Apple laptops

[kers]

I understand Apple's motivation wrt the USB-C connector (and with the Lightning connector for audio on the iPhone) -- they can drive the entire industry in that direction given their size and market share, while no single Android maker could do so.

I do not understand the removal of useful ports on a "professional" laptop -- specifically the SD card reader slot and HDMI. I'm also going to seriously miss the mag-safe power connector, considering how many times my laptop didn't fly off the table when I (or someone else) walked past and tripped on the power cable.

If I weren't in serious need of a new computer, I'd wait another year or two. I looked at buying the previous-gen 15 inch MBP, but they've removed the option for the separate video card. Sigh.

As i understand they changed the placing of the magnetic connector from the laptop to the powersupply; so that end is magnetic and comes loose. Good solution i guess.
In one way they are consistent- the trend to design the mac as clean as possible; a digital core unit that you can use at the heart of any digital output as long as you have the right cable.

[N80]

I find Apple becoming less and less relevant to me. Aperture was the first big issue. Then dumbing down of its programs like Pages and Numbers. Every year I get closer and closer to jumping ship. And now this MacBook lineup which to me is totally uninspiring and indicative of Apple turning away from actual pros and creatives. (Why do would a pro want to carry around a bag full of (expensive!!!) cables, dongles and adapters? Why would anyone?)

And to put things in perspective, I am a lifelong Apple user. I started with an Apple IIe and have never owned a desktop, laptop or cell phone that was not from Apple. I think when it is time to replace my 2009 MacBook Pro, I very well may be looking elsewhere.

[Christopher Sanderson]

Oh joy! Look what you may have to buy along with your new MacBook Pro

The author, a senior editor at MacWorld, states in the Comments that he "felt a little ridiculous writing it."

[Chris Kern]

they explain why the ram is only 16gb, but I would give the user the option to sacrifice battery for power...

The memory limit was a disappointment to me, as well.  I do most of my post-processing on a 2013 Mac Pro with 64 GB of memory, and its performance running Lightroom and Photoshop (and launching Photoshop from Lightroom) is excellent.  Although demand-paging is fast on a solid-state drive, my experience is that the amount of primary memory is the most important factor in determining the subjective speed of a platform for image-editing.  I was prepared to invest in a new laptop to replace my obsolescent Macbook Air, but I think I'll skip this cycle.

I don't like the idea of going to windows to use Lightroom... more a unix guy here...

True for me, as well.  Nothing against MS Windows, per se — Microsoft has finally turned it into a quite credible single-user operating system — but I'd wind up banging my head against a wall whenever I wanted to automate something.

[Chris_Brown]

Oh joy! Look what you may have to buy along with your new MacBook Pro

And on that page is a link to this nice laptop: http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro

[Dan Wells]

I am disappointed by the dongle-for-everything design. As a photography teacher at a university and a landscape photographer, I would be looking at a minimum of three unavoidable dongles (no, a new cable wouldn't fix any of them - I'm not counting my own external drives, which I COULD re-case or re-cable). One of them is actually a DOUBLE dongle to replace a function built in to my current MBP... I'm defining a dongle as "anything that has an additional connection point to fail", and a double dongle as "an abomination that generates two additional connection points"

From least to most annoying:

1.) HDMI. For years, Apple used only non-standard video ports, then they finally got this one right on the Retina. We have a few old projectors around my university that DO require a VGA dongle, but I can usually beg a classroom that has an HDMI-capable projector for image review, because our decent-resolution projectors also tend to be HDMI compatible. Right now, I plug in a single cable with no extra connector to come loose - this machine would step me back to a few years ago, when the dongle inevitably came out while we looked at some poor student's images...

2.) USB. Even if I updated all my personal drives (I'm adept with a screwdriver, and re-casing my portables would only be a minor pain - desktop drives and the printer could be handled dongle-free with a new cable), I'd still have to use a dongle to read students' USB memory sticks! It will be several years before double-ended memory sticks with standard USB-A and USB-C are common, and longer still before they're ubiquitous. I suspect it'll be the best part of a decade before "freebie" memory sticks, which students love to hand me, are USB-C. I know double-ended memory sticks exist, but they're expensive enough that I don't want to hand them out when I may not get them back, and I certainly can't require students to hand them to ME...

