jdw

FileMakerFeller said:

Starting at US$99 per month? I'll be interested to see the effect that pricing has on demand.

We are still using a very old version of FileMaker on a FileMaker IWP server to publish databases on the web. Newer versions of FileMaker make no economic sense for us due to their licensing changes.  With IWP it costs us $169 per year to host a single database, but hosting that 1 database on a new version of FMP would cost us the price of a dedicated server plus licensing of several hundred dollars per year.  It makes no sense at all for us.  Sounds like that $99/mo is the same sort of thinking.

sflocal said:

sjworld said:

Soli said:

mcdave said:

Note to self; when buying a $5K don’t forget to order a stand or at least some large books.

I find it odd that this is such a sticking point with people. If Apple only sold the monster for $6000 with the stand it would still be well below what others offer and those that want to use a VESA setup would have an amazing piece of engineering they couldn't use.

Apple doesn't give enough configuration options… people bitch. Apple gives configuration options… people bitch.

Shut the hell up. Their $1000 stand is as ridiculous as their $400 wheels. I understand (and do not complain) about the technology behind the entire system being expensive, but a stand and some wheels at such a high price is ludicrous. I can buy a couple of Apple devices for the total of those two.

The stand is sold out. 

Not to disagree with you, but could you provide a link to the source of your info which claims the $999 stand is "sold out"?

Also, are the $400 wheels even shipping?  I see all these fabulously wealthy Tech YouTubers buying the Mac Pro left and right but I've not seen a single review of the wheels.  Everybody is just commenting on Apple's photos of the wheels.  I think anyone well heeled enough to afford the Mac Pro should get the wheels because those standard flat feet look shockingly ugly to me.  I would have thought Apple could have made better looking feet that that.

At least we can rejoice and be thankful this premium priced Mac "Pro" has USB-A like the iMac "Pro," which is the very port that Mac Pro pricing defenders in this forum mercilessly lambast in other threads as being "totally unnecessary" when they argue with all their might that "it has no place on the MacBook Pro."  LOL. Apple continues to show the world why USB-A is still relevant now at the end of 2019 and going forward!  And no, my argumentative comrades, Apple doesn't "grudgingly add" anything.  They tend to rather merciless remove features (e.g., the SD card slot on the MBP).  USB-A was clearly added by Apple to the 2019 Mac Pro after much contemplation.  And their final decision was thankfully rooted in practical reality.  That ubiquitous USB-A port isn't going away anytime soon.  As such it would have been great to eliminate a dongle on the rather large 16" MBP which has space aplenty to accommodate it, but therein lies the rather inconsistent definition of what defines "Pro" in Apple's lineup.  

At the end of the day, the Mac Pro is NOT "made only for" certain types of people.  Those silly and insensitive "it's not made for you" arguments fall flat, as they should. Apple doesn't discriminate when it comes to earning money.  They sell to whomever has the cash to pay for it.  And since most of us lack Mac Pro levels of cash, in light of how comparatively-affordable those Mac Pros and G5 towers were in the past, some of us cannot help but mourn the lack of an upgradable Mac tower priced for The Rest of Us.  Oh well.  We can look forward to finding a 2019 Mac Pro on EBAY for a much more palatable price 10 years from now.  I just wish I could time warp then and back! :-)

Soli said:

jdw said:

urahara said:

MplsP said:

Win - win - win.
Having the ability to remove an individual key-cap to remove debris alone is a huge improvement over the butterfly keyboards. The increased key travel likely means that a piece of debris that would compromise a butterfly key will be much less likely to cause an issue with the new keyboard. For people who switch between keyboards (most of us?) the increased travel will lessen the difference between the keyboards.

I'm sure there are people whose job it is to research stuff like this, but it seems to me that there is probably a minimum distance needed for comfortable typing. From the days of manual typewriters that had a travel of over an inch we've steadily progressed to shallower and shallower depths. In general, no one had problems with the Mac keyboards that had travel of ~2mm and then more recently just over a mm but many people didn't like the shallow, 0.5mm travel of the butterfly keyboards. Extrapolating from that it appears going much below 1 mm gets bothersome for people.

I agree with you. Good for majority of people. Not for me though. \ I love 💕 butterfly 🦋 keyboard, and especially its travel distance. I wish it had even a bit less force. I fly on this keyboard. It's such a great joy to type on it.

Boom!  There it is!

I actually scrolled through this thread to see if there was actually one of you status quo defenders who would continue to defend the failed butterfly keyboard, and yes, there is one.

You came here looking for someone who actually likes the previous keyboard so you can chide them for being full of shit? Seriously, man?

No need for the profanity.  I am not full of feces, no.  And no, I did not come directly here to give you a hard time.  I read the article and then checked the comments like I always do.  But as I read each comment I was curious how many would switch and worship the current status quo of scissor switches versus the previous status quo of butterflies.  

