New MacBook Pro Has Better Keyboard Than 12-Inch MacBook, But It's Expensive and Lacking Ports

[melendezest]

Well, I was critical of Apple as well in my post. Regardless, I disagree that Apple is the cause. The people who would continue using the same old technology until the end of time are the one's who are creating the problem. USB-C is a much better connector than the myriad of USB connectors currently in use. Apple is only encouraging others to move in that direction, where they would otherwise maintain the status quo to their own detriment and Apple's as a competitive tech company.

USB-C/TB3 is superior to anything else that came before. No question.

But that is not the point. The point is that Apple chose to make it the only one in their machine. They NEVER did this before (on the MBP, that is). They also don't learn from history. When they tried to introduce the unibody MB without a firewire port years ago, it failed. Next iteration, they put it in and called it the 13" MBP.

So again, now every MBP user on Earth has to fix the issue Apple created, with dongles.

If you think that this has everything to do with pushing the industry forward, you're mistaken.The guy at Apple with the drive to actually do that is long dead.

The reasoning for the decision to put in one port type in their machines is simple: money and laziness

TC is a bean-counter.

It saves Apple money (in R&D, tooling, you name it) to install just one port type.

It creates a new revenue stream every time the transition period occurs, as they create the problem and provide the solution. They write the virus, and the patch for it.

 

[DrSkywalker]

People forget the 13" MBP has a Retina display, so a direct comparison to the 13" Air isn't quite valid. And about ports, dongles, etc. - sooner or later someone has to have the guts to dump old tech in order to move on. Apple dumped the floppy, the CD drive, the original iPhone jack, heck even phono plugs. There was always wailing and gnashing of teeth, but then it became the new normal. USB-C is the way of the (immediate) future and infinitely more powerful and versatile. The change needs to happen, so you just rip off the band aid and make it happen. I have no problems with it. And while I'd like the price to be lower, you're getting a lot of advanced machine and over the 3+ year life span it's not a big investment.

 

[BenTrovato]

We aren't quite at full usb C yet but we weren't quite at ditching the DVD drive yet when Apple pulled the plug. If you still need usbA then you have to stick with the 2015 models or embrace the dongle.

As others have stated, the problem I have with going full usbC is that their own flagship breadwinner, the iPhone, ships with a USB A cable and the move to full USB C is purely a pre emptive money grab before the entire industry switches over.

 

[6836838]

I don't understand the fuss about the pricing. It seems to be mostly in line with the previous (and earlier) generations?

Did you factor in the $200 of adapters and dongles required?

 

[Marx55]

Besides Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gbps), bring also USB 3.1 Type-C (Reversible) Generation 2 (10 Gbps) and SDXC with extra pins supporting maximum read/write speed (300 MB/s).

 

[stockscalper]

People forget the 13" MBP has a Retina display, so a direct comparison to the 13" Air isn't quite valid. And about ports, dongles, etc. - sooner or later someone has to have the guts to dump old tech in order to move on. Apple dumped the floppy, the CD drive, the original iPhone jack, heck even phono plugs. There was always wailing and gnashing of teeth, but then it became the new normal. USB-C is the way of the (immediate) future and infinitely more powerful and versatile. The change needs to happen, so you just rip off the band aid and make it happen. I have no problems with it. And while I'd like the price to be lower, you're getting a lot of advanced machine and over the 3+ year life span it's not a big investment.

True, but for the price they're charging Apple could have put an adapter in the box and an extension power cord. For 1800 bucks for the base Touch Bar model with outdated Skylake processors we have a right to demand more or at least a lower price. There are Windows laptops out there with Kabylake processors, more memory that have as long battery life, touch screen and are just as thin for almost half the cost of this computer. Just saying is all.

 

[6836838]

If Apple would of provided a Retina MBA with bumped up internal specs, keeping the same ports, etc.. I would have bought one yesterday.

Apple are you hearing us?!?

Would of?

