[HN Gopher] Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features
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Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features
Author : metahost
Score : 328 points
Date : 2021-01-17 05:25 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.inputmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.inputmag.com)
| blumomo wrote:
| After years of fighting with the broken butterfly keyboard, the
| missing ESC key (Vim!) and Apple's recent ambitions in
| censorship, I finally made the move, after 15 years with
| Macbooks, to switch to a free and more transparent platform, as
| in "a system that respects the user's freedom". Yes, moving to
| System76 and their Pop! OS will come with efforts of re-
| abituation but I appreciate the freedom that comes with it.
| emptyparadise wrote:
| Sounds too good to be true.
| lilyball wrote:
| I'm really hoping this rumor is false. I want the 13" M1 MBP
| scaled up to 16". I don't want an SD card, F keys, MagSafe, or
| any of the rest of that.
| sitkack wrote:
| I want the M1 MBA scaled to 16", I do want SD card, F keys, and
| MagSafe.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| All of these opinions (from this comment thread) perfectly sum up
| my view of the Touch Bar.
|
| It's one of the reasons, aside from performance, that I believe
| that the M1 MacBook Air is _currently_ the best laptop that Apple
| make.
|
| > I am all for removing the TouchBar. The new MacBook Air with
| TouchID + physical function keys is a perfect combination of
| features. There are a few things about the TouchBar I do like --
| eg, having a custom one-touch screen lock button that's always
| present. However vast majority of the time I use external
| keyboard+trackpad+monitor, so the touchbar can't be part of my
| usual workflow anyway. (BluSyn)
|
| > while I believed in the initial promise of the touchbar
| (especially for specialty apps like DAWs, NLEs, etc), I welcome
| its removal now, and I think most do. (coldtea)
|
| > I also can't wait for the removal of the Touchbar. This
| prevented me from buying previous Macbooks because it was just
| one compromise too far for such an expensive machine. (pharmakom)
|
| > I like the touch bar but unless they find a way to make it
| feasible on a Bluetooth magic keyboard, I'd rather have no touch
| bar for consistency. If they are going to kill it they should
| have killed it with the first M1 MacBooks. (johnwalkr)
|
| > The problem with the TouchBar is that it disrupt the flow of
| attention towards the keys. The cool thing about having just ONE
| screen is that you can forget about looking your fingers because
| the content is fixed (not dynamic) and therefore can be
| internalized. The TB doesn't solve any problem (ofou)
|
| > the Touchbar should have been a new UI paradigm at the bottom
| of a touchscreen. I'd also dig a Touchbar accessory for my
| keyboard tray. Just saying. But for the love of god, keep it off
| my F-key row. (acjohnson55)
|
| > No Touchbar. I love the idea, but it should be in addition to
| the Fn keys, on top of it, or in some other way. (maz1b)
|
| > If they so wish their touchbars, why not to put them _above_
| function keys ?! Make option to turn them off completely if
| required so they would not disturb at night or stand on the way.
| They never heard of people with muscle memory? (lovelyviking)
| projektfu wrote:
| I can't help but think this leak is bad for Apple's Mac business.
| It will be a while before these potentially superior Macs will be
| available, cannibalizing the sales of the existing line. I'm
| looking to replace my laptop soon and these potential features
| make me comfortable waiting and seeing.
|
| I hope that they would make it chargeable from either the Magsafe
| or the USB-C, like the Surface.
| Aperocky wrote:
| I feel like Kuo has been subject to a honeypot.
|
| I don't think there's any reason to bring back old ports or
| magSafe. I can totally understand getting rid of the touch bar
| though - but I don't even expect that to actually happen.
|
| Given how long the god awful butterfly keyboard persisted, I
| don't expect these less awful feature (and some, like USB-C, is
| positive) to go.
| cududa wrote:
| Yes, that's generally why companies don't like leaks around new
| product announcements..
| theonemind wrote:
| For all we know, this sort of thing might get leaked
| intentionally as a middle ground between between annoucing it
| and keeping it a secret.
|
| The most interested and active users will know about leaked
| information, and they can put off buying decisions and have
| greater long term satisfaction. If you bought a machine and 2
| months later, exactly what you wanted two months ago comes out,
| you probably won't enjoy that experience very much.
|
| However, less discriminating users probably both won't know
| about the leak, and won't find certain things coming out quite
| as disappointing.
|
| I think it probably works out decently for Apple even if they
| really don't want the leaks, much the way piracy probably
| helped Microsoft Windows by helping make it a complete de-
| factor standard (though Microsoft seemed aware of that and
| seemed not to crack down as hard as they might for that
| reason.)
| BluSyn wrote:
| My controversial hot take--
|
| I have never needed an SD card, and have gone all-in on USB-C. I
| will be very disappointed if they add back in USB-A/HDMI/SD
| ports, or remove USB-C charging in favor of proprietary charge
| port. Sounds like unnecessary feature bloat. Please just do
| MagSage + USB-C, so I can maintain my one-cable-for-everything,
| making traveling lighter and simpler. Here's my counter argument
| to all those that love MagSafe: makes traveling a huge hassle,
| forcing me to carry a special charge brick that only works for
| ONE device. In 2021 going forward, I will flat refuse to spend
| money on anything that doesn't use USB-C or Qi charging. I can
| now travel with a single 2xUSB-C power brick, and charge all
| devices from the same cable. This is a huge step forward, please
| don't reverse this.
|
| I am all for removing the TouchBar. The new MacBook Air with
| TouchID + physical function keys is a perfect combination of
| features. There are a few things about the TouchBar I do like --
| eg, having a custom one-touch screen lock button that's always
| present. However vast majority of the time I use external
| keyboard+trackpad+monitor, so the touchbar can't be part of my
| usual workflow anyway. Removing this reduces cost and complexity.
|
| Please. Just keep it simple.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I drank the USB-C kool-aid that Apple proposed but it just
| completely failed in practice. I now carry multiple different
| (and incompatible) USB-C cables which is in no way better than
| the magsafe + usb charger I had before.
|
| Three years ago I had one USB-C charging brick with a lightning
| and USB-A cable and my macbook magsafe brick.
|
| Now I carry a USB-C charging brick with a lightning cable for
| ipad and iphone, my USB-C charging brick for my macbook pro
| with a USB-C PD? cable, a USB-C -> USB-C cable for my external
| SSD (which I cannot use to charge my macbook and the charging
| cable of my macbook does not work with it). Additionally I have
| a USB-C to USB-A adapter with a USB mini cable for my
| headphones and mifi dongle and a separate adapter for HDMI and
| SD.
|
| I ended up with more cables and I would be in that situation
| for at least two years more until the last mini USB devices are
| discarded. But even in that case I end up with multiple USB-C
| cables just because they are incompatible to each other.
| john_alan wrote:
| You're doing it wrong. You don't need all of those cables.
| Get one that works with all of them.
|
| You also only need one high watt brick not lots of different
| rated ones.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I have never needed an SD card, and have gone all-in on
| USB-C. I will be very disappointed if they add back in USB-A
| /HDMI/SD ports, or remove USB-C charging in favor of
| proprietary charge port. Sounds like unnecessary feature
| bloat._
|
| I'm on the same side, though I wouldn't mind one-two USB-A
| ports added for when I'm on the go in a hurry without a USB-C/A
| cable. Or the addition of some smart "mag-safe but still usable
| USB-C port" combo.
|
| But given the complaints from the "moar ports" side and the
| complaints from the "USB-C all the things" side, one thing is
| clear: There's no pleasing some people, there's doubly so not
| pleasing all the people, and Apple has to make its choices and
| be done with it.
|
| That said, while I believed in the initial promise of the
| touchbar (especially for specialty apps like DAWs, NLEs, etc),
| I welcome its removal now, and I think most do.
|
| The one improvement I could see to make it workable would be a
| full keyboard with separate, tactile keys (the same as we have
| now) but with changebale legends/colors. That would make
| learning shortcuts in new apps etc or customizing key behavior
| very nice. It will also enabled on the fly switch to different
| keyboard layouts (e.g. from foreign language like AZERTY to
| Dvorak) complete with key legends.
| smichel17 wrote:
| > one thing is clear: ... Apple has to make its choices and
| be done with it.
|
| It is not clear to me why Apple cannot sell a small handful
| of models. Two otherwise identical machines, one all-in on
| usb-c, the other with a mix of ports.
| DennisP wrote:
| Maybe MacBook Pro with all the ports, MacBook without.
| nwotnagrom wrote:
| Agreed. I do hope they keep USB-C. The one cable that works for
| all was actually a convenience for me as I could charge a
| macbook, ipad, and even a samsung galaxy phone all with the
| same single cable.
| agumonkey wrote:
| But MagSafe solves a clear problem IMO, DC connectors are
| fragile and tripping on the cable will either harm the solder
| joints or make the whole machine fall.
|
| Maybe a magsafe like adapter for usb-c then ?
| alistairSH wrote:
| _Maybe a magsafe like adapter for usb-c then_
|
| That would be my preferred solution. USB-C port on the
| laptop, small MagSafe adapter, and then the charge cord with
| the other half of the MagSafe.
| pharmakom wrote:
| If Apple can make a Magsafe cable for USB C that would be the
| best of both worlds. (I know third parties have made them but
| Apple would probably do a better implementation)
|
| I also can't wait for the removal of the Touchbar. This
| prevented me from buying previous Macbooks because it was just
| one compromise too far for such an expensive machine.
|
| Is this Apple's "Coke Classic" moment?
| Symbiote wrote:
| Doesn't Apple generally make worse cables than the
| competition?
|
| It is very rare for a PC laptop power cable to break. There's
| a rubber grommet which protects the cable as it enters the
| plug from extreme and repeated bending.
|
| For supposed aesthetics, Apple don't include this, and their
| cables fray easily.
|
| (This is based on my experience managing hardware for a small
| organization, <50 staff. After about 5 years, Apple laptops
| come back with damage to the shiny screen from rubbing
| against the keyboard, and usually a wrecked power supply
| cable. Sometimes we have to replace the PSU within the 5
| years. The rest of the laptop is usually in good condition,
| i.e. the case, keyboard, ports.
|
| Dell/HP/Lenovo/etc business laptops come back with the cables
| in good condition, the matt screens suffer less even with
| similar keyboard marks, but the cases usually look a bit
| scruffy. Depending on usage, we might have replaced the
| battery after ~3 years, which is either easily done by the
| user, or takes 5 minutes with a normal screwdriver to remove
| the back case.)
| flomo wrote:
| > It is very rare for a PC laptop power cable to break.
|
| The failure was usually the plug breaking loose from the
| board. (Both on PC laptops and old Powerbooks with the
| barrel plug.)
| jooize wrote:
| Apple's cables are bad. Never been a problem for me because
| I take care of them, but people shouldn't have to be as
| careful as I am.
| varjag wrote:
| Very rare? Come on. I still have that Dell somewhere which
| had cable frayed right where its stress relief mold ended.
| dunmalg wrote:
| "rare" != "unique"
|
| I have a stack of old laptops 2 feet high, and my old
| Dell that frayed at the strain relief is the only one
| whose cable crapped out.
| ben509 wrote:
| I've never seen cables as bad as Apple's. I have multiple
| Apple cables that I've patched up with electrical tape, and
| I'm quite careful to avoid kinking them.
| varispeed wrote:
| I use SD cards daily to transfer data from cameras or different
| devices for further processing. It is handy to be able to just
| slide it in. I also have a dongle in an other laptop which
| works fine, but you need to be careful with these - I bought
| one cheaper dongle and it totally destroyed my SD card upon
| inserting. Unfortunately there was no backup as there was
| original material on it. So now I first do backup on a trusted
| SD card reader and then use it anywhere else.
| exhilaration wrote:
| The dramatic decline in camera sales has been discussed a few
| times on HN, here's a random google result:
| https://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/dont-look-at-this-graph-
| sho...
|
| Cameras are rapidly turning into a niche product, it makes no
| sense for any laptop manufacturer to include an SD card
| reader at this point.
| veridies wrote:
| Cameras are used for multiple professional purposes,
| including videography and commercial photography. SD cards
| are also used in devices such as Zoom audio recorders,
| which I often use for recording music. Especially right
| now, I'll loan a Zoom and a nice mic to a musician so that
| they can record tracks for me remotely.
|
| They're also the standard boot device for computers like
| the Raspberry Pi. Basically, they're a professional tool
| which one might expect in a professional laptop.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| Even there, though, there are many competing standards.
| My MacBook has an SD card reader, but I need an adapter
| to plug the microSD cards from my Raspberry Pi into it.
| My camera's CompactFlash cards require a USB adapter. To
| use the high-speed SD cards, I need to bypass the built-
| in SD card port and use a USB adapter, anyway.
|
| So it turns out it's easier to just buy a multi-card
| adapter. My computer's built-in SD port never gets any
| use anymore, not even for full-size, non-UHC SD cards.
| derefr wrote:
| Regarding videography: professional digital video isn't
| usually recorded to SD cards (nor was it ever, ever since
| "professional digital video" became a thing.) 4K RAW was
| "too big" when that was what videographers worked with;
| and 8K RAW is "too big" now. It's not just that you'll
| fill up the card before you're done a single recording
| session; often an SD card just won't have the IO
| bandwidth to persist writes at the speed the camera wants
| to stream them in at. (How do smartphones do it? By
| having lots of RAM for buffering, and expecting that you
| won't record for very long.) The SD Forum is always
| trying to bring new SD interfaces to market to up the
| total bandwidth; but the needs of professional
| videography always outpace the implementations of those
| standards arriving in the market.
|
| What we do instead:
|
| * DSLRs, when used as video cameras in professional
| workflows, are usually wired directly to a computer,
| streaming down the wire like a webcam.
|
| * Purpose-built professional video cameras record
| directly to _SSDs_ (either regular ones, like Samsung
| T7s; or proprietary ones, like RED's "mini-mags") that
| you're expected to mount to your computer over USB --
| either by them being regular USB3 devices themselves; or,
| in the proprietary case, by the manufacturer selling a
| USB dock you're supposed to buy for your editing
| workstations.
|
| Regarding commercial photography: SD cards have gotten so
| large -- and wi-fi sync so fast -- that even the largest
| RAW photos sync instantly and hardly make a dent in your
| storage. There's no real point in taking a 512GB SD card
| _out_ of a camera.
|
| Keep in mind, _integrated_ ports are only really a demand
| of professionals when _urgent, portable connectivity_ is
| a requirement; i.e. when even the time required to find
| and plug in a dongle would be SLAs broken and revenue
| lost. This _was_ a true need for professional photography
| when SD cards were small, as you'd often fill up an SD
| card in the field and need to "dump it out" onto your
| laptop to continue shooting (or swap it for another while
| handing off the first to your editor to establish a
| pipeline.) Today, it's not.
|
| None of the other tasks you listed have ever been urgent,
| in-the-field tasks; they're tasks where you _do_ have
| time to go back home /to the office, and plug in an SD-
| card reader dongle to do the task.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| strogonoff wrote:
| Exactly, SD card support would be largely meaningless as
| far as professional work is concerned.
|
| My Sigma fp has to record 12-bit CinemaDNG to an external
| SSD (SD cards larger than 64 GB can't maintain the
| required throughput and 64 GB is enough for probably
| minutes). I might use the SD recording capability if I
| take the camera for a leisure photowalk (as far from
| professional work as it gets); I keep reminding myself to
| simply get a Wi-Fi enabled SD card so that I never have
| to take it out.
|
| A memory card format that might be a bit more relevant
| here is CFexpress; but then again, it's unlikely that as
| a professional you'd ever use your laptop's built-in
| reader for this as opposed to sticking it into a box that
| automatically copies everything onto a 4TB HDD while you
| fill up another card.
|
| By the way, tethered operation (wired or wireless) is
| used in professional photography as well, not just
| videography.
| plussed_reader wrote:
| Apple stopped catering to _that_ kind of professional
| when Jobs died.
| foobarian wrote:
| Apple is taking away ports so their devices will be more
| likely to survive falling into water. That is the kind of
| "professional" Apple is catering to.
| simonh wrote:
| On the other hand Macs are heavily used by audio and video
| professionals, the Pro in the name doesn't just refer to
| developers.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| In fact doesn't nearly every story on Mac dissatisfaction
| always have someone mentioning that high end A/V users
| are the real Mac target demo, not devs?
| strogonoff wrote:
| SD card support is largely meaningless to high-end
| professionals, few use memory cards and even fewer would
| bother with a built-in reader in professional work.
| There's tethering (wired or wireless) for studio
| photography, cameras with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
| for when you're on the go, high-speed SSDs or CFexpress
| cards for 8K 10-bit footage, etc.
|
| Hobbyists, vloggers, even mid-range professionals
| (wedding photographers et al.) might use SD cards, but
| that's pretty far from high end.
| [deleted]
| varispeed wrote:
| That's interesting. I also use SD cards to transfer data
| from my phone (I make tons of photos). I used to do it by
| connecting via USB cable, but after a couple of months the
| USB-C port worn out and no longer works, so for me the only
| reasonable way to get the data out is through an SD card. I
| tried things like setting up network server and sending
| files wirelessly but that was flaky.
| oblio wrote:
| You're an outlier. Most people don't take and process as
| many photos as you, and if they do, the processing is
| Instagram filters :-) Also the need to transfer photos
| around has decreased drastically with social media
| sharing and cloud storage.
|
| You'll see in the next few years that smartphones,
| tablets, laptops will cater less and less to your needs.
| Sad... But probably inevitable.
| varispeed wrote:
| Good observation. I use cloud sporadically - for example
| if I have just a couple of photos and feel lazy, I send
| them to Google Drive and then download on my PC, but I
| can imagine people use it all the time thus no need to
| have SD cards laying around.
| ajdegol wrote:
| It's almost like something interesting was happening in
| early 2020...
|
| The same graph for the rest of the year.
| http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/dw-202011_e.pdf
|
| Camera sales are lower than previous years. AI pictures
| look unnerving; but it's definitely the way things will go.
| vvatermelone wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to represent that graph as the
| death of the standalone camera, at least with regard to the
| 2020 data. The fact that nobody could go anywhere or be
| with anyone probably had a lot to do with it.
| bradlys wrote:
| Camera sales on a whole peaked in the 2000's and have
| been on a massive decline ever since. Smartphones are
| where photography is at for most consumers today.
|
| Supporting an SD card is silly unless you plan to support
| many formats. At that point, you may as well just use an
| external card reader or just plug in the camera directly.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Yeah, people can be selfish when it comes to ports...
|
| I bet during their market research, Apple had people like you
| in their focus groups.
| riffraff wrote:
| They could put the magnet as an end of a usb cable. You would
| still use the same brick, and just plug a different cable if
| you want to charge a different device.
|
| Seems like a reasonable tradeoff to me.
| rozab wrote:
| That would just defeat the point of having USB-C charging.
| Only the one proprietary cable would stay in the port.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| May I suggest a little different look at the use of SD Card
| slot on your MacBook (Pro). About 5 years back, I had one of
| those SD Drive stick-in for MacBook Pro that stays there. There
| were few (Nifty Drive, MiniDrive, etc).
|
| The primary use I see are;
|
| 1. Have a clone backup of your primary drive. (Carbon Copy
| Cloner, SuperDuper, Time Machine).
|
| 2. Have an extra storage handy for a rather economical price
| without lugging around an extra drive.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| I am always amazed at how people do not even think of this
| excellent use-case (let alone use it). This is something I
| have always loved in laptops and have used. Besides that card
| is barely even visible unlike a pen drive or a hard disk. It
| just stays there subtly.
|
| I was also planning to have a bootable Linux on one of those,
| but I never got around to actually doing that. Now that my
| 2012 MBA's flash storage is dead (and here in India either I
| can't find replacement, or repair shops are asking for half a
| kidney) I will see if I can actually use a card instead.
| totalZero wrote:
| Probably because carrying your backup inside of your device
| is a horrible way to preserve your media in the event that
| the device is lost or stolen.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| My suggestion was one of the convenient tips of the
| proverbial iceberg in the world of backups and
| redundancies. Today, I'd be astonished if one lost their
| devices and loses any data along with it.
|
| Personally, all my devices are endpoints or tools. For
| instance, if I lost my phone, it will take me a few hours
| or a day/two at best to get back to where I was. The same
| goes for my other devices (desktops, laptops).
|
| In the most critical situation, say, I lost my phone
| while traveling, but lucky my wife's phone is in-tact, I
| can pick up hers and go through my contacts (we sync our
| contacts two ways). I can then login to anything anywhere
| by getting to her Password Manager, which fortunately has
| a copy of mine. I might need to ask her to authenticate
| it for me.
|
| I strongly feel that one should have a pattern and system
| of redundancies and be independent of the devices one
| uses. I'm still discovering and learning a lot; not yet
| the best, but I'm happy I started quite a while back.
