How's the touchpad? What's kept me on Apple is the ability to actually use the MacBook Pro as a portable computer, not just a crappy desktop you can drag between the power and mouse+keyboard stations that you need to get work done without swearing at it constantly or frowning while you watch the battery life indicator plummet.
The keyboard and port situations are both pushing the MacBook far enough out of that "close the lid and go, no worries" sweet spot it used to fall so solidly into that I'm eyeing other options, but I have some very bad memories of both battery life and trackpads on non-Apple machines, and my (limited!) interactions with such more recently haven't made me optimistic.
I'll agree with you on the keyboard, and even the heat issues.. but the mac trackpad is the main reason I'm still on a macbook pro. I also like the better display. However, Lenovo was a pretty bad actor just this past year. Beyond that, I happen to like the metal chasis on the MBP, though I'd really love to see anodized aluminum in either black or oher colors available... but then I'd also like to get user servicable batteries, memory and standard drives again.
It's funny, but the touchpad is what kept me on a MBP for my late 2014 purchase... love the touchpad... not sure if I can stomach it again when I get another laptop, as everything else I like about mac has either gotten stale, soldered on, or simply not providing enough value to justify the cost.
I absolutely love the Macbook touchpad, the keyboard has gotten subjectively worse since around 2010 though imho. The only reason I bought my macbook (around 2015) is because of the touchpad (and screen) and while some laptops had equally good screens or mildly better keyboards the touchpad was lacking. Still hoping for a better hardware alternative in the future (that doesn't cost an arm and a leg) I don't think I'll throw down $3500 on a laptop again either.
I have a handful of laptops but by far my most reliable have been my macbook pros. I'm writing this on a mid-2010 mbp that's run like a champ since day one. I also have a 2014 mbp for work, but I really like the 2010. It's not a skinny ultra-portable but it's not a tank either. It only runs hot when I have it hooked up to a large display. Eight years with no notable problems for a daily driver is pretty good in my eyes.
I agree completely on the touchpad. I picked up an XPS13 that I'd intended to use as a replacement. The touchpad is as good as I've had on a non-Apple product, but it's still not on par with Apple. On the otherhand I've started playing with OpenBSD with ratpoison & qutebroswser and it's pretty remarkable how far you can get without a touchpad at all.
A couple years ago I wouldn't have considered anything but an mbp, but with the recent touchbar and butterfly keyboard shenanigans I would absolutely consider something other than an mbp. I hope Apple comes to recognize that reliability is more important than super skinny unrepairable machines.
The touchbar model of the Macbook Pros must be the most divisive piece of hardware created this decade.
I actually love the new Macbook Pro. I had a 2011 and 2013 MBP, but both died. In the interim (2015 or so), I purchased a Dell XPS 13” Developer Edition that came loaded with Ubuntu. It was a pretty good machine, but I longed for the MBP. When the new model finally came out, I was unimpressed. I didn’t want to pay top dollar for an older model, but I couldn’t type on the new keyboard. Regardless, I purchased it, and eventually gave the computer to my wife.
Then I got a new job, and they offered Windows or Mac. I chose the Mac, and lo and behold, I was given the same computer I had before. And now I love the damn thing.
Granted, most of my time is spent at my desk with an external monitor, external keyboard, and external mouse. But I’ve found that I no longer hate the keyboard. In fact, I quite like it. I surprised myself there.
I still don’t love the touchbar though. I think that was a swing and a miss from Apple.
My current Macbook Pro is probably the first bit of Apple hardware in two decades that's made me actively consider alternatives. It's been the one laptop - premium at that - from Apple which I've had continual frustrations with compared to its predecessor, for all the reasons listed above.
I love USB-C, but not for power. Already, two of my ports are loose. I've never had that on any previous Apple power connector. MagSafe was a brilliant solution to real problems, and just dropping it without a superior alternative is not at all what I expect from Apple.
I also like the universality of USB-C, but it's not like Apple didn't opt to keep one legacy port for usability reasons - that little headphone port. SD and HDMI would have been enough.
And yes, the keyboard is terrible. For a machine I spend all day on, designed for pros, its a disappointment. Like most people here, it always takes me a little time to adapt to a new keyboard; unlike in the past, after more than a year I still loathe this one.
Perhaps the only thing that doesn't bring out my inner rage is the Touchbar. I'm largely ambivalent about it - the lack of esc/f-keys was annoying for a few days but I adapted. Obviously, others disagree, but on this list its the one choice I could have found a way to rationalize.
I have a required MBPro for work. I actually like the keyboard, although mine isn't broken yet. I don't like the change to the arrow keys though, I keep fumbling with them.
The touchbar is dumb and should just go. No physical escape key is such a braindead move it makes me lose respect for Apple.
Magsafe I'm kind of mixed on. Magsafe was awesome, but it also got super hot -- so hot that I'd have to change how I was sitting on the bed or couch. Haven't had that problem with the USB one.