 

[Feenician]

So my Macbook Pro 15 inch model from Late-2013 has the same exact Intel Quad-core i7 as the newest released Macbook Pro 15 inch model ... BUT OMG OMG OMG I CAN PUT EMOTICONS IN MY PROFESSIONAL WORK MUCH EASIER.

New we wouldn't make it past the first page without someone failing to understand Intel naming scheme.

No. You have a fourth generation i7, aka Haswell. These are 6th gen Skylake processors

 

[colbertnation]

I get that they're optimizing their software so that they can handle slower CPU's and GPU's, and still power 15 5K displays, etc. But what good is all that if there are apps, games, and even webpages that the iMac 5K stutters on? Hopefully that's not the case with these, but from the looks of it, I don't see what's so different.

 

[ashdelacroix]

I have defended Apple a lot over the years, and generally find people's attitudes towards obsolescent ports a bit dramatic, but unfortunately I have to say that Apple do now appear to be trying to create a future that is no longer iterative and well-managed, but almost impulsive and misguided.

Is it possible that power has gotten to Jony Ives's head in a big way? I can see him holding his ground about ports and such, whatever the engineers may say about the matter. After all, he's the most powerful person in the company after Tim Cook; and the only other people on the C-level are the CFO and COO, and these are not product people.

Getting rid of Magsafe is practically unforgivable. The times that thing has saved me! Over and over again at home and in the office. It's a unique marvel. We take it for granted, but it remains a brilliant piece of design.

As to removing the SD slot: this is such a fantastic port for shifting tonnes of files and video, and I keep an SD card connected, discretely, for Time Machine. No doubt Apple would advise me to use iCloud or buy an AirPort Time Capsule.

And now we have to buy additional cables and have a hazard of adapters to replicate what is lost. But hey, the machine is now 15% smaller. I'm not sure they've quite got the balance right at the moment. Besides, we wait a long time between innovations, so these big announcements need to pack a bigger punch. And they don't. Great if Apple announced these things every 9 to 12 months, but not every few years.

The lack of Mac Pro internal and iMac design updates is worrying. The Mac Pro alone is now, without question, a substantial embarrassment. It puts a question mark over the machine's long term future.

As cute and useful as it is, and I do think it has huge potential, 90 minutes to explain Touch Bar during the keynote implies there is nothing more important to talk about in the world of Mac, which is thoroughly dispiriting. Let's face it: the keynote was about Touch Bar. Everything else was obvious: better internals, better case, better display. We wouldn't expect anything less after all these years.

Iteration has its place, but the wow has gone.

 

[Feenician]

outdated Skylake processors

Wrong

 

[pioneer9k]

Yeah, disappointed. I waited a year and a half to buy a macbook pro. The price hike with 0 reason for it has literally turned me to buy an XPS 15 with 4k touch screen, i5, 8gb RAM, 256 GB SSD, GTX 960m with carbon fiber and aluminum body for $1200. I am looking forward to using it.

Ive wanted a macbook since i was 12 years old, but i honestly do not vibe with apple anymore, and microsoft seems to be the one doing the innovating and listening to the customers and looking into the future here. I'd get a surface if I didn't want the graphics power, but I'm gonna be using graphics power a lot more than tablet mode so that's why I went with it.

Not even disappointed that after 9 years of wanting a macbook i got a dell, just disappointed that apple is really trickling away from computers and innovation across the board.

 

[Pootmatoot]

Let's be honest... the MacBook Pro is a wonderful revision... of the Macbook Air.

The Macbook Pro is discontinued, and the pricing is based on fantasy economics.

 

[pioneer9k]

I have defended Apple a lot over the years, and generally find people's attitudes towards obsolescent ports a bit dramatic, but unfortunately I have to say that Apple do now appear to be trying to create a future that is no longer iterative and well-managed, but almost impulsive and misguided.

Is it possible that power has gotten to Jony Ives's head in a big way? I can see him holding his ground about ports and such, whatever the engineers may say about the matter. After all, he's the most powerful person in the company after Tim Cook; and the only other people on the C-level are the CFO and COO, and these are not product people.

