Except you wouldn't get finger prints all over your screen and you wouldn't need to reach upwards to interact in things - come on man, an interactive touch bar is far better than a touch screen laptop which they've been trying and failing to push on the Windows side for over a decade now (even including completely re-writing Windows TWICE to try and turn it into a touch primarily OS!!)
It's not just a CPU upgrade and a touch strip though is it. It's a Skylake processor, its the best port ever seen on any computer ever a 40gbps Thunderbolt 3 port, not just one by 4 of them, enabling us to add external drives that can do 4000MB/s read and write! Its a wide colour gamut much brighter screen, its a double size track pad, its a better keyboard, its far far improved speakers, it's touch ID for logging in and buying things, its faster RAM, its a SSD unmatched in any other product currently, 3000MB/s read and write is utterly insane speeds! It's a new much thinner and much lighter shape and that is welcome over here (as is Space Grey!) Its FAR FAR better graphics from a new line Radeon just introduced yesterday after the MacBook Pro announcement, its also Bluetooth 4.2 which i'm sure will come in handy for me at some point.
But yeah ok - its just a pressor and some touch strip thingy.
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As said about a hundred times to all the moaners, Kaby Lake isn't out until next year - and the difference it'll make isn't worth delaying the laptop for.
People need to get out of this mindset that Apple's computers will follow Intels release cycle, there about 7-8 features far more important in this laptop than whatever minor cycle name Intel is giving their chips.
"fingerprints" are your only reasoning for not going touchscreen, yet have no problems with phones and tablets?
I've been using touchscreens now for a little while. They work very well even on laptops. and for the things that they demo'd the touchbar far, they work exactly the same way. just, live, right in your program, instead of down. Thus, you can actually look at your program and what you're doing, and not down at a touch strip to see what yo're actually pressing.
the Oled touchbar is cool. I actually do like it. But lets not pretend that it's some magical new thing here. It's an attempt by apple to give "touchscreen" like functionality without walking back on their words. meanwhile, every other vendor offers touchscreens that sell well
And yes, it's a skylake processor. Procreassor upgrades don't generally cause the overall device price to go up by large amounts. It's a replacement part, not an additivie part. You're not charging haswell + skylake CPU prices. You're taking Haswell completely out and putting in a Skylake CPU. The difference in part price between Haswell and Skylake isn't $500. In fact, Intel has generally lowered prices from previous. Even fi thats not the case here, replacing Haswell with Skylake isn't a $500 upgrade.
Thunderbolt 3/USB-C is nice. But it's driven by the CPU here, Apple didn't suddenly do anything to add it. In fact, they took out other technologies such as SD card, MagSafe, HDMI, etc. the overall costs to have 4 of the exact same port and nothing else is lower, than to have to manufacture multiple ports AND the controllers for each.
The RAM itself isn't necessarily going to be faster. Reports show that it's still using DDR3 and not DDR4 ram. However, in most testing, RAM speed is still not that integral. most DDR and DDR4 ram behaves similarly.
the keyboard is not necessarily "Better" either. There are many people who cannot stand the new butterfly mechanism. And if it's anything like the MacBook keyboard, i'm right out. Cannot type on that thing, and I'm a touch typist who can type on most keyboards at 100+ WPM.
at the end of the day, many of these "upgrades" that you list, the Bluetooth, the graphics, etc. are not additive upgrades but replacement upgrades. Either they replaced an older tech, or they are substitute for.
At the end of the day, the $500 extra doesn't feel justified. at least to me. and "it's slimmer!" isn't worth $500 if it means cutting out other things. This is supposed to be a "pro" laptop. Where "thinness" is NOT the #1 factor.
as iv'e said. This is a great laptop. It's not worth $500 extra over previous generations, but a good laptop. Just not the revolutionary product Apple is marketing it as
