This is just a bit mysterifying as there review of the MacBook pro sans touch said it was perfectly capable for final cut pro, Photoshop, etc. They used the CPUs in the correct thermal envelope for the laptop, except maybe the sans touch model which they said was an air replacement.
The real use case for 16 GB + of ram is video editing or tons of memory hungry VMs. Edge cases. Not only that but people begrudge them for not waiting for Canonlake* with LPDDR4, but they'd miss the holidays and have to launch in the middle of the year! Intel is continually dropping the ball with deadlines. Is it that hard to wait for a refresh which will likely have 32 GB ram next year?
These laptops seem more than capable for most professionals, The Verge just seems to be giving in to the perennial fanboy hate whenever Apple does something new...
> The real use case for 16 GB + of ram is video editing or tons of memory hungry VMs.
Or you know... running modern Electron apps. New Slack update burns over 1GB of RAM regularly and it's not the only thing running on the machine. 16GB might have been enough for year, but with current crazy wasting of memory for simple apps it's not that spacious anymore.
"The Verge just seems to be giving in to the perennial fanboy hate whenever Apple does something new."
Contemplate the alternative: new MBPs aren't announced until Kaby Lake is ready. Analysts fill the internetz with "OMG APPLE HATES PROS, NOT INNOVATING ANYMOREZ"
As a developer, I really don't see a MacBook Pro any more. They should have really called it a MacBook Air Pro.
Also being a MBPr 2012 owner. When thinking about an upgrade, I was wanting MORE of the same but BETTER specifications.
This is what I am seeing, when I look at the MBP 2016.
- No magsafe
- No glowing apple logo
- No startup chime
- No SD card slot
- No HDMI
- No USB 2/3 ports
- No 32GB / DDR4 ram
- No Nvidia graphic card
- Reduced battery
- Reduced Keyboard travel
There is nothing that shows "Apple innovation" in this Macbook Pro 2016.
As such, no upgrade from me. I am more than happy to wait another 18 months for the next refresh. I really hope Apple takes on board why developers really loved the previous MBP line.
I find it amusing that you list "no glowing apple logo" as a downside. That's pretty much the only good part about the new MacBook Pro in my book. Besides being obnoxious (which is admittedly subjective), it lets light through in both directions. So when you have a strong enough light source in front of you, you can see a ghostly Apple logo in the middle of your screen. Chime too, I had to manually disable it on the my old MBP, why would anyone want that is beyond me.
I had a few Powerbooks in the 90's. I can't remember which one it was (I think it was a Pismo) but I was working on the couch one day with the laptop on a small stool in front of me.
Someone knocked on the door and I got up, catching the power cord on my leg. The stool fell over and the screen shattered.
Magsafe is definitely a great feature on my MBPro 2012
USB-C is celebrated as the dock mode connector. Isn't a constant dock to all those great things you mentioned sufficient? Is it really necessary to have all those ports everywhere you go? Take HDMI for example: do you really need that everywhere such that an extension will not work? Or a graphics card: another one cannot be added via USB-C?
The rest of your points are pretty funny e.g. no glowing apple logo!
[edit] For comments to this post, I add Apple is known for eliminating clutter before the industry does, without regard to cost. By making every user specifically buy adapters if they need it, they are simplifying the product, conserving resources, and making money too. Win, win, win.
Apple has a lot of developers. I wonder what they think about the new MBPs. There are so many complaints from developers that I cannot believe that all Apple engineers are happy with their new choices in MBPs. I wonder if a lot of displeased Apple engineers can change the direction the Pro stuff is headed.
As an owner of a mid-2014 Macbook Pro who is tired of the trackpad clicker clicking itself when the case is warped even a quarter of a millimeter (such as on my... lap... it's a laptop, after all), I appreciate the new solid-state trackpad taken from the Macbook.
I'm in the same boat. I have a 2012 rMBP and I am sticking with it instead of getting one of these new machines. They bring nothing to the table I care about.
They have optimized for thinness and lightness where those should be nice bonuses on a machine focused on being a fantastic work machine for professional developers. Not a machine focused on being thin and light that developers can "make due" with.
