
Apple just told the world it has no idea who the Mac is for - guruz
https://medium.com/charged-tech/apple-just-told-the-world-it-has-no-idea-who-the-mac-is-for-722a2438389b
======
M_Grey
_Why can’t you plug the Lightning headphones that come in the iPhone box into
the new Mac? Why doesn’t the iPhone come with the right cable for the new
MacBook Pro? Why doesn’t Apple make a screen that properly works with its own
devices? Why did Apple highlight how great the Touch Bar is for Messaging, but
didn’t even port most of the new iMessage features to macOS properly? Do I
have to carry two pairs of headphones now? How do I charge my Lightning cable
mouse? Why remove the HDMI port, a standard that’s still incredibly popular
for plugging into TVs? Why remove the SD card, a popular slot for… creatives
using cameras?_

Yikes. I mean... yikes. I hope Apple has some good answers to most of those
questions.

~~~
d33
I don't really believe there are good answers to those.

~~~
LaSombra
Probably the same one as the iPhone headphone jack, courage.

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Yetanfou
I'll give Apple a hint how to solve this conundrum.

a) bring back that key row, people prefer physical keys over touch-strips and
-pads and -screens for a reason - you can use them without taking your eyes
off the screen

b) for those applications where you'd benefit from a visual representation of
whatever data you're manipulating the keystrip is rather limited in space, but
fortunately nearly all laptops already include a touch-sensitive area under
the keyboard...

c) ...so just put an OLED-display under the touchpad? Have it run iOS for ease
of development, not that developing for iOS is easy but there are loads and
loads of developers who already know the platform. Add some haptic feedback to
make it usable eyes-off and for those who have bad eyesight and you've got
your next 'amazing' gadget.

As an added bonus it should be possible to use any iOS device as a 'remote'
for applications which utilize the touchpad-with-pictures. Call it DisplayPad
and you're done for the next show.

The same could be done by Google (Android on ChromeOS or whatever comes
after), by Microsoft, by... anyone, really.

------
thesimon
A user on reddit put it like this

>Apple used to be focused on making their devices better, now they're just
focused on making them even thinner.

Think that is really accurate.

~~~
wklauss
Thinner is one aspect of better and obviously not the only one. These machines
are also faster, lighter (kinda important in a laptop), have better graphics,
larger trackpad, a new screen that is much better, etc, etc, etc...

Like all products, they can be improved and compromising decisions had to be
made during the design phase, but I find this Medium think piece really
lacking in perspective and context.

~~~
EpicEng
>These machines are also faster...

And already a generation behind on the CPU front

>lighter (kinda important in a laptop)

Great, as long as the trade offs are reasonable (not convinced that they are)

>have better graphics

Yet still woeful in comparison to similarly priced machines from other vendors
and, of course, OSX is a terrible gaming platform

>a new screen that is much better

Good

>etc, etc, etc...

What are those exactly? I can't think of anything to fill in the gaps, and we
can certainly argue that taking away common interfaces is a bad move and the
toolbar is little a gimmick.

~~~
wklauss
Not a generation behind. Kaby Lake is still not available in the
configurations these machines need. And even if they were, speed is comparable
since the main improvement in KL is going to be video support.

Graphics are not only for gaming. Id say the Radeon cards they choose seem
reasonable for the Macbook Pro line, pending further testing.

Lots of "etc": Much better sound, larger and more comfortable trackpad, faster
memory and SSD, jump to Thunderbolt 3, better microphones...

Argue away, I think TouchBar is far from being a gimmick.

------
powvans
Really hits the nail on the head. This product is just confusing. It's not as
if there aren't good things about it, but there are so many weird confusing
decisions that it's like death by a thousand cuts.

It's baffling just to contemplate the number of new cables, dongles, and
adapters I'd need to buy. I'd be shocked if it was less than $150 worth of
_things that add no new value_.

I had planned to buy a new MBP this year. Based on this update I'll be waiting
to see what they come up with next year.

~~~
bdcravens
> see what they come up with next year

Apple has a history of removing things (floppy, cd drive, ethernet port,
firewire, etc) and not backtracking.

------
grzm
Earlier post with over 280 comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12817332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12817332)

------
badestrand
In The Hard Thing About Hard Things Ben Horowitz says there is two types of
really successfull people in the business word: Chaotic visionaries and
orderly executioners, called type 1 and type 2.

I think Apple is a perfect example for this, with Jobs having been the
visionary and Cook the guy who implements these visions.

Horowitz stated that a company works only well with the visionary at the top.
We can see how true this as Cook just is not creative. I am sure he works
really hard and is really smart but he should have never gotten to where he is
now. At first I thought he would only be a interim solution to manage Apple
while they search for another creative genius but that seems not to be the
case.

~~~
dahdum
I thought Ives was the chaotic visionary now, with Cook the business leader.
With such a string of success Ives has had I figure only a flop (imo like
this) would give Cook the leverage needed for change.

~~~
carlivar
I think it's one of two things:

1) Most of Apple design is now by committee, which is why the Settings in an
iPhone are a maze of confusion, especially around iCloud. The iPhone was
supposed to be easy to use. Maybe it still is as long as one pays for and
trusts iCloud (didn't work out well for Jennifer Lawrence).

