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Portables (Apple) Apple

Apple Unveils New 16-inch MacBook Pro With Improved Keyboard, Starting at $2,400 (daringfireball.net) 137

Posted by msmash from the about-time dept.
Apple today launched a new 16-inch MacBook Pro. The starting price of $2,399 is the same price as the previous 15-inch MacBook Pro, which this one replaces. It has new processors, better speakers, a larger screen, and (finally) a better keyboard. The base model is powered by a 2.6GHz 6-core 9th gen Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 4.5 GHz) coupled with AMD Radeon Pro 5300M GPU with 4GB of GDDR6 memory, 16GB of 2666MHz DDR4 RAM, and 512GB PCIe-based onboard SSD. John Gruber, writing about the keyboard: We got it all: a return of scissor key mechanisms in lieu of butterfly switches, a return of the inverted-T arrow key arrangement, and a hardware Escape key. Apple stated explicitly that their inspiration for this keyboard is the Magic Keyboard that ships with iMacs. At a glance, it looks very similar to the butterfly-switch keyboards on the previous 15-inch MacBook Pros. But don't let that fool you -- it feels completely different. There's a full 1mm of key travel; the butterfly keyboards only have 0.5mm. This is a very good compromise on key travel, balancing the superior feel and accuracy of more travel with the goal of keeping the overall device thin. (The new 16-inch MacBook Pro is, in fact, a little thicker than the previous 15-inch models overall.) Calling it the "Magic Keyboard" threads the impossible marketing needle they needed to thread: it concedes everything while confessing nothing. Apple has always had a great keyboard that could fit in a MacBook -- it just hasn't been in a MacBook the last three years. There's also more space between keys -- about 0.5mm. This difference is much more noticeable by feel than by sight. Making it easier to feel the gaps between keys really does make a difference. Like the 15-inch MacBook Pro, all 16-inch models come with the Touch Bar. But even there, there's a slight improvement: it's been nudged further above the top row of keys, to help avoid accidental touches. No haptic feedback or any other functional changes to the Touch Bar, though.
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Apple Unveils New 16-inch MacBook Pro With Improved Keyboard, Starting at $2,400 More

Apple Unveils New 16-inch MacBook Pro With Improved Keyboard, Starting at $2,400

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  • They're returning to the tried-and-true switches that everyone knew were superior but they refused to sell.

    But in the meantime: For 3 years people bought them by the millions knowing macbooks had their primary function degraded over every other manufacturer. Why? If people just refused to buy the product, these switches would have returned in the whole line two years ago.

    • Re:And they still bought it. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @09:27AM (#59409786)

      Because they want MacOS and have no other source for systems offering that platform?

      This isn't a hard question to answer, in fact its a harder question to ask with a straight face.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        Because they want MacOS and have no other source for systems offering that platform?

        This isn't a hard question to answer, in fact its a harder question to ask with a straight face.

        I'm happily running Catalina on a 2014 Mac Mini and a Mac Book Air of the same era. I have been avoiding new Apple hardware because of their design foolishness, and I have been hoping that I can ride out those designs. And at one point I was considering a Hackintosh rather than buy from Apple.

        But now there is hope on the horizon!

      • Re:And they still bought it. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @11:08AM (#59410168)
        Usually lock in is more psychological than actual.

        I have seen people feeling locked into many different platforms (including Linux) mostly because because they just don't want to adapt to a different methodology.
        Often people spend a lot time and money into a platform.and they are invested in it. Making switching difficult in the first step, deciding to switched.

        I got off the Macintosh platform in the late 2000's For two key reasons. I still wanted a laptop with a removable battery, and I wasn't in a strong financial point at the time for me to afford it.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by leonbev ( 111395 )

        Now that Windows 10 comes with an officially supported UNIX shell add-on, I wonder how many sysadmins and DevOps type people (you know the type that frequent Slashdot) really need a new MacBook Pro to do their jobs.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Average ( 648 )

          Haven't spent that much time in WSL2. Indications are that it's getting better and better.

