhead, patching downtime vs risk exposure, availability of service/repair locations worldwide and the cost of software on macOS pretty much mandates Apple for our specific needs), and the main repair issues we have tend to centre around connectors that are used when mobile people jack into their desk setup.
I also couldn't care less what the PC world does except when it runs Linux and FreeBSD, and we tend to deploy that on servers in our datacentre and inside VMs for those who need it on console (although it mostly involves terminal work).
On my desk right now is a 15" Retina MBP which has a power connector, an Ethernet link via Thunderbolt, a display connection and a USB3 cable for a USB hub which connects a cabled keyboard, a USB3 backup disk (we build out own) and a Logitech mouse (I don't like Apple mice). The 3.5mm jack is also sometimes occupied by a trick that we worked out to con a Mac into accepting an external microphone (Macs need to see a headset impedance on the TRRS connector before they switch mike to the jack). That's 4, sometimes 5 connections that are made several times a day and especially USB connectors tend to fail first.
Now I am looking at a refresh where I may slowly bring all of that down to one (1) jack that takes all of that via an interface box (which I'll add to my kit costs), and I have 3 spares on the machine in case it wears out, On top of that I have a device where everything is soldered in so it's harder to mess with it (it still gets Smartwater treatment, but that's more for insurance purposes).
For us, this development is good news. Just don't try the fanboi argument if you can't make your case with facts.
Despite my horror at the complete lack of 'useful' ports, and the lack of MagSafe power... I'm coming round to your viewpoint.
I have to add the cost of a USB-C MagSafe adaptor (or a few, for different locations) and a 'useful ports dongle (or two, one for home, one for the travel bag) to the cost of the MBPro if and when I go down that route.
The newly old MBP in the house has HDMI, Ethernet, MagSafe power and USB.
USB sticks are the obvious 'error' case, but I can't recall when we last plugged one in.
HDMI is more frequently used, but I can probably tolerate a dongle for that.
The redundancy of the ports, and the fact that they aren't part of the main board (so repair is at least a technical possibility) is seriously attractive.
Someone needs to come up with a USB-Cm, a magnetic connector that extends a whole USB-C port, not just the power.
> the USB format started in 1994. Since then (over 20 years), the speeds have increased 4 times. 3 of those times, the form factor for the connector to the PC did not change AND the new versions were all backwards compatible.Can't say that for Apple... Your argument is weak and your fanboi is showing.
FireWire (IEEE 1394) wasn't just an Apple effort, it was a group effort for high resolution scanners, digital video and external soundcards. On Sony kit it was called iLink. USB 1.0 wasn't up to those applications (it was more for joysticks, mice, keyboards etc), and even USB 2.0 which arrived much later, wasn't as suitable for streaming data as FireWire.
Similarly, Thunderbolt is an Intel effort (though Apple contributed the name, because Intel's original name, LightPeak, wasn't suitable after they ditched the fibre optic for copper). Again, it does stuff USB can't do - such as place PCIe devices outside the computer. PC vendors have been slow to adopt it, but we're beginning to see applications such as external GPUs for laptops.
AC "Same with 30-pin to Lightning switch."
Yes, exactly the same.
30-pin cables were around $2 each and contained no Apple DRM. One could, and still can, buy them off eBay by the dozen. For when the kids or wife wear them out every year.
Lightning cables were as high as $15 each, lowest price, in the early days, and contained Apple DRM. The 'genuine' (Apple Tax paid) versions are now as low as about $8 +/-. When one failed with no other option I've been forced to pay $40 for a quick replacement. THEY'RE MORE EXPENSIVE, especially in the early days.
The switch from 30-pin to Lightning has resulted in an EXTRA ~$50 +/- going from my pocket into Apple's tax free coffers. And that's with only TWO Lightning gadgets in the entire house. The other eight or ten are older, easy to live with, 30-pin gadgets.
Frankly if you can't see what's going on with Apple (it's all about the money), you're thick. They're not even hiding it. Just blatant, like iPhone 7 headphone socket. They're the bald faced Donald Trump of corporations.
