
Thoughts on the Late 2016 MacBook Pro - __DarkBlue
https://www.perpetual-beta.org/weblog/thoughts-on-the-late-2016-macbook-pro.html
======
hmigneron
I'm always surprised when developers don't talk about the F keys in their
reviews of the new MBP.

I mostly agree with the author regarding the escape key, the touch bar isn't
really a problem in that regard, it still works and I got used to "pressing"
it on the touchbar really quickly.

I really really miss physical F keys though. I spend a lot of time debugging
(either in the Chrome debugger or in IDEs) where pressing F-Something seems to
be the norm to step into / step over. The lack of feedback makes it a lot
harder to use these keys repeatedly (in my experience anyway). I know I could
change the keys but...

To be honest, that's the one thing that really bothers me about the new
machine, I got used to everything else pretty quickly. I should note that I
was forced to switch to the new model (my 2014 MBP was stolen). I didn't want
a new machine, wasn't happy about getting one and started using it in the
worst circumstances which probably didn't help me "learn to love the
touchbar". Insurance paid for the new machine so price wasn't an issue for me.

I don't think it's an abomination or anything, I just never find it better
than a normal keyboard with F keys (I don't do video editing or anything where
a timeline might help me).

Other developers who use the touchbar MBP, do you not miss the F-Keys ? Have
you changed the keys you use to debug ?

~~~
WildUtah
It's a real detriment to UI, it costs you battery life, it's a distracting
gimmick, and it adds $200 to the cost of your machine.

And Apple will never give up on it. Every Mac is going to be worse for years
and years because of it.

Enjoy.

~~~
routelastresort
The good thing that can come of this would be the resurgence of the Linux
desktop. Apple just crossed the line for me (<32GB, no SSD upgrade, messing
with the keyboard). I'll miss the almost perfect trackpad, but there's no way
I'll support these choices.

~~~
notalaser
Historically, the side effect this tends to have is that a lot of programmers
flock to a new platform but bring the way they use and write programs with
them. Fifteen years ago we ended up with CORBA- and Window Registry-like
components bolted on top of Linux desktops. On the other hand, seeing how
nowadays the Linux "community" is mostly a bunch of big cloud, automotive and
IoT/vaporware companies, this could be the closest the Linux desktop has to
salvation.

So far, the attempts to bring elements of the OS X experience to the Linux
desktop have been very... cargo cult, in the absence of a more forgiving word.
Fetishizing design choices and simplicity has made it very unpleasant to deal
with a modern Linux system. Many users of tiling-wm-and-terminal-only desktops
don't do so "just" because it's the most efficient option, they do it because
the alternatives are horrifyingly bad.

~~~
meddlepal
I wasn't aware the Linux desktop needed salvation. Maybe it needs salvation
for non-technical end users but it's good to excellent for end-users whose
primary use involve actually using Linux for what it's good at which is
basically being a fully open OS and IDE for software and other engineers.

~~~
notalaser
It has been exactly two days since the last time I had to dig down and figure
out what broke in PulseAudio this time. Things are certainly bad for non-
technical users, but those of us who _write Linux software for a living_ don't
have it much better, either.

~~~
innocenat
Do you know why it breaks? Because Ubuntu 16.04 just works on my laptop.
Things that require one-time technical setup: Function key (screen brightness)
and Optimus/bumblebee. I also set up touchegg because Unity hates multi-touch
trackpad. But since initial setup I never have to touch anything again, and
can upgrade everything via Software Update.

I would say it is no better than Windows at all (since you also need to
install correct driver on Windows).

~~~
notalaser
Cynically, I'd say it breaks because the only mistakes that we live with, try
to work around or fix are the ones made no later than the mid-90s. Everything
else, we live with for a while, then boldly proclaim that they're outdated,
junk from another age, no longer appropriate for a modern system and then
promptly rewrite -- so unsurprisingly, a lot of components of a major Linux
desktop are basically beta-quality and/or in a continuous state of flux.

Look at the Gnome 3.22 changelog. It lists things like support for multiple
renaming, being able to set alarms for events in Calendar and seamless photo
sharing via Google Photos and email. I remember being excited about all these
features (except Google Photos, for obvious reasons) when I was using Windows.
2000. I was using Windows 2000.

That's why we're rejoicing that we'll soon have ASLR in all mainstream distros
and support for a display server/compositor where windows can't snoop on other
windows is just around the corner, while Microsoft is perfecting call-flow
integrity and has had a proper compositor since the days when we were barely
able to bolt our applications on top of an X11 compositor.

Edit: Non-cynically: most of the breakage happens because the level of
complexity involved in a most modern technologies is way over the level that
can be meaningfully managed by a community. systemd, xdg-everything, they're
all very useful tools, but only a handful of people can properly use them, and
it doesn't help that so many of them work for Red Hat and aren't exactly
transparent about a lot of things. This breeds mistrust and brings about a lot
of unjustified criticism along with the justified one.

As for why PulseAudio _in particular_ keeps breaking, I'm not familiar enough
with its source code to say. My problems revolve around things like randomly
deciding to use another output device. I work around it by not using it,
really. Every couple of months I take KDE and Gnome for a ride, they keep
breaking, I open up the page of my local Apple dealer, I gaze incredulously at
how much money they want for that hardware, close the page, pacman -Rcs
plasma-meta and get back to WindowMaker.

