I just upgraded from a 2011 MBP to a maxed out 2018 i9/Vega 20/32GB/2TB 15" MBP [...] Keyboard is the best I've ever used.
Give it time. That opinion may change. I liked mine at first too. I liked it less as it began flaking out with stuck and repeating keys.
Then again, mine is the 2016 so maybe yours will be better since Apple has had two years to work on it.
At which point I’d take it in to get serviced. Also, yes, we all know the 2017 keyboard was changed as was the 2018 more significantly, so your anecdote doesn’t apply to me.
How do you "service" away a design flaw? Apple has already said repairs to 2016 and 2017 keyboards will be with like kind, NOT an updated version. That means best case scenario they replace this flawed keyboard with another one that has the same issue. Whoopie.
As for "your anecdote doesn't apply to me," I sincerely hope you're right. It's a little early for you to be smug about it though.
I’m talking about my 2018 keyboard, not yours. I have some faith that they’ve possibly actually fixed the past problems with previous keyboard models. Additionally, I was originally referring to how much I enjoy using it despite the constant bleating about lack of travel etc. And I understand how repairs work. I got 8 years out of my previous MBP after they replaced the logic board four times with the same model logic board during that period due to the dGPU flaw. Not super concerned about the keyboard just because of anecdotes about previous models. I simply don’t embrace FUD just because of your unrelated experience; not sure how that’s being “smug” as opposed to just being pragmatic.
I own a software company and the last Macbook Pro I bought was in 2017 for my graphical designer. The 2 machines I bought in 2018, one for a backend developer and one for a frontend developer, were both Dell XPS 13 machines running Ubuntu. While for the backend developers the preferred machine was already an XPS, for the frontend developer this is a switch from a Mac to XPS.
The reason s simple, the Dell XPS has a superior price value ratio. For a config with a 8th gen i7 CPU, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, the Macbook Pro is 48% more expensive. The Dell has excellent build quality, a real escape key (very important for software development) a great screen, good battery and a superior keyboard. The Mac has a superior SSD but a mediocre keyboard and a for a software developer useless Touchbar. Even if the price were equal, it would not be obvious that for software development the Mac is the better machine
I will continue to buy Macs for doing graphical design because of the application stack (Adobe Creative and Sketch). Apparently software developers are no longer belonging to the target audience of the Macbook Pro
13" laptops suck for software development if you don't dock. And if you dock a 13" laptop you can use a any keyboard along with a large screen and mouse. If you purchased a laptop for mobile use both Windows and Macs have better battery management even using TLP than ubuntu.
In theory, tuning using powertop and TLP will get good results. In practice, it's just more pennywise and pound foolish behavior. Maybe 18.10 fixed all this but 18.04 was not nearly as good as Fedora 28. Unfortunately Fedora is still rather meh on machines with nVidia because they don't like proprietary drivers. Plus running 18.04 LTS (or for the even more conservative 16.04 LTS) is typically preferred since it's, in theory anyway, more stable.
Also, the Touch Bar isn't useless for development as Xcode has some nice buttons and so can VSCode, Sublime, etc. If was stuck doing development using a 13" laptop on a plane all day I'd probably spend some effort to tailor my touch bar but I don't so I haven't.
Your arguments against the Mac has been at best contrived and at worst close minded and idiotic.
To keep Mac sales, specifically notebook Mac sales, from declining further, Apple needs to consider the needs and demands of The Rest of Us, and not just millennials who don't care about how good a keyboard feels, about what happens when you trip over the power cord, who don't care about how useful an SD card slot really is, who don't mind dongles, who don't care about a TouchBar they never use, who only use battery power and therefore don't care if there's no extension power cord in the box, and who don't care about fun things like the glowing Apple logo. Generation X has the buying power, not millennials, and we also have a lot of legacy equipment too. Our needs are different from theirs, yet like them, we want to buy Macs. Indeed, we of the older generation have a longer history with Apple and therefore have a more vested interest in seeing something appealing come out of Apple. But we only want to buy Macs when those new Macs suit our needs. Currently for me, only the iMac does that. Apple notebooks have been ridiculous since late 2016. Despite the fact Apple already had the MacBook and Air lines to satisfy the Johnny Ive death quest for ultimate thinness, Apple chose to gut the MacBook "Pro" in like manner, thereby rending all Apple notebooks largely the same. It's now back the for Performa confusion days at Apple.
Some argue that Apple is now an iPhone company so the Mac doesn't matter. If that silliness is true, Tim Cook's commitment to the Mac would then be a lie, and then we have the bigger question of "why bother"? That's especially true of the Mac Pro. If rumors are right about the forthcoming Mac Pro being so expensive The Rest of Us cannot afford it, and thereby deliberately keeping the potential number of buyers to the same or less as the Apple Watch solid gold Edition buyers, why the heck do they even bother designing the thing? Seriously! It makes zero sense. Zero.
No, we need a true MacBook "Pro" and a 17" version, and an affordable Mac Pro too. One cannot argue in defense of the status quo anymore. Something big needs to change in Apple's design labs where function starts to take a little more priority than form. And I personally hope that change will be a stark IMPROVEMENT over what I've seen in the last few years. We need a Steve Jobsian style shakeup in Cupertino.
Good job, you ticked off the typical dinosaur Mac user's bitch list.
