Jony Ive "hears" your macbook criticism

[spronkey]

Point being, what's the point? If you hate the 2016+ and ended up using a 2015 as it better suited your needs, then what's the problem exactly beyond disagreeing with the industrial design of the newer computer?

For me, it's what to do when this machine becomes obsolete. I'll have no good option - can't abandon ship because I'm tied to the Mac. Can't buy something I want.

The removal of user-replaceable battery in ~2009 rubbed me the wrong way, but I begrudgingly put up with the slightly better battery life it offered. The soldered RAM and nonstandard SSDs introduced with the original Retina MBP already made me a reluctant buyer of that generation, but I begrudgingly accepted it. Turns out that I was right and it was a hassle - I put up with a less than ideal machine for 6 months until I could do a full swap, when I'd simply upgraded RAM and SSD in all my previous machines without breaking the bank.

The touch bar model, well, I just don't want it. I like the display, the CPU, the capability of the IO (but not the exclusivity to Type C), but I dislike almost everything else about it.

I would absolutely love it if all you guys would start a little whiteboard and write down exactly what you want in a computer, see if you can come to a consensus on what you think is right or see if it descends into another argument. Heck if you do that, I'll happily do a 3D render for you to send to Apple.

For me, in the 15" model, my ideal machine is something similar to the form factor of the 2015 in terms of size, display, keyboard, and battery size. Though, I'd like them to replace the battery with a unit more like the Air, and sell them to customers directly for user serviceable replacement. Throw in the latest CPU and GPU, and a mixture of forward thinking and legacy ports - Type A is still a must, MagSafe is a must, HDMI and SD would be nice. I'll take the DCI-P3 display and Touch ID from the new model, too, and make the bloody touchbar optional!

I also really want to see user-serviceable RAM and standard M.2 PCIe SSDs. Dell can do it on their 15" pro machines, so why can't Apple? It's because it's cheaper for them to solder it, and it makes them more money if you can't just upgrade your machine, that's why. Screw that.

While we're at it, how about a charger like the USB-C charger, but with the wall extension included, and with a USB-C to MagSafe power cable that's replaceable for when it inevitably disintegrates.

Apple jumped the gun going all-in on Type C. It's a mess out there with the various levels of support, it's still nowhere near ubiquitous, and it would still be a daily annoyance for me if I had a 2016 machine.

 

[wilfred2013]

...and you are confusing "versatility" with "raw power". Do you even have a "use case" for needing "16 x PCI-e 3.0 lanes of external IO" on a machine with a thermally-limited CPU, a mobile-class GPU and limited battery capacity?



No, and nobody expects it to come with "every existing port" - don't be ridiculous. However, it is simply delusional to think that requiring an adapter to connect to USB-A, the single most ubiquitous connector in use, as included in the vast majority of currently-shipping IT products, is in any way "versatile".



...really? If I knew that 90% of the screws I encountered were number 3 crossheads, I'd damn well carry a fixed number 3 crosshead screwdriver alongside the modular one so I only had to faff around changing heads when I had to, and I could keep the modular free for undoing any odd-sized screws I came across.

A 16 gb max thermally limited due to unnecessary thinness .. terrible keyboard, toy bar and oversized touchpad .. No Esc key ..... and claiming to need 16x Pcie 3.0 lanes for IO ... Ha Ha Ha Ha ...

 

[No. 44]

There's always one thing I'm always confused about when these clearly troll forums pop up and start another endless debate.

Most people who have a 2016/2017 are quite happy and enjoying their machines, for work or pleasure or whatnot.

Most people who hate the 2016/2016 are quite happy and enjoying their 2015 machines, for work or pleasure or whatnot.

