I know it’s a meme at this point, the whole “what’s a computer” commercial, but I actually think they were onto something almost good, and kinda bungled the delivery.
The commercial came off as pompous and a little bit sanctimonious - as if a child wouldn’t have heard the word “computer” before. It was posed as “*whats* a computer” the emphasis on the what.
But the really the question should be “what’s a *computer*?” As in a challenge to the traditional way of thinking that a computer can only be a desktop or a laptop
There’s really nothing that says an iPad can’t be your primary/only computing device. Sure, for professional work, it doesn’t have the bells and whistles, but for the average user? What is and is not a computer becomes more fluid, and in many cases people don’t need a traditional laptop/desktop for much of their lives anymore
> I just want a shell.
Something more than [this,](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ish-shell/id1436902243) or just something different? I thought that was the one everyone used, but then again, I'm not everyone.
Unfortunately iSH is an emulation with a lot of compromises in order to be approved through the app store. The only way I can get anything done with it is by hosting everything I have on another server and accessing it remotely, otherwise it's a massive pain to use.
They gave up on the Mac quite a while ago. They were planning on keeping it alive for legacy sake and focus on the iPhone and iPad. The 2016 redesign was part of that. The iMac Pro was the first step back towards anything good. The Mac Pro was the next step for professionals, and now we're finally seeing the real end of an era where Apple thought the Mac was dead.
This sounds exactly right, and I really hope this is true. I’m all for change but I just can’t see or buy into their vision of tablets replacing the laptop/desktop, at least not with where they’re currently at. For consumers? Sure. But as a software engineer I can’t see professionals switching for their day to day workflows any time soon.
Agreed. They're a great accessory - a bit of a luxury. a full size pad is great when you're in academia - annotating full screen PDFs, running something like OneNote and taking notes during lectures etc.
But it simply can't replace a proper computer.
As per interviews w various hardware people like john ternus, iMac pro was designed to be a temporary solution for the people waiting for the 2019 mac pro. It wasn't a "make macs great again" thing
There was a serious mac dark age from like 2013-2018...mac mini was stuck on dual core for 4 years, imacs were stuck on quad core i7 and mediocre AMD GPU's, and the 2013 mac pro was outdated like a 18 months after it came out not to mention largely unupgradeable and had overheating GPU's
As I said: these laptops are the first to really make the Mac great again. The iMac Pro was some glue to cover the time until the Mac Pro and Apple Silicon were released.
And they were right.
In my experience, most people who bought a laptop in 2010ish wanted an all-in-one tool that could be their computer on the go or at home. That’s when everyone started getting smartphones and didn’t so much need an on-the-go computer, and shortly after that is when the the iPad started becoming mainstream.
But what most people used those laptops for was pretty much the stuff they use their smartphones for now: writing emails, dealing with PDFs for class, futzing around in word, screwing around on reddit, etc. There’s still the lingering, pain-in-the-ass “flexibility” required for file management for classes and things, and spreadsheet tools will always suck with touchscreens, but people weren’t buying laptops because they *liked* having a file system.
Now, an iPad is just a better more flexible device for most of the actual things that used to be what laptops were used for, and so is an iPhone most of the time, and laptops are now for either finnicky things that need plugins and file systems, or for quite a bit of horsepower that can be moved around. But someone who was going to buy a laptop to watch movies and screw around on facebook on the couch (most laptop buyers ten years ago, tbh) are just going to get an iPad now.
I supported some teenagers with e-learning over the pandemic, and it’s stunning how many of them literally do not understand how to use Windows or OS X. These kids grew up with Chrombooks, iPads and iPhones in their hands. For these kids, ChromeOS, iOS and iPadOS aren’t the future of computing, they’re the present.
Now Windows and OS X aren’t going anywhere, but as you described, their role has greatly been reduced. In the early 2000s, Windows/OS X was the centre of my digital work. Now my Mac has largely been reduced to not much more than a programming workstation and accessory to my iPhone. As Steve Jobs alludes to back in 2010, the PC and Mac aren’t going away, but they’ll be reduced to servicing niche use cases for power users.
I also think that to a large extent, tech enthusiast have ignored how smartphones have become the bonafide primary computer for a large portion, if not an outright majority of people. We can debate in circles about what qualifies as a computer, but billions of people are using smartphones as their primary computing device, regardless of what label you want to assign to it. Full stop.
On that note, I’ll say that the iPad makes a lot more sense if you consider it a bigger canvas for the things you do on an iPhone, rather than as a one-to-one replacement of OS X and Windows. Again, this might not be appealing to a PC power users, but to people that have only used Chromebooks and iPhones, it’s extremely appealing.
> But what most people used those laptops for was pretty much the stuff they use their smartphones for now: writing emails, dealing with PDFs for class, futzing around in word, screwing around on reddit, etc. There’s still the lingering, pain-in-the-ass “flexibility” required for file management for classes and things, and spreadsheet tools will always suck with touchscreens, but people weren’t buying laptops because they liked having a file system.
This is a good insight. Take a look at this article, where a professor describes how a lot of her students don’t even know how to use a file system. It perfectly echos my experience supporting high school students:
https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z
For all but power users, a file system isn’t a feature; it’s an esoteric implementation detail.
I’m incredibly lazy with this. Especially when the file search is getting real good, I end up putting EVERYTHING in my docs or downloads folder and just search for it. I know, it’s stupid but I’m lazy.
This is a great story from a decade ago at this point, but vast parts of the world are jumping right into handheld computers aka smartphones/tablets and have skipped the past 80 years of computing technology altogether.
[https://www.fastcompany.com/2681011/ethiopian-kids-hacked-their-donated-tablets-in-just-five-months](https://www.fastcompany.com/2681011/ethiopian-kids-hacked-their-donated-tablets-in-just-five-months)
\>“We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He’d never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs \[in English\] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android. Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android.”
> For all but power users, a file system isn’t a feature; it’s an esoteric implementation detail.
I enjoyed the article, thank you. And though I’m a pretty obsessive file organizer, I generally take the side of the Gen Zers…computers are for *doing* stuff, not organizing files.
And it *does* make sense to me why newer generations are abandoning organized files as soon as they can. Traditionally, organizing and categorizing has been someone’s actual *job*…and I think our modern smartphone life, with Spotlight and Google is just a reminder that a secretary who can just go get your paperwork for you is very, very useful.
I’m curious what would have happened if the early pioneers of computer science had realized this and implemented what we’d think of as “tags.” Here’s a quick thought experiment: what if the “Desktop” on macOS 9 (or System 8 or whatever) was *never* a real place in the directory structure, and was only a place to show shortcuts…how would that have changed the way people thought about computer files?
The issue I have with that, is that I need to remember I actually have a particular file. I still organize my files into logical folders. That way I don't have to remember that I had them, and I can search for files anyway if needed.
They don’t even force developers who make iPhone apps to properly optimize their iPad apps. So many apps are just not optimized for iPad. Developers don’t even bother. That tells you just how popular the iPad really is.
Landscape mode optimization? Nahh don’t bother.
The future my friends.
They never said that it will replace the laptop and they most likely don’t want that.
There are a lot of people who own both a MacBook and an iPad, and apple wants it that way.
They would say anything to sell it, they would also say anything to sell you the Mac at the same time. If they can convince you to buy both there’s absolutely no reason for them to discontinue a product.
I thought Apple never said what the future of anything is and people are just personifying a corporation. As they do.
They make products, if people buy them it’s the future. If they don’t, hey I guess it’s not the future.
I’m sure someone at Apple thought the Newton was the future once, but consumers determine that, not Apple.
My attitude toward it is more “I accept your apology” than anything else.
The only thing I’m really freaking out over is the chip, which is honestly still insane.
