It's still got the 3.5mm for my headphones, with USB-C hopefully daisy chaining non Apple displays will finally become a reality, and thankfully my work has upgraded to using wireless technology for displaying screens in conference rooms (which works from OS X and Windows).
The new context sensitive function bar is going to take some getting used to, but I have been using Caps lock for escape for years now and OS X just got native support for mapping that.
Grabbed a USB-C to lightning cable while I was at it. Now I can just bring a single charger and charge either my Mac or my iPhone or both at the same time. I rarely use USB drives, so unfortunately I'll need a dongle for that, but it's not that big of a deal.
---
I am more sad that there was no announcement for the Mac Pro/Mac Mini. Also no Apple display, instead handing that to LG, so it looks like Apple is pulling out of the desktop market (I wonder how long the iMac will last).
---
Edit: There is one thing I will miss, and that is MagSafe. It has saved my laptop many a time in it's lifetime. I am hoping Apple builds a USB-C to MagSafe cable that provides the same functionality to save laptops from a tripping hazard.
Function keys are important for some things. F1 (help), F5 (reload page), F11 (full screen), F12 (browser dev tools), shift-F2 (Firefox terminal), alt-F4 (close window), etc..
I almost bought a Macbook in August, but I decided to get a Thinkpad 460 instead. I deleted Windows 10 and installed Ubuntu 16.04. The Thinkpad was $1,000 cheaper than the Macbook and has better specs (24 Gb RAM), except for the screen. The screen on the Thinkpad is better in one way though: it has a matte finish, so there is less glare. There is also a middle button on the touchpad, which is great for copy/paste in Linux.
Hearing about the missing ESC key makes me very happy that I didn't switch to Mac.
Edit: I see that there is a touchbar, but I have a fully touchscreen keyboard, and it's impossible to type without looking at it. A touchbar seems like it would be less efficient than keys. Keys are programmable too, while still providing reference for your fingers.
They have the pleasure to install an additional ESC server which simulates the ESC key with an ios device :-)
https://github.com/brianmichel/ESCapey
It's amazing that Apple considers the backquote/tilde key so much more important than the ESC key.
F1 → ⌘?, F5 → ⌘R, F11 → ^⌘F, F12 → ⌘⌥J, ⌥+F4 → ⌘W (just window/tab) or ⌘Q (entire app).
It would have made more sense to move the Magsafe connector onto the PSU DC output.
Just upgraded the SSD in it from the fusion drive to a full on SSD, and it is incredibly fast now.
I didn't knew people were doing that :O, whats the benefit?, and how do you turn on caps?
I rebind mine to control.
> whats the benefit?
Control is an actually useful key, in Emacs specifically but also in OSX in general as all OSX controls have emacs-ish chords support (e.g. C-a C-e for start and end of line). Having Control on a large well-placed key is more convenient than have it on a small key in the corner, and I've literally no use for capslock.
> how do you turn on caps?
I don't think I've ever wanted that in the last 20 years or so, every single toggling of capslock has been by mistake. In fact one of my issues with windows is there still isn't a way to easily remap capslock, it takes 3 clicks in OSX (or ChromeOS), it takes installing third-party software or hand-rolling custom keyboard layouts on windows.
I follow this setup[1], where caps lock can both function as ctrl and esc depending on how long you press/hold.
[1]: http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/a-modern-space-cadet/#cont...
Here are my thoughts:
Removing the function keys and replacing them with the touch bar is a step up. The function keys have been annoyingly inconsistent on macOS for a few years now, most programs don't make use of them like they could because by default you need to use an awkward chord with the fn key.
The addition of the fingerprint scanner alone is a win, but having proper context sensitive keys will be huge for discoverability and ease of use.
RIP MagSafe - it was such a great design. I would have kept it and ditched a thunderbolt port, but that's just me.
Having HDMI built-in was pretty good for connecting to projectors, but HDMI doesn't support many screen modes and is pretty out-dated these days. Buy a $10 adaptor if you need it.
SD Card readers are also not used much these days. Buy a $10 adaptor if you need it.
Lots of people are moaning about the escape key like it is their favorite member of One Direction. My guess is that the escape key will be available (as a touch bar icon) in any application that actually needs it.
I am not in the market for a new MacBook Pro, but I can see the appeal.
Interesting. Every other laptop has one these days, but I haven't really seen people using it much. It seems more like a gimmick.
Fingerprint scanner on a phone makes more sense, because it lets you to unlock it almost as quickly as if you didn't have any lockscreen security, which is a big convenience.
TouchID (at least on my iPhone) is 100% more usable and I would love to have it on my laptop as well.
Don't you use a password manager? Aren't you tired of constantly typing your master password in to unlock your keys?
I've never had a single problem plugging in HDMI directly.