~~~
wst_
I couldn't have said it better. The truth is, all my life, I wanted a Linux
desktop that looks beautiful and just works. Simply, stupid, works. No magic
involved. I work with Linux remotely almost everyday. I love to tinker, I love
to learn - but it must be my choice what to tinker with and what I am going to
learn next. I want to play with things that make me happy and give me
satisfaction. And constantly maintaining my system and googling around for
solution is not one of them. I tried... Crom help me, I've really tried. After
yet another failure I just felt extremely disappointed and moved back to
Windows at home. At work I am using MacBook Pro (previous one) and I am very
happy about it - like it better than Windows. Honestly, OS X desktop is the
best what happened to me so far. My last Linux desktop adventure happened few
years ago, though, so maybe, just maybe, it got better recently... I still
have hope, maybe there is some windows manager out there, but I'd need to
thoroughly evaluate it on some spare machine before moving forward with it as
my main desktop system.

------
jwilliams
I've got the 13" maxed out Late 2016. I've owned every form factor of the
MacBook Pro and this is my least favorite.

I like the USB-C and have bought into the tradeoff of having no Magsafe. It's
also a minor plus to be able to plug in either side of the machine. The
TouchID is good too. However, I've found the TouchID extremely laggy for some
reason (esp. on unlock) which really reduced the benefit.

The keyboard is _fine_ and in some ways I feel it's a good compromise for the
form factor. However it is very, very loud. It's terrible for typing on calls.
If your significant other is watching TV next to you they'll get annoyed too.

Battery life is average. I've found it quite variable to the point that I
don't "trust" my charge on a long flight any more - which is still fine with
my previous gen machine.

Maybe an outlier here - I feel the Touchbar is a UX nightmare. Maybe if you're
principally in one app it makes a lot of sense, but I change around a lot. It
goes totally against muscle memory. I have to look down to work out what's
going on, and even then take it in. I see that they're going for some kind of
"discovery" experience, but predictability and patterning is important too -
especially with an interface that you're trained _not_ to look at.

I've locked it to the standard buttons that don't change, but even then my
finger grazes it and the brightness of my screen changes... For me it's a
distraction.

~~~
bradgessler
Same. The TouchBar needs a lot of tweaking at a software level. My problem is
when I hit "Play" or "Pause" I expect my music to play or pause. The problem
is that it's possible for other apps to steal focus for play and pause. For
example if you're watching a video clip in Safari and hit Pause to stop your
music after you started playing the video, it will pause the video.

The most annoying thing I'm dealing with at the moment is HipChat stealing
focus of the play button. When that happens and I hit that play button,
HipChat just plays the new message sound. Its so dumb.

The TouchBar is more complicated and awkward at the moment. In my opinion
Apple needs to tweak the Keyboard settings to let me deal with these "stupid
apps" and we all need to report TouchBar issues to third party apps doing it
wrong like HipChat.

~~~
mintplant
> The most annoying thing I'm dealing with at the moment is HipChat stealing
> focus of the play button. When that happens and I hit that play button,
> HipChat just plays the new message sound. Its so dumb.

Is the HipChat app built on something like Electron? It could be they're using
a hidden <audio> element to play the new message sound which the browser
engine thinks you want to play/pause.

------
symmitchry
He says dongles and cables are "a non-issue" and buys over 7 new dongles, 2
new custom cables, plus a new card reader?

~~~
nunodonato
I laughed at this, so hard. I guess the distortion field is really strong :)

~~~
g4k
If you haven't seen this clip, check it out. You might laugh even more: Apple
Engineer Talks About New 2016 Macbook Pro
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxhGXZoS8ws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxhGXZoS8ws)

~~~
JustSomeNobody
The laugh gets me every time.

------
tachion
Since the author quotes prices in GBP, I'd say to everyone - skip the Apple
Care! In UK consumer electronics state-enforced-warranty (or whatever these
particular consumer rights are called) is 6 years. That's not a typo, it is 6
years and I've used it twice for my Apple gear that was outside of
manufacturer's warranty and without Apple Care. Save yourself £329 and know
your rights. And dont get my word on it, check it out yourself, it's even on
Apple web pages ;)

~~~
fludlight
So it's a bit more nuanced than that. You can get an I-changed-my-mind full
refund in the first 14 days but only if you bought the item online. You can
also get a full refund in the first 30 days if the item is defective whether
you bought it online or in a brick and mortar store. You can also get a full
refund in the first 6 months if it is defective and cannot be repaired or
replaced. After six months, you can only get a partial refund and only if the
item is defective. IMHO that's still pretty good.

