[HN Gopher] Apple October Event [video]
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Apple October Event [video]
Author : ch_sm
Score : 66 points
Date : 2021-10-18 17:03 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| asimpletune wrote:
| So, as far as I can tell, they listened to every single complaint
| people had about the last generation of pro Macs. These are in
| every meaning of the word pro machines. Now, they're so pro, I
| can't imagine why anyone would need one, unless they do multi-
| media professionally, or work exclusively in Xcode.
|
| I can't even believe they compromised on size and weight in order
| to deliver something more pro. It's a complaint I've been hearing
| for years, how people would gladly accept a bigger laptop if it
| were a "true" pro machine. Well, wishes granted.
|
| Edit: (quick comparison in thickness and weight) Previous MB Pros
| were (respectively):
|
| * 15.49mm/1.49kg
|
| * 16.51mm/1.95kg
|
| New M1 Pro Macs are:
|
| * 15.49mm/1.65kg
|
| * 16.67mm/2.1kg (or 2.2kg for the "max")
| laurent92 wrote:
| Unfortunately, they compromised on price. A 16GB version is
| immediately 3000EUR in Europe, which is a lot for a less well-
| off area than USA.
| nzp wrote:
| I just compared some prices in Italy.
|
| * Lowest spec 14 inch MBP (16/512 GB) 2349EUR
|
| * 15 inch XPS, i9, 16/512 GB, RTX 3050 Ti, maxed out screen
| (with Windows Home, heh) - 2849EUR, this computer is a joke
| compared to what we can expect from even the cheapest 14 MBP
|
| * For a bit more fairer comparison, an XPS 17, i9 16/512 GB,
| RTX 3060, maxed screen (still with Windows Home) - 3549EUR,
| but even this probably can't hold a candle to the cheapest 14
| MBP
|
| For reference, an almost maxed out 16 MBP (4 TB disk, instead
| of 8) is 5559EUR, a maxed out 17 inch XPS 4999EUR. I think
| Apple has been more than fair with prices in this case. These
| machines are usually bought as tools, a business expense,
| it's not much in the grand scheme of things.
| nomel wrote:
| So, 0 and 160um thickness change, or around _two human hairs_
| thicker.
|
| And 160g and 150g weight change, or one iPhone mini heavier.
| One iPhone Pro Max heavier for the for "max" version.
|
| Personally, I don't think I would notice.
| [deleted]
| incrudible wrote:
| I can't believe they're doubling down on the notch. The absolute
| best thing I can say about the iPhone notch is: I don't hate it
| enough to switch to Android. It's by far the thing that bothers
| me the most about the design. It's ugly and lacking harmony with
| the UI.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| I don't understand why you'd have an issue with it? The screen
| area cuts into the previous gen's bezel so, at worst, you'd
| just black out the top of the screen to have the exact same
| screen size as before and, at best, you can use the extra
| display for things like the menu bar. What's the issue?
| incrudible wrote:
| If you don't "get it" just by looking at it, then good for
| you. There are no technical arguments to make me "unsee" it.
| It's ugly. It displeases my sense of aesthetics. It's the
| Hitler mustache of industrial design.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| >It displeases my sense of aesthetics.
|
| Or lack thereof.
| incrudible wrote:
| No, you!
|
| Seriously, look at the promo images that _Apple_ created
| for this product:
|
| https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/
|
| The vast majority of these images hide the notch by not
| showing the menu bar at all, which is not how a Mac is
| generally used. The other images make it less noticable
| by putting it over a dark background. Does that convey
| confidence in the design, by the _designers_ that were
| tasked to make it look good?
|
| The best thing you can say is: It's not _that_ noticeable
| under certain conditions.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Or, you know, under nearly every normal use case, it will
| just blend into the display. It causes no issues on the
| iPhones and looks just fine for what it is and,
| aesthetically, I'd prefer to have the slight bit of extra
| screen space for status icons and menus as opposed to a
| larger bevel. I don't see you proposing any better, more
| aesthetically pleasing solution, only complaining.
| incrudible wrote:
| > I don't see you proposing any better, more
| aesthetically pleasing solution, only complaining.
|
| How about _not_ having a notch, like literally every
| other Apple (and non-Apple) laptop? Is that even
| conceivable?