2) Ive isn't the the genius we all think he is. I think this is more likely
the case. If I remember correctly, Jobs liked the "skeuomorph" design style
(design based on the original object) but Ive did not. I do not think it is
coincidence that iOS became much more "cartoon" looking after Jobs died. I
personally do not like it. But I think it shows that Ive is in complete
control. If he is, Ive is to blame why I have to provide tech support for iOS
settings to my friends and family now. If you extrapolate this complexity to
the rest of Apple, things are way off track from Jobs' vision.

------
tim333
>The MacBook Air is dead, which is great news

I'm not sure why that is - partly because I've got one and like it. Also I
guess now the Air 11" is gone we're supposed to but the 12" Macbook but it
doesn't review as well - on the most obvious Amazon reviews the 11" has 81% 5*
reviews and the new Macbook had 59%. It seems a shame that thin with few ports
and shiny seems to be prioritized over user satisfaction.

------
Razengan
I honestly don't see how all this whining is justified, except for the fact
that you need dongles to hook up your shiny new iPhone and EarPods to your
MacBook.

• People wanted Skylake, they got Skylake.

• They got faster GPU and I/O and great battery life. The numbers on these are
impressive, especially the I/O.

• They got 4 ports of the fastest and most versatile interfaces for external
devices ever. The removal of all other ports is really no worse than when the
VERY FIRST iMAC went USB-only back in 1998! [1][2] We all see how the rest of
the industry followed, as it will again when everything becomes USB-C.

• The Touch Bar is actually a cool new input device that brings context-
sensitive multitouch to macOS without bastardizing the traditional desktop UI
as Windows does. You wanted innovation, you got it. What do people expect to
happen to laptops at this point anyway?? I don't see any good alternative
ideas being offered.

• Lastly, and I'm amazed at how this is being overlooked in every discussion:
The move to 30-BIT-PER-CHANNEL SCREENS! I have an iPad Pro and the difference
that a wide color display brings has to be seen in person to be appreciated.
Accurate color representation in consumer devices is a field which has
languished _for over 20 years._ I believe mad props are due Apple for pushing
everyone ahead, and up until now I don't think there were any good laptops for
actually creating and previewing P3 content, without connecting them to
expensive external screens.

\----

Now the bad things.

I only recently purchased an iPhone 7 and a 9.7" iPad Pro. I love them to
bits, especially their wide color cameras and screens, but I won't be able to
connect them to an already-expensive new MBP, or use the new Lightning
EarPods, without spending even more money on dongles and carrying around extra
stuff with me everywhere.

Given the prices, I really think Apple should have softened this by at least
bundling Lightning-to-USB-C with the new MacBooks. _WHY_ fight within your own
ecosystem?

The naming is also a disaster. I don't really mind them calling the 9.7" iPad
"Pro" (it's an amazing device) but putting out a "MacBook Pro" without a Touch
Bar really muddies the waters and only creates confusion. They should've just
called it a 13" MacBook, and given it a choice of more colors.

These are the areas where they are justifiably deserving of ire, but on the
whole I think all this relentless negativity is a bit excessive and feels like
the work of competitor-hired PR firms, but I hope it pushes Apple to address
the actual issues.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac#History)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy-
free_PC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy-free_PC)

~~~
pilsetnieks
It's also much harder to differentiate "pro" and consumer products these days,
especially with the x86 CPU and chipset development plateauing as it is now.

To have the same difference as there was between an early iBook and a
Powerbook you'd have to pack the Macbook Pro with dual processor octacore
Xeons, non-mobile graphics cards, etc. with all that entails (i.e. power draw,
cooling, weight, price.) Few "pros" would be willing to return to lugging a
10lb "laptop" thick as an encyclopedia around, or pay twice as much.

~~~
ksec
iPad sales, while declining, is now double that of Mac. I thought this was
clear enough, consumers aren't even touching their PC anymore, at least that
is where the trend is heading. The iPad, at those price point has taken over
the cheaper segment what 11" Macbook Air was originally for. So what Apple
envisioned, is that anyone using a PC or Mac is either a prosumer or
professionals.

And just like many other tech, Apple force their way in and make early steps
for changes, Floppy, CD-ROM etc. No SCSI for iMac? Apple wanted everyone, or
will force every USB to be USB-C type. And it is clear someday, 802.11ac / ad
will be fast enough for wireless transfer between Professional Cameras. So
they will get rid of SD-Card now.

Any Kaby Lake offers little to no performance improvement over Skylake. And if
you are wondering, the 10nm 25W Mobile CPU wont arrive til 2018.

I honestly dont have any idea what people are complaining about in terms of
tech.

For me, apart from... Price.....

------
20andup
The new MacBook pros remind me of Walter Isaacsons bibliography of Steve Jobs.
The first thing Jobs did when returning to Apple was cut all the products down
to theee core products. In 2016, it seems to be going the other direction
again.

------
jedanbik
We're developers. Let's write new software. Let's build new tools.

~~~
bdcravens
Let's buy new brands of laptops?

