E.G., massively favour form over function to the customer's detriment.
There is nothing wrong with the 2015's size and feel. It does not need to be lighter than that. Losing basics like an internal HDMI port and SD card slot are not acceptable for me as a media professional - period - for whatever tradeoff.
I don't want to have to dig some adapter out of my bag because the manufacturer of the laptops I've used for almost two decades has suddenly gone daft, prioritizing thinness over the device actually functioning, even as effectively as the previous units, that I have ardently supported for years (I still use an iMac G4 every day for cartoons and random drawings in Flash.)
Don't even get me started on the SSD/RAM being soldered to the Logic Board, either - I'm not even sure if other manufacturers are doing this, but to a girl who used to build her own towers from scratch, is not particularly wealthy, but also not particularly poor, and has counted on upgrading her devices for years to get value out of them when she can later afford it - this feels like an actual slap in the face.
I would personally never purchase a personal computer that I would e.g. do development on, that I could not remove the hard drive of myself, even if just for data recovery purposes.
This is all highly subjective yet you state it as fact. There’s nothing wrong with prioritizing portability in a laptop. I for one prioritize usability over almost anything else and Apple’s ethos fits pretty squarely with that, between the portability, the OS, and the trackpads. Sometimes form _is_ function.
There is no additional function afforded by making the laptop thinner through the implementation of a defective keyboard and reduced battery volume.
Nice strawman, but portability has long since been achieved.
You say you prioritize usability but then defend an idiotic and regressive design that impedes usability so disgracefully that even Apple has had to admit failure.
The trackpads are another failure, being way too big and thus suffering from spurious contacts from the heels of your hands. Why didn't Apple at least make the giant trackpads useful by having the Pencil work on them?
I’m not defending the design, I’m defending Apple’s prioritization of portability in their laptop lineup. The fact Apple is retreating on the keyboard design is evidence enough that that particular design choice was a failure. Doesn’t mean their priorities are wrong though even if you _personally_ disagree with it.
Lighter is better for me, as I carry my laptop all the time. The laptop I had before my Mac was really heavy, bulky, caused back pain and limited what else I could carry. Lighter the better please.
In Alaska, I drove everywhere and my computing setup was just right (a 12.9" iPad Pro, smart cover, and Magic keyboard).
Here in Europe, I walk a lot more, and my giant iPad is heavy for me.
Also, a small, light bag is a blessing: buses in the morning are packed.
I'd bet that things like having or not having a car dictate a lot of our everyday carry choices - it has for me. Now I'm wondering if an iPad Mini is too small...
That’s a good point. I walk all the time, travel by train a lot, don’t own a car, and thus weight (and volume, btw) are really important. Probably if you’re not carrying a lot of stuff in a single bag and walking everywhere with it, you care less.
The issue though is that Apple are prioritising thinness, not lightness.
Of course, one is sometimes a proxy for the other, but it's not a given.
I also travel a lot, and want a thin, lightweight laptop - but it must be functional, reliable and have excellent battery life; I don't care a jot if the next generation is 1mm thinner than the last if it means sacrificing keyboard usability and reliability, battery life and cooling.
We past the point where thinness was an issue a long time ago. Now it's just a pissing contest.
Thinness really matters to me. My last laptop was much thicker than a MacBook and it limited what I could fit in my bag. I’m comparing with a standard dell or whatever, not a MacBook-like Lenovo etc.
There's a big difference between a workstation like an HP zBook and a MacBook Pro, but that's not what I mean. I'm talking about the trend of sacrificing utility to shave practically microns off an already very thin machine. Shaving another 1mm off the thinness of the MacBook Pro isn't going to matter a jot to anyone.
I like how the modern solution for weak back/core musculature is to buy an expensive laptop that excessively sacrifices repairability and upgradability.
I'm not trolling. I just think it's insane he needs a 4 oz lighter laptop because his back hurts which is most likely due to weak core/back muscles. It's such a clear sign of the times that people are more willing to pay 1000+ for a quick fix which numerous other downsides rather than addressing the real issue. Not sure how that's trolling. Are you trolling?
