New MacBook Pro Touchbar Justified

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For all of you people that criticized the new Touchbar on the recently announced MacBook Pro, I'll be you feel stupid now. Okay, maybe not...but it made you laugh. What other stuff could you do with the Touchbar?
 
Nothing. Major creatives and Apple Fanboi's are abandoning ship on the Macbook Pro and looking to the new Surface Studio as the alternative device. In response, Apple has drastically dropped prices on their USB-C dongles. As an Apple Fanboi myself, I'm very disappointed and this will be my last MBP unless they revert on the stupid design changes.
 
apple is gone yo, iphone 7 still using ips displays, even microshaft is giving them a beating in design these days lol
 
I think the TouchBar could be useful, but its way overpriced. I won't even go into all the other stuff Apple boinked. (I use a Mac for work purposes - iOS development)
 
I've never been an Apple guy outside of the Apple IIe. They aren't bad computers at all (maybe the iMac). I just don't have a use for them. I learned the majority of stuff on DOS/Windows. So, I'm comfortable there. Then, I learned some Linux/BSD basics. So, I'm good with the Terminal on OSX.

The TouchBar isn't bad. It's just an Apple thing - overpriced and overhyped. It should be a small feature, not a major selling point. I'm sure there are a few great uses for it (like shortcut keys in games that many keyboards can have). It's just going to be underutilized and cost too much.

My hope is that it trickles down. I wouldn't mind having a keyboard with something like that on it. RTS's or other games would benefit from it. Fast paced games? No. Strategy games? Yes.

Sadly, I think Nyancat is the best thing that will be used on the Mac...
 
"Stupid is as stupid does..." and that's that. ;)
 
I read that article and I didnt actually see what the justification was other than it was justified. Did I miss something?
 
I read that article and I didnt actually see what the justification was other than it was justified. Did I miss something?

You missed the joke. The justification is that you can now have Nyan Cat fly across your Touchbar. They are being facetious.
 
I'd have to see the touchbar in action. I could imagine something like that where the function keys for Photoshop are specific to it and easy to see what they do. That might be useful, but it's still tough to justify the higher price on this laptop. The only reason I'd consider a Mac is if I decide to learn how to do iOS programming, because, AFAIK, you can't compile iOS code on any other platform.
 
apple is gone yo, iphone 7 still using ips displays, even microshaft is giving them a beating in design these days lol
There's nothing wrong with the iphone using an IPS screen. Lots of phones use IPS screens. The fact the 7+ is still only 1080p would be the legitimate complaint.
 
There's nothing wrong with the iphone using an IPS screen. Lots of phones use IPS screens. The fact the 7+ is still only 1080p would be the legitimate complaint.

I'm not an iPhone fan, but seriously? It's like 400ppi on a screen that size. Going to a higher rez doesn't really make anything look better (except for MAYBE VR), it just makes the phone cost more, use more battery, and run slower...

Now that I think about those points though, I'm surprised Apple hasn't gone to 4k screens.
 
touchbar app ideas:

instant e-peen display
selectable target countdown timer (feed cat, scratch balls/crotch, buy milk/beer)
work injury counter
 
There are 3rd party apps for iPhone and iPad that turn them into second displays, input devices, etc. Apple would have been better off making their own "Touch Bar" app instead. You know, encourage people to buy all your things and use them together. Instead they went the other way and made it hard to plug your iPhone 7 into their new Macbook "Pro"
 


ROTFLMAO--thanks for that! Gave me a slew of ideas for all sorts of "marketable" addons, like a high-gloss, plastic/elastic belt that you can clip all your spare dongles to. One version might even come equipped with a selfie stick that can be stored in the rear, hidden from view.

tumblr_o9rs76Op0T1ry46hlo1_500.gif
 
Apple fanboys will still buy the macbook pro with or without the touchbar.

What worse than Apple fanboys now-a-days is the anti-Apple fanboys. They just love to nag so damn much. Lets move along now.
 
