16-inch MacBook Pro Keyboard Layout Concept

[retta283]

Not a fan of the touchbar, I think they should get rid of it altogether. Having a physical escape key would be nice, even if they keep the touchbar. Going back to the old keyboards is a 100% good thing.

If the screen is really 16.0 inches, it's not even a full inch bigger than the current. Most forget that it's not a 15.0 inch screen, it's 15.4. So you're only getting .6 inches extra. Honestly if they're making the chassis larger they should've went all-in and just done a 17-inch again.

Still no SD card slot or USB A. I understand that USB A is being obsoleted, but SD cards are still very useful for photography. The port is thin enough to fit so I don't see why they won't add it back in. At this point it's not really a pro machine, it's barely a prosumer machine.

 

[theluggage]

Check surface laptop 3, i wonder how it will work..

It's clear from the pictures that the whole keyboard is recessed into the case, just like the Mac. Can't see whether or not there's a rubber seal, but they could always have made the recess a fraction deeper to stop the keys actually touching the screen.
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I think having USB-C ports exclusively annoyed many pro users, but since the industry is quickly adopting USB-C, things aren’t too bad. The butterfly keyboard, on the other hand, just did not work out.

Nothing will make me like USB-C ports (at least on anything bigger than a phone), but its been 3 years now and they're probably here to stay. What would help is a couple more of them on each model so you could plug more than 4 things (including power) into a MBP without needing a dock. Of course, with limited PCIe lanes that probably means a confusing mixture of physically indistinguishable, full-featured TB3 ports and USB-only ones - but if you implement a stupid idea (needlessly moshing unrelated functions together into a single port) you get stupid problems.

 

[pshufd]

It's clear from the pictures that the whole keyboard is recessed into the case, just like the Mac. Can't see whether or not there's a rubber seal, but they could always have made the recess a fraction deeper to stop the keys actually touching the screen.
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Nothing will make me like USB-C ports (at least on anything bigger than a phone), but its been 3 years now and they're probably here to stay. What would help is a couple more of them on each model so you could plug more than 4 things (including power) into a MBP without needing a dock. Of course, with limited PCIe lanes that probably means a confusing mixture of physically indistinguishable, full-featured TB3 ports and USB-only ones - but if you implement a stupid idea (needlessly moshing unrelated functions together into a single port) you get stupid problems.

Pro workstation class laptops out there in the Windows world don't care about thin and light and they have a plethora of ports including GB ethernet. Apple would have to add another machine in their lineup for this though. The could call it the MacBook Work.

 

[playtech1]

Those bezels look surprisingly thick compared to, say, a Razer Blade. Perhaps to leave enough room for FaceID - as a notch won't cut it on a laptop.

Physical escape key is very welcome, but really the touch bar - if kept at all - could use being a separate bar above a function row. There's plenty of space on a 16 inch laptop for both and the cost of an extra row of physical keys must be minuscule.

I'm more concerned that this will be another Mac Pro debacle where it's priced and specced for a mythical group of ultra-wealthy 'pros' who have revenue that means they don't care about the cost of their machine.

If this does not replace the 15 inch but is intended to be a 'pro' machine it looks a little too thin to accommodate things like ultra high-end graphics cards and CPUs without throttling.

 

[theluggage]

Pro workstation class laptops out there in the Windows world don't care about thin and light and they have a plethora of ports including GB ethernet. Apple would have to add another machine in their lineup for this though. The could call it the MacBook Work.

I don't disagree with that - but I think Apple closed that book with the 17" MBP . Its not just ports - but things like spare M.2. slots for extra, affordable storage (The 17" MBP only really qualified because you could swap the system drive for a SSD and then, unofficially, replace the optical drive with a second HD for bulk storage).

 

[PastaPrimav]

I mean...if that's all they can do, then I'll take it. I'd prefer they just offer an option without the Touch Bar altogether. But if they don't, and its Touch Bar or nothing, then yes please I'll take a physical escape key.

I don't understand how they can keep pushing this forward. I've never seen any user corroborate Apple's claim that the Touch Bar is critical/life changing.

The Touch Bar is just bizarre.

It is a relatively low quality display, so it just looks blurry.
It has no haptic feedback, so it's missing the 1 critical component that could make it workable. Apple has had great success with using haptics to make things (like the trackpad) work so well that they are indistinguishable from mechanical. Yet, on the Touch Bar that replaces physical buttons...nada.
3rd party apps do nothing meaningful with it.
Shortcuts are not that short when you need to take your hands off the keys.

I've had it for 3 years and I just don't get it. All it has done for me is make hitting escape impossible, and changing the volume into a chore.