| violetgarden wrote:
| Oh good idea! Bootable Linux would be so handy.
| pdimitar wrote:
| I have a 512GB SD card plugged at all times in my iMac Pro
| and I use it as an entry point for various backups (which get
| distributed to cloud storage for redundancy after).
|
| I too am a bit confused by the non-popularity of such a
| setup. SD cards are okay for rarely changing data (or data
| that changes little, exactly like the incremental backups)
| and are extremely compact.
|
| I view SD cards as the diskettes I always wanted to have some
| 26 or so years ago.
| m463 wrote:
| I am partial to the samsung fit usb drives. You can boot
| off of them in a pinch. But current usb-c devices need a
| dongle.
| bartvk wrote:
| Yup, it's a shame that there aren't any USB-C type fit
| drives. Obviously it's a question of space. But I love it
| how the USB-A connector is basically now able to house an
| entire flash drive.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I've got a USB drive that is USB-A on one side and USB-C
| on the other.
| genuine_smiles wrote:
| Is any of this controversial?
| api wrote:
| I agree all the way up to the 16" pro. When you hit that form
| factor it now has plenty of room for more ports and I find them
| useful.
| manmal wrote:
| Do you take photos or videos with a camera other than an
| iDevice? I do, and I have to use a dongle every time to
| transfer data. Those wifi SD cards are a joke.
|
| I agree that they should not remove USB-C charging. People by
| now have powerbanks, or USB-C ports in their car that would
| stop working. However, my daily driver still is the 87W charger
| that came with the MBP, for the simple reason that it's the
| fastest option to charge. I'd be glad if they switched that to
| MagSafe - just yesterday, one of my kids almost pulled the MBP
| from a table while I was looking away.
| tornato7 wrote:
| My camera, like many modern ones, has USB-C and can transfer
| photos over Wi-Fi, so I find it pretty convenient to connect
| to a Mac.
| MrRiddle wrote:
| Some, but not most. And cameras have a lot longer life than
| other tech, so my guess would be that 99% of cameras in use
| don't have the ability to connect via USB-C.
| mbirth wrote:
| Just permanently stick a tiny USB-A to USB-C adapter on
| the cable and they instantly _do have_ the ability to
| connect via USB-C. It 's that easy!
| cpcallen wrote:
| I haven't directly connected my camera to a computer in
| over a decade. Card comes out of the camera and goes in
| the SD card slot on the laptop. So much easier and less
| fiddly.
| manmal wrote:
| Cameras have SD cards instead of internal storage for a
| reason - plugging in the whole camera is often cumbersome
| or in some scenarios not possible.
| knolan wrote:
| While Image Capture is fine the transfer speeds directly
| from camera are usually poor.
|
| Cameras also have CF and now CFexpress. I've personally
| never used an SD card in any of my cameras so USB card
| readers have been part of my workflow for many many
| years.
|
| It's a difficult one to get right. Moving to all in on
| USB-C TB achieves pleasing nobody equally.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Maybe I'm being naive, but when a common IO interface has
| been pretty much standardized for several years, I'm confused
| by why people are asking the companies dedicated to the
| standard to make exceptions and not asking the companies
| stuck on exceptions to adopt the standards.
| MrRiddle wrote:
| How do I plug in a storage device without it sticking out
| if it's not an SD card in an SD port?
| Geee wrote:
| With a really small USB-C memory stick that fits
| completely in the hole.
| lostapathy wrote:
| Do those exist? If so, link please.
| Geee wrote:
| There are ones that fit almost completely in a USB-A
| port. https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-64GB-Cruzer-Flash-
| Drive/dp/B0...
|
| Maybe we'll see one for USB-C some day.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Because replacing a DSLR is really expensive, but an SD
| card port is cheap. And even if it worked with USB-C, I
| would still need a cable between them.
| ericmay wrote:
| We have a dslr and just use a USB-C cable. It's much more
| convenient for me than the SD card is. I can also use it
| with an iPad.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| No, I don't. So why should I sacrifice space for my battery
| to accommodate those who do?
| greedo wrote:
| The amount of extra battery space would be insignificant.
| Plus with the expected battery life on new MBPs with M1
| chips, you'll have plenty of juice.
| astrostl wrote:
| The value of a given port corresponds to the ubiquity and
| lifespan of the things that plug into it. HDMI is not going
| _anywhere_ in the corporate world for the forseeable future. As
| for MagSafe, as long as they keep some USB-C ports you will
| presumably be able to charge that way too.
| memetherapy wrote:
| A "halo" market segment for mac books is video and photography
| professionals who make extremely heavy use of SD cards.
| Appealing to this group (who are also willing to pay a premium)
| has always been a feature of macs. Devs, not so much.
| stirner wrote:
| I'm with you. Maybe it's something specific to being a techie
| and having a ton of peripherals, but being able to connect
| power, display, keyboard, mouse, webcam, backup drive,
| Ethernet, etc. with a single cable when I sit down at my desk
| was absolutely worth the somewhat pricey TB3 dock, especially
| when switching between work and personal devices.
|
| I'm fine with them adding ports back as long as they still let
| you do PD into the TB3 ports. It's still not super easy to
| determine exactly what features are supported by different
| devices/adapters/cables, especially when dealing with USB-C.
| However, it seems like a bit of a backslide on a bold move to
| push the state of the art forward that I believe was the right
| move.
|
| Re: MagSafe, I honestly think they would be better off making a
| MagSafe adapter--a pair of small terminals which connect to the
| end of the power cable and the port that connect to each other
| magnetically. I imagine they could make this pretty low-profile
| and clean. But then it wouldn't be exclusive to Apple's own
| hardware, so I doubt they would ever go this route. A quick
| search turned up an existing adapter [1] that supports 100W PD
| and 40 GBPs data transfer so it's definitely doable.
|
| [1] https://www.newsshooter.com/2020/03/30/magrig-magnetic-
| usb-c...
| thefunnyman wrote:
| My biggest wish would be for them to embrace standard display
| adapter technology and stick with usb c. I have a lot of
| thunderbolt docks that only work on Windows because of
| Apple's outright refusal to support MST [1]. I recently
| switched to a Mac for work and this has been a major pain for
| my docking setup. Funny enough, it all works fine if you
| bootcamp your Mac since Windows supports MST. [1]
| https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251444928
| 67868018 wrote:
| If they remove USB-C charging they won't be compliant with the
| spec anymore which means they can't use the USB logo in their
| marketing materials
| paulcole wrote:
| I hate to break it to you but Apple's marketing materials
| don't rely on the USB logo to do a lot of heavy lifting.
| ofou wrote:
| The problem with the TouchBar is that it disrupt the flow of
| attention towards the keys. The cool thing about having just
| ONE screen is that you can forget about looking your fingers
| because the content is fixed (not dynamic) and therefore can be
| internalized. The TB doesn't solve any problem, and by the way,
| it created a UX's hiccup because:
|
| Attention is limited. Focus is limited. Flow is limited.
|
| Don't break that Apple.
| mojuba wrote:
| Agreed but let's also give credit to Apple for trying to
| innovate. The TouchBar wasn't a bad idea just that it
| probably wasn't tested thoroughly with all types of users. It
| more seems like a "I think everyone's going to love it" kind
| of a designer's idea. Anyway, would happily buy a model
| without it.
| freedomben wrote:
| Lenovo did the same thing years before apple with the X1
| carbon gen II. It was a disaster and got removed from later
| models (thank God).
| johnwalkr wrote:
| Same here. I like the touch bar but unless they find a way to
| make it feasible on a Bluetooth magic keyboard, I'd rather have
| no touch bar for consistency. If they are going to kill it they
| should have killed it with the first M1 MacBooks.
|
| I'm also all in on USB-c (even my shaver uses it for charging)
| and don't miss MagSafe at all. Charging from either side is
| surprisingly handy. One charger for everything is a traveling
| game changer. $50 worth of charger and dongles has a permanent
| spot in my luggage.
|
| Hopefully MagSafe in this case means wireless iPhone charging.
| I just don't need MagSafe power in. I especially don't need it
| now that the battery life is so long. I charge at my desk and
| if I use my MacBook somewhere else I don't even take a charger
| with me.
|
| That being said I wouldn't mind one USB-a and one HDMI port.
| Since the rumour is for a less rounded design I guess the edge
| thickness may be enough to easily support those.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > Hopefully MagSafe in this case means wireless iPhone
| charging
|
| That would require a massive change, since you can't transmit
| power through metal. I can't really see the top surface being
| made out of glass, thus the only other place for charging
| would be the touchpad.
| varjag wrote:
| You can transmit power through non-ferrous metals.
| totalZero wrote:
| Even a non-ferrous metal can interfere with
| electromagnetic fields (try dropping a cylindrical
| neodymium magnet down a copper tube if you don't believe
| me). There exist some wireless charging methods that
| aren't affected by metallic enclosures, but that's not
| true for all wireless charging in general.
| smichel17 wrote:
| > I'm also all in on USB-c (even my shaver uses it for
| charging)
|
| It's funny how different people's experiences can be. Maybe
| it's because I'm not in the Apple ecosystem and tend to use
| my devices until they break, but I own a single device that
| uses usb-c: a raspberry pi 4b. There are two other usb-c
| ports in my house, one on my laptop and one on my desktop,
| but I've never used them. I don't even own a separate usb-c
| cable (the pi charger is integrated).
|
| I kind of dread making the switch for peripherals because I'm
| going to have to replace everything.
| bartvk wrote:
| > because I'm going to have to replace everything
|
| You mean, you'll have to replace the cables. Not the
| devices themselves, unless you want to be able to use USB-
| C-to-C cables everywhere.
| smichel17 wrote:
| Actually, I mean that I'm dreading the choice between
| replacing everything and dealing with a hodgepodge of
| different cables.
|
| Right now, all of the "source" devices (for lack of a
| better word) have USB-A "out" -- laptop, desktop,
| charging bricks -- and all the peripherals -- phone,
| tablet, bluetooth speaker, xbox controller... -- have
| USB-Micro "in". Thus, the only type of usb cable that I
| need is A->Micro.
|
| If/when I replace my phone, I have my first USB-C
| peripheral, but the others haven't disappeared, so now I
| need both my old A->Micro cables _and_ A- >C for my
| phone. Same for my laptop, on the source end -- now I
| need C->C and C->Micro, too. It gets worse: it's rare
| that I want to charge/connect all my peripherals at once,
| but it's common that I'll want to charge any two. Plus,
| you always want a spare.
|
| So now instead of ~3 cables, I'm going to end up with
| probably 7 or 8, and when I go to grab one out of the
| drawer I'll need to check both ends of the cable to know
| I'm getting the right one... ugh. The only way to keep
| the combinations under control is to replace all source
| devices or all peripherals at once (or take the middle
| ground and buy a bunch of C->Micro dongles, pair one with
| each peripheral, and now they're faux-C peripherals).
| None of these options are particularly appealing to me.
|
| I'm being a little melodramatic. It's not _really_ that
| big of a deal. I 'll live through it and eventually I'll
| make it out the other end and maybe I'll be in a C->C
| golden era. I'm just not looking forward to the
| transition when USB cable story right now is pretty
| simple (even if I dislike Micro; Mini was a far nicer
| connector).
| justincormack wrote:
| You can get USB A to C and vice versa adaptors not
| cables. They are a bit weird in that you cant plug the
| cables in both ways up but they do work. More convenient
| and cheaper than lots more cables (and lots of items have
| captive cables).
| bartvk wrote:
| OK yeah, you're right about that.
|
| Some thing that _will_ be easier though, is your laptop.
| When you get a new one, get one that charges over USB-C.
| That option was obviously never available with micro-USB.
| ralphc wrote:
| Yes, that's what I appreciate the most with the USB-C on my
| 2019 MBP. No matter where I am I can plug the charger in on
| either side nearest to the wall. Of course with the M1 or
| later ARM chips charging will be less of an issue.
| mbirth wrote:
| If you use an iPad as a sidecar, there's a touchbar there.
| However, that touchbar only works for apps you've moved onto
| the sidecar display for some reason.
| guidedlight wrote:
| Amazon has a bunch of magnetic USB-C adapters that are designed
| for MBP's, that add the MagSafe functionality into existing
| USB-C ports.
|
| I haven't tried one, but they look like an adequate middle
| ground.
| plussed_reader wrote:
| Unless you have other things routed besides power through the
| bus.
| guidedlight wrote:
| Why wouldn't it work for data as well?
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Power delivery is amenable to magnetic plugs but they
| don't meet the standards for data.
| theodric wrote:
| 24-pin ones that accommodate even Thunderbolt are available
| osamagirl69 wrote:
| It is somewhat anecdotal, but I had one of those and it
| blew out 2 usb-c docks. The first one went kaput about a
| month after I started using the magnetic adapter and I
| chocked it up to bad luck. The replacement fried about a
| week later and I put 2+2 to together and removed the
| adapter and haven't had any trouble over the last ~1
| year.
|
| All I can say is that I am glad it was the dock that
| fried not any of the laptops that use it...
|
| That all said, it was pretty glorious when it worked -- a
| single magnetic cable that did dual 4k monitors,
| charging, videoconf setup, network, license dongles, etc
| avianlyric wrote:
| I would be surprised if those magnetic adapters handle
| disconnects properly.
|
| USB-C connectors have pins of different lengths so device
| can detect them being disconnected, and do things like
| turn the power off. They also make guarantees that the
| ground pins are first to connect, and last to disconnect.
|
| My guess would be that you disconnected your laptop while
| it was pulling lots of power. The pins got disconnected
| in the wrong order, which resulted in the electronics in
| the dock getting fried or a high voltage line for power
| delivery got momentarily connected to a data line, and
| fried something.
| soylentgraham wrote:
| I tried almost every lightning & micro usb magnetic adaptors
| I could find, and they all were unreliable. Im waiting for
| anker to make one.
| bartvk wrote:
| This. And I'm guessing there's a reason why Anker hasn't
| made such a move.
| wila wrote:
| > I haven't tried one
|
| Tried several and they're no good.
| [deleted]
| gsich wrote:
| Why not both. Allow Magsafe charging and USB-C, have USB-A
| ports/HDMI as well as USB-C. There is no space constraint on
| the devices. Most of the edge is unpopulated.
| anthonyaykut wrote:
| I'm in the market for a reliable single 2xUSB-C power brick --
| could I ask which one you're using?
| gorbypark wrote:
| I have a 65W Baseus 2x USB-C with 1x USB3 port charger that's
| pretty good. The only problem with it is that when a device
| is plugged in and it "splits" the wattage between the ports,
| it temporarily cuts off the power (I'm talking like 100-200ms
| or so) to the devices. I had some issues trying to power a
| Thunderbolt 3 dock with it. Anything with a battery is no
| issue, though (phone, laptop, etc). I also assume any multi
| port charger is going to have similar issues, all the ones
| I've seen do the "wattage splitting" thing when there's more
| than one device plugged in.
| pokot0 wrote:
| Apple is pretty smart when adding features most of the time.
| Maybe they just add strips of magnets to a usb-c so you can
| still use the port with a normal usb-c cable and still benefit
| of magsafe with the proprietary adapter. Anyway, I did enjoy
| MagSafe when it was there but I don't think Apple will go back.
| They'd rather focus on making sure you only have to charge your
| laptop at night.
| ak217 wrote:
| "Keeping it simple" is how we got here. People are unhappy
| because ports were removed. I want my microSD port back, and I
| don't think it will hurt you if you don't use it. Even if you
| pour coffee in it, it will just fuse itself off as long as
| there's a properly engineered rubber gasket in it.
|
| You do bring good points about usb-c/magsafe. I hope they can
| make magsafe work with the usb-c port.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| People were unhappy about the loss of the physical headphone
| port too .... for a short while. Then most of us went over to
| Bluetooth and stopped complaining.
|
| Sometimes removing ports is dumb, sometimes it's a smart
| reflection of what trends are clearly already happening.
| MAGZine wrote:
| Some of us in androidland continue to buy phones
| specifically because the headphone jack offers a quality of
| life improvement more than whatever other features are
| offered in place of the jack.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > so I can maintain my one-cable-for-everything, making
| traveling lighter and simpler.
|
| you mean one-cable-plus-12-50EUR-adapters right ? ffs most
| projectors are still VGA
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I should point out first that I don't believe these rumors are
| correct.
|
| But I need an SD card reader all the time, my camera and my
| field recorder both use them and it makes it super simple to
| transfer data - without having to carry an extra cable. I don't
| see why a device that claims it is aimed at professionals
| (especially creative professionals) could justify omitting it.
|
| My solution is a dongle, but as you say, then you have to
| travel with an extra cable.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > But I need an SD card reader all the time
|
| Ok, but I never need one for my profession so I don't want
| the port. Which one of us gets it the way we want it? We both
| can't have it our way. They went for people who want to use
| it are the ones to use a dongle, which seems fair to me - the
| person who wants it pays for it.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| It is Apple we are talking about, we are already overpaying
| for stuff, the port is thin enough and will cost epsilon at
| scale so you lose nothing and may even find it useful in
| the future.
| theodric wrote:
| My shitty Surface happily charges by its USB-C or proprietary
| port. It also has a USB-A port, which is mighty handy for
| plugging in Plantronics dongles. I'll be glad to have the same
| possibilities on a MacBook.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| FYI if you didn't know - even if it is widely known I have not
| known about super basic features hidden behind UI - you can use
| hot corners to lock screen very quickly. I use bottom right
| corner.
| aeturnum wrote:
| Apple's approach to ports is bad design.
|
| I think they were envisioning a USB-C revolution that hasn't
| come yet. You can buy new devices or buy adapters, but either
| way the computer is asking the user to _adapt to it._ I have a
| Razer laptop for playing games and they have some USB-C ports
| and some USB-A. One of the USB-C ports connects to the
| thunderbolt bus. On paper, the Razer has less connectivity
| bandwidth, but it 's my macbook that I always fuss over.
|
| I see the attraction in making all your ports USB-C, but that's
| just not where the computing world is yet. Give us 3 USB-C and
| 2 USB-A. Give us 2 of each and a specialized charging cable.
|
| P.s. I would be more into the USB-C charger if I believed it
| was 100% safe to charge other devices with it, but I'm not sure
| that's true (even though I trust Apple - I'm not sure about the
| other devices)[1].
|
| [1] https://www.androidauthority.com/state-of-usb-c-870996/
| sradman wrote:
| > There are a few things about the TouchBar I do like -- eg,
| having a custom one-touch screen lock button that's always
| present.
|
| The trackpad preferences allows one or more corners to be
| assigned to locking the screen. One swipe away works well.
| matwood wrote:
| I agree and also don't see a need to go back. As what always
| happens with these rumors, people filter it through the lens
| they want.
|
| Already mentioned elsewhere, MagSafe could just mean there will
| be a charger for the iPhone in handset portion of the new MBP.
| Ports can also mean a lot of things, even releasing an Apple
| branded dock of some sort. Imagine a branded dock that you just
| set the MBP on and it charges and has a bunch of ports that can
| be used? That is much more Applely than adding usb-a back.
|
| The Touch Bar has been on life support for awhile. When Apple
| never released a version for the desktop, they relegated it to
| a niche feature regardless of how useful it could have been.
| sneak wrote:
| Anyone who shoots photos or videos on a real camera uses SD
| cards near-constantly.
|
| It wouldn't affect your not using the port for them to include
| it. Adding magsafe doesn't mean not supporting usb-c charging,
| or removing any usb-c ports.
|
| Your take obviously isn't that controversial: the maker of the
| best laptops in the world agrees with you, or at least they did
| at one time.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| It's really annoying though that I still have to stick SD
| cards into readers; my Fuji X-T4 doesn't support acting as a
| proper SD card reader and CaptureOne 20 can't fetch images
| off camera devices ... meanwhile the camera is plugged in for
| USB-C charging anyway...
| novok wrote:
| It sucks that camera manufacturers don't do basic shit half
| the time like act like an SD card reader when plugged in,
| or use USB 3 speeds vs save $3 by making their interface
| USB 2 speed vs USB 3.
| muro wrote:
| I wish. Nikon uses XQD
| vinay427 wrote:
| > the maker of the best laptops in the world agrees with you
|
| Who exactly would that be in your opinion?
| BlackVanilla wrote:
| I love this and have considered doing it myself. However, what
| worries me is whether using a single power adapter will shorten
| the life of devices which require different levels of wattage.
| Sure you can use the same USB-C cable, but the benefit is
| largely diminished if you have to carry a bunch of different
| power adapters for each device's unique wattage.
|
| Or am I worrying about this unnecessarily?
| 1996 wrote:
| > Or am I worrying about this unnecessarily?
