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Apple Debuts New 8-Core MacBook Pro With Updated Keyboard
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I have to ask: if you hate the keyboard, lack of ports, and touchbar, what is it about the laptop that you think deserves praise? You can get the same cpu specs on other high end brand offerings. For me, unreliable keyboards and lack of ports, combined with a tendency to overheat in the expensive i9 multicore chip configuration, is sort of a show stopper for laptops. I travel with these things, need a nice reliable keyboard for input (otherwise I could make do with a tablet), need enough ports to obviate the need for dongles. I can understand not wanting to use Windows - neither do I, so I use Linux on PC laptops. I'd buy another MBP if it came with the ports, form factor, and keyboard of the 2015 models. Upgrade that machine with newest SSDs and memory - non-soldered, thank you - and use that thicker form factor to provide adequate cooling for high performance multi-core cpu's, and I'd buy one rather than the XPS-15 or System76 Oryx-Pro I'll likely get instead. I'd still like to have a high performance, reliable BSD based, highly functional Apple computer to work on. Apple doesn't provide that for me anymore. Shame, as I've been using Apple computers since the early 80s.
You seem to have missed one of the entire points of complaints about the lack of esc/fn keys. The complaints have nothing to do with toggling an option in the preferences. We want tactile response to the keys.
Maybe instead of making the touchpad the size of Chinese takeout container they could include *both* a touch bar *and* a proper row of function/esc keys.
As a professional developer who uses vim nearly 75% of my day, I'd gladly pay a couple hundred dollars more to have a proper esc key. IMHO it's literally the worst change Apple has ever made to a system since I started using MacOS in the System 7 days.
The saddest part is there are no other options. At this point I should probably just start looking for a Hackintosh compatible laptop before Apple moves away from x86_64, just to obtain a proper keyboard...
You are correct for the smart phone offerings around. Now that the phone jacks are gone and there is no more touch id option on iPhones, security remains my main attraction to at least getting a low end iPhone after my 6S+ bites the dust. As it is, I use the LG V-series phones for headphone/music functionality (currently my second of two phones), and my iPhone for everyday messaging and communications. For security, Windows on desktop/laptops suffers as does Android for phones - both are systems providing lowest common denominator solutions for a plethora of hardware configurations. Consequently, they are relatively insecure and in most cases not finely tuned to the hardware they run on. However, for desktops and laptops, a more secure choice, even imho to OSX/MacOS, is Linux. It takes a little while to familiarize yourself to the system, and you have to learn to be reliant upon forums and the community for support issues, but once that hurdle is gained, it's a great, mostly secure system platform. It has improved orders of magnitude in the last ten years for the desktop/laptop. Anyway, just to point out there is an alternative to Apple for desk/lap tops. The great achievement of Apple with the OSX/MacOS system was in making BSD Unix a rock solid stable foundation (thanks to Steve Jobs experience with the NeXT) for the user friendly Apple systems we've come to know and love. BSD is elegant as a command line, server oriented system, but really has never been user friendly for everyday folks. I still keep my old MBP (1,1), which I bought in 2006, around mainly for nostalgia. It STILL WORKS! I'd still be able to use it functionally, but support for 32-bit machines is rapidly becoming history - even with Linux.
Okay, sorry - this was too long. Cheers!