There are people that need them, get the most out of the least weight, frown at the bad stabilities of the 2015 era switches (and yes, I love the butterflies), not using the fn keys, e.g.
I get that, you’re not the target market. That doesn’t justify reverting everything the new MBP has.
I just can’t understand why all HNers get from ‘I hate the MBP’ to ‘Apple is wrong!’.
There is a reason why the MBPs from '16 -'18 is one of the most successful ones; the touchbar, the butterfly keyboards, soldered SSDs are there for a reason.
No one is taking this from you. The point is that these features (thinness/touchbar/whatever) are not an _option_ now. Before you could pick Air if you preferred a thin machine, Pro in case you wanted all the ports. Everyone got their own. Now that's not a thing anymore.
Exactly. In fact, the lineup was so absurd that the for years the 'MacBook' was lighter than the 'MacBook Air' - and more expensive - all of the logic from Jobs' original 'pro desktop/consumer desktop - pro laptop/consumer laptop' ideology has gone far out the window.
> The point is that these features (thinness/touchbar/whatever) are not an _option_ now.
Well, the iMac didn’t provide an option to install floppy disks as well!
If you believe they are crucial, then you should just buy another company’s computer.
Nobody is forcing anybody to buy the new MBPs.
The problem is people feel trapped into buying Apple only because they got used to MacOS. I'm sure not many would bother to keep using these outdated 2015 MBP if they could simply install MacOS on a Thinkpad X1 like you do Linux, for instance.
It’s funny - there was a time when Apple had petty great hardware and woefully inadequate software (after Steve’s return, before Mac OS X was released). Now it seems they’ve switched to being the other way around.
It's 50% magic, and 50% actually caring about the product. PC laptops are a race to the bottom because the only way they can sell laptops are by advertising their specs on Best Buy counters or Amazon pages. Review that average consumers bother to read rarely rate laptops on how enjoyable they are to use. Most customers (in my experience) will have a few key metrics they want (generally battery life, web browsing performance, and storage). Everything else, from quality to screen to input devices, are effectively cost centers to the manufacturer. Dell XPS and Surface are getting there
on trackpads, but they still haven't put forward the full effort for it.
That's only true with low-mid tier devices. Try handling a ThinkPad X1 Carbon, it's way better professional hardware than a MacBook Pro imo. Super light, mate screen, great keyboard.
My theory on Apple's design process with the MBP is they put all their efforts on the first 60 seconds with the product. The touchpad is the first thing you touch in a store, the bright colorful screen, and the very cool look the flat keyboard gives to the whole machine contribute a lot to the first impression.
The finger pains, the electric conductivity and heavy weight of the aluminium, the reflective screen, those are things you suffer from only once you've already bought the product.
One can kindof squint and see the touchbar as a situational affordance, maybe even a preference, but a need on a computing form factor that's already had a touch surface + changeable display for the last two decades?
And are you seriously arguing that there was some key threshold of utility that was crossed in losing the ~4 oz between 2015 and 2017 models that was worth sacrificing keyboard function&reliability AND the utility of being able swap out the SSD?
> need on a computing form factor that's already had a touch surface + changeable display for the last two decades?
The fact that it was like that for the last two decades don’t mean that the TB isn’t needed.
I use it daily, I cannot imagine myself going back to a MacBook without the touchbar.
> And are you seriously arguing [...] ~4oz between 2015 and 2017 models that was worth
There are lots of people that believe the lighter weight is worth the unswappable SSD/RAM.
> sacrificing keyboard function
No, the butterfly switches boost my productivity; they have numerous advantages. Just because some people like deep keys don’t mean butterflies are terrible.
> reliability
The '16/17 model’s reliability were terrible; the '18 models aren’t.
It’s a fixed problem, unless people hate Apple.
And besides, of course the newer device is going to have a lower failure rate so far (unless they've screwed up even harder than Apple normally does). You have to compare the failure rate at the same point into the product's lifecycle.
> unless people hate Apple.
It's hard not to, when they are so eager to give people more reasons.
> The fact that it was like that for the last two decades don’t mean that the TB isn’t needed.
