Better than they say: three things you need to make the next MacBook one of the best Apple laptops
This is, perhaps, a special form of weakness, but in the middle of spring, almost on the threshold of the release of the new generation MacBook that was expected then in June, I jumped into the last carriage of the train, from which the rest were about to go out and won the MacBook the current generation . The one that is without a fan, with one USB-C port for all occasions and a very bad publicity after the release.
The very idea of a MacBook - thin, light and without a built-in dust collector - captured me. But negative reviews immediately set up to be interested in the next generation. Therefore, I did not even remember about MacBook when I needed a new work computer. They became a 15-inch MacBook Pro - the wisest choice for a remotely working person, as it seemed to me.
Behind the noise around the gadgets, almost imperceptibly, as laptops approached perfection.
The choice was awful. For me, the Pro 15 "became a personal failure. To such an extent that, 2 months before the intended release of the next generation (which did not happen either in June or yesterday, September 12), I bought a pink MacBook. In the end, what should I fear his weakness, when is my most resource-intensive task, usually a browser? (Spoiler: in five months there was no reason to complain about its power).
Nothing special - except that the laptop for a freelancer turned out to be a freelance nightmare. At first I was surprised by the weight: yes, two kilograms in the backpack are felt - and not in 2018, but in a nostalgic 2007, when my old Toshiba in the case of plastic, thick as armor, was about the same time. The thin aluminum plate Pro 15 "already looked taken from the bullet-proof shields of the presidential guard.
But my main miscalculation was exactly what I chose for him: pleasing the space of the fifteen-inch screen, which was forgotten in the ultrabook era. Which in real life, especially in motion, turned to me with its polished gray ass. In any situation, a large MacBook Pro always turned out to be slightly larger than it would be ideal at that moment: on the plane, in the taxi, and at the cafe table — he touched, rested and hung. The supposed convenience of working behind a large screen on the road turned out to be almost completely impossible on the road in principle.
The weight of the MacBook is 12 "- just 0.91 kg, exactly twice as light as the MacBook Pro 15". It absolutely dissolves in the backpack, and as if it does not add a gram. And this in all senses turned out to be a big relief.
After a week of use, it became clear that the MacBook 12 is definitely not a failure. And that it is absolutely necessary for him in the next generation to turn into real success. This is of course my list, and, of course, I don't know if it will coincide with my vision Apple. We will find out later - I hope in November.
One of the most unpleasant sensations that struck me when meeting a MacBook was its display. The impression that he did not get more than 12 inches just because of his own miniature style, completely dispelled the wide black bars around the screen - like those of the cheapest netbooks. It turned out to be a 12-inch laptop in an “outgrowth” case. A 13-inch screen in the same dimensions and, perhaps, the same case - it is not even an upgrade, but simply a return to the natural course of things.
But who broke it? Marketers, of course. Apparently, they decided that the emergence of a slightly crippled new model would give a head start when the MacBook Air was still alive. And of course, there will be an opportunity in the next generation to “grandiosely upgrade” the screen, saving on the new case.
Now that Air is a classification from the tablet line, you can already finish the number by removing the rabbit from the hat — all the same, his ears stuck out from the very beginning.
Thus, we will have a new line of standard-sized laptops - which is already a good thing, since their dimensions will not increase.
It so happened that I lost the password when I unlocked my laptop long before it appeared on the MacBook Pro Touch ID. Perhaps the only spoon of honey in the barrel with the Touch Bar did not work, because before it I was used to good things on a Lenovo ThinkPad with a fingerprint scanner.
Moreover, Touch ID on laptops, as well as on iPhones, requires you to log in with a password for the first time after a reboot, which Lenovo has never demanded from the moment you set up input by fingerprint. Because of this, I even once forgot my system password. And I would love to forget it, but Pro stands out.
A MacBook and all - a return to manual labor. However, I do not think that this handicraft will survive the change of generations. Surely many are waiting for this - and, for sure, many are waiting for Touch ID. But, in my opinion, Face ID is much more logical. And that's why.
At the same time, the Face ID laptop will fit with even smaller losses than on the smartphone - there is enough space on the MacBooks for the sensor next to the webcam to do without a monobrow transplant.
