Just out of curiosity, what would have made these more exciting to you? Most every one seems either very excited or not happy at all. But, I’m not seeing a lot of feedback on why people aren’t happy. I’m not the traditional pro user as far as coding games, graphic design, etc. but I do consider myself a power user because my workflow is too heavy for anything less than a pro level machine. I look forward to yours and anyone else’s insight.
- new keyboard
- high-end configs with function/esc keys
- FaceID
- touch screen (not that ridiculous touch bar)
- longer battery life
- smaller bezels
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I would do anything for them to just go back to a keyboard with more travel that didn’t get sticky keys from a single crumb.
Trackpads are also needlessly big. They could be smaller. Inevitably I am typing and it sends my cursor across the screen.
Been using it since 2016 and every single day both of these things bother me whereas every macbook pro or air before it I never felt like there were design issues.
Fingers crossed. 
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According to iFixit, the new MacBook Pro has a silicone membrane to isolate the keys’ butterfly switch mechanism from external dust.
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Absolutely spot on, hard to get excited about these new laptops when they are basically the same that we’ve had for 2 years minus the spec bumps.
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thanks for this news, it will put many minds at rest
I really like this update. As someone in current possession of a 2013 15” rMBP with battery issues, I’ve had my eye on an upgrade for awhile. Thoughts:
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The revised keyboard is hopefully helpful - it has been a concern of mine, but, anecdotally, I know 10 people with various 2016/2017 MBPs, and only one has had a slightly sticky space bar. With Apple’s official line being that only a very smalll percentage of people experiencing problems, there’s little surprise they’re not claiming the quieter keyboard fixes a problem they say doesn’t exist for most people. But the new silicone barrier certainly sounds as though it could help.
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I’ve wanted a 4 core 13” to be available for awhile. I’ve had 15” laptops because I wanted a discrete GPU, even though that’s not something I need on a regular basis. With improving support to eGPUs in MacOS, the 13” becomes quite the upgrade - more portable when I’m using the machine for work, but more powerful in a tethered, home base situation.
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I’m so over MagSafe. It’s a lovely feature, but I have a cat that thinks the MagSafe cables are most delicious snacks. And, since the power adapter of the older models is integrated into the cable…let’s just say my cat has cost me a lot of money over the years over this issue. I also like the idea of plugging the device in on the right or left. That means less need to carry Apple’s old extension cord around everywhere.
I’m sorry not everyone is going to get what they want. I doubt Jony Ive will let a thicker MacBook escape his design center unless it’s made purely of glass.
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I was worried about MagSafe when I got my 2016 MBP. Haven’t missed it once in practice.
I can see where you’re coming from but I am more on board with the specs. I’m in the camp that believes macOS in its current state would be painful for touch use. I think it’s kind of like Siri on the Mac. “Everyone” screamed for it and then they got it but you never heard anything else about it. Anecdotaly I work around mostly windows users, many with touch screens and I rarely see them using that feature. Maybe if Siri could do more like Alexa? Just no one tell Renee Ritchie at iMore I said that.
I don’t know anyone screaming for Siri on anything. Siri is an embarrassment.
Regarding touch: I work with college students. Every one of them who is on Windows uses it every time I meet with them. They don’t use it exclusively, just for scrolling, zooming, and navigating large documents.
Moreover, that was only one reason I said these updates were unimpressive.
Mechanical keyboard and external trackpad? I too dislike the large size of the trackpad
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I’ve been using a Chromebook for the last few years but have been regularly finding that it isn’t enough if I want to sit outside and do some dev work or watch a 1080p movie.
I ordered mine last Thursday afternoon and it arrived Friday - pretty much loaded it up but only got a 1Tb SSD as I don’t think I’ll need the space on my laptop (I have a 2017 loaded iMac that I use if I’m doing serious dev work). The 32Gb RAM is great as I usually have a Linux VM running in parallel and that would have been pushing the 16Gb limit.
The keyboard feels nice and is quiet - I’m still getting used to not having a physical ESC key (I’m an Emacs die-hard) but so far it hasn’t been an issue.
The touchbar concept is new to me too so I’m looking forward to tweaking it for some of my apps.
All in all, I am really enjoying having the laptop.
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I am constantly moving through different work environments so not realistic to drag external devices everywhere - though I have entertained the idea.
That’s interesting. But is it not possibly due to most(?) Windows/PC laptops having sub-standard trackpad/OS?
Don’t see how navigating large documents (presumably scrolling?) is any better using touch, as opposed to the two-finger scrolling on the touchpad? Same with zooming?
I guess it’s one of those where you can’t really comment until you use/get familiar with it.
My SO had a touch-based Laptop for a few months - and I used to play around with it, running Windows 8, IIRC. Found the inconsistencies (between when the software allowed touch, and when it did nothing), frustrating. That, and me having the uncouth habit of occasionally pointing to something on the screen, when showing someone something, and then triggering an action on the screen unintentionally.
I’m happy to be proven wrong, but don’t really see the benefits of a touchscreen laptop. Naturally, others do - which is fine. That said, if Apple does go that route, will be very interesting to see how they implement it.