That's exactly what it means if you start to think about what laptop interfaces really are. On a form factor that already has one touch surface and plenty of display area -- and where the overwhelming form of interaction that isn't through the keyboard is manipulating on-display objects using the traditional touch surface -- the specific value of adding additional touch surface with additional display is necessarily going to be marginal. Occupying the same space is mildly novel, but it's never going to be the same value-add that bringing touch surface to a mobile device was. There's literally nothing that can be done with it that can't be done without it.
Now, maybe there's some specific marginal utility gains, but notably, you didn't even pick one to put up against living w/o the touchbar, so it appears you can't even make your own argument. Whether you use it every day is no more a point in its favor than the fact that people use/used escape, function, and utility keys every day.
> There are lots of people that believe the lighter weight is worth the unswappable SSD/RAM.
There aren't even lots of people that can reliably distinguish the a difference of 4 ounces between two ~4lb objects by feel. I'd bet there aren't even that many people who know what that weight difference is. Which makes idea that the prospective market actually thought through that and concluded "oh, yeah, this is a fair tradeoff" is pretty tenuous.
If you want a semi-plausible argument, go for the idea that expandability/maintenance isn't something the "target market" thinks about. That's still odd for a pro model, but it's plausible for prosumer/luxury consumers.
> the butterfly switches boost my productivity; they have numerous advantages
Again, none of which you listed.
> It’s a fixed problem, unless people hate Apple.
Stats? Because there's enough anecdotal evidence to suggest it's not entirely fixed.
And the idea that people complaining about the recent features is an audience of people who just hate apple is provably false, as evidenced by the fact that many of those complaining loudest prefer earlier Apple models.
I could use the extra processing power and better GPU, and would be willing to pay for said things - I certainly 'need' those things.
But if, as a media professional in both film and audio, and as a professional software developer for iOS - the detriments of their newer hardware unfortunately vastly, vastly outweigh any potential performance gain - what 'Pro' segment is Apple aiming for, exactly? Whose needs are they fulfilling?
They are aiming for the pro wallet users. Apple has dumped the power users that were so loyal in the last 2 decades in favor of making more money. Simply that.
Please suggest an alternative that runs macOS and has up-to-date internals.
> There is a reason why the MBPs from '16 -'18 is one of the most successful ones
They are? That's news to me. Anecdotally, I almost exclusively see older Macs, but I don't know how much of that is due to dislike of the new models vs upgrades being expensive in general.
Depends on a definition of "successful". My previous work mbp failed post warranty, but since the board replacement (Apple's idea of "repair") would cost close a new unit, I've been told to just order the new one. And mbp's the least bad choice I had for hardware, so I guess numbers are up due to non-repairability - success?
Here’s a tip for avoiding adapters: just buy a cable that has USB-C on one end instead.
Or get a simple-ass dongle that has SD card USB ports on one end and USB-C on the other. These cost like $10, literally, without HDMI of course.
All this said, I miss the keyboard of older MbPs when working on my 2017 MBP. Enough that if I’m docked I use a mechanical keyboard OR lately I’ve been using an Apple wireless keyboard set directly in front of my laptop, ha ha.
I have a box with USB B, miniusb, microusb and usb-c cables. I doubt these can be recycled to any acceptable degree. This "just buy the latest cable" is actively harmful.
There is nothing wrong with the 2015's size and feel. It does not need to be lighter than that. Losing basics like an internal HDMI port and SD card slot are not acceptable for me as a media professional - period - for whatever tradeoff.
I don't want to have to dig some adapter out of my bag because the manufacturer of the laptops I've used for almost two decades has suddenly gone daft, prioritizing thinness over the device actually functioning, even as effectively as the previous units, that I have ardently supported for years (I still use an iMac G4 every day for cartoons and random drawings in Flash.)
Don't even get me started on the SSD/RAM being soldered to the Logic Board, either - I'm not even sure if other manufacturers are doing this, but to a girl who used to build her own towers from scratch, is not particularly wealthy, but also not particularly poor, and has counted on upgrading her devices for years to get value out of them when she can later afford it - this feels like an actual slap in the face.
I would personally never purchase a personal computer that I would e.g. do development on, that I could not remove the hard drive of myself, even if just for data recovery purposes.