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Five Things You Still Can't Do With a MacBook Pro

I agree on HDMI 2.1 and perhaps ethernet at the adapter, though a usb-c to ethernet dongle which are inexpensive works just as good, the other points seem rather too new or too niche for computers that were basically ready to release to manufacturing on the first half of 2021 such as WiFi 6E and UHS-III…

I’m sure next versions will solve the HDMI 2.1, the UFS-III and the WiFi 6E part…
 
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jakey rolling said:
I think if you pay >$2000 for a laptop, having to "work around" obvious limitations is a bit of a kick in the teeth. And consumers might not always need an ethernet connection, but many professionals who visit client offices absolutely do. After all, this is supposed to be a professional laptop, not a consumer one.
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Why should a $2,000 laptop not require you to use dongles? What ports should be available? How did you pick those ports?

What should a $2,000 laptop have?

USB-A? If so, how many? How did you arrive at that conclusion?
USB-C? If so, how many? How did you arrive at that conclusion?
Ethernet? If so, 1Gb or 10Gb? Why did you pick one over the other?
How much battery life is adequate? Why do you that number is adequate?
How much should it weigh? Why?
What color gamut should be targeted? Why?

I hope you get my point. $2,000 doesn't automatically mean you will never have to use a dongle. Market research enables manufacturers to make the best product that meets the needs of most consumers.
 
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Any form of gaming whatsoever. Macs are horrible for gaming. They always have been and always will be.

Anybody who's serious about gaming never uses a Mac
 
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djdj said:
It's nice of you to be empathetic to others' needs.
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If that mentality was adopted we’d still have floppy, VGA, S-Video, PS/2, RCA, optical, optical drive, serial, DVI etc… crammed into a bloated brick of a “portable” computer. At what point do you deem something deprecated? You can say “well of course A or B would be gone…” but that line is different for everyone. If the focus was empathy it would become unwieldy.
 
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MNGR said:
Are you sure? I can do it on iPads and iPhones.
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Yes I'm sure. Local Netflix content download is supported on iPads, iPhones, and Windows computers, but not on Macs.

How to download titles to watch offline

Tap the down arrow icon to download titles on iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablets.
help.netflix.com help.netflix.com

To download from Netflix, you need the latest version of the Netflix app on one of these devices:
  • iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 9.0 or later
  • Android phone or tablet running Android 4.4.2 or later
  • Amazon Fire tablet running Fire OS 4.0 or later
  • Windows 10 (version 1709 or newer) or Windows 11 tablet or computer
  • Select Chromebook and Chromebox models
 
rorydaredking said:
Point 4 is redundant due to the seamless personal hotspot functionality. Apple experimented with modems as evidenced by that prototype MacBook Pro years ago, why would they suddenly add more wireless kit that needs antennas, shielding, standards, chips etc- when their software integration solution works so well.
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It's an option nearly no one would opt for. Just look at how few PC laptops offer it. Why? Because consumers don't generally need it. Most everywhere people work has wifi these days, and those that don't have a phone with them anyways.

Plus people hate having a separate monthly cost for their laptop or tablet. There's a reason most don't go with a 5G iPad or 4G Apple Watch. Why pay more for a device, then pay more for a monthly service, when the cellphone you already have and carry with you everywhere offers the same connectivity for your laptop, tablet, or watch with no additional cost?

It's silly to invest in development, implementation, and support of a feature that costs every user more, when less than single-digit buyers will benefit from such.
 
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UHS-III is not supported in any cards or any cameras. There might be readers available, Razer had a UHS-III equipped laptop. So it's pointless. The other stuff is more useful, 6e and 5G would be great additions.

