There are no conditions "required and imposed" by Apple, other than an embargo time and date.
Interesting. But still, you don't want to be too critical right? Don't want to get on Apple's bad side lest you get dropped from their approved reviewers list? I'm not suggesting there's an unspoken arrangement or unintentional bias, but I do believe there's the potential for both of those things. And that's enough for me to not put too much into these launch-day reviews.
I prefer post-launch reviews where there's no agreements with Apple for early access, as I find them generally to be far more open, plain-speaking and willing to be critical. It's like, do you ever, when online shopping, jump to the most critical reviews and ratings to see if they're reasonable; affect you; or there's a common theme (because individual reviews can be spurious)? I find them generally to be far more helpful in my purchasing decisions than the glowing/positive reviews. That's why I like people to be critical, even overly so. I see the role of reviews and reviewers (in part) to be devil's advocate. So sorry if it seems I'm overly negative or critical, but I think that explains my position.
I gather that AI doesn't consider it appropriate or necessary to show more than the same old benchmarks on launch day, and perhaps you didn't have much time to do otherwise. I'm looking forward to seeing real-world performance for a variety of not yet ported or optimised apps. I'm very enthusiastic about the potential in this switch. It's really only day one of release today. I bet Apple's upcoming 16" ARM MacBooks will be very tempting!
1080p camera. HELLO? Even post-pandemic, Zoom meetings for business will be essential--honestly, how do you stick a 720p camera in a new 'Pro" laptop that you're essentially rolling out in 2021? Sure, the image processing may make it look "good for 720p," but the added cost to Apple for a better camera would have been miniscule.
It’s 2020, not 2021. That being said, I’ve been working on a large federal contract where all of the staff is remote. Do you know how often we use video conferencing the past 5 years? No times. Not a single one. We use tools like Jabber and Webex and Teams and conduct meetings all the time, but they’re teleconference, as that’s all that’s needed to talk. We don’t need crummy video conference where everyone is looking slightly off-camera; there’s nothing gained when it comes to discussing projects and work to be done. Normals think Zoom is omg important, but it isn’t. It’s been teleconference for the past decade on our other contracts too.
Your experience is not universal. Zoom has basically taken over the financial industry and others. What happened to WebexX ? Cisco dropped the ball.
Look at Zoom share price ; most of the big push here is from business
There are no conditions "required and imposed" by Apple, other than an embargo time and date.
Interesting. But still, you don't want to be too critical right? Don't want to get on Apple's bad side lest you get dropped from their approved reviewers list? I'm not suggesting there's an unspoken arrangement or unintentional bias, but I do believe there's the potential for both of those things. And that's enough for me to not put too much into these launch-day reviews.
I prefer post-launch reviews where there's no agreements with Apple for early access, as I find them generally to be far more open, plain-speaking and willing to be critical. It's like, do you ever, when online shopping, jump to the most critical reviews and ratings to see if they're reasonable; affect you; or there's a common theme (because individual reviews can be spurious)? I find them generally to be far more helpful in my purchasing decisions than the glowing/positive reviews. That's why I like people to be critical, even overly so. I see the role of reviews and reviewers (in part) to be devil's advocate. So sorry if it seems I'm overly negative or critical, but I think that explains my position.
I gather that AI doesn't consider it appropriate or necessary to show more than the same old benchmarks on launch day, and perhaps you didn't have much time to do otherwise. I'm looking forward to seeing real-world performance for a variety of not yet ported or optimised apps. I'm very enthusiastic about the potential in this switch. It's really only day one of release today. I bet Apple's upcoming 16" ARM MacBooks will be very tempting!
99/100 times, we buy our own hardware for review. This is a notable exception. Sometimes in the past I've been able to go to a local facility that isn't Apple-affiliated because of somebody I know to get time with hardware earlier than most will get it in hand, but it is almost always the day after preorders begin, or similar.
