I think you are patently wrong about your assessment that thin & light is all the matters for laptop buyers. Every, and I mean literally every, product that has ever been designed is a compromise. Now we can all understand that performance and weight and size all play a role when a laptop is designed. How that balance is struck is where opinion comes in. You advocate that Apple should move the needle towards as thin & light as possible. I think that the majority of MacBook Pro users have a different view, I amongst them. Crippling the performance, cooling. and usability of a MBP for the sake of thin & light was a bad design choice for the vast majority of users. I far one am happy that the people at Apple have acknowledged the error of their ways.
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Jony Ive’s vision was killed today
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Just a quick comment on this. To make it clear: you and I have the same opinion. But I think you fell victim to what I consider to be a fairly common misconception. It’s very popular to bash the 2016 MBP chassis, but it’s very easy to verify that it provided virtually the same effective TDP capability as the current Mx chassis. The 2016 was held back by Intel CPUs (which required desktop-class cooling to reach their full performance potential), not their thin and light design. The current chassis would have the same kind of problems with Intel CPUs. And similarly, the 2016 chassis would run Mx Max just fine (this is clear from the fact that the 14” can run it well and it has worse thermals than the 2016 15” chassis).
I believe that the new chassis is mostly a marketing move from Apple. They got a lot of criticism for what users perceived as neglecting the prosumer and sacrificing form over function, so they just gave the users what they wanted. But from the functional perspective, the difference is minimal. Performance and battery improvements come from moving to their own much more energy efficient hardware (and not from the bigger chassis! - although one also has to point out that the new chassis has a larger battery). Furthermore, the chassis is actually barely larger than the 2016 touchbar one (10% difference in body volume) - the biggest size increase comes from the display assembly (miniLED is physically thicker), and the rest is pretty much an optical illusion because they dropped the beveled edges. I/O - also a marketing move. They brought back MagSafe and HDMI (something people wanted), but removed the third universal port. Again, I don’t see this as “they’ve seen the error of their ways”, rather as “hey, we can generate some positive PR and save money at the same time!” (Not to mention the opportunity to sell yet another proprietary cable). And finally, the new chassis design is a very obvious tribute to the early PowerBooks and MacBook pros, which again evokes that idea of “golden age of the Mac” - they did something similar for the iMac.
I like the new MBP chassis, I really do. I think this is state of the art industrial design that combines certain brutalist approach with subtle elegance and formal minimalism. I like it more than the previous model simply because the weight distribution feels nicer and I prefer the flat rounded looks to tapered ones. But I think it’s overly simplistic to see this design as Apple admitting their mistakes, and I certainly think it’s silly to claim that it “killed Ive’s vision”. This laptop is pretty much the culmination of industrial Ive (maybe not what he’d do today, but certainly the industrial minimalism he coined), and at the same time an extremely smart marketing move from Apple.
Nobody talked about buyers. Apple as a builder doesn’t care about raw performance. There is no MacBook equivalent to a Windows Gaming laptop. Apple has another vision of what a premium product is and that always includes thin and light, cool and quiet.
No, I argue that historically that’s always been what Apple laptops are about.
This is not a democracy. You and I can only buy what Apple offers. So the only argument to have is about what Apple’s design principles are and if they really have changed?
And nonetheless Apple always pushed for thinner and lighter, even back when Intel CPUs neither had the performance nor could handle the heat of such a small chassis.
Did they? Or did they just play it safe with this generation, so that they can handle the ARM transition without interference. The current design stands for no risk, no innovation. I don’t think Apple wants to support HDMI ports forever. And now that M-series chips finally are power-efficient, there is a viable path to much thinner and lighter laptop design, which rivals the size and weight of an iPad with a smart keyboard cover.
Again, the butterfly keyboard was adopted specifically to make the laptops slightly thinner. It was a design decision aimed squarely at making the MBP thinner, and it caused far more problems (that Apple had to foot the bill for fixing) then it solved by shaving off 1/16 of an inch from the thickness of the devices.
The battery would not be considered a design flaw under the definition of the term:
Here's the difference between the battery situation and the keyboards: the battery being glued really only makes a difference when repairing the device, but has no impact on day to day usability. The butterfly keyboard had a direct impact on usability, especially since the keyboard is still the primary means of interacting with a Mac on a daily basis.
