Let's be clear on this Daniel, chatting to a Final Cut Pro user editing 5K H.264 does NOT constitute high end validation of the Mac platform. FCP X is optimised for current machinery, sure. It's the show pony for these machines.
But I'm ordering a projector worth $65K, I have a DaVinci panel that cost $30K, and my only-for-TV monitor was $12K from Flanders. My CPU/GPU combo will cost $10K+ if it's a new Mac Pro, and that's fine. But I want TB 3, this year's silicon, better-than-OpenCL graphics processing and the ability to chain stuff tidily in a rack box. Moving forward, that's clearly not about adding Nvidia 1080 cards into a 16-lane Cubix box on a 5,1 12-core - but until the Mac Pro does better, that's what I'll stick with, because a naked Mac Pro 2016 doesn't warrant the reinvestment - in new interfaces and limited GPU power.
Seriously, there's SuperMicro kit I could use running Arch that would eat a Mac on the things that matter (no, not nodes full of blurs, but temporal and spatial NR) but I'm a Mac guy. I like doing Mac things. Limiting the upper definition of "pro" users to FCP X speed cutters is to miss the point entirely.
You probably aren't going to grade 5K on a 32 GB MBP either. Likely not enough video ram for DaVinci.
Editing 5K on the new MBP with FCPX, presumably without using proxy, DOES validate high end validation of the MOBILE Mac platform.
That the Mac Pro needs an update Is a good point but not related to the MBP update.
Unfortunately the flawed belief that everyone wants the thinnest laptop possible
This is exactly why people want these laptops. People buy these because they are thin and portable, do not heat, dissipate heat quickly preventing CPU throttling thus maintaining performance all the way. If they wanted bulky laptops they would buy PC laptops.
They are thin because of the heat, they are made of aluminum because of its heat conductivity. Not because of Apple's obsession with thinness. iMacs are made of mobile components and as thin as possible because of the same heat issues. If Apple has an obsession with, this is with the heat, not with the thinness. Heat destroys your computer and kills its performance.
Thanks, I get the heat issue. If I want a really thin machine I could always choose the MacBook which is running a low power chip simply to reduce heat and power usage.... but I don't! The point I was trying to make is that the trade offs of moving the MB Pro line to be even thinner negate many of the reasons it has been considered a Pro machine.
What tradeoff? They give you the fastest SSD in the industry, the most developed color space, the best screen on a laptop, the best heat management without CPU throttling, the best connection and expansion standards, true low power notebook RAM and you call the lack of some obsolete stupid built-in dongles a tradeoff? After seeing that statement I haven't read the rest of your posting.
If you'd said at least "that's an awesome machine but I don't know who will use it"...
I'm going to have to disagree with many of your assumptions and comments: - Your comments about your own needs are nothing but anecdotal. - While I understand that Apple is a company that wants to make money and therefore will build what sells, they're not necessarily building what's desired and/or needed. And there's also usually a big difference between what sells to the masses and quality. IMO, Apple has an arrogance that makes them think they know better than what their users do about their needs. In a few cases, that might be true, especially when wanting to drive the technology forward. But in most cases, it's not, especially for true pro users who understand their business needs, apps and workflow. - You seem to think that the difference between 'too big and heavy too lug around' and Apple's definition of what to include is binary. There are stages in-between and the way Apple could have and should have dealt with that is by offering choices. - You can rationalize Apple's decisions all you want, but there is no question in my mind that Apple is far more interested (and obsessed) in form than function. - For a machine that costs upwards of $2400 (and $4299 fully tricked out), please don't tell me about how I can make up for Apple's failings by using third-party solutions. - By rationalizing that most people don't need all the power that 'pros' are asking for, all you're doing is making a case to not buy this machine in the first place. If someone is mainly a consumer of content and spends their day on Facebook, YouTube and doing work using Office applications and maybe uploading their photos to the machine, they don't need a machine like this at all. They can buy a $400 Wintel machine or an iPad. - Apple's technology has brought DOWN the cost of SSDs? Give me a freaking break. To go from 512GB to 2TB costs $1200!!!. The Cloud is not a universal solution for everyone, especially pro video users. I really don't want to split my files to different drives - I want everything on