Raise your hands, how many more owners of iPhones can not forget the 3.5 mm? And how many owners of androids, who, honestly, can not understand who and why still drills this strange hole in their gadgets?
Anyway, parting with the audio output on the MacBook seems to me to be the one with no alternative (although, again, no one promised) solution.
Firstly, Apple is unlikely to surprise us with a complete lack of connectors.
Secondly, Apple is unlikely to surprise us with the preservation of a single USB port
. Third, if my hypothesis is true about the current screen size of the MacBook, which istoo low for Prior , and the MacBook 2 will retain its predecessor case - there is no place to drill new connectors there.
So, the new connector can appear only in the place of the old one. And replacing the orthodox 3.5-mm audio output with a more universal (and not contradicting to using it for connecting headphones) Type-C port is not only an alternative, but also a necessary option.
Apple very boldly implements its strategy with respect to ports and connectors, so we can’t moan about losing one port or another, they say, all the rest is fine, but without this you can’t be sure - you can only if you don’t see its final goal: rejection of wires and connectors principle. Data transmission over the air is progressing faster than electricity, but when wireless charging comes up too, the USB-C connectors, whose information transport functions have long been duplicated by wireless protocols for this moment and that only play the role of charging, will come to an end.
However, Apple does not do this flawlessly.
First, saving a proprietary Lightning port with the presence and use of USB-C makes no sense other than a ritual sacrifice to the spirit of Steve Jobs, which should continue to delight users, who are still buying separate wires for their iPhones and AirPods. In this case, perhaps, the last port before their complete disappearance is still not Type-C, but Lightning or its replacement, God forbid.
Secondly - and you can’t explain this by pagan rituals - Apple is strangely inconsistent in bundling its laptops. Both MacBook Pro and MacBook come with USB-C connectors only, but the Lightning adapter bundled with both laptops comes from regular USB. There is no adapter from USB to USB-C. It is hard to say what would be more strange: its absence and the impossibility of connecting the adapter to Lightning to the laptop with which it was bundled, or its presence, allowing it to complete this strange chain.
As is the case with the rejection of connectors, Apple's intention to invent a new input method to replace the good old keyboard is well known. But they are moving towards this goal from two ends: from one end they are busy inventing the replacement of the current keyboard, from the other they are moving towards the destruction of the existing one. And while the progress of the inventors is not so obvious, the progress of the destroyers is obvious. At this rate, we will remain without a keyboard until we get its alternative.
The disabled Bar in the MacBook Pro was added to the Touch Bar instead of the function keys and an incredibly brittle mechanism, the keys knocking like miners' helmets on strike.
In the MacBook, on-site function keys - and they are much more convenient to use even to control music, than the glamorous and useless Touch Bar allows, but the left Shift is halved. Take a look above the Shift key on your keyboard. If you are right handed, then your left hand is always somewhere near it, this is a fundamentally important key. Now imagine that it became two times shorter (one and a half times shorter than Caps Lock!), And in the place where the Shift key used to stretch - now there are other keys that will permanently cripple the text while you break your reflexes.
In MacBook 2, there will certainly be new experiments with the keyboard. I hope this time - something from the category "we realized that we would live with her for a long time, and this time we really improved something a little."
And I would also like for the new MacBooks to abandon the touchpad recessed into the case. I never leave the feeling that along the perimeter, the touchpad collects dirt along the walls like under the nails of a homeless person. But it can still be experienced, especially if the other changes are true according to this list. In the end, now all this is not there, but I still carry my MacBook everywhere with me, and at home I work for Pro - solid, almost like a desktop.
If my ideas about the logical, reasonable, beautiful and necessary for implementation in the next generation coincide with the ideas of Apple, then the new MacBook with the screen almost full cover, Face ID, without a fan and a 3.5 mm connector will be as close as possible to the ideal compact laptop . Because progress is developing so: before moving on to the next level - to charge without wires, to enter without a keyboard, to a picture without a display - what we have left on the previous one, should be almost perfect.
PS Slightly absurd way, the "big" MacBook Pro suddenly began to look - literally! - much more advantageous in my eyes when I, in the second year of operation, noticed that all this time I was working behind a display, scaled to a resolution of 1680x1050 - and changed it under 1920x1200.
Less than a year and a half before my eyes, that very amount of working space, for which Fifteen was taken.
