Apple Event 2016-10-27 -- New Macs finally

[JAG87]

What I find interesting is some tidbit of information that was reported in the last Ming-Chi Kuo rumor and I haven't seen anyone comment on (maybe someone did?).
http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/22/kuo-october-2016-mac-predictions/


Will this be the first Apple ARM chip inside a Mac?

If the new MBP comes with Touch ID, it pretty much has to have an ARM chip in it.

http://www.iclarified.com/57138/apple-adds-arm-support-to-macos-sierra-kernel

 

[Kazukian]

If the new MBP comes with Touch ID, it pretty much has to have an ARM chip in it.

http://www.iclarified.com/57138/apple-adds-arm-support-to-macos-sierra-kernel

Interesting, curious now...

 

[Midwayman]

Virtualization only works well if it's the same instruction set. If your trying to run an x86 VM on an ARM chip, you have to emulate the processor and the ARM chip has to be about an order of magnitude faster to make it work.

Also, the "less efficient" isn't what it once was. Just tool at the the 12" MacBook vs the 12.9 iPad Pro. Both very light, totally quiet, battery life's in the same ball park. x86 Notebooks like the current Dell XPS 13 get almost 14 hrs of battery life while being small, light and fairly powerful. The disparity isn't that big and the cpus are only a part of the total power draw of a machine.

So basically, switching cpu arch now would mean trading minor conveniences in weight reduction and battery life for major inconveniences in software incompatibility. Not a good trade off IMO.

Virtualization or not I think that the "one device, multiple UI" concept is the wave of the future. MS has the idea right. Someone just has to nail the execution

 

[sxr7171]

With iPads going for upwards of $1000 I don't see the room for an iOS laptop. The pricing on iPads is beyond outrageous IMHO.

It would be nice to dual boot iOS and MacOS I guess. Or maybe even run iOS within MacOS.

 

[Eug]

Leaked by Apple itself in macOS Sierra 10.12.1:

Not sure but I get the impression these keys are convex. That's fine and in some ways preferred, but I just hope they have a decent feel with a decent amount of travel.

It also looks like the 13" MacBook Pro has top mounted speakers finally.

 

[Kazukian]

If they switch the MBP to the MB's butterfly key switches, people are going to complain for years...

I like them on my MB, but I can understand if someone doesn't.

 

[HiroThreading]

Leaked by Apple itself in macOS Sierra 10.12.1:

Not sure but I get the impression these keys are convex. That's fine and in some ways preferred, but I just hope they have a decent feel with a decent amount of travel.

It also looks like the 13" MacBook Pro has top mounted speakers finally.

Looks great but I wish they made the bezels a weebit smaller.

Very minor, but I like how they decided to put back the "MacBook Pro" logo under the display.

 

[Tweak155]

If they switch the MBP to the MB's butterfly key switches, people are going to complain for years...

I like them on my MB, but I can understand if someone doesn't.

I may be one of them. I tried a MB 12" and just could not get used to the keyboard. It's just too shallow.

Hopefully this one has a little more depth, otherwise I may seek out an older model to replace my 2012 MBA.

 

[JAG87]

If they switch the MBP to the MB's butterfly key switches, people are going to complain for years...

I like them on my MB, but I can understand if someone doesn't.

The new keyboard is clearly superior, at least in terms of feel under your finger tips. Just like with everything else Apple does that seems counter-intuitive at first, people will get used to it and then they will come across the old keyboard and wonder how they ever typed with such wobbly keys.

 

[Kazukian]

The new keyboard is clearly superior, at least in terms of feel under your finger tips. Just like with everything else Apple does that seems counter-intuitive at first, people will get used to it and then they will come across the old keyboard and wonder how they ever typed with such wobbly keys.

The older keys feel like they're on little pillows to me now.

 

[Eug]

The new keyboard is clearly superior, at least in terms of feel under your finger tips. Just like with everything else Apple does that seems counter-intuitive at first, people will get used to it and then they will come across the old keyboard and wonder how they ever typed with such wobbly keys.

The lack of wobble is a clear improvement. The decrease in travel is the problem. It's just way too shallow. It's noticeably worse, and no, it's not just a matter of getting over it in the first few days for many people. There are lots of people out there who bought the MacBook and still dislike the MacBook keyboard months later.

I don't know about myself though, since the keyboard was enough to turn me off buying the MacBook, even though the MacBook was the exact form factor I had been asking for for years. The longest I've used it is for about an hour.

In any case, I need to upgrade my laptop, but I'm not wedded to a specific model right now. I guess the best way to summarize it is:

1) If the new 13" MacBook Pro or 13" MacBook has a superior keyboard to the 12" MacBook, I'll probably buy a 13" if it is Kaby Lake.
2) If the new 13" MacBook Pro or MacBook have the exact same keyboard as the 12" MacBook, I may just save my money and get a 12" MacBook when it goes Kaby Lake.