As an example, you'll note that there are no iPhone 12 mini or iPhone 12 Pro Max reviews published by us. That's because we got the hardware when you did, and using it for three days and publishing a conclusion is irresponsible.
You can tell when we have historically gotten the hardware, based on when we publish reviews, and they are almost never when the embargo expires -- read this as meaning "when the YouTubers publish en masse."
I don't give a rat's ass what Apple thinks about what we write. Never have, and I'm not going to start now.
In regards to "real-world performance for a variety of not yet ported or optimised apps," this is addressed by Dan in the Rosetta section. If you assume for every 10,000 AI readers, there are 15,000 use cases -- so it is impractical to do any kind of testing in that regard, even on an infinite timescale, as any given combination of apps we'd test is worthless for 99.9% of any potential reader's use case.
I can only assume that since there's a lengthy review with professional photos ready on launch day, that AI (like the other big tech sites) manage to get review units early from Apple. As such, I don't personally care much for these launch-day reviews unless I can see in full the agreement and conditions required and imposed by Apple. I doubt very much that you're willing to show us this.
1080p camera. HELLO? Even post-pandemic, Zoom meetings for business will be essential--honestly, how do you stick a 720p camera in a new 'Pro" laptop that you're essentially rolling out in 2021? Sure, the image processing may make it look "good for 720p," but the added cost to Apple for a better camera would have been miniscule.
It’s 2020, not 2021. That being said, I’ve been working on a large federal contract where all of the staff is remote. Do you know how often we use video conferencing the past 5 years? No times. Not a single one. We use tools like Jabber and Webex and Teams and conduct meetings all the time, but they’re teleconference, as that’s all that’s needed to talk. We don’t need crummy video conference where everyone is looking slightly off-camera; there’s nothing gained when it comes to discussing projects and work to be done. Normals think Zoom is omg important, but it isn’t. It’s been teleconference for the past decade on our other contracts too.
Your experience is not universal. Zoom has basically taken over the financial industry and others. What happened to WebexX ? Cisco dropped the ball.
Look at Zoom share price ; most of the big push here is from business
My experience may not be universal, but I have decades of Fortune 500 and 100 experience in enterprise IT. We've been teleconferencing for decades. That hasn't changed, just because consumers are infatuated with a new video conference tool. (one with a lousy security track record, btw). My work for energy companies is global, it's teleconference. My work for the US federal government is national, it's teleconference.
Share price is not indicative of tool value. Investors often don't know what they don't know.
The people who hate Touch Bar are the same who think Macs need touch screens. They constantly talk about how great Surface is. They're PC people; they should buy PCs. If Touch Bar wasn't helping to sell Macs, the most data-driven marketing in the world would have figured that out by now. What Touch Bar does is differentiate Apple's machines from basic PCs. And if you haven't yet noticed, Surface isn't exactly selling on the same level as MacBooks.
+1 this.
The consistent whiners we continuously come across are those that refuse to give up their rant of ridding the Touch Bar. These people need to let it go and move on. I love my MBP's Touch Bar, and I'm a coder that constantly uses function keys. It does not slow me down at all.
The USB 4 name is misleading. It's technically correct because the new specification doesn't mandate supporting the fastest speed (40 Gbps). The actual supported USB speed is 10 Gbps on the new Macbooks, just like on the old ones. It's exactly the same "USB 3.2 gen 2".
The people who hate Touch Bar are the same who think Macs need touch screens. They constantly talk about how great Surface is. They're PC people; they should buy PCs. If Touch Bar wasn't helping to sell Macs, the most data-driven marketing in the world would have figured that out by now. What Touch Bar does is differentiate Apple's machines from basic PCs. And if you haven't yet noticed, Surface isn't exactly selling on the same level as MacBooks.
What gives you the right to characterize people that way? I happen to like the touch bar—AND I think Apple should have a touchscreen, just like millions of other Mac users. I know how you follow the Apple line, but Apple is often wrong. This is one of those things where they’re wrong. And I’ll bet that at some point, we will have a touchscreen.
