Jony Ive’s vision was killed today

[el-John-o]

On the level I think that more connectivity is a good thing.

The irony for me though is as an early adopter (2016 MacBook Pro), I’ve had 5 years to adjust to a USB-C only machine. I still chuckle when people talk about “dongles” because I haven’t used one for years. Over time I’ve just bought a USB-C-to-whatever cable for whatever I needed. External monitors for example use a USB-C to DisplayPort cable.

If I upgrade to one of these units I’m actually going to have to rethink some things because I often use all four USB-C ports. And I’d only get 3! I might use the SD card reader but I don’t think I’ll ever use the HDMI port.

 

[KPOM]

On the level I think that more connectivity is a good thing.

The irony for me though is as an early adopter (2016 MacBook Pro), I’ve had 5 years to adjust to a USB-C only machine. I still chuckle when people talk about “dongles” because I haven’t used one for years. Over time I’ve just bought a USB-C-to-whatever cable for whatever I needed. External monitors for example use a USB-C to DisplayPort cable.

If I upgrade to one of these units I’m actually going to have to rethink some things because I often use all four USB-C ports. And I’d only get 3! I might use the SD card reader but I don’t think I’ll ever use the HDMI port.

Yes. As I told people for the last 5 years, one way or another you can connect anything into any of the 4 ports. That’s not true with HDMI or SDXC, or USB-A (the other legacy port people have been clamoring for that thankfully Apple didn’t bring back).

I don’t need more than 2 TB ports so I don’t mind, but I do agree the MacBook Pro took a small step back by reintroducing the legacy ports.

 

[Arsenikdote]

Apple certainly won't take over the server market but the server market has already started moving to ARM. The largest cloud provider AWS already offers Linux VMs running on AWS designed ARM SoCs, the other major cloud providers are working on it. Docker now supports ARM based containers. It seems likely that AWS will migrate their own managed services to their ARM SoC. In two years, ARM could made significant inroads into the cloud hosted server market.

The original comment was: “By the time Intel catches up in 2 years, do you honestly think Apple will not have taken over the server market completely, and produced the M2Pro and M2ProMax, which will completely blow away the “1”.

I know that ARM exists in the server world but it is still a small percentage. Sure it is growing, but I don’t see ARM even getting to 25% in the next two years let alone Apple dominating that space

 

[the8thark]

My opinion?
Some people here are not considering portability vs portability.

The MBA is the ultra portable.
The MBP is more of a desk to desk machine.

Note well - the desk does not need power due to the good battery life. Other intel beefy desk to desk notebooks have abysmal battery life and need a power source to do work for any length of time.

Pros are not doing pro work sitting on a couch with an MBP on their crotch.

Though being able to just throw the MBP into a bag and not need a ton of extra dongles as well is a big selling point for pros.

 

[Melbourne Park]

My opinion?
Some people here are not considering portability vs portability.

The MBA is the ultra portable.
The MBP is more of a desk to desk machine.

Note well - the desk does not need power due to the good battery life. Other intel beefy desk to desk notebooks have abysmal battery life and need a power source to do work for any length of time.

Pros are not doing pro work sitting on a couch with an MBP on their crotch.

I think a lot of smaller operators do on site work, and use their notebooks away from their workplace quite a bit. I'm not sure to what extent though ... but it seems to me that lots of people have been prepared to buy the higher end Macbook Pros, and they'd be doing that because they benefit from the horsepower.

 

[8CoreWhore]

Unleashed from Jony Ives.

 

[RetroDan]

I always loved Jony's aesthetic sensibilities, and I do believe he made great choices during his tenure at Apple.

However, as has been mentioned before, these are not simply pieces of furniture or objets d'art that are merely to be looked at, these are tools that are intended to do things, and while I, again, adore Jony's designs from a visual appeal perspective, I think that he focused too much on appearance and not nearly enough on function.