|
| You are. Provide a lot of amps. Each device will take just as
| much as it needs. So err on the side of more watts - it will
| even help your batteries charge faster.
|
| The only thing that can be diminished with fast charging is
| the number of battery cycles (the battery lifetime) so set a
| low charging engage (only charge if <= 50%) and a high
| ceiling (stop charge if >90%) in your bios: this will
| increase your battery life.
|
| Source: all my devices use USB-C. They all share the same AC
| adapter with power delivery, and a Lenovo Dock also USB-C
| with PD.
|
| No USB-C charging = I don't buy.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| The rule to maximize life of Li-Ion batteries is to keep
| them between 20% and 80%. Total charge and discharge
| current cause wear, especially in extreme states of charge.
| The number of cycles only matters when you assume a given
| amount of charge in each cycle.
|
| The batteries of my 7 years old previous laptop, which was
| used mostly stationarily and mostly kept at 75-80% state of
| charge, are still at above 90% capacity. I don't fully
| trust the >90% reported, but the batteries are quite
| obviously still good.
| atonse wrote:
| I got excited at the idea that I could set those thresholds
| on my MacBook (like on a Tesla) but then realized when you
| said BIOS that you're talking about a PC.
| rzzzt wrote:
| USB-C is probably smarter and more unified in this regard,
| but back in USB 2.0 land the devices negotiated how much
| power they need/can accept, and compliant adapters wound
| themselves down as appropriate:
| https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/design/technical-
| document...
| zenexer wrote:
| Just carry around a first-party Apple charger that matches
| the highest draw among your devices. Using a higher-rated
| charger won't hurt anything.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I used to carry around a 60W adapter, even though I had a
| device that required an 80W adapter.
|
| The reason was airplane seats. They have a breaker that
| flips at 75W.
|
| I wouldn't get fast charging with the 60W adapter, but I
| wouldn't run out of juice on a 14-hour flight.
| davidrm wrote:
| It's not a concern, the more powerful the charger, the
| better.
|
| The devices that are being powered are the ones controlling
| the charging, the charging brick will derate itself if
| devices demand more than it can handle. It might hurt the
| brick, it will get hot or perhaps noisy if it's a cheaper
| one.
|
| It's like openning every single faucet at your house, as long
| as the pressure and flow at the source are ok, the faucets
| will output the same as in any other case, otherwise each
| faucet will "slow down".
| BlackVanilla wrote:
| Thanks for this. Would that "slowing down" harm the device
| though? Obviously, I should err on the side of higher
| wattage, but if the power adapter provides lower wattage
| than is required, would that harm the device?
| avianlyric wrote:
| No. That really isn't how electronics works.
|
| Basic charging works on the principle of deciding a
| charging voltage (which is either 5v or negotiate to be
| higher via Power Delivery) plus as many amps as the
| charger can provided.
|
| As a receiving device the only thing you really care
| about it voltage. If it's to high, then stuff gets fried,
| two low and stuff just doesn't turn on.
|
| The amps are determined by how much the receiving device
| can consume. And of course decreases as the device
| charges (if you've got a full battery, then you don't
| need more power). If the receiving device pulls to many
| amps, then the voltage will start to drop, this then
| causes the receiving device to reduce its power
| consumption.
|
| Ultimately power electronics are extremely robust today,
| you would have to try very hard to fry modern
| electronics. This is a result of how modern electronics
| converts power, which naturally makes them very robust to
| fluctuating inputs. (I'm simplifying a lot, want to learn
| more then look up DC-DC converters, and see how they're
| implemented in silicon)
|
| In short, just don't worry.
| rfoo wrote:
| You are worrying unnecessarily. These devices use USB-PD to
| negotiate how much power it wants with the power adapter, and
| a well-behaving power adapter would refuse to output anything
| above the minimal current without the negotiation happening.
| allending wrote:
| Worrying unnecessarily. The USB PD spec requires negotiation
| of delivered power - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardwa
| re#USB_Power_Deliver....
| fluffything wrote:
| I have a MacBook Air 2012 with an SD card reader.
|
| It has a 256GB SSD drive, and a 1 TB SD Card inside that I use
| for storing photos, video, music, etc. essentially everything
| that does not need fast storage.
|
| This laptop was only meant to be a 1 year temporary solution,
| so I've been waiting 9 years to upgrade.
|
| I've yet to find a new reasonably priced MacBook with 1,256Gb
| of built in storage.
|
| Carrying an external drive sucks.
|
| Unless Apple makes 1-2 Tb SSDs lower in price to the 100$ mark,
| the lack of an SD card is a killer for me.
|
| Paying 500$ for an extra 256GB SSD when I can get 1 Tb SD card
| for 100$ is just ridiculous.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Apple could just make 2TB MacBook price cheaper instead of
| bringing back SD card reader into new models.
|
| I didn't like having only 256GB SSD either in my Razer laptop
| and just bought a 2TB one, changed it in a few hours myself,
| and never thought about SSD space since.
| TravelPiglet wrote:
| Too true. Apples extra tax on storage is horrible. Baseline
| model with 256 GB drive of which half is required for the OS
| to function normally if you use is as something other than an
| iPad is crazy to release in 2020.
|
| The price difference between 8GB/256GB and 16GB/1TB is
| insane.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| This is sort of unreasonable too hot too cold type thinking.
|
| If you need a certain price point for a certain feature, why
| not expand to not limiting your search to only one
| manufacturer, which seems to be your binding constraint here
| since you've delayed updating 7 years, instead of expecting a
| manufacturer that has less than 10% of the total market share
| of an industry to meet you needs?
| dunmalg wrote:
| >why not expand to not limiting your search to only one
| manufacturer
|
| Software. People become accustomed to the closed ecosystem
| of OSX, which you can't duplicate on others' hardware. This
| is a key facet of Apple's business model and as GP poster
| illustrates, it works. Apple can screw up the hardware for
| 7 years, and GP poster will simply wait for them to come
| back to doing it right.
| fluffything wrote:
| More like a computer is a combination of hardware and
| software.
|
| A different vendor product with cheaper storage can still
| be a much worse value proposition than my 2012 MacBook
| Air.
|
| The problem here is that the Parent you are replying to
| assumes "storage" is the only issue why I haven't
| upgraded. That's an incorrect assumption.
|
| I haven't upgraded because paying >1000$ should add value
| over my MacBook Air 2012, yet for me all laptops in the
| market do not add enough value to justify the cost.
|
| A new MacBook with 1 TB SSD storage sets you over 2000$,
| but the value just isn't there.
|
| Everybody's mom is recommending an M1 these days, yet
| crappy webcam, support for 1 monitor only, expensive
| storage, low ram, being 1st gen of apples arm lineage
| with 1st gen flaws, no MagSafe, ... make it a bad value
| proposition right now for me compared with my 2012 air
| which doesn't have most of these flaws.. sure it is
| better in many aspects, but it is also much worse in
| others (eg 1 external monitor support is a deal breaker
| for me)
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| True, well expressed. Which of the other macOS based laptop
| manufacturers would you recommend to them?
| lovelyviking wrote:
| >However vast majority of the time I use external
| keyboard+trackpad+monitor ... > one-cable-for-everything,
| making traveling lighter
|
| How those two work together? Do you take external monitor ,
| trackpad and keyboard with you ? It looks like most of the time
| you are not using your laptop as a laptop, when you need
| everything on the go and you wish to be prepared for diff
| scenarios. Then you wish laptop as much packed as possible and
| preferably nothing else, so you would avoid caring many dongles
| with you.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| You can have your stuff in many places, and travel between
| them. I have monitors and keyboards in my home, my office and
| my parents home.
| mcot2 wrote:
| I agree with MagSafe basically being in the cord after the
| USB-C connector. That way we can use existing power cords or
| the new one with MagSafe if we want to.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| Don't worry, once they do it, you will think how brilliant it
| is.
| blhack wrote:
| Then get a MacBook Air? The whole point of the MacBook Pro was
| that it was feature rich.
|
| The amount of dongles and crap I have to carry around with me
| to make effective use of a "pro" laptop is ridiculous. Good on
| Apple for fixing it.
| strogonoff wrote:
| I have a dock that has all the connectivity options I need (an
| entirety of which can't possibly fit in a portable device)
| while stationary, and it also charges my laptop. While on the
| go, I can pick dongles for what I need at the time. Most of the
| time it's either nothing or a memory card reader.
|
| The need for memory card reader becomes increasingly rare, as
| devices have AirDrop, cameras have Wi-Fi, and for larger files
| like CinemaDNG footage I'd have to use a portable SSD anyway
| which connects over USB-C.
|
| Besides, memory card dongle dies and I buy a replacement for
| $20; built-in card reader dies and part of my laptop is dead
| weight until I send the whole thing in for service.
|
| I can't come up with anything I can imagine being useful as far
| as extra I/O is concerned, considering how blazing fast TB 2
| and USB 4 already are; perhaps there are some novel
| connectivity options though.
| mc10 wrote:
| > built-in card reader dies and part of my laptop is dead
| weight until I send the whole thing in for service.
|
| Is this a frequent occurrence for you? I have a 6 year old
| MBP and all of the ports still work great. I would naively
| guess that P(port breaking) << P(dongle breaking).
| strogonoff wrote:
| Card reader in my old MBP died from what I presume is small
| debris stuck inside, and can't be resurrected by manual
| cleaning anymore. For a time it was possible to use by
| inserting an SD card in a particular way, but that did not
| work reliably.
|
| Ironically, that reader didn't support microSD cards used
| by my audio recorder (Tascam DR-05), so once I lost the
| microSD to SD size adapter (which happened very quickly) I
| had to use a universal memory card reader dongle anyway.
|
| I never sent it for repair: this was my daily driver so I
| had to have a backup machine in meantime, but when I got
| another laptop I simply switched to it.
|
| My latest USB-C SD/microSD reader dongle feels surprisingly
| sturdy, though admittedly it is liable to getting lost
| (it's been a year and it did not happen yet, but I'm sure
| it will at some point).
|
| I'd say definitely P(port breaking) < P(dongle breaking or
| getting lost), but on the other hand port breaking has
| higher cost.
| studius wrote:
| > I have never needed an SD card
|
| I need to use SD cards for my camera and RPis. That's a
| significant amount of users that would buy Macs, even if you
| don't use them.
|
| > and have gone all-in on USB-C
|
| The move to Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C seemed to be hinged on the
| assumption that all new products would be USB-C. The prior
| removal of the headphone jack[1] and replacement of the
| lightning-adapter airbuds included with new iPhones set
| precedent to allow them to continue to simplify. But there's a
| big difference between (a) providing a replacement that
| effectively works the same way and (b) having a market based on
| being best and svelte, but expecting that the average customer
| can and will buy replacement lanky adapters and big ugly hubs
| that get in the way (especially when the cheaper ones can cause
| more interference[2]).
|
| Apple once had a "Think Different" campaign, and perhaps that
| transmogrified to "Be the Change" in the 2010s. "Think
| Different" was about producing the best product, with a quality
| product that worked better, not about forcing customers to take
| on the burden of a mess, making their lives more difficult and
| looking out-of-control. "Be the Change" is activism which often
| causes problems for some, with a goal of things becoming
| better. "Think Different" works better in product design and
| development. "Be the Change" is for Human Resources and
| Marketing.
|
| > Please just do MagSage + USB-C, so I can maintain my one-
| cable-for-everything, making traveling lighter and simpler.
| Here's my counter argument to all those that love MagSafe:
| makes traveling a huge hassle, forcing me to carry a special
| charge brick that only works for ONE device. In 2021 going
| forward, I will flat refuse to spend money on anything that
| doesn't use USB-C or Qi charging
|
| It's expected to have Thunderbolt 3 (in form of USB-C) on it.
| I'd assume that they will allow charging the computer from it,
| as that's part of the spec of Thunderbolt 3; I'm not 100% on
| that, but as keeping that capability would be part of the
| Thunderbolt 3 spec which includes Thunderbolt, USB,
| DisplayPort, and 100W power input[3]. It just wouldn't charge
| as quickly.
|
| This MagSafe will probably be the Qi-supporting MagSafe[3][4]
| which can be 15W for faster charging or 7.5W for Qi and will
| probably support the ring chargers, probably under the
| touchpad, given design choices from existing charging
| stands[5].
|
| > I can now travel with a single 2xUSB-C power brick
|
| And you would probably be able to do that, but it will charge
| faster with MagSafe.
|
| > I am all for removing the TouchBar
|
| Yep. I couldn't easily change brightness or volume when in
| context specific mode with the settings I had by default, and
| it was distracting.
|
| It can be emulated[6].
|
| [1]- 1/8" headphone that in some Macs had optical out:
| https://support.apple.com/en-za/guide/mac-help/cpmh0052/11.0...
|
| [2]- https://www.zdnet.com/article/usb-3-and-usb-c-devices-can-
| ca...
|
| [3]- https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208368
|
| [4]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagSafe
|
| [5]- https://amazon.com/Kensington-SmartFit-
| Ergonomic-15-6-Inch-W...
|
| [6]- https://github.com/sindresorhus/touch-bar-simulator
| AndriyKunitsyn wrote:
| What is "unnecessary feature bloat"?
|
| Do you think something like "gosh, I _hate_ all these
| additional ports" about MBP 2015? There's a reason it is still
| holds (not much, but) some value on second-hand market.
| aphextron wrote:
| > There's a reason it is still holds (not much, but) some
| value on second-hand market.
|
| Not much? A base model 15" 2015 RMBP is still easily $800+ on
| eBay. Unheard of for a 6 year old laptop.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Yeah that's the price of a mid level 2020 laptop methinks
| ghaff wrote:
| They did hit a sweet spot with the MBP 2015. They did have to
| replace my screen under a special warranty program for
| manufacturing defects but it's still a perfectly fine laptop
| I use all the time. It's a bit on the heavier side for travel
| and I'm sure its battery life is not what it was--and was
| never super in the first place.
|
| I'll almost certainly get an Apple Silicon laptop at some
| point but I'm not in any rush especially at a time when I'm
| not traveling.
| Terretta wrote:
| I do hate the extra ports when at the beach.
|
| It's easy enough to find usb-c rubber gaskets to keep sea
| salt air out, but not for arbitrary ports or slots.
|
| https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BPNBNJ5/
| dunmalg wrote:
| On the list of most marginally relevant edge cases, I think
| "beach proof design" ranks pretty high.
| Terretta wrote:
| Wait, isn't this the digital nomad site? Call it Thailand
| proof if you prefer. :-)
| marcodave wrote:
| "Designed (and used primarily) in California"
| nrvn wrote:
| This. Fully agree on usb-c (usb4). Magsafe in some shape or
| form and just MOAR usb4 ports would suffice.
|
| I am all in with usb-c connector.
|
| Industry is moving forward. Don't rewind.
|
| P.S. The article behind the link is based on rumors spread by
| "trusted" Apple "analyst". Treat those accordingly.
| augstein wrote:
| If you really want or need MagSafe, as I do, you can have it
| with USB-C only Macs too.
|
| There are many magnetic adapters you can buy, the good ones
| working better than the original MagSafe 2, which easily fell
| off when using MacBooks on your Lap, due to the connector being
| T shaped (instead of MagSafe 1 being L shaped, which worked
| great).
|
| I also hope they don't bring back SD card readers and big
| clunky HDMI ports into the MacBook lineup, potentially reducing
| the amount of USB-C ports and making some models thicker.
| skohan wrote:
| I hope they don't bring back USB-A, but the SD card slot and
| hdmi have been sorely missed. If you do anything with
| photography, being able to just plug the card directly into
| your laptop makes a world of difference. Same thing with
| walking into any meeting and already knowing you'll be able
| to plug into a projector if needed, without having to run out
| and grab a dongle.
| dtech wrote:
| Others never use SD and have a USB-C to A dongle
| permanently plugged in (me). The ideal exact connectors
| probably differ a lot per person, and at least
| USB-C+Thunderbolt can support everything.
|
| HDMI is probably the least controversial, although there
| will also be people who never connect external displays.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > The ideal exact connectors probably differ a lot per
| person
|
| Agreed. All I really need is more USB-C ports. Both my
| current MacBook Air and my upcoming MacBook Pro have only
| two USB-C ports and I don't understand why they didn't
| make them with four USB-C ports.
| justincormack wrote:
| Its limited by CPU PCI connectors, adding more ports
| needs a lot more bandwidth, uses more power and needs
| more pins. The low end models are not expected to have
| these, but the larger more power hungry ones will.
| ghaff wrote:
| >The ideal exact connectors probably differ a lot per
| person
|
| While I'd probably prefer more ports, there's certainly
| an argument to keep things simple with USB-C and let most
| people buy their adapter of choice.
|
| With respect to HDMI, it's very common in offices and for
| people speaking at events, but most consumers wouldn't
| use it much.
| bmelton wrote:
| Agreed. It probably should have occurred to me before,
| but a lot of the Wacom and Huion drawing tablets with
| screens use HDMI for display and some kind of USB for
| input. Obviously that would be better if they were
| upgraded to thunderbolt models that could do both, but
| that would of course require another $1000+ upgrade for
| those users on top of the laptop.
|
| Of course the real question is how much more quickly does
| thunderbolt get adopted when nobody's Macbooks have HDMI,
| which is probably one that Apple is asking themselves.
| They've never shied away from pushing industries forward
| to accommodate them.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Every single peripheral I own is USB-A. I've never seen
| USB-C-only as the default option on any peripheral in a
| store or Amazon. Not having USB-A on a laptop is just
| absurd to me.
| totalZero wrote:
| If you do anything with photography, you are carrying
| around a camera, batteries, and lenses anyway. Just buy a
| 12$ card reader and put it into your camera bag with all
| your other expensive stuff.
|
| It surprises me that people who buy high-dollar computers
| are so reluctant to buy an extra cable. TB3 natively
| supports DP at faster speeds than HDMI 2.0b can push. You
| can buy a TB3 to DP1.4 cable online for $15. Even the most
| expensive cable for this purpose sold on Apple's web store
| costs $50. I suppose you can ask your office manager to buy
| a couple for the meeting rooms, in order to accommodate Mac
| users.
| [deleted]
| dognotdog wrote:
| Maybe consider that it's more nuanced in real life.
|
| That $12 card reader, even expensive USB-3 card readers,
| are often a lot slower than that builtin one. They get
| lost and broken, not even considering that when you're on
| the go, many photographers will absolutely try to shed as
| much unnecessary weight as possible, as not many people
| are built like the hulk or have an entourage of
| assistants doing the heavy lifting.
|
| I use my laptop a lot outside of an office, and having
| that multitude of builtin ports is an absolute must, as
| dongles are quite difficult to deal with in situations
| when I don't have a flat surface to put the laptop on.
| That TB/Ethernet dongle I regularly do have to use has
| been a great source of frustration.
| tjr wrote:
| I bought a new MacBook Air last year, and a USB A/C
| adapter with it. I somehow lost the adapter. Bought
| another one. Then bought a dual A/C USB thumb drive. I'm
| getting along, but would appreciate at least one USB-A
| port.
|
| I am also a photographer, and miss the SD port. But I
| realize that's kinda niche, and can understand it going
| away. I wouldn't be surprised to see cameras move away
| from SD cards eventually anyway.
| totalZero wrote:
| The speed of the SD is far more limiting than the speed
| of the card reader itself, even for USB2.0.
|
| As for whether I consider the nuances of "real life," I
| traveled by land across several countries with a DSLR,
| and took hundreds of photos a week. My DSLR has a CF slot
| and an SD slot; I used the SD slot for a wifi chip, and
| saved all photos to CF. My CF reader hasn't gotten lost
| or broken, and I didn't have "an entourage of assistants
| doing the heavy lifting" (whatever that means when
| talking about a card reader).
|
| In real life, you can just use an external card reader.
| It's not a big limitation, just like it's not a big
| limitation that laptops these days don't have optical
| drives.
| supermatt wrote:
| Of the MANY different ones I have tried (both 24-pin tb3 and
| 20-pin usb-c) NONE of the magnetic adapters work the same as
| a regular connection. When they are plugged in and you close
| the lid (macbook pro m1), they keep the display active. When
| using a "proper" cable, the display sleeps.
|
| If anyone has found one that works properly, please let me
| know where I can get one!
|
| Edit: Not sure why I am getting downvotes for this... Care to
| enlighten me?
| qqii wrote:
| It's important to note these adapters go against the USB C
| spec.
| sildur wrote:
| Most consumers miss being able to simply connect their
| laptop to their tv with an HDMI cable, but they know they
| have no voice in this modern day enlightened absolutism.
| toper-centage wrote:
| There's are plenty of USB-C to HDMI cables and TVs also
| come with USB-C I outs these days. We're in a weird
| transition phase, but going back to multiple different
| ports would be silly.
