Thunderbolt 3 Ports on Right Side of 13-Inch MacBook Pro Have Reduced PCI Express Bandwidth

[Sedulous]

PORTS:
There is an argument to be had for HDMI, USB and SD slots, but that would have impacted other things inside the computer and the amount of USB-C slots.

Weight/Size:
Thinner and lighter is not just form over function. Many people carry their computer every day. This decrease in size and weight IS important.

GPU:
You can upgrade to a pretty decent GPU on the 15.

RAM:
16gigRam is enough for most and if you want 32 and say you'll keep it plugged in all the time, then why not just get a desk top? I do think they should have offered it though only in the high end machine. I'm assuming it's to keep assembly costs down.

BATTERY:
this battery lasts 3 hours longer than my 2013 rMBP 15 according to documentation.

LOGO:
Others have put forth a very credible theory for this due to new thinness. Things change. So be it.

CHIME:
YESSSSSSSSSS!!!! About bloody time they got rid of that. That chime has interrupted meetings and woken people up. Best. Thing. Ever.

EXCLUSIONS:
We've all got so many of these cables and clothes at this point. IF you don't, then you can buy them. They are cheap. I'm glad not to get anymore personally.

DONGLES:
There will be some pain with this. Some a lot more so than others. It's pushing us to move into the future possibly too early considering the Apple line isn't yet in sync. But come this time next year I think you'll find everything will be in sync across all apple lines.

MAG SAFE:
I do like Mag Safe a lot, but at the same time, I'm on the go a lot. It has been a constant source of frustration to only plug in the power on the left. Less cable lying around is always a good thing in my books.

VALUE FOR MONEY:
They ain't cheap! But they have been redesigned and have new tech. That costs money.

Personally, I think this is a great computer from what I've seen. I'll be very interested to see the reviews when they come out. The touch bar has me excited. Upgrading a laptop has pretty much followed the same patter forever... lighter, thinner, more powerful, a few different ports. Retina in 2012 was the big change up and now we might have another.

All reasonable statements though I have points of disagreement. Fundamentally, the issues are largely based on the reduced volume. This meant smaller battery, constrained thermals, and reduced surface area for ports. Smaller battery meant Apple had to be very mindful of efficiency (overall the chipset). That keeps RAM limited to 16 GB (they have said so). Constrained thermal dissipation meant middle GPU. Thickness meant most conventional ports had to go... MagSafe included. The wholesale loss of every conventional IO and exclusive adoption of USB-C is cause for much handwringing; understandable particularly when the driving force behind all of these these changes seems to for thinner!™. Thinner!™ shouldn't be the priority for the Pro line.

 

[Feenician]

Here, performance is measured by "how fast".

Go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong but the thrust of your post seems to be "Apple no longer make the fastest machines". Apple never made the fastest machines. For the sake of simplicity here, not comparing Power and Intel, let's consider Apple since the the Intel transition. It's almost 10 years now, a lifetime in Tech. Apple never made the fastest machines. You could always go out and build something faster and cheaper than what Apple offered. It was never the decisive factor. Trying to make it so now is either blind to the facts or dishonest.

If you disagree please point out anything, any Mac at all that could not be outpaced by parts you could buy more cheaply right off an OEM shelf. It never happened.

 

[hiddenmarkov]

Well sounds like you should be buying a super computer then, no laptop can compete with them. How much money you go to throw at the NO COMPROMISE solution ?

razor blade pro sells for around 3300 price I saw. By coincidence what I spec'd a new mbp with drive and video upgrade. MBP pales in comparison spec wise.

what is being asked for is something along these lines. We know apple can do this. and to appease the zealots...we are saying apple could do it better. We aren't hating apple. We are disappointed as we know they can do this and do it well.
If they only tried.

Doesn't even have to be a 1080. Be nice but to not rile up the AMD fanboys...fine it can be AMD. Mid to high end mobile. we want more balls to the video. This is possible, now, on laptops. Open cl, cuda....whatever, we need more power here. Better card, more cores...we get real happy real fast.


