When the new MBPs release, Apple will have walked back on most 2016 changes

[senttoschool]

Things that the 2016 introduced:

1. Butterly keyboard
2. Touchbar
3. No ESC key
4. Only USB-C

Other notable 2016 MBP failures:

1. Intel's new CPUs barely had any increase in performance from 2015
2. Battery life was worse
3. The laptop ran hotter than 2015, throttling all the time

I remember eagerly anticipating the 2016's unveiling and waiting to upgrade my rMBP. I bought the 13" MBP w/ Touchbar on launch day. I lasted 3 days with that laptop until I couldn't take it anymore and returned it for a 2015. Two keys had gotten stuck. Not having ports were annoying as hell in 2016. No ESC key made coding hard. Touchbar made all the basic things like volume, brightness, music controls harder. It was awful.

I skipped the entire 2016 generation and kept my 2015 until I upgraded to the M1 MBA.

When the new MBPs ship, Apple will have walked back on all the major 2016 changes, and fixed all the 2016 MBP failures.

Pure speculation: I sincerely think that the 2016 MBP was what eventually drove Ive to leave Apple. He was probably championing all these changes against many other powerful employees inside Apple. He won that battle but he lost the trust of many at Apple after poor sales and poor reviews. Both the trashcan Pro and the 2016 MBP were a disaster.

I also think that Apple lost it without someone like Jobs saying no to Ive. If you've ever worked with tech designers before, you'd know that they are idealists, unrealistic, always want change for the sake of change. You have to have a strong person to pull them back into the real world. After Jobs, there was no one higher in command than Ive to tell him no. The only person higher was Tim Cook and he isn't a product person.

 

[leman]

We'll see about that

Btw, the bigger issues (unreliable keyboard mechanism and lack of ESC key) were fixed in the 16" btw. Performance and thermals of Touch Bar models were quite good, not sure why they get the bad rep...

 

[Gnattu]

In fact I'm okay with USB-C only and the Touch Bar (with physical ESC). The butterfly keyboard was a nightmare.

 

[JMacHack]

Walking back bad changes is progress imo. It’s important to admit your mistakes.

 

[spiderman0616]

The keyboard needed to be gone, and I hate to make sweeping statements like this, but I think it was a sign that Jony Ive needed to be gone too. I'm not sure how insistent he was on that particular keyboard tech in the name of thinness, but if he was, man, what a bonehead decision to stick with those for even one year.

 

[Argon_]

-My experience with the revised butterfly keyboard was better than most, but still not good. Not one key failed. That being said, the typing experience was rather poor. I attribute the lack of failure to using a keyboard protector.

-The Touch Bar started out as an object of intense hatred, and then became tolerable once I set it up as a customized row of Fn keys instead. It was never good, and always a waste of CPU cycles, but the customization made up for some of the annoyance.

-In my time of using an escape-less touch bar, it only froze on me a few times in two years. Still a problem, but the virtual ESC key was generally functional. I wish they'd axed the Touch Bar all together when scissor switches came back instead of just adding physical ESC.

-I ended up liking the exclusive USB C more than the previous setup after adapting to it. Pun not intended.

 

[nquinn]

Yes and it's amazing. 2016-2019 were shameful years for Apple and macbooks.

I could live with some of the other annoyances (touchbar, usb-c only), but the butterfly keyboard was an atrocity.

 

[senttoschool]

We'll see about that

Btw, the bigger issues (unreliable keyboard mechanism and lack of ESC key) were fixed in the 16" btw. Performance and thermals of Touch Bar models were quite good, not sure why they get the bad rep...

Yes they walked back on most of the changes with the 16" but I still hated the touchbar with disgust. I said I'd never buy a laptop with a touchbar after my 2016 experience and I didn't.

Thank god for the M1 Macbook Air. It restored my faith in Macbooks and now I can't wait for the MBPs based on all the leaks.

 

[leman]

Yes they walked back on most of the changes with the 16" but I still hated the touchbar with disgust. I said I'd never buy a laptop with a touchbar after my 2016 experience and I didn't.

On the other hand, just because you hate the Touch Bar and Apple made some changes to 16" that you like, does not does not mean that will remove the Touch Bar I know there are rumors they will, but we'll see about it.

Thank god for the M1 Macbook Air. It restored my faith in Macbooks and now I can't wait for the MBPs based on all the leaks.

But the M1 MacBook Air did not change anything about the design or ports situation. And it still has the same cooling system people used to complain about in an Intel version. Apple simply replaced the internals with it's own hardware (which is obviously much better one).

