I quite like the touchbar, if it’s implemented universally on all programs it could be very useful.
What I can’t get behind is the ripoff prices, fu#k that.
I suspect Apple have lost some interest in the real computer market, until their mobile market starts to really tank you wont see an resurgence of interest from them.
That would be cool.
Seems to me like the point of it would be for apps that use the function keys for various stuff, where you have icons to encourage the use of keyboard shortcuts.
I’m writing this on a X240, which, yes, has a trackpad from hell and is a replacement for the one that failed a few months after purchase. Good grief the quality of the X series went down hill (like you, I’ve been a long time fan of the X series). On the other hand the X240 may have been a low point - the physical trackpad buttons returned with the X250 - so I’ve been trying to convince myself that the X260 won’t be so bad.
At the games studio I work for, a lot of our artists were very excited about the MS Surface Studio when it was announced. Certainly to us, it seems MS is finally learning its lessons about capitalising on things their R&D dept come up with. Apple is pretty much confined to our audio guys now. Even producers don’t want MBAs anymore, it’s surface pros that have their eye. Can’t blame them, when asked for which laptop I wanted as my on-call system I picked a surface without any hesitation - it goes everywhere with me, into the server room to note down changes I need to make with patching, in meetings. I don’t use paper pads any more.
I’m still convinced that hololens will dramatically change our workplace, replacing monitors with them as a start.
You’re absolutely right. Thinner why? Why just USB ports? Shouldn’t the main goals of this laptop be muscle and versatility? The touch bar is nothing more than a cheap gimmick.
They already waited a long time between generations. It was well past time for a refresh to their laptop line. It’s not as if the 7th gen intel CPUs are all that much better than the 6th gen.
And remember that just because your needs require more than 16gb does not mean that every professional customer looking to buy a macbook pro needs more than that.
I stopped being worried about hardware some years back. That is to say I dont expect my laptop to have desktop level performance and even so I’ve done some rather large Logic sessions on less powerful hardware than the current crop of MBPs.
I’m deeply unimpressed by the tradeoff Apple decided to make(maybe I’m just a bitter old guy now; but the idea of sacrificing an entire row of good, honest, actual-tactile-feeback keys for a tiny touchscreen strip; especially on a device that already has a big touchpad, seems insane); but I am interested to see if Apple, or their modest but fanatical 3rd party devs, manage to make something interesting out of this one.
This is not the first time someone has taken a stab at making a quasi-screen useful. Among gamer kiddies, utilities for showing system stats on the ubiquitous HD44780-compatible dot matrix LCDs have been a thing for at least a couple of decades now(with VFDs for extra cool if you can afford it; and Crystalfontz if you don’t want to tinker and just want something you can have plug in and work.) On the Linux side, LCDproc exists to drive the same class of displays, very handy if your ‘server’ doesn’t have a fancy vendor-provided front panel indicator.
There are also some proprietary-with-a-vague-attempt-at-ecosystem offerings, like the LCDs built into some Logitech peripherals; compatibility is limited to a few devices in one company’s lineup; but there is some attempt to encourage 3rd parties to develop on top of it.
Perhaps the biggest push was actually from Microsoft a few years back. Among the numerous bits and pieces introduced with Vista was ‘Windows Sideshow’; an attempt to provide an OS native and reasonably standardized(at least in the sense of ‘you can buy hardware from multiple vendors and have it work with Windows in the same way’, not some open-and-cross-platform thing) mechanism for supplemental interface widgets of a variety of capabilities to interact with a host PC and retain some functions even when that PC was powered down.
This attempt went approximately nowhere. Very little compatible hardware ever showed up; and the software is unsupported as of Win8.1
So, the question of what, if anything, to do with an interface that is less than a full monitor; but more than a few status LEDs remains somewhat open. There is mature; but fairly niche, support for mostly read-only output from text based LCDs; but attempts to go beyond that have been a bit abortive.
Again,(and in part because of how littered with the bodies of the hopeful this particular area of history is), I think Apple was nuts to kill part of their keyboard to make room; but it would be interesting if they managed to make something of the idea.
I used an X230 for over a year at my job. It was fine when it was docked, but as soon as I tried to use it as an actual laptop I wanted to throw it down the stairs. That trackpad made me feel like I was working while drunk. The Dell it was replaced with, on the other, hand is surprisingly pleasant to work with the exception of the terrible display, which is just my company skimping.
Probably for people like me who want the power of the MBP without lugging around a 15" laptop.
For the touch bar … Mac is a very keyboard friendly OS but a lot of recent apps aren’t down with the program (or have made incredibly misguided decisions about keybindings). If it gets me more access to the things I use without trawling through menus, I’m ok with it.
I’m more worried about the computer we’ll get in 2038 (If you don’t get the reference, then get offa my lawn etc etc)
TIL: My pepper-beard puts me in a demographic.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me. Tho’ the only way I see to heal a douchebar is to build a rack of springloaded keys that mounts over it.
You get a like just for that reference,
And now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!
Being a professional who has to carry around two laptops all the time and still needing decent amounts of computing power from both, every ounce and millimeter shedded from my machines makes lugging them around better. I welcome thinner and lighter machines.
As far as the USB Type-C ports go, these are not “just” USB ports. They provide all sorts of alternate functions. They Type-C spec allows for all sorts of different fucntionality on the alternate use pairs; on the MBP it at least supports thunderbolt or displayport along with USB 3 on the same cable, along with power in. Currently I have to hook up two monitors, USB and power (I’m glad I’ve been able to shed the /other/ USB recently) when I set back up at my desk. Getting that down to one or two connections would be awesome. Having multiple single-purpose cables really sucks for mobile users who may hook up at a desk. I would like an all USB-C machine myself just for the convenience factor. Yeah, I’ll have to pick up a handful of new cables, but when it comes down to it that’s fine; and since it’s all standard, I can pick up inexpensive but properly made cables from various places.
It’s a laptop. Use the trackpad.
It’ll cost you, but it can be done.
Eh, I wouldn’t even need that with my setup and the MBP2016; I could just hook up one of the Type-C connectors to a brekout box to get power, DP, and USB separately (they have $30 for HDMI or DVI, not DP yet, but soon) and then MST chain my monitors.
This is intended to be a replacement for fixed legacy F-keys, and beyond the pearl clutching (and a small percentage who miss macros and will need to route around) I can understand the logic. I’d definitely use hotkeys for my creative apps.