Point being, what's the point? If you hate the 2016+ and ended up using a 2015 as it better suited your needs, then what's the problem exactly beyond disagreeing with the industrial design of the newer computer? If you needed a notebook to work, and have the 2015, and are working, then clearly you don't need the 2016 so it's all fine right? A lot of people seem invested in pretending that their life is over just because Apple released a thinner computer - when it just doesn't suit them. I think a lot of people simply want new computers, and were upset that it wasn't quite what they wanted. Or more likely was too expensive to justify upgrading for simply 'want', and I say that whenever I see anyone mention price as equating to expectations; "I paid $$$$ and it's not everything I dreamed of!" kind of threads - I'm always amazed by people who complain about the price at $1500 being too expensive for a MBP yet are the same people who are happy to pay $1200 for a damned phone that can do very little (Compared to MBP) beyond look flash in public, see?

It's getting to the point of arguing over sports teams now, everyones got an opinion of how their team should have played etc. Very few people actually understand or are qualified to understand the complexity and procedures involved. So it just comes down to an opinion, which cannot be changed, and crops up with the same arguments on every other thread.

I would absolutely love it if all you guys would start a little whiteboard and write down exactly what you want in a computer, see if you can come to a consensus on what you think is right or see if it descends into another argument. Heck if you do that, I'll happily do a 3D render for you to send to Apple.

You're confused by the "endless debates" here? I'm confused by your confusion.

Why am I confused? Because you are the very person who posts in every thread in which the new MBP is criticized. You clearly feel the need to argue and debate with the members here who are dissatisfied with the new model, and it never fails that I see your "same arguments" when someone makes a critical remark about the new MBP.

If you find these "endless debates" distasteful, perhaps you should consider not taking part in them.

 

[ugru]

I would absolutely love it if all you guys would start a little whiteboard and write down exactly what you want in a computer, see if you can come to a consensus on what you think is right or see if it descends into another argument. Heck if you do that, I'll happily do a 3D render for you to send to Apple.

As I stated in countless previous posts:

- 2015 form factor for adequate internal space and cooling.
- 99 Whr Battery
- Up to 32 GB DDR4 RAM
- Magsafe for adequate power delivery
- 6c/12t CPU
- nVidia Pascal Max-Q GPU (1050 TI or 1060)
- 2 USB 3.1 type A ports
- SD reader
- HDMI
- 2 TB3 ports

And before anyone asks....no, nVidia GPUs are not only for gaming, but are to be used for CUDA optimized Apps....

 

[The Mercurian]

I'm not sure what your doing for "a full working day" but by Apples own metrics the relatively low % of professionals using macs I would hazard a guess most don't get a full day on batteries. Sure for the target audience doing some dailies, surfing and video/YouTube then yes, working professionals probably not and are hooked up to power.



For those that want draw their own conclusions based on actual data (see below) as you seem to have some points wrong eg sales with a surprising decline in 2017 Q4 over Q1 and 2016 seemed a mixed year

Too many guesses to be conclusive re seasonal differences, inflation or increased prices and model release dates IMO
(appol's for any typos in advance)

View attachment 740189

Eh source for this data? Apple don't publish breakdowns by each model so like.....where is this coming from ?

Edit: Oh I see what you did. You took the overall sales figures and volume sold for each quarter which they do publish and simply put the most recent model alongside it. Very misleading.

 

[leman]

Glad to be of service

Yes some surprising ups and down around release dates and end of year

I suggest you also map the average price, to see it there is a pattern match

Here it is (I hope you meant the avg. revenue)

(Given a precedent, the following is my subjective random ranting without any claim of objectivity).

Looking at this, I am actually even more sure that my interpretation is not so wrong

First of all, one needs to make clear that Apple's quarters are actually a bit misleading. The Q1 2017 *is not* the first quarter of 2017, its actually October-December 2016. Q4 is late summer (July-September), Q2 is spring (April-June) and Q1 is winter (January-March). There seem to be two "low" quarters (Q2, Q3) alternating between two "high" quarters (Q4, Q1). What this tells us that people generally buy Macs over the winter holiday season (makes sense), but also in late summer (kind of makes sense I guess).