I run applications that would not kick open cl or cuda cores out of bed. They'd work em over real well in fact. and yes I would fire up a game sometimes. Just got done watching the hour + of same footage for hours as I tweak the editing across the composite, yeah, a chill session in a game is very much in order.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

Havent looked up exact spec's yet, But likely because the 13" only come with Intel's Dual Core CPU's, not the 4 core, which may have reduced PCI-E lanes.

the 15" has the quad core, so more PCI-E lanes, more bandwidth

or the 15" has an pci-e switch to drive the video card at X8 and 2 pci-e X4 or 4 X2 links to the TB 3.0 buses.

on the 13" they may of just have 1 X4 or X4 X4 / or as low as X2 X2 to TB 3.0

 

[0388631]

If you disagree please point out anything, any Mac at all that could not be outpaced by parts you could buy more cheaply right off an OEM shelf. It never happened.

I don't believe it was possible to get the gen2 MacPro for cheaper using a Windows system. At least not the $10,000 build Apple offered at the time. Quite possibly cheaper on Windows now compared to 3 years ago.

 

[Feenician]

razor blade pro sells for around 3300 price I saw. By coincidence what I spec'd a new mbp with drive and video upgrade. MBP pales in comparison spec wise.

Razer Blade Pro starts at $3699

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3133...arries-a-geforce-gtx-1080-with-4k-g-sync.html. It's also 8 pounds, 17" and not comparable in any way. It's a specialist gaming laptop with a tiny battery life
[doublepost=1477889559][/doublepost]

I don't believe it was possible to get the gen2 MacPro for cheaper using a Windows system. At least not the $10,000 build Apple offered at the time. Quite possibly cheaper on Windows now compared to 3 years ago.

If you don't believe it then back it up. Do you think Apple were selling this for less than cost or something? Less than it could be built for? After all these years we surely understand that this is not the Apple way

 

[sir1963nz]

razor blade pro sells for around 3300 price I saw. By coincidence what I spec'd a new mbp with drive and video upgrade. MBP pales in comparison spec wise.

what is being asked for is something along these lines. We know apple can do this. and to appease the zealots...we are saying apple could do it better. We aren't hating apple. We are disappointed as we know they can do this and do it well.
If they only tried.

Doesn't even have to be a 1080. Be nice but to not rile up the AMD fanboys...fine it can be AMD. Mid to high end mobile. we want more balls to the video. This is possible, now, on laptops. Open cl, cuda....whatever, we need more power here. Better card, more cores...we get real happy real fast.


I run applications that would not kick open cl or cuda cores out of bed. They'd work em over real well in fact. and yes I would fire up a game sometimes. Just got done watching the hour + of same footage for hours as I tweak the editing across the composite, yeah, a chill session in a game is very much in order.

We use linux for our high end processing stuff, Bioinformatics processing, Number crunching data from Mass Spectrometers, DNA sequencers. End users write up on a mixture of Windows/Macs.
[doublepost=1477889917][/doublepost]

Except since USB-C is an industry standard, there are plenty of third party adapters and hubs. And no, Apple has not kept transitional ports in recent years. They dropped FireWire as soon as Thunderbolt came out (selling adapters to connect old equipment). They dropped Ethernet (selling USB and Thunderbolt adapters). They dropped DVD (selling an external drive).

Actually my MBP has both FW800 and Thunderbolt.

 

[0388631]

Razer Blade Pro starts at $3699

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3133...arries-a-geforce-gtx-1080-with-4k-g-sync.html. It's also 8 pounds, 17" and not comparable in any way. It's a specialist gaming laptop with a tiny battery life
[doublepost=1477889559][/doublepost]

If you don't believe it then back it up. Do you think Apple were selling this for less than cost or something? Less than it could be built for? After all these years we surely understand that this is not the Apple way

https://www.extremetech.com/computi...s-2000-cheaper-than-the-equivalent-windows-pc
[doublepost=1477890139][/doublepost]http://techgage.com/article/apples-newest-mac-pro-costs-less-than-diy-pc-build-thanks-to-amd/
[doublepost=1477890170][/doublepost]http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/windows-based-high-end-mac-pro-equivilent-costs-even-9599/

 

[Sedulous]

Um...you said "unfit for purpose".
Now when you're shown it's fit for purpose you suddenly need it to be "the best possible professional machine" LOL.

I guess for you bulky and heavy is "best". Buy a PC.