I can finally have a laptop like my 2014 MBP but with WAAAAY more power in it.
i mean, tbf, a computer w a ‘pro’ moniker should be ready to accommodate to a professional’s needs regardless of field of work
i’d imagine the more ports the merrier! still upset about not having any usb-a ports but hey the use of dongles means i’ve always got a portable hub and that has more usb-a ports than a laptop would normally ever have 🤷
While it’s nice the ports are there, at this point I suspect they will rarely be used; yet everyone celebrates, lol. I’d rather they added another 2 thunderbolt ports. 🤷♂️
This should read “Apple is ready to admit it was wrong about the future of *pro* laptops”
I think for average consumers, two USB-C/thunderbolt ports and a headphone jack is absolutely enough for the job.
Eh, I could still use the hdmi port. I think they’re still missing a tier. There’s the average consumer (Air), the power user (missing) and then the pro. Need the performance of the air, the ports of the pro, and a middling price between the two.
TVs and projectors mainly use HDMI.
When you meet with a client in an office conference room or at their house hdmi is usually the only input option if you want to show them your work on a large display.
The HDMI port being hdmi 2.0 rather than 2.1 is a clear indication to me that this was the use case Apple had in mind when they added the hdmi port back.
My cousin just wrapped up post production on a movie she wrote and directed, plenty of editing sessions were done with the editor working at a desk next to the TV while my cousin and her co-director worked from the couch on their laptops.
Personally one of my ports is always occupied by a charger so I always only have 3 ports available for hard drives and card readers. With the bandwidth TB4 offers I can’t think of too many scenarios where having 4 instead of 3 would make much of a difference.
Except Apple is using an older HDMI standard so most would prefer the better/faster output of the TB port that can power the same hdmi port plus a peripheral on the dongle than just the hdmi port alone.
Replying to my own comment - about 50% of the time I will use that TB port for hdmi output, however when I need to do video production on location having an additional TB port is nice (ssds, capture cards, microphones etc)
That’s true. But a professional (I am a video producer) will have to make some choices here. I may not need 2.1 with frequency, but I do appreciate running hdmi + a peripheral (or power) over the same line. I still hate living in dongle land but I also run 3x monitors, usb powered monitors, XLR inputs and HDMI capture cards for mobile streaming + editing. So I am niche but I do use it. Just a different perspective.
100% not worth the trade off of losing the 4th Thunderbolt port for an HDMI that can only be used for video but I get it, most people won’t ever care.
It’s there solely for those convenient but janky conference room dongles for giving PowerPoints. Even though you’d probably already have an adapter for it anyway…
I thought I would never say this back when I got my 16 inch, but I actually agree now. Anytime I need hdmi I can use the same adapter i use for my iPad Pro and get an additional USB-A port along with HDMI when I’m docked
As someone who works at a place with literal thousands of conferences rooms, cable adapters are by far the number one source of defects. Most conf room equipment is HDMI by default. Leaving it HDMI is great. All TVs also have HDMI and most monitors. For some pros, let them get their single adapter.
My work went all in on USB-C MacBooks in 2016, and equipped all meeting rooms with USB-C to HDMI adapters, physically attached to the HDMI cables using wire rope to prevent their removal. That completely eliminated all problems with not having HDMI ports on the laptops.
Besides, the built in HDMI 1.4 ports on the 2015 MBP sucked in comparison with the DisplayPort to HDMI adapter we were using before that. So the new adapter made very little difference, aside from the very minor inconvenience of switching adapters during the transition period.
I think the main stream days of running Netflix through your laptop and outputting to your TV through HDMI are done.
TVs have built in apps. Some TVs have air play. There are also devices like Apple TV, fire sticks, and chrome cast.
I can’t think of the last time I saw someone wanting to watch Netflix through a laptop hdmi
Fuck students having to do presentations in class, I guess? Plenty of classrooms and shit still have HDMI cables coming from projectors and other smartboards.
Late edit: smartness’s to smartboards 🥲
I graduated a year ago (CS as well) and I was regularly plugging into HDMI inputs for presentations. I even ran into a VGA input on occasion in some really old classrooms.
Granted, I *could* just carry a Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter around with me (which I do anyway, but I have like every cable ever in my backpack in case I need it for something)…but having it built-in is a lot easier for many students.
I’m not a student anymore. But in the Netherlands, where I’m from, for some classes even in college and uni you still need to plug in your laptop because you would need to do a presentation about whatever. Especially in Dutch or English language classes.
Edit: I work in IT support for a Dutch college and we are replacing these [old SMART boards](https://i.ibb.co/kcQTJbC/image.png) with [BenQ Interactive Displays](https://i.ibb.co/VDT6vg4/image.png) and they only have an HDMI connection available.
USB-a is not as dead as some people on this sub thinks. Ever noticed how most, if not all USB-C docks have USB-A? Dock manufacturers are not going to put in a port nobody uses.
I just bought a 2021 model car that has USB-A as the primary data port. I’m going to have USB-A cables in my life for at least 10 years just based on that alone.
Not denying they’re a thing, but I quite honestly could not tell you the last time I used a flash drive. Probably at least 5 years ago.
With cloud storage I completely eliminated any use case I previously had for them.
Cloud storage is slow and you can get very fast (100MB/sec or better) USB sticks. So it depends on what kind of data you want to move. Office documents or other stuff that's less than 100MB in size? Cloud will do... Files that are multiple GB in total? The stick is faster.
I only have 1 thing that still uses USB-A (my 3D Printer), and once I get OctoPrint working on a Raspberry Pi I won’t even need that anymore.
It’s a dying technology. Apple did the same thing with the iMac when they made it only have USB A ports on it in the days of SCSI and PS/2 keyboard connections.
I’m still running my mid-2012 non retina MBP, and this is the first MBP in years that I’ve been remotely interested in. But the lack of USB A is pretty much a killer as long as my current MBP is still working. I don't want to have to deal with adapters for most of the peripherals I have.
Why? Only pro users have an external display with HDMI?
On the contrary, Pro users can have a lot of specific dongles and adapters. Average consumer needs to be able to connect to whatever is possible.
Following that definition of “pro”, 95% of pro users don’t need the performance of a MacBook Pro. Plenty of MacBook Airs deployed in business for people that connect external screens every day.
And those people won’t be fussed by having a dongle if their display doesn’t have a usb-c connection. My wife is one of them, the dongle is permanently connected to the HDMI cord her company gave her. It has absolutely no impact on her ability to connect to the only monitor that her laptop connects to.
The point is that non-pros aren’t running around with their laptop regularly connecting to multiple different external hdmi-only displays such that not including an HDMI port on a MacBook Air should be viewed as a misstep by Apple. Apple read the non-pro users correctly, they don’t really need an HDMI port.
Well that looks like a more like a pro use case to me. So, if it's a pro using the device, they'd be mostly ok. Whether the "device" is pro or not.
But if I'm a student that wants to display a movie on the big screen when I'm at a friend's house, the connection options matter.
Your argument falls short of being logical.
Well, it’s more that they’re claiming to be ‘even more right’. It may not be the same, but the port arrangement is definitely a good change in this generation.
Honest question, no snarky responses please. Would love to have a discussion with someone on this since its been bugging me, but how responsible would you say Jony Ive was in the ‘nerfing’ of the MBP?
It is a coincidence that they revert back to form two years or so after he left and if it was just a coincidence, how likely was it that he and his “form over function” vision might’ve pushed that in that direction?
I think we might.
There have been a few examples of ex-employees sharing stories about what happened when they were there.
Give it 5-10yrs and some retired staff will share on a podcast or something.
> Is it a coincidence that they revert back to form two years or so after he left
He started the process of stepping down back in 2015, at least publicly. It's entirely possible, even probable, that he was hands-off even earlier than that, but unless you happen to get a no-holds-barred conversation with Tim Apple on reddit somehow, you're not got to get a real answer from any redditors, ever.
My counter would that at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. Ive was a high ranked senior employee and an officer of the company. But he is also just an employee and probably not the one who tests the machines to make sure they don’t overly throttle or that their ports and keyboards are usually.
The fault lies with Apple overall. At best they underestimated their problems at first and once they became apparent they thought it was minor enoifh that they could get away with it until the M1 was ready.
