-- Half spend most of their lives travelling (room to room, office to home/office, or city to city) -- Half spend most of their lives sitting on a desk
Without getting into what the split actually is, Apple has largely ignored the second category in its single minded rush to thin, light, minimalist designs.
Here, they have a chance to break out of that prison.
Will the new MacBook be upgradeable, have a great keyboard that people like to use, and ports that people need and use? Or, will it be just more of the same -- just a little bigger?
Frankly, if it's just a bigger version of the same, there is no chance that I would buy one.
Then there is no chance you will buy one. No chance of upgradeability.
I don't know about that. The T2 providing both system security and the SSD controller is the biggest reason the SSDs are built into the logic board. With the new Mac Pro, it looks like they have split the T2 off into a system T2 and an SSD T2. They could make the new MBP accept the same SSDs as the Mac Pro.
I agree. The soldered, non-replaceable SSD & memory never made a lot of sense to me as a consumer. The incremental performance or reliability simply didn't justify what was essentially a disposable machine costing thousands.
There's that goofy, wrong phrase again -- "disposable". Nope. Just because you can't upgrade the storage or RAM doesnt make it suddenly "disposable". That's absurd. It remains a tool to perform a job to be done, and it does it well. 99% of laptop owners have never and will never replace the storage on their Dells or whatever, that doesn't make them suddenly "disposable!" machines.
If you're talking about repairability, that still doesn't make sense since you certainly can bring them in for repair.
By your fuzzy logic, nearly all products are "disposable" -- iPads, TVs, stereos, microwaves, blenders, you name it. Even cars! Because hey, if you can't upgrade the carburetor then it must be "disposable!" right?
Wrong.
So, you would throw away your car simply because something broke on it or you don't like the radio? No? Then why would you want to throw away a computer?
Frankly, when I was working I had more money than time, so I often did just that. But now, being retired, I take a lot of pleasure in spending a couple bucks to save a few hundred or a few thousand -- whether its a computer or a weed-wacker (I just put a new $20 carburator on mine and it runs and starts like new).
You take it to the Apple Store or 3rd party Apple Service Center if it breaks. If it's considered Obsolete and Apple cannot get parts then yeah, maybe its time to think about getting something different. I didn't say if something broke a 1yr in throw it away. Surely its worth more to fix it than throw it away.
-- Half spend most of their lives travelling (room to room, office to home/office, or city to city) -- Half spend most of their lives sitting on a desk
Without getting into what the split actually is, Apple has largely ignored the second category in its single minded rush to thin, light, minimalist designs.
Here, they have a chance to break out of that prison.
Will the new MacBook be upgradeable, have a great keyboard that people like to use, and ports that people need and use? Or, will it be just more of the same -- just a little bigger?
Frankly, if it's just a bigger version of the same, there is no chance that I would buy one.
Then there is no chance you will buy one. No chance of upgradeability.
I don't know about that. The T2 providing both system security and the SSD controller is the biggest reason the SSDs are built into the logic board. With the new Mac Pro, it looks like they have split the T2 off into a system T2 and an SSD T2. They could make the new MBP accept the same SSDs as the Mac Pro.
I agree. The soldered, non-replaceable SSD & memory never made a lot of sense to me as a consumer. The incremental performance or reliability simply didn't justify what was essentially a disposable machine costing thousands.
There's that goofy, wrong phrase again -- "disposable". Nope. Just because you can't upgrade the storage or RAM doesnt make it suddenly "disposable". That's absurd. It remains a tool to perform a job to be done, and it does it well. 99% of laptop owners have never and will never replace the storage on their Dells or whatever, that doesn't make them suddenly "disposable!" machines.
If you're talking about repairability, that still doesn't make sense since you certainly can bring them in for repair.
By your fuzzy logic, nearly all products are "disposable" -- iPads, TVs, stereos, microwaves, blenders, you name it. Even cars! Because hey, if you can't upgrade the carburetor then it must be "disposable!" right?
Wrong.
So, you would throw away your car simply because something broke on it or you don't like the radio? No? Then why would you want to throw away a computer?
