Tagged: MacBook Pro

The best way to add the ports you need to the new MacBook Pro

OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock

OWC is accepting pre-orders for their Thunderbolt 3 Dock, due to ship in February, starting at $280 (depends on the length of the Thunderbolt cable you want included). The Dock is obviously in response to Apple’s latest MacBook Pro announcement I wrote about yesterday.

In yesterday’s rant, I mentioned some would have to spend upwards of $200 for dongles to gain the ports they found necessary. The OWC Dock is a bit more than that, but also gives you significantly more options than straight dongles from Apple.
OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock
As you can see in the image above, the OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock includes plenty of ports. 5 USB 3 ports, Firewire 800, Ethernet, Display Port, audio-in and SD Card slot are included, along with two Thunderbolt ports capable of driving 4K displays. And the device is powered, so it can charge your iPhone.

OWC’s Thunderbolt 3 Dock comes in Space Gray or Silver, and cable length varies between .5 meter 40Gb/s transfer speed and 2 meter 20Gb/s.

When it comes to the Mac, Apple is making it reeeeeaaally hard to be a fanboy

MacBook Pro 2016

Apple recently released new MacBook Pro models with great hype. As someone who is in the market for a new Mac in the next year, I watched the keynote with a pretty good amount of excitement and anticipation.

At the conclusion of Apple’s keynote presentation, I found myself staring at the screen with a dazed and confused look on my face.

For years I’ve had a MacBook Pro for taking work on the road. I do light design and image retouching on it, as well as email, web browsing and writing. At the home office I use a top of the line iMac with 32GB of RAM, Core i7 processor and upgraded video card for the heavy lifting in Photoshop, InDesign, etc.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my impending upgrade the last year or so, and decided that I could probably live with just one fully upgraded MBPro and buy an Apple Thunderbolt Display to use when I’m at home. This would save a lot of hassle with file syncing and twice the time spent upgrading and maintaining two computers.

But then Apple Event happened last week and I feel like I’m stuck in a place I don’t want to be. I absolutely love the macOS, but I’m left wondering how Apple and the rest of the world ended up so far apart on their definition of a Pro user.

The new MacBook Pro with its Touch Bar looks cool at first glance, and I can totally see how the average consumer might find it too cool to pass up. The problem for me (and by me, I mean most pros) is that anything found in the Touch Bar can be found in the menus—and probably has a keyboard shortcut associated with it. If it does, I probably know it and use it regularly. So I look at that fancy colorful Touch Bar, shrug my shoulder and… pfffft!

But that’s just one feature, right? Then I look under the hood and find more pfffft! than I think I can chew. A limit of 16GB of RAM. How do they call a Mac a “Pro” computer when you limit it to 16GB of RAM? The reason, according to Apple’s Phil Shiller, is that they wanted to keep the power-consumption down to preserve batterly life.

It’s a PRO computer. Most pro users sit at a desk most of the day, with the MBPro plugged in. Don’t even get me started on the comparatively low-end video card Apple chose to include. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that it’s not a pro-level video card. Period.

MacBook Pro 2016 ports
The ports… that’s a big issue. Look, I get that technology moves forward. I never complained when Apple chose to switch to Lightning ports on the iPhone. But that’s mostly because I don’t have to plug anything into my iPhone other than the charger. My Mac is another thing completely. Not only do I plug my USB-A iPhone into it, but my USB-A microphone, USB-A DSLR camera cable, USB-A Bluetooth headphones (for charging) and multiple USB-A storage drives. With the new MBPro, some users will spend up to $200 on dongles to connect existing devices to the new MBPro. That’s just crazy.

LG Ultrafine DisplayApple no longer makes stand-alone displays, opting instead to work with LG to produce a fully compatible 5K display that has an iSight camera, plenty of ports and gorgeous image quality. The price is better than Apple’s former offering, too. So there’s really no problem there, other than the problem of perception.

But the big white elephant in the room is that rumor sites claim that Apple will be updating the MacBook Pro next year with faster processors, RAM upgradeable to 32GB, better video cards, battery-efficient OLED screens and more. Of course, some of those rumors don’t match up with reality. So who knows what to believe.