I think his last great design was probably the 2012 MBP, non-Retina. Awash in contemporary ports, capable of handling pretty much anything at the time, light and elegant while still having a kick-ass screen and an excellent keyboard, as well as being upgradeable by the end user. Now THAT was a laptop.

The decision to eliminate Magsafe was a massive, foolish step backwards. So was Donglegate. I mean, yay for TB ports, but if he'd cut any more ports, he may as well have just slapped a hi-res screen onto a solid block of aluminum and called it a computer. And the Touch Bar, while a neat idea, wasn't really a game changer and took too much presence of mind to utilize, preventing it from being a seamless part of the experience and instead making it a feature that jolted you OUT of the experience. Do I think Touch Bar was a bad idea? Not at all - I just think that it wasn't as thoughtfully designed and integrated as it should have been.

Finally, the biggest issue I had with Jony was his insistence on 'slimmer, thinner, lighter' while cramming ever more power-hungry CPUs into a chassis that became less and less capable of dissipating the heat effectively. For all his genius, I just don't understand how he rationalized that decision - not just once, but multiple times.

I think that Apple performing what is sort of a reset to their last known good configuration design-wise while happily pairing it with their power-sipping M1 monster is the beginning of good things to come.

No, Apple's newest thing is not perfect. I truly don't understand the notch ideology, but it also doesn't bother me a lot. I'd much prefer that we go back to component modularity, but I also understand why that's not really feasible with the new architecture. And I hope that Apple gets their heads out of their collective behinds and gives us BootCamp again.

I'm genuinely excited about what's to come.

 

[Arsenikdote]

Though being able to just throw the MBP into a bag and not need a ton of extra dongles as well is a big selling point for pros.

I am a Pro in the sense that what I make using my laptop I am paid for. I don't make Hollywood movies or anything like that. However, I disagree that a big selling point for Pros is the ability to not have dongles. With all of the other gear I am carrying around I couldn't give two @!#$ about dongles. In fact I will take the flexibility of TB ports over designated ports any day as it allows me to configure my setup as the client needs present themselves.

I always loved Jony's aesthetic sensibilities, and I do believe he made great choices during his tenure at Apple.

However, as has been mentioned before, these are not simply pieces of furniture or objets d'art that are merely to be looked at, these are tools that are intended to do things, and while I, again, adore Jony's designs from a visual appeal perspective, I think that he focused too much on appearance and not nearly enough on function.

I think his last great design was probably the 2012 MBP, non-Retina. Awash in contemporary ports, capable of handling pretty much anything at the time, light and elegant while still having a kick-ass screen and an excellent keyboard, as well as being upgradeable by the end user. Now THAT was a laptop.

The decision to eliminate Magsafe was a massive, foolish step backwards. So was Donglegate. I mean, yay for TB ports, but if he'd cut any more ports, he may as well have just slapped a hi-res screen onto a solid block of aluminum and called it a computer. And the Touch Bar, while a neat idea, wasn't really a game changer and took too much presence of mind to utilize, preventing it from being a seamless part of the experience and instead making it a feature that jolted you OUT of the experience. Do I think Touch Bar was a bad idea? Not at all - I just think that it wasn't as thoughtfully designed and integrated as it should have been.

Finally, the biggest issue I had with Jony was his insistence on 'slimmer, thinner, lighter' while cramming ever more power-hungry CPUs into a chassis that became less and less capable of dissipating the heat effectively. For all his genius, I just don't understand how he rationalized that decision - not just once, but multiple times.

I think that Apple performing what is sort of a reset to their last known good configuration design-wise while happily pairing it with their power-sipping M1 monster is the beginning of good things to come.

No, Apple's newest thing is not perfect. I truly don't understand the notch ideology, but it also doesn't bother me a lot. I'd much prefer that we go back to component modularity, but I also understand why that's not really feasible with the new architecture. And I hope that Apple gets their heads out of their collective behinds and gives us BootCamp again.

I'm genuinely excited about what's to come.