The USB 4 name is misleading. It's technically correct because the new specification doesn't mandate supporting the fastest speed (40 Gbps). The actual supported USB speed is 10 Gbps on the new Macbooks, just like on the old ones. It's exactly the same "USB 3.2 gen 2".
This is incorrect, according to Apple. As I have said before, and have elaborated upon with Apple, the controllers are full USB 4 controllers, with USB-4 speeds. Just because the spec sheet below it says compatible with USB 3.2 gen 2 does not mean that it is not USB 4, with all that entails.
What it certainly is not is Thunderbolt 4, which we'd have preferred to have been more clear and not had to hunt down Apple PR folks to confirm.
We'll be testing more as we see more native USB4 (not TB3) peripherals.
Great review for one of the most baffling MacBook Pro upgrades I've ever seen from Apple. Love the new chip and how could you not--apparently there is a "free lunch" where you get amazing processing power with much less heat and much longer battery life, and it's called the M1. But this seems like an especially lazy upgrade otherwise.
What better time than with the introduction of the M1 to address some other long-in-the-tooth issues for the MacBook Pro? I'm not talking a complete redesign--just updates with tech that Apple already has on the shelf:
14" screen in the same case with narrower bezels
1080p camera. HELLO? Even post-pandemic, Zoom meetings for business will be essential--honestly, how do you stick a 720p camera in a new 'Pro" laptop that you're essentially rolling out in 2021? Sure, the image processing may make it look "good for 720p," but the added cost to Apple for a better camera would have been miniscule.
Fast WiFi 6. I'm not even talking about 6E, although that level of future-proofing would have been fabulous. But this new Pro doesn't even have the antenna array needed to support the fastest data transfer rates of which WiFi 6 is capable.
5G Mobile Connectivity. How hard could this be to implement when even the most basic iPad offers cellular?
Touch Bar: Really? Still? Stick a fork in it, Apple... it's done! This is one of those technologies, like 3-D Press on iPhone, that might have been a good idea, but was never widely implemented by the developer community.
Again, none of these suggestions involves a new case design or some yet-to-be-introduced tech like mini-LED. This is off-the-shelf tech that Apple has implemented in other products and has been requested for the MacBook Pro for years in some cases.
The MBP's WiFi 6 (ax) listed max is 1.2Gbps and Intel Macs with WiFi 5 (ac) have a max of 1.3Gbps. Throughput isn't the only advantage, as WiFi 6 has other protocol benefits. But there are also constraints related to size and antenna design (where they can be placed in a unit).
Overall, when you make one change you know where the issues are. If Apple were to introduce a ton of changes without the time to complete the engineering (a 14 inch display and a whole new case design, and "5G" etc, are not ingredients you sprinkle on) its products would not be good.
Also, have you noticed this year there's a pandemic raging and Apple and its suppliers are constrained in what they can do? Despite this, it launched 5G iPhones across four new model types, introduced new watches and iPads and debuted HomePod mini. To suggest that it could also radically change the entire definition of its MacBooks is not really realistic.
The people who hate Touch Bar are the same who think Macs need touch screens. They constantly talk about how great Surface is. They're PC people; they should buy PCs. If Touch Bar wasn't helping to sell Macs, the most data-driven marketing in the world would have figured that out by now. What Touch Bar does is differentiate Apple's machines from basic PCs. And if you haven't yet noticed, Surface isn't exactly selling on the same level as MacBooks.
"...If Apple were to introduce a ton of changes without the time to complete the engineering (a 14 inch display and a whole new case design, and "5G" etc, are not ingredients you sprinkle on) its products would not be good."
Really? Then let me introduce you to my iPhone 12 Pro Max: all new case design, new screen size, new processor, new 5G connectivity, new Lidar hardware, WiFi 6, new camera system, new Dolby Vision capable video system, new glass tech for the screen, etc., etc. So it seems Apple is quite capable, as one would expect. Apple is a TRILLION dollar company with hundreds of billions in cash, and you think it's not realistic that they could have released a truly updated version of a key product line that has been coasting on lazy upgrades for years?
