And now they are proven reliable and needed less than they were 5 years ago as more and more devices switch to USB-C.
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Redesigned 14-Inch MacBook Pro Expected to Feature Brighter Mini-LED Display With Slimmer Bezels and More
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If only it was just about the devices at home or at my own office or home... Both USB-A and HDMI are surprisingly popular "out there" at conference venues, firms etc. This means more things to remember and more clutter whenever packing for trips etc. Traditionally, the great thing about Macs has been that they are so hassle-free, but the dongle circus has kind of watered down that experience – at least a bit.
There’s not a chance they go back to USB-A. That’s a dead port with both USB4 and Thunderbolt adopting USB-C as the standard.
Exactly, it's nothing but wasted space for me; no matter which 'mode' I put the touchbar in. I have no use whatsoever for it's functions since they all exist in other ways already, I do not want to take my eyes off the screen, I do not want to take my fingers off the keys. It gets in the way of my work. The only mode that really applies to my needs is to put it in the mode where it acts as the default F-Key alternative functions, such as screen brightness and system volume. But even then it's harder to use because it's touch-based instead of actual keys. Additionally, because the keyboard is in my peripheral vision as I type the lack of set of proper function keys at the top actually throws off my touch-typing across the entire keyboard slightly. I'm sure I could eventually adapt if ALL keyboards I used were missing the top row of keys, but of course that is not, and will never be, the case. So the touchbar is nothing but negative to my computing experience. I recently had the choice to migrate from my 15" 2015 MacBook Pro to a 13" M1 MacBook Pro. After lugging them both around for a couple weeks, I realized the single biggest negative to me was the touchbar, and in the end I decided to stick with the 15" for now, largely for that reason.
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Some people will laugh about this, but those people don't spend their lives supporting people who use Macs in education, home and soho environments like I do. Going back to something very close to the Snow Leopard UI would be a brilliant decision on the part of Apple. Everything since then has been a downward slide in terms of visibility and usability. Big Sur might be the single worst MacOS UI design I've ever seen. Have you looked at the tiny, little, itty-bitty totally black and white buttons for major functions (for example in Pages and Keynote?) How about the 99% indistinguishable active vs. inactive windows? Not making an aesthetic distinction here; not talking about 'how pretty it is' - I'm talking purely about usability. We used to be able to deploy Macs in K-8 education and the kids could simply use them. This ended the moment visibility and usability were thrown out for moronic-hipster-minimalism. Instead of making it better Big Sur was Apple's way of demonstrating that they could make it worse.
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That's true enough! I'm sure we've all left home without our inventory of dongles (I have a special zip-bag for them that goes in my computer case....except when I take it out for some reason and forget to put it back in....).
Most maddening thing? Lightning to 3.5mm headphone adapter for my phone. If I need to travel light I don't take my large on-ear bluetooth headphones and have some wired ones...and then I realize I left the adapter on another device (also used for microphones)
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You can get a 3-pack of adapters for like $10; just leave connected to your headphones.
Interesting you mention that. Being that I use my computer a lot at home but am not computer savvy, I haven't upgraded my MacBook Pro since buying it in 2008. The thing still works, running...Snow Leopard. Simple, straightforward. Just does what I need, which are basic tasks. I'm now looking to upgrade and will likely buy an Air (8GB RAM, 512GB memory at the $1249 price point) sometime very soon - I'm not going to want to pay an extra $500 or so for the 3Q models, nor do I want to wait - and I'm a bit concerned about the current OS and if it's going to be a hassle to use. All I really need is internet, iTunes, simple Word docs, and Excel. So I'm hoping the new machine will run my basic tasks without being a pain. If it doesn't, then Apple really dropped it badly if Big Sur can't run even basic stuff without problems.
The 14 sounds like it will be $2100.00 for the base model! 16 base probably $3100.00 get your wallets out!!!
