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| This is the MacBook Pro 2016 (non touch bar) |
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| This is the MacBook Pro 2013 |
I decided to cover this new MacBook Pro 2016 as this has been fairly trending news these days and it's a laptop line up which I've grown quite attached to.
I've used the Mac Pro's, the MacBook Pro of both 2013
(retina) and 2008, and several other Mac products over the years. While I never
owned one myself (I came close to a MacBook Pro or MacBook 2016 while shopping
for a PC a few months ago), I have loved having them in my household and I've
loved using them.
They're amazingly well made products with a very wide field
of use in both the amateur and professional world. Don't agree? Look how many
professionals use them. Stupid, you might say, they don't know the power of the
Windows. Well shucks, they still bought one and a majority of them love using
it, so in practical terms, that's your argument dis-validated.
Firstly, I've got to make a bit of a disclaimer. I own a
Surface Pro 4. A very Windows PC. All of the computers I've owned in the past
have also been Windows. I love, and I mean LOVE my Surface Pro 4. It's an
utterly, utterly magical computer and it's so good I've been through 4
replacement Surfaces because the first impression of my first one was so good.
Their quality control however, not so good. That's another story right there,
but this is on the MacBooks so I am not gonna go there.
So that said, while it might seem like I'm hypocritically
bashing Windows in general at some points in the article, I don't want to. My
Surface was in the range of the MacBook Pro price bracket and I could easily
have gone with one but I didn't. I'm Team Windows.
(Fun Fact: I'm writing this on a MacBook Pro Retina.)
Onto the MacBook Pro 16. An overpriced hunk of jewellery. A twist to what the MacBook Pro of old represented. Isn't
that what it was? I watched the keynote. While I hate them on some sense, I really want them to start wowing
me the same way they did when they made the iPhone 5. That thing blew my mind
at the time. But for the last 3 years, they have consistently depressed
me.
This MacBook reveal was very lacklustre. It felt... fake;
forced. Apple is now at this point where they realise they say 'thinner,
lighter, faster' way too much. You could sense it. The cheesy jokes? They felt
like it was Apple mocking themselves from the inside.
But you know what's sadder? The fact that the people at
Apple seem to have lost faith in their products. To those who watched the
KeyNote 2016 October, I dare you go onto Youtube and watch the reveal videos
for the iPhone 4 and MacBook Retina and not feel the
excitement and passion the designers were feeling for the product themselves.
Go on. Pause this now and go do that.
I'm not going to bother you with the specs and the
technicals. You probably already know them. That's not why I'm here anyway. I
will bother myself with saying this one thing. It's overpriced. A lot
overpriced. for what it offers at least. Then again, Microsoft does more of the
same on it's Surface Book, but it offers way more besides basic MacOS privilege.
I think the MacBook Pro 2016 is Apple ditching the
professionals they initially made the Pro for in 2006 up till 2016. They
differentiated this product as being capable and offering reliability for tasks
that needed it, and being powerful enough to do anything that a professional
could want to do, with gorgeously elegant looks casing it all in a slim and
elegant package- something that was almost unheard of at the times.
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| A state of the art Windows laptop in 2006: Toshiba Portege m400 |
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| MacBook Pro 2006 |
Apple, from the day they last released a redesigned (arguably)
MacBook Pro in 2012 (which was still great) has transitioned from being a
professional's toolkit essential to a typical 'Starbuckers' essential,
if you excuse the huge generalisation there. But that is what it is. Apple has
gone from the Pro's expensive laptop that everyone wants to the laptop everyone
has.
Is that good? Is it really? Does it really retain any of the
Pro-ness that made it special when all it caters to is the ordinary person?
Given, most people like to think that they are pros and want to buy a MacBook
Pro to feel like a pseudo-pro, and be more productive; but if you switch your
demographic from the Pros to the ordinary, won't you be loosing the original
Pro appeal? You won't have a laptop packed with real professional specs like
before; you'd have something for the ordinary person.
There is the overhanging thought that maybe ordinary people
are becoming more and more demanding while the pros are becoming less and less
demanding, but if you look at the other side of the world, the Windows world,
you're going to see that actually isn't the case. Pro users still demand more
than the ordinary person.
If you look at Apple as a whole, they've abandoned their
real professional tools, like the Mac Pro, or the Mac Mini and are making iPads
which tarnish what it really means to be Pro in the first place. They don't
understand what a Pro is now- but I'll admit, it's hard to describe what a Pro
is the first place. I'm talking graphics designers, editors and the like, to
whom the efficient Mac exclusive software really appealed to. This MacBook is
only the next one to fall prey to Apple destroying their own Pro lineup.
The lack of ports is stupid and very easily showcases that
Apple only cares about your money. I cannot think of one reason why they would
not put a single USB A 3.1 port in there other than to make you pay for
adapters.
You might say, "Hey, they're getting ready for the
future!". But I ask you, why the hell would they pack in a Intel 6th Gen
chip with some mediocre graphics if they really cared about the future? The
KabyLake chip has been out for a while now. There's really no excuse to not
have packed either that with all USB C or minimum 1 USB A port with the SkyLake.
The lack of a SD Card is either a hilarious oversight or an
example of how Apple has transitioned from Pros to Bros (sorry). It was an
absolutely essential port that had no reason to go anywhere. A huge majority of
MBP customers are photographers or editors, and Apple very well knows this. The
SD Card port was simple and slim, and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere
in the future. Why would they remove it? Why?
Money, of course.
Actually, I wouldn't be going down so hard on my beloved
MacBook Pro if Apple wasn't so greedy and actually included an adapter with all the
lost ports to make up for it in the box. I really wouldn't.