The rules vary a bit between England and Scotland and I am too tired to look
up Wales and Northern Ireland right now.

[https://www.gov.uk/accepting-returns-and-giving-
refunds](https://www.gov.uk/accepting-returns-and-giving-refunds)

[https://www.businesscompanion.info/sites/default/files/Retur...](https://www.businesscompanion.info/sites/default/files/Returns%20policies_EW_CONSUMER_RIGHTS_SUMMARY.pdf)
(linked from the above gov.uk URL)

[https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/somethings-
gone-w...](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/somethings-gone-wrong-
with-a-purchase/return-faulty-goods/)

~~~
tachion
It isn't really, because I wasn't just talking about return rights or periods,
I was talking about rights when the device fails in whatever way within 6
years.

[http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-
warranty/](http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/)

~~~
SEMW
> when the device fails in whatever way

It's still not that simple.

It's not like you get six years of unlimited state-mandated insurance. The
'six years' is just from the statute of limitations -- it's just the limit
after which you can no longer do anything about a violation of a contract of
sale. [0]

But there still has to be violation of the contract of sale. Which means it
only applies to defective products. (Or ones not as described, not fit for
their purpose, etc.)

So eg it doesn't apply to accidental damage. If you spill coffee on your shiny
laptop, consumer law won't help you, even if you only bought it ten minutes
ago (unless the product was sold as waterproof, ofc). It also doesn't apply to
normal wear and tear, unless you can argue that the degree to which it's
deteriorated is enough to imply that the goods weren't of satisfactory quality
at the time they were sold, taking into account the context of the kind of
good, how it was described, the price, etc.[1]. And so on.

Until six months, the burden of proof is on the retailer to show that anything
that goes wrong with the product was not due to the product being defective.
(I.e. if there's a problem, and there's no obvious cause, there's an
assumption that the goods are faulty). After six months, that assumption is
reversed, and the burden is on you to show that the product was defective.[2]

We have pretty good consumer protection in the UK, but it's not a replacement
for insurance (e.g. applecare etc). (Whether you actually need insurance for a
laptop purchase is another question. Generally if you could replace a thing
without too much hardship, insurance is pointless -- the expected value is
negative (ie Apple makes a profit on Applecare); you're purchasing a reduction
in variance).

(IANAL, just interested in consumer law)

[0]
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/58/section/5](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/58/section/5)
[1]
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/9](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/9)
[2]
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/19](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/19)

~~~
tachion
I never mentioned anything about accidental damage, so I am not sure why
you've brought it and why you're mentioning state mandated insurance. As far
as I am aware, neither Apple's warranty nor Apple Care does cover accidental
damage, so when compared to free 6 years consumer right to have the device
operating without faults during normal usage barring any accidents, buying
Apple Care makes no sense.

~~~
SEMW
> As far as I am aware, neither Apple's warranty nor Apple Care does cover
> accidental damage

I was going off the page you linked to[0], which describes it as: "an
insurance product which provides up to two incidents of accidental damage
coverage"...

Looking more closely though, it looks like AppleCare and AppleCare+ are
different products (which I hadn't previously grokked), and that sentence
applies to AppleCare+ only. My bad, sorry for the confusion.

[0] [https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-
warranty/](https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/)

------
blakesterz
I don't know why I keep reading these reviews, but I do. This one seems
decent, he covers everything from his real world experiences. I was kind of
not surprised at his conclusion...

 _As it is, it feels like a little “fuck you, suckers” from Apple and I can’t
help but feel a little disappointed._

That is due mostly to the price.

~~~
phaed
Also I assume the decisions that don't benefit the end-user (touchbar,
keyboard, thinness, etc.)

~~~
simonh
You assume wrong. Read the review.

------
chadcmulligan
I don't hear much about the display on the MBP, it's as near to perfect as any
display I've ever seen, using text is beautiful, the colour depth is
extraordinary - and its a laptop.

I plugged in a new external 1080p monitor and thought at first there was
something wrong with it, but no it's just the difference in crispness. Not
only that you can run 2 external 5K monitors! from a laptop!

The SSD's are so fast, it's also so quiet - you never hear the fan. The only
negative is it gets warm when charging on my lap.

I too don't see the point of the touchbar though, it's a cute gadget to play
with. The sound is remarkable, though the whole laptop vibrates when the sound
is turned up (edit: though there's no audible distortion or vibration noises
which is pretty unique for a laptop too).

