I strongly dislike the Touch Bar. I'm typing this on a 2019 MacBook Pro whose Touch Bar died yesterday, leaving me with no escape key, no volume buttons, no keyboard brightness buttons, and no play/pause button -- leaving me to do all of those in software -- including escape.

I never found a single useful purpose for the Touch Bar's main mode, so from about two weeks after I bought it, it's been set to simply show function keys ("expanded control strip"). This means I have function keys that accidentally activate when I'm trying to type numbers, that timeout and disappear to save battery, that can't be 'hovered' (touching without pressing) and that have no tactile feedback, slowing you down by forcing you to look away from the screen. And now - I've lost the entire row.

This is also why I dread having to get a new car with all the fancy electronics, they might be cool and useful now but apart from touchscreens being inferior to handle without looking on them (something I prefer to avoid while driving), that’s one thing that will both break and in general be worse than my phone, probably already when it comes out and by the next generation at the latest. (Quite ironically Bluetooth as the interface to my car was the first thing that broke and would cost EUR 900 to replace, which makes me happy I didn’t take the navigation)

I wish I could just pay a premium for longer lasting design. It also shows how silly it is when companies say they want to be net zero on emissions, then produce something that could easily work well for almost a decade were it not for some ridiculously expensive part breaking.

The physical keyboard eventually became totally unusable so I now use an external keyboard 100% of the time, which solves the problem once and for all. Thanks Apple!

Here's a windows utility you might find useful: https://github.com/susam/uncap

And here's an editor that's accommodating to your newly trained typing skills ;) https://www.vim.org/

Good work.

It's been so many years that I can't remember how it is not having these combos.

I can see programmers hating it though.

And its not noticeably thicker than the macbook either. I can understand the pursuit of thinness or at least weight reduction in mobile devices. If the iPad was any heavier, you wouldn't be able to use it while standing. But on a laptop there is a lot more room for weight and thickness. As log as its comfortable to carry, that's good enough.

Recently I tried to convert to a windows laptop from my 16 inch mbp. Upon switching I was constantly annoyed by the fan noise & using my pinkie to press the 'control' key opposed to macbook thumb on 'command' key.

The point is, I realized native port selection was not a metric to consider when purchasing a laptop. I am fine bringing an adapter to the meeting room.

I guess it comes down to what you value. I am just trying to play 'devil's advocate' with my anecdotal experience compared to your experience.

There are far more things that made the dell xps a better choice and ports was just one of them but still a very important one. USB-C adapters are pretty cheap but USB-C hubs are $100+ and have been a constant source of frustration when they keep failing unless you buy the most expensive ones.

It's a big laptop by XPS13 standards sure, but one that's appropriately cooled. I hadn't been aware, up to that point, how much the fans bothered me. This thing is quick but at the same time real quiet. After some time I turned the NUC on for some reason, the funs launched into overdrive and I suddenly got annoyed.

Sadly, they mimic the macOS UI very poorly, and it remains not-possible in Linux to universally remap keyboard shortcuts to match macOS built-in sanity.

Yeah, I really wish I could map Alt+Down to open files in Nautilus so that I can then use the Enter key to rename them like any sane person

Also use waterfox instead of firefox if you want the browser to give you a proper global menu, or use chrome.

I can get a "looks like OSX" theme for KDE easily, but KDE will still be weirdly unstable, and have tons of impedance mismatch between it's components. You can't make a Ferrari out of a Ford by painting it the right shade of red.

I also don't understand how people say Macs are stable. I get the spinny thing that locks up the entire system about once a week.

Jesus, how loud was the Windows laptop? I just sold my 16" MBP for an M1 Air almost entirely because the fan noise on the 16" was unbearable.

I replaced the case, trackpad, and keyboard, but Dell won't sell me a battery and their batteries have DRM so you can't use a 3rd party unit.

My top of the line, i7, 32gb ram, 2gb gpu, 1tb nvme drive laptop is now no better than a paperweight. When plugged into shore power you can't get max CPU or GPU power and it's an annoying mess to deal with so it's just sitting.

I now own an X1 Carbon 7th gen and a 2020 i5 MBP and love them both. I'm traveling more than ever (bought a camper van to get out of the city center) and they are typically more abused than the XPS ever was. No problems at all. Shit, my 8 and 10 year old MBPs are still running after giving them away to friends in need.

I have a thin Anker dongle that has type a ports, ethernet, hdmi, and type c and a couple cheap backups in various bags. It's a small price to pay and all of our devices save the iPhone are type C now so I am slowing moving to one cord for everything.

Anyway...I'll never buy another Dell for the rest of my life. End rant

Are you sure you can't use a third party battery? Plenty of hits on Amazon for Chinese branded ones.

