I find the most recent type of MagSafe on my mid-2004 15" Retina MacBook Pro to be more of a nuisance than a help. It disconnects far too easily, at the slightest tug. My cat disconnects is several times a day (maybe I should consider the cat to be the nuisance). The earlier MagSafe connecters on my previous MacBooks seemed to fasten more robustly while still disconnecting when required.
With these changes, what makes it a Pro vs. a regular Macbook? I imagine it will have a larger battery since it is thicker than the MB, a faster CPU to go with the higher amp-hours, a 15" screen, three more USB-C ports, but after that I'm at a loss.
Some apps can use the bar as a long volume slider, using the entire bar for just volume control, or brightness control for example. You just slide your finger from left to right to make the volume louder.
Or a Moog Synth can use the entire OLED bar as a ribbon controller, emulating the original.
It'd be nice to use it to control scrubbing in iTunes/Quicktime player, much easier than trying to drag the scrubber bar with the mouse.
The trackpad does this with two finger swipe. A horizontal two finger swipe in video apps scrubs the timeline. This works in FCP, Quicktime and iTunes (hover over the line in iTunes). A display bar could show a grab handle though. This can also do brush resizing in Photoshop, palettes etc. There would be a modifier to change between button arrangements so F-keys, palettes, controls. Taps on the fn key can do this to save holding down the key or there can be a button in the bar to do this and use fn for something else. A Siri button can go in there too. It can have all sorts of things like the extended keyboard characters, emojis etc.
AppleInsider said: Interestingly, the unit does not appear to be much thinner than existing Pro models.
The 3.5mm jack is going to limit how thin they can go, USB C is 2.6mm tall vs 4.5mm for USB A. Right now the chassis fits USB A ports, It doesn't look like a USB A port would fit this one. Neither would MagSafe as it's around the same height as USB A. It could be 1mm thinner or something at the side i.e 1.7cm vs 1.8cm tall overall or perhaps a bit more off the display and bottom section.
USB C charging means the power cable can go in either side, which is useful and having 4 USB ports means an extra USB port when plugged in and two extra when unplugged.
DuncanABaines said: Are the arrow keys on this different to the current rMBP?
Looks like the left ~ key is gone too. I assume escape will move down into the top left instead of the § key and the return key has been reshaped to be wide. I wonder if the top right will be a power key. It could be both a power key and fingerprint sensor. For the most part, it's the Retina Macbook keyboard, same key size:
I wouldn't be surprised if the key height is the same as the Macbook. When they make the keys wider, they'd wobble more with the old mechanism. It might not be possible to change to a butterfly mechanism and keep the old key height:
Still need confirmation of a Space Grey model.
GPU could be the Radeon M470X in the top model but that chip is actually listed lower than Iris Pro 580 just now:
Not much point in putting in a dedicated GPU if it's going to be slower than the integrated one. They can differentiate the higher model with more RAM and SSD. 24GB RAM and they can let the GPU get 8GB of video memory.
What's the purpose behind removing the function keys and replacing them with an OLED bar instead?
Is it because instead of F1,F2,F3 etc. being shown, now the computer will be able to have symbols and full color icons instead for each key, that can change and adapt to the software being used?
Yes. Exactly. This could be used by software developers to provide custom functions. It also reduces the space required for keyboard mechanisms that can be used to fit more internal components, mostly battery.
This would provide a more consistent and flexible user interface. For instance, right now you need three keys for audio control, two keys for screen brightness, etc. This could be replaced with one "key" each. Tap and drag right to turn up volume, tap and drag left to turn volume down. Tap to mute/unmute. Same with audio scrubbing or screen brightness.
Assuming Apple allows that. For instance, I believe a new HP laptop that uses the technology won't charge off anything but an official HP charger. I could easily see Apple doing the same thing.
I am really disappointed, but not surprised, there aren't any standard USB 3.0 ports and no ethernet jack. Apple doesn't seem to care that people don't want to rebuy peripherals or carry around a bunch of dongles. I am sure they will still sell though…Apple seems to have really locked up the more money than brains market.
-kp
Most people who use Ethernet do so in a docked situation. WiFi is more than adequate for most scenarios unless you are at a desk processing large files over a local network. I doubt Apple would remove standard USB 3.0 ports but instead replace charging and thunderbolt with a single USB-C link. This would allow a new 4K Cinema Display to connect with one wire. Then you connect everything to the monitor. If you don't want Apple's solution, get a USB-C dock.
