Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/05/apple-introduces-first-8-core-macbook-pro-the-fastest-mac-notebook-ever/

by css • 7 years ago

674 1033 7 years ago

apple.com

ddon• 7 years ago

and looks like the same problematic keyboard :-/

Zhenya• 7 years ago

Where did you see the photo of the keyboard?

alexgaribay• 7 years ago

It's a new generation of the keyboard. Hopefully it turns out to be way more reliable.

kimi2• 7 years ago

It would be a major achievement to make it less reliable. I have had computers for ~40 years now, and none had a keyboard as bad as the one I'm using now (MBP13, 2018).

michaelmior• 7 years ago

It's really frustrating and I don't really want to go without my machine for the time it would take to fix. Unshaky has really helped in making my keyboard usable. It basically detects and eliminates duplicate keypresses within a configurable threshold for each key.

https://unshaky.nestederror.com/

fredsted• 7 years ago

To me it’s absolutely insane that people have gone to the lengths of actually writing software in order to fix a very basic issue with an extremely expensive luxury product of the worlds largest company. One in this thread mentioned using tape to cover up the Touch Bar in order to avoid triggering it accidentally!

Apple ducked up big time with the post-2015 generation MacBooks, and it was caused by the weird hunt for thinness and gimmicky features which nobody want from a professional portable workstation.

"Thinner than a 2015 MacBook Pro" is last on most people’s wishlists. What good is a thin laptop if the keyboard fails and the performance you pay for can't be used since the operating temperature is too high?

It says a lot about a company when a large amount of customers just don’t care for the new features and they just want the new performance in the old form factor.

It’s like the ones who made the current generation never uses a laptop, and has no idea about how people are actually using the product.

MBCook4• 7 years ago

They changed something in it and claim it’s fixed (yet again). We’ll see how it shakes out.

But if you don’t like butterfly keyboards... yep, still butterfly even if it’s reliable now.

mtmail• 7 years ago

https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/21/apple-announces-new-macboo...

"Today, however, [Apple] told me that they’re taking three explicit steps to help with the keyboard situation. 1. The MacBook Pro keyboard mechanism has had a materials change in the mechanism. [...]"

Eric_WVGG• 7 years ago

Big news to me is that replacements of older butterfly keyboards (program extended again) will receive new 4th-generation keyboards. Previously if you brought a 1st-gen in, you'd get a new 1st-gen keyboard.

velcrovan• 7 years ago

The articles make clear that only 3rd-gen replacements (the ones with last year's new membrane) will get today’s new keyboards. 1st and 2nd-gen customers are still stuck (no pun intended) with their original problem designs.

ordinaryradical• 7 years ago

This is the real announcement, to be honest. 8 cores is a convenient smokescreen, and they clearly don't want to talk about how borked their product is at WWDC so they are dropping the keyboard update with this news like it's a detail when it's actually the real story.

These shitty keyboards cast a shadow over the whole product line. If they didn't fix it the third time around, it's time to abandon the damn mechanism and accept that thicc computers can be beautiful, too.

lostlogin3• 7 years ago

If they didn't fix it the third time around, it's time to abandon the damn mechanism and accept that thicc computers can be beautiful, too.

The crazy thing is that it was/is. Who didn’t love it?

gshulegaard• 7 years ago

The other thing I would question is whether or not the cooling is sufficient as well. 8 cores doesn't mean much if you can't keep them working at a reasonable clock.

pfranz8• 7 years ago

Ehh, fixing the keyboards (assuming its fixed--they've said the same thing 2 or 3 times now) and hopefully the monitor cable only addresses the literally broken things about the new laptops and ignores the other things people prefer the 2015 for. Although multi-core is nice to see, it still maxes out at 32G--without an option to upgrade later, either.

It still looks to have the same camera I had in my 2009 MBP...this can't be a cost/space/engineering thing since iPhones exist. I don't care if it's higher res. Make it higher quality and less noisy. I genuinely miss charging and battery LEDs they removed from the case (and magsafe). I've plugged in my laptop overnight only to find it never charged once or twice. I see the touchbar causing more problems than it solves.

I'm actually disappointed. I was hoping whatever next Macbook Pro they released would be a significant update or offer more compelling things.

burtonator2• 7 years ago

They didn't fix it.. it still has the god damn touch bar.

It's like they're trying to be as stupid as possible.

thsowers• 7 years ago

Wish there was an option to buy a 15 inch with no touch bar. I cannot find any suitable use for it on my current model, and I often hit items inadvertently due to the lack of tactile feedback

neural_thing• 7 years ago

I just want a MBP that is a late 2013 body with modern hardware inside it. I know there are many others like me.

tomca322• 7 years ago

This so much. I would have upgraded at least twice already if that was an option. Sadly, it isn't and that's why I still use a pretty old model hoping it doesn't get too obsolete soon.

klodolph2• 7 years ago

Are you sure you wouldn't rather have the 2008-2012 body? It's a bit easier to upgrade or repair.

(At work I have a 15" MBP with the 2013 body. I'm eligible for upgrading it, but what would I replace it with that could possibly be better? Literally the only downside that I care about is the fact that most conference rooms at work no longer have magsafes lying around.)

HeWhoLurksLate• 7 years ago

It's probably time to start banging the ThinkPad drum again, but first they need to put their RAM back in sockets.

fit2rule• 7 years ago

GPD Pocket Max.

ForrestN• 7 years ago

Obviously all humans are different but this has never happened to me, not even once. I use it often and would be annoyed to go back.

I would love to see real data about the Touch Bar, but sadly it’ll never get released. So we are all left to private theories and speculation and anecdotes.

reaperducer• 7 years ago

I have this problem, but the reason I think it's a problem is that I have to switch back-and-forth between a number of machines, some with touchbars, and some without.

Just this month I got matching external keyboards for all, and it's been much easier having one set of muscle memory no matter what I'm doing.

rdl• 7 years ago

I would pay +$500 happily for that as a CTO config. Retaining the touchid button would be nice but not critical. I'd pay +$1000 for mechanical top row plus faceid.

My problem is that due to wrist injury I angle my left hand enough that my pinky finger sometimes touches esc or other areas. I have remapped the touch bar but not having esc where I want it also sucks. Mechanical keys don't actuate merely on touch, so this is only a problem on apple.

I'm considering remapping caps lock to esc and then putting tape over the touchbar, at least on the left side, to reduce sensitivity

post_break• 7 years ago

I wish there was an option to get the current specs into the 2015 macbook pro so I could avoid the keyboard.

asark3• 7 years ago

Same problem here. Turns out one of my fingers brushes the area just above the number keys when performing certain modifier-key stretches. Never noticed it before, since it's not an issue with real buttons. Try locking it to only the main view (no per-app views) in the settings, then customize it to remove almost everything from it. Only way I was able to make it tolerable.

somatic• 7 years ago

Not only does Apple offer no option to buy a 15 inch with a full keyboard, they’ve also failed to upgrade the 13 inch model with this refresh.

WTF, honestly.

coldtea2• 7 years ago

This refresh was about the new high-end 8-core processors. Why would they update the "13 inch model" now?

bluedino5• 7 years ago

Well, the 13" they offer with the full keyboard hasn't been updated since 2017 if that makes you feel any better. Or worse.

carlmcqueen• 7 years ago

while software driven, there is a program you can get called Haptic Touch Bar, which vibrates when you hit the touchbar buttons.

Not perfect, but at least sort of helpful.

The main point, let me have a nice version without the touchbar is shared.

sambroner2• 7 years ago

How does that work? I thought the haptic feedback is only in the trackpad.

elsonrodriguez• 7 years ago

Just tried this. Makes the touch bar much more usable.

This makes me confident they'll add haptic feedback in the next Macbook.

nothis2• 7 years ago

I never got why, if they really want the touch bar, they don't do both. F-keys and touch bar. I kinda would have welcomed this because the "fn" key is a horrible presence on any laptop keyboard anyway and I'd happily would have seen them delegate screen brightness and audio to the touch bar as a separate input.

bitwize• 7 years ago

My guess is that Apple is using the idiot bar as a trial balloon for abolishing physical keyboards altogether in favor of a touch interface (perhaps one with reconfigurable raised bumps for keys).

duskwuff• 7 years ago

Getting away from Fn entirely is tough -- it's still useful as a way of simulating keys like PgUp/PgDn/Home/End (Fn+arrows) and forward delete (Fn+Backspace).

nordsieck• 7 years ago

I never got why, if they really want the touch bar, they don't do both. F-keys and touch bar.

That would consume room for the touchpad.

andyfleming3• 7 years ago

I've been using MacBook Pro's with the touch bar for a while now, but I just picked up a MacBook Air (in addition to my MacBook Pro). It has a mechanical top row, with just the Touch ID button at the end and it's fantastic. It's so nice to have those keys back! I would pay $100 extra for a MacBook Pro without the touch bar.

Here's the keyboard in all its glory (if you're curious): https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/M...

TimTheTinker6• 7 years ago

I actually really like the touch bar. I'd enjoy my 2016 MBP if it wasn't for the 2 keys that are now unreliable on the keyboard. That and the fact that it crashes every time the battery runs out.

swozey12• 7 years ago

This is exactly I want. A function row with just touchid..

coldtea2• 7 years ago

No touch bar + better keyboard.

whateveracct2• 7 years ago

https://github.com/niw/HapticKey

lukifer3• 7 years ago

Cool, thanks for sharing! (Seems like a missed opportunity that Apple didn't add their own built-in haptics to the TouchBar.)

VectorLock2• 7 years ago

I feel like this is such a common refrain and yet when a maker like System76 tries to enter this market they still still fuck it all up by jamming a number pad in the side. Why do they all do this?

acomjean• 7 years ago

System76 is using OEM gaming laptops, so are probably a little limited in what they can do. They keys are slightly smaller (I think), but I have gotten used to them. I do like having the number pad though.

The only thing I'm missing in my mac -> linux conversion, is lightroom (it seems to process raw files better). I'm getting better at the linux equivalent "darktable". I sometimes feel I would pay for software on linux to get a polished experience.

legohead• 7 years ago

it's not responsive enough either. maybe I have a light touch, but I never had problems with the physical keyboard before. many times I go to pause my music or change volume and the buttons don't register for 2 or 3 presses.

I thought the ESC key was going to be annoying, but it has ended up being everything else.

also the huge trackpad is annoying. at home with the laptop on my lap I hit the edges all the time and send the mouse flying. had to turn off "hot corners" because I kept locking my laptop randomly.

rasfincher2• 7 years ago

When I first got mine I found it fun to customize using BetterTouchTool, but I quickly realized it was no replacement for having hardware buttons. I miss them so much.

orcasauce• 7 years ago

I've refused my 3-year upgrade and fear the day I'll need a replacement for my late 2015 macbook. It's sad being stranded on hardware that is starting to show its age when the newer devices leave little to be desired from a usability standpoint. It also hurts that any replacement will be incompatible with my $150 dock.

protomyth• 7 years ago

Yeah, we are really down on the touch bar because one failed hard and another crashed so it showed nothing. It was quite the irritating thing. The keyboards are just a failure.

I actually wish they had a touch id sensor on the back of the display like some Android phones so it is accessible when I have the machine plugged into a display.

I really, really don't want thinner. I want the glued in battery banned, and a replaceable keyboard with ability to clean and replace the keys. I guess I just want a different definition of Pro.

dzhiurgis4• 7 years ago

Also I'd love an option without external GPU. GPU switching is still slow and occasionally buggy, wastes power and has no benefit for me when writing any app.

slezyr• 7 years ago

Apple introduces first 8-core MacBook Pro, the fastest Mac notebook ever

You can use phrase "the fastest Mac notebook ever" each year when a new notebook released.

copperx8• 7 years ago

They don't even have to release a new model.

lostlogin3• 7 years ago

We really wish they would though.

scarface747• 7 years ago

Oddly enough though, in 2014, they introduced Mac Minis that were slower than the previous generation.

yumraj• 7 years ago

That's how they launch the best iPhone ever every year.

r3bl• 7 years ago

Apple is well-known for never talking about competition. They like to pretend it doesn't exist and only compare their products to the previous series.

gk1• 7 years ago

I don't get why companies keep using this phrase... Of course the new model is "the best ever," so why even say it.

vernie• 7 years ago

Great, no need for a new Mac Pro!

clarry• 7 years ago

Still using Intel CPUs, judging by the fine print.

chrisseaton• 7 years ago

It'd be massive news if they weren't - you'd be hearing about that first not having to look for it in the small print.

MBCook4• 7 years ago

They won’t switch without a period for developers to get ready, like the PPC to Intel transition.

timw4mail2• 7 years ago

Switching to AMD shouldn't require anything from a developer.

jamesu• 7 years ago

I too am still waiting for the mythical bitcode powered 100 core ARM MacBook here.

aidos• 7 years ago

Is it possible to get them without the touchbar? I’ve pounded my poor old MacBook (2013) into submission and the bottom row of keys are starting to not work intermittently. We’ve got a bunch of the newer machines in the office and I just can’t get on with that keyboard and touchbar.

ericabiz4• 7 years ago

I strongly feel you would be better off getting the keyboard replaced in your MBP 2013 than upgrading to a new MacBook. (See my post history/other comments on this thread for my background and a more thorough explanation.) A keyboard upgrade would be around $200 or less—check local shops near you for price quotes.

CommanderData• 7 years ago

Any news on their broken keyboard design?

I might bite if they've fixed this. Oh and no touch bar.

MBCook4• 7 years ago

They claim (again) to have fixed it.

Not worth buying until we have at LEAST a few months of experience to see if they really did this time.

wlesieutre• 7 years ago

The MacBook Pro keyboard mechanism has had a materials change in the mechanism. Apple says that this new keyboard mechanism composition will substantially reduce the double type/no type issue. Apple will not specify what it has done, but doubtless tear-downs of the keyboard will reveal what has been updated.

They say it's improved. But check back in a year or so to see if it works, because the 3rd gen revisions didn't end up fixing it before.

If you have a 3rd gen butterfly keyboard, replacements will now use the 4th gen.

If you have a 1st or 2nd, they'll continue to replace the failing keyboards with more failing keyboards. Lucky me!

In other news for the 2016 MBP, there's a new repair extension program for the "Oops we made the display ribbon cable too short" issue. Haven't had that problem myself, but this was an expensive goddamn laptop and I'm not optimistic about its resale value or lifespan after the 4 year repair window is up. Multiple known design flaws that cost $600-$800, and in the keyboard's case are just putting in more of the same failure-prone parts.

swozey12• 7 years ago

These used to excite me because I've desperately needed 32gb and faster procs and used to upgrade every 2-3 years but now I just yawn at MBP releases. I'm so unexcited by everything about this form factor other than the fact that it has OSX. I'm guessing I'll be on my 2016 until I finally bite the bullet and quit using OSX if they don't make a more compelling package to spend my $3k on in the next few years.

I don't want thinner. I don't want a touchbar. I don't want this oversized touchpad I touch constantly when it's on my lap. I don't want this terrible keyboard solution required due to the desire for thinness. I don't want to carry 3 USBC dongles or to buy a $350 USBC hub at every single desk I have with monitors (home, work). I want a bigger battery. I want more ports. I want less bezel. I want a chassis that doesn't scratch and dent.

skierguy• 7 years ago

I thought the same thing. Now I'm stuck with a $1500 Asus laptop that barely plays Netflix a year and a half later. despite an 7th gen i7 and 16gb of DDR4. Now I'm saving up for a Macbook Pro again, despite my hatred for the keyboard and touchbar.

hu32• 7 years ago

I'd have tried a Dell XPS or Surface Pro.

ValentineC• 7 years ago

Now I'm stuck with a $1500 Asus laptop that barely plays Netflix a year and a half later. despite an 7th gen i7 and 16gb of DDR4.

Any idea what's wrong with it?

ubercow132• 7 years ago

Why does it barely play Netflix? Why would a Macbook be better?

superhuzza• 7 years ago

Bizzare, my $800 Asus from 2013 still plays Netflix just fine. But I did swap in an SSD and replaced the battery once.

ericabiz4• 7 years ago

Does it have a SSD in it? Unfortunately some manufacturers like to spec out everything except a SSD. If it doesn’t, and especially if they stuck you with a hybrid drive (ugh), upgrade to a SSD and it should perform well again. It will certainly be an order of magnitude cheaper than a new laptop, too.

rayiner8• 7 years ago

Same here. Replaced my MacBook Pro with an X1 Carbon last summer. Short circuiting my usual 2-year upgrade cycle and buying whatever Apple releases this fall.

polygot• 7 years ago

Check for thermal throttling. Dust can severely slow down a laptop, even though task manager says that it is only using 10% of the CPU.

johnsea• 7 years ago

Sorry to say, but you should have bought a Dell or Lenovo. -- On the other hand I think something is wrong with your Asus, this can't be.

neogodless• 7 years ago

Like others said, what?

Anything unique about it? Are you running Windows 10? Latest updates? Need any driver updates? (Most drivers are updated by Windows but a few, like graphics/network sometimes benefit from checking yourself.)

Are you running a (really) resource intensive anti-virus program?

I own an $800 Asus gaming laptop and a $700 Asus ultrabook. One with 7th gen i7 and 16GB DDR. The other with 8th gen i7 and 16GB DDR. One has SATA SSD and other NVMe SSD. One is 1 year old. The other is 2 years old.

Both of them can run Visual Studio Professional, VS Code, Netflix, Hulu, StarCraft 2. Both are very fast and a joy to use. One is heavy; the other is light!

If it has a 5400 rpm hard drive, consider getting a 2.5" SSD to replace it, and use software to clone the drive. (Although it kind of sounds like you could use a fresh install.)

jodrellblank• 7 years ago

From this long discussion a couple of months ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19415185 ), this comment is about fans spinning up:

in order to eek out a tenth of a gigahertz for their marketing materials (with rapidly diminishing returns because physics), manufacturers usually set Turbo Boost Power Limits 5-10 (or more) watts too high. Since Turbo Boost usually maximizes a single core's frequency and the heat generated increases exponentially, it creates a very concentrated heat spike in the silicon. Even if the CPU heat sink is good enough to passively dissipate that much heat from all of the cores, the turbo boost hot spot forces the fans to spin up early before the CPU knows how long the boost will be needed (otherwise Turbo boost would significantly reduce the lifetime of the CPU). Combined with random scheduled OS tasks that take a split second of turbo to run a process [..]

This could also apply to thermal throttling of the CPU. Imagine if your laptop is on that edge, with some dust in the heatsinks and fans, then a can of compressed air and an install of ThrottleStop (or other software) to underclock a little and reduce the maximum boost frequency, and thereby reduce thermal throttling, might make it run smoother and faster-on-average.

Or another possibility:

If your fan is spinning up when scrolling in Slack it's likely an indication that Electron (Chrome) is refusing to use the GPU for rendering acceleration. This is likely either due to a driver issue or the driver/gpu being on chrome's blacklist. I had this problem once on a hackintosh and as I recall starting Slack from a terminal with the `--ignore-gpu-blacklist` option fixed it.

If you NetFlix from Chrome, that might be worth a try, or upgrade/downgrade display drivers for testing. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19415775 )

An i7 that could stream video, should still be able to stream video. If it can't, something has gone wrong, and should be traceable and fixable.

hamburglar5• 7 years ago

"I don't want thinner" is really what apple needs to hear.

Thinner means you take away my ports so I have to carry dongles. Yes, I'd actually love to have at least one old-fashioned USB2 port. I know, I'm insane, but USB2 devices didn't exactly disappear just because USB-C is great. I still have a lot of them.

