New MacBook Pro Reviews Mixed as Touch Bar Called Everything From 'Useful' to 'Gimmick'

[Altis]

I'd like to see all these whiners and complainers on here actually go and USE the machine before talking about how terrible it is. I started out not liking it, then I went to the Apple Store and played with it for about 15 minutes. Now, I think it's a quite good laptop, with excellent battery life, great display, industry leading keyboard and trackpad, and good performance that would definitely be one of my top choices if I were going to get a computer right now.

I went to the Apple store to test it and found it worse than I thought (though I hadn't seen any reviews of the TB yet). I didn't expect so many complicated sub-menus, often with labels that aren't obvious or intuitive. The angle and placement of it makes it a bit tedious to interact with, and I would like the contrast to be better on the screen.

In general, it's a good idea to try something before judging it. But with the vast number of in-depth, highly detailed reviews, you can get a pretty good idea of what to expect with it.

 

[kstotlani]

Cunningham noted the Touch Bar's display dims after 60 seconds and turns off completely after 85 seconds to preserve battery life. You can tap the Touch Bar, the keyboard, or the trackpad to wake it back up. He said there is no option to change this behavior in System Preferences.

This just made it worse. Now you have to keep waking it up so an additional keystroke (touchtap). Amazing innovation to slow people down.
[doublepost=1479174253][/doublepost]

15 Verison without the Touchbar would really have been nice, and like 300$ cheaper, cause let be honest, half of us will find it gimmicky, and the other half useful.

You are too optimistic about the other half. After reading the 85 second timeout I wouldn't even pay the old price now. That is just a slap in the face of pros. Yes now your workflows will be better but all you have to do is keeping waking up our beloved touch bar. Keep touching (the bar)

 

[Harleg]

Whoever states that they don't use the FN keys very much either use their MB's in clamshell or they're delusional. Screen brightness, key brightness, volume, esc, mute... give me a ***** break! What a joke. Apple is pushing a glorified Macbook Air w/function keys for $1500 or a true entry level MBP w/toy-touchscreen for $1800. Bottom line is that these machines are way overpriced for what you're getting. Thank goodness for Apple that there are plenty of Chinese soccer moms to indulge these inflated offerings.

 

[kstotlani]

Not sure what everyone expected. Laptops are very mature products. Evolution steps are bound to become smaller.

Everyone expected the price to remain the same, increased battery life and less focus on thinness, 32GB RAM option, better transition to USB-C. There is a list.
[doublepost=1479175814][/doublepost]

I'm thinking about the poor employees at stores who will have to explain to everyone (not us nerds) that they will need various adapters to connect their 'old' devices because the MacBook 'Pro' is too futuristic.

Just experienced this in an Apple Store. It was so sad to see the genius in an apologetic tone saying you "just" have to buy a couple of adapters to make your old devices work.

 

[dilbert99]

Lolololol wow. You are a special one indeed.

Not really, I just see a pissed off customer and an Apple moving in a direction the customer no longer recognises.

It's such a bad day when laptops can no longer be repaired/serviced easily.

There would be the same outcry if car makers started to weld the wheels onto their cars

 

[gertruded]

Kind of sad. It seems Apple has started its decline. The price of these machines is just too high, capability mediocure. And this is the most up to date of the whole Mac line. The others, from the mini to the pro are more than two years old in design. This all points to an end of the Mac line.

 

[kstotlani]

Interesting. Sadly, regardless of the net customer satisfaction with TouchPad there is little precedent to suggest that Apple would ever "go back" of anything. We're stuck with it... like it or not.

We are stuck for 4 years at least or till someone gets fired.
[doublepost=1479177829][/doublepost]

It has, at a stroke, made the MacBook Pro less useful for anyone that is visually impaired.

But they introduced how good a Mac can be for visually impaired. The presentation started with it so it must be true.

 

[Tech198]

Can be, more or less, a gimmick..

Anything that doesn't look very useful because u can just look at the screen anyway is a gimmick, since why are u looking "down" at a touch bar?, the screen is right in front of u as a "normal way to work" as we got it.

