The weird screen thing looks terrible on this MBP. It will require me to look at my keyboard, not my screen.

Meanwhile, the Surface Book gives me a touch screen (which is important to me because I create web software that is used on touch screens), the pen is great, the dial looks interesting, so I will probably buy that too.

The Surface Book should work great on my desk with an additional monitor and keyboard / mouse / dial. Whereas the MBP completely loses the utility of that weird touch bar thing in that same setup.

Also, I use virtualization on my Mac to develop a .NET app. So, now I don't have function keys for the guest OS?

It was developers who led the way to Apple's dominance in the notebook space, and I suspect it will be developers who lead the migration in the opposite way.

The question for me is, will I end up ditching the iPhone too?

I don't think any serious developer wants to use Windows, but … maybe this will actually be the impetus for more folks to start using — and more importantly, start demanding — Linux.

Honestly, it makes life easier. No more dealing with the bits where GNU & BSD are gratuitously different. No more straitjacket: a good Linux WM lets you customise your workspace exactly for the way you work. No more throwing money down a hole in licensing fees.

It's pretty awesome.

I have a MSDN subscription, so will I have access to this preview as well?

Is it good enough to do Ruby development on Windows directly? I had been thinking that would be in a VM, but maybe not. Maybe Atom (or even Visual Studio) will do the trick.

The other shift that makes the transition to Windows easier for a developer like me is that more and more of my development ends up in the cloud anyway. Push to git and the CI runs the tests. I could probably make the last jump to using containers and local testing would not only be easy, but also more accurate representation of the production system.

I am actually getting kind of excited to ditch my MBP.

Could you elaborate on that?

Honestly I'd rather write Common Lisp in emacs talking to PostgreSQL and fronted by NGINX than C++ in Visual Studio talking to SQLServer and fronted by IIS.

Have you ever tried using touch screen on windows as a developer? I just don't understand how people can list it as a benefit, windows interface especially in any apps for developers is horrible for touch use, and don't forget that in order for you to touch the screen you have to raise your hand , how many times a day can you do that without your shoulders being sore?

The thing I applaud Apple for is standing (at least here) the ground and not going with a touch screen for laptops, I think having a touchscreen in a laptop is a horrendous and useless idea, touch screens should only be on the object where you already lay your arms on, like keyboard in this case with Apple, having a touch screen 5 feet away from your hands will make you not want to use it, and that's not even considering OS your which is not meant for that

You really miss it when you're switching between touch and non-touchscreens. You can't help but pointing at the screen only to realize: "Damn, this is not a touchscreen".

It's like that saying: Once you go touch, you never go back.

I still think the surface book is cool, but the weight factor is probably my biggest concern for the tablet mode.

At the same time, I fear how finicky Linux is on modern laptops. I especially hate touchpad-related sensitivity issues. I tried running Linux on my MBP and wasted days trying to get the touchpad sensitivity settings to something remotely close to the MBP and couldn't figure it out. I imagine the situation is probably worse on platforms like the Surface because I expect Linux driver authors are doing more work on inexpensive commodity laptops. Is that true or do you think Surface Book will have decent Linux support?

I don't like feeling like a prisoner of a platform that's drifting into stupidity. If I had a lot of spare income I could splurge on a couple of possibilities and see what works but I just don't have that much spare capital.

Now, how many packages are available, I don't know. But I am hoping I can just open up a terminal window and cd / grep / cat / vi / git / etc

Whereas the MBP completely loses the utility of that weird touch bar thing in that same setup.

The majority of professionals seem to use the MPB with an external display and keyboard, so the new MBP keyboard will not be touched at all.

Maybe they will update the bluetooth keyboard with a display?

You must've read the discussions earlier but I really think it's worth giving the Google Pixels a shot.

Limited RAM, no Fn keys, no ports used in enterprises all over the world... I'm not carrying the lightest laptop money can buy if it has to be accompanied by the largest bag of adaptors.

