Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MacBook Pro Touch reviews from actual users
- Thread starter MrRugged
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Apple bases their battery life on using Apple software. It's not reasonable to conclude that you'll get that with whatever third-party stuff you install. I mean, you've got a lot of stuff installed. Dropbox is notorious for constantly scanning stuff in the background, for instance. Apple can't be responsible for all the badly-written code out there. If I was you, I'd uninstall all of that third-party stuff in your menubar until the kernel_task starts going down to something normal.
Can you go into detail telling us what you do that is so great? Would love to hear some examples. How about posting a video you made?
Or do you just critique other people that are enthusiastic about something?
Played with the TB at the Apple Store today. It's neat in concept but overall I can't see how it would make my workflow better except maybe in FCPX. I liked the FCPX controlls very much, especially scrubing. It's great with Safari too navigating tabs, especially if you are like me and your pages and tabs get lost in the crowd.
But then there were the mundane things like adjusting sound or brightness which seemed to overcomplicate a simple task. For example, with a non-TB Mac to adjust brightness you just press the brightness key untill you get the brightness you want. Pretty quick and easy. With the TB Mac you have to press the virtual brightness key (or the key to get to that screen) then adjust. That is one or two clicks then a swipe to adjust. So it's cool looking but not faster or easier.
Similar in an app like Pages (I don't normally use Pages, but assume Word will have similar workflow when updated). You can bold, ital, set headers and footers from the TB. Again futuristic looking but you have to take your eyes off the screen and then futz around for what you are looking for. For me it's easier to just use the ribbon with major formatting options visible at a glance or a key shortcut.
But then there were the mundane things like adjusting sound or brightness which seemed to overcomplicate a simple task. For example, with a non-TB Mac to adjust brightness you just press the brightness key untill you get the brightness you want. Pretty quick and easy. With the TB Mac you have to press the virtual brightness key (or the key to get to that screen) then adjust. That is one or two clicks then a swipe to adjust. So it's cool looking but not faster or easier.
Similar in an app like Pages (I don't normally use Pages, but assume Word will have similar workflow when updated). You can bold, ital, set headers and footers from the TB. Again futuristic looking but you have to take your eyes off the screen and then futz around for what you are looking for. For me it's easier to just use the ribbon with major formatting options visible at a glance or a key shortcut.
Thanks for the feedback!
I agree with you: for the old school crowd (me included) keyboard shortcuts is where we feel most comfortable and productive.
It seems to me that Apple replaced a seldom used row of function keys (I may adjust brightness once or twice every week). In my case, I have to actually look at the function keys to know which one does what. Back in the windows days, F4 (save) and F9 (recalc) where muscle memory. But I have not have a spreadsheet with manual recalc in ages and F4 does not save in MacOS.
How useful will be the toolbar ? As you mentioned, FCPX seems to leverage it. I like text predictions and AI shortcuts (email, phone, etc). It will all depend on software developers. From the speed of implementation by third parties so far, my guess that after 6 months most of your frequently used software (20% Pareto rule) will be using toolbar shortcuts.
With the system software (mail, safari, notes) plus Keynote already updated, when MSFT updates Office I will be a happy camper
You're kidding, right?
Do you honestly think Apple sells a pro level computer expecting people to only run Apple software on it? Do you think that Apple employees do not use non-Apple software? Why does Apple demo Photoshop and other software from other developers if they don't expect people to use it?
Your point is irrelevant anyways for the reasons already mentioned: people who have the 13" non-TB version are getting 10+ hours with their non-Apple software. And I myself get 11 hours with my 3 year-old MBA using the same combination of software.
I found a way to make changing brightness/volume a one press process: just hold the brightness/volume button and the slider will appear. Keep your finger on the TB and scrub left/right accordingly.
That's I how feel so far. It's easier to hit cmd+b to bold then look away and press the TB button. It's a cool concept, but I feel the real beneficiaries are people not familiar with commands.
meanwhile, you can still use the free virtualbox!.
The Mac and Linux version of .Net Core are already at version 1.1. There is also a docker image.. It should work perfectly.
I agree, but maybe you should consider giving it the benefit of the doubt. Use it for 2-3 days and see what happens.
