I've got the same 2014 MB Pro. I am also completely uninspired and unmotivated to upgrade. Not to mention how much I've currently got invested in existing magsafe power adapters, displays, and usb peripherals. I'd currently need an hdmi-usb-c adapter, a displayport-usb-c adapter, and either a whole bunch of usb c-a adapters or a usb-c hub with multiple usb-a ports.
If your MBP is two years old, why would you upgrade? Macs are supposed to last way longer. I have a 2009 Mac mini, which may be due for an upgrade soon...
I'm going to replace my somewhat-aging Air because its 8G isn't really close to what I need, although it's been surprisingly capable.
The touch bar is gimmicky, but I want it--it's more versatile than the keyboard mapping/macro games I play now. I won't use it the way most consumers do, but I'll definitely use it.
what in your workflow demands more than 16G on your local machine? In the case of trying to develop locally with 4+ VMs, why not run those VMs on a generic piece of iron in a closet or datacenter?
Yes, my personal machine is a late 2008 Macbook Pro 15". The screen alone on the new one would be an amazing, huge upgrade.
The touch bar looks very cool to me. I think it's a great idea that will get copied (poorly) by other laptop manufacturers in a year or two.
A lot of good ideas look bad at first. Remember the eternal warning of CmdrTaco's iPod review. Not that the touch bar must be good because it's getting panned now... just saying, I'd give it some time. UI changes are always controversial. Quite a lot of people swore in 2007 that they'd never give up a hardware smartphone keyboard. The first Droid with the slide-out keyboard got a lot of praise. Ultimately, though, we can see where the phone market went.
I agree with most of what you said but I really miss physical keyboards on smartphones and know I'm not alone. I think they went away because they're disproportionately expensive to design and manufacture and they make localization more difficult. Touch screen keyboards just aren't as good, though I don't think slide-out qwerty is the answer either. We need mobile tactile input!
The flaw with this is that on the mobile phone the keyboard and screen are infront of your eyes the whole time -- while on a laptop you don't want to switch between looking at the screen and looking at the keyboard to see wtf the bar suggests for example.
I have looked for Androids with hardware keyboards. Only the Blackberry Priv. is recent enough. The Priv has other properties that make it a strict no-no, but the keyboard isn't exactly what I'd like either: it's too small.
Whatever happened to landscape slide-out keyboards...
they already went back on it because it wasnt apple quality. apple always waits until its refined, but you cant give them credit for creating the idea.
I didn't intend to give them credit for creating idea, just that I think other manufacturers will copy Apple's implementation in the future.
One reason I think that, is the functionality that vendors are writing for Apple's touch bar. If Adobe and Microsoft create UI elements for the bar on Apple, they could pretty easily port that to a Windows machine with a touch bar.
Nah. Already pretty happy with my Dell XPS 13 running Fedora Linux. I imagine it'll be a couple of years before distros really take advantage of the 3200x1800 screen anyway.
Besides, no one who uses Vim is gonna be happy to see the physical Esc key go away.
As I posted in another thread, I think it may actually be fine to have a different "feel" (touch vs physical) for escape, which is a very special key for us vim users (assuming you don't have it remapped).
I keep seeing posts about remapping but I honestly don't get it why users should be forced to hacks and compromises to replace functionality which had no reason to be removed in the first place.
It's not really for a compromise. I think caps is a much more useful button when remapped. For how often it's used, it should be in a more home-row centric location.
I remap caps lock to ctrl, since the ctrl key is also necessary for the command line, and the one on a Mac keyboard is in a painfully awkward location.
And remapping your vim shortcuts is great - when you're not constantly logging in to new instances or (don't ask) sharing logins with co-workers.
> Besides, no one who uses Vim is gonna be happy to see the physical Esc key go away.
What kind of self-respecting Vim user physically reaches up to the top corner of their keyboard constantly?
Even if you have a physical esc key up there you should be hitting ctrl-[ or remaping it onto the capslock. It's wasted motion to constantly pull off home row to hit escape.
Haha, I said the same thing to an emacs buddy who was expressing concerns about vim users, he sounded pissed that real Vim users don't use ESC, or even hjkl keys.
I do for one. I have capslock mapped to Ctrl. Of course, I started in EMACS and got sucked into vim and had already gotten used to the capslock as Ctrl.
I think putting ctrl on the capslock key is the more efficient move, honestly. But Vi was designed for a machine that had esc where your tab is. It's built for efficiency but you lose all of it when you have to physically pull your whole hand up off of the home row.
The Vim wiki has a lot of tips for more efficient mappings[1], but if you don't want to be dependent on your own idiosyncratic config, ctrl-[ is literally the keycode that the physical esc key generates, and it's soooo much easier to hit there's no reason not to retrain your muscle memory to prefer it.
Have you tried Karabiner-elements[0]? I haven't used OS X the past few years, so I don't know if it actually works, but somebody suggested it on reddit.
It depends on if the Secure Enclave processor added to these laptops is being used to materially improve the security of the system. That would actually be a pretty big deal.
As I mentioned yesterday in a different thread, I have an option to upgrade my system every year at zero cost (sponsored by my company). This year, I'll be sitting it out. The benefits for a developer seem next to none. Thanks but No thanks on the Touch Bar too! Literally all bells and whistles but no major improvements on basic computing functionality.
