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[Wowfunhappy]

Remember when the original Macbook Air launched and it was £1200?

It was an impressive vision of the future and sold like hotcakes, but at launch the entire "tech" community balked at the stupidly expensive, functionally useless (due to lack of ports), pointlessly thin weakling machines. Forums were full of Apple haters in full force, joined by "soon to be ex-Apple fans" declaring they've had it with the direction of the company and it's bizarre decisions, and they were moving ecosystem.

[...]

Time smooths over any hypocrisy.

Well, at launch, the Macbook Air was a horrible machine. It was terribly underpowered, super expensive, and had only one USB port.

Time didn't somehow turn the OG Macbook Air a better machine. Apple just released much better Macbook Airs, which were more powerful, had more ports, and cost less.

 

[Red]

I don't think people use the existing function keys THAT often. The touchpad thing isn't massively revolutionary but at worst it's a lateral move, at best a pretty substantial improvement for certain workflows.

Like, outside of standard volume/brightness changes, my #1 use for function keys is taking screenshots. This new thing has all of those functions covered.

I think it's perfectly arguable that this is missing the boat, but not that the touchpad makes things worse.

These new Pros are a solid iteration on the line. Microsoft and Apple seem to be divvying up creative professionals. Microsoft's machines are more aligned with digital painters and animators, Apple's with video and photography. Contextual touch bar elements will be very useful in Photoshop, Premier, FCP, etc. RadeonPro graphics are a nice step up. Have they ever been available on Apple mobile devices before?

 

[The Albatross]

Apple's trackpads are so good and their multitouch functionality for developers to use is so mature and versatile, the Touch Bar is trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. There is literally no point in it or a visual trackpad.

Either go touch screen or don't bother.

I'd far rather they added Magic Touchpad compatibility to iOS than try half-assing touch screens into macOS.

I watched the Verge's hands on earlier and just thought to myself with everything Nilay was doing "This... is harder and slower than using a pointer."

 

[badcrumble]

These new Pros are a solid iteration on the line. Microsoft and Apple seem to be divvying up creative professionals. Microsoft's machines are more aligned with digital painters and animators, Apple's with video and photography. Contextual touch bar elements will be very useful in Photoshop, Premier, FCP, etc.

I think it's absolutely fantastic that they're both picking creative-professional niches and designing hard for them and making excellent hardware for those purposes. Creators win.

 

[Red]

I watched the Verge's hands on earlier and just thought to myself with everything Nilay was doing "This... is harder and slower than using a pointer."

I think the idea now is for hidden functions and keyboard shortcuts to become more visible. It's a weird thing. On the one hand, the enormous price aims these machines squarely at professionals who are likely familiar with the hidden functions it is making visible, who can already operate these functions quicker without ever taking their hands off the keyboard. On the other hand, it is clearly an attempt at demystifying elements for less savvy consumers. I don't know. It will take time to see how it all shakes out.

 

[Macam]

I was shocked at how negative the media is being as well (and justifiably so). I just finished a Mashable article, who seems to be very pro-Apple, about how Microsoft has surpassed Apple in terms of innovation.

Part of me thinks that things will settle down and the usual people will just end up buying the new Pro anyway, but who knows. Maybe this will finally be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

It'll settle down. The biggest issue with these laptops is the price jump and the amount of time to get these things out; the usual gripes about it being not innovative or a disappointment is mostly just noise. Touch bar ain't amazing, but if the machines are built solid and run mostly up to expectations, then you just have a bunch of price complaints and some connectivity quibbles that will get flushed out.

If they continue to delay upgrading their laptop and desktops line in favor of focusing on purely mobile, along with not managing some of these connectivity issues better, then Apple will start to have a longer term problem building up (although mobile, consumer loyalty, and corporate inertia will keep them up top for quite a while).

