It's not a touch bar, it's an emoji bar. I can very well imagine that it speeds up emojis. I'm sure it's a great thing, it's just really hard to imagine any professional scenario where faster emojis translates into a higher hourly.
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Waiting for the 2018 MBP
- Thread starter benface
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My biggest issue with the emoji bar is that it's a slash and burn of the standard keyboard.
If I want to put Linux, or whatever else on, I dread to think what the support for it is like. At best I might hope for some function keys that I can't feel if I've pressed correctly.
And even if I were to embrace it, as soon as I adapt to it I then can't use any other hardware in the same way, even Apple hardware.
If they'd added it above the function keys as an extra I probably wouldn't be so bothered. But we're pro users, at least I thought that was the market at one point, we use the function keys.
If I want to put Linux, or whatever else on, I dread to think what the support for it is like. At best I might hope for some function keys that I can't feel if I've pressed correctly.
And even if I were to embrace it, as soon as I adapt to it I then can't use any other hardware in the same way, even Apple hardware.
If they'd added it above the function keys as an extra I probably wouldn't be so bothered. But we're pro users, at least I thought that was the market at one point, we use the function keys.
If the tools you use in your profession don’t support the touch bar natively, you might want to check out BetterTouchTool.
It allows customization of the touch bar, and you can completely change the way you interact with the OS and the software you use in your work.
I highly recommend it to anyone who’s interested in increasing their productivity.
(When I say “you” above, I’m not referring to you specifically CodeJoy, but to those who have a MBP with the touch bar, and are interested in utilizing the touch bar more effectively.)
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I will not buy a keyboard that doesn't have an Escape key on it. If that means I've reached a dead end with Apple hardware that's their fault and not mine. I rely on the Escape key thousands of times a day and the touch bar is not even remotely worth the sacrifice to me.
If they want to put a touch bar above a complete keyboard I don't mind. I don't even really mind if I had to pay a bit extra for the thing. But I'm not willing to give up having a complete keyboard.
If they want to put a touch bar above a complete keyboard I don't mind. I don't even really mind if I had to pay a bit extra for the thing. But I'm not willing to give up having a complete keyboard.
Well apart from just about every Mac/iOS developer who uses Xcode.
So is it pretty much guaranteed that the next Macbook will be running Coffee Lake + Vega 7nm?
If so it will be a pretty disappointing upgrade to what has been a pretty disappointing run of notebooks. Not entirely Apple's fault -- Intel's 10nm is a trainwreck, and the cryptocurrency market has slowed GPU development to a crawl -- but I'm not particularly impressed with 4 USB-C ports, the untapered battery, and the broken keyboard either.
If so it will be a pretty disappointing upgrade to what has been a pretty disappointing run of notebooks. Not entirely Apple's fault -- Intel's 10nm is a trainwreck, and the cryptocurrency market has slowed GPU development to a crawl -- but I'm not particularly impressed with 4 USB-C ports, the untapered battery, and the broken keyboard either.
You're suggesting that coders are now considered people? I'll happily take that!! ;-)
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Probably not 7nm Vega, though who knows? AMD have been a bit ambiguous on what 7nm Vega is and when. I personally think *some* variant of Vega is quite likely, though some will disagree.
Either way, if they move to the new CPUs and Vega, you can potentially see a raw performance boost of 50-100% for the CPU, and a wild guess maybe 40% on the GPU side. However much of that actually transfers to your apps will vary with your, well... apps. But if that turns out to be true, then I'd suggest that it's the most significant upgrade in many years. Not saying you're wrong to want more, but it's a fairly significant performance jump if it were to materialise.
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Ever since I started considering a new MBP a long time ago, I've started to be more conscious of how much I actually use the escape key. Which is... in all honesty, possibly not as much as I was thinking. I don't use a no-ESC MBP as of yet, and I guess I won't fully know until I do, but I've started to think it won't be a positive to lose the ESC key, but maybe also not the disaster that some make it out to be. I'm currently slowly warming up to the idea of switching over to a Linux laptop, so I may not ever find out. We'll see. An emoji bar above the normal function keys would make the Linux option start cooling off slightly again.
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This looks like a good suggestion. Possibly something that anyone with a non-ESC key Mac should get.
And yet... here's my issue with this whole concept...
