I have so many issues with the new MacBook Pro's

[kevinkyoo]

For those who are defending it, that's fine (However, I find it amusing that some of these are the same people who think that a MacBook Air or a MacBook is a perfectly fine substitute ). I have been waiting for years for an actually decent MacBook Pro. Why, you may ask? Because the dedicated GPU's in the MacBook Pro's since 2012 were absolute ****. Whether it's throttling, horrible performance for the dollar, a likely cause for the 2012-2013 models (And possibly 2014 and '15) to crap out, or a combination of all of the above.

But instead, ol' wise Tim Cook made even more problems:

1. The Touch Bar is an ABSOLUTE GIMMICK. When I use my computer, I type while looking at the screen. I already know the shortcuts. Now with the Touch Bar, Apple imagines me looking down, then up? At best, I will have gotten used to one format, but will most likely have to change things around (ex. Using Adobe Premiere Pro), and will have to adjust yet again. This deters my workflow.

What if I also want to use BootCamp? What even happens to that Touch Bar? Do I get a function row at least? Or is that all blanked out? If it's the latter, **** you.

2. Why is Apple insistent on using this keyboard? Granted, it's second generation and they said that one thing improved is the "feel of key travel." But why not just stick with the keyboard everyone liked? Transitioning from one that was universally praised, to one that is controversial at best, is a head scratcher.

3. Oh God, why do you shrink the batteries from 74.9 to 49.2 watt-hours, and from 99.5 watt-hours to 74 (For the 13 and 15" respectively)? I understand that there is a 99.9-100 watt-hour limitation because of flights and electronic devices possibly Samsung'ing, but WHY? The 13" and 15" MacBook Pro's were PERFECT in their dimensions. If you had kept the same sized batteries with the amazing efficiency from going from HASWELL and Broadwell to Skylake, that would've easily been 12+ hours of battery life. But instead, you had to go through with your obsessiveness to make devices as skinny as possible.

4. MagSafe. I can say that this was without a doubt the BEST LAPTOP CHARGER! It was easy to connect, no harm in scratching the laptop, and I didn't have to worry about the computer dragging. NO LONGER. WHY?! This was the gold standard, and you take it away???

5. For shame to differentiate MacBook PRO's by the number of ports, rather than power. This is the sleeziest thing. How is a two-port computer targeted for any PRO? Especially when I have to use one port for charging? Do you want me to buy an insanely heavy and large block of an adapter?

6. When will Apple ever put a decent dGPU? Seriously. The M370X was an absolute joke. The 455 and 460 are bottom-of-the-barrel budget graphics cards released in this generation. I understand that Final Cut Pro works well with AMD cards. Why not the 480? People are paying good money for this, and you have the audacity to charge an extra $200 to go from 455 to 460? Does Apple know that the 480 sells for $250-300?

 

[thadoggfather]

For those who are defending it, that's fine (However, I find it amusing that these are the same people who think that a MacBook Air or a MacBook is a perfectly fine substitute ). I have been waiting for years for an actually decent MacBook Pro. Why, you may ask? Because the dedicated GPU's in the MacBook Pro's since 2012 were absolute ****. Whether it's throttling, horrible performance for the dollar, a likely cause for the 2012-2013 models (And possibly 2014 and '15) to crap out, or a combination of all of the above.

But instead, ol' wise Tim Cook made even more problems:

1. The Touch Bar is an ABSOLUTE GIMMICK. When I use my computer, I type while looking at the screen. I already know the shortcuts. Now with the Touch Bar, Apple imagines me looking down, then up? At best, I will have gotten used to one format, but will most likely have to change things around (ex. Using Adobe Premiere Pro), and will have to adjust yet again. This deters my workflow.

What if I also want to use BootCamp? What even happens to that Touch Bar? Do I get a function row at least? Or is that all blanked out? If it's the latter, **** you.

2. Why is Apple insistent on using this keyboard? Granted, it's second generation and they said that one thing improved is the "feel of key travel." But why not just stick with the keyboard everyone liked? Transitioning from one that was universally praised, to one that is controversial at best, is a head scratcher.

3. Oh God, why do you shrink the batteries from 74.9 to 49.2 watt-hours, and from 99.5 watt-hours to 74 (For the 13 and 15" respectively)? I understand that there is a 99.9-100 watt-hour limitation because of flights and electronic devices possibly Samsung'ing, but WHY? The 13" and 15" MacBook Pro's were PERFECT in their dimensions. If you had kept the same sized batteries with the amazing efficiency from going from HASWELL and Broadwell to Skylake, that would've easily been 12+ hours of battery life. But instead, you had to go through with your obsessiveness to make devices as skinny as possible.

