
Using the 2016 MacBook Pro as a development machine - techterrier
https://medium.com/@MostlyHarmlessD/first-few-days-with-2016-macbook-pro-b5e96226b6f#.uigkj2wi9
======
myrandomcomment
I have a thunderbolt monitor that I bought 1 month before this was released.
With that I only plug in the power and thunderbolt cable (thunderbolt disk and
USB keyboard and mouse and Ethernet are on the monitor). When I travel I need
the HDMI for presentation. I tried the new keyboard (my friend has one). Hate
it.

In my family we have 3 iPhones, 4 iPads, MacBook and MacBook Pro. Heck we
still have 2 iPods connected in the car. I have 2 old time capsules (turned
off now).

I will be looking at a Windows or Linux laptop to replace my MacBook Pro when
it dies.

Apple, your new MacBook Pro is pushing an all Apple house out of your eco
system. Once I change the laptop, maybe I should look at an android phone?

~~~
nkw
> Once I change the laptop, maybe I should look at an android phone?

FWIW, I run a MacPro, MacBookPro, family has iPhones/iPads, office runs on
iMacs/MacBookPros. Owned every iPhone generation since the first, and I
switched to a Pixel XL last week. My experience has been very pleasant.

It probably doesn't hurt that software/services wise I'm much deeper into
Google's ecosystem than Apple's. I don't find Siri useful, iCloud is a mess
that I only have for holding phone backups and a @mac.com email address I
never use. I pay for G Suite, Google Music and Dropbox rather than the
equivalent Apple services, so maybe it was a little easier than it would be
for others.

I haven't decided where to go after my mid-2015 MBP is to be replaced. I hope
there are better options by then.

~~~
myrandomcomment
I tried an android back around the Galaxy Note 2 time frame and disliked it
immensely. The inconsistency of the interface was the biggest issue (yes I put
stock on the phone). I have played with some of the newer phones on the newer
releases and it seems to be much better. Still not as clean as IOS but getting
there.

We use have a ton of things in iTunes but that really does not matter much as
the songs are downloaded and other systems will play them now.

The biggest issue I have is I have used OS X since the Alpha of NEXT on a dual
533 PPC G4. I used NEXT and Solaris before that. I really do hate Windows. I
have 2 Intel Compute keys for the TVs at home and Windows 10 is a pain (run
Kodi, and only Kodi on the system). The idea of using it on a laptop everyday
fills me with fear. As my company does everything in Google Docs, a Linux
laptop seems like the answer.

I want something no bigger then the MacBook13 with 32GB of RAM and solid
keyboard.

Anyone have a recommendation?

~~~
myrandomcomment
Funny enough on the Window side before anyone grips - I got an MCSE back when
it was on NT 3.51. I know Window well. I just hate it.

------
btgeekboy
> A significant source of consternation, amongst software engineers at least
> was the confiscation of the function and escape keys. Well I didn’t much
> miss them. Every time I went for the escape key, it’s graphical facsimile
> was there and did the job.

My feelings as well, after playing with a store demo machine for ~30 minutes,
mostly in Terminal.app/vim. There were/are so many people complaining about
the lack of an escape key, making silly memes to that effect, etc. Yet, in
practice, it works just fine. Terminal.app has been updated to take advantage
of the touch bar too, both allowing you to quickly assign a new background
color to the window, and to take the currently-typed command and open up a man
page for it in a new window. Not essential functionality by any means, but
little things which you might actually integrate into your workflow.

~~~
izacus
I dunno, trying to press Esc and getting that glossy no-response touch
feedback is still bothering me after two weeks of using it. It might be
"acceptable" and something you get use to... but it's worse. Just like I keep
being reminded how much better old keyboard is when I do anything on my 2014
MBP. Touchbar sits empty 90% of the time, and when it's not, it just
duplicates functions that are easier to do with actual key combos. I really
don't get why it doesn't have haptic feedback like the touchpad to mitigate at
least some of the bad glossy touch feeling :/

... or how I get reminded I didn't have to look for damn dongles every damn
time I want to plug in a HDMI projector for a talk, a USB stick or a phone.