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You lot make me laugh. If there was a decent Windows keyboard with a OLED touch bar on it, as well as a fingerprint scanner, you lot would be all over it like flies on a turd.
 
You lot make me laugh. If there was a decent Windows keyboard with a OLED touch bar on it, as well as a fingerprint scanner, you lot would be all over it like flies on a turd.
There was an oled keyboard, called optimus maximus - didn't really catch on. There were laptops with this same oled touch bar or even a whole touch-screen surface, some razer stuff had it - few people cared. Fingerprint sensors are nothing new on laptops at all. Removing FUNCTION keys (that's what the F stands for on F1-F12 keys) and putting a tiny screen there is not a good idea. But then again "pro", these days, does not stand for "professional" but, as someone said on the forums here, for "profit".
 
There was an oled keyboard, called optimus maximus - didn't really catch on. There were laptops with this same oled touch bar or even a whole touch-screen surface, some razer stuff had it - few people cared. Fingerprint sensors are nothing new on laptops at all. Removing FUNCTION keys (that's what the F stands for on F1-F12 keys) and putting a tiny screen there is not a good idea. But then again "pro", these days, does not stand for "professional" but, as someone said on the forums here, for "profit".

If I remember right, that keyboard cost over $1600, as well as the fact that the keys had a nasty feel and travel to them, and not to mention the software that run it all. These pretty major shortcomings just might be why it never caught on...

One major thing you're overlooking, is OS/software integration, it's one thing having shit Logitech type software deciding how your keyboard works, but it's another to have OS and application level support directly baked in. I don't understand your function key comment, have you not actually seen this keyboard working? Then your point about fingerprint readers, they are 99% crap, and you either have to swipe, or they take a few attempts to actually work. Touch ID on the latest iPhones is incredibly accurate and fast.

If Microsoft built a decent keyboard with an OLED touch element that had support baked directly into Windows, with a solid API for developers to build support into their software, I for one would be all over it.

It's this short sightedness and ignorance displayed in this forum that just takes my breath away sometimes, just because it's not been made by "insert current favourite manufacturer here". This is about the concept people, not the manufacturer.
 
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Nyan cat touch bar does make it an instant buy now :D. Not that I can afford it and have no need either way.

Nothing. Major creatives and Apple Fanboi's are abandoning ship on the Macbook Pro and looking to the new Surface Studio as the alternative device. In response, Apple has drastically dropped prices on their USB-C dongles. As an Apple Fanboi myself, I'm very disappointed and this will be my last MBP unless they revert on the stupid design changes.

Is that why the new Macbook Pro laptops have a 5-6 week lead time and Apple just put in a call for component suppliers to increase component production?

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20161107PD201.html

Granted, they undersold themselves on the popularity... whoops.

The Surface line sells as well as an iPad, which is good for Microsoft but I don't see a major blowout happening anytime soon. The Surface Studio looks cool for a niche device, kudos for MS to keep pushing the niche Surface applications.

apple is gone yo, iphone 7 still using ips displays, even microshaft is giving them a beating in design these days lol

Enjoy your oversaturated AMOLED displays where anything above 1080p means fuck all on a 5.5" screen.

Also, how did the iPhone 7 Plus fare on benchmarks against all the new 2016 phones? Right, it beats everyone else's ass:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10685/the-iphone-7-and-iphone-7-plus-review/3

Moving on...

There are 3rd party apps for iPhone and iPad that turn them into second displays, input devices, etc. Apple would have been better off making their own "Touch Bar" app instead. You know, encourage people to buy all your things and use them together. Instead they went the other way and made it hard to plug your iPhone 7 into their new Macbook "Pro"

Man, it is SO HARD to buy a USB-C Lightning cable these days. I don't know what I'd ever do if I bought a new Macbook Pro. Also, how does having the "touch bar" as an app on your phone make it better? Synergy?
 
Man, it is SO HARD to buy a USB-C Lightning cable these days. I don't know what I'd ever do if I bought a new Macbook Pro. Also, how does having the "touch bar" as an app on your phone make it better? Synergy?

