
A Programmer Evaluates the MacBook Pro (Touch Bar) - ingve
http://www.2ality.com/2016/12/macbook-pro-touch-bar.html
======
noahwilde
The person who reviewed this may have been a programmer, but the review
doesn't seem to be in context of programming. I care about how well I can work
on it, not now well it works with remotes.

> The MacBook Pro is more an evolutionary than a revolutionary upgrade over my
> MacBook Air.

That seems to sum up this review. The macbook pro is a successor to the air,
not the old macbook pro.

~~~
nilkn
How is a large 15" laptop with a discrete GPU a successor to the MacBook Air?

The problem I have with that statement is that "the MBP" is an ambiguous term.
It's a product lineup, and there are products in that lineup that are not in
any way the successor to the Air.

~~~
gutnor
It is quite hard to make a "Pro" machine targeted at professionals with a
product line up of 4 laptop (and maybe 4 laptop total in the whole Mac line)
with very little configuration options.

That's the most obvious conclusion of all those MBP review and comment. Apple
just serve a small slice of the consumer market that intersect a narrow slice
of the professional market. That narrow slice just gets smaller with each
major iteration and Apple is not sad about it.

~~~
nilkn
I think this is an okay viewpoint, but it forces the conclusion that Apple has
never made a Pro machine (because the MacBook Pro lineup has never had that
many options and configurations). Personally I'm fine with that conclusion,
but it's not consistent with the narrative that this is the first MacBook Pro
which is not for professionals.

~~~
gutnor
I remember people always complaining about how the MBP was not for
professionals.

Lack of ports, lack of DVD reader, lack of configuration options, lack of OSX
corporate feature, lack of customisability, lack of Windows, too expensive,
...

~~~
falcolas
Most of those "lacks" are relatively recent evolutions of the product line. It
doesn't feel like it was that long ago I had a MacBook Pro with a DVD drive,
Ethernet port, and expandable memory.

It was a bit bulky, but I really miss some of those features these days.

------
epberry
A coworker got the new MBP and didn't realize that he wasn't actually clicking
the trackpad for two days. If I didn't know better I also would've been
fooled. In my opinion the haptic feedback and the huge trackpad are actually
the best features of the new MBP.

~~~
proksoup
Took me months to realize (on macbook) ... no one believes me until I power it
off and have them try again.

Spooky is the word.

~~~
BuckRogers
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-Arthur C. Clarke

I completely agree though, I checked it out in-store and was far more
impressed with the new MBP than the reviews had me believe I would be. People
must be very spoiled to downplay it IMO. The keyboard and trackpad are really
impressive. I'm debating whether to replace my old desktop with a i7-7700K or
pickup the MBP15 1TB with a few dongles to hookup to my existing peripherals.
It would be my first Mac ever (I had a Commodore 128 in the 80s) and it
certainly seems like a marvel of engineering to me. I'm starting to think the
best way to run Linux or Windows would be using either in VMWare under macOS
or using Parallels to get the best of every world.

The one thing the Apple folks could've done better is make the tilde key the
new escape and make the tilde/grave alt remaps. If I got one that would likely
be the first thing I do.

~~~
girvo
I run Linux on my Mac using Veertu, which utilises the apple provided
Hypervisor.framework. I've had a lot of success with it performance wise
compared to VirtualBox, for example.

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pyrophane
My only problem with the keyboard (I actually like it, which surprised me) is
that it seems quite easy to get small things like crumbs stuck under the keys,
which can render them unusable. I've already had this happen on the new MBP,
never experienced it on any other keyboard. Was able to dislodge it with
compressed air, but if this happens a lot it could become a serious
inconvenience.

I thought about a keyboard cover but I don't think apple left room between the
keycaps and display for that when the lid is closed.

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protomyth
Does anyone understand the decision to not left align the esc "key"?

~~~
anamexis
I believe the screen simply doesn't extend that far to the left (although the
touch-sensitive bezel does).

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mvdwoord
Not being able to find volume controls by touch will be infuriating me forever
I guess. Although I doubt personally It would much value for me I can see how
TouchBar could be a nice _addition_ to a laptop for many people. If they would
have just placed it above the current row of function keys... I also read
about some issues with the power button, sometimes requiring you to close/open
the lid. Can;t find it now, does anybody know more about that?

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fergie
I hadn't considered the removal of the esc key from a vi/emacs perspective. Is
this something that can be lived with?

~~~
pyrophane
For vim either map a key sequence "jj" or "fd" to esc or remap caps lock to
esc. Many vim users do that anyway for the convenience.

Not sure about emacs (I use spacemacs). Does esc come in for more than just
cancelling commands? If you don't need to use your caps lock for ctrl for
emacs, the same remap to esc would work as well.

Anyway, basically boils down to two things: 1) the touch bar escape is fine
for occasional use but I wouldn't want to use it frequently and 2) that isn't
a problem if you don't mind remapping caps lock and have nothing more
important to do with it.

~~~
duozerk
Emacs user here, I think I never use escape; I use C-g to cancel a command.