So now it also looks better - for the first time I felt Retina , which, like any hi-res, was born to reign in small things, literally: the usual interface elements, which decreased after the change of scale, but retained their crystal clarity, caught my eye change points on contact lenses - as if sharpness was twisted to the maximum.
The very idea of a MacBook - thin, light and without a built-in dust collector - captured me. But negative reviews immediately set up to be interested in the next generation. Therefore, I did not even remember about MacBook when I needed a new work computer. They became a 15-inch MacBook Pro - the wisest choice for a remotely working person, as it seemed to me.
Behind the noise around the gadgets, almost imperceptibly, as laptops approached perfection.
The choice was awful. For me, the Pro 15 "became a personal failure. To such an extent that, 2 months before the intended release of the next generation (which did not happen either in June or yesterday, September 12), I bought a pink MacBook. In the end, what should I fear his weakness, when is my most resource-intensive task, usually a browser? (Spoiler: in five months there was no reason to complain about its power).
A week for me is a moment of maximum clarity regarding the advantages and disadvantages of any new technology. When memories, habits and reflexes from the previous gadget are still fresh, but have already found out about the new, everything that is enough for you until the next update - and this balance has not yet begun to blur with new habits beyond which it will not be possible to distinguish between “convenient” and “endured” ". The same happened with the MacBook - over the summer my thoughts did not change, and my impressions were dulled by the habit.
What happened to the MacBook Pro 15 "?
Nothing special - except that the laptop for a freelancer turned out to be a freelance nightmare. At first I was surprised by the weight: yes, two kilograms in the backpack are felt - and not in 2018, but in a nostalgic 2007, when my old Toshiba in the case of plastic, thick as armor, was about the same time. The thin aluminum plate Pro 15 "already looked taken from the bullet-proof shields of the presidential guard.
But my main miscalculation was exactly what I chose for him: pleasing the space of the fifteen-inch screen, which was forgotten in the ultrabook era. Which in real life, especially in motion, turned to me with its polished gray ass. In any situation, a large MacBook Pro always turned out to be slightly larger than it would be ideal at that moment: on the plane, in the taxi, and at the cafe table — he touched, rested and hung. The supposed convenience of working behind a large screen on the road turned out to be almost completely impossible on the road in principle.
Why not Pro with a 13-inch screen - the same familiar workhorse, but already econom-non-crash-row-compatible dimensions? That is why: in the new Pro (only a smaller one) there would be nothing new, except for a constant reminder, as I got into a mess with dimensions.
The weight of the MacBook is 12 "- just 0.91 kg, exactly twice as light as the MacBook Pro 15". It absolutely dissolves in the backpack, and as if it does not add a gram. And this in all senses turned out to be a big relief.
After a week of use, it became clear that the MacBook 12 is definitely not a failure. And that it is absolutely necessary for him in the next generation to turn into real success. This is of course my list, and, of course, I don't know if it will coincide with my vision Apple. We will find out later - I hope in November.
1) 13 inch screen
One of the most unpleasant sensations that struck me when meeting a MacBook was its display. The impression that he did not get more than 12 inches just because of his own miniature style, completely dispelled the wide black bars around the screen - like those of the cheapest netbooks. It turned out to be a 12-inch laptop in an “outgrowth” case. A 13-inch screen in the same dimensions and, perhaps, the same case - it is not even an upgrade, but simply a return to the natural course of things.
But who broke it? Marketers, of course. Apparently, they decided that the emergence of a slightly crippled new model would give a head start when the MacBook Air was still alive. And of course, there will be an opportunity in the next generation to “grandiosely upgrade” the screen, saving on the new case.
When he first appeared - “Eyre” was a breakthrough, a dream and the subject of envy. As it was before, Apple again created a new type of device, which did not exist yesterday, and tomorrow the market no longer has any idea how to manage without it.
MacBook Air was the first snowflake that launched an avalanche of ultrabooks, which are now successfully feeding competitors who produce computers on Windows. But the niche of Air itself turned out to be a dead end. Avant-garde against the background of the Apple Apple MacBook Air line of laptops was suddenly deprived of a market foothold when the newest MacBook and MacBook Pro 13 shared its niche between themselves.