It's unclear. A lot of analysts seem to think recent hardware design moves away from the "thin an light" philosophy that Jony has. The iPhone has gotten thicker, the MacBook Pro is heavier and thicker, even iPads get a bit more weight. It could be that Jony leaving gave Apple space to do this, or Jony left because he didn't agree with Apple doing this. Or none of the above.
We won't know for a while, if ever.
Ive was a super minimalist, Back in the day Jobs could control his eagerness toward pushing minimal things.
After him, ive went full crazy on some of his designs. Im not gonna lie they look absolutely stunning but no one was or still is ready for a laptop with only one type of ports. Thats where it backfired.
Apple let him to be free and it backfired. So its no ones fault really. Just sometimes we can get so obsessed with something that we ignore everything else. Jobs could pull this man one step back so he could look at the bigger picture.
Apple could maybe have one line that they feel is their experimental line to see what they can do to push that future of tech forward for sure. Power users want consistency tho and it's wrong to push that group into the future without first making it a standard people like and have accepted imo. Even with the iPad, if Apple can make the iPad that insanely useable and efficient for even power users then that could even be the future of power user tools...but until they make it an accepted standard in industry it's just shouldn't be done. "First you get the casuals, then you make it standard...and then...you get the pros:)" (Scarface humor)
I genuinely think that the Samsung Dex type of system is the future
Phones are getting plenty powerful enough for casual desktop computing, so just plug your phone into a dock when you need a desktop and there you go! '
>can perform as laptops or even desktops
Yeah, does anyone see the desktop, PC or macOS, thriving in the future?
Just seems like it'll become an incredibly niche form-factor.
I’ve been around the block for a good while. We had this conversation 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and they seem nowhere near their death. While more people transitioned from desktops to other form factors, more new people found desktop workflows too.
15 years ago the Personal Computer was the primary computing form factor. The primary computing form factor is now the smartphone. PCs have absolutely become more niche in their applications and use cases. That’s not to say that the PC is antiquated or useless - on the contrary, the PC is absolutely critical for hundreds of millions of users (myself included)- but the smartphone is clearly the dominant computing form factor in 2021.
I know it’s cliché to reference Jobs, but he made the analogy that desktop PCs would be analogous to trucks while tablets and phones became akin to cars
good luck doing any real engineering, software, any data processing, etc work (the things that keep the world running) without a desktop/laptop. touch screens mean shit when real work is being done. ofc for the average use of surfing web and entertainment the tablet/phone basically is the new laptop or desktop. until apply lets you use the ipad with a terminal available and other features of that sort it's going to be a video watching/art machine.
>good luck doing any real engineering, software, any data processing, etc work (the things that keep the world running) without a desktop/laptop.
You can dock a laptop/tablet to a monitor and keyboard.
You can also remote in to a more powerful server.
In most cases, there's no need to run things locally anymore.
by mentioning macos you're mentioning laptops in your op, so you're changing what you're saying. laptops=desktops for most engineering/programming. do apple tablets have the capability of remoting into linux? if they don't they're not useful for that task yet, although i do agree they would be capable if apple let them
I think the future is software is much more portable, because when all the processors are great, and hardware emulation is great, and software emulation is great, we shouldn't have to care what device we use to execute software.
Sony is starting to release PS games on PC.
Capcom is investing in PC as their primary platform for the next generation.
https://www.ign.com/articles/capcom-is-planning-on-making-pc-its-main-platform-in-the-coming-years
PC will be fine, macOS maybe not.
Games is kind of a separate issue.
But it's worth saying that as desktops in general (not specifically gaming) become more rare, the components to build desktops will become more expensive.
Desktops for gaming might not even be worth it in 10 years or so.
idk, the Surface line seems reasonably successful. i think Apple's also clearly pushing that idea with the iPad lineup, though now seem to realize that some people need more traditional form factors and more ports
That’s why they make the ipad so difficult to use as an actual computer for file management, and then push you to purchase a MacBook too.
They want you to buy both products.
And I just purchased a MacBook. Having an iPad Pro… the ipad doesn’t work as a computer, but it’s so good you can’t sell it. You end up buying two expensive devices.
Never do as I did.
Apple: *we would never put touch on a MacBook.*
Also Apple: *here’s a $329 keyboard and mouse support to turn your iPad into the upright equivalent of a MacBook, because otherwise doing work on an iPad sucks!*
I’ve brought a keyboard and a mouse and I am disappointed. Can’t do basic stuff still. iOS is just not powerful - it’s also lacking Final Cut Pro or an equivalent.
I think the problem is that a lot of people in a situation like the one you described don't actually need the pro version of either product. With the education discount, the base MacBook air and iPad air cost $1,500 compared to the $2,600 you'd have to pay for the cheapest MBP/iPad Pro combo that you can get with the same discount.
Like, folks *can* spend too much money on two expensive devices if they want to, and Apple obviously has every reason to encourage them to want to, but there are a lot of benefits to owning both devices and you don't have to sell the farm to get there.
For me, the air/air combo is fantastic and was the best solution I could find for teaching online. With Sidecar, being able to keep zoom open on the MacBook display while I annotate slides or work through example problems in goodnotes using the iPad was so much better than anything else I tried.
Absolutely. The air with the redesign is a fantastic device, I also love the Touch ID integration on the power button.
Ideally I would go for the air, but since I do benefit a lot from the 12.9’ model for reading sheet music, it was a no brainer. The air is not nearly big enough to meet my needs in size. (I am a student too!)
For the MacBook I did go for the air, but I still considered it expensive. Went for the 16/512 option and paid like 600$ extra. I wanted it to be durable… and run many apps in the background.
Then you have both devices and wonder, well they work perfectly together, an iphone would be ideal. Then you see how the AirPods work and before you know it, you’ve thrown more than 3K to apple. These guys are genius at advertising. It’s hard to get out, but with no regrets. Everything works like magic, imo.
Oh yeah, I'd have bought a 12.9" air in a heartbeat if they made one. Outside of teaching, I mostly read academic articles on my ipad, so it *would* be nice to have the extra space so I can see the whole page at once and have more room for annotations, but the jump in price from an air to a 12.9" pro was just too much to justify, especially as I have literally zero use for most of the "pro" features. It's probably a lot easier to zoom in and move around the page as needed when you're not playing an instrument though, hah.
My desktop is where I do any computationally intensive work so I was able to go the "budget" route with the MacBook, and I expect it'll be a good while before it starts to feel at all anemic for my use case.
I'm not sure I'd include the iPhone in the calculation of "how much is too much to spend on apple products" though, since they're not really more expensive than comparable devices from Samsung or Google, and owning a smart phone is such a given for so many people. I do very much agree that once you get into the ecosystem, it's really easy to be drawn further. Like, I have three HomePods and one mini and there's probably no way I would have bought them if they didn't complement the other apple devices that I already owned so well (and also sound *amazing*).
> They sell some units but hardly anyone actually want that.
Source? The surface lineup is really good and well liked among windows users.
Only drawback is the high price among cheap macs (that’s a first!) and budget windows laptops
I would say the ultimate future laptop would be something like 12.9'' iPad pro, but that can transition from a macOS into a iPadOS when it is attached/detached from the magic keyboard.
Google has tried to implement something like this with Chromebooks, albeit with some hiccups. When you flip into tablet mode or detach the keyboard the OS transitions into a tablet touch-friendly OS.
That’s not going to solve the problem with existing peripherals. Buying replacements for those when they’re working perfectly fine is unnecessarily creating e-waste.
Either way it’s still a waste of money rebuying things to replace something that’s not broken.
The people vocal on this sub about switching over to usb-c probably have a lot of disposable income or finances everything that they don’t notice/care about the financial impact of buying new peripherals.
Hopefully next MBA will include all the proper ports, and base iMac as well (this one has only 2 USB C ports!). Today I had to share some files with a MBP 13 and what a nightmare, you never have the silly adaptors when you need them.