I seriously doubt there is a single cable like that for sale in the 60k person Canadian city I live in. Its not like other devices need the same connectors. At least I can buy a lightning to normal USB at a gas station. Yes I could just order one and wait, but how can you possibly argue that using an uncommon special cable, instead of a connector billions of things already have, isn't stupid? Especially considering the reason is only due to Apple making something thinner. People want battery life, not a laptop as thin as a cosmo magazine. If that is really the goal, wouldn't it make more sense for Apple to wait and transition to Type C on all their devices at the same time?

Also, if you don't see how an iPad with a bunch of off screen touch controls would be useful for Mac OS apps, I don't know what to tell you.

Apple is making stupid decisions which is pissing of their both their long time loyalists and workstation professionals. Period. The fact that they still have the marketing prowess to sell a bucket of oxygen to fools for the time being doesn't change that or make it a smart business decision long term.

I know for a fact I won't be replacing my 2009 Mac Pro or 2011 MBP with any new Apple products. There was also a reason why I just got a iPhone 6S and not a 7.
 
Efficient in design. Not so much in functionality. I think that is the best way to describe it.
 
Especially considering the reason is only due to Apple making something thinner. People want battery life, not a laptop as thin as a cosmo magazine.
Your argument that they did this only for thinness is naive at best and reflects the typical echo chamber response given over the past month. I guess 10 hours of battery life isn't enough, but hey there is always Lenovo and an extra four-five lbs worth of battery backs to go with them.

You now have four ports that can be any port you want them to be, in a superior implementation then straight up USB-C alt-modes or USB 3.0 adapters (since you now get full-fat 40Gbps PCIe data if needed and not just doling out four physical lanes to whatever).

Firewire?
Ethernet?
Thunderbolt 2?
Thunderbolt 3?
USB 2.0?
USB 3.0?
Displayport?
HDMI?
VGA?
Raid array?
Power?
eGPU?
Dock?
Target disk mode?

Check!

If that is really the goal, wouldn't it make more sense for Apple to wait and transition to Type C on all their devices at the same time?

I agree that it would be awesome if they all did get rolled out at the same time. However, when Apple is waiting on AMD (Polaris 11) and Intel (Kaby Lake) for an upgrade worthy of being called that... why would they re-release the iMac, Mac Mini and nMP (hah) right now just for the sake of having USB-C with no other changes?

Come next spring every laptop/desktop that they give a shit about anymore (RIP Air, nMP) will be on USB-C. The 12" Macbook was their hint on the death of all the other ports.

Transitions are usually awkward. Do we need to go re-visit when firewire got dropped and thunderbolt was added? Were all of those done at the same time? Nope.

I seriously doubt there is a single cable like that for sale in the 60k person Canadian city I live in. Its not like other devices need the same connectors. At least I can buy a lightning to normal USB at a gas station. Yes I could just order one and wait, but how can you possibly argue that using an uncommon special cable, instead of a connector billions of things already have, isn't stupid?

The lightning-USB C cable has been on sale for almost two years now. I don't know what to tell you about buying a cable in Canada-land, and question your conclusion that a town of 60,000 people wouldn't have an electronics store that carried one, but whatever.

Also, if you don't see how an iPad with a bunch of off screen touch controls would be useful for Mac OS apps, I don't know what to tell you.

Enlighten me on why this would be a good idea. Please, give examples. It sounds like a niche-within-a-niche idea, something that you are (ironically) balking at in general with Apple's recent releases.

Apple is making stupid decisions which is pissing of their both their long time loyalists and workstation professionals. Period. The fact that they still have the marketing prowess to sell a bucket of oxygen to fools for the time being doesn't change that or make it a smart business decision long term.

Apple pissed off a small, yet vocal group of users - users who also got pissed off in 2012 when the rMBP came out and dropped the DVD drive.

Calling everyone else fools doesn't help your argument, but hey go ahead and be whiney. Everyone else already had a hard-on against Apple so this was more fodder for them to chew.

