After having owned a new (non-Touchbar) Mac for the last few weeks, I cannot fathom what the meltdown on HN was about this thing. It's the best Macbook I've ever owned --- and I've used nothing but Apple laptops since the Titanium Powerbook.
I hate the USB-C dongle and do miss MagSafe, but I wouldn't trade the new machine for the old one.
After everything I'd heard, particularly about the keyboard, I put off buying a new Macbook. Ultimately, I was forced by circumstance to buy one, or I'd have coasted on my 2-year-old MBP for a few more years. I feel sheepish about that plan now.
I own one and I agree it is great. These seem to be the issues others have with it:
1. The price - Personally I don't think it is justified to essentially bump the "actual" MBP (meaning touchbar and 29w processor) by $500 for what we get. The original retina 13" were similar price wise at release, but the display was a massive upgrade. The touchbar not so much.
2. No kaby lake - this is an intel release timing issue, if you want Kaby Lake wait a few more months.
3. Questionable utility of the touchbar - I own one and it is useful for anything with linear editing...so audio or video. Otherwise I just use it for media functions just like I would with physical keys (I don't use the function keys.) It could be more useful in the future given more software support.
4. Dongles - This is another temporary problem until devices are all USB-C.
5. No magsafe - Sad, but there is one advantage in that you can now do power/display/connectivity all over one port...and I can't go back from that. I have an LG 4k monitor with USB-C so I just plug in one cable and get my 4k display, mechanical keyboard, and speakers just from that. And I can rearrange my desk to put my laptop on either side of the screen. For me I'm either plugged in at my desk or wireless elsewhere, so tripping over a cable was never really an issue for me once we hit the 5+ hour battery mark.
6. The keyboard - I love it, and switch off from my Whitefox with Cherry mx blues on my desk. Most mobile keyboards feel squishy to me but the new switches they are using give a lot of stability and a pretty solid click as well, even though they have such little travel.
> 4. Dongles - This is another temporary problem until devices are all USB-C.
What I've learned from all this discussion about usb-c is that some people replace all their peripherals and secondary devices on a much more aggressive timescale than I do. For me dongles would likely be an annoying companion, with few or no usb-c devices ever plugging in to it, for the lifespan of this MPB if I bought one today.
My next one in 3-5 years, that might be a different story. But for this one, now? All-usb-c is a turn-off, as it'll be years before that's a "feature" that makes me say anything other than "oh, that's an unfortunate limitation".
I also find this strange. My switch (Ethernet) is 10 years old. My DAC (SPDIF) is 7 years old. My monitor (DisplayPort) is 5 years old. My hard drives (USB Type-A) are 3-5 years old. My thumb drives (USB Type-A) are 2-3 years old. My phone (USB Type-A) is 2 years old.
None of them are USB-C and I don't plan on replacing any of them soon.
With the possible exception of external hard drives, USB-C doesn't offer any benefits over my existing interfaces.
So I should spend a load of money buying new cables, which do exactly the same as my existing ones, but also look the same as each other, so I can no longer tell them apart?
It's nice to know the protocols my devices use aren't redundant, but you won't find me rushing out to adopt USB Type-C cables.
Like what? The XPS 15 seems to be the leading alternative: https://blog.vrplumber.com/b/2016/12/14/review-dell-xps-15-9.... In the high DPI configuration in Linux it apparently gets just a few hours of battery life. And bad Q&A, such as coil whine is a recurring problem (including in the new XPS 15s). Why bother with that mess to avoid buying $50 of cables?
The only port I find myself missing so far is HDMI. Having to carry a USB-C to HDMI adapter (actually multiple since compatibility is an unmitigated disaster) is quite annoying. I rarely use thumbdrives, but carrying a USB-C<->female A adapter isn't a big deal since it's so rare and I can just toss it in my bag.
For a primarily desk-sitting laptop you're getting a docking station of some sort (monitor or actual) so you get all the above ports with it. I also don't upgrade components there very often either. I do admit this was annoying so far - as the release of the laptop far preceded any decent docks. Single-cable docking though is pretty neat, and a definite upgrade if minor.
Really it ended up being a USB-C to HDMI, female A, and ethernet that I need to toss in the bag. The latter two I expect to use a few times a year at most.
I don't get that, why wont you just use an adapter that has everything in one instead of 3 seperate ones? I use a Hooto Shuttle with USB, HDMI, Card reader and power in, thats all i need, ok it has no ethernet as i never use them but there are ones with ethernet inbuilt too.
I dont get all this so much dongle talk when you just need one good adapter.
Yeah, I'm waiting on an Arc Hub, because it supposedly supports HDMI 2.0 and an extra USB-C port which could support 4K/60Hz.
Since I only have 2 ports on my non-Touch Bar model, I really wish someone just made a USB-C hub. All of the existing hubs have USB-A ports and one USB-C only for power pass through, but they can't handle the bandwidth required for certain things like 60Hz 4K. At least I have a gigabit USB 3.1 adapter that gets me ~930 Mbps on my local network.
One of the benefits of getting more expensive tech peripherals, especially in the Mac world is that there is a ton of resale value.
If one upgrades their mac with every new release, it usually ends up being a 200-500 hit per year depending on market conditions. The more expensive peripherals usually will fetch a decent amount on ebay as well.
So for the average cost of around ~$30/mo, one can basically have the latest mac with the latest peripherals all the time.
Riding the edge, does seem to work with some products. But it is also a game of prediction. My Model M was a great investment, but my modems went obsolete in months. Now my DSL modem is 8 years old, and still using the model m. Professional style tools seem to fair the best.
It offers the huge benefit that with the right accessory you can connect all those things, including power, at once with just one cable.
Almost everything you list are things that would be stationary on your desk, so either you are buying the wrong machine if you don't plan on removing it from the desk, or you'll benefit from having all connected to a dock that can connect via 1 cable to your machine.
I still use a keyboard with a PS/2 connector (Hangs head in shame). It's an old (at least 10 years) Kensiko ergonomic one I rescued from a giveaway pile and have never been able to find a good enough replacement for.
Pretty sure they don't make USB Type C adapters for PS/2.
What I've learned is that people are really into outrage signaling. So much teeth gnashing from having to buy a $100 hub for a $2000 laptop. Mostly a way of signaling "I'm not like those other Mac users who just sit at Starbucks. I'm inconvenienced because I have lots of peripherals for doing real work."
I don't think that's true. I don't like the idea of buying a laptop that for some reason is super thin but then I have to carry around adapters. I would much prefer a lot of common adapters built into the device even if it's thicker or heavier. Make the MacBook Air have only USB-C and thin but the "Pro" should be more utilitarian and practical.
Do you go to a presentation assuming someone will have an HDMI cable handy to plug into the projector? If you do, you're a braver person than I. But I can carry a USB-C to HDMI cable just as easily as a HDMI to HDMI.
At some point, inconvenience to part of the user base has to be outweighed by convenience to everyone else. The new MBP fits a 15" screen into a form factor that is edging in on where 13-14" laptops were not too long ago. The new 13" is edging into where 12" laptops used to be. Given that lots of "pros" and "road warriors" suffer through 12-13" laptops for size/weight reasons, that's a pretty huge benefit that might easily justify the loss of ports for a big segment of the user base.
In my company all projectors have an HDMI cable already so there is no need to carry one. I just think if you need really small go for an Air. With my current MBP I can walk around without adapters and have reasonable confidence that i can deal with most unexpected peripherals like USB devices or HDMI screens. In my view they should have put in a USB-C port but also left at least some legacy ports. My MBP 13 has an SD card reader , screen connector and USB ports and is still pretty small so I don't buy the size argument.
I think the new 15 is still quite a bit bigger than the older 13. In any case, if some more connectors would have made the new MBP slightly thicker or heavier I would have preferred that. If you want super super thin, buy an Air.
Or, it may be an actual PITA to spend even more money on an already expensive laptop for what's a downgrade: less features and the inconvenience of carrying dongles everywhere, for the "benefit" of a laptop that's half a milimetre thinner.
Except it's not "half a millimeter thinner." The new 15" is halfway in size between the old 13" and the old 15". It makes it that much more practical to move up from an Air to a Pro, or from a 13" Pro to a 15" Pro.
I don't have many peripherals, but traveling frequently I've acquired the habit of not carrying extra USB chargers, but charging iPhone and Apple Watch via the laptop overnight. Can't do that on the "cheap" (non-touchbar) model (while also charging) without extra hub. Worse now with the AirPods.
I think his/her complaint about your complaint (uh oh. we broke it.) is that this would be the case for any USB config. If you had the same situation with current USB cables, you'd still need to get a hub so the problem isn't actually USB-C, just the number of devices you're using at the same time.
But but but the old MacBook Air had one MagSafe and two USB ports (and SD card and Thunderbolt), so it had strictly more ports, and I could charge it all at the same time (except now AirPods).
But yes, the problem is not USB-C per se, the problem is the small number of ports unless you pony up for the TouchPad model.
The thing is that you rarely won't need to replace the entire peripheral, but can easily replace just the chord. There are mini/micro-usb to usb-c chords out there already, and they will be cheaper in a year.
You don't have to "replace peripherals" in most cases. USB-C to USB2 and USB3 cables exist. Just buy a cable and enjoy not having to guess which way is up for the first time ever.
That seems worse than just buying dongles, because nothing else I'll want to plug anything into is USB-c. The cables would still be bound to the MacBook for all use cases.
Before USB Type C there were already at least four very common USB connectors I can think of off the top of my head. "Universal" was never intended to indicate that only one connector exists.
It's still universal, that's why you can get a USB A to USB C cable that doesn't need any kind of chip in it.
You're crazy if you think that 4-conductor rectangular non-reversible connector was going to be the end-all be-all for USB forever. We had to upgrade eventually. Be thankful that this change is being relatively swift and reasonably future-proof. USB C should be good for quite a few more years.
If it's an upgrade, why are people still calling it "USB"? This isn't semver; people don't ask what version of the cable you have. I still don't understand the difference between USB-1 and USB-2 except I shouldn't charge over USB-1. I don't own any USB-3 peripherals, let alone USB-C.
This is going to haunt technical support for literally decades.
It's actually "universal" now, for the first time in history. You can run anything through it, including power and your 4/5K displays. It's far less "serial" than it used to be, though.
The extremetech article really frustrates me. So, can I plug in a USB 3.0 device with USB-C connector to a USB-C Macbook Pro (that has USB 3.1)? What about the Macbook One?
I've read about situations like this, and it's frustrating to think that something like this can occur.
I think it's reasonable to wonder how often this is actually in issue in practice. I don't have a new MBP (or any peripherals for that matter), so I can't speak to this directly.
Do you have a new MBP or know anyone personally who does? Have you or they had any issues with cable incompatibility?
This is just as true of any other cable. The Lightning cables you can buy at the corner store look like regular ones, but they don't have data lines, and they won't charge at full voltage. Cables are just awful. Or, one might say, knock-off cables are awful, and you shouldn't let them polute your junk drawer lest you never sort them back out.
part here. If Apple had planned it better, all their USB-C cables (starting with the Macbook One) could do all the functions they need for any Apple product going forward. But even today, if you walk to an Apple store and buy a bunch of USB-C Apple products, you'll probably have to color code them yourself to not mix them up, because it won't work if you do. All Apple is helping here is saying "if you have a cable with an intsy tiny serial number print starting with X, use it only for Y". Gee thanks, that sure is a great ecosystem you got going here Apple.
There's a reason why Apple 1997 - 2007 pushed interoperable standards hard (examples: USB-A, 802.11B and then G, Firewire, mini-DP). None of these had connectors that you could confuse, including when switching between different Firewire standards, and these buses did fairly complex things as well. They even had a powerbook generation with two different Firewire ports so people don't get left hanging with their old Firewire devices. That's all under Steve Jobs and Jony Ive, just Ive not being the one in charge of doing these decisions.
I'm not sure, but I would argue having a charging cable with no data pins is the best thing you can do for security (for an unassuming user) so people can just charge of random USB ports without worrying about potential exploits.
As I understand it, there's a pretty significant tradeoff involved. If you want a USB-C cable that does everything, you're going to pay a lot more and get something that's much thicker than you need to, say, charge an iPhone.
So yes, ideally all Apple cables would do everything imaginable, but I understand why they didn't choose to do that.
But that's the thing, they don't even use it to charge iPhones, and your argument would be one for them to keep lightning, which seems like a fine connector to me. But Apple has been pushing USB-C on personal computers, and there IMO they should just have waited and then jumped on the first solution that does everything.
> It's actually "universal" now, for the first time in history. You can run anything through it, including power and your 4/5K displays.
Well, anything but USB 1-3! :face-with-tears-of-pain:
Also, all the ports may look the same, even fit the same port, but they're not the same, which is a terrible user experience.
All in all, I can say I understand nothing about usb-c with confidence except I don't have any usb cables to stick in the ports and nowhere to stick the usb cables I do have.
> Also, all the ports may look the same, even fit the same port, but they're not the same, which is a terrible user experience.
Thats true of some laptops, but the new macbook pros allow any connection (power/display/whataver) to any of the usb-c ports. When I'm lying in bed I can now roll over and just swap which side of the laptop the power cable connects to.
(Well apparently the ports on one side of the machine are a bit faster, but I don't know of any USB devices which can take advantage of even the slower speed USB 3.1 provides. I certainly don't own any.)
You realize that USB ports aren't always "up & down". Sometimes they're sideways. Sometimes they're reversed.
As someone with a USB C phone who is trying to convert all my devices to it: reversibility is far from a necessity, I did just fine for years with USB B on my phones, but it is extremely nice to not have to even think about direction. And now, it is noticeably annoying when I have to use MicroUSB.
Cables? Yes, except where the logo is on both sides. Sockets? Seems to depend entirely on what's convenient for the hardware/PCB layout. From the last 48h: one of my chargers, my car, and two different model monitors all have "upside down" USB sockets...