Interestingly there is a better standard, SD Express. It offers up to 1000 MB/s transfers and it's an SD card, so it's backwards compatible. Cards and readers are becoming available now. But the plot thickens, SD Express is basically useless because cameras aren't going to use it because the far superior CFExpress standard seems to be the future. More on it here:

petapixel.com

New SD Express Memory Card Costs $300, Is Slower Than 'Old' SD Cards

This card was designed to prey on those who don't know better.
petapixel.com petapixel.com

There are a great many people who continue to hold out hope that SD Express will provide some kind of beautiful future where the speed and potential of CFexpress will be unlocked for those who own older equipment. This is a future that will never exist, because the components are simply not compatible.
There is a reason not a single camera manufacturer has signed on to the SD Express specification: it’s just not worth it. SD Express is doomed to always be slower than CFexpress as the core upon which it is built is flawed, as Brewer has explained in the past.
If you want the speeds that this Ritz Gear memory card falsely claims it can provide, ProGrade Digital makes a card that is less expensive and will perform faster and better in all modern cameras and computers. If you need the kind of speed that Ritz Gear promises, which few actually do, get one of those.
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startergo said:
6. Intel x86 virtual machines.
7. Bootcamp
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Most people using virtual machines aren't running them locally these days, so this is largely a non-issue. There's a reason we haven't seen the transition to Apple Silicon kill Mac sales.

It might have been a nice-to-have feature, but local x86 virtual machines and Bootcamp weren't deal breakers for the vast majority of users, including most power users.
 
MacRumors said:
2. Support for UHS-III SD Cards

In its bid to placate photographers and video producers, Apple reintroduced the SD card slot, not seen in a MacBook Pro model since 2015. What it didn't explicitly advertise is that the slot doesn't support UHS-III cards, which offer read and write speeds up to 624 MB/s. (That wasn't the only disappointment: The SD card slot on the new MacBook Pros supports UHS-II cards, but only up to 250MB/s of data transfer, not the 312MB/s speeds that the standard is theoretically capable of.)
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This "complaint" is straight-up ridiculous. UHS-III is a spec, not actual products, and probably will never be actual products.

You know how many UHS-III SD cards are currently on the market? Zero. You know how many UHS-III card readers are currently on the market? Zero. If Apple had shipped this with a UHS-III slot it literally would have been the first device on the market to support it. They presumably would have had to develop the silicon to run it themselves, and I don't know how they'd test it since there's nothing to put in the slot yet.

Further, it might have ended up being the only device on the market to ever support UHS-III. Reason: SD Express is faster than UHS-III in every way, and does technically have a couple of cards on the market already. I would be surprised if anybody went to the effort of implementing UHS-III when there's a faster standard already in existence and zero reason to use the older standard.

All of which is to say that if you were going to complain about something, complain that it doesn't support bleeding-edge SD Express or CF Express (which, unlike SD Express or UHS-III, is already in use in professional products).

The thing, though: If Apple had put an SD Express slot in, it would not have offered any speed boost with currently-in-widespread-use UHS-II cards; they would have been forced back to UHS-I speed. And while CF Express is becoming the pro-grade-card of choice, putting a CF Express slot in would have made it incompatible with any SD cards at all, which would probably inconvenience way more people than the lack of a CF Express slot will.

Basically: You're complaining about not supporting a standard that is currently vaporware, and there are concrete user-benefitting reasons why Apple might have chosen a UHS-II slot over either of the non-vaporware faster options.
 
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rorydaredking said:
Point 4 is redundant due to the seamless personal hotspot functionality. Apple experimented with modems as evidenced by that prototype MacBook Pro years ago, why would they suddenly add more wireless kit that needs antennas, shielding, standards, chips etc- when their software integration solution works so well.
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Business that is why. macbooks are not just for consumers. Tons of companies by them.
 
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MauiPa said:
no VGA out either, or how about some other legacy ports? Seriously? I have a few external HDDs, bought 2 usb-c to that stupid flat connector cables for $6. Much better than adding an obsolete port. I have a 13 MBP M1, also bought a usbC to HDMI cable, why do people fall in love with their old cables, seriously?
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The lack of SCSI is maddening! /s
 
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I would have loved to keep the 4th thunderbolt 4 port (have all the adapters anyhow)
 
Macintosh TV said:
Most people using virtual machines aren't running them locally these days, so this is largely a non-issue. There's a reason we haven't seen the transition to Apple Silicon kill Mac sales.

