Anybody watching Apple’s “Hello Again” event probably suspected we’d get “one more thing” in addition to the long-rumored Touch Bar and the recently leaked TV app. Or maybe a couple more things.
Instead we got … a Final Cut Pro update and a new accessibility website?
Underwhelming! And cruelly disappointing to all the Apple faithful hoping against hope for new hardware. Here are all the other things we wanted — but got so viciously denied — during Apple’s MacBook Pro event today.
New Mac Pro and 5K Cinema Display
Tim Cook started off mentioning how creatives “move the world forward” using Macs as to power their work. Most creatives I know, including myself, prefer a desktop over a laptop any day. The Mac Pro makes a great choice, especially if you use Final Cut Pro X, but Apple’s high-end desktop machine saw its last update in December 2013.
While it’s still pretty darn quick today, improvements could be made. In addition, would it really have been that hard for Apple to throw the iMac’s 5K display into a Cinema Display housing? It’s great that Apple teamed up with LG for a new UltraFine 5K Display, but it still doesn’t look anywhere near as pretty as something Jony Ive might cook up. — Ste Smith
MagSafe for USB-C
The new MacBook Pros’ four USB-C ports deliver plenty of functionality — now you can power your laptop from whichever side you like, as Apple pointed out. Which also means you can trip over the cable and trash your shiny new MacBook from either side. Why, oh why, didn’t Apple come up with an innovative way to mimic the clever, magnetic, Mac-saving MagSafe functionality for its USB-C ports? If Griffin can do it, surely Cupertino can too. — Lewis Wallace
Updated Mac mini
Today’s keynote proved one thing: Apple does not care about poor people. I was hoping to make a cheap Mac station at my place with a new Mac mini. Now that the hardware inside the tiny Apple computer is over two years old, it makes more sense to just build my own Hackintosh with better specs at the same price. — Buster Hein
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AirPods for our ears
Admittedly, this dream got dashed early — Apple said Wednesday that its wireless earbuds won’t ship this month as originally planned. Still, I count this as a true disappointment. I can’t wait to try AirPods and see how they compare to Bluetooth headphones like Jaybird’s excellent new X3 model. — Lewis Wallace
Updated MacBook Air
Even though the MacBook Air is long in the tooth, it is still one the of the best MacBooks. It’s light and easily portable, yet the screen and keyboard are both full-size. It’s also well-priced at $999. If Apple had updated the Air and added the Touch Bar, I’d be outside the Apple Store right now to buy one. — Leander Kahney
Affordable new MacBook Pro
We knew the Touch Bar would bring strange new superpowers to Apple’s updated MacBook Pros, but the demo effectively showed off just how magical this new interface will be. The pricing — which starts at $1,799 for the “cheapest” 13-inch model with a Touch Bar — unfortunately, puts the new Apple laptops out of reach for many users. And Apple is taking a beating on Twitter and Reddit over the high price points.
Adding the Touch Bar-free “MacBook Semi-Pro” with a $1,499 price tag just adds insult to injury. Look, we know the MacBook Pro is Apple’s high-end, high-performance showcase for what a laptop can deliver. But if the Touch Bar is going to take off, Apple is going to need to make it accessible to more people. — Lewis Wallace
What did you want from Apple event?
That’s what we wanted to see at today’s “Hello Again” event. What were you waiting for? Let us know in the comments below.
Lewis Wallace is the managing editor of Cult of Mac and author of our weekly newsletter, The Weekender.
He’s a San Francisco-based writer and editor specializing in technology and culture. He loves his iPhone, hates Siri, and appreciates any hardware that combines form and function.
Prior to Cult of Mac, he juggled words and ideas as culture editor at Wired.com, homepage editor at TechTV, news product manager at NBCi, copy editor at PC World, reporter at The (Hayward) Daily Review and editor in chief of EveryBody’s News in Cincinnati.
He earned a bachelor of general studies degree with a journalism certificate from the University of Cincinnati. While in school, he worked as the entertainment editor of The News Record and as editor in chief of Clifton Magazine.
He’s also a bass player, who’s recorded and performed around the United States with Those Darn Accordions, The Electric Boogie Dawgz and The Mad Maggies. When not writing, editing or laying down bass lines, he plays darts and serves on the board of the San Francisco Darts League.