The Q4 2016/Q1 2017 is very interesting here. We see that the late summer 2016 is rather lacklustre, since I guess people were getting upset about lack of updates. Then over the autumn/christmas period, the sales surge. Actually, that sales period sold more Macs than the holiday shopping period (Q1) in 2015 and almost as many as in 2014 (despite declining PC sales). Later in 2017, the sales drop rapidly (I guess everyone who wanted a new MBP got it over before January), and then we have a surge again in late summer, after the KL refresh.

Few interesting observations about sale numbers: in the year since the 2016 MBP refresh, Apple has sold 19391 Macs. This is from autumn 2016 up to September 2017. In the six quarters since the introduction of 2015 MBP and up to the 2016 redesign, Apple has sold 28989 Macs. These two numbers are consisten with each other, since 2/3 (scaling from 6 to 4 quarters) of 28989 is 19326 (its virtually the same number actually).

There is also another quite interesting tidbit. The late summer of 2015 was an absolute record, selling 5709 Macs. Actually, this is the only case in our little sample where the late summer was better for Macs than the Christmas season. What also puzzled me is that the average revenue for that quarter is among the lowest though. I had a look, and do you know what other products were released in 2015? Right, the 12" MacBook. So maybe what we see here are students etc. getting MacBooks as schools start? Of course, only a conjecture, but something that makes sense to me.

Anyway, in summary, looking at this data I see no reason to suggest that the new MBP is selling poorly. The holiday sales of Macs are as strong in 2016/2017 as in any other year. The declines in Q2/Q3 (winter and spring) 2017 are consistent with what we see for previous years. Not to mention that the average revenue among the highest, suggesting that its generated by sales of more expensive units (so mixture of MBP there should be rather high). Finally, if you add to this the fact that the PC market saw a decline of at least 20% since 2015 (based on New_Mac_Smell's links above), I'd say that its rather good performance indeed.


(Note, of course the number of Macs are in million of units, as used by apple).

 

[maflynn]

Article here
http://uk.businessinsider.com/apple-jony-ive-macbook-criticism-2017-12?r=US&IR=T

​

There is hope that we'll see some improvements in the 2018 model - at least that's what I'm banking on

 

[leman]

As I stated in countless previous posts:

- 2015 form factor for adequate internal space and cooling.
- 99 Whr Battery
- Up to 32 GB DDR4 RAM
- Magsafe for adequate power delivery
- 6c/12t CPU
- nVidia Pascal Max-Q GPU (1050 TI or 1060)
- 2 USB 3.1 type A ports
- SD reader
- HDMI
- 2 TB3 ports

Your wishes are not very realistic though... For starters, there is no mobile 6c/12t CPU. There is no Max-Q version of the 1050 Ti as far as I know, and both the 1050 Ti and 1060 Max-Q are too hot for the 2015 form factor (that itself used a 40Watt GPU). Max-Q format of the 1050 wouldn't be any better than what Polaris 11 already is. Magsafe for adequate power delivery? Maximal what Magsafe ever supported is 85Watt, which is still good 15W below USB power delivery. Magsafe can be updated to support higher power I hear you saying. Well, so can USB power delivery. And of course, using DDR4 would mean a significant hit to the battery life, even if you jump the battery to 99Whr. Look around. Everyone who cares about battery in a laptop is using LPDDR3. Dell XPS 15" has DDR4, but its battery life is appropriate (there is of course still the issue of the power-hungry screen).

But yes, you want a workstation, we got it. People were asking Apple to build a workstation laptop for the last 20 years I guess. Its obvious that they are not interested in building one.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

You're confused by the "endless debates" here? I'm confused by your confusion.

Why am I confused? Because you are the very person who posts in every thread in which the new MBP is criticized. You clearly feel the need to argue and debate with the members here who are dissatisfied with the new model, and it never fails that I see your "same arguments" when someone makes a critical remark about the new MBP.

If you find these "endless debates" distasteful, perhaps you should consider not taking part in them.

