Every single one of these stupid blog posts goes a little something like "I wanted a 13 inch laptop but I got this 15 inch one instead just so I could gripe about how big it is" or "I don't like the touchbar but I got the one with the touchbar anyway just so I could gripe about it." or "I hammer my digits into the pavement like the smiting fist of an angry god at every keypress and now my fingers hurt."

And this guy. This fucking guy. He says all three, because he prefers the Air with its hot-garbage-even-when-it-was-brand-new screen.

If you want a 13" laptop without a fucking touchbar, then get the 13" one without the fucking touchbar. It's an option that you chose not to get.

> If you want a 13" laptop without a fucking touchbar, then get the 13" one without the fucking touchbar. It's an option that you chose not to get.

Alas, Hacker News seems just as susceptible to the classic "Apple = Bad = Get Upvotes / Karma / Whatever"

I for one really enjoy my 15" MacBook Pro with touchbar and I'm just as productive as ever as a Software Engineer.

It's not a difficult concept people. We get it, you don't like it, we don't need articles years after the release of said touchbar. Don't like it don't buy it, or at least own up to the fact you just want cheap exposure for your article.

What's your problem with the airs screen?

I work on a macbook pro, mostly because 'modern' 'everything-must-docker' software development seems to require 16GB ram and an i7 to run anything. But for everything else, whether video or web, I come back to an early 2015 air. I definitely sympathise with the OP.

1440x900 with poor color fidelity and narrow viewing angles was already subpar in every aspect in 2013 for a 13 inch screen, and is a slap in the face in 2018.

The TN, non-retina display on the latest MacBook Air makes it feel neglected by Apple. That screen is also awful to look at and the viewing angles are supremely poor.

If you have a MacBook Air and like it, by all means use it. If you're in the market for a new laptop, don't buy a MacBook Air. It's essentially been abandoned by Apple.

As a former MacBook Air owner, the screen is total garbage. It's max resolution 1440x900! Smartphones have higher resolutions than that.

I didn't realise how unproductive I was until I switched to something with more resolution. Not to mention that it's TN, which is insulting for the price.

Heh, I got mine from my company, because they said, 'that is the laptop for the engineers' and nobody cared when I said I don't need that. And the 13" without touchbar would still be an usb-c one (I still had to replace all my stuff) and still have that crappy keyboard. I work with my machine, not just show it off for the people. Apple is over the zenit. Period.

In making that choice between options, you give up a lot - discrete graphics cards, two USB-C ports, the fingerprint sensor, hard drive options...

A preference for physical keys costs more than just "giving up" the touch bar.

I got the 13" without the touch-bar and I love it. Note for this blogger: you don't have to hit the keys hard.

I am personally not a fan of the keyboard either; the escape key is too large, and so it offset all of the other function buttons. Not to mention the extra precision (and thus attention) required to type on the keyboard: the minimal tactile differentiation of key edges can make it harder for my hands to auto-correct their position. I've hit 'tab' instead of '~' more than a dozen times at this point.

It's better than a rubber dome keyboard, but that's not saying much honestly.

I got the 13in 2016 MacBook Pro sans-touchbar and absolutely love it. The screen is lively, USB-C has made traveling much easier (don't need dedicated charger, can use Anker USB-C battery to top laptop off), the build quality feels substantially better than my old Macbook Air, and the battery life has been fantastic. I've seen a lot more of these rants crop up and end up confused since my own experience has been substantially different.

The only negative thing has been needing to buy/carry an external hub for USB/SD cards (I use it maybe monthly).

If I didn't need 15" this is exactly what I would have done - I actually like the 2016 MBP 15", but the touchbar is utterly useless and a regression from having a physical escape key.

I honestly don't know how you (the article author) could have a problem with the touchpad though - it's an improvement in every regard. Quite happy to do away with the mechanical bits there for better reliability, and it's very difficult for me to feel a difference. One of the better parts of the laptop to be sure.

USB-C is fine - with the large caveat of Apple fucked the rollout up horribly - things like not shipping reliable working HDMI<->USB-C adapters at launch date are inexcusable. After those initial pains though, USB-C is amazing for portability - I'm always near a charger now, and my 15W phone chargers I have in every room of the house do fine to either charge it overnight or simply not lose battery life while working.

I can certainly wish there was integrated HDMI and USB-A, but then again I also don't miss those that often after getting a dock for work.

My largest complaints are the regressions in battery size from the 2015 15" rMBP, the keyboard, and the stupid and utterly useless Touchbar I was forced to pay for. That and the corresponding lack of ESC key. I do however love the Touch ID - and won't buy another laptop without something like it.