the laptop and I'm approaching 1TB now. If I buy a new MBP that I expect to last for at least five years, I need at least the full 2TB. Again, most people may not need it, but then they probably don't need this machine at all. - Although I was originally freaked about the machine only including USB-C ports, I'm okay with it now that I see (non-Apple) adapters on sale for $9 (assuming that they both work and last). Having said that, it still makes Apple hypocritical because they only care what the machine looks like in ads, not in real use where pros will have a bunch of dongles hanging out. - Rationalizing that had Apple included the dongles, they would have been e-waste is ridiculous. Did you think that people would just toss them in the trash? Besides, Apple could have included a coupon that gave each purchaser a choice of two dongles and if not used for dongles, they could have been an iTunes credit or a discount on accessories or something. And at the very least, they should have included a USB-C to Lightning port cable or do they not think that MBP buyers are iPhone or iPad users? - Although most of my camera bodies used CF, not SD cards, so I personally never used the SD card slot, I still think Apple should have kept it. It's not a deal breaker, because memory card readers are cheap (although I would have to buy a new one or stick an adapter on the one I have), but it's one more example of Apple's obsession with having a clean design take precedence over the way people actually use the machines. Although one could also argue that because some newer top-of-the-line cameras like the Nikon D5 uses XQD cards, there's too much diversity to choose just one memory card slot type. - Rationalizing the choice to eliminate the MagSafe charging port is a losing proposition. I realize that Apple's rationale is that you can now have power and signal over one cable, but it still doesn't make up for what we've lost by eliminating MagSafe. And unless there's a MagSafe to USB-C adapter, all those extra power supplies people bought to keep at home/office, etc., WILL wind up in e-trash. MagSafe is one feature which was probably more needed by home users than pro users, since most pro users wouldn't be in environments where they're tripping over cables. - If Apple really cared about their users and stopped obsessing over how thin they could make the machine, they would go back to design that permits the end user to replace the battery, storage and memory. Their arrogance in this regard really makes me nuts. They probably think it help sales because users will have no choice but to buy a new machine when the storage or memory isn't enough. But I think it hurts sales because it defers purchasing decisions or makes people (like me) so incredibly pissed at Apple that we just keep what we have until we absolutely have to upgrade.
Personally, I think you hurt your credibility and do yourself a disservice when you rationalize everything Apple does instead of praising the good design decisions and fairly critiquing the bad ones. I think it's fair to say that for most people and especially for professional users, a slightly heavier and larger machine that does the job is far preferable to a smaller, lighter machine that doesn't, because if small and light is a priority, there are other machines that do that better and less expensively.
Aaaand that's it. Can you figure out how it took soooo long for you to come to such a simple conclusion after exhausting all your technology culture in a single post? Writing brightens mind indeed.
Unfortunately the flawed belief that everyone wants the thinnest laptop possible
This is exactly why people want these laptops. People buy these because they are thin and portable, do not heat, dissipate heat quickly preventing CPU throttling thus maintaining performance all the way. If they wanted bulky laptops they would buy PC laptops.
They are thin because of the heat, they are made of aluminum because of its heat conductivity. Not because of Apple's obsession with thinness. iMacs are made of mobile components and as thin as possible because of the same heat issues. If Apple has an obsession with, this is with the heat, not with the thinness. Heat destroys your computer and kills its performance.
Thanks, I get the heat issue. If I want a really thin machine I could always choose the MacBook which is running a low power chip simply to reduce heat and power usage.... but I don't! The point I was trying to make is that the trade offs of moving the MB Pro line to be even thinner negate many of the reasons it has been considered a Pro machine.
What tradeoff? They give you the fastest SSD in the industry, the most developed color space, the best screen on a laptop, the best heat management without CPU throttling, the best connection and expansion standards, true low power notebook RAM and you call the lack of some obsolete stupid built-in dongles a tradeoff? After seeing that statement I haven't read the rest of your posting.