Your opinion regarding the internal design is just an opinion, but you can't go equating that to the keyboard situation when the latter had a direct impact on the end users while the battery really only impacts repair personnel.
It was also a decision to provide a keyboard that some executives truly believed was better. The butterfly switches enabled more stable and in theory more reliable keys. Some people hated the typing experience, some loved it. I was in the later group, I really liked how the keys were larger and didn’t wobble compared to earlier scissor switches.
True, butterfly keys were a design failure, but that was only known later, when it became clear that the mechanism is fundamentally flawed. I believe Apple has ultimately fixed it, but by that time the PR damage was so extensive that they have abandoned it all together. Interestingly enough the newer magic keys wobble less than the pre-butterfly switches, so I suspect some of the butterfly-related technology did end up in the new scissor switches.
My dude, I hate to break it to you, but 13” MacBook Airs are *already lighter* than the 12.9” iPad + Magic Keyboard, by over 0.5lbs
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"The 11-inch iPad Magic Keyboard weighs 601 grams, while the 11-inch iPad Pro weighs 471 grams. The 12.9-inch Magic Keyboard weighs 710 grams, and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro weighs 641 grams, which combined weighs about three pounds, heavier than a MacBook Air."
What? The keyboards weigh more than the tablets! That's ridiculous. Apple totally lost the plot. I guess I never looked at them closely, because they're too darn expensive for what they offer. I think a keyboard shouldn't add more than 50% to the overall weight of a device. And that's also the target weight for an M1 laptop. Make the Air the first 999g laptop.
Apple has already surpassed that with the 12" Retina MacBook...
Apple went too far with the 2016 MBP redesign, sacrificing performance, reliability & usability for the sake of a thinner and lighter notebook. While people do value physical size and weight, those that use the higher tier notebooks in anger tend to value performance & reliability and a good deal more.
The current 14"/16" MBP's are a return to form designed to perform reliability with adequate cooling for the vast majority of use cases.
Q-6
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Would you agree that the 2016 MBPs were poor in design compared to the prior generation? I disagree that it is just optics that the M1/M2 MBPs are thicker than the prior generation. Of course energy efficiency plays a role in how thin a laptop can be while still relatively functional (i.e. not crippling). Therefore Apple applied common sense this time around by giving the M1/M2 MBPs the required thermal headroom. More thermal headroom (better cooling if you like) combined with a vastly more efficient processor. If Apple had followed the 2016 MBP playbook we would all be sitting here with even thinner laptops that would never be able to dissipate the heat properly, much like the current Airs. The current Airs are fine for most people, but cannot be considered a workhorse laptop for people with intensive workflows.
I disagree about the bold part. The MacBook Air (and the ill-fated 2016 MacBook) were about thin & light, the MacBook Pro (the hint is in the name) were meant for getting stuff done.
And no, Apple didn't play it safe, the people at Apple used their brains and built a laptop that gets stuff done. Why shave off a few 100 grams when all you get in return is a worse product? It just makes no sense at all.
There is a product in Apple's lineup that caters for your taste. It is called the MacBook Air. Again the hint is in the name.
In my view, the butterfly keyboard was not a design failure because it was prone to getting dust stuck in the switches, but because there was no travel (thus poor ergonomics) and when typing on it it sounded like somebody pounding and abusing his or her laptop. The current keyboard is much better, but still slightly worse then the pre-2016 MBPs. Much in the same way as the current standalone keyboards are worse than their wired predecessors. I still have 3 of those (one second hand recently obtained just in case) and am holding on to them for dear life.
P.s. To be fair the current MBP keyboards are better than their standalone counterparts nowadays.
No, I do not consider them to be poor in design. They improved the cooling system, allowing them to dissipate the same amount of heat as the previous generation using less body volume, and they introduced universal I/O. The only thing I’d agree was a regression for the sake of thinness was the reduction in battery size.