So same dozen people who create multiple threads to 'discuss' the 'issues' with the new models, or post in every single thread about their 'issues' or their 'problems' is absolutely fine. But I cannot say anything otherwise? Fine, I really don't care enough to be singled out by some internet trolls.

All I came here to do was to tell you guys you're wasting your time. OP had absolutely no intention of starting a 'discussion' and only wanted to see you guys descend into this kind of rhetoric. I tried to point out to you all to actually listen to the podcast instead of taking a single line and running with it like it was some baton of confirmation about all your worries. But nobody is interested in truth these days, just whatever nonsense you can use to justify your point of view. Oh and should anyone criticise that, hey just call them a "Fanboy", "Apologist", or just berate them with garbage like this.

 

[Naimfan]

All I came here to do was to tell you guys you're wasting your time. OP had absolutely no intention of starting a 'discussion' .

Well, that's mighty nice of you . . .

And by the way: How might you know the OP had no intention of starting a discussion?

And if it bothers you so much, why do you keep adding fuel to the fire? The first rule when you're in a hole: stop digging. I commend that suggestion to your attention.

 

[827538]

Good find! I guess we will se if the nesacary improvements are made in 2018. Although I somehow don't think they could/would get them all rectified in the next 6 monts i.e. magsafe. I fear that is gone for good.

I miss Magsafe but I'm willing to sacrifice it for universal USB-C support.

What I do miss is having a SD card reader built in.

Also for the love of god give us a 1080p or even 720p FaceTime camera on MacBook, it's appalling how bad it is.

I'd also like to see P3 colour support on MacBook and even 120Hz VRR. Netflix 4K HDR would be brilliant too.

Aside from that all I really want is the usual improvements to chips and storage.
[doublepost=1512481649][/doublepost]

Will they really bring back any the following?
- one or two USB 3.0 type A ports
- the "classic" keyboard keys
- real function keys
- magsafe
- upgradable RAM
- user-accessible storage (SATA/M.2/etc)
- user-swappable battery
- non-glossy displays

Because that's what most people are complaining about.

-Why would you want USB-A? I've already moved my whole workflow to USB-C and I'll never go back, I detest having to use USB-A these days.
-I like the keyboard.
-I don't have the Pro but I've used them, I quite like the Touch Bar, would love it on the MacBook.
-USB-C for Magsafe is a fair trade off.
-Would be nice but it would mean a chunkier laptop.
-Again, it's accessibility vs size.
-Would be nice but totally unrealistic.
-Maybe we are just different people but I love the glossy display.

 

[ugru]

Your wishes are not very realistic though...

Not at all…

- next gen KBL R H mobile CPU will probably have 6 cores, luckily Q2/Q3 – 2018, in time for next rMBP;

- 1050 TI ad 1060 Max-Q GPU are easily fitted into a laptop as thick as the 2015 rMBP or little more, even with a 45W CPU (i7-7700HQ);

- USB-C max power delivery is 100W by the consortium standard, on the other hand the fact that Magsafe have never delivered more than 90W does not mean that Apple can't change their own proprietary standard as they wish to provide more power;

- the alleged higher battery consumption of 32 GB DDR4 (for those who need it) will be counterbalanced by a 25% bigger battery;

People were asking Apple to build a workstation laptop for the last 20 years I guess. Its obvious that they are not interested in building one.

They understood that neutering the Mac Pro by building the Trashcan Pro was not a good idea. They realized that they “designed themselves into a thermal corner” (in Craig Federighi’s own words) and had to backpedal.

I wish they will do a U-turn also on the laptops.

 

[Fishrrman]

c0ppo wrote:
"I don't want a 2015. I don't want a 2016/2017 version. What I do want is current cpu/gpu in a MBP."

Perhaps Apple ought to bring out a "MacBook Pro Retro" model, using the 2015 case design with an upgraded motherboard, offering the older complement of ports with perhaps one or two USB-c as well. Advertise it specifically to folks who need both legacy ports and updated internals.

Sell it side-by-side with the "newer design" MBPro's.
Then... "let the market decide"...