| yourapostasy wrote:
| Not a fan of Apple's USB-C port implementation. Loosened ports
| that no longer "click" when a cable is plugged in is a common
| problem [1], and plagued my MacBook Pro straight out of the
| box. Even after getting it fixed under AppleCare, planting the
| laptop on a cradle at my standing desk, then leaving it there
| for months with no activity due to WFH for the pandemic, a
| dozen cable insertions of a USB-C drive last week and it
| started on one of the ports again.
|
| If Louis Rossman had a more permanent fix with a third-party
| compatible port part that is far more durable, I'd send my now-
| un-AppleCare'd laptop to him in a heartbeat.
|
| [1] https://appletoolbox.com/are-your-macbook-usb-c-ports-
| loose/
| willyt wrote:
| I love the idea of standard ports everywhere, I just wish it
| was apple or some other good multidisciplinary design team
| that had designed the standard. Lightning and MagSafe are the
| best out there. They feel satisfying to use; the lightning
| click is the phone equivalent of the German car door clunk,
| likewise with MagSafe, I also like that the connector tells
| me if its charging or not with the green/orange light on the
| connector. They are resistant to dust and electrically
| reliable. They fail safe; The lightning connector in the
| cable breaks, unlike mini/micro USB which knackers the port
| in your device if you bend it by accident. If you trip over
| the MagSafe cable it just pops off. The standardised ports
| seem to have mechanical and experiential design as an
| afterthought. In terms of the physical connector (not the
| capabilities of the port), USB-C feels like a step backwards
| from lightning.
| m463 wrote:
| An extra port is not inconvenient - you just won't use it. A
| missing port is SUPER inconvenient.
|
| Can't tell you how annoying it is to require a USB-A dongle or
| adapter, same with HDMI.
| rbanffy wrote:
| The extra port competes with USB-C. If Apple wants to make
| USB-C more valuable to users, they must ensure companies make
| more products for it and, therefore, remove such redundant
| ports.
|
| I have an HDMI monitor connected to my MacBook via a USB-C to
| HDMI/USB dongle, which also charges the computer, keyboard
| and trackpad, and another another via a UDB-C to DisplayPort
| cable.
|
| I've been using my SDcard based camera less and less, both
| because my phones got much better and because they are much
| smaller. With an iPhone, which is a pretty decent camera,
| everything happens transparently and all my photos are
| automagically imported.
|
| A reasonable docking station/port extender is small and has
| all those ports. I keep one in my backpack (even though I
| used it like once while traveling).
|
| I really prefer it this way. I'd also love if Apple went back
| into making monitors that could charge my Mac and offer
| plenty of rarely used ports on its back.
| minikites wrote:
| >The extra port competes with USB-C. If Apple wants to make
| USB-C more valuable to users, they must ensure companies
| make more products for it and, therefore, remove such
| redundant ports.
|
| The userbase of all tech products is too big for this to be
| reasonable now. This attitude was only successful during a
| time when fewer people overall each owned fewer devices
| individually. USB-A won and it will be around forever. HDMI
| won and it will be around forever.
| oblio wrote:
| HDMI will probably be around for TVs, but with USB 4 I
| imagine we're 5-10 years from most of the current ports
| going away completely, except for a collection of USB C
| ports of different levels (3, 3.x, 4).
| yarcob wrote:
| Importantly, HDMI will be around for projectors. Almost
| every meeting room and every class room everywhere in the
| world has a beamer and an HDMI cable on the desk. I don't
| think this is going to change in the next 5 years. It
| took more than 10 years for most of the world to upgrade
| from VGA to HDMI cables, and HDMI works fine technically,
| so there's less pressure to upgrade to USB-C.
|
| So for the foreseeable future, if you ever do a
| presentation, and you have a Mac, you are going to bring
| a dongle.
|
| If you're a teacher and you don't want to deal with an
| unreliable dongle 5 times a day, the most convenient Mac
| for you is currently the 2015 Macbook Pro with its built-
| in HDMI port.
| rbanffy wrote:
| It was like that with VGA and now it's not. It may not
| change in 5 years - it took longer for VGA to finish
| dying.
| Arainach wrote:
| Other than storage, no peripherals care about USB 4. We
| can't get away from USB-A because all of the devices that
| MATTER use it and its variations. Even today no one that
| I've seen makes a USB-C to USB-Micro (or USB-Mini - yes,
| I still have multiple products that use that) cable. I
| have no interest in having to chain multiple adaptors off
| all my computers for everything I do. Keyboards, mice,
| printers, cameras, microphones, audio adapters, gaming
| controllers, smartwatches, sensors, Arduino boards --
| none of these things need any more speed or any more
| power. They don't want a new connector and they don't
| want to pay royalty fees for use of a new connector. The
| only things that might benefit from USB 4 are monitors
| (and how often to people replace monitors anyway? I ran
| my U2410s for a decade and only replaced them because I
| wanted a higher refresh rate) and storage devices (and to
| be honest I don't use external storage that often since
| online storage is so simple these days).
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Even today no one that I've seen makes a USB-C to USB-
| Micro (or USB-Mini - yes, I still have multiple products
| that use that) cable
|
| Here. You don't need a special cable - you need a small
| adapter: https://www.wish.com/product/5ae06f0a7ddb0672b9a
| 704b9?share=...
| oblio wrote:
| > Other than storage, no peripherals care about USB 4.
|
| Video??? The comparison was with HDMI.
|
| Also thanks for missing my main point about USB C...
| heelix wrote:
| There just are not enough ports on the pro laptops. 3
| usable USB-c (monitor, monitor,
| keyboard/mouse/sdcard/network/legacy dock) and power.
| Docking stations only go so far as high resolution
| monitor/power passthrough and for those of use who end up
| using those features daily, our machines look like they
| were blessed by the flying spaghettis monster. 2-3 more
| USB-c ports would be a boon. Even freeing up one extra with
| a maglock power connector would be lovely.
|
| I catch my Bride doing her photography workflow on her old,
| replaced macbook because it has the sdcard handy, she won't
| mess with the rat's nest in her office, and lord knows
| where the half a dozen dongles went.
| flomo wrote:
| I'm all in on USB-C as a personal user, including a docking
| station and a bunch of dongles.
|
| But USB-C's port/cable standards are such a huge mess that
| there will probably never be a time when you can walk into
| a random conference room and find a USB-C video plug which
| 'just works'. The reality is Mac users come into meetings
| with a dongle hanging off their machine. And maybe Apple
| finally realized that's not a good look.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > An extra port is not inconvenient
|
| An extra port:
|
| - is e-waste for everyone who never uses it
|
| - reduces the rigidity of the case
|
| - increases costs
|
| - adds weight
|
| - takes up space
|
| - lets in dust and potentially liquid spills
|
| You can see why people who never use them say 'no thanks'.
| Isn't it better that the people who do want them take on the
| costs of the port via a dongle?
| greedo wrote:
| - e-waste? Perhaps a microscopic amount of circuitry is
| added.
|
| - case rigidity? The 2015 MBP case is fine.
|
| - increases cost? No proof of this at all.
|
| - adds weight? Again, a microscopic amount of weight to the
| laptop, far offset by the weight of dongles.
|
| - takes up space? There's plenty of space to add this.
|
| - lets in dust and liquid? The keyboard is a far more
| likely culprit.
| alex_c wrote:
| I mean... no? If there's a trade off involved then the
| "best" solution is the one that works for me at the cost of
| inconveniencing others :) I don't think you'll convince
| people to think otherwise.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > If there's a trade off involved then the "best"
| solution is the one that works for me at the cost of
| inconveniencing others :)
|
| But Apple aren't just trying to please you - they're
| trying to please most people. Most people don't use SD
| cards or USB-A devices anymore. The few who do can still
| do it using dongles, but the majority get a better laptop
| without them.
| scrose wrote:
| Doesn't this article that shows Apple is backtracking on
| that by reintroducing ports completely contradict what
| you're saying?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Doesn't this article that shows Apple is backtracking
| on that by reintroducing ports completely contradict what
| you're saying?
|
| Maybe Apple changed their mind, yes (it's just a rumour
| at the moment), but I'm explaining why Apple does it the
| way they do at the moment. That was their thinking.
|
| And you can't 'contradict' people's opinion on the way
| things should be done!
| theonemind wrote:
| I'd like to see some kind of metric to quantify, but I'd
| wager most people outside of the Apple ecosystem don't
| use USB-C _at all_.
|
| Even within the Apple ecosystem, so many devices exist
| that use USB-A that I don't think that most people could
| accept the assertion that "most people don't use USB-A
| devices" without some kind of proof (like the sort of
| usability studies Jony Ive must've used for toilet paper
| at Apple)
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > I'd wager most people outside of the Apple ecosystem
| don't use USB-C at all
|
| But almost all the Android phones are USB-C aren't they?
|
| Other manufacturers' laptops are also often USB-C for
| charging. And other brands of things like wireless
| headphones. Apple uses it _less_ than other brands, as
| they still have Lightning in many places.
| Marazan wrote:
| Don't use USB-A devices?
|
| I'm sorry for the crude language but that's absolute
| bullshit.
| mrgordon wrote:
| Do you really believe most people don't use USB-A devices
| anymore? Even the iPhone 11 is USB-A and that was the
| newest until like three months ago lol
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Even the iPhone 11 is USB-A
|
| Not sure what you mean - the iPhone 11 is Lightning,
| which is usually plugged into a charger not a laptop. I
| doubt many people plug their phones into the laptops
| anymore - syncing has been done over wireless for many
| years now.
| mrgordon wrote:
| The lightning is the iPhone end, that hasn't changed to
| USB C. The USB A that goes to either the wall block or
| your computer to charge only became USB C three months
| ago. People constantly plug their phones into their
| MacBooks or other computers in order to charge them. It's
| often not convenient to plug the phone into the wall and
| use it since the outlet may be behind furniture. It's
| much more convenient to use the phone while it's plugged
| into the laptop you're already using.
|
| It's not about syncing at all
|
| If you don't understand this use case, then I wouldn't
| make bold claims that *most* users never use USB A as
| it's certainly false
| bradlys wrote:
| I doubt 95% of users even sync anymore. The only reason
| you used to do that was for podcasts, music, and backing
| up. Now, that's mostly pointless thanks to streaming
| services and backups you can do in the cloud.
| mrgordon wrote:
| It has nothing to do with syncing. Many people charge
| their phone off their laptop using the cable.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Many people charge their phone off their laptop using
| the (USB-A) cable.
|
| Why would you do that? It's going to be super-slow - I
| don't believe it supports Fast Charging as the port can't
| handle the minimum 20 W.
| [deleted]
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Since 2015 we have had all this clutter in the meeting rooms
| with different chargers, adaptors for monitors, projectors
| etc. In fact every mac user I know has a little hub to run
| everything! I'm currently using a Thinkpad and I have never
| felt that I had too many ports! I don't carry any adaptors.
| csomar wrote:
| Isn't this the reason to push for no more ports than the
| USB-C. After the Macbook become USB-C only, manufacturers
| started to move to USB-C instead of USB-A and some of them
| include an adapter.
|
| The quicker we move, the better. It'll be a little painful
| at first, but then we'll have only USB-C for everything.
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| When I buy a computer, I want something that makes my
| life better. I do not want something that deliberately
| makes my life worse to achieve a strategic goal for Apple
| Computer.
|
| We saw the same thing with Flash. Apple didn't like Flash
| and wanted it dead. They couldn't manage to kill it off
| through negotiation or outreach or by offering a better
| alternative, so they instead decided to weaponize the
| iPhone by refusing to support Flash at all. Their angry
| customers then killed Flash for them.
| csomar wrote:
| Which was a net positive for the Internet? But this is
| not a companies' war, but rather a specs war (USB vs A
| bunch). Apple is not pushing for its own interests only
| on this one, but for the interest of everyone.
| numbsafari wrote:
| They did offer something better: HTML5.
|
| Don't blame Apple for Flash's demise. Blame Adobe. They
| allowed it to become the inefficient, security rats nest
| that it was.
|
| The web is amazingly better now that Flash has been
| relegated to its best use: historical animations and
| games.
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| And HTML5 did not kill off Flash. People kept right on
| using Flash until Apple sicced millions of angry iPhone
| users on them.
|
| I _thank_ Apple for Flash 's demise. I had no love for
| Flash. What I blame Apple for is treating their customers
| as pawns in a game. They sold their customers a broken
| product so they could gain leverage.
| behnamoh wrote:
| > web is amazingly better now that Flash has been
| relegated to its best use: historical animations and
| games
|
| Is it though? All I see is millions of bloated websites
| that all look the same thanks to lack of Flash, and not
| much success with html5 to really replace Flash.
| behnamoh wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. I don't want to sacrifice my own
| convenience for the sake of a company, which by the way,
| doesn't even bother including a freaking adapter in their
| other product, the iphone.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| I've been hearing this argument for years now. Years of
| pain, and I still don't feel like we're any closer to
| this supposed future. Maybe it was a mistake?
| csomar wrote:
| I think we just started. I was shipping for an external
| hard-drive recently and USB-C seems to be the new
| standard.
| p_l wrote:
| on site at a client fresh after they started upgrading
| people to USB-C/thunderbolt MBPs/Airs...
|
| Very quickly meetings started with question of "who has a
| laptop with real HDMI/DisplayPort? We would like to start
| in 15s instead of 15 minutes of fighting with dongles..."
| BlackFingolfin wrote:
| Anecdotes are not data. I can easily counter yours with
| mine:
|
| I use such a dongle a lot whenever I am presenting on
| conferences etc, and have been doing so for many years
| (even before the all-out for USB-C/Thunderbolt on
| MacBooks, there were no VGA ports, while many projectors
| still were; now I see a lot of HDMI, but still need the
| adaptor).
|
| And I habe yet to have a single issue caused by that!
| Sure, damaged VGA cables and other weirdness, but never
| ever anything tracing back to the dongle.
|
| In the same time I helped lots of people who struggled
| with their laptops with builtin VGA/HDMI Granted, usually
| not the laptops fault but rather PEBKAC / or people not
| knowing how to control Windows / Linux. Doesn't really
| matter: my point is that I see zero correlation between
| dongle usage and projector troubles.
| p_l wrote:
| HDMI to VGA conversion, even through displayport
| connector, is much simpler topic than properly handling
| USB-C feature negotiation, and as I mentioned in another
| comment, it was common for USB-C dongles to exhibit
| problems, especially on macOS (non-Apple branded dongles
| tended to have better success rate on non-mac systems,
| Apple-branded dongles were consistently problematic on
| everything).
|
| Usual case was that with dongles, the display wasn't
| detected, at all, and having spent quite a bit of time
| fiddling with it, it didn't seem fixable.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| My org has an entire batch of OEM USB-C to HDMI dongles
| which work great on Dell, Lenovo, and Microsoft laptops
| but will reliably cause Macs to crash and reboot within 5
| minutes.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Anecdotes are not data.
|
| Yes they are. The singular form of data is datum, not
| anecdote.
|
| A personal experience is a data point. A 2nd hand story
| may well be an anecdote. "I have this and use it for
| that" is very much data in this case.
|
| Is it enough to make product design decisions? No. Should
| Apple throw it out as an outlier? I would argue no - to
| think one person is a special snowflake with a unique
| problem is a mistake too.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Very quickly meetings started with question of
| "who has a laptop with real HDMI/DisplayPort? We
| would like to start in 15s instead of 15 minutes
| of fighting with dongles..."
|
| I don't understand this.
|
| There are plenty of arguments against against going all-
| in on USB-C and forcing people to buy/carry multiple
| dongles. I don't like dongles myself! I still use a (pre-
| USB C) 2015 MacBook Pro, partially for that reason. I
| greatly prefer common ports such as HDMI to be built
| right into the laptop.
|
| But "15 minutes of fighting with dongles?" Even if
| there's some comic exaggeration here, I don't understand.
|
| Of all my gripes with Mac laptop dongles, "fighting" with
| them is not on the list. They are as plug and play as it
| gets. No drivers, etc... I hate carrying them but they're
| not exactly difficult to use.
|
| The only way I can imagine people "fighting" with dongles
| is if they were nontechnical users who had difficulties
| simply plugging a cable in.
| p_l wrote:
| The reality was that quite often the dongles did not work
| properly. Using official Apple USB-C AV dongle (with
| USB-C, USB-A and HDMI) had people scrambling for "oh,
| maybe this one will work", screens randomly not
| displaying, etc.
|
| I personally strongly suspect that they had a broken
| batch of dongles, seeing as how trying to use them on
| other systems often resulted in display detection issues
| too.
|
| Then there was of course "oh, I forgot the HDMI
| dongle"/"Someone took the one that was in the meeting
| room" and so on.
|
| The end result was that it soon become normal for people
| to push against updating the laptops.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| Apple dongles normally work really well, which combines
| with the RDF to make people not believe stories like this
| until it happens to them.
|
| Paraphrasing what I said in another comment, dongles are
| flaky. If yours aren't, congratulations, but that doesn't
| mean other people are lying or that they don't know how
| things work.
| p_l wrote:
| That's why I suspected they had a whole flaky batch - the
| dongles were too reliably not working for different case.
|
| But your random non-technical person only faced the fact
| that the chances of quickly setting up a meeting went
| down if the presenter needed a dongle.
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| Unless you happen to have a cheap 3rd party dongle, use
| 2.4GHz wifi, and have to have internet access while doing
| your presentation or whatever. (3rd party dongles often
| have bad shielding and it interferes with 2.4GHz signal,
| it's a pretty widespread issue. You cannot really "fight
| it," though, you need to get another dongle.)
| p_l wrote:
| Oh, I forgot the interference issues - those are very
| "fun" even for deeply experienced technical people.
| megablast wrote:
| So it took you 4 hours to connect the projector to the
| hdmi port on your p51. My MacBook worked in seconds.
|
| See what fun we have when we lie and exaggerate.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Only companies with disfunctional IT departments who
| didn't bother to install streaming devices to the big
| screens.
| p_l wrote:
| The last reliably streamable setup I've seen involved
| _Plan B_ , a system built on top of _Plan 9_ , and it was
| far on the weird side of the universe.
|
| Many "streamable" options often end up actually using
| HDMI dongles, if working at all. Or work with very
| limited set of systems (the weird apparently undocumented
| reverse-RDP for projectors in Windows, intel-proprietary
| streaming, etc.)
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| I worked in multiple companies that used streaming rather
| than physical connections for meeting presentations, and
| they were always so much worse and less reliable than
| just using a cable, dongle or not. Best case scenario it
| worked but there was a several second lag. There were a
| few meeting rooms that had the old fashioned physical
| hookups and those were always fought after because at
| least they worked reliably.
| Daneel_ wrote:
| Exactly. I have a Lenovo P51 and I'm in the same boat. I
| have usb-a, usb-c, mini display port, hdmi and Ethernet on
| my laptop and don't need to carry any adaptors. It's
| glorious. I use all of them regularly.
| retromario wrote:
| _> eg, having a custom one-touch screen lock button that 's
| always present_
|
| Do you know that clicking the TouchID button will lock your
| screen?
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Indeed. So does [?]^q (Command+Control+q).
| jmcnulty wrote:
| Ditto on the request to retain USB-C charging. The ability to
| charge phones + Chromebooks + a MacBook in my house with
| interchangeable power blocks and cables is a huge benefit.
| MagSafe just isn't worth it.
| mstade wrote:
| I'm with you, for all the listed reasons. Travel is so much
| easier now that I've usb-c-ified all the things. The only thing
| I wasn't able to find a usb-c option for (back in the dizzy)
| was a 4g modem, but that's ok I just stopped using it
| altogether and started tethering my phone or iPad instead. I
| often use my iPad Pro as a second screen, so usb-c there also.
| I do carry a small dongle that I got just in case, but I think
| I've used it maybe five times in the past two years.
|
| I really don't miss MagSafe, and I find the MagSafe usb-c
| adaptor solutions one can easily get these days to be quite a
| good compromise for those that truly want it.
|
| The only thing bothering me is that lightning connectors are
| still a thing on iPhones. The second they release a usb-c phone
| I'm getting it. Usb-c all the things!
|
| Oh almost forgot, hard pass on replacing the Touch Bar though.
| I know people hate it, but for me it's much more useful than
| Fn-keys. I don't miss them, and once the Touch Bar with a
| physical escape key showed up that was it - perfection. I hope
| they keep Touch Bar as an option at least, brilliant piece of
| design in my opinion.
|
| As always, mileage varies etc.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Agreed on MagSafe + USB-C. What I find interesting is the
| interpretation of this bit:
|
| - There will be additional I/O ports
|
| I'm pretty sure that simply more USB-C ports also fits that
| description. I don't know why someone would assume that means
| SD card slots are coming back. I don't see a future where Apple
| has SD slots on notebooks.
