It always seemed backwards that the touch bar is a pro feature. Aren't pros the group that learn all the keyboard commands? The touch bar seems like it would be most useful to non-pro users.

Yeah, I think "pro" just means "expensive" :)

the term " pro " appeared (by my count) 56 times in the apple press release. Pro to me is now just a marketing term.

My assumption has always been that the "Pro" line is aimed at content creators. Because in lots of professional work you would want a plethora of ports which Apple doesn't give you.

When they started removing ports I use I switched to a Thinkpad T-series. It's been the perfect laptop for my use.

Faders are the right abstraction for a lot of pro media stuff. The touch bar is an okay middle ground between keyboard/mouse and a separate hardware control surface.

Apple already has a giant touchpad. That's the sensible place to put the touchbar instead of breaking the Function keys.

Can you do audio or video scrubbing with FN keys? Have you used touchbar with Photoshop or similar apps? A Pro User doesn’t mean “software developer” — there are a lot of other pros that really love the touchbar.

Now that I think about this more, if you are right, then why don't the Mac Pros come with a touchbar keyboard? Video and photo editing are probably the primary uses for the Mac Pro.

Because all of those use cases already have purpose built peripherals that would be more appropriate to use with a stationary workstation. Laptops benefit from something more portable and general purpose.

That's fair, although when I used PS I used the function keys a lot.

Seems that their idea of "pros" are mostly people like music creators and photographers, not really developers.

Which is fair — film, music, design, photography have been the core pro markets for Apple for much longer than developers have been — Final Cut, Logic Pro and the defunct Aperture are clear proof of that. The Touch Bar kind of became the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of people, but this prioritisation at the hardware level is much older, and much more pervasive than that.

That sort of creative also gets much more benefit from the four Thunderbolt ports than developers do (we mostly use them as inconvenient USB and/or display ports, and AFAICT Thunderbolt is borderline irrelevant. Same as with Firewire back in the day). As much as I enjoy using my iMac 5k for programming, it's when I use it for Lightroom that I really get a real benefit from it. Most of my development work doesn't benefit that much from an SSD (when I wrote C++ professionally, that was a different story...), but by gods it makes a difference when I try to edit 4k video.

I mostly think of it as the emoji bar. It's genuinely useful for people (pros and non-pros) who type a lot of emojis to have them on the keyboard. But it's certainly not specifically a pro feature, I agree 100%.

Apple probably has better data on how it gets used than I do, but that's almost exclusively what I'd use it for if I had it.

The new air pods are called Air Pod Pro. What does pro mean in this context?

AirPod Pro.

They're Pro because they block out the noise surrounding you when you're trying to work in a godawful open-plan office

Funny, I actually bought them for the transparency mode, precisely so that I can hear the clickity clacking of everyone's mechanical keyboards. It's comforting.

Agreed, I'm still on a 2015 model and still super happy, even battery life is OK. Every time a new MacBook Pro is announced, I'm a bit excited but then I compare and I find no good enough incentive to upgrade yet.

I'm secretly hoping that my 2015 model dies so I can upgrade to a newer sexier one, but the damn beast keeps on working great.

Once my 2015 MBP dies, I'll probably replace it with the most maxed-out refurbished 2015 MBP I can find. It's the perfect laptop.

I've looked, out of curiosity, at the prices you pay for refurbished ones around here (Germany), and most offers for the refurbished 2015 now exceed what I paid for a new one back in 2015 (same configuration, of course).

It would seem, there is demand.

I'm still using a 2010, and while I did upgrade to an SSD and added some RAM, it's still going strong. The only thing making me consider upgrading is that OS X upgrades stopped supporting it.

Where did you get yours upgraded? I have a 2014 Macbook Air but I'm thinking most 3rd party shops won't touch an Air for upgrades

On the 2010 models upgrading the RAM or hard drive just involved a specific screwdriver to take the back off. It took approximately 5 minutes to do at home.

Pretty sure its impossible to upgrade the Air unfortunately.

2013 MBP 13" here... not gonna happen.

Late 2013 15" MBP, will definitely upgrade to 2015 15" when it dies in a few years.

2013 Air 13” here...

I just upgraded from that to a 13" MBP. Very happy.

Also a 2015 MBP user chiming in. I see absolutely no reason to upgrade. Currently in need of a battery replacement. Still deciding whether it's worth attempting myself or to just shell out the extra $100 for Apple to do it.

My 2014 MBP is chugging along well - I'm also in for a battery replacement, but other than that, it's doing just fine.

2010 15” here, this might be the model that gets me to update...

My personal Macbook Pro is from 2014 and I actually like it better than my 2015 for work. Apple switched from NVIDIA to AMD graphics cards in 2015 and it seems to have had a huge thermal impact. The fans on my work machine run at full speed constantly whenever I plug in an external monitor, but I almost never hear them on my personal machine.