Now, we have a touch bar, we will again need to re-jigger our brains between old and new Mac's we use, and say "oh right i can swipe on this thing"

Wait a few months and see. I guess its more of a "apps u use need to be updated before u can really tell"

Can't really tell time its made use use... It's like declaring the winner of a judging contest before it started.

 

[Someyoungguy]

Apple's advantage is that it makes both the hardware and the OS. Developers weren't rushing to support Lenovo's niche feature because comparatively, very few people had one. What Apple did was make this a mainstream feature that developers can expect most pro users to have. We're already seeing that reflected in the increasingly widespread support from important apps like Adobe's suite and Microsoft Office.

Usually a good argument, but I don't see it being offered on any other mac. How can this be a mainstream feature? It looks faited to fail in the same way.

Also, am I the only one bothered by this line?

"For those committed to the Mac that can justify the price tag, the new MacBook Pro is a mostly worthwhile upgrade."

Remember when macs were appealing to those who weren't committed yet? That was how I ended up with a mac after nothing but PCs and anything else un-Apple (Amigas, etc).

 

[Kilibee]

Not sure what everyone expected. Laptops are very mature products. Evolution steps are bound to become smaller.

Well, I have a maxed out 2012 Retina Macbook Pro, that is due for replacement.
After configuring the new machine to about the same state, I end up at a bit over 4000€. Though steep, this in itself is not a serious issue for me, after all, this is a work machine that easily pays for itself.

However:
+ better screen quality
+ Touchbar
+ Fingerprint sensor
+ 4 USB-C ports
- No MagSafe
- No USB-A port
- No SD-card slot
- No HDMI
- No significant performance increase for the stuff I do, even the SSD is barely bigger than my existing one (though likely faster)

4000€ for THAT?
Plus a dongle that I need to carry with me all the time?
Plus I have to pay 29€ for the long power cable? You're kidding, right?

Nope, they are not kidding, they simply lost contact to their most loyal customers. Finding that long power cord in the box always was a moment a new customer realized that they thought of that.

I realize that Intel's offering for performance laptops hasn't evolved since the Core i7, so Apple can not offer more CPU performance or more than 16 GB of RAM. I could live with some compromise moving to new ports, but removing all the features I use (except HDMI at least on a weekly basis) does move the equation in the wrong direction.

A MagSafe-Solution for USB-C charging (likely restricted to the power adapter), an SD-Card slot and a single USB-A slot would have been easy to do and wouldn't have created that kind of mess. Bigger
hard drives would have been an expectation, the 2TB option is ridiculously expensive.

Might have been a mm thicker, so what? Thinner my a**. Needs it more than my notebook.

 

[cppguy]

Pros never look at the keyboard. That means physical keys are preferred, which feel tactile. The F keys were fine. If they wanted to improve it, they could've put an OLED inside each key, but I wouldn't pay a cent for that.

 

[Nick11Mac]

I'll wait to hear what the new users have to say after they've been on the 2016 with the touch bar for a while. However these new reviews raise a number of concerns.

The MacRumors article points to issues like price, lack of legacy ports, and as Engadget said: "the Touch Bar is "occasionally useful" for tasks such as switching between open tabs in Safari. However, it "noted common system controls such as volume and brightness are now buried within menus, a change that is "less efficient" than dedicated function keys on older MacBook Pro models."

 

[Ethosik]

Well, I have a maxed out 2012 Retina Macbook Pro, that is due for replacement.
After configuring the new machine to about the same state, I end up at a bit over 4000€. Though steep, this in itself is not a serious issue for me, after all, this is a work machine that easily pays for itself.

However:
+ better screen quality
+ Touchbar
+ Fingerprint sensor
+ 4 USB-C ports
- No MagSafe
- No USB-A port
- No SD-card slot
- No HDMI
- No significant performance increase for the stuff I do, even the SSD is barely bigger than my existing one (though likely faster)

4000€ for THAT?
Plus a dongle that I need to carry with me all the time?
Plus I have to pay 29€ for the long power cable? You're kidding, right?

Nope, they are not kidding, they simply lost contact to their most loyal customers. Finding that long power cord in the box always was a moment a new customer realized that they thought of that.