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| On one hand, this seems like welcome news for many of us. Who
| doesn't miss MagSafe?
|
| A lot of the previous years was like someone at Apple read
| Calvino's Six Memos and took the notes on _" lightness"_ a little
| bit too far.
|
| On the other hand, one wonders if we'll have to replace all the
| sleeves and bags that have been made with the previous dimensions
| in mind. Hopefully not. Even the new 16-inch MacBook Pro fits in
| sleeves and bags designed for the previous 15-inch.
| moreati wrote:
| I'm typing this on a MagSafe laptop. I don't like MagSafe.
|
| The cables fray and the MagSafe tips wear out, that means
| buying an entire new charger (or soldering on a donor cable),
| I'm on my 5th or 6th. The surfaces get dirty, and because they
| just butt up (rather than sliding) they become high resistance
| and heat up.
|
| If MagSafe 2021 doesn't fuse the cable to the charger brick,
| then I might consider it. The fickle electrical connection is
| inherent to the design though.
| raverbashing wrote:
| All Apple cables fray because of design decisions around the
| stress relief area
|
| I'm also typing this on a Magsafe laptop going since 2011 but
| I'd doubt if it would still be good if it was a plugged in
| connector, as my previous laptops died around that area.
| vimy wrote:
| My 16" still fits in the sleeve I've bought for my first
| Macbook Pro. The 15" 2006 model.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Not only does the 16" fit the 15" sleeves, it's nearly
| identical in dimensions and weight to the 15" models everyone
| praises before the bad keyboards. It's basically a 2015 MBP
| with a slightly smaller bezel.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Apparently someone disagrees with this statement of facts
| about the measurable dimensions that are trivially
| verifiable.
| dwaite wrote:
| > On one hand, this seems like welcome news for many of us. Who
| doesn't miss MagSafe?
|
| I don't miss MagSafe 2. The laptops had gotten light enough
| that the selling point (would come detached if someone snagged
| the cord) meant that the magnet had to be weakened. The cord
| constantly came undone.
|
| Bits attracted by the magnet would be lodged in the port
| sometimes, interfering with the charging in odd ways as well.
|
| I had a lot of Magsafe 1 chargers, which compounded the
| frustration. I had to use a little magnetic dongle.
|
| The cord was attached to the brick directly, so when it frayed
| (not if, when) you were out $100. Your brick was now a brick.
|
| It was a big charger I couldn't use to charge anything else I
| travelled with (phone, ipad, headphones, etc), _and_ there were
| zero third party accessories (battery packs, etc) that worked
| with it because it was proprietary/patent protected.
|
| If laptops have enough power to go 12+ hours on a single
| charge, the value of magsafe goes way down. I'm not operating
| the thing on a kitchen table with a cord draped down and across
| the room to the wall. I am charging it overnight.
|
| Not to mention, there's a huge benefit of sitting down at a
| desk and having a single USB-C/TB cable to plug in to get
| connected to everything, including power.
|
| If the choice was magsafe or USB-C charging, I'd pay extra for
| USB-C.
| apetrovic wrote:
| I don't miss MagSafe.
|
| I enjoy being able to sit on my kitchen table and plug USB-C
| cable on the right. And if my favorite chair is used by my cat,
| I can sit on the other side and plug the cable on the left. On
| the other side of the cable is a third-party charger that I'm
| using to charge my iPhone (with damn Lightning-USBC cable, when
| will Apple drop Lightning?), iPad and Nintendo Switch. And when
| I sit on my desktop, I connect my laptop to the monitor with
| just one (USB-C) cable.
|
| Previously, I had to have two separate proprietary chargers and
| hope that the cable don't break; now I can just buy another
| USB-C cable anywhere.
| aetherspawn wrote:
| I'm sure someone smart will design a way for USB-C to plug into
| your MacBook without the risk of ripping out your I/O board if
| you trip over the cable.
|
| We don't need magsafe, we just need some sort of clever springy
| socket.
| dwaite wrote:
| The USB standard is pretty specific about connectors; I doubt
| the resulting connector would be licensed to be called USB.
| underseacables wrote:
| I want the features of the 2012 MacBook Pro in the body of the
| latest model. Bring it all back and keep the slimmed down less
| useful model for ppl who don't need functionality.
| sitkack wrote:
| The keyboard! I have an M1 mac, I typing this from a 2012 macbook
| air. The new keyboards are utter crap! They are still crap. If I
| could have the M1 in an x220 shell, with the mac trackpad, I
| would be good.
| genuine_smiles wrote:
| Have you tried the 2019 16" MacBook Pro keyboard?
| sitkack wrote:
| Ok, I just switched back to the M1 from the 2012 MBA.
| Keyboard is just too shallow and key travel is just too
| short. It is improved over the butterfly but it still isn't
| as good as the 2012.
|
| The machine you mention is my work machine, but it has been
| docked and I haven't really broken in the keyboard.
|
| The previous work machine which I typed in probably 20k words
| a day was a butterfly keyboard mac. I hate that machine with
| a passion, I want to buy it back from my employer and bisect
| it with a plasma torch.
| boudewijnrempt wrote:
| I actually like the feel of my M1 pro keyboard better than
| my 1015 15" macbook pro's keyboard. But... That weird lcd
| strip constantly flickering in the periphery of my vision
| makes me want to throw the laptop out of the window. Good
| thing it isn't my main working machine, just a device to
| make fat binaries of Krita on.
| jspash wrote:
| I'm typing this from a 2019 16" MBP keyboard. And I can say
| without a doubt that it is my favourite keyboard of probably
| 10 macs I've ever owned. There is a Macbook Air sitting
| nearby which I just tried for comparison. It's pretty good
| too. But the MBP 16" is just lovely. Quiet. Enough feedback.
|
| The only gripe is, and this might be true of all Mac backlit
| keyboards. Is that I can see light coming from under the keys
| when viewing it at a low angle such as when I've got my feet
| up and it's on my lap. Not just through the letters, but
| little slivers of light under each one.
| 1996 wrote:
| > Not just through the letters, but little slivers of light
| under each one.
|
| My pet peeve too. I hate that, as it doesn't happen on
| Microsoft Surfaces.
|
| If it can't be fixed due to the different travel distance,
| give me instead a RGB led per key and I will be coding
| funny patterns to work around the issue (ex: red keyboard
| backlight at night, with a green for the important keys
| like enter, and blinking F keys if I got activity on a
| terminal)
| goatinaboat wrote:
| _The new keyboards are utter crap!_
|
| You can imagine the Apple of old hiring a team of researchers
| to determine the absolute optimal key travel and springiness.
| The Apple of today wants to make things that look nice on
| display and are never actually used.
| foldr wrote:
| >The new keyboards are utter crap! They are still crap
|
| Hold on, are you claiming that the new scissor switch keyboards
| have similar reliability issues to the older butterfly
| keyboards?
|
| If not, then this is really just a matter of taste. You can't
| please everyone with keyboards. People do genuinely have
| different preferences regarding feel and key travel. It
| honestly seems hyperbolic to describe a keyboard that most
| people find completely functional as "utter crap".
|
| I personally love the feel of the older butterfly keyboards. I
| also think that Apple fixed the reliability issues with them in
| their last generation. At least, I've not had a single keyboard
| issue with my 2019 MacBook Pro or MacBook Air.
| sitkack wrote:
| I am not saying they have similar reliability issues, not
| enough time has passed for that to be determined. Utter is
| too strong of a word, the keyboard has the same qualities for
| me that made the butterfly keyboards suck.
|
| They may have fixed the reliability issues, but they have
| _not_ fixed key travel issues. The person that designed this
| keyboard is a very particular person, and this person
| probably does not like the keyboard in the 2012 MBA.
|
| It isn't just preference, the new keyboard is slightly
| uncomfortable to use, the key pressure is too high and the
| travel too low, so the impulse on the tendons is too sharp.
|
| The gist is that Apple has over designed its product and made
| design the number one metric. Design only works when it is
| subservient to function.
| foldr wrote:
| >It isn't just preference, the new keyboard is slightly
| uncomfortable to use, the key pressure is too high and the
| travel too low, so the impulse on the tendons is too sharp.
|
| Sure, but some people (like me) find keyboards with shorter
| travel more comfortable to use. So as far as I can see it
| is just a preference - and a question of what your fingers
| are accustomed to.
|
| I'm old enough to remember when the chicklet macbook
| keyboards that everyone now idolises were the Worst
| Keyboards Ever because they didn't have enough travel.
|
| >The gist is that Apple has over designed its product and
| made design the number one metric.
|
| Apple is now using an ordinary chicklet keyboard that's
| very similar to the ones used by most other modern laptops.
| It's a very conservative and unremarkable design as far as
| I can see.
| mindvirus wrote:
| Touch Bar is interesting - it's really nifty, but I feel like
| touch typists hate it, and non touch typists love it.
|
| My personal totally long shot wish is that Apple would switch to
| an ortholinear keyboard (because everyone else will do it too
| then).
| Aperocky wrote:
| They should really just sell both version, I bought the new mac
| air precisely because it doesn't have a touch bar.
| theonemind wrote:
| If you never have to look at the keyboard for anything ever,
| the touchbar takes away an useful row of keys and forces you to
| start looking down at the keyboard. I can't overstate how
| annoying someone who _never_ has to look at the keyboard might
| find this.
|
| https://robservatory.com/the-fundamental-problem-with-the-to...
|
| "The Touch Bar, despite its name, is actually an Eye Bar: It
| forces your eyes off the screen, down to the Touch Bar, back up
| to the screen, repeat ad infinitum. There's nothing physical
| about interacting with the Touch Bar, aside from using your
| finger: There are no defined button areas, and there's no
| haptic feedback when you tap something. So you absolutely must
| look at the Touch Bar to interact with it.
|
| When the new MacBooks were released, I spent about 30 minutes
| testing a Touch Bar-equipped version in an Apple Store, and
| this constant moving of my eyes' focus from keyboard to screen
| to keyboard to screen to...well, you get the idea...was
| incredibly disruptive. To use the Touch Bar, I'd have to change
| my focus to the keyboard, then refocus on the screen, taking
| time to find my active window and locate the mouse cursor. This
| did not make for a pleasant user experience."
| harel wrote:
| Apple hardware is really top notch. I am a Linux person but if I
| squint hard enough I can use the Mac OS (with some swearing
| weaved in). But I cannot use that terrible keyboard. Why do I
| need key combos for page up/down? Why are they useless buttons
| like that top squiggle on the top left but no page up/down
| buttons (there is space for them). Why some things are Cmd+ and
| some are Ctrl+? Why no key travel?
| shrimpx wrote:
| Btw that squiggle button -- I assume you mean ~ -- is
| completely instrumental to programming and using a shell. It's
| also the switcher key between windows of the same app (cmd-~ as
| opposed to cmd-tab).
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I enjoy typing on the macbook more than my Lenovo now. I've
| just gotten used to it, I suppose.
|
| The key combos take some learning - protip: Few things are
| "ctrl+" unless it is Firefox or terminal, in my experience.
|
| I do agree in missing the nav buttons.
| helmholtz wrote:
| I have the newest XPS. It's a 15" laptop, it's huge. And yet,
| they've gone and put Home and End under F11 and F12. Meanwhile,
| Printscreen is under F10, which no one needs, and NOTHING is
| under F9. Also, F5 is covered with the brightness key! I can
| either refresh or have brightness, while F9, which is used
| nowhere, is blank.
|
| There used to be such a nice last column along the rightmost
| edge of the keyboard with Home, Page Up, Page Down and End.
| Bring them back! It's stupid design to have.
|
| The other thing, which I take is the same for the macbook, is
| that the trackpad is so huge that the edge of the keyboard digs
| into the forearms, causing pain for any reasonable length of
| use.
| rckoepke wrote:
| I'd love if it had an excellent webcam. I imagined the M1 would
| have a better webcam than the 2015 Retina MBP but instead the
| newest built-in webcams are significantly worse in quality.
|
| I'd imagine including a camera system from an iPhone would make a
| huge difference for Apple's users given the popularity of remote
| meetings these days.
| dwaite wrote:
| Unfortunately the back lid is not thick enough for that - even
| the iPhone isn't thick enough for the iPhone camera system,
| hence the "bump".
|
| I actually wouldn't mind something closer to the iPad + magic
| keyboard design in a pro macbook, which would have the
| thickness needed for a significantly better camera.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| Why not have a bump in the MacBook screen with a small
| penalty in trackpad size?
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Because it's ugly. It's just not an elegant Apple-ish
| solution.
| least wrote:
| I'd imagine because for the vast majority of people they'd
| appreciate the trackpad size more and the webcams are
| already serviceable.
| yoz-y wrote:
| iPhone and iPad front facing cameras do not need a bump and
| they run circles around the crap in MacBooks though.
| dang wrote:
| Related from 2 days ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788129
| strogonoff wrote:
| All the recent buzz about Apple's supposed MBP updates traces
| back to a single source, which also has promised Apple AR glasses
| in 2020 (I bet this is why Bloomberg didn't feel comfortable
| putting the name on the rumour).
|
| The idea of additional I/O ports seems questionable, given
| performance of Thunderbolt 2 and USB 4.0 in latest devices.
| (Support for SD cards, which has the author so excited, seems
| especially dubious to me. Sure, there are professionals using SD
| cards, but just as well there are professionals using CF cards or
| microSD cards; it'd seem quite un-Apple to try to satisfy
| everyone.)
|
| Then there's the obvious stuff (microLED).
| maz1b wrote:
| For what it's worth, I have a fully specced out out 2019 16-inch
| MacBook Pro with 64gb of RAM and the 5600m upgrade, and I can
| frankly say that these rumored MacBooks are actually exciting
| compared to what I have.
|
| What I feel strongly that Apple should do:
|
| - Allow for USB-C AND MagSafe charging (MagSafe 2 would be ideal
| but I won't be upset if it's something else)
|
| - Ensure that the 4 USB-C ports are all equally capable of
| bandwidth and don't suffer from any drawbacks in that regard.
|
| - Great thermals / fan noise and still handle demanding workflows
|
| - No Touchbar. I love the idea, but it should be in addition to
| the Fn keys, on top of it, or in some other way.
| empressplay wrote:
| Apple should bring back the 2015 MBP but with Apple Silicon and a
| USB-C port and call it the MBP Classic!
| bch wrote:
| MBP SE
| behnamoh wrote:
| For $399 I would buy it!
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| MBP SE/30
| vemv wrote:
| Honestly I've never understood why laptops are so strongly
| associated with developer culture.
|
| They are inefficient and conflated machines - two things that
| tend to be contradictory with software engineering.
|
| More practically, many people find themselves completely
| dependent on Apple's design whims.
|
| Mac Pros (or server racks in general) are closer to the kinds of
| machines that we deploy to (they use Xeons for one thing). They
| don't overheat so easily.
|
| Their 'sea of cores' approach enables more productive workflows
| and tooling.
|
| And one gets to use his favorite peripherals, in an ergonomic
| position (instead of slouching around a laptop).
| bradlys wrote:
| It's so that engineering orgs can get you to work from home in
| addition to the workplace. They force you to take the laptop
| with you and then will try to make you work from home.
|
| That is the only reason. Everything else is just seasoning.
| u678u wrote:
| The most common response is often working from a coffee shop or
| plane. I dont understand those either, how can you concentrate
| in a coffee shop? How many flights do you really take? - get a
| book.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > They are inefficient and conflated machines - two things that
| tend to be contradictory with software engineering.
|
| They are a monitor with some processing ability, and we ask
| Apple to push ergonomics to the max.
| kevindong wrote:
| Meetings are generally held in meeting rooms (well, pre-Covid
| that is). In meetings, you typically have something to present
| or discuss over.
|
| It's generally better for employees to have a single machine
| (that they're very familiar with) to present on rather than
| having a machine per employee in addition to a machine per
| meeting room.
| pjettter wrote:
| Perhaps some day we can just present from our phones and even
| use them as a pointer at the same time.
| qppo wrote:
| All my presentation materials are in the cloud somewhere, I
| don't need to bring a computer anywhere these days.
| kevindong wrote:
| In most cases, I fully agree.
|
| But there's the hefty edge case (for developers at least)
| of showing off a piece of code that essentially requires a
| developer environment to be running. It's simply not
| possible to create a developer environment quickly enough
| in a meeting room for it to be practical.
| esoterica wrote:
| You an remote into your machine.
| qppo wrote:
| I'd question why you're running code in a meeting. That's
| some morning standup stuff for your team which can be
| done at your desk or placed in a gif in an email, not
| hauled off to a separate room.
|
| Meetings are for collaboration, not demos...
| mc10 wrote:
| > Meetings are for collaboration, not demos...
|
| Meetings can absolutely be used for demos. Maybe you're
| demoing for an audience that's large enough to not fit
| next to your desk. Maybe you're demoing something that
| you don't want other people to overhear. Maybe multiple
| people are all demoing projects to each other.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| The parent provided a personal example of why they think
| laptops are useful for developers, and you attacked the
| example.
| joaomoreno wrote:
| After having built a Ryzen Mini ITX setup about a month ago, I
| have to totally agree. Soooo smooth.
| Scapeghost wrote:
| > I've never understood
|
| This is the reason :)
| arusahni wrote:
| I feel like the migration to open floor plans and offices where
| you need to take your knowledge base everywhere (e.g.,
| conference rooms) has lead to laptops being the default loadout
| for many companies.
| willio58 wrote:
| For my development needs and work style I much prefer a laptop
| that I can dock at any workstation or just work off the laptop.
|
| I recently worked off my laptop while in a car on a road trip.
| I just wouldn't have that capability otherwise.
| daxfohl wrote:
| I just recently ditched my workstation for a dock and like it
| a lot better. I kind of miss having the dedicated computer in
| the home-office, rather than always having to transport my
| laptop from wherever it is. But I definitely like having a
| single machine to configure and everything being consistent.
| monadic3 wrote:
| > They are inefficient and conflated machines - two things that
| tend to be contradictory with software engineering.
|
| Maybe if you like to write inefficient software :)
| fulafel wrote:
| It's because networking is so bad now that remote access to
| your workstation can't be relied upon.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| I think laptops are more convenient as primary developer
| machine with the CPU heavy tasks being delegated to cloud. Most
| tasks take less than or much more time than around 30 seconds.
| This is the division I roughly take for running locally or in
| cloud. At least that's the workflow for me and most developers
| I know of. Having a desktop forces you to work in just one
| position and this could could cause a lot of obvious
| inconveniences like not being able to work in cafe or in both
| home and office.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| > They are inefficient and conflated machines - two things that
| tend to be contradictory with software engineering.
|
| Perhaps by your set of metrics.
|
| For me, it's the best option because I always have exactly what
| I need with me - locally. I can work from home, a coffee shop,
| an airplane, conference room, a different couch/chair/table,
| etc without a second thought.
|
| I also rarely need the full compute power of a desktop. Sure,
| it'd help with cold builds - but incremental builds are so fast
| that it's just not worth being tethered to a desktop.
| fastball wrote:
| One of the best things about being a software developer in 2021
| is that I can do it from almost anywhere.
|
| I'm not lugging my Mac Pro to a cafe. I'm certainly not taking
| it on a trip.
| exabrial wrote:
| I'm excited about this! Lotta different ways that could go but
| I'm hoping it's Magsafe-over-usbc so their whole lineup can be
| protected! (Well they need to ditch lightning on iPhones, but
| yeah).
| chaostheory wrote:
| I want my glowing Apple logo back. The only thing good about the
| Touch Bar is fingerprint ID, but I can do without it
| dwighttk wrote:
| >Schiller had squashed all hope of the SD card returning ...
|
| >Schiller said "probably not" but added that "nothing about the
| future is in stone and things can always change."
|
| what?
| rbanffy wrote:
| Honestly, the thing that I like the most about this is the
| wonderful IBM 3278 terminal in the background. Those things were
| the best terminals I ever used (even though they couldn't scroll)
| and had the very best (although the loudest) keyboards ever
| built.
|
| Which reminded me I released a new version of my 3270 font
| yesterday, so it's doubly fortunate.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Typing on our 2013 Mac Pro is downright luxurious and I wouldn't
| trade it for any super thin anything. Would also pay thousands
| for an M2 motherboard upgrade. :D
| faichai wrote:
| Was thinking the same thing, given thermal envelope
| improvements made possible by M1/M1X/M2 would be so cool to be
| able to upgrade my perfectly viable MacBook Pro 2015 with a new
| logic board. Upgrade cycles are so wasteful.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| Very excited. I got an Intel MBP in 2020, but these models have
| enough that I am willing to switch. The question is who will buy
| my maxed out Intel laptop when the M1 is faster and costs less?
| XD
|
| Also wondering if this new version will have M1X or M2, just a M1
| that supports more RAM or an M2 with updated architecture?