At their rate of taking sane stuff away in the name of "design", their 2017 MacBook Pro and the 2017 iPad Pro will be the same device. Because by now, there's honestly not so much more to lose than 3 USB-C connectors and a keyboard.
This is a sincere question: what do people need with 32 GB of RAM on a dev laptop?
I work on an MBA 11" with 8GB and I'm using Parallels to run Visual Studio 2015 for a work related project (100k+ C#/C++ codebase). Other than that work I do some Haskell and C++ work locally. It chugs along just fine and I don't feel like I'm hurting with it compared to compiling on my dev box at work.
Are people just spinning up a lot of VMs? I've got a beefy box at work for when I need to do heavy lifting because I value battery life on the laptop over doing it locally. Additionally, I like the static context - work on code at work ok beefy workstation then go home and remote in if I still have more to do.
TL;DR: what are people's use cases for 32gb on a laptop if you're a developer? Why not remote into big box?
Internet is not reliable. Pls, we are talking about PRO work.
> What do people need with 32 GB of RAM on a dev laptop?
Databases. I run Sql Server, PostgreSQL, MySql, Firebird. All at the same time? Yes.
Also, the thing about "Big Data" is need as much RAM as possible.
---
I could live with a iMac (what I have) or a MacPro (that I can't buy because the dolar in my country double in price!) but the main issue here is the signaling. Apple is like telling "We don't care anymore about you".
How will be trust the (maybe next?) upgrades to the rest of the line will be almost good now? And what about the next after this ones?
To be fair, being a Professional at a computer covers a lot more than just C#/C++ code. Back when I was doing neuroscience research, I could eat up 32 GB of RAM in a MATLAB simulation easy. Using microscopy data people could eat up 32 GB with images (or videos) in no time flat. There's tons of algorithmic work that needs large enough in-memory data to be useful.
I am in spinning up a ton of VM's category as well as the artistic category. With networking options available I can have a complete, closed environment that only disturbs my PC. From the artistic side once you start slinging 4k+ images around on multiple layers RAM vs. no RAM is death. What's great though? On my 32GB+ systems I can just do both on the same time and then come back to it later. If you have the ability to leave things spooled up you really miss when you start having to do a hard context switch.
It's more realizing the promise of hibernate/suspend options- if you don't have to reboot or stop what you are working on to do something else, why would you? And when it's in a portable laptop you can just take it anywhere, where a big box may be unavailable/down. Not to mention the TCO of a big box versus a laptop in electricity and everyday costs is actually much lower and comes with free battery backup, embedded keyboard and screen! I repurpose many of my old laptops to be servers/development support for that reason and I want my systems to be expandable, because RAM is what I really want to keep things speedy.
Robotics Engineer(ing student).
Also annoyed that only the most expensive pro has a real graphics card.
Things that need a lot of RAM:
Solidworks, Fusion360 (I can't even run it on 8bg with and an integrated gpu) And using Solidworks remotely is a bad joke.
Robot Path planning, motion planning
AI Assignments,
ROS + RVIZ + Gazebo + actual robot software
Anything written in python
[EDIT almost forgot] Matlab, VMs
Playing music or having a web browser open while any of the above things are running...
16bg would probably be fine for 2 years. But >$2000 is a lot to pay for only 2 years of use. People seem to think that just because its no longer current_year-1 that their desktop app can use previous_version's_RAM+0.5gb
There are enough people with enough reasons for having only a laptop. The dell precision m5510 is around same price as mbp (depending on setup) and yet it comes with a real graphics card, and the option for 32 gb of RAM.
It suggests you work on one client at a time. I'll often have a few VMs running as I switch between 2-3 clients in a given day. For me 8GB is a minimum.
Video game developers, video editors and graphic artists are the traditional professions where more ram is always better. But, in the days where nobody pays attention to memory usage, casual use can peg all of your ram and page the living daylights out of your hard drive[0]. I've had chrome eat up 32gb all on its own. No VM required.
No. They buy insane amounts of RAM they don't need, open up the resource monitor, see the greedy apps taking over 19GB of RAM and scream "see guys!! i told you i needed 32gb!1"
16Gb is ok for now I am already feeling the constraint and know my next laptop which should last 3+ years will have to have 32 gb to be comfortable with my future usage pattern and apps memory feature creep.