I realize that Intel's offering for performance laptops hasn't evolved since the Core i7, so Apple can not offer more CPU performance or more than 16 GB of RAM. I could live with some compromise moving to new ports, but removing all the features I use (except HDMI at least on a weekly basis) does move the equation in the wrong direction.

A MagSafe-Solution for USB-C charging (likely restricted to the power adapter), an SD-Card slot and a single USB-A slot would have been easy to do and wouldn't have created that kind of mess. Bigger
hard drives would have been an expectation, the 2TB option is ridiculously expensive.

Might have been a mm thicker, so what? Thinner my a**. Needs it more than my notebook.

No USB-A port? Get an adapter
No SD card? Get an adapter
No HDMI? Get an adapter

Seriously, this port issue is WAY WAY WAY overblown. These ports can do ANYTHING. They are MORE useful than single-use ports like in previous rMBPs.

Adapters are NOT that expensive. I specced out a 15" MacBook Pro. I twas $3,499. Even if adapters would add up to be an extra $100 (which it is not, more like $30), that is still only 3% of the total cost of the laptop. Not enough to go about crying all the time. Geez people we are so damn sick of hearing this.

 

[mrkkbb]

One think I would love to know: Can the touch bar be a dock for your apps to save desktop real estate ?

 

[austintg]

Can be, more or less, a gimmick..

Anything that doesn't look very useful because u can just look at the screen anyway is a gimmick, since why are u looking "down" at a touch bar?, the screen is right in front of u as a "normal way to work" as we got it.

Now, we have a touch bar, we will again need to re-jigger our brains between old and new Mac's we use, and say "oh right i can swipe on this thing"

Wait a few months and see. I guess its more of a "apps u use need to be updated before u can really tell"

Can't really tell time its made use use... It's like declaring the winner of a judging contest before it started.

Just like with the function keys now we will get used to it and not even have to look at it, a lot like texting on an iPhone, I had to look at the on-screen keyboard for about the first two months of having an iPhone and from then on I never look at the actual keys, just up in the main portion. It'll be natural to know what apps use what setup on the bar after a short time and it'll be nice, I think, being able to customize it.

 

[jweinraub]

After 527 days without an update, "useful" is not enough. A long delayed Macbook Pro should knock it out of the park.

You nailed it in the head. I am more than satisfied with my 2012 MBPr. I already swapped the SSD to 1 TB. Only issue for me is the trackpad doesn't work that well any longer, and I kinda stepped on the display so there is a faint green line going across. Honestly, both of those things won't get me to upgrade. It really isn't the price, well it is, but the value of what is "new" isn't worth the hassle of migrating to a new system.

Though I wonder if this gimmick will last. If others with copy it and imitate it, or just ignore it as a fad. Sure I didn't use the F-keys much, but the symbols on the F-keys I certainly use a lot. So I dunno, I hope the next model is significantly better and really hope I can get the 15" model without the touchbar, if they decide to keep it.

I have a feeling there is a new direction Apple is going, and I strongly suspect the next iPhone, the so-called eight, being hyped now for over a year, will disappoint a LOT of people.

If this laptop is found to be a failure, and the next iPhone 8 is a failure, with the already failing Mac Pro waste bin, I think there will be a lot of switchers leaving the Apple ecosystem.

Tim thinks they can screw up and people won't switch to Windows like angry Dell customers going to HP because they have emotion. I think he will find he is wrong and I hope I am wrong on this, but only time will tell.

 

[Kilibee]

No USB-A port? Get an adapter
No SD card? Get an adapter
No HDMI? Get an adapter

Seriously, this port issue is WAY WAY WAY overblown. These ports can do ANYTHING.

For most people these ports can right now NOTHING without an adapter.

It's not about the few bucks that it costs, it's that you need to carry that adapter with you all the time.

I'm just literally not buying this thing, and I know quite a number of people turning down that offer as well. Yes, we'll be back when there are really faster processors, significant better RAM options. Until then: Meh.