> I'm either plugged in at my desk or wireless elsewhere, so tripping over a cable was never really an issue for me once we hit the 5+ hour battery mark
I had the same reaction to the loss of magsafe. It was such a cool hardware feature, but ever since all-day batteries became the norm it's just not the same world as when we had to be constantly plugged in at every meeting, cafe, etc. Remember those days of always searching for outlets at cafes, and the rats nest? Mostly gone.
You forget the one probably underlying problem: the feeling that Apple has given up or on its way to give up the Mac.
As you said, there is not major failings in the new MBP ... but it comes after 2 years wait, in a side event (i.e. not really the big front stage for this "Back to the Mac"), with muddled message. Apple has made bold decisions in this Mac but didn't follow up by giving the impression it was behind it. You get USB-C, yeah, hopefully maybe some third party will do cool stuff, like screens because Apple is not doing those anymore, ... It is also bad timing with the phasing out of the Wifi Router dropped like that as an unremarkable footnote despite being key in cloud feature like "Back to my Mac" or "Time machine". There was a definitive feeling that something was off.
MacRumors all black buying guide, Apple regular lack of comment about its future plan made that feeling even worse.
Twice in a month after that, Apple had had to confirm that they are still committed to the Mac, both to the public and to their own employees ! That's what people are concerned about. Nobody wants to buy into a dying ecosystem and Apple 2016 has done very little for the Mac. We will see how 2017 turns out, but I'm part of the people that prefer to wait until November 2017 to see if Apple is now sliding the MBP into a bi-yearly release cycle to decide if it is time to think about a plan B.
edit: Forgot to mention. I think on its own that the new MBP is a great machine, I'm itching to get one. I'm actually delaying the purchase decision as much as possible for the reason mentioned above.
You forget the one probably underlying problem: the feeling that Apple has given up or on its way to give up the Mac.
While I've had this feeling at times in the recent past myself, there's a kind of irony in this conversation being reinforced by the new MBP. Apple committed the time and resources necessary to essentially build an entire new iOS device and integrate it into the Mac, including the Touch ID sensor, and add explicit support for it in the majority of their applications (over two dozen, ranging from the little freebies like Notes and Preview up to all of iWork, FCP, Motion and Logic).
Whether one thinks the Touch Bar is "worth it" -- or even the right approach to adding touch support to the Mac -- is a different debate, of course, and worth arguing about. But if Apple wasn't committed to the Mac product line, it's hard to see why they would have bothered. This isn't something they just hacked together at the last minute to make it look like they've been doing something; they've really been doing something. For the Touch Bar to make sense it's going to have to show up on the non-pro Macbook this year, and I suspect on the Magic Keyboard.
I think the real anger is around what's going on with the desktop Mac line, particularly the Mac Pro and the Mac mini. I suspect that the new "trashcan" design had some kind of critical flaw that left Apple in a Catch-22 situation: they can't upgrade it without changing the design, but the market is too small for them to spend a lot of money changing the design again.
> I suspect that the new "trashcan" design had some kind of critical flaw that left Apple in a Catch-22 situation
I suspect that the custom hardware has something to do about it. They have basically custom everything and a cooling solution that probably prevent them to shop around for easy GPU upgrade. The engineering cost must be awful just to duplicate the performance level you can get with off-the-shelves component. Even server grade components can fit in tiny "alright looking" cases nowadays.
Yeah, that's about my guess, too. They had a design that worked fine for the components they had when they made it, but the next generation of components changed just enough that things went south. Maybe the cooling didn't quite work reliably anymore, or they couldn't get the support hardware on the same tiny boards...who knows. But I'm betting it's not that they just ignored the Mac Pro and never thought about revving it--it's that they tried a revision and never got it to work reliably, and they realized that they'd innovated their asses into a corner.
Nothing is off. Everyone who has even a bit of business sense can very clearly see that Apple is maxing its profit margins. They're dropping anything (relatively) low margin like Airport and Cinema Displays. They're charging an arm and a leg for dongles they know people will need. iCloud is still capped @ 5Gb, yet iCloud sync now by default also syncs your Desktop and Documents folder. That's on top of iPhone and iPad backups, app data (both iDevice and Mac) and iCloud mail. And the price for more storage is not cheap compared to competitors.
But then, why have they invested so much R&D in the Touch Bar or the trashcan Mac Pro? Why not just upgrade their existing form factors for maximum profit? Why release a new OS every year that needs gimmicky headlining features when they could spend less $$$ on bugfixes?
Apple seems like it's lazily milking its userbase, but I think the truth is that it spends so much time and attention on pointless crap that all the stuff we care about on HN looks half-assed in comparison.
50 GB for just .99 per month I think it's absolutely perfect for covering Desktop/Documents syncing and all backups data.
1 TB from Apple is around 120€ per year, while on Dropbox is 99€ if billed yearly or still 120€ if paid monthly...I don't really see a huge difference here.
On top of that if I wanted to I could easily upgrade my plan to 2 TB while on Dropbox you must join as a business which forces you to have at least 5 members.
Last time I checked, most cloud storage services free tiers are capped at around that mark. In fact Dropbox is still only offer 2GB! Onedrive is the same at 5GB and Google Drive offer 15GB. The price is on a par with the market and it offeres more incremental tiers than most.
Dropbox isn't an OS storage, photo storage, mail storage, mobile devices backup all rolled into one (and all of that switched on by default) Comparing with Google Drive is fair, but the aforementioned stuff is why Google offers a fair 15Gb that you won't cap out soon.
I have almost 50Gb of free Dropbox storage btw, through referrals + events like the space race. But that's not really a fair fight anyway, since (aside from Dropbox) no one offers free space in exchange for actions..
"I have almost 50Gb of free Dropbox storage btw, through referrals + events like the space race.!" which, I can assure you[0], the significant amount of Dropbox users don't have.
So, Google wins on free tier, but Apple takes it on options and cost thereafter, and 15GB arguably is still insufficient for "OS storage" in any real tangible terms.
[0] no I don't have data. I do know plenty of Dropbox users though, and next to none of them have any extras.
I purchased a new Macbook and the magsafe is the feature i miss most about my old Macbook. The current USB-C connector doesn't have a light to indicate that the Macbook is charging, it only has a faint beep when you plugin the USB-C.
Apple owns patents on Magsafe which won't run out for many years to come. So, the knockoffs are inferior. I really despise this move by Apple. Steve is rolling in his grave.
Has anyone seen or personally heard of someone yanking their laptop, of any brand or model, onto the floor via the power cable? I haven't. I instinctively think it's a risk, but reality says otherwise. It seems to me like a solution looking for a problem; the only reason I ever suspected that it's a real problem is that Apple made the Magsafe connectors - maybe they had some data that I didn't. Now I suspect it was all to address unfounded fears in consumers.
I've seen it happen plenty of times with cell phones, however. I wouldn't mind a Magsafe connector for an iPhone.
>I instinctively think it's a risk, but reality says otherwise.
What an argument. Do you happen to have Auto insurance? How about fire insurance? Did your house burn down even once? Mine didn't so far and yet here I am still saying fire insurance is very much needed if you own a house.
And that is exactly what the MagSafe was. Insurance incase this happens. And as you can already tell by the other responses, this does happen. And even if it only happens once, you will look at thousands of dollars worth of damage.
So, no thank you with the non MagSafe MacBooks. Having a choice if I want that yanked off my table to the left or the right depending on which USB-C connector I used to charge it is not a selling point.
MagSafe made sense when laptops had such terrible life they were almost always plugged in out of necessity.
Now if you're at your desk you're probably plugged in to power and a few other things that aren't break-away. If you're not at your desk you're probably not plugged in. The biggest snag I've always hit is the headphone connection. It's the most likely to get yanked if your headphones get caught up on a chair.
It was a convenient solution at the time. Now it's a bit of an anachronism.
I actually did it to a Dell laptop about 4-5 years ago. Somehow I got the power cable tangled in the office chair I was sitting on, and when I moved the chair the laptop fell to the floor. Managed to put a small crack in the body, although I didn't notice any other damage, and everything appeared to function fine after that. Never bothered trying to get it fixed, I just lived with the crack for a few more months until I got the laptop replaced (for completely unrelated reasons – I moved to a different team at work, and members of my new team were eligible for beefier machines than my old team were.) I was lucky, could easily have resulted in much worse damage than it did.
I stepped into someone's magsafe cable a few days ago and disconnected it. I don't know if I would have dropped the mac to the floor because it prevented us from discovering it :-)
I'm much more careful at placing my HP power cable on the ground and up to the desk and never got my pc pulled to the ground.
Magsafe protects the laptop. But more directly, it protects physical power port from damage and wear.
The magsafe connection gets pulled out of my Macbook with enough frequency that I know I'd otherwise be slowly bending the power port on a standard DC adapter.
Multiple Thinkpads had to have complete motherboard changes because someone stumbled over the power cable, which broke the female power jack which was soldered directly onto the motherboard. :(
I haven't, but having my MagSafe cable ripped out of my laptop thanks to one of the house dogs running through it is a semi-regular occurrence. Not really looking forward to upgrading.
For me it happened quite often back when I was going to University. Often other students could accidentally hit the cable in class. It was really neat in those kinds of situations.
You could really beat them up. The hole became a sort of ragged edged crater you mashed the cable into. Probably not the look Ive is after, but it seemed effective.
If you believe the rumours [1], the Kaby Lake MacBook Pros are more than 5 months away from being released. Apple will no doubt wait until September/October 2017 to release the updated models considering how well the current versions are selling.
Between the ability to plug power on either side of the laptop, and getting a nearly full charge in thirty minutes, I don't really miss Magsafe at all.
1060 GPUs are power hungry, and MacBook Pros have generally not included this class of graphics hardware. It would be more likely, if they were to move to Nvidia, to use the 1050 instead.
> MacBook Pros have generally not included this class of graphics hardware
Isn't this a larger problem? It's not just graphics anymore; it's the ability to work on basic ML. Even the top of the line GPU you can fit in a laptop is barely enough to handle this, and Apple seems to prefer to believe that need doesn't exist.
Hell, even the Mac Pro has anemic and HUGELY overpriced compute options.
granted, while it's great in concept to work on ML everywhere, given that it is such a data and GPU-hungry process, the tradeoffs for an ML capable machine would make a shitty laptop. All the nVidia engineers that I see use a large "portable desktop" that has to accommodate the increased cooling and power contraints for a discrete GPU.
And, after having a number of laptops (and an iMac) die from heat death due to the ball grid array solders of the GPU wearing out, I'm done with discrete GPU's in anything other than a desktop box.
Better in this day and age to prototype on the macbook, then offload the heavy lifting to a dedicated ML box or, at the rate things are going, to Amazon...
I generally do agree, but 'laptop' is a little disingenuous when you're talking about an engineer's workstation—I get very little code written out of reach of a power socket. I'd even put up with a heavier/clunkier/louder machine (slightly) for a gpu/power boost.
They did use to make 17" laptops; calling those portable was really stretching the word.
I'm still holding out for official support of external GPU enclosures. The hardware already supports driving an external GPU over thunderbolt. People have hacked the software to work, but its still buggy. And right now it requires turning off some macos security features so they can inject 3rd party kexts.
I'd love to have an external desktop class GPU at home so I can play games or goof around with OpenCL and VR. Then I can simply unplug the laptop & use the integrated graphics chip when I'm on the road and need power efficiency.
Yet NVidia graphics were found on Macbooks as recently as 2010. And it worked great. My 2015 Air w/ Intel integrated graphics is slower on most anything 3D, and renders glitches that I never saw on my 2010 Air w/ Nvidia.
The meltdown is about the HN audience in particular. From my perspective, the new MBP is not very compelling from a hardware perspective. It's high price is not reflective of the computing power (in my mind). The lack of physical buttons (15" is my preferred size) is annoying to scary considering how many shortcuts I rely on use fn keys or esc (Emacs man myself).
So basically every other power machine in that price range has better specifications for less or equal pricing (including premium niche brands like Razer)
[1] These come with Ubuntu preinstalled if you want too!
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Edit: Just for grins I thought I would break down the comparison of the Macbook Pro 13" against the Razer Blade.
Stats: MBP 13 (max configured), Razer Blade
Price: $2,499, $2,299
CPU: i7 DUAL core, i7 QUAD core
GPU: Intel Iris (integrated), Nvidia GTX 1060
RAM: 16 GB LPDDR3, 16 GB DDR4
Disk: 512 GB PCIE SSD, 512 GB PCIE SSD
Display: Retina (2560 x 1600), QHD w/ Touch (3200 x 1800)
Basically, the Razer Blade destroys the performance of the MBP for $200 LESS.
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Edit 2: The price discrepancies get even worse when talking about the 15" laptop...just saying.
Take any of your 15" options and try to satisfy the following requirements:
* Quad core CPU
* >= 16 GB RAM
* >= 1 TB SSD
* Retina display with resolution at least as good as the MacBook 15"
* Battery life at least as good as the MacBook 15"
* Weight at least as good as the MacBook 15"
With those requirements---if you can meet them at all, which most can't---the price gap shrinks substantially.
The Razer Blade, for example, is $2700 for the QHD+/1TB option, and it's not obvious if it can meet the last two requirements.
The Alienware in a similar configuration is $2600 depending on the graphics card but the best screen option is 1080p and again, not obvious if battery is good and the weight is just a joke. No amount of money is going to get me to carry a > 7 pound laptop.
And that's without going into more subtle issues like build quality, track pad quality, etc.
Don't forget the speed difference between the MBP SSD and a normal SATA SSD. The MBP uses NVMe and super-fast flash chips.
That one repair dude with the 4+ hour YouTube videos that's always bashing Apple did a Razer Blade/MBP comparison video and the MBP disk transfer speeds blew the Razer out of the water.
I agree the MBP is super ridiculously expensive, but no one for a second should think there's an alternative in any price bracket.
I'm usually on the apple-defending side of this discusion, but: "MBP wins in disk speed and battery" doesn't match "there is no alternative in any price bracket".
For the same price, other laptops seem to offer more power, in exchange for less battery and a few other niceties.
