Apple Experimented In Final Years of Intel Macs

[Scarboose]

An opinion - I believe, because Apple knew they would be using their own Silicon chip, they experimented/held off in the final 4ish years of Intel.

MacBook Pro experiments that ultimately failed:

1. Butterfly Keyboard
2. Touch Bar
3. USB-C/Thunderbolt ports only
4. Not an experiment, but not a lot of innovation

The last truly great MacBook was in 2015. More specifically, the 15" MacBook Pro with the scissor keyboard, full function row and all of the ports. The 16" got the scissor keyboard, but (based on rumors) Apple is now removing the Touch Bar, has the improved keyboard, returning some ports and bringing back mag safe. The 2016-2019 MacBook Pros will be remembered as "failures" in comparison to what came before and what will most likely come after.
Again, the 16" screen was a nice upgrade in 2019, but nothing else really changed that was for the better with the MacBook Pro lineup. I thought the Touch Bar was innovative when it was announced, but it's really only Touch ID that we got from it.

iMac did nothing....:

I think this has been talked about enough, but seriously, after the iMac got 4k/5k displays in 2014/2015, nothing changed. Peripherals just got slightly better every year.

Mac Mini also did nothing:

The best thing the Mac mini did was switch to space gray in 2018, add 10GB ethernet, and add some real power. While it was a nice upgrade, the price made it hard to justify the purchase over a laptop.

MacBook Air tried:

The MacBook Air got the significant upgrade with Touch ID and Retina display in 2018. While that was a great upgrade, the Air was such a weak machine. The iPad Pro was a better machine during this time frame. It didn't seem like it, but looking back (and if iOS was better) it was the better of the two pieces of hardware (which had Apple's chip).

All in all, the MacBook Air was the most "exciting" Mac from 2016 through 2019. All of the Macs look almost identical from 2012-2020 even! Now, every Mac with the M1 chip is considered a great purchase:

• MacBook Air - Great power, great battery, slim, full function row, no fans and affordable (best Mac you can buy right now, I think)
• MacBook Pro - Least exciting Mac of them all right now since it really isn't that different from the Air, but the next generation coming will make it the most exciting machine they have
• Mac Mini - The price for the base model doesn't get any better. I was blown away when I saw the Mini got cheaper and stronger with the M1 chip
• iMac - Obviously, not as powerful as everyone wants, but it is a beautiful machine that makes the 21.5" replacement a now viable option. The screen is big enough, is now 4.5k, adds Touch ID and looks amazing.

There is only excitement about the future machines. The future Air will be even slimmer (HOW?) with colors, the Pros will have more power, battery and will be the most sought after Mac, and the 27" iMac replacement will be the ultimate all in one machine (hopefully 32").

 

[haralds]

I like the Touch Bar.
I would prefer more thunderbolts ports, but not older style USB 3, SD card, or HDMI on laptops. I use Thunderbolt/USB-C to connect to a display with audio and power. Much superior.
The older ports are destined to be obsolete. For me, they are obsolete NOW. I use USB-C cables to connect to older spinners for backup. No adapters needed.

 

[ader42]

I agree, I too would prefer to only have USB-C/TB4 ports on a MBP and iMac.
Don't even need ethernet nowadays.

 

[Scarboose]

I am actually on board with less 'one use only' ports too. My post was more based more on what I hear complaints about most. I work in IT as an Apple administrator and the 15" 2015 MBP is a computer that people hold onto until it literally won't turn on, which is crazy for a 6 year old machine.

 

[cmaier]

I agree, I too would prefer to only have USB-C/TB4 ports on a MBP and iMac.
Don't even need ethernet nowadays.

How does having other ports hurt you?

 

[ader42]

How does having other ports hurt you?

Ugly. Lol. Also want at least 4 TB4 ports and don't want to sacrifice one for things I don't need such as SD.

 

[cmaier]

Ugly. Lol. Also want at least 4 TB4 ports and don't want to sacrifice one for things I don't need such as SD.

One of your ports is used to supply power. So you have 3. And of those, only 2 are full speed.

So if Apple gives you MagSafe back, you can use that, and you get a TB4 port back.