Huh? Fit for purpose and best possible professional machine are synonymous here. Not sure where I was shown what was fit for purpose nor is there agreement. There is more to a professional machine than maximum IO. Otherwise why not have used only firewire when it was king, or fiber now? Because they are limiting. Sure USB-C is fast, and it does belong on the new MacBook Pro, but right now, and probably for the next few years, 90% of the time conventional ports would have been more useful. Apple could have had an assortment of USB-C and conventional ports except thinner!™ mattered more.

Nobody said bulky and heavy is best either. I have CLEARLY AND REPEATEDLY stated those are secondary concerns for a Pro line machine. And honestly, I have had various portable Macs going back about 20 years and none of them seemed terribly heavy compared to the clunker PC notebooks. Perhaps it is relative. Outside of a single poorly considered capacitor (c7771), the mid-2009 17" unibody MacBook Pro is my favorite notebook purchase of all. Great professional machine at release. Still have two.

 

[Feenician]

https://www.extremetech.com/computi...s-2000-cheaper-than-the-equivalent-windows-pc
[doublepost=1477890139][/doublepost]http://techgage.com/article/apples-newest-mac-pro-costs-less-than-diy-pc-build-thanks-to-amd/
[doublepost=1477890170][/doublepost]http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/windows-based-high-end-mac-pro-equivilent-costs-even-9599/

I can't even be bothered to go and the the archive.org thing right now (maybe I'll do it tomorrow) to debunk what is almost certainly wrong (the graphics cards will be surely gimped as always with Apple for example) but then, once, then? Gee, I wonder why they never continued that line? Apple are really abandoning their money losing pro lines? Is that what we're to take from your posts?

Also, to the other half of my contention, and the most important part, you could still build something faster on the PC/Windows side.

 

[0388631]

I can't even be bothered to go and the the archive.org thing right now (maybe I'll do it tomorrow) to debunk what is almost certainly wrong (the graphics cards will be surely gimped as always with Apple for example) but then, once, then? Gee, I wonder why they never continued that line? Apple are really abandoning their money losing pro lines? Is that what we're to take from your posts?

Equivalent is not the same as "same." You're splitting hairs here. You made a sweeping generalization and then when provided with truth you say you can't find anything and can't be bothered to go through archive.org despite the fact sites like ycombinator or the dreaded Reddit would have massed conversation threads discussing the hardware inadequacies.

This, is of course on top of the sweeping statement you made yesterday or the day before of how Skylike processors weren't available until June 2016, which was an absolute fumble. You know, considering the processor in the 15" Pros were release long before then. The processor in the top tier 15" MBP of 2016, the one that just came out/announced, was available in laptops starting in December 2015.

Nothing above 15w Skylake mobile chips were available until June 2016. Any skylake laptop before then had an Air/Ultrabook class CPU. This has been repeated a hundred times over the past days

If you can't be bothered to check a simple date let alone figure out how to query a site through Google's advanced search, then what good are you doing debating with people about the quality of the product Apple is delivering?

 

[Sedulous]

Go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong but the thrust of your post seems to be "Apple no longer make the fastest machines". Apple never made the fastest machines. For the sake of simplicity here, not comparing Power and Intel, let's consider Apple since the the Intel transition. It's almost 10 years now, a lifetime in Tech. Apple never made the fastest machines. You could always go out and build something faster and cheaper than what Apple offered. It was never the decisive factor. Trying to make it so now is either blind to the facts or dishonest.

If you disagree please point out anything, any Mac at all that could not be outpaced by parts you could buy more cheaply right off an OEM shelf. It never happened.

Actually, Apple did make the fastest commercial machines for brief periods. But that isn't the gist. Of course you can go out and get the hottest chipset, overclock it under cryogenic coolant. What Apple previously had was a clear product market. You could point at the MacBook and say "that is the affordable general purpose model". The MacBook Air clearly was marketed as the expensive for spec but ultraportable Mac. The MacBook Pros were bigger, heavier, and much more powerful and expensive "desktop replacement". Now it seems like all the Mac portables are all trying to be everything and none of them really ideal in their market segment. The MacBook isn't really an affordable general purpose computer, the Air isn't the cutting edge of ultra portables, and the Pro lacks features usually notable about the Pro.
[doublepost=1477892021][/doublepost]

I can't even be bothered to go and the the archive.org thing right now (maybe I'll do it tomorrow) to debunk what is almost certainly wrong (the graphics cards will be surely gimped as always with Apple for example) but then, once, then? Gee, I wonder why they never continued that line? Apple are really abandoning their money losing pro lines? Is that what we're to take from your posts?

