I won’t be buying one (and not just because I’m perfectly satisfied with my new as of June MBP2015), but I think this is mostly wrong.
Leaving aside the performance (which seems to be mostly Intel’s fault, but Intel didn’t make Apple use their crappy processors), the touchbar doesn’t seem compelling to you? Maybe it’s different for people who don’t typically use other screens, but I think that could be pretty handy.
If 16 Gigabytes of RAM isn’t enough, then I really think your usage probably compels different hardware altogether, because 16GB is actually pretty capacious from this pro-user’s perspective.
A pencil for the iPad is a gimmick? If you mean that in any sort of negative fashion, then you probably don’t paint or draw much with computers. I like finger-painting in small doses, but I and most artists I know prefer a stylus for a reason. The pencil is actually pretty good, and I say that having been spoiled by almost a decade of Cintiq usage.
If I were shopping for a new Cintiq, I’d be looking good and hard at an iPad Pro+Pencil+Astropad. (Ok, maybe I’ve actually already been doing that.)
I installed 24 gigs in mine-- it’s only occasionally useful. Most of the time, it exists to collect memory leaks.
I should probably start using ramdisks more often. I suppose it’s a consequence of thinking that if filling gigs 0 through 8 is fairly easy, filling gigs 9-F will be just as easy-- when in fact it’s twice as hard.
It depends on what you are doing, but I’ve found you can hit the ceiling on 16GB of RAM working with large files in Photoshop pretty easily, and that’s work I think a lot of professionals would want a Mac laptop for.
most regular users have 8gb or 16gb these days, but this isn’t supposed to be the MacBook Regular it is the PRO, as in should have professional hardware specs for professional users who push their hardware. Regular users can stick to a MacBook or MacBook Air if they want thinness over beefy specs.
it is easy to push past 16gb when editing large graphics files or video…the same people who want to connect to external monitors without a f’n dongle.
Also, the MAX ssd size is only a meager 512gb only on the 2 highest end models, and a measly 256gb for all the reset of the models…what is this an SSD for ants? 1tb ssd is not asking too much. (edit: @ficuswhisperer pointed out you can choose larger options via the configure options when ordering, but also how over priced it is. my mistake, thanks for catching that @ficuswhisperer)
oh and those ports, thunderbolt 3 over a usb-c connector, what could possibly go wrong?
Also…MacOS Sierra has something called “Optimized Storage” on by default. Which means the OS tries to upload any larger files, files that haven’t been used recently, apps that you don’t use regularly, photos, movies, etc. to their overpriced iCloud storage and deletes them from your hard drive leaving only a special type of alias that downloads them back from iCloud when you try and access them.
Which you can’t even do on a plane or if you are away from a fat open internet connection. Nothing worse then having to download your own files that you thought you had on your own drive. Not to mention that these offloaded files are no longer backed up via timemachine or your other backup solutions because they aren’t even on your computer anymore.
The free space calculation counts all files they consider purgeable or uploadable as free space giving you an inaccurate free space number unless you shut that feature off, which is cray cray.
You better believe i shut that shit off right away.
I seriously don’t know what the fuck is going on with Apple lately, but as a long time Apple user i’m pretty worried at the direction things are going.
I think it is pretty clear they don’t see much future in this market unfortunately.
I moved off Mac a long time ago but they were the only game in town when I started, and I have a lot of affection for those old machines and the creative power they had.
It seems strange to me that a company that big can’t keep a truly pro level range up, even if just to demonstrate market leadership. I would have thought it was good for branding to have that ongoing association with creative professionals.
Shows what I know.
Edit: I got all nostalgic and looked up the first machine I worked on. This thing was the shit in 1988!
Wow. An inept borrowing of a ‘feature’ that made somewhat more sense in the context of cellphones perennially sold without enough storage; brought to the desktop.
Whoever thought that that was a good idea needs to be…reassigned…to perpetual spotty dial-up internet access.
Weird. I’ve tried it and seem to clash with your proclamation. Touchscreens (or “vertical touch input”?) are a much faster way to navigate the screen. Consider this: your cursor is in the upper left corner of the screen and you want it to move to the lower right corner of the screen. If I use a mouse, then I must physically move the mouse to get the cursor all the way across the screen. In most cases, I have to pick up the mouse when it reaches the limit of the area I have allotted to my mouse. With a touchscreen, I reach for the spot I want to go, touch it, and the cursor is there.
What people seem to think is that it’s all or nothing: you use all touch or all mouse or trackpad or all pen, but never a combination. The smart person uses whatever combination works. For me on my Surface Pro, I navigate with my fingers 95% of the time, and use the pen the other 5% of the time. I rarely use the trackpad. Touch and pen is much, much faster in every way for me than a clunky old mouse.