| zepto wrote:
| If you think a useless bar of metal at the top of your
| screen instead of useful display area is attractive then
| sure.
| laurent92 wrote:
| The notch reminds me of Macron:
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DO0bQ83UMAAUabp.jpg:large
|
| It's not only a joke, it's also that once you see it, you
| understand that the aesthetics of a notch aren't based in
| sleek features, but in function-over-form.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| What's the other option? Under the screen has image quality
| issues. A thicker bezel means less screen space. Sticking up
| over the display is a worse compromise. Putting it on the
| bottom of the display really isn't ideal.
|
| For most people, the only thing it covers is the menu bar.
| incrudible wrote:
| > Under the screen has image quality issues.
|
| I don't care. You need to process the hell out of a selfie
| image so you don't look like a goblin anyway. I'm sure the ML
| wizards at Apple can figure this out.
|
| > A thicker bezel means less screen space.
|
| The notch _is_ a huge bezel with cutouts.
|
| > Sticking up over the display is a worse compromise. Putting
| it on the bottom of the display really isn't ideal.
|
| I agree.
|
| > For most people, the only thing it covers is the menu bar.
|
| It's not about what it covers, it's about harmony. A small
| hole is also superior, though most Android phones do not get
| the positioning right either. No, I don't care about Face ID,
| especially in the era of COVID. A finger print reader on the
| side or on the back is superior.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > No, I don't care about Face ID, especially in the era of
| COVID. A finger print reader on the side or on the back is
| superior.
|
| Conveniently, these have a fingerprint reader still on the
| device.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > The notch is a huge bezel with cutouts.
|
| The notch is a tiny part of _what remains_ of the previous
| bezel. That space isn 't usable on an older M1 MBP, either.
| incrudible wrote:
| It's not about _usable space_. It 's about the look. A
| smaller bezel doesn't lead to a better appearance by
| itself, but even then I'm sure they could've made the
| bezel smaller either way. However, the notch isn't made
| to be of minimal size. It's intrusive. It's telling me:
| I'm here, deal with it.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| Maybe someone can make an extension that will keep the
| rows where the notch lives black, and tell the OS that
| those rows aren't there. Problem solved.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > It's not about usable space.
|
| Why shouldn't it be?
|
| That space was black on the old MBP. It's black on the
| new MBP. I've now got two newly usable strips where the
| bezel used to be. The top menu bar is already left/right
| split, so it fits fairly naturally in there; my movies
| won't be any bigger or smaller with it.
|
| I went from iPhone SE to 13 and the notch there was a
| nothingburger. Thirty seconds after the "oh right,
| there's a notch" it's mostly forgotten.
| s3r3nity wrote:
| It's a much better compromise than the pop-up selfie cameras
| that were a fad for a sec, but then died because of the extra
| compromises needed for water resistance, battery, extra motor,
| etc.
| adrusi wrote:
| The pop-up cameras proved reliable and I used a OnePlus 7 Pro
| for two years, and found it adequately water resistant (good
| enough for me to give it a rinse in the sink every now and
| then).
|
| The internal space that the module occupied was the only real
| disadvantage of the pop-up camera, restricting the space
| available for the battery. Although I didn't have any
| complaints about the battery life of this phone.
| hu3 wrote:
| There are under-display cameras these days.
|
| https://www.smartprix.com/bytes/under-display-camera-phones/
| wmf wrote:
| And reviews say they're terrible.
| hu3 wrote:
| Of all tech giants, I expect Apple to improve the status
| quo the most. They are really good at it.
| quirino wrote:
| It's very likely they'll include an option to have a black bar
| at the top of the screen, so that the notch is not visible.
| With the new Mini-LED screen it will be hopefully be dark
| enough to hide it well.
| kingcharles wrote:
| The notch is a transition technology. Suck it up now and in a
| couple of years the camera and other sensors should all be
| behind the screen like they are on the more out-there Android
| devices right now.
| katsura wrote:
| Not to mention that I, for example, have the top bar
| automatically hidden on my mac. Meaning, if I ever decided to
| buy one of these, I'd have to have it always shown, or I won't
| be able to click on some of my browser tabs?
|
| How does full screen mode work with this, I wonder?
| dkonofalski wrote:
| I would imagine that it letterboxes the display for any apps
| that don't support the extended display.