Personally I agree with those background tasks being too high, but on the other hand it's a pretty obvious pattern that none of us non TB MBP users seem to be affected, while lots of TB users are complaining about battery life.
played with my 13inch TB pro the last couple of days. battery was at 5-6 hours for the first two days, been getting a solid 10-11 hours recently. people just doesnt understand the need of a burn in and indexing. face palm.
as to my experience, i came from a 2010 model, so everything is kinda an upgrade to me. Though, the TB need some getting used to. The Data write in speed can be summarized with one word : WOW. Other then that, the build quality is great as always, and everything just flows, not much heat issues as well, though the computer does warm up under significant load (Safari, youtube running, multiple tabs, programs running in the background etc- utilise around 7.8gb of ram) thank god i stuck with apple and did not move to Xps 13.
as to my experience, i came from a 2010 model, so everything is kinda an upgrade to me. Though, the TB need some getting used to. The Data write in speed can be summarized with one word : WOW. Other then that, the build quality is great as always, and everything just flows, not much heat issues as well, though the computer does warm up under significant load (Safari, youtube running, multiple tabs, programs running in the background etc- utilise around 7.8gb of ram) thank god i stuck with apple and did not move to Xps 13.
I had my 15" for about a day and half now. I've written a review on my blog
http://www.mactip.net/macbook-pro-15-touch-bar-unboxing-review-2016/
TL,DR
- Dongles, dongles...
- I miss the SD card slot more than I thought I would.
- Touch bar is going to need time to become truly useful.
http://www.mactip.net/macbook-pro-15-touch-bar-unboxing-review-2016/
TL,DR
- Dongles, dongles...
- I miss the SD card slot more than I thought I would.
- Touch bar is going to need time to become truly useful.
Very happy to hear this, it gives me hope.
[doublepost=1479348080][/doublepost]
What kind of battery life are you seeing with the 15"?
About 8 hours is probably typical. Right now I'm am just browsing the web with 10 Chrome tabs at 98% battery, and it's telling me 9 hours remaining. Ten hours *might* be possible with safari.
If 8 hours is typical with the 15", and it has a larger battery than the 13", then it's not surprising that the 13" gets around 6-7 hours—which is what many people are reporting.
Entity framework Core is still missing a ton of features that EF6 has (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/efcore-and-ef6/features), so until it catches up (or we decide to bite off a huge port), we are stuck.
You misunderstood me. I meant that Apple bases battery life on the most optimistic scenario, because that's what everyone else does. Same way that car MPGs are rated based on blue-sky perfect driving. To expect them to load up a bunch of memory-resident utilities and run processor-intensive apps for their battery life claim is unreasonable, in addition to the fact that everyone's "pro" needs are different. You might be a professional writer, while I might be doing 3D renders or compiling code all day. Our battery life will be much different.
So far I've been getting about 8 hours on my MBP 15 w/ TB, but I haven't had a consistent day of normal work yet on it.
Can some of you guys who are testing and reporting battery life install Battery Logger so we can see exactly how long your MBP lasts without guestimates? 
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battery-logger/id473673114?mt=12
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battery-logger/id473673114?mt=12
Can some of you guys who are testing and reporting battery life install Battery Logger so we can see exactly how long your MBP lasts without guestimates?
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battery-logger/id473673114?mt=12
I am using Battery Health 2 to track battery life. It has similar features to Battery Logger, I think.
tMBP 13". On my third charge. I've used it for 3:27, and battery is at 52% and says 3:10 remaining. So on track for just just over 6.5 hours, which is very close to my previous two cycles—and also relatively consistent with the Verge review, where they said they never broke 7 hours.
Thanks that is a good indicator but still not accurate as the estimates are useless.
Does battery health show you a history log?
With battery logger you can see a history of all the time the laptop was active between the charger disconnecting and connecting again.
This should give us the most accurate readings even if your usage is split over several usage sessions as long as you don't plug it in at all.
Touchbar is great so far. Definitely needs to improve in how things flow but that will come in time. It's not universal across all apps, obviously. I think in time, it will be a good addition to how we use keyboards.
Yes, it does show a log. That is where the 3:27 came from.
It shows data for each session. I haven't plugged in at all during this cycle, but it would show that as well if I did.