Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro
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Maciej Ceglowski in top form.
Gone is the gimmicky TouchBar, gone are the four USB-C ports that forced power users to carry a suitcase full of dongles. In their place we get a cornucopia of developer-friendly ports: two USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2 ports, a redesigned power connector, and a long-awaited HDMI port.
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What hasn't changed: Apple has kept the beautiful Retina display, and storage and memory are the same as before. The new machines will be slightly thicker (to accomodate the USB ports) and 200 grams heavier, but it's not clear how this will affect battery life.
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The most obvious change is the redesigned keyboard. Removing the Touchbar creates room for a row of physical function buttons and, in a nice touch, an escape key. This isn't a perfect solution: the function buttons map to a confusing series of actions that can send windows flying around the screen with an errant keystroke, and the new physical off switch is too close to the backspace key. But it is certainly a huge step forward, and it will be interesting to see how software developers take advantage of this clever new feature.Everything about the new machine seems designed for typists. The trackpad has been made smaller, so you're less likely to brush against it with your palm. The keys themselves are much more comfortable to type on, with improved key travel, a softer feel, and more satisfying tactile feedback. You no longer feel like you're tapping on the glass surface of an iPad. And not having a TouchBar means no longer having to look down at your hands all the time.
Despite the many improvements, Apple is actually dropping the price on its flagship 15" MacBook Pro by $400, another sign that they're serious about winning over developers.
Benjamin Button explained for those unaware of the reference.
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@flabdablet I get the Benjamin Button reference but my knowledge of Apple's products is too awful to make sense of what you posted. The final joke was good though:
Rumors are also swirling that the company will add a headphone jack to its already popular iPhone. The announcement could come as early as this month.
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@boomzilla said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
my knowledge of Apple's products is too awful to make sense of what you posted
My knowledge is awful too, but I think I can understand the gist of this:
Gone is the gimmicky TouchBar, gone are the four USB-C ports that forced power users to carry a suitcase full of dongles. In their place we get a cornucopia of developer-friendly ports: two USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2 ports, a redesigned power connector, and a long-awaited HDMI port.
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@Zecc said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
My knowledge is awful too, but I think I can understand the gist of this:
Knowing the joke, I can reverse the order of stuff, but I have no idea what either of these are:
- Thunderbolt 2 port
- TouchBar
And the rest of it just makes my eyes glaze over like reading a spec sheet of something I don't care about. Though yeah, getting rid of useful USB 3.0 for C ports makes a courageous amount of sense.
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@boomzilla said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
Thunderbolt 2 port
This proprietary nonsense:
@boomzilla said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
TouchBar
This gimmicky nonsense:
Seems like it's a touch-sensitive bar applications can write to?
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@boomzilla said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
TouchBar
The function keys got replaced with a touch screen zone.
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WHARRRRGARBL. I didn't say that I wanted to know.
The TouchBar thing seems like it could be useful but will probably mostly be a PITA that users ignore.
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@boomzilla said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
The TouchBar thing seems like it could be useful but will probably mostly be a PITA that users ignore.
Of course, since the functions will be ever-changing and so confusing. :(
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@dkf said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
Of course, since the functions will be ever-changing and so confusing.
To be fair, it's also the case with function keys, each application uses them slightly differently.
It sort of reminds me of those keyboards with e-ink/LCD displays on each key, so that when you, say, hold Ctrl in Photoshop, it shows you the icons of the features you can access via keyboard shortcuts. Or rather a stripped-down version of it that requires development effort to integrate with.
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Pet peeve: my laptop has funky functions as the primary use of the keys, with me having to hold down Fn to get the function keys.
And it put airplane mode on the F12.
It's like they know and they hate us.
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@Yamikuronue said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
Pet peeve: my laptop has funky functions as the primary use of the keys, with me having to hold down Fn to get the function keys.
You can often flip that back to sanity in BIOS settings.
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@boomzilla said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
The TouchBar thing seems like it could be useful but will probably mostly be a PITA that users ignore.
It's going to depend on what third-party developers do with it.
I agree with TechCrunch:
Here are a few choice items from Apple’s guidelines telling developers how to create Touch Bar interfaces:
- Use the Touch Bar as an extension of the keyboard and trackpad, not as a display.