3.) SD!!!! Not only is the SD reader missing, B+H doesn't even stock a small, direct connect USB-C reader (they do for Micro SD, but not full size SD). The options are either a larger cable-connected  reader ( 2 extra connection points - card to reader to cable to computer) or a small USB 3 reader attached to a dongle (2 extra connection points - card to reader to dongle to computer). A double dongle for a daily function is COMPLETELY unacceptable. Yes, we'll probably see a compact USB-C reader for SD (and CF) before too long, bringing it down to a single dongle, but it'll be a hard to get reader for a while - carry a backup unless you're shooting in NYC on a day that B+H is open. Conventional USB SD card readers are drugstore items, and it'll be a while until USB-C readers are.

I own the immediate previous model (bought refurbished a few months ago), and I have the same RAM, a CPU that is within 10%, a SSD that is as large as you can get on the new one without paying over $4000 (and I suspect OWC will do a 2 TB upgrade for my machine within 6 months, which I WOULD consider - the Samsung SSD exists). My GPU is 50% slower, and I'm missing some screen gamut, but I have a machine that works with everything. By the time of my NEXT Mac, I suspect USB-C will be more palatable, and I hope Apple reintroduces the card reader...

[kers]

There is already a long list of phones using USB-C connectivity, while the new iPhone is still using the proprietary Lightning Connector. IMO that doesn't sound like walking upfront to me.

Yes, not clear why they did not use USB-C  - o
Seems they are a bit off focus spending too much time and money on making Cars, Televisions and spaceship offices ...

[Ken Bennett]

Here is a direct connect USB-C card reader for SD cards. Yes, it's expensive and yet one more thing to have to buy several of. I'll probably get two or three.

For use in the studio, I am going to buy the Lexar card reader hub which holds 4 card readers of various types (SD, CF, etc.). Each reader is capable of only USB-3 speeds, but the hub connects with a Thunderbolt 2 cable, which should mean that I can use all four readers at the same time without the MASSIVE slowdowns I experience now with multiple USB3 readers. Yes, I will need a dongle to connect the Thunderbot-2 to the USB-C on the laptop. Not great - it would be nice to find an actual cable that connected both (like those FW400-to-FW800 that were popular the last time Apple changed the ports on the Macbook Pro).

Our Mac support tech guy suggests that the true improvement in processing power on the new MBP is significant -- it's a much later generation i7 processor, and the RAM is much faster; he expects a 100-140% improvement in raw processing speed over the 2015 MBP. Heck, I would take half that, considering I am replacing a 4.5 year old Macbook Air. I would certainly not be buying a new Macbook Pro if I had a recent model.

Totally agree on the removal of the HDMI and the SD card ports. In five years, I might be able to walk into a classroom and find a projector with a USB-C cable -- but then my new Mac will have eliminated the USB-C ports in favor of the new USB-X standard.

[Christopher Sanderson]

....Our Mac support tech guy suggests that the true improvement in processing power on the new MBP is significant -- it's a much later generation i7 processor, and the RAM is much faster; he expects a 100-140% improvement in raw processing speed over the 2015 MBP.

Love to get some independent verification of this since that would obviously be quite significant for those of us doing rendering & compression of visual files

[N80]

Recent Google news headline "Is New Mac Book Pro Fastest Laptop On the Planet?"

Of course, the answer could be "no".

I didn't click the link since I have no plans to get one. Yawn.

[kers]

Just went to the Apple-shop to help a friend choose a new laptop.

In the end he choose the 'old' 13 inch macbook pro.
He writes a lot and did not like the keyboard of the new one. ( the macbook keyboard is worse even)
Also he likes to plug in an usb cable in without hassle.

The cheapest new macbook pro costs 1700 € in Holland (incl VAT)
if you plug in the power - it has only 1 USB-C port left!

[Farmer]

Love to get some independent verification of this since that would obviously be quite significant for those of us doing rendering & compression of visual files

Subject to being able to process it in RAM, yes, otherwise the bottleneck will be storage media (be it SSD or whatever).  There is no doubt, Chris, that current RAM and processor power (and GPU where applicable), simply through architecture improvements, will provide a significant boost.  However, the bandied figures are at maximum bandwidth and throughput, something that you rarely if ever achieve for very long.  Real world improvements are going to be far more modest, even if you avoid having to access storage media.

This is applicable to all platforms, of course.