I've been an Apple fan for decades, but I don't worship everything Apple says and does.  I judge each change on its own merits.  I don't try to defend Apple saying, "Crying about it in forums does nothing.  Apple won't go back." like some of you folks do.  The good news is that Apple DOES go back.  The scissor switch is a switch back!  In fact, I just sent them a MBP Feedback message congratulating them on that change, asking that the restore the SD card slot in an updated version.  It doesn't matter to me if my feedback is ignored.  If they keep coming out with machines that don't fully suit me, I simply won't buy them.  But I feel obligated to tell them what I will buy.  If most Mac users did that, we'd probably have a heck of a lot more practical hardware functionality than we have now.  I love Apple's design aesthetic, but with multiple MacBook product lines, they can easily exercise minimalism on the low end lines and maximize ports on the "Pro."  That's how it used to be on the MBP and is what it still should be now.  It's not like we don't pay enough for that.  Well, at least the keyboard improved.  I think it will result in fewer complaints which is good for the customer and for Apple too.

urahara said:

MplsP said:

Win - win - win.
Having the ability to remove an individual key-cap to remove debris alone is a huge improvement over the butterfly keyboards. The increased key travel likely means that a piece of debris that would compromise a butterfly key will be much less likely to cause an issue with the new keyboard. For people who switch between keyboards (most of us?) the increased travel will lessen the difference between the keyboards.

I'm sure there are people whose job it is to research stuff like this, but it seems to me that there is probably a minimum distance needed for comfortable typing. From the days of manual typewriters that had a travel of over an inch we've steadily progressed to shallower and shallower depths. In general, no one had problems with the Mac keyboards that had travel of ~2mm and then more recently just over a mm but many people didn't like the shallow, 0.5mm travel of the butterfly keyboards. Extrapolating from that it appears going much below 1 mm gets bothersome for people.

I agree with you. Good for majority of people. Not for me though. \ I love 💕 butterfly 🦋 keyboard, and especially its travel distance. I wish it had even a bit less force. I fly on this keyboard. It's such a great joy to type on it.

Boom!  There it is!

I actually scrolled through this thread to see if there was actually one of you status quo defenders who would continue to defend the failed butterfly keyboard, and yes, there is one.  I applaud you, urahara, for sticking by your guns and not allowing your preference to float with the wind.  You like that butterfly keyboard and you are sticking by that sentiment, even when others who once lambasted me in this forum for daring to say "more key travel is better" now embrace the new keyboard with MORE key travel only because that's what Apple's pitching to us now.  

I for one like that which is good (i.e., more key travel) and loath that which causes fingers to ache (i.e., almost no key travel, such as butterfly keyboards).  It's great to see Apple has PARTLY listened to those of us daring enough to speak our voice against their past low-travel foolishness, but that doesn't mean the new scissor keyboard is necessary "good."  It just means it is comparatively better.  I can say that because it seems the 16" MBP keyboard has the same key travel and stability as the space gray Magic Keyboard, one of which I purchased recently as a replacement for my failing Matias aluminum keyboard.  That Magic Keyboard is very low travel but much more travel than butterfly keyboards, which I have typed on before at Apple stores, which is a good thing.  But the Magic Keyboard is still a far cry from the glorious key travel of older wired Apple keyboards like the one I ordered with my 27" iMac in late 2009.  I still have one of those wired aluminum keyboards (with white keys and numeric keypad) at the office and love it to pieces.  Sure, it's not the key travel of an old mechanical, but it's good enough for my fingers which love to type.  The Magic Keyboard of today is only barely enough, in my opinion.

I love key stability, and I think that is really what most butterfly keyboard lovers rave about.  But like I said, even the Magic Keyboard has that same key stability, and no doubt the 16" MBP does too.  The kicker is key TRAVEL.  How some people can like near-zero travel is beyond me.  It's no different than rapping your fingers on a wood desk.  That wood desk is as stable as can be, but stability is not everything.  Key stability is only part part of the typing experience, and although it is important, it isn't enough to replace key travel.  And that is why Apple made a good choice in restoring at least some key travel in the 16" MBP.

By the way, I bought the Matias aluminum space gray keyboard in the first place because at that time Apple had not released their iMac Pro with its space gray magic keyboard.  The Matias captivated me because of its 1 year battery life, which even to this day makes me upset Apple doesn't do the same with their Magic Keyboard.  And while the key travel on the Matias was about the same as the keyboard on my 2015 15" MBP (which is very acceptable and good), the key stability was the most horrid I have ever experienced in my 35+ years of using computers.  The white silkscreen printing came off very quickly, and keys broke off too.  That ultimately led me to getting the Magic Keyboard, which again has what I consider to be a "barely acceptable" amount of key travel, and certainly much less than the 2015 15" MBP I own and love (which has the same key travel as the 2017 MacBook Air, two of which I bought for my children a year ago).

All said, if you wouldn't accept any less key travel than the 2015 and earlier MacBook Pros, you probably won't like the Space Gray Magic Keyboard or the new 16" MBP.  But if you find the Magic Keyboard acceptable, then the 16" MBP should fall in line with that and be acceptable too.  But for me, that horrid butterfly keyboard lacks the key travel to make my fingers happy.  And the faster Apple can rid the world of that thing the better.

Key TRAVEL.  It does fingers good.