 

[tubomac]

At the moment I believe it's (beautiful) gimmick, but, many things Apple makes, are believed gimmick, until using them everyday, they become indispensable. In the end it's just a matter of getting used to something new. The strong point of this company is that it's able to push people to change their productivity habits more than other companies. They have more credibility so that more people try their new toys and they are more open to learn new things. Doesn't matter the fact that sometimes, other companies may have better alternatives, they just don't know how to make a good communication and convince customers to try their new products.

Talking about the prices of these new macs....well this is HIGH debatable!
they are very expensive and always, the price of a product, is a mere marketing calculation. Since few years ago, people buy always less and less PCs , so some companies (for instance Microsoft too) decided that if they cannot sell many laptops, at least they try to sell them at the higher price possible. There is always a niche of customers able to buy them, if they have a good quality.

 

[otternonsense]

Best quote was uttered by a seasoned developer friend of mine: " I can't believe Apple is making me look at my keyboard again".

In fact, he reacted when his manager offered to replace his 2014 MacBook Pro with the 2016 touchstrip version, and insisted on keeping the older device for the sheer usefulness of the ports and keyboard travel. It's not like the hardware upgrades are a home run either.

I'm sticking to my 2015 MacBook Pro too. Ironic how I thought THAT was poor value for money then.

 

[michaelsviews]

No USB-A port? Get an adapter
No SD card? Get an adapter
No HDMI? Get an adapter

Seriously, this port issue is WAY WAY WAY overblown. These ports can do ANYTHING. They are MORE useful than single-use ports like in previous rMBPs.

Adapters are NOT that expensive. I specced out a 15" MacBook Pro. I twas $3,499. Even if adapters would add up to be an extra $100 (which it is not, more like $30), that is still only 3% of the total cost of the laptop. Not enough to go about crying all the time. Geez people we are so damn sick of hearing this.

Obviously some are upset with added cost's. You'll get over it

 

[Kilibee]

Obviously some are upset with added cost's.

I don't think that at the cost of the machine the costs of the adapters are the matter for many people.
What pisses them off is that they have to carry them around so that the machine get's thinner…

 

[MacBH928]

After 15 years of following Apple, I believe this is the first time Apple releases a main product hardware that no one is really excited about except fanboys who actually believe USB-C only + buying $20+ dongle(s) is better than a combination of USB-C + Type A option.

I can't believe that to shave few millimetres they actually released a hardware that is just as slow as past generation, for a higher price, for a lower battery life, with less ports.

 

[Ethosik]

After 15 years of following Apple, I believe this is the first time Apple releases a main product hardware that no one is really excited about except fanboys who actually believe USB-C only + buying $20+ dongle(s) is better than a combination of USB-C + Type A option.

I can't believe that to shave few millimetres they actually released a hardware that is just as slow as past generation, for a higher price, for a lower battery life, with less ports.

"Just as slow" what are you talking about? These are faster than previous generations. Blame Intel for not making a 1,000 core processor, or a 7Ghz processor.

And regarding dongles. Guess what? I have needed dongles and adapters for YEARS. Ethernet, VGA, DVI to name a few. OMG that makes my laptop bag SO HEAVY and WAY TOO MUCH to carry while in a BAG.

So getting cheap USB-C dongles will only cost me $20 for what I need. $20 out of the price of the Macbook Pro which is $3499 comes out to be 0.57% of the cost of the laptop. Even if you spend $100 in dongles and adapters, that is 2.8% of the cost. You guys are complaining about a very small percentage. It would be different if it would cost you $800 for simple adapters. But I think if you can spend the money on the Macbook Pro in the first place, you can afford another $20-$100. Shop smart, and get adapters at a decent price.

 

[kyykesko]

Wow, this guy sounds like a real whiner....
Nobody forced him to buy the Touch Bar version of the MacBook Pro... Apple still offers one with a standard Function Key row, and he can always use an external keyboard.

You do realize that one reason to purchase a laptop is to actually carry it around. See many people drag an external keyboard with their laptop around? What comes to the basic model being available without function keys: Did it ever occur to you that people buying a 'Pro' laptop might want it because they need power which the basic model simply doesn't provide. It's a toy people can switch to from Air because they think it's cooler, nothing more. So yes, someone DID force him to buy the Touch Bar version of the Crapbook nonPro.