It looks like programmable function keys to me.
This concept exists in gaming keyboards. This concept exists in gaming mice. I've tried both, and they don't quite resonate with me. Sure, with the touch bar some of the programmable keys can be widgets like sliders, and... sliders, and... hmmm sliders? What else is there? Tabs? But can I as a user make new widgets and input methods? Probably not. Can I use gestures on the TB, or even define my own gestures to fit the apps I use? Probably not. So it's programmable function keys. Fine. Possibly useful maybe. Hardly amazing.
Here's the thing: I would more than welcome the touch bar if it added new input methods that enhanced creativity or helped me work faster. In reality, it just moves select screen elements to the keyboard, but actually slows you down since you actually have to take your eyes off the screen and look down on the keyboard. It doesn't add anything creative, it adds things that are marginally useful maybe. Sure, maybe it's easier to change the sound volume. But you know what... my 80's Walkman had this nice little wheel to change the volume. Just as easy, just as fast. And I could use it while it was in my pocket, without having to look. And while adding things that are of very questionable value, that same touch bar removes quite considerably useful functionality from the keyboard. So not really a net positive. It could have been. Might have been. Maybe. But it's not.
I can't blame Apple for trying I guess. You have to try and fail sometimes in order to eventually succeed. But please Apple, fail in a more productive way.
(As with you, this is not primarily directed to you PickUrPoison. I think you made a good constructive comment, and I'm sure that app is as good as you say.)
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It’s pretty much been assumed it will be that way (CPU bump plus incremental gpu bump) for months now, with the question mark over a redesign only gaining any realistic traction with the WWDC no show and keyboard repair programme... unfortunately it looks like we’ve just about hit the buffers on cpu development for the meantime, flash memory prices have only just topped out and look like they’re a long way from returning to normalcy, and as you say crypto-mining has de-focused GPU development to a large degree.
Overall there’s certainly parts of the new design I like (sleeker, lighter form factor, even better speakers, better thermals and battery life (15”)) but my interest pretty much stops at £2k, above that price just seems like wasting money to me - add to that the meagre 256GB storage, and having to buy a dGPU model (I have zero use for one on a MacBook) on the base model and the keyboard issues and I’m certainly not going to be spending £2.4k on it.
No. Not Vega 7 nm, and no guarantee even Vega.
And I'm assuming you mean MacBook Pro, not MacBook.
Uh, what? It's going to be one of the biggest upgrades in ages.
10 nm is a goal, but the benefit from Coffee Lake is quite significant.
Why blame Intel? They produce newer generation (and faster chips) on a regular basis. Most other OEM's are capable of updating their laptops with those newer chipsets in a timely fashion except for Apple it seems. 10nm technology is important for the future but Apple could do some significant updates with the newer generation current Intel chips. I am slowly getting the impression that it is not Apple's priority anymore. But they might prove me wrong later this year.
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Intel can be blamed because this is their first worthwhile CPU upgrade since 2010-2011, when they first made single-die quad core mobile CPUs, giving a 60-70% speed boost. Since then, it's been ~10% y/y improvements, i.e. pathetic.
Apple can also be blamed because after waiting 7 years for Intel to release a new CPU which is a reasonable upgrade over last year (30-40% quad to hex), Apple is becoming very late to the 8th-gen party.
Consumers can also be blamed for continued whining about it being too heavy and thick, resulting in ridiculous sacrifices being made to make it thinner and lighter, and massively increasing required hardware development time, slowing down Apple's release schedule.
Intel have been putting out chip series just to have something new to put on the market. Coffee Lake is effectively Kaby Lake with two extra cores. Which... in all fairness is nice, long overdue, and a meaningful performance boost. And Kaby Lake is effectively Skylake. Which in turn is effectively Broadwell, which in turn is effectively Haswell on 14nm. If I remember correctly, Haswell added AVX2 which is kinda nice, DDR4, TB2, and so on. Since then, very little. I have two desktop systems, one Haswell 5820K, and one Coffee Lake 8700K. They are three generations apart, and yet perform very similar to each other in many respects. 8700K clocks a bit higher, can run a bit cooler (when delidded), is a bit faster, and is on the mainstream platform instead of the HEDT, but pricing was around the same as I recall. Not really performing very differently at all, and don't ask how I ended up with two of the (effectively) same.