It is without a doubt the most perfect laptop I have ever owned, like everyone
I would have liked to pay less for it. I'll use it for the next three years
then give it too my daughter and she'll use it for another three years like my
last one. I'm very happy with my purchase.

~~~
SomeHacker44
Your points are largely moot, IMO. Nearly any laptop you can buy has super
quick NVMe SSDs, super quick CPUs, and even great monitors. Heck, my Alienware
13R3 has an OLED monitor that puts the 13" MBP TB that I have to total shame.

Since everyone is running essentially commodity Intel hardware with commodity
SSDs and commodity RAM and commodity GPUs with third-party sourced flat
panels, the only thing that matters is the Touch Bar, keyboard and trackpad,
and no matter how great the trackpad is, the Touch Bar is so bad it destroys
everything else, and the keyboard and how loud it is destroys the rest.

~~~
dkonofalski
Except that's your opinion... I love the Touch Bar and I love the new
keyboard. It's no louder when I'm typing than it was when I was typing on my
old Dell and yet I'm much faster on it since the keys don't wobble like they
did on the Dell. The trackpad is awesome and I haven't been able to find the
display that even comes close on any laptop without getting into the same
price range.

------
hellofunk
In December 2016, I purchased new the 2015 model that Apple still sells. I've
never been so pleased with a computer (and it was a lot cheaper than the Touch
Bar model).

One big surprise is that after nearly 3 months of using it every day for
software development, I am still getting 15 hours battery life. This just
amazes me and was far beyond my expectation. (Now, I mainly use emacs, clang,
and terminal, but even compiling every few minutes my c++ doesn't hit the
battery much at all).

~~~
yaegers
Battery life seems not like a surprise. Isn't Apple only selling 2015 MacBooks
without a discrete GPU? So you basically only have Intel Graphics in there
which would mean a charge lasts much longer if it doesn't need to drive an
NVidia or AMD card as well.

~~~
contergan
I'm inclined not to believe the 15 hour claim. I've had the 2015 MBP since it
came out and get maybe 4-5 hours of battery life doing non-heavy web
development nowadays. After I newly bought it I got maybe around 7 hours at
most. With integrated graphics only of course - with the dedicated GPU active
I get around 3 hours or so only.

~~~
mattkevan
Are you using Chrome or Electron apps? Chrome rinses mine in about 3-4 hours,
whereas Safari lasts all day.

~~~
dkonofalski
Same here. I didn't believe my friend when he told me it was Chrome and, for
some reason, I didn't believe the battery meter that kept telling me that
Chrome was using significant power. Switched to Safari and now my battery
lasts all day. If I could get Slack to play nice I think I'd have over a day
of charge (1 day meaning a 12-16 hour working day, not 24 hours).

------
brentis
I saw the new MacBooks in person 2 days ago and kept asking, "why would I buy
one of these?" Cheap feeling keyboard, useless difference in thickness, and
only 16gb. Not going back under 32 with Photoshop ever.

I'll stick with my 2013 and look at a Lenovo 2-1 next. Pretty tired of OS X
too.

~~~
jonaswi
I was in the exact same situation. I was so tired of being forced to buy
overpriced hardware from apple that I'm not even happy with just because I
work with OS X.

I then bought a new Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition and was really surprised
that a) the scaling doe snot even work with dells own "tweaked" Ubuntu (even
the installer looked horrible) and b) "coil whine" is a thing at this price
point. I was so unhappy with it that I sold it weeks later. To replace the
Dell I bought an HP spectre x360 and was really happy with the hardware but
could not get the thunderbolt ports to work with ubuntu. Eventually I also
returned it. I "surrendered" and bought the new MBP and so far I'm quite happy
with it. But it still feels very uncomfortable to be so "dependant" on one
manufacturer.

Other than the thunderbolt problem (which I'm sure will be fixed soon) I was
really happy with Ubuntu as my main OS. I really do hope that other
manufactures step up their game so I can finally switch without too much
compromises.

~~~
Buetol
I did the same, bought an XPS 13 become it seemed everybody would recommend it
but got many problems (battery died, wifi range is very low, suspend on disk
not working, no hdmi, ...)

I then discovered Clevo, they sell very customizable laptop where you can have
crazy specs (two HDD, 64gb ram, latest i7) for very reasonable prices
(compared to apple). I'm waiting for mine but it seems like the perfect
solution.