Suggest you re-read what I said about Touch Bar... nothing about hating it. (Although, if you worked in Mac-driven video post-production, you'd find plenty of haters.) But nearly five years after being introduced, it's still not widely supported by developers. We'll see what happens going forward, but Touch Bar seems destined to find its way into the Apple Tech Retiree Home alongside 3-D Press for iPhone.
No big deal but why stingy on ports when Apple now controlling most what goes inside out in M1 Macbook ? Give at-least 3 ports. Two on left like now but one on right side. Convenient to charge or use one side port when other side port connected to charger.
The base model 13-inch Macbook Pro has always had 2 ports. The higher-end 13-inch MBP is coming (most likely in summer of 2021) and it will have 4 USB-C ports. It might also come with 14-inch screen and other enhancements to differentiate it from the base model.
The people who hate Touch Bar are the same who think Macs need touch screens. They constantly talk about how great Surface is. They're PC people; they should buy PCs. I
That is, respectfully, nonsense.
I think the TB is a meaningless distraction (probably adds to the cost, however), yet I have no interest in my Mac having a touch screen. That right there invalidates your overwrought claim about "The people who..."
I really don’t understand the fascination with having a touch screen Mac. I cringe every time someone wants to point to my screen and actually touches it with their filthy greasy fingers. I certainly don’t want to touch my own screen with my greasy filthy fingers and have to keep wiping it down and cleaning it. The Mac screen so much more delicate than the iPad screens, my screen has blemishes all over it, I think it’s wearing the surface coating or something off, and I’ve hardly ever touched it except by accident or some idiot touching it to point something out. Wheras my iPad screens clean up with just a simple wipe. If you want to touch screen laptop then by all means stick with your beloved Windows machines, otherwise just use an iPad.
I feel exactly the same way, even with iPhone and iPad, which is why I always have a microfiber cloth within easy reach, even in my car.
However, I'm starting to believe that obtaining a higher-quality user experience with iOS and iPadOS apps on Apple Silicon Macs is going to require putting a touchscreen on the Mac. Maybe Apple won't do the touch screen thing across the board, but if they made a "MacBook Air Touch" with Apple Silicon and a robust touchscreen, I would buy one. I'd also buy some additional microfiber wiping cloths and keep one close to the device at all times.
Being able to run iOS and iPad apps on a Mac sounds like a cool thing, and it is. But we'll have to see how app developers react. Current iPhone and iPad developers who want to go after the Mac market are going to be faced with some tough challenges that will ultimately impact their end users. If developers lean too heavily on making their apps play nice with Mac does it start to coerce their iPad version/mode into effectively requiring a mouse and keyboard? When you look at the commonality across Mac, iPhone, and iPad the fact that the Mac is the only device that doesn't have any native touchscreen support makes it the oddball of the family. One thing that software devs are never fond of are "special cases" that need to be managed in code. It just adds complexity.
1080p camera. HELLO? Even post-pandemic, Zoom meetings for business will be essential--honestly, how do you stick a 720p camera in a new 'Pro" laptop that you're essentially rolling out in 2021? Sure, the image processing may make it look "good for 720p," but the added cost to Apple for a better camera would have been miniscule.
Fast WiFi 6. I'm not even talking about 6E, although that level of future-proofing would have been fabulous. But this new Pro doesn't even have the antenna array needed to support the fastest data transfer rates of which WiFi 6 is capable.
5G Mobile Connectivity. How hard could this be to implement when even the most basic iPad offers cellular?
Touch Bar: Really? Still? Stick a fork in it, Apple... it's done! This is one of those technologies, like 3-D Press on iPhone, that might have been a good idea, but was never widely implemented by the developer community.