It's something you get used to. We, after all, got used to Win dows Vista, HP
printers and other terrible products. It's still an annoying step back and
it's actually bothering me more than I though it would.

~~~
herge
You can switch the capslock key for escape if you really miss it. It's under
System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys.

~~~
tedajax
Right but then I'm changing standard keyboard layout so as soon as I go to
another computer muscle memory is screwed.

Honestly would it really kill them to have a top spec MBP without the
touchbar? I mean would it really kill them to just not have the touchbar at
all since it doesn't actually solve anything or do anything better?

Just a terrible gimmick honestly.

~~~
mhw
> Just a terrible gimmick honestly

in your opinion

~~~
Maert
In most people's opinion.

------
ChicagoBoy11
I'm a "developer" in the sense that I have developed things but I better not
leave my day job.

For me, at least, I thought the touchbar represented a HUGE boost to
productivity WHEN I coupled it with BetterTouchTool. Whenever I would use
atom/sublime, there were lots of handy key bindings that I could either not
remember for the life of me or which were kinda annoying to press. Well, I
decided to take a couple hours and dedicate that time to putting those on the
touchbar with BTT. For me at least, it has been glorious. Now really handy
options for code traversal are RIGHT THERE as buttons on the screen, and now I
use them constantly. I understand that for real power users they would have
already memorize the key bindings or would have re-mapped them, but for me
this was a crucial feature to actually getting me to use them regularly.

~~~
crisnoble
That sounds pretty cool, but I am concerned that I would become too reliant on
the touch bar shortcuts. When I dock at my desk for the day, plugged into a
keyboard and monitors, the shortcuts would be just out of reach. Working all
day on the laptop keyboard and screen sounds like an ergonomic nightmare. I
guess I will wait until there is a detached keyboard with touchpad built in.

~~~
ChicagoBoy11
That's a good point. At work/home I've had setup with multiple monitors, but
always using the laptop as the keyboard. I hadn't thought about the fact that
if I develop muscle memory with this set-up, loosing it may be unfortunate.

------
jobu
The biggest issue I see with the new MBP is that the iPhone 7 (released only a
couple months prior) is essentially incompatible out of the box. The
connectors are incompatible, and the headphones are not interchangeable
without a dongle.

Apple used to go to great lengths to make their devices work great together,
so it boggles the mind that the iPhone and Mac teams didn't coordinate the
switch to USB-C.

The article even links to another post which makes it seem like Google's Nexus
works better with the MBP than the iPhone - [https://medium.com/@ageitgey/the-
new-macbook-pro-is-kind-of-...](https://medium.com/@ageitgey/the-new-macbook-
pro-is-kind-of-great-for-hackers-64c1c577a4d2#.gylkf1thi)

~~~
orbitur
I don't get it, are you saying Apple should've shipped 2 Lightning cables in
the iPhone 7 box? One that would be useless unless you happened to buy a USB-C
MacBook?

The iPhone is a device for __everybody __, and accordingly, it ships with a
charging /data cable that fits the most ports across all modern computers and
chargers.

~~~
woah
They should have put a USB-c into the iPhone.

~~~
extra88
I agree but as I wrote in another comment, I fear they never will because it's
thicker than Lightning (and USB Mini) and they're obsessed with thinness.

------
overgard
I agree with this, but I also feel like there are better options out there
right now. I don't feel super compelled to throw $2k to a company that wants
to treat their customers with contempt and call it courageous.

