[corey_moncure]

Was the old keyboard engineering so bad? I feel like Apple has been fixing what wasn't broken since about 2010, regarding the MBP at least.

Literally all they needed to do was retina screen, upgrade the internals, and add a few USB-C ports. Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? I know I was directly inconvenienced by the loss of MagSafe, ethernet, SD card and USB-A, the loss of the FN key row, and loss of serviceability.

So much so that my 2010 MBP will very likely be my last Apple purchase ever.

[designcode]

After using my 2016 MBP for two years, going back to my 2014 MBP just feels wrong.

The keyboard is so much better on the modern ones, so I’d recommend giving it a chance !

[smsm42]

I switched to 2016 and recently back to 2013 (due to 2016's keyboard being broken) and feel exactly the opposite. I am seriously considering whether migrating back is an option (despite them apparently being binary incompatible so I had to rebuild half of my homebrew to avoid those "illegal instruction" errors). I think Apple is fixing what's not broken, and most likely my next notebook won't be an MBP unless they get their act together quickly (which I don't think is very likely, but I keep an open mind until the time comes).

[ksec]

It felt wrong because it is not as "stable", but the depth of new keyboard is still "wrong".

[berti]

Totally agree. I mostly type on Cherry MX blues, and a 2017 MBP. I just setup some stuff on my 2012 MBP (using it as a CI slave, the only reason it's not my daily driver anymore is because the battery is down to only 2-3 hours)... the keys feel very mushy and awful compared to the 2017 model.

[saagarjha]

Wow, your comment was killed within seconds. I’d suggest expanding on your opinion.

[SirHound]

The 2016 keyboard feels, IMO, way better to type of. In comparison the old MBP feels like a much sloppier machine.

It’s size was also the only thing putting me off a personal purchase. Reliability issues aside (I haven’t been affected but I assume it’s a matter of time) it is a nicer machine.

[davnn]

I switched from a MBP to a Lenovo X1 Carbon and the keyboard is so much better on the X1, it’s on another level.

Lost macOS though, which, in the end, didn’t matter as much as I thought it would.

[userbinator]

Lost macOS though, which, in the end, didn’t matter as much as I thought it would.

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/99-perfect-sierra-10-12-6...

Or you could run it in a VM. I had to test something with macOS not long ago (not a regular Mac user) and was pleasantly surprised when, after doing a small amount of configuration, VirtualBox booted up from the ISO and installed a macOS VM that ran pretty much perfectly.

[proto-n]

No hardware accelerated graphics in the vm though for mac os afaik, which can be painful even if you try and turn off most animations. No?

[riffraff]

how does the touchpad compare? I feel I've been spolied by apple's touchpads, when I had to use another laptop I wanted to cry.

[davnn]

It’s definitely worse but not as bad as non-MB touchpads used to be. Plus, it’s motivating to use more keyboard shortcuts.

[pimeys]

And when you learn to use the Lenovo TrackPoint, there is no going back.

Having a T25, X1C5 and X1C6 in the family and the keyboard+mouse experience is so much ahead of everybody else.

[hultner]

Used a Thinkpad (T550-something, retina screen) for a couple of years and can’t say I ever got used to or liked the track point, the touchpad had “palm detection“ but it was horrible and I ended up using a toggle key for the touchpad instead. The nipple fell of constantly which was incredibly annoying. The keyboard had crammed print screen next to space causing numberous misclicks and annoying shifts between laptop and external keyboard, the official dock didn’t even work oob and had to be patched via a bootable dos-usb, half the times I docked and undocked the picture stopped working completely forcing me to reboot via ssh from my phone if it was alive at all, the picture quality and workability in sunlight was horrible on the badly lit matte display. Yet it’s still the best non Apple laptop I’ve used, however after a few years I went back to the new MBP with TB and it’s been a true pleasure in comparison.

[hultner]

Oh yeah and the soft touch finish is nice at first but it starts to peel after about 2 years of use.

