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First Impressions of New 12-Inch MacBook: Ridiculously Light, but Thin Keys and Trackpad Take Getting Used To

spectrumfox said:
I'm just becoming increasingly more concerned because the Mac laptop line continues to lose features and capabilities, all in the misguided quest of becoming thinner and thinner.
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What features and capabilities beyond the optical drive have the MBPs lost?

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Nicky G said:
How would one charge and have plugged into an external display, at the same time? And, ideally, have a USB hub attached as well? Does this USB spec support something like a dock that also passes power?
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Yes, Apple even sells one. Ok, it's a very simple dock, it has a USB-C port for the charger to plug in, one standard USB port and one video out port (HDMI or VGA).

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spectrumfox said:
I'm not so confident that the MBP line will stick around at this rate. They're inching more and more towards one universal MacBook line.
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In what way are they inching towards a universal MacBook line? By naming a product as 'MacBook' only?
 
MacRumors said:
'You press down hard and keep pressing through the click, as though you were karate chopping with you finger and trying to hit a target behind the trackpad. Do that and you'll feel a subtle second click happen, and ta-da you've activated force click. For the company that famously refused to put more than one button on the mouse, putting an extra interaction like this on the trackpad seems weird.'
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Agreed. As I watched them talk about force click in the keynote, I was thinking no, that sounds completely unintuitive. No one would ever think that pressing down hard would activate a different set of features (no one but Apple's designers anyway). It has to be taught, which goes against Apple's own design philosophy of making things simple and intuitive out of the box. If a non-expert user did happen to press too hard by mistake, I can imagine them being thoroughly confused to find something unexpected happening. Like Dieter Bohn said, it just seems weird.

Looks like Apple got drunk on multitouch and doesn't know when to stop.
 
spectrumfox said:
I do not consider the loss of USB ports, ethernet ports, Thunderbolt ports, and optical drive as gaining features.
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Oh, Apple releases a laptop with less ports. Conclusion, all laptops of Apple will loose the same ports. Because Apple will shrink down their line of laptops, as they have done by going down from two lines in 1999 to such a low number of three lines in 2015. In between they even dropped to two lines only.

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kalsta said:
No one would ever think that pressing down hard would activate a different set of features
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And no one would think that a two-finger click on the previous laptops would activate a right-click. Yet this is how things have worked for a long time without the world coming to an end.

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shenan1982 said:
How do i plug this into an ethernet cable?
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Via a USB to Ethernet adaptor.
 
Does anyone know if Apple plans on selling an adapter with a Mini DisplayPort? I am not a power user and this machine would be great for my needs, but I do like to occasionally connect my MacBook to my Cinema Display (which although older, I have zero need to upgrade as it works great). I saw a couple of adapters already online but nothing that would allow me to connect to a Cinema Display (or a thunderbolt display for that matter).
 
I think the target customer will be the ones that wanted an iPad to work as a laptop replacement, but could never make it work.
With this you have the best of both worlds (almost).
I really wish they had one more port on the other side, as I can´t really use it the way I use my 11" air.
Adding the adaptor dosen´t add another USB port if you need to be plugged in to charge.
I use my Air to back up footage after a days shooting on location. It´s often between 500GB-750GB and I won't risk offloading that without being plugged in. Not even sure if it could power what I need off that one port either.

It´s a shame, but I will have to stick with the air for some time to came. At least Apple have left me that option this time. Get the right tool for the job.
 
spectrumfox said:
You think the MBP and MBA line will be around forever? They're obviously heading towards a universal MacBook line here, in case you haven't noticed.
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What is indicating that they are heading towards a universal MacBook line? Do you base that simply on the name? Because at the moment they have three lines with updated processors. Two days ago they only had two lines.

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lucanaut said:
Does anyone know if Apple plans on selling an adapter with a Mini DisplayPort? I am not a power user and this machine would be great for my needs, but I do like to occasionally connect my MacBook to my Cinema Display (which although older, I have zero need to upgrade as it works great). I saw a couple of adapters already online but nothing that would allow me to connect to a Cinema Display (or a thunderbolt display for that matter).
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I don't know where the limitation is (in the adaptor, the USB-C protocol, or the graphic chip) but with the offered VGA and HDMI adapter things are limited to 1080P, which is less than your Cinema Display.

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jmorrison0722 said:
The company I work for has roughly 45 conference rooms each with a projector. Only a handful of those projectors have HDMI ports, so I how would I connect to the ones that don't?
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Via the VGA adapter.

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spectrumfox said:
Why can't you understand that they've been doing this to their ENTIRE MacBook line for years, and that it's a slippery slope that isn't going to stop until there are no ports on any of their laptops?
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Can you list me the number of ports on the MBPs over the last ten years? As far as I know that number has not changed much.

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shenan1982 said:
a bit convoluted.
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There is nothing that stops an USB-C to Ethernet adapter being developed.

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theSeb said:
but historically, the Macbook was the cheap and basic device, the air was the more expensive and light version and then there was the Macbook Pro.
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Except for the last five years during which there were no MacBooks.

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Mad Mac Maniac said:
Definitely not going to be getting one of these anytime soon. I'm glad I broke down and got my MBA 1.5 years ago, amid the rumors of some elusive MBA redesign coming out in the future.
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Glad you got a MBA because they don't sell or update them anymore?