Getting rid of Magsafe is practically unforgivable. The times that thing has saved me! Over and over again at home and in the office. It's a unique marvel. We take it for granted, but it remains a brilliant piece of design.

As to removing the SD slot: this is such a fantastic port for shifting tonnes of files and video, and I keep an SD card connected, discretely, for Time Machine. No doubt Apple would advise me to use iCloud or buy an AirPort Time Capsule.

And now we have to buy additional cables and have a hazard of adapters to replicate what is lost. But hey, the machine is now 15% smaller. I'm not sure they've quite got the balance right at the moment. Besides, we wait a long time between innovations, so these big announcements need to pack a bigger punch. And they don't. Great if Apple announced these things every 9 to 12 months, but not every few years.

The lack of Mac Pro internal and iMac design updates is worrying. The Mac Pro alone is now, without question, a substantial embarrassment. It puts a question mark over the machine's long term future.

As cute and useful as it is, and I do think it has huge potential, 90 minutes to explain Touch Bar during the keynote implies there is nothing more important to talk about in the world of Mac, which is thoroughly dispiriting. Let's face it: the keynote was about Touch Bar. Everything else was obvious: better internals, better case, better display. We wouldn't expect anything less after all these years.

Iteration has its place, but the wow has gone.

Exactly... for 2 years we get this? The vision of Steve really does seem to not able to be carried on by Tim as I truly believed it would be. Absolutely disappointed that this company i truly held close to my heart since i was 12 years old has rapidly lost my interest and ironically MS has damn near my full attention. The laptops are way better. MS's own hardware is way more innovative and interesting. The operating system is making leaps and bounds in progress ESPECIALLY from W8.

 

[Mac 128]

Pretty simple really. I'm betting every single person in this thread...nay...that browses this site, has a USB device they'd like to plug in to that computer. I mean ****, do you own an iPhone? What if you are out and about and someone hands you a thumb drive that you need a file from? If you own one of these, YOU WILL own a USB-A adapter. You'll probably leave the store with the USB-C/AV adapter that includes HDMI.

Well that's true for any PC that's developed over the next 5 years with USB-C only. At some point you have to update your gear. There will come a point as USB-C becomes the norm where, yes someone will hand you a USB-A thumb drive and you won't be able to use it. But that was also true of the floppy disk when Apple dropped that from laptops and desktops. If it's a real issue for anyone, they will indeed carry an adapter. I carry an Ethernet adapter because I need one to connect to my wired network at work. But it goes in my bag with the laptop. In fact, that's where I carry my charging brick, etc. You could just as well make a case that the MBP is unusable after the battery runs out and you don't have a charging brick with you. Or I need an adapter to use a VGA projector with my work PC. The bottom line is, there will always be a need for adapters on any computer given a particular need. But at some point the market will normalize around USB-C and it will cease to be an issue for most.

USB-C/TB3 is superior to anything else that came before. No question.

But that is not the point. The point is that Apple chose to make it the only one in their machine. They NEVER did this before (on the MBP, that is). They also don't learn from history. When they tried to introduce the unibody MB without a firewire port years ago, it failed. Next iteration, they put it in and called it the 13" MBP.

So again, now every MBP user on Earth has to fix the issue Apple created, with dongles.

If you think that this has everything to do with pushing the industry forward, you're mistaken.The guy at Apple with the drive to actually do that is long dead.

The reasoning for the decision to put in one port type in their machines is simple: money and laziness

TC is a bean-counter.

It saves Apple money (in R&D, tooling, you name it) to install just one port type.

It creates a new revenue stream every time the transition period occurs, as they're create the problem and provide the solution. They write the virus, and the patch for it.

Sorry no. You're history is wrong, or at least your point is. Apple removed all of the legacy ports from the iMac, and then a couple of years later removed them all from the PowerBook G3 Firewire, yes not technically a MBP Pro, but that's really irrelevant. So even though they didn't narrow it down to one port (which was technically impossible at the time), they still put the customer in the position of buying dongles and adapters for all of their legacy equipment.

