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MacBook Pro, Late 2016 EU Owners

Just got mine (yay!). Reinstalling the OS now (both because people say it fixes SMC glitches, and i need a case-sensitive FS)
 
npreq said:
Just got mine (yay!). Reinstalling the OS now (both because people say it fixes SMC glitches, and i need a case-sensitive FS)
Click to expand...

yeah i had glitches, did clean install and SMC reset with the ctrl-alt-shift method. and havent noticed any glitches after that
 
My MBP was delivered just after 3pm today! Just finishing off getting everything set-up... still have a few applications to download and install and my music library to move over :)
 
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I think productivity has increase using this machine because of the speed and the touchbar actually.

Although today I had a kernel panic which is concerning

And just now when unlocking my Mac with my watch it starting to unlock then the screen went black with cursor and then it rebooted :/

Lastly since stopping using fullscreen windows I haven't seen any red graphics glitches.
 
So it's about time I joined this thread. I've had half the day intensely using the 13" BTO.
  • It's a really nice build
  • The keyboard is nice (but I already knew this, I spent some time at the Berlin Apple Store last week typing on one)
  • I have yet to find a good use for the Touch Bar and find I'm accidentally clearing out text or cancelling modal dialogs way too easily, especially if I'm trying to press tilde (~). I removed Safari's tab preview control immediately, who seriously thought that was a good use of the Touch Bar? I'm finding it too distracting that I'm testing keeping it on the Control Strip only (which then means I paid 300€ for a digital version of the media keys etc - hardly worth it). I'm a pro-user and using the keyboard for a lot, including memorised shortcuts (doesn't every "Pro" learn these?). I think the rule of thumb will be if you're a heavy Alfred kind of user, the Touch Bar will seem like this inherent waste of time except for those hunt-and-peck typists.
  • I don't like that I can't quickly reduce volumes through multiple-taps of the volume up/down physical button. I know you can press and drag to move sliders, and to me that's a concession that Apple's UX wasn't thought out so greatly here, that your finger moves a slider 5cm to the left of your finger. Imagine if touch input on the iPhone / iPad was that inaccurate... The only way to solve this is to make the touch bar always show the control strip.
  • FileVault is on, and no glitches (why are people suggesting they turn this security feature off?). I've had it enabled for years and the performance hit is minimal. Well actually, one glitch - my profile picture on the boot screen doesn't appear and uses a really low-res placeholder, and I'm not sure why.
  • I'll probably survive with the port situation, as I'll really only ever have headphones and power when I'm away from desk plugged in. Just glad the 3.5mm port is still around (for now).
  • Speed-wise, compiling is not really too much of a difference from my maxed out 13" MBP Late 2012 machine, but I kind of knew that given the processor differences. Sometimes it even feels slower, but I'll do a side-by-side clean build to see later. The extra RAM is helping app-switching a lot though, and the SSD definitely seems to make browsing large folders/folders with large files fast.
  • Speakers are a bit clearer and definitely louder, but nothing to really call home about. I have both laptops here running Spotify and I'm using Spotify's neat little external speaker routing to compare.
  • I miss that little space above the trackpad and the spacebar, where I often rested my right-thumb. Now the trackpad (which is huge, but so far not proved annoying) is just a few mm's away from the spacebar. Maybe that was already gone on MBP's since 2012.
  • Touch ID with 1Password is probably the best thing ever. Touch ID in general is really useful when it allows you to use it.
  • Battery life on first cycle (I always do a battery calibration) is around 5-6 hours. Hoping that's going to improve, as I would love a 10hr machine but I really don't think with all the compiling I do, that I'll ever reach it. Apple doesn't really mention running battery calibrations anymore, but you can find the process detailed at https://www.lifewire.com/calibrate-macbook-air-battery-2260856
 