- The Touch Bar shouldn’t display alerts, messages, scrolling content, static content, or anything else that commands the user’s attention or distracts from their work on the main screen.
- Avoid animation. The Touch Bar is considered an extension of the keyboard, and people don’t expect animation in their keyboard.
- Use color tastefully and minimally. In general, the Touch Bar should be similar in appearance to the physical keyboard.
- In general, the Touch Bar shouldn’t include controls for tasks such as find, select all, deselect, copy, cut, paste, undo, redo, new, save, close, print, and quit.
Now, admittedly, some of these things could be annoying or pulled off poorly. And it’s clear that Apple wants developers and users both to think of the Touch Bar as an extension of the keyboard, not of the screen. But prescribing usage in that way often isn’t a good idea. The fact is it’s both, and ought to be used for both.
Who wouldn’t want a stock ticker there, or a Twitter feed, or a progress bar for downloads and file operations? There are plenty of possibilities to explore here, and it seems a disservice to insist that things remain monochrome, key-shaped and static.
I for one was thinking of what the first Touch Bar games would look like, or how it could act as a Rainmeter or MenuMeters-like at-a-glance view of my machine.
Even if we’re going to keep things boring, why not have copy, paste, save and all those on there? Sure, they duplicate shortcut keys, but so do a bunch of the things they showed onstage today.
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@Zecc said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
I for one was thinking of what the first Touch Bar games would look like
Touchbar breakout?
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@Yamikuronue said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
Pet peeve: my laptop has funky functions as the primary use of the keys, with me having to hold down Fn to get the function keys.
PLEASE tell me that the laptop has a setting in the BIOS to swap those around.
because if it doesn't then the developer who did that to you needs to be thrown into a volcano. (and even if there is their feet should be roasted over hot coals because the function keys are critical for power users! CRITICAL! if you want fancy media keys as your primary keys get a mac, they love that stupid shite, i want my function keys.)
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@Zecc said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
"But prescribing usage in that way often isn’t a good idea."
Yeah, you never can tell what users will like or do.
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@boomzilla users are doing it wrong. CLOSED WONTFIX
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@Jaloopa It's the Bar for the next 10 years!
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@boomzilla said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
@Zecc said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
"But prescribing usage in that way often isn’t a good idea."
Yeah, you never can tell what users will like or do.
I get where they're coming from - the bar replaces function keys, so it should act as function keys. Instead of training users that F5 is Refresh, show a refresh icon on the bar and make things more discoverable.
The problem is that it looks like a way too complicated solution to achieve that. It's like equipping your laptop with a touchscreen display, then telling the devs that it's only allowed to be used for swiping from the edges.
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@Zecc said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
It's going to depend on what third-party developers do with it.
Prediction: Not a single fucking thing. The user population is vanishingly small and open sauce developers won't touch it because they won't buy these because they're married to the function keys.
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@Yamikuronue said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
And it put airplane mode on the F12.
I have sleep there ...
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@Zecc said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
The Touch Bar shouldn’t display alerts, messages, scrolling content, static content, or anything else that commands the user’s attention or distracts from their work on the main screen
Cue a third-party Touch Bar ticker/adbanner API in 3... 2...
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But CPU/network/memory usage graphs would rock.
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Waitwaitwait. The TouchBar is this?
That's actually a great idea. I mean it was inevitable, keys are nice but touch screens can do many things that keyboards can't. Hell, I'd say the only reason we're not using smartphones as touchpads for computers yet is that Google and Microsoft don't want to play well with each other. And the Optimus Maximus would probably be a success if anyone tried to make it today.
The only problem is on the software side, right now 95% of programs won't implement it and it will take a decade for it to be standardized and useful.
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@anonymous234 said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
And the Optimus Maximus would probably be a success if anyone tried to make it today.
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@anonymous234 said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
the only reason we're not using smartphones as touchpads for computers yet is that
Google and Microsoft don't want to play well with each othermice work better for moving a cursor and typing on a touchscreen is a fucking miserable experience
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@aliceif I'm going to move the
a bit: the Optimus Maximus would probably be a success if it was made today and sold for less than $300.Edit: and was made by a competent company, and got some publicity, and an initial investment to create compatible software, and all those things that products generally need in order to be successful.