Their Slime Index is getting a bit excessive over the past few years.
>This is approaching being a tablet with keyboard, the I/O is so poor.
Eh? It has 4 USB Type C ports, each one of which can do power, USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort and HDMI.
The I/O is broad, fast and versatile.
True, there will be a bit of a faff for a while you're still using USB-A memory sticks and the like, but there's a good selection of 3rd party hubs and dongles thanks to the USB-C-only Macbook last year.
Oblig question
Does it run Crysis, sorry MacOS? :)
At least this move by Apple will shake up the USB-C peripheral market which when the likes of Lenovo, HP etc get off their fat arses will benefit the rest of us no end. The did it with USB-A and may well do it again with USB-C
Meanwhile a bunch of people wanted to hear about new Mac Pros and iMacs. I was wanting to hear some news about iMacs. They haven't been updated in a year. I was thinking of updating my 2009 iMac. Mind you considering how they have been doing their updates lately I might just want to buy the current model to have the ports.
Or try to make a hackintosh. Anyone know of good manufacturer of an all-in-one machine with a 27" screen similar to the iMac? Bonus points if it doesn't come with Windows.
I saw a 28" screen that comes with a Hockey Puck by some Creator. I was trying to watch the Microsoft Event but now think I got pulled into an Outer Limits episode. They controlled the Vertical and the Horizontal but something about Studios kept coming over the speakers. It had a strange computer in it and the huge shock at the end was when the guy found he had to sell his soul to pay for it.
Hacks are pretty easy now. My main machine is a Hack, though we also have a 2012 iMac, an 2013 Air, a 2012 Macbook Pro (with a genuine Apple Escape key no less) as well as a 2009 Macbook white for the kids to use.
I chose a Hack even though at the time I had a proper Mac Pro tower unit as the 2006 Mac Pro was getting a bit long in the tooth, it has the 32bit UEFI which meant I had to make it into a Hackintosh to install something past Snow Leopard. That was bizarre, having to put shims in to make it load the 64 bit booter to allow it to run Apple's OS. Mind you it worked very well, I only gave up on it as it had the slower Xeons in, memory was becoming difficult to find and it made a noise like a Tornado aircraft taxiing down the runway at startup.
I wanted a new Mac and even took my credit card down to the Apple store to buy a wastebin one. However
1. It was fucking batshit insane pricing.
2. It has no space for SATA disks, I develop mobile apps for traffic and our databases are running multi-terabytes of disk. You have to but an external disk pack to get any significant disk space, the old Mac Pros could just slot four SATA disks in.
3. All the video output was Thunderbolt. Stuff that, we had very nice monitors on display port.
4. Did I mention how expensive it now turned out to be?
Anyway, a decent hack takes around 2-3 hours to build from parts turning up, getting Clover installed and having El Capitan installed. Mine has a 4790K cpu, 12TB of disk, 2 x 512GB SSDs, 2 x R280X graphic cards, 32GB of RAM, multiple USB 3.0 cards, three HD 1920x1080 monitors and cost around £1.5K. About 1/3 the price of an equivalent Mac.
There are two issues:
1. It doesn't sleep very well.
2. It doesn't do iMessage as I can't be arsed to fix it. It also means that t'other half can;t in touch with me as quick. (Is that an issue?)
When Apple will make a new Mac Pro that's a tower, that is expandable for professionals, that is a sensible piece of kit to buy I will go and buy it. Since Apple is more concerned with bling and tat and taking the escape key off keyboards (I use Emacs 24/7), Tim and his minions can fuck off and I'll spend my money as I see fit.
I've freelanced at two different motion graphics companies over the last year who finally got fed up and dumped all their mac pros for better spec windows pcs (and this despite them all being apple fans in general, they just couldn't deal with the limited spec hardware/lack of upgradeability any more). That's the way it's going to go in more creative companies, especially ones that do video and animation, unless Apple pull their finger out soon...
Don't like the features or price there are tonnes of other non mac intel based products to buy.