If you'd said at least "that's an awesome machine but I don't know who will use it"...
As I said in the posting, each to their own. What works for some people doesn't work for others. It's not all about creating the fastest or the best heat management or the lowest power RAM. Apple isn't Apple because they delivered these types of innovations in the past. Apple is Apple because they have built the best overall solution that meets peoples needs which include these kinds of innovations. Customers have been willing to pay a premium because Apple have delivered an overall solution that provides much more than the best individual technologies and this includes a transition strategy about moving from one technology standard to another. The very fact that so many people have been so vocal about these machines shows clearly that Apple have failed to do that here. You can try and dismiss the concern about dongles and adapters but this has been an overwhelming sore point for prospective customers. My own view is that relying on adapters to provide a solution is not a well thought out strategy but a lazy way of transitioning.
"Apple will sell tens of millions of these new Macs every quarter..."
Whoa, wait, what? Apple sold a total of 7.2 million Macs of all types in 2015. I guess you're expecting some pent-up demand? ;-)
Edit: whoops... sorry. Apple sells about 20 million Macs a year. (But still, tens of millions per quarter would be more than any other laptop manufacturer. Lenovo does 15m/qtr.)
- Rationalizing the choice to eliminate the MagSafe charging port is a losing proposition. I realize that Apple's rationale is that you can now have power and signal over one cable, but it still doesn't make up for what we've lost by eliminating MagSafe. And unless there's a MagSafe to USB-C adapter, all those extra power supplies people bought to keep at home/office, etc., WILL wind up in e-trash. MagSafe is one feature which was probably more needed by home users than pro users, since most pro users wouldn't be in environments where they're tripping over cables.
USB-C power is much better than magsafe because it's a standard that will allow you to get power easily from charging stations at the airport, external batteries and random power bricks because you left yours at home. Or someone HAS an Apple power brick but it's the older generation and you don't have the $10 adapter handy.
- If Apple really cared about their users and stopped obsessing over how thin they could make the machine, they would go back to design that permits the end user to replace the battery, storage and memory. Their arrogance in this regard really makes me nuts. They probably think it help sales because users will have no choice but to buy a new machine when the storage or memory isn't enough. But I think it hurts sales because it defers purchasing decisions or makes people (like me) so incredibly pissed at Apple that we just keep what we have until we absolutely have to upgrade.
Don't care about battery within the Applecare period. If it breaks they fix it. If I need a spare I have a large Anker battery used for the iPad that happens to be compatible with the MacBook since it has a USB-C port (I got it because it was Anker, 20100 mAh, and on sale for $50).
I also stopped caring about storage because it is now so cheap to get 512GB SSDs and USB3 enclosures. That and I have a RavPower FileHub that makes them wireless NAS when I don't want to bother with connecting them directly. I use this with my iPad for photo storage (it also has a built in SD card reader).
Memory...eh, 16GB is a limitation but not one I bump into anymore as a developer.
Essentially, because I have these accessories for the iPad anyway it really doesn't matter to me. It's stuff/weight/bulk I have in my bag anyway when traveling. At work and at home I have dedicated SAN or NAS for storage and power. USB-C power means I need one less cable AND I can use a cheaper $70 USB-C hub over a $200 TB hub. The thinner and lighter the better.
As far as buying new machines, given how well older macs keep chugging along that's obviously not an Apple strategy or they would EOL MacOS support for older models much more quickly. Sierra still provides official support for 2009 MacBooks. The only gimped machines are iMacs with internal HDDs.
What most people don't understand is that a "pro" computer isn't defined by the hardware it has. Its defined based on your needs as a user. Failing to satisfy those needs doesn't mean that it isn't "pro" for other uses.
It falls short of being "Pro" as in Professional, it's really just "Pro" the marketing alternative for "Premium" which means "Prosumer" not Professional.
A Pro device has to suit all Professional uses. Take a look at DSLR and Video cameras.