No. They happily use the trackpads for most UI functions like opening apps and selecting text and objects.
It’s much more intuitive and precise to move around a document by scrolling the screen. Directly manipulating the pixels on the screen is particularly meaningful for times when you need to zoom and scroll both vertically and horizontally.
If you see the benefit of touch on iPad but not on Mac, that’s just stubbornness.
Without changing a single bit of UI design on a Mac, having touch for scrolling and zooming would be a huge benefit to the platform and its users.
All the folks waiting anxiously for a Mac Mini refresh feel terrible for y’all’s disappointment at the latest MBP refresh, the fourth since the Mini refresh. 
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That’s fairly direct. The mere fact that there is even a significant debate out there about this, surely suggests it’s not as clear cut as that.
That’s assuming, for instance, that manipulating a view of text on iOS, is absolutely similar to macOS - ignoring for instance the presence of a keyboard/trackpad, and the user’s placement relative the screen.
Having fingers on a keyboard, and then reaching up forwards to touch the screen, as opposed to pulling slightly back to engage a trackpad - and nevermind a desktop setup - is not necessarily the same as iOS. Surely a blanket statement like that is focusing on what ‘works’ on iOS, and imputing that paradigm to all scenarios on masOS?
Call me stubborn then, but I reason a touchscreen macOS environment to the current Touchbar. It can make specific scenarios useful, but that’s not a given. On an endless canvas, manipulating directly on screen in all directions - yes. But why couldn’t the 4-direction scroll manipulation be replicated on a trackpad in any event? Scrolling and zooming, much better on screen than a trackpad? Rotating an image on screen, better than on a trackpad? Nope. Don’t see that.
I have no issue with Touch being added to macOS. And who knows, if the macOS/iOS merging ever happens, then this will probably be inevitable. But currently, whereas there are no doubt scenarios where it will be useful, I think it’s a case of something being interesting, rather than a guaranteed improvement across the board. The clamour associated with ‘touch’, that it being absent on macOS is a calamitous oversight - as if it could provide an entirely differeny paradigm to interacting with the OS is what I question. Especially when that seems to be driven by what is happening over on Windows, which is so different to the macOS experience. Must be my (and others) stubbornness that is blinding me to that as a given.
Of course. Watch Apple unveil touchscreen macOS devices in the next year or two. I will be the first to refer back to my ‘dinosaur’ viewpoints over here! 
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I don’t think you can really say that either touch or trackpad is universally better than the other. They’re different interaction methods, with different advantages and disadvantages.
Touch is more direct and intuitive; you put your finger right on the thing you want to manipulate. A trackpad requires a level of indirection; moving your finger down here moves the pointer on the display which interacts with whatever you want to manipulate. This indirection has a higher cognitive load and you also have to keep track of where your mouse pointer is.
A trackpad has ergonomic advantages. It allows you to separate the display from the input device and mount each of them in the most ergonomically optimal position (the display up at eye level where you don’t have to bend your neck, the trackpad down on the desk where you don’t have to lift your arm to use it. It allows more precision because you don’t have your finger in the way of what you’re trying to manipulate. It also makes it easier to have multiple types of interactions with the thing that you’re touching (right click, etc.).
Each of these is better for particular use cases. I find a trackpad much better for doing heavy-duty text editing because it’s much easier to select exactly the text that I want and to use over a long period of time. Touch interfaces are great for stuff that involves a lot of scrolling, zooming, and tapping on particular controls.
Does Apple keep these interaction methods separate, on devices optimized for that method, and allow particular uses to migrate to the device with the most suitable interaction? Or do they allow multiple types of interaction on a single device and allow users to switch back and forth based on what they’re doing at the moment? (Touch on the Mac gets most of the attention here, but the flip side is external pointing device support on the iPad).
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Precisely. They’re both good for different things. That’s why I don’t want touch to replace a pointing device. I just want to have them both for the things that each is best at, and this can be different for different people.
I get why you would say that, but I think that the touchbar is fundamentally more similar to a trackpad than a touch screen, because the “work” you’re actually doing is on a different screen.
If you don’t see how this is significantly better on a touchscreen, there’s nothing I can write here to convince you because I think it is obviously and objectively better. I work on “canvases” that are not endless, but they are large:
- music scores are often printed on US 11 x 17" paper
- complex audio projects often involve lots of scrolling in time (horizontal) and layers/tracks (vertical)
Also, if you zoom in sufficiently on any document (graphic, poster, etc.), it can be functionally equivalent to a large document. And if you’ve ever tried to pinch-zoom with any precision on a trackpad, you’ll know how much harder it is to control than on a touchscreen. I work with the same kinds of projects on an iPad, but the software and hardware aren’t there on iOS for professional workflows. Scrolling and zooming isn’t just a little bit better on a touchscreen, it’s night-and-day different. If the only thing I was doing on a computer was manipulating text, I might not need a Mac at all.
This is good news but also probably a “wait and see” thing. If we have less keyboard failures with the new gen within 6 months, that’s a good sign.
Also, quad core on the 13 inch model and 2 GB/sec SSD modules sound amazing… 
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