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Marco Arment Argues the 2012—2015 MacBook Pro is 'Best Laptop That Has Ever Existed'
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It's my "my issue." Ask Marco Arment and countless other rMBP lovers here who share my well-thought out sentiments.
You are also now speculating in order to defend the status quo. Don't underestimate Apple engineers. They easily could have included a full speed USB-A port along side 4 full speed USB-C ports AND thrown in the SD card slot too (even a UHS-II reader).
2/3 of Apple’s revenue comes from the iPhone. Apple’s “core fans” are sporting the iPhone X now.
I’m sure if Apple could, they’d move the Mac to ARM. They could unify the code and integrate iOS and MacOS even more tightly. But they are probably stuck with Intel for a while.
But we're still talking about NOTEBOOKS here, not DESKTOPS.
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The fact remains those are TWO DIFFERENT CONNECTIVITY OPTIONS (USB & FireWire). The rMBP currently offers just 1 -- USB-C. And I'm not arguing against the great flexibility of USB-C. I am simply saying that offering us at least 1 legacy USB-A port would have eliminated dongles until such a time that USB-C becomes ubiquitous, which probably won't happen for at least another 5 years.
Disagree.
Seem to forget the driving motivation of tech is to move with the times. Staying stagnant on a product line is a sure way to kill it. Because after all people want the Mac to die right?
Also I think Jobs would have loved the simplicity of one port for all.
And as always I wonder those who complain actually own a later model.
Seem to forget the driving motivation of tech is to move with the times. Staying stagnant on a product line is a sure way to kill it. Because after all people want the Mac to die right?
Also I think Jobs would have loved the simplicity of one port for all.
And as always I wonder those who complain actually own a later model.
No they couldn’t. The Intel chipsets don’t have the bandwidth. That’s why 2 of the ports on the 13” are half-speed (still TB2 speed). The 15” chipset has a little more bandwidth.
And all those ports would eat into the space for the battery. And you’d still be complaining about whichever legacy port you use that Apple left out.
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And someone mentioned the PowerBook FireWire in 2000.
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Two different BRAND NEW connectivity options that were not directly backward compatible with legacy devices the way USB-C and TB3 are today. There never was an adapter for legacy ADB or SCSI. You had to buy new peripherals. (Update, there were some, but none from Apple and they weren’t common).
That's no argument at all. No one is arguing that Apple should have left off USB-C or reduced the number to less than 4 ports. The issue is that Apple should have left in at least 1 legacy USB-A port and the SD card slot. That would not stagnate anything but instead make the machine more flexible, which goes back to the thrust of the original article we are discussing.
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Yes they could. We who want USB-A will likely use it more than USB-C, which means it is unlikely that we'd use all USB-C ports AND a USB-A port too. Hence, if the bandwidth is indeed crippled as you say, it's a non-issue. Using USB-A gives you full speed for that one port, and as you add USB-C devices, you eventually reach your upper bandwidth limit. So what? It does not prevent placing a USB-A port on the machine!
As I already said, there is no way to have 4 of the new ports and legacy USB-A and SD. There aren’t enough PCIe lanes in the Intel chips.
And you’d still be complaining about needing a hub because “one USB-A isn’t enough.” After all, you can’t plug in your iPhone and a USB drive at the same time.
Irrelevant. My point was that Apple offered TWO DIFFERENT connectivity options on that machine. With the late 2016 and newer rMBPs, you have ONE connectivity option, regardless of how flexible one wishes to argue it is.
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Fine, kill one of the USB-C ports in lieu of USB-A and the SD, until such a time that more lanes appear on Intel chips.
And no I would NOT be complaining about there being only 1 legacy USB-A port.
I wish Marco Arment would join in on this discussion and battle you status quo defenders. I'm growing weary of it. But the fact remains that many of us still think the 2015 edition was the best, and for good reason. No manner of calling up the past or talking about bandwidth will ever change that.
You just proved my point. If Apple had left USB-A then no one would ever adopt USB-C. It would serve as a charging port for Android phones, which is basically what it is on the Windows side.
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Two different connectivity options that were port incompatible with just about everything else on the market. The analogy would be if Apple released a MacBook today with USB-C and USB-D ports. So what if there is a second option if nothing supports that latter option.
If there were a single port back then that supported FireWire and USB perhaps Apple would have used it. There wasn’t. USB didn’t have the bandwidth for what Apple intended for FireWire. So they created essentially a proprietary port. With TB3 they don’t need to do that.
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You are the ones defending the status quo (all the legacy ports).
Just speculation on your part. If a lot of companies OTHER THAN APPLE pushed USB-C too, it would thrive. FireWire died out because it was Sony and Apple alone who used it!
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Again irrelevant to my earlier point. You are simply arguing something new and different. I am only arguing that the machine of old had two different types of ports. If we had more than just USB-C on the late 2016 and newer rMBPs, few people would be complaining about them, and you'd be bored at home rather than arguing with people like me in this thread!!
If you think as a stockholder then sure everything is great. Ride the John Scully coattails and bring whatever to market that's easy to hype. Cash in your stock options when the goodwill runs out. Actually living in that John Scully ecosystem and caring about things is a different story tho, and no Tim Cook's applestore "communities" are not exactly fooling anyone.
And that would make everything massively worse
Hackneyed way of looking at things considering the heritage of ditching ports at Apple and moving with the times. The trend has been to remove and make it simpler even during jobs tenure. It makes sense to go to a one port solution. People moan now but when everything goes USB C they will see the beauty in the move. Just as moving from old ports to new ones in the past.