A Pro DSLR costs between $600 and $10,000. A Pro Video camera costs between $5000 and $60000. A "Professional" computer like the Mac Pro can be excused if it costs $10,000 fully kitted out for Photography, Video Production, or Audio production. But one configuration of Mac Pro would never one-size-fits-all all of them because the GPU parts don't need to be overkill for Photography or Video production, and can be repurposed as OpenCL DSP's in all non-3D production purposes, but if all you do is Photoshop and work with conventional film/non-DSLR photos, perhaps a fully kitted out MacMini is all you need. The current highest rated DSLR is the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV which costs $4500. It uses UHS-I SDXC cards, that is fine if you have a SDXC card reader for your computer, but a MacMini would already have this slot. That camera takes 6720 x 4480 14-bit raw pictures. That means at the minimum you need 240,844,800 bytes of memory simply to open the file. When you start working on the file you need that much memory in the GPU as well if it's GPU accelerated. This already pushes iGPU solutions into "painful to use" territory.
So these MacBook Pro's are not photoshop tools (Professional Artists use a Wacom Cintiq which they hold on to for years, alternatives still only come with DVI-D or straight VGA.) Who's tools are they really for? The Videographer? Hardly. Take a look at the system requirements for 4K+ cameras. At best you're going to use a MacBook Pro for dailies, and not much else. Any serious editing or video effects work is going to be done at a studio with the highest end systems available.
Which is why there is all this frustration over Apple not bringing back the 2010-style Mac Pro with a socket-2011 series upgradable chassis. The MacPro that they came out with, was an interesting, but ultimately useless product for production. It would have been better off called "MacMini Pro", at least then it fits the marketing. I'm sure It's Pro enough for people using their iPhones as video cameras, but it's a complete joke to the film production industry, whom feel that Apple has abandoned it.
Apple is not going to be able to survive on iterations of it's iPhone product forever, at best that has 3 more iterations left before there is no more performance improvements possible, much like all other electronics. We might see 14nm cpu's, we might even see 7nm, but that's not going to result in cheaper parts. The only way up then is to make products bigger again. Once we reach this plateau, it becomes like cars, where some people have to replace their iPhone's and iPads every year for business tax-write-off reasons, and everyone else hangs on to them for 7 years because there is not a significant change in the technology to warrant it.
So I hope Apple comes back and starts producing real Macbook Pro and MacPro's again that appeal to the Professional user, not just the prosumer.
A professional user is the one who doesn't depend on Apple and is somewhat technically mature to find a way around. A videographer or Photoshop user is absolutely not more "professional" than a pilot or a teacher. Then how do you draw the line and what gives you the right to draw a line between those you qualify as "pro" and those you do not?
Apple will not release different specific products tailored separately to the needs of a teacher, a videographer, a game designer. That means producing for vertical markets and Apple will not do that. Apple produces for the mass market, not for vertical markets. Developing solutions for vertical markets is the system integrators' job, not Apple's. Apple just provides a power core called Mac Pro. System integrators take that power core and develop custom solutions for their "pro" customers. If you don't know what to do with such a core then deal with a system integrator. Otherwise there are many different PC cases to fulfill your pleasure to tinker with your little science projects. Apple is not in that business anymore and the stove design case of the PowerPC era won't come back. In ten years the personal computing industry has achieved a high level of parallelism and processing power, which produces a lot of heat. If Apple has built the Mac Pro onto a "thermal core" architecture excluding everything extra from around that core they have very immediate technical reasons for doing so. CPU throttling is the worst thing you can expect from a Mac Pro grade computer. Apple has done its best to prevent such a throttling by clever heat management on that core. If for the sake of heat management they excluded your bulky dinky gadgets from the body of the computer this is because they are honest and they stand behind their promise of power.
You probably aren't going to grade 5K on a 32 GB MBP either. Likely not enough video ram for DaVinci.
Editing 5K on the new MBP with FCPX, presumably without using proxy, DOES validate high end validation of the MOBILE Mac platform.
That the Mac Pro needs an update Is a good point but not related to the MBP update.