It used to be video professionals and graphic designers. Now it's developers and web designers. Developers don't need SD slots or a screaming GPU (although you can never go wrong with a better GPU). I worked off of a 2012 MBA with an external display for years, and it still fits the bill! Light enough to carry around between work, home, and coffee shops, powerful enough to run a local web server and all the apps I used for development and 2-3 screens, and enough battery life to get a day's worth of work done.

Apple will never drop MacOS or their Pro level computers because their Pro line is what makes their iOS App Store revenue. Their definition of "pro" is just going to be less video-centric, and more developer-centric.

Their recent slate of choices makes me wonder how they are being developer-centric. Or if they understand developers at all. They sure don't make a point of showing off developer-centric features, innovations, and upgrades.

They spend a week doing that every year at WWDC with thousands of people in attendance.

Even today, at a consumer-focused event, they made a point of telling people that developers could hook into the Touch Bar for their own applications.

They'll probably have an IDE on the iPad Pro, AKA the future of personal computers according to Cook, before we even see a hardware refresh with Kaby Lake.

Edit: Added "in startups"

Honestly I'd guess the main people keeping the Mac line afloat at Apple are probably their own engineering staff. Imagine having to develop Apple products on another OS, how frustrating that would be

That future seems to almost be here.

Or the ecosystem will be abandoned.

ECC and Xeons aren't fringe exotic technology. Intel obviously has some kind of hang-up with their market segmentation though.

Here's the thing... there's really not much of a point in ECC memory for most desktops and laptops. In servers, sure... in mission critical applications even a tiny memory error could have devastating consequences. But for someone browsing facebook? Nah.

The general march of progress in computing has been about better technology iteratively trickling down to everybody.

I don't "need" my phone to have a 64bit CPU, but I'll take it. Glad it does. No doubt a few years ago someone was saying...

"64bit should be a PC thing. Phones? Nah."

...like it was some kind of law, rather than just the point-in-time market situation.

The thing is that it is considered that ECC in RAM is not needed for consumer electronics, but that's utterly insane.

There are no^H^H only useless ports.

No need to tell me that your use case is slightly different. You can't please everybody.

Edit: I just discovered that the LG screen Apple is selling as a proposed match for their new laptops does NOT have legacy ports on the back, but just more USB-C ports. This seems very dumb. I don't want three $39 dongles on the back of my screen.

> It also doesn't have a floppy drive or an IBM serial port.

So how long do you think until cameras stop requiring a SD card? How long until most peripherals go to USB-C? Any way you slice it, for the next 3-5 years people are going to need to carry around a dongle (or dongles) with their Macbook. Not the worst thing in the world, but certainly doesn't make the user's life appreciably better.

Not saying the ports is a dealbreaker, just that it makes things more inconvenient for probably the majority of users, with little offsetting benefit.

Just like I don't want a Leatherman® with just a knife blade on it, even if it is slightly larger I want my laptop to have all of the connectors I'm likely to run into over the next N years so that I don't need to carry a separate bag just for the dongles.

Imagine they added a couple USB-C ports in place of the little used Thunderbolt ports and then waited a year to see the usage frequency... I bet the HDMI and USB-A ports would be used a ton more than USB-C.

Apple knows you'll use the standard ports if they give them to you. And that's exactly why they've taken them away. Because it forces users to actually make the switch to something (they think is) better.

MacBook laptops have headphone jacks and USB-c connections but no lightning input ports. If I wanted to use my EarPods with the lightning end on my Macbook I'm screwed. Nor can I use the headphone jack or the USB-C ports on the Macbook with my iPhone.

The lack of integration here between Apple's own products is alarming and indicates that a high level someone is asleep at the wheel.

What a mess.

This would please everyone, but it'd be expensive.

    Insert USB connector
    Ooops, must be wrong orientation
    Insert USB connector upside down
    Nope, that was right the first time
    Insert USB connector correctly

Oh wait, they had to make this thing thinner. Because thinner is more useful, right.

But now you get the silly extra-low-travel keyboard as well, like typing on a table.

All these choices, they don't make any sense.

If a notebook has got a HDMI port would you say it has a DVI port, because all you need is an adapter?

> eventually likely out of the box

Nope, only power cable and charger in the box.