1) 14" display is rumored for a future MacBook. How do you plan on having a camera with narrow bezels? I can't figure out why people have such a crazy fit over bezels. Like it really affects the functionality of the MacBook, except to make the display much more fragile for damage. 2) The review addressed the 720p camera. These are low cost MacBooks, but it is embarrassing for Apple to ship them with lousy cameras. 3) Perhaps the required antenna array does not fit in the smaller display of the 13", especially when you are demanding smaller bezels. 4) No one wants cellular in a MacBook. No one wants to pay for another data plan. Everyone has their phone with them all the time and they do Personal Hotspot. You don't need to pay for duplicate technology. The Wi-Fi iPad is the most popular model sold, because people don't want to pay for another data plan in an iPad. 5) TouchBar...yeah, that is a gimmick that never caught on. The fact that you have to look at the TouchBar every time you use it because it is not tactile like keys on a keyboard, makes it more useless.
You do realize these are first generation models. Redesigns will come later. Just like the first Intel Macs used the same case as the iMac G5 and PowerBook G4.
There are no conditions "required and imposed" by Apple, other than an embargo time and date.
Interesting. But still, you don't want to be too critical right? Don't want to get on Apple's bad side lest you get dropped from their approved reviewers list? I'm not suggesting there's an unspoken arrangement or unintentional bias, but I do believe there's the potential for both of those things. And that's enough for me to not put too much into these launch-day reviews.
I prefer post-launch reviews where there's no agreements with Apple for early access, as I find them generally to be far more open, plain-speaking and willing to be critical. It's like, do you ever, when online shopping, jump to the most critical reviews and ratings to see if they're reasonable; affect you; or there's a common theme (because individual reviews can be spurious)? I find them generally to be far more helpful in my purchasing decisions than the glowing/positive reviews. That's why I like people to be critical, even overly so. I see the role of reviews and reviewers (in part) to be devil's advocate. So sorry if it seems I'm overly negative or critical, but I think that explains my position.
I gather that AI doesn't consider it appropriate or necessary to show more than the same old benchmarks on launch day, and perhaps you didn't have much time to do otherwise. I'm looking forward to seeing real-world performance for a variety of not yet ported or optimised apps. I'm very enthusiastic about the potential in this switch. It's really only day one of release today. I bet Apple's upcoming 16" ARM MacBooks will be very tempting!
You must be a real blast at parties. They did point out all the flaws, but it is clear you did not read the article - 720p camera, limited external display support, limited external thunderbolt support. Their review was accurate, many positives with some glaring negatives. It doesn't matter if it is on the day of release or two weeks from now. The review would be the same, because it is the same final product. Funny that you would think there would be some type of legal agreement for a review. Sad that you think a YouTube video from a blogger would be more in-depth.
The people who hate Touch Bar are the same who think Macs need touch screens. They constantly talk about how great Surface is. They're PC people; they should buy PCs. If Touch Bar wasn't helping to sell Macs, the most data-driven marketing in the world would have figured that out by now. What Touch Bar does is differentiate Apple's machines from basic PCs. And if you haven't yet noticed, Surface isn't exactly selling on the same level as MacBooks.
What gives you the right to characterize people that way? I happen to like the touch bar—AND I think Apple should have a touchscreen, just like millions of other Mac users. I know how you follow the Apple line, but Apple is often wrong. This is one of those things where they’re wrong. And I’ll bet that at some point, we will have a touchscreen.
You mean the 5 people in tech message forums that want a touchscreen Mac. No one wants a touchscreen Mac. Who wants dirty fingerprints on their screen? So you want to bang on a keyboard, then have to reach up and touch the screen every time? Talk about the most inefficient way to get work done.
The people who hate Touch Bar are the same who think Macs need touch screens. They constantly talk about how great Surface is. They're PC people; they should buy PCs. I
That is, respectfully, nonsense.
I think the TB is a meaningless distraction (probably adds to the cost, however), yet I have no interest in my Mac having a touch screen. That right there invalidates your overwrought claim about "The people who..."