I like analogue watches, some sell for hundreds of thousands, some are much cheaper I have a choice. Just like cars, food, booze, clothes, You name it there are cheaper alternatives.
I don't understand the need to winge and moan because 1 company makes expensive stuff when others make cheaper alternatives.
They developed, built and marketed this, they get to choose the price.
You can't expect to buy a new BMW for Dacia money. They both do the same thing after all
People like macOS and some are nigh on trapped with investment in other compatible apple products. Don't like Surface kit? Then get a new up to date Lenovo with Win 10. Can't afford MacBook anymore? With new kit price increases, second hand costs more for less powerful kit and less functionality because you have little other choice.
Obviously don't get yourself hooked in the first place, but it is easier said than done.
...so take your brand new iPhone 7 out of its box, and your brand new MacBook pro out of its box.
Now, using the components given to you by this company, for these items launched but weeks apart, connect them together.
...
I'm waiting
...
Apple kit was always overpriced, but well thought out. Lately it's been lacking that utterly key latter ingredient.
3.5 mil Jack? Still not launched the airpods. Probably because they're shit for battery life and performance.
No standard Usb ports on a pro?
Only one port at all on a MacBook?
I used to think "hmm, might get a Mac, they look nice", bought an i7 (4 core + HT) spec mini topped with 16gb off the shelf ram as they came to replacement and it's looking a lot like I bought at peak. Everything since has been "meh".
Non-upgradable parts (not least for the mini); soldered RAM; halving the core count...
Apple have gone from "ooh, shiny shiny, but expensive" to "nice kit but slightly impractical, and expensive considering I may need upgrade some peripherals" to "that's a design choice that essentially unusable without upgrading evening in my house, on top of the ridiculous price".
And that's before I get on to their cocking operating system, or software.
Fucking. ITunes.
As I write this, I have an iPhone 6, an iPhone 6s, an iPhone 5s, an iPhone 4s and a Nexus 5 plugged into my Mac. Thats my normal Mac desktop.
I normally have an iPhone 5s and a Nexus 5 plugged into my Macbook when I'm out the office.
Some of us use our Macs for development, I know, I know, real work. I'm sorry, I can only apologise. Some of us don't have hip beards, checked shirts, trousers turned up to our knees and live in Hoxton.
Some of have to use Mac's as Xcode doesn't work on Windows or even Linux.
Some of us have to use real phones to test as as the idiots at Cupertino won't allow notifications to work on their simulators. Oh, GPS simulation is also fucking crap on the simulator, so you have to use a real phone. Since you can't use anything but a Mac (or Hack) for Xcode and for debugging, we need a proper reasonably powerful Macbook for real world testing.
So some of us in world actually need a proper USB port (or 2-5) for their real work.
Thats why we won't be running down to the Apple store for a new shiny Macbook with fuck all in the way of USB ports (without a dongle), without an Escape key (yes I know I can remap one), but why should I have to, and for a price hike of around 25%.
I have to say, that I've just about given up on Apple and their hardware. No decent high end expandable Mac, a laptop that costs a fortune and has less expansion ports, an iPhone 7 with no headphone socket forcing me to buy expensive headphones or use a dongle, no separate 5K display.
This 2012 Macbook Pro may well be the last Mac laptop we buy. I can't see a single reason to buy the new Mac laptop. Now I might well buy a older generation laptop (i.e. a week old) and see how long that goes for. I suspect they're going cheap around Shoreditch.
"Apple have gone from "ooh, shiny shiny, but expensive" to "nice kit but slightly impractical, and expensive considering I may need upgrade some peripherals" to "that's a design choice that essentially unusable without upgrading evening in my house, on top of the ridiculous price"."
Since the loss of Steve Jobs, Apple seem to have lost their way and their creativity. They increasingly seem to going for form over function and while their devices are increasingly pretty, they also seem to be becoming increasingly impractical which is a shame.
My guess is usb c isn't ubiquitous enough to force people to buy an adaptor for older machines.