Having to re-buy all of them is a drag, I am totally not saying that doesn't suck, but I'm not worried about having a bag full of them.

Mac laptops haven't had Ethernet for many, many years, except via the Thunderbolt or USB adapters, both of which will still be possible on this machine, too.

Yes, the SD card reader was left out.

Wrong on USB ports; it's absurd to suggest that "100 out of 100" keyboards and mice plug into USB-A. Most such products these days are, in fact, wireless, and those which aren't can simply use a very very cheap USB-A to USB-C adapter.

That's true, but only if by "many years" you really meant "yesterday".

The following laptop was still available for order from Apple's website until yesterday's announcements: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macb...

Connectivity includes AirPort Extreme (802.11a/b/g/n), Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet, a Firewire "800" port, two USB 3.0 ports, a "Thunderbolt" port, audio in/out, and an SDXC card slot.

"Pro" doesn't mean "more". Sometimes it means less. Like fleet cars that don't have cruise control. You don't need cruise when your job is driving around the city and you shouldn't need a SD card slot for any job that's not photography.

My professional radio guy will be mightily pissed off at losing HDMI. Or rather would be, if he were still bound to the Apple ecosystem - he left it several years ago, never to return, because the price/performance ratio on their desktops went down the toilet when they stopped making user-upgradeable "cheesegraters".

Apple has gradually abandoned the Pro market. I thought they were simply trying to move everyone to laptops, but now I can see that they really have no use for non-iDevices.

I haven't had a non-bluetooth input device since 2009.

Which, apparently, is only an acceptable response if you're criticizing the decision to remove ports. I have literally no need for a 3 1/2 floppy these days, but I'm sure not everyone "is me". Should that be a standard adapter as well?

And they're welcome to do so, but they're pushing consumers like me away from their products.

(Edited to be less personal)

I'm very happy to adapt to new things, when they offer a demonstrable benefit to me. What benefit does a USB-C keyboard give me, exactly? I don't need the extra bandwidth to transmit keypresses. Why not include one or two traditional USB3 ports alongside the USB-C ports to ease people over to a new standard?

Compare these images:

15" new: http://images.apple.com/v/macbook-pro/j/images/overview/thun...

15" old: http://www5.pcmag.com/media/images/483214-apple-macbook-pro-...

I don't really need a laptop to be so thin, but it's a defining feature for Apple's "premium" feel.

It takes time before you can see the demonstrable benefit. For starter

- USB-C solves the which side to plug in issue

- It's a unified charging port besides data transfer (one charging cable for all devices in the future)

- It's also a unified display port (one display cable for all devices in the future)

For coming up with that sentence, everyone here owes you a beer.

That you can connect it to phones with USB-C without any dongles. Almost all new phones have USB-C. Except one from Apple.

I've used a BT keyboard for years and am the fastest typist out of every developer I've met so clearly something is wrong with your statement.

* Apple Wireless Keyboard

* Logitech K 300

* Microsoft -god-knows-what-it-was-called- from back in the day.

In all cases, I experienced stuttering or dropouts of my input at high speeds. This did not happen all the time, but it was frequent enough where I felt the need to go back to a wired keyboard (currently Filco Majestouch). Maybe I had a bad batch, or something was interfering with the signals in my homes. Either way, I don't plan on recommending wireless alternatives for quite some time.

Not that I'm seriously suggesting it, but it occurs to me that you should be able to make something with an Arduino to make any kb bluetooth.

Now, I do stick with wireless keyboards in general, but that's because the proprietary Logitech dongle has never failed me in years.

If Apple can ever make a Bluetooth keyboard that "just works" in the sort of way they're advertising their upcoming AirPods will, including working properly during the boot menu and every time I restart into Windows, then I might reconsider it.

That's some balls, Apple.

>That's some balls, Apple.

No, that's courage. /s

Although I'm surprised they left the headphone jack if removing it is supposed to be "the future".

There seems to be some discontinuity between the Macbook and iPhone lines.

I'm amused that I'll be able to charge my Nexus 6P with my Macbook Pro charger (unless Apple really screws something up), but my colleague won't be able to charge his iPhone.