The lack of ports is dumb too. My previous macbook was plenty light -- I don't need a thinner/lighter laptop. But thank god they left in the audio jack.
The ginormous trackpad is another braindead move. Do all Apple designers have tiny hands?
I have a 13" macbook pro touchbar (~2500 bucks with warranty!). I've had it for about 4.5-5 weeks or so.
I LOVE my Apple laptops, and have NO problem paying a premium for them. They have been excellent, and every member of my family is outfitted wth an Apple computer. The IT distraction time since I switched everyone has been pretty much NIL.
I took it on a trip that was 16 days, or I would have returned it (14 day return policy). Now I'm thinking about dumping it on eBay.
Here is why:
* The battery life for a developer is terrible. I consistently get between 3-4 hours of battery life when developing, at best. It's probably 2 hours less than my old 2013 Macbook Pro 15.
* The touchbar is not an improvement. I'm constantly hitting back in browsers as my hand is large and brushes against the bar. It has also crashed on me multiple times when watching long videos, which means I can't mute or adjust the volume when someone calls (that's when I find out it's dusted itself). My experience is that it does a lot of accidental stuff because it exposes a lot of functionality that normally requires explicit input as casual input, so zooming around youtube videos and losing your spot, triggering Siri (yes, I turn it off eventually), accidentally muting with a simple touch, etc, are all super easy mistakes to make. I preferred it when my machine's behavior was predictable. The major issue is that thus far there is no upside for this downside — there are no killer features for the bar (even the volume, rather than giving you more granular controls, uses the old sound register stop points rather than moving to a 99% scale as would be obviously intuitive given the interface — just plain dumb design from Apple honestly). Similar to my experiences with Siri, it's not making my life better.
* It's not faster in practical applications, and in fact takes a while to recover compared to my old laptop (a lot of waiting to type on the login screen), though it's not particular noticeable.
* The arrow keys are utterly terrible. For a developer, they are a fail. Why Apple needed to kill those essential buttons (for games, dev, etc) is beyond my comprehension. The keyboard is definitely better, but the arrow key situation is a mess.
* I have to keep my phone plugged in all the time, which means I have a dongle on my laptop pretty much permanently. This is dumb.
* The loss of the magsafe adapter has already caused my laptop to scoot right off the couch twice when animals and kids are around. Why? Why would you kill this and especially go back to a port than can be damaged with basic use? This just violates common sense.
What is better:
* The screen is sweet. I absolutely love it.
* The keyboard is awesome for touch typists.
* The touch pad is really the best I've ever used.
* The dark grey color is attractive.
I've also heard rumors that Apple has merged their macOS team into their main engineering / iOS teams or some such. Not what I wanted to hear, and totally not the direction that would keep me loyal to the company.
Overall, it's worse. And the features that have been added do not redeem the laptop (which is totally what almost every Apple device has done for me — I was stunned). This is the first time it's genuinely a step in the wrong direction. Though I haven't seen any discussion of it, I believe Apple made many of the mistakes it has made with the Apple watch on the Macbook Pro, but that may be because Apple added an Apple Watch to the Macbook Pro. It's solving problems I don't have, and therefore providing me with products that don't possess essential utility and therefore don't meaningfully improve my life or provide me with a "sense of better being," which is what graduated design at it's best can do. This is a big, big mistake, and exactly how Apple lost it's way the first time around.
I don't want to discount your experience by any means. And there's no denying that the price is very steep for the new MBP. But, other than price, I'm really satisfied with the new 15" MBP.
In particular, I do actually really appreciate the larger trackpad. But I'm a heavy user of BetterTouchTool and have always regarded the trackpads as one of the main reasons to get a MacBook. I don't even bother with three-finger drag now thanks to the size of the trackpad.
I think the Touch Bar should be considered for what it is: a replacement for static function keys. Apple of course hyped it like they hype everything. But considered realistically in context I consider it a success. I actually do use it some. Some of the simplest things work the best; for instance, I really like the options presented when taking a screenshot. I also enjoy using it for music control, scrubbing through music, and switching between music sources (including YouTube tabs). Nothing revolutionary, but then again, how could it ever be given what it is?
meh.. we've heard all this many times, most comes down to personal preference. the only point i can relate to is that i don't feel like touchbar is very useful. otherwise imo it's still the best laptop on the market hardware-wise (and software but that's a very different debate).
the main question for me is why on earth are you buying macbook pro if you think it's shit? it's not like you can't go to apple store and try a keyboard or notice the lack of escape key or the size of arrow keys? it's really puzzling.
I'm convinced that the UI and more importantly the touchpad is what really drives continued interest in MBPs as developer laptops. If another vendor makes a solid touchpad Apple might suffer a bit. I've yet to find one that comes close.
I did take a close look at the Surface Pro. Sorry, the build quality is nowhere near a MacBook Pro. Secondly, I found the touch screen very gimmicky. I tried using it for a week and found that my hand just hurt lifting it up repeatedly and also hated switching context from the keyboard to the screen. Not to mention, the screen was full of smudge marks after awhile.