You are comparing Steve Jobs’s handpicked successor to the Pepsi guy forced on him by the Board? Remember Jobs could have picked Forstall or put him instead of Ive in a “protected” position. He didn’t.
Cook’s been CEO for 6.5 years and was interim for 2 stints before, so effectively 8 years. By that time in Sculley’s tenure Apple was flailing.
I agree wth him . Each to their own , it's personal preference. Still not a fan of the new apple keyboards...
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Sculley and Cook picked up Apple in two very different states... reverse their timmings and Cook things get interesting . It's great to get a company with rock solid products - which are dominating, Sculley had no such advantage
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Sculley and Cook picked up Apple in two very different states... reverse their timmings and Cook things get interesting . It's great to get a company with rock solid products - which are dominating, Sculley had no such advantage
The keyboard takes getting used to. More concerning is the failure rate. I’m guessing we’ll see a Butterfly Keyboard 3. The difference between an original MacBook and the Pro/2017 MacBook is noticeable.
For it's time, I'd agree. I bought a maxed out 2012 the day they were launched, which happened to be the day that coincided with me moving to OSX. It was a truly excellent machine and thrashed every alternative out there in the Windows world. I'm not sure I'd agree with it being better than more current machines, but on the day that it launched it was head and shoulders above anything else in a way that few machines have ever been.
Sculley inherited an Apple that dominated the education market, which was big considering that the PC market was nascent. The Mac was a solid product with a good roadmap.
Also consider that Tim Cook was a big part of Apple’s revival. He joined in 1998 from the “safer” perch of Compaq (and IBM before that).
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I agree. I liked the Retina display and had a 2013 Pro. I like the 2016 better, though.
Agreed. Albeit the previous version wasn't THAT good either. I still prefer the one used before 2012 - for example, in the 2009 MBP models. And in the AA battery-operated Apple BT keyboards. (Unlike the newer, Lightning-enabled one, which has exactly the same (awful) key travel as the newer notebooks.)
Actually, I've even purchased an AA battery-operated Apple BT keyboard and, if I do know I'd enter a lot of text, I put it on top of my 2017 15" MBP's keyboard...
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Jobs handpicked Scully too and went to great lengths to bring him to Apple. It's an interesting story and along with the story of Xerox parc it's odd to watch history repeat itself.
Cook has been CEO for a long time, but every single product that weren't in the Jobs pipeline has had questionable quality, usability and direction. Instead of actually nurturing the apple community Cook talks about good causes and delivers the smiley keyboard pro, instead of actually delivering solid and groundbreaking features Cook croons about magic.
No. Jobs didn’t hand pick Sculley. His board forced him to pick a “pro” CEO. He deliberately picked someone in a different industry he thought he could dominate. The plan was to keep his board happy while he still ran the show. Sculley didn’t see it that way and won a boardroom coup. Cook worked for Jobs for years and stepped in twice while Jobs dealt with his health issues. He was a known quantity. And remember Steve Jobs in 2011 was different and more experienced than Steve Jobs of 1983 (a 28 year old “whiz kid” who hadn’t yet experienced the depths of failure). By 2011 Jobs had started Pixar (the source of most of his fortune, believe it or not) and parlayed Next into his ticket back to Apple.
Anyway, Services are a big success under Cook. The Watch is not a blockbuster but is a nice source of revenue, as big as the iPod at its peak.
Apple is a better corporate citizen now. That’s important given its user base. Maintaining a company at the top of its game is a different challenge from building a company that dominates. The proper comparison to Tim Cook isn’t Steve Jobs but Steve Ballmer instead. There will only be one Bill Gates and there was only one Steve Jobs. Arguably Cook is doing a better job than Ballmer did.
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Wellllll.... I think I can be considered a fan of the ATP.fm podcast. I've been listening to it for as long as it runs, and have listened to John's show and Marco's show at 5by5 before that.
However, for the last year or so, the podcast definitely has a complaining aspect to it. So much so, that they've addressed it at least twice, defending it on the show.
So if you simply read this article, it does indeed read like a comparison. But if you take it together with the ATP.fm podcast, it's part of a long string of complaints and rants. By the way, I'm not the only one who thinks so. Jason Snell (podcaster, writer for MacWorld), also mentioned in one of his podcasts that he sometimes skips parts of ATP.fm, when they start complaining.
2012-2015 MBP:
- iPhone: USB-A to Lightning cable
- Networking: TB1/2 to Ethernet adaptor
- Monitor: mDP to DP or HDMI to HDMI cable
- External HDD: USB3-A to USB-3B or TB1/2 to TB1/2 cable
- RAID: TB1/2 to TB1/2 cable
2016-2017 MBP:
- iPhone: USB-C to Lightning cable
- Networking: TB3 to Ethernet adaptor
- Monitor: USB-C to DP or USB-C to HDMI cable
- External HDD: USB-C to USB-C or TB3 to TB3 cable
- RAID: TB3 to TB3 cable
You need the same number of unique cables or adaptors for both types of MBP. Sure, these are new cables and you might need additional cables/adaptors for older peripherals (USB-C to USB-B cable, USB-C to USB-A adaptor, TB3 to TB2 adaptor) but the same was true for older peripherals five years ago (USB2-A to USB2-B, TB1/2 to FW800, FW800 to FW400). If you think that nobody should be forced to buy new cables or adaptors, than we still should have VGA, DVI, and FW ports.