[Kevin Raber]

I have ordered a new MacBook Pro and it will arrive late November.  I'll pick it up on Dec 1st when I am back from Antarctica and will share my experiences.  I committed sin today though and visited a Microsoft store in the same shopping center as the Apple store.  Not a soul in the store.  I did have a helpful sales guy show me the new Surface desktop.  Pretty impressive but it wouldn't work for him a few times during the demo as he tried to show me the puck gadget and pen.    Sometimes we can get wowed by the cool looks.  In the end, the machine has to work.  By the way, the Apple store just quadrupled in size here in Indianapolis and it was still packed.  I think I'll do a rant on my experiences.

[NancyP]

I hope to visit the Apple store and see one for myself. Yes, it is beyond stupid that the iPhone 7 and the new MBP won't connect without an extra dongle not provided as standard in either the phone or the MBP. And dealing with all my FireWire backup drives - gaah. I will need a number of cords just to duplicate the current set-up (belonging to a mid-2010 MBP). Yes, eventually you will see some new monitors, external drives (FireWire and other), SD/CF readers, direct ethernet connectors, etc native to the new ports.

[Stephen Scharf]

I just received a brand new "just discontinued" Apple MacBook Pro Retina Display 15.4-Inch Laptop with Intel Quad-Core i7 2.8GHz, 1TB Flash Storage, 16GB DDR3 Memory, AMD Radeon R9. I ordered it the night the new MBPs debuted on the 27th, and I'm pleased to have gotten one as they were already off the Apple and B&H web sites as discontinued. I moved three years of images from my current MBP onto an external T-bolt HD, freed up 600 GB of space, and migrated my remaining docs and over the new Macbook via Migration Assistant last night. Worked seamlessly. Migration Assistant is one of the few really good applications that Apple has not f**ked up of late (unlike iTunes and the Podcast app).

To those considering getting a new one should view this real-world "review" by repair guru Lou Rossman of the Rossman Repair Group. He shows how simply connecting a USB microscope (that is not recording video, merely connected) via a USB-A to USB-C adapter slows down the computer to the point where it will not load web pages...at all.

He also demonstrates using a 3-port "dongle" with HDMI port causing the output video to flicker really badly at all resolutions when connecting an HDMI cable to a display. Last, the same adapter does not provide enough power to drive a 2.5" USB SATA laptop hard drive. So much for power over USB-C.

Well worth a look, at least for the first half-hour.

Caveat emptor....

New Macbook Pro can't walk and chew gum at the same time....

[kers]

...Yes, it is beyond stupid that the iPhone 7 and the new MBP won't connect without an extra dongle not provided as standard in either the phone or the MBP. ...

Yes, it is such a big company one division hardly communicates with the other...

In a reaction Apple has put down the prices of some cords... Till 2017.
Making it the ideal christmas gift

[Stephen Scharf]

Yes, it is such a big company one division hardly communicates with the other...

In a reaction Apple has put down the prices of some cords... Till 2017.
Making it the ideal christmas gift;)

The whole situation is absolutely ridiculous. The current consensus among long-time Apple users is that Apple has completely given up caring about what customers actually want, or as many have pointed out here, the needs of pro photographers, videographers and graphics artists that comprised its professional base for many years. Watching the Apple Special Event, it was clear that the top guys at Apple....Cook, Federighi, Schiller and Ives are in love with themselves and completely inward-focused. Or, to put it simply, they all have their heads up their *ss.

[degrub]

Apple marginalized itself the last time Steve left the company.....

[rdonson]

The whole situation is absolutely ridiculous. The current consensus among long-time Apple users is that Apple has completely given up caring about what customers actually want, or as many have pointed out here, the needs of pro photographers, videographers and graphics artists that comprised its professional base for many years. Watching the Apple Special Event, it was clear that the top guys at Apple....Cook, Federighi, Schiller and Ives are in love with themselves and completely inward-focused. Or, to put it simply, they all have their heads up their *ss.

Really?  Are you an Apple customer or simply channeling others thoughts?  How is Apple failing the creative market?

Myself, I'm happy with Apple.  I'm not enamored with the constant claims of thinner/lighter on the MacBook Pros but my retina MacBook Pro is a solid machine. 

They're typically are ahead of the curve on many tech standards in their products.  I look forward to 1Q17 and the Kaby Lake desktops.  Thunderbolt 3, USB C,  is the way forward for me.

[Chris_Brown]

 

https://youtu.be/-XSC_UG5_kU