 

[supermars]

MAGSAFE !

HDMI !

Battery life !

 

[slitherjef]

So...
-Thinner
-Even less tactile keyboard
-Notch
-Higher resolution retina emojiboard
-An updated burger emoji since Google made theirs closer to apples in a recent update
-6 core CPU with 4 of the cores disabled for better dual core performance
-less ram or at least the same at ever so slightly faster clock speed
-All at yet a 500$ premium

--

In all seriousness I am actually starting to wonder when Apple will start using their A11 chips from their iPad pros in the new MacBook pro machines to save on money and to make the machines even slimmer...

 

[William Payne]

Magsafe is a funny one. It's something many apple users demand, yet millions and millions of windows laptop users have never had and the way people talk about the need for MagSafe you would think that there are just laptops flying everything because of cable tripping.

 

[PhoneI]

So there's nothing wrong with an unreliable keyboard that has so little tactile response it's like typing on an on-screen keyboard?

Doesn't feel like I'm typing on an on-screen keyboard at all. Have you even tried using the keyboard for more than a few minutes? I much prefer it to the old.

 

[William Payne]

Doesn't feel like I'm typing on an on-screen keyboard at all. Have you even tried using the keyboard for more than a few minutes? I much prefer it to the old.

Yeah I find it's very much a personal preference thing. I can definitely say that there are those who will hate it.

 

[leman]

-6 core CPU with 4 of the cores disabled for better dual core performance
-All at yet a 500$ premium

Its called Surface Book

In all seriousness I am actually starting to wonder when Apple will start using their A11 chips from their iPad pros in the new MacBook pro machines to save on money and to make the machines even slimmer...

Once they get fast enough. Which will still take some time.

 

[SteveJUAE]

Eh source for this data? Apple don't publish breakdowns by each model so like.....where is this coming from ?

Edit: Oh I see what you did. You took the overall sales figures and volume sold for each quarter which they do publish and simply put the most recent model alongside it. Very misleading.

Not if you were following the discussion in a MBP thread

 

[zaphodb3]

Will they really bring back any the following?
- one or two USB 3.0 type A ports
- the "classic" keyboard keys
- real function keys
- magsafe
- upgradable RAM
- user-accessible storage (SATA/M.2/etc)
- user-swappable battery
- non-glossy displays

Because that's what most people are complaining about.

I could see them maybe developing a proper usb-c magsafe power connection, and maybe evolving the function key row (my hope is for proper keys with lcd icons). The rest are very much dead in the water, though. USB 3.0 is not "future", I think people are by and large fine with the clicky keyboard apart from a vocal minority on this forum, and the rest of that stuff you mention has not been Apple's MO for years.

 

[iMi]

Jony hears your criticism and will soon introduce new emojis to help you better express that rage.

 

[827538]

Not at all…

- next gen KBL R H mobile CPU will probably have 6 cores, luckily Q2/Q3 – 2018, in time for next rMBP;

- 1050 TI ad 1060 Max-Q GPU are easily fitted into a laptop as thick as the 2015 rMBP or little more, even with a 45W CPU (i7-7700HQ);

- USB-C max power delivery is 100W by the consortium standard, on the other hand the fact that Magsafe have never delivered more than 90W does not mean that Apple can't change their own proprietary standard as they wish to provide more power;

- the alleged higher battery consumption of 32 GB DDR4 (for those who need it) will be counterbalanced by a 25% bigger battery;



They understood that neutering the Mac Pro by building the Trashcan Pro was not a good idea. They realized that they “designed themselves into a thermal corner” (in Craig Federighi’s own words) and had to backpedal.

I wish they will do a U-turn also on the laptops.

A mobile GTX 1060 has a TDP of 80W... and you want to stick that in a MacBook? Even undervolted and underclocked that would not be possible.

Kabylake H 6 Core mobile CPU? What?