~~~
TruthSHIFT
Have you used the machine? The touchbar is delightful. Trying to find new ways
of pleasing customers is not contempt.

~~~
Karunamon
No, contempt is when you remove a ubiquitous audio jack and replace it with a
de-facto proprietary connector that requires an extra adapter to do the same
thing it did before. And then have the cheek to call this "brave" and good for
the customer.

Or when you release a machine with one USB port to be shared with charging and
peripherals.

Or (opinion alert) when you take progressive steps to lock down your system
more and more and more at the expense of power users.

    
    
        Run whatever the user wants -> Run signed code only with an override -> Run signed only with an override that reverts back after a period of time -> (exercise for the reader)
    

Or (2x opinion alert) when you compromise on battery life and muscle memory
(and hence usability) for a misfeature that adds questionable value that
nobody actually wanted in the first place.

Apple's all about pleasing their customers perhaps, but at some point, their
customer stopped being me and started being someone else. And this is sad,
because OS X is the only nix-like out there that gives anything resembling the
faintest hint of a shit about design and UX.

The author of the article put it well: _The relentless and opportunistic
penny-pinching is intentional though, and leaves a sour taste._

~~~
overgard
I totally agree. I was a happy apple customer and I'd like to be again, but
the current direction is bad for me.

------
runjake
This discounts the ulterior motives I believe Apple has, but:

1\. Shrink the trackpad back to the size it was in 2015 and prior.

2\. Leave the Touchbar where it is and move the keyboard down to where it was
in 2015 and prior.

3\. Add back the Esc/Fn key row.

------
ynniv
So it's not really as good as the old one, except for the nice screen and it
hasn't been dropped on the floor yet. I'll at least wait until the reports of
logic board failure to see whether it also takes down the soldered-on SSD.

~~~
cseelus
From the article: "Overall, I’m very happy with it. It works better than the
machine it replaces in all the ways that matter to me."

~~~
ynniv
Their statements don't support that conclusion though. The keyboard is thinner
but okay, the ports are currently inconvenient but will be okay, the missing
magsafe is kind of a problem, but with the right cabling will be okay... I see
what they said, but their points say this laptop is "kind of okay". It doesn't
warrant the kind of enthusiasm that accompanies every Apple release. If I were
to plot the quality of the last few laptops on a line, this one would give it
a trajectory that suggests I should see what other vendors are doing.

------
pawelwentpawel
Can anybody share their experience of using the new Macbook Pro with Xcode?
How's the performance? Touch bar any useful?

~~~
SG-
Considering Xcode works just fine with 8GB of RAM on a big project I don't see
what the issue would be.

~~~
pawelwentpawel
Not looking for issues here, more for improvements. On the Apple event we
could see a couple uses of touchbar in Apple's software - Final Cut, Mail etc.
but not much focus was put on Xcode. I'm wondering if they came up with
anything useful ideas for developers.

------
bitwize
Every time I hear about the touch bar and how it's just as good if not better
than having real escape and function keys, I think of the MacBook Wheel from
that Onion video fake-news piece (in which the entire keyboard and trackpad
were replaced wih a giant iPod wheel), and wonder if in five years Apple
actually did ship a MacBook Wheel, Apple diehards will reassure us that it's
just as powerful a machine to use for development, if not more so, than a
laptop with a real keyboard.

My fingers just can't get used to touch gadgets. For keyboard input I need
real keys.

~~~
farnsworth
Is satire called fake news now?

~~~
bitwize
At least since the mid-90s when Norm MacDonald opened the SNL Weekend Update
with "And now the fake news."

More recently, the "fake news" controversy was caused, in part, by sites that
ran satirical articles without making it clear that these were satire. They
would then be reblogged on Facebook and so forth by people who thought they
were genuine.

There were other dimensions to fake news, but that's part of it.

------
kindalispy
For god's sake, please, some company make a quality developer laptop with a
retina-like screen.

~~~
JonnieCache
There are loads of other laptops with a higher pixel density than the
macbooks. The real advantage they have is OSXs superior hidpi support.

Unless you're talking about the color reproduction which I can't really
comment on. Not really important for devs though.