I'm writing this from a MBP (magsafe-and-escape-key mbp) that I love. To me, it makes no sense to say "Macbooks are just like these windows pcs but way more expensive", but neither does saying "there is no alternative to a MBP".
A lot of laptops are competing. Some of them are premium, expensive machines, with high price tags and nice features and quality. The macbook is one of them, with its own set of unique advantages, but also compromises. Some people think they are the best. That's it.
> "MBP wins in disk speed and battery" doesn't match "there is no alternative in any price bracket"
Disk speed, battery, build quality, and screen resolution seem to be the big ones. There don't seem to be any alternatives with the same set of features. All of the machines brought up as an "alternative" are missing one or more of those which means they aren't really an alternative.
I do agree that you're also signing up for a set of compromises when you buy a MBP, but AFAIK there's not an "equivalent" machine elsewhere that I can find, which to me seems a bit strange.
I hate analogies, especially car ones, but for this situation it really does seem to fit. There are three big German car makers. BMW, Audi, and Mercedes each have "equivalent" sets of cars. You can pick and choose between them and while there are might be small features that one offers over the others there are definitely "alternatives".
With the MBP it feels like there's only one, and when looking for an alternative everyone's suggesting a Toyota Camry. Yes, it will get the job done but it's not really the same class of thing.
Last I checked, your last three conditions (display, battery, weight) are simply impossible to satisfy simultaneously in any of the available 15" Windows laptops, regardless of price. You mostly get to choose between 1080p with good battery life, and QHD+, which is admittedly a much higher resolution than the MBP has, accompanied with much worse battery life (Apple advertises 10 hours with light usage). Or, of course, you can get a thick and heavy laptop with everything. None of those options are to my liking, so I'd love to learn about anything that can fit the bill...
I've been seeing about 12 hours of battery life with my 13" tbmbp, though I've switched to safari to make that happen.
It really depends what you're doing. I have a cpu meter running all the time and often see electron based apps (spotify, slack, atom) idle on 5-10% cpu usage for no reason. Just having one of those programs will eviscerate your battery life - its impossible to get 10 hours if the CPU isn't asleep most of the time.
That said, in fairness Atom seems to be getting better with each release. But spotify seems to keep getting worse. I've caught it pegging an entire core a couple of times in the last few weeks - just sitting on 100% cpu usage despite having no music playing. I think it was rendering an animated ad in the background or something, despite my paid account. Its really no wonder people don't get 10 hours battery life out of their machines. This shit is the new flash.
Dell's XPS 15 comes closest to that, although perhaps doesn't have quite the same battery life, it does have: Quad Core i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SDD, higher resolution, approximately same weight, and a more powerful GPU.
As I understand it, they fixed whatever issue was causing the battery life issues through a software patch.
I've got a XPS 15 9560 and the battery life sits around 7 to 8 hours for "basic" tasks at around 30% brightness (which is still quite bright). This is running Fedora 25, so it's probably a bit longer under Windows. Not going to reach the 10 hours of a MBP, but it's still quite good.
I can confirm that whatever battery life issues I was seeing in my 2016 15" MBP before seem to have been resolved. I was in Xcode all day Saturday without being plugged in at all and still had like 60% left at around 6:30pm Saturday after having been on my computer since like 10:30am.
RAM: 16 GB LPDDR3 (LPDDR3 is important here...it is "low power" DDR3...so it is under clocked for batter life)
DISK: 1 TB PCIE SSD
GRAPHICS: Radeon Pro 455 w/ 2GB mem
PRICE: $3199
DELL Alienware 15:
CPU: I7-7820HK
RAM: 32 GB DDR4
DISK: 1 TB PCIE SSD + 1 TB 7200 RPM HD
GRAPHICS: GTX 1070 w/ 8GB RAM
PRICE: $2,999
Notes:
* Build quality is subjective and the MBP is certainly thin but the Alienware r3's are sturdy and well-regarded
* Battery life, the Alienware 15 r3 has a 99 whr battery that gets ~6 hr of light use [2] which I think is very comparable given the purported 3hrs of use users are reporting for Apple [3]
* Every computing stat is better than the MBP by a large margin
* Alienware is $200 cheaper (the unit I configured had a G-Sync panel on it so I would guess the price goes down or stays same for 4k IGZO version...)
* Note: Alienware rotates the models it has on it's sight and currently the IGZO 4k screen is not available but that model is out there and will probably be back soon. The review I linked to reviews the IGZO 4k configuration.
---
But hey, it sounds like you aren't a compute power focused person (like me...I am irrationally so)...so check out the XPS 15 (9650):
It is often the factors you cannot put that easily in numbers that make the difference. I googled for the razer blade and found pretty fast those issues:
- It seems to have around 6 hours surfing time on a battery while the macbook has 10.
- It seems to have a worse screen with bad viewing angles.
- The razor weighs 1.93 kg while the macbook weighs 1.37 kg. This makes quite a difference when you e.g. travel a lot by public transport or by aeroplane. The razor also is marginally thicker (3 mm)
- The razor has USB 3.0 while the macbook has USB 3.1
- The razor has a drastically slower SSD than the one of the macbook
- The razor has shitty speakers, while the macbook has pretty good ones.
- The keyboard seems to have some issues like the function and mediakeys not being lit.
In the end it is pretty obvious, that they are completely different machines. The razor is a mobile gaming machine optimized for gaming performance, while the macbook is a high quality general purpose laptop, optimized for performance in general.
- Battery life is going to be a trade off for performance. Things like the 4k screen as well as the DDR4 (vs LPDDR3) RAM are going to come at a cost to battery life.
- I don't know about the screen, but having owned both, viewing angles are not an issue on either. I _believe_ the MBP has better color accuracy, but the blade is no slouch with full sRGB coverage and 75% Adobe RGB [1]
- I travel a lot by airplane and weights are going to be a personal preference, but I don't notice a difference...and I take public transit for 40 minutes and have a 2 mile walk to work. But again, personal preference.
- Perhaps I am not in the know, but the Razer Blade has USB type-C (TB3) as well as USB type-A (ostensibly serving 3.0). MBP has 4 TB3 ports if I understand it correctly, so it has more, but I don't think it fair to say the Blade has none.
- I don't know if the SSD is "drastically slower"...but it might be slower. Both are PCIE nVME SSD drives, the blade specifically has a Samsung SM951. Not the top of the line, but certainly not a bargin bin drive[1]. And for the price difference, you could replace the drive in the Razer with something better if you want...whereas the MBP is soldered on[2].
- I don't know, I am not terribly impressed by any laptop speakers in 13" form factors...but personal preference. I would have to agree, owning both, that I think the MBP has a slight edge as they don't distort at Max volume and the Blade does slightly...but I wouldn't say the difference between is huge.
- Razer blade media keys are lit, the function labels are not...which is terribly annoying for me (but media _are_ lit).
> In the end it is pretty obvious, that they are completely different machines. The razor is a mobile gaming machine optimized for gaming performance, while the macbook is a high quality general purpose laptop, optimized for performance in general.
I would amend this slightly by saying the Macbook is a high quality general use laptop. Nothing about it is optimized for performance in my mind (LPDDR3, Retina not 4k, etc.). Most of the choices trade performance for battery (IMO). To be clear, this is not bad.
The Razer is definitely a mobile performance focused machine...
But the only reason I bring it up is because I was refuting the claim:
> This has been discussed before: similarly configured PC laptops cost just as much or more.
And I think it is pretty clear that for the hardware, the MBP is definitely more expensive than other options (by significant margins).
> Battery life is going to be a trade off for performance.
I totally agree and in my opinion this makes the laptops not really comparable.
Battery life can also lead to higher cost (e.g. display with lower energy consumption).
But I would also qualify the performance statement a bit. If you neither play games nor use Cuda, a graphic card is unimportant. If the applications you use are not or hardly parallel, a dual core might even perform better.
BTW: I checked again and the Samsung SSD has read speeds of 2.150 GBps and write speeds of 1.550 GBps, while the Apple one has read speeds of 3.1 GBps and 2.1 GBps write speed.
I think there is a lot of confusion with what I was trying to say. I wasn't claiming MBPs are "bad"...just refuting the claim that similarly spec'd laptops are about the same price. And I still believe that is a reasonable point.
Regarding the drives, I found some links quoting those figures [1]...although synthetic benchmarks in the wild seem to give different results (~2.0 GBs read and 1.3 GBps write)[2][3]. I wonder what a synthetic benchmark with those two laptops would be like side to side. It may very well be the benchmark tool in both videos is artificially limiting drive performance...which would also be reflected on the Blade who knows.
(As an aside, even at 2.0 GBps read and 1.3 GBps write that is still very fast)
>similarly configured PC laptops cost just as much or more.
I guess that depends on what "similarly" means.
The Dell XPS 15", for the same price has a far better processor, far better video card, 32GB of RAM, 4k screen and a 1TB SSD. The Macbook has a touchbar?
As one of the people who penned an article slamming Apple, I also wouldn't trade my 2016 Fn-key MBP for anything. But what concerns me more is where this Mac ship is headed, and if the Touch Bar is any indication, I hope Apple course-corrects soon.
The non-Touch Bar laptop with four TB3 ports and Touch ID would've been the _absolute_ best Mac for pretty much everyone who was waiting for a new one (battery life sacrifices for weight/size savings aside).
That 15" users _have_ to get a Touch Bar is a slap in the face to those users, imo.
What keyboard shortcuts? I touch type, but nearly all the keyboard shortcuts I know use the lower part of the keyboard (ctrl- or cmd- or alt- some letter or number). I know F5 to refresh, but never used it on my Mac since the media keys were set to be the default and were more useful to me anyway.
The only thing that occasionally causes me to do a double-take about the touch bar is the non-physical escape key. And even that has not honestly been much of an issue for me.
Function-keys aren't really useful for touch typing and are hard or impossible to memorize (in my experience) so I imagine the population of potential beneficiaries for the touchbar is larger than merely hunt-and-peck typists (I'm a twoish-fingered touch typist who gets 60wpm; I've tried to learn to touch-type but it slows me down for too long I always revert).
That said, I think that putting a display under the trackpad as well or instead would have a bigger payoff.
I have trouble with the pinky finger on my right hand. I should be using it to hit the "p" but... I dunno, it just doesn't happen that way. Sorry, Mavis Beacon, I tried.
I've got a handful of function keys memorized, but I frequently miss if I'm not looking down. I'd never try to Alt-F5 on Windows without looking.
Some corporations have a policy of buying MacBooks Pro for their employees, regardless of job requirements. I have met many who aren't aware of ... well ... they're not power users.
I consider myself pretty adept at typing but I am not able to reliably hit the fn keys without looking down save for maybe f1 and f5. Though, I am on a full size keyboard so the distance to travel to the top row is further.
Ah: 'non-Touchbar'. Apple has gone touchbar-only on the higher-spec'd MB Pros. Those of us who touch type and want a fast developer machine to last a few years have been left behind. MacOS is my OS of choice, but the touch bar makes Apple's hardware irrelevant to me -- I literally have no available Apple option when my current MB Pro needs replacing.
FYI: BetterTouchTool allows you to customize your touchbar to add custom buttons. You could create buttons for your most commonly used keystrokes in IntelliJ.
I've configured some of the new MBPs with touchbar and I really dislike the bar. No ESC for me is a complete no-go. Otherwise I haven't used the huge trackpad enough to know if I like it or not. And the keyboard, well, I found it just ordinary. For me, especially in a work environment where lots of people move around, MagSafe is essential.
I can understand a company buying the new MBPs simply to replace old ones, but personally I will wait a year. My 2009 MBP still does the job.
This is of course subjective but I personally also hate the keyboard (on top of USB-C only and the loss of MagSafe). The new Trackpad sucks as well.
I have seen the Touch Bar in person and I don't hate it but it does seem like an unnecessary cost and battery drain (just like Force Touch come to think of it).
My biggest problem with the latest Macbook "Pros" is that they don't give me what I want. All I wanted is a Macbook Air with a screen that isn't 6 years old. For me the 13" Air was the perfect form factor and compromise between power and portability (eg the 12" Macbook is too much of a compromise).
And while not giving me what I want they went and made everything more expensive.
I'm sitting here typing this on an Dell XPS 15, a laptop I bought late last year when it became clear Apple wasn't going to produce what I wanted. It's reasonably nice but honestly I hate it as it's just not polished like a Mac and OSX is (I'm using Windows 10). Even simple things like forwarding videos with a two finger swipe on a Mac just works (even on VLC). On Windows it's just... horrible.
Then again I do have 32GB of RAM and a 512GB Samsung Pro 850 in it and all up I think it cost like $1400. Oh and I can play Civ6 on it.
IMHO the real cause of this backlash against the new MBPs is a combination of frustration and even a sense of betrayal. That may sound like hyperbole but people love their Macs. My 13" Air was the best laptop I ever owned and it vexes me no end that Apple (again IMHO) screwed it up.
My (non-Touchbar, 13 inch) MBP loses (2.4 GHz) WiFi when you plug in a USB-C hub, or Apple dongle with hard disk (noise goes up by about 25 to 30 dB -- depending on how good the WiFi is it's barely to not usable). The left shift key is unpleasantly sticky and non-clicky.
It's by no means a bad machine (retina is nice, keyboard is generally quite nice and crisp), but I'm not elated, particularly given that it was some $500 more expensive than the MacBook Air that it replaced.
The WiFi thing sounds like it could be a hardware fault - take it in to the genius bar and they'll fix/replace the machine. Hell, from my experience with Apple support they'd almost replace the machine just because of the shift key if you're polite enough.
When my 2011 MacBook Pro (the one with the faulty graphics card that would eventually die) was in for service, before the replacement program, they called me and said "Oh, we noticed that your trackpad button felt a little weird, so we're replacing it, free of charge". This was on top of replacing the logic board for free as well, even though at that point the replacement program hadn't been announced yet. The next time the graphics chip failed they just ended up replacing the laptop with a brand new 2015 model for free (top of the line model too, which was nice).