Also, that's what System76 and many "custom linux laptops" shops sells but
under other names.

~~~
AsyncAwait
Have a Clevo, it can feel a bit plasticky at times, but the performance is
great and Linux runs well, so overall am very happy with it.

------
lunaru
At the end of the day, it's just a so-so offering from Apple that has more
than a so-so price tag attached.

But, in it's defense, I will say one thing: I thought I would hate the
keyboard. I'm the guy who spends hundreds on the best mechanical keyboards,
but I was left completely impressed with the new keyboard and how well it just
works. Everything about is wrong on paper, but when you begin typing, the
results are undeniable. The old macbooks had the best laptop keyboard bar none
and this generation's is even better.

Now that I'm done praising one thing about it, I'll go back to beating the
dead horse: Where's the 32GB model? :)

~~~
muninn_
Agree with the keyboard. The 32gb model is waiting on Intel.

------
djmobley
£3,700 is just a monumental amount of money.

You'd be much better off buying a cheaper laptop (even a MacBook, or MBP
without TouchBar) and a more powerful desktop (Hackintosh if you will)

~~~
smnscu
You could buy a used Mazda MX-5 and a Chromebook.

[http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/20170111122165...](http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201701111221654)

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Chromebook-C201PA-
FD0009-Proce...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Chromebook-C201PA-
FD0009-Processor-Integrated/dp/B0107N7X5E)

~~~
kowdermeister
Or stay here for 2 days :)

[https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/9693510?checkin=06%2F01%2F2017&...](https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/9693510?checkin=06%2F01%2F2017&checkout=06%2F02%2F2017&guests=2&adults=2&children=0&infants=0&s=MPSwsslR)

Perspectives. I wouldn't throw that much money on a laptop BTW.

------
justanother
> The keyboard has suffered so much criticism that I have to wonder: who of
> those who condemn it, have actually used it for a sustained period?

I got a 2015 Macbook as soon as it shipped. Within a few months, the butterfly
mechanism had collapsed on several keys. A couple Apple Store repairs later,
they're still breaking often enough that the 2015 Macbook is mostly collecting
dust and shame.

When I saw what they'd done with the MBPr for 2016, I decided to overhaul
pre-2016 ones indefinitely, because it's pretty much that or Dell XPS13
hackintosh. That keyboard is proof that the devil is not only real, but has
subverted Apple's once-rigorous design process.

The rest of the machine looks good to me.

------
zzzcpan
"It’s way too easy to accidentally activate something"

Despite author's belief in haptic feedback, it cannot actually fix this
problem. Touch bar is always going to be like that, always slower to use than
physical keys.

------
SomeHacker44
I have the 13" Touch Bar model.

I have no end of problems with the ESC key. The touch bar ESC key has no
tactile feedback. It has no haptic feedback. I can't tell if I hit it or not.
Literally, what used to be a completely unconscious use of a heavily used key
(vim, Command-Tab change mind, drag & change mind, etc.) now is literally a
2-3 second mental interrupt every time I want to use it, because now I have to
make sure I hit it, and that the hit registers.

The rest of the touch bar is similarly problematic. Using interactive
debugging? I used to rest my fingers on F5-6-7 for step-over, step-into and
continue, then I could just wiggle one finger to keep stepping. Well, no
longer. I can't rest my fingers, I have no tactile feedback when I hit one of
these things, and I have to look at the keyboard to make sure I'm doing the
right thing.

I haven't looked at a keyboard since 1982, and probably earlier. (Well, maybe
except when I was learning my way around my Symbolics keyboard.)

Use WINE? Too bad - you can't force the touch bar to always be F1-12 in System
Preferences. Sucks for huge numbers of games. Which, even if you hit Fn-F-key,
still suffers from the problem that it does a 2-3 second mental interrupt and
glance at the keyboard. Essentially the Mac is no longer suitable for keyboard
gaming.

My wife generally goes to sleep an hour or two before me. I very often will
take my laptop and do some recreational coding at night as she likes it when
I'm there with her while she falls asleep. Well, not anymore. This keyboard is
so loud that several nights a week she tells me to leave. I finally gave up
and bought an Alienware 13R3 so at least I can play some games while in bed.
(That OLED display is the most amazing display I've ever had,
parenthetically.) On top of this, several keys have started to "squeak." I
don't know how better to describe it, but several of the keys definitely make
odd high pitched sounds when you hit them. Not all the time, but if you hit
them off center.

Absolute disaster. I will never buy another Apple computer until they get rid
of this.

Please give me a non-Touch-Bar model ASAP!

The track pad, however, is excellent.

I don't use the Touch ID. I really don't want the police getting into my stuff
without my authorization.

------
rsynnott
> Apple have increased the native resolution/scaling in comparison to my
> previous MBP. It’s now practical to work with two half-width, adjacent
> windows on this laptop’s display. Something that never seemed workable on
> its predecessor.2 This fact alone makes for some serious productivity wins.