Thinner means you take away magsafe, which is one of those great "gosh, apple is so clever" features that's very, very useful.

Thinner means you give me a keyboard which, at best, completely sucks (layout, feel) and at worst, can't actually do its job because of reliability problems.

Thinner means I could have more battery life.

I'm literally carrying around TWO 2015 MBPs on a daily basis right now and it's TOTALLY FINE, APPLE. I'm not dying over the weight or amount of space they take up. I hardly even notice. For what developers do with laptops, thinner is way down on the priority list. I wish you'd listen to us.

Also: I literally have no use for the touchbar that isn't perfectly handled by function keys, and I hit ESC 1000 times a day because I'm a vim user. Why do you hate me?

Please just release a mac that looks exactly like a 2015 MBP with an i9 and some USB-C ports, and I will be lining up to throw $3k at you. As is, I'm getting as much life out of my 2015's as I possibly can (they're running great, btw, but I doubt they'll make it to your next refresh if it's 3 years away). When they finally die, if the only MBPs available have garbage keyboards and touchbars, I will grudgingly stop being a Mac user.

Mindwipe6• 7 years ago

Thinner means you take away my ports so I have to carry dongles.

I'm not sure it does really. The modern MacBook Air chassis is the same size as the old one. But it's lost Magsafe, a useful keyboard, USB-A, it's lost a port on the 13 inch, and no SD card slot.

Apple hasn't got rid of these things for thinness. It's gotten rid of them because of a misguided belief that the replacements are better than the loss of flexibility, or just plain working.

Apple are wrong about these things. But the problem is much more fundamentally that Apple seems to have lost it's ability to engineer well and it's judgement about how to please it's Mac customers. Thinness is just a symptom.

oftenwrong• 7 years ago

and I hit ESC 1000 times a day because I'm a vim user

Do yourself a favour:

https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Map_caps_lock_to_escape_in_macOS

AtHeartEngineer• 7 years ago

Agreed, the keyboard is awful. I just want a decent/good keyboard, an HDMI port, and just 1 USB A port, I'll definitely take 0.5mm thicker for those. Well, at least they kept the headphone jack...

32gb ram and an 8 core processor is awesome, but all the downsides have turned me away from getting the next gen unless they fix those things.

yodsanklai• 7 years ago

Agreed, the keyboard is awful.

I don't really get the hate for these keyboards. I benchmarked my typing speed on my 2019 MBP and a few other keyboards, I didn't notice any significant difference. Just a keyboard...

ggregoire• 7 years ago

I love the keyboard.

kllrnohj2• 7 years ago

an 8 core processor is awesome

Yeah but there's no way this thing has the thermal or power capacity to actually run that 8-core CPU at its rated specs. This already happened with the 6-core in the previous gen, and it certainly doesn't look like Apple did anything to improve thermal capacity in this refresh. Hopefully they at least addressed the lack of VRM power delivery, but that doesn't seem likely.

So you're taking a platform that was already pushed past its thermal & power capacities, and increased the thermal & power load by another 30% (keep in mind these are all still on Intel's 14nm that hasn't really changed, so no efficiency improvements here). Maybe the reviews will be surprising, but I wouldn't bet on it.

btian• 7 years ago

Have you found it?

2018 Macbook Pro is 3mm thinner than 2015 MBP.

0.5mm for all the things you asked for sounds really hard.

sprite• 7 years ago

Completely agreed. I’m on my 2016 max spec. Need to take it in for keyboard repair at some point and I’ve barely used the keyboard as I’m using external keyboard and monitors 99% of the time. If they offered the new one with an option to get it without the Touch Bar and old style keyboard that alone would be an instant buy for me.

stephenr7• 7 years ago

I don’t get the touch pad complaint (I don’t agree with the others either but that’s a boring worn out argument) - macOS has had excellent “accidental touch” detection in my experience.

swozey12• 7 years ago

So I come from the weird world of Thinkpad point-stick users so take my ergo desires with a grain of salt if you hate that thing. I don't like having to use a buttonless touchpad to begin with and while the MBP touchpad is the best I've ever used I loved it on my 2015 and despise how large it is on the 2016 I've got now. I do EVERYTHING I can to not use this laptop as a laptop. It's keyboard and touchpad experience are just awful, well, the keyboards awful, the touchpad size is just an annoyance.

When I sit with the laptop on my lap, like on the couch, I find that I'm constantly adjusting things to not touch it. Whether it's my jacket or a blanket or my phone cable or my own hand. I just constantly trigger it and I'm sure I have it on the lowest sensitivity with palm rejection. I'm pretty sure even when I'm on a desk I'm constantly adjusting where my arms are because it's getting triggered (or I just feel like I have to pay attention to it).

FWIW, I dislike every single Apple keyboard, mouse and touchpad ever created and refuse to use them to the point that I bring my own kb/mouse to work because every job hands me those. I have tried them, at times, for months.

tomxor• 7 years ago

don't want thinner. I don't want a touchbar. I don't want this oversized touchpad I touch constantly when it's on my lap. I don't want this terrible keyboard solution required due to the desire for thinness. I don't want to carry 3 USBC dongles or to buy a $350 USBC hub at every single desk I have with monitors (home, work).

You may not realize it yet, but you are no longer Apple's market. Do your future self a favor and figure out how to transition to something sustainable.

Apple used to make computers that were both elegant and practical... But the iphone taught execs that there is a much more profitable market willing to pay through the roof for extremely stylish looking computers at the cost of _everything_ else, they will keep going further down this road because there is plenty of demand. Apple now sell gorgeous Ferraris, but the kind that will drive you insane and are not actually useful or comfortable for anything other than showing off.

The good news is that sexy PC laptops now exist, and some of them are still actually practical too! better yet some of those sexy practical laptops run Linux! Well!

andbberger• 7 years ago

Have you considered just getting a workstation and doing everything on it via ssh?

Guess it depends on what kind of stuff you do. I adopted that workflow years ago out of necessity (need to routinely do some heavy lifting) and will never go back.

jdashg• 7 years ago

Woah, are they leading the market into 8c (16t?) notebooks? They lagged most vendors in shipping 6c notebooks previously.

wmf• 7 years ago

Lenovo already announced the 8C Thinkpad X1 Extreme although it isn't shipping yet.

joshfraser• 7 years ago

If only there was a way to buy it without that stupid touch bar.

scarface747• 7 years ago

I just can’t see myself spending that much on a laptop. I can’t productively use my laptop for day to day use without connecting it to two external monitors and keyboard anyway.

You can get an 8 Core 27 inch 5K iMac $100 cheaper, with less thermal constraints.

Sure I would take one if my company paid for it.

swozey12• 7 years ago

Having one desktop-powerful machine that can turn into a laptop when you unplug it from its dock and go with me anywhere is well worth the extra $100. And I'm saying this as someone with a dedicated desktop just for rendering/games. The desktop gives me customization and upgradability but the fact that I lose portability is huge and I'll never, ever own just a desktop machine. I'd prefer to own a laptop that can do my desktop duties when docked.

dharma13• 7 years ago

that's the theory, but in real life the macbook won't sustain 5ghz for very long at all, even less so with 8 cores. It simply can't get rid of the heat fast enough and throttles the speed to stay under thermal limits (while still toasting your balls).

The situation isn't helped by the GPU inside the same slim mbpro chassis that also gets super hot, it's particularly bad when you run mixed CPU/GPU workloads like rendering. So your desktop ends up being much faster for continuous workloads, even if on paper they both have 8-core 5ghz CPUs.

I had the 2018 6-core i9 mbpro. Got rid of it, if I were to buy a new mbpro again I would get a 4-core one.

Traster• 7 years ago

Are the new 8-core CPUs fast enough to make them faster than the old CPUs were before all the Intel bugs? Or are we just ponying up more cash for the same level of performance?

no1youknowz• 7 years ago

As someone who is desperately wanting to upgrade from a mid-2012. I say big deal.

No better display like oled. Looks like the same keyboard to me. Oh the material has changed? Who cares, it's the same failing mechanism. More CPU eh? Means it'll just get hotter much quicker and there will be more throttling to be fixed via software.

At this rate, for Apple to get my $$$ again they'll have to release a 16" [oled] macbook pro, with a redesigned keyboard and arm chipset so that the body is entirely cool even under load.

Maybe in 2022 I can see myself buying another macbook pro. Man, I can't wait till Tim Cook gets replaced. We need another visionary at he helm of Apple. Someone who will push the envelope again!

tomca322• 7 years ago

The thing is, they don't even need to push the envelope. I would have been happy with a classic MBP with upgraded hardware but without USB C ports and no touchbar.

It's just that they keep introducing stupid, useless gimmicks.

asark3• 7 years ago

IMO they needed one transitional design where they replaced the thunderbolt (is that right? I get all their storm-named ports mixed up) ports, and maybe the charger port if they must, with USB-C, but kept HDMI and at least one USB-A. I use the SDCARD port all the time but I could see their getting rid of it. The other stuff? Gimme a break, going all USB-C from a state of no USB-C? WTF was I supposed to plug into it without an adapter or buying all new peripherals and drives?

dawnerd3• 7 years ago

OLED is not a very good idea for a computer monitor currently with their pretty bad image retention. Go look at the iPhones at Best Buy. You can see they have pretty bad retention (unless your Best Buy is good and replaces the phones often).

djsumdog• 7 years ago

Yea, this is the reason there aren't any OLED PC monitors (unless you count that one portable one that's overpriced and has terrible color reproduction)

jazoom2• 7 years ago

I have never seen retention on my Pixel2XL. Not even a little bit. I used to see retention on my last OLED phone. Maybe we're getting close to OLED displays that are good enough? And yes, sometimes I have my phone on for a long time. And yes, there are static elements just like on a desktop.

thought_alarm• 7 years ago

The arrow keys and touchbar make that machine completely unsuitable for writing code, at least for me. My right hand needs to unconsciously lock on to the arrow keys, and that's just impossible with that layout. There's nothing to grab on to. My new iMac keyboard sits in a drawer collecting dust solely because of the arrow keys.

And the butterfly mechanism is unproven and untrustworthy, I don't care how many times they update it.

They need to go back to using the same keyboard mechanisms for both their desktops and laptops, and they need to go back to the old arrow key layout.

I will wait another year until 2020.

andyfleming3• 7 years ago

There is some claim that they've fixed the keyboard issue.

Aside from that, across 2 MacBook Pro's and a MacBook Air, I've had 0 keyboard issues. I don't know if I've just gotten lucky, kept my keyboard clean, or what, but it just has never been a problem for me.

garmaine• 7 years ago

They claim, but then my MacBook Pro with the upgraded keyboard had to get fixed twice due to the "sticky key" issue.

I'm fed up and switching to a different brand.

chipotle_coyote2• 7 years ago

The failure rate of the butterfly keyboard design is clearly orders of magnitude too high and is the sort of thing people should genuinely lose their jobs over (and perhaps they have). But "orders of magnitude too high" might well mean one or two percent, rather than one or two tenths of a percent; outside the company, I don't think we have any reasonable estimates of the failure rate, just anecdotes. My work laptop has no problem, although its lid is usually closed; my home laptop, a MacBook Escape, also has had no keyswitch problems, although I mostly use an iPad for portable work now. Most of my coworkers have new butterfly-switch keyboards and I don't hear of significant issues; I've talked with a couple Mac IT people at different companies and they haven't experienced huge failure rates, either. This is, again, all anecdotal, though; some people will come back and say "I'm in an eight-person group and three of us had bad keyboards."

heroHACK17• 7 years ago

RT. I upgraded to the late-2018 MBP from a 2013 MBP and after three months of heavy dev usage cannot get used to the new keyboard layout (specifically arrow keys) and touchbar.

Really wish Apple would start offering touch bar as an option when you purchase!

jteppinette3• 7 years ago

Or maybe an hjkl vim remapping is in order :)

SamReidHughes• 7 years ago

The butterfly mechanism isn't the problem, they've been used in Panasonic laptops for years. The problem is pushing it to such extremes.

pmilla1606• 7 years ago

This is the first time I've seen somebody else complain about the arrow keys and I completely agree.

It's by far the most infuriating aspect of this new keyboard.

Another thing that I have a hard time explaining is my inability to orientate myself on this keyboard; several times a day I have to move the laptop around, look at the keys and "reset" myself to the keyboard. I don't know what that's about but I've only ever experienced it on this keyboard.

My personal machine is a 2014 MBP which will be replaced with something other than a mac once the time comes.

throwaway400• 7 years ago

I hate my MBP arrow keys, but unless I'm doing a little work from home or in a meeting I never use the keyboard, instead I have a full size apple keyboard that I love and use with the macbook in clamshell mode hooked up to a dell 4k.

I'm probably not buying a new macbook pro for a long time... it's just not worth it to have such a high end machine that I use as a glorified traveling mac mini.

For my next work upgrade I am requesting a linux laptop.

eden_hazard• 7 years ago

I've been waiting a year to replace my 2015 MBP. Will probably have to wait another year now :L

eeeeeeeeeeeee4• 7 years ago

I have the wireless Mac keyboard and I agree about the arrows. I’ve had this keyboard for years and I’m still not used to that arrow placement.

patrec• 7 years ago

Not that ergonomic errors keys are not desirable, but you can mostly avoid using arrow keys by switching to Ctrl+B Ctrl+F Ctrl+P Ctrl+N.

Cacti2• 7 years ago

The press release is downright misleading. For 8 cores, or even 6, you have to buy the 15" model. Neither are available in the 13" model. And the 15", while starting at $2399, is not the 8 core option, that is the old 6 core option.

And of course the 8 core option, at $2799, only has 512GB of disk space and 16GB RAM. If you want a reasonable 32GB and 1TB disk space (which presumably you would if you have a use for 8 cores), it's a whopping $3,600.

And that is of course before accessories and tax.

I thought that after the overpriced iphone release they would have changed their pricing on everything else, but I guess it's just same old apple.

mcphage• 7 years ago

I thought that after the overpriced iphone release they would have changed their pricing on everything else, but I guess it's just same old apple.

Well, after they did that other phone manufacturers announced even more expensive phones, so I'm not sure they're stepping back from that so soon.

bluedino5• 7 years ago

$3600 isn't all that much. Bought a G3 PowerBook for that much with 256GB of RAM and 80GB HD.

Cacti2• 7 years ago

And a 20 year old laptop is relevant because... ?

gnicholas4• 7 years ago

256GB of RAM, eh?

nothis2• 7 years ago

I checked their store out of curiosity.

Switching from 512MB to 1TB SSD: +$400

WHY? This is literally the only thing that bothers me about Apple pricing. I get that you pay for the design, I get the quirks like introducing touch bar, everything. But I don't get why upgrading from a $50 to a $100 SSD adds 400 dollars.

bazooka_penguin• 7 years ago

This sort of "upgrade" nickel and diming is true of every laptop vendor, but Apple is definitely one of the worst. It's like their pricing structure is stuck in 2012

askafriend• 7 years ago

The SSDs they use really do cost that much though. Even if you got them from another manufacturer they'd be about that expensive. Apple don't use cheap SSDs...they use blazing fast, top of the line units not found on many other laptops.

If you have criticism, price isn't a valid one.

But you can definitely argue that they should have cheaper/slower options so that consumers who don't need blazing fast SSDs can still benefit from increased storage.

Here's how the 2018 Macbook's SSD stacks up against the competition: https://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2018/07/macbookprossdt...

That's why there's such a huge price difference. Not because they're randomly picking high upgrade prices to screw customers.

ksec6• 7 years ago

To make things worst, out of all the laptop vendor Apple is the only one with their own SSD controller, which is not a small percentage of BOM cost in SSD. And they are one of the few that gets favourable NAND pricing due to the volume they move with iPhone and iPad.

akamel7• 7 years ago

Because they don't use slow SSDs.

The read / write speeds on the SSD in the Macbook Pro are insane.

see: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/2018-macbook-pro-fastes...

we are talking at least 6x what other laptops use.

jpalomaki2• 7 years ago

I don’t doubt they are faster than other laptop SSDs, but those results look quite suspicious.

CBLT• 7 years ago

In case you haven't realized you can buy comparable 1TB NVMe SSDs in today's market for around $100. I see the budget Intel 660p hit $80 for 1TB on sale, or high-end Phison E12 drives at $115 for 1TB on sale.

mastax• 7 years ago

That's outdated now. Most high end PC laptops use NVMe drives, and good NVMe drives are only slightly slower than the apple proprietary drives.

lern_too_spel3• 7 years ago

Your article is comparing against non workstation class laptops. Other laptops in the same class put two NVME SSDs in a RAID configuration for double the throughout.

masklinn5• 7 years ago

The listed performances are those are that of a 970 EVO (and the 970 EVO Plus improved on write speed, to almost par with read speed at 3500 and 3300).

The 1TB EVO Plus is $250 on newegg. Not as replacement for an existing 500GB, just retail price for the drive. The 2TB EVO is listed at $550, the 2TB EVO Plus is listed at $650.

lelf• 7 years ago

Not to mention that it’s basically 4 SSDs on 4 PCIe buses.

Edit: I don’t really understand downvotes. SSD on recent Macbook Pros does connect to the northbridge via 4 PCIe lanes. And this is not what “but look I can the same for £50” SSD does.

FireBeyond• 7 years ago

Most current era laptops use NVMe. Bargain basement laptops might still use SATA, but lets not pretend that the MBP, while extremely fast, is at all unique.

bufferoverflow2• 7 years ago

A fast 1TB NVMe SSD costs $105, and that's retail. So your narrative doesn't make much sense. 10x cost can only be explained by profit margins.

timw4mail2• 7 years ago

Sadly, this is basically true of every major OEM. It's just you generally have recourse to make the change yourself.

rootbear• 7 years ago

My favorite comment on this sort of thing was the claim that Apple uses components made from the powdered bones of unicorns. Sometimes I think that's not far off.

SamuelAdams• 7 years ago

Apple now solders in the SSD into the motherboard. My guess is the cost of an entire motherboard with a larger SSD simply costs more to manufacture. Or their target audience doesn't really care about money - they care more about the "premium" experience that comes with the Apple brand.

nuccy3• 7 years ago

8-core CPU, even presumably with HT off after all the recent Intel vulnerabilities, makes me laugh after my personal experience with my late 2016 MacBook Pro 13 touch bar with fastest (at that time) i7. During normal browsing especially with plugged charger, it was heating so much that something in the keyboard was unglueing. The space bar and 'c' produced different clicking sound. I was quite unhappy with that since it was my first experience with Apple products. I took it to Apple Store, they replaced the top part (with keyboard), it fixed 'c' and 'space', but issue appeared in '~' and 'tab'. I took it again to Apple Store, they replaced top part again. And again same issue with different keys. I took it there again, since replacing top case didn't help they proposed to replace whole laptop. I agreed. New laptop had the same issue again so I had nothing to do but wait when Apple will acknowledge the issue. They didn't but started to replace keyboards because of key stucking issue, so I requested a fix again and finally they managed to fix it...

ajconway• 7 years ago

8-core CPU means that I can rebuild my code almost twice as fast. That's 8 minutes vs. 16. Doesn't make me laugh.