I don't think it's so much about the process node -- for consumers that's only interesting to the effect of how they lower power consumption while increasing performance. But it's not strictly necessary to shrink the node for that. And it's not guaranteed that you get a better part just because it's on a smaller node. I think Intel certainly carries some blame for this lack of meaningful improvement over the past few years, and I don't think the 10nm delays can explain all of it.
Nvidia is about the same. They've had their current gen out for two years now, and it did bring a reasonable step in performance for sure, but then they've been milking the cow. I'm not buying that it's all due to crypto currencies. I think it's just as much down to the fact that they have no pressure to improve, and thus no real incentive to put out a new gen. They put out the 1070ti, but it was only put to the market to make Vega look bad. They're also putting out fake versions of 1030, 1050, etc., but that's hardly exciting. They will have a new gen eventually, maybe this year, but I have no doubt that they're delaying the release and it's not for technological reasons. Similar to Intel.
Not that this excuses the delays for Apple. They should put out models with the "new" chips quicker.
I guess what I'm saying is that anyone expecting to upgrade from a 3-4 year old computer is not really going to see any meaningful improvements unless they're moving up a tier or two. That's not just Apple, it's several of the most popular manufacturers. But in the desktop space we have AMD stirring things up quite nicely with their recent CPUs, and they may get (back) there with GPUs as well. But really, whether to be disappointed with this situation or not is a personal choice.
What you want in a GPU and CPU will not be available in 2018, but there will definitely be a “waiting for the 2019 MBP” thread started within minutes of the 2018 MBP release to help you track it. Unfortunately, Intel’s Ice Lake may not ship until 2020. Also, I wouldn’t expect a successor to AMD’s 7nm Mobile Vega before about 2021/2022.
More impressive I/O than the 160Gbps offered by four Thunderbolt 3 ports is years away, since Thunderbolt 4 probably won’t be available until at least 2020 (but I think 2021/2022 is a better estimate). However, if you want Apple to make a MBP with the older ports like the 2015 model, that’s never going to happen.
The once-rumored terraced battery may never be used in MBP, so that could be a long wait.
Some good news: A better keyboard is certainly on the horizon!
It’s fine to dream of a future MBP release that will be your perfect laptop, but you will likely endure many years of repeated disappointment waiting for that dream to become reality. But since you don’t need a laptop right away, there’s no need to buy anything at the moment.
According to that logic you can blame every other chip manufacturer as well. The chip manufacturing technology is reaching it's limits. Moore's law is not applicable anymore. Nothing pathetic about it. The steps forward are getting smaller.
Agreed.
Or did a certain computer brand just made them believe they needed thinner and lighter laptops? I've never seen articles or comments from users whining about the fact that Apple should make their laptops thinner. Instead on every Apple presentation I see Phil boasting about the 'thinnest laptop Apple has ever made'. Lots of people would not mind if their laptop was a bit thicker and was equiped with a better keyboard, upgradable memory and an upgradable ssd. Do you really think that Apple is making 'ridiculous' sacrifices to accommodate the wishes of their customers? It is not in Apple's DNA to make ridiculous sacrifices if it is not beneficial to them.
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I agree. But have to add that even AMD 'stirring things up' are not even capable of making faster chips with Ryzen. Ryzen is more cost effective, has more cores but is not a giant leap as well. Moore's law is stagnating. Until radical new technologies are developed the steps will be smaller. My personal choice is to be not disappointed with that
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Well, the push for thinner, lighter, smaller is not unique to Apple, and is not anything new either. It's been happening since the beginning of technology time, and will continue until the polar caps melt and beyond. In principle, I think this is a good thing and given the sales of current MBP's it's clear that a lot of other people think so too. With Apple, a lot of the issue is that they make effectively just a single model MBP for each screen size, and that one size fits all doesn't actually fit all. Other laptop brands have different model laptops for different target groups, gaming, office, ultrabook, etc. If Apple were to move to, say, two sizes fits all, I think that would make a world of difference.
You're spot on about Apple not making ridiculous sacrifices. They are, probably quite rationally, sacrificing some customers in order to gain some others. And I guess it's the customers being sacrificed that feel like this is ridiculous more than Apple does.