However, I'm still open to the idea of keeping my old 13" MacBook Pro for yet another year, despite the fact it is already 7.5 years old.

 

[Rubycon]

The display really needs to be updated and bezels shrunk down. My late 2015 rmbp looks ancient compared to my XPS 9550. Those keys look like the 12" macbook keyboard. It's OK but they have about the same travel is the surface key cover which is meh.

Now if they had a full 4096x2160 AMOLED+ panel they'd have my attention for sure! Along with a GTX1080m (or equivalent quadro) GPU option, 1-2TB PCI-E storage, Xeon chip and 64GB ECC RAM. Truly a mobile workstation.

One could dream...

They'd never make a macbook pro with more hp than those "wastebasket" systems from 2012.

 

[sxr7171]

Dell bezels are in another league in general.

 

[Chaotic42]

The display really needs to be updated and bezels shrunk down. My late 2015 rmbp looks ancient compared to my XPS 9550. Those keys look like the 12" macbook keyboard. It's OK but they have about the same travel is the surface key cover which is meh.

Now if they had a full 4096x2160 AMOLED+ panel they'd have my attention for sure! Along with a GTX1080m (or equivalent quadro) GPU option, 1-2TB PCI-E storage, Xeon chip and 64GB ECC RAM. Truly a mobile workstation.

One could dream...

They'd never make a macbook pro with more hp than those "wastebasket" systems from 2012.

I wonder what Apple would charge for that in 2016. $10,000?

 

[JAG87]

Now if they had a full 4096x2160 AMOLED+ panel they'd have my attention for sure!

Lol... If it came with that I'd lay out all my credit cards on an Apple Store table, unbox it right there in the store and make hot, steamy love to it.

 

[sxr7171]

Good thing something that nice could never come from Apple. So I'm safe shopping there. But I'd be a little wary of shopping at the Microsoft store from now on. I might slip on the emissions from such an event.

Or maybe love only gets made to Apple products.

 

[Eug]

Hmmmm.... It is only CAD$55 (US$41) to upgrade my 2009 MacBook Pro to 8 GB RAM now. It seems PC3-8500 SODIMM prices have dropped a lot in the past several month.

Looking on Kjiji it looks like I'd maybe get CAD$400 (US$300) for this 7.5 year-old machine - 2.26 GHz 13" non-Retina with original battery, 4 GB RAM, and 250 GB SSD - so I'm tempted to keep it regardless if I get a new machine or not, esp. since I can (unofficially) install Sierra on it. I'd be hard pressed to find any Mac this pristine and functional (despite its age) for $400. And, I like its keyboard. It'd also just be cool to have a machine that could run Mac OSes all the way from 10.5 Leopard to 10.12 Sierra.

Anyways, only 7.5 hours to go.

 

[Chaotic42]

So 9:59AM Pacific would be the best time to buy a MacBook Pro?

 

[Eug]

So 9:59AM Pacific would be the best time to buy a MacBook Pro?

Yeah, considering you can't buy anything at the Apple Store online anyway right now.

 

[Anubis]

im actually curious about the KB. I hated the fact that apple caused everyone else in the market to shift to the chicklet style keys which IMO are in general horrid to type on, I feel this way for all versions of it that exist on apple laptops as well. I have an acer Aspire that I use at work and I don't think I have used a worse keyboard, the Samsung ativ book I have at home is much better but that only goes so far. the HP workstation laptop I have at work is also horrid, which given its size could hold a normal mechanical keyboard but still uses the crap keys. it seems manufs either f up the spacing or the travel distance, and never get both right

hopefully if apple can fix this others will follow.

 

[Eug]

I was in the Apple Store today and was playing around with the MacBook again. I think I might consider just getting the MacBook and forcing myself to get used to the keyboard.

It's hard to pass on the form factor. However Kaby Lake is a must and we will see what gets released in the afternoon.

Interestingly, the sales people there did not even know if they'd have new models to display or not.

 

[ControlD]

That touch bar is actually pretty cool.

 

[gus6464]

Touch bar kinda gimmicky no? It just puts all the stuff that's on screen already in the bar which you can get to faster by clicking on it.

Ohh and lol @ Radion Pro. Had to cut costs somewhere.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Here are my thoughts at the touch bar:

1. It's a test run to see if we can get rid of the mechanical keyboard. It's the next step for a thinner MacBook
   
   
2. It's a bit gimmicky. I don't mind it replacing the F keys, but I never thought they'd make so much out of it. Are people going to be staring at their keyboards all the time when trying to manipulate stuff on a screen? That's a lot of shifting eyes up and down.
   
   
3. Isn't the better solution for a touch interface to just go full touch OS? Like Craig was showing photo editing by leveling and rotating on the Touch Bar. So you have to look down to make it happen... but why would you do that if (imagine a Surface Pro or even iPad) you can manipulate right on the screen? Seems to me the TouchBar development was a total waste and they should be investing the effort to the next version of a touchscreen OS.

 

[Chaotic42]

Skylake? Bleh.