4. MagSafe. I can say that this was without a doubt the BEST LAPTOP CHARGER! It was easy to connect, no harm in scratching the laptop, and I didn't have to worry about the computer dragging. NO LONGER. WHY?! This was the gold standard, and you take it away???

5. For shame to differentiate MacBook PRO's by the number of ports, rather than power. This is the sleeziest thing. How is a two-port computer targeted for any PRO? Especially when I have to use one port for charging? Do you want me to buy an insanely heavy and large block of an adapter?

6. When will Apple ever put a decent dGPU? Seriously. The M370X was an absolute joke. The 455 and 460 are bottom-of-the-barrel budget graphics cards released in this generation. I understand that Final Cut Pro works well with AMD cards. Why not the 480? People are paying good money for this, and you have the audacity to charge an extra $200 to go from 455 to 460? Does Apple know that the 480 sells for $250-300?

its a good point about boot camp,wonder if they had thought about that / if this machine supports boot camp

you might be limited to vwmare fusion or parallels

also good point at not needing to look at the keyboard, but you still can peripherally no? also, i wonder if it changing its interface per app will slow down multitasking for multitasking intensive folks, or cause experiential epilepsy

having a 2-port pro, "fixing" complaints of 12" rMB, does seem silly and then to differentiate with 4 ports, as more pro. seems like an artificial barrier/ discrimination against people who want new design without touchbar guinea pig ness nevermind that 15" wasn't thrown this same "Bone"

 

[zemaker]

You read my mind, everything you said hit the nail on the head. I can't follow Apple down this path any longer, they have become complacent and it is showing.

 

[Spink10]

its a good point about boot camp,wonder if they had thought about that / if this machine supports boot camp

Yes they did

OP made some good points though. Thanks!

 

[thadoggfather]

Yes they did

OP made some good points though. Thanks!

do you have a source? just curious, i'm not a boot camper but good to know
also not in market for oled touchbar mac either haha

 

[Spink10]

do you have a source? just curious, i'm not a boot camper but good to know
also not in market for oled touchbar mac either haha

Answer was more sarcasm...I don't know how much they thought about bootcamp. But obviously it isn't like they didn't think about the Touch Bar for bootcamp. Obviously they have a plan...too many people use bootcamp. Apple itself offers the service so they have a plan. Probably just normal keys and then f1-f12 with fn key.

 

[Emathieu]

Yes, them doing away with MagSafe is definitely a head scratcher for me. I LOVE MagSafe, and it honestly just saved my rMBP from getting dragged off a table onto a hardwood floor 2 days ago. It will be interesting to see if the new USB-C charging cable breaks away easily, or if it will now pull the computers to the ground.

The loss of MagSafe and the SD card slot are both big deals to me.

 

[redheeler]

5. For shame to differentiate MacBook PRO's by the number of ports, rather than power. This is the sleeziest thing. How is a two-port computer targeted for any PRO? Especially when I have to use one port for charging? Do you want me to buy an insanely heavy and large block of an adapter?

The base model 2016 MacBook Pro doesn't qualify as a true MacBook Pro to me either, more like something in between a MacBook and a MacBook Pro. Just part of the confusion of Apple's current portable product lineup. Would've made more sense had they called it MacBook Plus to distinguish it from the Pro, but I suppose that wouldn't help much with the confusion.

 

[Spink10]

The base model 2016 MacBook Pro doesn't qualify as a true MacBook Pro to me either, more like something in between a MacBook and a MacBook Pro. Just part of the confusion of Apple's current portable product lineup. Would've made more sense had they called it MacBook Plus to distinguish it from the Pro, but I suppose that wouldn't help much with the confusion.

The 2 porter?

 

[redheeler]

The 2 porter?

Yes, as well as 1867 MHz RAM instead of 2133, and a low power processor you'd expect to find in a MacBook Air, not Pro.

 

[Spink10]

Yes, as well as 1867 MHz RAM instead of 2133, and a low power processor you'd expect to find in a MacBook Air, not Pro.

A different names makes sense...we get it here...average joe no clue.

 

[kevinkyoo]

Yes, as well as 1867 MHz RAM instead of 2133, and a low power processor you'd expect to find in a MacBook Air, not Pro.