Thanks, will do - in particular because this time I also got Apple Care on the machine. Remaining problem is to actually get an appointment in the genius bar (I'm traveling a bit these days, and they tend to booked out here for a week in advance).
I'm really curious as to the WiFi thing - I'm definitely not the only one with the problem (see my post here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13494910 with some links), but I haven't seen it widely reported at all.
That is a bummer. I'd try a heavily shielded USB C cable, but I'm not sure if they exist yet. You may have some improvement by installing a ferrite choke on the cable(s). Something like this: https://www.dataq.com/products/accessories/ferrite-choke/
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have a look, though at first glance I can't tell whether this is some sort of esoteric voodoo (remember the red transparent pens with which to paint patterns on a CD to get more natural music...)
I'm a bit disheartened that even the original Apple dongle effects this problem.
Couldn't agree more. I've had my non-Touchbar MBP since just after launch, and I couldn't be happier. The form factor is great and the screen is better than anything I've encountered.
Prior to this machine, I was unhealthily attached to an MBA 11" from 2012 and I was more than dubious that I'd break that attachment. Since I got the new MBP, the MBA hasn't moved once from the spot where is waiting for a re-install ready to give away.
Keyboard mostly a non-issue, as I use a mech, but it's not bad, just different. My Logitech BT mouse disconnects, but that's a Sierra issue, as it happened on my previous machine (and is a documented issue with Logitech apparently). Monitor support is wonky, but not too bad if you stick with only DisplayPort with a DP->USBC cable or use the official Apple dongle with HDMI. Apple's TB display works great with the TB2->TB3 adapter. (Eagerly anticipating the TB3 docks coming out later in the year)
On TouchBar: Yes, it definitely has its advantages and disadvantages. I dig the touch ID login. Escape key issue only annoyed me a time or two, but I'm not a heavy VIM user, and the ESC key is actually wider than most people realize (space to left of it is actually additional touch target for the key, so you actually have an easier to type ESC key in actuality)
The magnetic power adapter was probably the best feature exclusive to apple products, and I assume that the reason other laptops do not have them was vicious patent guarding. It improves longevity by so much to not have a piece of the motherboard under constant torque.
It was such a superior idea that there can only be one possible philosophy behind the move to abandon it, and that is that longevity is actually bad for apple, especially during the end of Moore's law for personal computing. My 2011 MBP is very unlikely to become obsolete in a technical sense. The battery life is still good, and the processing power is more than sufficient for anything that would not be more cost-effectively computed on a cloud instance or a desktop anyway.
That may seem like a great deal of inference, but I don't think it's unjustified. Why else would they opt for inferior technology?
Do you really think a bunch of engineers are sitting around talking about how to make things obsolete faster? We found out who Deep Throat was. Surely someone would come out and expose this big scam. And we hear this about pretty much every category of product.
I know for a fact people do sit around and talk about how to make things cheaper.
Don't be ridiculous, people sit around and talk about how to maximize profits. That is the MO of a company. Engineers are not excluded from this, and a great many companies have destroyed themselves by making products which have no calculable lifespan. Shitty disposables make companies more money. Really expensive disposables even more. There doesn't have to be a grand conspiracy, it's just the only way to successfully do business. Personal computers very conveniently went obsolete all by themselves for decades. Now Apple has to push software updates which reduce battery life in order to convince you that there is any reason at all to get a new phone. Those updates have gotten a lot less optional, and the "improvements" a lot more marginal.
It's a philosophy that is reflected at apple through just about every corporate decision they have made. The inability to make incremental upgrades to any apple product, or perform repairs without it being a part of the apple business model. Or Air pods, which are basically an off season april fools joke.
The MagSafe adapter has itself gone through iterations which make them less backwards compatible and less functional. A major problem for power cables is that force at the joint between the rigid connector and flexible wire is prone to failure.
The original magsafe adapter solved this problem [1]. a small amount of force at the problem area provided sufficient leverage to disconnect the power. This ensured that it was hard to use the power cord in such a way that promoted early failure, and gave the user the option of two orientations, potentially lessening the stress to the affected joint. They phased this design out for the much less sleek looking bulky orthogonal connector, which stays firmly locked in place through all sorts of damaging configurations, while providing no other justification for the "design" choice.
That this product was particularly prone to failure is made evident in the class action settlement, although you may read this as you like. https://www.adaptersettlement.com/
So before you accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist for proposing that computer companies sometimes break your property for profit, You might actually want to read about what the courts are saying, although the case in regards to the deceptive trade practices when rolling out iOS 9 on older phones is still unsettled, the facts very much are settled, and only the courts and the defense lag.
MagSafe was great for dealing with cables draped across the floor in front of you. With 4 USB-C ports, so you can plug your power in to either side, this is no longer an issue. And it looks like doing a MagSafe-style plug for USB-C is actually pretty bulky, as you can see in this Griffin product (https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...).
There's also another good reason why specifically Apple wants to get rid of MagSafe (as opposed to it just not being worth it anymore). And that's the fact that MagSafe has insidious problem of laptops sometimes just not charging, and you often don't even notice. I myself have started experiencing this issue with my current laptop and external display - I went for almost a whole day without it charging and didn't realize until I hit 10% battery, and since then, it's been a bit finicky, sometimes requiring me to poke at it several times before it charges properly. I don't know if it's the port or the cable that's having the issue. In any case, I would imagine this issue makes for a non-trivial amount of AppleCare support. And since MagSafe isn't really pulling its weight anymore, now that we have long batteries and can plug the cable on either side, the downsides outweigh the upsides.
No, the problem is not that I don't have enough decision about which side my charger goes on.
The problem is that my computer, which resides on a table, is connected to the wall, which does not reside on the table. If there is a gap between the wall and the table, and the computer must be connected to the wall in order to accumulate energy, then the cord must necessarily cross that gap.
Since the table and the wall are not connected, they are not path connected, which you will note, is a statement which only relies on the topology of the space in which my computer is embedded. Which side I connect my charger to does not change the topology of space-time, so your argument doesn't seem relevant.
Charging a laptop in the middle of a room with the cord stretched across where people normally walk is mostly a relic of the past now that we have much longer battery lives than we used to. These days most people charge their laptop in a situation where the charger is not stretched across the room (e.g. when sitting on a desk against a wall).
Why should it matter how often I charge my computer? The matter at hand is, when my computer requires charging, what is the best way to accomplish it. So you have constructed a use case which is neither based in reality, nor relevant.
First, there is no such animal as a person sitting in a cafe with a laptop who is not plugged into the wall.
This is easily observed by simply entering a cafe and looking at the people in it. It doesn't matter that people's batteries CAN last a long time without being charged, most people simply don't do that unless there is no other option.
Second, I don't bring my computer home and plug it into a stationary dock to allow it to charge like some kind of cordless phone from the 90s. I pick a spot where I want to perform my computer tasks, and when my battery gets low (as it often does because claims of long battery life are largely based on some wildly ideal case) I go grab my charger from the other room and plug it in wherever I am sitting.
This is THE typical use case for a laptop computer. Note my use of capital letters. The use case that you have described is strange to the point of being an anomaly. A person who behaves this way is likely not a person at all, but rather a character in the sims.
My charger comes to me. My house was built with outlets every 10 feet or so along the walls for almost exactly this purpose. I do not do all of my computing immediately adjacent the walls, and I frequently just leave my computer where it is while I go do something else.
Do you not behave this way? If your laptop gets low, do you resignedly go back to your safe table, or do you stay on your couch, like a god damned American.
> First, there is no such animal as a person sitting in a cafe with a laptop who is not plugged into the wall.
Then you should not come to European cafes where you don't get a power socket, unless you happen to be luckily seated close to the one used for the vacuum cleaner.
> It doesn't matter that people's batteries CAN last a long time without being charged, most people simply don't do that unless there is no other option.
Zero sympathy for anyone whose laptop is destroyed tripping over the power cable while charging a half-full 12-hour battery at a coffee shop.
Charge-over-USB beats one-side MagSafe for nearly all of us.
I'm glad to hear that. I've played with the new macbooks a few times at a local Apple Store and have been delighted with them, and can't wait to get a new one at work. The keyboard was probably my favorite part as well, and that black one is really nice looking.
People who complain about MacBooks either haven't dealt with other laptops or I just haters. I tried lots of laptops and Macs are a species of their own kind.
The very fact that MacBook pro doesn't make fan noise is enough for me to pay the premium.
Lighter, tighter, better screen, fantastic keyboard, better speakers --- and is this really the MBP without a "real" touchpad? Like, this is simulated clicking?
Not the above commenter but I have the new 15 and I second that. Speakers are better, trackpad is better, keyboard is (in my opinion, anyway) better, touchID is nice, and it is lighter and thinner. I don't use peripherals much at all, so the lack of legacy ports doesn't bother me. Only downsides are slightly worse battery life overall and occasional accidental activation of the emojibar.
Most of the hate I see on the keyboard is from people who've only spent a few minutes on it. After a few days you get used to it and don't even think twice about it. I've regularly measured my typing speed with my old retina MBP and my new one as well as my DAS keyboard with cherry red switches, and I get about the same speed +/-5 wpm across all of them.
I'm going to rant here for a minute: IMO keyboards are a great example of "bike shedding" and the law of triviality. There are tons of options for layouts, key mechanics/switches, etc and everyone has to use a keyboard, so everyone has their preferences. At the end of the day, the only objective way to compare keyboards is by your max typing speed, but this metric is almost 100% irrelevant. When does anyone ever type at their max speed for any practical purpose? For most people, the worst a keyboard can be is mildly annoying. At best, you'll forget you're even using one. Don't even get me started on people who learn Dvorak for speed or practicality...
Besides max typing speed, there's another objective metric: noise. Loud typing is mildly annoying in the office, it's offensively annoying on a train, it's distracting in a conference.
Even if I could get used to everything about the new MBP's keyboard, buying a laptop that is noticeably louder feels like a really selfish move.
Were there negative things said about the keyboard? I was playing around with the new MBP's in the Apple Store last week and I found the keyboards to be fantastic. I was actually surprised because I bought the family an iMac for Christmas and I really don't like the new wireless keyboards. The whole thing feels cheep in part because the keys feel poorly seated.
> Were there negative things said about the keyboard? I was playing around with the new MBP's in the Apple Store last week and I found the keyboards to be fantastic.
I guess there are just segments of people that disagree then. I find the new MBP keyboard abhorrent. The keys are too shallow, and they have far too little give; you're literally typing on a hard plastic surface. I love going home in the evening and getting my Thinkpad's keyboard, even though I'm not really a fan of that keyboard.
This is why I recommend that anyone wanting to purchase a MBP visit the Apple store and type on one. Maybe it won't bother you, but it bothers me, hence, I think folks should try it before they buy it, and Apple makes that fairly easy to do.
My biggest complaint is how inconsistent the butterfly switches are. Some days the keys don't want to pop back up all the way, the keys feel/sound different, they're easily made 'sticky'...
Best case the keyboard feels great but a day later and it feels terrible.
It's not HN specific, many websites reported returning the laptop or being very very disappointed, which was rarely the case before.
Now it's possible that it was just mass web hysteria. My cynical brain thinks that 1) people are gullible and want shiney 2) their previous MBP was getting too old so they bought the new
I've owned every Macbook/Powerbook from the Titanium up until the Mid-2014 MBP (while I was at Matasano, I got every refresh; on my own, I try to make machines last). My 2014 has HDMI. But then: the new one has an HDMI+USBC+USB dongle.
On the one hand: I miss MagSafe.
On the other hand: I will not miss the stack of old frayed MagSafe cables I've collected over the years, and am hopeful that the aftermarket will finally provide me with a reliable power cable.
Worth knowing about me to qualify my opinion is: I don't use external monitors or keyboards. I don't ever want to use a configuration of my computer that will make me unhappy or feel less productive when I'm not at a desk, because I strongly prefer being able to work wherever I happen to be.
I don't have a 2016, but I won't miss Magsafe. In every situation where Magsafe would have protected my laptop, it has failed to do so. If I grab my cable and yank as hard as I can, all that happens is the laptop slides across the desk. Every time I have tripped on the cable, it's pulled the laptop to the edge of the table, not unplugged. I imagine this problem becomes more common the lighter the laptop gets.
The only time Magsafe breaks like it's supposed to is when it's sitting on my lap and my leg bumps it, pushing it straight up. Which is just an annoyance, not a safety feature.
I work remote, so I spend quite a bit of time at coffee shops and other places like that... MagSafe on my laptop has saved my laptop countless times. Sitting on a small table the rubber feet provide enough grip that if you give the cable a quick tug it becomes unplugged.
I am definitely going to miss MagSafe and am hoping the third party market comes up with something that will emulate it enough to where I don't have to worry about my laptop going flying because some cut doesn't watch where he is walking and accidentally kicks the cord.
Yeah, if you have it sitting on your desk and slowly pull on it the magnet will hold... but give it a quick tug, laptop will stay, cord will come with you.
Lots of people seem to like it, but same experience here -- I don't recall an instance of the machine being "saved" by MagSafe, but oh boy do I recall plugging it back in all the time when something moved a bit.
Except that I'm pretty sure that's one of the top use cases for Magsafe. Imagine if you didn't have a Magsafe connector and your leg bumped it, pushing it straight up. You'd have a ruined power connector... My Dell and Sony laptops both had that happen and stopped getting a consistent connection. With the Dell, the power connector was internally soldered on to the mobo too, so the repair was not cheap at all. :(
Every other laptop I've ever had, the power connector was at the back so you could avoid hitting it with your leg. With the MBP, its on the side and it's small enough that my lap is wider than the laptop, so my leg pushes on the power connector.
Magsafe might be better than breaking a connector, but those aren't the only choices that exist. There is a far better solution, and it's really odd that Apple hasn't figured it out.
The push for lighter laptops has probably meant that the force needed to disconnect the magsafe is greater than the force needed to drag your ultralight laptop along.