Such is the disposable culture.
I think security minded folks in IT are not going to be thrilled with these. A fingerprint being an identifier, not a authenticator and all that.
NOW I HAVE LOOK AT THE KEYBOARD.
For example, as a developer I press the ESC button zillion times a day. I'm used to "upper-left corner is cancel/close/undo".
Now with the new touchbar it can have an "OK" there. Or "Done". Or "edit". It's up to a developer now.
Photographers. Photographers were still using that.
You know what my mid 2009 MBP can still do? Pull images from my DSLR while charging while plugged into a wired network, transferring them to an external hard drive under the command of an external mouse and keyboard, using an external display. No daisy chaining required, and the cabling is only a minor disaster!
(If I bought a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, I'd be using zero USB ports for any of this. External disk is Firewire.)
1Password is going to rock on this machine.
Because professionally, I've been on Windows, Linux and Android for years. And with Windows where it's at now, I've never been more productive.
Just can't seem to get that across to my Apple-friends and Apple-coworkers.
One reason I'm stuck with Mac is the need to use it for iOS app development.
- Build quality is excellent
- The form factor is terrific (physical size of a 14-incher)
- You can get it with the latest desktop i7s and a boatload of RAM
- Good battery life (skip the 4k screen)
If you get a lappy with a 1080 screen (no higher), you may be surprised how well osx runs in VMware. Higher dpi than that and the ui is too small, though.
And if you're adventurous, you could always convert a pc into a hackintosh. It's usually just fiddling with some drivers and swapping out a WiFi card.
That's quite dishonest considering a fair bit of that is the 1700€ 2TB SSD (which is not an unfair price, that's about what Samsung announced for the 960 Pro)
> which is $5447.95.
Also dishonest, most people expect USD prices to be without tax, you're including the ~20% european VATs in that by converting back from tax-included euro prices.
1700 EUR for an upgrade is ridiculous even if the 960 Pro would cost 1700 EUR which it doesn't even remotely do the upgrade should've been it's price minus the price of the 512GB SSD. Effectively Apple is charging you anywhere between 2100 and 2500 EUR (2100 if you use the 960 pro 512 price, 2500 if you use the "apple price") for that 2TB SSD.
This is by no shape or form acceptable, taxes or anything else be damned.
Also sales tax isn't dishonest. I have to pay it to buy the machine!!
This is a ton more money than what maxxed out macbook pros were around 2013 in €, and to be honest the total package feels like a downgrade.
This my biggest issue with the MBP. WTF are they thinking here?! Why didn't the iPhone7 port get switched to USB-C from lightning if they knew the MBP was going to USB-C/TB3? The whole point of Apple products is that they work better the more of them you have.
Then comes Apple, which I've been waiting for - I have the Macbook Air and Macbook Pro. But for this price and with no 32GB RAM upgrade possibilities and 8GB RAM for 220€?
No... Just NO. This is the last straw, I'm going to try Linux for the iftiest time.
The rest of your points stand though.
This is a low quality post.
And the keikaku[0] is quite obviously to provide incentive for accessory manufacturers to build type-c native stuff, and eventually have an all-type-c ecosystem and little to no need for "dongles" (which incidentally should mostly be basic cables)
[0] keikaku means plan
[0] kwijibo means product
forward to what ? design over usability ? surely you understand why a lot of people are pissed off. The touch bar is a gimmick, the lack of inputs make the MBP only PRO in name, this isn't a "PRO" machine. This is just a Macbook air rebranded as Pro. But to understand that you need to be able to read through Apple's bullshit, which is hard for Apple fans that see the brand as part of their own identity.
Also - external keyboards are still possible!
I'm hopeful that the customization of TouchBar will have some perks that weren't quite made loud & clear in the preso.
For those who need it, Esc will be readily-mappable to a hardware key combo.
Also, it's simply false that you can't use a Touch Bar key without looking down. It's just a simple motor skill like anything else. Very very slightly harder than having a hardware Esc key. Trivial.
The other problem is that they left in the Fn key. Why would I need a Fn key when I have a touch bar? Maybe we can map ESC to the Fn key. :/
I always thought it was a smart design. It seems kind of silly to remove it.
Everyone needs to plug in their laptop; Not every one needs 4 connectivity ports.
Apple has been moving it's product line towards catering to the idiocracy, anyways, so it's not surprise. Add to that the increasing loss of interest in iphone and devs moving to android, in spite of all it's problems, and you have a sea shift.
I think it's been an interesting dichotomy all along. There were the consumer apple products, and the professional ones. The professional products were used to build for the consumer ones. I think Jobs really understood the need to have a two pronged approach in this way. It seems that new management now is trying to unify it all, and the wind up is that apple will no longer be the cool dev's choice, and the result will be a rapidly declining ecosystem, offering, popularity, and, finally, revenue.
