ONE YEAR AGO I BOUGHT A FULLY LOADED 15″ MACBOOK PRO
Did the 2016 Macbook Pro meet my needs? Read on…
Background
I’m a video editor and the single biggest frustration with my 2016 Macbook Pro is how underpowered the thing is. 4K video? Um, no. Not really. You can sort of muddle through by lowering resolution, stopping and starting over and over when playback starts to chug or dicking around with proxies. But for the love of God, I paid over four thousand dollars for this f**king thing! I should be able to edit whatever media currently exists on Earth.
I wanted a portable machine that would be loaded for bear and FUTURE PROOF for at least a couple of years. The 2016 MBP’s are barely present-proof. What project doesn’t require 4K these days?
Microsoft did the same thing with the Xbox One. The bears came for the Xbox and they are definitely starting to circle Apple now as well. Perhaps that’s why their ridiculous “Apple Park” is round like a fortress wall.
Bah!
Hubris-delusion monuments to one’s own “greatness” are always the first sign of an empire’s fall. That crazy thing is seriously decadent and vain, dudes. A sure sign you’ve taken your eyes off of the ball. Especially when little things like flagship product launches and major software updates keep blowing up in their faces.
So here’s the story: a few years back my old Macbook Pro began to chug a bit. I was getting desperate but I didn’t want to buy the current model as I knew an update had to be right around the corner. It wasn’t.
I waited a long time for this update to the Macbook Pro. Until it felt comical. Until I started to consider shedding my Apple-skin and consider other options.
I came close. So very close. But holy mother of God do I hate PC’s. When I was a PC gamer I loved them. I used to say “Owning a Mac is like owning a car but not being able to get under the hood.” That was long ago.
Windows? F**k me. Now when I sometimes come in contact with a PC, I might as well be a cavemen.
So when I got wind of the first MBP update rumours, I opted to hold out a little bit longer. Relief was in sight. Hope springs eternal.
Now, ordinarily I would never consider purchasing a first-gen redesign, but did I mention I was desperate? When the first reviews began to hit the internets, I just about smashed my old MBP in rage. I couldn’t believe what I read. With the new Intel Kaby Lake processors imminent, Apple decided to release with Skylake processors instead of waiting. Why? Because they were desperate.
Desperate people like myself made them that way (desperate). The plaintive cries from all of us pros slowly turned to blood-boiling rage-screams on the way to buying a laptop from another company.
I believe Apple’s arrogant complacency shifted to panic. They knew they had to get a new refresh out asap but now they had fallen out of step with Intel. Release before Christmas or wait for the new processors in the spring/summer – either way people would be pissed.
I couldn’t afford to wait any longer, but I also didn’t want to buy a system that would be refreshed with a faster processor in just a few months. That path leads to…madness.
By the time I got to the part about sixteen gigs of RAM I was livid. Thin is great, but not at the expense of power. Never at the expense of power. This same folly led to the USB-C debacle as well. So many strange and unbelievable blunders from a company that once seemed infallible. Sad!
These decisions revealed serious cracks in their apple-peel armour. History has shown us, time and time again, that great empires always wither and decline. Apple is showing itself to be no different than Rome or Atari.
Of course, several months following the release of the new 2016 MBP, Apple began touting their sales data. The sales figures were impressive – to anyone who hadn’t been waiting so long to upgrade. Anyone like myself, who were DESPERATE for a new MBP, knew the truth: the real reason the 2016 MBP sold as well as it did was due to all the people who had no choice but to buy the damn thing.
I could not afford to wait another six months – and it’s a good thing I didn’t try. The latest MBP’s still don’t offer more than sixteen gigs of RAM.
Why Apple waited so long to do a proper refresh of the line is truly baffling. Like a drug pusher deciding to stop selling drugs, they seemed to forget they were also a computer manufacturer.
This is the very definition of taking your eyes off of the ball. I’m sure many apple-addicts kicked their habit and bolted for other dealers. I know I almost did.
If they had released a properly upgraded model between 2013 and 2016 they could have kept us all blissfully drinking the apple-flavoured hypno Kool-aid. They also could have easily waited it out for the Skylake chip.
They might not have felt the desperate pressure to try and wow us with thinness, allowing for more RAM (Macbook buyers are wowed by thinness; creative professionals who need a MBP don’t give a shit).
People would have still complained about the lack of ports, but one bitter pill is much easier to swallow than three (processor, memory, ports).
Ok. So whatever. I bit the bullet, prayed for deliverance and hoped for the best. Here’s my evaluation of the 2016 Macbook Pro.
What Works
Aesthetics: This is one beautiful, sexy machine. It’s gorgeous. When I die I want a space grey coffin.
Display: Yup. Amazing.
Speakers: That is some dope-ass sound, son. The stereo separation is insane. Like, crazy nutso insane.
Touch Bar: So after living with this thing for a year, I gotta say, the touch bar rocks. I don’t really use it in any of the programs I use for work, but for the things I do use it for – like volume and emojis – it just feels great. The volume slider is supposedly less precise than what we had before, but I don’t care. Siri and the fingerprint scanner are fantastic additions. Eventually this thing will become indispensable. Because I hate fingerprints on my screen.
Size of the Track Pad: I find the track pad to be a mixed bag (more on that below). The size of the working space, however, is glorious.