I totally love what you wrote! I agree with 99% of it and feel like you have a great way of seeing both sides (which is rare here) and I just so happen to think you are right about how you think about it

The one thing I will disagree with is the TB ports and "donglegate" for the reasons mentioned just above.

 

[RetroDan]

I am a Pro in the sense that what I make using my laptop I am paid for. I don't make Hollywood movies or anything like that. However, I disagree that a big selling point for Pros is the ability to not have dongles. With all of the other gear I am carrying around I couldn't give two @!#$ about dongles. In fact I will take the flexibility of TB ports over designated ports any day as it allows me to configure my setup as the client needs present themselves.



I totally love what you wrote! I agree with 99% of it and feel like you have a great way of seeing both sides (which is rare here) and I just so happen to think you are right about how you think about it

The one thing I will disagree with is the TB ports and "donglegate" for the reasons mentioned just above.

The real problem with Donglegate isn't that it forced people to buy dongles. I don't in any sense believe that it was designed from the outset as a means to an end to artificially increase revenue, just a move that Apple did their best to capitalize on after the fact.

The issue I take with it is that it was prompted by Jony Ive's "always thinner" mandate, and that it allowed him further opportunities to explore this flawed design choice. It felt like such a kick in the balls - not only are you losing thermal dissipation, directly impacting performance and component lifespan, but now you have to shell out extra just to maintain functional compatibility with common devices that almost every user could be expected to own? Either decision was unpleasant, but together like that was definitely worse than either separately.

 

[Melbourne Park]

i don't think the touch bar came from Ive's. IMO it was purely marketing - the touchbar or multitouch bar - differentiated the more costly 15.4" Macbook from all other notebooks. It was another reason - offering something with huge potential for software developers to exploit - to get people to pay big dollars for the new and faster upper end Macbook. It wasn't available on anything else ...

My issue with the touchbar, is that it's unpredictable. It pops up with great stuff - but I never looked for it do so! But it might have suited power users who use just one piece of software.

Looking into the future, the best replacement for the touch bar would be a touch screen based touchpad, that could incorporate buttons and scripts attached to buttons, customised for software. So a touchpad that is also a computer screen.

I also think not having a touchscreen on a Macbook is bad. For my wife, the touch screen on her Windoze notebook is mandatory. Since she uses her iPad for a few hours a day, she loves being able to touch the screen on her HP Notebook... and she can in Windoze. When she's had my MBP, she keeps touching it's screen to do things. She hates the way the Apple screen doesn't work properly. But Apple don't provide the touch screen interface they pioneered on the iPhone and then the iPad on any of their notebooks. That's weird IMO and a technical failure. It seems to me that Apple Marketing has got in the way of providing the best tools to get things done.

 

[Arsenikdote]

i don't think the touch bar came from Ive's. IMO it was purely marketing - the touchbar or multitouch bar - differentiated the more costly 15.4" Macbook from all other notebooks. It was another reason - offering something with huge potential for software developers to exploit - to get people to pay big dollars for the new and faster upper end Macbook. It wasn't available on anything else ...

My issue with the touchbar, is that it's unpredictable. It pops up with great stuff - but I never looked for it do so! But it might have suited power users who use just one piece of software.

Looking into the future, the best replacement for the touch bar would be a touch screen based touchpad, that could incorporate buttons and scripts attached to buttons, customised for software.

I also think not having a touchscreen on a Macbook is bad. For my wife, the touch screen on her Windoze notebook is mandatory. Since she uses her iPad for a few hours a day, she loves being able to touch the screen ... and she can in Windoze. But Apple don't provide the interface they pioneered. That's weird IMO and a technical failure.

I don't think ANY screen other than the one in front of you is a good idea. Taking focus away from the screen to look down at another screen (Touch Bar or touchpad) is still not a good workflow.