Microsoft is upping their game, but let's not over exaggerate things: They still have quite a ways to go to build things up to the level of where people will consistently and reliably rely on them to provide quality hardware. They've been making a lot of the right noises of late, but they need to get their manufacturing game up to par, and show some real commitment to sticking with their platforms (they countless iterations of Windows Phone, Microsoft Band, Zune, their other brief forays into certain segments like routers, etc).

 

[Zombie James]

I think the idea now is for hidden functions and keyboard shortcuts to become more visible. It's a weird thing. On the one hand, the enormous price aims these machines squarely at professionals who are likely familiar with the hidden functions it is making visible, who can already operate these functions quicker without ever taking their hands off the keyboard. On the other hand, it is clearly an attempt at demystifying elements for less savvy consumers. I don't know. It will take time to see how it all shakes out.

It's definitely a confusing product. It's a general consumer feature that professionals don't need in a professional laptop most general consumers can't afford.

 

[Avallon]

I was going to get the entry level but one port while charging and the downgraded processor made me think twice.

I am now very excited.

 

[Red]

It's definitely a confusing product. It's a general consumer feature that professionals don't need in a professional laptop most general consumers can't afford.

Yeah. That's more concise.

 

[Costa Kid]

The most inexpensive one I can get is just under 2000€ WITH education pricing... screw that.

 

[Nastrodamous]

Does the 2015 MBP support an EGPU? I would rather get one of the 512gb refurbs and plug that in since im selling my desktop.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

My wife has switched over the Apple ecosystem with an iPad and iPhone over the last couple of years. She's been keeping her 4 year old Asus Win 10 laptop limping along a bit, saving up for a MBP.

She was not terribly excited with this launch, mostly because the cost of an MBP 2016 went up and she has zero interest in the touch pad thing.

And of course all the previous MBPs are essentially unfindable already.

 

[Jill Sandwich]

Oof, it's like getting reamed with a roll of sandpaper!

 

[Jo Shishido's Cheeks]

It's had about a 20% price hike in the UK, which is about how much the pound has fallen against the dollar in the last 6 months

Value of the £ has gone down around 15%.
Not really Apple's fault that Brexit damaged the value of the £. Expect it to get worse in the future.


All they really need to say is:
At the beginning of the year when we sold something for £1000 we got $1474

Today we get $1213

Info from:
http://www.xe.com/currencytables/?from=GBP&date=2016-01-01

...Yeah I'm an idiot, somehow didn't consider this at all -_-
Cheers guys

 

[Omikaru]

The TB3 USB-C ports on the MBP are the most versatile and powerful ports on any consumer electronics device...and there are four of them. No castration going on there.

Lightning just needs EOLing. It's now an uncomfortable standards clash in the Apple product ecosystem.

I was more referencing removing the good keyboard and the SD card slot than the USB ports specifically, though in the short-term switching exclusively to USB-C is a giant pain in the ass. I guess USB-C is the future, and that's cool, but I think the MBP should accommodate professional use without having too many dongles.

So it really should have a SD card slot, and it really should have at least one or two older USB ports along with the four new USB-C ports (and maybe in the next-gen they can replace the older ports with even more USB-C), otherwise people who work on the go are going to have to carry all that shit around with their laptop (thus mitigating the space saving removals), or simply look elsewhere for their computers.

Personally, I wouldn't miss the SD card slot, and I use the USB ports on my MacBook Pro once in a blue moon. In fact, I was actually considering the 12 inch MacBook because I didn't care about either of those things (despite empathising with those who do). However, the killer for me was the butterfly keyboard, just as I guess the killer for a photographer or video editor may be the removal of the SD slot, and the artist who uses a drawing tablet the USB removal. It just feels like a sacrifice too far in the name of thinness, and kind of kills the appeal of the device in the short-term, at least.