I’m not sure what to make of the current MacBook Pro, or the rumors that Apple is already working on the device pro users wanted. I get that Intel is to blame for the low-power processors and the effect it has on Apple to provide more RAM and video cards, but then why even release the laptop upgrade? Why not just wait a few more months and release the better device when it’s ready?

It makes me wonder what the next iMac or Mac Pro will be, or even IF they will be. What I know for sure is that my plan to go with a single Mac, the MacBook Pro, are on hold until next year… and even then I may have to alter those plans depending on what Apple does.

I used to be a pure Apple fanboy, but that description is no longer valid—at least not in the year 2016.

Apple’s new MacBook Pro 15″ with Retina Display = Mehhhhhh!

Ok, so maybe that headline is a tad bit misleading. The new MacBook Pro with Retina Display (MBPR) is a great laptop if you love the latest & greatest from Apple. But when I look at a PRO machine, I’m looking at specs. And when I look at the specs of the new MBPR, I see a lot of trade-offs. I also see a big, giant whammy!

You’re giving up ethernet & firewire. You’re losing your CD/DVD burner. You’re giving up a great MagSafe power connector (the new one sucks). You’re losing quite a bit of storage (the SSD drive is half the size of the regular MB Pro. You’re also losing dedicated audio line in and line out ports in exchange for a single audio port. In exchange you’re getting a much faster SSD storage drive, an HDMI port, more video RAM on the low end model, and a lighter weight computer overall.

Since I can live without the losses, and find the additional features enticing, I’ll call all those specs a wash. That means it comes down to the Retina Display.

MB Pro Retina

The MBPR offers a ridiculous 2880 x 1800 Retina resolution that looks absolutely stunning. The color and vibrancy is incredible. But unless I’m watching video or looking at photos, it’s really not something that offers much benefit to me. I was more interested in the increased screen real estate.

The problem is, at the highest resolution setting, the MBPR’s display makes everything on the screen tiny. Really tiny. I fired up Photoshop on the MBPR at my local Apple store and could barely distinguish the icons in the toolbar. I had to move up so close to the display that I felt like I was looking at my iPhone, rather than a 15″ laptop. Apps that aren’t specifically built for Retina Displays show some blurriness (though I didn’t think it was bad as some tech reviews I’ve read).

You can of course change the resolution 1920 x 1200, but I found that to be a bit too small as well. The next step down is what Apple considers the middle of the road, or “best,” setting in the Display Preferences: 1680 x 1050. I agree with Apple, it was the best setting for me. The regular 15″ MB Pro comes with a 1440 x 900 resolution display by default, but for $100 you can upgrade to the HD screen with the same 1680 x 1050 resolution.

So at the end of the day the MBPR costs $400 more, and I must accept the trade-offs mentioned above, and I can’t enjoy or take advantage of the premiere feature – the display. In the end, I can spend the same amount of money to upgrade the regular MB Pro to the same specs as the MBPR, and keep the Ethernet, optical drive, etc.

View extended laptop battery info with Coconut Battery

coconutBatteryIf you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro, your battery is vital to the usefulness of the machine. While Apple offers you basic information about your battery life, little information is displayed about the overall health of the battery. This is where coconutBattery comes in.

coconutBattery is a simple utility that goes beyond just showing you the current charge of your MacBook’s battery. You might say it gives your battery a complete physical exam. coconutBattery can show you the current maximum capacity of the battery compared to what it was when you first took it out of the box; perfect for anyone who’s thought “the battery used to last longer.”

coconutBattery

coconutBattery offers a wealth of information about your laptop's battery

The diagnostics don’t stop there. You can get a better idea of how many complete charge cycles are left in the life of your battery by checking the loadcycles (how many times you’ve fully charged your battery) – useful because every battery has a set amount of full battery charges before it just doesn’t charge anymore.

If you’re a multiple-laptop family, you’ve no doubt been faced with the question “is that the MacBook charger or my wife’s MacBook Pro’s charger?” coconutBattery can let you know if you’ve plugged your laptop in with the wrong charger.

coconutBattery is a free, Universal Binary you can download here.