My usage is obviously not like everyones: lots of docker container and vagrant vms both with dedicated memory, unhealthy amount of browser tabs, memory hogging intellij (especially with scalaz implicits and having lots of projects open at the same time). And the biggest memory killer: working for clients with very large ecosphere stack of JVM based microservices that you spin most of up locally including dbs.
Whenever I pair with devs using 8gb MBAs on these projects they continually apologises for the MBA's slowness and their need to continually shutdown part of microservices stack as they run into 8gb constraints.
16gb is a sweet spot today, but not in 2 or less years.
Remoting into private/cloud vms or integrating with staging environments is possible sometimes, but I work on the train for 2 hours a day as well as from home a lot, and in demos, meetings, coffee shops. So relying on dodgy VPNs over fragile connections is painful. So spinning up the whole stack locally has always been a must for me. Again, this is not most people's pattern.
And being reliant on connectivity to a "big box" to simply get your work done is suboptimal. Also, how big of box do you need when you've got hundreds if not thousands of devs? Much easier (and cheaper, since there's no upkeep) to throw another 16GB of memory inside every developer's system.
This macbook pro is incompatible with my current set up and will not be purchased, as I had intended to prior to the launch event. I have 4 mag safe power supplies(I travel with one and I keep one at my desk) it was bad enough when you switched from mag safe one to mag safe 2. I use my Macbook pro to run logic and record and mix audio. I have an internal 256gb mini SD card that stores my samples. I will need dongles for my external ssds, my 2000 dollar UAD apollo 8 and several other USB synthesizers and drum machines. I have 8 years of logic projects that Im not intereted in converting to some other format. I dont think that Apple could have fucked over anyone who makes music much harder.
Oh, and that touch strip? too small for anything but emoticons. I went from being semi excited about this macbook to realizing just how mid grade this thing really is. If the next update doesnt put the features I need back in place, this will be the last of my apple purchases. I've owned a mac pro, 4 macbook pros, every iphone save for the 3g. I like that you make them out of nice materials and strive for better. But you are now just making luxury laptops for consumers, not pros.
I shouldn't be surprised I guess, but I'm tired of seeing tech press make such ignorant articles re: tech.
> this year's Kaby Lake
You mean the processor which was announced two months before the MBP? The one that isn't available in a mobile processor with quad cores?
> lack of 32gb RAM option
You mean the fact that Intel doesn't support LPDDR4 on Skylake (or even Kaby Lake until ~2018) mobile processors? So was Apple supposed to just switch to desktop class processors in their unrealistically thin laptops? Have you used a laptop with it, they typically run extraordinarily hot and have terrible battery life, even with laptops with twice the battery.
The real story that the new MacBook Pros reveal is that Intel is REALLY dropping the ball. If Apple thought they were ready to switch to ARM, my money is on they would've. The fact they didn't indicates to me that despite every effort, they couldn't yet (yet being the opporative word).
(Now waiting for the downvotes from the folks who'd rather be cry Apple has lost its way rather than actually think about what could be the reasons. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to bash Apple for, but the above two aren't them)
Many people were clinging on to their aging MacBook Pros in the vain hope of seeing a major spec and performance upgrade that simply didn’t materialize, and that's been frustrating.
This statement is worth pausing on. Many users with "pro" needs (developers, video editors, photographers, etc.) replace their computers on a 3-4 year cycle. It's reasonable to expect significant enhancements related to those pro needs at the end of that cycle.
Furthermore — and this is crucial — any new computer has to serve those pro needs for the next 3-4 years.
I understand all the criticism and have held off on pre ordering one myself (still shopping for a good Linux laptop with solid battery and resolution+light weight) but some of the comments seem a bit ridiculous to me.
16 GB of ram as the bare minimum for web development...come on now. Is there anything obvious I'm missing? That's even enough to run a couple of VMs with full web stacks and some testbrowsers + git and whatever editor you use
With that new Windows Subsystem for Linux feature, I'm honestly starting to consider a post-Mac future for my dev work. I'm sure there are a bunch of things about Windows 10 that will annoy me, but the value proposition of Mac is starting to disappear as Microsoft does better and Apple does worse. If Apple didn't tie iOS dev to its own desktop OS, I might be taking Windows for a spin right now.
