Rumor: New MacBooks enroute

[MFloyd]

$29 for the basic kit and Kickstarter subscribers https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/436147229/snapnator-your-macbook-snap-feature-is-back

[Jørgen Ramskov]

One worry I have about that solution is having such a thing sticking out of the laptop all the time. Or do you plan to pull it out every time?

[simato73]

One worry I have about that solution is having such a thing sticking out of the laptop all the time. Or do you plan to pull it out every time?

I suppose you can pull it out when you are not using the laptop powered from the wall - keep the little magnetic thing stuck to the end of the power cable maybe?

[Jakov Minić]

I have pledged for the snapnator
I don't mind it sticking out that little bit at all. You cannot expect it not to stick out, can you?
Thank you MFloyd for the link! Hopefully, they will find sufficient funding and realise this project.

[Akira]

Hopefully, they will find sufficient funding and realise this project.

They have already been funded nearly ten times as much as their originally aimed amount, and they still have more than three weeks to go.   

[MFloyd]

I didn't found the exact dimensions. I found a close rendering; and we can make a rough estimate, comparing the dimension of the connector to the depth of USB-C plug.

[Jørgen Ramskov]

It looks like battery life has taken a serious hit: https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/07/2016-macbook-pro-battery-life-complaints/

The thing is, as long as it's sitting idle, it's very economic and that's great but when the CPU is actually working, it hasn't really improved that much compared to previous generations. Combine that with a much smaller battery and you're in trouble. If you mostly use it plugged in, then it's not that big an issue, but just like their iPhones, I would wish they were less obsessed with making their products thinner and thinner.

[Erik Lund]

Thanks Jørgen,,,

This made my day:

How do you enable solar power on the touch bar?

[Jan Anne]

Strange, both models do 10 hours playing video when tested on a leading Dutch tech site.

Certain apps aren't very good when it comes to power management, apparently the Microsoft apps like Outlook keep switching to the power hungry dGPU when the iGPU is more than capable of handling the job at hand. I would recommend to keep an eye on these apps and when necessary turn the auto switching for the GPU off to force the use of the more energy efficient iGPU when doing casual things like browsing, email, watching video, etc.

[chris dees]

Lloyd Chambers is upset on it as wel.
According to him it could be a problem with the GPU-driver

"Accordingly this seems like a GPU driver bug is at work, perhaps introduced in macOS Sierra, and having nothing to do with the 2016 MacBook Pro. With Apple’s poor software QA, this theory makes the most sense of all."

[MFloyd]

Ten years with Mac, and before, up to the 80's, with MS. I had a much much better SQA experience with the 🍎

[David H. Hartman]

If you mostly use it plugged in, then it's not that big an issue, but just like their iPhones, I would wish they were less obsessed with making their products thinner and thinner.

This is the fault of the average customer. The old adage, "The customer is always right." is frequently wrong.

Dave Hartman

[Akira]

Just now CC 2017 was updated to version 18.0.1. which supports the "Touch Bar".

[Jørgen Ramskov]

More details about the battery life of the new models: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/12/explaining-the-battery-life-problems-with-the-new-macbook-pros/

[MFloyd]

Quite balanced article, as I was afraid for another "Mac Bashing" writing.  One comment: the "14 days return, no questions" option is only valid for off the shelf models; mine being "purpose built" i.e. 1TB SSD @ 460 4GB GPU, no free return guarantee.