The article is called "Apple's new Touch Bar and the future of Macs", not just a critique of the MBP. You're right, you won't be grading anything much on an MBP. But 5K what? RED? Or something off a drone? My point is that the MBP used to be somewhere in the middle of a range of products that went from basic and portable, via the iMac, to professional machines with the expandability to tackle the media of the day as well as anything else. The current Mac Pro does many things very well, but has a reputation for letting its users down in key areas - like GPU artefacts that sneak in at random after a long period of rendering, requiring endless QA - the "Thermal Core" can't actually handle the heat.
The bean counters will always find an excuse to limit development to a mass market model - but flagships are just that, rare high end flag wavers for the brand and it would be nice if Apple had one. Car makers know that, at least the good ones do.
nht said: If I need a spare I have a large Anker battery used for the iPad that happens to be compatible with the MacBook since it has a USB-C port (I got it because it was Anker, 20100 mAh, and on sale for $50).
This seems to get lost in the bemoaning of the less necessary magnetic power connector, which still exists for devices powered via USB-C. You could even build yourself a bottom casing that could house a battery of any size and have a built in hub with any and all possible connectors, or more speakers, or more speakers, or an extra GPU, or pretty much anything we can think of because of the convenience and universality of having finally moved to the USB-C port interface standard with USB 3.1 and Thunberbolt 3 speeds. This is an amazing time for the Mac.
You probably aren't going to grade 5K on a 32 GB MBP either. Likely not enough video ram for DaVinci.
Editing 5K on the new MBP with FCPX, presumably without using proxy, DOES validate high end validation of the MOBILE Mac platform.
That the Mac Pro needs an update Is a good point but not related to the MBP update.
The article is called "Apple's new Touch Bar and the future of Macs", not just a critique of the MBP. You're right, you won't be grading anything much on an MBP. But 5K what? RED? Or something off a drone?
Mmmm...5K ProRes is all that was specified. So not 5K R3D.
My point is that the MBP used to be somewhere in the middle of a range of products that went from basic and portable, via the iMac, to professional machines with the expandability to tackle the media of the day as well as anything else. The current Mac Pro does many things very well, but has a reputation for letting its users down in key areas - like GPU artefacts that sneak in at random after a long period of rendering, requiring endless QA - the "Thermal Core" can't actually handle the heat.
Unless you are a FCPX user I dunno that I would build an editing station around a Mac Pro. I'm a developer and not a video editor but that's kind of my take. Likewise for live editing in the field I wouldn't get a MacBookPro over a Dell Precision or HP ZBook. When 90% of the time is spent in Resolve or Premiere anyway...and HP got their laptop certified by both Adobe and Avid...
The bean counters will always find an excuse to limit development to a mass market model - but flagships are just that, rare high end flag wavers for the brand and it would be nice if Apple had one. Car makers know that, at least the good ones do.
/shrug
Honda's flagship sedan is the Acura RLX (or the RLX variant the Honda Legend in Japan). For Toyota it's the Avalon or the Lexus LS. None of these will win any 0-60 times or luxury battles against higher end luxury brands.
Maybe the Toyota Century is a contender as a true flagship but would you pick one over a Maybach unless you were a Yakuza boss or the Emperor of Japan? How many people even knows it exists?
The MBP is Apple's flagship sedan. That some folks want a flagship sports car like the Acura NSX or Corvette is immaterial. Apple hasn't built those since the demise of the 17" MBP.
It's simple if you don't like their machines buy something else. By Spring of 2018 we will know how well these machines are received by people. It will take a while because they will sell many just do to pent up demand. Then things will settle down.
I think it's disingenuous to say that the PC industry is 1 year behind apple on it's adoption of PCIe NVMe SSD's. If you compare PC's in the same price category as MacBook Pros you'll generally see equivalent use of PCIe NVMe SSDs. Nor has Apple financed the SSD's price reduction for the greater industry. While Apple sells a lot of laptops, it's not enough to have the same material impact as the rest of the industry.
Apple doesn't give it's developers many portable options other than the MacBook Pro so they're fairly important. Like you said, developers often need to run VMs that can mimic a real world device (which may have 8-16GB of RAM). The cloud isn't always an option for these VMs either.