~~~
tkubacki
Aren't linux distros good enough in hdpi support these days?

~~~
086421357909764
It's less the distros, more the applications themselves that really fail the
test. I use ubuntu on a Razer Blade 2016 and it's great but a few apps are
horrible scales (due to lack of HiDPI iconography etc.)

Even windows has issues here and there with scaling. Apple really has the best
tech here. That said, I switched from a rMBP to the Blade, wasn't excited
about the new Macbook Pro's at all. It's a shame too, i've had 10 Macbook
Pro's over the past few years, doubt i'm going back now unless the price
really drops.

------
gxs
I actually enjoyed the article he linked to just as much:

[https://medium.com/@ageitgey/the-new-macbook-pro-is-kind-
of-...](https://medium.com/@ageitgey/the-new-macbook-pro-is-kind-of-great-for-
hackers-64c1c577a4d2#.jmrjrr872)

~~~
j_s
discussed a week ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13045797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13045797)

------
jibberia
Somebody I know has one and the hinge felt loose from the moment it was
opened. The screen wobbles back and forth like a worn out old Macbook Pro. I
haven't seen this mentioned in any reviews -- can anybody comment?

~~~
heimidal
Take it to the Apple Store if it's wobbly -- that's not normal.

~~~
nmcfarl
It certainly isn't - the hinge on mine is significantly more sticky than my
previous MacBook Pro Retina, which was in turn much more solid than my MacBook
Air (at it's best), and when that hinge got wobbly they replaced it.

------
fpaboim
I also bought the new macbook pro 2016 (15" base), I've been a linux user for
10 years (xUbuntu) and have been liking it quite a lot. The build quality
really is spectacular. The speaker are MILES ahead of any laptop speaker I
have, my favorite feature of the new MBP. I also have a 2 year old MSI GS60
with a 970m for games. I with they kept the escape key though, the function
keys, while used, I can live without. I've had to remap some keys in sublime,
which took me a few days to get used to, but that's all. I use VI bindings but
have been using CAPS(remapped)+F as escape since forever (I know it's bad, and
it sucks when I don't/can't update my vimrc in new servers but it so easy I
can't go back).

The dongles I don't care much about, it's a hassle but not that bad. I bought
an AUKEY 4 usb hub plus hdmi which takes care of usb and video for work (I
only have a 1080p monitor at work so the crappy hdmi is enough).

One thing that does bug me is the soldered on SSD. It's great and really fast
but was, IMHO, a horrible design decison. Not being able to pop out the drive
of a dead or old computer is rediculous. I actually had an SSD die on me a
month ago and lost a week of work I hadn't pushed (I know I'm wrong but it's
been so many years since an HDD failure I got sloppy). If this happens with
the MBP it'll probably render it unusable or will probably be a VERY expensive
repair. Forget about planned obsolescence, this is planned BUTTF __*ING, no
vaseline. Given that I know one day I 'll be royally screwed, now I push to
git more often.

Also, I depended on co-workers to build iOS apps, which was the main reason I
got an apple, don't think I would have gotten one if apple let me build in
linux though just because of the price. Screw xcode.

All in all, is it worth it? Don't know, as a developement machine for work
it's great. Speakers, like I said and also touchid are great. Touchbar is only
really good for changing volume or brightness with a slider, which I enjoy but
is not really worth it. For everything else, as a developer, if I'm looking
down at my keyboard or touchbar while programming I consider I'm 'doing it
wrong'. Finally, this isn't new to mac developers except for the size but the
trackpad is great! I've always hated trackpads and carried my much beloved
logitech marathon mouse. For the first time I actually don't feel the need for
a mouse. The gestures, palm recognition, etc. is very well sorted out.
Occasionally I get some palm rejection problems because of the side of the
trackpad but it's rare.

my 2 cents.

Cheers

------
greenspot
No word about the ability to connect to 2x 5K monitors at full 60hz (no other
notebook can do this).

Or 4x 4K @60Hz again: (no other notebook can do this).

~~~
zumu
Out of curiosity, what profession/role do you suppose can make good use out of
all that real estate?