I guess there's a reason it's "Pro".

nuccy3• 7 years ago

Sure, performance will increase, I'm not arguing with that. I was just refering to my own experience. Personally, particarly this issue, made me use servers/clusters more, so data analysis or massive code compilation I do remotely, and for me 'Pro' now means a stable OS, good screen, good touchpad, good sound laptop which just runs IDE and browser (and occasional small Python tests of algorithms in Jupiter).

callalex• 7 years ago

The performance will only be better for the first 30 or so seconds anyway before the cpu has to start thermal throttling.

kitsunesoba3• 7 years ago

Using Safari with an adblocking extension that makes use of WebKit’s native content blocking capabilities makes an enormous difference when it comes to heat and power draw. I’ve tried Chrome and Firefox with uBlock Origin and both are considerably more demanding in CPU use while not being that much faster. Where Chrome and Firefox has my fans ramped up to 60%, Safari has them running at 10% or switched off.

Really wish both Google and Mozilla would press pause on feature development for a couple of years and make efficiency the top priority.

gnicholas4• 7 years ago

Brave had made a huge difference for me. As much as I'd like to support Mozilla by using Firefox,i just can't justify it. Brave is amazing.

PascLeRasc3• 7 years ago

Which Safari adblocker do you like? Is there one with a similar "freedom-ness" to uBlock Origin?

artimaeis• 7 years ago

Any recommendation on a good adblocking extension for Safari on MacOS? I've been using KaBlock but I've not found a great source that meaningfully compares the existing options.

nuccy3• 7 years ago

P.S. I'm not a picky person. I work in a quiet office so even my colleague noticed the issue without me pointing. At the beginning I really wanted to fix the issue. Later it was rather for 'feedback' and a matter of principle.

dharma13• 7 years ago

How's the thermal handling with the 8core? Full speed for half a minute, then throttled?

ericabiz4• 7 years ago

We repair these as part of our business, and to be clear, both the keyboards and the screens are failing on these at an alarming rate.

iFixit detailed the issues with the screens, which (in Apple's unending quest for "thinness") use a thinner flex cable to connect the display to the rest of the laptop. This thinner cable is prone to breakage, and we are already seeing 2016-2017 MacBook Pros in our shop regularly for this issue.

Since Apple built the flex cable into the display, the only solution (even from third parties like us) is a new display. At $600-$700 each, this is unacceptable.

And, like the keyboards, this is a part that's pretty much guaranteed to fail (unless you basically never open your laptop.)

Apple hasn't announced a fix yet, even with a petition with over 11,000 signatures, and more screens failing by the day.

From the time the keyboard issues happened, I made a strong recommendation to avoid buying these. If you can do your work on a PC, do so. (Personally, I now use a Dell XPS 15 as a "desktop replacement", and kept my old 2013 MacBook Pro around too.) If you need a Mac, consider a desktop version (with a SSD!), or stick with the 2015 or older MacBooks.

Even if you think the keyboard issues are fixed, consider too that this is the 4th generation of these keyboards--and Apple promised that the 2nd and 3rd generation would fix these as well. This plus the screen issues means switching to PC if you need speed should be a serious consideration.

iFixit article on "stage light" display issues/"flexgate": https://ifixit.org/blog/12903/flexgate/

JohnJamesRambo• 7 years ago

Thank you so much for sharing this information.

Dunedan2• 7 years ago

Have you come across a second issue with the screens as well, which causes them to develop moving yellow spots? (for examples see: https://gregsamborski.com/macbook-pro-led-screen-discolorati...)

tomduncalf2• 7 years ago

I had this issue. I assumed it was heat related, as the laptops can get real hot and sometimes I’m sure it doesn’t shut down properly when you close it - on mine the marks corresponded with the top bit of the keyboard, where it gets hottest.

Brought it in under Apple care and it was replaced (along with the keyboard, rolls eyes) no questions.

unicornfinder2• 7 years ago

I would add to this that I genuinely don't think that the keyboard failures are due to dust - it seems far more likely to me that the switches are simply failing due to poor design.

pathartl• 7 years ago

Is the switches failing because of dust not poor mechanical design?

artursapek• 7 years ago

Louis Rossman does a great job documenting Apple's stupid (greedy?) design decisions.

galad87• 7 years ago

They announced a screen repair program too: https://www.apple.com/support/13-inch-macbook-pro-display-ba...

ksec6• 7 years ago

Eligible models are listed below.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports) MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports)

Note: No other Mac notebook models are part of this program.

Sigh.

b3b0p• 7 years ago

Personally, I won't feel the keyboard issue is resolved until the keyboard is a user replaceable part.

Scarbutt• 7 years ago

The cheapest XPS 15" is more expensive than the cheapest MB 15".

Are there any reliable ~$1000 laptops to host linux?

jasonm89• 7 years ago

T480

navidfarhadi• 7 years ago

Thinkpad T series and Dell Latitude 7390/7490 are good choices around that price.

tpush• 7 years ago

The cheapest XPS 15" is more expensive than the cheapest MB 15".

... what? That's simply not true.

ericabiz4• 7 years ago

I’m not sure where you’re looking, but the XPS 15 starts at $1000. Of course, you’re not going to want that hybrid drive.

Dell also has an upcoming Memorial Day sale where they will discount certain models, and the new XPS 15 is due out next month.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15/spd/xps-...

FunnyLookinHat• 7 years ago

Yeah the upgrade policy at my work kicked in and they tried to give me one of these... instead I got a Thinkpad X1 Extreme and put Linux on it. No regrets.

jdhawk• 7 years ago

PopOS? I've had fits, even w/ stock 19.04 on my X1E.

twalla• 7 years ago

I'm curious to hear about your experience with the X1 Extreme. My current employer has an equipment stipend that's the exact cost of a maxed out 15" macbook, I'd rather get the Thinkpad, a nice monitor and go to a conference.

welly4• 7 years ago

Have one of the new 15" macbook pro with touch bar. My keyboard will never break simply because I never, ever use it. It's awful to type on, possibly the worst keyboard I've ever used. As is the track pad. I have a mouse plugged into it so I don't have to use the track pad. My MBP is basically a compact desktop machine and for that it is great. Fast and responsive.

nsxwolf• 7 years ago

Did something change regarding the trackpad? MacBook trackpads have always been at the top of the class, far better than any other manufacturer by leaps and bounds.

favadi• 7 years ago

Well, you don't need to use the keyboard extensively to break it. I used my MBP 2017 in the same manner as you, but still have to replace the keyboard twice.

ksec6• 7 years ago

If you need a Mac, consider a desktop version (with a SSD!)

SSD is undoubtedly the single biggest system performance upgrade in the past 10 years.

And we will soon past the halfway point of 2019, Apple is still selling an iMac with 1TB 5400 RPM HDD by default.

Apart from AirPod and Apple Watch, there is nothing on the current Apple's product line I am satisfy with.

ksec6• 7 years ago

Thanks for the downvote on what I thought was not even controversial. If we have to discuss whether "SSD is undoubtedly the single biggest system performance upgrade in the past 10 years." is correct then I think we can call it agree to disagree.

JimDabell2• 7 years ago

this is the 4th generation of these keyboards--and Apple promised that the 2nd and 3rd generation would fix these as well.

I don't think is true is it? I think this was just an assumption people made.

Mindwipe6• 7 years ago

Leaked Apple service documents did say that the intent of the latest gen was to fix the reliability problems, so I don't think it's just an assumption.

nodesocket• 7 years ago

And, like the keyboards, this is a part that's pretty much guaranteed to fail (unless you basically never open your laptop.)

Despite the constant outrage on HN, I have a 2018 15" MBP and have had zero issues with the keyboard breaking or screen failing.

sgt• 7 years ago

Dozens of our developers are using these for a couple of years now - no problems yet.

msvan• 7 years ago

I will agree and add a data point here. My 2017 MBP has had chronic keyboard issues, despite being in for repair twice and having had the entire top case replaced. Seriously disappointed in this computer considering the price I paid. I am planning my escape from this platform.

karpodiem• 7 years ago

I love my Dell Latitude 5491 - six cores is more than enough for my work at the moment, and the NVMe drive absolutely screams. Much lighter than a workstation notebook, too.

jonaf2• 7 years ago

Thanks, this makes me feel better about my decision a couple months ago to switch to Lenovo's ThinkPad P1 Mobile Workstation. I don't have any regrets switching from Apple hardware, and frankly Linux is so much more superior (especially when using i3[0]), I'm quite pleased with it.

(The only complaint I have with the ThinkPad is the fan is super aggressive and very loud. It usually doesn't run for long, but it spins up with a whirring noise pretty often for 1-5 seconds before slowing down.)

[0] https://i3wm.org/

alceta• 7 years ago

Went exactly the same route a few weeks ago deciding between a new macbook pro or something else and went for the P1. Had some troubles with the UEFI due to outdated firmware (be sure to update that first thing) and other than that, I'm quite happy with the results. Battery life could be better, the fans are indeed more aggressive and I miss some of the touch gestures (swipe for browsing) that I didn't yet get to set up. My previous device was a late '14 MBP and that still works fine but is getting slow and quite hot.

Zephyreks3• 7 years ago

You can configure that on windows using tpfancontrol. Should be similar on Linux. Tweak the fan curve to whatever the hell you want.

You can even turn the fan higher than Lenovo lets it (but it might fuck your fan over... Oops)

FabHK5• 7 years ago

this is a part that's pretty much guaranteed to fail (unless you basically never open your laptop.)

I have a 2016 MacBook "Pro", and every single part has been replaced (thanks, Apple Care) except the bottom plate.

It seems to me they are not really designed to be moved, or used in an environment with, you know, particles and such. Plug it in once, put a transparent dome over it, look at it, and you'll be just fine.

swozey12• 7 years ago

My 2016 is the first MBP where I've felt that. I have huge dents on it and it's in a Thule laptop bag if it's not on my desk. I'm not exactly gentle on my backpack but I never had to concern myself with my old 2015s (had a couple of these). I rarely use it outside of work, I take it home just for emergencies and it sits on my coat rack in the bag.

And you know what I'd totally pay $3k for a full on desktop replacement that does what I do with it. Fatten it up, give it better thermals, removable batteries, make it MORE durable, etc. I remember using 12lb Dell laptops. We're past the point of diminishing returns on portability now.

vondur• 7 years ago

I’ve deployed over a dozen since 2016 without any issues.

techrich• 7 years ago

i am sticking to my 2017 macbook air. This is from a time when apple knew what they where doing, and it has a proper usb port. And the handy magnetic connector that saved my laptop more times than i care to mention. My next laptop prob wont be a mac.

sneak• 7 years ago

We repair these as part of our business, and to be clear, both the keyboards and the screens are failing on these at an alarming rate.

This model came out three hours ago, it looks like.

How can you claim this? Are you making the assumption that they have made no changes whatsoever to the keyboard or hinge?

LeoPanthera2• 7 years ago

We repair these as part of our business

I feel this comment is very misleading, since it looks like you are describing these new 8-core machines, which have been announced literally today and you cannot possibly have any experience of.

bborud2• 7 years ago

Mm, sure, but you are making assumptions too.

tracker1• 7 years ago

Are these using differently designed screens and keyboards from other models from the past N generations?

pier253• 7 years ago

If you need a Mac, consider a desktop version (with a SSD!), or stick with the 2015 or older MacBooks.

This is what I did.

I bought a 15'' 2015 model the day after the 2016 models were announced. I didn't even know about the keyboard problems, but the touchbar, the lack of ports, the price, and the shallow key travel were deal breakers for me.

I used it for about a year but the integrated GPU and the 4th gen CPU ran too hot. At the time I lived in Cancún so quite hot, and the fan noise was becoming annoying even when doing skype calls and such. Also running it on my lap was uncomfortable.

So at the start of 2018 I sold the MBP and got a 5K iMac with SSD since I really didn't need the portability anymore. Best Mac I've ever owned.

I have an old 2014 13'' MBP laying around which I use in the rare occasions I'm away from my iMac.

collinmanderson• 7 years ago

Hah. My daily driver is a 2013 13" MBP. :) Works fine.

0xADEADBEE• 7 years ago

Not seeing anyone else mention this problem so perhaps I'm an edge case but I have a 3 month old Macbook Pro (work supplied, fortunately) and I'm getting double presses on certain keys. I've managed to ameliorate it a bit with software [0] but it's still a disgrace that this is happening on a $4K machine.

[0] https://unshaky.nestederror.com/

simongr3dal2• 7 years ago

I've had a 13" MBP with Touch Bar since December 2016 and have had keys that felt weird, keys that repeated, keys that didn't work unless you pressed really hard, and keys that didn't work no matter how hard you pressed them.

I've had the top case replaced for free two times under warranty, and the extended 4-year warranty does make me slighty less worried. The battery is also replaced as part of the top case which is a pretty nice bonus.

Though it is still a major inconvenience to be without my main computer for a week while it's being repaired.

pfranz8• 7 years ago

Mine started after probably 8 months. I ignored it until it became work stopping (I decided against installing software to compensate) and had it replaced under warranty. Soon after getting it back I got a keyboard cover which seems to be doing its job. I hate accessories, and am really disappointed they released a new mbp in this same form-factor.

josephg3• 7 years ago

They have announced a free fix for displays on 2016 models:

https://www.apple.com/support/13-inch-macbook-pro-display-ba...

And a free fix for keyboard issues on all butterfly keyboard laptops:

https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...

For now the display fix is only for 2016 displays; though I suspect with more bad press they’ll extend to 2017 and 2018 models too.

I have a 2016 model which is starting to get the stage light problem. I wonder if it’s worth getting it fixed now or if I should wait until it gets worse before taking it in for servicing.

AHTERIX5000• 7 years ago

And a free fix for keyboard issues on all butterfly keyboard laptops

Don't know about the very latest one (assuming there is 4th gen) but so far this has been more like a workaround that breaks down again at some point since the design is not solid. Getting an inherently flawed replacement for free isn't worth celebrating IMHO especially considering how expensive these things are.

chrischen• 7 years ago

I've had issues with macbook pro keyboards for every model since the 2016 one, but I've never had an issue with Apple not doing an in-warranty repair. In fact, usually they swap out the battery for me during these repairs too.

Contrast this with every other PC manufacturer where they require me to ship the item to them, wait for weeks. Apple gives it back to me within a couple of days.

detaro• 7 years ago

A Lenovo (or Dell, and maybe also HP, haven't looked at their offerings recently) laptop in the price class of a Macbook Pro typically comes with on-site warranty support (and for cheaper business models it's typically an affordable upgrade), or you can bring or ship it to a local service partner and have them fix it and deal with the warranty claim.

megaremote3• 7 years ago

Apple has already released a fix for the screen issue, with a longer cable less likely to break. This was months ago.

They have also never said that 2 and 3 keyboard were fixes for the keyboard issue.

I am surprised someone in the business can be so far behind the news.

debuggerpk• 7 years ago

There was a rumor about a new 16.5 inches mbp. I guess that would be another year then.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/02/17/apple-plans-new-1...

o10449366• 7 years ago

I just upgraded my 13" 2015 Macbook Pro's SSD from 256GB -> 1 TB for ~100 USD. With 16 GB of RAM, a great keyboard that's given me no issues, recently replaced screen lamination under warranty, and now a faster and larger SSD, I see absolutely no reason to upgrade to the new generation of Macbooks in the next few years.

thesagan• 7 years ago

I'll buy one after they remove that touchbar. Please remove the touchbar.

luckydata• 7 years ago

Did they introduce a keyboard that doesn't suck?

teilo2• 7 years ago

Glad to see a laptop with Coffee Lake. AVX-512 makes a big difference for code that can use it.

Also in this update: Pro Vega 20 GPU is an option.

MikusR2• 7 years ago

Cofee Lake has no avx-512

teilo2• 7 years ago

You're right.

nippler• 7 years ago

Love these overpriced facebook machines lmao

m0zg3• 7 years ago

As a Vim user: no physical escape key, no deal. I've recently tried working on one of these, and the bar is really annoying for another reason: as you switch between apps it keeps changing right in the corner of your vision, distracting from what's going on on the screen. WTF were they thinking?

thruhiker• 7 years ago

I was also of this mind but I'm really pleased with the workaround of mapping Caps Lock to Escape (more ergonomic when using Escape) and mapping Left Shift + Right Shift to Caps Lock when pressed simultaneously. I use Karabiner-Elements (https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/document.html) to implement these remaps in addition to some others such as Shift + Delete/Backspace for forward delete.

dguo• 7 years ago

Seconded, though I also make my caps lock function as control when held down: https://www.dannyguo.com/blog/remap-caps-lock-to-escape-and-...

m0zg3• 7 years ago

The problem with this is this is just one of half a dozen other computers I'd be using. I see no reason whatsoever to remap anything to anything after paying nearly $4K for the privilege. It should adapt to the way I've been doing things for the past 25 years, and intend to continue for 25 more.

unicornfinder2• 7 years ago

As a Vim user, just do what any sane man would do and rebind caps lock to escape. Much better.

xchaotic• 7 years ago

what's a good way for vim to have that when you ssh into a remote box? Would you do the rebinding in the Terminal app or something, agent forwarding or something similar? I ssh into newly provisioned boxes regularly to edit some config files so I'd need something that works not just locally...

rpearl• 7 years ago

I get it, but also please map capslock to escape, your pinky will thank you for it

m0zg3• 7 years ago

I remapped my computer to Thinkpad X1 Carbon running Linux instead.

0xFFFE• 7 years ago

This. FWIW, I have mapped some perma nent functions (brightness,volume etc) to the touchbar (you can do that from the preferences), so it doesn't keep changing based on the application in focus. This is a work laptop so I am stuck :(

gilbetron6• 7 years ago

After 8 years of macbooks, after using the 2018 model, I switched to a Dell Precision 5530 running Ubuntu 18.04 and it is awesome. The hardware is great, and having Unix under it all was the only real reason I liked Macs (used to be hardware, too). Granted, I don't need Adobe stuff, or anything else that doesn't run or have an alternative on Ubuntu (although it is dual-booted with Win10, but I've never used it, just keep it for when I want to play a game)

The Macbook pro 2018 was the worst laptop experience I've had in at least 15+ years. So disappointing, but maybe this will let Unix laptops finally start taking real market share.

endymi0n2• 7 years ago

I can only come to the same conclusion. Typing this on a 2018 MacBook 15 inch, and it's a disaster. I still keep accidentally hitting the Touchbar ten times per day while typing (it's not a press-bar, duh), I need a dongle for _everything and their mother_, battery lifetime isn't good, the keyboard is prone to mistyping and double clicks, the screen doesn't get bright enough sometimes, I can't get any higher spec hardware, it really feels like a super expensive toy to me.

I'd buy something different if there was a real alternative OS-wise (I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver, and Windows? Nah, get away...)

docker_up2• 7 years ago

I recently was forced to upgrade by 2015 laptop at work because the battery life was finally short enough that I couldn't stand it. I hate dongles. The 2015 Macbook will stand as their last best laptop. Nothing about the 2018 laptop is better, it's only worse. I don't understand why they don't see this.

There should really be a huge multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit for their keyboards and fixability to wake them up. I'm so angry.

microtonal2• 7 years ago

My favorite problem is activating Siri when I use Touch ID (yes, I know you can remove Siri from the Touch Bar). I miss the physical escape key. But the Touch Bar is great for volume control and scrobbling. Touch ID is awesome though (if I manager to hit the right area), I really miss Touch ID on my Linux machine.

I need a dongle for _everything and their mother_

Don't get me started on the dongles. I was a fairly early adopter (had the first generation 12" MacBook). They actually sold USB-C adapters initially where the USB-A port only supports USB 2.0. Yep 80 Euro for an adapter that only does USB 2.0.