I'm not speaking generally about anyone who sees little value in touch bar, I'm specially talking about the Verge writers who have content that just repeats "Touch Bar is atrocious and where's the touch screen and why isn't this a Surface?" And basically the Wall Street Journal too.
The USB 4 name is misleading. It's technically correct because the new specification doesn't mandate supporting the fastest speed (40 Gbps). The actual supported USB speed is 10 Gbps on the new Macbooks, just like on the old ones. It's exactly the same "USB 3.2 gen 2".
USB 4 is effectively TB3 converted to the USB spec for licensing.
Apple's M1 is the first hardware licensed to deliver "USB 4." It also supports USB 3.2 g2. So there aren't really USB 4 peripherals out there yet. And if its supports TB 3 at 40Gpbs, what makes you think the top speed is 10?
The people who hate Touch Bar are the same who think Macs need touch screens. They constantly talk about how great Surface is. They're PC people; they should buy PCs. If Touch Bar wasn't helping to sell Macs, the most data-driven marketing in the world would have figured that out by now. What Touch Bar does is differentiate Apple's machines from basic PCs. And if you haven't yet noticed, Surface isn't exactly selling on the same level as MacBooks.
What gives you the right to characterize people that way? I happen to like the touch bar—AND I think Apple should have a touchscreen, just like millions of other Mac users. I know how you follow the Apple line, but Apple is often wrong. This is one of those things where they’re wrong. And I’ll bet that at some point, we will have a touchscreen.
You mean the 5 people in tech message forums that want a touchscreen Mac. No one wants a touchscreen Mac. Who wants dirty fingerprints on their screen? So you want to bang on a keyboard, then have to reach up and touch the screen every time? Talk about the most inefficient way to get work done.
No. I mean pretty much everyone I know. I’ve read article after article about this. There is a very large nu7mber of people who want one. Don’t be a smart ass. Apple doesn’t want to do it, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want it.
Comments
I prefer post-launch reviews where there's no agreements with Apple for early access, as I find them generally to be far more open, plain-speaking and willing to be critical. It's like, do you ever, when online shopping, jump to the most critical reviews and ratings to see if they're reasonable; affect you; or there's a common theme (because individual reviews can be spurious)? I find them generally to be far more helpful in my purchasing decisions than the glowing/positive reviews. That's why I like people to be critical, even overly so. I see the role of reviews and reviewers (in part) to be devil's advocate. So sorry if it seems I'm overly negative or critical, but I think that explains my position.
I gather that AI doesn't consider it appropriate or necessary to show more than the same old benchmarks on launch day, and perhaps you didn't have much time to do otherwise. I'm looking forward to seeing real-world performance for a variety of not yet ported or optimised apps. I'm very enthusiastic about the potential in this switch. It's really only day one of release today. I bet Apple's upcoming 16" ARM MacBooks will be very tempting!
As an example, you'll note that there are no iPhone 12 mini or iPhone 12 Pro Max reviews published by us. That's because we got the hardware when you did, and using it for three days and publishing a conclusion is irresponsible.
You can tell when we have historically gotten the hardware, based on when we publish reviews, and they are almost never when the embargo expires -- read this as meaning "when the YouTubers publish en masse."
I don't give a rat's ass what Apple thinks about what we write. Never have, and I'm not going to start now.
In regards to "real-world performance for a variety of not yet ported or optimised apps," this is addressed by Dan in the Rosetta section. If you assume for every 10,000 AI readers, there are 15,000 use cases -- so it is impractical to do any kind of testing in that regard, even on an infinite timescale, as any given combination of apps we'd test is worthless for 99.9% of any potential reader's use case.
My experience may not be universal, but I have decades of Fortune 500 and 100 experience in enterprise IT. We've been teleconferencing for decades. That hasn't changed, just because consumers are infatuated with a new video conference tool. (one with a lousy security track record, btw). My work for energy companies is global, it's teleconference. My work for the US federal government is national, it's teleconference.