The 2016 is cursed because it introduced so many features that didn’t survive the rest of time. Touch Bar, never caught on. Butterfly keyboard. The performance aspect is the most ridiculous IMO because it’s objectively untrue. The 2016 model could sustain 70 watts of continuous CPU+GPU power, more than any previous MBP. Sure, it had problems with later Intel CPUs (just like 95% of gaming laptops did). You see, people say that the 2016 sacrificed performance and thermals, but they only say it because it’s thin. It’s not a rational claim as it’s not backed up by empirical data.
Again, the 2016 model had absolutely adequate cooling for hardware it was designed for. Why do you mention the air? It’s a completely different type of machine with very different design goal. The 2016 chassis has 5-6x thermal performance of the Air.
This is a baseless conjecture. Going by the data Apple could put an M2 Max into a 2016 chassis without any performance loss, simply because it uses Jess power at its peak than the 2016 hardware. So yea, they could have made it thinner. The main reason why they didn’t is because the users negatively associate thinner with lower performance. So they made it two mm thicker and also made it appear more blocky. But the design of the latest MBP is still pretty much thin and light. And its cooling system is vastly over-specced for the hardware, which is first such decision for Apple. Usually they match these things very precisely.
One caveat though: these laptops feature a miniLED display that consumes tremendous amount of power at full brightness. The display alone can draw up to 50 watts, maybe more. So at least part of the cooling and power system had to be beefed up to support that. I also suppose that this is where much of the weight increase comes from - the display assembly alone is heavy. And of course, the bigger chassis gives Apple the option to increase the power consumption for faster hardware in future models.
Clearly you've never sat next to a developer running a 2019 MBP 16" at full throttle. Very unpleasant and then I am putting it mildly. So no, the cooling was not fit for purpose, it was form-over-function all the way. The keyboard was simply a disaster, again form-over-function. Let's not talk about the Touch Bar, how could Apple even consider this? The only thing it got ever going for it is that it looked nice. Apple made a mistake and recognised this, thankfully for all of us.
I suggest we agree to disagree, since we are that far apart.
And again you are playing bait and switch. The problem with the 2019” model was the Intel CPU and not the cooling system. Put a current-gen Raptor Lake HX into the 2021 16” chassis and it would struggle too. The difference is that the Intel CPU will spike to 90W any time you open a spreadsheet and an M2 Max peaks power consumption is 40W.
In terms of actual cooling capacity, there is very little difference between the 2019 16” model and the 2021 16” model. The 2019” chassis was designed to enable 60W continuous operation of the CPU, but the max power draw of M2 Max is only 40 watts. The 2019” model was able to sustain around 80watts of continuous CPU+GPU operation, same as the 2021” model. Both will be very audible at this power level.
And it’s not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing. It’s a matter of basic empirical facts. I have used all of those models professionally over many years and I have tested their thermals extensively. The numbers I give you are not some random guesses, they are actual measurements done on the actual hardware side-by side. I still have all of these models in my office. If you want, I would be happy to run some concrete tests for you once I get back from holidays.
Your argument literally makes no sense. The 2016 MBPs where not designed for M1/M2 chipsets, they where designed for the hot-running Intel CPUs. Hence Apple should have increased the cooling capacity, something that the designers were reluctant to do. How that is not a flawed design is beyond me. Pretty straightforward I would have thought.
The 2012 15" QC MBPs were also running extremely hot and I for one waited for the late 2013 model before upgrading. Those laptops where already over the limit of what Apple should have done. Luckily for Apple the subsequent Intel CPUs were available in more efficient (lower power) versions and the design survived.
Edit: spelling.
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And they were absolutely adequate for the hardware they shipped with, look up the benchmarks for the 2016 model. It performed as well as any gaming or workstation laptop with the same CPU at the time. Where is the evidence of diminished thermals and performanc?
This I just don’t follow. These laptops are designed for 45W TDP and perform perfectly fine for 45W TDP. Hardly Apples fault that Intel designed themselves into a corner and started mislabeling their CPUs. Later Intel mobile chips were still sold as 45W parts, but could draw as much as 120 watts. Current Intel mobile parts even go up to 160W. Are you seriously suggesting that a laptop should be designed for this kind of thermals? Just a few year ago this was a multi-socket workstation.