In short, I think Apple has kind of forgotten what a "Pro" device is supposed to be. My view of Apple stuff was always that thinness came second to elegance and professional use-cases on their Pro devices, whereas devices like the MacBook were the ones that combined elegance and portability/thinness/lightness. I just don't think they've gotten their priorities right here, and (in the case of USB-C specifically) have possibly skipped a transitionary generation that mixed the old with the new.

At any rate, my complaints are purely academic at this point. I have some amazing Apple machines that I'm very happy with. By time I'm upgrading they may have seen sense with the crappy keyboards, or significantly improved them. And if they haven't, I'll just have to untangle myself from Apple's ecosystem if I don't want to make the compromise.

 

[see5harp]

I think the idea now is for hidden functions and keyboard shortcuts to become more visible. It's a weird thing. On the one hand, the enormous price aims these machines squarely at professionals who are likely familiar with the hidden functions it is making visible, who can already operate these functions quicker without ever taking their hands off the keyboard. On the other hand, it is clearly an attempt at demystifying elements for less savvy consumers. I don't know. It will take time to see how it all shakes out.

Scrubbing through video in premiere or FCP using that thin strip looked absolutely terrible.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I was shocked at how negative the media is being as well (and justifiably so). I just finished a Mashable article, who seems to be very pro-Apple, about how Microsoft has surpassed Apple in terms of innovation.

Part of me thinks that things will settle down and the usual people will just end up buying the new Pro anyway, but who knows. Maybe this will finally be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

The more they make the "pro" in name only by continually catering to the casual market, the more heat they will get from the vocal pro/power user community and the slower their sales to that audience will become.

Can the casual market sustain decent sales at $2500-$3500 for power and performance they generally don't care about? I guess we'll see. Some GAFers are in, some are out, some are on the fence.

 

[boneyjangles]

Well, at launch, the Macbook Air was a horrible machine. It was terribly underpowered, super expensive, and had only one USB port.

Time didn't somehow turn the OG Macbook Air a better machine. Apple just released much better Macbook Airs, which were more powerful, had more ports, and cost less.

Flawed, expensive, and still went on to become the defacto form factor and ideal laptop for a generation after some tweaks and price drops.

This line is looking almost perfect already, it's only the price holding it back.

 

[Kunai]

"Today it might be similar to an Apple Watch in capability, but there's so much potential for this to grow," says Troughton-Smith. "The Touch Bar theoretically could run while the rest of the machine is turned off, so you get all the low-power and security benefits of an iOS device, without having to switch to ARM completely on the desktop."

http://www.theverge.com/platform/am...le-macbook-pro-touch-bar-apple-watch-features

Interesting ...

 

[Red]

Scrubbing through video in premiere or FCP using that thin strip looked absolutely terrible.

I think the idea is novel, but the strip is in an awkward place, and is too thin, and would be more convenient near the track pad. In fact the best solution would probably be a track pad that doubles as an OLED multi touch surface. You hit a key combo and the pad lights up with a quick control interface. Maybe even throw away the pad entirely and allow the entire surface of the machine below the keyboard to become a touch display when needed. The touch bar is such a weird thing, potentially useful but more a so what than a wow.

It's still hard for me not to see it as an improvement to regular function keys, which require arcane contextual knowledge for different programs.

 

[Chuckl3s]

I was going to get the entry level but one port while charging and the downgraded processor made me think twice.

I am now very excited.

What's an Accessory kit?

 

[formasymphonic]

Still using DDR3?

New ones are on DDR4. Skylake.

Sadly, not true. I can't embed the tweet right now (on mobile) so I'll just paste & link:

Dan Frakes (@DanFrakes)
27/10/2016, 22:33
Apple told me MBP maxes out at 16GB RAM because LPDDR3 limit is 16GB/chip; Apple uses it because of performance/energy ratio.

Just catching up with the news.

Nothing new to the desktop lines (iMac, Mac Mini and Mac Pro) at all today eh??

As I understand the rumours, there won't be any iMac updates until Q1/Q2 2017 to match Kaby Lake processors most suited to them.

