Apple's support page on USB-C power seems to be a sign that all is not well at Apple.<p>> <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700" rel="nofollow">https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700</a><p><pre><code> You can verify that you're using the correct version of the Apple
USB-C Charge Cable with your Mac notebook and its USB-C AC Adapter.
The cable's serial number is printed on its external housing, next
to the words "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China."
• If the first three characters of the serial number are C4M or FL4,
the cable is for use with the Apple 29W USB-C Power Adapter.
• If the first three characters of the serial number are DLC or CTC,
the cable is for use with the Apple 61W or 87W USB-C Power Adapter.
• If the cable says "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China"
but has no serial number, you might be eligible for a replacement USB-C charge cable.
</code></pre>
For a company whose brand was for quite some time "It just works" to ask you to read a serial number, printed in gray, in 4 or 6 point font, off a light gray cable is dumbfounding.<p>Here's a photo of an Apple USB-C charging cable to illustrate what finding the serial number looks like. <a href="http://i.imgur.com/ffVLDYl.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/ffVLDYl.jpg</a><p>The serial number is right below the control key, if you're curious.
My 13" ships back tomorrow. Keyboard befitting of a crappy laptop not a premium macbook pro, touchbar located where you hardly ever look (your keyboard), wifi borked on resume from sleep, fit and finish is poor - a disjoint ridge where the bottom panel and the unibody frame fail to meet accurately on the bottom rear, performance is below par regardless of what the reviews + benchmarks claim, intellij is not fast on this laptop.<p>USB-C wasn't an issue for me personally even though i have tons of electronics dev boards + associated junk i plug in all the time.
Am I the only one here who is happy with the new Macbook?
I find the speed incredible - the keyboard feels much more "natural". The touchbar saves me a lot of time.
Downsides are that it's not supported yet in lot of important applications I use (Slack, Atom).
I'm not bothered at all by the USB-C ports. USB dongles are on sale for 2€ on Amazon/ebay and work properly. Besides that I have nearly no more external devices I have to attach (except external HD sometimes but even those are Wifi connected nowadays).
+ not a real benefit but the design of the MBP is amazing and a real eye catcher again.
For me this is a shitstorm for nothing.
Off the cuff social theory, FWIW (not too much, but interesting to consider more generally): My guess is that the real issue and discussion is a subtext, that Apple has lost its cache, and that people are testing and exploring the shape and boundaries of the new social dynamic/norm around Apple.<p>How far has their social position slipped? If I say X will I get a strong response, or is it going too and will it receive a negative response, or does it go not far enough and will it seem bland and be ignored.<p>It's like gossip - or it is actually gossip. It's the currency (or securities market) of social status.<p>I used to follow a sports team where the head coach and one chief assistant were beloved. I said that if they don't play well then the other chief assistant is in trouble, because he had little reputation with the fans and would be blamed by process of elimination, whether or not it was his fault. Sure enough, despite undeniable, simple evidence that his area of responsibility was performing well (points are a very easy metric), he got the blame and then the shaft.<p>If Jobs was still around, unconventional decisions would be seen much more positively; Cook and Apple no longer have that cache and now their position will be tested until their new social position is established.
The intensity 16GB RAM limit complaints really surprised me. I don't remember such complaints about the 2015 model lacking a 32GB option. We've been stuck at 16GB on the MacBook Pro for years now.<p>Did something happen in the last year that made everyone demand 32GB?
I have a unibody aluminum model MacBook (not Pro) from late 2008 that still chugs along. I had to replace the battery twice in its lifetime via an Apple support store. I also replaced the harddisk myself to put in a SSD.<p>It's been incredibly reliable as a consumer laptop (dev work is on a desktop). I have had zero incentive to upgrade, except the difficulty of finding chargers whose cables don't fray. This was before the magnetic attachments.<p>I've finally been entertaining about getting another laptop/tablet for consumer non-dev use, and none of the options I'm considering are Apple.