For me, I have a 2012 non-retina MacBook Pro and the magsafe works fine for me on that. I think this is one laptop people consider heavy though. (Personally I am alright with the weight and love its plethora of ports).
My guess is the typical scenario magsafe protects from is when you have your laptop on the side of the table, charging cable to the side and you step on it or pull it down. Don't have one, so can't test this theory.
Yeah if you pull it down, it snaps out pretty easy. Whenever I end up tripping on it, though, it's usually catching my foot and being pulled nearly straight out. I can actually push the Magsafe connector down until it bends far enough to touch the desk and then pull on it from that angle and it still just drags the laptop.
Maybe it's useful to some, and I agree it's great engineering... but it's never once worked for me in practice. I only find myself cursing when my leg bumps it and it stops charging.
Not OP, but I replied above - basically I never used HDMI other than plugging in my monitor, only at my desk. Now I plug in power, 4k display, keyboard and speakers with a single cable, so a much better solution for my setup (Especially considering I grab and go a lot since I work from home.)
Also as far as tripping over a cable it is unlikely to happen to me, given I leave my laptop at my desk charging overnight so I rarely ever use a power cord away from my desk (given the average 8 or so hours of battery.) Pretty much only when traveling, but even then it will likely just be charging while I'm not using it.
Having used a MacBook 12 as my main machine for the last 3 months the main reason is that it's redundant. Most days the battery lasts the entire day so you end up plugging it into recharge overnight just like a cellphone.
So it ends up being rare that you have the laptop plugged in while you are actually working with it.
The MacBook 12 is probably the best laptop I've owned even if spec wise it was a downgrade from the MacBook Pro 13 I was previously using.
I second your points. I have the Macbook 12" and even though I don't use it daily (I work from home and my dev/gaming beast PC with a 35" wide screen does the job perfectly), every time I use it at home or carry it outside, I am marvelled by that small, beautiful, and very functional laptop.
It's compact, extremely light, the keyboard is okay-ish (you get used to it), the display is the best I've ever seen anywhere on any kind of machine, and the battery longevity for casual browsing, some video/music, and coding, is out of this world. It can easily last me at least 6 hours of medium usage; if I use it sparingly (not much video for example) it can easily go to 8+ hours.
I have nothing bad to say about this laptop. The keyboard could've been slightly better but at the thinness of it, it's pretty adequate.
Magsafe was one of my favorite features on the old laptops, but I don't really see how it would work on the new ones. They're so light that any of the force that normally would've been needed to "anchor" the computer so that a trip on the cord would disconnect it is pretty much gone. At this point, the magnet would have to be so weak that it may just be unusable. Any stronger magnet would just pull the light computer right along with it.
Worse shape? Apple had a record number of phones sold. Mac sales are important but not that important.
How many other companies sold 18,455,000 PCs and tablets last quarter? Sales of PCs and tablets are declining everywhere, not just at Apple. These results look pretty good in that environment. Microsoft Surface revenue was actually down 2% last quarter YOY.
There's been plenty of pressure for Apple to show it's not on the decline. Meanwhile, I haven't noticed increased enthusiasm from consumers or reviewers to explain why Apple's products would be selling better now than ever before.
I wouldn't rule out creative accounting, or actual fraud. The leaks, the analysts, the press, all said Apple was moving less product. Now Apple self-reports "all-time records" left and right.
If you have any evidence for that extraordinary claim that Apple is committing fraud I'd like to see it. You'll make international news, you'll get free holidays being flown around the world for interviews, and it'll be the biggest tech industry news story of the year.
It amazes me that some people are so strongly steeped in the anti-Apple bandwagon that they sooner believe they're committing fraud than that their products are actually popular - despite being able to walk outside their house for a few minutes and see a dozen people using one.
A minor quibble here. No argument that they're popular. What surprises me is why they would be more popular than ever, after a year with so much bad press.
At the same time, they have recently had a couple quarters where they were down year-over-year, so there is definitely incentive.
As to whether they would ever deceive investors... Apple is usually more ethical than your average company, but they have had lapses in judgement before (eg: just google for Apple and "backdating", "antipoaching", "EU consumer law"), so I don't rule anything out.
That said, I have a little regret posting that comment, since it's pure speculation, possibly tinfoil-hat territory.
All the bad press you are talking about is pretty tiny news to most main stream consumers who make up the bulk of Apple's customers.
I don't get the MBPTB backlash, I ordered one 2 days after they announced it and I would absolutely not go back to my previous MB Air or swap to my wife's 1-year-old rMBP. I never touch type on the function row anyway so having to look down is a non-issue and at least now I can customise the bar to do what I want rather than what Apple prescribe.
> All the bad press you are talking about is pretty tiny news
I see people making this point, but it doesn't match with my experience. I'll grant you the most extreme complaints show up on sites like HN, Reddit, or Twitter, but I wasn't referring only to those. Most major news outlets have had unusually negative coverage of Apple: The New York Times, Consumer Reports, Time Magazine, etc. Once "doesn't have a headphone jack" becomes a late-night comedy gag, it's not a niche story any longer.
> the MBPTB backlash
I think the expectation that Apple would release other Macs at the same event contributed. If Apple had also announced a new Mac Pro (desktop), or brought back a 17" MBP at the same event, I don't think there would have been any backlash. The MBP/TB became a focal point for everyone who wants Apple to pay more attention to the Mac, and less to iOS.
"What surprises me is why they would be more popular than ever, after a year with so much bad press."
The fact is, most people are not going on sensationalist tech blogs at all, and those that do are mostly not swayed by articles or nerds on the internet telling them what they can and can't buy. Other people think more independently than people like to believe (there's probably a name for this fallacy), it's just hard for some people to understand that someone else could have different priorities.
Those articles and comments are for and by people who have mostly already made up their mind. Blogs preach to the choir. People read and upvote things that confirm the beliefs they already had. Android fanatics will continue to screech about the lack of a headphone jack on the iPhone or full size USB on the Mac regardless, and weren't ever going to buy one anyway.
Yeah, the headphone jack removal probably put some people off the iPhone 7, even I admit it's an inconvenience and has been annoying. But despite all the bad press, it's just not, overall, the world ending problem that reddit/Hacker News would have you believe.
I won't pretend Apple has never broken the law or acted immorally, but profit and sales reports aren't like anti-poaching agreements. They have to go through so many people who can catch or oppose them, are so regulated, and are so directly and unambiguously illegal, that there's virtually no chance Apple is deliberately and directly falsifying them.
There's been plenty of pressure for Apple to show it is not on the decline since the 90s.
The "Apple Hype Peaked; nowhere to go but down" and "Does [decision or product] prove Apple as lost its way?" articles are pretty much the canonical lazy tech-journalist's go-to piece when there's nothing else to write.
I say this as a longtime Apple fan who is reluctantly concluding they're moving away from me (don't like the new laptops, don't like paying RAM markups, don't care about always-on voice, etc.)
If you think Apple is lying, I'd strongly encourage you to start shorting now - that won't stay secret long, and you'll make a bundle!
Apple committing crimes by lying to the SEC is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence - something beyond the pundits not expecting this.
During the negative press following the touchbar Macbook announcement Apple themselves said they were receiving record pre-orders on those models. Apple seeing good sales despite vocal complaints isn't anything new.
i thought that too. it was... 60000 more? However, there were big shipping delays in the first month of release, so looking at what the Q2 numbers are may be a better judge of the 'demand'. For some folks, though, the demand was tempered by the price, and now hearing there may be yet another refresh in the next year... I think it's keeping more folks on the fence.
I bought one, and returned it, and got a 2015 refurb instead. keep my magsafe, i like the keyboard better, upgraded screen from what I had before (i really like the retina, and didn't have one for years), and about $1000 less.
I like the newer keyboard, but it's louder, and bugged more people in the rooms I shared.
That said, if/when a new refresh comes around with a 32g option, I'll be there.
Those sorts of groups are the worst about personal computers. Enthusiasts care about shit that nobody cares about.
My team is responsible for tech specs for a huge global enterprise. We A/B survey people for different hardware starting with our Windows 10 rollouts. Very, very few people, even tech people report any difference in satisfaction with PCs with 8GB vs 16GB or more, price optimized i5 vs fast i7, etc.
The three things that most affect satisfaction are SSD, not telling people what the specs are, and giving them Macs.
Normal people give no shits about 95% of the handwringing complaints.
Normal people have absolutely no need for a $2~3000 laptop so I'm not really sure about what you're trying to prove here. Your argument would work with Chromebooks too.
Note, I never had one and I really don't give a crap about what Apple does with its product line. But you can't deny that a lot of developers, particularly people who post on HN, have been predominantly MBP users for the past decade. And I can understand they care about connectivity[1] and battery life, and probably a lot less about the TouchBar.
Also you have a weird definition of "enthusiasts". The ones I know don't buy laptops, much less Apple computers.
[1] I have to admit, it's funny they still haven't understood that Apple never did.
I agree - sometimes we forget that Apple caters to my mother and my nephew just as much as it does to us - this is a segment which still has growth potential (still plenty of elderly ladies out there without computers; and new teenagers produced all the time). For these types of people Apple is just fine.
I think though what many of us are complaining about is that "Pro" used to mean a machine that was targeted at us, i.e. Professionals. I guess now it just means "high end" but I remember a few years ago the Macbook Air was targeted at the "pretty things" market.
I remember about 5 years ago my brother a professional animator complaining about how Apple dumbed down Final Cut Pro X to the point it wasn't usable in his domain. These days his shop doesn't use Macs any more (typically a staple industry).
I've a friend too, who works in automotive industrial design who won't touch a mac because it just doesn't have the power he needs.
My sister is a professional photographer and up until a few months ago I wouldn't have hesitated to recommend her a MBP but in all conscience nowadays I can not. This dilemma actually forced me to look at Windows laptops and I'm amazed how much they've come along in the last while.
So it's not just "us" that feel abandoned by Apple, but professionals from other walks of life. It's fair enough, if its a segment that doesn't make as much money for Apple as it used to, and as a business they have to make business decisions.
As professionals we have to make these decisions too, and if Apple isn't the right tool for the job we need to source one that is. But, there was a few years there where it felt like Apple was our friend. They made some amazingly pro-friendly gear. It seems those days are waning, and that relationship is coming to an end, and some of us feel a little jilted.
On the one hand, we hope that this "friend" will hear our protests and change their ways but we know deep down that won't happen. On the other we have to give the best advice to our friends and acquaintances as to what is a good device for them. We, as in "those sorts of groups" have a responsibility to critically evaluate new hardware in this light.
Not all, or even most complaints I've seen is from 'those' groups, whatever that is supposed to mean exactly, are enthusiast really the worst issue with persobal computers ?
Back to the issue, most complaints I've seen/heard are from actual professionals who wants - or needs - magsafe, more RAM, more ports, more storage, more speed, or better batterylife.
The new MBP doesn't give you much more than what you already have, and for people having machines starting to wear out, buy another of essentially the same thing feels like a bad deal.
For me personally the biggest issues are magsafe and no RAM upgrade beyond 16GB. I simply run out of RAM all the time, but I would prefer not having to switch to windows simply to get more than 16GB RAM, with all the pain that would entail. Magsafe because it have saved my machine several times while on the road or working from home with kids running around.
I've heard a lot of people cite their with as why they need more capacity but most of them go silent when asked to explain e.g. what they can do with 32GB but not 16GB (exceptions were edge cases like someone who worked on a model which was ~20GB), a gaming-class GPU, why Kalby Lake is a requirement, etc.
I'm actually in the camp which would prefer more battery but this seems more like the effects of forum echo chamber reinforcement than anything like a strong trend.
32gb vs 16gb for me is the difference between having my local development environment a replica of production EXCEPT massively scaled down vertically and horizontally. Meaning I can still have clustered databases (couchbase, etc) to test against vs having to test against an environment that has zero clustering at all. This might be fine for some, but there are a lot of gotchas that you encounter when dealing with disparate query + index servers that you wouldn't ever run into if you completely wrote code against a single instance.
Sure, this is an edge case but that doesn't minimize my requirements for 32gb of ram. I'll be buying a new laptop next year to replace my 2015MBPr and it will definitely be one that has 32gb minimum. That is, at this point, more important by far than OSX to my workload.
Over what time span do you survey users? For example, I was completely happy with my 16 GB iPhone for the first two years and now I feel like an idiot for not getting a larger model. I'm perfectly fine with a 8GB computer now, but what in two years? I think a lot of the enthusiast outrage is about future-proofing, which wouldn't even be a thing if machines were still upgradable.
If they were real enthusiasts, they would be for things like the Thunderbolt 3.0, the TPM, the touchbar, the excellent battery life and noise levels...
If they were real enthusiasts, they would know about USB-C more than "Hurr durr dongles"
Enthusiasts in the same way the people who buy X-series Intel desktop chips for much more than better Xeons so they can overclock them to play GPU bound games are enthusiasts.
So I finally got around to an Apple store. We have a couple close by, but I haven't had an opportunity for a casual stop.
This was my first chance to see the new touchbar Macs.
I thought the touchbar was nice, super responsive, looked better than I expected. I thought the keyboard was great for typical typing. I'm a spacemacs/vim user, and yet I found no problem with the escape key on the touchpad. Not really enough time to truly evaluate, but the first impression was "This is really nice." Like walking into a really nice kitchen, or sitting behind the wheel of a high end car.
My expectations had been tempered by all the naysaying about it, so perhaps because of that I was very impressed.
If my mac were a few years older, I'd buy one in a minute. I actually find myself wishing my mac was a few years older to justify upgrading.
That said, I'm not happy about only having USB-C. Mainly because I really like magsafe. My power cable gets kicked out several times a week, and sometimes a day. And on laptops of ages past (HP), the power socket has been the first thing to break on me. There are options out there for magsafe style USB-C cables, so that might mitigate.
They keyboard is pretty nice to type on, even when you are typing a lot. That surprised me, because I thought the low travel would present a serious problem, but for me at least, it does not. I think it has changed the way I type a bit so that I'm not hitting the keys quite as hard as I do with other keyboards, which certainly would help.