For the first time, it's possible to incorporate every port a person might need into one connector. Far more efficient than half-a-dozen different proprietary ports.

And your hyperbole is not welcome -- "every MBP user on Earth"? Really? Actually it will only affect the 2 million or so MBP owners that may appear by the end of this year, likely less than 10% of the global installed user base of Macs. And it will be no different than taking my SCSI port off the PowerBook and replacing it with Firewire. Or, removing my serial and ADB ports and replacing them with USB. Within 5 years, most everyone was using USB, something I'm convinced would have taken much longer had Apple not jump started the revolution by pushing a substantial user base toward creating the demand for those products. The same thing will happen here.

I get you're inconvenienced, but it's the price of using Apple. Always has been. There's nothing new here. Thanks in part to Apple, most PC users will be using USB-C almost exclusively in a few years, and this unpleasant transition will be behind us for the most part, for which we will all be the better.

 

[Pootmatoot]

Yeah, disappointed. I waited a year and a half to buy a macbook pro. The price hike with 0 reason for it has literally turned me to buy an XPS 15 with 4k touch screen, i5, 8gb RAM, 256 GB SSD, GTX 960m with carbon fiber and aluminum body for $1200. I am looking forward to using it.

Ive wanted a macbook since i was 12 years old, but i honestly do not vibe with apple anymore, and microsoft seems to be the one doing the innovating and listening to the customers and looking into the future here. I'd get a surface if I didn't want the graphics power, but I'm gonna be using graphics power a lot more than tablet mode so that's why I went with it.

Not even disappointed that after 9 years of wanting a macbook i got a dell, just disappointed that apple is really trickling away from computers and innovation across the board.

Don't buy the Dell XPS 15 now! It's got a refresh due in a few months, with the first release of Quadcore Kaby Lake and an Nvidia 10 series... it'll be peak of the cycle.

Or... the sort of features that Apple should have used by waiting 2 months and actually using cutting edge stuff, like they did 8 years ago.

 

[DribbleCastle]

So my Macbook Pro 15 inch model from Late-2013 has the same exact Intel Quad-core i7 as the newest released Macbook Pro 15 inch model ... BUT OMG OMG OMG I CAN PUT EMOTICONS IN MY PROFESSIONAL WORK MUCH EASIER.

Do you really think it's the exact same? Just because it's branded with the i7 and possibly has the same Ghz value does not make it the same. You got some learning to do.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

In my office we are looking into old MBP... they were better and now they are cheaper!

When it comes to ports, the MacBook Air is so much more useful than the MacBook Pros, which is bizarre.

The Air has 2 USB ports, 1 Thunderbolt, MagSafe, SD and headphone jack. It's miles cheaper and has two hours more battery life. I wonder how many Pros will say, "Can I get by with the weaker performance of the Air until I get back to my desktop?"

 

[skitidetdu]

I would say it is a macbook semi pro, even with the touch bar thingy. I own the 2015 macbook pro and it is thin enough. I don't wanna jerk around with adapters when I'm on the go and giving lectures at different places, some with dvi, some with hdmi and some with vga just to have a even thinner laptop.

 

[simonmet]

I am surprised so few people in this thread mention RAM and the graphics card. 16GB is max on ANY MBP. Will actual pros be be able to use this as their primary computer?

Yeah when I heard that my immediate thought and reaction was they were building in an upgrade path for the first revision in 2017.

16 GB has been possible since the first rMBP in 2012 hasn't it? 2016 really should've seen this expanded for a pro laptop when many Windows alternatives now support 32.

I can't see Apple's declining Mac market share reversing at these prices either.

 

[apusateri]

I don't wanna jerk around with adapters when I'm on the go and giving lectures at different places, some with dvi, some with hdmi and some with vga just to have a even thinner laptop.

Just curious, how do you give lectures at different places (some with DVI, some with HDMI, and some with VGA) without adapters at present? Does your laptop have all of those ports built in?