I know many people are bemoaning the removal of MagSafe. Personally it has been more of a detriment lately than a solution it once was. Laptops last for 7-10 hours on a charge instead of 2 hours. This means you can use your laptop portably without even needing a cord. So the use case changes. You charge the device and use it throughout the day instead of constantly being tethered. So I don't think you need to worry about the device falling. The device is completely solid state too so you don't need to worry about spinning discs. Thus, the cons (power becoming unplugged, multiple wires, proprietary charger) outweigh the pros.
With these changes, what makes it a Pro vs. a regular Macbook? I imagine it will have a larger battery since it is thicker than the MB, a faster CPU to go with the higher amp-hours, a 15" screen, three more USB-C ports, but after that I'm at a loss.
Discrete GPU? Lots more RAM? More storage? Thunderbolt? What more do you expect? Cup holder?
All good points, tho, Apple moving away from propriety standards is a new direction that arguably started as recently as with the new MacBook. Imagine Apple all of sudden letting iPhone 7 owners charge their phones with a Samsung charger. Steve would be rolling in his grave.
Well in 2017 it will be the case in the EU. All new smartphones launched in 2017 must have a universal charger (which will probably be USB-C based). I don't know how apple will cope with this requirement
With these changes, what makes it a Pro vs. a regular Macbook? I imagine it will have a larger battery since it is thicker than the MB, a faster CPU to go with the higher amp-hours, a 15" screen, three more USB-C ports, but after that I'm at a loss.
Discrete GPU? Lots more RAM? More storage? Thunderbolt? What more do you expect? Cup holder?
That there is a 13" chassis.
Discrete GPU? Probably not. Probably not even a quad-core in the 13".
I'm really, really hoping for a quad-core CPU in a box smaller than 15", but if they shrink down the 15" model by a centimeter or two in every dimension, as they apparently have with the 13" chassis, judging from the photographs, then I'll probably jump on it.
The 3.5mm jack is going to limit how thin they can go, USB C is 2.6mm tall vs 4.5mm for USB A. Right now the chassis fits USB A ports, It doesn't look like a USB A port would fit this one. Neither would MagSafe as it's around the same height as USB A. It could be 1mm thinner or something at the side i.e 1.7cm vs 1.8cm tall overall or perhaps a bit more off the display and bottom section....
USB C charging means the power cable can go in either side, which is useful and having 4 USB ports means an extra USB port when plugged in and two extra when unplugged.
That's why if Apple drops the 3.5mm Jack on the iPhone, they will replace it with Lightning on their other Mobile products. The rMB will be the first to replace it, offering native compatibility, as well as multi-function where space is at a premium for the luxury of a single function port.
Add to that Lightning has become the defacto charging port. One charger, one cable for all of your Apple devices. Is it any coincidence that the audio port occupies the same space as the old MagSafe connector? Part of that is thickness, but the other part is being out of the way. Note the space opposite the headphone jack is empty, so maybe Apple won't remove the headphone jack with this model, but they can add a Lightning port. That would leave all four USB-C ports available for peripherals.
With these changes, what makes it a Pro vs. a regular Macbook? I imagine it will have a larger battery since it is thicker than the MB, a faster CPU to go with the higher amp-hours, a 15" screen, three more USB-C ports, but after that I'm at a loss.
yeah, after a faster cpu, faster graphics, bigger screen, three more USB ports, oh and that bonkers OLED strip, like there's practically nothing, it's hardly any more "pro" than a fucking bondi blue ibook
also something about steve jobs would never stand in a spinning grave hole
With these changes, what makes it a Pro vs. a regular Macbook? I imagine it will have a larger battery since it is thicker than the MB, a faster CPU to go with the higher amp-hours, a 15" screen, three more USB-C ports, but after that I'm at a loss.
yeah, after a faster cpu, bigger screen, three more USB ports, oh and that bonkers OLED strip, like there's practically nothing, it's hardly any more "pro" than a fucking bondi blue ibook
Unlike many of the sketchy iPhone 7 leaks, this one of the MacBook Pro does seem to be the real thing! I'm excited...still they could of squeezed a couple more USB-C ports in there IMO. Oh and the headphone jack remains, hurrah! And I don't know if its just the light, but the casing seems to have matte finish chamfers like on the iPhone SE.
Some apps can use the bar as a long volume slider, using the entire bar for just volume control, or brightness control for example. You just slide your finger from left to right to make the volume louder.