----------------

Come next year USB-C will be even more ubiquitous than it was last year. Maybe Apple should have just included one USB-C to USB-A dongle to shut people up since they don't want to pay $10 for an adapter.

I know for a fact I won't be replacing my 2009 Mac Pro or 2011 MBP with any new Apple products. There was also a reason why I just got a iPhone 6S and not a 7

Cool. Enjoy your hardware.
 
Efficient in design. Not so much in functionality. I think that is the best way to describe it.
Exactly this! It looks fucking sexy...but I would hate having to use it.

I'm trying to figure out what audience apple is catering to...if any at all. I can't imagine many people want to use a damn dongle just to charge their phone on their laptop from the same manufacturer. Where's the synergy in the products now?
 
Your argument that they did this only for thinness is naive at best and reflects the typical echo chamber response given over the past month. I guess 10 hours of battery life isn't enough, but hey there is always Lenovo and an extra four-five lbs worth of battery backs to go with them.

You now have four ports that can be any port you want them to be, in a superior implementation then straight up USB-C alt-modes or USB 3.0 adapters (since you now get full-fat 40Gbps PCIe data if needed and not just doling out four physical lanes to whatever).

Firewire?
Ethernet?
Thunderbolt 2?
Thunderbolt 3?
USB 2.0?
USB 3.0?
Displayport?
HDMI?
VGA?
Raid array?
Power?
eGPU?
Dock?
Target disk mode?

Check!

.

I didn't say they shouldn't use Type C. Add it in, good idea. But taking everything else away is just plain stupid.

People plug their laptops into all kinds of things and the Ethernet jack in their office, VGA on their classroom projector, HDMI on their TV, lightning on their own phone, DP on their monitors, etc. etc. are not Type C inputs and that won't change anytime soon, if ever.

The old MBP needed an adaptor for a few things and now needs an adaptor for everything.

Who asked for that and where is the benefit? Having a super slim design to save space and weight is great but where are you going to put your collection of Type C to LAN/VGA/DVI/DP/USB-A/whatever dongles? Put them in your pockets? If you still need a bag to carry all that stuff around (and you could suddenly need any number of these when you at work, travelling, etc) what's another 1/4" thickness with built in connectors for common devices on a product that isn't your tiny ultrabooks for mainstream users?

Also, Apple is way behind on refreshes with all their personal computers. They could have added DDR4, PCIe M.2, Skylake, Pascal and Type C to all their computers and re-released. (Waiting for Kaby isn't necessary or it could be done mid year anyway) They just chose not to, despite the fact countless Apple customers were expecting the Hello event to announce exactly what I just listed.

Apple is acting like Nintendo was. Ignoring what their customers with the biggest purse strings are asking for and catering to a fad market that will abandon them the instant something cooler shows up.
 
I don't know about whiney, but you definitely don't know what you're talking about based on how you've described how USB ports and connectivity should be (and has been historically) handled.
 
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the "average pro user" will need two dongles to support their new shiny at work:

USB-C --> VGA (or HDMI if your projector supports it)
USB-C --> USB-A

If you need Ethernet with a laptop you are docking it. Period. If you are plugging in five things every time you get back to your work desk then you either fail at computing or have an IT staff that doesn't know how to support you.

So... in the end you get a USB-C or Thunderbolt dock.

My Lenovo T420 at work has a dock. It's great. It's optional when you buy the laptop. Imagine that?

VIC-20 - you can go grand with your theoreticals but I'm going to guess that reality is a lot simpler then that.
 
If I remember right, that keyboard cost over $1600, as well as the fact that the keys had a nasty feel and travel to them, and not to mention the software that run it all. These pretty major shortcomings just might be why it never caught on...

One major thing you're overlooking, is OS/software integration, it's one thing having shit Logitech type software deciding how your keyboard works, but it's another to have OS and application level support directly baked in. I don't understand your function key comment, have you not actually seen this keyboard working? Then your point about fingerprint readers, they are 99% crap, and you either have to swipe, or they take a few attempts to actually work. Touch ID on the latest iPhones is incredibly accurate and fast.