Skipping the whole pro-vs-not-pro debate entirely, I never understand the whole 'pros are smart with their money and Mac is poor bang for buck' argument.
If a pro is someone who earns their living through using a computer, what's more important? Saving a few hundred dollars on a laptop? Or purchasing the machine that you feel allows you to work the most efficiently?
They are pretty, aren't they? What makes you feel they are the most Apple-like in years?
My research into alternatives made me think the Thinkpads are probably the best option. But I just can't buy them because they're so ugly (to me). I feel really silly about that but, dammit, if there's one object where I want it to be pretty as well as functional, it's the laptop I stare at most of my day...
They should change its name to MacBook Leisure. It should be very fine piece to watch videos on the go and touch bar could be used to skip boring parts.
I think Apple mostly choose excellent components to build their devices, be it the screens, ssds or cameras. For a buyer getting an iPhone or Macbook is usually the best way to get hold of a well put together and high quality device.
Sure you can get the same quality in other devices but it takes research and most devices of equivalent quality are usually as expensive as Apple devices and sometimes even more.
The Dell XPS, Surface book or HP Spectre are not cheap or without issues. Even equivalently configured Asus Zenbooks with i5 and not core-m are not cheap.
For instance the previous generation 13 retinas were the only laptops with 28W i5 SKUs. The rest of the i5 ultrabooks in the Windows ecosystem were the standard 15W SKUs, so with the Macbook 13 Retina you got slightly better performance and Iris graphics.
The current dissappointment is valid as people rightly expect far more from Apple than boring incremental updates. The magsafe ommission is head scratching and 1299 to 1499 is a huge jump.
I think people are getting disenchanted with paying for 'let's make things thin' brand of engineering that adds little to no value to end users.
A few days ago there was an article that some Thunderbolt devices don't work with the new machines. A little disconcerting but since I don't have any I don't care.
But I do care about my USB-A devices. I don't mind using an adapter because I only need it at home on my desk. However the description of the Apple USB-C to USB-A adapter says it doesn't work with some devices.
Great. Now what?
[I'm also a little ticked off that they don't include an adapter in the box. Most people will have legacy USB-A devices and should need one.]
CORRECTION: They don't say anything when I add the adapter to one of the new MacBook Pros during the purchase process.
But they do include the caveat when I add the adapter to the 12" MacBook which I've also been looking at (sorry, German page):
" Mit dem USB-C-auf-USB-Adapter kannst du dein MacBook mit USB-C-Anschluss an viele USB-Zubehörgeräte anschließen, z. B. an deine Kamera, einen Flash-Drive oder an ein Lightning auf USB-Kabel, um iPhone, iPad oder iPod aufzuladen und zu synchronisieren.*
*Einige USB-Zubehörgeräte werden nicht unterstützt.
"
The last sentence reads: Some USB accessories are not supported.
I would love for Dell/HP to seize this moment and announce a completely new line/brand of laptops segmented from current brands to just compete head-on with Macbook. Just 3-4 models <Dellbook> 13, 15 and <Dellbook> Pro 13, 15, match Apple build quality 1-1, make them high price/margin. Up the specs kabylake, 32 GB, support both Windows/Linux. Seems we have some pent up demand for this.
If they can get the trackpads to work as well as the Mac's, and offer some kind of Apple Care equivalent that isn't shitty (maybe they already do?), I'd be interested.
[+] [-] marricks|9 years ago|reply
The real use case for 16 GB + of ram is video editing or tons of memory hungry VMs. Edge cases. Not only that but people begrudge them for not waiting for Canonlake* with LPDDR4, but they'd miss the holidays and have to launch in the middle of the year! Intel is continually dropping the ball with deadlines. Is it that hard to wait for a refresh which will likely have 32 GB ram next year?
These laptops seem more than capable for most professionals, The Verge just seems to be giving in to the perennial fanboy hate whenever Apple does something new...
[+] [-] izacus|9 years ago|reply
Or you know... running modern Electron apps. New Slack update burns over 1GB of RAM regularly and it's not the only thing running on the machine. 16GB might have been enough for year, but with current crazy wasting of memory for simple apps it's not that spacious anymore.