 

[senttoschool]

But the M1 MacBook Air did not change anything about the design or ports situation. And it still has the same cooling system people used to complain about in an Intel version. Apple simply replaced the internals with it's own hardware (which is obviously much better one).

It made a world of change for me. I could never use the Intel Macbook Air for coding because it was simply too slow.

The M1 made the Macbook Air chassis totally fine for development.

I've accepted the lack of ports. It's better in 2021 than 2016. But of course, I'd welcome back ports with an open arm.

 

[senttoschool]

On the other hand, just because you hate the Touch Bar and Apple made some changes to 16" that you like, does not does not mean that will remove the Touch Bar I know there are rumors they will, but we'll see about it.

At this point, it will be a miracle if Apple actually releases a new MBP with the touchbar. Apple has stopped mentioning the Touchbar in any keynote for the last few years. The only "improvement" Apple has made to the touchbar over the last 5 years was making it do less by adding a physical escape key.

Lack of update, lack of marketing, reliable sources saying no more touchbar.

99.99% dead in my humble opinion.

 

[matrix07]

99.99% dead in my humble opinion.

Let’s hope so 🤞

It will be good riddance I say.

 

[nquinn]

Let’s hope so 🤞

It will be good riddance I say.

Agree. The ability to easily change volume/brightness by touch-typing was lost horribly with the touchpad.

 

[leman]

The ability to easily change volume/brightness by touch-typing was lost horribly with the touchpad.

I think tastes differ on this one. Personally, I find brigtness/voluem adjustments to be much more convenient -and quicker - with the Touch Bar. Maybe because I never really saw any value in doing it blindly.

 

[l0stl0rd]

We'll see about that

Btw, the bigger issues (unreliable keyboard mechanism and lack of ESC key) were fixed in the 16" btw. Performance and thermals of Touch Bar models were quite good, not sure why they get the bad rep...

beacuase I had a 16” and as soon as you gave it a bit if work like some zbrush sculpting or anything else 3d related it rand hot, loud abd the battery was dead in like 2-3 hours.

First thibg I did is replaced it with an M1 air, could not be happier expect the screen size and ports.

So I am impatiently waiting for the new 16” M something…

 

[leman]

beacuase I had a 16” and as soon as you gave it a bit if work like some zbrush sculpting or anything else 3d related it rand hot, loud abd the battery was dead in like 2-3 hours.

Just like any other laptop out there running 3D workloads. Why do you think that the new Apple Silicon laptops will do much better? People say that they want a fast GPU, if Apple gives them a fast GPU it will invariantly drain the battery in 2-3 hours.

 

[nquinn]

beacuase I had a 16” and as soon as you gave it a bit if work like some zbrush sculpting or anything else 3d related it rand hot, loud abd the battery was dead in like 2-3 hours.

First thibg I did is replaced it with an M1 air, could not be happier expect the screen size and ports.

So I am impatiently waiting for the new 16” M something…

My work 16" mbp gets super hop doing almost anything. Even simple video playback in youtube. It just runs super super hot unless you change the fan profile manually.

 

[l0stl0rd]

Just like any other laptop out there running 3D workloads. Why do you think that the new Apple Silicon laptops will do much better? People say that they want a fast GPU, if Apple gives them a fast GPU it will invariantly drain the battery in 2-3 hours.

Beacuaus they are, the M1 air does much better and performance is definitely not worse for most things.

16” to M1 Air is actually an upgrade in most things and not a downgrade.

Ooh and actually zBrush is not really using the Gpu it is more CPU heavy.

 

[l0stl0rd]

My work 16" mbp gets super hop doing almost anything. Even simple video playback in youtube. It just runs super super hot unless you change the fan profile manually.

yeah I was so disappointed by the 16”, or any intel macbook. Used the 15” a bit for work that was not better.

At least so far changing to their own silicon is the best move Apple made for Laptops. Time will tell if it is great for Desktops too.

 

[ssmed]

In fact I'm okay with USB-C only and the Touch Bar (with physical ESC). The butterfly keyboard was a nightmare.

I am only good with 4 USB ports, 2 is a nightmare here! It has stopped me moving over to the M1 for work and I stick to the intel MBP.

A physical escape key was the only essential toolbar key - I agree

 

[leman]

Beacuaus they are, the M1 air does much better and performance is definitely not worse for most things.

Oh, I am not doubting that. M1 is very competent at this kind of work and will likely outperform a nominally aster machine while consuming less energy, assuming the software is competently written.