Then their USB-C HDMI adapter only support HiDPI at 30Hz (due to supporting an older HMDI version). Again, unbelievable for an adapter that was initially 80 Euro.

So, I had to buy a USB-C <-> DisplayPort adapter to hook up a HiDPI screen at 60Hz (third-party USB-C <-> HDMI adapters universally had bad reviews). The adapter works fine on the MacBook Pro 2016. I updated later to the MacBook Pro 2018, and for some mysterious reason the adapter does not work on the MacBook Pro 2018, no output at all (still works fine with my wife's 2016). So I had to buy yet another adapter... (What's the point of USB-C as a universal interface if it is not universal?)

thefourthchime• 7 years ago

Not sure what your usage is like, but after being on OSX for 10 years and going back to Windows 10, I don't miss it much. Windows 10 is pretty great these days.

deaddodo• 7 years ago

I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver, and Windows? Nah, get away...

Linux hasn't had issues with the major wifi chipsets in ages. It's as plug and play as Mac and Windows are. There are plenty of reasons people might choose to avoid Linux, but drivers (outside of specialty, niche or obscure hardware) aren't really a reason anymore.

staticvoidmaine• 7 years ago

I have been using a System76 Darter Pro (max cpu and ram) with Pop!_OS 19.04 and it’s been a dream to use. My day to day workload includes docker, node.js services, Postgres, mongodb, and gis tasks. I get about 6 hours of battery life while working and about 8 or so when doing non-work tasks. It’s the real deal. I’m also driving a 4K monitor with the laptop display on as well. Smooth as butter. However, I’ve tried some modeling with Sweet Home 3D. That didn’t go so hot. The Darter can use thunderbolt external gpus though and I’ve been meaning to pick one up and see how well it works

WalterSear2• 7 years ago

May suggest running Ubuntu in a VM for a while, see how it works for you? Not that that will help address driver issues.

Fwiw, it's my current setup - I'm currently trying to decide between installing it outside the VM, or migrating to a cloud desktop.

Unix still isn't a great desktop, but, as the alternatives get worse, it's coming into its own.

eptcyka• 7 years ago

I've not compiled my own kernel in the last 5 years and all of my hardware has been supported. Not saying that you can't run into h/w compatibility issues with Linux today, but I don't think that you should keep yourself from using Linux as a daily driver if you're worried about hardware compatibility. Just get a thinkpad, and you'll be golden.

simion314• 7 years ago

I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver

You can buy hardware that comes with Linux support including drivers. Changing your workflow is always a pain though, so Linux with a decent DE like KDE could be a suitable alternative for you but because of the big change you could get frustrated and hate the experience.

I am also at that period in life where I don't get pleasure from tinkering with compiling custom kernels, making the PC boot 10% faster, use the latest and greatest... so for me Kubuntu LTS fits perfectly it may be a good option for you too.

vinceguidry2• 7 years ago

I recently got a Purism Librem 13 and it's been golden. The only thing I miss from MacBooks is the touchpad. I did replace their PureOS with stock Ubuntu, which was a breeze and probably improved performace due to proprietary drivers.

ekianjo4• 7 years ago

If you purchase a Dell developer laptop or any Lenovo Thinkpad you dont have to worry about hardware support for Linux. Works out of the box.

mixedCase• 7 years ago

I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver

You'll be happy to hear about dkms then. Just install the driver, let your package manager update it and it will recompile on its own for whatever kernel you're using.

This is if you even need such a thing.

Epskampie• 7 years ago

Not meant as a dig at you, but your comment reminds me so much of this recent HN story: https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-a...

Guy spent a year trying to build a better slack, but then finds out people love to complain about slack, but will not make any steps to actually try any alternatives.

maremp• 7 years ago

Interesting, I’ve never experienced these usability problems. Maybe accidentally hit the touchbar once or twice a day for the first week, before I got used to it. BTW you can customize the touchbar to move stuff around so it’s not in the way of your fingers (e.g. top-right corner). But yeah it sucks and there’s no real use-case for it, the standard keys are way better. The only thing I like about it is the TouchID, but they’ve showed with air that it can be a standalone thing.

The usb-c transition happened too early, it’s annoying that you can’t even plug in an usb if you forgot to bring the dongle. The nice thing about it is being able to plug the charger at any port, but that’s no reason to have only the usb-c ports.

Agree on the OS, I’ve probably bought into their ecosystem way too much to make a smooth transition away. Also the trackpad experience is still superior. But the list of reasons why I would buy a macbook after this one bites the big one is getting shorter.

igravious2• 7 years ago

I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver, and Windows? Nah, get away...

You can buy laptops with various flavours of Linux pre-installed from a number of different manufacturers right now, you know that right? In the distant past I used to regularly compile my kernels out of necessity and also out of curiosity and trying to eke every last drop of performance from my systems. Now? No way. Have not done that in ages. And you never need to compile a kernel to get a driver working these days, every now and again what you might find is that you have to blacklist a driver or drop a manufacturers firmware into place. In truth, I had to do the exact same on a Macbook to get a non Apple blessed SSD running at full tilt many years ago.

Linux, by any reasonable metric, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with MacOS and Windows today. I can't believe in 2019 with Chromebooks, Lenovo, Dell, Purism, System76 (and those are the ones that I know off the top of my head) you still think compiling kernel drivers is a thing. Even Microsoft makes Linux apps these days: VS Code, Skype, SQL Server, … so that's got to tell you something. The real hold-out is Adobe. I'd love if IBM bought Adobe (after their Redhat purchase) and made all Adobe's apps cross-platform.

whywhywhywhy3• 7 years ago

Running a 2017 MBP model at work here, have all those issues and more. My Bluetooth chip somehow freezes without fail after X hours of usage and requires a hard power cycle to fix, often if I put it to sleep on a night I wake it up to a kernel panic message.

I have a 2013 MBP at home that I still use every night, the worst thing that has happened to it in all those years of daily usage is 3 of the feet have fallen off. The thing has been an absolute champ and I would have dropped serious money on another by now if they hadn't changed it.

sriram_sun• 7 years ago

I have a late 2013 MacBook pro and the Dell precision 5530 running Ubuntu 16.04. The Precision 5530 is faster for everything except when I'm using it for video conferencing. A regular Hangouts session brings it down to its knees. I will be holding on to my 2013 MacBook pro as long as I can :).

mrep2• 7 years ago

I got a maxed out late 2013 MBP and I too am going to hold onto it as long as possible. 4 core i7, 16gb of ram, discrete gpu and it still runs like a champ. The only problem I had was that the battery recently swelled up which caused problems with the touchpad and fans, but apple ended up replacing the battery, keypad, touchpad, and casing for $300 which wasn't too bad considering ifixit wanted like $1,000 bucks for all those parts and now it feels like new.

blablabla1233• 7 years ago

Yes for Video conferencing Mac or Windows are so much better when it comes to hardware and application support. Being in need of some Unix-compatible, Macs are still my first choice although my last purchase decision was really not easy...

joezydeco• 7 years ago

Keeping an updated Win10 on the laptop is a good idea, it makes the unit easier to sell when it’s time to move on. And you don’t want to pay for that twice.

allset_• 7 years ago

There's really no need to keep Win10 on the laptop. The Win10 license is kept in the UEFI so you can reinstall from a Win10 ISO at any time and it will activate correctly. This even has the added bonus of removing the Dell bloatware from your Windows install.

mixmastamyk4• 7 years ago

Have a 5520 with 19.04 and very happy with it, with the exception of the 16:9 screen ratio, which is too narrow but common.

microtonal2• 7 years ago

I am still using a MacBook Pro 2018 as my laptop, but do my primary work on an Intel NUC8i5BEH with Linux. I work remotely from my home, so I rarely need the laptop anymore.

The NUC has the same quad core Intel i5-8259U, with double the RAM and double the SSD size at approximately a quarter of the price of MacBook Pro. If you don't have an existing screen, you can buy a good Dell HiDPI screen for ~500 Euros.

The Linux NUC feels much faster than the MacBook Pro, probably because of faster syscalls on Linux, and generally better optimizations in Linux. But for me the killer feature is NixOS. NixOS has a steep learning curve, but with atomic updates/rollbacks, declarative system configuration, and the ability to have virtualenvs with any package, it is hard to go back to a system that does not have these features. (I use Nix on macOS, but it is more of a gateway drug than the whole experience.)

Of course, there are some sharp edges, Bluetooth headset (including Airpods) support is better on macOS, you can't beat Microsoft Office for Office compatibility (duh), and Skype works better on macOS.

awill• 7 years ago

I also work at a company heavily reliant on Microsoft Office. It makes it hard to pick any OS that isn't Windows or Mac.

Cloud apps like Google Docs, Hangouts, Slack etc.. were supposed to make the OS less important. It's too bad we're not there yet.

ingenieroariel2• 7 years ago

Same thing here (Intel NUC + NixOS).

Recently I purchased an HP Envy with and AMD chip for $550 USD and got myself used to sway + i3statusbar-rust. Everything is simple, can be backed up using git and I use at most 300mb of ram after boot. Computer startup is less than 10 seconds and shutdown is less than 3.

I think this is the third time I feel this way about computers. First one was when someone told me about Apache and Linux in 2000, second when I discovered postgis + geodjango in 2007.

Symbiote3• 7 years ago

I have the previous generation NUC, a NUC7i5BNH, as my home computer. I put it in a Akasa fanless case, and it's wonderful — it's completely silent.

I use Kubuntu, since I've been using KDE for 15 years. I use 5% of the configuration options — just by looking, you'd think it was a default install — but I really miss that 5% if I'm on a Mac or Windows.

devy3• 7 years ago

I still consider macOS UI much more superior. Also I love the new MBP with the TouchID integration.

rayiner8• 7 years ago

What’s the battery life like?

gilbetron6• 7 years ago

I have the larger battery, and for daily development (including web stuff) usage, I get 10+ hours. Even if I'm doing heavy dev (running test suite, lots of compilation, etc) it drops down to maybe 5-6 at worst.

ridicter2• 7 years ago

I'm a UX engineer who recently switched from Macbook Pro to the Ubuntu version of Dell XPS 13. Now that I use Figma, a web-based design app, I no longer need any Mac-native design software. I am pretty pleased!

The XPS 13 has an edge-to-edge display/small footprint, the top of the line whiskey lake processor, 16GB of RAM, and a crazy-good battery life. (I opted for 1080p screen instead of 4k to get that 10+ hr battery life.) All of this for <$1200 with my employer's discount. The equivalent would be 2k+ on a Mac.

There have been one or two hiccups worth mentioning: 1) the trackpad, while not terrible, isn't as good as Mac's. 2) Multi-monitor support on Ubuntu hasn't been perfect. I couldn't get 18.04 to work out of the box with my three monitors; however, once I upgraded to Ubuntu 19.04, it worked out of the box. Phew.

Pretty happy with this setup!

copperx8• 7 years ago

That sounds awesome, except a low resolution screen (1080p) is a no-go in 2019. So far I haven't heard of anyone being pleased with Linux or Windows milquetoast hiDPI support.

tlrobinson• 7 years ago

What have the biggest annoyances been when switching?

I occasionally try switching but always get frustrated with the amount of time I have to spend fussing with graphics drivers, multitouch drivers, keyboard shortcuts, etc, but it's possible that's because I've only really attempted it on Apple hardware.

vinceguidry2• 7 years ago

I have two System76 Meerkats and a Purism Librem 13, which are an absolute breeze.

gilbetron6• 7 years ago

Driver issues were very minimal (had to turn off a power management thing, and use the on board graphics card for most usage), maybe an hour-ish. Otherwise, I was completely shocked how modern the experience is. Honestly, I find it better than the Mac UI because it lets me just get shit done without getting in my way. Keyboard shortcuts are weird, but I was using Windows 10 in the mix as well, so I'm used to that. However, I was never big into the apple ecosystem, so it would be more painful if you have an iphone, ipad, use itunes for everything, etc.

I'm in the google ecosystem, so life was crazy easy.

bscphil5• 7 years ago

For running Adobe products, I use Virtualbox running Windows 10 on my Linux laptop. The speed of hypervisors has gotten so good recently I genuinely can't tell the difference over running Windows natively, even though this laptop is 8 years old now. Everything "just works" and so I don't see why which programs you need to run should determine what brand of computer you buy or what OS you run on it, any more.

I guess the one exception (other than gaming?) is if you need to run any MacOS only software. (I can't even name any, other than that written by Apple, off the top of my head.) I have Mojave running in Virtualbox, but it's noticeably slower than both Linux natively and Windows 10. That could be the 8 year old laptop thing again.

wj• 7 years ago

My main system is currently a late 2012 maxed out Mac Mini that struggles with Adobe products. I also miss Linux on my desktop so your set up is appealing to me. Looking to use Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop. By chance have you passed through a drawing pad?

PuffinBlue• 7 years ago

I see a huge difference running WIndows in Virtualbox. Possibly because I'm doing everything wrong but it sucks for graphics stuff like Adobe products and I can't even get it to hit 60fps like my standard linux desktop.

We're still a way off passing through graphics cards etc in a 'just works' sort of way (yes there's hugely involved ways to get it done) so it's going to be a short while before I could agree with you that Windows VM's are fully ready to replace native installs for situations like mine.

cr0sh• 7 years ago

I switched to a Dell Precision 5530 running Ubuntu 18.04

If you want a desktop experience that comes close to MacOS on Ubuntu, give Budgie Desktop a try; it's developed for Solus:

https://github.com/solus-project/budgie-desktop

...but is available for Ubuntu - you can install it separately, or as it's own distro:

https://ubuntubudgie.org/

Note that the 18.04 LTS will have the older version of Budgie and not the latest; the latest version is available with 19.04, but won't be available for LTS until 20.04 - though I am sure there's ways of getting it installed if you really wanted to.

I switched to Budgie Ubuntu 18.04 LTS after my super-long-in-the-tooth-modified-to-hell-and-back Ubuntu 14.04 LTS install face-planted after I tried to install a new version of the NVidia proprietary driver using a very hacked and patched together gcc setup (something I did for an online MOOC where I needed a greater version of C++ than 14.04 supported - not the smartest thing I ever did, but it worked well for a while, and long enough to complete the MOOC).

My 14.04 install started with a Minimal version, then I built it up from there to a look-and-workalike Crunchbang (#!) system. This was done just after #! ceased being supported (after I had played with it and liked it), but before the community picked up the pieces (ultimately resulting in Bunsen Labs distro).

It worked well, but after it finally fell over, I decided I wanted to go a different route on a new install - and Budgie Linux with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is where I ended up. I couldn't be happier; it allows me a desktop experience that I swear is very close to what I have on the MBP I use at my employer, but I have customized my own way (though I did grab a set of SVGs for a better looking trashcan for Plank). I also had to write a new wallpaper switcher (in python) as I didn't like anything as well that exists. Minor things, though. Overall, it's a great desktop - gives me some freedom to play, but is still beautiful and highly functional.

One thing I'll never do again, though, is install anything that isn't "standalone" in /home or a "deb" package (or something like AppImages); anything that must be compiled from source will either be made into a package to install, or I'll put it on a VM (that's what ultimately led to my old system falling over - too much crap in too many places without any kind of tracking, etc - my fault, ultimately).

computerex3• 7 years ago

Manjaro i3 version running Pantheon and Gala, for me :) I love it more than MacOS.

morog• 7 years ago

I've been running Ubuntu on my Latitude 6650 since new a couple years back. Unfortunately due to my company moving to Office365 fully, its no longer viable for a daily driver - mostly due to no support for Teams (except for a crappy broken web interface), Outlook & OneDrive.

Always had Windows available in Virtualbox, but its definitely slower & had endless audio issues with conferencing (you don't want to be the guy who always has sound problems)

Now switched to Windows 10 on a dual boot - which is much easier on the fan, laptop not running nearly as hot as switching between the GPU & onboard graphics is seamless. Despite decades of Linux experience (servers & desktop) I could never get Prime working properly to switch to onboard graphics when needed...wasted days of my life on this.

Despite this Ubuntu 19.04 has big improvements in driver support & if it wasn't for Office, I would have gladly stayed on Linux.

Now its Kali in Virtualbox for me which is almost as good as running natively.

Windows has better toolbar management, mouseovers & switching between apps. Also since Ubuntu moved back to Gnome, switching between Virtualbox VMs has been buggy (display driver issues no doubt)

Linux has a better file browsers (windows explorer hasn't changed in a decade, no tabs & looks terrible) & much better terminal options.

I'll miss Linux as my daily OS, but I guess MS has its grip tightly on most organizations balls these days.

bayareanative2• 7 years ago

Lenovo T480 hackintosh here.

lukestevens• 7 years ago

What has the hackintosh experience been like for you?

smnplk• 7 years ago

Wondering what the battery life is like compared to running linux on your hackintosh ? :D

novembermike• 7 years ago

Yeah, I'll probably be switching to a Surface Book. I don't mind spending for a premium laptop but I care about it feeling good to use and I just don't like the newer Macbooks.

loeg• 7 years ago

I'm not defending the Macbook -- I can happily say I have not used a recent model one -- but for additional perspective on Dell laptop keyboards, I absolutely hate the keyboard on my 15"-16" Dell Precision provided by my employer. The keys are oddly far apart compared to a conventional desktop keyboard. I struggle to type with any accuracy on the builtin keyboard -- especially for things like entering my password, where mistakes are hidden.

Full disclosure: I am a Dell employee and obviously these views are my own and not that of Dell.

apl0022• 7 years ago

i refuse to let go of my 2015 model because i can't stand the new ones. Not sure what I am going to do when it stops receiving new OS upgrades

wwweston4• 7 years ago

My unibody/pre-retina mid-2012 is still getting them (and I'm still using it, because it's the last/best machine that still had a truly matte screen!), so you're probably safe for a few more cycles.

saagarjha17• 7 years ago

Based on historical evidence, you'll likely get updates for another half decade or so.

noodlesUK• 7 years ago

The precision 5530 is an absolutely fantastic machine. Best laptop I’ve ever owned. I was a MacBook Pro user since 08, and when it came to replacing the ailing 2013 MBP, I was not at all impressed with what apple had to offer. Fedora was a great experience (using i3, but gnome is pretty nice too), and I haven’t looked back at all. The only downside is that I can’t do iOS development on it, but that can be handled with a VM where necessary. I only wish dell made them with an AMD gpu rather than the Nvidia Optimus garbage.

muyuu2• 7 years ago

Any issues with that model? I'm thinking of doing a similar switch but I really don't want to be fighting driver and compatibility issues.

gilbetron6• 7 years ago

I was having a one-a-day random lockup, that was fixed by this: https://medium.com/@agathver/nvidia-gpu-optimus-prime-and-ub...

After that, it's been awesome. While inch-for-inch I like Mac trackpads the best, I hated the giant trackpad on the current macbook line, and the Dell trackpad is the right size and probably 95% as good. I don't care too much about not having all of the swipe shortcuts Mac has, so I didn't try to get more working on Ubuntu, but that could be a pain if you are into them. (Ubuntu has two-finger support out of the box that works great).

I was really pleased that closing the screen and opening it works just as well as Macs for suspending and resuming. Win10 does subpar at that.

The UI isn't quite as smooth as Mac, but it is still very smooth and easy. Just like the Dell 5530 isn't as thin as the current Mac, it is totally thin enough. Apple is just polishing for the sake of polishing at this point.