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@accalia said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
PLEASE tell me that the laptop has a setting in the BIOS to swap those around.
Some of them don't.
When I encounter one of those, I generally make a pledge to never buy a computer from that company again. Because that's just stupid.
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@anonymous234 said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
@aliceif I'm going to move the
a bit: the Optimus Maximus would probably be a success if it was made today and sold for less than $300.Edit: and was made by a competent company, and got some publicity, and an initial investment to create compatible software, and all those things that products generally need in order to be successful.
QFT.
I would pay $300 for that. It was f$cking awesome. But it also cost north of $1000 IIRC, which violently rips it out of the "keyboard price" range and firmly throws it into "wtf why"
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@sloosecannon said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
@accalia said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
PLEASE tell me that the laptop has a setting in the BIOS to swap those around.
Some of them don't.
When I encounter one of those, I generally make a pledge to never buy a computer from that company again. Because that's just stupid.
when i encounter one of those it causes an RMA, because a computer without function buttons that act as function buttons first is BROKEN
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@accalia said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
when i encounter one of those it causes an RMA, because a computer without function buttons that act as function buttons first is BROKEN
/me tries to refrain from calling @accalia a significantly smaller animal than a fox
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@Yamikuronue said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
Pet peeve: my laptop has funky functions as the primary use of the keys, with me having to hold down Fn to get the function keys.
One of my laptops does this and EVEN WORSE, the ESCAPE key is not ESCAPE unless you use Fn; it pops up SYSTEM INFORMATION. I do this many, many times a day and each time my blood pressure raises to aneurism levels.
@anonymous234 said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
That's actually a great idea. I mean it was inevitable, keys are nice but touch screens can do many things that keyboards can't. Hell, I'd say the only reason we're not using smartphones as touchpads for computers yet is that Google and Microsoft don't want to play well with each other. And the Optimus Maximus would probably be a success if anyone tried to make it today.
One of the best use cases I've heard for it thus far is doing things like visualizing and moving around a video editor's timeline without moving your hands too far from the keyboard.
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@heterodox said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
One of my laptops does this and EVEN WORSE, the ESCAPE key is not ESCAPE unless you use Fn; it pops up SYSTEM INFORMATION. I do this many, many times a day and each time my blood pressure raises to aneurism levels.
OOoooh.
That's an interesting side-effect. Also, that's gotta be extraordinarily frustrating. I'm sorry...
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@Onyx said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
a significantly smaller animal than a fox
a beaver? a ferret?
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@Yamikuronue said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
Pet peeve: my laptop has funky functions as the primary use of the keys, with me having to hold down Fn to get the function keys.
And it put airplane mode on the F12.
It's like they know and they hate us.
I discovered this funkiness with the Lenovo X240/T440 models my client company uses. Interestingly enough, they have a "FnLk" function on the Esc key (so Fn+Esc) that locks Fn like Caps Lock or Num Lock so you can get around it. Now, for SOME reason, they decided to put the little LED for this on the Fn button rather than the Esc key (where the FnLk designation is), so back before we actually figured out this FnLk ability existed, we got confused as all hell when we got a few users calling in saying their Fn key was lit up.
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@Zecc said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
But CPU/network/memory usage graphs would rock.
That's what I had on my Amiga 2000 in the mid-90s when I had to have it because I'd seen it on an Iris Crimson so I hacked it with a 16x2 LCD and a little daemon.
Today? Meh.
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@e4tmyl33t said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
they have a "FnLk" function on the Esc key (so Fn+Esc) that locks Fn like Caps Lock or Num Lock so you can get around it.
Tip filed. Thank you.
Also not immediately obvious: lots of laptops have a Fn-key combination that toggles the trackpad on and off. On some of them, this functionality is available only when a mouse or equivalent is is connected via USB. On at least one, with at least one BIOS rev, it's the key combination itself that gets enabled by plugging in a mouse; so you can plug in a USB mouse, turn off the trackpad, unplug the mouse, and now you have no way to re-enable the trackpad until you plug in another mouse.