Similar story for future Mac Pros but I don't know when the new Xeons are out.

Mac Minis though, no one knows what's up with those.

I said this earlier, but looking back on this now, anyone know the likelihood of us finally getting DDR4 (in an iMac) come Spring/Kaby Lake? Is it too much to ask for?

 

[Deleted member 12837]

I know there's a 2-4 week wait for purchase, but does anyone know if the new models with the touch bar are available to demo in-store right now?

 

[icespide]

I know there's a 2-4 week wait for purchase, but does anyone know if the new models with the touch bar are available to demo in-store right now?

don't think so

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Flawed, expensive, and still went on to become the defacto form factor and ideal laptop for a generation after some tweaks and price drops.

But the point you're missing is that the laptop that actually went on to define the "defacto form factor" WAS NOT THE SAME MACHINE as the one that was flawed and expensive. That's a very key distinction in my view.

The Macbook Pro is definitely a better machine than the OG Air, which was terrible, but it's not just price people are upset about—it's also the keyboard and lack of ports. Those things aren't going to somehow get better over time. Anyone who buys a Macbook Pro will have to live with its flaws for the life of the machine.

If the point you're trying to make is that potential buyers should wait for a revision before jumping in, I would agree.

 

[Elfstruck]

Hype deflated. A $1500 base model? Seriously?

 

[Skellig Gra]

Oof, it's like getting reamed with a roll of sandpaper!

Can I borrow some money? lol

 

[badcrumble]

Sadly not true. I can't embed the tweet right now (on mobile) so I'll just paste & link:

Dan Frakes (@DanFrakes)
27/10/2016, 22:33
Apple told me MBP maxes out at 16GB RAM because LPDDR3 limit is 16GB/chip; Apple uses it because of performance/energy ratio.



I said this earlier, but looking back on i nowt, anyone know the likelihood of us finally getting DDR4 (in an iMac) come Spring/Kaby Lake? Is it too much to ask for?

Let's fucking hope. The iMac's pretty overdue for a form factor revision, too.

 

[see5harp]

I think the idea is novel, but the strip is in an awkward place, and is too thin, and would be more convenient near the track pad. In fact the best solution would probably be a track pad that doubles as an OLED multi touch surface. You hit a key combo and the pad lights up with a quick control interface. Maybe even throw away the pad entirely and allow the entire surface of the machine below the keyboard to become a touch display when needed. The touch bar is such a weird thing, potentially useful but more a so what than a wow.

It's still hard for me not to see it as an improvement to regular function keys, which require arcane contextual knowledge for different programs.

I def think it LOOKS cool. Just from my experience doing video editing wouldn't use anything but a scroll wheel. I imagine many professionals are going to have dedicated machines with jog wheels. I think the idea is cool but like the DJ stuff, will never actually be used by anyone doing it in a professional setting. There are midi controllers and CDJ's with awesome knobs and faders, no one is ever going to use a small capacitive touch screen to operate a filter. To me everything they've done to the pro line is specifically to wow non professionals who don't know any better.

 

[WJD]

motherfucker

even with my discount it's still out of reach

 

[Avallon]

What's an Accessory kit?

I think it's just the charger.
EDIT: apparently they throw in a microfiber cloth! https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5250551?start=0&tstart=0

 

[Zeyphersan]

I don't think people use the existing function keys THAT often. The touchpad thing isn't massively revolutionary but at worst it's a lateral move, at best a pretty substantial improvement for certain workflows.

Like, outside of standard volume/brightness changes, my #1 use for function keys is taking screenshots. This new thing has all of those functions covered.

I think it's perfectly arguable that this is missing the boat, but not that the touchpad makes things worse.

This is my position. Even if the bar isn't revolutionary, it's not like I've lost anything with the loss of the function keys (save for an extra couple hundred bucks). At worst I'll end up using it as much as the function keys, at best it'll make one of my workflows slightly easier. At the very best it revolutionizes computing and I can never go back, but I'm not expecting that

I know there's a 2-4 week wait for purchase, but does anyone know if the new models with the touch bar are available to demo in-store right now?