Per the RAM argument... even w/ storing a pagefile on the PCIe NVMe SSD, that performance will pale in comparison to DDR3 in both throughput and latency/seek times. Those NVMe disks are awesome, but they don't replace RAM.
The dark and the uninitiated. A decade ago, I handed the nascent
iPhone to a friend (a lawyer) and asked him for his opinion. He gave me four points
why he was rejecting it:- 1. It felt like a bar of soap and would slip off his
hand. 2. It did not have a physical keypad as in the Blackberry he was then using.
3. Loading emails were slower than on his BB, given that attachments were
loaded with text but on his device, only the text was loaded which was what
professionals required on the go. The attachments, he said, could be read at
his convenience on his desktop, besides web browsing required a ‘20/20 vision’
as opposed to surfing on a desktop, and 4. Touching and swiping to open apps were adolescent behaviour and not natural, as opposed to scrolling and clicking on
the BB. I thanked him for his opinion which I stressed I valued but before I
left, he asked me for my take, more on his opinion, than on the iPhone itself.
I told him that points he offered for rejecting the device were reasons for the
uninitiated such as myself to embrace it, for the following reasons:- 1. He is
a lawyer and a good one at that, but I had the sense he had scant knowledge of
computers and devices and how they would pan out in the future. 2. Given his
training, he is rife with opinions, even on matters that are not in his domain.
3. When faced with a question from an ‘inexperienced person’ he would find it
hard to refrain from a ‘no comment’ response, and to digress, 4. In 1998, I told
him that the 1st generation iMac drew a similar strain from his
brothers at-law who were dissing the new ‘slit-eyed’ USB because 9-pin printers
and devices at the office were not compatible. Looking back a decade, the judgment
of my friend on the new iPhone was a classic example on why reasoning in the dark
could offer spot-on clues for the uninitiated, in the clear. Looking back two
decades, dissing the USB-C Mac by detractors may prove to be another classic
example on why a passionate analysis in the dark would give clues for the uninitiated,
in the clear. Great post, Daniel!
Brilliant article. The shills and trolls who hate Apple and don't understand why it does what it does are really shameful. So too those who dislike Daniel's writing - it is fantastic. I always look out for DED's articles, they are truth in a world of Android and Windows spin and vitriol against Apple.
My understanding is that the decision to forego 32g RAM configurations has something to do with Intel's work lagging as it has.. hopefully next year.
And to those who say "I and everyone would trade battery life for this" - keep in mind how poorly people take care of their batteries - using the wrong chargers and charging at the wrong times and so on - and how (subconsciously and consciously) damaging it is to the brand when the battery life suffers. Also consider that Apple takes a very long view towards the environment and they try to make the machines last for a very long time. (iPhone 7s are waterproof and have no moving parts - they'll last for 10 years).
macplusplus said: A professional user is the one who doesn't depend on Apple and is somewhat technically mature to find a way around. [...]
Apple will not release different specific products tailored separately to the needs of a teacher, a videographer, a game designer. That means producing for vertical markets and Apple will not do that. Apple produces for the mass market, not for vertical markets. Developing solutions for vertical markets is the system integrators' job, not Apple's. Apple just provides a power core called Mac Pro. System integrators take that power core and develop custom solutions for their "pro" customers. If you don't know what to do with such a core then deal with a system integrator. Otherwise there are many different PC cases to fulfill your pleasure to tinker with your little science projects. Apple is not in that business anymore and the stove design case of the PowerPC era won't come back. In ten years the personal computing industry has achieved a high level of parallelism and processing power, which produces a lot of heat. If Apple has built the Mac Pro onto a "thermal core" architecture excluding everything extra from around that core they have very immediate technical reasons for doing so. CPU throttling is the worst thing you can expect from a Mac Pro grade computer. Apple has done its best to prevent such a throttling by clever heat management on that core. If for the sake of heat management they excluded your bulky dinky gadgets from the body of the computer this is because they are honest and they stand behind their promise of power.