If theres an iPad refresh in the spring maybe they'll ship the c-Lightning cable in the box with an adaptor...
But there does seem to be some incongruity in the adaptors from Apple at the moment.
@Blotto
Wireless is wonderful except when, for example, the OH's iphone starts BSODing due to update taking most of the internal memory, and then fails on update, causing a boot loop and you have to try downloading the update to the mac, then running the update from itunes.
Which incidentally didn't work and in the end I had to plug it into a Linux box, hack the thing, then re-run the update from itunes on the mac.
Or backing the thing up prior to running updates, because Apple beta testing it's software on users never causes issues that will require rebuilding the bloody thing from scratch. I'm not sure how long it would take to back up a 128gb iphone wirelessly, but I'd imagine using USB3 is a bit faster.
And if you haven't backed up your iphone 6 then I'm assuming nothing or there is of any value to you.
...so take your brand new iPhone 7 out of its box, and your brand new MacBook pro out of its box.
Now, using the components given to you by this company, for these items launched but weeks apart, connect them together.
...
I'm waiting
...
----------------------
Bluetooth? 802.11ac? Oh, you want wired connectivity. How 1990's of you (ok 1999, but still, a few years ago!).
Alas another neat feature gets thrown out for no this incessant drive for thinness. MacBook gets thinner but every cable must now go through conversion dongles. I thought present Thunderbolt-to-RJ45 ethernet adapter was silly but if I get the new MBP, ethernet will be double-dongled!
Joy oh joy.
Since I look after a range of Apple gear going back a decade, looks like my IT kit bag will expanding.
Need more time with the Chiropractor!
I'll now have to carry;
Thunderbolt2 to Ethernet Adapter
Thunderbolt2 to Firewire Adapter
Thunderbolt3 to Thunderbolt2 Adapter
Promise Thunderbolt2 to 10Gb Ethernet Adapter (along with the above Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapter)
Thunderbolt disk caddie for drive diagnostic and recovery.
LaCie 2.5" Firewire Disk (for older Macs)
USB3 Disk for slightly newer macs
Seagate Thunderbolt2 Disk for even near Macs (along with the above Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapter)
Add to that all the standard cables needed + tools and Ill need a sherpa to carry my gear…
Guarantee that I loose at least one dongle/accessory every few months.
On the bright side, going to a LaCie event today to test out Thunderbolt3 RAIDs.
Shame I couldn't take a new MBPro to test or at least test with the new Thunderbolt3 to Thunderbolt2 adapter with existing Thunderbolt MBPro.
Still cannot find any rag including the Reg that can say which generation of processors are now being used.
Shame on you all as all you can do is marvel at the function key replacement.
Pricing is designed to screw you to max as well. If I want 512gb SSD & the new "function" keys you have to opt for the most expensive model. Clearly Apple has refined its miking of fanbois even further,
Yeeeaaahhhh....I think you will find the Marketing door over there.
The simplest reason for not finding the information you require is that Apple haven't released it. Which is, you know, one of the things they are famous for. Right behind the patent for Smug®
"Shame on you all as all you can do is marvel at the function key replacement."
I hope this was sarcasm?
*typed on an increasingly valuable 2012 macbook pro.
> 2000 euro's
Oh man.
Must be all the free money from the ECB floating around like lipid mass in blood vessels.
I suppose prices for Hipster Coffee in Disposable Polystyrene Cups will go through the roof too now. The price of bog-standard beer is already at various levels of painful.
OK, I'm a huge Apple fan, too much kit and use a MacBook Pro as my work computer. I appreciate the CPU performance increase, however overall I am disappointed. The touchbar is an interesting idea, but does strike me as a "square steering wheel".