They are not

 

[Faddy]

Sadly not true. I can't embed the tweet right now (on mobile) so I'll just paste & link:

Dan Frakes (@DanFrakes)
27/10/2016, 22:33
Apple told me MBP maxes out at 16GB RAM because LPDDR3 limit is 16GB/chip; Apple uses it because of performance/energy ratio.



I said this earlier, but looking back on i nowt, anyone know the likelihood of us finally getting DDR4 (in an iMac) come Spring/Kaby Lake? Is it too much to ask for?

Ok so 16GB limit on the 13inch model makes sense but with the additional space on the 15inch model is plenty of room to put in a second chip.

 

[MRORANGE]

The price hike is laughable.
The inconsistency with ports is laughable.
The touchbar is laughable.
the spec bump to Skylake is laughable.
The AMD solutions is laughable.
the base storage and upgrade prices are laughable.

Truly Apple has changed for the worse since the departure of Steve Jobs.I really wanted to go witha decent MBP 13" buit with the price hikes costing more than the old 15" it's really not worth buying one right now.

Spoiler

waiting for Kaby/canon Lake for DDR4 and possibility of 28w 4 Core in a 13"

 

[ESBL]

My 2011 13" MBP will continue to chug along. Actually it does everything I ask it to do which is basic word processing and internet browsing for the most part. Its got 10GB of RAM and an SSD within the last year, it should probably last until I'm done with school actually. The battery is shit though now, should look into replacing it.

 

[Red]

I def think it LOOKS cool. Just from my experience doing video editing wouldn't use anything but a scroll wheel. I imagine many professionals are going to have dedicated machines with jog wheels. I think the idea is cool but like the DJ stuff, will never actually be used by anyone doing it in a professional setting. There are midi controllers and CDJ's with awesome knobs and faders, no one is ever going to use a small capacitive touch screen to operate a filter. To me everything they've done to the pro line is specifically to wow non professionals who don't know any better.

I agree. Apple has confidence in it and I'm sure there will be applications I haven't considered and new ones I don't have the foresight to predict. But you're right, many professionals will have dedicated hardware that is more robust and better suited to particular applications than a multi-function touch bar. Not that it may not be useful in a pinch, on the go, or when space is limited.

The touch bar on the new MacBooks and the entire surface studio seem like they are a way to consolidate hardware and get things done without requiring users to buy more accessories and hardware. That's neat at first glance, but it increases cost and does not allow you to take your dedicated hardware to a new machine when the old one is outdated. If you have a Wacom Tablet you would be able to move it from machine to machine. You could use it at your workstation one day and your laptop the next. That is useful and I think that point is neglected when we focus on things like how cool the surface studio is. Similarly I think different companies will jump on the touch bar idea and release their own standalone devices. Maybe Wacom will even build one into a future tablet. That way utility would not be limited to a single device. If new features were added or functionality was improved, users could buy cheaper hardware a la carte instead of trading in their entire machine. Might not look as nice but would make more sense for professionals, I think.

 

[moniker]

the spec bump to Skylake is laughable.

I don't think suitable quad core Kaby Lake chips for the 15" are even available yet?

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

I said this earlier, but looking back on this now, anyone know the likelihood of us finally getting DDR4 (in an iMac) come Spring/Kaby Lake? Is it too much to ask for?

Concerns over energy consumption are much less of a concern on iMacs that use desktop processors already.