Ooh and actually zBrush is not really using the Gpu it is more CPU heavy.

The moment you start doing 3D rendering, the GPU goes into high power mode, so even light GPU work will see the GPU drawing more power. It is entirely possible that Apple has more advanced GPU power management (they do need to use advanced visual effects while delivering good battery life on the phones), but I am not aware of any details. Usually, as soon as you start using the 3D API explicitly, your power consumption jumps up. Would be interesting to do some more in-depth tests though...

Anyway, my point is that the M1 GPU draws 10W at it's maximum. So you can be pushing it pretty hard and still get a decent lifetime on a 50Wh battery, especially if you have some power optimizations. A 30-40W GPU on a 100Wh battery though? Not so much.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"Pure speculation: I sincerely think that the 2016 MBP was what eventually drove Ive to leave Apple. He was probably championing all these changes against many other powerful employees inside Apple. He won that battle but he lost the trust of many at Apple after poor sales and poor reviews. Both the trashcan Pro and the 2016 MBP were a disaster."

I've been posting this as well, for some time now. It was Ives' bad design, probably coupled with his insistence that the defects could be "fixed", that caused significant problems for Apple and finally led to his departure from the company.

Think back to the days when the 2016-design MBP's were announced.
Recall in particular the comments of many here regarding USBc ... "USBa ports are dead!", etc.

Five years later, look at the entire computer market, in general, and USBa is still very much alive.

The smartest computer-buying decision I ever made was in December 2016. I was able to compare the 2015 design and 2016 re-design side-by-side, and as a result of being able to make such comparison, I bought the 2015 as "the better design". Five years later, the 2015 is still doing fine.

My next MacBook Pro will probably be the 2021 14".
And it will have most of the "same ports" that the 2015 does!
Same "scissors type" keyboard, and same function keys!

 

[JMacHack]

I think the touchbar had several issues that led to its failure.

1. if you liked the touchbar, then you only had to use the MacBook keyboard. No other input supported it so if you had an external keyboard, then you wouldn’t be able to use any of the functions of the touchbar.

2. if you didn’t like it, then too bad. Any muscle memory from any other keyboard wouldn’t transfer over.

3. it wasn’t very useful in the first place. I was an apologist at first and tried to make the best of it with BetterTouchTool, but even then it just wasn’t as convenient as keybinds or function keys.

4. it was functionally less efficient than standard keyboards, with extra steps to adjust brightness, volume, etc. and you had to take your eyes off the screen to do so.

4.1 and taking your eyes off the screen to do tasks that didn’t otherwise require it was a pain too.

At best it had dubious benefits, even if people liked it. The most positive things I’ve heard were about video scrubbing, and that’s it. To my mind that could just be replaced by a keybind to make touchpad movement scrub video.

 

[nquinn]

OP wrote:
"Pure speculation: I sincerely think that the 2016 MBP was what eventually drove Ive to leave Apple. He was probably championing all these changes against many other powerful employees inside Apple. He won that battle but he lost the trust of many at Apple after poor sales and poor reviews. Both the trashcan Pro and the 2016 MBP were a disaster."

I've been posting this as well, for some time now. It was Ives' bad design, probably coupled with his insistence that the defects could be "fixed", that caused significant problems for Apple and finally led to his departure from the company.

Think back to the days when the 2016-design MBP's were announced.
Recall in particular the comments of many here regarding USBc ... "USBa ports are dead!", etc.

Five years later, look at the entire computer market, in general, and USBa is still very much alive.

The smartest computer-buying decision I ever made was in December 2016. I was able to compare the 2015 design and 2016 re-design side-by-side, and as a result of being able to make such comparison, I bought the 2015 as "the better design". Five years later, the 2015 is still doing fine.

My next MacBook Pro will probably be the 2021 14".
And it will have most of the "same ports" that the 2015 does!
Same "scissors type" keyboard, and same function keys!

The 2015 macbook is still my benchmark for the best laptop made yet. Hopefully these new 14/16" M1X models will become that new standard.

 

[spiderman0616]

Yes they walked back on most of the changes with the 16" but I still hated the touchbar with disgust. I said I'd never buy a laptop with a touchbar after my 2016 experience and I didn't.

Thank god for the M1 Macbook Air. It restored my faith in Macbooks and now I can't wait for the MBPs based on all the leaks.

Same. I had actually completely sworn off the entire laptop form factor. The M1 Air/Pro/mini changed my mind.