58 responses to “Everything we wanted from Apple’s MacBook Pro event but got denied”
I couldn’t care less about a Touch Bar. I had hoped Apple would update the MBA processor, add more storage and a Retina screen. That I would have lined up for.
They have. It’s the 13″ Macbook Pro, doofus.
the 13-inch MacBook Semi-Pro is a lot more expensive than the 13-inch Macbook Air
Start Earning 90 dollars /day for working online from your own home for few hrs on a daily base… Get paid regularly weekly… Everything you need is a laptop or computer, net connection, and also some free-time… OW.LY/n1nP303oO1A
Nothing about that 16gb RAM is the only option available for a “PRO” machine? That’s ridiculous… give us a thicker chassis and let us mount 32 or more GB
32GB in a laptop? What’s the point? That kind of power and it’s heat belong in a desktop.
Again….I guess you’ve never had to do a remote video shoot, or had to review 4K footage on the set of a green screen shoot. A lot of people also use these machines live when performing music, so tons of RAM makes sense. Many sound libraries demand it. A PRO machine needs lots of RAM, period. I’m not buying one of these to check my email at Starbucks. Buy a chromebook for that.
You make it sound like it’s malicious instead of being hope based on little to no evidence.
Thinner equals lighter and easier to put in my bag which is the main point of a laptop. What are you going to be doing on a laptop that requires more than 16gb? Editing huge video files at Starbucks? Desktop seems like a better bet for that.
A lot of people use these machines live when performing music, so tons of RAM makes sense. Many sound libraries demand it.
Or even worked with Lightroom. Lightroom will take as much RAM as you give it. I have a Windows Desktop with 24GB and LR still eats all of it when I am exporting photos. Same for any kind of video editing software, anything like that.
These are ‘Pro’ machines. It’s right there in the name. But they don’t have anything close to what should be considered Pro level specs.
Save the thinness and lightness for the Macbook Air. That makes sense. But if you need to add a whole half a lb to the Macbook Pro to give it real Pro level specs, like the ability to have up to 32GB of RAM, or a decent GPU, then so what.
How about develop the software “you” use every day? 16gb is entry level these days – something you buy at Walmart. I never thought I would use Walmart as an analogy to describe Apple. How far they’ve fallen.
I would buy a new apple keyboard if they released one with Touch Bar. I use some creative apps so it would be a huge deal for me. I know for some it, for good reason, wouldn’t be any more useful but for some of us it would be massive.
I would buy it too. They should officially support using an iOS device as a touchpad like device.
Have an iPad as a second monitor with your Mac Pro doing the processing? That would be nice. There might be some battery life issues with that.
I thought of a keyboard for a desktop as well. I suspect they thought of it already, but they may just not be ready to ship it. That would be a keyboard with a graphics chip on it and at least some ram to support it. I doubt Bluetooth could handle it without battery life issues. I suspect it would wind up being a really expensive keyboard until they’ve shipped a bunch of laptops first.
I don’t care about the touch bar either so I’ll just get a refurb of last year’s model. Besides, the price for the new ones is WAY too high, and the all-USB-C is a huge turn-off.
Gee, Apple doesn’t release what you wanted, so the whole thing was a fiasco? Please try to expand your world view to include those who are over-the-moon delighted that the new MacBooks are here. In the near future Apple will either: A) Come up with updates for the Mac mini, Mac Pro and iMac, or B) Decide to cancel one or more of them. The great thing about Apple products is that they last a LONG time and don’t progressively turn to crap like Windows computers do. I used a 2006 Mac Pro as my main computer for my graphics design company for years until I finally upgraded in 2014 to a new black cylindrical Mac Pro in 2014. The only reason I had to upgrade was because I needed Yosemite to run a certain piece of software, and it wouldn’t run on my 2006 model.
What I really want to see is Apple coming out with a brand new Cinema Display (hope, hope) with anti-glare coating like the current crop of iMacs.
Good lord, Fanboy.
If somebody can afford and uses Mac Pro, it doesn’t make him fanboy, but assuming so, makes you a bitter loser.