| emsy wrote:
| Hopefully they will stop the mouse at the letterbox border,
| otherwise it would be terrible UX.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| I would imagine that this would be determined on an
| application level. Some apps may want a fullscreen
| version that has controls at the top.
| xoa wrote:
| However one feels about extra usable screen space in iDevices,
| doesn't seem like as big a deal on the Mac. macOS has and has
| always had the core menu bar taking up the entire top of the
| screen. And even with a significant number of user menubar add-
| ons, the middle is often blank space since the menus from the
| left and add-ons from the right don't meet. Eyeballing the
| resolutions (about 1.54:1) it looks like this is pure gain,
| they took previous dead space and turned it into screen then
| stuck the general fixed UI element in there, with the camera
| taking up what is commonly blank space. Seems pretty function-
| driving-form as it should be.
|
| Also, particularly given the new improved local dimming, for
| any content that wants a plain rectangle (video, games) seems
| like just blacking the menu bar area will work well. Macs
| aren't rotating devices either, so the notch is _always_ going
| to be in the same semi-dead-space spot and easy to work around.
| That 's quite different than iOS devices (even the iPad). And
| even with Apple's regrettable increasing of barriers to
| modifiability, on macOS there remains plenty of freedom to do
| UX adjustments and for developers to do whatever they want
| outside of Apple's rules. IIRC for example Apple forbid just
| "hiding" the notch with black on iDevices at least initially,
| but no such issues here. So overall really doesn't seem like
| it's a problem in this case, even for those who are fairly
| bothered on phones/tablets. A Mac screen isn't bad for it.
|
| And of course, part of the highlighted point of these new
| machines is being able to drive a bunch of external displays
| too.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| I think I stopped "seeing" the notch a few days after upgrading
| to a model with one. It is not "there" for me cognitively.
|
| I imagine the same will be true with a notched laptop display,
| especially if it is "hiding" in the menu bar.
|
| But I am also surprised it's so big, I wonder if once you
| commit to notching there is a minimum width that becomes harder
| to mask perceptually...
| twalla wrote:
| The M1 stuff is amazing but it's kind of a sad state of affairs
| when I'm unreasonably happy about having things (decent keyboard,
| connectivity) that should be table stakes for a professional
| level laptop.
|
| Mostly just bummed that we appear to have traded one gimmick -
| the touchbar, for another - the notch.
| acchow wrote:
| The notch is a design tradeoff, not a gimmick.
| incrudible wrote:
| It _is_ a gimmick. There are laptops with slim bezels, HD
| cameras and _no_ notch whatsoever. If it was a tradeoff, they
| would 've made it smaller. It's a branding effort. Remember,
| they're referring to the notch as _iconic_.
| acchow wrote:
| Wouldn't removing the notch require either the bezel to
| become wider or the display thickness to increase to fit
| the camera hardware? The older macbooks just have a wider
| bezel and that's where the camera goes. Which laptops have
| neither?
|
| This new macbook has a 3.5mm bezel and achieves it with the
| camera in the "notch". By comparison, the thinnest non-mac
| bezel I've seen is the Huawei Matebook at 4.4mm but it puts
| in the camera _in the keyboard_ facing upwards towards your
| face (awkward angle "nosecam"). Which means your fingers
| can show up in the camera if you're typing during a video
| call.
| zepto wrote:
| Which laptops are you thinking of?
| fdgsdfogijq wrote:
| The cynic in me wants to dismiss the leaps and bounds of the M1
| chips. The reality is I own one of these laptops and am
| constantly surprised at how much better it is than the intel
| chips. Its going to be hard not to turn my current M1 laptop in
| and upgrade to the newer M1 Max.
| weatherlight wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. I really like my 14 inch M1. the M1Max
| specwise seems insane.
| rewgs wrote:
| I think you mean 13 inch. The 14 inch today is the first 14
| inch model they've released.
| terramex wrote:
| Interesting to see them going back to human curated Apple Music
| playlists. They started that way when they rebranded Beats Music
| and it was amazing, but once they switched to ""AI""
| recommendations their quality tanked massively and I cancelled my
| subscription few weeks later.
|
| Might give them another chance now.
| m_ke wrote:
| Seeing them promote another subscription is kind of sad.