I don't understand why the author thinks that people aren't allowed to complain about RAM limitations at the launch, and instead expects them to wait the 2-3 weeks before the items ship <i>and</i> then use certain software on them long enough for usage patterns to come through. If 16GB ram isn't enough for you now, it's utter nonsense that "maybe Photoshop will run just fine on 16GB on the new hardware".<p>I would also have made a bigger point of Apple not having enough USB dongles to supply their 'new, modern' laptops. It's a pretty big complaint to level against the "so what, it's one dongle" apologists, if you can't get one in the first place.
As a somewhat unrelated aside, as a Logic Pro user I thought it was odd to read Logic described as "memory hungry". For my small projects (16-32 tracks) logic uses just under 1G.
For me it's Logic's CPU hunger that turns my MBP into a noisy space heater that I'd like to see tamed, although it's actually somewhat nice when recording in my car in winter.
I have been on a MBP since they were introduced. This was the first time I wanted to upgrade my laptop and switched away from Apple. The lack of ports coupled with consumer complaints and lack of anything innovative drove me away. I would have never guessed I would have ever left Mac after so many years of a good user experience.
The author spends $2000 on a laptop but can't wait 30 days for it to arrive so he spends $2800 on another laptop and says he'll just give the other one to his wife when it arrives. He also buys a $600 monitor and it doesn't work properly and so he returns it an vows to buy the $1000 model when it becomes available.<p>I don't know what to make of that exactly.
> A knowledgeable individual tells me that [the battery problem in the 2016 15" MBP] is probably a curable software problem.<p>I'm experiencing the same battery life problems reported by JLG. Activity Monitor doesn't report anything unusual, so I suspect the CPU is not the culprit. When I reported the problem to Apple Support, they asked me to run sysdiagnose and send them the output.<p>Apple cranks out a new beta of MacOS 10.12.2 every week or so, and I install them immediately because of the possibility of a software fix.<p>I recall that the first Retina MacBook Pro (mid-2012) had some problems too, so I'm not too surprised about this. I plan to be patient and see how responsive Apple is to the fast battery drain issue. I'm very happy with the machine otherwise.
Would have loved to get a new MBP but Apple seems content to ignore the reason people buy their laptops. Now I'm waiting for the new iMacs instead, losing portability but hopefully getting more for the money.
I got a new MacBookPro 13" without the touchbar. It's a good device.<p>The only strange thing is it has only two USB-C ports and an analog audio ports. One of the USB-C ports is used for the power adapter, so one port left.
Why do so many "critical" stories about Apple products come across like ads for Apple stuff? Even this piece starts with a run down of features even though it's not relevant to the main point being made.
This guy speaks like he used to introduce Apple's products or something. Come on dude, this stuff ain't easy! Try introducing successors to the Mac. That was some genius work right there ;-)
So now mbp folk feel about apple the same way thinkpad old folk feel about lenovo.<p>There's a huge market opening here. We may see the rise of a third hardware giant just yet.
It's a matter of resources - Apple has limited resources and history of execution glitches even when they aren't stretched out. With the continuous strain to find the next new thing, put out an iPhone release every year, improve iOS and also dabble in cars - even though these sound like separate things different teams should be able to do, the integration aspect and company culture makes it very hard for Apple.<p>It is very logical that Apple will dump or merge some product categories sooner rather than later. There's little chance macOS will be made touch friendly and with little resources to keep the Mac updated (see Mac Pro) it just makes sense for them to sell the iPad Pro somewhat like Microsoft does for Surface line - lower cost model without physical keyboard and a Macbook like one that shares the same SoC and runs the same iOS. Get XCode running on it and that solves the problem of iOS App Developers. Make the Pro version of iOS little less restrictive and add better multitasking and that helps the regular iPad line as well. Much easier than redoing macOS for touch.<p>It also solves the margin and control issues for Apple. One OS, shared CPU/SoC, no need to do Mac and macOS development anymore and that frees up a ton of resources. It's just too good for Apple to not do it. And if they could solve the problem of pesky "pros" wanting to control their hardware and OS better by slowly making the Mac more and more inconvenient/unattractive - they are going to do it.