What Needs to be Fixed, Right Away, or I Swear to Crom I Will be Bailing on the Apple Eco-system Faster than You Can Say “Macbook NO”
Battery Life: You know what I say every day as I watch my battery drain by almost a percent per minute (not an exaggeration thanks to “Chrome Helper” and a weird Messages bug)? I say “Man, I just love how thin my laptop is! Who cares if I can’t do my work – at least my bag isn’t that heavy as I run home in humiliation to get my charger.”
I NEED LASTING POWER!
Trackpad: As I mentioned above, mixed bag. It’s big, yeah? Lots of room, yeah? Well, great. What’s not great is that when I’m dragging clips onto a timeline or moving folders around on my desktop, I feel this weird, unpleasant spring-like movement that makes the trackpad feel cheap and crappy.
I can even hear a spring-like sound. Which is weird because I thought the new trackpads used electromagnets or some shit.
I like the force-touch in theory, but if it means I have to experience this terrible “spring” sensation then forget it. I really, really hate it. Maybe this is just happening on my MBP and isn’t a widespread issue.
Maybe I should take it in and have it looked at. But I never will.
USB-C only: If this had been the only issue I could have lived with it and I would have felt no animosity towards Apple. It was a stupid blunder, but you can’t stop progress (although you don’t have to grab progress by the balls and run with it while clutching scissors, either).
Regardless, the new MBP’s should have come with a USB-C hub, or at the very least, a couple of dongles. You want thin at the expense of everything decent and holy? Fine. But you are a company worth BILLIONS, Apple. Billions.
You have billions of dollars just sitting around, earning interest. You can afford to throw a few dongles our way. Otherwise, you just look like a greedy bunch of f**ks.
$70 CDN for a thunderbolt dongle that costs you a dollar to make? F**k you.
No Mag-safe: Seriously Apple, what the double f**k? Of all of the things to get rid of, this should have been last on your list.
Everyone always assumes that the biggest benefit of the mag safe connecter is the protection it offers against having your laptop accidentally yanked or pulled onto the floor. Nope. That’s wrong.
While undoubtably a good feature, the safety element is second to the magical ease of magnetic connection. Now that the mag safe has been removed, I spend at least five minutes every day fumbling to find the damn USB-C ports.
I WILL NOT lift, tilt or rotate my new, shiny, state of the art laptop even a millimetre to visually confirm the location of the damn ports. This I do REFUSE!
I want magical magnetism to force-snap the connection for me. Without having to look. Like a Jedi. These are the little touches that made Apple seem to be zen masters of tech convenience.
But purging all the mag safe connectors makes you the Emperor, not Yoda, because poking and scraping the side of my laptop endlessly looking for a port SUCKS INFINITY.
Apple’s old slogan used to be “Think Differently.” Well, that’s only good if your thinking is forward-facing, and doesn’t involve REGRESSING BACK INTO THE F**KING DARK AGES!!! I swear Apple, it really seems like you’re just trying to intentionally piss people off sometimes.
Like, are you actually trying to see how far your vaunted legacy and bloated reputation can push people to eat shit? Are you in reality a giant front for an emergent AI who wishes to study mankind through psychological manipulation?
That makes more sense than any other reason I can think of for eliminating the mag safe connector. Or releasing an underpowered Macbook “Pro.” Which leads me to:
Memory: 16 gigs of RAM ain’t good enough. I cannot render 4K video with “thinness.” It cannot be done.
Keyboard: I just had a kid and guess what? Babies sleep a lot. Like, all the time. And you know what babies appear to hate? Loud, repeated clicking noises.
Many times I’ve been watching my daughter as she takes her nap in the living room while my wife tries to grab ten minutes of blessed, uninterrupted sleep. I’ve tried typing quietly on these new keyboards. It cannot be done. There is no quite mode possible. Typing one key every ten seconds doesn’t even work. I’ve tried. The keys are that loud.
You know what sleep-deprived wives appear to hate? Loud, clicking noises. You know a keyboard is loud when an enraged woman comes out of the bedroom, from behind a closed door, screaming
Wife: “WILL YOU STOP TYPING SO LOUDLY?! WHY ARE YOU POUNDING THE DAMN KEYS?!”
Me: “I’M NOT!” IT’S THE DAMN LAPTOP!”
Wife: “I’M GOING TO SMASH IT!”
Me: “ME TOO!”
So f**k you two times, Apple. Seriously. You’ve thrown all real-life practicality out the window in favour of style and appearance. Being able to do your work comes first.
If it’s a choice between a super loud keyboard and an extra ten millimetres of width, then gimme a fat laptop! Function before fashion, Apple. Function before fashion.
Weirdo Popping Noise
Whatever. I got used to it. But still. Fix this. You had how many years between updates to iron this stuff out?
APPLE! HEED MY WORDS! I warn you now in all seriousness – you’re f**king up! You ever seen Iron Man 2?
“If you can make God bleed?” Remember that?
You’re hemorrhaging in the water right now, with sharks and bears swimming all around you. Your Apple Park won’t save you from anything except a zombie apocalypse!
Keep your eyes on the prize! Don’t take your eyes off of the ball! Fortune favours the bold – but don’t piss off the pro’s!
The iMac Pro was a step in the right direction, if a bit late. When it comes to the MBP, just use your common sense: if you can’t use a feature for rendering, it’s not a must-have.
THUS SPOKE FERGUS-THE-JUSTIFIER! Od’s blood!