Plus, I have Ubuntu underneath, which makes it awesome for more line of work (software guy, call it "full stack", I do all kinds of stuff, but all Linux-based).

swah2• 7 years ago

I'm using Ubuntu, which hasn't really changed in the last 5 years or so (gah the Ambiance theme), and still find the GUI super limited, slow, ugly, bad fonts, etc. IMO its inferior to macOS and Windows by miles.

ozkan• 7 years ago

Try Pop_OS

billylindeman• 7 years ago

Smiliar boat except with a lenovo x1 extreme. After typing on my lenovo for 1 day going back to my macbook pro retina feels like an absolute disaster. It's like we've been gaslit by apple to believe these computers are good. They're not. They're complete trash

marmaduke2• 7 years ago

Were drivers a problem? Did you run into any problems with the nvme SSD? I tried booting Opensuse but it couldn’t see the SSD. Maybe I just need to try Ubuntu.

gilbetron6• 7 years ago

Basically no, but I did this to fix up an intermittent lock up bug:

https://medium.com/@agathver/nvidia-gpu-optimus-prime-and-ub...

No problems with the nvme ssd that I've noticed. I went with Ubuntu because Dell ships with Ubuntu as an option, so I figured they worked the kinks out :)

umvi• 7 years ago

Macs used to be for hackers, but now they are too mainstream

sitkack• 7 years ago

Come on, didn't you have a Dell Inspiron 8000? Those things were the Macbook Pro of the day, sexy and horrible with BSODS due to flexing motherboards and gorgeous 1600x1200 displays.

gilbetron6• 7 years ago

My previous worse experience was on a Dell, actually :) Forget the model, but it was a 17" monster and horribly unstable with a crap keyboard and dim display. But that was back in the early 2000s, and I'm shocked it's Apple that gave me an experience that was nearly as bad.

satysin3• 7 years ago

On the flip side I switched from a Dell (XPS 15 9570) to a MacBook Pro 2018 15" last August after multiple issues with the Dell.

I've not had a single issue with the MacBook Pro yet. Not a single crash/kernel panic, no keyboard issues, no T2 or TouchBar issues. I open the laptop in the morning and it wakes from sleep and works all day. I almost only ever reboot it for system updates that require it so usually every 4-6 weeks.

I'm not super keen on the keyboard but it honestly isn't horrible to type on. I do worry about reliability though. However I am at almost 300 days of zero problems where I had issues with my XPS out of the box that seems are still not fixed having looked at /r/Dell on reddit recently. Shocking that Dell have taken close to a year and things like speaker pops are not resolved.

I also had a ThinkPad but sadly Lenovos quality control isn't what it used to be and the two units I received had hardware defects. And with modern ThinkPads being less serviceable (the new T series has soldered RAM, CPU and WiFi?!) I can see even Lenovo starting to go the Apple way with soldered storage within two years.

Also while I do no deny Apple screwed up with the butterfly keyboard I do feel all the attention being on Apple is a little unfair and can lead people to think Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft are much more reliable which just isn't true in my experience. In the past few years Microsoft's Surface line has without question been the worst laptop experience I have ever had with software and hardware issues not to mention even less repairability than Apple laptops!

spronkey16• 7 years ago

The attention on Apple really isn't unfair when you a) compare their 2016+ machines to their 2015 ones, and b) dig a little deeper into some of the design flaws of the machines beyond the keyboard.

For example:

* The trackpad on 2016+ models is too large for many users who experience palm rejection issues. * The display cable on 2016 and 2017 machines was too short, and is now starting to cause the issue known as "flexgate". It's almost a given that with enough use, every one of these machines will suffer this failure. To make matters worse, unlike the 2015 machines where the display cable could be replaced on its own, the entire display assembly is glued together on 2016+ machines and has to be replaced as a whole unit. * Stupid electrical decisions such as putting pins for high voltage backlight power and low voltage data signalling right next to eachother mean that there's a good chance the machine will fry itself if it gets at all humid inside (most machines do at some stage, especially if used on a lap). Most other notebooks do not do this and are much more durable in this regard. * The storage being soldered is fucking braindead. Apart from being planned obsolescence due to NAND flash's finite lifespan and macOS's increasing hunger for storage space, data recovery is not possible without a proprietary system to connect to a lifeboat port on 2016-2017 machines. 2018 machines have no such port and at this stage, there is no known way to recover data from working flash chips on a dead logic board without board-level repair.

Apple made far better computers in 2015. The competition also being shit doesn't excuse Apple's regressions.

j7ake• 7 years ago

I think the craziest thing is that the newer macbooks have worse battery life than the 2015 macbooks.

_x5tx• 7 years ago

I recently upgraded my computer at work, and instead of going for a beefier laptop I opted to build an AMD Ryzen 7 2700 machine, and I could never been happier, running Fedora on it is many many times faster than any laptop out there. The build only costed $900 and the specs are far superior than what I would get for a laptop on that price range. Since most of the time I spend at my desk programming I feel it was a good move, and when I have to go to meetings I have my Surface Pro 6 which serves me very well on that purpose.

alt_f42• 7 years ago

1. No OLED

2. No keyboard fix

3. No thin bezels

4. Still annoying touchbar.

5. $2799 for the 8-core with 16GB RAM and only 512GB SSD.

Hahaha.. No, thanks.

kimi2• 7 years ago

And no ports, so you have to bring the freaking dongles wherever you go.

swozey12• 7 years ago

What're ya talkin' bout! It's no problem at all! https://i.lensdump.com/i/WHUBii.jpg

gross.

toasterlovin2• 7 years ago

FWIW, this update includes an updated keyboard. Whether or not that's a fix remains to be seen.

alt_f42• 7 years ago

Given it is the 3rd attempt at fixing a fundamentally broken mechanism design, I think it's fairly likely it doesn't actually fix anything.

Edit:

lol, they actually have already included this new laptop in the keyboard replacement program:

https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...

stblack• 7 years ago

6. AND... just a 6' power cord, and the presumption that you'll plug that brick into that so-nearby power outlet.

rehemiau• 7 years ago

Until it overheats and throttles :)

mmartinson2• 7 years ago

I'm currently using the last, best 2015 macbook, and having tried a newer model as a work computer for a short while previously, am dreading the day I need to think about replacing it.

How about this apple. "macbook util". The pro line can keep the thin delicate stuff. Give me the 2015 case, screen, keyboard, and magsafe, with some new internals and a usb-c. I'd happily hand over my money.

popularrecluse3• 7 years ago

Yes, a developer's edition. I'll take a heavier, larger device with more and varied ports and extended battery life please. An all-hardware keyboard with a useful arrow-key configuration that doesn't make me press the wrong key all the time. An actual 'esc' key so I have my caps lock key back.

</dreamsequence>

endymi0n2• 7 years ago

Is there a petition I can sign? Will pay 20% on top.

robbyking• 7 years ago

This is a bit of a side note, but I remapped my caps lock key to escape and it makes things a lot easier.

firethief• 7 years ago

That sounds like a regular laptop

jonplackett• 7 years ago

YES YES YES YES!

Sign me up.

Take my money!

hamburglar5• 7 years ago

Yes, I wrote pretty much exactly this in another reply in this thread. The main problem is that "thinner" costs a lot in terms of other features and functionality, and yet there is a whole class of users for whom "thinner" has no value whatsoever. That's me. Stop trying to make it thinner and pleasing us becomes easy.

andrekandre• 7 years ago

i think it’s high time apple decouple screen size, core-count and thinness with “pro-ness”

there is no technical reason (that i know of) stopping apple from selling a 15 inch laptop as thin as the macbook air (and still even get a low-clocked 4 core cpu in there)... i for one would buy that up in a heartbeat

for those that really need power, they can have a much thicker 6 or 8 or higher core cpu + discrete gpu and it would be fine (for that target) i would imagine...

but maybe apples marketing dept knows more than i do (not being sarcastic)

rarecoil2• 7 years ago

Wasn't that kind of the point of the "Pro" line? I mean, if you just wanted a kinda cool laptop, you'd buy a MacBook or MacBook Air. It's now the MacBook Prosumer, and there is no pro option.

Hacker News has been whinging about this Apple dilemma for years. I'm sorry to say that I just don't think there will ever be the golden age of MacBooks again. The "Pro" ideas coming from Cupertino are gimmicky at best for developers, and we will be stuck working on various Linux machines and leave the MBP problems to designers. The hacker-type software engineer is not Apple's target market for the MBP, and I think even before it was likely coincidence.

If you look at the pro target even in this post, the majority of Mac "pro" use cases being displayed here are creative in nature. Devs generally aren't spending their days editing video or sitting in Maya and they are targeting those markets - people who need power but don't wrench into their OS internals or open a debugger when something goes wrong. Those customers are also a lot less flighty as long as their creative tools work.

As for me, I stopped complaining and wishing for a pony, accepted that the MacBook is dead, and moved to a ThinkPad for daily use. My 2015 MBP will stick around when I need macOS, but it's best to start converting my workflow to a different platform where I see a future for development work.

bluedino5• 7 years ago

I love Thinkpads but the trackpads, screen, and build quality leave a lot to be desired. Every Mac is the same level of assembly/quality but ThinkPads vary too much from one to another.

The prices for the high-performance models are almost as high as Apple and the power bricks are actually bricks.

Mindwipe6• 7 years ago

Devs generally aren't spending their days editing video or sitting in Maya and they are targeting those markets - people who need power but don't wrench into their OS internals or open a debugger when something goes wrong. Those customers are also a lot less flighty as long as their creative tools work.

But their requirements aren't much different to developers in terms of the machines. They need reliability most of all - a MacBook failing in a production location you've had to shift kit to or have performers at can be a huge concern. Dongle life makes everything harder for no benefit. They still need to type sometimes, even spaces or the letter 'e'! MacOS's development on emerging creative technologies like HDR is not exactly setting the world on fire.

I can assure you, there are a lot of creative professionals in outright dismay at the state of Apple's current laptop line.

kpU8efre7r• 7 years ago

That's exactly it. That on top of the bling factor. Nobody buys MacBooks, all I see are MacBook Pros. Because of this Apple had to start catering the to consumers who care more about thinness and bling rather than utility. The pro device became a device for everyone.

blablabla1233• 7 years ago

I bought a MacBook Air recently and the decision was really tough. Obviously the Pro has much more horse power but on the other hand: why would I need so much CPU and possibly GPU on a laptop? If I want to do some data intense task, it will be by far more convenient to run it on a remote server. The tasks run while the laptop is in my back pack and low CPU power means also longer battery life time.

Yes, the keyboards have high failure rate. But I mean Apple is not known for its conservative design. If I compare my new MacBook Air with most other laptops, especially old ones, those look like teleported from 30 years ago. The new keyboard is far better to type on and my latent RSI highly appreciates less motion necessary - slow SSH sessions punish me with double types but there are solutions, maybe Mosh (mobile shell) works.

People should also consider that progress means regress in some way. Most technologies advertised on HN have some serious flaws compared to the old school alternatives. But who seriously wants to go back to 90s computing?

I'm quite happy with the new laptop, it's perfect for development, it can be used anywhere, it can be charged with my phone charger (!) and the case is made of iPad Pro scrap, I couldn't be happier.

pier253• 7 years ago

The could call it the "Macbook Classic"

psyclobe• 7 years ago

I would pay top dollar for a 2011 era 17 inch macbook chassis, with 2019 era internals.

TimTheTinker6• 7 years ago

Apple designers need a new mantra, the age-old adage: "Form follows function." As it is, they're choosing a form ahead of time and compromising on function.

The vast majority of users choose Macs because of the great OS and the hardware specs. The "thinness" or "sleekness" is only a nice-to-have, and only if it doesn't require compromise elsewhere.

soperj• 7 years ago

hardware specs? They usually very outdated. They didn't update the air processor for like 4 generations.

TimTheTinker6• 7 years ago

I didn't mean Apple's are always top-of-the-line. Only that specs are usually close to the top of customers' criteria.

rayiner8• 7 years ago

The Air is an exception—it was in this limbo where it looked like it didn’t have a place in the product lineup between the MacBook and MacBooks Pro. A couple of exceptions is hardly “usually.” The other lines are updated regularly with whatever is the latest in October.

jlarocco2• 7 years ago

The hardware specs are "meh" at best, but the build quality is still better than the competitor..

I have a newer Thinkpad for work, and it feels cheap and plastic compared to my MBP. The Lenovo creaks when I pick it up with one hand, and just feels flimsy. The MBP feels solid and integrated.

I'd love a 2013 MBP with modern components.

everyone6• 7 years ago

Lots of people on HN call the Mac OS 'great' ... But why? What is so great about it that is not similar on Linux or Windows?

When ye say "great", I think ye mean "the one I am familiar with".

TimTheTinker6• 7 years ago

Since the introduction of Mac OS X, I've always thought of macOS in terms of a Venn diagram of two partially overlapping circles:

(A) Operating systems that major desktop apps support

(B) Developer-friendly operating systems (Unix/Linux at the core, default shell is bash or similar, etc.)

Windows is in (A). Linux is in (B). But macOS is in the overlapping area between (A) and (B). It's the best of both worlds.

omnimus• 7 years ago

Well it has decent window manager with multiple desktops, does not require antivirus and supports Adobe. For graphicdesign/developer there really arent many other choices. Also if you work with sound its hands down best OS.

rayiner8• 7 years ago

Windows is crap. The UI is totally schizoid, with different apps using different toolkits. Office for Mac integrates more cleanly into the look and feel of the rest of the OS than Office for Windows. There are two different settings apps with different features. Basic things are poorly designed. E.g. if you put the task bar in autohide mode, it routinely gets “stuck” because some notification is keeping it from hiding.

caconym_• 7 years ago

For me it's less about what's "so great" and more about what's not awful.

I need a Unix-like command line environment and Windows is inferior there. Otherwise it's fine (I use it on my gaming machine), but if you look closely you can see it's a huge mess (e.g. the insane state of the control panel(s)) in ways Mac OS just isn't.

Linux is too much work. I say this as someone who has used it for years, still uses it every day, I've compiled my own kernels, etc., but it's just too much work to get everything working perfectly on my personal machine, especially on a laptop.

Mac OS doesn't have many of these problems. I am old, I have too much real work to do, and I need a machine that works and gets the fuck out of my way. I am past the point where I consider fiddling with the guts of my OS a badge of honor and think having a bunch of code up on my screen makes me look super cool like Neo from The Matrix. For people like me who don't need things it doesn't have and like what it does have, it's a good choice.

Now if only Apple would stop making so many dumb hardware choices...

WrtCdEvrydy• 7 years ago

There's some neat features in the OS for developers but you can do the same thing with a Linux machine.

781• 7 years ago

It is "form" which made macbook THE notebook to have.

The vast majority of users choose Macs because of the great OS and the hardware specs

Very wrong. Your average consumer can barely differentiate between MacOS/Windows. The vast majority choose it because it's the best social-status-wise. Which it became because of form. Everybody knows that only poor people have Androids/PCs.

bscphil5• 7 years ago

Everybody knows that only poor people have Androids/PCs.

Having worked on several university campuses, I agree with you about Apple promoting themselves as a status symbol, but - I think you might have to run in upper-class or at least urban circles to even notice this difference. I grew up in small town America, where nobody was buying laptop computers the price of a used car. Doctors, lawyers, pretty much everybody I knew as a kid ran Windows. Most people had a traditional desktop tower, whether or not they had a laptop.

The few exceptions tended to be geeks, or people who were devoted to the Apple ecosystem because they had been using Macs since at least the early '90s.

Now that I'm in urban university circles, I'm the only person using Androids / non-Apple PC hardware. Apple really seems to be the "default", and people using other things are doing so for pretty solid technical reasons.

x0x0• 7 years ago

I dunno, I used to recommend a lot of relatives -- aunts & uncles, nephews and nieces in school -- buy macbook airs, particularly when they were $900 / $1k-ish out the door.

Now that they're $1400 w/ 16g ram / $1500 out the door, I recommend them to no one. $1.5k is just too much money for a basic laptop.

la_barba3• 7 years ago

The exact ratio could be argued, but there are customers with varying levels of familiarity with computing tech. Calling people "wrong" is just plain silly.

kevin_b_er• 7 years ago

Apple's mantra is "form over function".

FabHK5• 7 years ago

It most definitely did not use to be.

victor22• 7 years ago

My 2018 Macbook Pro's screen failed. They replaced it for free, but damaged the webcam in the process. They told me I'd need to pay over 500 dollars to get it fixed since I could not prove it was damaged while switching screens.

mixmastamyk4• 7 years ago

Small claims court?

DoofusOfDeath• 7 years ago

This is a completely appropriate use of small-claims court. It's the one place where a regular citizen can afford a fair trial against Apple in the U.S.

solitus3• 7 years ago

Yeah, my friend did that against Samsung in Canada and it was an automatic win. A few days before the court appearance Samsung bent and sent him the money.

penagwin• 7 years ago

You need to escalate to a manager if you're being honest and really want your Webcam fixed.

Source: Work at a phone/computer repair store. Mess ups happen but even the technician might not know if they broke the camera, if it was working before, etc. They may just be too low to make exceptions for you and have to assume it was already broken.

antaviana• 7 years ago

Was it replaced for free because it was under warranty? If so, wasn’t the webcam under warranty?

month132• 7 years ago

Ask for the functional test that's performed before and after each repair, if they can't produce the results you should be able to escalate further quite easily.

eeeeeeeeeeeee4• 7 years ago

Keep escalating. Try emailing Tim Cook if you can’t get results. I had to resort to that once and their executive team reached out and solved everything. I don’t abuse it, but it is needed sometimes.

mizzack• 7 years ago

This is pretty pointless considering the previous hex core i9 offering ran into a thermal wall regularly.

Without meaningfully overhauling the cooling system there is no reason to think that an 8 core on the same process is going to fare well.

2Ccltvcm• 7 years ago

There is zero benefit to more powerful CPUs in MacBooks when the thermal profile of the CPU heatsink design leads to throttling very rapidly.

robocat2• 7 years ago

What model of Intel CPU is it?

frogpelt• 7 years ago

Is there a marketing person here who can help Apple come up with some good copy for the thicker laptops they need to make?

They need to quit being so thin it seems.

lostlogin3• 7 years ago

“We listened”.

PascLeRasc3• 7 years ago

A 2016 Macbook Pro speaking at a graduation, saying "My generation has failed you".

tqkxzugoaupvwqr• 7 years ago

“Thicc in specs and has the body to show for it”

EForEndeavour3• 7 years ago

"Think̶ different."

Hackbraten• 7 years ago

Thick different.

tcarn2• 7 years ago

My boycott of the Macbook "Pro" will continue until they add additional I/O ports (including HDMI and standard USB ports) and until they add a num pad (a big reason I've stuck with Windows over the years).

kitsunesoba3• 7 years ago

I would hope that if MBPs gain a numpad, it’s optional. For many it’s dead space that moves the home row and trackpad off center, making for an awkward typing position. In my case I won’t even consider a laptop that doesn’t have a no-numpad variant available.

mtgx• 7 years ago

Do these come with HT off and other MDS mitigations enabled by default?

calebm• 7 years ago

32Gb 13inch MBP please.

hayksaakian• 7 years ago

To anyone who has used the apple keyboard service program:

https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...

How long does it take to get your macbook back?

I'm having this issue and I want to figure out how long i'm going to be out of commission for

dawnerd3• 7 years ago

About three days. Opted to have it shipped back to me and they overnighted it.

gnicholas4• 7 years ago

They're now replacing them in-store. It was 4 days when I took mine in to the Palo Alto store, back when they had to ship it out.