[thadk]

The area around the hinge on the 2011-2015 Era Macbook was plastic. It seems like they wanted to do away with that, a major mechanical break point, which meant removing travel distance from the keys so the screen could close more directly. (My 2011 MBP screen hinge was a bit wobbly a few years in.) You could look at the USB-C dongles in a similar way: older USB ports could fail eventually on that era MBP. The newer USB-C ports are probably "rated" for more insertions/removals.

[blackguardx]

You are correct. USB A ports are usually only rated to 1500 insertion cycles because that is what the standard specifies. Micro USB and USB C ports are specced at 10,000 insertion cycles.

[marksi]

I am stunned to hear micro USB is rated for that many insertions. The implementation must not live up to the standard. In my experience, anecdotal, I know, microUSB is the most unreliable of all the USB form factors I've experienced. Bad connectors on cables, and ports that regularly fail internally (not levered off the board.) I have considered replacing ports with miniusb, or a tethered B port because micro has been such an utter failure on so many of my devices.

[21]

MicroUSB is supposedly designed in such a way that the stress is placed on the cable connector which is easier to replace, not the device connector which is attached to an expensive device.

But yeah, I can't imagine Micro-USB being more reliable than regular USB-A.

[smsm42]

Yep, had several devices fail because of micro-usb going bad. And the worst part is that since it's how you charge it, there's no option not to use it daily (yeah there's wireless charging standards, but adoption is abysmal so far).

[xvf22]

Each of the USB-C ports needs a controller and if any of the four have an issue the computer will not charge.

[adrianN]

One of the USB-C ports on my work laptop recently failed but the machine still charged from the other one.

[xvf22]

Was going by this [1] which seems to show that if one of the charging ICs goes bad it can cause the rest not to work. This is probably one of many failure mechanisms.

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=MY8LlHfK9ZA

[saagarjha]

I believe MacBook Pro has two Thunderbolt controllers, one for each side.

[Jdam]

The USB controller is unrelated to USB power supply.

[dzhiurgis]

The way that usb-c wobbles and how easily it unplugs proves its not designed for proffesional use.

[matthewmacleod]

No, that proves literally nothing.

It’s hardly an industrial connector, but AFAIK it’s rated for 10k inserts which is more than enough.

[dzhiurgis]

Try unplugging XLR

[coldtea]

Then again, we don't use USB-C to connect on stage microphones to their cables in live shows...

Of any problem with USB-C it unplugging has never been an issue...

[mft_]

Not unplugging, but on my 2017 MBP it sometimes take a jiggle or even unplug/reinsert to get things to connect properly: monitor, dongle, etc.

[21]

Yeah, that's exactly what I need, XLR plugs on my phone :)

[achompas]

> Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP?

My tinfoil hat theory is yes - Apple's supply chain folks. Thinner and lighter laptops means more fit on a cargo airplane, which means lower shipping costs.

Tim Cook cut his teeth on Apple's supply chain as COO before becoming CEO, after all.

[coldtea]

>Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP?

Sure. Here's a certain Linus Torvalds:

"I’m have to admit being a bit baffled by how nobody else seems to have done what Apple did with the Macbook Air – even several years after the first release, the other notebook vendors continue to push those ugly and clunky things. (...) I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light. (...) Btw, even when it comes to Apple, it’s really just the Air that I think is special. The other apple laptops may be good-looking, but they are still the same old clunky hardware (...)"

[cmplxconjugate]

I absolutely adore the Air. I do a lot of remote HPC coding and typically just connect to the cluster via SSH. I have a monstrous desktop at home for when I'm back.

To me the Air is magical because it has a balance of my exact needs: portability, toughness and, battery life. I would give anything for an updated model.

[washadjeffmad]

Be cheered, there are a lot of great 13" devices that are at least as good as the Air for every category you list with the addition of price.