          I certainly don't need a MacBook to do my jobs. I do just fine on a Linux desktop at home. However there's a bloody million things that make things hard on Windows. The awful NTFS small file access times (trying to git bisect between two versions of a 5,000+ file repo...), trying to do development on Ruby code that expects POSIX sockets, trying to run Ansible. List goes on and on.

          Unfortunately, at work, despite wor

          • Haven't spent that much time in WSL2. Indications are that it's getting better and better.

            I certainly don't need a MacBook to do my jobs. I do just fine on a Linux desktop at home. However there's a bloody million things that make things hard on Windows. The awful NTFS small file access times (trying to git bisect between two versions of a 5,000+ file repo...), trying to do development on Ruby code that expects POSIX sockets, trying to run Ansible. List goes on and on.

            Not a Windows user, but I gather WSL2 r

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HuguesT ( 84078 )

          yeah but no GPU passthrough in WSL, so no CUDA, so serious Deep Learning work possible.

      • I'm not sure why such snark. If you're already in the OS X ecosystem, then you already have Apple hardware. Don't upgrade until they stop selling a garbage keyboard. If you want to get into Mac OSX, just wait until they come out with non-garbage. The steep drop in sales would've forced Apple to change their tune. But again, people just went and bought them by the millions. My guess is the only reason they changed the keyboard for this model was the number of warranty claims.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Because they want MacOS and have no other source for systems offering that platform?

        Because some sociopathic a**hole stole my camera bag out of my car, and my home and work laptops were both in it. Otherwise, I'd have gotten my work laptop refreshed, and would have completely steered clear of it for my personal laptop.

        Or maybe not. For me, the keyboard problems on my work laptop weren't obvious until keys started falling off after a year and a half. I now have five keys that are barely hanging there. Bu

        • Unfortunately, Apple waited just a month too long to release this new laptop. I can't upgrade to Catalina, because Apple dropped support for 32-bit apps in the latest OS, so Lightroom won't run (because Adobe's software development team/managers are grossly incompetent and took more than eight years to fully adopt 64-bit, only bothering to move when Apple started showing nag screens saying that the app wouldn't be supported in the next OS version), and the new laptop almost certainly can't be downgraded to 10.13. It will be a cold day in you-know-where before I pay for a monthly subscription, so until I'm ready to dump Lightroom, I'm stuck with this piece of crap butterfly keyboard.

          I've never used Lightroom, so this is a genuine question from ignorance. What does it do that isn't available anywhere else and how close is/are the current open source clone(s)?

    • Re:And they still bought it. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @09:29AM (#59409792) Homepage Journal

      Still only 1mm of travel though, and no mention of any tactility.

      What makes Thinkpad keyboards great is not just the extra travel, it's the tactile feedback and increased resistance right at the bottom. For fast typing you want both clear feedback when a key is registered as pressed and some resistance at stop it bottoming out so your fingers can spring back instead of crashing into the deck.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

        Agreed. There is nothing pro about a keyboard with only 1mm travel. That is total eye candy, thickness-spec chasing bullshit. Real pros will take a thicker machine over a prettier keyboard. If this is everything Apple fans wanted, I guess they're getting what they deserve.

      • What makes Thinkpad keyboards great is not just the extra travel, it's the tactile feedback and increased resistance right at the bottom. For fast typing you want both clear feedback when a key is registered as pressed and some resistance at stop it bottoming out so your fingers can spring back instead of crashing into the deck.

        Definitely. I hate using my mac keyboard at work. But on a thinkpad somehow the keys make you want to type because they feel so nice.

    • ...people bought them by the millions knowing macbooks had their primary function degraded over every other manufacturer..

      If you feel the primary function of a $3000 Macbook is the keyboard, then I have a typewriter to sell you.

      I'll save you a shitload of money too.

      • Being a Pro means using the keyboard of your laptop. So the best, greatest and most powerful laptop to ever exist is still useless if its keyboard is the second* worst to ever exists.

        * the butterfly keyboard may be bad but it's still 100 times better than the keyboard of the ZX81.

        • Being a Pro means using the keyboard of your laptop.