Frankly, when I was working I had more money than time, so I often did just that. But now, being retired, I take a lot of pleasure in spending a couple bucks to save a few hundred or a few thousand -- whether its a computer or a weed-wacker (I just put a new $20 carburator on mine and it runs and starts like new).
You take it to the Apple Store or 3rd party Apple Service Center if it breaks. If it's considered Obsolete and Apple cannot get parts then yeah, maybe its time to think about getting something different. I didn't say if something broke a 1yr in throw it away. Surely its worth more to fix it than throw it away.
Glad to see you are finally seeing the light.
I never said this wasn't true. I just said not everything NEEDS to be repairable, such as AirPods. Pretty much everything else Apple sells is. What I don't agree with is that Apple should allow Bob's Generic Repair shop to repair these things, or that everything should be designed with removable panels and parts for the .0000000001% that actually give a fuck about replacing it themselves and probably 80% will fuck something up in the process which then they'd probably just blame Apple for their stupidity because it wasn't easy enough for an idiot who shouldn't be inside it in the first place.
Meaning, you just replace the existing cable you own with a USB-C/Thunderbolt to whatever you need cable. If you need to carry around USB 3.0 (USB A) cables with your laptop then something isn't right anyways. You shouldn't need to be taking your office desk with you in your bag everywhere you go these days. Get with the times! Replacing a cable that will most likely be the future connector of products going forward will be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper than getting a bunch of more expensive dongles. For example, you can get a USB-C to HDMI cable for $20 or you can buy the Apple USB-C to HDMI dongle for $80. USB-C/Thunderbolt is the most versatile port Apple has ever put in a Mac, period! You can pretty much get everything you want through 1 port instead of needing to have 10 different ports scattered along the side of a laptop. Plus, you can plug it into either side versus before it was almost always on the left side only (including charging).
I am working in 4 different working locations (2 co-working locations, my official office and my home). I have 1 external monitor that accepts USB-C, but 100% of external monitors and projectors I need to connect to have a HDMI cable attached, so I don't need a cable or dongle if my portable has a HDMI port available. You story simply does not fly in a real professional environment. One of the reasons why I bought a Dell XPS 15 and not a Macbook Pro was exactly the HDMI port
If the maximum resolution of the monitor is supported by HDMI (as in 99% of the use cases), USB-C connectivity does not give any technical advantage, it only increases the price. So in most environments people don't have a compelling reason to replace their existing monitors with a USB-C compatible one.
You bought a Dell instead of a $15 adapter? “Professional”?
Why doesn't Apple simply go fo a 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) screen? I just bought a Dell 15" laptop for my granddaughter who needs it for AutoCAD that has one and it is stunning.
Of course AutoCad really needs Windows so you are stuck there.
Why doesn't Apple simply go fo a 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) screen? I just bought a Dell 15" laptop for my granddaughter who needs it for AutoCAD that has one and it is stunning.
Of course AutoCad really needs Windows so you are stuck there.
Then what’s the Mac version for?
To check how badly the file has been downgraded on export from Mac native CAD/BIM software?
Why doesn't Apple simply go fo a 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) screen? I just bought a Dell 15" laptop for my granddaughter who needs it for AutoCAD that has one and it is stunning.
That would be my question as well. The 'class' of computer I've heard described as a 'portable desktop' per the 50/50 post.
Apple has basically settled on 221 PPI for its laptop displays. Somewhere close to there. With the UI scaling that they do, running 1920x1200 points per inch is pretty good, with the UI pretty sharp. Going higher doesn’t really provide discernible improvement for the vast majority of human eyes, and some can run at the full 221 PPI, 2880x1800, if they want too. So, they think they’ve reached diminishing returns above 220 PPI or so for laptops.
If the resolution of this new laptop is 3072x1920, you can back out its dimensions by dividing by the 221 PPI. So, 3072/221 = 13.9 inches and 1920/221 = 8.69 inches. This would make it a 16.4” diagonal 16:10 display.
If true, it will have a 13% larger display. Not much gain, but it’s other features are the likely draw. Maybe It will be an ARM machine. Maybe it will have a Vega 48 in it. Who knows.