The Touch bar I'm less enthusiastic about. There are times when it comes in handy, but I rarely use it and accidentally interact with it quite a bit while typing.
I love Magsafe but, honestly, I haven't really had a need for it. Now that they fixed whatever the initial battery issue is, my tbMBPs (I own two - one personal and one for work/media/appdev) both last me a full day so charging has only been like my cell phone. There are rare occasions where I've had to plug it in during the middle of the day but I usually just do that at lunch and it lasts me the rest of the day. It depends on what apps you're using. Chrome and Slack suck the life right out of the battery but Adobe Audition and Premiere are fine for me. Magsafe was cool, but I think I'd take the USB-C now over Magsafe any day.
Of those 3 figures you listed, the more interesting statistic is the YOY comparison (+1.1% increase) of Q1-2016 to Q1-2017 since new Macs are often introduced in the preceding 4th quarter.
Yes, some of the HN crowd may have over-dramatized the decline of the new Macbook Pro. However, the financial report's "Mac" category includes Macbook (not Pro), Macbook Air, iMac, etc. Since all those different Mac variations are baked into one opaque category, it's possible that the new Macbook Pro sales numbers were bad but it was offset by strong iMac sales. A +1.1% increase in sales quantity (+62000 units) may not be all that impressive.
I recall that MacRumors still have a forum thread from the first iPod release in 2001. The commentary is almost identical to the vitriol we see online today.
It's actually down on the trend line. Your numbers average out to 6,576 per quarter, so lower than the first q. So while there was an uptick it was because of delayed demand (ie, people knew a new macbook was coming out). Looking at the number it looks like the new macbooks have actually hurt their sales.
Agreed, sentiment can be down with sales still going strong. I suspect had Microsoft been able to produce something and strongly market it in Dec/Jan the numbers might be a little different.
This really confused me at first, but upon looking at the data sheet from Apple [1] it's much more clear -- the units are in thousands and the revenue is in millions.
So for this quarter 5,374,000 Macs were sold generating a revenue of $7,244,000,000.
Or even that the opinion that dominates the comment threads on a particular issue represents that community. There is a subset of people who have very strong feelings about Apple and the current Mac lineup, and they tend to be the ones participate the most in these threads.
In this case, it's not the people who are anti-Apple hardware I'm listening to. I feel like more of the excited Apple people are now just lukewarm. Part of this is the other laptop manufacturers are catching up on some features while still being at a lower price. More of it, IMO, is that Apple doesn't have that performance edge that justifies the higher price that techies are willing to pay.
TL;DR, before you were paying for a Benz and getting a Benz. Now you're paying for a Benz and getting a Saab. While the Corollas of the computer world all got their usual refresh and upgrades.
Perhaps wait a few years before claiming those as victories. Trump has only just started, and Brexit hasn't been triggered yet. We are still yet to see the fall-out from those choices.
The majority of people do not care about the same things we (HN) do. My friends will by Macs regardless because they are scared of something different.
The interesting part of all this is $7.2B in revenue on 5.37M Macs giving an ASP of $1347 (compared to $1174 for Q4 and $1269 for Q1 for the two other numbers you mention).
Let's look at the models below that ASP:
- 13" Macbook Air for $999/1199 for 128/256GB
- 12" 256GB Macbook for $1299
- 21.5" iMac for $1099/1299 for 1.6/2.8GHz and 1/2TB HD
- Mac mini for $499/699/999
So, the only current generation Mac on that list is the 12" Macbook and the entry level model barely makes it in. So assuming the ASP here isn't too far from the median it seems to suggest the majority of Mac sales are last generation tech.
Also bear in mind that we don't precisely know what this number includes. Does it include peripherals for Macs? Possibly not. It probably includes AppleCare though you'd think. So the hardware ASP is likely lower.
I honestly don't think these numbers are as good for Apple and a testament to the success of the latest refresh as some would suggest.
Probably by this time next year the Macbook Air will probably be gone. The USB-C landscape will be better no doubt. I really wonder how those numbers will look.
Have the HN and Reddit crowds been claiming anything about low sales? Disliking a product change and accepting that the product will sell well are not mutually exclusive.
There are several of those types of comments here where we are discussing Apple's record quarter. You really think people weren't saying Apple is doomed after what HN thought was a weak release of new MacBook Pros?
And not only did they sell more Macs, their average selling price per Mac was up significantly.
Probably due in part to pent up demand for the higher-end Macbook Pros, but since the touchbar models are significantly more expensive, likely due to that as well. Will be interesting to see the ongoing trend, but I would guess that people keep buying these machines.
Plus, since they didn't upgrade the MBA, a number of people might have switched to the "cheap" function-key 13 inch MBP, which was, what, 50% more expensive than the MBA?
That was the plan all along, and I think it's the one that is really working. They moved Air customers to the Pro line to squeeze them better. Meanwhile, Pro customers are not playing ball (they are the ones complaining), but it's compensated by higher margins at the lower end.
We bought 3 of these new MacBooks where I work. There is literally tons of issues, way too much to list them all in a single post. The biggest of all being the drivers for external displays over USB being glitchy and greedy as hell. While some of us hope they will fix that in a future software release, we already moved to xps laptops for newcomers.
So, yeah, people/companies are buying the new Macs. But, if it was my own personal machine I would already have returned it to the store.
Well, USB-C is specifically specced to accommodate displays over USB.
A similar argument might be said about "displays over display-port" or "displays over VGA".
If you "wouldn't wish this on anyone", would you mind sharing why? If suppliers aren't complying with the spec, or the spec is inadequate, I would like to understand why.
The user may be talking about DisplayLink USB displays (they install a secondary driver and create a virtual video buffer to draw in before sending it across USB to a device that draws it on screen)... not USB-C DisplayPort.
DisplayLink is pretty awful. Especially on macOS, due to limitations of macOS, they are laggy, don't display certain apps correctly and more.
There are quite a few docks out there (I know Asus had one) that use DisplayLink technology to show external displays.
I wish I could plug my 2 screens and the ethernet cable directly into the macbook. However, since Apple decided 2 USB-C port is enough, I'm left with a pretty crappy dock that don't even send power through the port. Hell, I can't even plug a tv screen into the laptop without a dongle (no HDMI).
This is absolutely infuriating. Don't buy this crap.
Find a dock that doesn't use DisplayLink. There are plenty of them out there that pass through the USB-C DisplayPort and have an ethernet port on them as well.
Dell sells one that is pretty good and used by a lot of my friends.
Are you really surprised that HN and Reddit don't represent the majority? In my experience, most people don't pay a lot of attention to what's inside their laptop and wouldn't mourn the loss of function keys. Brand loyalty, whether it works, is aesthetically pleasing and the learning curve of alternative options are probably more important factors.
Please stop insinuating people buying a MacBook are somehow stupid b/c they're easily manipulated by shiny surfaces or brands, or simply incapable of learning a new system.
There are many many comments you can easily find where Mac users give specific reasons as to why they prefer them, such as macOS and its Unix-ness, build quality, screen quality, attention to detail, battery live, and the sorry state of Linux on the desktop.
To insist on the reasons you're giving is acting in bad faith.
> Please stop insinuating people buying a MacBook are somehow stupid b/c they're easily manipulated by shiny surfaces or brands, or simply incapable of learning a new system.
Please stop reading between the lines and making baseless accusations. This is not what I said at all. I own a Mac. And most of the reasons I mentioned apply to me as well.
I said "brand loyalty," (i.e. Apple has a history of making quality products and providing great customer service) not "easily manipulated by brands" and "learning curve of alternative options" (i.e. it would take effort to learn how to move all my stuff to a different OS and get used to the hardware and OS differences, which is a large friction point) not "incapable of learning a new system." You can somehow try to read into that as if I'm saying Mac users like myself are stupid if you'd like, but that's not what I flat out said nor insinuated.
There is no year-over-year growth in Mac unit sales.
It took 2-3 years for Nokia's handset revenues to collapse, from when people started noticing warning signs and complaining that they were falling behind.
Did you know that Microsoft's Surface line declined in revenue last quarter YOY?
If you are you making a prediction that Apple's total revenues are about to collapse, these results really don't support that idea. PC sales have been declining for years overall.
Pro label means nothing, it's just marketing. Self-described "pros" need to get over that. They have essentially been sucked in to believing they have special needs, its funny really.
You seem to be making the assumption that people who make their living on a computer are "geeks". I think you're wrong. My wife makes her living on her computer. She's a working artist and spends much of her time in Photoshop. She loves her new MBP.
Programmers make up a tiny percentage of the target market.
The New MBP serves programmers better than artists. As someone working in the creative field everyone I know who does work beyond basic photoshop or UI design is being pushed towards Windows.
Being able to get more cores and CPU power than a top of the line iMac for cheaper than the base iMac helps a lot in any motion work. Access to Nvidia GPUs and therefore GPU rendering engines completely changes your workflow for 3D and product design work. Products like Surface studio are way more valuable to illustrators than an overpriced Cintiq or a TouchBar.
Ten or so years ago you'd see plenty of Macs on the cutting edge of creative work, not the case now I mean heck they can't even consume VR content let alone create VR content.
Rappers? Seriously though, nowhere does it say which Mac. For all we know it might not be laptops at all, it could be an iMac, a Pro, Macbook, cheapest Pro... who knows. It comes about $1350 per sale.
You mean technical people who generally know the topic they are speaking about?
Of course the average person is not complaining, in reality the average person can use a 10 year old PC for what they do with it. Facebook, stream music, maybe email....
Or technical people who obsess over details that most people don't actually care about?
In reality, most people can use pretty old PCs these days but laptops in particular do get beat up over time and eventually they get outdated enough that it may be time for something newer. I could use my 6 1/2 year old MacBook but I definitely prefer my 2 year old one.
> Or technical people who obsess over details that most people don't actually care about?
But most people care about money, so when a consumer needs to overspend on a piece of hardware that is less competitive than previous generations it matters. So the geeks need to inform the people that don't know enough to know they might be wasting their money.
As an AAPL shareholder I'm not surprised. Just because the masses seem to be complaining, it does not represent the actual masses. They are just the loudest at complaining.
Also the same community of professionals most vocal and sharing of AAPL products.
What happens when those same professionals are jumping ship to alternatives (After Effects>FCP, mbp wait-outs,etc) and those advocates no longer give that same support?
Personally, I hope that they can continue true to their pro advocates.
Where are all the people criticizing Cook right now? I mean, I honestly think that the majority of the things that have been told about Apple in the last month are complete BS, he was seen as the CEO in crisis not able to do his job, abandoning the Mac, iPhone 7 was a joke etc...
Marvelous.
Nobody ever said he didn't know how to make money. But look at the number of shifted Mac units, and you won't see much good news there. Despite a year or more of pent-up demand and a much-hyped MBP refresh, the Mac line is up a paltry 1% over what was a pretty lean year. That's stagnation.
I think the elephant in the room is that the Q1 2017 number reflects a quarter when they refreshed the Macbook product line for the first time in years. That should have resulted in a big infusion of growth.
Beyond recent news, there's got to be something related to the length of time people are able to use a Mac and have it be very viable. I'm getting 5-7 years from any I've purchased, vs. 2-4 for most of the Windows machines I had been purchasing prior to getting on the Mac train. While I think the Windows machines have upped the ante on that a bit, at least from what I hear anecdotally, you can likely track some of these sales to seasonality, new products, etc. and get a legit handle on how sales are truly going.
Which, funny enough, is what we've been saying about PC's for years but everybody discounts that and assumes PC's are just being decimated by phones and tablets.
I bought my Lenovo developer laptop in 2014. It now runs Windows 10 and is even snappier than when it ran Windows 7.
Considering this is the first real upgrade since 2014, I really would have expected Q1 2017 sales to stomp all over Q1 2016. Sales are up but just barely.
> The Mac grew surprisingly little in terms of units (+1%) but a bit more in terms of revenues (+7%). I say "surprisingly little" because Q1 FY2017 included the launch of the new MacBook Pros.
Tech press and internet forums foaming at the mouth over <insert change here> don't represent reality when it comes to people actually using and buying <insert product name>. News at 11.
Yeah my old music teacher has to have a Mac because he has to run Digital Performer, if you write tv and movie music for a living you have to be on a Mac with Digital Performer, its industry stadard. For developers it still makes more sense to have a Mac as well because you can write for ios/android and the web all on the same system. But if you work for an early stage startup like me you probably have a chromeos device like I do rather than a Mac unless you're an investor rather than an employee.
Do realize Apple did add 7 days to the quarter this year compared to 2015. Apple started quarter on Sept 25 and ended on Dec 31 in 2016 or 97 days versus their 2015 only 90 days.
What press always talks about are the problematic part. In fact these are true too in many cases. Apple has larger goods in it, inherently part of every product. These are getting polished on upgrades and everything else becomes secondary.
I've seen a few complains that could be classified as customer feedback. They all came from people that actually bought the product but disliked one or two things.
Comments like: "Apple is doomed", "Touchbar is useless/gimmick", "Nobody wanted a thinner MacBook" are not costumer feedback.
Not sure how you get to that conclusion, 1% more units of unknown markup sold doesn't mean "people are buying more new Macs despite the press, HN, Reddit crowds" despite this being a popular meme.
Considering the machines available in Q1 2016 had not received an update in quite some time and the machines available now are brand new the increase of 62k units sold is not a home run.
Mac unit sales increases were negligible but revenue was up significantly showing that it was likely MacBook Pros that contributed to the growth. Unit growth was 1.2% while revenue was up 7.4%.
Well, yes 5374 is more than 5312, but it's a slower growth rate than boring markets like baking powder, toilet paper or McDonalds meals.
Apple has lost everything that made them special, just as Microsoft did a decade and a half earlier. They'll probably remain quite profitable for the mid-term, though... just like MS did under Balmer.
Ballmer was CEO for windows 7 (perhaps the best windows ever), heavily expanded MS enterprise and cloud and pushed (against Gates) for the creation of an in-house hardware team. Everything MS is succeeding at today is the result of his tenure as CEO.
