Thanks so much Lee, you have explained well…. And, your Clip of advise to end your prose was one of your best…
John > On Oct 21, 2017, at 9:31 PM, Lee Larson <[email protected]> wrote: > > Some of you may recall that last spring, after a lot of thought and angst, I > bought a brand new 13-inch MacBook Pro with the touch bar. It has a dual core > i7 processor running at 3.3 GHz and 16 GB of RAM. The only option not maxed > out was the SSD, since it’s got the 512 GB instead of the 1TB option. > > Yesterday, Daniel Mickelsen, who sometimes posts here, emailed to ask me what > I think of the machine because he’s thinking of buying one. Instead of just > replying to him, I thought I’d post a little review for our small corner of > the world. > > My previous laptop was a late 2008 unibody MacBook Pro, with a 2.2 GHz Core 2 > Duo processor running at about 2 GHz, maxed out with 8 GB of RAM and a 1TB > spinning hard drive. The machine still runs well and, for the most part, it > would still meet my needs. The only hardware changes I’ve made to it are a > bigger hard drive, more RAM and a new battery. There’s never been a problem. > In fact, it’s set up in the family room for me to do email, Web browsing and > writing while watching baseball. > > The question is: Why upgrade? > > • A 2008 MacBook Pro won’t run Sierra, let alone High Sierra. It will be > forever frozen in the El Capitan era. Some of the higher-end programs I use > all the time are recommending at least Sierra. > > • It seemed to be the right time. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of the > 2008 machine. > > • A bright and sparkly new toy is hard to resist. > > > While shopping around, the biggest problem I had with the new MacBook Pro was > the “Apple tax.” The new MacBook Pros with an i7 processor are in the $2000 > range. Machines with comparable hardware from other manufacturers are usually > priced considerably less than $1500. Although I prefer macOS, switching to > Linux on a non-Apple laptop wouldn’t be a big deal. The newest Ubuntu Linux > distributions have everything I need. They are drop-dead easy to install. The > user interface isn’t quite as slick as the Mac, but certainly beats Windows. > My new laptop was very nearly an Asus. > > Then I stumbled across a liquidation sale from a store going out of business > and jumped on a great deal. > > Here are some good things about the new MacBook Pro. > > As we have grown to expect from Apple, the machine is gorgeous. Hacked out of > two blocks of aluminum, it weighs only three pounds and is about as thin as > the first iPads—0.6 inches. I carry it everywhere in my backpack. > > The MacBook has a really good display! It shows the newer P3 wide-gamut color > space at 1680x1050. Side-by-side with older machines, there’s no comparison. > If you do photo editing, you need a display at least as good as this one! (I > think all the new Macs have wide-gamut displays.) If you buy an appropriate > dongle, it’ll even run up to a 5120x2880 external display. (My wallet won’t > let me test this one out.) I often run it with a second monitor at 1920x1080. > > And it is pretty fast. The performance of the SSD + i7 is sometimes startling > in comparison to the machines I had been using at home for serious work: 2014 > iMac, 2015 Mac mini and a home-brew pretty fast Linux machine. There are > programs I’d previously run in Mathematica during which I’d go get a cup of > tea while the thing was churning away. Now, I often can’t even get out of the > room before it’s done; e.g., a million decimal places of π in 0.28 seconds. > > When I started shopping for a new computer, there was big news in the > computer world because Consumer Reports claimed the MacBook Pros had terrible > battery life. Apple was claiming ten hours with typical use and Consumer > Reports was claiming less than five. It turned out that a bug in Safari was > exacerbating a flawed testing method to make the battery drain too quickly. > It seems Apple is correct with the ten hour estimate because I’ve gone beyond > eight hours several times and still had juice left when I was done. > > > And now the bad… > > You should know where I’m coming from on this one. My favorite keyboard is > the old Apple Extended Keyboard II, a.k.a. “Enterprise” model, that was > pretty standard in the late 1990s. Most of my typing in both my home and work > offices is done on old Enterprise keyboards attached to Macs with ADB to USB > dongles. These are huge keyboards—like the Enterprise aircraft carrier—with > deep throws on the keys. > > The keyboard on the MacBook Pro is the opposite of the Enterprise. In his > eternal quest for thinness, Sir Ive has reduced the depth of the keyboard and > the keys hardly move. They have some resistance and a clicky feel to them. At > first I had a lot of trouble getting up to speed on the new keyboard, but I > guess I’m grudgingly getting used to it. > > Then there’s the touch bar… > > The touch bar seems at first blush like a pretty clever idea. It’sa 2170x60 > touch screen display with a lot of the guts of an iPhone behind it. In many > ways, the touch bar is a computer within a computer. It can be customized by > any program to display icons and controls. It could be quite useful, or it > could be a gimmick. > > The problem is very few programs take advantage of it. This is because > relatively few Macs have a touch bar. Developers aren’t going to spend much > time programming for a peripheral owned by only a few of their customers. > > Most of Apple’s mainline programs have touch bar controls that I don’t find > very useful. > > Apple’s text editing routines are in contact with the touch bar and it’s > constantly suggesting word completions, much like the iPhone and iPad. It > also suggests emojis. Whenever I type “apple,” two little emojis of red and > green apple’s appear and a tap can put either one into the text. 🍎 🍏 This > stuff very useful to me because I look at the screen and not the keyboard as > I type. > > The right end of the touch bar can be used to evoke Siri or Apple Pay. > Unfortunately, the location to do this is right above the delete key, and > because of this I’ve accidentally brought up Siri a hundred times more often > than wanted. > > There are a few novelty programs for the touch bar. For example, early on a > few developers managed to get the classic first person shooter, Doom, running > on the bar. Amusing, but not very useful. > > I still feel the touch bar is a good idea waiting for the right program. The > TextExpander people should be jumping all over it. Apple should come up with > an interface for users to add their own features. > > Until I see that must-have touch bar program, it’s still just a gimmick. I > really hope Apple figures out what to do with it before their bean counters > convince them to abandon it. > > > My bottom line is the MacBook Pro is a pretty good machine with high-end > features that’s over-priced in comparison with other machines in its class. > Despite the “Apple tax” I’m quite happy with it and expect it to be in my > backpack for quite a while. > > > --- > Lee Larson [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > > Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading > sex manuals without the software. — Arthur C. Clarke > The Odyssey File > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > MacGroup mailing list > Posting address: [email protected] > Archive: > <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.mail-2Darchive.com_macgroup-40erdos.math.louisville.edu_&d=DwIFaQ&c=OAG1LQNACBDguGvBeNj18Swhr9TMTjS-x4O_KuapPgY&r=F2GFXrjLFqVo3VwvIlo_XYeEiRRjHv15rxcenz7A21woG2aFGcrzndoSsskxfmOs&m=z6HcgHwuaFgxPMw7ib4_fMQBJ5caJC49CDoNyklF6-0&s=-RRYoo5kqJT7AWG-pYKP4E6NkKRzhRR_Jk-yy9OWqFQ&e=> > Answers to questions: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup/>
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