Or a Moog Synth can use the entire OLED bar as a ribbon controller, emulating the original.
It'd be nice to use it to control scrubbing in iTunes/Quicktime player, much easier than trying to drag the scrubber bar with the mouse.
It could also be programmed to create a scratching effect when play...play...playing music! Lol
What's the purpose behind removing the function keys and replacing them with an OLED bar instead?full color icons instead for each key, that can change and adapt to the software being used?
I guess we will see them try to sell us on it.
I thought at first that it could double as a notification bar, then again I never look down at the keys unless looking specifically for a function key so it probably would be a bad idea. Then again maybe some application specific features like input line for iMessage, spotlight search or readout response to a Siri request. I kind of hope Apple has more planned for it than just drawing existing key on a screen. Also, If the Touch ID sensor is going anywhere, this is where it will be.
anome said: I hope so, because having identical ports with different functions is a failure in basic usability, which is something Apple has always (back to the original Mac) been a leader on. (There was a brief period where the two serial ports on a Mac had slightly different functions, but they fixed that.) Also, 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports? Could be quite useful. Of course, I'll believe it when I see it. Don't want to get my hopes up too high, lest I fall into the same trap as all those people going on about the iPhone leaks.
I do remember the RS 422 ports on the mac where only one of them worked for localtalk (appletalk). I remember always having problems with people taking their SEs home for the weekend and bringing them back in and then complaining because they couldn't get on the network. Eventually a piece of colored tape solved the problem. Fortunately it was less of a headache than the voodoo magic of figuring out where in a SCSI chain to put a terminator. -- Man, those were the days.
Well in 2017 it will be the case in the EU. All new smartphones launched in 2017 must have a universal charger (which will probably be USB-C based). I don't know how apple will cope with this requirement
I doubt the EU will have any force of law by then. Might be a little optimistic at this point, but you know how quickly some events happen...
This is a 13" - I'm hoping the 15" is a bit different in terms of port layout.
At least one conventional USB port seems to me to be a requirement for a pro laptop - perhaps most importantly to deal with files on the ubiquitous USB memory sticks... Yes, "double-enders" exist , which have old and new style USB plugs. On the other hand, I don't want to hand someone a $40 double-ender memory stick if I'm not going to get it back (I hand people photo shoots on $5-10 USB sticks all the time, and I don't worry about getting the stick back). Relatedly, students hand me memory sticks all the time with projects on them (I teach photography, and some projects are too big for the network). Students won't be using double-ended memory sticks any time soon (many of the ones I get were freebies from somewhere, and I'd be surprised if the average freebie is double-ended anytime in the next three years). I know dongles exist, but I don't want a bagful of them (and backups) for every port I use.
I use the SD reader all the time, and losing both the reader AND the conventional USB port I could use to plug one in would be terrible. B+H doesn't yet carry any readers that natively use USB-C. This means that any time I want to ingest a card, I need two additional external parts. Apple may release a reader of their own that IS USB-C, but that's not going to be a drugstore item if it breaks on a shoot...
Something similar applies to HDMI - it is certainly an older port that I wouldn't use to connect a high-end photo editing monitor (USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 looks like a great solution for that), but EVERY projector at the university is HDMI (except for the junky old ones that are VGA only - in the past few years, it has become possible to mostly avoid THOSE for photo classes). NO HDMI means a dongle every time, and a dongle our library is going to be slow to pick up, so I'll need two of my own.
Thunderbolt 2 to 3 seems to be an expensive active adapter? If it were just a cable, I'd find the loss of old Thunderbolt very acceptable.
This looks like a couple of hundred dollars worth of easily lost adapters to not that much benefit - a few mm off the case thickness?
Don't get me wrong - I want some USB-C ports - they look great for docking, new storage and higher-end monitors. I just want to maintain some older ports as well...
As for the keyboard, I love the OLED strip, and I hope the butterfly mechanism has the travel of the new iMac keyboard (which is great - and it is a butterfly), rather than the MacBook...
Comments
The 3.5mm jack is going to limit how thin they can go, USB C is 2.6mm tall vs 4.5mm for USB A. Right now the chassis fits USB A ports, It doesn't look like a USB A port would fit this one. Neither would MagSafe as it's around the same height as USB A. It could be 1mm thinner or something at the side i.e 1.7cm vs 1.8cm tall overall or perhaps a bit more off the display and bottom section.
USB C charging means the power cable can go in either side, which is useful and having 4 USB ports means an extra USB port when plugged in and two extra when unplugged.