The issue is that Apple is making you a third party customer while they rake in cash from selling a non-standard connector.

Reminds me of Firewire, it should die quickly.

Given there is now no way[0] to connect one to the other, I'd say you're correct.

[0] Without spending even more money.

Here are the alternatives that I see:

a. Don't switch to USB-C.

This isn't realistic. The change was going to happen sometime, to USB-C or some other improvement. USB-C is a better port, if only that it's smaller and are reversible.

b. Include both USB-A and USB-C ports with the new MacBooks.

I think a lot of people would like to see this. Drawbacks for Apple is that USB-A is larger (impacting design considerations), and removing USB-A entirely puts more pressure on manufacturers to support USB-C.

c. Start shipping the iPhone with both USB-A and USB-C cables prior to the MacBook announcement.

This isn't consistent with Apple's typical secrecy. It's also arguably wasteful.

d. Ship the iPhone with Lightning->USB C cables prior to announcing the new MacBooks.

iPhones wouldn't be able to connect to existing machines without an adapter. Also telegraphs the upcoming change prior to the announcement.

e. After announcing MacBooks with USB-C connectors, provide USB-C connectors for free, or some kind of exchange/buyback program.

While I'm sure this would be popular, it's not very typical of the industry as a whole, not just Apple.

Am I missing any options? Given these, I think the disconnect is inevitable. And given the machines people currently have, I don't think Apple will immediately switch to shipping Lightning->USB-C with iPhones (and iPads). I expect that transition will happen sometime over the next year.

I wonder when the first iPhone will ship with a USB-C connector. Next year? Never?

I wouldn't say that, the use case is different. I think wireless makes significantly more sense on mobile.

Laptops are "mobile" but in a different way. they are not meant to be used while on the subway or working out, you sit down pull out your laptop, and if you want to listen to music you can plug in headphones. having to walk away from the laptop while listening to music isn't as important

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=USB-C+Lightn...

* boot from USB (bootable CarbonCopyCloner backup)

* Yubikey (government issued, so I can't easily get an updated key)

* Kensington R800 presenter (supposedly, it's "just a USB keyboard", but I've had it not work via Bluetooth dongle or with the USB to Lightning dongle for the iPad, even though regular USB keyboards work)

"That's an interesting question, Jake."

For a good laugh.

Well, you could map control to escape then :-)

But that sounds too much like an easy solution for Vim users, and what would they have to piss and moan about then?

Vim has contextual physical button remapping, and it's a positive thing.

Apple adds a hardware + software feature to provide a context-sensitive multi-touch region allowing for multiple types of physical input & visual feedback in any application, and it's a gimmick?

Gotcha.

I'm also not only talking about vim here. Nearly any PC game in the past two decades or more allows key rebinding. Many even allow macros. Most GUI IDEs offer the same. This isn't new.

Lastly, you seem to want to characterize me as "pissing and moaning". Personal attacks won't get you anywhere with me.

> Nearly any PC game in the past two decades or more allows key rebinding.

Right, I forgot that mapping X to Up is the same as showing a colour picker slider when you need to choose a colour.

You seem to be far too hostile for a conversation about a piece of glass on a computer. You should take a break.

No innovative features? What do you call a ribbon display that no one has ever done before?

No expansion - nothing new to the MBP line.

A gimmick.

If I'm not mistaken. I went o_O … Seems steep. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

>A gimmick.

pwn'd

so true.

This keyboard with remappable OLED keys was released almost 10 years ago: https://store.artlebedev.com/electronics/optimus/#51709

The only part that's similar is the key faces can change. They're still physical keys that press individually. It's not multi touch, a key can't suddenly become a slider.

Also, if that is true, perhaps what's truly new is that its actually usable. That's pretty much Apple's thing - making things more usable/useful.

That could be a jet plane from Lockheed Martin or a Thinkpad...

The jury is still out on that one.

http://img.artlebedev.ru/everything_files/images/2857/optimu...