 

[Gnattu]

I'm okay with Touch Bar, I used to hate it because the virtual esc is too bad to use, especially in vim, but now we have physical Touch Bar back, and I don't see anything bad with that.

About the ports, the problem of currently M1 MacBook Pro is not USB-C only but 2 ports only.

 

[TimmuJapan]

I think that the last truly great MacBook Pros were the fully upgradable models from 2012…….

 

[leman]

An opinion - I believe, because Apple knew they would be using their own Silicon chip, they experimented/held off in the final 4ish years of Intel.

Nah, they experimented because they needed their laptops to be sufficiently different from the rest of the market. The MacBook Pro was always a symbol of quality and portable performance, but in the second half of 201x other brands started to catch up. So Apple was forced to "stay ahead of the curve" so to speak, even if it might have forced them to make some decisions that some users thought questionable.

1. Butterfly Keyboard

Butterfly keyboard was not nearly as bad as its reputation. As a keyboard, I preferred it to the oder version with its' wobbly keys. The ultimate downfall of the butterfly was the material fatigue issue that did not become apparent during testing. These things happen with industrial design. I believe that Apple has solved the issue in the end, but the damage was done and they had to scrap the project entirely.

The 16" keyboard is indeed better, but it's very different from the 2015 or earlier keyboards. The new magic keyboard combines the stability of the butterfly switches with a slightly longer travel of the earlier keyboards, giving the best of both worlds.

1. USB-C/Thunderbolt ports only

You know, this is just something people will never stop arguing about. In my use, universal ports have been nothing but great. The only standard port I wouldn't mind having back is HDMI, simply because the projector industry moves very slowly. But don't touch my USB-C.

The last truly great MacBook was in 2015. More specifically, the 15" MacBook Pro with the scissor keyboard, full function row and all of the ports.

Nah, my 16" is miles better than the 2015 version. As was the 2016 revision. Just a better form factor overall, more compact, faster, more flexible, better I/O.

(based on rumors) Apple is now removing the Touch Bar

I will only believe it when I see it. They just added the Touch Bar to the entry-level 13". Could have saved themselves some money if they planned on dropping it anyway. But anything can happen. I don't have any particular attachment to the TouchBar, but going back to the utterly useless function keys would be a significant step backwards.

 

[ader42]

One of your ports is used to supply power. So you have 3. And of those, only 2 are full speed.

So if Apple gives you MagSafe back, you can use that, and you get a TB4 port back.

Yeah, I’d like magsafe back, so would like magsafe plus 4 full-speed tb4/usb-c ports please.

 

[Mr. Awesome]

I like the Touch Bar.

As do I. The Touch Bar can be useful if you take the time to get to know some of the shortcuts. I find myself less productive on a Mac without a Touch Bar, because I’m so used to using it for things like quickly aligning objects in Adobe Illustrator. My muscle memory for using the Touch Bar is second nature at this point, so I honestly cannot work as fast on a different machine.

 

[ader42]

With respect to TouchBar, down the line (who knows when) I’d like all the keys to be physical but with software changeable icons on them, so different applications can have different keyboards... and could also mean no need for different international keyboards of course.

 

[profcutter]

Hi Leman:

Why would you suggest the 2016 was better than 2015? No faster, in some cases slower. Horrible keyboard (personal experience). No built in HDMI? Maybe you could argue the 16 inch is an improvement, but in terms of speed and reliability on the high end models, especially for the price, many folks, myself included said it wasn’t worth it.

The butterfly keyboard caused no end of headaches for me and for anyone I know locally who had one. Inevitably someone would ask “what’s wrong with my keyboard now, the letter __ isn’t working”. All too common, and I can’t remember a time that happened with the older models.

 

[LogicalApex]

So if Apple gives you MagSafe back, you can use that, and you get a TB4 port back.

I wasn’t around in the MagSafe era, but if Apple can’t deliver MagSafe via USB C I wouldn’t be happy with it. It would mean I need a charger that is only useful on the MacBook when everything has shifted to allow me to only bring a single USB C charger and I can power everything including my work Windows Laptop.

 

[leman]

Why would you suggest the 2016 was better than 2015? No faster, in some cases slower.