          Actual professionals buy the hardware they need to get the job done.. If you require OSX on a mobile computing device but hate their keyboard, then buy a damn external keyboard. And yeah, it is that simple, unless you really want to challenge sanity and throw a $3000 laptop in the garbage because of the keyboard.

          So the best, greatest and most powerful laptop to ever exist is still useless if its keyboard is the second* worst to ever exists.

          I've yet to exclusively use the built-in keyboard of any laptop I've owned. If the hardware is that amazing, you'll figure out a way to replace an input device, which is easily done these days w

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by _merlin ( 160982 )

      I didn't buy it. I switched away from Mac and got a fucking Dell Latitude because everything Apple's been producing is rubbish. I'm not particularly happy, but I'm less unhappy than I would be with anything Apple's made in the last five years.

    • Here's a dirty little secret. Laptops are not always mobile. For many people they sit on desks most of the time. Sometimes more than one, the desk at work and then the desk at home, repeat. Both equipped with external keyboards, mice and monitors. The built-in gets used in the conference rooms, briefly, or during visits to customers, again briefly.

      So while all the complaints against Apple keyboards are true, they just aren't all that meaningful for many.

  • Return of sanity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @09:17AM (#59409762)
    I wonder if this sudden outburst of common sense has anything to do with Jony Ive leaving Apple earlier this year. He obviously had a lot of good designs over the years, but I think that he was one of the main people pushing for thinner, smaller, etc. at the expense of practicality or usability. I don't think anyone is going to bemoan the move to more streamlined devices over the behemoths we all lugged around in the past, but there's a obviously a point where any ideal gets pushed too far.

    • Re:Return of sanity (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @10:10AM (#59409948)

      That’s exactly what Gruber speculates in TFA. Myself, I’ve previously speculated that the death of Jobs had the side effect of removing the only person who’d tell Ive “no” when his design sense would override common sense.

      I welcome the news, but will withhold judgement until I can type on one myself. Also, while the ESC key is back, the silly Touchbar is still there... plus I’m imagining there are still only four ports and they’re all USB-C. I really wish they’d bring back MagSafe.

      • Re:Return of sanity (Score:5, Insightful)

        by timholman ( 71886 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @11:38AM (#59410252)

        I really wish they'd bring back MagSafe.

        This, a thousand times this. Dropping MagSafe because Ive wanted a laptop that looked symmetrical from both sides is one of the most hare-brained decisions ever made at Apple. It is the kind of mistake that can only be made by a person who never actually used a Mac laptop. (I can only assume that Ive had assistants to do that.)

        MagSafe has literally saved my laptop from damage hundreds of time over the years. I could live with USB-C ports for the rest, but I won't buy a laptop without MagSafe.

        • Magsafe alternative (Score:5, Interesting)

          by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @12:08PM (#59410358) Homepage

          If you have such a huge tendency to trip on your charging cable and throw the laptop across the room:

          Aliexpress is filled to the brim with low-cost charging cable with magnetically detachable USB-C tips.

          Leave the USB-C tip in the USB-C charging socket,
          connected and snap magnetically the cable.

          • True. I've considered getting one of those myself. But the reality is that MagSafe never actually saved one of my laptops; I just liked it as insurance.

            But really... with all of their hardware design brilliance, one would have thought that Apple could have figured out a way to modify the USB-C standard to add Mag-Safe in a new connector and still keep both the power capacity and data rate. MagSafe all-around would have been fantastic, especially as while I'm normally desk-bound, I have to get up and go s

            • But they also screamed bloody murder when Apple dropped its various proprietary connectors in favor of USB-C.

              They screamed bloody murder when Apple dropped the other connectors in favor of USB-A as well, and called bullshit on that too. People are quick to forget.

          • Aliexpress is filled to the brim with low-cost charging cable with magnetically detachable USB-C tips.

            Funny thing - AliExpress won't (or can't) do business in the state of Washington. Although I'm not sure how willing I'd be to connect one of those built-on-the-cheap Chinese devices to my laptop's power supply, in any case

        • Dropping MagSafe because Ive wanted a laptop that looked symmetrical from both sides is one of the most hare-brained decisions ever made at Apple.