It's nice that these aren't proprietary cables, but I'll have to spend over $100 on adaptors, or wait two years until there are cheaper alternatives.

Lastly, there may be 4 ports in total, but since 1 is used for charging, there are effectively 3. Not a deal-breaker going from 4 to 3, but definitely a problem going from 2 to 1 on the low-end MBP.

Only if you're using it exclusively for charging. They literally showed using it with a display that gets video out over the same cord it powers the laptop with.

Available December.

It doesn't need to be a 5K 27" display to provide power over USB-C.

Well they are incompatible with almost everything Apple makes. You can't even plug in an iPhone out of the box. You'll need a special adapter for every device you have (monitor, storage, phone, SD reader, etc).

More replacements than adapters. Also you don't need Apple adapters, you can get a type C — type A cable for $6.

I have an Optimus mini 3 and an Optimus keyboard.

The former I never really got along with as the oled drivers made a loud 18khz whine. The latter, however, I still use for photoshop, gaming, coding, etc. - ain't got no poxy touch strip, my entire keyboard is a technicolor discotechque.

A hindrance, to power users and touch typists.

http://www.lenovo.com/images/gallery/1060x596/lenovo-laptop-...

I think it's a fair complaint if it requires using dongles for all of your legacy devices, especially USB keys.

2.5k laptop and 1k phone and you still need $30 adapter.

Oh you mean like Windows VISTA's (yes, that one) "SideShow?"

https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+vista+sideshow&biw=2...

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=windows+vista+sideshow&...

They have had big partners do this, like Logitech, on keyboards like the G15 and G19. It was also on laptops positions above the keyboard.

which one of those ports can I use to plug in my lighting headphones?

http://cdn.toptenreviews.com/rev/prod/ce/48731-barnes-noble-...

(Just kidding!)

It's called a touchscreen.

A definite step back for the sake of introducing a gimmick, whose consequences have not been given enough thought.

They could have tried buying a Lenovo Carbon Gen.2 and using it for half a day, and realized what a stupid idea it is.

I actually had one of those laptops for a little while - issued by my workplace. It came with the same concept - a touch-sensitive strip, with (limited) display capabilities and which could change its function depending on the context.

Even if the touchstrip hadn't been an utter piece of junk (which it was - hello lack of feedback and failing to detect extremely deliberate touches), I wouldn't have hated it any less. I don't want to have to constantly look away from the screen when I'm working. I'll avoid mentioning all the other problems of the Lenovo touchstrip (or the rest of the keyboard, which was an utter abomination) because hopefully Apple gets those right - but it doesn't really matter. Give me my ESC key back, and stop breaking usability.

In their boneheaded move, actually Lenovo _at least_ had the presence of mind to realize that ESC is really off limits, so they moved it to the row below. At the expense of the ` key, which isn't really an optimal solution, but it shows some modicum of reasoning about the usability impact of that gimmick. Apple doesn't seem to care.

I gave that mostruosity back shortly after, am now a happy user of a T450s which even has an ethernet port!!!, very happy with it. Lenovo shortly after retired the gen2, replaced it with a gen3 which has an absolutely normal keyboard, issued an apology, probably fired the idiot who suggested that horrible usability compromised. I'm afraid Apple may have hired that idiot.

I now may need to have the Courage to spend my own money on a non-Apple laptop after so many years.

I switched to a Dell M5510 running Linux and haven't looked back. Battery life isn't as good, but otherwise it's been great. Touch screen works fine, trackpad clicks a little heavy but works fine, all the standard ports and an included network dongle, Libre Office gets the job done, Netflix still works on Chrome, no random crashes or freezes, and no proprietary lock-in, privacy concerns, or cloud nonsense. Best of all it's basically the same size & weight as a MBP, not your average clunky PC monstrosity.

Don't like tap to click? Libinput supports it, I thought it was the default on all distros even.

For someone who spends the day in Terminal (bash with readline in Vim editing mode) and Vim, missing physical ESC key is going to be a huge pain in the ass.

So, after a decade of Apple hardware I am yet again on the cross roads looking for decent hardware and OS to go with it. As it stands now, Linux with PC hardware is going to be the only real option. At least there are good mechanical keyboard for PCs.