I did extensive performance tests on both revisions and the thinner 2016 chassis was better at heat dissipation, translating to better performance. Of course, given how power-hungry the Intel CPUs got around that time it wasn't really noticeable.

There was an early bug in the power management controller of the 2016 model that would cause the voltage regulating circuitry to overheat and throttle the CPU down to it's minimal frequency, this problem was widely reported by reviewers and testers. Apple fixed this bug after two weeks but the PR damage was already done and people kept referring (and still do) to those early reviews.

Horrible keyboard (personal experience).

I liked the keyboard personally, but yeah, it was polarizing. Reliability was definitely an issue, especially on earlier generations. We bought a bunch of these models (several dozens at least), approximately 10% of users reported issues with keyboards. Most could be solved with some compressed air (crumbles interfering with the switches) but a couple of machines had their keyboard replaced (including the machine I was using).

No built in HDMI?

I didn't really consider this a disadvantage as I always had to carry an adapter around in case some conference venues only had VGA connectors. On the other hand, multi-functional nature of USB-C was a game changer. The ability to connect an entire array of peripherals (including charger) has massively improved my setup.

But yeah, I wouldn't mind HDMI to come back, as long as I get to keep my four USB-C ports. MagSafe, ugh, no thanks. Another step backwards.

Maybe you could argue the 16 inch is an improvement, but in terms of speed and reliability on the high end models, especially for the price, many folks, myself included said it wasn’t worth it.

Price is the same as any other 15" MBP before it? And what reliability issues are you talking about?

 

[cmaier]

I wasn’t around in the MagSafe era, but if Apple can’t deliver MagSafe via USB C I wouldn’t be happy with it. It would mean I need a charger that is only useful on the MacBook when everything has shifted to allow me to only bring a single USB C charger and I can power everything including my work Windows Laptop.

You presumably will still be able to use USB C chargers, and the MagSafe is just a second way to charge, potentially faster.

 

[G46&Fbnth5]

To me, the best feature introduced in the last few years is the gigantic trackpad, especially that of the 15/16-inch MacBook Pros.
I don’t like the Touch-Bar, while I liked the Butterfly keyboard, but unfortunately it had issues.

 

[leman]

You presumably will still be able to use USB C chargers, and the MagSafe is just a second way to charge, potentially faster.

A new power delivery standard (up to 200+ watts if I remember correctly) just got ratified the other day, but I doubt that Apple will be using that. Not worth the heavier charger.

 

[jdb8167]

A new power delivery standard (up to 200+ watts if I remember correctly) just got ratified the other day, but I doubt that Apple will be using that. Not worth the heavier charger.

240 W I think.

 

[sunapple]

I bought the 2016 Touch Bar 15” MBP when it came out, but returned it in favor of my mid-2015 15” MBP over the keyboard issues. The issues were basically rumors at the time but it just didn’t feel right to me. This was two months after launch. Always trust your gut I guess.

 

[baguasquirrel]

Touch bar:

• Having a physical escape key removed much of the annoyance for me.
• I still miss having physical keys for play/pause, forward, and next.
• But having a volume slider on the Touch Bar has been kind of nice.
• The idea of keys with programmable displays is still not bad. I use Touch Bar a lot when I'm using XCode. Having the stop/start buttons on the keyboard is actually kind of nice.
• Touch Bar seemed maybe a little too ahead of its time. The strip is just too small, height-wise. Safari tries to preview tab windows in it, but it's just way too comically small for that purpose.
• I think TouchBar might make more sense if they put it on the Magic Keyboard and made the strip much larger. A larger Touch Bar might actually be useful for e.g. scrolling through emojis 😜😝. The color picker could be an actual color picker, as opposed to a bunch of "keys" with fixed colors on them. A larger programmable TouchBar could be a really interesting thing for Photoshop users.

MagSafe / USB-C:

• When I'm traveling, lack of MagSafe is a disaster. USB-C is cool when you plug your laptop into the same desk in the same position. When you're in an AirBnB and you don't really have optimal placement for your power cord, it's not so fun.

Butterfly keyboard:

• It breaks constantly. That it also seems to fix itself does not alleviate the annoyance. It just makes the machine feel flimsy.