A 6 Core Coffeelake H or Icelake I can see. Not a Kabylake chip. But I think we will have to wait until Icelake for 6 Core mobile CPU’s and the shrink to 10nm.
The 8700k does use more power than the 7700k/6700k.

 

[SteveJUAE]

Here it is (I hope you meant the avg. revenue)



(Given a precedent, the following is my subjective random ranting without any claim of objectivity).

Looking at this, I am actually even more sure that my interpretation is not so wrong

First of all, one needs to make clear that Apple's quarters are actually a bit misleading. The Q1 2017 *is not* the first quarter of 2017, its actually October-December 2016. Q4 is late summer (July-September), Q2 is spring (April-June) and Q1 is winter (January-March). There seem to be two "low" quarters (Q2, Q3) alternating between two "high" quarters (Q4, Q1). What this tells us that people generally buy Macs over the winter holiday season (makes sense), but also in late summer (kind of makes sense I guess).

The Q4 2016/Q1 2017 is very interesting here. We see that the late summer 2016 is rather lacklustre, since I guess people were getting upset about lack of updates. Then over the autumn/christmas period, the sales surge. Actually, that sales period sold more Macs than the holiday shopping period (Q1) in 2015 and almost as many as in 2014 (despite declining PC sales). Later in 2017, the sales drop rapidly (I guess everyone who wanted a new MBP got it over before January), and then we have a surge again in late summer, after the KL refresh.

Few interesting observations about sale numbers: in the year since the 2016 MBP refresh, Apple has sold 19391 Macs. This is from autumn 2016 up to September 2017. In the six quarters since the introduction of 2015 MBP and up to the 2016 redesign, Apple has sold 28989 Macs. These two numbers are consisten with each other, since 2/3 (scaling from 6 to 4 quarters) of 28989 is 19326 (its virtually the same number actually).

There is also another quite interesting tidbit. The late summer of 2015 was an absolute record, selling 5709 Macs. Actually, this is the only case in our little sample where the late summer was better for Macs than the Christmas season. What also puzzled me is that the average revenue for that quarter is among the lowest though. I had a look, and do you know what other products were released in 2015? Right, the 12" MacBook. So maybe what we see here are students etc. getting MacBooks as schools start? Of course, only a conjecture, but something that makes sense to me.

Anyway, in summary, looking at this data I see no reason to suggest that the new MBP is selling poorly. The holiday sales of Macs are as strong in 2016/2017 as in any other year. The declines in Q2/Q3 (winter and spring) 2017 are consistent with what we see for previous years. Not to mention that the average revenue among the highest, suggesting that its generated by sales of more expensive units (so mixture of MBP there should be rather high). Finally, if you add to this the fact that the PC market saw a decline of at least 20% since 2015 (based on New_Mac_Smell's links above), I'd say that its rather good performance indeed.


(Note, of course the number of Macs are in million of units, as used by apple).

Actually I was hoping for dual axis graph my bad for not being more specific

As ever Apple have us second guessing at best even with these numbers

There are a few other key changes eg MBA 11" dropped off, changes in Imac and the larger release price of the 2016/2017 MBP over previous gens etc

I would guess that given the average unit price only varies +/- $100 there has not been a great shift in ratio between high end and low end units sold until you assume/factor higher prices in 2016/17 and the cheap MBA was removed .

So maybe there is less sales of higher end models than previous years especially 2014 when the average was also in the 1.3s. Of course revenue seems unaffected due to higher prices.

So maybe many pros's did vote with their wallets without hurting Apples. If so we will see more features catered for the majority average user and hopefully the pro's supported elsewhere

 

[RevTEG]

Before I buy a new MacBook Pro I want 2 things, magsafe and a keyboard that travels.

I agree… As a matter of fact, I sold my 2016 MacBook and bought a refurbished 2015 rMBP just because I hated the butterfly keyboard so much. Plus having MagSafe back has already “saved” me after my 20 month stumbled through the cord. She didn’t trip and the MacBook didn’t get pulled off the table because MagSafe disconnected as designed.