[+] [-] al2o3cr|9 years ago|reply
Contemplate the alternative: new MBPs aren't announced until Kaby Lake is ready. Analysts fill the internetz with "OMG APPLE HATES PROS, NOT INNOVATING ANYMOREZ"
[+] [-] no1youknowz|9 years ago|reply
Also being a MBPr 2012 owner. When thinking about an upgrade, I was wanting MORE of the same but BETTER specifications.
This is what I am seeing, when I look at the MBP 2016.
- No magsafe
- No glowing apple logo
- No startup chime
- No SD card slot
- No HDMI
- No USB 2/3 ports
- No 32GB / DDR4 ram
- No Nvidia graphic card
- Reduced battery
- Reduced Keyboard travel
There is nothing that shows "Apple innovation" in this Macbook Pro 2016.
As such, no upgrade from me. I am more than happy to wait another 18 months for the next refresh. I really hope Apple takes on board why developers really loved the previous MBP line.
[+] [-] provemewrong|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stinos|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apercu|9 years ago|reply
Someone knocked on the door and I got up, catching the power cord on my leg. The stool fell over and the screen shattered.
Magsafe is definitely a great feature on my MBPro 2012
[+] [-] nashashmi|9 years ago|reply
The rest of your points are pretty funny e.g. no glowing apple logo!
[edit] For comments to this post, I add Apple is known for eliminating clutter before the industry does, without regard to cost. By making every user specifically buy adapters if they need it, they are simplifying the product, conserving resources, and making money too. Win, win, win.
[+] [-] QuantumRoar|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] therealmarv|9 years ago|reply
- more efficient CPU (less battery is possible without less battery runtime)
- better display (Display P3 color, more nits)
- better sound
- lighter
- better structural engineering (all metal, even the hinges) and therefor also no apple backlight (which makes the structural part better).
- Charging with normal smartphone battery packs is now possible.
[+] [-] cobralibre|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmarreck|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ebbv|9 years ago|reply
They have optimized for thinness and lightness where those should be nice bonuses on a machine focused on being a fantastic work machine for professional developers. Not a machine focused on being thin and light that developers can "make due" with.
[+] [-] endymi0n|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Exuma|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ap3|9 years ago|reply
You also forgot about the vga, mouse/kb ports, also no slot for CF cards :(
How am I supposed to connect to a printer with this pro machine? It has no printer port.
[+] [-] rufius|9 years ago|reply
I work on an MBA 11" with 8GB and I'm using Parallels to run Visual Studio 2015 for a work related project (100k+ C#/C++ codebase). Other than that work I do some Haskell and C++ work locally. It chugs along just fine and I don't feel like I'm hurting with it compared to compiling on my dev box at work.
Are people just spinning up a lot of VMs? I've got a beefy box at work for when I need to do heavy lifting because I value battery life on the laptop over doing it locally. Additionally, I like the static context - work on code at work ok beefy workstation then go home and remote in if I still have more to do.
TL;DR: what are people's use cases for 32gb on a laptop if you're a developer? Why not remote into big box?
[+] [-] mamcx|9 years ago|reply
Internet is not reliable. Pls, we are talking about PRO work.
> What do people need with 32 GB of RAM on a dev laptop?
Databases. I run Sql Server, PostgreSQL, MySql, Firebird. All at the same time? Yes.
Also, the thing about "Big Data" is need as much RAM as possible.
---
I could live with a iMac (what I have) or a MacPro (that I can't buy because the dolar in my country double in price!) but the main issue here is the signaling. Apple is like telling "We don't care anymore about you".
How will be trust the (maybe next?) upgrades to the rest of the line will be almost good now? And what about the next after this ones?
[+] [-] e40|9 years ago|reply
<sigh> Because when you demo, being tied to a box on the other side of the planet is asking for trouble.
I really can't believe the "why do you need that much RAM?" question still gets asked.