He had his share of bad/terrible calls (Vista, killing IE, one UI everywhere, missing the smartphone market window, etc) but overall, he wasn't just a lame duck riding on the success of Gates.
With such a small market share, my bet is the publicity from the complaints probably helped gain visibility more than anything. Combine that with users waiting to upgrade for 2-3 years and a price increase, then you will have record sales.
The interesting takeaway for me is that services is now the equal second biggest revenue centre at 9%. It is still way behind iPhone, but it is growing at a phenomenal rate. By all accounts Apple is just getting started with services (e.g.: rumoured original video content, video streaming service) so we can expect this to grow even more.
Finally Apple is capitalising on its install base to sell more addons after sale. This offsets slowing hardware upgrade rates, although not sure if it is enough to offset iPad declines.
The narrative often heard is that if they want to shift to being a services company, Apple would need to dramatically change its org structure. I may be wrong, but no one has ever monetised consumers with recurring monthly revenue as successfully as Apple has (utility companies and mortgage brokers excluded!). And it didn't even need an org restructure!
> By all accounts Apple is just getting started with services ... so we can expect this to grow even more.
That's a very ... charitable way to put it. Another take would be that Apple, whose former CEO, over a decade ago, simultaneously oversaw Pixar and sat on the board of Disney, complete and totally missed the boat on streaming, original content, and cloud services. Think back to 2006: Netflix was a service that mailed DVDs, Amazon Prime was a year old, Dropbox was not around, Spotify was not around, Google was still focused on core services like maps and mail. Considering who their CEO was at the time, his connections, and their first mover advantage on digital entertainment and cloud, it absolutely amazes me that every single one of these companies was allowed to come in and eat Apple's lunch in some form or another.
The common explanation for this is that the content owners did not let them. Terrified of what iTunes did to the music business, they cut deals with not-Apple to prevent a monopoly from becoming more important than they were.
I don't know how to prove that, but it's a story that resonates. For a while I bought all my music exclusively from iTunes but now I subscribe to three different video services.
I think the issue was partially with the content owners (as mentioned in another reply to your comment) but mostly about internet speeds and processing power available at the time. Remember what YouTube videos looked like in 2006?
Services, basically digital content consumption (whether songs, or movies, or apps), is a very low profit business compared to hardware.
You're competing with Netflix, Google and Amazon there. Netflix and Amazon have near zero margin in their content businesses. Most of your profit is eaten up by licensing (or production as well now for AMZN & NFLX), and that is guaranteed not to change.
$20 billion in services sales, with $3 billion in operating income, won't scratch a $638 billion market cap (and won't compensate for tanking China iPhone sales if that doesn't immediately stop getting worse).
Since September I've been reading nothing but how much of a failure the iPhone 7 is, and how removing the headphone jack was going to be the final straw for Apple. Similar story for the new MacBook Pros.
It seems that the geekerati have very different priorities from the rest of the world, and maybe Apple still knows what's it's doing.
The review pointed out the shortcomings of the first generation iPod. It isn't a review of the entire iPod line that would follow in the future. The first generation was only compatible with OS 9 and OS X, had 5G or 10G of storage, was in black and white and had a mechanical click wheel. Apple sold 236,000 in three fiscal quarters before they released the next generation. Meanwhile Nokia was selling an order of magnitude more 3310s, another portable electronic device (cell phone), every quarter. The iPod became the best music player on the market because Apple kept improving it.
It's funny in retrospect but the iPhone didn't really start to take off until the 2nd generation, when the price came down, 3rd-party developers were let in, and it added 3G.
The comments on the physical keyboard were clearly off-base looking back, though. I remember when the iPhone came out the criticism for a lack of a physical keyboard was extremely common and most competitors responded by using sliding keyboards, which clearly never caught on.
I love my iPhone 7. I've had it for a little over a month and I've already taken some of the best photos of the last ten years, including dslr photos I've taken.
Every 2 years I upgrade my iPhone, and every 2 years I get to buy the best phone I've ever owned. Not worth arguing in these places about religious wars. I try to appreciate how amazing everything is rather than lose my mind over a plug changing formats.
I just upgraded to the 7 plus from a Samsung S6 on Monday. I agree, the camera is very, very good. I love the live photos and the portrait mode is beautiful.
I was actually underwhelmed when the phone was announced, and the lack of a headphone jack seemed inconvenient (and those ear pods refuse to stay in my ears). But, the wired headphone adapter works, and fortunately I don't charge and listen at the same time much.
So much like the new Macbook, I wonder how much these notable backwards steps really matter. With Apple products my thinking is, is it worth the switch? Most likely. Is it worth a yearly upgrade? Nope.
But have you had any others? I have to be honest around 2010 I had Samsung i997... the photos from it are still far better (in terms of catching light, and general sharpness and the feeling of good photos) than the one I take with 6s.
I've been very pleased with my iPhone 7 - yes requiring the headphone adapter is mildly annoying but that's all. I tried my previous iPhone, a 5S which I had donated to a relative, again recently and thought my 7 was well worth the upgrade.
Try it with the airpods. I know it's cliche, but it's a fantastic experience. Truly worth the $ (for me, at least; can't say what $170 is worth to you)
I think my ears must be a weird shape - it takes me ages to find ones that will be comfortable and stay in place and none of the Apple ones I've tried seem to work.
Yes the problem is that I'm not keen on trying £160 headphones without some confidence that they will fit - not like over ear ones where you can try them in shops.
Huh, you're right. At a glance, they look the same, but there are slight differences. Still, in a comparison fit, they might be close enough to get a rough idea. I didn't notice a big difference in fit.
I have them if you're in San Francisco
The OP might take you up on it. I have mine in my ears right now. :-)
I think I've discovered in the course of this conversation that I really dislike the idea of using in-ear headphones that have been in anyone else's ears! :-)
It's hard to describe. But the way they sync across all your devices without doing anything, the way it just pauses when you pull them out of your ears, the ease of switching between Apple devices (could be better but pretty great); I just forget I'm wearing them and they become a part of my day to day life.
Not for me - I forget they're in all the time. In the first week I owned them I got in the shower with one in and didn't notice for a while (it's fine).
How I feel about the latest Apple devices is that they're good despite the "innovation". Touchbar, removing headphone jack, and going all-usb-c (but not on the iphone?) all either sucks or fails to add value, but the spec bumps are still good enough and the build quality's still great, and, crucially, the competition still doesn't have its sh*t together.
That's better than nothing, but even if you resort to eGPU solutions you still can't use the current fastest GPUs (GTX1080/Titan XP) with OSX because there's no driver support.
I'm sure that most of the ruckus raised by people who haven't even used the Apple product they criticize can be safely raced to PR firms of competing companies. See [1].
We don't know what percent of those units are 6S and SE. iPhone 7 could have worse adoption than previous whole-numer releases even with overall sales up.
For me, I dont have to put anything in my ear, and it doesn't plug up when I'm sweating a lot during a workout. The sound is ok, nothing special, but much more reliable than what I had before (because of the sweat problem), and my ears feel so much better not having to sticking anything in my ears.
> A bank account earning compound interest will achieve "all-time record quarterly revenue" every single quarter.
And a car will get you from A to B faster than any marathon runner. There's no real comparison here -- even your yearly EPS comparisons lack the context to make them insightful. What were Apple's competitors doing, EPS wise, in those years? What was the market doing in general?
When a company does something dilutive (or anti-dilutive) then previous metrics are recalculated (split adjusted) for comparison. Also, as someone else mentions, EPS in its own right is meaningless. P/E ratios are a more common (albeit flawed) way to compare companies' relative valuations.
Thanks, that sounds like some of the issues I'm having. Sometimes the LG monitor will glitch out for a few seconds (or half the screen will show green).
Oh yes, my 15" tMBP is the same - not as much monitor issues, but TouchBar is buggy as heck. Randomly not waking up after sleep, buttons not being properly repainted, it froze a few times....
Before 10.12.2 I also got random kernel panics and graphical corruption. By far one of the most buggy laptops I've owned - it seems that Apple really rushed the software part.
I had to disable sleep on my macbook + 5k monitor to prevent it from having a kernel panic every time I wanted to use my computer first thing in the morning. Seems to be fine for now, but of course that also means I'm running nonstop.
I haven't had any issues so far with crashing/instability except it once didn't wake from sleep properly and restarted its self. Still trying to work out if it was anything I did.
yes, I'm the same (15" MBP). I think it's the nicest laptop I've ever owned. It's thin, light, incredible battery life, very powerful. I really like the keyboard, the travel once you get used to it makes other keyboards feel heavy. Trying to use the touchbar but maybe it will become useful as time goes by. I use it for swift coding and I can't fault it.
My macbook pro is having problems waking up lately--very annoying. It's a 2015 15" model... I think they must have something screwy going on with a recent update.
I only have issues with SizeUp and Notational Velocity crashing. SizeUp just released a new update that fixes that issue. NV will probably never have another release :(
From CFO Maestri on the Q&A call with analysts:
"2:15 pm: We had the benefit of a 14th week, but this was offset by several factors including less channel fill than last year and a one-time $548 million patent judgment receipt last year."
Channel fill is fairly irrelevant (whose fault is it that your distributors don't want more of your stuff "just in case"?) and the cash is also fairly irrelevant - what matters for momentum is the number of units shifted and that's lagging everywhere except iPhones (and, if you trust them, the Watch).
Except you're adding a weak week, not a week that's expected to compete on an even basis with a typical holiday-quarter week, so that math isn't exactly telling/accurate either.
> For accounting purposes, a firm is allowed to define a "quarter" as either a span of 3 months or else a span of 13 weeks. A "year" is then four quarters. ... Consequently, a firm that defines its quarters in terms of weeks needs to hold a 14-week quarter every four or five years. [1]
I bought into apple after falling for osx during college right around the financial crisis. I've been a fan of their approach to products since then.
But the new macbook pro's are pretty revolting to me -- I used one at the apple store for a few minutes and could barely type on the (horrible) keyboard. I played with the touchbar and immediately found myself trying to touch the screen -- something that as a fan I definitely knew would not work.
Even with just a few moments use, it was immediately utterly clear to me that to the extent that the touchbar is a good idea, a touchscreen would have been a better idea ... The good idea within the touchbar is the attempt to 'augment' the keyboard/mouse user interface with touch -- augment, not replace. Microsoft tried to make touch/keyboard-mouse interchangeable but in real-life not all elements on the screen should be touchable -- the touchbar realizes this and deserves props for getting that much right. But even after acknowledging that success, the touchbar is just ... wrong -- its not any easier to lift your hands from the keyboard and use the touchbar than it would be to touch the screen -- its actually harder because you have to take your eyes from the screen and look somewhere you would not normally look to aim your fingers.
I hope the idea of 'augmenting' the macOS user interface introduced with touchbar evolves to the main display -- where it might be a good idea ... I don't know how this would be accomplished though -- maybe the api's created for touchbar could be re-targeted towards user interface elements on the main touch display ...
> But the new macbook pro's are pretty revolting to me -- I used one at the apple store for a few minutes
Thank you for your in-depth review. Many people judged the new MacBook Pro based on its press release alone, but you went the extra mile and used one at the Apple Store for a few minutes.
To be fair to me, I wasn't trying to lie or mislead about the thoroughness of my experience ... I suppose I was talking into a void but I at least was conveying the truth of my experience.
My use at the apple store was enough to know I didn't want one -- which made me glad because I sort of need a new macbook and was worried I'd buy one on impulse.
I immediately did not like the keyboard (never happened on an apple laptop for me before the one port Macbook which I bought for my girlfriend right when it was announced sight unseen -- when using it I tried my best not to voice my (immediate) criticism of the keyboard hoping that she would like my present ... She came from an old dell so anything was better than that monstrosity. But at some point after having the macbook one for awhile she used my macbook pro and commented how much easier the keyboard on my machine was to type on ...). I found myself unconsciously touching the display while playing around with touchbar. Attempting to use the display as a touchscreen is something I've never done before - even when playing with a microsoft laptop that had a touchscreen on it.
Touching the little bar just 'felt wrong' to me ... This is certainly an unfair assessment -- but I'm not used to that feeling with apple products - the experience just legitimately felt bad to me.
I'm open to having changing my mind in the future or having it changed -- I'm not really a cargo cult'er.
Sarcasm aside, it's an interesting point you make. Apple products often have an immediate visual and tactile impact that leads to impulse buys in the store. I haven't tried the new MacBook yet (not even in the store for a few minutes) but you've piqued my interest.
When the chiclet keyboards came out, I immediately liked typing on them and thought they were as good or better than any previous laptop keyboard.
I ordered a 2016 Macbook Pro, but when I tried the keyboard out in store I didn't like it very much. I was about 10-20% slower typing on it, and made far more mistakes than normal. I'm a fast typist so it was a big deal to me that the keyboard wasn't good. It just didn't feel right.
I didn't cancel my order, against my better judgement, thinking that I might get used to the new keyboard. While waiting for it I went back to the store a couple times and spent 30 minutes typing on the new keyboard, but still it didn't feel right.
When my laptop arrived, same feeling. After a week I was ready to return it, but had holiday return window so didn't rush it. Finally after 2 weeks it clicked, and I was typing up to speed and it felt good. Now when I go back to chiclet the keys feel heavy and squishy.
Something about the keyboard was a very big adjustment from any other I've used, and my first impression of it was quite bad. But now that I've gotten used to it I actually prefer it to anything else.
Maybe it's Stockholm syndrome, take that for what you will.
At the end of the day, the MBP isn't built only for developers and creatives. We're a subset of the customer base, always have been. (I suspect they sell more to soccer moms and college kids than "pros")
This "professional" narrative is seriously annoying. I work on software 10h+ a day, some of it is (hopefully) at the cutting edge of biology. I even get paid. Use neural nets. And vim. So I should probably fall within the "professional" category. At least more than "soccer mom", with regards to gender, reproductive status, and offsprings' choice of sports.