The keyboards on the 2016 - gen 1 - were not good. Travel was better on the gen 2, although some people had problems. gen 3 may have fixed some of the problems, but apparently not for everyone. I sold my 2015 with the discrete GPU in 2017 and have not looked back. I was shocked last year to discover that I finally prefer the new keys to the chicklet keys, but I do. Then again, I do a lot of professional writing and tend to use external keyboards and clamshell mode a lot. I'm typing this now on a dasKeyboard. blah blah blah. I'm a photographer and, while one of my cameras uses SD in the second slot and one even uses Compact Flash in the second slot, my main memory cards at the moment are XQD. Dongles? I've had a few, as the song goes. Once I got used to the throughput of USB-C, I really began to dislike any external media that was straight-up USB of the old school. I have a few dongles, a few mini hubs for travel, as well as a CalDigit hub for home that I really like. I had a Sonnett Echo 15+ for a while, but eventually ran into sleep issues. I don't miss Mag-Safe. I like being able to plug my power cord into either side. I just sold my 2017 and I'm waiting for one of the new machines. I don't edit as much video these days, but I have an eGPU unit, just in case. I still run a 2012 12-Core Mac Pro cheese grater and I still do meaningful work on the old hog. It has been up and running for 9 years now with almost no hiccups. I'm not sure I'll need to replace it with the new Mac Pro, but we shall see. I can see having to sell something really valuable in order to afford that. So, no, I'm not too hung up on dongles. I don't use the keyboard as much as some people, but I don't have problems when I do. And it's nice to know they'll fix it with few questions asked if I do have problems. It's fun watching everybody argue here. It's a variation on every other tech forum I belong to on the Internet. On the Nikon forums, people almost spill blood over mirrorless vs DSLR. "Only one card slot??? Nikon is ruined." People used to be pissed at Steve Jobs because of his obsession with eliminating fans from machines. This stuff did not start with Jony Ive, you know. Anyway, it's fun - to a point - watching everybody argue. I can only allocate a little time each day to this, though, as I have to get my work done - photo editing and writing. I wish I had more time to bloviate here, I really do, but I can't Anyway, see you all around.
Sorry, my original post was unclear; I’ve updated it. When I said the mini has the latest CPUs, I wasn’t referring to the updated 28 Watt parts used in the 13” MBP or the 45 Watt ones in the 15” MBP that were just released. Rather, I meant the mini has the latest CPUs that Intel has available for the mini, which uses a 65W mobile CPU.
The mini was released last autumn with the 8100B/8500B/8700B, and Intel has not released any updates for those CPUs since then. So there’s nothing to upgrade to (yet). Intel has been capacity constrained at 14nm and the 65W mobile chips aren’t worth making until they can meet demand for more expensive Xeon and Core desktop parts that have been on allocation.
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Well, I'll stick with my 2013 rMBP 15". It works like the day I bought it. They keyboard is great.
The buyers guide is garbage for everything that’s not an iPhone. You could be waiting anywhere from six months to over a year if you follow that thing. It’s wildly inconsistent since apple’s product releases are inconsistent.
Really? I thought it was pretty obvious that there would be a new Macbook Pro between May and August.
Pretty much.
They're trying to "fix the problem" without publicly admitting there was a problem or what the root cause of "some users" failures was.
Thing is, a lot of people, myself included want some sort of understanding of
- what apple has determined the root cause to be, and how this escaped product QA for 4 years
- what they have done to fix it, in at least some level of detail.
I want some sort of assurance that "Yes, we found the actual problem, and fixed it".
The firmware bug that caused the throttling was fixed within a week or two of its initial release. The hexa-cores run at or above their rated speed as specified by Intel, including all cores at 100% utilization.
All really good points. It’s an odd feeling because it’s not necessarily that the iPad can do anything specifically that the Mac can’t do (aside from note taking), but it’s something about the experience of using the iPad that makes it more enjoyable for me. I almost feel like I’m not doing work although I’m working all day. I’ll jot down notes in split screen while reviewing a report and watching a video in picture in picture. All without a a hiccup. It’s almost like you don’t feel you are using a computer, no thinking involved, it just works and it’s extremely efficient. Again, for me.
The points you laid out are valid though and clearly don’t work best for someone like yourself. I respect that and your approach to this conversation. macOS just became way too buggy, cumbersome, and overall less focused for me so I decided to go all in with just an iPhone and iPad Pro. Obviously my career allows this, so not for everyone, but it’s been a very freeing experience for me.
Well, I don't know what is fixed all I know is I see throttling on simple tasks just because the fans do not accelerate at a lower temp. Also, MFC does not work in Bootcamp due to the T2 chip. So even If I want more aggressive cooling I can't do it.
A bit offtopic, is the T2 chip also the reason why the processor cannot be undervolted? After the 6core release, I have seen some people on reddit using the Intel tool (cannot name it right now) to undervolt the processor - basically capping the proc at maximum 4Ghz. This way it would stop the laptop overheating and the GPU will stop throttling.