That one cost me a service call when I failed to figure it out on my own. A staff member had accidentally hit that key combination while attempting to flip video modes for a presentation, and I ended up believing the trackpad was just faulty.
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@flabdablet said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
you can plug in a USB mouse, turn off the trackpad, unplug the mouse, and now you have no way to re-enable the trackpad until you plug in another mouse.
ASDESIGNED_WONTFIX
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@e4tmyl33t said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
I discovered this funkiness with the Lenovo X240/T440 models my client company uses. Interestingly enough, they have a "FnLk" function on the Esc key (so Fn+Esc) that locks Fn like Caps Lock or Num Lock so you can get around it. Now, for SOME reason, they decided to put the little LED for this on the Fn button rather than the Esc key (where the FnLk designation is), so back before we actually figured out this FnLk ability existed, we got confused as all hell when we got a few users calling in saying their Fn key was lit up.
On this Lenovo E555 I also have the BIOS setting to swap the functionality of the Ctrl- and Fn-keys. (Because by default the Ctrl-key is - for some reason - not the most outward key.)
So now I can press the physical keys Ctrl + Esc to make the Fn-Key light up because that's how I can switch between F-Keys and Function-keys. It makes no goddamn sense!Filed Under:
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@boomzilla said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
The TouchBar thing seems like it could be useful but will probably mostly be a PITA that users ignore.
Developers too. Seriously, why would I spend time writing something for a single machine. With my cross-platform program.
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@Yamikuronue said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
Pet peeve: my laptop has funky functions as the primary use of the keys, with me having to hold down Fn to get the function keys.
At least (most?) laptops let you flip that in the bios. Then Fn gets at the funky-shit.
edit:
d
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@Luhmann said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
@Yamikuronue said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
And it put airplane mode on the F12.
I have sleep there ...
On the external keyboard, Print. The laptop, nothing. airplane mode is F5. Can't get much worse than that!
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@boomzilla said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
The TouchBar thing seems like it could be useful but will probably mostly be a PITA that users ignore.
Not sure … on
OS XmacOS the function keys are used mainly as media keys, to show all windows/desktop/etc., and a few more functions like that. I suspect a lot of users will hit them frequently enough that an adaptive bar there instead will also see a good deal of use.On the other hand, I wouldn’t like it if on a new computer, the media and Exposé keys I use every day were suddenly replaced by a bunch of smileys I never need or want to type.
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@flabdablet This is why the firmware should not be in charge of literally anything apart from loading a proper OS.
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@Maciejasjmj said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
The problem is that it looks like a way too complicated solution to achieve that. It's like equipping your laptop with a touchscreen display, then telling the devs that it's only allowed to be used for swiping from the edges.
Windows 8. Screw Charms!
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@anonymous234 said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
Hell, I'd say the only reason we're not using smartphones as touchpads for computers yet is that Google and Microsoft don't want to play well with each other.
Yeah. Java.
I had a modified version of PRemoteDroid (free small BT/Wifi-based mouse controller) I was using. Worked fine, and I even had it mirroring the desktop screen under the cursor, but it was kinda janky.
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@heterodox said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
One of my laptops does this and EVEN WORSE, the ESCAPE key is not ESCAPE unless you use Fn; it pops up SYSTEM INFORMATION. I do this many, many times a day and each time my blood pressure raises to aneurism levels.
At least you have an Escape key. The new Macbook Pro doesn't.
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@powerlord By the by, when you get a chance can you re-up your avatar? Seems the forum delivers its 262kb gloriness in like, 1.5 seconds, and it's really weird to see it load on such a zippy forum such as this.
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@flabdablet said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
@anonymous234 said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
the only reason we're not using smartphones as touchpads for computers yet is that
Google and Microsoft don't want to play well with each othermice work better for moving a cursor and typing on a touchscreen is a fucking miserable experienceYou have obviously never used an Apple track pad. They are much better than any mouse, and tremendously more efficient than mice, IMHO.
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@heterodox said in Benjamin Button reviews the new MacBook Pro:
the ESCAPE key is not ESCAPE unless you use Fn
The fuck? Manufacturer and model number?
Optimus Popularis