There were already nothing to divide the three sub-brands on this glade - except for this very third one. The "grandfathers" won - of course, Apple was not going to give up the MacBook and MacBook Pro. And Air, who was not retained in his league, was cynically transplanted to the tablets - what if he not only finds his place, but also helps the ipad?
Now that Air is a classification from the tablet line, you can already finish the number by removing the rabbit from the hat — all the same, his ears stuck out from the very beginning.
Thus, we will have a new line of standard-sized laptops - which is already a good thing, since their dimensions will not increase.
- The 13-inch MacBook will remain just as light, thin and quiet without a fan - just what you need for people who don't need a lot from a laptop, but who can't do without it. I place myself in this category.
- From a 13-inch MacBook Pro, the usual MacBook will be distinguished not by the size of the screen, but by something equally important: the filling. There will be no competition here, as with Air, which was not just about performance, but about lightness and compactness. But there will be a choice between moderately compact, productive and mobile, suitable for the nomadic life of the Pro 13 ”and as compact as possible, lightweight, noiseless, but still a laptop, and not a toy - a MacBook.
- And, of course, the Big Daddy is a 15-inch MacBook Pro. It is terrible to think, but in fact there were times even 17-inch laptops.
2) Must have Face ID
It so happened that I lost the password when I unlocked my laptop long before it appeared on the MacBook Pro Touch ID. Perhaps the only spoon of honey in the barrel with the Touch Bar did not work, because before it I was used to good things on a Lenovo ThinkPad with a fingerprint scanner.
Moreover, Touch ID on laptops, as well as on iPhones, requires you to log in with a password for the first time after a reboot, which Lenovo has never demanded from the moment you set up input by fingerprint. Because of this, I even once forgot my system password. And I would love to forget it, but Pro stands out.
A MacBook and all - a return to manual labor. However, I do not think that this handicraft will survive the change of generations. Surely many are waiting for this - and, for sure, many are waiting for Touch ID. But, in my opinion, Face ID is much more logical. And that's why.
- It is unlikely that Apple will once again recycle the look and layout of the keyboard for the introduction of a single Touch ID without a Touch Bar. And Touch Bar is not so obviously a failed experiment on “proshchik” to cancel it with the update of this year, but obviously not succeeded even close to scale to other lines, except Pro.
- Touch ID is the future of yesterday. With the advent of Face ID, a fingerprint scan for identification has become a dead-end branch of evolution. Touch IDs are diesel engines of the world of gadgets: they have also been refined over the years, preparing to replace gasoline engines due to lower consumption of cheaper fuel. But all of this suddenly lost its meaning when, unexpectedly (just something just predicted from the moment of the invention of the ICE), the next stage of progress staked out behind them electric cars. Diesel can still hold out in other areas of application, but any automaker, which now announces the development strategy of their diesel line until 2030, will earn only perplexed views.
At the same time, the Face ID laptop will fit with even smaller losses than on the smartphone - there is enough space on the MacBooks for the sensor next to the webcam to do without a monobrow transplant.
3) Second USB-C port instead of headphone jack
Raise your hands, how many more owners of iPhones can not forget the 3.5 mm? And how many owners of androids, who, honestly, can not understand who and why still drills this strange hole in their gadgets?
Anyway, parting with the audio output on the MacBook seems to me to be the one with no alternative (although, again, no one promised) solution.
Firstly, Apple is unlikely to surprise us with a complete lack of connectors.
Secondly, Apple is unlikely to surprise us with the preservation of a single USB port
. Third, if my hypothesis is true about the current screen size of the MacBook, which is
So, the new connector can appear only in the place of the old one. And replacing the orthodox 3.5-mm audio output with a more universal (and not contradicting to using it for connecting headphones) Type-C port is not only an alternative, but also a necessary option.
Apple very boldly implements its strategy with respect to ports and connectors, so we can’t moan about losing one port or another, they say, all the rest is fine, but without this you can’t be sure - you can only if you don’t see its final goal: rejection of wires and connectors principle. Data transmission over the air is progressing faster than electricity, but when wireless charging comes up too, the USB-C connectors, whose information transport functions have long been duplicated by wireless protocols for this moment and that only play the role of charging, will come to an end.
However, Apple does not do this flawlessly.