“The great thing about Apple products is that they last a LONG time and don’t progressively turn to crap like Windows computers do. ” Funny… I have a 10 year old “crap” HP laptop which still works and I can get replacement parts for when it does fail. I have a mid 2009 MacBook Pro 17″ which has recently died (HD and RAM work, but the thing won’t power on)… and guess what? Apple has discontinued service / parts for this model. So it is essentially a $3000 CDN hunk of metal which is worthless. Don’t ever forget that your beloved Apple computer, no matter how much you care for it, will one day be obsoleted (on purpose) and you’ll have to join the long line to get it replaced with something else. That’s the reality. Hackintosh is the only way I’ll ever deal with another Apple system where the parts aren’t soldered to the main board.
I don’t know where you ever got a 3000$ MacBook Pro in 2009 but you got taken, and MacBooks, by far out weigh any PC, PC is shit, it is fact that MacBooks stay relevant longer than PCs do, and you clearly didn’t take care of your Mac, because i literally immersed my in water (on accident) and a week later it turned on with zero problems. i would rather not use a computer if i was forced to use a “PC”. ANY certified Apple reseller will service any mac, and you can order the parts yourself online. HP definitely doesn’t still service a 10 year old laptop, who are you kidding? No company still services laptops that old. The new MacBook is genius, you are just stuck in the ways of using old tech. People complained about iPhone 7 removing the 3.5mm jack, now samsung has patented that on their next phone, (assuming it doesn’t catch fire)
What did you want from Apple event? For CoM to not piss on Apple’s non-waterproof parade! They introduced some pretty incredibly innovative hardware & software & all you want to do is piss and moan about what they didn’t do. Grow up! Boo hoo for you … Santa Tim didn’t bring you what you wanted from your wish list. A tantrum is always the way to go!
SDXC-connectivity.
who cares about a touch bar?? I was looking forward to finally purchasing a touchscreen macbook …total let down from apple
Apple has just proved that they wish to remain behind the times, take away functionality and seemingly wish to become an adapter company. As a long time Apple user, I’m out. No more koolaid for me.
This is a stupid story and is nothing more than CLICK Bait. GTFU
I think they moved away from Magsafe style connections because when the laptop breaks they make money. But the Magsafe power cable was one of the selling points for me when they first introduced them.
Bang on. The more I’ve been looking at the how and why of both Apple hardware and software, I’ve come to that same conclusion. Everything from crap lightning cables that rip so easily, to the idiotic installed apps on iPhone (which force you to go and buy apps that actually work properly)… it’s a corporation.. bottom line, and intended to make money. Yes there are great things which make me love my iMac and other Apple products, but more and more I’m finding I have to fix and patch things just like I used to do in the days I used Windows. I think it was Walt Mossberg who said that Apple “needs to use 2016 to get a better handle on its software” The hardware side is proving to be much worse than expected, and losing the MagSafe power coupling is just sad. I haven’t looked at the new lineup that was announced today in any detail but I hope at least they kept the SD card slot.
Apple should have restored the Open Type awareness to Mac OS that it took out with OS 10.6 and brought back the classic Mac Pro. Dumping Aperture was also a STUPID mistake.
I’m intrigued: what do you mean by “Open Type awareness”?
I was hoping for an iPad redo that could compete with the Surface for Photographers. Apple is fast becoming an entity not to be taken seriously.
What’s the word that comes to mind… umm…. let me think… ah.. irrelevant.
In an effort to compete with Microsoft, Apple should have introduced a touchscreen iMac in two sizes and touchscreen MacBook Pro in two sizes. Thinner, lighter, and faster are normal updates to all of Apple products. When are we going to get innovation that’s noticeable?
And Apple struggle through another year to try and get into profit. I do hope they work some magic soon start and generating some sales by making products people want otherwise they will run out of cash.
You really have your finger on the pulse COM.
So yet more glued together models without user expandable RAM and storage. Instead of adding RAM and storage in a year or two, you have to run out and buy a whole new system. How eco-friendly of Apple to expect people to toss their old hardware into the trash the instant you outgrow it. Premium prices on disposable products? I don’t know what they’re smoking in Cupertino but I hope it doesn’t spread.
Apple is seriously screwing things up so much with the new MBP. Was it seriously *that* hard to make all the 4 USB-C ports magnetic? No, its not. And why even have 4 USB-C ports in the first place? Almost all of the existing ports would have fit on the new MBP. And what the hell is with the pricing? Greedy pigs.