What is more interesting is that the analogy is much more worrying when you wiki the vehicle with the "square steering wheel", "The key factor that British Leyland can now be seen to have missed is that a much more useful and popular form of car, the hatchback, was emerging in Europe" -
I guess my message - Apple you have some of the prettiest, most reliable, ergonomic, powerful and EXPENSIVE IT kit out there. But where is the innovation?, where are the regular power boosts?, where is the 64Gb of ram ?, where is the new interface?, where is the excitement? -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Allegro
As Mac user for nigh on 30 years, my current macbook is most likely to be the last. A touch-bar? big fat, so what? A RSI inducing nightmare. The removal of all ports, the drive for thin, thin, which is now at a point that I don't think anyone cares any more.
Are Apple going to have the 'courage' to drop the imacs and mac pros?
Microsoft's hardware is looking more attractive these days though I struggle with Windows, but least Microsoft are doing something, VR etc. whereas Apple are pushing up the price and providing less.
Spot on. I think Apple may well miss sales targets this year with this uninspiring and undifferentiated release.
There is a lot of pent-up demand for new Macs but most developers I know would be looking to have at least 16 GB of RAM. We don't mind paying a premium for Apple kit but only if we get what we need. These machines seem to come with little else than swingeing price increases, and it seems they have not learned the lessons from recent I-Phone launches: people won't splash out on new gear if it doesn't seem significantly better than what they already have.
I wonder if they'll be an equivalent of the 5c for the Mac Books?
As an Apple buyer since 1998, I can also add my voice to the list of people who feel their current hardware from them may well be their last. I liked the 'whole-system-works-well' but it is getting too clever and bloated. I tried a Rasberry pi recently and really like the bare minimum set-up you get - maybe Linux next time....
I know many people who have been fans for years who feel similarly and have moved away or will do soon. It saddens me as there are many aspects of Apple I like, but they [Apple] seem to always be coming up with new ones I don't.
Hint to Apple: 'Sony'
The only thing professional about this is the Thunderbolt ports, portability, SSD and the name...
Really disappointing that Intel Iris is still being used on the 13" ones. I have a sub £500 Windows 10 laptop with SSD and Intel Iris and whilst it can play certain games it's not great. The 15" is over-priced just to get the ATI dedicated card. I also have a £1300 Windows 10 laptop with 32GB of RAM, SSD and a dedicated Nvidia card that gives a comfortable 60fps+ on AAA games. Granted only 4 hours of battery life when using graphics card...
I have an older MBP for video editing but with the lack of ports, emoji-bar and on-board graphics on this new one - it feels more like a Mac Book Air. Feels like a step backward and the pricing doesn't help to push to competitor products.
i'll be honest, I only started using Apple products (apart from a brief and unsuccessful fling with an Apple NewtonI because the iPhone3 was so easy to use and combined all the PDA functions + camera + music in one place. I liked it so much I purchased a 13" 2007 MacBookPro, an iMac and AppleTV so I bought into the eco-system and have been there ever since.
i recently replaced the HDD with an SSD (plus extra RAM and a new battery) in my MacBookPro, it's running OSX MS Excel and VMWare Fusion with Win10 for MS Project as fast as I need. About the only thing I can't run is XCOM2, but I don't think that justifies spending nearly £3k on a new laptop. I'll just spend £40 on XCOM2 to run on my Xbox One S...which if i had a Windows10 laptop, I could run on both, and Excel and MSProject......hmmmmm.........any decent Windows phones out there?
Glad to see the rivalry (hatred) between Mac and PC is alive and well, much like fighting on the football terraces.
I use both PC for work (HP Probook) and I have an iMac 24" and a 2010 Macbook pro. I am not a developer, programmer or anything to do with this sort of thing. At work, I am a user like millions of others that just use a PC to collate and manipulate data. At home I do the usual home stuff, Web, Music, Photo's etc. I chose a HP Probook because work gave me no alternative and I have had 3 in 3 years, all failed roughly after a year of service (one was my fault as it overheated in my laptop bag (don't tell the boss). In the three years I have used Windows 7 (I actually liked), Windows 8/8.1 (absolutely despised) and now Windows 10 (its OK). My Graphic Designer Wife got me my first Macbook in 2009 and I thought it was ok but with every new OS release I noticed a real step change in usability. Now here I have to reiterate....... I am not a Dev, Programmer etc etc I am a real world user who doesn't care about coding or hacking or overclocking. I am not interested in modding our upgrading etc. I just want my Computers to work and my Macs do, just as fast as the day they I took then out of the box. Yes they are very expensive and yes they are a little bit too shiny but for me and other none techies they just work. I have never had to re-install mac OS, I have never had a Virus and never do pop-ups, adware etc ruin my user experience. I have had a HD failure but Apple swapped it out for free and replaced my keyboard because it looked a little grubby, again for free. Do I like the look of the touch bar, yes. Will I use it? Probably as much as I do the function keys.