X-Istence3• 7 years ago

~24 hours is what it took for my replacement.

cletus• 7 years ago

What a clusterF is modern Mac hardware:

- Keyboards with much worse action that are more prone to failure (from dust no less) and require replacing the motherboard to fix... all for a Touchbar no one wants and 0.5mm cut in thickness.

- Loss (over the years) of the ability to upgrade the CPU, SSD or memory;

- Display failures due to broken ribbon cables;

- The USB-C clusterF; and

- Loss of MagSafe (this one still hurts).

All for a premium price.

Go back 5 years and you have two great choices:

1. The 13" Macbook Air for under $1500, which was a great compromise of power, portability and affordability; or

2. The 15" Retina Macbook Pro, which was more upgradeable, less failure prone and had a better keyboard.

I bought a 2017 MBP and I deeply regret it. Luckily it hasn't failed yet. If and when it does I may be better off just throwing it away.

How did Apple lose its way so badly here? Serviceability matters. It's too expensive to be a throwaway device.

So who really cares if your throwaway $44k device can now have 8 instead of 6 cores? Really?

X-Istence3• 7 years ago

- Keyboards with much worse action that are more prone to failure (from dust no less) and require replacing the motherboard to fix... all for a Touchbar no one wants and 0.5mm cut in thickness.

The keyboard replacement replaces the top-case, your motherboard and everything else is transplanted over to the new top-case.

hartator2• 7 years ago

The motherboard is not replaced. “Only” the battery, top case, touch-bar, and keyboard.

golfer2• 7 years ago

But look at what we got in return... The laptops are now 1mm thinner than they were before!

rz2k2• 7 years ago

I have a 2016 MacBook Pro, and "luckily" the anti-glare coating failed. There is a free repair program for the screen appearing stained, and replacing the display panel replaced the integrated display ribbon cable that had also failed.

I don't think dust is the cause of all the keyboard failures. I had been using it as a desktop computer for over a year. It isn't in a dusty room, and the computer still spends months without being opened. Furthermore, sometimes on waking a key will be stuck in a pressed condition, such that I can't successfully enter a password to log in. Pressing all of the keys doesn't reset the state, but force rebooting does.

If I do use the MacBook Pro's keyboard some of the keys intermittently fail to detect presses, but because there are both problems with keys being stuck engaged, and keys failing to detect presses, I suspect that the switches have some flaw where they can generally degrade due to heat rather than only dust fouling the contacts.

Anyway, I haven't yet had the keyboard replaced, because the failure is still intermittent, and I'd like to get a fresh keyboard right before selling it, sometime after a teardown confirms whether this new model is really likely to be less error prone, or maybe after a more thorough redesign for Ice Lake chips in the 13" model later this year or early next year.

jiveturkey• 7 years ago

I don't think dust is the cause of all the keyboard failures.

well, this is known to be the cause

rz2k2• 7 years ago

Followup for anyone reading the above with a dark screen/flex cable problem in a 2016 MacBook Pro: today, Apple announced that they will now cover this problem up to four years after the original purchase date.

solitus3• 7 years ago

The 13" 2015 model had the same issue. They replaced my screen for free a few months ago.

gowld• 7 years ago

Apple has always made aggressively experimental design changes that were a mix of steps forward and backward. Hockey puck mice, mass logic board failures, soldered flash drives and batteries, ports and dongles, etc.

People always forget the flaws of the past.

IggleSniggle• 7 years ago

This is a really good point. Although I still inexplicably love the matte screen swivel head G3s...

burtonator2• 7 years ago

Loss of MagSafe (this one still hurts).

I will NEVER forgive them for this.

Jobs was RIGHT when he said this was a major innovation over everyone else.

Now Apple is either saying he was wrong or THEY are wrong. They're not BOTH right.

My 2015 is the last MBP I will ever buy and it's aging fast...

I think it's hackingtosh from here on out.

I primarily use Ubuntu but I have to have a Mac as our app runs cross platform and I need somethign to test with.

stoppergoo3• 7 years ago

Really just the MagSafe is the big difference they lost. Supposedly the keyboard sucks, why don’t they just fix it or go back to the previous iteration.

Either way I think these are still the best notebooks you can buy.

Ubuntu doesn’t even work right on my dell desktop - it never remembers dual monitor settings, even with Nvidia official drivers installed.

When I open my MacBook Air I can just use it without waiting or worrying. That much is still the same; except now you have to worry about someone tripping over your power cord

dcosson• 7 years ago

I guess I'm the only one that thinks USB-C is actually better?

The biggest win is that now I can use a single dongle for power, displayport to my monitor, and connection to a USB hub. So if I take my laptop home or into a meeting room, when I get back to my desk it's just a single thing to plug in now instead of 3+ separate cables. And since this stuff is all standardized now and there's no longer anything Apple proprietary like Thunderbolt 1, I would guess other makers will follow suit eventually and most monitors will support it directly without even needing a dongle.

Plus the MagSafe port was not without problems - every few months I would get like a little magnetic pebble or something stuck in there, and then it's plugged in but not charging charging and usually I'd realize when my laptop is almost dead and then have to find something small to try to pluck it out of there. The USB-C port doesn't have this issue and it's still a relatively small port with very low resistance to being pulled out. Tripping over the power cord just has never really been an issue for me, it kinda seems overblown (knock on wood though, I guess).

I do miss the external LED that showed whether you were connected to power or not and whether it was fully charged, it would be nice if they found a way to add that back on the side of the laptop or something since it can no longer be on the cable itself with a standard USB-C cable.

pazimzadeh• 7 years ago

Could it be that battery life is so much better now, so people don’t have their computers plugged in as much of the time when working?

wDcBKgt66V8WDs2• 7 years ago

I have a USB-C only Lenovo (well I guess it has USB-A but I never use it, I'm all in bluetooth/USB-C) and a latest gen Mac Air. I've got a USB-C charging cable for each, a dock at home and at the office that is USB-C (and manages peripherals including monitor).

Seriously a "PC" and Mac sharing all the same chargers and docking solutions. This is incredible. I never had a Mac with mag safe so maybe I just don't know what I'm missing, but the practicality of plugging in ONE cable and that same cable works between both machines and I can bring both with me places without fretting about chargers.

torstenvl2• 7 years ago

Have you tried one of the numerous solutions out there?

Unlike MagSafe, the higher-end ones aren't limited to just power.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/11/thundermag-magsafe-thund...

There are a lot of things to complain about with the newer MacBook Pros (like not offering a hardware function row without hobbling the machine). I think the MagSafe removal is one of the least strong of them.

spookybones• 7 years ago

The green LED sucks. I would charge my 2012 MacBook Pro in my bedroom, but can’t because of the light. Also, I can’t charge it and use the laptop in my lap because the MagSafe falls off easily. The new charger solves both of these problems.

ratsimihah2• 7 years ago

It's not ageing that fast. Mine has a 1TB drive and I'm too lazy to wipe it clean but I'm sure with a clean wipe it would run like new. The keyboard is still intact, all of the hardware in fact.

wlll2• 7 years ago

Here's the announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeqF7zcBOVA

It was revolutionary, and they removed it.

kvartz• 7 years ago

For me main indicator is that 2015 MacBooks are still selling at a rather good price.

chaostheory• 7 years ago

all for a Touchbar no one wants and 0.5mm cut in thickness.

I second this. It's been years now, and I still don't really see TouchBar as indispensable. Not enough apps make special use of it yet.

I don't care as much about thinness either. I just want something that works where I can replace or add RAM and storage myself.

As for magsafe, you can get a 3rd party replacement if you're willing to spend $50.

The only reason I stayed is because of MacOS, but current Apple hardware has gone into a weird direction. It's harder and harder to stay when Windows now ships with Linux.

CivBase• 7 years ago

Loss of MagSafe (this one still hurts).

I've been wondering for a while now why USB-IF hasn't defined a standard magnetic connector. I'm surprised none of the flagship smartphones or laptops have tried to push their own magnetic connector. They're desperate to differentiate themselves in the current market and wireless charging is falling behind quickly due to physical constraints.

I use a volta cable for my phone and it is wonderful. It handles power and data just fine. My only issue is that I have to use a dongle.

There's clearly demand for it. Magsafe and volta have proven its effectiveness. It would be a great solution for portable consumer electronics like laptops, cameras, tablets, and phones.

What's holding it back?

kalleboo3• 7 years ago

I think Apple has a patent

village-idiot• 7 years ago

I actually really like USB-C. The ability for any cable to work at any port is extremely nice, so I don’t have to run the power cord awkwardly just to meet the left side of the laptop.

mikestew• 7 years ago

I'll get excited when they issue a press release detailing how the 5th generation keyboard is really going to fix it this time, because they gave up on butterfly^W^W^W^Whave an amazing new mechanism. All the cores in the world do me no good if I cannot efficiently input characters into the machine.

Better hurry up, Apple, the mid-2012 is starting to get cranky, and I wouldn't want to have to buy a ThinkPad.

mmastrac• 7 years ago

If I get a new Apple laptop, it'll be on a business lease because there's just _way_ too much risk in owning one of these new models with the display and keyboard problems.

dkarl• 7 years ago

I think Apple needs a tick-tock development cycle where the tick is making their products thinner and the tock is fixing all the usability and reliability regressions.

docker_up2• 7 years ago

When in God's name will they get rid of TouchBar? I DESPISE IT. Why not add the function keys back and add the touch bar above it? I see that there's space above!

Am I the only one that feels this way?

lukifer3• 7 years ago

Right there with you. It'd be a neat addition if it didn't require sacrificing F-keys, and/or was an optional upgrade. First thing I checked is if the new 15-inch has a non-Touch-Bar option (the answer is no). I just ordered a new MacBook Air, despite being relatively underpowered, and a significant factor in the choice is that it's the only way to get Touch ID and F-keys.

ben7799• 7 years ago

Not till Jony Ive leaves?

I think this is the root of most of these Apple design faux pas... he goes back to the Steve Jobs Era and was definitely blessed.

With Steve gone there is probably no one at the company who can actually say "This is the worst !@#$%^& thing ever!" like Steve Jobs liked to say. Tim Cook doesn't seem to be a product guy or something and trusts Ive too much.

Ive's ideas were good back in the day when everything was huge and clunky but he seems to look at everything and try to think it is still not sleek & minimalist enough and he's just gone too far at some point. It's a wonder we still have keyboards at all on these laptops!

I have a 2018 MBP and I am lucky.. I use it 99% of the time plugged in at my desk at work. They provided us all with $400 OWC USB-3 docks so I mostly dodge the dongle thing. I have some cheaper dongles at home that live permanently on my desk. So I also don't run into too many touchbar issues since I rarely do anything serious on the internal keyboard.

For some reason my usage I don't have battery issues. A lot of my co-workers do. Ad blockers don't help with Docker & Eclipse hogging CPU.

I wish for 32GB of ram every day, we got our 2018 laptops < 6 months before they added the 32GB option.

Linux is much better, I tried a pilot System 76 laptop our IT let us try. It was great for development, hugely better than the Mac. But it was horrible as a laptop, horrible for going to meetings. Drained the battery in 1 hour if you had to do a WebEx. Constant WiFi & VPN issues. Having to reboot the machine sometimes to clear up issues with external displays and internal displays. I gave it back after a month when I admitted I was wasting 40% of my work time chasing linux issues.

fmajid2• 7 years ago

Amen. Ive is a hack without the firm hand of a Jobs to guide him and keep him on a tight leash.

stevenjohns• 7 years ago

I gave it back after a month when I admitted I was wasting 40% of my work time chasing linux issues.

I feel like this isn't spoken about enough. Or that I'm doing something wrong which most people who say how their lives have changed for the better by switching to Dell+Ubuntu don't experience.

I really liked MacOS for development. It gave me a familiar Unix-like environment that didn't require me to screw around trying to fix trivial things over and over again. I didn't have to screw around with kernel updates or try to troubleshoot anything. I only ever needed to set things up once, I didn't have to worry that the next time I reboot I might lose configurations.

I've been using Elementary OS/Ubuntu on a Surface Book now for a while and dealing with it is ongoing frustration. At some point my top bar just disappeared and never came back. Trying to add any sort of modification that tries to make using the OS more intuitive leads to all sorts of unexpected issues.

I want to love GNU/Linux. I really do. But I can't even remotely understand how anyone could love it more than MacOS. GNU/Linux feels like it's always in Beta.

In truth, using GNU/Linux gives me a feeling of imposter syndrome. I feel like the reason why I can't stand it even though so many people love it isn't because the operating systems are bad, but because I'm just incompetent and don't know what I'm doing. It's frustrating.

bredren• 7 years ago

My speculation is that this will be the last model with it. Next year's redesign will give up on the concept. They just have too many parts and the economics of it sort of demand a final run.

sigzero• 7 years ago

If the internal fan layout didn't change this is going to be baaaad.

Apple, make it a little thicker to handle a better keyboard and cooling system.

nihonde2• 7 years ago

Mac user since 1984. Zero problems with my 2017 MBP other than a loose command key that was replaced same-day, within 5 mins after arriving at the store. My company has bought 20+ MBP in the past two years. We’ve had three units with screen issues (stuck pixels etc) that were all replaced on the spot.

None of that outweighs the conveniences of OS X.

I’ve been reading about how Apple screwed the pooch for almost forty years now, and yet they just keep taking over the world...

Areading314• 7 years ago

15% of your laptops have had major hardware issues in 2 years? Seems ridiculously bad given this is a premium product. I will never understand the loyalty to Macs given they are so obviously inferior to PC offerings these days.

nihonde2• 7 years ago

My experience with PC makers was far worse in terms of failure rates and more importantly, support. Small sample size, though.

simongr3dal2• 7 years ago

They can try to cram all the overheating CPU power into the thin chassis as much as they like, but it is lagging so much behind in GPU power.

The top-of-the-line option, a Radeon Pro Vega 20 with 4GB of HBM2, doesn't seems like it's going to perform much better than an NVidia Geforce GTX 1050[0], and at $350 extra it's twice the cost of a standalone NVidia Geforce GTX 1050.

[0] https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-pro-vega-20.c32...

swozey12• 7 years ago

The sad part about this, I thought I'd put together a new Mac Mini as a once a month gaming machine and a daily OSX driver so I didn't have to built an entire gaming desktop.

Well there's an absolute ton of issues with external GPUs in bootcamped Windows.

So.. that's not even an option.

thirdsun• 7 years ago

Yes, it's a bad idea. At that point I'd suggest

- getting a console, which probably offers the best price/performance ratio

- using something like ASRock's Deskmini A300 which is really affordable and features a GPU capable of light to medium gaming

- or use a proper desktop setup if you don't want to cut any corners

In any case stick to a proper Windows environment for gaming. My daily driver is a Mac Mini, but for gaming I boot up a dedicated Windows box.

zten• 7 years ago

Mobile GPUs perform absolutely miserably; no surprise given the design constraints. Using your link as a comparison, its nearest neighbors are top-of-the-line parts from nine years ago, and budget parts from four years ago.

GiorgioG• 7 years ago

Do these machines lose any performance due to Intel’s latest vulnerability?

whalesalad• 7 years ago

Knock on wood my Macbook Pro that is now about 6 months old has been holding up flawlessly. Keyboard is great.

revskill• 7 years ago

Apple Computers should have SSD built-in.

jandrese7• 7 years ago

Isn't the SSD on these soldered to the motherboard? You can't get any more built-in than that.

tartrate• 7 years ago

These announcements are getting just as cringey as the Wolfram announcements...

    "the fastest Mac notebook ever" (x3)
    "is more powerful than ever" (x2)
    "the best Mac notebook display ever"

and

    "the latest version of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system."

sheinsheish• 7 years ago

No thank you. Sticking with iMac for the next 3 years. After having to return the new MacBook Pro with the fantastic shaky new ports.

blunte• 7 years ago

Nice. But I don’t need more speed, I need longer battery life, a better keyboard, and a screen that can, at least for short periods, be super bright (for outdoor use).

Lack of speed ceased to by my concern with the 2013 MBP (which I still use today).

wpdev_632• 7 years ago

Why would you want to spend 2k+ on a laptop with an abysmal keyboard?

swozey12• 7 years ago

I buy $3k laptops. The only time they're not docked is when I'm on a plane or on my couch..

wpdev_632• 7 years ago

Apparently buying a macbook is like being a battered wife making excuses for her husband. It's sad and unfortunate.

j-c-hewitt• 7 years ago

8-core Intel Core processors, delivering Turbo Boost speeds up to 5.0 GHz, while the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar features faster quad-core processors with Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.7 GHz.

Cooled by what? Oh, right, almost nothing. If you actually know enough about computers to know what those numbers mean, you also know that those clock speeds cannot be sustained with this laptop's cooling solution. It is just baffling people who don't know better with numbers.

bsaul2• 7 years ago

Funny how people used to be apple hardware sold the software after steve jobs decided to end the mac clone strategy.

But judging by all the comments out there, it feels now that the only reason people buy mac hardware is because of mac os.

mwfunk2• 7 years ago

I never had that impression, I always felt like the software sold the hardware. The hardware was always premium hardware with premium prices and correspondingly premium margins, but because the hardware was so good, people who bought it mainly for the software felt good about their purchase, and didn't mind paying extra for higher-end hardware than they might otherwise buy for themselves. This avoids the race-to-the-bottom dynamic that resulted in the Windows PC market getting saturated in low-quality, low-margin hardware for so many years.

Put another way, having great software enables upselling thriftier consumers on the hardware, which is the thing that actually makes money, especially now that OS upgrades are free and don't make money on their own. As long as both the software and the hardware are indeed great, then people feel good about their purchase.

If it's no longer the best hardware (or the best software), then that positive reinforcement loop goes away, and you end up with users who still like macOS, but not as much as they used to, who are doubly frustrated because they feel like they have to spend even more money on hardware that is no longer best-in-class, and has features that they're paying extra for that they view as negatives (touchbar, butterfly keyboard, unergonomically huge trackpad, minimal ports, dongletown, unasked for levels of thinness that forces so many compromises, greatly diminished resale value, etc.).

bsaul2• 7 years ago

I’m not sure how old you are, but for a very long time mac os was actually almost a liability : you never knew if the software you needed was going to run on that platform. That’s why mac was for a very long time used only in niche markets ( sound and graphic designers, then developers started to use it starting mac os X).

Also, you think to mix hardware with hardware power, but you seem to forget design. The mac renaissance of the steve jobs 2 era started with a new line of cute colored imacs, great advertising, and strong brand recognition. Those kind of things you don’t get with software.

eecc• 7 years ago

Best 80-something € spent so far were on a new battery set https://eustore.ifixit.com/en/Parts/MacBook-Parts/Macbook-Pr...

Cost me 2 hrs and some bruised fingers but I'm good for years.

And if Apple hasn't amended this disaster when this battery fails, I'll replace it again.

paradox1234• 7 years ago

Anyone have the latest scuttlebutt on the switch from Intel to ARM processors? My sources of mac gossip are pretty outdated these days...

kabdib2• 7 years ago

Until they fix the keyboard for real I'm not going there. I might hold out for a USB type A port, too -- other companies make perfectly good laptops with these.

How dependent is Apple on the "nerd factor" with its laptops? They definitely got a boost from capturing designers and "hip engineers" a while back; if these folks got disgusted and left, would it matter now?

dirkg• 7 years ago

The MacBook has always been mediocre hardware hyped and marketed beyond all reason. Even way back all the nonsense about unibody construction was a total myth, Thinkpads were even more durable but didnt have the hype.