I have never felt the need to plug in 6+ peripherals. 16GB work fine even with a Linux and a Windows 10 virtual machine running. If I run out of battery after 12h of working on a flight, I sleep – but I don't dream of replaceable batteries.
Whatever all these self-professed "professionals" are doing, it sounds a lot more like what I did in high school: spending weeks swapping components, recompiling Linux kernels for 2% higher values at some useless benchmark, building incredibly-convoluted setups to really finally create a media centre rivalling Fleet Street etc.
I agree, for my workflow. I just bought a new laptop, and didn't even go for a pro model. If I need more resources, I have a 60gig ram, 16 core VPS I can spin up, but for most Java, Haskell, and other dev work, and for writing my books, a plain MacBook is quite sufficient (after 1 week to get used to, and like, the keyboard). I did toss my old external monitor for a LG 4K, a purchase I am also really happy with.
For fun, I am writing iOS and Android app versions of my cookingspace web app, and the MacBook also performs well enough for that.
Pro does not only mean "for professionals." In the average person's mind it just means "better." Nobody says "oh I'm using this at home, can't get the pro."
I fail to see how this was a dynamite quarter, in Cook's words.
Net income shrank year over year
Operating income shrank year over year
China sales imploded by another 12%
Margins contracted
Sales growth was a piddling 4% (it didn't contract granted, I don't see how that's "dynamite")
iPad sales continue to implode, down 19%
And there's Cook cheering on the results. It reminds me of the Steve Ballmer days under Microsoft. The profits were there, the sales were there, and yet you could easily spot the icebergs on the horizon.
I think the most interesting category to watch is going to be services: 2 straight years of 20% growth, and it's now virtually tied for second largest revenue source with Mac.
There's no great profit in their services division, compared to their historically incredible margins and sales scale in hardware. Which is why their net income is contracting. You could double their services sales and it'll only just move the needle on that $17.x billion in net income.
Apple is also going to need very substantial device sales growth to keep moving services growth over time at that pace (a given user is only going to consume so much, you need a lot more of them) - I don't see where the device growth is going to come from (China's boom days are long over in that regard; India could maybe pick up some of that slack).
If you're melting off 3 million iPad units year over year, at an asp of $400 to $450, that becomes a large hole for services growth to fill. Worse yet, it's very likely China is going to become more hostile as a market for the iPhone / Apple in the next few years (both politically and in terms of the domestic competition that is shrinking the iPhone's position there). Total device contraction, which is pretty likely over the next few years, will put pressure on services growth.
Cook is doing a great job at managing the spigots of sales and profit that Jobs left for him to operate. The sooner Apple can move to its post Ballmer era and stop being a sales collections company (surfing the past until the wave's energy dissipates), the better.
For a computer company with so many billions in the bank it's amusing how Apple has married itself to the iPhone.
Why not try to leverage the relatively secure walled garden of iOS to open a business selling hardware and software to enterprises? Why not make Unix servers with distinguishing features? Management could get away with it while they were surfing the iPhone wave but it was always obvious that it wouldn't last forever.
I wonder how much if "services" is due to the iCloud revenues because iPhone keep getting bigger, and the free hosting is not getting bigger..... Bugging people constantly to increase storage.
Yes, because price and quality matters. I have luxury leather goods and they worth every penny because awesome quality and the rest of goods just junk.
Does not work with Mac, you pay a lot and a chance that you will be in a trouble with it is very high. Like with last MBP. Apple must spend more money for QA and offer better hardware. I will look on their new mac mini if it will be updated this or next year, probably it will be my last device from this company.
Mac might be a victim of the high profit margins. Frequent updates and competitive pricing do no good for the profit margin. Much easier to maintain those if you sell a bit outdated hw (thinking about Mac Pro and Mini).
What would the "markets" think if Apple sold more Macs, maintained the same absolute profits but let the margins slip? Would that be considered as a bad thing?
And, yes, specifically Apple's year ends with Q3 of the "real" calendar. Their fiscal year is aligned with their iPhone release cycle, which is probably a good idea.
How many Macs sold from the Apple refurb-shop helped push those Q1 Mac sales figures? I bought my brand new (2015) refurb model the week the new Macs were shown, as did several of my colleagues.
China Iphone sales took a pretty big dip, but US sales looked good and their ASP hasn't gone down. The Chinese Market is more price sensitive than US market.
you know you are in trouble when we start having electron shortages resulting in not enough electrons to erase flash chips so we can program in the large bank balances :-)
It's easily enough to fund the US Federal government for about 3 weeks. A bit over 10 days if state and local are factored in.
Imagine! If the US Federal government were able to find a way to take half of that money, they'd be able to struggle along for almost two more whole weeks!
Imagine if Apple management were a bunch of tax (aka revenue) cutters that also spent all the tax revenue handing it out to their cronies via earmarks and carve-outs in the annual budget?
It's easy to blame the Federal government when it's leadership is hell-bent on breaking it by unfunded mandates, croynism and expensive wars while also cutting the tax revenues.
I searched and searched to find an Apple Watch for my wife for Christmas. I got lucky and got one on Christmas Eve at Target. I'm not shocked at all they they made bank this quarter.
fscomeau has been a fake for several years. He accidentally revealed his IB account, which was a demo numbered one, so yes even this was fake. It was expected. But the live stream was funny as hell.
Calling out HN members like this is not acceptable on Hacker News. If you think there's some sort of abuse going on, please contact the mods via the Contact link in the footer.
I'm going to be honest with you that sarcasm is sometimes hard. Your feed compared to an alt-right feed are just missing context and pepe (joke). Esp since you have Alex Jones in there...
As suggested above, if you believe there's abuse going on, please contact the mods via the Contact link below.
Comments do sometimes attract downvotes from people who disagree, but far more often from what I've observed is that HN members strongly value civil and constructive comments, and will tend to downvote comments they feel don't meet those standards. They'll also downvote comments that go against the guidelines, which is likely your last comment is receiving downvotes.
Speculating as to why your comment was downvoted is of course, just speculation: some might wonder what the purpose of your comment is. It reads somewhat critical of 'tptacek's Twitter feed, which is not the topic of discussion. So it appears to be needlessly negative of an arguably personal nature for something that's off-topic. While that may not have been your intent, viewed in that light, it's not surprising that it may have attracted some downvotes.
Like I said, it's speculation. I have no special insight into the minds of those who downvoted. In my experience, it does little good to dwell on it other than to use it as motivation to write better comments.
Again, if you think there's actual abuse going on, do contact the mods. They're very responsive and I'm confident they'll look into it for you.
There's a minimum karma requirement to be able to downvote. I don't remember exactly what the threshold is: it's either 200 or 500, I believe. See this thread:
Thanks grzm. But I've seen a bunch of posts where people can't downvote after 500...but some people can.
I'm not interested in down voting anyone.
Edit: I've gone down 16 pts in the last hour. I know part of this is me being an ass initially, but clearly people w/ downvote ability are piling on...
Edit2: Yes, Me being an ass and idiot. Here'e the post that ended at 400
Can you provide links to the comments where people are having problems downvoting if they have 501 karma or more?
There is no other criteria for downvoting that I know of. When I achieved the threshold, the downvote button appeared. I didn't have to apply for anything, no one emailed me and said "We think you're swell! You get to downvote!"
I get the impression that you think there's some sort of secret down voting group. I haven't seen any evidence of that, either in behavior, or mentioned in comments.
It's fine if you don't want to downvote. There's no requirement to do so, and many people don't.
Thanks for the link. As I said, I believe you get downvote once you have 501 karma, not the 400 mentioned in that thread. (As an aside, that thread also notes that submissions, unlike comments, don't receive downvotes, only flags.)
I've also noticed that you have been getting additional downvotes, and that bothers me because I want people to be able to have a positive, constructive experience on HN. I think what you're perceiving as piling on is a reflection of how strongly the community values good comments, not organized behavior. If you find that a comment of yours is being downvoted, within the first two hours of posting you can edit the comment (or delete it entirely if it has no responses). This may prevent further downvoting.
A lot of your comments have been on political or contentious topics. Those are particularly difficult considering how passionate and strongly people feel about them. I'm sure that's one of the reasons you want to participate in them, because you likewise feel strongly. And that in and of itself is good. That said, while there are some political discussion on HN (and indeed more recently reflecting current events), HN isn't primarily for political debate. I suggest taking a break from those discussions and spend some time in other threads to get used to the HN community and build up karma, taking extra care in crafting what you write. I believe you can lose enough karma (once your karma is significantly negative) to the point where your comments are hidden from most members.
I hope this is constructive. If you've got further questions, feel free to ask me, or contact the mods at hn@ycombinator.com. In my experience they respond pretty quickly.
grzm, Thanks. I feel like there is brigading going on. But I was wrong to call out a user. And obviously if people want to down vote that's their right.
I didn't delete it because if I make a mistake I own it. When I realized calling out another user was probably not right it was too late.
If you read through my comments you'll see that although I sometimes post on controversial topics, I'm not a troll.
Again, thanks for jumping in here.
Edit: but know, every time I reply to you I get down voted.
I'm glad to help, if I can. One final note: any comment about you getting downvoted is contrary to the guidelines, in particularly your comments about members piling on or brigading. I'm almost positive that's why your responses to me have been downvoted. If you think there's abuse, do not comment, and contact the mods. That's the best advice I can offer. Good luck!
I don't have a solution, but "contact the mods" is not it.
Edit: But huge props to gzpm
Edit: No, I'm happy to talk to the mods. But really this has been not serious. It's about -20 now.
Edit3: I will contact them tomorrow. But again I don't have much to stand on. I called out a user etc etc etc.
Does this mean you're not willing to contact the mods? Or something else? If you think you're being treated ubfairly, why not?
If you're not prepared to work within the community standards and framework, I can't imagine you're going to have a pleasant Or productive experience. I can only recommend taking extra care in commenting.
OK I'll add nuance: it's terrible news for this developer (and anyone much like him) that Apple is not facing enough commercial pressure to ever produce another laptop that will serve his needs as well as his current MB Pro does. This makes him sad.
I wanted to upvote your original post sooner, but it was previously flagged.
I am feeling some serious dissonance here as well.
I have been a MBP fan for quite some time now. I have watched the recent Apple conferences with distaste as I see the target audience for MBP shift away from me. I don't want to find an alternative, and I sincerely hoped the market would not take well to the newest iteration. Looks like that's not going to be the case.
That original post was a tad obtuse! Anyway yes this is the point: OS X (or macOS if I must) isn't perfect, but I have found it the best compromise for my purposes. I very rarely have to futz with it, it's unixy enough, and it has scads of truly excellent 3rd party software available. But the hardware limitations might just force me to find an alternative. The latest MB Pros tanking would have offered some hope.
I will never buy a computer again. You can find lots of very powerful computers in trash bin (e.g. my current 2013 MBP). People buy a piece of very precious materials and throw it away in 2 years. I think this is one of the most unethical things a man can do.
You think that you need your computers up to date because you are a geek and you must stay up to date to remain competent. This is not true. You can manage with less and you more than anyone else know how to handle a computer with slightly less resources.
These kind of numbers from a company advocating this throw away culture makes me very sad.
I must say that I was slightly surprised of it as well. I had to replace a fuse on the motherboard (screen was black) but otherwise it was in a pristine condition. Before this I had a 2011 Thinkpad x200s which is a more typical finding at waste electronics racks.
>You think that you need your computers up to date because you are a geek and you must stay up to date to remain competent.
Nah, I think I need a new computer because the $900 one I have (4 core haswell oc to 4.6 Ghz, 16 GB ram, 3 drives) and the $600 server I have (4 core Sandy, xeon, 32 GB ram, 5 drives), take anywhere between 2 days and 3 weeks to finish the tasks I throw at them regularly.
Between the MLC SSDs, tons of RAM, ton of CPU power, for $1500, I wouldn't even look at MBP from the current batch, let alone one from the last one.
I am a geek, I am competent, and I am fully planning on two new computers this year. Just waiting to see how Zen turns out.
64GB Ram / ea. 1 GB SSDs, probably on ZFS, 8 cores / 16 threads (to stay in the cheap consumer range). This will probably be doable for under $2k.
So, as a geek, this is what I do to remain competent, hardware wise.
TLDR: You can't just assume that because you don't need a more powerful hardware for blogging or what have you, that the rest of us also don't need one.
I don't assume that people blog only. I do HPC for a living and pay for resources on demand. Not everyone can manage but more of you could if you wanted.
I look into it every few months actually. It always turns out to be substantially more expensive. The disk performance in vms also either arent there, or are just too pricey.
Another part of the story is that if you roam the local sell forums, you'll find an older Xeon servers for cheap.
So, that leaves electricity, which is not that bad.
I don't think you can put people with modular high end PCs in the same box as people throwing away smartphones every year and laptops every 2-3.
At least modular PCs can be valuable again (or repaired) with a single component upgrade and those old components usually go straight onto ebay for other people to take advantage of.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or real but...new computers (a) get faster over time, so upgrading is worth it, but old computers also (b) become damaged over time, for many of us at least, though this is less of a problem with MBPs than say with Lenovo's.
Yes, I could do my work with 10 year old hardware, but no, I wouldn't really want to. These days, I don't feel the need to upgrade very often, 3-4 years seems to work out, but something new and faster is always nice.
As for the environmental costs, these are real and should be considered. That being said, it is difficult to not consume while remaining competitive with your peers that are at the same time (they have a faster computer -> get work done faster than you -> you get a pink slip).
Wait. Isn't the revenue number supposed to grow each year as long as things are just going as they were? I've never understood Apple's fixation with the word 'ever' for everything which is supposed to grow organically. Guess what? Every year I get my 'highest ever' salary.
Christmas 2016 was my first time in an apple store since forever (i.e the iphone 5).
I went in and bought the last iphone with a headphone jack: the iphone 6s.
I firmly believe a looot of people did exactly that too.
So, imho, the iphone 6s is the absolute best seller ever at Apple (especially since iphone 7 announcement :).