~~~
hellofunk
The idea behind evil mode in emacs is to not use the control or meta keys for
most things, since they are awkwardly placed. Evil mode activates the Esc key
just like in vim.

evil-escape module for evil mode adds the 'fd' functionality discussed here.

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shermanyo
First they came for the ethernet port, and I did not speak out - because
wireless is ubiquitous.

Then they came for the headphone port, and I did not speak out - because I
could still plug into my external audio interface or mixer _when at home_.

Then they came for my keyboard, and NOW I CAN'T ESCAPE!

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geophile
How does a programmer evaluate this machine without discussing at least one of
vi and emacs, and the absence of real Esc and Fn keys?

By the way, I visited an Apple store and played with the new 15" MBP. It's
even worse than I thought. I downloaded the latest Gnu Emacs, and the Fn
virtual keys were not available. And in no case did I see the Esc and Fn
virtual keys present at the same time.

Also ridiculous is the fact that the touch bar is not available on any
keyboard other than the built-in MBP keyboard. So you now have to choose
between the features of the touch bar and the comfort of external peripherals.

It is astonishing how many bad decisions were packed into this one revision of
a formerly great machine.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>How does a programmer evaluate this machine without discussing at least one
of vi and emacs, and the absence of real Esc and Fn keys?

What percentage of programmers use vi or emacs?

~~~
drawkbox
Use or say they use? vi and emacs are alot like some programming books people
say they have read to show they are a programmer because they think that it
what it means. My guess, < 10% with all the IDEs and text editors out there
today. On servers or VMs they are common, in actually coding, probably
overstated.

~~~
ardaozkal
My laptop's top left corner of keyboard recently stopped working (new one
shipped), and well, I've only then realized how much I use vim. I don't use it
for programming, but well, it's the text editor I use the most for config
files. I had to install a virtual keyboard (onboard) just to be able to press
esc. So, while no esc isn't be a reason to not buy the new mbp for me (price,
lack of magsafe and the dongle madness are the reasons I don't buy, though),
it is still be very, very annoying.

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sprobertson
> I miss the half-size left and right arrow keys ... it makes the arrow keys
> harder to hit blindly

This little detail is a big problem for me when using any image or music
program where I want to quickly find the arrow keys and shift things around.

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hughw
I have Emacs and Atom and Eclipse open all day, plus a byobu session and half
a dozen local terminal windows. They all use ESC and F keys in a dozen little
ways. I would pretty much have to force the touch bar always to be on F key
display. And if I do that, then touch bar seems just a downgrade.

Edit: Just checked Atom, there's not really any F-key dependence there. But I
use escape all day long to cancel out of UI dialogs. Just saying there's a lot
more affected here than just vi users (and I do use vi all day long too, for
git commits and editing smaller param files).

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itazula
He says that the four ports are all the same, but that is not correct.
According to [https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT207256](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207256): "MacBook Pro (13-inch,
Late 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports) supports Thunderbolt 3 at full
performance using the two left-hand ports. The two right-hand ports deliver
Thunderbolt 3 functionality, but have reduced PCI Express bandwidth."

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soyiuz
By my count, he bought five adapters and a docking station. This gives a
decent "in the wild" report of what is required to get the machine connected
to one's peripherals. Thank you for the writeup.

------
lobster_johnson
I have been using the 2016 MacBook Pro 15'' for more than a week. Overall, I
like _most_ things about it. It's nice and thin, the fingerprint reader is a
time-saver. I'm also fine with USB-C and the new dongle normal. I'm
disappointed about the lack of bump in performance or RAM, but those things
are not dealbreakers.

The new touch bar/keyboard combo, however, is. Here are the issues I'm having.

* _No tactile feedback_. Having no tactile feedback for the Escape key is... unnerving. Did I hit it correctly? Did it do anything? Even if something actually _did_ happen on the screen, a little feeling of self-doubt follows, and you feel like hitting it again. It feels wrong. I'm a developer, and I use the Escape key about 10 times per minute as part of my workflow. Yes, I know that you _can_ map it to Caps-Lock, but chalk it up to 30+ years of muscle memory; I want my Escape key to be where it is, and it's hard to switch, especially since you can't turn the fake Escape off, either during the learning period. (Maybe I should try covering it with tape.)

* _Unintended touchbar touches_. I discovered to my chagrin that I have a habit of resting my fingers around the area where the function keys are; my default position for the left hand is above QWERTY, and with my fingers outstretched, they reach into the touch bar. This has resulted in some incidents where the machine seems to have come alive and is doing things on its own, when in fact I was just obliviously holding down on the escape key or some other touch bar widget. Muscle-memory again, but then: It'd be nice to be able to be able to just touch my computer without causing accidents.