[+] [-] lanaius|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xemdetia|9 years ago|reply
It's more realizing the promise of hibernate/suspend options- if you don't have to reboot or stop what you are working on to do something else, why would you? And when it's in a portable laptop you can just take it anywhere, where a big box may be unavailable/down. Not to mention the TCO of a big box versus a laptop in electricity and everyday costs is actually much lower and comes with free battery backup, embedded keyboard and screen! I repurpose many of my old laptops to be servers/development support for that reason and I want my systems to be expandable, because RAM is what I really want to keep things speedy.
[+] [-] amjaeger|9 years ago|reply
Things that need a lot of RAM:
Solidworks, Fusion360 (I can't even run it on 8bg with and an integrated gpu) And using Solidworks remotely is a bad joke.
Robot Path planning, motion planning
AI Assignments,
ROS + RVIZ + Gazebo + actual robot software
Anything written in python
[EDIT almost forgot] Matlab, VMs
Playing music or having a web browser open while any of the above things are running...
16bg would probably be fine for 2 years. But >$2000 is a lot to pay for only 2 years of use. People seem to think that just because its no longer current_year-1 that their desktop app can use previous_version's_RAM+0.5gb
There are enough people with enough reasons for having only a laptop. The dell precision m5510 is around same price as mbp (depending on setup) and yet it comes with a real graphics card, and the option for 32 gb of RAM.
[+] [-] wattt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lj3|9 years ago|reply
[0]: https://www.macintouch.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=1046 (Spotify is killing SSDs)
[+] [-] TurboHaskal|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flurdy|9 years ago|reply
My usage is obviously not like everyones: lots of docker container and vagrant vms both with dedicated memory, unhealthy amount of browser tabs, memory hogging intellij (especially with scalaz implicits and having lots of projects open at the same time). And the biggest memory killer: working for clients with very large ecosphere stack of JVM based microservices that you spin most of up locally including dbs.
Whenever I pair with devs using 8gb MBAs on these projects they continually apologises for the MBA's slowness and their need to continually shutdown part of microservices stack as they run into 8gb constraints.
16gb is a sweet spot today, but not in 2 or less years.
Remoting into private/cloud vms or integrating with staging environments is possible sometimes, but I work on the train for 2 hours a day as well as from home a lot, and in demos, meetings, coffee shops. So relying on dodgy VPNs over fragile connections is painful. So spinning up the whole stack locally has always been a must for me. Again, this is not most people's pattern.
( Though spinning up microservices not just locally is a frustration why I in anger started https://github.com/flurdy/philharmonic )
[+] [-] sigzero|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strictnein|9 years ago|reply
And being reliant on connectivity to a "big box" to simply get your work done is suboptimal. Also, how big of box do you need when you've got hundreds if not thousands of devs? Much easier (and cheaper, since there's no upkeep) to throw another 16GB of memory inside every developer's system.
[+] [-] calvinbhai|9 years ago|reply
:)
[+] [-] S_A_P|9 years ago|reply
Oh, and that touch strip? too small for anything but emoticons. I went from being semi excited about this macbook to realizing just how mid grade this thing really is. If the next update doesnt put the features I need back in place, this will be the last of my apple purchases. I've owned a mac pro, 4 macbook pros, every iphone save for the 3g. I like that you make them out of nice materials and strive for better. But you are now just making luxury laptops for consumers, not pros.
[+] [-] jsjohnst|9 years ago|reply
> this year's Kaby Lake
You mean the processor which was announced two months before the MBP? The one that isn't available in a mobile processor with quad cores?
> lack of 32gb RAM option
You mean the fact that Intel doesn't support LPDDR4 on Skylake (or even Kaby Lake until ~2018) mobile processors? So was Apple supposed to just switch to desktop class processors in their unrealistically thin laptops? Have you used a laptop with it, they typically run extraordinarily hot and have terrible battery life, even with laptops with twice the battery.
The real story that the new MacBook Pros reveal is that Intel is REALLY dropping the ball. If Apple thought they were ready to switch to ARM, my money is on they would've. The fact they didn't indicates to me that despite every effort, they couldn't yet (yet being the opporative word).
(Now waiting for the downvotes from the folks who'd rather be cry Apple has lost its way rather than actually think about what could be the reasons. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to bash Apple for, but the above two aren't them)
[+] [-] cobralibre|9 years ago|reply
This statement is worth pausing on. Many users with "pro" needs (developers, video editors, photographers, etc.) replace their computers on a 3-4 year cycle. It's reasonable to expect significant enhancements related to those pro needs at the end of that cycle.
