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Apple Debuts New 8-Core MacBook Pro With Updated Keyboard
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That blank area to the left of the Touch Bar can only be tapped as esc if you have fat fingers. I've tried and it doesn't work unless the right edge of your finger touches the Touch Bar. So, this might work sometimes for esc, it won't work always. The esc key is very important to me as a vim and vi-mode user and touch typist with multiple decades of muscle memory for the location of the key .
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Fanboys
. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme is looking pretty good right now .
-yes purchased the same model (base 15") pretty pleased! like the keyboard actually! seems to have more response, much better than my 2018 13" to be honest... machines doesn't appear to get that warm yet.
Should be getting my 2019 13" on Thursday this week - can't wait to try it out and report back.
I may have misunderstood. You said the Esc key on the Touch Bar is in a different spot. I assumed you were referring to the fact it's offset to the right a bit. However, the blank area on the Touch Bar glass to the left of the visible Esc key image is touch sensitive as Esc as well. That's the area where the physical Esc button usually would be. Since the Esc key image on the Touch Bar is about the same width as a physical Esc key on a Macbook, with the additional blank space to the left, it's like a bigger Esc key, similar in size to the bigger Esc key on the Magic Keyboard 2.
Not that a real physical Esc key on the Touch Bar wouldn't still be preferrable. I'm sure people who like the bigger Control key on the lower-left of full size keyboards also have a tough time with the Fn key being there on the smaller laptop-size keyboards. Remapping Caps Lock to Control is a popular option. Maybe remapping Caps Lock to Esc would help (System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys).
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So many people here seem to think it’s a bad buy. Not much lighter or less expensive than a MacBook Pro yet much less powerful. Maybe the new MacBooks will be worth a look once updated.. they have to get updated soon surely?
The problem is that most of the programs people run on a Mac are still only written for a single core. Thus (unless you're a video developer, or otherwise actively running many computational programs simultaneously), these extra cores mostly sit unused. I.e., we continue to have a disconnect between the way most software continues to be written, and the way in which Intel has chosen to increase computational power*. As a consequence, what most helps improve CPU-bound tasks, in practice, is not more cores, it's higher single-core performance.
*Yes, there are good reasons Intel abandoned the "clock-speed wars" about two decades ago (thermal issues and efficiency), deciding to achieve most of the increase in computational speed via multiple cores (of course, single-core speed has also increased, but most of the increased computational power has come from increased core count). And there are reasons developers continue to write single-threaded programs (writing parallelized programs is hard). But whatever the reasons, this leaves users with top-of-the-line computers that regularly give spinning beachballs when using programs like Word.
*Yes, there are good reasons Intel abandoned the "clock-speed wars" about two decades ago (thermal issues and efficiency), deciding to achieve most of the increase in computational speed via multiple cores (of course, single-core speed has also increased, but most of the increased computational power has come from increased core count). And there are reasons developers continue to write single-threaded programs (writing parallelized programs is hard). But whatever the reasons, this leaves users with top-of-the-line computers that regularly give spinning beachballs when using programs like Word.
Your purchasing and using it so go to the store and buy one you have a 2 week return period.
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Which I would be happy to pay. Probably a kidney and a 6core 2018 MacBook Pro would do it.
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It would probably be more likely if I hired a group of people to make a custom mod just for me. Apple is too lame to care about what I want.
Don’t bother. Apparently on this forum if the CPU is not max turbo boost sustained indefinitely it is throttled.
Ok they said they'd include the 2019 in the keyboard replacement program, but why would you release a new system knowing that you still have issue's? Keyboard? Overheating?
That blank area to the left of the Touch Bar can only be tapped as esc if you have fat fingers. I've tried and it doesn't work unless the right edge of your finger touches the Touch Bar. So, this might work sometimes for esc, it won't work always. The esc key is very important to me as a vim and vi-mode user and touch typist with multiple decades of muscle memory for the location of the key .
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Fanboys
I would adore a 15" model with standard function keys (And a better keyboard). I spend too much time in VIM and the command line to not have a physical ESC or function keys
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I won't go as far as to say "never" fail. But a keyboard failing should not be an overall system crippling failure that requires a full replacement of a large part of the laptop.