* _It 's pretty useless_. As a touch typer, I never look at the keyboard. Not even to touch farther-away function keys like volume, play/pause, previous/next. Having a touch bar that changes its contents might be great for novice users who look at the keyboard all the time, but for me, it's a distracting context switch. The app-specific touch bar widgets are also generally useless (the little Safari preview of your browser's page is particularly ridiculous). I can see where they'd be nice for providing "analogue" controls for things like music and audio editing, but the rest are pretty close to useless. Consider the emoji one — sure, maybe it's nice when you use on of the common ones. But the moment you want a snowman, good luck to you, there's no search (unlike the much nicer Ctrl+Cmd+Space dropdown which probably few people know about). In the end, the app controls got so distracting — and the lack of fast one-click access to things like volume and brightness — that I turned off the app controls altogether. Which gives me the same layout, nearly, as my previous MacBook. In conclusion, while the touch bar is clearly _technologically_ very cool, it feels like a marketing gimmick more than a carefully thought-out feature.

* _Unintended trackpad touches_. Again, you have to rest your hands somewhere. The trackpad is now so big that it's almost impossible not to inadvertently touch it, especially in a resting position. I have now disabled all the gestures so I don't trigger anything unintentionally. It's a nice idea that should probably have received more focus-group testing.

* _The arrow keys_. This is probably one that I'll get used to, but at this stage it's annoyance. While the new keyboard is probably objectively better than the old one — I like it very much, at least — Apple changed the shape of the arrow keys, which means that they don't feel any different from other keys. Again, as a touch typer, I'm used to just "finding" that pyramid of arrow keys under my first three fingers, and muscle memory is now telling me that left/right aren't positioned correctly, and I keep hitting the Shift instead of Up. Unlike the Esc key, it's probably, hopefully a passing problem because they are, after all, physical keys.

After migrating to the new machine, my productivity went down a surprising
amount, which has never happened with an Apple machine before. If these seem
like small gripes, keep in mind that as a developer, all I do is type. I see
some comments here that "I got used to it"; but after a week, the touch bar is
still as disruptive as when I started. I _like_ learning new ways — but only
when they're superior to the old way.

At this point, I'm strongly considering returning the machine and going back
to my mid-2015 MBP, based on a simple cost/benefit analysis: The bad/meh
simply outweighs the good by a wide margin. I still have a few days to decide.
I'd love to hear if anyone else had the same gripes and overcame them somehow.

If Apple comes up with a new machine next year that's faster, has longer
battery life (I get about 3.5 hours with this working full-time in VSCode,
Terminal and Safari, same as my last MBP) and takes at least 32GB RAM, I
_might_ weather the bad touch bar, but at this point I fear (and I mean
literally that I fear) that a Linux-based laptop might be in my future. It's
even possible that I could downgrade to the 13'', which still comes with
function keys. Maybe the performance isn't terrible? But it probably is.

~~~
notadoc
Great review, this is more insightful and relevant than the linked piece.

I ended up up buying a 2015 MBP model and know several others who have done
the same after avoiding or returning the 2016 MBP. I personally could have
probably stomached the various 2016 compromises and nuisances for much
improved performance and 32GB/64GB RAM, but as is, just can't do it. Maybe
next year.

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raarts
Totally nothing on battery life. Can OP say something about it here?

~~~
karmicthreat
I went from a 2015 MBP13 to a 2016 MBP15 TB. It is shorter, especially if you
have the brightness cranked up. If you cut the screen down to 1/3-1/2
brightness I'd say it is close. I have a pretty variable power usage though.
I've also been running a couple VMs lately that have been eating power. I use
chrome most of the time so that eats power as well.

All told I can probably get 5-7 hours out of it depending on the day. The need
to plug it in and out frequently really makes me miss the magsafe jack.
Whoever made that call should get fired.

Think there is a market for high end laptops for developers that are maybe 30%
more expensive than a macbook? Looking at System76 and Dell they are all
bricks. The Razer Blade Pro is probably the closest thing. Even that is huge
and heavy.

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frusciante29
The Pro in Macbook Pro does not stand for "programmer". The device is not
catering to the past. The world is not full of UNIX era programmers. Some
future programmers are getting their first laptop during the coming holidays.
If you think Esc then I is the future of programming tools, I don't know what
to tell you.

~~~
hellofunk
Vi is not just the past. It remains one of the best ways to edit text, period.
And it will probably continue this way long into the future. Why do you think
so many IDEs come with vim emulation?

~~~
nilkn
Just for the record, I use vim all the time on the new MBP and don't have any
issues. I remapped Esc in vim ages ago, though. vim was not designed around
the current placement of the Esc key.

~~~
KurtMueller
What do you use in its stead?

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nilkn
For the past year or so I've been using the key sequence "fd", which I
discovered from spacemacs. (I've actually copied a lot of spacemacs
keybindings because I found them very ergonomic.)

~~~
hellofunk
Great tip! I've installed evil-escape in my emacs and now have the same
binding. Quite useful.