 

[Jimrpg]

Longtime Apple fan. I have bought some great kit from Apple over the years, all of which gets daily use from me:

- 2012 Mac Mini (which I've upgraded with an SSD and 16gb RAM over the years)
- iPhone 6S 64gb (best phone I've ever used)
- iPad Air 2 64gb (best tablet I've ever used)
- MacBook Pro 2015 (my all-time favourite laptop)
- Apple TV 64gb (me and my girlfriend like its simplicity and UI)
- Apple Watch Series 1 (has definitely helped me lose weight, and I really like abstracting some of my phone's functionality - in particular notifications - to my wrist)

I have found utility for all these devices, and some of them are quite recent, so I'm not gonna be writing Apple off completely, but I'm not seeing the elegance any more. They keep making these bizarre design decisions that make me scratch my head:

- Apple Pencil charging method (it's dumb)
- Magic Mouse charging port at the bottom (how did they justify releasing that?)
- Butterfly keyboard on the MacBook (it is shit)
- Removing the 3.5mm headphone port
- Gimmicky touchbar on the MacBook Pro (the only thing of value on that entire bar is TouchID)
- The fetishisation of thinness above everything else
- Butterfly keyboard on the MacBook Pro (you can justify it on the smaller Mac, but on the Pro - professional device - they are insane)
- Using Lightning on the iOS devices, and USB C on MacBooks, instead of taking the opportunity to unify the ports on their devices.

I could go on...

Luckily, I have all great equipment that I'm really happy to use, and I still think OS X is the best desktop/laptop operating system out there for my needs. But if I had to replace all my kit tomorrow, not a single bit of it would be Apple.

They have made too many compromises for thinness, and to mitigate those compromises you need to carry the bulk of dongles and accessories around with you, which in turn makes the thinness of the device irrelevant. The recent removals aren't like removing firewire or the optical drive because hardly anyone used them, but more like cutting your balls off because your trousers are too tight.

I feel the same way.

My 'big' Apple purchases include

- iPhone 4s (loved this phone)
- iPhone 6 (loved this too)
- iPad 2 for my mom
- iPad Air for my dad
- 13" Macbook 2008 unibody
- 15" Macbook Pro Retina 2012

Add it all up I've spent A$10k in IT products on Apple. My Wife's family has spent at least A$20-30k (she's got 4 sisters) and they've all had multiple iPhones and iPads.

And if I started all over again, there's no way I would spend my hard earned money on Apple products. I mean they are fine products, but they're way too expensive now. It's kind of crazy things like cars and tvs get reduced in price but computers go up because of 'brand' value. Its such bullshit how they are trying to position themselves as the Rolls Royce or LV of tech thereby justifying their price increases. I paid A$2500 for my 15" Macbook Pro Retina in 2012, and if I bought the equivalent model now, it'd be A$3600. The base model 13" Macbook with Touch Panel is $2700. That's... I can't even describe how expensive that feels. If you can afford it, all the more power to you.

The other thing I want to say is, that Apple are really overrated when it comes to the whole 'it just works' mantra they got going. From the crappy syncing, to the terrible photos app that requires my photos on the internal hard drive, to iTunes itself and how that whole thing is completely bloated and horribly organised. Apple OS is fine for light usage, browsing the web, listening to music, when you dig a little deeper, many of the apps and functions are really shallow and just don't do what you want.

Windows 10 is by FAR the better operating system.

 

[giga]

I don't think suitable quad core Kaby Lake chips for the 15" are even available yet?

They're not.

 

[StudioTan]

Horace Dedeiu was pointing out on Twitter that most vendors are fleeing the low end of laptops because in that range tablets/phones are taking over that role. So why offer a lower end, lower margin product in a segment that is being quickly eroded. Microsoft's new Surface books are even MORE expensive than their original line up, that Surface desktop, while obviously aimed the pro/specialist users, is REALLY expensive and in years past they totally would have made a model that cut some corners to get the price down into affordable territory.

The messaging for that section seems to have been confusing because the new Surface Books aren't replacements/updates for the current ones, they're a new more powerful sku.

The next slide after showing the price of the new versions showed the current price for the lower specced Surface Books.