One of the best, most clear-eyed comments I've ever read on here, together with your earlier contributions to the thread. I hope Daniel sees this, as he seemed to be asking for insight. I think you are right about Apple's priorities. It can be seen in both iOS devices and Macs. The goal is to make things that run as advertised and last a long time. The ideas that it is all about being thin (MacBook Pro) and stylish (Mac Pro) is just backwards. The design decisions are a result of the priorities you highlight. They are not ends unto themselves.
The Mac Pro is an innovation, a move to the future. So is the USB-C decision -- people who are objecting to this simply don't understand where the industry is heading = "the future of Macs."
Seeing this through your eyes gives me more confidence that Apple won't abandon the Mac Pro, and the Skylake Xeon-E5v5 architecture will be used to build an epic revision of the MP by WWDC 2017, if Intel follows its leaked roadmap. Speaking of leaks, is it possible that the reason there have been no leaks about the Mac Pro is because it is assembled in the U.S., where Apple has a degree of control they do not have in Asia or elsewhere?
Sorry, it's MY money and I see no value in this machine for the cost. It's no more powerful than last years model so I just went ahead and bought a 2015 Macbook Pro.
As and someone who owned both the 2012 before (in fact every generation of Mac Pro and their antecedents) and the 2013 after Mac Pro I prefer the after by a mile for so many reasons. The 2013 Mac Pro, even if it is now nearly four years old, is amazing (assuming you bought a higher end one). I'd agree A MacBook Pro is a great in field device or for prosumers to play with. That said I'd love a Touch Bar with my Mac Pro. I hope either Apple or a third party make an after market add on external keyboard with trackpad. I'd buy one immediately.
Agree with all of this. Still sent mine back yesterday, not enough bang over last years model. And, not sure if anyone else saw this, the new touch bar was getting very hot on my model, too hot to use as a scroller.
Comments
Editing 5K on the new MBP with FCPX, presumably without using proxy, DOES validate high end validation of the MOBILE Mac platform.
That the Mac Pro needs an update Is a good point but not related to the MBP update.
If you'd said at least "that's an awesome machine but I don't know who will use it"...
There is no such thing as a pro still or video camera that suits all professional uses.
Computers are no different. Nor are aircraft, trucks, boats, earth moving equipment, ...
Why every time a new form factor comes out someone is angry about new size and fine with last Macbook Pro iteration size?
Every effin time.
Whoa, wait, what? Apple sold a total of 7.2 million Macs of all types in 2015. I guess you're expecting some pent-up demand? ;-)
Edit: whoops... sorry. Apple sells about 20 million Macs a year. (But still, tens of millions per quarter would be more than any other laptop manufacturer. Lenovo does 15m/qtr.)
Don't care about battery within the Applecare period. If it breaks they fix it. If I need a spare I have a large Anker battery used for the iPad that happens to be compatible with the MacBook since it has a USB-C port (I got it because it was Anker, 20100 mAh, and on sale for $50).
I also stopped caring about storage because it is now so cheap to get 512GB SSDs and USB3 enclosures. That and I have a RavPower FileHub that makes them wireless NAS when I don't want to bother with connecting them directly. I use this with my iPad for photo storage (it also has a built in SD card reader).
Memory...eh, 16GB is a limitation but not one I bump into anymore as a developer.
Essentially, because I have these accessories for the iPad anyway it really doesn't matter to me. It's stuff/weight/bulk I have in my bag anyway when traveling. At work and at home I have dedicated SAN or NAS for storage and power. USB-C power means I need one less cable AND I can use a cheaper $70 USB-C hub over a $200 TB hub. The thinner and lighter the better.
As far as buying new machines, given how well older macs keep chugging along that's obviously not an Apple strategy or they would EOL MacOS support for older models much more quickly. Sierra still provides official support for 2009 MacBooks. The only gimped machines are iMacs with internal HDDs.