Personally, I think the Macbook Pro 2012 was a beautiful, functional beast and since then it's been just going downhill.
On a related note, yesterday's Microsoft Launch made me think about upgrading my home rig after a long time! :)
I am amused by all these comments of upgrading 2-3 year old laptops. I must be from an alternate world since I am using a 4 year old Lenovo carbon and it's awesome. I have no plans on replacing it until it just totally dies.
If I were in the market for a new one this year, yes.
Why? Touchbar looks useful. Wider gammut screen looks excellent. Apple's touchpad has always been an order of magnitude better than any other one on the market, and I'd love to have one on my MBP itself that was as large as my magic trackpad.
It's a nice upgrade over my current model, but I try to hold myself to a fixed upgrade cycle so I won't be jumping on board immediately.
Already bought one! I have a Retina 13", early 2013 now.
Just excited to try what's new. I had a Macbook (one of the new ones) for work so I'd like to try it in this form factor and with a ton more speed. I got the 13" with 16GB. Should be great!
I always said, spend more on the things you spend a lot of time with. I splurged on my bed and I spend more time on my computer than anything else (probably even my bed) so I should have the top of the line - it's what makes me money anyway.
My current Macbook Pro is fine - the new models have slightly more horsepower but I don't feel mine is lacking. If there was a model with more than 16GB of RAM I'd be more tempted, but alas. The lack of ports would actually make it a downgrade for my purposes.
There's just nothing particularly exciting in these new models. There's also nothing wrong with them, but they are getting a little long in the tooth.
102 comments
[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 227 ms ] threadThe touchbar seems too gimmicky.
2. Zenbook
3. Xiomi mi notebook
4. New 13" MacBook Pro without screen
5. Refurbished 2016 Mac Air
My debate.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbook
Would still have verify the specific model though.
I'm going to replace my somewhat-aging Air because its 8G isn't really close to what I need, although it's been surprisingly capable.
The touch bar is gimmicky, but I want it--it's more versatile than the keyboard mapping/macro games I play now. I won't use it the way most consumers do, but I'll definitely use it.
The touch bar looks very cool to me. I think it's a great idea that will get copied (poorly) by other laptop manufacturers in a year or two.
A lot of good ideas look bad at first. Remember the eternal warning of CmdrTaco's iPod review. Not that the touch bar must be good because it's getting panned now... just saying, I'd give it some time. UI changes are always controversial. Quite a lot of people swore in 2007 that they'd never give up a hardware smartphone keyboard. The first Droid with the slide-out keyboard got a lot of praise. Ultimately, though, we can see where the phone market went.
Whatever happened to landscape slide-out keyboards...
they already went back on it because it wasnt apple quality. apple always waits until its refined, but you cant give them credit for creating the idea.
One reason I think that, is the functionality that vendors are writing for Apple's touch bar. If Adobe and Microsoft create UI elements for the bar on Apple, they could pretty easily port that to a Windows machine with a touch bar.
Besides, no one who uses Vim is gonna be happy to see the physical Esc key go away.
I do remap the function bar right now, though. That will take some getting used to.
And remapping your vim shortcuts is great - when you're not constantly logging in to new instances or (don't ask) sharing logins with co-workers.
What kind of self-respecting Vim user physically reaches up to the top corner of their keyboard constantly?
Even if you have a physical esc key up there you should be hitting ctrl-[ or remaping it onto the capslock. It's wasted motion to constantly pull off home row to hit escape.
The Vim wiki has a lot of tips for more efficient mappings[1], but if you don't want to be dependent on your own idiosyncratic config, ctrl-[ is literally the keycode that the physical esc key generates, and it's soooo much easier to hit there's no reason not to retrain your muscle memory to prefer it.
[1] http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Avoid_the_escape_key
[0]: https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements
I was all ready to upgrade, but it looks like I'm staying put.
The new macbooks look cool. I'll be happy to get perhaps the next gen, or this one if something untoward happens to my current one.
I'll wait till my Macbook dies and then it is Windows time again.
Touch screen & VR here I come!
Personally, I think the Macbook Pro 2012 was a beautiful, functional beast and since then it's been just going downhill.
On a related note, yesterday's Microsoft Launch made me think about upgrading my home rig after a long time! :)
Why? Touchbar looks useful. Wider gammut screen looks excellent. Apple's touchpad has always been an order of magnitude better than any other one on the market, and I'd love to have one on my MBP itself that was as large as my magic trackpad.
It's a nice upgrade over my current model, but I try to hold myself to a fixed upgrade cycle so I won't be jumping on board immediately.
Just excited to try what's new. I had a Macbook (one of the new ones) for work so I'd like to try it in this form factor and with a ton more speed. I got the 13" with 16GB. Should be great!
I always said, spend more on the things you spend a lot of time with. I splurged on my bed and I spend more time on my computer than anything else (probably even my bed) so I should have the top of the line - it's what makes me money anyway.
There's just nothing particularly exciting in these new models. There's also nothing wrong with them, but they are getting a little long in the tooth.
Main uses:
- Web developement (Usually 4-8 tabs in Chrome + 2 Node servers + 1 MySQL + 2 VSCode windows + iTerm + Sequel Pro. No issues.)
- Twitch, Netflix, Hacker News, Twitter
I am anti-motivated by the touch bar and everything-is-USB-type-C, but I've got iOS dev work lined up so I'd better get over it.