Most people ignore Chromebooks as direct comparisons, but many are just as tough, have similarly crummy/capable internals, cost a pittance, are as unupgradeable, and run Linux like champs. They're the platonic ideal of single function computing.

The 13" Acer I bought in 2012 had a 1080 display, could output over HDMI at 2160p, and played video for at least 8 hours on a full charge. Cost maybe $250 and had a very sturdy case that didn't bend or break when dropped. Not that shabby.

[berti]

Do they pack them into the final boxes/packaging somewhere close to the end destination? Because those boxes haven't changed in size AFAIK. My 2017 MBP came in a 70 mm tall box, same as my 2012 one.

[Operyl]

Even so, the difference in weight is still definitely a cost saving measure.

[runeks]

> My tinfoil hat theory is yes [...]

We don't need to speculate. How many MBPs fit in a cubic meter, and how much does it cost to ship a cubic meter of goods on a cargo plane?

According to this[1], flying a 40-foot container from Shenzen to London is around $2000. A 40-foot container has a capacity of 76 cubic meters.

The MBP fits in a 17” x 13” x 5” shipping box[2], which leaves some room for bubble wrap. That's 0.02 cubic meters, so 50 MBPs per cubic meter. So for $2000, 50*76 = 3800 MBPs can be shipped.

That's around 50 cents shipping cost, for something that sells for $1000, which means Tim Cook would have to be quite irrational to reduce the size of the MBP in order to reduce the (50-cent-per-MBP) freight expenditure.

[1] https://www.freightos.com/freight-resources/air-freight-rate...

[2] https://swappa.com/blog/the-best-way-to-ship-your-macbook/

[matthewowen]

I would guess that they are dense enough that their volumetric cost is weight constrained rather than volume constrained, so this may be less of a factor than you think.

[eeeeeeeeeeeee]

I prefer the new keyboard (and I like that it's louder), but I have been affected by numerous failures in different machines. I also know many people who have experienced this exact same issue, often within a year of purchase. Two laptops I purchased in 2016 from the same store both had the issue, brand new. But I've had 2017 models with the same issue.

I don't believe this problem is really a limited as Apple has been saying, but they never seem to admit the true scale of problems.

[saagarjha]

Apple sold a MacBook Pro with all of those things you wanted except Ethernet until yesterday.

[garmaine]

What are you talking about?

[SyneRyder]

Apple continued to sell the 15" 2015 pre-butterfly-keyboard MacBook Pro model until yesterday (it has just been discontinued). That model had a retina screen, MagSafe, an SD Card reader, HDMI & USB-A ports (as well as two Thunderbolt 2 ports), but no Ethernet.

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/12/apple-stops-selling-201...

[adanto6840]

I bought a refurbished one of these in January of this year -- though I see that there are none of them available in the refurb store as of right now. The refurb inventory changes pretty rapidly though, so it might be worth watching in case one does pop up -- I suspect that they'll go quickly, and I almost wish I had purchased a backup.

https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macb...

Oh well, hopefully my current one lasts another few years, otherwise I'll probably have to give Windows a try as my main machine again, for the first time in ~10 years.

[SyneRyder]

You can use RefurbMe to get an automatic alert when/if it returns to the Apple refurbished store:

https://www.refurb.me/en-us

And refurb models are also eligible for AppleCare if you want a 3 year warranty, but you have to buy AppleCare within 60 days of the Mac purchase.

[saagarjha]

The early 2015 MacBook Pro.

[thaumasiotes]

> Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? I know I was directly inconvenienced by the loss of MagSafe, ethernet, SD card and USB-A, the loss of the FN key row, and loss of serviceability.

For an alternative perspective, http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2016/10/29/the-new-macbooks-ar...

> Battery life is not great. But you can't use it outside anyhow because it'll blow away.

> We want to make a laptop so thin you'll close it and never find it again.

[laythea]

Yes but think about the people at the top of Apple who need to be seen to "innovating". Even if its misguided innovation. Change is good! Embrace!