          I agree that MagSafe was a fantastic connector and that it was dumb to get rid of it. I think it was less about symmetry and more about a pair of practical issues. First, so you could connect just a single cable to a docking station and get all your peripherals plus power. A lot of people (myself not included) really love that. Second, so Apple could demonstrate

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ddtmm ( 549094 )

        I really wish they’d bring back MagSafe.

        There are some good magsafe adapters out there already.

        https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/p... [bestbuy.ca]
        https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/01... [9to5mac.com]
        https://www.engadget.com/2019/... [engadget.com]

      • > I really wish they'd bring back MagSafe.

        Damn straight!

        It was stupid to remove MagSafe. Leave it to Apple to chose Form over Function. :-/

        I'm actually surprised they brought back a dedicated ESC key. You mean people like physical keys for tactile feedback instead of "virtual" keys? Go figure! /s

        Apple *listened* to customers? LOL

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by martinX ( 672498 )

        Good answer. Reading it, I was reminded that Jobs was known for saying "no" a thousand times in order to find the one "yes" [inc.com].

        “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.”

      • I really wish they’d bring back MagSafe.

        Even if the easily-detachable nature of magsafe was of use to you (it was an annoyance for me), I don't think you are getting the upsides of charging over usb-c. It runs at ANY available wattage, from ANY usb-c or usb power supply (not just Apple's). That alone is enough reason to change to usb-c.

        Use 90 W power supply for full-speed charging while running.
        Use any random power supply when you forget your own.
        Use 30 W lightweight power supply as backup to carry in case you run out of battery. It actually runs

    • Ives used to have Jobs to push back on his designs.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 )

      I don't think anyone is going to bemoan....

      Clearly you've never met a Warrior for Social Justice.

      Make it too thin, and you're racist against plus-sized form factors.

      Make it too thick, and you're promoting suffering for all those who were triggered over a 5mm change.

      Oh, the joys of trying to please everyfuckingone. You were saying something about sanity? Better invent a time machine first. Common F. Sense was murdered in an unfortunate FOMO accident years ago.

    • Entirely possible, but I think another factor was that the issues with the other keyboard didn't appear until a lot of time had passed and they kept trying to address them and failing. The biggest thing was they thought the issue was dust but all their efforts to keep dust out weren't fixing the issues. It started to emerge that it was more an issue of the metal domes in the mechanisms giving out over time and even if they could fix that, they're basically running the risk of putting out yet another revisio

  • 1mm travel? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 )
    1mm travel is like a TI-85 keyboard. Is the battery still glued in? Soldered SSD? Soldered RAM? If so, they still suck.

  • Calling it the "Magic Keyboard" threads the impossible marketing needle they needed to thread: it concedes everything while confessing nothing.

    Or maybe, just maybe, it's because they were already calling their external keyboards "Magic Keyboard" [apple.com].

    • It's also in the summary itself:

      Apple stated explicitly that their inspiration for this keyboard is the Magic Keyboard that ships with iMacs.

      So, congratulations msmash! This is proof that you don't even read what you write.

    • How about calling it "The $2400 Keyboard"

      You want a good keyboard on Apple? Thats the current price. Think about it.

  • The battery [slashdot.org] costs $2400.

  • From the article it shows how really low the bar is now for Apple hardware

    We got it all: a return of scissor key mechanisms in lieu of butterfly switches, a return of the inverted-T arrow key arrangement, and a hardware Escape key.

    Emphasis mine, but seriously here. When the conditions for winning the battle are a keyboard that works and an actual escape key, you need to seriously reevaluate what the freaking war is about. However, there is moment of brief clarity for this self aware wolf.

    It feels a bit silly to be excited about a classic arrow key layout, a hardware Escape key, and key switches that function reliably and feel good when you type with them, but that’s where we are. The risk of being a Mac user is that we’re captive to a single company’s whims.