I didn't even realize about the processor. Why not just call it the MacBook 13"? Just seems really obvious that they want to keep the "Pro" moniker to drive up the price.

 

[Spink10]

I didn't even realize about the processor. Why not just call it the MacBook 13"? Just seems really obvious that they want to keep the "Pro" moniker to drive up the price.

Bingo!

 

[\-V-/]

The base model 2016 MacBook Pro doesn't qualify as a true MacBook Pro to me either, more like something in between a MacBook and a MacBook Pro. Just part of the confusion of Apple's current portable product lineup. Would've made more sense had they called it MacBook Plus to distinguish it from the Pro, but I suppose that wouldn't help much with the confusion.

The 15" doesn't qualify either.

 

[negatv1]

I'm going to enjoy the fact that when my bastard cat gnaws through the power cord, I can just replace it with a USB-C cable instead of a new $90 charger.

The touch bar is of course a gimmick - for now. It's new, but I can see lots of uses in the future. Much more so than a touch screen on a laptop IMO. As for what it becomes in Bootcamp, no idea. I'd hope/assume it becomes standard F-Keys at least via the custom drivers.

 

[yillbs]

I think some of what you said is just blanket frustration. The touch bar is a gimmick, but it's not all that's changed. USB C is indeed a wave of the future. You basically have 4 PCIe slots now.. how can you go wrong with that? If you try to use boot camp, the touch bar will most certainly display the FN keys, they likely included drivers for win10 to make it happen. Apple typically doesn't do half-baked.

If apple just stuck with what everyone liked, we'd still have removable drives, upgradeable components, etc.. this just isn't them, as a mac buyer, you knew this going in. Moreover, no one has tried this " new " keyboard, so you can't really say it's not equally as nice.

The good 'ol battery. I don't have an excuse for this one really, other than they have very very large companies that will buy these things in very very large bulk, 100k at a time, they want those sales, in order to get them, they have to be portable. They need to be able to say , look what we did. They are trying to compete in an ultraportable niche, using " pro " variants, they actually do a good job at this. Compared to what apple wants you to compare it to, they beat the competition, even with it's smaller batteries.

The MagSafe was indeed awesome, but.. it did have its flaws, they would often wear out, and fall off, I'm sure when they did the research of how many they had to replace, versus how many people had to buy, they felt they were not making the profit. They are a company, they like profits, even more so when we, the people have basically spoiled them with our money.

The port changing is an easy change up to understand. Because they won't' be selling the air, they had to give people a reason to bring the price down. They WANT you to purchase the touch bar models, for obvious reasons. In their mind, you buy those, this is your punishment. You can easily get away with two ports on a " pro " model. This basic base level is just that, designed for semi-pro users. However, you can't' very well call it the MacBook semi-pro.

The GPU. The IRIS graphics in the onboard chips are going to literally be more than enough for 80% of the people that are buying MacBooks. I have the early 13-year model, I have a 750m in mine. I still render 1080 P, play games, and could I use a bit more, sure... doi need more, no. Same concept with these. Remember, they lowered the battery capacity, and they made the device smaller. It's all about saying look what we put in something so tiny. It's a pissing war between MS and apple at this point. However, the bottom line is, people buy macs because they work, and they work beautifully. They don't need more graphics power, else how would they reach their 10-hour claims on battery?

a 480 just isn't practical, more importantly, very few games are even available for the mac that are going to benefit from that. And FCP will run 2 - 3 x better with the skylake chips and the iris 550 all by itself, the cars that come with it will be plenty, more even, than people need. Very few people purchase a mac and end up saying " man.. i really need a dedicated graphics card ", and the ones that due, have options, and the options they have are often times exactly what they need. Apple does love money, but they also release products that work, and work well. If you think for a minute they just half assed and picked the cheap cards merely for price, you're wrong. If they could have put a 480 in the thing, and charged an extra 500 bucks, they know people would have paid it, they could have raped big time, and people would STILL have purchased it. at that point though, the experience would have sucked, they know this, we know this, it's just not logica.

 

[subjonas]

1. The Touch Bar is an ABSOLUTE GIMMICK. When I use my computer, I type while looking at the screen. I already know the shortcuts. Now with the Touch Bar, Apple imagines me looking down, then up? At best, I will have gotten used to one format, but will most likely have to change things around (ex. Using Adobe Premiere Pro), and will have to adjust yet again. This deters my workflow.

Eh, I'm just whatever about everything. It's a very predictable update. The only wild card is this Touch Bar. I could see it going either way. If it turns out to be a gimmick, I just really hope that I'm able to ignore it and that it doesn't interfere with my applications and current work flows.