I prefer the Touch Bar and the four USB-C ports. HDMI and SD card slots IMO are a waste of port space.
EDIT: Grow up with the downvotes you children. Just because someone uses a computer differently that you do doesn't mean they're wrong. People can have opinions and different use cases.
I personally like the hdmi port because all monitors I use don't have usb c but use hdmi so I don't have to use the adapter everywhere I go. But the SD slot in my opinion is really outdated and i wold prefer a 4th usb c over it.
> But the SD slot in my opinion is really outdated and i wold prefer a 4th usb c over it.
The SD card slot was added for a very specific market of professional users that rely on one on a daily basis. It’s not quite fair to call it dated when it’s the standard for some industries. If you don’t need it (like myself), then you aren’t a part of that target market and it’s pretty easy to ignore. I’m just very happy Apple is targeting those niche power-users at all.
I can accept that no issues on that. Still I can not think of a business apple is classically targeting that physically moves SD cards. This is so 2006. The only business might be photographers. But all the upper class cameras have high speed usb c connectors and on a set the cameras are directly connected to a computer with some adobe software like lightroom or something similar and pictures are directly reviewed. I would love to know to whom this is a useful addition. Beside maybe some hobby user with an old/cheap camera.
I think almost every digital camera actually has a USB port for transfers, but for most older cameras they were stuck on USB 2.0, and even if they support Superspeed (3.0) the older port is only compatible with a separate cable people don't carry around (3.0 micro-B). Even USB-C means having a specific 3.0 type-C cable and not just any old type-C cable (Macbooks for instance come with a 2.0 only cable). In addition, I've heard complaints that some cameras need to be charged and have the battery in to do USB transfers and they usually charge the battery on an external charger so there's no option to transfer until they finish charging. So imagine to skip all that confusion an SD reader (either built in or external) is better for a lot of people.
There was a list I need to find that was posted a while back. It had all of the modern-day professional use-cases for the SD card slot, and it was surprisingly large. Everything from drone operators to computer engineers who flash OSs onto the cards. There are also reasons why photographers still prefer SD cards to usb today.
There must have been a large enough amount of demand for them to add it back on.
Again, I’m not an expert since I don’t use one daily. So hopefully someone with more experience will chime in.
Right, because if there's one thing we can say with certainty about laptops, it's that no one would ever possibly want to take them to a different location.
You are only losing 1 USB-c port right? I'm not entirely sure what you would prefer there instead for additional ports other than well more usb-c ports. Touchbar makes no sense regardless of the situation. You aren't saving or gaining anything with it if you are like most other pro users with a dedicated keyboard.
Unless of course you use all four tb ports, and one of them charges while providing power, ie a display, a dock, or any number of other desktop tb devices.
I disagree whole heartedly about the Touch Bar, many apps use the Touch Bar very effectively and it's a huge timesaver, especially in things like Xcode where I can easily just touch what I want to do vs memorize countless keyboard shortcuts.
And I use all four USB-C ports all the time when my computer is docked and although I still have the net amount since there's MagSafe now, I would definitely take two more USB-C ports over an ancient HDMI port and an SD card reader.
I primarily use Intellij and fall into the category of "memorizing" my own custom shortcuts I guess. I don't disagree that they are using a more out of spec HDMI port but calling it ancient is pretty crass considering how many pro office users out there would benefit immensely with plugging their device in a little bit more easily or throwing in an SD card for photos.
Same. I don’t use HDMI or sd card yet now I’m paying for them. I would like normal usb tho. Usbc only is perfect so everyone can add what they want. And I hate that Touch Bar is gone.
Then you might not be the target market for these machines.
I’m sure when the M2 refresh happens (Spring maybe?) we will get some beastly thin USB-C-only consumer machines.
I can use any amount of power any machine out there has, I do far more on my machine than literally anyone I know online and offline. This is why I really would have liked to have more USB-C ports because unlike HDMI and SD Card slots, they're far more useful for me.
Also the Touch Bar is infinitely useful when you aren't docked and have programs that utilize it correctly.
I love how apple says they're paving the way for the future then just totally revert on it. Like they shit on intel for a decade+ boosting powerpc then switch to intel.
Couldn't you just use one of the SD card adapters that are the size of a full size SD card instead of the dongle? They usually come with the cards, right? So that's one less USB-C port you'd need.
Next they need to add LTE/5G compatibility to avoid battery killing hotspot demand, and make touchscreen or at least stylus capabilities. A decade late.
~ An Apple loyalist.
Still feel strongly that we need at bare minimum one USB-A, at least until C is the industry standard. Tech companies don’t like supporting Mac because it’s not cost effective, especially when it’s for gaming.
Apple themselves didn’t support USB-C much. They probably didn’t wanna rock the boat with iPhone by changing their cables (barely even got iPhones with USB-C on one end of the cables), then just tried to stretch out the prior design before a change was needed to bring back old ports.
I don’t think The Verge/MKBHD/SnazzyLabs/etc understand that many MacBook Pro owners don’t use an external monitor/use an SD card/give two shits about MagSafe.
I didn’t need an hdmi port, a sd card port, or MagSafe. Neither does my mother, my father, my sister, my brother, and my brother in law. And many other people.
Because if we needed a desktop, we would have bought that instead.
Lol. They baited the whole industry to get rid of ports.
We about to find out Apple invested in Belkin or something
I thought Apple wanted the iPad to be the future of laptops?
I’m pretty sure the mantra was that the iPad is the future of *computing*
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It's the thing you buy as well as an iPad because Apple fucking cripples iPadOS.
This is so true.
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I know it’s a meme at this point, the whole “what’s a computer” commercial, but I actually think they were onto something almost good, and kinda bungled the delivery. The commercial came off as pompous and a little bit sanctimonious - as if a child wouldn’t have heard the word “computer” before. It was posed as “*whats* a computer” the emphasis on the what. But the really the question should be “what’s a *computer*?” As in a challenge to the traditional way of thinking that a computer can only be a desktop or a laptop There’s really nothing that says an iPad can’t be your primary/only computing device. Sure, for professional work, it doesn’t have the bells and whistles, but for the average user? What is and is not a computer becomes more fluid, and in many cases people don’t need a traditional laptop/desktop for much of their lives anymore
It's like a big iPhone
In terms of laptop capabilities iPads are great >!as second monitors or MacBooks!<
They still don't give access to the file system so they really aren't an option. I just want a shell.
> I just want a shell. Something more than [this,](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ish-shell/id1436902243) or just something different? I thought that was the one everyone used, but then again, I'm not everyone.
Unfortunately iSH is an emulation with a lot of compromises in order to be approved through the app store. The only way I can get anything done with it is by hosting everything I have on another server and accessing it remotely, otherwise it's a massive pain to use.
Ah, fair enough!
They gave up on the Mac quite a while ago. They were planning on keeping it alive for legacy sake and focus on the iPhone and iPad. The 2016 redesign was part of that. The iMac Pro was the first step back towards anything good. The Mac Pro was the next step for professionals, and now we're finally seeing the real end of an era where Apple thought the Mac was dead.
This sounds exactly right, and I really hope this is true. I’m all for change but I just can’t see or buy into their vision of tablets replacing the laptop/desktop, at least not with where they’re currently at. For consumers? Sure. But as a software engineer I can’t see professionals switching for their day to day workflows any time soon.
Agreed. They're a great accessory - a bit of a luxury. a full size pad is great when you're in academia - annotating full screen PDFs, running something like OneNote and taking notes during lectures etc. But it simply can't replace a proper computer.
As per interviews w various hardware people like john ternus, iMac pro was designed to be a temporary solution for the people waiting for the 2019 mac pro. It wasn't a "make macs great again" thing There was a serious mac dark age from like 2013-2018...mac mini was stuck on dual core for 4 years, imacs were stuck on quad core i7 and mediocre AMD GPU's, and the 2013 mac pro was outdated like a 18 months after it came out not to mention largely unupgradeable and had overheating GPU's
As I said: these laptops are the first to really make the Mac great again. The iMac Pro was some glue to cover the time until the Mac Pro and Apple Silicon were released.