Well, depends on how you see it I guess. In my view, technology improvements are really always about increased efficiency. Getting more for less. There's more than one way to achieve this efficiency. Faster for the same price is one way. Same speed for lower cost is another. Same speed and cost, but lower power requirements is another. AMD is certainly doing some of that. And with 32-core TR2 coming very soon, at an assumed very VERY attractive price compared to Intel, they are delivering a massive increase in efficiency.I agree. But have to add that even AMD 'stirring things up' are not even capable of making faster chips with Ryzen. Ryzen is more cost effective, has more cores but is not a giant leap as well. Moore's law is stagnating. Until radical new technologies are developed the steps will be smaller. My personal choice is to be not disappointed with that
I agree though that it's very normal and expected for current chips to reach limits to growth in terms of performance at some point. It's really Moore's law up against the laws of physics, and I predict that the laws of physics are going to win.
Chips hit the power wall already in 2005 or so. That's what prevents clock frequencies to go significantly beyond 5GHz. That's just physics. But then we started adding cores and growing in another direction. Which is nice and much better for power vs performance. But Amdahl's law pretty much guarantees that this can't possibly scale either. And process nodes have shrunk to the point of almost already being beyond the limits of physics. Just think about how far an electron can travel in a nanosecond and you'll start to see the problem. I'm not sure it's fair to blame Intel or Moore for electrons not being able to travel faster. I'm sure you understand this, but for some reason, a lot of people seem to think that performance improvements can keep happening indefinitely, while the only thing we really know for sure is that it cannot.
Edit: Cannot continue with current technologies is what I mean. We'll see performance improvements for many centuries yet, but we're just now at a point where it's going to take a disruptive shift to bring this along. Which will happen, and there are several candidates for what it might be, we just don't quite know which one will be the most viable yet.
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I disagree. Intel have been riding in first-gear as they haven't had serious competition for many years. AMD are now picking up serious steam, edging out Intel in desktop and enterprise solutions. Sure, Intel are STILL struggling with their 10nm process, however TSMC, Global Foundries and Samsung seem to be having no trouble with their "7nm" process (which is apparently similar to Intel's 10nm). Transistors are still not even close to fundamental size limits (I'll reconsider when we get down another order of magnitude) or frequency limits (far higher than today's). Silicon is struggling, however after all the talk about In-Ga-As, no news of this happening. Intel have been saying for years they intended to move away from Silicon at 7nm, which if they were on track, would be happening in around 12 months. We would therefore be expecting that Intel would have been working on this for many years now in order to get it ready. And if they were seriously having so much trouble with their 10nm process, they could consider what other foundries have done in the past (and are considering in the future) and just cut losses and skip the node.
Basically, I believe Intel are seriously exaggerating the problems with 10nm, because they feel they don't yet have to release it. They are still making plenty of profit on 14nm.
And on top of all of that, there has been nothing stopping Intel from releasing 6-8-core CPUs years ago, other than for marketing and monopolistic reasons.
I find it hard to believe Apple doesn't have some kind of "Market Research" leading them to thinner and lighter machines. I would not at all be surprised if this market research was based on highly leading questions ("Would you like a laptop that was thinner, lighter and more attractive?") but they must have something. I do not believe the people on MacRumours, like me (and probably you), are representative of typical MBP buyers, who would probably like it thinner and lighter. Of course, I also blame Apple for that, because if they hadn't started making it so thin, light and "MacBook-Non-Pro-ish", casual users would be buying the MacBook, which would be perfect for them, instead.
Your last sentence confuses me, as it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of what you're saying. Of course it's not in Apple's DNA to make ridiculous sacrifices which don't benefit them. But the benefit to them is selling more thinner-and-lighter MBPs to casual users who would be better suited with a cheaper MacBook. You have already identified many of the ridiculous sacrifices, however I would also add more powerful hardware, better cooling and bigger battery.
The whole USB-C thing is a perfect example of 'ridiculous' sacrifices. When you release a computer where you cannot use the most popular peripheral, a standard USB flash drive, without an adapter or a hub, that is ridiculous. You do end up with a thinner and lighter computer, but you also have to carry an adapter/hub around with you, making that benefit pointless. Apple have always been very closed in (walled garden) but at this point it's been taken way too far when you can't transfer files between a standard Windows computer and a MBP without an adapter.