|
| Would have been nice to see them announce a new ipod nano so
| that I could stop having to strap a tablet sized phone to my
| arm when I go to exercise.
| sand500 wrote:
| They would rather you buy apple watch + airpods
| m_ke wrote:
| I have both, unfortunately I can't store any music on the
| watch unless I use apple music.
| sand500 wrote:
| sounds like WAI
| realityking wrote:
| Spotify now also allows downloading music to the Apple
| Watch https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-05-21/enjoy-more-
| ways-than...
| asimpletune wrote:
| The way that Apple has scaled the original M1 architecture to the
| M1 Pro/Pro Max bodes extremely well for the future.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| This has always been the thing to watch for me -- performance
| on its own hasn't been equivalent to "best of the best" (one of
| these new laptops isn't going to be beating a 3090), but what
| they're doing is being done in such a smaller thermal envelope
| that nothing really compares.
| lemonade5117 wrote:
| Am I the only one bothered by the thickness? I mean, the new macs
| are going to be amazing machines but....it's just so un-Apple,
| you know? Still, gonna pick one up as soon as I can :)
| vestrigi wrote:
| I thought it looked thicker too but it turns out the new models
| are even 0.01cm thinner (if you want to call it that).
| lemonade5117 wrote:
| Oh wow, it certainly doesn't look that way but the new ones
| actually are thinner. That's interesting.
| 1ibsq wrote:
| I'm not bothered about it and if that's the space they need to
| put their tech into it, then this is it. Would be a shame if
| anyone would make something thinner on the cost of tech specs.
| Not that that ever happened...
| nomel wrote:
| I can't imagine many people would be bothered by 0.160mm
| greater thickness, for the larger model. The smaller model is
| the same thickness.
| bettysdiagnose wrote:
| Personally not. They've been optimising for thinness at the
| cost of pro-ness for too long I think. This seems like a more
| sensible balance to me.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| Hard agree. I've been mildly on the side of "enough with
| losing features in pursuit of thinness" for a good while, and
| while I appreciate the heft of my 13", I'll let them worry
| about that for the next New Thing when it comes in Goldest
| Gold.
|
| For now, magsafe! HDMI! A keyboard that works!!!
| weaksauce wrote:
| I'd much rather them make it a little thicker and have better
| cooling and features.
| rewgs wrote:
| Absolutely not. The 16 inch is a huge laptop even if it's thin.
| Might as well make it a touch thicker if it means better
| thermals/battery life.
| lifty wrote:
| Apple store is crashing after this event.
| notwhereyouare wrote:
| Looks like they are bringing back the HDMI port and sd card slot
| on the pro. Wonder if they got enough complaints about those I/Os
| being missing on a "pro" machine
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Adding more value by taking away less and bringing back more.
| m_ke wrote:
| Not a notch!
| s3r3nity wrote:
| no one cares
| incrudible wrote:
| I do care about it a lot.
| TheRealNGenius wrote:
| good 4 u
| m_ke wrote:
| As a developer with a mobile app all of the different notches
| have been a pain to deal with.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| The notch gets a "meh" from me. I mostly use my MBP with
| everything in fullscreen and a hidden menubar. However, this
| does come with a thinner bezel and extends the screen into that
| bezel space so it's kind of a wash. It still beats the 1.5" top
| bezel (with the camera) on my work laptops (HPs).
| moepstar wrote:
| Speaking of Apple:
|
| Hetzner is going live _tomorrow_ with hosted M1 Mac Minis for
| 49EUR excl. VAT (same added for setup) - available at
| https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-apple (link
| is not live at the time of writing, probably either at midnight
| CEST or early morning tomorrow)
|
| Quote from their forums: Get ready for Apple Mac mini M1 (2020)
| with 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD and optional 2x 1 TB NVMe SSD.
| Svetlitski wrote:
| The specs on the new MacBook Pro are incredible, especially
| considering people were already blown away by the performance of
| the first M1 MacBook. It's a seriously powerful machine. And the
| additional ports are a _very_ welcome change.
| friedman23 wrote:
| This laptop seems to have 0 compromises, I'm buying one
| instantly.
| protomyth wrote:
| It has a notch. That is one heck of a compromise.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I tend to be hypercritical of Apple these days, and even I'm
| excited about this machine. Removing the touchbar, bringing
| back MagSafe, useful ports, etc. vastly overshadows the
| notch.