Also, to the other half of my contention, and the most important part, you could still build something faster on the PC/Windows side.

The prices of Mac Pro were certainly substantial but these were seriously great machines. I have no idea of the economics but surely bulk pricing and designing the whole "widget" had a lot to do with it. This was a time when most of the other major vendors were using off the shelf parts cobbled together into a beige box with a company sticker slapped on the side.

 

[2010mini]

I'm afraid this is some misunderstanding here. Lincoln automobiles were/are not in the performance racing market... they are in the "luxury" market. So Lincoln makes vehicles where performance is a measure of "style" with speed/handling/power as secondary concern. Ferrari is a line of products made with a focus on racing. Here, performance is measured by "how fast". That is why you won't find Ferrari selling a vehicle with a huge trunk/boot, a tow ball, or often even comfortable seats. The market for MacBook Pro machines isn't putting a priority on thin, performance here is measured in power. And yeah, TB3 has high bandwidth but the rest of the machine is middling spec for the price range/market and sacrificed too much for "thinner!™". The MacBook Air market should be focused on "thinner!™" while the MacBook should be focused on price point.
[doublepost=1477887873][/doublepost]
It takes a long time to stop a big ship. Like everyone else here (hopefully) I want to see Apple do well and continue to make products that are both profitable and useful. The accumulating evidence suggests Apple does not understand what people want. Their blurred product lines are evidence of this. Confused products confuse customers. Confused customers do not buy.

No Apple understands perfectly that the "pro" customer is not the majority of the market. It's the reason Ferrari started selling t-shirts. Because they realized they can't survive by only catering to supercar market. If Apple focused on the pro market only they would lose.

What's confusing about apple's products? My wife handed me the phone a while back to help her cousin who was frustrated with finding a laptop that suited her needs. She was frustrated after visiting retailers that sell PCs. All I said to her was visit the Apple Store. She walked out happy as can be with her first Mac ever.... a brand new MBP. Why? Absolutely no confusion as to what she was buying.

 

[Feenician]

Actually, Apple did make the fastest commercial machines for brief periods. But that isn't the gist

When? Again, I'm talking about the post-Intel era when you could actually measure Apples to, well, Apples. It's too complicated to measure PPC and anyway Apple surely would not have abandoned it if it were faster, right?

The prices of Mac Pro were certainly substantial but these were seriously great machines. I have no idea of the economics but surely bulk pricing and designing the whole "widget" had a lot to do with it. This was a time when most of the other major vendors were using off the shelf parts cobbled together into a beige box with a company sticker slapped on the side.

Sure. And those beige boxes, faster though they may be, were ****boxes, right? Has that much changed now, now that they do the same in vaguely Apple shaped boxes? That part is up for debate

Anyway, the thread between you and I that you were replying to in both cases were that Apple have some track record of making, or even aiming for making, the fastest machines that's it possible to make. I don't think they did and I don't think they even tried for the most part. Again, there is no point in the Apple's Intel history (spanning nearly a decade now) where I couldn't have bought parts cheaper and faster and fitting my special snowflake ports needs that Apple didn't accomodate. It's a rose tinted fantasy.

 

[hiddenmarkov]

Nobody said bulky and heavy is best either. I have CLEARLY AND REPEATEDLY stated those are secondary concerns for a Pro line machine.

this.

here is what I have had in mind for "bulky". the MPB SE. I am sure somewhere in a warehouse a few thousand 2011 shells are laying around. Or the CNC code already done, remill theseout.

Use them, no optical and man we got some potential. apple's custom ssd's....2 should fit. expanded memory for 32...should fit. Bigger video card...should fit. From the above we could get 2 out of 3 easily. If lucky, hatrick ftw.

Slot to stick cd/dvd...well get creative on how to fill it. Or make it nice port for air flow. Thermal engineers can work out blow out or suck in best action I suppose.