I just upgraded from a 2011 MBP to a maxed out 2018 i9/Vega 20/32GB/2TB 15" MBP and this is by far my favorite Mac ever, and I've been using them since 1984. In no conceivable way is this machine "gutted", it's fast as fuck and has four 40Gbps ports that can handle anything you throw at them. TouchBar is awesome. Keyboard is the best I've ever used. Dongles are a minor growing pain for legacy gear but is highly overblown and worth it to move forward. Extension cord? If you can't find one for free, you can buy one off Ebay for like $3. There's literally a pile of them at my office right here doing nothing, they're a waste for most users. Glowing Apple? Give me a break. have you looked at how thin the display is on these things? $100 says the next screen upgrade means OLED or microLED which means no backlight anyway.
It's really just best to move forward with the rest of us, or you'll die angry with nobody listening to you prattle on about how much "better" computers were back in the day.
Every laptop in 2018 is a mess. I don't get how they can blame solely on Apple and be okay with Intel. They can't even manage to keep it cool with only six-cores.
A “mess”? This MBP has stayed far cooler than my old quad core did.
Actually, the thermal performance increased since Retina, as the old unibody aren’t really designed for quad-core systems. What I’m saying is 8th-gen sucks.
To keep Mac sales, specifically notebook Mac sales, from declining further, Apple needs to consider the needs and demands of The Rest of Us, and not just millennials who don't care about how good a keyboard feels, about what happens when you trip over the power cord, who don't care about how useful an SD card slot really is, who don't mind dongles, who don't care about a TouchBar they never use, who only use battery power and therefore don't care if there's no extension power cord in the box, and who don't care about fun things like the glowing Apple logo. Generation X has the buying power, not millennials, and we also have a lot of legacy equipment too. Our needs are different from theirs, yet like them, we want to buy Macs. Indeed, we of the older generation have a longer history with Apple and therefore have a more vested interest in seeing something appealing come out of Apple. But we only want to buy Macs when those new Macs suit our needs. Currently for me, only the iMac does that. Apple notebooks have been ridiculous since late 2016. Despite the fact Apple already had the MacBook and Air lines to satisfy the Johnny Ive death quest for ultimate thinness, Apple chose to gut the MacBook "Pro" in like manner, thereby rending all Apple notebooks largely the same. It's now back the for Performa confusion days at Apple.
Some argue that Apple is now an iPhone company so the Mac doesn't matter. If that silliness is true, Tim Cook's commitment to the Mac would then be a lie, and then we have the bigger question of "why bother"? That's especially true of the Mac Pro. If rumors are right about the forthcoming Mac Pro being so expensive The Rest of Us cannot afford it, and thereby deliberately keeping the potential number of buyers to the same or less as the Apple Watch solid gold Edition buyers, why the heck do they even bother designing the thing? Seriously! It makes zero sense. Zero.
No, we need a true MacBook "Pro" and a 17" version, and an affordable Mac Pro too. One cannot argue in defense of the status quo anymore. Something big needs to change in Apple's design labs where function starts to take a little more priority than form. And I personally hope that change will be a stark IMPROVEMENT over what I've seen in the last few years. We need a Steve Jobsian style shakeup in Cupertino.
Good job, you ticked off the typical dinosaur Mac user's bitch list.
I just upgraded from a 2011 MBP to a maxed out 2018 i9/Vega 20/32GB/2TB 15" MBP and this is by far my favorite Mac ever, and I've been using them since 1984. In no conceivable way is this machine "gutted", it's fast as fuck and has four 40Gbps ports that can handle anything you throw at them. TouchBar is awesome. Keyboard is the best I've ever used. Dongles are a minor growing pain for legacy gear but is highly overblown and worth it to move forward. Extension cord? If you can't find one for free, you can buy one off Ebay for like $3. There's literally a pile of them at my office right here doing nothing, they're a waste for most users. Glowing Apple? Give me a break. have you looked at how thin the display is on these things? $100 says the next screen upgrade means OLED or microLED which means no backlight anyway.
It's really just best to move forward with the rest of us, or you'll die angry with nobody listening to you prattle on about how much "better" computers were back in the day.
Every laptop in 2018 is a mess. I don't get how they can blame solely on Apple and be okay with Intel. They can't even manage to keep it cool with only six-cores.
A “mess”? This MBP has stayed far cooler than my old quad core did.
Actually, the thermal performance increased since Retina, as the old unibody aren’t really designed for quad-core systems. What I’m saying is 8th-gen sucks.
Comments
In theory, tuning using powertop and TLP will get good results. In practice, it's just more pennywise and pound foolish behavior. Maybe 18.10 fixed all this but 18.04 was not nearly as good as Fedora 28. Unfortunately Fedora is still rather meh on machines with nVidia because they don't like proprietary drivers. Plus running 18.04 LTS (or for the even more conservative 16.04 LTS) is typically preferred since it's, in theory anyway, more stable.
Also, the Touch Bar isn't useless for development as Xcode has some nice buttons and so can VSCode, Sublime, etc. If was stuck doing development using a 13" laptop on a plane all day I'd probably spend some effort to tailor my touch bar but I don't so I haven't.
Your arguments against the Mac has been at best contrived and at worst close minded and idiotic.
- Sent from the fastest Mac I've owned.