You could actually always set it to do this; they've just changed the
defaults. A surprising number of users seem to be unaware of this, though.

~~~
netcraft
I didn't know this and just did it on my previous gen macbook, thanks!

------
simonpantzare
I can't believe they let this keyboard issue slip through:
[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7762123?start=0&tstart=...](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7762123?start=0&tstart=0).

When the laptop gets warm some keys' key-up sound change. I have the issue on
the N (worst), X, B, and caps lock keys, but it seems to be different keys for
everybody.

I hope that you will be able to have it fixed in-store soon, don't want to
wait days for a replacement laptop especially if it's likely to have the same
issue.

Now, admittedly it's quite a minor annoyance. But it's such a basic "feature"
that keys sound the same that I don't want them to get away with it, if that
makes sense.

------
mactunes
I've also been a Mac user for 20 years and can totally relate to the
conclusion he made: I felt betrayed by Apple's pricing on this machine. I
decided to not get a Mac for the first time since 1996 and so far haven't
regretted the move.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
What did you get, out of interest?

~~~
mactunes
ASUS ZenBook UX360UAK

------
CalChris
I accidentally dropped my MacBook Pro and after looking at the price of a
Retina repair, I found myself in the market for a new MacBook. However,
instead of the MBP, I downgraded to the Air.

I do not miss Retina and I would have missed USB. The Air was $800 all up
since I got an exceptionally good Presidents' Day deal.

~~~
adanto6840
I miss, dearly, being able to throw more RAM and bigger SSDs in my retina --
especially since the machines last so long that prices fall substantially over
course of ownership.

My eyes would hate me for going back in DPI though -- I even had to switch my
desktop monitors out, its just that much less eye strain for me.

~~~
CalChris
128GB/8GB is enough for me for now.

Retina on my iPhone SE is a major plus because it has a smaller screen and I
hold it closer, 8" away. On a laptop, I'm reading 24" away. I'm not saying
Retina on the MBP isn't nice. But price/USB/retina/weight/memory/storage in
totality came out in the Air's favor. If Apple had kept USB and not jacked the
price, I probably would have bought another MBP.

------
swat17
His conclusion doesn't match up at all with the rest of the article.

~~~
olegkikin
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-
supportive_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias)

 _" In cognitive science, choice-supportive bias or post-purchase
rationalization is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes
to an option one has selected"_

I can't imagine many people would say many negative things about their $3700
laptop, even if it has multiple issues.

~~~
codeisawesome
It's actually £3700, so approximately $4650 (US).

Eye watering indeed.

~~~
muninn_
Holy shit. Why?? Is it around the same cost in Euros? I don't understand this.
I literally paid half of that for mine.

~~~
chvid
The version that is referred to has to be the 15" with extra SSD and more
expensive CPU.

Before taxes Apple's prices varies around 10% with Japan and USA consistently
being the cheapest. (Excluding "special" cases like Venezuela or mainland
China with has either special import taxes or a failing currency.)

VAT (sales tax) in Europe is in general around 20%; for a company this tax is
fully deductible.

~~~
erelde
Also in Europe we usually talk about VAT included prices, while in the US they
talk about VAT excluded prices.

I don't know if that's the case here. The only Apple products I have are a
1991 PowerBook and a Macintosh II (first model) I keep as mementos.

------
EnderMB
I waited for over a year for the new MBP to come out, but in the end I shelled
out a bit more money for a Surface Book.

Since then, I've used the new MBP, and while it's a great machine I don't
regret my purchase for a second. My only gripe with the Surface Book is that
installing Linux is a bit of a nightmare (not sure if this is still the case),
but I'm happy enough with running Ubuntu on a virtual machine.

~~~
yokohummer7
And Windows Subsystem for Linux! While all my server and development stuffs
are based on Linux, I wasn't particularly a fan of the Linux GUIs. The reason
MacBook was attractive was that it runs POSIX. But now Windows can do that too
thanks to WSL. It's not complete but even the current partial support does
enough for me. It's a cheap, lightweight alternative to Linux VMs. I guess I
would go with a Windows-based laptop next time. It is truly a game changer.

~~~
matthewking
I'm considering this too, Windows 10 still has some annoying UI
inconsistencies but its getting there, and with the Ubuntu subsystem its
viable for Linux based dev's without setting up a VM. I mean technically its
closer to my target production environment than macOS is.

I haven't spent that long trying it out but managed to get a Rails 5 app up
and running without much fuss, I'm with you on it being a game changer.

~~~
yokohummer7
> I mean technically its closer to my target production environment than macOS
> is.

Huh, I didn't think about that, but you're right. Yeah, I won't have to deal
with slightly different shell tools that are bundled with macOS. I'm not
saying those tools are bad, it's just that I'm so used to GNU tools. Also, the
directory structures and the kernel interfaces will exactly be the same as
Ubuntu. Good point.

------
fineline
My work recently offered to replace my 2013 retina MBP, at no cost to myself,
as it went out of (extended) warranty. I declined. I'd rather wait and see if
they improve the offering later this year.