Same with iPhone 6s. Not sure why can't admit that reached the peak with a product and just keep producing it that way, maybe with minor modifications only. I would totally keep buying 2015 MPBs and iPhone6s till the end of times.

Isn't this kind of like the "they'd ask for faster horses" quote?

Sure, but instead of creating the Model T Apple created an ambling burro. Some people like it for some use cases, but a lot of those who just wanted a faster horse are understandably a bit miffed.

This is exactly it. I need a horse, it can be slightly faster, not required though. There is no horse vs car improvement between iPhone 6s vs iPhone 11, but they removed jack and increased price for no good reason. Btw. I do not think that there can be a horse vs car bump in UX for phones. Maybe I am my imagination is limited. :)

Maybe it is not a car from a horse, but it certainly is a motorcycle in terms of UX improvements.

FaceID, swipe interactions over a button and IMO the removed chin makes it all into a big user experience jump.

Not sure how many favor swipe interactions over having a button.

I'd guess a lot who have gotten used to it (as in - not used it to try out).

Can you even fast-switch between applications on a buttoned iPhone? It's probably my number one used interaction on the phone.

Yes, non of those matter to me. Jack port does.

Exactly what I was thinking: "Our pro customers tell us they want their next horse to have blazing-fast performance etc."

the 8 is basically a 6s, right?

No headphone jack, which is big for me. If I was willing to ditch the headphone jack I'd just get the 11 Pro.

Same, I use a iPad mini for music & phone conversations because I will not give up my headphones, unless they produce a wireless one that I can charge once a year and it can transfer ALAC/FLAC, and it has the sound quality of the previous one.

Well at least with the new phones you can use a lightning -> headphone converter and a wireless charger so there is that. Not ideal as i miss the headphone jack and don't like wireless too but it works well.

btw. the 16" model is cheaper than the 15" from the year before (in the base configuration they are equal, if you add additional ssd space or so, the 16" model comes out cheaper). not that it matters much, since the 15" pro late 2013 model was cheaper than both.

I just got a 2019 at end of May - earlier 2015 broke, needed one ASAP. Didn't want a Touch Bar (had returned a 2016 model I got on release - didn't like it). Now... same price, this has physical escape key and 1TB out of the box. Slightly annoyed...

yeah I would be annoyed also. I knew that my late 2013 has his issues after hard usage (battery swelled, etc) so I need one really soon, but I knew that the 2019/2020 will have a new model so I waited exactly for that.

Have you gone to apple for the battery swelling issue? I took mine in after part of the trackpad stopped working and a fan starting whining non-stop. They ended up replacing the case, battery, fan, and potentially even the keyboard and screen (looked like it from what I could tell) for only $300. It felt brand new when I got it back.

wish I could have waited these 6 months.

To be fair you could get the 15" for $2099 from various resellers

well these resellers probably didn't made a lot of money from hardware sales and more through extensions/cables/whatever.

My 2012 Retina was solid, lasted for 7 years till the battery just started going. Had they not glued it in I would have replaced battery and kept going.. hunted for a replacement and really not happy with anything. A compromise was switching to a Razer Blade Base (here in New Zealand we have Consumer Gaurentees Act - so even if it's iffy quality next 5 or so years I can get it fixed for free). From a quality perspective still doesn't really touch a 7 year old machine.... yes it's awesomely fast and at least upgradeable. But the trackpad definitely not the same sensitivity & consistency, chassis I think is ever so slightly warped, fan and heat when it's plugged in is a problem, and screen, well....

> here in New Zealand we have Consumer Gaurentees Act - so even if it's iffy quality next 5 or so years I can get it fixed for free

A quick search reveals the Razer costs around $500 USD more in NZ than in the US (converted prices to USD). The MBP 16" is $400 more. Wouldn't part of the reason it costs more be because of this legislation?

Generally speaking we have taxes included in our pricing (often forgotten when doing conversions) and because small market we often get "taken for a ride" as there's limited volume. Not many people actually use the CGA, but if you know about it, it's gold :)

You can get a battery replacement kit from iFixit and do the repair yourself. Not trivial, but really not bad.

> Perhaps the best laptop yet.

I'm sure that would go to one of the old Thinkpads; e.g. X220 still has a massive cult following to the point where it's being moded with modern parts just so people could still use it. You have a very valid point though - seems like 2010-2015 was the golden age of modern laptops then innovation was replaced by gimmick all of a sudden.

I'm still using mine at work. I got a 2018 once and then went back to IT a few hours later and asked if I could trade back.

I got the mid 2015 with all the bells and whistles. The only thing the new macs have that I would like is space grey finish.

And better specs.

2011 model was the best. I upgraded the RAM and hard drive myself over the years

Problem is the video card performance is absolute garbage on that thing. Somehow seeming to perform even worse than a prior model I had.

That is absolutely nutty. 400 for some gimmick?

You can get a decently specd laptop these days for $400.

They aren't though, they all have them so it's not a line item cost.