If the next MBP doesn't come with a physical escape key I plan on seriously attempting to make Linux work again if the hardware is out there to do so.

The other thing I really like about USB-C charging is that its on either side of the laptop - so I can have it plugged in on the most comfortable side depending on where I'm working. But yeah an inbuilt HDMI and USB-A would have been awesome.

I found a USB-C to Displayport cable on Amazon, not sure if it fits your use case but it ended up being much faster than HDMI on my Anker hub, which was limited to 30fps I think.

You're able to modify the touchbar (control strip?) to always have an escape key, if it bugs you as much as it does me.

I just remapped caps lock to esc. Works great, but it takes me a minute to get my mind back around when I’m back using my normal (wired Apple) external keyboard.

Was considering this model... then I bought a GalliumOS-capable Chromebook for $180 bucks. It's not for everyone, but I think it's going to replace my RevA Retina MBP. ~20 hours of battery life, more than enough power to run Alacritty tmux'd SSH sessions to cloud infrastructure. Did I mention that it was $180?

To each their own, but I know 180$ would barely buy a stand-alone display of high enough quality for me to read from 8+ hrs a day, let alone an entire laptop with a display that I’d be ok with.

The amount of computing power people need tends to differ based on the stack they’re working with, but to me a quality screen is a hard requirement

I’m sure I would agree with all gripes against the Touch Bar, except I frequently see articles complaining about things that are technically customizable.

For instance, yes many actions are useless or easy to hit accidentally, etc. but you can change what’s on the Touch Bar.

Have you found any useful applications for it? I’ve had mine for over six months now and still find it kind of useless.

The fact that it “adapts” to the focused app implies that it would do something useful for that app, which is rarely the case. It also seems impossible to customise it to look exactly like it’s physical counterpart all the time for the same reason.

That, and it’s much slower and clumsier for actions like changing volume or skipping a track, which I do dozens of times a day. Can’t wait to exchange for non-touch model (company policy yada yada, probably same problem as OP).

The dynamic switching is one of its fundamental problems because I don’t like peripheral vision distractions. Fortunately, the bar can be configured to be static.

It’s amazing how little movement it takes to catch your eye’s attention (one reason why ads are almost always annoying if they have any catchy color or move in any way, even if they’re not in your face).

Therefore, I don’t want the icons on the keyboard changing how they look. I’m probably not looking at the keyboard, I’m looking at the screen and that just makes me look at the keyboard again.

And sadly, it’s not like you even need a Touch Bar to have dynamic behavior in every application; function keys are already dynamic.

Just got one of these. The keyboard feels like a cheap Bluetooth add on, the touch bar is like a state of the art touch screen phone from 2004 in bar form, and the touch pad picks up my palm all the time.

Not a happy camper.

doesn't apple still make a macbook pro without the touchbar?

Only the 13" model, so if you want a quad-core CPU or discrete GPU you have to get a touchbar.

June 2017.

https://support.apple.com/kb/SP754?locale=en_US

Now can I get it with the fancy gpu? :(

"And as a heavy vim user, I really don’t need a physical escape button for sure". Is that a complaint? There is a feature I don't need in my specific circumstances - but which is widely necessary for other people - therefore the product is bad? The escape button isn't niche like the touch bar - seems like a real stupid thing to complain about.

I am working with vim for about 18 years now, I won't change my preferences just because some smartass decides that a sparkling fun touch bar will be better for me.

And now we all know who has never used vim. ;)

A vim user needs the esc key approximately as often as the Enter key.

...or likely has it mapped to Caps Lock.

These UX problems aside, am I the only one who feels like the latest generation has performance problems? My 2013 Air ran DotA, Sublime, iTerm and Chrome just fine. The 13" 2017 Pro that I'm using now heats up if I'm just using Sublime, and the fan even turns on. The 13" 2015 Pro didn't have this problem either.

Consider the possibility that you have a faulty one. It does happen. Apple, like every other manufacturer, will be resistant to the suggestion, though.

Fwiw, I don't experience anything like what you describe on a 16GB 2017 13" without touchbar.

The MacBook Air has been woefully insufficient for years now. How about trying the 13" MBP and forego the touchbar? Maybe try the 2017 MacBook? The MacBook is very much better than the air in every single conceivable way.

I have an 1.7 Ghz i7 processor, and 8 GB of ram. I mostly use a browser and an iterm in my workflow, this macbook air will be still enough for years. And my biggest problem with that machine was the keyboard, which is not good for me.