Furthermore — and this is crucial — any new computer has to serve those pro needs for the next 3-4 years.
[+] [-] gog|9 years ago|reply
- have to buy a new power adapter so I don't have to carry one to work and I am still left with an unused wire appendix from the display
- have to buy a Thunderbolt to USB-C adapter for the display
- have to buy a new cable to connect iphone or USB stick, HDD, etc. to the laptop
- have to pay the premium for the touch bar although most of the time I use the machine it is closed and connected to my display and keyboard
- I can not connect the headphones from iphone 7 because of the missing lightning connector
Hopefully they will realize how broken this is now for existing users and fix some of this nonsense next year.
[+] [-] kriro|9 years ago|reply
16 GB of ram as the bare minimum for web development...come on now. Is there anything obvious I'm missing? That's even enough to run a couple of VMs with full web stacks and some testbrowsers + git and whatever editor you use
[+] [-] feedjoelpie|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrScruff|9 years ago|reply
If a pro is someone who earns their living through using a computer, what's more important? Saving a few hundred dollars on a laptop? Or purchasing the machine that you feel allows you to work the most efficiently?
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TurboHaskal|9 years ago|reply
I personally love the latest MacBooks (Pro 2016 and 12"), they are beautiful and the most Apple-like computers they have released in years.
I say that as an owner of a bunch of Thinkpads. It's not that I favor form over function, but I kind of like Apple being Apple.
[+] [-] mercer|9 years ago|reply
My research into alternatives made me think the Thinkpads are probably the best option. But I just can't buy them because they're so ugly (to me). I feel really silly about that but, dammit, if there's one object where I want it to be pretty as well as functional, it's the laptop I stare at most of my day...
[+] [-] elcct|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw2016|9 years ago|reply
Sure you can get the same quality in other devices but it takes research and most devices of equivalent quality are usually as expensive as Apple devices and sometimes even more.
The Dell XPS, Surface book or HP Spectre are not cheap or without issues. Even equivalently configured Asus Zenbooks with i5 and not core-m are not cheap.
For instance the previous generation 13 retinas were the only laptops with 28W i5 SKUs. The rest of the i5 ultrabooks in the Windows ecosystem were the standard 15W SKUs, so with the Macbook 13 Retina you got slightly better performance and Iris graphics.
The current dissappointment is valid as people rightly expect far more from Apple than boring incremental updates. The magsafe ommission is head scratching and 1299 to 1499 is a huge jump.
I think people are getting disenchanted with paying for 'let's make things thin' brand of engineering that adds little to no value to end users.
[+] [-] i_don_t_know|9 years ago|reply
But I do care about my USB-A devices. I don't mind using an adapter because I only need it at home on my desk. However the description of the Apple USB-C to USB-A adapter says it doesn't work with some devices.
Great. Now what?
[I'm also a little ticked off that they don't include an adapter in the box. Most people will have legacy USB-A devices and should need one.]
CORRECTION: They don't say anything when I add the adapter to one of the new MacBook Pros during the purchase process.
But they do include the caveat when I add the adapter to the 12" MacBook which I've also been looking at (sorry, German page):
" Mit dem USB-C-auf-USB-Adapter kannst du dein MacBook mit USB-C-Anschluss an viele USB-Zubehörgeräte anschließen, z. B. an deine Kamera, einen Flash-Drive oder an ein Lightning auf USB-Kabel, um iPhone, iPad oder iPod aufzuladen und zu synchronisieren.*
*Einige USB-Zubehörgeräte werden nicht unterstützt. "
The last sentence reads: Some USB accessories are not supported.
[+] [-] wineisfine|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baldfat|9 years ago|reply
1. Three years ago before they had finally released the over due Mac Pro?
2. Final Cut Pro X?
3. After iPod and iPhone took over Apple's products?
[+] [-] mark-r|9 years ago|reply
[Yes, I realize 3/4 of the audience here is too young to remember: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke ]
[+] [-] blackoil|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mercer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ktamiola|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpalomaki|9 years ago|reply