Come on Apple, lift your game.

------
xaldir
It's a well written review, but I can't think of it as anything else than a
"loyal Apple customer" trying to convince himself that his £3,700 toy is not
_that_ bad.

------
HalfwayToDice
I wish there was more acknowledgement of how NOISY the keyboard is on the new
MacBook Pros. It's not possible to use it in a quiet environment without being
embarrassed.

------
Smaug123
One point of the website design I loved: the hover-over on each acronym. It
gives you something to Google if you don't know what the acronym means.

~~~
jrapdx3
That is a nice addition that should be used more often. On this site the
abbreviations were common, but many articles use obscure, domain-specific, or
non-standard abbreviations, where the full name "tool-tips" would be extremely
useful in making the info accessible to a wider range of readers.

Most of the time the full name is something I recognize. Problems arise
because abbreviated names frequently collide, a short identifier can apply to
several different things especially across fields.

Even a list at the end of the piece would be better than having to hunt around
trying to find out what was meant in a particular context.

------
tromp
Those SSD speeds are very impressive indeed. When I bought my 27" iMac in late
2013, I splurged on the top-of-the-line 1TB PCIe SSD, half expecting it to
remain competitive for years to come.

Having just downloaded the AJA System Test Lite from the App Store and run it,
I was slightly disappointed to see how far it's fallen behind: 703 Write 709
Read

On the other hand, I haven't ever felt slowed down by my disk, while the
maxed-out 32GB of RAM have been very useful...

~~~
imaginenore
Unless you're reading/writing massive files to disk (like in video editing),
pretty much only IOPS/latency matter. Even the cheap SSDs are fast enough at
linear reads/writes.

------
dbg31415
> In general, I expect to get three years of service out of each computer I
> buy. With the new MBP I know that in twelve months — maybe even fewer — the
> specifications of this machine are not going to hold up as well as they have
> with previous iterations.

Spot on how I feel about it. Every MBP I've had to date felt like there was
room to grow. The new one... meh, feels like a placeholder.

------
arrty88
I've been using mine since december. I love the way the keys feel but I have
started developing some painful CTS in my left thumb due to hitting the cmd
key a lot (coding, terminal stuff, etc). It pains me even now writing this.

So i started remapping everything to fn + control so my pinky can start doing
the heavy lifting (like on windows) and vow to never use the cmd key again.

~~~
R_haterade
I generally go alternating hands and use my thumbs, e.g. copy and paste is
(right thumb) command + (left middle) c; (right thumb) command + (left index)
v.

There's a little overhead switching back and forth if you go (pinky) ctrl on a
windows machine, but I generally find that my subconscious picks up on the
context and finds the right pattern.

I can see how this would be a problem, however.

------
askmehow
One of my team got a new MBP in December. He turned it on yesterday and the
hard drive isn't recognized and the machine refuses to boot. The Apple store
can't do anything but exchange it, there's no way to get to the disk short of
taking it to a data recovery shop, which is a dicey proposition at best. I
haven't seen many reports of this particular problem elsewhere, but I've had a
feeling that apple's quality has been falling, and this is yet another point
of anecdata. I think he'll return it and get a Thinkpad, and go full Linux.
The MBPs are sexy, but, imho, the price:value ratio has tipped.

~~~
yourapostasy
Sometimes this behavior is just flaky boot sectors. Try Target Disk Mode [1]
to see if the unit's drive can be mounted on another Mac. If you can mount,
then perform an immediate SuperDuper! backup before attempting any other
recovery, of course.

[1] [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204360](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT204360)

------
richardking
This may be the Apple fanboy in me talking, but I think Apple was in a tough
spot- seems like the tMBP has supplied-constrained components (I think it was
hard to get in-store even 3 months after the launch), so their options were-
delay it until they had a large number of laptops built already, charge an
"acceptable" price and have people wait months for one, or charge more and
have the price keep demand down. They went with the last option because, well,
they can. I'm guessing the price should go down soon now that supply has
somewhat caught up with demand.

~~~
dbg31415
They don't often lower prices. Their justification for that is, "Well we don't
raise prices either..." but I don't expect them to drop prices at any point
before announcing the next gen of MBP. This has been their model forever.

~~~
EduardoBautista
They significantly dropped the price of the MacBook Air and retina a couple of
iterations in.

------
epaga
Wow, until this article I had no idea BetterTouchTool now supported touch bar
customization. This is huge. Next to the crazy price, the touch bar was my
only other gripe about my 15" tMBP - I absolutely love the keyboard, the huge
touch pad, and everything else about it. But now with this tool (I've been
tinkering around with it for a bit now), that last complaint is entirely gone.