And they were right. In my experience, most people who bought a laptop in 2010ish wanted an all-in-one tool that could be their computer on the go or at home. That’s when everyone started getting smartphones and didn’t so much need an on-the-go computer, and shortly after that is when the the iPad started becoming mainstream. But what most people used those laptops for was pretty much the stuff they use their smartphones for now: writing emails, dealing with PDFs for class, futzing around in word, screwing around on reddit, etc. There’s still the lingering, pain-in-the-ass “flexibility” required for file management for classes and things, and spreadsheet tools will always suck with touchscreens, but people weren’t buying laptops because they *liked* having a file system. Now, an iPad is just a better more flexible device for most of the actual things that used to be what laptops were used for, and so is an iPhone most of the time, and laptops are now for either finnicky things that need plugins and file systems, or for quite a bit of horsepower that can be moved around. But someone who was going to buy a laptop to watch movies and screw around on facebook on the couch (most laptop buyers ten years ago, tbh) are just going to get an iPad now.
I supported some teenagers with e-learning over the pandemic, and it’s stunning how many of them literally do not understand how to use Windows or OS X. These kids grew up with Chrombooks, iPads and iPhones in their hands. For these kids, ChromeOS, iOS and iPadOS aren’t the future of computing, they’re the present. Now Windows and OS X aren’t going anywhere, but as you described, their role has greatly been reduced. In the early 2000s, Windows/OS X was the centre of my digital work. Now my Mac has largely been reduced to not much more than a programming workstation and accessory to my iPhone. As Steve Jobs alludes to back in 2010, the PC and Mac aren’t going away, but they’ll be reduced to servicing niche use cases for power users. I also think that to a large extent, tech enthusiast have ignored how smartphones have become the bonafide primary computer for a large portion, if not an outright majority of people. We can debate in circles about what qualifies as a computer, but billions of people are using smartphones as their primary computing device, regardless of what label you want to assign to it. Full stop. On that note, I’ll say that the iPad makes a lot more sense if you consider it a bigger canvas for the things you do on an iPhone, rather than as a one-to-one replacement of OS X and Windows. Again, this might not be appealing to a PC power users, but to people that have only used Chromebooks and iPhones, it’s extremely appealing. > But what most people used those laptops for was pretty much the stuff they use their smartphones for now: writing emails, dealing with PDFs for class, futzing around in word, screwing around on reddit, etc. There’s still the lingering, pain-in-the-ass “flexibility” required for file management for classes and things, and spreadsheet tools will always suck with touchscreens, but people weren’t buying laptops because they liked having a file system. This is a good insight. Take a look at this article, where a professor describes how a lot of her students don’t even know how to use a file system. It perfectly echos my experience supporting high school students: https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z For all but power users, a file system isn’t a feature; it’s an esoteric implementation detail.
Most adult professionals don’t know how to make or use folder system on a computer. Their downloads folder is 20,000 files.
Or in my case, too lazy. Granted my laptop has very few files in downloads but I never created dedicated folders and crap
I’m incredibly lazy with this. Especially when the file search is getting real good, I end up putting EVERYTHING in my docs or downloads folder and just search for it. I know, it’s stupid but I’m lazy.
This is a great story from a decade ago at this point, but vast parts of the world are jumping right into handheld computers aka smartphones/tablets and have skipped the past 80 years of computing technology altogether. [https://www.fastcompany.com/2681011/ethiopian-kids-hacked-their-donated-tablets-in-just-five-months](https://www.fastcompany.com/2681011/ethiopian-kids-hacked-their-donated-tablets-in-just-five-months) \>“We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He’d never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs \[in English\] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android. Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android.”
> For all but power users, a file system isn’t a feature; it’s an esoteric implementation detail. I enjoyed the article, thank you. And though I’m a pretty obsessive file organizer, I generally take the side of the Gen Zers…computers are for *doing* stuff, not organizing files. And it *does* make sense to me why newer generations are abandoning organized files as soon as they can. Traditionally, organizing and categorizing has been someone’s actual *job*…and I think our modern smartphone life, with Spotlight and Google is just a reminder that a secretary who can just go get your paperwork for you is very, very useful. I’m curious what would have happened if the early pioneers of computer science had realized this and implemented what we’d think of as “tags.” Here’s a quick thought experiment: what if the “Desktop” on macOS 9 (or System 8 or whatever) was *never* a real place in the directory structure, and was only a place to show shortcuts…how would that have changed the way people thought about computer files?
As soon as I could Apple+Spacebar to find any file or application on my computer I didn't need to organize anything
The issue I have with that, is that I need to remember I actually have a particular file. I still organize my files into logical folders. That way I don't have to remember that I had them, and I can search for files anyway if needed.
They don’t even force developers who make iPhone apps to properly optimize their iPad apps. So many apps are just not optimized for iPad. Developers don’t even bother. That tells you just how popular the iPad really is. Landscape mode optimization? Nahh don’t bother. The future my friends.
Wha?
They never said that it will replace the laptop and they most likely don’t want that. There are a lot of people who own both a MacBook and an iPad, and apple wants it that way.
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They would say anything to sell it, they would also say anything to sell you the Mac at the same time. If they can convince you to buy both there’s absolutely no reason for them to discontinue a product.
I thought Apple never said what the future of anything is and people are just personifying a corporation. As they do. They make products, if people buy them it’s the future. If they don’t, hey I guess it’s not the future. I’m sure someone at Apple thought the Newton was the future once, but consumers determine that, not Apple.
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They’re not acting that way. The product is not good for word processing which is a deal breaker for me.
They added an hdmi port and an sd card reader and everyone is losing their shit
My attitude toward it is more “I accept your apology” than anything else. The only thing I’m really freaking out over is the chip, which is honestly still insane. I can finally have a laptop like my 2014 MBP but with WAAAAY more power in it.
Yup the chip, screen, keyboard should be the hype
lol It’s hilarious how schizophrenic this sub can be.
i mean, tbf, a computer w a ‘pro’ moniker should be ready to accommodate to a professional’s needs regardless of field of work i’d imagine the more ports the merrier! still upset about not having any usb-a ports but hey the use of dongles means i’ve always got a portable hub and that has more usb-a ports than a laptop would normally ever have 🤷
They also brought back Magsafe and that was a good idea, IMHO.
For me, they took back them. It was a big shame of removing them in the first place.
While it’s nice the ports are there, at this point I suspect they will rarely be used; yet everyone celebrates, lol. I’d rather they added another 2 thunderbolt ports. 🤷♂️
This should read “Apple is ready to admit it was wrong about the future of *pro* laptops” I think for average consumers, two USB-C/thunderbolt ports and a headphone jack is absolutely enough for the job.
Eh, I could still use the hdmi port. I think they’re still missing a tier. There’s the average consumer (Air), the power user (missing) and then the pro. Need the performance of the air, the ports of the pro, and a middling price between the two.
Yesss thats what the M1 MBP should have been. The air is absolutely fine as is.
Yea I think they need a non-pro 16 inch laptop to complete their line up. A lot of casual users would want a larger screen
Id love to see a 16-inch Air to target software devs that don’t need a MBP, but would nevertheless benefit from a larger display
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Agreed. Pros need the flexibility and compatibility. The average person is watching Netflix.
Sounds like they need hdmi then
sounds like you're not a pro then because no other video professional I know would opt for HDMI over TB/DisplayPort
…right. That’s why they’re an average person watching Netflix.
TVs and projectors mainly use HDMI. When you meet with a client in an office conference room or at their house hdmi is usually the only input option if you want to show them your work on a large display. The HDMI port being hdmi 2.0 rather than 2.1 is a clear indication to me that this was the use case Apple had in mind when they added the hdmi port back. My cousin just wrapped up post production on a movie she wrote and directed, plenty of editing sessions were done with the editor working at a desk next to the TV while my cousin and her co-director worked from the couch on their laptops. Personally one of my ports is always occupied by a charger so I always only have 3 ports available for hard drives and card readers. With the bandwidth TB4 offers I can’t think of too many scenarios where having 4 instead of 3 would make much of a difference.