| asimpletune wrote:
| Is it? I think the notch is just where the menu already is,
| so it's sort of a moot point. I'd love if my current Mac
| camera were integrated into the space that I already use for
| the menu bar.
| katsura wrote:
| Some people, like me, have the top menu bar on auto-hide.
| So, the notch there is definitely not a universally good
| thing.
| twalla wrote:
| I pretty much live in a fullscreen tmux session and a
| fullscreen browser window so the notch is pretty lame in my
| opinion, maybe iterm can put some fun stats or a clock
| there but to me it's basically like 2 lines of lost screen
| real estate - not enough to dissuade me from getting it
| since they put the touch bar where it belongs (the trash),
| added real ports and fixed the keyboard.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| From the screenshots and images, it won't impact users
| like us. When in fullscreen with a hidden menubar, the
| area left and right of the notch goes black. It's exactly
| like the current situation in that case, and the only
| benefit is that when you choose to view the menubar it
| doesn't eat into the space occupied by the program-in-
| use.
| sliken wrote:
| Yes, in a menu bar you typically can't control and usually
| has a few icons (battery, wifi, date, bluetooth, VPN) and a
| few words, something like Outlook, file, edit, view, message,
| format, tools, window, help).
|
| I watched in side of several apps I used and never saw
| anything useful in the top center.
| GcVmvNhBsU wrote:
| How is that a compromise? You either have a massive black bar
| at the top of the laptop, or a small notch that allows for
| more screen real estate.
| drdaeman wrote:
| I suspect this notch is going to be a problem for a
| significant number of full-screen applications that never
| assumed there would be something like that.
|
| Although that'd be probably mostly games, and I don't think
| notch is going to be a primary issue for those.
| robertoandred wrote:
| I'm sure old fullscreen apps won't even be told about the
| new areas at the top of the screen. They'll just think
| they're on a regular 16x10 display.
| mholm wrote:
| It was mentioned in the keynote that you can disable the
| entire top region of the screen that aligns with the
| notch. That makes this equivalent to any notchless
| laptop.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I love this take. It's the ultimate HN critique.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Finally, the touch bar of the Macbook is gone.
| weatherlight wrote:
| I'm going to miss it :( i know that's super unpopular and
| understand why people don't like it.
| drdaeman wrote:
| Me too. I'm not sure I'll get this new hardware or look for a
| different laptop, but I'm going to miss the touch bar.
|
| It was incredible for volume and brightness control,
| occasional uncommon characters input and switching between
| application tabs.
|
| Yea, it sucked really hard when I needed F-keys, but it had
| its utility. Honestly, it was a bad idea as a replacement for
| the F-keys - it should've rather been a separate addition
| above those. It's not like there isn't enough space for both
| on a 16" chassis.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Same. I absolutely loved it for video and audio editing but I
| can understand why most people didn't like it. The new Intel
| commercials where they try to pass off a few laptops as
| Macbooks and then "surprise" the people when they're not Macs
| just reinforced for me how stupid a touchscreen on a laptop
| is.
| drdaeman wrote:
| Touchscreen is not that bad for laptops that can transform
| into a tablet, but that's a fairly different class of
| devices.
| rvz wrote:
| ...and the dreaded notch is back. Time to wait again.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Curious as to why? You get more screen real estate with the
| notch and, at worst, you have the same display size as
| before? What's the issue?
| rvz wrote:
| Not only the notch is an absolute disaster, the thickness
| is at most; woeful.
|
| The CPUs are outstanding, but that laptop itself is a
| monstrosity from the 2006 Macbook Pro days. Finally the
| price makes it even more disappointing for what is on
| offer.
|
| Another missed opportunity.
| kgermino wrote:
| I'm not bothered by the notch, but I understand people
| having different aesthetic preferences. Thickness seems
| like an odd complaint though. As far as I can tell they
| are about the same thickness as the previous models (1.55
| cm). Am I missing something?
| selectodude wrote:
| Get a MacBook Air then?
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Oh, notch you again. I'd rather they had a camera slide up from
| behind but am not sure how a good idea that is either, moving
| parts are fragile..
|
| Oh well, at least the machine is performant and they got rid of
| the fancy but useless touch bar.
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(page generated 2021-10-18 23:02 UTC)