 

[DudeDad]

$50 for USB-C to Thunderbolt 2
$20 for USB-C to USB
$25 for USB-C to Lightning
$70 for USB-C to HDMI
$70 for USB-C to VGA

Nah, im good

First, you really need the HDMI and VGA? I would guess the majority do not.
Second, if USB-C is the next big thing, you will need to make the jump at some point...perhaps having one of the ports should have been "regular" USB.

 

[ignatius345]

The all USB-C ports suck but I despise the MB keyboard. That was the dealbreaker.

Same. I would grumble and move on with USB-C, and even choke down the loss of the excellent MagSafe port... but when you throw in a useless keyboard on top of that, it's just useless for me.

If the v2 "butterfly" keyboard is better, and IF they update the MacBook Retina to use it instead of the crap one it has now, I'd consider it -- but I'm not exactly holding my breath. If my MBA bit the dust tomorrow, I guess I'd replace it with... another MBA. :/

 

[cmwade77]

I am confused, for a comparably equipped older Macbook (before the announcement was made), the price was within $100 or so of what I ordered the new one with the touchbar for. How is that so much more expensive?

Now, consider this, the new Macbooks use an industry standard USB-C charger, which means that my Anker power brick that I originally bought to charge my Note 7 (and now is going be used to charge my google Pixel) can also be used to charge the new Mackbook Pro, as can any phone charge with the proper wattage, which I believe the Note 7 chargers should be strong enough and since you didn't need to return those, I now have several chargers that I can use without needing to buy a special Macbook charger.

As for RAM, I have been using a system with 16GB of RAM for some time now, I don't see that being an issue, especially with the faster processor and SSD, really with an SSD, the need for extra RAM diminishes greatly due to the speed that the pagefile can swap at. The graphics card on my 13" Macbook runs two external monitors (one 24" and one 27") quite nicely and this is an improved version of the graphics card, so I don't see that being an issue.

Yes, some people will need to buy adapters, since I already have a phone with USB-C, I have been building up the adapters already, so that is a non-issue to me, in fact the idea that I can charge with USB-C is a big plus to me, as I mentioned in the first part of the comment.

Is this laptop for everyone? No, but there are a decent number of people that this will work amazingly well for.

 

[doelcm82]

That is the most Apple-apologetic response I've ever heard.

So, Apple is right in moving the industry forward by telling the customer f** you and pay more for our machine, and get these dongles here that we'll sell to you for $50 a piece to replace the built-in functionality we had in our previous machines.

Right. I'll pass on the kool-aid, thanks.

BTW, USB-A will not go away for years. YEARS.

You know what also hasn't and won't go away any time far?

Ethernet. SD Cards. HDMI. The benefit of having MagSafe.

People will start noticing that this is BS and will stop buying their products.

Sorry, but the Retina MBP and even more so the cMBPs are better machines than this new, thinner "Pro".

Glad to be the best at something.

Customers are in the position to tell Apple where to go if they don't like what Apple has to offer.

The dongles in question don't cost $50 each, and if you pay that much you're not really looking. Since USB-C is not a proprietary Apple port, you'll be able to get them from other sellers and you don't have to wash your hands after handing more money over to Apple.

I agree that USB-A will be around for years. I'm glad that it won't be around for decades to come.

I don't agree with you about Ethernet (the RJ-45 port) I've used it less and less over the years. I remember when ethernet over coax was the standard. Back in 2004, I built a home, and to future-proof it I installed two separate ethernet networks with wires to every room in both buildings. Never used it. We got WiFi and didn't need ethernet.

I also don't agree about SD cards. My five-year-old Sony mirrorless camera doesn't have any wireless capability, so I do use the SD reader. But I think most new cameras have built-in wifi or some other way of wirelessly transmitting photos. A dongle would suit me, but those with newer cameras won't need it.

HDMI? There are other ways to send video to your TV than putting your computer within cable's reach of it. If you absolutely must use a cable, I expect the emergence of USB-C monitors will mean that USB-C ports on TVs will also start to appear.

MagSafe? I think I heard about someone coming out with a magnetic breakaway USB-C power cable. Now the benefits of MagSafe can be enjoyed by people running Windows machines, too.