Besides, laptops that can properly handle the recent i9 are literally twice as thick as the M-series 16” and have a battery life of 3-4 hours. Are you really suggesting that Apple should have released this kind of machine in 2017?
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Your train of thought really falls apart when you start quoting Intel TDPs as a reason for poor cooling. Are you seriously believing that Apple as one of Intel's largest customers relies on Intel's TDPs for designing hardware when it is public knowledge for forever and a day that these numbers are completely meaningless and that Intel actually produced some Apple specific CPUs? Right then ...
So here’s the thing, and it’s basically a repeat of a lot of this thread: no they didnt. The MK weighs so much because it has weights to keep it balanced. That’s how the mechanism can work at all. It allowed for the functional design they wanted (and it’s rather nice, I’m typing this on the MK on my iPA right now). The weight is how they got the design without compromising usability.
FWIW They produced Apple specific SKUs based on their existing or nearly released lineups and binning when releasing chips, they didnt produce whole chip designs targeted at Apple’s use-cases.
Nope. That’s just a design mistake they copied from Microsoft, which only proves that a tablet should never try to mimic a laptop.
Point taken, I stand corrected. The point I am making is that Apple was hardly some customer that would take Intel's CPUs with the product sheet in hand and just look up the TDP to design its products around. Apple would have intimate knowledge of each CPU (type) that ever ended up in one of its laptops.
Yes, but Apple also didn’t want to make 3cm thick laptops that weighted like a brick. In fact, they wanted to stay in the thin and light category so much that they decided to commit to a risky plan of rolling their own hardware 😉
And btw, those i9 do reach their advertised performance and operating parameters with 45W. It’s just that if you give them a desktop-class cooling they will perform like a desktop CPU (because that’s what they are essentially - a slightly down locked desktop CPU). The entire debate only started because some thick gaming laptops threw desktop-class cooling at them and got 20% higher performance. Ultimately the fault is Intels who just kept selling same cores but clicking them higher.
Thank (insert your favourite diety here) that Yve is gone then! Otherwise we end up with just slightly better products when we could have had much better products. His vision was flawed and let's hope he never returns.
MacBook Pro as a versatile thin and light laptop was first and foremost Jobs vision. The current 14” and 16” models still follow that vision. High-performance PC laptops have 50-60% higher body volume…
Again, the 16” MBP is just 10% larger (volume-wise) than the 2016 model. And most of that comes from the display assembly. The difference in thickness is merely a single millimeter- less than 4%.
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Not sure why you are comparing the 2016 to the AS Macs, as I was talking about the changes from the 2015 MBP to the 2016 MBP, which the 2016 was more expensive, while reducing functionality and reliability over the 2015.
But, if you want to compare the 2016 to AS MBPs, your comparison is flawed, as you are comparing an entry level 2016 13" MBP to the higher tier 2021 14" MBP.
The comparison for the entry level MBP would be the $1,499 2016 13" MBP to the $1,299 2020 MBP, which was cheaper.
If you wanted to compare the 2016 MBP against the AS redesign, a closer comparison would be the $2,399 2016 15" MBP to either the $1,999 2021 14" MBP or 16" for $2,499.
The 2021 14" MBP is a lot cheaper than the 2016 15" and if you want to use the cost of the even higher tier 16" for the comparison, adjusted for inflation, it is still significantly cheaper than the 2016 15", and you get a larger display, and better, overall design.
The AS MBP redesign was a course correction from the horribly designed Late 2016-era MBPs. Good on Apple for having the courage to do so.
It should be. The designer designed a production design MBP that was more expensive, less reliable, and had less functionality than the previous model.
If the objective is to make a Prosumer laptop reasonably thin and light, but without compromising on functionality, and reliability, all while keeping prices competitive, and the designer doesn't do that, I would think that the designer, at least in part, should share some of the responsibility of that.
I don't know how much of this was true, but I remember reading that the new butterfly design was a product of making the overall laptop size thinner.
Again, I don't mind making a laptop thinner, as long as the impact on the price, reliability, and functionality of it is minimal.
While it is thinner, the 2016 MBP end up being a more expensive, less reliable and having less functionality of its predecessor. Those are compromises that are not worth the thinness gained, imo.