| anonymousab wrote:
| I would like to pay more for a usb-c magsafe connector. Even 5x
| the cost of the current cheap cables would be worth it if it 1)
| actually worked 2) was standards compliant in all the ways that
| mattered. USB-C is a dice roll right now and the magnetic ones
| even moreso.
| raldi wrote:
| I agree about the return of function keys and preservation of
| Touch ID, but that's hardly a prediction; it's what they're
| already doing as they roll out new machines.
|
| If you think Apple is returning the SD slot or adding a dongle to
| the power cord, you don't know Apple. But maybe they've found a
| way to magnetically connect USB-C while still maintaining
| compatibility and avoiding dongles.
| JIBitator wrote:
| oh man... if they remove the touch bar I will be so happy. I have
| a macbook pro 2015 and I was planning to replace it next year
| with the M1 16 inches. That would be the perfect timing.
| Generation 2015 powa!
| acd wrote:
| I think Apple needs to rethink and design products that are built
| for serviceability. That means the end user should be able to
| service most parts of the laptop themselves. No plastic prying
| tools should ever be needed to service a laptop.
|
| Battery -> User replaceable under a hatch. SSD -> User
| replaceable RAM -> User replaceable Screen -> User replaceable
| Motherboard -> User replaceable Keyboard -> User replaceable.
| Wifi Network card -> User replaceable.
|
| And with that I mean you design to make the product easy to
| repair. Using standard Philips or torx screws whenever possible.
|
| Current Apple products means using a lots of dongles for what
| should be built in.
|
| Make repair videos on how to mend broken parts, put those on
| video sharing platforms like Youtube.
|
| We are having global warming, that needs that all products needs
| to be easy to repair so that we have less waste on the planet.
| eknkc wrote:
| I don't think most if these are possible with the recent form
| factors. I mean battery hatch / battery case itself would be a
| huge volume loss in the chasis.
|
| People talk about repairability etc but at the end, most will
| demand the sexy and thin laptops.
| mcot2 wrote:
| Isn't the RAM basically integrated onto the SoC now?
| TacticalTable wrote:
| With the M1 as-is, yes. However, it's entirely possible that
| future M1X or the like will keep RAM separate.
| usaphp wrote:
| > Current Apple products means using a lots of dongles for what
| should be built in.
|
| Who decides what should be built in? Some people might need SD
| card reader, others will need HDMI out, lan port is requested
| by others, I on the other hand don't use any of that and would
| rather have my laptop to be lighter and thinner.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| Lenovo tried the touch bar approach with the X1 Carbon. But it
| didn't work out, users complained, and the next generation of the
| X1 removed it again. I wonder how many laptop manufacturers will
| try this again, only to need to revert it...
| uniqueid wrote:
| Apple's previous MacBook plan was stupid stupid. I just can't
| bring myself to view 'several different ports' as a stroke of
| genius.
| uniqueid wrote:
| To save someone the time: 'it can't be stupid if it sold <x
| million> units'
| riffraff wrote:
| It can still stupid be if a different obvious one could have
| sold more or made more profit.
|
| For example, almost everyone thought the butterfly keys were
| a terrible idea. They sold a ton of devices with that, but
| then they switched back anyway.
| uniqueid wrote:
| I agree. Besides, there are many stupid decisions that sell
| better than smart ones, _short term_.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| It sold well because the competition is still worse. It
| doesn't mean you should intentionally make it worse just
| because you can get away with it (there's an argument that
| making it worse to lower cost thus earning more profit, but I
| doubt the added complexity of USB-C made the new design any
| cheaper).
| bitL wrote:
| Can't wait to see all the articles praising Apple for innovation
| next... We might even see a skeuomorphic UI again!
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I think it's a lot difficult for people NOT to change than to
| change. I do understand the reason: New employees seeking for
| ownership, teams need to grab for budget, etc. And I'd argue that
| keep changing is always better than NOT changing at all. The only
| thing is how to make more changes positive?
| egypturnash wrote:
| I never needed an SD card until suddenly I needed one. And then
| there I was with one permanantly lodged in my old Air's SD port,
| with my music collection on it, because I needed more room on the
| HD.
|
| I have been enjoying being able to dock my current Pro to the
| desk setup with one cable that carries power/video/audio/USB but
| I keep on eyeing my slowly-filling hard drive and worrying about
| what I'll do when I need more space. I _hate_ carrying external
| drives around.
|
| A "magsafe USBc" connector would be super awesome, IMHO.
| evan_ wrote:
| There are a bunch of magnetic usb c adapters on Amazon for not
| very much money, I can't speak to quality
| ricg wrote:
| Anyone still remember Apple Remote?
|
| It used to come free with your MacBook and is to this day one of
| my favorite features of my mid 2012 MBP that I will miss terribly
| once I have to upgrade (no Big Sur support...).
| matwood wrote:
| Yep, it was great. I used it regularly to give presentations,
| and many people were curious about the remote (where it came
| from, was it included, etc...).
| conesus wrote:
| I built the Turn Touch remote[1] to basically bring back the
| old Apple Remote features. Music and video control for your
| laptop.
|
| [1]: turntouch.com
| uncledave wrote:
| Yeah had one with my first gen intel iMac. Great idea that was.
| The whole machine got used as an audio source regularly.
| vinay427 wrote:
| I almost never ended up using that remote, quite honestly. I
| got a lot more use out of the remote/stylus that my smartphone
| came with which I could use to play/pause media, take pictures
| from a distance, and obviously write or draw.
| someonehere wrote:
| Of course Ive pushed the design this way. He also designed the
| Apple Watch to be a design centric device and didn't want it to
| be about health.
|
| I wonder if any of these design choices are what led to him
| leaving. I'm almost confident a consensus was around one of these
| major changes he bet on and leadership heard all the nasty
| feedback across the web. Maybe Ive took it personally and just
| decided his time was over.
| fastball wrote:
| Ive was terrible for Apple as soon as Jobs was no longer there
| to curb his worst impulses. He's a great designer, but he's the
| kinda guy you want designing your concept cars, not your
| production vehicles.
| grishka wrote:
| The last paragraph mentioning touchscreens is weird. Please don't
| add a touchscreen to a device running a desktop OS. 99% of people
| won't be using it anyway, but it would lead to those atrocious
| spacious phone-style UIs I despise so much.
| mbirth wrote:
| Think of the new M1 macs and how they can run iPad apps and how
| lots of developers opted out of their apps being offered for
| those new Macs because their apps are meant to be used on a
| touchscreen, not via trackpad and keyboard.
| wtallis wrote:
| That opting-out is a good sign. Apple and their customers
| shouldn't want the Mac platform to become polluted with half-
| assed ports that retain a touch-oriented UI rather than
| designing a UI that's actually appropriate for desktops and
| laptops.
| deergomoo wrote:
| Agree 100%, this is a hill I will die on. The usual counter
| point is "well you don't have to use it", but once it's there
| developers will inevitably start to change their software to
| account for it.
|
| Not to mention that reaching out to touch a vertical surface is
| clumsy and unergonomic, even if the UI is designed for touch,
| like an iPad in a keyboard case (which I expect is why they
| added pointer support).
| speedgoose wrote:
| Give a MacBook to a child and she will likely try to touch the
| screen. Because at this point a touch interface is expected by
| people.
|
| Even me who is used to non touch screens user interfaces, I
| tend to touch the screen on a non touchscreen laptop once in a
| while. It's frustrating that it doesn't work, because it does
| work on my ThinkPad and I enjoy it.
|
| Apple not having a touchscreen option on their high end laptops
| is weird, since they did so well with the iPhone and the iPad.
|
| At least that would help developers to implement touch
| interfaces for iOs. Or not feel dated for the younger
| generations.
| grishka wrote:
| IMO it's important to maintain a clear separation and not
| blur the line between desktops and tablets. Desktop UIs are
| dense, they're your tools to get your job done as efficiently
| as possible. You can position the mouse pointer quickly and
| with great precision, so there is no need for ample spacing
| between the controls.
|
| It's okay when a professional tool has some learning curve to
| it, but after you're past that, it's a joy to use.
|
| And no, desktop UI design shouldn't be informed by phones and
| tablets. When designing a desktop UI, you should pretend
| touchscreens were never invented.
|
| That being said, I do know one person who has a Windows
| laptop with a touchscreen and does occasionally tap or scroll
| something on it. Myself, as someone who has never owned one
| of these, I maintain this clear separation between mobile and
| desktop in my head and have never had the thought of touching
| my laptop screen except to clean it.
| speedgoose wrote:
| The current trend in user interfaces is not to design for
| desktop but for mobile first, because that's where the
| large majority of users are.
|
| Of course you have exceptions, when a company develops an
| application only for desktop for example or when a company
| can afford developing and maintaining many versions of one
| user interface.
|
| Already today it's very fine to use a laptop with a
| touchscreen on most websites. And actually most of desktop
| apps are also possible to use while not always super nice.
| The screens are quite large so it's not that bad to hit a
| specific area.
|
| I agree the mouse is a lot more precise when you are good
| with a mouse, but a mouse also needs more training than a
| touch screen to be used fast and accurately.
|
| It will always be a market for old fashioned desktop apps,
| maybe Apple is going for it, perhaps some GNU/Linux folks
| too, but I think the industry is not targeting devices
| without touch interfaces.
| grishka wrote:
| You aren't making much sense.
|
| If someone is making a _desktop app_ , how could it
| possibly be _mobile first_? Even if you 're using the
| cancer that is Electron, that design with a lot of
| whitespace is always deliberate.
|
| I'm not saying that it's _not fine_ to use a touchscreen
| laptop for something. I 'm saying that no one uses them
| like that with any kind of seriousness because it's
| awkward and physically inconvenient to poke your fingers
| into a vertical surface in front of you for any extended
| period of time. There are laptops capable of folding such
| that the screen faces outward, but these are as rare as
| they were 8 years ago, so this has never caught on
| either.
| wtallis wrote:
| > I'm saying that no one uses them like that with any
| kind of seriousness because it's awkward and physically
| inconvenient to poke your fingers into a vertical surface
| in front of you for any extended period of time.
|
| I think users of Windows laptops have embraced
| touchscreens in spite of these downsides, because a
| touchscreen is still less bad than the touchpads on those
| laptops. But Apple doesn't have the problem of bad
| touchpads, so they have no reason to compensate with
| touchscreens.
| vinay427 wrote:
| I feel the same about Apple laptops not having a
| TrackPoint which is why they need to compensate with a
| good trackpad. ;)
|
| But seriously, I think the larger advantage I see of
| touchscreens on Windows devices and potentially future
| MacBooks is pen support (with pressure-sensitivity) and a
| 360deg foldable display so you can write on it for taking
| notes or annotating documents. Apple has already started
| down this road with the iPad and Pencil, so I think it's
| conceivable to see a full convergence at some point.
| daxfohl wrote:
| I have no problem with the touchpad on my XPS, but I find
| the touchscreen quite useful.
|
| * Have to log kid into Teams classroom in the morning:
| pick up laptop, tap calendar, tap meeting, tap join,
| done. Much quicker than dragging a pointer around
| everywhere.
|
| * Cooking dinner, greasy fingertips, want to skip songs:
| tap Skip with my knuckle.
|
| * Looking at pictures, maps, reading a website, etc with
| family or looking through numbers with coworker: quicker
| and more engaging to zoom in on something with a
| touchscreen than a touchpad.
|
| * Perusing Netflix at night, I find it nicer to keep my
| laptop in my lap and swipe though things.
|
| There's no awkward "gorilla arm" thing involved: you pull
| the laptop in closer for a bit and your elbows stay on
| the table. When you're done you move back.
|
| I mean, it's not a game changer, not something I use more
| than a couple times a day, short durations each, but
| there's lots of times when it's super convenient to have
| a laptop with a touchscreen. I think Apple really missed
| the ball on this one, and continues to do so.
| wtallis wrote:
| None of your points seem at all convincing to me. It's
| like you haven't used a _good_ touchpad. If you say
| things like "Much quicker than dragging a pointer around
| everywhere", then _your current touchpad sucks_. If it
| ever feels like you 're _dragging_ the cursor around,
| then you 're dealing with a touchpad that has inadequate
| sensitivity and precision that forces the cursor speed to
| be set unreasonably slow. Likewise for your complaint
| about zooming. A _good_ touchpad is every bit as
| responsive as a touchscreen, and you 're not blocking
| half the screen with your opaque hand.
|
| And on top of the touchscreen offering almost no
| advantages over a truly _good_ touchpad, Apple 's
| touchpads have haptic feedback that isn't really possible
| with a laptop-sized touchscreen. They also support a
| wider array of multi-touch gestures than most touchscreen
| software can recognize, and that's _before_ getting into
| third-party software that adds more gestures, such that
| touchpad gestures can replace about half of the keyboard
| shortcuts I use.
| daxfohl wrote:
| I use an MBP for work. If I had a macbook for my personal
| laptop, I'd still prefer touchscreen for all the use
| cases above. I wouldn't think I'm the only one either,
| but maybe I'm wrong.
|
| I don't see what Apple gains by not at least offering it
| as an option. That way people who didn't want one
| wouldn't have to get it. I'd pay maybe $150 extra for it.
| I'd also bet it would outsell the non-touchscreens ten to
| one.
| speedgoose wrote:
| The Apple touchpads are good, probably the best, but they
| are not good enough to replace a touch screen.
|
| Similarly, the old iPod click wheels were good, probably
| the best at their time, but they have been replaced by a
| touch screen for the better.
|
| About the touchpad gestures, I prefer gestures on my
| touch screen personally.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Most apps nowadays are mobile apps or web apps. A few are
| put in Electron for desktop, very few are made for
| desktop first.
|
| Yes a touchscreen can be inconvenient in some positions.
| That's why you have devices such as the Surface pro or
| the foldable laptops you mention.
| bluescrn wrote:
| In general, where there is a touchscreen, there is a dumbed-
| down UI with significantly reduced functionality.
|
| Touchscreen devices are great for content consumption and
| communication. But not so much for creating anything.
|
| General purpose computers, with precision input devices, are
| still required by many for getting serious work (and play)
| done.
| speedgoose wrote:
| I disagree there. It's very much easier to create content
| on a mobile device like a smartphone or an iPad.
| Professionals will prefer a desktop I guess but there are
| so many great user friendly apps for video editing, music,
| art, photography, with interfaces designed for
| touchscreens.
| trestenhortz wrote:
| RAM is the feature I care about and Apple has always been stingy
| with RAM.
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| Cool! On top of this if they would reintroduce the headphone jack
| on the iPhone, they would completely redeem themselves in my
| books.
| underseacables wrote:
| Now that's just crazy talk. Apple? Never. That is one mistake
| they will ever walk back on. It took a LOT of courage[0] to
| remove it.
|
| [0]. https://splinternews.com/profiles-in-courage-the-product-
| man...
| c17r wrote:
| I don't care that they removed the analog in favor of
| digital, I'm annoyed that it's just. One. Port. Give me two
| lightning ports so I can use headphones and charge without
| resorting to a dongle and I'll go along with it. As it is I
| haven't bought a new iPhone since my 6S plus.
| bitwize wrote:
| My guess is that the leads in the new MagSafe correspond to USB-C
| power rails, and if you plugged in a charger into the machine's
| USB-C port, it would charge just the same.
|
| I mean, if I were Apple, I wouldn't settle for anything less.
|
| Dongles are expensive and cumbersome. If Apple is adding back
| legacy ports, good on them.
| S_A_P wrote:
| I'm happy to give up thinness for SD card and HDMI. I use my MBP
| with a bunch of hardware samplers old and new which use SD for
| sample import and storage. I never use the Touch Bar and miss F
| keys dearly(development duties). The next MacBook that reverts
| back to the above is an instabuy.
| phatty wrote:
| I hope...(some day) we can get sdcard slots on iphones too?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Unrealistic though it may be, I'd rather they just stuffed a half
| dozen USB-C connectors on either side instead, and the world
| could stop making custom connectors for every different device.
| someonehere wrote:
| I bought a Microsoft Surface laptop 13" for work to test builds
| with. That laptop has a headphone port, USB-A, USB-C and a
| proprietary Microsoft port the power adapter plugs into. Don't
| have that adapter handy while traveling? You can still charge it
| via the USB-C port with another charger. I can see Apple copying
| another facet of Microsoft's Surface line. The other being the
| Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro.
| madhadron wrote:
| We went to Surfaces in my house for a while. They're by and
| large fine, but Windows 10 is sufficiently painful and hard to
| use that I'm bringing the family back to macs just to stop
| having to do so much tech support.
| fastball wrote:
| That sounds like a terrible idea. Why have a proprietary charge
| port if it can also charge with USB-C?
| dangerbird2 wrote:
| Except in practice, you get the worst of both worlds: a
| proprietary charger that _looks_ like a USB-C. And even if it
| is proprietary, the Magsafe and similar ports are miles ahead
| of any USB-C charger in preventing tripping and IO port
| damage from dogs, children, and clumsy adults walking over
| the charger (granted, USB-C is a huge improvement over
| traditional round DC ports)
| jahnu wrote:
| Because it's a magnetic port similar to magsafe.
| toper-centage wrote:
| I had an XPS that had both and indeed it was useless to have
| a port for just charging. But if the charging port is also
| used for magsafe that makes it worth it.
| dschuler wrote:
| The XPS 15 has a dedicated charging port that can draw much
| more power for the discrete GPU - up to 130W, but lets you
| charge it on the go with the USB-C port. You get full
| graphics performance with one but have the choice not to
| lug around a larger power brick on the go.
|
| Why would I want only one option when I can have both?
| beowulfey wrote:
| It's a bit redundant, but pretty far from being terrible. I
| have it on my laptop. Offhand it's nice to leave the port
| free if you have a lot of usb needs. If anything it provides
| some flexibility. Can't say it's necessary but I certainly
| don't mind it.
| Haemm0r wrote:
| Maybe because of the power requirements?
| javajosh wrote:
| Yes, a terrible idea, like putting a motor on a sailboat! I
| mean, why would you ever need _2_ methods of propulsion?!
| (Some boaters even bring oars and towline! Insane!)
| chris_wot wrote:
| That analogy is silly. Two methods of propulsion is a good
| idea - when the wind is not blowing then use the engine. If
| the engine runs out of petroleum use the engine.
|
| Having a proprietary power interface and a USB C interface
| that does the same thing is ridiculous.
| Retric wrote:
| USB-C can't charge nearly as quickly as a high power
| proprietary charger. In use USB-C needs to supply power
| for both charging and operating the laptop, so what might
| take 3 hours to charge with USB-C might take 20 minutes
| to charge with a dedicated connector.
|
| That's not to say every laptop's proprietary charger will
| supply noticeably more than 100W, but many examples
| exist.
| oblio wrote:
| I'd be surprised if a 13" Surface doesn't charge well
| enough at 100W, though.
| Retric wrote:
| 13" Surface laptops had up to 90Wh of battery. Batteries
| get hot when charging due to inefficiency, meaning it
| takes more than 90Wh to charge a 90Wh battery. Subtract
| the power demand while in use and your well over an hour
| to fully charge.
|
| By comparison a quick charge to 80% in under 20 minutes
| while under full load should be possible assuming
| sufficient cooling and power. That's not a huge deal most
| of the time, but it's still plenty useful if your sharing
| a single outlet etc.
| fastball wrote:
| I'm sorry, what laptop charger has a brick that's over
| 100W?
| Retric wrote:
| Here's a 230W example: https://www.amazon.com/Charger-
| Adapter-GTX1070-RTX2070-RTX20...
|
| Their still common with gaming laptops like Razor 15's.
| It's ancient at this point, but a friend used to have a
| dual GPU laptop that used 2 different AC adapters at the
| same time.
| oblio wrote:
| There are some. Thinkpads can go to 135 and if I recall
| correctly, maybe even 170W.
|
| The bricks weigh as much as an ultrabook, though :-D
| ajmadesc wrote:
| A bad attitude and a bad analogy. A second charging port is
| redundancy, a second motor is auxiliary.
|
| Don't start about multiple usb ports because those are also
| auxiliary in purpose
|
| Edit: Not making a judgement as to if a second charging
| point is a good idea or not. I don't care, why not.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I have a Surface Go with a similar setup.
|
| The proprietary one is a magnet-style and rests flush against
| the device.
|
| USB-C is convenient to have, but the proprietary charger is
| much better if I'm going to be using the device while
| charging.
| FractalParadigm wrote:
| All kinds of reasons - my biggest one being why MagSafe was
| invented in the first place; I know my power cord is run
| across the living room due to a lack of power outlets in my
| 70-year-old apartment, and gets tripped over regularly. Not
| to mention a proprietary charger can free up a USB port for
| additional peripherals.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| A power strip might help.