 

[\-V-/]

a 480 just isn't practical, more importantly, very few games are even available for the mac that are going to benefit from that. And FCP will run 2 - 3 x better with the skylake chips and the iris 550 all by itself, the cars that come with it will be plenty, more even, than people need. Very few people purchase a mac and end up saying " man.. i really need a dedicated graphics card ", and the ones that due, have options, and the options they have are often times exactly what they need. Apple does love money, but they also release products that work, and work well. If you think for a minute they just half assed and picked the cheap cards merely for price, you're wrong. If they could have put a 480 in the thing, and charged an extra 500 bucks, they know people would have paid it, they could have raped big time, and people would STILL have purchased it. at that point though, the experience would have sucked, they know this, we know this, it's just not logica.

Good lord, stop talking about games. Talking about gaming on Mac is ridiculous. That's clearly not the issue people are having. And they ARE charging more ... and without giving anything extra in the GPU department, lol. Good grief. Then you go on to say they are selling an experience ... then you're saying that if they put in a more powerful GPU, it would be a terrible experience. How is THAT logical?

 

[kevinkyoo]

The GPU. The IRIS graphics in the onboard chips are going to literally be more than enough for 80% of the people that are buying MacBooks. I have the early 13-year model, I have a 750m in mine. I still render 1080 P, play games, and could I use a bit more, sure... doi need more, no. Same concept with these. Remember, they lowered the battery capacity, and they made the device smaller. It's all about saying look what we put in something so tiny. It's a pissing war between MS and apple at this point. However, the bottom line is, people buy macs because they work, and they work beautifully. They don't need more graphics power, else how would they reach their 10-hour claims on battery?

Your argument of the battery with companies' shipments literally makes no sense.

Your MagSafe argument makes no sense. If they wore out, Apple would make more money from this from their overpriced repairs. It was clearly another "courageous" act to go 100% towards USB C.

For the two-port Macbook Pro, there is no such thing as a semi-pro user. You're either a pro user, or not. Having Apple hold what should have obviously been the 2016 MacBook Air hostage under the title of "Pro" for the sake of increasing the costs is anything but customer friendly.

Just because it is okay for some % of people, does not mean it should even be fathomable to pay $2500+ for literally the bottom tier graphics card from AMD this year. Just because you feel like you "could use some more horsepower" does not mean that applies to people like me, who use the card for both gaming and mostly video editing. The jump from 455/460 to 480 is nothing to dent the battery life. As I said with the capacity, they could have easily left it at what they were at last year, upgraded the GPU to a 480M variant, and kept the battery life still at 10+ hours.

Also, I don't know why you're bringing size into this. If I understand this correctly (I will admit I am not 100% sure about this), size comparisons between graphics cards are meaningless, as they would only break the physical shell apart, get the chip, and use that for the computer.

Honestly, from what you're telling me, seems like you're more for the 13" MBP/MBA audience. Nothing wrong about that, but my comments are stemming from the frustration of the 15" MBP and its lackluster GPU.
[doublepost=1477627498][/doublepost]

Good lord, stop talking about games. Talking about gaming on Mac is ridiculous. That's clearly not the issue people are having. And they ARE charging more ... and without giving anything extra in the GPU department, lol. Good grief. You go on to say they are selling an experience ... then you're saying that if they put in a more powerful GPU, it would be a terrible experience.

Not really going to bother wasting time talking with this person. I am open to talking with people about this whole event, but if you tell me that the integrated graphics are good enough, whereas I am using a Quadro for my editing rig, nope. Done.

 

[jav6454]

I didn't even realize about the processor. Why not just call it the MacBook 13"? Just seems really obvious that they want to keep the "Pro" moniker to drive up the price.

This! Dear God This!!! That abysmal CPU was just used to cut costs and make the dam thing much more profitable.

Don't even get me started on the loss of something so unique to Apple, the MagSafe.

 

[friedkimchi]

Eh, I'm just whatever about everything. It's a very predictable update. The only wild card is this Touch Bar. I could see it going either way. If it turns out to be a gimmick, I just really hope that I'm able to ignore it and that it doesn't interfere with my applications and current work flows.

I'd sit this version out for the rev B. I foresee issues with the touch bar dying.

I'm now waiting for Dell to update their XPS 15 with better gpu, maybe even a 1050/60? I'll probably pick that and a refurb mini for xcode. OS X on vmware is bearable but just.