I used an iPad Pro, to the best of my ability, as my "daily machine" for several months, just to see if I could get a desktop and the iPad Pro in lieu of also needing a laptop. I did this before iPadOS supported using a mouse. A HUGE takeaway for me was how uncomfortable holding my arm up to constantly touch the screen was. In addition, it always took more time than just using the mouse. Now that iPadOS supports using a mouse, I am sure my experience would be better if I tried again. But I would use the mouse instead of touching the screen because it is faster and easier in almost all my use cases. Maybe your wife has use case where your finger works better than a mouse and that works for her. But for average people the mouse is still the best input device for non-handheld devices. Apple has stated this for years and in my multi-month testing I would have to agree!

 

[Xand&Roby]

I’m a Pro, I spent years as a video editor in broadcasting tv channels, one of the two greatest broadcaster in my country.
I work every single day with 50 Mac Pro, a lot of Apple Cinema Display and, until 5 years ago, with tons of Betacams.
I’m a PowerBook G4 lover and used 2 of them upgraded by myself until 2015, ‘cause 12” is the only portable Mac I can understand, then I bought a 2015 1.1 MacBook 12” and in january 2020 a new 2019 gold MacBook 1.3 12”. I’m also a product designer, I hated Intel before Apple turning on it and hated MacIntel but I need a new 12” portable Mac in 2015, 10 years from Apple’s Intel switch. I’m a PowerPC lover, but time is time. I ? when read “MacBook Pro for Pro users” or “ 13” is light enough”. Pro users need a Mac Pro, nothing less (years ago there was a funny meme on G5 PowerBooks..), portable devices needs portability, right design, compactless (iPhone mini, 3,5”/4” old screens/one hand input), nothing more. Everything “right enough” isn’t enough, is just a compromise. If 12” Mac doesn’t return anymore future iPad mini (with miniled screen, more Mn power) will be my portable device, no more phone (if Apple finally built a stand alone Watch), Mac mini as home desktop.
PowerBook 12” and MacBook 12” are ones of the best portable Mac by Ive (cpu issues aren’t design matters, calls engineers for that), Ive (and the historical Apple design team) is one of the greatest computer design of our times and I’m honoured that I can spent my time with him products.
Apple fans hated Ive today? Who cares, this world is full of stupid people with an opinion.

 

[flapflapflap]

My only dislike is the notch.
My very first thought in seeing it was "Oh it's a thinner version of the polycarbonate MacBook!" Which to me is a good thing.

I'd substitute your use of 'visionary" with "crippling". Thin and limited ports is fine for things like MacBook and Air, NOT for Pro devices where people need to actually do work and get things done. Looking cool is NOT a primary point of a Pro device. Function is.

Now if they could just bring back the IR sensor and remote for presentations....

Not only is it thick, it’s ugly.

 

[Melbourne Park]

I’m a Pro, I spent years as a video editor in broadcasting tv channels, one of the two greatest broadcaster in my country.
I work every single day with 50 Mac Pro, a lot of Apple Cinema Display and, until 5 years ago, with tons of Betacams.
I’m a PowerBook G4 lover and used 2 of them upgraded by myself until 2015, ...

My G4 Titanium was badly designed - they did not use enough metal in it. The titanium was just way way too thin. They would split or tear in the support area around the screen (that's what happened to mine). Having the disc drive flexing under my right palm when I typed, meant the disc drive failed very early. I've still got that Titanium in my cupboard. I only used it for a couple of years - got the twin mirror door, which I am trying to get going again, but the intel Mac Pro 5,1 has been the best computer ever made IMO. Quiet, affordable when I bought mine new, powerful, upgradeable, long lasting.

The world's changing though. Perhaps the dream of interconnecting devices can substitute for the tower form factor. These new M Macbooks make it look as if its going to be possible, and maybe affordable. I'd like a cheaper Mac expandable desktop computer, or perhaps a high performing and cheap to expand Cube equivalent. But maybe these 16" can run almost as fast as a future Cube might, and they should have more utility being portable. Assuming they are built tough and it sounds like they might be.

 

[Melbourne Park]

Not only is it thick, it’s ugly.

Aesthetics is a personal thing.