| kube-system wrote:
| Tripping over a power cable was a problem created by a
| battery life that was shorter than a work day, IMO. I have
| been charging my M1 Mac at night, like my phone.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Wait a couple years and you can say goodbye to your MBA
| superb battery capacity. Mine is now at 70% after only 3
| years and less than 400 cycles. For all the buzz it
| receives, Apple does not really provide the highest
| quality. I've concluded that:
|
| "Apple gives you awesome first impression and terrible
| relationship in the long term."
| angott wrote:
| This is a problem with all laptop batteries, not just
| Apple batteries.
| behnamoh wrote:
| I'm saying that the OP's reasoning for lack of magsafe is
| not relevant.
| kube-system wrote:
| > "Apple gives you awesome first impression and terrible
| relationship in the long term."
|
| I've always heard the opposite. And in fact, my M1 Mac
| replaces an almost decade old MacBook.
| foldr wrote:
| >Mine is now at 70% after only 3 year
|
| 70% of an M1 Macbook's battery capacity would still be
| enough to get you through a typical work day!
| waheoo wrote:
| For those that don't get it, CPUs can only have so many
| USB-c ports wired up, it's all trade offs.
|
| Wiring a charger through different circuitry gives you an
| extra port.
|
| It's also easier to pump more wattage through and tends to
| be a bit more durable because thicker connectors can be
| used.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > For those that don't get it, CPUs can only have so many
| USB-c ports wired up
|
| I don't get it. Why? And how many is "so many"?
| Brozilean wrote:
| Why would having multiple options be bad? It doesn't turn the
| usb c port into a useless port or anything?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Why would having multiple options be bad?
|
| Because this is how you end up with a Homer Car of a
| device.
| waheoo wrote:
| That's a bit myopic. You can strike a balance.
|
| You're argument is the same thing that led to "we should
| get rid of headphone jacks because we have Bluetooth."
|
| Bluetooth is an option, its not the best option, but I
| wouldn't suggest removing Bluetooth because we have a
| headphone jack.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > You're argument is the same thing that led to "we
| should get rid of headphone jacks because we have
| Bluetooth."
|
| I mean... yeah it's the same argument and I agree with
| both. When we got Bluetooth and decent ear pods... time
| to get rid of the headphone jack we don't want both, one
| is redundant. Simpler, cleaner, more uniform is better
| for these devices in my opinion.
| pushrax wrote:
| Wireless headphones are an e-waste nightmare (in
| particular Airpods, designed to never be disassembled).
| When used with a mobile phone, their convenience is
| incredibly minor, and for me is more than offset by the
| need to keep them charged.
|
| I agree with getting rid of dying interfaces, but this is
| a case where it makes way more sense to keep options
| available. Almost everyone uses audio, and different
| people have different priorities. Waterproofing the jack
| is easy, and phones still have enough space for them. The
| only way I can interpret their decision to remove that
| jack was to incentivize wireless headphone sales, and
| perhaps appeal to the small ultra minimalist crowd.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Does the fact that there's a tiny and cheap dongle not
| make it all ok? You can keep using whatever devices you
| want if you've got some special use-case. Just pop the
| dongle in. For everyone else... we don't have to add it
| to the devices and we get a better device.
| pushrax wrote:
| Apple's 3.5mm audio dongles are honestly very well
| engineered and they're selling them at an
| uncharacteristically reasonable markup. Great DAC
| implementation. I use mine all the time.
|
| I just don't believe most people think the device is
| better without the headphone jack. It's not a "special
| use-case". Deleting the jack has definitely driven some
| sales for wireless headphones to people who don't want to
| use the dongle, rather than a desire to get rid of the
| wire.
|
| For some reason it's very hard to find a cheap and solid
| way to charge via Lightning and use wired audio at the
| same time. My workaround is to charge after I'm done
| listening. Probably good for reducing phone use, but it
| can be annoying on occasion.
| projektfu wrote:
| I'm just one data point but thanks to "courage" I hardly
| ever use headphones on my iPhone anymore. I never have
| the lightning earpods with me, and it can't use any of
| the random headphones I had stashed in various useful
| locations. Bluetooth headphones don't really fit into my
| life either. Thanks, Jony.
| interestica wrote:
| The MS proprietary cable doesn't follow the USB-c spec and
| can therefore do a lot more (and I think it's still
| expandable). I think usbc is limited to 20V @ 5a?. And using
| USBC for charging takes up a data port. And many docks and
| stands make use of the MS port. And the MS cable is magnetic.
| fastball wrote:
| Obviously you'd never just remove the power port and not
| replace it with anything, you'd replace the power port with
| another USB-C port.
| nt2h9uh238h wrote:
| Touch bar is great, but should be an ADD-ON above the function
| keys, not replacing them.
| rhacker wrote:
| Magsafe, was great unless you had a 5 year old laptop. After the
| 50th time you had a small magnetic rock get lodged into the plug
| and scrape the laptop's magsafe port enough, it stops being
| magnetic.
|
| I can't agree more on replacing the touch bar.
| [deleted]
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| So cool. I probably am going to buy a MacBook if they bring
| everything back. Definitely buying something else if they don't.
| MacBooks look interesting but I'd rather buy something with an SD
| slot, physical F-keys, analog audio jack and at least 1 classic
| USB port to accompany Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports.
| virtue3 wrote:
| I dont think there's a particular reason to have USB-A when you
| can just use a usb-c-to-a adapter. Sure, you have to carry a
| dongle around but USB-C is just so much better in all aspects (
| reliability, usage, speed, unidirectional). Plus it would keep
| the machine smaller (the physical height is an issue with the
| cases).
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I know USB-C is better, but I also know the overwhelming
| majority of thumb drives (as well as other peripherals)
| around are USB-A. Doesn't being free from having to carry an
| extra dongle around feel good?
|
| I don't insist it (a USB-A port) should be there but I would
| be pleased to have one. Its lack would mean I would have to
| always carry a dongle with me. Why not build it in if you
| always carry it with you anyway?
|
| > Plus it would keep the machine smaller (the physical height
| is an issue with the cases).
|
| Some extra millimetres are exactly the thing I absolutely
| couldn't care less about. Completely irrelevant. Definitely
| not willing to sacrifice, let alone pay anything for this.
| virtue3 wrote:
| I honestly view smaller as lighter, and that I do -really-
| care about. I travel a lot, so having something ultra
| portable was my favorite part of the MBP 13". I even had a
| smaller and lighter 45W usbC charger I could use for it. I
| really really really enjoyed that.
|
| and I just kept a dongle in my travel kit with my charger
| and other cables, nbd :) (but yeah everyone is different,
| I'd probably just invest in USB-c thumb drives, or the ones
| that have ports on both end for C and A).
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I used MacBook Air 2013 (which was not mine) a lot and
| appreciate how portable (and durable) it is very much.
| This is exactly why I feel like buying a MacBook perhaps.
| But it already is perfect and I certainly don't want it
| to be even more thin. I actually just want a MacBook Air
| 2013 with better CPU/RAM/SSD/GPU specs and a Thunderbolt
| 4 port added to the those already there.
|
| As I have emphasized the difference between USB-C and
| USB-A is just some millimetres and this doesn't make a
| valuable difference. Of course I would appreciate the
| difference if it was a centimetre or more.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| I've said this in probably a dozen HN comments over the years,
| but my 2010 MBP is still my favorite computer of all time. It has
| a matte screen and 4TB of upgradable onboard storage. It was
| frustrating watching MBPs move progressively farther away from
| the features I really loved on that machine. Eventually, I jumped
| ship for the PC world again, where I found the hardware much more
| inspired.
|
| The Airs are already quite powerful machines. Let them carry
| forward the legacy of the direction of the past several years,
| and make a truly differentiated offering for folks who do most of
| their work docked.
|
| Also, a hill I will die on is that the Touchbar should have been
| a new UI paradigm at the bottom of a touchscreen. I'd also dig a
| Touchbar accessory for my keyboard tray. Just saying. But for the
| love of god, keep it off my F-key row.
| egypturnash wrote:
| god I miss matte screens, I really need to find a matte screen
| cover for my current MBP
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| > my 2010 MBP is still my favorite computer of all time
|
| Seconded. Mine has dents all over the body, battery has been
| replaced a few times, upped the memory and replaced the optical
| drive with 1TB storage.
|
| It's performed surprisingly well for over 10 years. Once had to
| visit the "geniuses" to replace the logic board after a few
| years, but that's it really.
|
| Its worked in pubs behind the bar, as a live mixer for audio
| gigs, as a development machine, as a university note making
| machine...
|
| Although now I've got what seems to be a hardware fault with
| the display where black pixels turn bright green. That and the
| fact the speakers and microphone are shot to pieces means I'll
| have to move on soon.
|
| End of an era for me. I will miss this machine dearly.
|
| --
|
| On jumping ship: if I can work out a way to get iTunes + Apple
| Music running reliably on Linux I'll be jumping over there
| asafp. Not liking the software direction (news/rumours?) Apple
| has taken recently.
| kradeelav wrote:
| Cosigned, and writing this comment on my own faithful 2010 MBP.
| Still works like a charm, even if some sites don't load due to
| legacy browsers.
|
| Having the correct USB plug-ins for my old-but-durable wacom
| tablet and an internal CD drive is still critical for my usage
| and I can't believe some of those parts were the first to go in
| the madness. Currently tempted to switch to the M1, but still
| worried about loosing the parts mentioned.
| blue1 wrote:
| Seconded. But why legacy browsers? My mid-2010 MBP, still
| going strong, runs High Sierra, which supports all current
| browsers.
| nt2h9uh238h wrote:
| MacBook Pro wish 2021: rounded-edges end-to-end screen, that's
| the future, like the iPhone and iPad have.
| lovelyviking wrote:
| Since 2015 I cannot even choose Mac Book Pro that would just fit
| for work with all that idiocy with touch bars, malfunctioning
| keyboards, lack of SD card slot and idiotic dongles, instead of
| working horse that has everything you need and makes things
| simpler, not harder.
|
| But even MBP 2015 had gracefully died just recently having the
| best user care from me you can possibly imagine. This really
| encourages to move away from Macs. I do not wish to pay premium
| money for shitty equipment.
|
| This 2015 model have just fallen apart, starting with screws that
| by some unknown to me reason where unscrewing themselves and you
| cannot not tight them back because some idiot made them non
| standard to make sure you really cannot do it, not even with the
| knife.
|
| Then I discovered that screen has traces of buttons after closing
| the lid. Then I discovered those small traces are unremovable.
| Nice design.
|
| Then battery even with a proper care died anyway after third of a
| cycles it suppose to have.
|
| Then SD Card slot was reading only some of the cards, while cheap
| neighbour's laptop had no problem reading all of them.
|
| Then I discovered that connecting MBP to external monitor gets it
| heated too much to the level that loud funs make it unusable.
|
| Then internal screen stopped working completely.
|
| Then after some time this shit failed to boot at all ( even with
| external display).
|
| I should also mention power cord ( with cheap plastic) that
| became yellow and was not always connecting , while it was
| carefully kept from banding too much.
|
| HDMI that in critical situation did not work, with the best cable
| you can get.
|
| Mac OS that was constantly confusing where the main screen is,
| forgetting the 'mirror' option at will and so on....
|
| Overall the experience is horrible.
|
| I have other models from previous years and nothing like that had
| happened.
|
| And I am told MBP 15inch mid2015 is considered to be one of the
| best models from recent years, as after mid 2015 models are even
| worse, not mentioning lack connectivity that renders them useless
| for mobility I need.
|
| So looking at the way Mac is made these days finally I hear
| something sane as I am not at all convinced they would continue
| to sell 'tons of Macs' in the following years otherwise.
|
| I think only inertia saves them in such situation but for how
| long? In my case I cannot move from the platform now because
| naively I've decided to write a 'proper File Manager' for Mac. I
| am using what I wrote and I simply cannot live without it. I also
| cannot leave it unfinished as this would be a huge waste of
| effort. So I'll have to finish it, and only then think of porting
| it to other platforms.
|
| Right now I do not know even what do. Buy another 2015 one ?which
| could fall apart just as this one did? Buy new model? But which
| new model? They do not even have a model I need and looking at
| the quality of the shit I was counting on ... well, I see really
| no good options. Those with Touch-bars are unacceptable, smaller
| screens then 15 inch too. I would actually wish 17 inch for work
| in case some one sane from apple is reading. I wish model that
| have _all_ possible connections including USB3 which are still
| around a lot so I would not have to think about those stupid
| issues and concentrate on my work. And I have a lot of work. This
| is the way and how it _should be_ with a 'proper laptop'.
|
| Concentrate all _necessary_ ports_ on one left side at least pwr
| and video ports so I would not have dongkes or "Y" shape wires
| when you hold machine whike connected to external screen. Put
| only redundancy ports on the other side, and yes we need
| redundancy ports.
|
| Bring magsafe back, this was good as long as the cable is not
| cheap-made so it can band nicely if required.
|
| Having IRreceiver never hurts anyone especially those who have
| bought apple IR remote. I was using it when teaching tango for
| controlling music remotely so I do not have to run to the machine
| each time I wish to say something. It was so convenient, now for
| the same thing I had to make custom dongle with arduino.
|
| There is no need for huge trackpad, the previous size was good
| enough and calming because you do not worry about palm faulty
| touches.
|
| Half sized left/right keys where better then full sized, so you
| would not confuse them with alt-key. Why there is no ctrl on the
| right side? It inconsistent with left side and inconsistent with
| full-sized keyboards for muscle memory. And do not dare to remove
| it from big ones, please.
|
| Oh yes, and bring me back my line-in as separated socket! Big
| thanks to one 'smart genius' who removed it in 2015 model,
| combining it with phones port. Also this 'genius' made sure to
| activate it _only_ automatically with Apple headphones to create
| as much troubles as possible to connect my guitar on the go.
|
| More then that, when you connect phones to listen what you are
| recording, and already agree to stupidity of recording sketch
| through the mic instead of a proper line-in you cannot choose
| what mic to use. Thus you cannot choose one built-in , so you end
| up recording with mic on the phones wire near your neck hitting
| your shirt or guitar as you play. 'thank you very very very much'
| for that. It has spoiled many good moods.
|
| I wander about those who design those Mac Book Pro's ... did they
| ever tried their creations or thought forward about real life
| situations and applications ? Or after Jobs there is no one who
| can do it and see how laptop should function?
|
| If they so wish their touchbars, why not to put them _above_
| function keys ?! Make option to turn them off completely if
| required so they would not disturb at night or stand on the way.
| They never heard of people with muscle memory? It is that hard?
| Goodness, it's so obvious. I can go on and on ...
|
| I feel I was robbed really with this 2015 model, I wish I could
| use those money for something more useful ...
| nprateem wrote:
| Sort of the same here. I've used a mac for 7 years and when it
| dies I'll get a Windows machine and dual boot it. There's
| nothing keeping me on a mac and justifying the price. So long
| Apple
| georgebarnett wrote:
| Weird. My 2016 12" MacBook is still almost my favourite machine.
| I say almost because the M1's speed is _incredible_, but I do
| miss the smaller size and flatter keyboard.
| Xcelerate wrote:
| It's kind of funny, because the last laptop I purchased (and the
| one I am still using) was Apple's first retina MacBook Pro as
| soon as it was released in 2012. I've refused to upgrade since
| then because I felt that all of the newer MacBook's were inferior
| in some way. Now I'm finally thinking of upgrading again once the
| 16" is released, and it's sounding like the new laptop will look
| exactly like mine from 10 years ago.
|
| I'm not a fan of MagSafe though. It's always falling out whenever
| I slightly move my laptop around. And my thought with the
| touchbar is that they should replace it with physical keys,
| however, the keys should have tiny OLED displays beneath them.
| That way, if you want the function keys back, it will look at
| exactly like the rest of the keys on the keyboard, but if you
| want some other type of button, that's possible too.
| zymhan wrote:
| IMO the last model of a generation is usually the best wrt
| Apple laptops. They usually have more efficient processors that
| run cooler, at the least.
| shrimpx wrote:
| That 2012 laptop is amazing! I put an ssd in it and moved the
| original HDD into the CD slot for extra storage. Total
| powerhouse.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| I have even installed Big Sur on mine and it runs fine.
| (Needs a patch though)
| Pfhreak wrote:
| I am really happy that my macbook uses usb c. I'm sad to hear
| that it is going away.
|
| Today, my Mac interoperates with all my other devices, I can keep
| one charger running to the edge of the couch.
|
| It's not the end of the world to flip back to the magsafe, but
| it's definitely not ideal for me (and I suspect others.)
| emptyparadise wrote:
| I like the premise of a single universal port but over the
| years it turned out to be kind of bullshit because there is no
| single "USB Type C" - there's 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, USB4, Thunderbolt
| and god knows what else. There are all sorts of weird
| incompatible peripherals and even cables that at best will not
| work and at worst will fry your device. I like USB-C (whatever
| variety it is that allows for docks with display connectivity)
| as a docking port, but it failed to solve the connectivity
| problem otherwise - it's the same mess of weird ports
| underneath, but now without the ability to quickly guess with a
| good degree of confidence if a device will work with your
| computer or not based on the port shape.
|
| I think I'd much rather have both USB-C and standard
| USB-A/HDMI/SD card ports.
| genuine_smiles wrote:
| It's working for me. I like being able to plug my laptop,
| tablet, and switch into the same charger.
| emptyparadise wrote:
| Funny that you brought up the Switch, because its USB-C
| port is a huge mess: https://switchchargers.com/faq/ - you
| won't, for example, be able to use the same cable to
| connect both your laptop and your Switch to a monitor.
| You're also advised against using some laptop chargers. And
| so on.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| I had to do a bit a of research, but I found an hdmi
| dongle and charger that work with both my switch and my
| MacBook and it's been really nice for travelling.
| asiachick wrote:
| which charger does USB-C smart charging on 3 or more ports
| and can provide however many wats the new MBP needs while
| also charging the other devices?
| dwaite wrote:
| There are no chargers on the market that have multiple
| ports and over 100W output across those ports, so you are
| pretty close just plugging the MBP in and the other
| devices into the MBP ports.
|
| With PD 3.0, I believe manufacturers now have the
| _capability_ to do what you are talking about, but I
| don't know of any products yet.
|
| FWIW, the closest I've seen so far is Hyppr's 100W 2-port
| charger. I use this in my bedroom to have a phone/watch
| charging stand and a free USB-C cable for the iPad.
| However, it does a straight 45W split with two devices
| attached - neither the charging stand nor iPad need 45W
| though.
| dingaling wrote:
| There are several USB-C cables with magnetically-connected tips
| on AliExpress, it wouldn't seem too difficult to make a
| breakaway junction in a cable using that principle:
|
| https://m.aliexpress.com/item/4000374403062.html
| linux2647 wrote:
| Who's to say you couldn't have both? HN cynics aside, given
| that Apple is invested in USB-C/Thunderbolt, I would imagine
| that you could charge with either MagSafe or USB-C
| [deleted]
| Pfhreak wrote:
| This would be great.