Apple will not release different specific products tailored separately to the needs of a teacher, a videographer, a game designer. That means producing for vertical markets and Apple will not do that. Apple produces for the mass market, not for vertical markets. Developing solutions for vertical markets is the system integrators' job, not Apple's. Apple just provides a power core called Mac Pro. System integrators take that power core and develop custom solutions for their "pro" customers. If you don't know what to do with such a core then deal with a system integrator. Otherwise there are many different PC cases to fulfill your pleasure to tinker with your little science projects. Apple is not in that business anymore and the stove design case of the PowerPC era won't come back. In ten years the personal computing industry has achieved a high level of parallelism and processing power, which produces a lot of heat. If Apple has built the Mac Pro onto a "thermal core" architecture excluding everything extra from around that core they have very immediate technical reasons for doing so. CPU throttling is the worst thing you can expect from a Mac Pro grade computer. Apple has done its best to prevent such a throttling by clever heat management on that core. If for the sake of heat management they excluded your bulky dinky gadgets from the body of the computer this is because they are honest and they stand behind their promise of power.
The bean counters will always find an excuse to limit development to a mass market model - but flagships are just that, rare high end flag wavers for the brand and it would be nice if Apple had one. Car makers know that, at least the good ones do.
Unless you are a FCPX user I dunno that I would build an editing station around a Mac Pro. I'm a developer and not a video editor but that's kind of my take. Likewise for live editing in the field I wouldn't get a MacBookPro over a Dell Precision or HP ZBook. When 90% of the time is spent in Resolve or Premiere anyway...and HP got their laptop certified by both Adobe and Avid...
/shrug
Honda's flagship sedan is the Acura RLX (or the RLX variant the Honda Legend in Japan). For Toyota it's the Avalon or the Lexus LS. None of these will win any 0-60 times or luxury battles against higher end luxury brands.
Maybe the Toyota Century is a contender as a true flagship but would you pick one over a Maybach unless you were a Yakuza boss or the Emperor of Japan? How many people even knows it exists?
The MBP is Apple's flagship sedan. That some folks want a flagship sports car like the Acura NSX or Corvette is immaterial. Apple hasn't built those since the demise of the 17" MBP.
The dark and the uninitiated. A decade ago, I handed the nascent iPhone to a friend (a lawyer) and asked him for his opinion. He gave me four points why he was rejecting it:- 1. It felt like a bar of soap and would slip off his hand. 2. It did not have a physical keypad as in the Blackberry he was then using. 3. Loading emails were slower than on his BB, given that attachments were loaded with text but on his device, only the text was loaded which was what professionals required on the go. The attachments, he said, could be read at his convenience on his desktop, besides web browsing required a ‘20/20 vision’ as opposed to surfing on a desktop, and 4. Touching and swiping to open apps were adolescent behaviour and not natural, as opposed to scrolling and clicking on the BB. I thanked him for his opinion which I stressed I valued but before I left, he asked me for my take, more on his opinion, than on the iPhone itself. I told him that points he offered for rejecting the device were reasons for the uninitiated such as myself to embrace it, for the following reasons:- 1. He is a lawyer and a good one at that, but I had the sense he had scant knowledge of computers and devices and how they would pan out in the future. 2. Given his training, he is rife with opinions, even on matters that are not in his domain. 3. When faced with a question from an ‘inexperienced person’ he would find it hard to refrain from a ‘no comment’ response, and to digress, 4. In 1998, I told him that the 1st generation iMac drew a similar strain from his brothers at-law who were dissing the new ‘slit-eyed’ USB because 9-pin printers and devices at the office were not compatible. Looking back a decade, the judgment of my friend on the new iPhone was a classic example on why reasoning in the dark could offer spot-on clues for the uninitiated, in the clear. Looking back two decades, dissing the USB-C Mac by detractors may prove to be another classic example on why a passionate analysis in the dark would give clues for the uninitiated, in the clear. Great post, Daniel!
And to those who say "I and everyone would trade battery life for this" - keep in mind how poorly people take care of their batteries - using the wrong chargers and charging at the wrong times and so on - and how (subconsciously and consciously) damaging it is to the brand when the battery life suffers. Also consider that Apple takes a very long view towards the environment and they try to make the machines last for a very long time. (iPhone 7s are waterproof and have no moving parts - they'll last for 10 years).
Thanks!