So yes, changing the ports isn't ideal and only having one to use to plug in peripherals which will most likely mean a hub is required is a bit of a pain, but the low end doesn't even include the touch bar so I'm not sure what you're getting upset about?

Plus, the current generation of Macbook Pros weren't expandible as far as I'm aware? I've got the 15" rMBP and I can't upgrade anything within it, so I doubt Apple is too concerned anymore about allowing expansion in their laptops and I could see that trend spreading across the rest of the industry as well.

> So we designed a unique butterfly mechanism, which is wider than the scissor mechanism and has a single assembly made from a stiffer material — allowing for a more stable, responsive key that takes up less vertical space.

Not sure how that v2 would compare to the current MacBook Pro keyboards.

http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/HDMIAltModeUSBTypeC.aspx

On the same side, not good.

I gotta say the Surface Book has been really great. Especially as it supports the new MSVR and Hololens out of the box for the DGPU version.

And that's comparing to the 15" rMBP, the 13" is $2200 (16/512) / $2600 (16/1TB), though in that case the SB adds a dGPU. And battery life in both cases of course.

And the SB doesn't have a single type-C port let alone TB3.

Surface Pros: Beautiful hardware, touchscreen works decently, Windows 10 is generally a decent operating system. Keyboard is pretty neat.

Cons: Tremendously buggy software and hardware integration. The Surface Pro 4/Book dock was effectively useless until several firmware updates. Tons and tons of issues -- I had to warranty repair the Surface Pro 4 three times before giving up and selling it. Still plenty of hardware bugs. Scaling on Windows 10 isn't very good outside of most MS developed apps. Battery life is pretty terrible for what it should be. (Do not get an i7 version -- sucks down battery. i5 is better) Hard to do productivity work on the Pro 4 as I really prefer a standard 13 inch notebook minimum. The Book does solve this issue, but I never felt the need to pay the huge price premium for tablet mode. Video drivers for the Pro 4/Book were crashing when browsing for several months after launch. At the end of the day, taking notes in a notebook isn't quite as convenient but just works better than using the pen.

I love the potential the Surface line has, but that's just it, potential. Microsoft needs to focus 10x more on QA. If they control the hardware and software, the result needs to be as seamless as it usually is (or was) on Apple devices. I'd love to see a lower priced Surface Laptop without the screen gimmick for professionals.

Recently I had a chance to use one for a week and ended up buying it. My big issues were all fixed and it has been a great daily driver for the last month or so. The linux susbsystem has been very useful if you play within it s boundaries and I'm happy with it as a development machine.

Or not. I didn't change my default settings and I'm not running Linux Mint or Ubuntu or some other newbie friendly distro. It's just all taken care of. At least games run fine, though it must be said that the games I play are either from '99 or not graphics-heavy. Factorio is the heaviest one.

My big concern is how much they had to shrink the battery to shave off the half-pound.

The Air has the pre-shallow keyboard, and standard port array (USB 3 x2, SD, MagSafe, and TB). Minus the non-retina screen, the 13" Air is a very capable dev machine with great battery life in a light and compact form factor.

The problem, to me, of the port selection is that it means pretty much every user is going to have to carry a selection of adapters for years to come given the installed base of USB peripherals + things like projectors that do not have a USB-C port. Other laptops seem to do a better job of phasing things in gradually introducing USB-C ports whilst not immediately dropping the older ones to give people time to adapt.

A lot of desktop mainboards already have one USB C port.

http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/product/2/5521/2015082615...

Wait, what? Holy crap, that's amazingly stupid.

There are two different designs that I've encountered, with one of them being massively inferior (noticeably mushier feel, and a weak point on the arrow key clips that gets worse over time, until the clip starts 'expanding' under pressure, causing it to get stuck or pop off of the board).

EDIT: Jesus, it's a full 1/3 heavier than the 2015 rMBP, with a smaller battery.

I doubt weight is much of a factor for most people considering one of these things, but yeah they are a bit heavy (they can take a lot of abuse, though).