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| There's some rumors that it'll have Magsafe _and_ USB-C.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| Bring back matte screens too.
|
| Glossy screens have been a disaster, not only ergonomically but
| also in terms of the never-ending "staingate" scandal of
| antireflective coating peeling off the screen.
| mozey wrote:
| Miss the matte screen on my 2008 MPB
| Mistri wrote:
| I'm excited about everything mentioned in the rumors, except for
| the "flat edge design similar to the iPhone 12". One of my
| favorite parts of the MacBook design is how easy it is to pick up
| off of a flat surface with one hand. The tapers help me slide my
| fingers underneath the computer to hold on. I feel like if there
| is a flat edge, it'll be hard to grip on the side unless you're
| using 2 hands.
| uncledave wrote:
| What is like is one robust enough to pick up by the top of the
| screen like the thinkpads.
|
| Also my Dell XPS is so bad if you pick it up by the corner of
| the unit it flexes enough for the touchpad to trigger clicks.
| Ugh.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Fair point.
|
| I do think that they have a team in place to make these
| decisions and the experience you're describing was thoroughly
| tested and designed already.
|
| One thing they're frequently berated for is an emphasis on
| visual aesthetics. But I think that's a misunderstanding - they
| design for function, and the aesthetic pleasure comes from that
| function.
|
| I suspect they will find a way to make these match the visual
| look that these leaks suggest, without abandoning what you're
| talking about. Probably with some tapered edge shape or
| something like that.
| keepingscore wrote:
| Was this team on holiday when they designed the mouse to have
| it's charging port on the bottom?
| bnj wrote:
| I have to wonder if that design came about because Apple
| didn't want people to leave the mouse plugged in all the
| time. It's the kind of reasoned institutional blunder that
| I feel like I encounter in my work life fairly often out of
| momentum and groupthink.
| kgermino wrote:
| I suspect the conversation was closer to "make it
| rechargeable, but don't change anything else."
|
| You obviously can make an Apple style mouse that plugged
| in sensibly, but that would require changing the case and
| internal layout. The way they did it the new battery and
| charge port fit in the space left by the old AA's.
| fastball wrote:
| They definitely have not been designing for function over
| form, at least while Jony Ive was there without Jobs to
| curtail his worst impulses.
| beyondcompute wrote:
| > ...universally hated butterfly keyboards.
|
| Not true. I would choose butterfly over a wobbly one (e.g. 2019
| Macbook Pro).
|
| > Nobody wants a dongle.
|
| Not true. I do agree that an SD card slot is convenient to have.
| But I have no significant problems using an adaptor. USB-A feels
| like a thing from the past to me. So I am not sure I would want
| it on the laptop.
|
| The HDMI is the only thing I would not mind to retain (because of
| overscan issues, etc.)
| jxdxbx wrote:
| The only ports I want to see on a modern laptop is just a bunch
| of fully capable USB C ports. An SD card slot would be fine, and
| if there's something like MagSafe, I'd want USB C charging to
| still be possible so I can just travel with a single kind of
| charger and cable.
|
| Lots of random USB-charging gadgets have switched to USB C. I
| like the idea of making USB A, one of the worst port designs of
| all time, die a slow painful death. I am very happy with my thumb
| drive-shaped portable card read that has USB C on one side and A
| on the other.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Let me introduce you to the db25 parallel port. How about the
| PS/2, which took about thirty seconds to align correctly.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I think everybody is forgetting that apple repurposed the name
| "MagSafe".
|
| I think "MagSafe and new ports" translate to having a magnetic
| area where you can place a iPhone 12 MagSafe charger or charge
| your iPhone 12.
|
| What new keyboard translate to, I have no good guesses, but I do
| have a feeling that if you think it'll be 2015 keyboard you're in
| for a disappointment.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I think everybody is forgetting that apple repurposed the
| name "MagSafe"._
|
| Well, they could trivially just multi-use it for all kinds of
| magnetic+safe ports, whether they are the round iPhone ones or
| the more traditional ones.
|
| > _What new keyboard translate to, I have no good guesses, but
| I do have a feeling that if you think it'll be 2015 keyboard
| you're in for a disappointment._
|
| They have already fixed the 2016-2019 keyboard issue in 2019
| models, so why would people be "in for a dissapointment"? It's
| not like they'll go back to the 2016-2019 era keyboard
| mechanisms...
| cpgonzalez wrote:
| The article's criticism of the 12-inch MacBook are preposterous.
| The 2 lb Macbook is the best laptop I've ever owned, by far.
| Maybe I'm too sensitive about weight, but I feel an incredible
| difference between 3 lb and 2 lb laptops, especially if its
| sitting on your lap for extended periods of time. The keyboard
| and charger have never once been a hindrance to my workflow, as
| the article makes it out be. I really wish Apple would come out
| with 2 lb laptops again. Latest line of Macbooks (the "Air")
| weigh in at 2.8 lb minimum.
| girvo wrote:
| While I find the performance just not up to par, I completely
| agree.
| emdowling wrote:
| Like everyone else, I love the MacBook 12. Give me one with a
| M-series, at the same (or less) weight, with Touch ID and the
| new keyboard. Like others, I don't need more than 1 port. Not
| discounting anyone else's need for it, but after living with it
| for a few years I really don't need additional ports.
| gambiting wrote:
| The thing is that while you might be reasonable about this,
| there seems to be a completely baffling number of people
| whose argument seems to be "I don't need it, therefore they
| shouldn't include it". It's like.....no one is forcing you to
| use these extra ports? But it's very nice to have them and
| some people will need them. If it doesn't increase the weight
| or thickness of the device(and it definitely doesn't to add
| another USB-C to the 12" MacBook) then I don't understand why
| some people literally treat it like some betrayal of what the
| device is.
| emdowling wrote:
| My entire point was that people decry a lack of ports as a
| specific downside of the MacBook 12 and, in my opinion,
| that wasn't an issue for me (or it seems several others).
|
| Not all products have to appeal to all people, and products
| involve hundreds of trade offs. If more ports doesn't mean
| increased weight or thickness, I'm not opposed!
| behnamoh wrote:
| I agree. Reading all these comments made me realize how
| selfish some people could be.
| wartijn_ wrote:
| I think that's a weird realization. Those other people
| don't use those port so they want everyone to have a
| MacBook without them. You want those port so you want
| everyone to have a MacBook without them.
|
| Or wanting either of those tings is selfish, and you
| should've realized that what you want is selfish, or both
| aren't.
| behnamoh wrote:
| You're wrong. What they want literally makes the MBP not
| usable for many others, whereas what I (and many others)
| want doesn't affect the usability/performance of the MBP
| for anyone.
| asiachick wrote:
| I agree I wish Apple would find a way to make a 16inch MBP
| weight 3lbs and an Air weigh 2lbs. It *seems* possible given an
| 12.9 inch iPad Pro only weighs 1.4lbs and other manufacturers
| have entries in that range.
|
| For whatever reason this idea always gets downvoted but I
| believe it will happen someday and every who downvoted will
| suddenly "get it".
| MrRiddle wrote:
| I assume they could do it, but by reducing battery life to
| what it was before.
|
| However, if you can't bare a laptop heavier than 2lbs may I
| suggest you're in the wrong line of work.
| least wrote:
| > It _seems_ possible given an 12.9 inch iPad Pro only weighs
| 1.4lbs The iPad Pro 's weight jumps up significantly if you
| have to add a keyboard and trackpad to the mix. Though
| personally I would welcome a tablet mac with no included
| keyboard since I use an ergonomic keyboard the vast majority
| of the time anyway.
|
| > and other manufacturers have entries in that range.
|
| The one that comes to mind is the LG Gram series, of which
| they make a lot of compromises in order to accomplish their
| weight goals. Opening up the chassis of the LG Gram 17 and 15
| you'll see a lot of empty space and a battery that is much
| smaller than it could accommodate. I think it'd be doable if
| apple made a 16 inch variant with the m1 chip in it but I'm
| not sure that you could without making similar compromises
| that LG does.
|
| Personally for a 16 inch laptop I'd rather have longer
| battery life and processing power which I think more closely
| aligns with people who prefer the larger form factor anyway.
| Still, it'd be nice to have options!
| deergomoo wrote:
| > I wish Apple would find a way to make a 16inch MBP weight
| 3lbs
|
| This could be reasonably possible with Apple silicon--well,
| maybe not 3lbs, but noticeably lighter than the current
| model.
|
| Part of the reason the 16" is so heavy is the 100Whr battery
| (which still manages to be woefully inadequate due to how
| much power the CPU sucks, let alone the GPU).
|
| The 13" ASi Pro has a 58Whr battery for "up to 17 hours" use,
| which seems to pan out to about 12-14 hours real-world usage.
| They could put that exact battery in an ASi 16" and it would
| still be leagues better than the "up to 11 hours" battery in
| the current model, which in my experience is actually 3-5
| hours.
| cehrlich wrote:
| The 12" MacBook was a fantastic computer. I used one from 2016
| until a few weeks ago. However many of the (perfectly
| reasonable) compromises that Apple made to build this tiny 12"
| ultraportable also ended up being applied to the rest of the
| product line, where they just don't make much sense.
| Specifically the 2016-2019 MacBook Pro were really affected by
| this.
| mobilio wrote:
| I also love MB 12!
| shrimpx wrote:
| Its drawback is poor performance but it's ok for basic use --
| surfing the web, typing docs and notes. I almost got one in
| 2015 if I could code in it but I tested it and it was way too
| sluggish.
|
| However a 12 inch MacBook M1 would be incredible.
| novok wrote:
| TBH I'm surprised apple didn't make the 12 macbook M1. The
| air is already fanless and the M1 chip is only 10W. I guess
| they really wanted to impress everyone with battery life
| numbers.
| jeppesen-io wrote:
| I can't upvote this enough. Everytime I pull out the MacBook 12
| I just feel joy using it
| beyondcompute wrote:
| Yes to the physical keys instead of touch bar!
| taf2 wrote:
| An SD card is useful things other than just cameras it also is a
| great thing for 3d printers. Yes some printers have usb and maybe
| I should spend a day or figuring out ocotoprint but I usually
| just use my SD card and get on with printing. My lap has a
| MacBook Pro 2015. It's both sturdy and has all the nice features
| plenty of usb-b ports and sd card slot... newer PCBs are finally
| shipping with usb c support but I don't see things like the
| teensy having usb c anytime soon...
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| No mention of user swappable batteries or repairability. :(
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| This is a really exciting development! Everything I miss from the
| 2013 MacBook Pro - no final word on what ports are being added or
| if they are bringing back the SD slot, but MagSafe, a working
| keyboard, and an escape key are themselves welcome.
|
| The touch bar ended up being completely useless except for
| muting/unmuting zoom calls and smashing the left hand side
| seventeen times in a row until it finally registers as an escape
| key - I guess Apple devs don't use vi. I was thrilled to have
| Touch ID at first but ultimately it only gets used in the control
| panel because apparently Apple doesn't let anything else use it.
| I largely stopped using u2f keys because it was too much of a
| pain to dig up a usb-a dongle and I didn't want to spend $50 on a
| usb-c form key that still doesn't work on iOS.
| awll wrote:
| If you are a vi user, you could consider using CTRL-[ instead
| of escape. I find this to be more comfortable and quicker to
| use anyways and you wouldn't need to use the touch bar anymore
| mozey wrote:
| I like mapping jk (and kj) to escape. For lefties I imagine
| df (and fd) would be more convenient. Both sequences are
| unlikely to appear in any words. They're on the home keys, so
| least effort to move your hands.
| https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Avoid_the_escape_key
| hatchnyc wrote:
| I use two MacBooks for programming for several hours each every
| single day, my personal machine has a touchbar, my work machine
| does not. I realize this is blasphemous to say and I did think I
| would hate the touchbar for all the reasons, but I actually ended
| up liking it.
|
| I had imagined myself tapping virtual function buttons and the
| whole thing seemed silly and useless and worse than having
| physical keys, but VS Code and other dev tools actually have good
| integration, and when I open an app like Adobe Illustrator which
| I don't use frequently enough to memorize all the hotkeys it's
| quite handy to have the commands listed.
| bebna wrote:
| nobody hates the touchbar, they hate that a row was sacrificed
| for it, instead of just adding it on top.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Please only speak on your behalf, not "everybody".
| netsharc wrote:
| Hospital PA: "Mr Art Lebedev to the design HQ please, Mr.
| Lebedev" https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/maximus/
| Jonovono wrote:
| Interesting, I would think most programmers touch type which at
| least for me make the touch bar useless. Since it's always
| changing I have to look down to see what button I am about to
| press. For me, if it's something common enough that the
| touchbars ability to change makes that functionality useful I
| would have found or made a keyboard shortcut for it.
|
| I just _upgraded_ from a MacBook pro to a MacBook air for the
| main reason it not having a touchbar, and it 's much better
| (for me)!
| hugey010 wrote:
| In many situations, you don't have to look at the touchbar to
| know what the keys are. For example, when using terminal, vim
| / ide emulation, I know left is Esc key. It does make
| spamming Esc feel less weird to me.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I wouldn't mind having a touch bar if that didn't imply not-
| having the physical F-keys row. I actually want both. And an
| additional, programmable row of physical keys if only this was
| possible :-)
| jessriedel wrote:
| Yea, what I really want is physical keys that travel but also
| have OLED screens built in on the top. Expensive, but best of
| both worlds.
| wwweston wrote:
| I wonder if e-ink might be better -- less energy, could work
| with a general keyboard backlight?
| skygazer wrote:
| I think e-ink requires a side-light rather than backlight,
| as the little spheres are opaque, with a dark side and a
| light side that physically reorient, meaning illumination
| from a backlight would have to somehow shine through the
| dark side, when the dark side faced the backlight, but be
| blocked by the dark side when it faced outward.
|
| Maybe someone can up with a UV transparent dark side and a
| fluorescing light side or something.
| escapecharacter wrote:
| I hope this is Apple's eventual goal; "expensive and best of
| both worlds" sounds exactly like something Apple would do.
| jessriedel wrote:
| Me too, but I'm not holding my breath. The idea has been
| out there for a long time.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard
| manicpolymath wrote:
| The Optimus Maximus keyboard showed why OLED was a bad
| choice for the keyboard. Chyrosran22 did a review of a
| used one that had severe burn in on all the keys.
|
| It would be interesting if someone could make a screen
| key cap that was compatible with Cherry MX or Alps
| switches. The problem is with communication and power
| delivery, though. Could NFC power a tiny E-Ink display?
|
| https://youtu.be/qj7GYU-wedo
| novok wrote:
| I think mini/micro LED displays are the future of making
| something like that work without burn in issues. They are
| small and flat enough that you could fit in whatever key
| you want to. There will be a lot more wires involved
| although, as each key cap will have a mini display in
| them in front of the switch, and I'd worry about that
| wire eventually breaking from the constant moving of that
| wire inside the keyboard key.
| gorbypark wrote:
| I'm pretty sure I've seen NFC powered eink displays
| before! Here's a random one after a quick Google search,
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/03/7-5-inch-e-ink-
| displ...
| FabHK wrote:
| There was a rumour 3 weeks ago that Apple was "Researching
| Keyboards With Adaptive Displays on Each Key":
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2020/12/29/apple-researching-
| keybo...
| usremane wrote:
| I still use my 2015 MacBook Pro. Built in hdmi port, card reader,
| USB ports, MagSafe charging.
| osipov wrote:
| same here. they are just super hard to get (even refurbished)
| and are still expensive.
| yarcob wrote:
| The nice thing about my 2015 Macbook Pro is that it's useful
| without any accessories. I can just throw it in a bag and walk
| out the door.
|
| It's got enough battery life that I usually don't need to bring a
| charger. It has all the ports that I ever need. I can hook it up
| to a projector with the built in HDMI port, I can put in the SD
| card from my camera, or I can quickly copy files from someones
| thumb drive. I don't need to think about bringing the right kind
| of cables for what I'm planning to do.
|
| Sure, the new Macs are a lot faster, but every Mac released after
| 2015 would be a downgrade for me.
| shrimpx wrote:
| My take is Jony Ive went extreme on form factor and totally
| lost his grip on users. He wanted an objectively perfect,
| extremely thin portless wireless machine. Now that he's gone
| the design team is descending from the Ivery tower and undoing
| his work, meeting users halfway again.
| weaksauce wrote:
| > He wanted an objectively perfect, extremely thin portless
| wireless machine.
|
| i mean that is the ipad pro with a keyboard. (not perfect
| comparison i guess but is closer to that ideal)
|
| The mbp is supposed to be for professionals and that comes
| with a need for flexibility and functionality. the quest for
| thinness was misguided in my opinion.
| novok wrote:
| The iPad Pro fails at many laptop-esque tasks. I tried
| during a vacation, and it was way more work and way slower
| than it needed to be, and it wasn't because it wasn't
| powerful enough, it was the OS. Dumping photos from an SD
| card with not apple photos ran into a lot of annoyances and
| was a lot slower than doing the same thing with a 5 year
| macbook pro at that point, something that is objectively
| slower in the CPU realm and were both using USB2 speed SD
| card readers of some sort. Not to mention iOS's hostility
| to backgroup apps, making my file syncing app need to be on
| the foreground all the time for it to sync my photos to my
| E2E encrypted cloud drive.
|
| A convertible M1 MacBook Air would probably be a better
| iPad Pro than that iPad Pro would be, and I think that is
| where apple is going with the "touch-size-ification" of
| macOS. iPad Procreate running full screen on a macOS
| convertable would give you %95 of the iPad experience TBH.
| A laptop is better than an iPad for videos and web browsing
| TBH.
| je42 wrote:
| Yeah i would be totally sold to a M2 macbook pro 2 in 1
| with decent GPU and Pen support. This enables to run
| things like blender with pen and other stuff.
|
| Right now, there are only windows 2 in 1 laptop which i
| find subpar on build quality.
| yarcob wrote:
| I really hope that you're right, but to be honest I'm not
| holding my breath.
|
| I also don't think the 2015 Macbooks were perfect, it's just
| that I don't care about any of the new things Apple has
| introduced. What I would really like would be a cellular
| modem so I don't have to bother with hotspots on the train
| and maybe a stylus for marking up screenshots.
|
| For my use cases, Apple expects me to carry a Macbook, an
| iPad, a stylus, and a pouch filled with dongles. I'm envious
| of the Windows folks, they get to have a single device that
| does it all.
| uncledave wrote:
| I just moved away from windows because while the devices do
| everything they don't work properly.
|
| I've now switched to a Mac Mini for a desktop and I use an
| 11" iPad Pro and apple pencil for everything that isn't
| code on the road.
|
| I've got to the age where I'm not sitting hunched over a
| laptop working for half a day and there's not much point in
| having a laptop if it's going to be docked all day.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| Why are you envious of Windows folks? Windows hardware is
| generally cheaper, so if you're using Macintosh, you could
| ostensibly afford Windows.
| vb6sp6 wrote:
| if your workflow depends on macOS then it doesn't matter
| how cheap windows is
| Kognito wrote:
| Given Apple have gone cellular with everything all the way
| down to the Watch, I'm always amazed they never included it
| in a Macbook.
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| What I don't understand is how a not user-centered idealist
| designer can reach the top in Apple, my thought has been
| Apple is already big enough to care more about innovation and
| experiment instead of current user need, or it's just their
| motto to influence users instead of listen to them.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| Yeah totally sounds like with Steve gone, there was nobody
| anchoring him to the ground.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Agreed. I wouldn't touch any post-2015 MBP, but I wish I had
| bought one with dedicated graphics card. With each new version
| of macOS, things have gotten so much slower and laggy, even
| though I have disabled almost every unnecessary process and app
| in the OS.
|
| The other day, I was working with a 2011 MBP with graphics crad
| and Chrome was much faster in that compared to my 2015 MBP. I
| think the graphics card does improve web surfing quite a bit.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| The dedicated graphics cards have a terrible feisgn flaw that
| burns 10-20W at idle when an external monitor is plugged in.
| This is a problem daily, while a non-dGPU laptop handles
| external monitor just fine.
| behnamoh wrote:
| No it doesn't. My MBP can't handle a 27 inch external
| monitor without putting so much pressure on the CPU. If it
| had a dedicated GPU, that would take care of video output
| and not make the mac drain its battery by having the CPU
| fans at +6500 RPM all the time.
| oneplane wrote:
| I have the 2015, 2017 and a 2020 and they are pretty much all
| the same that way. None need a power source for normal
| workdays, I don't have a camera that needs to have memory cards
| swapped out, and all presenter displays are either ClickShare
| or AppleTV and thus wireless. I don't accept random mass
| storage devices, and for those few times that I do want one I
| use a multiport adapter which works with both the 2015 and all
| the newer ones (USB-C and USB-A connectors), which I also use
| for when WiFi is down and you need Ethernet. It's not much
| bigger than any Ethernet adapter anyway.
| gxnxcxcx wrote:
| The 2015 MBP is also the last one that still has built-in
| optical audio output, via mini-TOSLINK.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| An HDMI cable is an accessory.
|
| CompactFlash card doesn't fit in an SD port.
| yarcob wrote:
| Almost every place that has a projector also has an HDMI
| cable installed.
|
| I haven't used a CF card in the last 10 years or so, but SD
| cards show up frequently. (Cameras, Rasberry Pi, Prusa 3D
| printers). For the Raspberry Pi I needed to use an adaptor
| because it uses smaller cards, but still better than no card
| reader at all.
|
| But of course that's just my experience. If you use CF a lot,
| an SD slot won't help.
| DWakefield wrote:
| Any projector setup worth having would have an HDMI cable
| ready for you.
|
| A 5.25" floppy diskette won't fit an a CompactFlash slot.
|
| What's your point? I can come up with silly excuses too.
| spijdar wrote:
| It's great that the built in ports cover all your needs, but my
| experience with laptops has been more complicated.
|
| You use a projector as an example of a use for your HDMI port.
| In my limited experience doing presentations, I've run across a
| mixture of HDMI, VGA, and even DisplayPort for some reason.
|
| Once, even though I was using a Dell Precision with built in
| HDMI and VGA, I ended up using a usb-c dongle with combo
| HDMI+VGA+DP ports I keep in my bag. My coworker had to wait for
| someone to get a more specific passive converter for their
| laptop which didn't have usb-c.
|
| Obviously YMMV, but I've found the combo of usb-c plus a
| compact multi port adapter to be indispensable, even on a
| laptop with a crap-ton of ports.
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