Jony Ive’s vision was killed today

On the level I think that more connectivity is a good thing. The irony for me though is as an early adopter (2016 MacBook Pro), I’ve had 5 years to adjust to a USB-C only machine. I still chuckle when people talk about “dongles” because I haven’t used one for years. Over time I’ve just bought...

forums.macrumors.com

But - the screen is hinging way above the computer. With my 2017 MBP, the screen folds down, close to the level of the base of the computer. This means that if you dislodge the computer - which easily happens because the T3 port cable is very firmly attached (unlike the restored Magsafe magnetic connector) the macbook will fall to the ground, and its screen is highly vulnerable, because it will hit first (due to the screen area being heavier). The result of the design is that the thinnest and most vulnerable part of the Ive designed 2016 on MBP computer - the lower edge of its very thin screen - takes the blow and gets permanently bent.

This new design will have the computer base take that blow.

Hooray - it looks much tougher than my 2017 MBP. That appeals to not only my aesthetics, but to function.

 

[flapflapflap]

Aesthetics is a personal thing.

Jony Ive’s vision was killed today

On the level I think that more connectivity is a good thing. The irony for me though is as an early adopter (2016 MacBook Pro), I’ve had 5 years to adjust to a USB-C only machine. I still chuckle when people talk about “dongles” because I haven’t used one for years. Over time I’ve just bought...

forums.macrumors.com

But - the screen is hinging way above the computer. With my 2017 MBP, the screen folds down, close to the level of the base of the computer. This means that if you dislodge the computer - which easily happens because the T3 port cable is very firmly attached (unlike the restored Magsafe magnetic connector) the macbook will fall to the ground, and its screen is highly vulnerable, because it will hit first (due to the screen area being heavier). The result of the design is that the thinnest and most vulnerable part of the Ive designed 2016 on MBP computer - the lower edge of its very thin screen - takes the blow and gets permanently bent.

This new design will have the computer base take that blow.

Hooray - it looks much tougher than my 2017 MBP. That appeals to not only my aesthetics, but to function.

Have you looked at these photos?

 

[Melbourne Park]

I didn't click in. Its a small image on my screen.

But I looked at this:

4BF591F9-AE8D-42C0-B155-110510BFBFE0 by Melbourne Park, on Flickr

If you look at the left 16" MBP, the screen now hinges above the bottom of the casing.

Looking at your post by clicking on it, it looks like an older apple notebook.

Pictures don't tell the story do they!

 

[jjcs]

PowerBook 12” and MacBook 12” are ones of the best portable Mac by Ive (cpu issues aren’t design matters, calls engineers for that), Ive (and the historical Apple design team) is one of the greatest computer design of our times and I’m honoured that I can spent my time with him products.
Apple fans hated Ive today? Who cares, this world is full of stupid people with an opinion.

This is one reason engineers tend to not like "designers". They make poor choices for aesthetic reasons and expect the engineers to make it work anyway.

 

[Serban55]

Glad no butterfly keys
Glad that for just 1 usbC we got magsafe hdmi and sd card
Glad we have usbC on both sides

 

[matrix07]

Have you looked at these photos?

I look at those and I still think it's not ugly so yeah aesthetic is a personal thing alright.

 

[Wildkraut]

Not only is it thick, it’s ugly.

Crapy hinge?!

 

[tmoerel]

Crapy hinge?!

View attachment 1875407

Nope, what you are seeing there is the protective sheet that is still inside. Later in the video they remove it.

 

[Wildkraut]

Nope, what you are seeing there is the protective sheet that is still inside. Later in the video they remove it.

? Well, then huge gap clearance compared to current Apple devices.

 

[tmoerel]

? Well, then huge gap clearance compared to current Apple devices.

I will take a big gap any day. The older macbooks had their screens soo tight to the top case that the keys were rubbing on the screen when closed.

 

[Marshall73]

It’s a shame you lose a more useful high speed port to a low speed hdmi port and a card reader. it’s like having a crappy HDMI and card reader dongle permanently plugged in.