I never considered 2011 body heavy nor bulky. that body, some internals done over nice....bam. razor who? dell what?

 

[bjet767]

The Dell XPS 15 line (being updated in 2 months with Kaby Lake and Nvidia 10) seems to tick that box, as does the XPS 13 compared to the Mac Air/lower MacBook Pro.

I'm not sure what box your ticking, they compare or don't for similar prices?

The whole Kaby argument is dead and not applicable because it is not available today (as you point out). Additionally if the only advantage to Kaby, by Intel's own specs, is the graphics the addition of the Nvidia GPU kind of ruins that advantage.

Dell XPS 15 i5 8gig 256gig $1999 New Egg.
MBP 15" i7 16gig 256gig Radeon 2gig $2399

$400 diff with lower processor, no video GPU and less memory. But more ports.

The 13sws are also equal in comparisons.

Hmmm different processor, nvidia w 2 gig optional as well as 512gig drive and 16gig memory. But it does have more ports.

I'd say Dell and MBP are pretty close in specs for the price. Which will be worth more in two years?
[doublepost=1477893377][/doublepost]

If you can't be bothered to check a simple date let alone figure out how to query a site through Google's advanced search, then what good are you doing debating with people about the quality of the product Apple is delivering?

I'm not sure what you saw but the earliest release date for mobile Skylake seems to be SEPT 2015 and volume probably 1qtr 2016.

See this link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylake_(microarchitecture)

The poster's December date was fairly accurate depending on how one interprets the date.

 

[scoobydoo99]

Go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong but the thrust of your post seems to be "Apple no longer make the fastest machines". Apple never made the fastest machines. For the sake of simplicity here, not comparing Power and Intel, let's consider Apple since the the Intel transition. It's almost 10 years now, a lifetime in Tech. Apple never made the fastest machines. You could always go out and build something faster and cheaper than what Apple offered. It was never the decisive factor. Trying to make it so now is either blind to the facts or dishonest.

If you disagree please point out anything, any Mac at all that could not be outpaced by parts you could buy more cheaply right off an OEM shelf. It never happened.

I don't think ANY PC could touch the specs and price of the 5K iMac at it's introduction (or, heck, maybe even now). It cost barely more than the display alone from any other manufacturer.

 

[Sedulous]

When? Again, I'm talking about the post-Intel era when you could actually measure Apples to, well, Apples. It's too complicated to measure PPC and anyway Apple surely would not have abandoned it if it were faster, right?



Sure. And those beige boxes, faster though they may be, were ****boxes, right? Has that much changed now, now that they do the same in vaguely Apple shaped boxes? That part is up for debate

Anyway, the thread between you and I that you were replying to in both cases were that Apple have some track record of making, or even aiming for making, the fastest machines that's it possible to make. I don't think they did and I don't think they even tried for the most part. Again, there is no point in the Apple's Intel history (spanning nearly a decade now) where I couldn't have bought parts cheaper and faster and fitting my special snowflake ports needs that Apple didn't accomodate. It's a rose tinted fantasy.

Yes, Intel-era. I understand your cynicism but I recall the "cheese grater" Mac Pro and one of the MacBook Pros were top in performance (running Windows no less). This was in perhaps 2007/2008. I agree that Apple has never been too spec driven but usually have a reasonable balance for each product line. We just differ in where that point is and how the products are evolving. I dislike the overall direction as do many others. I hope you are right and thinner/lighter/less is the way to go.
[doublepost=1477895034][/doublepost]

No Apple understands perfectly that the "pro" customer is not the majority of the market. It's the reason Ferrari started selling t-shirts. Because they realized they can't survive by only catering to supercar market. If Apple focused on the pro market only they would lose.

What's confusing about apple's products? My wife handed me the phone a while back to help her cousin who was frustrated with finding a laptop that suited her needs. She was frustrated after visiting retailers that sell PCs. All I said to her was visit the Apple Store. She walked out happy as can be with her first Mac ever.... a brand new MBP. Why? Absolutely no confusion as to what she was buying.

I'm sorry that you missed the entire discussion. Ferrari is a product line owned by Fiat/Chrysler. The Ferrari product market is super cars. Fiat also makes other products aimed at other markets. Jeep focus is on SUVs. Fiat doesn't try to make Ferraris that also attempt to be dump trucks and Jeeps that can do >200 mph and cost $250k. Each product line is focused on what that market most values. Ferraris value performance/speed. Jeeps focus on affordable utility.