Maybe Apple need to follow their desktop route with their notebooks and have three categories. A thin and light consumer solution like the iMac (New MacBook), a compact and integrated pseudo-pro machine (like the iMac Pro) and a more chunky, expandable pro device (like the old Mac Pro, or the verbally teased future Mac Pro).
I don't think supplementing keyboard shortcuts is a good use of resources or worthwhile for the negatives that a touch bar brings.
As for remembering shortcuts, as a developer, I remember quite a lot of keyboard shortcuts, definitely any which I use at least occasionally. I won't know every shortcut, but I won't be using most of the features often, and so the benefit of it being on the touch bar (which it won't be there in the first place due to it being a rarely used function) is lost.
As you said, maybe it is good for inexperienced users, but again I don't think that is a good use of resources to cater to beginners - this is a Macbook Pro, not a V-tech. It is like the Bold/italic/underline functions on the touchbar, might seem cool to you and may help grandma - but we all know what the shortcuts are off by heart.
If there were no compromises due to the touch bar, I would have let it slip (the catering to the inexperienced), but now as developer it has affected my productivity. None of those touch bar gimmick functions will help me.
They need to create hard keys, with maybe some changable display on the top of them. That way, everyone can be catered for without compromising some users.
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I actually think non-BGA built laptops should return. I would love to have laptops which I will be confident to last a decade and beyond (like PC's), where any component failure can be fixed without replacing other good parts a long with it.
The oven method is great for reballing, isn't it?!
Though I guess for slightly more interesting use you'd want a heat gun and a solder iron. It's a bit hard core I guess and shouldn't be necessary to even consider, but I suspect we won't escape inexpensive manufacturing methods as long as we stay with our current financial system.[doublepost=1530525195][/doublepost]The thing with keyboards and emoji bars etc is... as professionals we all work with various different creative media. For coders and writers, the natural creative medium is written text. A keyboard is an excellent input device aligned exactly with that purpose. An experienced typist can be far more productive with this input device than any other we know. Imagine coding with an on-screen keyboard, or trying to code through a speech recognition interface, or even by just using mouse or trackpad. Yes, it can all be done, but productivity is significantly lower than with the seemingly simple physical keyboard. This is of course why we coders and writers are somewhat reluctant to embrace the emoji bar.
Other professions also use the keyboard, but in completely different ways. Engineers, 3D-modelers, and I'm assuming also video editors, they're all assisted by a keyboard, but probably mostly as a way to collect keyboard shortcuts to commonly used functionality in the app. The main input device may be something different, maybe a mouse, a space ball, a jog wheel. I could imagine the situation being similar for musicians, though maybe they don't use the computer keyboard at all? Either way, for these uses, the main idea is not to input text. I can well imagine that the emoji bar can be of more meaningful use here.
Text is the perfect creative medium for some purposes, and mostly a necessary evil for some others. That doesn't disqualify text itself, it's just different purposes.
For casual use, like texting, I can really see the emoji bar come to life, and it would probably indeed offer functionality that you don't quite get through any other means.
To me, this is the real *REAL* issue with Apple and "pro" users. It's not about system specs or ports or resolutions, though those things have a partial role to play of course. It's very much about input devices that align with the creative medium that the professional is operating in. And this is exactly where I would personally want Apple to be creative, innovative, and insightful in its ways to perfectly align input devices with professional use. I think a fair bit of the dissatisfaction comes from the fact that Apple have done at least fragments of this in the past. But the whole emoji bar situation is really so tone deaf that it's appalling. Put it above the function keys and nobody has an issue with it at all. It will either add zero value or some non-zero positive value. Never really negative value, aside from cost.
This is of course why discussions happen in forums like these, and why some people love the emoji bar and can't imagine why someone wouldn't, whereas others hate it and can't imagine why anyone would find it useful. Humans usually only see their own situation. But it comes from the fact that we're all using the devices for different purposes, and thus use them differently, even though the coder and the engineer have the exact same keyboard on their laptop.
There's of course lots more to the "pro" side of things, but this is a big part of it I believe.
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I’m a professional and I have to say I’ve never used shortcuts for bold, italic or underline!
Nobody is questioning your professionalism - the real question is are you a grandparent ?
FYI
Command-B = bold
Command-I = italic
Command-U = underline
I am not. I am only 26 years old.