If Microsoft built a decent keyboard with an OLED touch element that had support baked directly into Windows, with a solid API for developers to build support into their software, I for one would be all over it.

It's this short sightedness and ignorance displayed in this forum that just takes my breath away sometimes, just because it's not been made by "insert current favourite manufacturer here". This is about the concept people, not the manufacturer.
Perhaps you are right. As someone, who has no need for fingerprint sensors or oled touch bars (or any Apple product at all), my point of view is limited and probably wrong.
I do not care who it is made by, I, personally, have no use for such gimmicks and my opinion reflects that. Perhaps they will come out with a killer app for it, but, as far as I see now, the small screen size and the lack of tactile feel look like huge hurdles in making it really irreplaceable.
But then again, my last apple product was an iPod touch gen2, which was a pile of dung (again, imo), so maybe my view is outdated.
 
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the "average pro user" will need two dongles to support their new shiny at work:

USB-C --> VGA (or HDMI if your projector supports it)
USB-C --> USB-A

If you need Ethernet with a laptop you are docking it. Period. If you are plugging in five things every time you get back to your work desk then you either fail at computing or have an IT staff that doesn't know how to support you.

So... in the end you get a USB-C or Thunderbolt dock.

My Lenovo T420 at work has a dock. It's great. It's optional when you buy the laptop. Imagine that?

VIC-20 - you can go grand with your theoreticals but I'm going to guess that reality is a lot simpler then that.

If you have a corporate PC laptop, you are absolutely correct. Proprietary PC docks work fantastic. Especially HP/Compaq business docks. Lenovo docks for T series I'm sure work as reliably as the old IBM days.

When it comes to Macs, thunderbolt and USB docks are flaky unreliable trash. Mac users plug stuff in individually because they get a little mad when all their devices randomly disconnect.

In general, USB has always been poor compared to dedicated ports for constant reliability. Would you use a USB to Ethernet on your servers? I doubt it. Run 2012 R2 from a flash drive for a domain controller? Cloning drives in a USB bay all day long? Sometimes keyboards or mice randomly stop and reconnect. USB is great for temporary device connection though. Does anyone in this forum exclusively use only USB? Can you even buy a motherboard with nothing but USB ports?

Thanks for the sarcasm, but I directly support hundreds of Macs and over a thousand PCs every day. Not a couple anecdotal experiences from just a few computers like you may be assuming.

I don't speak in theoretical, I speak from the experience of having 7000 clients and being one of a handful of people in the building to support them. I know what users actually do and experience, not what enthusiasts think they do.
 
When it comes to Macs, thunderbolt and USB docks are flaky unreliable trash. Mac users plug stuff in individually because they get a little mad when all their devices randomly disconnect.

In general, USB has always been poor compared to dedicated ports for constant reliability.

Thanks for the sarcasm, but I directly support hundreds of Macs and over a thousand PCs every day. Not a couple anecdotal experiences from just a few computers like you may be assuming.

I don't speak in theoretical, I speak from the experience of having 7000 clients and being one of a handful of people in the building to support them. I know what users actually do and experience, not what enthusiasts think they do.
Your claims sound like nonsense.
 
You lot make me laugh. If there was a decent Windows keyboard with a OLED touch bar on it, as well as a fingerprint scanner, you lot would be all over it like flies on a turd.
Why? I don't use the fingerprint scanner on my iPhone. Fingerprint scanners are a hole and you can be compelled to unlock your computer if you use it (and the authorities want to dig through your computer.
As for the OLED touch bar, I'm not against it, but I wouldn't pay 2400 for that one feature, especially since it has an inferior monitor when compared to Dell's XPS line (or the business version), which can often be found for under 2k at the MS Store (I think I've seen it for as low as 1900) and I wouldn't have to buy dongles.

Besides, there is a PC with those specs. It's called the new Macbook Pro, so clearly we wouldn't run out and buy it (and I really was hoping it'd blow me away.
 
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