And don't even get me started on how bad Touch ID experience is on the Mac.
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but if you implement a stupid idea (needlessly moshing unrelated functions together into a single port) you get stupid problems.

I'm sorry this argument just doesn't hold up. Even from day 1 it was not difficult to adapt to a MacBook with only USB-C ports. Yes that means adapters or special cables for connecting things when you're on-the-go, but once you have those, its a non-issue.

When you're at a desk, a single cable connects your MacBook to every peripheral in sight, via any of a million docks or hubs available.

You know, many MacBook users are using a MacBook to be mobile. Not to be tethered to things constantly. The idea is that physical I/O on the MacBook is something you should be doing infrequently.

The only people who still complain about this are the people who bought the machine, but didn't acknowledge that they needed some other things too. These people take their device out into the wild with nothing, and expect to still connect it to legacy devices, with whatever cable is laying around.

There is nothing about that old experience that needed to be preserved. Nothing. It was the right thing to do then, and it still makes sense today.

 

[theluggage]

Even from day 1 it was not difficult to adapt to a MacBook with only USB-C ports. Yes that means adapters or special cables for connecting things when you're on-the-go, but once you have those, its a non-issue.

Actually, back on "day 1" (somewhen in late 2016) I added up what extras I'd need to get the same level of portability with a 2016 MBP as with my "Classic" MBP (i.e. unplug from home desk, sling just the MBP in my bag, plug it in at my work desk). It came to a bit over £400 (so, realistically about the same as $400) - on top of a MBP that had already seen a significant price hike (esp. in the UK, but also in the US)... and that would have been with dongles sprouting everywhere. A neater solution, with USB-C docks and single-cable connections would have come out at closer to £500.

You know, many MacBook users are using a MacBook to be mobile. Not to be tethered to things constantly.

You know, many MacBook users are using a MacBook as a desktop replacement, commuting from home to work desk (so, that's 2x every dongle/adapter/new cable you need, plus an extra USB-C power supply because your drawer full of Magsafe adapters is suddenly landfill). Other MacBook users actually have to connect to things "on the road" (projectors, power supplies, USB sticks that people hand you, external drives...) and, yes, I've done things like duplicating hard drives or memory sticks "on the road".

The idea is that physical I/O on the MacBook is something you should be doing infrequently.

What? Who's idea? Why? If I didn't need "physical I/O" I'd use my iPad or phone. Just because you don't need something doesn't mean that nobody needs it. Feel free to ignore any ports that you don't personally need ...the ones I don't personally need are USB-C, but nobody is seriously suggesting dropping TB3, just providing a few alternatives (which Apple has done on the 2017 iMac, the 2018 Mac Mini, the 2019 Mac Pro...

 

[PastaPrimav]

Actually, back on "day 1" (somewhen in late 2016) I added up what extras I'd need to get the same level of portability with a 2016 MBP as with my "Classic" MBP (i.e. unplug from home desk, sling just the MBP in my bag, plug it in at my work desk). It came to a bit over £400 (so, realistically about the same as $400) - on top of a MBP that had already seen a significant price hike (esp. in the UK, but also in the US)... and that would have been with dongles sprouting everywhere. A neater solution, with USB-C docks and single-cable connections would have come out at closer to £500.



You know, many MacBook users are using a MacBook as a desktop replacement, commuting from home to work desk (so, that's 2x every dongle/adapter/new cable you need, plus an extra USB-C power supply because your drawer full of Magsafe adapters is suddenly landfill). Other MacBook users actually have to connect to things "on the road" (projectors, power supplies, USB sticks that people hand you, external drives...) and, yes, I've done things like duplicating hard drives or memory sticks "on the road".



What? Who's idea? Why? If I didn't need "physical I/O" I'd use my iPad or phone. Just because you don't need something doesn't mean that nobody needs it. Feel free to ignore any ports that you don't personally need ...the ones I don't personally need are USB-C, but nobody is seriously suggesting dropping TB3, just providing a few alternatives (which Apple has done on the 2017 iMac, the 2018 Mac Mini, the 2019 Mac Pro...

Everyone that tries to make this failed argument ultimately has some huge contradiction, and you are no exception.

If you're trying to use a laptop as a desktop replacement, you have no business complaining about the cost and complexity involved in trying to do that.

Also, don't pretend like any of this was easy or convenient before the ports were replaced with Thunderbolt 3. If you wanted to connect to myriad of peripherals on the go, you needed a myriad of cables. Now, you just need different ones. Except now, you have 4 ports that can be anything at any time.