After some time I heard that this 'trick' stopped working.
what issues are you having with macOS? its always been very good for me these past 10 years with it. Haven't noticed any issues really. Nothing like the windows machines I used to have.
Having only a tablet and phone would drive me crazy. I can't really stand the way safari is on a tablet. I need a trackpad 100%. If they ever add trackpad support and not have the mobile version of websites by default it might be ok for me. Its just a very different experience with an iPad I only use mine for consumption device like youtube and sometimes safari. I need a real computer for real things.
Well, this is just opposite to overclocking i.e. underclocking, but I agree what good is the 6 or 8 core If you cannot get the full potential out of it? Luckily MFC works in OSX, but not in Windows.
What do you mean by throttling? Some people use that word to describe expected behavior of the CPU. If you have the i9 and it doesn’t drop below 2.9GHz with all cores in use, it’s not “throttling”, it’s meeting Intel’s spec. The 4.8GHz single-core spec is only a peak speed; some people mistakenly believe that if the i9 can’t sustain a 4.8GHz clock at a continuous 100% utilization of a single core then it’s “throttling”. Also, though Intel rates the CPU for 100°C, Apple does not allow that temp to be reached afaik, so some derating of specs may be applicable.
Some users disagree with Apple’s thermal management strategies and a legitimate discussion can be had on the parameters employed by Apple; what kinds of clock speeds are you seeing under various load conditions?
Allow me to elaborate. Indeed the processor behaves almost as expected. Almost, because as you mentioned, Apple has different thermal management than what Intel recommends. That's not the problem or at least not the entire problem. On the new Macbooks (6 cores and probably 8 cores), when the both the CPU and the GPU are under (heavy) load, due to the amount of heat emanated, the GPU is being throttled - even down to 400 Mhz. There are review here and there, videos on Youtube showing this scenario.
The solution was to stop the CPU from not entering Turbo boost, capping it at a maximum of 4Ghz and the throttle on the GPU would stop happening (most likely because the amount of heat emanated was less?).
This was the best solution for scenarios in which you will need the GPU as well (rendering, gaming etc.) as the drawback from limiting the CPU from entering TB was minor.
It's been a few years, but it was really just general bugginess and lag that I was experiencing. I just kind of felt the experience was lacking - I didn't like the app selection, had issues with OS updates and app updates, just didn't feel stable to me. Using it felt archaic. I still feel it's a better OS than Windows, but it seems Apple has lost some focus when it comes to macOS and development has stalled. Cost played a factor too as I feel like Mac's aren't worth the high price tag (for me, it's overkill in some areas).
At first, using just an iPhone and iPad Pro had it's challenges, but now it's a great experience - really simple and straightforward, everything works perfectly, great app selection, relatively low cost, zero upkeep, extremely portable, do it all kind of device for me. I'd agree with your point about Safari and I do think that will come - I think iOS 13 is rumored to push to the desktop site instead of mobile on the iPad, but I don't think that's enough. They need to have a proper full browser with all it's capabilities. iPad an iOS isn't for everyone, but I think it has an extremely bright future, improvements coming every year, and allows for a ton of flexibility for me in my career.
No I’m just an executive assistant. He is busy getting ready for WWDC
I have no earthly clue
For proper thermal management the temperatures needs to be contained within the thermal specs of the OEM. If 100C is "Ok" for the CPU it is certainly not OK for the surrounding components especially capacitors (in fact high operating temperature is the leading factor for capacitors premature failure). I am not even talking about the advertised boost frequency (which is certainly not sustainable with the current cooling schedule) so therefore it is only sales balloony and nothing really in the real world. This is why we the consumers decided to use external thermal management solutions like the MFC. Just because we think the thermal management is not adequate. We know for sure that the nMP was a thermal failure and that was even admitted by Apple. But we don't see that Apple got their lesson in that respect because fallacy continues. And yes thermal throttling is reduction of core speed due to components overheating.
All true. I don't think anyone in there right mind would believe apple if they say they fixed the problem, by now. So, you are correct to be sceptical. Even more if you consider that the 2019 models are already part of...guess what ! The notorious extended keyboard replacement program !
Apple seems to be the only company that is allowed to acknowledge a defective product and keep selling it anyway.