The ‘secondary’ part seems to be a consistent theme. In absolute terms Apple is pretty good at things like cooling: impressively small size, low noise, minimal vent slits per watt shifted; but somewhat fewer watts shifted than the situation really required; because they weren’t willing to make things just a bit bigger or risk a few non-hidden vents.
Routine to find PCs of equivalent vintage(especially among the cheap seats) as badly undercooled while also being thicker and noisier and having big prominent dust-sucking vents.
The trouble, of course, is that when Apple decides that they really don’t feel like making the sacrifices for any more thermal headroom; that’s it(looking at you; 16GB being the RAM ceiling for the Macbook ‘Pro’ since 2011, because it had to be LPDDR3; or basically anything related to the current Mac Pro: thermally very impressive for a ~280-ish watt system of its size and (lack of) noise; but sucks to be you if you your idea of ‘workstation’ doesn’t fit inside that envelope.)
You are definitely crazy to think an iPad Pro will replace your main computer. The built-in keyboard is a pain to use. The machine doesn’t play well with Google Docs or other technologies that rely heavily on tabbed browsing as opposed to app-switching. The slowness of the text editing features you have to use when you don’t have a mouse will drive you crazy.
How do I know all this? ‘Cause I’m typing this reply on an iPad Pro right now!
I have a 13" non-touchbar refurb and it is fine (tho it is a battery recall serial #… boo!)
No problems w keyboard at all. A fine system for basic email, light work and lighter gaming. I use it for traveling while I work on an iMac. Very interested in new Mac Pro and bigger better screen.
iPad Pro 12.9 w Pencil - love procreate! But I’m always in the market for newer different sketches apps. I’m also experimenting with Pencil charging stations for the desktop.
If you want to break the bank and get what your paying for get a Microsoft Surface Book 2.
All laptops will be like this in a few years. Apple are not innovators in this field right now.
Touchbar lol!
Mid-2010 17 inch here, ditto. Purchased refurbished when my even older 17 died from what appeared to be a MB problem, but it came back to life when I swapped in a new HD to test it. Then its battery blew up (literally, but not explosively) a couple of months after they stopped replacing the bad batteries.
But I suppose I should upgrade to a more recent OS version soon. 10.9.5 has been a reasonably stable (and usable) place to park after too many things stopped working under 10.6.8, but I’m bumping into those old problems again.
And when this one dies? We’ll see. Just not any time soon, I hope.
Well I mean, I have to lean in (too) close in order to physically detect a difference between my MBP’s retina screen and the external display I normally use, and I have better than 20/20 vision. If that 110ppi external display were already blurry, I don’t see how I’d notice more pixels.
Though, perhaps the issue is more with contrast or something? Apple’s displays are comparatively good in other ways than just resolution.
Agreed. But that’s why there’s Classic Shell. I started using it with Windows 8 and it works so well you forget it even exists until you have to use an unmodified machine.
I bought the new Macbook Pro, and I’ve had the keyboard replaced twice so far. Luckily I bought AppleCare, so when it’s out of warranty I’ll still be covered. I keep hoping they’ll re-engineer the keyboard and I’ll get one that’s not prone to fail.
Aha, interesting! Me, I find it can tell a difference pretty easily from standard-computing distance – i.e. how far my eyes are typically from a computer screen.
But it may be very true that contrast and excellent backlighting are also at play here. The Macbooks are, you’re right, super good on that. Though my old Macbook pro from 2010 had pretty good contrast itself, and when I switched to the new one with the retina screen I immediately felt less eyestrain.
My favorite version of Windows was 7 and Windows 10 isn’t awfully different. Though the few things that are definitely annoy the hell out of me. However i’m rarely having to dig into the settings for the OS so its something i can ignore 99% of the time.
Which begs the question, really. Exclusive or no, it does seem that there are currently more devices on the market that use the Lightning port that there are that use the USB-C port. Worse, not every USB-C device works with a MacBook, according to my colleagues with one.
This may look different next year, of course. But being proprietary or made by a consortium is not as important a factor as you portray it.
I fully agree that getting rid of the function keys is a terrible UI idea. And I have to add that a touch thingy instead of an escape key is the dumbest thing apple has done in a long time. I keep just touching it while fiddling with a lot of menus during my long back-to-back-and-forth in public transport, and of course the menus close immediately. I didn’t even notice at first what was happening and thought for five long hours on a train that with the MbP on top of my lap that the software was buggy… Fuck this, and whoever stole the function keys.
That said, the touch bar is quite handy for pdf markup, and even for scrolling while watching a clip or movie. There is potential there, but this is immediately becoming shitty user experience when you sit down, plug shiny 5k monitor into your laptop and start using an external keyboard and a mouse. I really have trouble getting used to the fact that for some things, need to lean over to the tiny “third screen” and look what’s going on. And tap several times until I get the function I need.
I, for one, am using an adaptor for travel, or occasions when I need USB-A, a SD card, or another monitor connector. At my desk I finally have one friggin cable for everything.
I’m not a fan of getting rid of “obsolete” connectors - my private laptop still sports RS-323 and DE-15 ports, and for good reason. (Try to find a Thunderbolt connector in Southern Mali, or Niger. Good luck.) But for my current work environment, the USB 3.1/Thunderbolt decision makes sense, I think. It even makes a lot of things easier.
If that works for you! I’m not there yet. I like the idea of the iPad Pro and keep messing with the pencil in stores, but I’m still using Photoshop for most of my paint work.
I have used both 15" MBP ~2016 – the last of the good years – and the touchbar version as my work machine. The replacement of always-available media keys with a two-click soft key that destroys muscle memory is such a tragic downgrade.
I’m not as mad about the USB-C. It’s an open standard, and at least the new MBP still has a headphone jack.
Truely massive trackpad is nice.
New keyboard blows. I think they’re trying to warm us up to an all-softkey laptop. I don’t want that either.