As for losing the ports -- seems like a great opportunity for someone to come up with an all-in-one usb-C to SD, HDMI, VGA, DVI, USB3, etc. Wouldn't need to be very big or expensive...
Even so, the old macbooks and macbook airs with SD slots could be "upgraded" with a low-profile SD card that is left in all the time. This series of macbook pros appears to be completely bereft of renegade upgrade opportunities.
I use a mac now, and like the tight integration with ipad and iphone, but unless they come out with a better macbook that restores some of what has been taken away my next laptop will likely be running Linux.
It is so clear they did not consider touch-typists when they designed touch bar. They could have used textured glass to cover it, or aligned its keys to 0-9 row, or added haptic feedback, or at least kept 2 options for keyboard as they did with 13 inch model.
Seeing Craig Federighi when he tried his best to show the demo was hilarious. Is it how they see professionals working in the next decade? It turned out that Microsoft has better understanding of it. At least is see Surface Dial being used.
I can cover that ugly "MacBook Pro" branding by duct tape. I can buy dongles for SD/HDMI and magsafe-like USB-C cable. But... the whole story of giving up on professionals seems to be unforgettable.
Well, it makes it easy to save a few thousand dollars this year.
I would like 17inch screen, and runs Ubuntu ... bonus for NVidia GPU - I deep learn in the cloud but having a GPU to test on would be great.
Anybody know of this mythical unicorn?
17in 4K IPS display, desktop-equivalent GTX 980.
Ubuntu might be a little more difficult, depends on driver support I suppose. Most come with either no OS or Windows.
Here's a search for 17" + 1060/1070 + 4k. I'd probably stick with 1060 to keep some sort of handle on heat management unless you really need more. I've had a good experience ordering from here in the past (Sager NP8660, great machine with an unfortunately large power brick).
http://www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-gamin...
Precision 17 7000 Series (7710) http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m7710-workstatio...
ZBook 17 ? http://www8.hp.com/us/en/workstations/zbook-17.html
take note that these all have Quadro cards, not their lower end GForce cards.
Has a desktop Geforce 1080 in it, mechanical keyboard, Gsync display... drool.
If they don't include a usbc->usb+hdmi adapter in the box, it's going to be extremely painful for users with workstations who find out that their peripherals don't work.
I'm an HDMI guy too, SD cards are great, and MagSafe has saved my bacon more than once. But the function keys are being transformed into something a bit more interactive and app-specific, and if you need Escape in a terminal emulator, Ctrl-] has been around just about forever.
I think Apple's doing something new and interesting with function keys.
(But I agree, I'm not sure I agree with their all-in strategy on Thunderbolt/USB-C either.)
Same thing people said when they went all-in on USB 1.0. It will be rough for some people for a while but the new port has some obvious benefits. In two years everyone will take it for granted that most new laptops/desktops come with at least some USB C ports.
Plus, the touch bar sucks. Compensating with indentations and force touch could have made it an amazing and useful tool.
1998 seemed too early to go USB-only, but it turned out to be a great move. And that was a situation where you often needed all-new peripherals, versus this machine where you just need a cheap adapter or a new cable.
I already have a laptop that lacks hdmi and has usb c, and i miss it on a regular basis. Carrying dongles really sucks.
It does seem odd to have only one kind of port. That said, you can also look at it as "you only need one kind of port". No need to mix and match adapters. Just X to TB3.
As for too early, it's a chicken-egg thing. Someone is going to be early to market, and the market needs pressure to make the change.
"Compensating with indentations and force touch could have made it an amazing and useful tool."
I agree that force touch would be great. I think this is an iteration thing that we'll see in the future.
As for indentations, yeah, it would be nice to have something to know where one key ends and the next begins. It does limit flexibility though. And it's also a screen, not just a keyboard. Not sure how the indentations would work with the display.
The mistake people are making is thinking the iPhone's transition is from 3.5mm analog audio to Lightning digital audio. It isn't, it's a transition to wireless audio, including the Lightning headphones is a compromise.
b) I was referring to the transition to non-wireless lightning headphones on the iphone 7, which they proposed as an alternative. It looks and feels sloppy in that regard. One hand working on macbooks isn't aware what the hand working on iphones is doing.
Do your homework before reflexively criticizing, please.
https://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore?date=now%201-d&q=mac...
Remember when apple got rid of the floppy drive and then the disk drive? Do we still complain about those?
Headphone jack on iPhone is a different concern, since bluetooth headphones are still not as ubiquitous and having something else to charge a headache.
But none of these concerns (except for maybe the absence of Magsafe) is really a dealbreaker.
No, they put 4 instead of the old 2, and they quadruple up as charging, video and high-speed interconnect.