It might have been a nice-to-have feature, but local x86 virtual machines and Bootcamp weren't deal breakers for the vast majority of users, including most power users.
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95% of the businesses are using Windows. Almost all the business software runs on Windows only. Having no possibility to run x86 virtual machines is a deal breaker for those customers who will want to stay with Intel mac's. And having two machines to carry around is not the best experience.
 
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I didn’t know it was only 250MB/s. Why would the UHS-II SD card be slower than standard? Doesn’t make any sense. I don’t have a new one yet and use Apple’s external reader which seems full speed with my 300MB/s cards.
 
Makosuke said:
This "complaint" is straight-up ridiculous. UHS-III is a spec, not actual products, and probably will never be actual products.

You know how many UHS-III SD cards are currently on the market? Zero. You know how many UHS-III card readers are currently on the market? Zero. If Apple had shipped this with a UHS-III slot it literally would have been the first device on the market to support it. They presumably would have had to develop the silicon to run it themselves, and I don't know how they'd test it since there's nothing to put in the slot yet.

Further, it might have ended up being the only device on the market to ever support UHS-III. Reason: SD Express is faster than UHS-III in every way, and does technically have a couple of cards on the market already. I would be surprised if anybody went to the effort of implementing UHS-III when there's a faster standard already in existence and zero reason to use the older standard.

All of which is to say that if you were going to complain about something, complain that it doesn't support bleeding-edge SD Express or CF Express (which, unlike SD Express or UHS-III, is already in use in professional products).

The thing, though: If Apple had put an SD Express slot in, it would not have offered any speed boost with currently-in-widespread-use UHS-II cards; they would have been forced back to UHS-I speed. And while CF Express is becoming the pro-grade-card of choice, putting a CF Express slot in would have made it incompatible with any SD cards at all, which would probably inconvenience way more people than the lack of a CF Express slot will.

Basically: You're complaining about not supporting a standard that is currently vaporware, and there are concrete user-benefitting reasons why Apple might have chosen a UHS-II slot over either of the non-vaporware faster options.
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There was a Razer laptop with UHS-III for some reason. But otherwise it looks completely dead.

Also I posted an article on SD Express, but basically the word on the street is that SD Express is dead on arrival because no camera maker has signed onto the standard. They might adopt it eventually, but most new bleeding edge cameras are using CFexpress. So now the problem is, put a separate card form factor (CFx) and piss off people using SD, put SDx and no one has cameras with it and it downgrades UHS-II to UHS-I, or put UHS-II and people complain about no future proofing like he is in this article. No win situation.
 
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djdj said:
They could include Ethernet in the chassis if they wanted to. I've had a couple different laptops that have Ethernet ports even though the chassis is thinner than the connector -- it's done with a drop-down door to hold on to the bottom of the connector while the connecting pins are permanently fixed in place.
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We have some Dells at work that use the drop-down-door Ethernet port. It's a clever design, but a huge caveat is that it only works if the laptop has tapered edges (and/or sits high enough on the feet) so that, when the door drops down, it doesn't run into the table.

The current MBPs are chunky and quite square on the edges, so if it were necessary to put a hinged Ethernet port on it to fit the jack, then it's almost guaranteed that the flap would hit the table and render itself useless. Dell's current 5000 series Precision Mobile Workstations, for example, do not have a hinged ports like some of the lower-end Latitude 5000 series laptops, because it just doesn't sit far enough off the table for a hinged port to work (Dell instead includes a little dongle for Ethernet and HDMI, which unlike the MBP it doesn't have onboard either).

I say almost, because the current MBP is pretty thick, has feet, and the edges are rounded, so it's at least hypothetically possible Apple might have been able to squeeze something in that would clear the table if they'd really wanted to.
 
MatthewUT44 said:
I would love to have a 5G chip in a MacBook.
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There were some rumors about 5G being added to Mac laptops in the last 2 years, but then as we found out 5G marketing is too ambitious. While you can certainly use midband 5G via a iPhone 13 for a personal WiFi hotspot, this oversell of mmWave 5G miraculous speed being everywhere is a pipe dream.
 
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