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I’m not that happy. I’d used a MBP for a short time before going all in with an IPP Loved the Touch Bar. Great for photo editing, word, logic, I really liked it. While I do like MagSafe, charging from either side is arguably better. SD slots don’t really make sense. There’s micro sd, CF cards, and variations of SD plus Sonys new one. It’s so complicated, most people will get a reader anyway. HDMI I don’t care much about.
 
I thought the latest Touchbar with the physical Esc key was nice because I'm not a touch-typist when it comes to the Fn keys. It's easy to customize with some utilities, it works just like the traditional Function key row, and to be frank I have no use for several of the marked keys on the M1 Air's keyboard.
I don’t know anyone who touch types the function keys except programmers. There are a lot of programmers on MR so that’s probably why we hear so much flak about the Touch Bar.
 
If MagSafe is indeed back, I just hope they make the cable detachable from the brick so you don't have to throw out the whole charger when the cable fails. Maybe it could be USB-C on one end and MagSafe on the other and they can continue to use the current bricks?

If this thing is real, I may already be looking at trading in my 2020 MacBook Air.
what if MagSafe is on the brick side and not on the Mac side, you can still make them all USBc and not have wasted ports.
 
I want to keep the ability to charge from both sides, personally.

And yes, obviously make the cable detachable from the charger.

I suspect USB-C charging will still be supported. My work-owned HP laptop supports both USB-C and their dumb barrel charger. Don’t understand why they keep the barrel charger when it offers no advantage like magsafe would.

Don’t get me started on the piss-poor port config on this thing. Left is two USB-A, lock, and 3.5mm. Right is two USB-C, barrel charge, and HDMI 1.4 (doesnt support 4K 60hz, why bother... how much more would a 2.0 have cost? Reminds me of the days there Windows laptops would ship with only one USB SS port and make it blue).

Why not put on USB of each type on each side?
 
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I don’t mind if Apple wants to wait until the fall to release these, but I sure hope that they show us the chip they’ll be using (through an iMac release etc) before then. That’s what my decision will ultimately come down to: can the 14” and 16” finally compete with the graphics power of comparable laptops with Nvidia’s chips?

I’m withholding all judgment until I see them, but the M1 MacBooks’ GPU performance was the weakest link, by far.
The MacBook Pro at least the 16 inch not familiar with the older ones were always very competitive with windows laptops. Those high power windows laptops use a lot of power, very little battery compared to the MBP which is important since it’s a laptop not a desktop. Plus, they can’t perform well (the high power windows) when unplugged. As well, not able to be charged on a plane. In fact D2Ds video says that the 16 is the fastest laptop on USB C charging.
 
Fair enough. I only use F1-2 and F7-12. I suppose I could always remap 3-6 if I had a use for them, but it's more about the physical key press than the actual functions for me. I shouldn't have to look at my keyboard to know what tapping in a specific area is going to do.
I don't touch-type the Fn keys so Im looking at that row regardless.
 
Trying to decide if it's worth waiting for the 14 inch. Budget is a concern. Any chance the 14 inch will start at $1499? If it's going to be starting at $1999 then I'm better off just going with a Macbook Air 16gb ram 512gb due to budget.
I think Apple will keep a $1500 MBP model. The current 13" M1 starts at $1299...I don't think they will want that big of a gap in pricing. At worst I think the base will be $1799.
 
IMHO, the return of MagSafe will not remove the charging ability via all USB-C ports so that you may still be able to connect your MBP to an external display and have it charged.
(hopefully)
 
Sounds good. Wonder what if the SOC M1X based, M2, or? Also, GPU cores, memory amd drive configs, port types and numbers. Will probably get a 14" to go with my Air M1 if it is a big leap otherwise ???.
I’m sure it’s based on the same cores. More of them, bigger cache, more bus bandwidth, and maybe higher clockability*. They probably made slight improvements to the core design (every time we spun a new die we would try and get another 5% clock speed, fix any known bugs, etc.).

* what i mean is that they reduced the delay time on the longest critical paths. They can likely increase the clock rate in the new machines even without modifying the cores, simply by raising voltage a little bit, because these new machines will likely have more thermal headroom. But I assume they also made minor physical changes as well. Note that while “minor,” as a CPU designer I typically spent most of my time reducing the time it takes for a signal to run through a critical path of gates, often one picosecond at a time, and it could take six months of design work just to make a worthwhile difference in speed.
 
I may be wrong, but I think that the return of MagSafe charging will not disable the charging via all USB-C ports. It'll be an extra option, not a replacement. Reason being that it is nice to be able to connect your MBP to another device such as an external display and have it charged.

I hope so. There are definite advantages to each choice, but when traveling it’s nice to be able to rely on a usb-c cable to charge both my ipad and MacBook Pro. Also nice to be able to pick which side to plug in. And as someone who once had a MagSafe charger die while in a hotel at another city, it’d would have been a lot easier to borrow an emergency usb-c cable than a magsafe charger - i had to send a runner to a bestbuy to get one.
 
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I don’t know how to stop myself wasting the next 5-11 months thinking about this new laptop! Each of these non-rumours is so anti-climatic - I’m just wishing my life away waiting for a 14 inch MacBook Pro, it’s very sad! Must focus on more important things like family, relationships, work. It will come when it comes. Everything will be okay!
 
Amen. If a company like Apple “gets” the value of things like tech in an attractive wrapper, unboxing an item with nearly a full (or >50%) charge, etc., how can they have taken so long at undoing being so awful at designing durable cables/chargers? I’m on my 3rd power block/cable for my 2014 MBA.
You have to be careful to not bend cables too tightly. Causes metal fatigue. I've never worn out a Mac charger cable, going as far back as original 2006 white MacBook and a bunch of devices in between. I have worn out lightning cables.
 
Really hope they don't remove the ability to charge over usb-c. It's great being able to plug in one cable when moving between desks and meetings and not having to always carry my charger in and out of the office.
 
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We are in the brink of a considerable redesign. I would suggest to wait a little longer if you can.

The current higher-end 13” Pro starts at $1799. Apple kept the price of the MacBook Air and lower-end 13” Pro the same when they switched to M1.

If you need a computer now get the Air, but if you can wait then you should wait. Bear in mind that the 14" is going to replace the four-port 13" Intel which starts at $1799.
Thank you everyone for the advice. I'm going to just wait since it looks like a significant design change and I don't upgrade often looking for my next computer to last 5 years. Will give me time to save up a bit more as well. :).
 
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I just want a MacBook Pro in the airpods Max pink please. I’m actually so bored of space gray and silver.... why do MacBooks and non-pro devices get to have all the fun :(
 
I'll be curious to see if the new MacBook will support two external monitors. This was a deal breaker for me on the original M1 release.
 
Am I really the only person in the world who actually likes the Touch Bar?

Much like the idea of the iPhone replacing physical buttons depending on app context - it's actually useful when compared to a row of utterly useless buttons marked "F". I don't understand the hatred, or why Apple are caving
Well I like it - a lot! Don't really get the hate either. If you don't like it you can have it to show the old function keys all the time.

I was wondering the other day what would happen if Apple turned the hole keyboard into a Touch Bar, adjusting to show shortcuts, different languages etc. With haptic feedback it would be pretty cool, I think.
 
I wonder how many of the new design changes were originally vetoed by Jony Ive but now that he's no longer at the company, they're going ahead with those changes.

This is the undoing of Ive. He had some great design ideas but was allowed too much design/feature control. He had some real knucklehead designs also. It looks like Apple is giving users what they want now, not what Ive thinks they want. He wanted art, but I'd rather have a computer.
 
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