Most laptops can swap out the keyboard directly. Some are user replacable (Lots of Lenovos) some require expert maintenance. But in almost every case, it can be done in minutes. The new keyboard on the Apple laptops cannot be easily swapped and requires a full replacement of the top chassis of the laptop.
That's just terrible design for a mechanical part of a computer that has a high propensity of failure due to use.
I think touch screens are way WAY more of a useless gimmick than the Touch Bar. I actually have a use for the Touch Bar. My Surface Laptop 2’s touch screen is never used other than someone asking “Is that touch screen?”
Hopefully yes, which is why I don't see any reason to buy this new model now.
Who knows?
They denied the keyboard issue for ages, then claimed to have revised it what... 2, 3 times already? There's precedent for them releasing "revised" but still broken-by-design keyboards since 2016.
The reason they did a product refresh is because intel put out new CPUs primarily, most likely.
So the GPU / CPU is better on your 2012 laptop compared to the 2019 ones? I doubt that. How are these not “pro”?
1) thermally throttled chips
2) don't offer the best graphics options for laptops
3) unreliable and poorly designed keyboard
4) lack of built-in ports
5) ridiculously, unnecessarily large trackpad
6) no user upgradability
should read: Offer poor graphics options only (even at +480, which is unbelievable laughable by itself)
The "Pro Market" is alive and well, Apple just have no idea or care about servicing it, it would appear.
Top tip for Apple:
For any market, but ESPECIALLY the pro market: the machine has to reliably work. I don't care if the keyboard is 1-2mm thicker, if it means that i won't be out of work for a week while the machine is in for repair several times during the machine's lifetime.
Time is money, and if my charge out rate is the equivalent of say, $270/hr, then 1 week without my machine due to a broken keyboard is a massive expense.
Well, since you asked
.I think what most Mac fans want is partly what you said in the first quote -- to make the MacBook Pro, Mini, and iMac modular and upgradable, with a larger port selection, and to relax some of the thinness/compactness for better thermals and thus better performance and more powerful graphics options. But I say "partly" because what Mac fans really want to see, I think, is a two-tiered approach to this gear. They want stuff like the new Mac Pro for the high-end market (which Apple delivered), but they also want less expensive (but still upgradable) prosumer gear, in recognition of the fact that the pro/prosumer market is not monolithic.
So, for instance:
Mac Pro: They'd like a prosumer version of the Mac Pro, which accommodates, say, two instead of four GPU's (that by itself would reduce the TDP requirement by 500W), fewer PCIe slots, smaller case and PS, etc. Indeed, it might even use i9's instead of Xeons. That way Mac prosumers would have a powerful, headless, upgradeable box whose pricing could be in the $3K range, reasonably equipped (maybe $2K for the base model). [Companies that specialize in catering to the pro market, like HP, Dell, and Boxx, all recognize this need, and thus all offer lower-priced mid-range form factors in addition to their high-end boxes.]
Macbook Pro: Again, two lines. One would be something like the current model (but less extreme on the thinness, and with more ports), as well as a true portable pro workstation model that uses Xeons and offers powerful graphics options (so it would be thicker and heavier--more like a gaming laptop--- but pros that need to do work on location would love it).
iMac: Like what they have now, but make the non-pro ones upgradeable, and the pro one more upgradable.
And to those who say that this is too many lines for the Mac division to support, my response is that the Mac division's 2018 revenues were $25.5B. Thus, by itself, it would rank at 120 on the Fortune 500 list -- somewhat larger than Eli Lilly, and somewhat smaller than Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. And to say that companies of that size lack the resources to be able to maintain a few computer lines (if that was all they had to do, and nothing else), doesn't seem reasonable. [It's also worth noting that, in 2018, revenues from Mac sales were a bit larger than those from iPad sales, though the iPad may overtake the Mac in the future.]
Finally, I'll mention one simple (and very common) category of work that is not well-accommodated with an iPad: anything requiring (or highly optimized by) a large monitor, including spreadsheet work and document review.
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