 

[DanMan619]

If the screen is really 16.0 inches, it's not even a full inch bigger than the current. Most forget that it's not a 15.0 inch screen, it's 15.4. So you're only getting .6 inches extra. Honestly if they're making the chassis larger they should've went all-in and just done a 17-inch again.

Considering that they call the 15 inch 15 even though it's actually 15.4, wouldn't it be relatively safe to assume they'd be likely to do the same thing with the 16 and it actually be 16.4? That seems more likely to me, i can't imagine they'd even bother to do it if it really was just half an inch. It could be done in pretty much the exact same size chassis as the 15 currently is, if not it'd only need to be a couple millimeters larger (no crazy size increase where it'd feel noticeably larger/less portable needed) since most of the screen increase would come from slimming the bezels.

 

[theluggage]

Everyone that tries to make this failed argument ultimately has some huge contradiction, and you are no exception.

Failed argument? The market is now saturated with "docks" that restore the so-called "legacy" ports present on the 2015 MBP (except that they're now hanging off on a cable in a second box that you have to carry around instead of conveniently built in to the machine). Meanwhile, only a couple of the more expensive TB3 docks offer more than a single USB-C port - so it is pretty clear what sort of ports people actually need in reality (although the fact that USB-C ports are more complex and costly to implement probably plays into that, too).

It is also notable that even Apple have held back on going "all TB3/USB-C" on the iMac, Mac Mini and Mac Pro - and taken what would have been the sensible approach with the MBP of just swapping TB2/MiniDP ports for TB3/USB-C. Most of the PC world has stuck with maybe 1 TB3 + USB3 and HDMI on "regular" laptops (a few 2-in-1s and ultra-ultra portables have gone all-USB C).

Also, don't pretend like any of this was easy or convenient before the ports were replaced with Thunderbolt 3. If you wanted to connect to myriad of peripherals on the go, you needed a myriad of cables. Now, you just need different ones.

Actually - it was pretty convenient - mostly just connecting the peripherals to the laptop using the "myriad" of cables that came with the peripheral. If you ran out of USB ports, get a $10 USB hub (which... get this... has the same sockets as the computer). For years, there was the option of a Thunderbolt hub if you wanted a neater solution.

Now, you just need different ones.

Now, you need new ones - i.e. not the ones that came with the product, or that you already had stiffed in a drawer - even for USB 2/3 devices that gain zero functionality from the "upgrade" (...which includes the majority of new "USB-C" devices). Or adapters/dongles for devices with captive cables. Including more expensive "active" cables/adapters for DisplayPort/HDMI (even straight USB-C alt mode -> DisplayPort cables need extra embedded circuitry, and HDMI cables have to be active DP-to-HDMI converters) with far more scope for getting a duff/incompatible cable. Or, in the case of the perfectly good Cinema display I had at work, a new Mac power supply to replace the embedded MagSafe and (at the time I was considering it) either a "double dongle" or the only USB-C-to-MiniDP adapter available (the one with a bunch of one-star "doesn't work" reviews on Amazon).

Except... you still need the old cables, too, because last time I looked there were still no multi-USB-C port hubs (I think the $300 Caldigit TB3 station actually adds one or two...) so if you have half-a-dozen USB devices you need a USB-C cable or dongle when you want to connect them to your computer (e.g. if you want to take one or more of them on the road), and a USB-A cable if you want to connect them to your hub...

Except now, you have 4 ports that can be anything at any time.

...provided you have the right adapter/cable in your bag. Simply plugging in the power uses up one of those "anything" ports. Oh, and its only the top-end MBPs that have 4 ports - everything else only has 2 (even the old MBA had 2 USBs left after you'd connected power and an external display). The 2015 design let you plug 6 things in using the cables they most likely had attached. You could plug in power, a display/data projector, an external TB drive, a mouse and still have a spare USB for when someone handed you a memory stick. We were just getting to the stage where data projectors etc. were increasingly using HDMI so we could leave our VGA dongles at home, too. 2xTB3, 2xUSB3-A, HDMI, SD, Magsafe would have been a sensible compromise that would accommodate most people's needs - given that it includes 2 daisy-chainable 'anything' ports. If it were possible to fit 4xTB3 + keep the other ports, that would be perfect - but there are only so many I/O lanes available....

If you're trying to use a laptop as a desktop replacement, you have no business complaining about the cost and complexity involved in trying to do that.

I can't think of any response to that "modest proposal" that wouldn't amount to an ad hominem attack, so I'll resist the temptation, and just acknowledge you as the supreme ultimate arbiter of what people are allowed to use their laptops for.