Share price is not indicative of tool value. Investors often don't know what they don't know.
What it certainly is not is Thunderbolt 4, which we'd have preferred to have been more clear and not had to hunt down Apple PR folks to confirm.
We'll be testing more as we see more native USB4 (not TB3) peripherals.
Really? Then let me introduce you to my iPhone 12 Pro Max: all new case design, new screen size, new processor, new 5G connectivity, new Lidar hardware, WiFi 6, new camera system, new Dolby Vision capable video system, new glass tech for the screen, etc., etc. So it seems Apple is quite capable, as one would expect. Apple is a TRILLION dollar company with hundreds of billions in cash, and you think it's not realistic that they could have released a truly updated version of a key product line that has been coasting on lazy upgrades for years?
Suggest you re-read what I said about Touch Bar... nothing about hating it. (Although, if you worked in Mac-driven video post-production, you'd find plenty of haters.) But nearly five years after being introduced, it's still not widely supported by developers. We'll see what happens going forward, but Touch Bar seems destined to find its way into the Apple Tech Retiree Home alongside 3-D Press for iPhone.
The base model 13-inch Macbook Pro has always had 2 ports. The higher-end 13-inch MBP is coming (most likely in summer of 2021) and it will have 4 USB-C ports. It might also come with 14-inch screen and other enhancements to differentiate it from the base model.
I think the TB is a meaningless distraction (probably adds to the cost, however), yet I have no interest in my Mac having a touch screen. That right there invalidates your overwrought claim about "The people who..."
However, I'm starting to believe that obtaining a higher-quality user experience with iOS and iPadOS apps on Apple Silicon Macs is going to require putting a touchscreen on the Mac. Maybe Apple won't do the touch screen thing across the board, but if they made a "MacBook Air Touch" with Apple Silicon and a robust touchscreen, I would buy one. I'd also buy some additional microfiber wiping cloths and keep one close to the device at all times.
Being able to run iOS and iPad apps on a Mac sounds like a cool thing, and it is. But we'll have to see how app developers react. Current iPhone and iPad developers who want to go after the Mac market are going to be faced with some tough challenges that will ultimately impact their end users. If developers lean too heavily on making their apps play nice with Mac does it start to coerce their iPad version/mode into effectively requiring a mouse and keyboard? When you look at the commonality across Mac, iPhone, and iPad the fact that the Mac is the only device that doesn't have any native touchscreen support makes it the oddball of the family. One thing that software devs are never fond of are "special cases" that need to be managed in code. It just adds complexity.
Exciting times ahead.
2) The review addressed the 720p camera. These are low cost MacBooks, but it is embarrassing for Apple to ship them with lousy cameras.
3) Perhaps the required antenna array does not fit in the smaller display of the 13", especially when you are demanding smaller bezels.
4) No one wants cellular in a MacBook. No one wants to pay for another data plan. Everyone has their phone with them all the time and they do Personal Hotspot. You don't need to pay for duplicate technology. The Wi-Fi iPad is the most popular model sold, because people don't want to pay for another data plan in an iPad.
5) TouchBar...yeah, that is a gimmick that never caught on. The fact that you have to look at the TouchBar every time you use it because it is not tactile like keys on a keyboard, makes it more useless.
You do realize these are first generation models. Redesigns will come later. Just like the first Intel Macs used the same case as the iMac G5 and PowerBook G4.
You mean the 5 people in tech message forums that want a touchscreen Mac. No one wants a touchscreen Mac. Who wants dirty fingerprints on their screen? So you want to bang on a keyboard, then have to reach up and touch the screen every time? Talk about the most inefficient way to get work done.
USB 4 is effectively TB3 converted to the USB spec for licensing.
Apple's M1 is the first hardware licensed to deliver "USB 4." It also supports USB 3.2 g2. So there aren't really USB 4 peripherals out there yet. And if its supports TB 3 at 40Gpbs, what makes you think the top speed is 10?
Damn is this transition smooth as fu**!!