As long it got bumped to 2560x1600, if it's an OLED then the PPI may change to justify the Pen-Tile arrangement.
-- Half spend most of their lives travelling (room to room, office to home/office, or city to city) -- Half spend most of their lives sitting on a desk
Without getting into what the split actually is, Apple has largely ignored the second category in its single minded rush to thin, light, minimalist designs.
Here, they have a chance to break out of that prison.
Will the new MacBook be upgradeable, have a great keyboard that people like to use, and ports that people need and use? Or, will it be just more of the same -- just a little bigger?
Frankly, if it's just a bigger version of the same, there is no chance that I would buy one.
Then there is no chance you will buy one. No chance of upgradeability.
I don't know about that. The T2 providing both system security and the SSD controller is the biggest reason the SSDs are built into the logic board. With the new Mac Pro, it looks like they have split the T2 off into a system T2 and an SSD T2. They could make the new MBP accept the same SSDs as the Mac Pro.
I agree. The soldered, non-replaceable SSD & memory never made a lot of sense to me as a consumer. The incremental performance or reliability simply didn't justify what was essentially a disposable machine costing thousands.
I can see Apple making those things proprietary. And I can see them voiding the warranty if non OEM parts are installed by a unauthorzed repair person. But, forcing the consumer to predict their usage demands for years in the future - and pay dearly for it -- just didn't seem reasonable.
Things change and shit happens: For a period storage demands were increasing dramatically as people started storing music and videos on their machines. But streaming has largely reduced those demands -- and 5G may reduce them even further as streaming / cloud based services proliferate (even if the Mac never accesses 5G directly). It makes things hard to predict. Where will be in 5 years?
Most competitors only offered two slots of RAM, therefore having four LPDDR chips works just as good, so having soldered RAM isn't an issue. If people still want some upgradeability, then I'm thinking about a hybrid solution: LPDDRs on the back, while one slot of DDR on the front. IIRC some laptops did this so users can upgrade on their own, but if Apple builds its processors, it's better to make the memory controller support triple-channel.
-- Half spend most of their lives travelling (room to room, office to home/office, or city to city) -- Half spend most of their lives sitting on a desk
Without getting into what the split actually is, Apple has largely ignored the second category in its single minded rush to thin, light, minimalist designs.
Here, they have a chance to break out of that prison.
Will the new MacBook be upgradeable, have a great keyboard that people like to use, and ports that people need and use? Or, will it be just more of the same -- just a little bigger?
Frankly, if it's just a bigger version of the same, there is no chance that I would buy one.
Then there is no chance you will buy one. No chance of upgradeability.
I don't know about that. The T2 providing both system security and the SSD controller is the biggest reason the SSDs are built into the logic board. With the new Mac Pro, it looks like they have split the T2 off into a system T2 and an SSD T2. They could make the new MBP accept the same SSDs as the Mac Pro.
I agree. The soldered, non-replaceable SSD & memory never made a lot of sense to me as a consumer. The incremental performance or reliability simply didn't justify what was essentially a disposable machine costing thousands.
There's that goofy, wrong phrase again -- "disposable". Nope. Just because you can't upgrade the storage or RAM doesnt make it suddenly "disposable". That's absurd. It remains a tool to perform a job to be done, and it does it well. 99% of laptop owners have never and will never replace the storage on their Dells or whatever, that doesn't make them suddenly "disposable!" machines.
If you're talking about repairability, that still doesn't make sense since you certainly can bring them in for repair.
By your fuzzy logic, nearly all products are "disposable" -- iPads, TVs, stereos, microwaves, blenders, you name it. Even cars! Because hey, if you can't upgrade the carburetor then it must be "disposable!" right?
Wrong.
So, you would throw away your car simply because something broke on it or you don't like the radio? No? Then why would you want to throw away a computer?
Frankly, when I was working I had more money than time, so I often did just that. But now, being retired, I take a lot of pleasure in spending a couple bucks to save a few hundred or a few thousand -- whether its a computer or a weed-wacker (I just put a new $20 carburator on mine and it runs and starts like new).