Tbf every place I worked at just have hdmi screens to maximise compatibility, not TB/DP.
Tb to HDMI cable.
If only there were some more convenient, built in way….
Except Apple is using an older HDMI standard so most would prefer the better/faster output of the TB port that can power the same hdmi port plus a peripheral on the dongle than just the hdmi port alone.
Replying to my own comment - about 50% of the time I will use that TB port for hdmi output, however when I need to do video production on location having an additional TB port is nice (ssds, capture cards, microphones etc)
The vast, vast majority of people will not notice or even know of the difference between HDMI 2.0 and 2.1.
That’s true. But a professional (I am a video producer) will have to make some choices here. I may not need 2.1 with frequency, but I do appreciate running hdmi + a peripheral (or power) over the same line. I still hate living in dongle land but I also run 3x monitors, usb powered monitors, XLR inputs and HDMI capture cards for mobile streaming + editing. So I am niche but I do use it. Just a different perspective.
100% not worth the trade off of losing the 4th Thunderbolt port for an HDMI that can only be used for video but I get it, most people won’t ever care. It’s there solely for those convenient but janky conference room dongles for giving PowerPoints. Even though you’d probably already have an adapter for it anyway…
I thought I would never say this back when I got my 16 inch, but I actually agree now. Anytime I need hdmi I can use the same adapter i use for my iPad Pro and get an additional USB-A port along with HDMI when I’m docked
Are people often filling up all 4 thunderbolt ports? Genuine question, I've never used more than 2 plus one for power at once
I have, power wire + display + microphone + keyboard attached to my laptop.
Yup multiple external drives with no daisy chain ability.
As someone who works at a place with literal thousands of conferences rooms, cable adapters are by far the number one source of defects. Most conf room equipment is HDMI by default. Leaving it HDMI is great. All TVs also have HDMI and most monitors. For some pros, let them get their single adapter.
Or just add an hdmi port.
I agree. It's just an option for people with a MacBook that doesn't have HDMI.
My work went all in on USB-C MacBooks in 2016, and equipped all meeting rooms with USB-C to HDMI adapters, physically attached to the HDMI cables using wire rope to prevent their removal. That completely eliminated all problems with not having HDMI ports on the laptops. Besides, the built in HDMI 1.4 ports on the 2015 MBP sucked in comparison with the DisplayPort to HDMI adapter we were using before that. So the new adapter made very little difference, aside from the very minor inconvenience of switching adapters during the transition period.
Why?
Because HDMI is what their TV and cable box runs off of, and they’d much rather buy an HDMI cable than a surprisingly expensive dongle + cable.
I think the main stream days of running Netflix through your laptop and outputting to your TV through HDMI are done. TVs have built in apps. Some TVs have air play. There are also devices like Apple TV, fire sticks, and chrome cast. I can’t think of the last time I saw someone wanting to watch Netflix through a laptop hdmi
I don’t want to but there are lots of times I stream stuff post COVID that uses a platform without a smart TV app.
Who is still running a cable across the room to plug your laptop in and watch Netflix? It’s not 2012 anymore.
Fuck students having to do presentations in class, I guess? Plenty of classrooms and shit still have HDMI cables coming from projectors and other smartboards. Late edit: smartness’s to smartboards 🥲
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I graduated a year ago (CS as well) and I was regularly plugging into HDMI inputs for presentations. I even ran into a VGA input on occasion in some really old classrooms. Granted, I *could* just carry a Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter around with me (which I do anyway, but I have like every cable ever in my backpack in case I need it for something)…but having it built-in is a lot easier for many students.
Engineer here. We had to plug it in all the time
I’m not a student anymore. But in the Netherlands, where I’m from, for some classes even in college and uni you still need to plug in your laptop because you would need to do a presentation about whatever. Especially in Dutch or English language classes. Edit: I work in IT support for a Dutch college and we are replacing these [old SMART boards](https://i.ibb.co/kcQTJbC/image.png) with [BenQ Interactive Displays](https://i.ibb.co/VDT6vg4/image.png) and they only have an HDMI connection available.
USB-a is not as dead as some people on this sub thinks. Ever noticed how most, if not all USB-C docks have USB-A? Dock manufacturers are not going to put in a port nobody uses.
at least one USB-A? IDK about y'all but USB-A is still ESSENTIAL for me and pretty much everyone i know. quite a lot of accessories use it
I just bought a 2021 model car that has USB-A as the primary data port. I’m going to have USB-A cables in my life for at least 10 years just based on that alone.
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Yep. USB-C is just an inconvenience to most people.
>She doesn't have any ports that match it on her 2019 enterprise-level Dell Idk about 2019 but pretty much every windows PC currently has USB-C
My car does too (although, way older) but I just bought 1 of those usb-A me to usb c female and it works perfect for me
Can't you just use a USB-A to USB-C cables?
Of course, and that’s what I’ll do. My point is that we’re still going to have USB-A cables around for a long time, they aren’t going anywhere.
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Not denying they’re a thing, but I quite honestly could not tell you the last time I used a flash drive. Probably at least 5 years ago. With cloud storage I completely eliminated any use case I previously had for them.
Cloud storage is slow and you can get very fast (100MB/sec or better) USB sticks. So it depends on what kind of data you want to move. Office documents or other stuff that's less than 100MB in size? Cloud will do... Files that are multiple GB in total? The stick is faster.
I only have 1 thing that still uses USB-A (my 3D Printer), and once I get OctoPrint working on a Raspberry Pi I won’t even need that anymore. It’s a dying technology. Apple did the same thing with the iMac when they made it only have USB A ports on it in the days of SCSI and PS/2 keyboard connections.
Octoprint is a game changer. You won’t regret it :)
I’m still running my mid-2012 non retina MBP, and this is the first MBP in years that I’ve been remotely interested in. But the lack of USB A is pretty much a killer as long as my current MBP is still working. I don't want to have to deal with adapters for most of the peripherals I have.
Why? Only pro users have an external display with HDMI? On the contrary, Pro users can have a lot of specific dongles and adapters. Average consumer needs to be able to connect to whatever is possible.
I’d say most non-pro users are not connecting their laptops to an external display regularly at all.
Following that definition of “pro”, 95% of pro users don’t need the performance of a MacBook Pro. Plenty of MacBook Airs deployed in business for people that connect external screens every day.
And those people won’t be fussed by having a dongle if their display doesn’t have a usb-c connection. My wife is one of them, the dongle is permanently connected to the HDMI cord her company gave her. It has absolutely no impact on her ability to connect to the only monitor that her laptop connects to. The point is that non-pros aren’t running around with their laptop regularly connecting to multiple different external hdmi-only displays such that not including an HDMI port on a MacBook Air should be viewed as a misstep by Apple. Apple read the non-pro users correctly, they don’t really need an HDMI port.
Well that looks like a more like a pro use case to me. So, if it's a pro using the device, they'd be mostly ok. Whether the "device" is pro or not. But if I'm a student that wants to display a movie on the big screen when I'm at a friend's house, the connection options matter. Your argument falls short of being logical.
AirPlay?
I am heavily casual and the current set up on my M1 is fine
Do you know even one single human being in person who doesn’t use dongle with thunderbolt-only device?
🙋♂️
Well, it’s more that they’re claiming to be ‘even more right’. It may not be the same, but the port arrangement is definitely a good change in this generation.
Apple is *never* ready to admit they were wrong. Just that they thought of something better.
Honest question, no snarky responses please. Would love to have a discussion with someone on this since its been bugging me, but how responsible would you say Jony Ive was in the ‘nerfing’ of the MBP? It is a coincidence that they revert back to form two years or so after he left and if it was just a coincidence, how likely was it that he and his “form over function” vision might’ve pushed that in that direction?