The touch bar is finally useful now - contextual, customizable, visual
shortcuts for anything I'd want to do on the Mac. Super powerful.

~~~
canuckintime
I'm a huge fan of BetterTouchTool. I even bought a SiriRemote ($99!) just to
tinker with it after BTT implemented support.

However the TouchBar is just a UI deadend. We are trained to not look down at
our keyboards. My BTT shortcuts for the trackpad and MM are completely
memorized so my eyes keep focus on the screen and work in front of me. I can't
not do the same for the Touchbar with its changing contextual visual
shortcuts. I have to glance down to confirm the context and the shortcuts.
Glancing down at the touchbar means breaking concentration. Even if Apple adds
haptic feedback in V2 it doesn't solve the fundamental problem of glancing
away from my main screen to a tiny touchstrip. T

he touchbar is simply a crutch until the iPad wins or Apple makes a full
touchscreen Mac. It's a waste of time. I'd much rather Apple have continued to
implement the trackpad haptic feedback controls into the rest of their apps.

------
Terretta
> _Best of all is the distinct click each key makes when pressed. I have spent
> hundreds of pounds on mechanical keyboards in the past to get such a click.
> I love the positive feedback from this keyboard and find myself typing more
> assuredly on it than I did on its predecessor..._

This is only best if you type by yourself in a soundproofed room.

In a business workplace where everyone has the prior model MacBook Pro, when
you start typing on this one, the sounds of your 'assured' typing become the
topic.

------
EToS
If they dropped the "Pro" and the price, it would totally make sense to me.
However, with the lack of recent investment in OS X, dropping of Thunderbolt
line (i still hope this isn't real) and way too much over focus on the apple
watch, its clear apple just wants another iphone/ipad style product, and
they're running serious risk of losing power users at a point where microsoft
has massively upped their game.

------
diego
I really want to get one of these, but I can't get myself to. I have a 2015
Macbook and I hate the keyboard. I thought I'd get used to it but never did,
the one in an older Air is so much more comfortable to me. I went to the Apple
Store twice to try out the new keyboard and, while it's better, I can't
imagine being happy with it. Does anyone else feel the same way or is it just
me?

~~~
make3
same. without f keys and with fewer connectors, this generation is almost
strictly a downgrade from the 2015 version.

also.. the touch bar.. I'm a programmer, I don't look at my fingers when I
type, why would I want to have a screen there

------
bartread
I'm currently running a late-2015 15-inch Macbook Pro, with all specs maxxed
out, and have no plans to upgrade until probably next year. Still, even in
2015 the 16GB RAM limit annoyed me because I often run OSX and Windows side-
by-side with Parallels. Whilst SSD is fast, it still ain't no RAM, and with 2
x VS instances, different versions of SQL Server, Couchbase, Oracle, and Tibco
all running at the same time I'd really like to be able to give my Windows VM
at least 16GB to work with.

The other big rub with the new MBP for me is that smaller battery. As
mentioned I run Parallels which is just _awful_ for sucking CPU (even when
Windows itself appears to be using none; see their support forums). It's
actually turned into a really crappy and aggravating product across a number
of fronts but this is by far the biggest problem because it absolutely _canes_
the battery. I often find myself having to work disconnected, so it's a real
issue when running Windows.

I also don't much appreciate the non-user-upgradeable SSD. I've enjoyed (and
used) the option to swap out the stock drive in previous MBP incarnations, to
great effect (and cost savings), so the fact that you can no longer do so and
are forced to pay Apple's prices for storage (albeit _very_ fast storage), is
frustrating.

The other changes don't really bother me too much. I can actually see the
touchbar being much more useful than function keys in many cases because it'll
reduce the need to remember keyboard shortcuts. Instead custom rendering will
make it obvious what the widgets are for. I agree with the author's point
about haptic feedback though.

For me, thinness and lightness are _not_ fundamental driving factors. Sure, I
appreciate a lighter laptop - and I don't want to return to the bad old days
of massive, heavy laptops with giant power supplies (I'm looking at you, Dell)
- but not if that means compromising in other important areas. I'd prefer a
slightly heavier machine with more (user-upgradeable) RAM, a bigger battery
(especially to compensate for the extra RAM), and upgradeable storage. I've
said it before but I feel like, despite the machine's name, Apple are somewhat
disregarding the needs of the "pros" who use it.

~~~
rayiner
How often do you work out of LTE range? RDP is very usable if you need to use
Windows for work.

~~~
bartread
For sure, but too often to make it something I could rely on unfortunately. I
run Windows enough that I've considered buying a second laptop just to run it
but it's things like the trackpad and the generally decent battery life that
make the MBP such a joy to use, and I really don't want to carry two laptops
around with me all the time.

------
Elect2
Apple is doing wrong things to macbook these years.

------
GoofballJones
The last part of the review says it all.

------
majortennis
more than a little over priced , apple suck wish people would stop encouraging
them

