Intel and Apple have gotten out of sync lately. I think this time is worse than usual due to the butterfly keyboard issue.
Apple's size and the fact they are using the butterfly type keyboard throughout their laptop lines, means that inertia in deciding to make a change and then implementing it throughout their manufacturing chain is a fraught and time consuming process.
I like it too - at least as well as the previous keyboard, and assuming it continues to function.
I also spend a lot of time working on my laptop outdoors though, and every time I get something under a key I hold my breath a little as I shake my laptop upside down, hoping that this isn't the time that it finally fails permanently and I have to send the whole machine back to Apple to replace a single key.
I feel back in time. I remember Apple before Steve Jobs came back. Same as today: dongles everywhere, massive product line nobody understood, pro segment frustrated, no more innovation, etc. As the messiah is dead, I did not wait for a miracle, I went to Windows (impressive) with a lenovo x1 carbon (hardware updated every years). Still using an iphone because overall better, but the software is a terrible closed mess... :( So sad... Steve prophetised Apple faith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AxZofbMGpM
It's because it's incredibly hard to reach the best result by group think and consensus.
You need benevolent dictators, basically, to have the trust and authority to innovate. Even Microsoft is catching up now with surface book 2 which has a lot of invocation in its hardware (but Windows still suck). Apple will not be number one innovator for long if they keep messing up.
Apple has fully adopted the philosophy of form over function. It looks pretty and thus gets people to buy it.
The "Pro" line is now more MacBook Plus than Pro(fessional), where the screen is bigger and its got a few more toys, but the same reduced reliability and usability in favor of looks. You are no longer their target market. They are targeting people who still want a laptop but want an Apple Fashion Statement.
That worked right up until Microsoft started taking pro hardware seriously. I keep seeing long-time Apple fans say Windows 10 is a few major revisions from being tolerable on top of some kind of Surface.
I completely agree with you but I would counter with why not have both? This appeared to be the approach that Apple was taking with their pro line for years (Jobs-era). Either buy a macbook / air which is cool and hip or if you need to get real work done, get a pro model that has everything you need. Slap new hardware in the pro model every year and you have a winner.
Their philosophy of prioritizing form more than most is not really the issue IMO. OP's complaints are really just flat out mistakes Apple has made. For example:
1. The low-travel butterfly keys would be fine for most folks (even if the low-travel is less comfortable to some, thereby prioritizing form), if they didn't break.
2. The touch bar seems useless to basically everyone, not just the HN set. It's not driving sales the way other things to (such as the quest for thinness)
3. Only one port on the 12" Macbook is probably the right approach, but becomes silly on the "Pro" machines.
My relationship with Apple at this point is like a homeless kid who got adopted by a nerdy eccentric parent in 2002, who taught me UNIX and gave me a little place to code; but lately that parent has been off listening to music with people who don't care about any of this, and when I ask this metaphorical parent for something I need, they wave their hands at me without looking and say "yeah, yeah, there's some new laptops under the stairs in a box, I'm busy, ask me again in a year". And I say, "you can log in with a blank root password", and I hear them sigh and mutter something about even giving me an OS at all.
Mention something about CUDA being important for your job and they'll completely lose it... perhaps by throwing away all the furniture and replacing the couch with a soft blue orb that starts pulsing if you play the Black Eyed Peas.
My story is that Windows was getting on my nerves and Linux didn't have the creative software that I wanted, so I sought refuge in macOS, which turned out to be better for programming and content creation than anything I had ever used in my life.
And then Steve Jobs died and Apple abandoned that user segment in favour of the iPhone. I think Jobs saw Mac as his brainchild and refused to neglect it, whereas Tim Cook has no such emotional attachment to it.
Wouldn't be a bad idea to release a few Mac minis soon with user upgradeable RAM, drive, etc. We know the Mac Pro is anyway not coming this year. It looks like the new Macs will just be updates to the MacBook Pro and MacBook lines. Hopefully some without the Touch Bar and with a newer and better (or older and better?) keyboard.
I'm using the first Retina Macbook Pro from 2012. I'm ready to drop thousands of dollars for you Apple, if you would just make a couple of sensible design choices.
Please Apple, bring out another model like the Macbook Pro I already have:
* No Touch-bar. It's pointless & irritating & I'd prefer my money to be spent elsewhere, where it matters.
* A decent keyboard that will last 6 years like this one
* Magsafe
I use this machine to make my living as a software engineer. These things matter a great deal to me.
And Apple, please please please don't make it thinner - I really don't care about thinness like you think I do!
It is surely not too much to ask for. The problem is that the number of software engineers that will buy a MBP every six years is a relatively small market compared to the general public buying MBP every three years that are more gadgety with crap like the touch bar. Apple wants growth and expanding TAM is the easiest path forward.
