16-Inch MacBook Pro Said to Launch in September (opens in new tab)

Currently still on my maxed out late 2013 15" retina with 2.3 Ghz 16GB RAM 512GB SSD. The trackpad has ceased to work but it has come to rest on my desk with dedicated monitors, keyboard and mouse. Easily the most important enjoyable inanimate object in my life that. Oh, and still have my early 2010 15" MBP to troubleshoot, run Windows, and as a backup in case this one is out of commission for an extended period of time which has only happened once. Really appreciate the feeling that when I buy my next one I'll be able to rely on it for over half a decade.

Still haven't warmed up to the keyboard and seemingly useless touchpad (although I'm sure I could find fun ways to use it)

As for modern Windows machines, I bought a Surface Laptop for my wife and that machine holds up pretty good. But she does not use it every day like I do and only uses it for browsing, Office and remote desktopping to her work environment.

The Surface Pro was an impressive feat of engineering, but was never a comfortable typing experience regardless. I would say the Surface Book legitimately has a super nice keyboard though, reminds me of the pre-2015 Macbooks in good ways.

I'm switching to Linux as well. It's that "just works" has become "it doesn't work anymore, and we don't sell anything you want." I'd happily give them money, but they don't seem to care about what I want as a customer.

I'm typing this on a mid-2010 iMac with Linux installed because it's no longer supported by Mac OS. My 2012 MBP died earlier this year. I replaced it with a Dell XPS 15 running Linux. I don't like it as much as my MBP, but I don't hate it like the current Apple offerings.

I don't mind paying for power. I've got a ridiculously overpowered "cheese grater" Mac Pro. But the OS is dated, and I can't replace it without a total wipe and reinstall because I used a RAID. After being left in the lurch on the (admittedly dated, but perfectly functional) iMac, not knowing if I'll ever like another MBP offering, and having to wipe the system anyway, I'm not sure I'm not just going to put linux on that as well.

I might even switch over to Android for my phone. While setting up a VPN, I had a very difficult time, because even though all Apple's configurator does is create XML profiles, I couldn't run it because none of my hardware had a recent enough version of Mac OS on it. It seems totally arbitrary; especially since I can duplicate the profile by hand, email it to myself, and install it on the phone.

I switched to Linux from Mac back in 2009.

While I enjoy the freedom and lately the niceties of NixOS, there are a few things I miss about Apple. Especially hardware.

It sounds crazy, but some Macs were among the best Linux laptops. MacBook Air 11 (Late 12) used by Linus himself. That's my main machine too. Silent, pure Intel, flawless. Other Macs were really nice too. E.g. MacBook 2.1. Great keyboard, and supported by Coreboot. Not so much lately sadly, with non-USB input devices, secure boot and bad keyboards.

People talk about Thinkpads, which are good, but you need to cherry-pick a lot. Some models are quite noisy for example. Outside Thinkpads, it's hit and miss. Currently, I like Surface Go and Xiaomi Mi Air 12. Most other laptop options are not good. Desktops are a completely different business.

Buying from Apple is always very reliable and easy. Pay and go. Everything is fine. Guarantees across borders are fine. Getting keyboards from different locales is fine. With other brands, not so much. I feel that Apple is focused on less products, and this really makes a difference in terms of quality and user experience.

Lately, I was trying to get a US ANSI keyboard in the UK, and the only option that worked was buying a Magic Keyboard (which has really nice latency).

> I want cheap and powerful.. and it just seems impossible to do that with Apple.

My job relies on this laptop. I don't care if it's expensive, I want to buy reliability.

How about used ones from eBay?

Those things don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive - though grant, they likely will be as implemented. Face ID is incredibly convenient on phones, and I while I didn't expect to care either way on the iPad, it's just as nice there. My only complaint with my 11" iPad Pro's Face ID is that the sensor is only on the "top", and is almost always covered by my hand when I'm holding it in landscape (which is pretty much always). A second sensor on the right side of the device, near the magnets for the Apple Pencil, would be very welcome.

For a laptop... I'm not sure exactly how that would best implemented. The easiest thing to do would likely be to hardwire an LED to the sensor so that it couldn't be activated without notifying the user. Otherwise... perhaps it could be implemented as a self-contained authentication device that sent some sort of hash of the user's facial features to the OS, instead of the actual image? I'm not familiar enough with how the technology works to say for sure.

Yes they do.

I've got one of the latest ones too, I still think it sucks more than the 2015 ones.

I used to keep them on my desk partly as screen estate, now keep the lid closed, leave it under the desk and use a bluetooth keyboard in the hope it'll survive.

I tried a recent one and it's definitely better, but still not nearly as good as the old ones.

Real escape and full row of real F- keys. Just push the Touchbar above it, so we can power it down and ignore it (or run cute screensavers on it while plugged in).

The whole concept makes no sense. "Don't look at the computer's screen when you work, look down at your keyboard instead!" It is like an anti-touch typing gimmick, the tagline should be "become a worse typelist today!"

I'd be perfectly fine having a touchbar if it were in addition to the f-keys.

So not quite perfectly fine since no iteration of the Touch Bar has a physical ESC button?

Those features are never coming back, but you can dream.

Do you ever consider ipad pro?

> I'm curious what losses there are to be cut? Isn't it as simple as just buying a different product and using that instead?

Chances are they have software installed on their machine. OSX has a vibrant ecosystem of independent developer and thus a pretty large number of bespoke good-quality software which might / would have to be replaced. Especially as cross-platform software tends to integrate less than well with the platform.

That goes double for older mac users, which have a higher tendency to use native software.

And of course one needs the time to adapt to different paradigms, shortcuts, facilities, … once again especially for older users of the platform for whom this becomes second nature.

Incidentally the points mix, the second one drives the first, I regularly notice cross-platform software which doesn't respond properly to Cocoa's text-movement shortcuts (even a simple C-a / C-e).

Losses in accumulated platform knowledge, purchased software investments, and custom built tooling. No, it’s not like replacing a dishwasher!

For me, these are non trivial to replace on Linux or windows: 3 years of randomly generated passwords conveniently stored, a purchased movie collection on iTunes, tab syncing between phone and laptop, touchId login, and probably most importantly iMessage sync between laptop and phone.

Presumably the investment in MacOS applications. Switching from Mac to whatever else would require finding replacements for those.

Possibly software and accessories that only work with macOS.

> really love to know who thinks it’s in any way good.

I think it’s good. Install BetterTouchTool (or analog) and the touchbar becomes infinitely-customisable multi-touch fn-keys row. The only missing thing is any tactile feedback (although BetterTouchTool can “simulate” it using touchpad’s linear motor).