Apple knows they will keep selling these things due to the brand image.

MrLeftHand• 7 years ago

The whole thing can't keep a 4 core CPU from overheating and throttling. Not too mention with that small power brick and the USB-C charging cable, you can't even provide enough power to that beast of CPU regardless of i9 being less power hungry then the i8 is.

Apple just doesn't want to learn.

rasfincher2• 7 years ago

I've just about given up on Apple. My spacebar on my 2017 15" MacBook Pro started going bad after only three months. Bundle that with the pointless Touchbar and the arrow key layout and I just can't see myself using another until they sort all of that out.

I recently switched to a Dell XPS 15 9560 running Pop!_OS. Talk about a simple setup for a Linux system running a HiDPI screen. Before that, I was running Manjaro with i3 and it was fairly easy to set up but took a bit more fiddling.

diziet• 7 years ago

I assume the New CPUs are 14nm Coffee Lake-H:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i9_micropro...

djbelieny• 7 years ago

Thank you but no, thank you. Too little, for too much, too late. In the best GoT tradition: NOT TODAY!

chx• 7 years ago

It is really tiresome to see every single thing Apple introduces here... but when Lenovo introduced the X1 Extreme with the exact same CPU, where's the HN article? Why the fruit toy is so important?

ilovecaching• 7 years ago

OLED is the future of laptop displays (all displays really). I won't buy a new MacBook Pro until we get one. Until then I'm looking to get the new X1 Extreme.

vijaybritto• 7 years ago

Apple says the machines are 40% faster. But Intel has patched their ZombieLoad vulnerability this week which is a 40% perf hit. So these machines are going to be as fast as unpatched machines that we have today?!

Shank• 7 years ago

The 40% performance drop only applies if you turn off hyperthreading, which nobody (including Apple) is doing out of the box. You can consider these processors vulnerable to ZombieLoad and unpatched out of the box. The timeline for development of a new product like a laptop is so long that these have been planned for months prior to the vulnerability announcement, if not a year or more.

If you want a machine that doesn't have ZombieLoad, and is also Intel, you have to wait until they really patch it in new hardware or disable hyperthreading.

"The 40% figure is only with hyperthreading off" source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210107

dkobia• 7 years ago

I work on both a MacBook pro 15 with 32 gb and a Thinkpad X1 Carbon 32gb everyday. Apple is still light years ahead. The inconsistent UI on a Windows machine is infuriating, but Office is unsurprisingly powerful for teams. 8-core? I'll happily take it. Windows is retarded. The lack of empathy in user experience adds up to countless wasted hours.

modzu• 7 years ago

well what everyone seems to be missing here is this: we don't have a choice. the alternatives are not better. so apple has no incentive to make its products better, in fact there is incentive to make them worse in order to cut costs and increase revenues (a luxury afforded by the lack of comptetition). the profit margins on dongles are probably much greater than on anything in the system. until something comes along to seriously challenge their monopoly, or apple discovers the kind of pride it had under jobs, it will continue to get worse (at least for us folk who actually use these machines to their potential. there is clearly a market for which they are stylish instagram viewers). this is a great opportunity for MS, who is heavily courting developers. now with linux subsystem et all and all that's left is to close the trackpad gap. apple can fade away into irrelevance.

bussierem• 7 years ago

Okay but hold on a second, I didn't see this in any of the comments so far:

A fully specced new macbook pro with the i9 costs 6500 DOLLARS.

i9 CPU, 32GB RAM, 4TB SSD, and Vega Pro GPU.

I have spent, in 15 years of owning/building computers and laptops, around $8000 total. The fact that these numbers are even comparable is insane.

joemaller1• 7 years ago

None of the promo pictures show the keyboard, Touch Bar or trackpad. CPU speed is not the reason I haven't upgraded. Those are.

princetman• 7 years ago

For me 13” Retina MBP circa 2013 was the pinnacle of form factor, price, & performance. Unfortunately they went out of support and employer forced us to upgrade with 15” Touch MBP. I don’t have any complaints about keyboard, guess I’m just lucky in that regards.

But new MacOS and hardware are frighteningly unstable. I have observed roughly 1 in 5 times that it’ll crash outright with blank screen when attached to external display. Resetting PRAM, & SMC work for a couple of days and then back to same behaviour. Apple Store had a quick look but stupid thing didn’t crash so they blamed it on faulty cables at work and home. How can a cable can cause it to crash even after disconnected?

Unless they up their game I’ll never spend my own money on another Mac.

woofwoofwoof• 7 years ago

Glad I bought the case for my mbp 13 2015.

crsmithdev• 7 years ago

How hot will this thing be with 8 cores? Unless they've cut some ventilation holes in the bottom of the laptop. MBPs aren't exactly known for good thermal regulation (my previous one I had to actually undervolt the CPU so it wouldn't overheat while playing games for even < 30m).

Don't see anything re: keyboard so guessing that there aren't any changes there, unfortunately.

TenJack• 7 years ago

That's exactly what I'm wondering. I returned a recent 2019 MBP because it was getting so hot just after an hour of normal usage.

macbookcabler• 7 years ago

Dave Lee made a video about the Core i9 (now previous generation) that thermal throttled almost immediately under load. The throttling was so terrible it actually performed worse than the 2017 MacBook Pro.

https://youtu.be/Dx8J125s4cg

jnskw• 7 years ago

That was a software bug IIRC

undoware• 7 years ago

Command-F K E Y B O A R D

'keyboard' not found

Command-W

mikepurvis2• 7 years ago

I'm a few weeks into an XPS 15 after a decade of Apple. I'm really liking it as well. I'm even running Windows 10, of all things— between WSL and native SSH + git and friends on powershell via Chocolatey, I'm finding it surprisingly comfortable.

I think my main frustration is just that a few things about the trackpad aren't quite right. For example, I can't find a combination of settings under Windows which give the physical right-click behaviour that Mac OS has.

plasma• 7 years ago

I’m really considering the switch to XPS also; I think their latest model moves the camera back to the top as well.

What about the track pad isn’t working? And do you notice any “coil whine” I’ve been reading about?

My other choice may be a Precision but haven’t read enough about it.

Thank you

mikepurvis2• 7 years ago

I haven't experienced the coil whine issue, but I'm also mostly powering it from a USB-C dock, if that makes any difference.

I love how big the screen is— it's a 15" display in a chassis that's barely bigger than my old 13" MBP. That said, camera below the screen is a definite negative, so that's great if it's been moved back; I've just assumed I'll get a clip-on USB cam and leave it at home for VC use.

donaldihunter• 7 years ago

The touchbar is an abortion. A touchpad screen would have been a better innovation. Two dimensional touch area with multi gesture and visual feedback – just like an iphone.

hartator2• 7 years ago

Does that mean we won’t have a real update at the usual June event? :(

residentfoam• 7 years ago

after many years of MacBook Pro I recently switched to Lenovo x1 6th + Ubuntu and never looked back .

reasonablemann• 7 years ago

Material change now after the `quieting` mechanism. The can just keeps getting kicked down the road.

seaghost• 7 years ago

I'm still using 6 years old MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013, bought refurbished version) with Intel Core i7 at 2GHz with 8GB of RAM and 256 SSD, couldn't' be happier.

achenatx• 7 years ago

When the touchbar macbooks were announced,I immediately went out and bought a used 2015 macbook. The great thing about them is that they are good for quite a long time because macs dont tend to get bogged down over time

I love the unix lineage on Mac OS with a consumer ready GUI.

By far the #1 thing that keeps me from using windows as my main machine is the registry.

I do have an old windows desktop that I upgraded with SSD and maxed out the ram and it runs great with windows 10.

I also run windows 10 in parallels on my Mac (for the office suite and a few windows only programs. Time machine backup works incredibly well and I can 100% rely on it. I can be up and running in minutes even if my windows 10 image gets completely destroyed.

I had a mac stolen, went to the store, bought a new one, restored from time machine almost immediately.

The only thing Ive been disappointed in is that the stability of the last two versions hasnt been great. I used to go months without a reboot, now I crash about once every two weeks.

chasedehan• 7 years ago

I continue to be amazed by releases on Macs about how "powerful" they are.

I use a Dell XPS running Ubuntu with 12 cores and 32GB of ram with a 1050 in a 15 inch. It is a really amazing platform, doesn't have these keyboard or screen issues, and cost less than a MacBook Pro.

ClassyJacket• 7 years ago

Can you link to the 12 core version? I wasn't aware of any laptop with 12 cores, and I can't find a reference to more than 6 on the Dell site.

app• 7 years ago

Just replaced the battery and threw new thermal paste on my Mid-2014 15" for $300. Discrete graphics, no TouchBar and a keyboard with travel. I hope this thing runs for another 5 years.

_raoulcousins• 7 years ago

There are some really cool custom Thinkpads shoving new guts into the classic T60 body. I guess it's not really feasible for MacBooks? I looked for a 2012 or 2013 body with new hardware but nothing.

My 2013 is still working, but the screen hinge is loose and it's probably wearing on the display cable. Nothing new there, though. The display cable was the first thing to fail on my white iBook around 2005.

Wish I still had the Macintosh Portable with the built in carrying handle and roller ball I found at a garage sale! Now that would be a neat mod. Talk about a good keyboard.

deafcalculus• 7 years ago

Will it be possible to use 8 cores effectively given the thermal limitations of such a thin device? I wouldn't be surprised if the 6 core model gives about the same level of performance for most workloads as the 8 core one.

NightlyDev• 7 years ago

Who cares if it's an 8 core that boosts to 5 GHz? The cooling on Macbooks is thrash and it will throttle on sustained multithread workloads.

bayareanative2• 7 years ago

I have an oct-core 13" WQHD 16 GiB/1 TiB SSD hackintosh with 10 hr battery life. Screw Apple with their unrepairable, overpriced, horrible hardware is unappealing.

czbond• 7 years ago

How?

afandian• 7 years ago

A few months after purchase and my MacBook Pro's keyboard has already been in for repairs and the screen glitch is too intermittent to replicate so they won't fix it. A Mac without Applecare+ is foolhardy -- these machines are engineered to fail under normal use -- so this should be considered as part of the base price IMHO. Applecare only covers 3 years so that's the lifetime of the product. That's an expensive value prop.

My colleague's Macbook keyboard broke today. Close to 400 quid to diagnose and fix (we declined, its a huge chunk of the original price). Just ofer 4 years old (which is nothing) and juuuuust out of the replacement programme Apple has for keyboards they knew were faulty.

Lifelong Apple suporter until the past few years. Avoid like the plague.

tomduncalf2• 7 years ago

Ugh yeah the 4 year thing sucks. Apple should be saying 8 years or thereabouts in my opinion. It’s clearly a design flaw that they were aware of (and still are trying to paper over) on a very expensive product, but one which is usually loved by customers. Seeing all the negativity this issue causes sucks, as does knowing my 2017 will probably be useless as a laptop one day because of it

cutler2• 7 years ago

Having used a Hackintosh as my desktop for the last 10 years without issue I'm inclined to attempt the same for my laptop now that my 2013 Macbook Pro is looking a bit old. At nearly half the price it's becoming a no-brainer. Are there high-end laptops with screens comparable to Apple's retina display nowadays? I'm also assuming disk and RAM can be replaced in Dells and ThinkPads but maybe I'm mistaken?

higgy• 7 years ago

I use a mid-2012 MacBook Pro that still feels ahead of the newer stuff. Progress isn't always linear.

TaylorAlexander4• 7 years ago

Just thought I’d chime in to say I’m loving my Thinkpad X1 with Debian.

If you want to install Debian on the X1 it’s pretty easy. Just make sure to fix some of the sleep issues using the (easy) instructions on this page, which in my experience still apply to Debian: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X1_Carb...

LeoPanthera2• 7 years ago

"Just make sure to fix some of the sleep issues..."

A great example of why people buy Macs, though. Most people don't want to faff around with hackery getting Linux to work properly. And with Windows 10's horrible privacy issues, Macs are still the best choice. They're buying them for the software, not the hardware.

TaylorAlexander4• 7 years ago

I understand these issues are an impediment to Linux adoption.

However people always say this as if Linux is at fault. Well, mostly the sleep issues exist because the laptop ships with windows, and windows has some fancy sleep mode that involves a specific bios setting.

Linux uses more traditional sleep settings, so when installing Linux one must change that bios setting and then run a command to tell the OS that setting has been changed.

So you didn’t say Linux is at fault, but just to be clear: this is just what you get when the manufacturer doesn’t support your preferred OS.

However as a robotics engineer, I prefer open source over ease of use. I’m not suggesting regular people do this, but sharing the tips with the Hacker News crowd who may also be fine with running a few terminal commands to get a great OS experience on hardware which may be a better value than a MacBook today given their issues discussed in this thread.

peterkelly• 7 years ago

My god.

Problems with sleep/resume were what ultimately convinced me to switch from Linux to Mac 12 years ago. It's insane to see there are still issues with it today.

iscrewyou• 7 years ago

When the first touchbar 15-inch came out, I went out and bought it as I was in need of a computer and I was waiting for the release. I used it for maybe 2 days.... I went RIGHT back and bought a brand new last of the good non-touchbar macbook pros from the preview year. I still have it and it still runs great. I have never had any issues with it.

I've even filled out a survey that apple sent me about macbook pros a while ago. And I explicitly wrote to go back in the design of the keyboards, the ports and the thickness.

I will use this computer until I can't fix it anymore.

DenisM• 7 years ago

It's remarkable that the reception on HN is so hostile, in stark contrast to the old days. And yet Apple doesn't seem to care, marching on in their reductionist quest.

Who are their target PRO users then, if not the developers?

joering2• 7 years ago

$1,800 for 13-inch laptop.

bochoh• 7 years ago

With every model that comes out I keep feeling better about my Mid-2015 15" i7 model. Thinking about buying an eBay OEM 1TB SSD and keeping it for the next 5 years at this point. If anyone has a SSD they'd be willing to part with please reach out!

multibit• 7 years ago

I have a 2015 Retina Macbook Pro and it is still fast enough for me. When it fails I will either buy another of the same model or get a PC and put Linux on it. What Apple has done to this product line is awful. At best it's just bad design, at worst it's exploitative.

jimmcslim• 7 years ago

“Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro”*

* Performance now equivalent to 6 cores due to Intel microcode vulnerabilities

robertlf• 7 years ago

I'm a web developer and I need a reliable keyboard that's comfortable to type on. The MBP keyboards have been neither comfortable nor reliable since 2015. I've been holding onto my 2015 MBP with it's scissors mechanism keyboard for dear life. For the first time in ten years, my next laptop won't be a MBP. It'll either be a Lenovo ThinkPad or a Dell Inspirion running Linux. Goodbye Apple.

obahareth• 7 years ago

The many failures (keyboard, screen, random freezes that need a hard shutdown) forced me to also switch to an XPS 13 on Kubuntu. I wish Apple would make a good Macbook again.

mullingitover• 7 years ago

It's telling that they immediately list these brand new laptops on their page offering extended support for the defective keyboards[1].

Unpopular opinion, but I continue to believe Apple needs to just walk away from the computer business. It's a negligible part of their core phone business, and it shows. I really wish that they'd license the OS to let people (and OEMs) build quality workstations.

[1] https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...

madoublet• 7 years ago

I have the 15" 2018 MacBook Pro and would not recommend one until the following issues are resolved:

- It runs really, really hot. It cannot be used on your lap. I cannot imagine how hot a faster model would be.

- The keyboard is unreliable. I have not had the stuck key problem (yet!), but I do notice occasional crunching like something is stuck in the keys. I do not eat around this machine on purpose.

- The Touchbar is really bad. I wanted to like it. But, it is annoying more times than it is helpful.

- Not having a touchscreen when every other high end machine does seems more and more like a gap that needs to be resolved.

- Windows management continues to be crap in OSX.

There are a lot of good things. The screen is good. The touchpad is top notch. OSX is reliable and fast. But, yeah, the hardware just sucks right now. No way around it.

makecheck2• 7 years ago

I agree that the default OS window management is pretty limited but this can literally be solved for $5 or less (sometimes $1) using utilities on the App Store that perform snapping, saved layouts, etc.

pdimitar• 7 years ago

Can you please give links? I only know about Stay so far.

ratsimihah2• 7 years ago

Still no CUDA. Does this one come with a keyboard? I think I'll stick to my almighty 2015.

jtl999• 7 years ago

Wonder how bad this is going to thermal throttle.

dzhiurgis4• 7 years ago

For people with double entry keyboard issue, I highly recommend https://github.com/aahung/Unshaky - uses software to ignore double entry. Mine(2018) has developed an issue within 3 months of hard use on one of the worst keys - backspace.

I've introduced over 5 bugs because of this shite, by randomly deleting one dangling brace...

la_barba3• 7 years ago

Apple still makes very good products, but they're starting to move away from differentiators that made them successful over others. A lot of computing products are what I'd call "engineered to fail". In that, the design of the product sucks in an objective way, and any technically minded person can see the failure coming from a mile away. For e.g. buggy custom software for stupidly trivial tasks like application/system updates, and then making it worse by installing it as a kernel service, or using sub-par plasticky components, poor frame construction, or pre-loading crap-ware, zero attention to ergonomics, not caring if the vendor's software blends with the underlying OS, not caring about UX impact of their software, etc.

skywhopper• 7 years ago

Fascinating that the embedded pictures don't even show the keyboard (or the much-unloved Touch Bar).

znpy• 7 years ago

Meanwhile, non-touchbar 13" macbook pros still have dual-core cpus.

Somebody might say "Apple continues the war against its own users".

kod• 7 years ago

Typing this on a Dell Precision 7530. Comes stock with Ubuntu. 128gb of ram, 4 times what Apple offers, at close to the same cost. Linux font rendering still sucks, but I may never use another Apple product again.

will_crusher• 7 years ago

Wow, people are really salty about Apple.

I too wish they would make a better computer, but for now I continue to use them because they are the only machine that I can work on with little fuss of setup and go.

I have the 2018 model with the "Keyboard" which has been fine because I use a Bluetooth Mechanical keyboard anyway and a BT Mouse. I have a single cable or "Dongle" that supplies power, 3 displays, 5 USB 3.0 type A, 2 USB Type C, a SD Card Reader and Ethernet. Its also Daisy-Chained to an External GPU and temps stay good. When I need to go portable I just unplug a single cable and go.

cerberusss• 7 years ago

Thanks. I feel the same. I work at my client as well as in my own office, and when leaving my desk, I often take my laptop with me. The single Thunderbolt cable is fantastic like that.

mackey• 7 years ago

Didn't they announce the flex gate repair program today?

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/05/21/apple-backlight-service...

pier253• 7 years ago

It's only for the 13'' 2016 model.

baxtr• 7 years ago

I just love my 2018 MB pro, including its keyboard. Am I crazy? Am I the only one?!

jstsch• 7 years ago

Nope. Me too. My 2018 MBP 15" is my dream laptop. The machine I've always wanted. Superfast. Light to carry everywhere. Comfy to work with on the couch. Connects to 2 5K displays at my desk. Even the speakers are decent. The 2016's keyboard was too clicky/rattley, but the 2018's is nice and tight.

hw• 7 years ago

Yet another with the horrendous Touchbar. Looks like I'll be holding on to my 2012 MBP for a while more. Maybe will look for a like new 2015 one if there are any still out there.

musicale• 7 years ago

Did they fix that horrible "butterfly" keyboard and the trackpad with completely broken palm rejection?

vogon_laureate2• 7 years ago

I own both a 15" Macbook Pro 2017 model with touch bar and a Dell XPS 15" 2017 model. Both have their pluses and minuses. Both needed major repairs. Dell needed logic board and screen replaced. Mac needed logic board and keyboard.