You take it to the Apple Store or 3rd party Apple Service Center if it breaks. If it's considered Obsolete and Apple cannot get parts then yeah, maybe its time to think about getting something different. I didn't say if something broke a 1yr in throw it away. Surely its worth more to fix it than throw it away.
Glad to see you are finally seeing the light.
I never said this wasn't true. I just said not everything NEEDS to be repairable, such as AirPods. Pretty much everything else Apple sells is. What I don't agree with is that Apple should allow Bob's Generic Repair shop to repair these things, or that everything should be designed with removable panels and parts for the .0000000001% that actually give a fuck about replacing it themselves and probably 80% will fuck something up in the process which then they'd probably just blame Apple for their stupidity because it wasn't easy enough for an idiot who shouldn't be inside it in the first place.
I agree with you that Apple has a need and a right to protect its reputation for quality and reliability by keeping things proprietary. But when not even Apple themselves can repair a device where the ssd broke or filled up then they have crossed a red line. Same with a $700 keyboard: when prices to repair rival prices of new then they are making disposable computers that cost thousands of dollars.
It is true that the iphone or Apple Watch mostly cannot be repaired. But there it can be defended by having a device small and light enough to fit into your pocket or wear on your wrist. But the same argument is much harder to make for laptops.
No doubt the new MacBook Pro will be thin to the point of a fault, difficult to repair, not upgradeable or expandable. Oh, and quite expensive. And it will sport the new failed keyboard that is awful to type on to begin with. (That's a matter of one's preference though.) Those are my predictions. I'll pass. On yet another MBP. Just like on the Mac Pro. Apple doesn't make computers for me any longer. Sigh.
Apple claims they will listen to customers after the last mac pro...
What are the customer benefits of the proprietary main ssd connectors in the 2019 pro ? ...and how about those AirPods...
Seriously...you want fucking AirPods to be "repairable"? You are seriously off your rocker! Why does EVERYTHING have to be repairable? What's next, we want repairable lightbulbs so we don't have to buy new ones when they blow out?
Of course that's crazy. However there's a big difference between "cheap"accessories and a $2-5000 computer.
The difference also is, how many people in the real world (outside of tech forums) really want to be able to repair the own computer whether it's a $300 PC or a $5,000 Mac? IMO, this is really just an extremely small percentage of people who are whining about this.
Repairability of a laptop shouldn’t be as hard as it is for Apple or as expensive. A good case example is the new butterfly keyboard, to replace a faulty one it costs $1000 as the Apple repair guys have to pretty much destroy your Macbook to get to the keyboard. The same goes for the spotlight defect in the screens all because Apple didn’t make the ribbon cable long enough, and you guessed it, to replace the cable means a new screen and no change from $1000.
There is more to repairability then a user being able to get in and replace stuff. It is also about the how easily a technician can repair stuff without needing to replace a large % of your Macbook in the process.
I'll add that I also have a 2012 rMBP which is going strong (having replaced the screen, battery and internal SSD) with every port I need actually built in (imagine that!!). The new MBP will be VERY expensive, especially since I will need dongles galore (USB 2.0, HDMI, SD cards, etc) for work, home and the plane. Still, I'm sure it will be a nice machine.
The current MacBook Pro has every port you need as well. You don't need dongle hell (I wish people would stop falsely claiming this). All you need is a different cable.
I'm sure it will be expensive as well. In case everyone forgot, the 17" MacBook Pro wasn't cheap either (it also didn't sell very well which was why it was dropped in the first place). And, you can bet your ass Apple will do everything it can to make this as thin and light as possible as they always do.
Please tell me what the difference is between needing a whole bunch of dongles vs needing a whole bunch of longer cables? Either I carry dongles for every connection or a whole bunch of different cables for every connection.
Meaning, you just replace the existing cable you own with a USB-C/Thunderbolt to whatever you need cable. If you need to carry around USB 3.0 (USB A) cables with your laptop then something isn't right anyways. You shouldn't need to be taking your office desk with you in your bag everywhere you go these days. Get with the times! Replacing a cable that will most likely be the future connector of products going forward will be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper than getting a bunch of more expensive dongles. For example, you can get a USB-C to HDMI cable for $20 or you can buy the Apple USB-C to HDMI dongle for $80. USB-C/Thunderbolt is the most versatile port Apple has ever put in a Mac, period! You can pretty much get everything you want through 1 port instead of needing to have 10 different ports scattered along the side of a laptop. Plus, you can plug it into either side versus before it was almost always on the left side only (including charging).