Glad your wife's cousin is pleased with her Mac.

 

[lowkey]

Huh? Fit for purpose and best possible professional machine are synonymous here. Not sure where I was shown what was fit for purpose nor is there agreement. There is more to a professional machine than maximum IO. Otherwise why not have used only firewire when it was king, or fiber now? Because they are limiting. Sure USB-C is fast, and it does belong on the new MacBook Pro, but right now, and probably for the next few years, 90% of the time conventional ports would have been more useful. Apple could have had an assortment of USB-C and conventional ports except thinner!™ mattered more.

Nobody said bulky and heavy is best either. I have CLEARLY AND REPEATEDLY stated those are secondary concerns for a Pro line machine. And honestly, I have had various portable Macs going back about 20 years and none of them seemed terribly heavy compared to the clunker PC notebooks. Perhaps it is relative. Outside of a single poorly considered capacitor (c7771), the mid-2009 17" unibody MacBook Pro is my favorite notebook purchase of all. Great professional machine at release. Still have two.

Sorry, but "fit for purpose" and "best possible" are not the same thing.

For someone who thinks there is more to a machine than maximum IO you sure whine about having 'only' 2 full bandwidth TB3 and 2 half bandwidth TB3 ports a lot! You can connect whatever you want to these 4 ports. Way more flexible than having 1 HDMI, 1 Firewire, 1USBa and 1 Thunderbolt. Way more bandwidth too.

FWIW My current MBP requires adapters to use. Ive got a firewire 400 to firewire 800 cable connected to a firewire 800 to thunderbolt2 adapter plug in order to connect my audio interface... but i will survive without the complaining, because the use of adapters has always been there. The machine prior need firewire 400 to 800 adapters. Next one will no doubt need USBC to firewire.

I consider my partners 2012 MBP too bulky and heavy for everyday moving around. Much happier with the direction of these current models, though id prefer a non-touchbar integrated graphics option as an entry level 15". I'll likely keep my 2013 rMBP until the toucher attracts less of a price premium.

 

[kwikdeth]

Go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong but the thrust of your post seems to be "Apple no longer make the fastest machines". Apple never made the fastest machines. For the sake of simplicity here, not comparing Power and Intel, let's consider Apple since the the Intel transition. It's almost 10 years now, a lifetime in Tech. Apple never made the fastest machines. You could always go out and build something faster and cheaper than what Apple offered. It was never the decisive factor. Trying to make it so now is either blind to the facts or dishonest.

If you disagree please point out anything, any Mac at all that could not be outpaced by parts you could buy more cheaply right off an OEM shelf. It never happened.

Looking at the plain facts yes, they were never as fast, but at the time there was plenty of advertising and marketing trying to say otherwise. That's one thing that you can say has never changed. Just because it's not the fastest doesn't mean they didn't try to market that it was.

 

[SeaFox]

If you consider that you can plug a seven port USB-C hub into each of these two ten gigabit ports...

There are other Thunderbolt ports on the machine, though. Meanwhile, the vast majority of USB devices people will come across in their computing are not USB-C plugged. I would rather at least one "normal" USB port on the machine, so I'm not required to carry a dongle just to plug in a simple flash drive.

 

[Sedulous]

Sorry, but "fit for purpose" and "best possible" are not the same thing.

For someone who thinks there is more to a machine than maximum IO you sure whine about having 'only' 2 full bandwidth TB3 and 2 half bandwidth TB3 ports a lot! You can connect whatever you want to these 4 ports. Way more flexible than having 1 HDMI, 1 Firewire, 1USBa and 1 Thunderbolt. Way more bandwidth too.

FWIW My current MBP requires adapters to use. Ive got a firewire 400 to firewire 800 cable connected to a firewire 800 to thunderbolt2 adapter plug in order to connect my audio interface... but i will survive without the complaining, because the use of adapters has always been there. The machine prior need firewire 400 to 800 adapters. Next one will no doubt need USBC to firewire.