It's still a stable, reliable OS for the most part (although the reputation of Catalina as bug-ridden does seem to be valid, and Big Sur is too new to a known quantity), so it isn't that it won't run your software well. The problems reside largely in the UI, which has become very flat and very grey, with little to distinguish elements properly. For example, there is now almost zero visual difference between an active and in inactive window. Those nice easy to grab scroll bars in Snow Leopard? Nope! A colorful "junk" icon in mail? Nope! Imagine if suddenly traffic lights weren't green, yellow and red, but instead 3 slightly different shades of blue (to aesthetically match the sky in the mind of some hipster moron somewhere who thinks 'minimal' is cool and doesn't give a crap if it actually works), or if Stop and Yield signs were nearly identical shapes and both just slightly different shades of grey? That's what's happened to the MacOS. It's that kind of crap that makes the MacOS harder to see and harder to use than it used to be. Other problems really won't effect most home-users, but do make life much worse for anyone pushing the envelope at all; for example booting from external drives now requires a special set of steps to reduce your system's security settings, and creating bootable backup drives is extremely problematic on M1 machines. Then there is the reduced functionality. In the late 80s I used a Mac II with a total of, IIRC, 7 monitors. Just because I could. The new limit on Apple's brand new M1 machines is 2. Yes, that's 2.
But really, more than any other single thing, it's the demolition of the Mac's once world-class, intuitive, user-interface that really impacts users the most. I support about 150 Macs in education, and in terms of usability it's been nothing but a *massive* slide in the wrong direction since Snow Leopard. I used to watch students that were completely new to the Mac learn them extremely easily and well, almost completely without guidance. Now I watch students struggle with them for years, even when they are shown how they are supposed to work. Why? Because the way they are "supposed to work" sucks now. It's just a bunch of random, hard to see, hard to find crap. The great intuitive UI has been utterly destroyed.
Except for the active window having those bright green, orange, and red buttons at the top left.
Uhhh... as one of the developers who makes software for Macs, I couldn't work at all without constant use of the function keys. I also use the function keys a lot when playing games. And constantly arranging my explosion of windows when I'm working. And I map them to do many things I like to have on instant demand. "Virtual" function keys are a royal pain - looks how much people who used Escape a lot wanted a real escape key. For me, I'd be totally OK with a touch bar IF they put it ABOVE a row of function keys. People have had serious uses for function keys for decades. This is the problem with Apple - they make every new feature a severe trade off - a loss. Like "we have this new amazing screen, and we removed the spacebar!" It's always "gain a leg and cut off an arm".
Another way to say the same thing is there's luxury and there's necessity. I'd love seeing sliding ribbon controls on a keyboard for some things. And *real* keys with changing symbols on them would be fun, too. But not at the expense of necessities. And no virtual keyboard will even come close to the real thing. I feel like Apple sometimes uses luxury items to tempt people into overlooking the deletion of a necessity. But on a laptop the two things that matter the most are the keyboard and the screen.
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I for one don‘t care about MagSafe. Only thing I miss is the charge indicator light. At least they’d better still leave the option for Usb c charging
I suspect they will. The option to plug one thing in for all my peripherals+charging is too good a feature. And many Windows PCs have it despite still having the barrel charger (which makes no sense to keep given it provides no features like magsafe would.
I hope Apple does something to reduce the annoying hollow noise made when someone is using (typing on) a Macbook. In my case, the Macbook Pro 16". The sound is like a hollow chamber -- and if you've ever been in a room with others with similar Macbooks, you'll know how utterly annoying that sound is in numbers, too.
honestly I like the bar. however I think what professionals prefer the new designs (the butterfly design is cool at best in a zero dust environment) but the new scissor design is more of what people who use a keyboard, want tactile, effect contact, able to clean and repair. I though this was a route that apple wanted to see if people want a full touch keyboard which at some point integrating the pen which would be cool., just a silly thought...
that's their chanting call.. you know others are like you typing on the same unique device... lol