First, saving a proprietary Lightning port with the presence and use of USB-C makes no sense other than a ritual sacrifice to the spirit of Steve Jobs, which should continue to delight users, who are still buying separate wires for their iPhones and AirPods. In this case, perhaps, the last port before their complete disappearance is still not Type-C, but Lightning or its replacement, God forbid.
Secondly - and you can’t explain this by pagan rituals - Apple is strangely inconsistent in bundling its laptops. Both MacBook Pro and MacBook come with USB-C connectors only, but the Lightning adapter bundled with both laptops comes from regular USB. There is no adapter from USB to USB-C. It is hard to say what would be more strange: its absence and the impossibility of connecting the adapter to Lightning to the laptop with which it was bundled, or its presence, allowing it to complete this strange chain.
4) Bonus track: another attempt with the keyboard
As is the case with the rejection of connectors, Apple's intention to invent a new input method to replace the good old keyboard is well known. But they are moving towards this goal from two ends: from one end they are busy inventing the replacement of the current keyboard, from the other they are moving towards the destruction of the existing one. And while the progress of the inventors is not so obvious, the progress of the destroyers is obvious. At this rate, we will remain without a keyboard until we get its alternative.
The disabled Bar in the MacBook Pro was added to the Touch Bar instead of the function keys and an incredibly brittle mechanism, the keys knocking like miners' helmets on strike.
In the MacBook, on-site function keys - and they are much more convenient to use even to control music, than the glamorous and useless Touch Bar allows, but the left Shift is halved. Take a look above the Shift key on your keyboard. If you are right handed, then your left hand is always somewhere near it, this is a fundamentally important key. Now imagine that it became two times shorter (one and a half times shorter than Caps Lock!), And in the place where the Shift key used to stretch - now there are other keys that will permanently cripple the text while you break your reflexes.
In MacBook 2, there will certainly be new experiments with the keyboard. I hope this time - something from the category "we realized that we would live with her for a long time, and this time we really improved something a little."
And I would also like for the new MacBooks to abandon the touchpad recessed into the case. I never leave the feeling that along the perimeter, the touchpad collects dirt along the walls like under the nails of a homeless person. But it can still be experienced, especially if the other changes are true according to this list. In the end, now all this is not there, but I still carry my MacBook everywhere with me, and at home I work for Pro - solid, almost like a desktop.
If my ideas about the logical, reasonable, beautiful and necessary for implementation in the next generation coincide with the ideas of Apple, then the new MacBook with the screen almost full cover, Face ID, without a fan and a 3.5 mm connector will be as close as possible to the ideal compact laptop . Because progress is developing so: before moving on to the next level - to charge without wires, to enter without a keyboard, to a picture without a display - what we have left on the previous one, should be almost perfect.
Results September 12
Main result: I realized it was in vain. In principle, according to all forecasts - more precisely, due to the lack of certainty, whether a new MacBook will be shown - it followed that it would not. Because otherwise there were a lot of preliminary information leaks.
How did this happen and why? I have no idea. Perhaps, just in the modern world, a company that has reached a trillion-dollar capitalization is no longer capable of really hiding anything about itself? For her, there was simply no shadow left on the planet.
All three new iPhones looked at the Internet from all angles in August. A bunch of specs was merged in advance, and the biggest remaining mystery is just the exact name of the models. For me, it felt like the most messed up Apple presentation in history.
Therefore, the silence about the possible release of “MacBooks” was already quite talking - and it turned out to be prophetic. And thank God.
First, the MacBook 2 would still be lost on the background of New iPhone Day - the most important Apple event in the year for, from which, I think, they should start their new year.
Secondly, now there is time to think, discuss this article and put forward their arguments for what the next MacBook should be.
PS Slightly absurd way, the "big" MacBook Pro suddenly began to look - literally! - much more advantageous in my eyes when I, in the second year of operation, noticed that all this time I was working behind a display, scaled to a resolution of 1680x1050 - and changed it under 1920x1200.
Less than a year and a half before my eyes, that very amount of working space, for which Fifteen was taken.
So now it also looks better - for the first time I felt Retina , which, like any hi-res, was born to reign in small things, literally: the usual interface elements, which decreased after the change of scale, but retained their crystal clarity, caught my eye change points on contact lenses - as if sharpness was twisted to the maximum.