Then again, the better models don't fare much better with that lousy keyboard and no connectivity. Oh well.
[doublepost=1479218787][/doublepost]

Apple already has a very successful multitouch platform and they'll focus on evolving that and it will eventually do everything the Mac does and more.

I'm not holding my breath waiting for that happen considering iOS currently does around 5% of what you can do with a MacOS device.
[doublepost=1479218948][/doublepost]

Presumably a new Magic Keyboard with the Touch Bar is coming.

Maybe they'll name it Gimmick Keyboard. Not that it matters to me - if it comes with that thin useless keyboard there's no reason to buy it even if it came with three Touchbars.
[doublepost=1479219162][/doublepost]

So what if you don't find yourself using the Touch Bar for more advanced functions? It doesn't take away the function it had previously and that doesn't represent the use case of millions that have bought/will be buying it.

It doesn't? So I can actually hit the Esc key and know I got it without looking? I can adjust the volume easily without moving my hands from the keyboard with a single click? I can pause the music with a single click? I can use the expose with a single click? I can just skip the song to the next one whenever I want when a crappy one comes along?

And all that regardless of the software I'm currently in?

Good to know. I thought none of that was possible with the touchbar.

Touchbar may be nice for some gimmicks but it should never have been implemented by taking away keys people actually use to make their lives easier ON A DAILY BASIS. I can live without brightness/keyboard light adjustment buttons, the rest I do use all the time.
[doublepost=1479219315][/doublepost]

The Keyboard looks great, the trackpad improved, faster SSD and Graphics - check. But this is more refresh than revolution.

Just a thought - wouldn't it be better if it also felt great? That matters quite a lot more than how it looks. The previous generation macbook pro's have one of the best keyboard on ANY laptop currently made. The new one on the other hand is surpassed only by Zenbooks' even crappier keyboard. Haven't had time to check any of the other ultrathin keyboards, they may win the crown yet but does it really matter which position you're in if you're in the bottom 5?

 

[Appleaker]

You do realize that one reason to purchase a laptop is to actually carry it around. See many people drag an external keyboard with their laptop around? What comes to the basic model being available without function keys: Did it ever occur to you that people buying a 'Pro' laptop might want it because they need power which the basic model simply doesn't provide. It's a toy people can switch to from Air because they think it's cooler, nothing more. So yes, someone DID force him to buy the Touch Bar version of the Crapbook nonPro.

Then again, the better models don't fare much better with that lousy keyboard and no connectivity. Oh well.
[doublepost=1479218787][/doublepost]

I'm not holding my breath waiting for that happen considering iOS currently does around 5% of what you can do with a MacOS device.
[doublepost=1479218948][/doublepost]

Maybe they'll name it Gimmick Keyboard. Not that it matters to me - if it comes with that thin useless keyboard there's no reason to buy it even if it came with three Touchbars.
[doublepost=1479219162][/doublepost]

It doesn't? So I can actually hit the Esc key and know I got it without looking? I can adjust the volume easily without moving my hands from the keyboard with a single click? I can pause the music with a single click? I can use the expose with a single click? I can just skip the song to the next one whenever I want when a crappy one comes along?

And all that regardless of the software I'm currently in?

Good to know. I thought none of that was possible with the touchbar.

Touchbar may be nice for some gimmicks but it should never have been implemented by taking away keys people actually use to make their lives easier ON A DAILY BASIS. I can live without brightness/keyboard light adjustment buttons, the rest I do use all the time.
[doublepost=1479219315][/doublepost]

Just a thought - wouldn't it be better if it also felt great? That matters quite a lot more than how it looks. The previous generation macbook pro's have one of the best keyboard on ANY laptop currently made. The new one on the other hand is surpassed only by Zenbooks' even crappier keyboard. Haven't had time to check any of the other ultrathin keyboards, they may win the crown yet but does it really matter which position you're in if you're in the bottom 5?

I said it doesn't take away functionality. I never said it doesn't take away convenience.