I am working in 4 different working locations (2 co-working locations, my official office and my home). I have 1 external monitor that accepts USB-C, but 100% of external monitors and projectors I need to connect to have a HDMI cable attached, so I don't need a cable or dongle if my portable has a HDMI port available. You story simply does not fly in a real professional environment. One of the reasons why I bought a Dell XPS 15 and not a Macbook Pro was exactly the HDMI port
If the maximum resolution of the monitor is supported by HDMI (as in 99% of the use cases), USB-C connectivity does not give any technical advantage, it only increases the price. So in most environments people don't have a compelling reason to replace their existing monitors with a USB-C compatible one.
Dude, you got a Dell and switched platforms cos you didn't want to carry a cable?
I connect USB hard drives... I am not sure there's a correctly sized USBC-micro USB cable out there. I had a USBC-USB dongle so I could connect devices. I also bought a USBC-lightning cable to I could connect my iphone.
So I guess... yeah having one normal USB port would be pretty nice, so I wouldn't need that dongle.
Also it seems around 40% of USBC MBPs I see in public have dongles attached to them. Something is definitely wrong with that picture.
Keyboard failure rate is also ridiculous. I had one friend with a 2016 - he takes such good care of his laptop that it looked brand new one year later. Keyboard replacement, out of warranty, at 15 months. $600. WTF.
Here's to hoping they get back to scissor design, I dont trust the upgrades that have been made to the butterfly keyboards. Some silicone won't help in the long run. My 2012 is running strong, admittedly replaced lots of things while still under warranty, but the keyboard is good.
GAH why does all my text get bunched up all together...
Yes, you can buy micro-USB to USB-C cables. Have you bothered looking?
That said, you're better off replacing your enclosures to something that supports better than USB 2.0 which is only 480Mbps. USB 3.0/3.1gen1 is 5Gbps and much faster, USB 3.1gen2 at 10Gbps which you'd only want to bother with if you have an SSD in the enclosure. Obviously if you get one with USB-C built-in, you can just use included USB-C to USB-C cables, and your need for dongles and what not are removed altogether. The last enclosure I bought was like $15, so it's not like this is cost prohibitive.
Also, your friend can probably get a refund from Apple given there's a keyboard replacement program for four years after date of purchase now.
With getting narrower screen bezels, additional screen size of 16" basically replaces 15" Macbook Pro and will look and feel the same as 15" MBP. Good job Apple. Male sure WiFi 6 is included.
Comments
Most competitors only offered two slots of RAM, therefore having four LPDDR chips works just as good, so having soldered RAM isn't an issue. If people still want some upgradeability, then I'm thinking about a hybrid solution: LPDDRs on the back, while one slot of DDR on the front. IIRC some laptops did this so users can upgrade on their own, but if Apple builds its processors, it's better to make the memory controller support triple-channel.
It is true that the iphone or Apple Watch mostly cannot be repaired. But there it can be defended by having a device small and light enough to fit into your pocket or wear on your wrist. But the same argument is much harder to make for laptops.
There is more to repairability then a user being able to get in and replace stuff. It is also about the how easily a technician can repair stuff without needing to replace a large % of your Macbook in the process.
That said, you're better off replacing your enclosures to something that supports better than USB 2.0 which is only 480Mbps. USB 3.0/3.1gen1 is 5Gbps and much faster, USB 3.1gen2 at 10Gbps which you'd only want to bother with if you have an SSD in the enclosure. Obviously if you get one with USB-C built-in, you can just use included USB-C to USB-C cables, and your need for dongles and what not are removed altogether. The last enclosure I bought was like $15, so it's not like this is cost prohibitive.
Also, your friend can probably get a refund from Apple given there's a keyboard replacement program for four years after date of purchase now.