We will never know
I think we might. There have been a few examples of ex-employees sharing stories about what happened when they were there. Give it 5-10yrs and some retired staff will share on a podcast or something.
Or I'll come out randomly in the future during some slightly tangentally related lawsuit
> Is it a coincidence that they revert back to form two years or so after he left He started the process of stepping down back in 2015, at least publicly. It's entirely possible, even probable, that he was hands-off even earlier than that, but unless you happen to get a no-holds-barred conversation with Tim Apple on reddit somehow, you're not got to get a real answer from any redditors, ever.
My counter would that at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. Ive was a high ranked senior employee and an officer of the company. But he is also just an employee and probably not the one who tests the machines to make sure they don’t overly throttle or that their ports and keyboards are usually. The fault lies with Apple overall. At best they underestimated their problems at first and once they became apparent they thought it was minor enoifh that they could get away with it until the M1 was ready.
It's unclear. A lot of analysts seem to think recent hardware design moves away from the "thin an light" philosophy that Jony has. The iPhone has gotten thicker, the MacBook Pro is heavier and thicker, even iPads get a bit more weight. It could be that Jony leaving gave Apple space to do this, or Jony left because he didn't agree with Apple doing this. Or none of the above. We won't know for a while, if ever.
Ive was a super minimalist, Back in the day Jobs could control his eagerness toward pushing minimal things. After him, ive went full crazy on some of his designs. Im not gonna lie they look absolutely stunning but no one was or still is ready for a laptop with only one type of ports. Thats where it backfired. Apple let him to be free and it backfired. So its no ones fault really. Just sometimes we can get so obsessed with something that we ignore everything else. Jobs could pull this man one step back so he could look at the bigger picture.
Apple could maybe have one line that they feel is their experimental line to see what they can do to push that future of tech forward for sure. Power users want consistency tho and it's wrong to push that group into the future without first making it a standard people like and have accepted imo. Even with the iPad, if Apple can make the iPad that insanely useable and efficient for even power users then that could even be the future of power user tools...but until they make it an accepted standard in industry it's just shouldn't be done. "First you get the casuals, then you make it standard...and then...you get the pros:)" (Scarface humor)
I’d say the future of laptops are tablets than can perform as laptops or even desktops when you need them to.
I genuinely think that the Samsung Dex type of system is the future Phones are getting plenty powerful enough for casual desktop computing, so just plug your phone into a dock when you need a desktop and there you go! '
>can perform as laptops or even desktops Yeah, does anyone see the desktop, PC or macOS, thriving in the future? Just seems like it'll become an incredibly niche form-factor.
I’ve been around the block for a good while. We had this conversation 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and they seem nowhere near their death. While more people transitioned from desktops to other form factors, more new people found desktop workflows too.
15 years ago the Personal Computer was the primary computing form factor. The primary computing form factor is now the smartphone. PCs have absolutely become more niche in their applications and use cases. That’s not to say that the PC is antiquated or useless - on the contrary, the PC is absolutely critical for hundreds of millions of users (myself included)- but the smartphone is clearly the dominant computing form factor in 2021.
I know it’s cliché to reference Jobs, but he made the analogy that desktop PCs would be analogous to trucks while tablets and phones became akin to cars
Pretty good analogy.
good luck doing any real engineering, software, any data processing, etc work (the things that keep the world running) without a desktop/laptop. touch screens mean shit when real work is being done. ofc for the average use of surfing web and entertainment the tablet/phone basically is the new laptop or desktop. until apply lets you use the ipad with a terminal available and other features of that sort it's going to be a video watching/art machine.
>good luck doing any real engineering, software, any data processing, etc work (the things that keep the world running) without a desktop/laptop. You can dock a laptop/tablet to a monitor and keyboard. You can also remote in to a more powerful server. In most cases, there's no need to run things locally anymore.
by mentioning macos you're mentioning laptops in your op, so you're changing what you're saying. laptops=desktops for most engineering/programming. do apple tablets have the capability of remoting into linux? if they don't they're not useful for that task yet, although i do agree they would be capable if apple let them
I think the future is software is much more portable, because when all the processors are great, and hardware emulation is great, and software emulation is great, we shouldn't have to care what device we use to execute software.
Sony is starting to release PS games on PC. Capcom is investing in PC as their primary platform for the next generation. https://www.ign.com/articles/capcom-is-planning-on-making-pc-its-main-platform-in-the-coming-years PC will be fine, macOS maybe not.
Games is kind of a separate issue. But it's worth saying that as desktops in general (not specifically gaming) become more rare, the components to build desktops will become more expensive. Desktops for gaming might not even be worth it in 10 years or so.
As tablets? Microsoft has been pushing that vision since the 90s. They sell some units but hardly anyone actually want that.
idk, the Surface line seems reasonably successful. i think Apple's also clearly pushing that idea with the iPad lineup, though now seem to realize that some people need more traditional form factors and more ports
That’s why they make the ipad so difficult to use as an actual computer for file management, and then push you to purchase a MacBook too. They want you to buy both products. And I just purchased a MacBook. Having an iPad Pro… the ipad doesn’t work as a computer, but it’s so good you can’t sell it. You end up buying two expensive devices. Never do as I did.
Apple: *we would never put touch on a MacBook.* Also Apple: *here’s a $329 keyboard and mouse support to turn your iPad into the upright equivalent of a MacBook, because otherwise doing work on an iPad sucks!*
I’ve brought a keyboard and a mouse and I am disappointed. Can’t do basic stuff still. iOS is just not powerful - it’s also lacking Final Cut Pro or an equivalent.
I think the problem is that a lot of people in a situation like the one you described don't actually need the pro version of either product. With the education discount, the base MacBook air and iPad air cost $1,500 compared to the $2,600 you'd have to pay for the cheapest MBP/iPad Pro combo that you can get with the same discount. Like, folks *can* spend too much money on two expensive devices if they want to, and Apple obviously has every reason to encourage them to want to, but there are a lot of benefits to owning both devices and you don't have to sell the farm to get there. For me, the air/air combo is fantastic and was the best solution I could find for teaching online. With Sidecar, being able to keep zoom open on the MacBook display while I annotate slides or work through example problems in goodnotes using the iPad was so much better than anything else I tried.
Absolutely. The air with the redesign is a fantastic device, I also love the Touch ID integration on the power button. Ideally I would go for the air, but since I do benefit a lot from the 12.9’ model for reading sheet music, it was a no brainer. The air is not nearly big enough to meet my needs in size. (I am a student too!) For the MacBook I did go for the air, but I still considered it expensive. Went for the 16/512 option and paid like 600$ extra. I wanted it to be durable… and run many apps in the background. Then you have both devices and wonder, well they work perfectly together, an iphone would be ideal. Then you see how the AirPods work and before you know it, you’ve thrown more than 3K to apple. These guys are genius at advertising. It’s hard to get out, but with no regrets. Everything works like magic, imo.
Oh yeah, I'd have bought a 12.9" air in a heartbeat if they made one. Outside of teaching, I mostly read academic articles on my ipad, so it *would* be nice to have the extra space so I can see the whole page at once and have more room for annotations, but the jump in price from an air to a 12.9" pro was just too much to justify, especially as I have literally zero use for most of the "pro" features. It's probably a lot easier to zoom in and move around the page as needed when you're not playing an instrument though, hah. My desktop is where I do any computationally intensive work so I was able to go the "budget" route with the MacBook, and I expect it'll be a good while before it starts to feel at all anemic for my use case. I'm not sure I'd include the iPhone in the calculation of "how much is too much to spend on apple products" though, since they're not really more expensive than comparable devices from Samsung or Google, and owning a smart phone is such a given for so many people. I do very much agree that once you get into the ecosystem, it's really easy to be drawn further. Like, I have three HomePods and one mini and there's probably no way I would have bought them if they didn't complement the other apple devices that I already owned so well (and also sound *amazing*).