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jonyiveswhiteroom said:
So it's about time I joined this thread. I've had half the day intensely using the 13" BTO.
  • It's a really nice build
  • The keyboard is nice (but I already knew this, I spent some time at the Berlin Apple Store last week typing on one)
  • I have yet to find a good use for the Touch Bar and find I'm accidentally clearing out text or cancelling modal dialogs way too easily, especially if I'm trying to press tilde (~). I removed Safari's tab preview control immediately, who seriously thought that was a good use of the Touch Bar? I'm finding it too distracting that I'm testing keeping it on the Control Strip only (which then means I paid 300€ for a digital version of the media keys etc - hardly worth it). I'm a pro-user and using the keyboard for a lot, including memorised shortcuts (doesn't every "Pro" learn these?). I think the rule of thumb will be if you're a heavy Alfred kind of user, the Touch Bar will seem like this inherent waste of time except for those hunt-and-peck typists.
  • I don't like that I can't quickly reduce volumes through multiple-taps of the volume up/down physical button. I know you can press and drag to move sliders, and to me that's a concession that Apple's UX wasn't thought out so greatly here, that your finger moves a slider 5cm to the left of your finger. Imagine if touch input on the iPhone / iPad was that inaccurate... The only way to solve this is to make the touch bar always show the control strip.
  • FileVault is on, and no glitches (why are people suggesting they turn this security feature off?). I've had it enabled for years and the performance hit is minimal. Well actually, one glitch - my profile picture on the boot screen doesn't appear and uses a really low-res placeholder, and I'm not sure why.
  • I'll probably survive with the port situation, as I'll really only ever have headphones and power when I'm away from desk plugged in. Just glad the 3.5mm port is still around (for now).
  • Speed-wise, compiling is not really too much of a difference from my maxed out 13" MBP Late 2012 machine, but I kind of knew that given the processor differences. Sometimes it even feels slower, but I'll do a side-by-side clean build to see later. The extra RAM is helping app-switching a lot though, and the SSD definitely seems to make browsing large folders/folders with large files fast.
  • Speakers are a bit clearer and definitely louder, but nothing to really call home about. I have both laptops here running Spotify and I'm using Spotify's neat little external speaker routing to compare.
  • I miss that little space above the trackpad and the spacebar, where I often rested my right-thumb. Now the trackpad (which is huge, but so far not proved annoying) is just a few mm's away from the spacebar. Maybe that was already gone on MBP's since 2012.
  • Touch ID with 1Password is probably the best thing ever. Touch ID in general is really useful when it allows you to use it.
  • Battery life on first cycle (I always do a battery calibration) is around 5-6 hours. Hoping that's going to improve, as I would love a 10hr machine but I really don't think with all the compiling I do, that I'll ever reach it. Apple doesn't really mention running battery calibrations anymore, but you can find the process detailed at https://www.lifewire.com/calibrate-macbook-air-battery-2260856
Click to expand...

Great review. Being a Developer myself I totally agree with all your points. I'm a huge Quicksilver user and at this point the touchbar is more of a nuisance than an added value. I can't even imagine what developers could do to make this actually usable. I believe the only case I see use is scrubbing through videos, that I find useful.

I actually disagree in regards to the speakers. I think they are a huge step up in regards to previous generations, as well as the screen which was my biggest surprise since when placed next to each other one can see a clear difference.

Interesting you mentioned the space between the trackpad and the spacebar key. My finger always rests there and at this point I'm not exactly sure how to type properly on this keyboard. The thing is that the way I press space is more a diagonal movement which is not allowed since there's no space to rest the thumb. I really struggle to understand why Apple had to make this gigantic trackpad. I thought that the Apple pencil would work on this, but not even that, so what's the point?
 
Hello owners of the late 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, could you all please do me a favour, there's been some concerns with a rattle noise with the new MacBook Pros when they are tilted/shaked, could you please try it and see if it affects you, I just spent a massive amount of money on one and wouldn't like to be affected.
Thank you very much
 
My MPB should hopefully be arriving tomorrow. I've seen a lot of posts about reinstalling the OS before I set the machine up. What's the best way to do this, there are a few conflicting posts on this thread. Some have said that I should erase the disk first and some just say to install it over the top of the existing OS?
 
Eliottjames said:
My MPB should hopefully be arriving tomorrow. I've seen a lot of posts about reinstalling the OS before I set the machine up. What's the best way to do this, there are a few conflicting posts on this thread. Some have said that I should erase the disk first and some just say to install it over the top of the existing OS?
Click to expand...

Erase and install on top, super easy to do
 
When I received mine, it had SIP disabled. I did a NVRAM/SMC reset for good measure. This has activated SIP. Then I ran some benchmarks to check if everything was normal (i.e. like other benchmarks I've been reading about). Finally, I reinstalled Sierra (cmd+alt+r) then Disk Utility to format the drive (careful to pick the right one :D) and finally installing Sierra - fresh. During the installation, I chose to transfer my information from my Time Machine. This will be taking 5-7h because I have some data... So far, so good.
 
Grolubao said:
Great review. Being a Developer myself I totally agree with all your points. I'm a huge Quicksilver user and at this point the touchbar is more of a nuisance than an added value. I can't even imagine what developers could do to make this actually usable. I believe the only case I see use is scrubbing through videos, that I find useful.