 

[Jimrpg]

Guessing we'll see a similar $100-200 price drop next year similar to the 2nd gen(?) retinas.

I think you're going to be extremely lucky to see a price drop on anything Apple. They're all about adding features and maintaining/increasing price points these days.

 

[borghe]

to the terrible photos app that requires my photos on the internal hard drive

plenty wrong (syncing?) or of opinion (light usage OS... based on BSD/*nix. wut?).. but just wanted to point this one out as 100% wrong. I have my Photos library on my external drive just fine, not to mention that you don't have to have ANY photos local as it has the same optimization options as iOS. But yes, the only requirement on Photos is that the library has to be on an HFS+ drive, but it can be external.

Windows 10 is by FAR the better operating system.

lol, no. Not even close. As a professional developer I can't think of one single advantage of Windows 10 over macOS or even Windows 7. Windows 10 is a fine enough operating system for end users.. but short of the Surface Station or Surface Book (both VERY recent introductions for creatives), there has been zero reason for professionals to upgrade to 10. And even Surface Book and Surface Station, both for design creatives, are still entirely hinged upon support which still slants toward macOS.

 

[Toki767]

I have the worst luck with buying Apple devices.

Bought the 3rd gen iPod. Battery on it sucked compared to everything before and after.

Bought the 3rd gen iPad. Processor sucked and wasn't powerful enough to run the retina display and thus was replaced by the newer model in less than a year.

Was looking forward to buying a new MacBook Air last year when I heard rumors of a refresh but then they come out with the MacBook.

Was looking forward to buying a new MacBook Pro this year after hearing it'd be a new model but they jack up the prices and don't even necessarily offer anything better.

 

[xxracerxx]

From the crappy syncing, to the terrible photos app that requires my photos on the internal hard drive

What? No it doesn't. My Photos library is on an external drive that I only hookup if I need to look for photos.

 

[Angelus Errare]

Ok so 16GB limit on the 13inch model makes sense but with the additional space on the 15inch model is plenty of room to put in a second chip.

It's 16Gb (not GB) per chip which is 2GB, meaning for 32GB you'd need 16 chips.

 

[Skinpop]

plenty wrong (syncing?) or of opinion (light usage OS... based on BSD/*nix. wut?).. but just wanted to point this one out as 100% wrong. I have my Photos library on my external drive just fine, not to mention that you don't have to have ANY photos local as it has the same optimization options as iOS. But yes, the only requirement on Photos is that the library has to be on an HFS+ drive, but it can be external.


lol, no. Not even close. As a professional developer I can't think of one single advantage of Windows 10 over macOS or even Windows 7. Windows 10 is a fine enough operating system for end users.. but short of the Surface Station or Surface Book (both VERY recent introductions for creatives), there has been zero reason for professionals to upgrade to 10. And even Surface Book and Surface Station, both for design creatives, are still entirely hinged upon support which still slants toward macOS.

if you are programming anything that relies on opengl or direct x mac is pretty crap if not unusable.

 

[diehard]

omg at that Euro sales tax.

how do you people do it?

 

[Jimrpg]

plenty wrong (syncing?) or of opinion (light usage OS... based on BSD/*nix. wut?).. but just wanted to point this one out as 100% wrong. I have my Photos library on my external drive just fine, not to mention that you don't have to have ANY photos local as it has the same optimization options as iOS. But yes, the only requirement on Photos is that the library has to be on an HFS+ drive, but it can be external.

Ok I need to try the photos app again then.

But the whole setup is still bad. Like my two choices to upload photos from my iPhone right now are use Image Capture or use the Photos app to transfer photos. It would be a lot simpler if I used Finder and drag and drop. I feel like Apple want too much control over the photos transferring process. If I want to transfer photos from my computer to the iPhone they need to be in the Photos app, and then use iTunes. That's just convoluted.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

my macbook shipped
I need to ask is there an ethernet dongle?
I would like a wired connection while home