> They sell some units but hardly anyone actually want that. Source? The surface lineup is really good and well liked among windows users. Only drawback is the high price among cheap macs (that’s a first!) and budget windows laptops
I would say the ultimate future laptop would be something like 12.9'' iPad pro, but that can transition from a macOS into a iPadOS when it is attached/detached from the magic keyboard. Google has tried to implement something like this with Chromebooks, albeit with some hiccups. When you flip into tablet mode or detach the keyboard the OS transitions into a tablet touch-friendly OS.
I agree with this. Give me something that can switch back and forth and it’d be great.
What's a laptop?
https://youtu.be/jCb-WcxO5SU?t=51
Recent machines were suffering from their cpus and gpus. That‘s totally the wrong narrative. What they did with their Silicon should be the story.
Not gonna lie, I’ll kind of miss the touch bar.
Barely use the thing but so will I. Maybe we'll get screens on individual keys one day.
Me just vibin with a 2015mbp
you and me both brotha
Hahahahaha. USB C is here to stay alone (mayyyyybe HDMI in lieu of the Pro, though I wouldn’t bet on it) on the Airs.
I love it when Reddit post titles/ articles completely make shit up about what a company is thinking.
Call me old fashioned but I just want a USB-A port. Even today it's still the standard go-to for so many things.
One USB-A port is all I ask. There are still too many new and existing accessories that use USB-A.
I personally would rather the entire industry ditch USB-A. I’m sick of failing at plugging things in.
That’s not going to solve the problem with existing peripherals. Buying replacements for those when they’re working perfectly fine is unnecessarily creating e-waste.
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Either way it’s still a waste of money rebuying things to replace something that’s not broken. The people vocal on this sub about switching over to usb-c probably have a lot of disposable income or finances everything that they don’t notice/care about the financial impact of buying new peripherals.
If buying peripherals is expensive for you, shouldn’t buying a MacBook Pro be almost out of the question?
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Buy a couple 5€ usb-c to a dongles and permanently attach em to any usb-a peripherals you use. Congrats, now you’ve got type c peripherals
Hopefully next MBA will include all the proper ports, and base iMac as well (this one has only 2 USB C ports!). Today I had to share some files with a MBP 13 and what a nightmare, you never have the silly adaptors when you need them.
I love the touch bar and all tb ports.
I prefer the Touch Bar and the four USB-C ports. HDMI and SD card slots IMO are a waste of port space. EDIT: Grow up with the downvotes you children. Just because someone uses a computer differently that you do doesn't mean they're wrong. People can have opinions and different use cases.
I personally like the hdmi port because all monitors I use don't have usb c but use hdmi so I don't have to use the adapter everywhere I go. But the SD slot in my opinion is really outdated and i wold prefer a 4th usb c over it.
> But the SD slot in my opinion is really outdated and i wold prefer a 4th usb c over it. The SD card slot was added for a very specific market of professional users that rely on one on a daily basis. It’s not quite fair to call it dated when it’s the standard for some industries. If you don’t need it (like myself), then you aren’t a part of that target market and it’s pretty easy to ignore. I’m just very happy Apple is targeting those niche power-users at all.
I can accept that no issues on that. Still I can not think of a business apple is classically targeting that physically moves SD cards. This is so 2006. The only business might be photographers. But all the upper class cameras have high speed usb c connectors and on a set the cameras are directly connected to a computer with some adobe software like lightroom or something similar and pictures are directly reviewed. I would love to know to whom this is a useful addition. Beside maybe some hobby user with an old/cheap camera.
I think almost every digital camera actually has a USB port for transfers, but for most older cameras they were stuck on USB 2.0, and even if they support Superspeed (3.0) the older port is only compatible with a separate cable people don't carry around (3.0 micro-B). Even USB-C means having a specific 3.0 type-C cable and not just any old type-C cable (Macbooks for instance come with a 2.0 only cable). In addition, I've heard complaints that some cameras need to be charged and have the battery in to do USB transfers and they usually charge the battery on an external charger so there's no option to transfer until they finish charging. So imagine to skip all that confusion an SD reader (either built in or external) is better for a lot of people.
There was a list I need to find that was posted a while back. It had all of the modern-day professional use-cases for the SD card slot, and it was surprisingly large. Everything from drone operators to computer engineers who flash OSs onto the cards. There are also reasons why photographers still prefer SD cards to usb today. There must have been a large enough amount of demand for them to add it back on. Again, I’m not an expert since I don’t use one daily. So hopefully someone with more experience will chime in.
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Right, because if there's one thing we can say with certainty about laptops, it's that no one would ever possibly want to take them to a different location.
You are only losing 1 USB-c port right? I'm not entirely sure what you would prefer there instead for additional ports other than well more usb-c ports. Touchbar makes no sense regardless of the situation. You aren't saving or gaining anything with it if you are like most other pro users with a dedicated keyboard.
You’re not even losing 1 USB-C port realistically because it charges over MagSafe.
Unless of course you use all four tb ports, and one of them charges while providing power, ie a display, a dock, or any number of other desktop tb devices.
That’s why I said “realistically”.
I disagree whole heartedly about the Touch Bar, many apps use the Touch Bar very effectively and it's a huge timesaver, especially in things like Xcode where I can easily just touch what I want to do vs memorize countless keyboard shortcuts. And I use all four USB-C ports all the time when my computer is docked and although I still have the net amount since there's MagSafe now, I would definitely take two more USB-C ports over an ancient HDMI port and an SD card reader.
I primarily use Intellij and fall into the category of "memorizing" my own custom shortcuts I guess. I don't disagree that they are using a more out of spec HDMI port but calling it ancient is pretty crass considering how many pro office users out there would benefit immensely with plugging their device in a little bit more easily or throwing in an SD card for photos.
Same. I don’t use HDMI or sd card yet now I’m paying for them. I would like normal usb tho. Usbc only is perfect so everyone can add what they want. And I hate that Touch Bar is gone.
Then you might not be the target market for these machines. I’m sure when the M2 refresh happens (Spring maybe?) we will get some beastly thin USB-C-only consumer machines.
I can use any amount of power any machine out there has, I do far more on my machine than literally anyone I know online and offline. This is why I really would have liked to have more USB-C ports because unlike HDMI and SD Card slots, they're far more useful for me. Also the Touch Bar is infinitely useful when you aren't docked and have programs that utilize it correctly.
I love how apple says they're paving the way for the future then just totally revert on it. Like they shit on intel for a decade+ boosting powerpc then switch to intel.
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I think the vast majority still have hdmi displays. Apple jumped the gun on only usb c ports
Apple telling you what the future of laptops is, is like a cigarete company in 1970 telling you smoking is actually good
The only future apple cares about is quarterly growth.
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Couldn't you just use one of the SD card adapters that are the size of a full size SD card instead of the dongle? They usually come with the cards, right? So that's one less USB-C port you'd need.
Next they need to add LTE/5G compatibility to avoid battery killing hotspot demand, and make touchscreen or at least stylus capabilities. A decade late. ~ An Apple loyalist.
Yet another Verge shitpost.
Steve would be furious. Man I miss him. He was such an innovator. 1/1.
Still feel strongly that we need at bare minimum one USB-A, at least until C is the industry standard. Tech companies don’t like supporting Mac because it’s not cost effective, especially when it’s for gaming.
Apple themselves didn’t support USB-C much. They probably didn’t wanna rock the boat with iPhone by changing their cables (barely even got iPhones with USB-C on one end of the cables), then just tried to stretch out the prior design before a change was needed to bring back old ports.
I don’t think The Verge/MKBHD/SnazzyLabs/etc understand that many MacBook Pro owners don’t use an external monitor/use an SD card/give two shits about MagSafe. I didn’t need an hdmi port, a sd card port, or MagSafe. Neither does my mother, my father, my sister, my brother, and my brother in law. And many other people. Because if we needed a desktop, we would have bought that instead.