    Perhaps the solution is to just stop being a Mac user? You aren't anything with exception to that which you want to be, so if you feel captive to a single company's whims, y

    • Apple's version of the inverted-T arrow keys arrangement still sucks. A real inverted-T arrow keys should have arrow keys all of the same size, such as on Apple's own Magic Keyboard [apple.com]. I get that keyboard space is at a premium on a laptop, but if other companies can do it, Apple can too.

      Given that Apple seems to continue forward with their touch bar, the return of a hardware Escape key is still a small win in my book.

      This may not be winning the battle, but it's a slight return to what we had before. Lose some

    • Macs were great. The OS still is very nice. As a laptop it's overpriced but it's also very usable (2015 Macbook Pro at least). Alternatives? Windows is just a plain no, it's badly designed not really intended for developers who need a command line and not some point-and-click app. Linux is ok on the command line but it's just weird in so many ways on the GUI (Gnome is a disaster, Ubuntu has actually gotten more difficult to use over time).

      The Mac really is the viable choice if you need both Office appl

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Holi ( 250190 )
        The OS is ok, but they have made really strange choices to break interoperability with other platforms.

      • Windows is just a plain no, it's badly designed not really intended for developers who need a command line and not some point-and-click app

        Okay, be that as it may. I rather take odds with Microsoft than Apple. Microsoft tends to put out well thought out APIs and frameworks. What revision of Swift are we on today? How's Objective-C going for desktop applications? How many developers have you heard that are targeting Metal? If we are talking developers, then I believe that Mac is one of those platforms that you have to code to, but you would rather not.

        The Mac really is the viable choice if you need both Office applications that aren't in the cloud and a reasonable and responsive command line

        I will just simply disagree with you then.

        • I dunno. My experience with Windows programming (ages ago though) was that the APIs were badly thought out, and rushed out before they fully understood the subject. Ie, MFC or MAPI for a couple of examples.

  • Calling it the "Magic Keyboard" threads the impossible marketing needle they needed to thread: it concedes everything while confessing nothing

    I know John Gruber doesn't work for Apple but he exemplifies all of the hubris of Apple's designers and executives. They won't ever admit that they screwed up the keyboard for three straight generations. I'm just surprised by the fact that they even showed a little humility by going back to scissor switches at all since they rarely ever backpedal.

    With that said

    • So to my surprise it actually does have a 3.5mm headphone jack. I wonder how much longer that will last.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by geek ( 5680 )

        So to my surprise it actually does have a 3.5mm headphone jack. I wonder how much longer that will last.

        It'll last until they come up with an alternative to bluetooth. The compression in bluetooth makes it unusable for musicians who are a large part of the target audience here.

        I've been wondering when this will happen since Apple made that W1 and H1 chip in their bluetooth headphones/iphones.

    • Err... I can't have 17" so I would rather use this 13" than the 16"... is that what you are really saying? I can understand the other items, but this didn't make sense.
      • The previous gen of Mac Book Pro had a 17" screen. If I'm going to decrease screen size, I'd like to be trading up in other categories. Organtool is listing all the places that this Mac Book Pro still doesn't live up to the earlier generation. Cumulatively, it's a damper on deciding to "upgrade".
    • how about add an option to have NO touchbar? I don't want it, don't need and many people feel the same way

  • in today's docker obsessed work culture, having a medium sized video card of ram as your limit is a deal breaker

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Holi ( 250190 )
      medium sized video card ram? so you thing the mac is limited to what 8GB?
      You can get a Macbook with up to 64GB ram, that is more then a Quadro RTX8000 with it's 48GB
      An RTX 8000 is not a "medium sized" GPU, it is the absolute top of the line.

      I fully understand Mac hatred, but there is no reason to make shit up.
  • ...but if you try sometimes...

    I actually applaud this move. Though I'd want a 17" macintosh laptop, a 16" is better than nothing. I'll have to try this out.

    Does it run Linux?

  • Did anyone else laugh when they read... (Score:3)

    by nuckfuts ( 690967 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @01:36PM (#59410746)

    "There's a full 1mm of key travel".

    Is this supposed to be impressive?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • But does it have a notch?

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