Other things:

• The 16G of ram on the circa-2016 MacBook Pro was a sad affair for a lot of us. The devs can't run more than one or two VMs on 16G of ram, and docker containers can get pretty big too. The graphics people can't run Photoshop, Illustrator and Safari at the same time, without slowing things down. Xcode and relatively simple web dev are the only things that are comfortable on 16G.
• I do agree that with the underlying Intel-related hardware situation (e.g. causing the 16G of ram), being burned by faulty Nvidia parts the decade prior, and the lack of competitiveness by AMDti for most of the 2010s, it made sense for Apple to just mess around with things until they came out with their own CPU/GPU solution.

 

[profcutter]

I did extensive performance tests on both revisions and the thinner 2016 chassis was better at heat dissipation, translating to better performance. Of course, given how power-hungry the Intel CPUs got around that time it wasn't really noticeable.

There was an early bug in the power management controller of the 2016 model that would cause the voltage regulating circuitry to overheat and throttle the CPU down to it's minimal frequency, this problem was widely reported by reviewers and testers. Apple fixed this bug after two weeks but the PR damage was already done and people kept referring (and still do) to those early reviews.



I liked the keyboard personally, but yeah, it was polarizing. Reliability was definitely an issue, especially on earlier generations. We bought a bunch of these models (several dozens at least), approximately 10% of users reported issues with keyboards. Most could be solved with some compressed air (crumbles interfering with the switches) but a couple of machines had their keyboard replaced (including the machine I was using).



I didn't really consider this a disadvantage as I always had to carry an adapter around in case some conference venues only had VGA connectors. On the other hand, multi-functional nature of USB-C was a game changer. The ability to connect an entire array of peripherals (including charger) has massively improved my setup.

But yeah, I wouldn't mind HDMI to come back, as long as I get to keep my four USB-C ports. MagSafe, ugh, no thanks. Another step backwards.



Price is the same as any other 15" MBP before it? And what reliability issues are you talking about?

So what happened for me is I had to get work done on my 2013. The Apple store people told me that since it would take 2 weeks, and I needed the machine during that time, I should just buy one with the intention of returning it. I was headed out of the country, and I needed a machine for work. I got a high end 2017 15 inch, the top of the line that was immediately available to order. 16gb and 1tb.
I was using Final Cut Pro, keynote, PowerPoint, word, papers, and endnote. Throughout the time I was using the 2017, the Fans were almost constantly running, the machine was hotter than my 2013, and performance was at best on par with my 2013.
I returned the machine to the Apple store in person, they asked why, I told them, the tech responded, “yeah, we get that a lot from this generation”. I decided then, why would I pay 3k to get similar performance to what I already had?
The 2019s are certainly better, and indubitably faster than my 2013. I ended up cracking the display, and decided to get a used 2015. I would have preferred a newer model, but mine was $1k, vs 3500 for a comparable 2019. Again I’m sure it would have been faster, but 3500 dollars faster? Also, check the notebook forums about complaints about drivers for the 5600 GPU. I’m sure for some folks it would have made sense, but for me, I’m saving my pennies until an Apple silicon machine is available. For me, in 2013 it was a huge amount of money, and it still is. For me to put out that kind of cash on an upgrade, I expect a dramatically improved experience. That’s just my calculus, I know it’s not the same for everyone.

 

[Zdigital2015]

I think that the last truly great MacBook Pros were the fully upgradable models from 2012…….

The non-Retina models gave you DRAM and HDD, okay, DVD bay, if that was your jam. However, the Retina models allowed you to upgrade storage only and that is hit and miss as the connectors are non-standard and rely on third party solutions to adapter m.2 or mSATA, which isn’t very smooth or seemless.

 

[Jorbanead]

How does having other ports hurt you?

I think it only hurts when adding other ports takes away multi-use ports. For example, there's rumors that the 14" MBP could have 3TB ports instead of 4 because they added HDMI. To me, id rather have 4TB ports and no HDMI port because you can just get an HDMI dongle. But if it only has 3TB ports, now I can only use the 4th port for HDMI and nothing else.