And yes I have an iPhone and iPad and love the way they all work together because that's what I want them to do.
(Steps back and awaits the usual football terrace banter....... You're going to get your ...........)
There is a big difference in the way the two work. The Mac is a much quieter and smoother place to work than in Windows land.
But, Ives Cook and Shiller have screwed Jobs' pooch. It's all form over function and really stupid design decisions which appears to be arrogance on top of hubris. This Macbook NOT Pro is a great example. Thin has never been the problem for professionals; it's connectivity, power and reliability that matters. The ability to connect to different peripherals and screens is vital if you're doing "work" as a 15" screen just isn't big enough. It's also piss-takingly expensive to which you'll need to spend loads more on adapters -- which the tight-arsed greedy bastards don't ship with the machine. FFS they've even removed the power lead!
So Apple appear to have withdrawn from the pro laptop market, the pro screen market, the sensible smartphone market... Oh, and the latest iOS's greatest feature: more emojis and wallpaper. And that useless watch thing.
My wife owns a small photography business. We've had a lot of misgivings about Windows 10, enough so that we've been thinking about switching to Macs for photo-editing. But the new Macs and MBP's are so overpriced (and memory-limited, in the case of MBP) that the the migration is less likely.
When Microsoft pushed the catastrophe it calls Windows 10, they handed Apple a golden opportunity. I would have never guess that Apple would throw it away like this.
Mac user since 98, and what did this announcement do to me? Look up at what you get for throwing €2.000 at Lenovo. Turns out you get a heck of a beastly system with more ports than you can shake a dongle at, a removable battery, matte screen (!) and rows upon rows of real keys. Amazing.
It just hit me. I had a ThinkPad from about year 2006 had a touch sensitive control strip above the keyboard just like that! The stupid thing began to wear out and it was near impossible to use.
I think people in the future will look at this one as a awkward departure from their design path. That strip actually makes it less elegant and more clunky in design aesthetics. Or in other words, it looks to me like a gimmick. In essence we've had usable features(missing SD card port?) traded out for a keyboard gimmick at an unreasonable price increase to shore up sagging profit figures.
(just my unreasonable 2 cents worth)
Just stumbled across this: Benjamin Button Reviews The New MacBook Pro.
I had a 2011 MBP. From a hardware perspective it still remains one of the best laptops I've ever owned.
I didn't particularly get along with OSX on it as for one thing, the tools I needed day-to-day weren't available for the OS.
The only reason I eventually sold it last August was because I had maxed out the RAM and storage and it was starting to make my mobile labs using Virtual Machines untenable.
The only MBP options by then had fixed everything which meant I couldn't upgrade it at any point so I was stuck paying top dollar for something that would possibly age even faster.
In the end, for just less than the same amount of money I bought a customised PC Specialist Defiance II.
This has 32GB RAM, 4TB (2x512GB m2 SSD's, 1 x 1TB SATA SSD and 1 x 2TB spinning rust), a 6GB (I think - going from memory) nVidia 980 GPU, LAN, 3x USB 3.0 and 1 combo HDMI with USB 2.0 ports, 2 x display ports, an SD card slot, optical port for sound and an almost full sized UK keyboard. Oh and a 4k screen (which in hindsigt I'd have foregone, if I'd known how p!ss poor Windows 10 still behaves with high DPI).
I can't see this one lasting less than the 4 and a half years the MBP lasted.
And no touch-gimmicks.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