The SD Card still hasn't been replaced, and it's the most efficient way to transfer data from a camera to a laptop. Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior VP, said they removed it because "it’s a bit of a cumbersome slot. you’ve got this thing sticking halfway out". Which is absolutely genius, because I mean how beautiful is a huge, chunky, heavy adaptor with an SD Card sticking halfway out, right?
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| This SnapChat by Marquees captures the struggle creators are facing |
You're paying 3000 pounds for an already overpriced as is
computer, and you have to shell out another, what, 100 pounds to use it
properly? What?! I mean how simple could it have been: include a single hub
adapter with a USB A port, a MiniDisplay port and a SD Card port. Apple
probably makes these for about 5 pounds each so why the bother, right? Except
it'll hurt their ego so bad to do this, to admit that they were perhaps wrong.
I just don't get this about Apple. They think they are so
perfect, so visionary and so amazing, that they can't admit it when they make a
mistake and amend it.
One last point. The Touch-Bar. I see how useful it. I see
the point. It's a new way of thinking and I think if Apple does it right,
they can do something good with it. But there is one major flaw with it.
It can't be used if the laptop is docked. My father uses a
MacBook Pro (it's what I borrowed to write this on), and he has always used it
docked to a Monitor and with an external wireless keyboard and mouse. It's only
removed for transport. This, I'm told, and have seen, is how a lot of
professionals actually use this. You see where I'm going with this. That
Touch-Bar is pointless if you dock it, and completely inaccessible. It's a
great idea, but I think this flaw really devalues it. Oh and those emojis? No,
that oughtn’t be a feature. That's the 'hipstery’ things I’ve going on about
the whole while.
That said, this isn't all going to be bad stuff. There's
somethings which I inherently adore about the MacBook Pro 2016.
(now changing to the SurfaceType Cover)
First, the trackpad. Awesome! I never felt the current MBP’s
one was small, but it’s nice to see it bigger. Mac's have always had the best
trackpads, hands down, and this is just where it needed to go. Reviewer have
complained that it is too big, and when I used it, it did seem a bit too big, but I think it’s alright all
around.
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| That's how big the TrackPad on the 13" MBP16 compared to my hand. |
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| This is the old 13" MBP13 trackpad compared to my hand. Note the difference of the keyboards. |
The keyboard, whatever you might think of the ButterFly
mechanism, is actually not bad! I hated the keyboard on the 2015/6 MacBook (the
tiny one) because it had almost no feeling to it at all. It was exactly
what a keyboard shouldn’t be, and I had similar expectations for this one. This time Apple has taken heed of the raging
reviews and have tried to give it some depth and feeling to it. My favourite
keyboard right now is the SurfaceBook and Surface TypeCover (I like the flex it
has), and while I think the older MacBook keyboards were good, but comparing it
directly to the new one, it’s a bit too mushy for my tastes. I’m going to go as
far as to say it’s, for me, a good improvement.
The display is also a good improvement. Microsoft has truly
been killing it with the display tech lately, and it was time Apple needed to
change their stuff up a bit. They essentially added the iPhone tech to their
laptops, and I’m guessing it wasn’t much of a hard task for Apple. Apple has
caught up with the market, but not beaten it. I LOVE my Surface Pro display,
and I think the Mac is now more or less on par with that.
I guess I now have to comment on the improved specs and
graphics, but I really have to? The competition offers better specs for almost
half the price, and these specs aren’t very impressive on the Mac either. I’m
just going to avoid this, and I’ve already raged about an aspect of it above.
The new faster SSD though is a nice addition.
There’s also something I’m divided on. Why does this laptop
need to be so thin? Having felt around it, I can agree it’s very appealing, but
it just doesn’t feel any better. I never thought the current MacBook was fat,
and I don’t think anyone else did either. It seems like Apple fulfils some
their huge ego every time they needlessly make a product thinner. It is though
much lighter, which is probably what people wanted, but the cost of better
battery life, which is not what people wanted. It doesn’t seem to have quite
the fantastic battery the old one did, as several reviewers have complained
about.
I can’t comment on the speakers because I didn’t get to try
them out, but they’re supposedly very good, much better than the old one. I
think the old ones are great, so I expect the amazing.
To round this post off, what is the MacBook Pro? Has it
filled the shoes of the old MacBook?
The MacBook represents the new direction Apple is taking,
now trying to cater to ordinary people more than the professionals; pushing the
prices up as far as they can to increase their brand value. It’s trying to
become the laptop to the laptop world that the iPhone is to the smartphone
world. Unlike the iPhone however, the MacBook already reigns king among the
creative professionals, so Apple had a hard task in making the replacement Pro
any better. Have they done it? To me, partly. To you, maybe not. To the rest of
the world? They’re split over what it actually brings to the table with that
huge price tag. And so am I. If Apple priced this fairly with the $4000
one at about $3000, I think the reviews would be raving.
The MacBook, as Dave2D
says is, “a thousand dollars overpriced”, and at the price it’s hard to justify
this purpose unless you are a huge Apple fan, absolutely need Final Cut (or
other exclusives), or don’t really care about the price. My verdict on whether
or not to buy this is a resounding no. As I’ve highlighted in the points I’ve
made above, I have slowly grown from hating to loving to disliking it. As even
my long time Mac user (and 'never going to switch') father would say, it’s simply
too much for too little. It hasn't got the presence of the 'older' MacBook.
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| This remains the sweet spot of the MacBook Pros |
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| This, I believe, is the future. |
Thanks for reading! I look forward to writing more of these tech articles; I've already written ready for publishing in the next few weeks. Don't forget to drop your email address in the gadget thingy below for updates on our latest posts. You'll get notified every time we post.
If you have any suggestions of want you want me write about next, or want to hear my thoughts on something (I didn't know I was this interesting..), pop a comment in below!
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