Looks like the left ~ key is gone too. I assume escape will move down into the top left instead of the § key and the return key has been reshaped to be wide. I wonder if the top right will be a power key. It could be both a power key and fingerprint sensor. For the most part, it's the Retina Macbook keyboard, same key size:
I wouldn't be surprised if the key height is the same as the Macbook. When they make the keys wider, they'd wobble more with the old mechanism. It might not be possible to change to a butterfly mechanism and keep the old key height:
Still need confirmation of a Space Grey model.
GPU could be the Radeon M470X in the top model but that chip is actually listed lower than Iris Pro 580 just now:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R9-M470X.166342.0.html
Not much point in putting in a dedicated GPU if it's going to be slower than the integrated one. They can differentiate the higher model with more RAM and SSD. 24GB RAM and they can let the GPU get 8GB of video memory.
This would provide a more consistent and flexible user interface. For instance, right now you need three keys for audio control, two keys for screen brightness, etc. This could be replaced with one "key" each. Tap and drag right to turn up volume, tap and drag left to turn volume down. Tap to mute/unmute. Same with audio scrubbing or screen brightness.
I know many people are bemoaning the removal of MagSafe. Personally it has been more of a detriment lately than a solution it once was. Laptops last for 7-10 hours on a charge instead of 2 hours. This means you can use your laptop portably without even needing a cord. So the use case changes. You charge the device and use it throughout the day instead of constantly being tethered. So I don't think you need to worry about the device falling. The device is completely solid state too so you don't need to worry about spinning discs. Thus, the cons (power becoming unplugged, multiple wires, proprietary charger) outweigh the pros.
Discrete GPU? Probably not. Probably not even a quad-core in the 13".
I'm really, really hoping for a quad-core CPU in a box smaller than 15", but if they shrink down the 15" model by a centimeter or two in every dimension, as they apparently have with the 13" chassis, judging from the photographs, then I'll probably jump on it.
Add to that Lightning has become the defacto charging port. One charger, one cable for all of your Apple devices. Is it any coincidence that the audio port occupies the same space as the old MagSafe connector? Part of that is thickness, but the other part is being out of the way. Note the space opposite the headphone jack is empty, so maybe Apple won't remove the headphone jack with this model, but they can add a Lightning port. That would leave all four USB-C ports available for peripherals.
also something about steve jobs would never stand in a spinning grave hole
At least one conventional USB port seems to me to be a requirement for a pro laptop - perhaps most importantly to deal with files on the ubiquitous USB memory sticks... Yes, "double-enders" exist , which have old and new style USB plugs. On the other hand, I don't want to hand someone a $40 double-ender memory stick if I'm not going to get it back (I hand people photo shoots on $5-10 USB sticks all the time, and I don't worry about getting the stick back). Relatedly, students hand me memory sticks all the time with projects on them (I teach photography, and some projects are too big for the network). Students won't be using double-ended memory sticks any time soon (many of the ones I get were freebies from somewhere, and I'd be surprised if the average freebie is double-ended anytime in the next three years). I know dongles exist, but I don't want a bagful of them (and backups) for every port I use.
I use the SD reader all the time, and losing both the reader AND the conventional USB port I could use to plug one in would be terrible. B+H doesn't yet carry any readers that natively use USB-C. This means that any time I want to ingest a card, I need two additional external parts. Apple may release a reader of their own that IS USB-C, but that's not going to be a drugstore item if it breaks on a shoot...
Something similar applies to HDMI - it is certainly an older port that I wouldn't use to connect a high-end photo editing monitor (USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 looks like a great solution for that), but EVERY projector at the university is HDMI (except for the junky old ones that are VGA only - in the past few years, it has become possible to mostly avoid THOSE for photo classes). NO HDMI means a dongle every time, and a dongle our library is going to be slow to pick up, so I'll need two of my own.
Thunderbolt 2 to 3 seems to be an expensive active adapter? If it were just a cable, I'd find the loss of old Thunderbolt very acceptable.
This looks like a couple of hundred dollars worth of easily lost adapters to not that much benefit - a few mm off the case thickness?
Don't get me wrong - I want some USB-C ports - they look great for docking, new storage and higher-end monitors. I just want to maintain some older ports as well...
As for the keyboard, I love the OLED strip, and I hope the butterfly mechanism has the travel of the new iMac keyboard (which is great - and it is a butterfly), rather than the MacBook...