I mainly use the Mac. It's much quieter, has an amazingly vivid and bright retina display, extremely good battery life, best track pad in the industry and the best speakers on any laptop I've ever had. I like the keyboard, I even game on it. I don't get the whole dongle issue but I'm not a heavy user of peripherals. I have two USB-C port extender dongles should I ever need anything from ethernet to firewire 800. I've used them like twice in the last two years.

The Dell is fine, but I'm just not a big Windows fan. The keyboard is kinda meh, the bluetooth is poor, the screen isn't as bright or vivid and has some light bleed and the build has that cheap plastic feel about it. If it was any more reliable than the Macbook, I think I would be persuaded by the argument about the hardware, but both have had problems, both required lengthy repairs, etc. I have extended warranty on Dell and Applecare for the Mac and I needed them for both.

Laptops fail. My PC motherboard with ultra durable components also failed after two years. Heat and dust and micro-imperfections in silicon will do their thing. Sure, Apple made some questionable design choices. It's still a great machine.

colordrops2• 7 years ago

Dell XPS laptops are some of the best Linux laptops out there. No need for Windows. I've been using the same model as you with Linux for a while now and an very happy with it.

robert_foss• 7 years ago

Agreed, the Linux support for the Dell XPS machines is excellent.

arendtio• 7 years ago

A few years ago I bought an XPS 15 9530 (2013) and I hate that thing.

A few months after I got it the touch screen failed. Dell put some effort into repairing it (about an hour of remote support for updating the BIOS and afterward a technician visited me twice to replace the display (the first time he didn't have the correct replacement screen at hand)).

However, a while later the screen started to flicker sometimes. At first, I took it for a software issue and since I didn't use the laptop that often I didn't really care. When I realized that it was, in fact, a hardware defect (again), the warranty had expired.

So good Linux support is one (very valuable) thing, but if the build quality is that bad (I mean, even my 300€ first gen Eeepc still runs with fewer problems), I am not willing to pay the XPS premium again.

vogon_laureate2• 7 years ago

I've tried to go full Linux desktop. I hated it. On the servers I manage, I run terminal only and mostly BSD systems. Linux desktop just boils my piss. Plus I need Adobe apps, and a few other bits and pieces of software. I need my machine to facilitate my work, not get in my way. I appreciate that Linux works like that for some, but for me, not at all.

ylere• 7 years ago

I've also switched to an XPS15 as a linux machine - the largest benefit Dell has over Apple is that IF something breaks (or I break it accidentally) someone will be at my home or at work within 24 hours with replacement parts and will fix it, no questions asked. I can't afford having to go to the apple store and wait days for a replacement when it's my main work machine. The build quality is quite decent and if you look inside it's clearly designed to be repairable on-site, while fixing Apple notebooks often requires replacing entire sections at once and the use of specialized tools.

hu32• 7 years ago

Can confirm. 10 years ago I burned motherboard and processor trying to overclock my Dell PC. Within 24h a Dell support guy was at my home with all parts of the PC and replaced it without questions asked.

After the quick replacement I even told him it was probably my fault but he replied saying it doesn't matter because on average customers don't abuse and I was just a number to them.

errantspark• 7 years ago

I would be so wildly impressed if this was any better in continuous workloads than the next model down, or even a couple models down. There's no way in hell there's enough thermal headroom for that CPU to fire on all cylinders for more than 30 seconds or so.

JanSuly• 7 years ago

Apple tries to make me a fan of them

coryfklein• 7 years ago

Still only USB Type C ports though on a $2000 machine? It feels like such a rip off. For two years now my primary device has been a MBP with only USB Type C, and for two years now I haven't had a single device I can plug into it without a dongle.

I'm so sick of these fucking dongles. Thank god it still has the 3.5mm port, because it must have taken an act of divinity to prevent that part of the Apple crazy from reaching the MBP yet.

gondo• 7 years ago

so this means no macbook pro upgrade during the next apple wwdc event (june the 3rd). i was secretly hoping for a redesign

rubyn00bie• 7 years ago

What sort of frustrates me most about this isn't that I hate the touchbar, or that I'll have to buy it, but that it's hard to find a system with competitive specs that costs as much or less.

I want a system with an octo-core i9, 32GBs of RAM, a metal body, and a large multi-touch trackpad. As much as I hate to say it, if you want a high-end laptop, Apple still has the market. I found some Dells that are close spec wise but not all the way there, or systems which are as thick as a deck of magic cards... They're (apple) are gonna get my $4k whether I like it or not.

jjellyy• 7 years ago

I think everyone is overreacting to this. Yes Ive had to buy a can of compressed air but otherwise I like the new keyboard feel and key size. Considering all the tradeoffs im happy

eugeniub• 7 years ago

To the people still complaining about dongles: It's 2019. Maybe buy a couple of USB-C cables and move on?

sridca• 7 years ago

Thinkpad X1 Extreme 2nd generation too.

9th Generation Intel® Core i9-9880H with vPro (2.30GHz, up to 4.80GHz with Turbo Boost, 8 Cores, 16MB Cache)

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rbanffy3• 7 years ago

I find it rather disappointing they didn't announce 8-core iMacs and Mac Minis at the same time.

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ndrake• 7 years ago

https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...

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bborud2• 7 years ago

It says something about Apple when my first reaction is "yeah...I'm going to hang back and see if this laptop too is going to have lots of problems".

Apple's war on repair shops doesn't make me want to spend a lot of money on an Apple laptop. It's just a bad investment.

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randomsofr• 7 years ago

I got the 2017 model and i regret it, i spent almost 3k for the fully equipped 13" and already had to replace the display ($500 at local authorized shop) and have the keyboard problem. I wish i had stayed with my 2015 :(

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geophile• 7 years ago

Useless. Same crappy, defective 5/6 of a keyboard, and defective display.

I jumped ship. Love my System 76 Darter.

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SomeHacker44• 7 years ago

Still no 32GB RAM option on 13”. Still no option to remove Touch Bar. Still almost the same keyboard. Pass.

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bartimus• 7 years ago

I'm fairly sure my 2012 core-i7 MacBook Pro with SSD and 16GB ram still has comparable performance for most applications. Single core speed has pretty much stagnated over the years.

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actuator3• 7 years ago

So, I need a personal laptop and I think I will go for the 2013-2015 rMBP. I want to go for X1 Carbon but haven't had nice experience with Ubuntu on it.

I looked at the 4 core i7 configurations and they have Geekbench score of 13k-14k. So, doesn't seem that bad compared to the new processors and should hold up on CPU front for three more years I guess.

I had a question to people who use 15" MBPs. Since I am not able to get 13" ones with 16 GB RAM. Are the 15" noticeably bulky and less mobile than 13" ones?

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ianwalter2• 7 years ago

I don’t think they are and prefer 15” now. I even can fit my 2017 15” in my old Incase bag that was made for the last generation of 13” MacBook Pros.

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actuator3• 7 years ago

Ah. Thanks for the info. Newer 15" ones are thinner and smaller so that is possible. I will take my bag and try fitting the old 15" one. :)

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ballzoffury• 7 years ago

Oh no, I was looking to get an x1 carbon because of the supposedly great Linux support. What kind of problems where you experiencing? And was it the 14", or the extreme?

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actuator3• 7 years ago

This was the 2017 14" X1 Carbon(not the extreme one). Mostly battery issues, it was holding up very less on sleep and in use. I was using Ubuntu and Ubuntu actually certifies the hardware. The keyboard was just plain awesome though. I don't think you would find a better keyboard in the slim form factor.

Since this was an office one, I returned it and continued on my 2014 rMBP. It might have been fixed now btw. I will also try the newer X1s I can before finalizing on one.

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dzonga2• 7 years ago

I recently bought a thinkpad t490 and installed Manjaro. Best experience I ever had on a laptop. Followed by my late 2012 Macbook pro that served me faithfully for the past 6 years. At work, as front-end dev, I use a 15" 2018 Macbook pro.one of the worst laptops I ever used. Kernel panics weekly. Almost as shitty as one of the Dell ultrabook I used in 2012 before I switched to a Macbook

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lone_haxx0r• 7 years ago

But do they have an escape key?

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cageface2• 7 years ago

After the keyboard on my 2017 MBP started to fail, I “upgraded” to a 2018 model because I couldn’t afford to be without a machine for a week or longer. Now the keyboard on this supposedly improved model is also starting to go.

For many years I was a very happy Apple customer and even converted several family members to MacBooks. But now that Apple has shown just how little regard they have for their pro customers by trying to sell us this broken keyboard for the fourth time I’m getting off the bus for good. My next laptop will not be a Mac. Thank god I stopped doing iOS development.

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72deluxe4• 7 years ago

What made you stop doing iOS development? I would consider a Mac Mini for that and remote into it from a decent machine.

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cageface2• 7 years ago

Mainly just because I don't enjoy it and don't enjoy building the kind of things people want to build on mobile for the most part.

Also because I think the market for native apps is shrinking and that the web has more growth potential.

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randomsearch• 7 years ago

My MacBook Air keyboard is a PITA with repeating and spurious keys. The software is buggier ever week. Apps crash, OS X freezes. And I have similar problems with my other Apple devices.

Problem is, it’s still far superior for anyone who needs to do technical and general office work. Tried Linux, doesn’t cut it for the latter. And the industrial design etc is still much better.

So Apple is on this downward trend in quality, and it worries me because there’s no alternative. Are we just going to see productivity drop across the board as Apple gradually regresses back to the mean?

We need more Apple-like companies designing great products.

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yakshaving_jgt• 7 years ago

What’s that Apple? You still haven’t fixed the keyboard?

Well then I won’t be buying one.

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thrower123• 7 years ago

At that price point, I couldn't see the point of buying a Mac Pro, versus buying a real desktop and a disposable Asus or Acer or Chromebook for the rare times I need to lug something around.

I think the only thing that might tempt me is if they brought back the 17" form factor, but I don't think they have made those for almost a decade. Those things were monsters, and everyone I know who had one rode it until it wouldn't go anymore.

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eeeeeeeeeeeee4• 7 years ago

Same great keyboard! /s

Utterly ridiculous they haven’t redone this keyboard yet.

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c141charlie• 7 years ago

I’ll sacrifice myself at the alter of Steve Jobs. I have a 2018 MacBook Pro with a 6-core CPU and 32GB of RAM and I absolutely love it (with exception to the Touch Bar which sucks if you’re a VIM user). Once you get used to the butterfly keyboard you can fly. The light weight makes traveling with a 15 inch laptop a pleasant experience. The screen, speakers, and touch pad are fantastic. I haven’t had a single issue with the keyboard, and I am constant munching on food, getting crumbs in between the keyboard, etc. Dongle life isn’t as bad as it sounds. Put one in your backpack and use it when needed. I also bought the LG 5K monitor and that has been the perfect compliment to this laptop. OK back to drinking more kool aid.

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Teknoman1172• 7 years ago

But ... did they fix the keyboard?

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totololo6• 7 years ago

Does it mean the rumored 16" MBP is dead? https://9to5mac.com/2019/02/19/macbook-pro-16-inch-concept-r...

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totaldude87• 7 years ago

Pro mid 2012 user here ,oved to SSD couple of years earlier and added 4gigs of ram this year and happy customer ever.

Unfortunately I use external hard disk as boot , and in recent releases of MacOS I think apple started pushing towards fusion drive due to which had to buy a new ssd and move again ( any other alternatives?)

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TheKarateKid• 7 years ago

Keyboard issues aside, these laptops are a thermal disaster. Mine heats up and gets loud fans if 20% or more CPU is used for more than a minute or two.

My non-Retina MBP would need to be at 100% for 10-15+ minutes for the fans to kick in at half the volume.

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windexh8er• 7 years ago

Beyond all the comments about the poor fixability of the MBP (screens), the absolutely horrid keyboard and the laughable amount of RAM in a $3200 laptop, who actually wants these things? They are unusable for a professional who actually types on them all day and now with the ever increasing Intel performance tax why spend the extra money on a processor that will likely have 30-50% less performance than claimed the day you buy it. Apple has become the brand of excess and ignorance.

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cfitz• 7 years ago

Do not buy a new one until some other fool (like me) purchases one sight-unseen and shares whether the machine runs without issues.

I did this with a top-spec'd 2016 MBP that eventually got replaced with a 2017 due to the frequency of problems. Recently spent too many hours getting my 2017 repaired (& back up to its previous state) for the same issues.

Very disappointing given the price point.

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arihant• 7 years ago

Honestly, with the new Pro laptops having so much issues, my next Mac setup will be an iMac with an Air. After using the 2018 model, I have a different level of respect for my 2015.

So much double typing on 2018, who designed that keyboard? It is not even a Pro laptop for authors anymore, who arguably need the least computing power.

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usr1987• 7 years ago

nothing about the keyboard?

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gigatexal• 7 years ago

I know the keyboard is garbage but I always get AppleCare and treat my machines very well but if I got a 2019 model with the butterfly keyboard I’d be even more paranoid about dust and foreign particulates getting under the keys. I’m still most productive on OSX but that is changing as the Linux ecosystem gets better and better.

If they would just go back to the old pricing model and bring back a sane robust keyboard people would be so much happier.

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valleyjo• 7 years ago

lots of talk about the keyboards and the displays. But did they fix the thermal issues?

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mastrsushi• 7 years ago

8 cores and no working keyboard

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IloveHN84• 7 years ago

What about the mitigation against MDS? Without hyperthreading, the advantages are less perceivable.

And how expensive is it? No thanks, up to today, a Dell/Lenovo+Linux goes way way better than MBP and the heavy OSX.

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macboiii2• 7 years ago

"MacBook Pro now delivers two times faster performance than a quad-core MacBook Pro and 40 percent more performance than a 6-core MacBook Pro, making it the fastest Mac notebook ever.1" Most useless quote ever.

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macboiii2• 7 years ago

"MacBook Pro now delivers two times faster performance than a quad-core MacBook Pro and 40 percent more performance than a 6-core MacBook Pro, making it the fastest Mac notebook ever.1"

most useless math ever

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lylo• 7 years ago

The latest Apple magic keyboard has butterfly-like keys and is an absolute joy to type on. No issues after a couple of years of daily use. Why can’t this mechanism find its way into a MBP?

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saagarjha17• 7 years ago

The latest Apple magic keyboard has butterfly-like keys

I don't think it does.

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satysin3• 7 years ago

I have a max spec 2018 15" MacBook Pro and I love it but this update is just dumb.

The 2018 model can't fully use the current hexa-core CPU so slapping another two cores in isn't going to help things. It is going to be basically useless outside of ~5 seconds turbo boost.

While I haven't had a keyboard issue it is a constant source of anxiety which sucks. I was really hoping Apple would go with a redesign this year (as unlikely as it was) and I had planned on selling this 2018 model and upgrade but with the same keyboard and a pointless CPU update in same body I will pass.

Hopefully next year we see a redesign with a decent keyboard. Also got my fingers crossed for a 120Hz ProMotion display.

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mikl• 7 years ago

And quadruples down on their shitty keyboard design. I guess they never heard of the sunk cost fallacy or the old adage about polishing turds.

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skilled• 7 years ago

Why does it show Fortnite gameplay on the screen? What the fuck?

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consultSKI• 7 years ago

When my MBP Mid 2010 died, I bought a Samsung Chrome 3 with 4gig of RAM. It runs linux and 80% of the Android apps. And the battery lasts all day. I may never buy another computer.

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mlang23• 7 years ago

As long as they dont do away with the Touch Bar, I am not going to get one. People use machines with real keyboards for a reason. Ruining that experience by forcing a touch component onto a keyboard user is just absurd!

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JoachimS• 7 years ago

900+ comments and basically all about the HW issues (keyboard, display connector) and uselessness of the touchbar. Doesn't look good for Apple.

(I had to replace my 2015 MBP13 with the a late 2018 model. I am too mightily disappointed and would not buy a new Apple laptop).

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mvip• 7 years ago

Still on "MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013)," which is probably my 5th Macbook Pro (or equivalent) Been waiting for ages for Apple to fix their shit with the keyboard and make 32GB RAM an option for the 13". Hell will probably freeze over before any of that happens. Most likely, I'll have to get a desktop Mac and a Linux laptop.

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wlll2• 7 years ago

I'll buy a new Macbook Pro the day Apple return Magsafe, a keyboard that I can distinguish between individual keys with my fingers, doesn't break, and isn't loud, and a no-touchbar option.

Until then my 2014 MBP will have to suffice, and if that breaks I'll use Linux.

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jk563• 7 years ago

Am I reading this update correctly? Is it now impossible to get a new Apple Laptop < 15" with 16GB of RAM?

Looks like a Matebook X Pro next time for me, or an XPS. Thankfully my '14 MBP runs beautifully still.

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petoskystone2• 7 years ago

Who even needs a laptop that powerful

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petoskystone2• 7 years ago

Who even needs a laptop that powerful?

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dagw• 7 years ago

For whatever reason a lot of companies are going laptop only. The company I work, for example basically banned workstations in the latest round of upgrades. So a lot of people who need what would be a moderately powerful desktop computer end up having to buy ridiculously powerful laptops like this one.

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mark_l_watson• 7 years ago

I had the most maxed-out 15” MacBook Pro at the job I just retired from (now at 68 I am just writing and working on my side business developing a knowledge graph- deep learning product). While it was a nice laptop, the System76 laptop with a 1070 GPU I bought for myself blows away the MBPros for what I need (good model training performance and really fast recompile’s of my Haskell code base when I can’t ‘stack —fast’).

I have a fairly new MacBook that I still love for its portability and it is great for light weight stuff, but it is not my main driver.

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ethagknight• 7 years ago

Apple should really consider including AppleCare+ in these top end machines, particularly given the quality issues of the current model. Apple should provide some indication of confidence in their own workmanship. Or their confidence in their Foxconn quality control commitments. Don’t push that uncertainty off on the customer.

I love my 2016 MacBook Pro (touchbar is not great but kinda neat, I’ve replaced my usb-b->a to usb b->c cables so only need a dongle to travel, I can fly on the keyboard IFF my fingernails are trimmed very tight (lol), screen is great, sound is great, it’s fast as hell).

However, as you can see in my comment history, I’ve had substantial issues with keyboard and screen outside of warranty. Apple, fortunately and rightfully, has completely taken care of it; but I had several days of consternation while I had to wait and see what Apple decided to do. Makes me really think twice spending a lot on a new one.

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ralphc• 7 years ago

I'm on a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro, i7, 16GB of RAM, it does the job for most of my development. My problem is, not development work, but my dependence on the MacOS ecosystem over the past 13 years. Music & iPhone in iTunes, Photos app etc. I can do Java, Python, Node on a PC with Linux but I still need some kind of Mac. What do all the Mac apostates do about that?

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backpackway2• 7 years ago

Switched last year to Lenovo and while the ecosystem around Windows has for sure its issues, it's still night and day. I've been decades on Macs and I lost the interest for computers then. Since I am back to Windows/mainly WSL somehow this interest came back.

Back then, I was smiling at those PC builders with their RGB 'crap' but now I'd love to build my own battlestation with RGB everywhere. The PC ecosystem is more authentic, honest and more about tech.

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dfrey• 7 years ago

16 -> 32 GB of ram is a $400 option... ouch

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