I actually disagree in regards to the speakers. I think they are a huge step up in regards to previous generations, as well as the screen which was my biggest surprise since when placed next to each other one can see a clear difference.

Interesting you mentioned the space between the trackpad and the spacebar key. My finger always rests there and at this point I'm not exactly sure how to type properly on this keyboard. The thing is that the way I press space is more a diagonal movement which is not allowed since there's no space to rest the thumb. I really struggle to understand why Apple had to make this gigantic trackpad. I thought that the Apple pencil would work on this, but not even that, so what's the point?
Click to expand...

I think it would entirely depend on the kind of music you play, it's better, but the sound coming out of my portable Bose SoundLink II is way better. Doesn't really bother me anyway as I have high-end headphones I use for music, the only thing the inbuilt speakers will be useful for are the occasional video and sound-effects.

I forgot to mention the screen, you're right. It's really a stunning display.

You still use QS? That was the app that convinced me to switch to a Mac when I had a hackintosh, but Alfred is so much better. The clipboard support is worth it alone - super useful while moving blocks of code around and refactoring.
 
One day of usage mostly spent on migrating stuff (I couldn't use the migration assistant)
  • I absolutely adore the screen. Coming over from a non-retina 2011, this is pure poetry. Not only the resolution, but the colors. The blur is gone, and I can go back to using decently-sized fonts (had to bump it up to 14-16 before)
  • I can live with the keyboard, although i mainly hear it, and not feel it. That's good enough for me, but I can see people hating it for a reason.
  • Touchpad is ok, didn't have problems with palm rejection yet. I wish that force touch gimmick could be used for right click, but I guess it'd be too error prone? The faking of the pressing is uncanny, gotta admit that, and I force touch just to see/feel the trick again. It really DOES feel like I'm pressing it in!
  • Touchbar is fun to play with, i finally figured out, after all those years how to use emoji, so I guess thanks for that apple? The support likes to "disconnect" frequently, I guess that's the maturity of the support. However, same as @jonyiveswhiteroom it bothered me a couple of time that I didn't have immediate volume control.
  • Had a few graphical glitches - in 2-3 different occasions the screen would flash to black for no apparent reason. Stopped after a couple of seconds. The drivers are garbage as usual.
  • Didn't enable FV just yet, but will
  • Didn't have any problems with adapters as of now. Tried USB-A -> usb-c, gigabit ethernet and connecting a Nexus 5X. And it rapid charges my 5X
  • The wifi stability is kinda garbage at the moment. Iperf3 shows me extreme variations on packet loss, however I'm not sure if it's the driver in the mac, a garbage Chinese chip (it's not a broadcom anymore!), problems in LEDE and ath10k or just the consequence of using VHT80. Or maybe it's the damn p2p mode mucking things up. I'll investigate this more as time goes on since it's critical to me. I'd advise against playing ping-sensitive games on this.
  • Speakers are nice, but the subs get limited after a certain volume is reached, and I'm genuinely scared of burning them out, as people here complained that they can do that, and do.
  • Thermals seem to be ok, but I didn't push it yet. Maybe i'll play with shadertoy tomorrow.
Edit : I claimed apple doesn't use broadcom chips anymore, yet in system profiler i now see
Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.21.171.47.1a8). When looking at the ifixt teardown I can't see a bcm chip there, and the 13 inch didn't have one either. I'm not really sure what's inside here..

Edit2 : It looks to be a bcm4360 https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless-connectivity/wireless-lan/bcm4360
 