That's an excellent point snarf21, and I don't disagree with you. I know that you're right, really.
Another take on this, though, in terms of our value to Apple though is the concept of "developer mindshare" (as well as power users). A small percentage of customers can have a massive network effect in terms of sales. This whole cycle of history seems to be repeating itself all over again. Right now when I go to developer conferences, I still see MacBooks everywhere, but of course this was't always the case. It only takes a few years for things to flip.
This whole cycle of tech history seems to be repeating itself all over again. Which is a shame, because, on the whole I've benefited greatly from the combination of macos, the hardware and "it just works"; it's allowed me to simply get on with my work, unencumbered by faulty drivers, weird library interactions and whatnot, and to earn a living without unwelcome distractions.
I continue to monitor the Linux options and don't want to use Windows. I like Unix. I've been comfortable here with macos, but I feel Apple are "this close" to blowing it with the hardware.
I think there is a happy medium, though. I don't know anyone clamoring for the touch bar, but I think the general public loves MagSafe and a working keyboard. I also have a 2012 rMBP and think that if Apple released a new version with a working keyboard (even if with a bit lower travel), no touchbar, USB-C magsafe, and frankly, thinner than the 2012 without causing failures of some components, they'd have something that would please most.
In the same boat, with the same machine. I would literally buy a new one of the 2012-15 model with updated specs right now if it was available. USB-C everything isn't even a dealbreaker for me, honestly, and i wouldn't even have yelled at them for a new type of magsafe port again.
All these wishlists are quite well known, and I agree with many of them. (I really like the butterfly keyboards on the latest 15" MBPs, and the fact that they now have a warrantee extension makes it less of a worry.)
But in the end, I'll never switch, because they're good enough as they are, and the quality/form factor is unbeatable. And macOS is fine and stable for me, with all its warts.
32 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 86.5 ms ] threadApple's size and the fact they are using the butterfly type keyboard throughout their laptop lines, means that inertia in deciding to make a change and then implementing it throughout their manufacturing chain is a fraught and time consuming process.
I also spend a lot of time working on my laptop outdoors though, and every time I get something under a key I hold my breath a little as I shake my laptop upside down, hoping that this isn't the time that it finally fails permanently and I have to send the whole machine back to Apple to replace a single key.
You need benevolent dictators, basically, to have the trust and authority to innovate. Even Microsoft is catching up now with surface book 2 which has a lot of invocation in its hardware (but Windows still suck). Apple will not be number one innovator for long if they keep messing up.
I've been holding on as long as I can with my mid-2012 model and if it dies before the above is done I'll be switching.
Apple needs to get back to being a hardware company because being locked to mediocre hardware because of an OS isn't going to cut it.
Apple needs a consumer model and a developer / pro model that gives developers and creators what they need in a laptop.
Stop butchering the pro line!
1. The low-travel butterfly keys would be fine for most folks (even if the low-travel is less comfortable to some, thereby prioritizing form), if they didn't break.
2. The touch bar seems useless to basically everyone, not just the HN set. It's not driving sales the way other things to (such as the quest for thinness)
3. Only one port on the 12" Macbook is probably the right approach, but becomes silly on the "Pro" machines.
And then Steve Jobs died and Apple abandoned that user segment in favour of the iPhone. I think Jobs saw Mac as his brainchild and refused to neglect it, whereas Tim Cook has no such emotional attachment to it.
So gosshake, they didn't even put the stinking ESC in the same place, they had to indent it, ruining the billion times I've trained my hand to it.
Please Apple, bring out another model like the Macbook Pro I already have:
* No Touch-bar. It's pointless & irritating & I'd prefer my money to be spent elsewhere, where it matters.
* A decent keyboard that will last 6 years like this one
* Magsafe
I use this machine to make my living as a software engineer. These things matter a great deal to me.
And Apple, please please please don't make it thinner - I really don't care about thinness like you think I do!
Is that so much to ask for?
Another take on this, though, in terms of our value to Apple though is the concept of "developer mindshare" (as well as power users). A small percentage of customers can have a massive network effect in terms of sales. This whole cycle of history seems to be repeating itself all over again. Right now when I go to developer conferences, I still see MacBooks everywhere, but of course this was't always the case. It only takes a few years for things to flip.
This whole cycle of tech history seems to be repeating itself all over again. Which is a shame, because, on the whole I've benefited greatly from the combination of macos, the hardware and "it just works"; it's allowed me to simply get on with my work, unencumbered by faulty drivers, weird library interactions and whatnot, and to earn a living without unwelcome distractions.
I continue to monitor the Linux options and don't want to use Windows. I like Unix. I've been comfortable here with macos, but I feel Apple are "this close" to blowing it with the hardware.
But in the end, I'll never switch, because they're good enough as they are, and the quality/form factor is unbeatable. And macOS is fine and stable for me, with all its warts.