I consider my partners 2012 MBP too bulky and heavy for everyday moving around. Much happier with the direction of these current models, though id prefer a non-touchbar integrated graphics option as an entry level 15". I'll likely keep my 2013 rMBP until the toucher attracts less of a price premium.

Let us agree to disagree. For the next few years, I think it was a mistake to use all USB-C/lightning ports (two of which may be half speed), making the Pro line of machines thinner, battery smaller, and some of the design changes needed to accommodate a thinner/lighter case. It is unfortunate to lose a dedicated power port and sacrifice a valuable USB-C port for that job. While at the same time, common and frequently used conventional cables/peripherals now will require adapters when at least some of those ports should have remained. Since you mentioned audio production, it will be some time before many interfaces use lightning connectors... and I know many studios are loathe to even update software much less introduce major changes to production line gear. Apple should have maintained some conventional IO ports at least for now.

So no, total IO bandwidth isn't the definitive measure of fit for purpose. Ease of use, interoperability, etc. are important elements of a machine. Right now even trivial things like a thumb drive are 3x the price of conventional equivalents and there are fewer options. Yeah, I know, you can use an adapter. But maybe five years down the line I finally get peripherals that connect natively will I be more upset that I had to be bothered with adapters for five years or that Apple could have saved me the trouble by including a few "old" ports?... in a five year old computer that will by then have been replaced.

 

[576316]

Wow, haha. They charge you more and more whilst taking away features. Who is buying this crap? Apple seriously need a reality check.

Plus no boot chime so that's basically the last straw.
[doublepost=1477898270][/doublepost]

Let us agree to disagree. For the next few years, I think it was a mistake to use all USB-C/lightning ports (two of which may be half speed), making the Pro line of machines thinner, battery smaller, and some of the design changes needed to accommodate a thinner/lighter case. It is unfortunate to lose a dedicated power port and sacrifice a valuable USB-C port for that job. While at the same time, common and frequently used conventional cables/peripherals now will require adapters when at least some of those ports should have remained. Since you mentioned audio production, it will be some time before many interfaces use lightning connectors... and I know many studios are loathe to even update software much less introduce major changes to production line gear. Apple should have maintained some conventional IO ports at least for now.

But that's not COURAGEOUS enough.

Read:arrogant and naive

 

[Applebot1]

Thankfully I'm not in the market for a new machine until probably a couple of years. Maybe the next generation for me. we have to remember Apple never was about making the fastest machines but more about the user experience and eco system because, "it just works". Question is does this still hold up today?

 

[lowkey]

Let us agree to disagree. For the next few years, I think it was a mistake to use all USB-C/lightning ports (two of which may be half speed), making the Pro line of machines thinner, battery smaller, and some of the design changes needed to accommodate a thinner/lighter case. It is unfortunate to lose a dedicated power port and sacrifice a valuable USB-C port for that job. While at the same time, common and frequently used conventional cables/peripherals now will require adapters when at least some of those ports should have remained. Since you mentioned audio production, it will be some time before many interfaces use lightning connectors... and I know many studios are loathe to even update software much less introduce major changes to production line gear. Apple should have maintained some conventional IO ports at least for now.

So no, total IO bandwidth isn't the definitive measure of fit for purpose. Ease of use, interoperability, etc. are important elements of a machine. Right now even trivial things like a thumb drive are 3x the price of conventional equivalents and there are fewer options. Yeah, I know, you can use an adapter. But maybe five years down the line I finally get peripherals that connect natively will I be more upset that I had to be bothered with adapters for five years or that Apple could have saved me the trouble by including a few "old" ports?... in a five year old computer that will by then have been replaced.

Its more flexible to have the charging port able to pass full or half width TB3, rather than simply power...especially when your computer has a battery.

Like i said, for my production computer I'm already using adapters. The current model 2016, previous model 2015 and even the late 2013 model MBP have not had firewire ports. By your argument, the current MBP should still have Firewire 400 so i don't need to use an adapter or special cable. You might really want HDMI. I might really want Firewire 400. Someone else might want Ethernet. Another person might want 4 high speed thunderbolt connections. Just put USBC and everyone can connect to whatever they need with the correct cable.

I guess from using a 12" MB for work everyday i have realised that the USBC port is way more convenient. Even with just one port i can connect to whatever i need.