Last edited:
npreq said:
One day of usage mostly spent on migrating stuff (I couldn't use the migration assistant)
  • I absolutely adore the screen. Coming over from a non-retina 2011, this is pure poetry. Not only the resolution, but the colors. The blur is gone, and I can go back to using decently-sized fonts (had to bump it up to 14-16 before)
  • I can live with the keyboard, although i mainly hear it, and not feel it. That's good enough for me, but I can see people hating it for a reason.
  • Touchpad is ok, didn't have problems with palm rejection yet. I wish that force touch gimmick could be used for right click, but I guess it'd be too error prone? The faking of the pressing is uncanny, gotta admit that, and I force touch just to see/feel the trick again. It really DOES feel like I'm pressing it in!
  • Touchbar is fun to play with, i finally figured out, after all those years how to use emoji, so I guess thanks for that apple? The support likes to "disconnect" frequently, I guess that's the maturity of the support. However, same as @jonyiveswhiteroom it bothered me a couple of time that I didn't have immediate volume control.
  • Had a few graphical glitches - in 2-3 different occasions the screen would flash to black for no apparent reason. Stopped after a couple of seconds. The drivers are garbage as usual.
  • Didn't enable FV just yet, but will
  • Didn't have any problems with adapters as of now. Tried USB-A -> usb-c, gigabit ethernet and connecting a Nexus 5X. And it rapid charges my 5X
  • The wifi stability is kinda garbage at the moment. Iperf3 shows me extreme variations on packet loss, however I'm not sure if it's the driver in the mac, a garbage Chinese chip (it's not a broadcom anymore!), problems in LEDE and ath10k or just the consequence of using VHT80. Or maybe it's the damn p2p mode mucking things up. I'll investigate this more as time goes on since it's critical to me. I'd advise against playing ping-sensitive games on this.
  • Speakers are nice, but the subs get limited after a certain volume is reached, and I'm genuinely scared of burning them out, as people here complained that they can do that, and do.
  • Thermals seem to be ok, but I didn't push it yet. Maybe i'll play with shadertoy tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Interesting you mention the speakers since I've found the same that sometimes I'm scared that they will burn out. I suppose that Apple should be able to avoid that via software (limiting the output)
 
:(

Screen Shot 2016-11-29 at 02.06.43.png
 
Grolubao said:
That's actually not bad, mine is way worse than that
Click to expand...
Literally the lightest use possible. 6 hours isn't enough for me, my 12" MacBook got more than that! Hopefully the replacement I eventually find will be better. I will also try a fresh macOS install on that too.
 
npreq said:
One day of usage mostly spent on migrating stuff (I couldn't use the migration assistant)
  • I absolutely adore the screen. Coming over from a non-retina 2011, this is pure poetry. Not only the resolution, but the colors. The blur is gone, and I can go back to using decently-sized fonts (had to bump it up to 14-16 before)
  • I can live with the keyboard, although i mainly hear it, and not feel it. That's good enough for me, but I can see people hating it for a reason.
  • Touchpad is ok, didn't have problems with palm rejection yet. I wish that force touch gimmick could be used for right click, but I guess it'd be too error prone? The faking of the pressing is uncanny, gotta admit that, and I force touch just to see/feel the trick again. It really DOES feel like I'm pressing it in!
  • Touchbar is fun to play with, i finally figured out, after all those years how to use emoji, so I guess thanks for that apple? The support likes to "disconnect" frequently, I guess that's the maturity of the support. However, same as @jonyiveswhiteroom it bothered me a couple of time that I didn't have immediate volume control.
  • Had a few graphical glitches - in 2-3 different occasions the screen would flash to black for no apparent reason. Stopped after a couple of seconds. The drivers are garbage as usual.
  • Didn't enable FV just yet, but will
  • Didn't have any problems with adapters as of now. Tried USB-A -> usb-c, gigabit ethernet and connecting a Nexus 5X. And it rapid charges my 5X
  • The wifi stability is kinda garbage at the moment. Iperf3 shows me extreme variations on packet loss, however I'm not sure if it's the driver in the mac, a garbage Chinese chip (it's not a broadcom anymore!), problems in LEDE and ath10k or just the consequence of using VHT80. Or maybe it's the damn p2p mode mucking things up. I'll investigate this more as time goes on since it's critical to me. I'd advise against playing ping-sensitive games on this.
  • Speakers are nice, but the subs get limited after a certain volume is reached, and I'm genuinely scared of burning them out, as people here complained that they can do that, and do.
  • Thermals seem to be ok, but I didn't push it yet. Maybe i'll play with shadertoy tomorrow.
Edit : I claimed apple doesn't use broadcom chips anymore, yet in system profiler i now see
Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.21.171.47.1a8). When looking at the ifixt teardown I can't see a bcm chip there, and the 13 inch didn't have one either. I'm not really sure what's inside here..

Edit2 : It looks to be a bcm4360 https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless-connectivity/wireless-lan/bcm4360
Click to expand...

Can say the wifi is very nice for me, fastest i ever had, i reach 430 mbit/s on wireless connection. And my connection is stated as up to 500 so probably get full speed without cable :)
[doublepost=1480404038][/doublepost]
Brookzy said:
:(

View attachment 675173
Click to expand...

I have the 15 inch and the estimated time shows 9 hours when webbrowsing :)
Did a clean install directly, and both smc and pram ram reset as the first thing when i got the computer
 
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