To be honest, I really found myself using the keyboard and touchpad the most on the Surface and when you think about it, the MacBook Pro has the best touch pad. I think Apple needs to do some minor things to get the MacBook Pro back on track:
- Fix the battery issue. They really need to fix that from a hardware perspective. Also, the OS needs to be optimized to preserve battery. The burden can't be fully on hardware.
- Put magsafe back or some sort of USB-C magsafe solution.
- Bump the specs. The whole point of the Pro is it is leap years ahead of everyone on processor, HD, and RAM.
- The keyboard is getting better, but I still think it needs more travel time.
- The screen could be further to the edges a bit for a more modern look.
- The ports. Look, I get it, you want to embrace the future but then please include free cables to help in the transition. A power extension cable was not even included in this MacBook pro release, that is just sad.
I have yet to use a touchpad that works as well as a macbook's... which is pretty sad at this point.. I understand they reduced the travel of the keys and touchpad in the late 2014 releases though... That and the display are the two main reasons I got an rMBP (right before the new models last year)... but may well go with something else in a couple years.
Yep. I actually looked around for alternatives, something that I haven't done in years, but I haven't seen anything else more compelling. If you want a laptop with 16 GB of RAM, HiDPI screen, a discrete GPU and 10 hours of battery life, then there really aren't very many choices. So yeah, the new MacBook Pro still looks like a pretty good options for developers.
I am surprised about them dumping MagSafe, because it's a superior power option to USB-C. And it's also surprising that they didn't include at least one USB-A port for compatibility, but that's a minor issue in the grand scheme of things. The touch bar I am actually excited about for what it's worth. There's a lot of developers out there that still use the mouse for a lot of actions in their editor / IDE because they can't be bothered to learn the keyboard shortcuts. When those IDEs start to embrace the TouchBar it will make a lot of their lives easier by surfacing actions like stepping through a debugger, refactoring, etc.
So on the whole I really don't see that Apple is abandoning developers. I just look at what Microsoft is doing with the Surface line and I wish that Apple was investing more heavily in the same direction.
Yep. I switched from a Macbook Pro and I definitely miss the touch pad.
But I don't miss the keyboard. Or the touchbar. Or the hotkey layout. Or the operating system. Or not being able to upgrade my hard drive when I needed to.
I'd be interested in MBP sales figures from the batch of MacBooks with the new keyboard/touch bar.
From my perspective, despite a whole host of issues, very few people seem to have actually moved away from Mac's. I hear a lot of grumbling, but you only need to look at this thread to see people claim that the MBP is the best professional-grade laptop available today, when the issues with the OS, the keyboard, and the touch bar indicate that this hasn't been the case for years.
I assumed that for this reason Apple would have stuck with their design choice, and would iterate over time - unless there has been a significant enough drop in sales.
I ended up buying a new 2017 15 inch MacBook Pro and it's really been not that bad. Yes, you have to use a USB-A to USB-C dongle here and there but at least for my daily use, it's not been terribly inconvenient. The machine is light and thin and I enjoy it immensely, although I'm a little scared about the keyboard (so far no problems). Touchbar?... meh. Neither like not dislike.
I don't know. I understand the new MacBooks are not perfect for everybody but for me it has been more than OK, and I love the huge trackpad. I feel like a lot of the criticism seems excessive or are complaints that could very well be applied to the sad state of the PC industry as a whole.
I currently have a 15" mid-2015 MBP, and I use the DisplayPort, HDMI, and USB-A ports on a daily basis. Losing the ports doesn't bother me too much, but similarly priced or cheaper laptops don't ask me compromise there. On the other hand the battery life, touchpad, and keyboard will be absolutely stellar or I'm not buying it, especially in this price range. Again, others ask me to compromise less. While Apple still has the best touchpads in the industry, others are catching up. Meanwhile, Apple has regressed in several ways
I had a fully loaded P15 three years ago - I can't really comment on trackpad - I only use it in rare situations like traveling and doing work in a coffee shop where I can't really pull out a mouse. Keyboard was great but then again I use a BT keyboard and an external monitor 90% of the time anyway. I switched from that machine to a fully loaded i9 2018 MBP - and while that's more portable and has a better screen the thermals and the performance is waay off, not to mention this thing sounds like a jet plane about to take off as soon as I start a VM and play a video. Also the keyboard is utter garbage in comparison.
It's a chunky device and I haven't checked out the lates ones, but if I wanted a portable workstation with a great keyboard I would get another one for sure. Right now I'm leaning towards getting a desktop and a ultraportable I can use to SSH to the desktop when I need to work on the go - but the HW market is a joke right now, I'm probably going to wait it out till Q3/Q4.
The keyboard and port situations are both pushing the MacBook far enough out of that "close the lid and go, no worries" sweet spot it used to fall so solidly into that I'm eyeing other options, but I have some very bad memories of both battery life and trackpads on non-Apple machines, and my (limited!) interactions with such more recently haven't made me optimistic.
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