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AndyUnderscoreR said:
So, compared to the new 13" retina MacBookPro which also has the force click trackpad, this has a smaller, lower resolution screen, half the cpu cores running at less than half the clock speed, and 1/5th the ports... and it costs more?
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It has the same number of cores.

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26139 said:
2. Congrats on still buying DVDs. Good for you. The rest of the world is moving toward digital.
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Didn't know that DVDs and CDs were analog.
 
Does anyone know where i can get the new Apple screensaver ? :D

Bildschirmfoto%202015-03-10%20um%2013.12.45.png
 
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Dekema2 said:
It's probably just me but I've never seen a MR article with an S bomb in it. Probably because I'm used to this other forum which is censored and will ban you for using the "d" word... if I can say it here.
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I noticed that too. It's funny though, if you click through to the article as it appears in the forums subdomain, it's asterisked out! Just as it would be if I tried to say I was getting **** done.
 
lucanaut said:
Does anyone know if Apple plans on selling an adapter with a Mini DisplayPort? I am not a power user and this machine would be great for my needs, but I do like to occasionally connect my MacBook to my Cinema Display (which although older, I have zero need to upgrade as it works great). I saw a couple of adapters already online but nothing that would allow me to connect to a Cinema Display (or a thunderbolt display for that matter).
Click to expand...

According to Apple, the Macbook display "supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 3840x2160 pixels on an external display" via "Native DisplayPort 1.2 video output"

This says to me that you won't even need an adapter - just a cable with DP/mini-DP at one end and USB-C at the other.

This page seems to agree with this suggestion:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8558/displayport-alternate-mode-for-usb-typec-announced
 
manu chao said:
And no one would think that a two-finger click on the previous laptops would activate a right-click. Yet this is how things have worked for a long time without the world coming to an end.
Click to expand...

Well, no one said the world would end. We said it was weird. And it is, for a company that prides itself on simplicity and intuitive UI design.

Multitouch has some very intuitive gestures. Like I said, Apple got drunk on the cleverness of it all and doesn't know when to stop.
 
Bummer:

the PowerSupply wasn't a hub

Lightning isn't USB-C

there was no Monitor hub at launch

I've now poss gotta wait 'til WWDC to replace my '08 MacBook
 
lucanaut said:
Does anyone know if Apple plans on selling an adapter with a Mini DisplayPort? I am not a power user and this machine would be great for my needs, but I do like to occasionally connect my MacBook to my Cinema Display (which although older, I have zero need to upgrade as it works great). I saw a couple of adapters already online but nothing that would allow me to connect to a Cinema Display (or a thunderbolt display for that matter).
Click to expand...

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av-multiport-adapter
 
Pros: Beautiful

Cons:No headphone jack, no other ports, expensive, less battery life than dell and air, and underpowered M processor, no glowing logo

People just wanted retina display in older air and they gave us this beautiful but crap hardware.
Better to buy Dell xps 13 which has 13 inch screen , as compact as this mac and slightly heavier with powerful processor all ports and quad hd display with better battery life or

Pro 13 if u want mac
 
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Gudi said:
Please stop spreading false information. Apple is using USB-C exactly as intended by the standard committee.
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No, they are not. The USB-C standard calls for 10Gbps of throughput. Apple's implementation on the new Macbook has only 5.1Gbps. Until that solitary port on the new Macbook is capable of 10Gbps of throughput, it is non-standard.
 
manhattanboy said:
Is Force Click really that much more useful than the two finger tap?
Click to expand...

In a while the force click will be 2nd nature to everyone and it'll be a great trackpad gesture.

And for the people who talk about the rat's nest of cables at home because of this Mac totally miss the point of why this Mac exists. This mac is not designed to be your main home computer. To me this feels like the iPad of the OS X world. Ultra light, ultra portable and excellent for consuming data. The weak CPU and no fan don't allow any intense content creation but for the Macbook Air crowd who just need a light Mac on the go, this fits the bill perfectly.

This is not an MBP replacement that needs lots of ports. This is the OS X iPad (sort of). And you'll do everything wirelessly with it (just as you do on the iPad. But you still have one port to use for everything.

But I can't plug things into this while it's charging? Most people never use the iPad while it's charging apart from large App/OS installations. And the same deal will exist with this Mac.
 
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lolz - Apple release something new and the threads are full of people saying "it's not good enough" yadda yadda without having used it, touched it etc.

Maybe the forums should just be called MacTrollers instead.

:rolleyes:
 
haruhiko said:
Are you sure a ChromeBook does the same thing as this MacBook with a full blown OS X?
Click to expand...

Everyone who mentions this thing's shortcomings is assured left, right and sideways that the only ones who will buy this are people who just want to browse Facebook and do email. For that, a Chromebook will do exactly the same thing. Literally every other laptop sold since 2003 will do that.

That's my main criticism of the price. A simple laptop catered to this demographic is fine and not a bad idea, but not at this price.
 
Love the look and style of the new MB however I think the fact that I will have to buy an HDMI, USB adapter, is a little ridiculous, seems to me if I get the 8/512 and spend $1600, I need to include like another $120 in adapters, they should be included for this price. I may just go for a 13" MBA at this point...
 
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