I replaced a XPS 9570 battery with a Chinese one a few months ago, seems fine to me.

Yes. I've tried flashing older BIOS versions. Multiple new chargers. I've tried 5 different batteries from Amazon and eBay. 2 have worked for a hot minute before failing to be recognized. I've popped in the swollen battery to test to make sure something else wasn't working and the swollen battery stays recognized.

Reading Reddit/talking to others in similar positions it's hit or miss whether the specific machine will work. I can't find a pattern with BIOS version, model, dates, etc. To date I've probably spent 30 hours troubleshooting and I've given up :(

Dell is horrible for this type of stuff. Had to retire a server early because of this type of policy. I wouldn't recommend them at all.

The trackpad is terrible, the sound is terrible, the screen is worse, the webcam is not as good. I cannot use windows so I have to use Linux, which brings a good bunch of its problems such as external screen with different resolutions, having to setup scaling for many applications individually, and always being the last guy to join meetings because every day I have a different problems switching to my usb headset, etc. I ended up going back to a macbook pro. The XPS hardware might look as good in the specs, but it won't last for more than 2 years, it crackles everywhere and the paint (in the trackpad, for example) wears off pretty easily if you use it every day.

So, yes, I'd love macbooks to have more ports, but by no metric that problem alone would lead me to prefer it over an XPS.

Just my preference/experience anyway.

I bought one cause I prefer Linux, my wife got one because it was 1k$ cheaper than the comparable MacBook. She's a designer and the screen is 100% Adobe RGB coverage.

The XPS and MacBook, from a hardware perspective, are basically equivalent. Its a shame they both took the ports out.

Enjoy it while it lasts, the current XPS generation is USB-C only.

Which XPS? My XPS 13 9300 has just 2 USB-C ports and a micro-SD slot (I don't mind carrying a small USB-C to everything adapter TBH, you can even have ethernet and VGA with that)

It is hard to say how much post-Jobs was really Ive. But it was clear that Apple got really lost. And it does suggest that Ive was rather mediocre all along. After all, he sinned against one of the most basic principles when you design something: it has to deserve to exist.

In the latter half of the 2010s it got really bad and dare I say: Apple didn't do very well in designing laptops. They really lost touch with reality.

So they were a kind of a subtractive synthesizer, one could say.

But to be fair, the comment you're replying to is talking specifically about the 12" MacBook's keyboard, which is indeed awful. I'm typing on one right now, and even after years on the thing, it's a perpetual reminder of how they're slower to type on, and kind of make your fingers hurt.

Remove the butterfly keyboard, add a second port, and the 12" MacBook gets unequivocally better.

Once in a while I'd wind up with the sticky keys, but was lucky enough to avoid anything permanent.

It's a sad coincidence they decided to discontinue it before their M1 CPU was ready because the M1 would've been right at home in the power & thermal envelope of the 12-inch Macbook.

The 13 inch Air is too big. But I suspect we're going to see chassis redesigns for everything given the new thermal windows, so maybe that will be the opportunity.

The M1 Air is a bit bigger, but that two centimetres of width does go to good use with a bigger screen (with more pixels), a bigger trackpad, and a bigger battery.

And nowadays everything is an electron app. So... I am considering updating.

I love the form factor though and I don’t really care about the ports or the keyboard. (it broke once, I fixed it)

The 12" MacBook made a great set of compromises (other than keyboard reliability) for the goal it intended to achieve. I had one for several years and loved it.

The mistake was taking the compromises from the 12" and applying them to the rest of the lineup, where they made no sense at all.

All companies screw up. Much worse than Apple screwing up is that they continued to obfuscate and prevaricate and deny.

Repeatedly. For years.

In other words, they doubled down (actually tripled down, 3 editions of butterfly) on stupidity.

I have a few custom keys, one which runs a script that finds my airpods, connects, turns on eq (boom), starts spotify, sets volume my normal level, hits play.

I do hate it when the touchbar crashes and requires a reboot, but I've gotten so much milage out of my script keys that I'd rather keep it.

I have buttons to open notes files, open my jira with tap, a strip with scrollable weather, screenshot buttons, automated settings control (like the security screen) and finger gestures.

Swipe left and right with 2 fingers for volume control, 3 for brightness, 4 for keyboard backlight. It feels so smooth and natural to change the volume that way.

It can do a ton though. best 7 bucks I've spent, and makes me want a touchbar on all my laptops from now own, surprisingly.

I don't even want to consider the possibility of my keyboard crashing. Imagine if that happened on iOS! Input devices have to be 100% rock-solid.

Rip iPod