Fuuuu. All 4? Hell just make one for the charger and I’d be happy. This is classic one step forward nine steps back from Apple.
What are you talking about? The US dollar is currently very strong compared to other countries.
I hoped they’d do something like Microsoft’s Surface Studio. There’s nothing new Apple is doing now. IPad pro is a gimmick and the new touch bar on the MBPs is a joke. They really need to make something that can compete against Microsoft’s Surface line, because right now it’s just speed-bump-upgrades and disappointments.
And Johny Ive is nowhere to be seen at these events… probably deeply ashamed at what a fiasco he’s been drawn into. Or who knows? Maybe he’s just along for the ride.
He’s probably at a fashion show somewhere…
iPad Pro is a gimmick? thats one amazing gimmick, clearly you’ve never used one, otherwise you wouldn’t even say that, the touch bar is a brilliant thing to do. Surface Studio is a gimmick, how much microsoft Hardware is still around, how are those zunes treatin ya? how about the windows phone, talk about joke, Microsoft should just stick with software and gaming, at least they win there…other than windows… they can never get that right..
My Zune HD is still around and is what I use. The Zune players were arguably the best quality competitors to the apple ipod and the zune software, especially the 2009-2010 releases, were better and more intuitive than the itunes software at the time. Microsoft Surface products are not going away, in fact the sales of them are increasing.
Windows phone don’t sell in great quantities but in terms of hardware quality they are great. Plus you have continuum with them. At least Microsoft is trying. When do you think we will see a continuum feature for ios?
I stuck with Apple for their reliability. The irony if this is I actually bought my father a surface 4 (not the pro), and to our surprise it can do content creating at minimum laptop levels (some adobe suite apps). From experiences, It can run desktop class apps without the user having to relearn where certain tools are at and find what’s missing in certain apps (this is what I really want and would happily burn a premium)…. like Apples iWork suite when continuing workflow from the macbook to ipad, a huge headache.
I really think you /clearly/ misunderstood me, I’m still on Apple’s side but are not impressed with their current product line. I stated, “I hoped they’d do something like Microsoft’s Surface Studio.” Like make the iMac with a touch surface so I (and other content creators alike) don’t have to go spending extra moneys on peripherals that’ll clutter my desk or storage. Mind you i’m still using old Macs i.e 08 MacPro and Macbook Pro which was my last upgrade and are still rocking them for work related content, and then I gave my old 06 iMac to my sister for school related stuff, I can go further back but that’s irrelevant. If apple made the MBP line (or other Apple products) similar BUT better than the surface then I’d be BEYOND happy.
I didn’t want to mention that I am an apple fanatic and have used their products for many years because it also won’t support the argument I’m making. I did own an iPad for many years, and then upgraded to the iPad pro for work. It’s just a glorified iPad because of its screen real-estate and better processor, nothing more. Cant do photoshop, illustrator, cad, lightroom, dreamweaver, finalcut, ETC. List goes on and on.
Anyway, going back to your point, so by you saying that the touch surface on the new MBP is a brilliant idea vs all the peripherals I got…. you /have/ to be kidding me. I was trying to focus on the ergonomics of the product and here you are bringing up zunes and other garbage to add fluff to you argument, please.
Come on, they made new emojis! Surely worth spending 3k!
Cracks me up what people get in a tizzy about.
This keynote was great for Microsoft. Apple even talked about their cool apps like pages, numbers and keynote…wait…no, they talked about office.
This keynote was just to turn over a lot of mac users head to what Microsoft is doing.
Great job Apple.
completely agree with the display: huge disappointment
no mac pro, no mac mini, no iMac update and no display – all in all a successfully long drawn out event but WAIT!!! – a 50 yr old woman in a 12 yr old school girl outfit with pig tails was the highlight as she “used both her hands ” LOL
thank God for the MILF brittany spears look a like. lol
It was pathetic how many times Schiller, Cook and pals gushed about how thin the new MacBook Pro is. They literally talked about it for half the presentation.
I’m very dissapointed. I was hoping that they would keep the same basic Retina MacBook and add TB3 and a few other things. Of course we got a culling of ports instead. That HDMI which meant I could take my laptop anywhere and find a monitor? Gone. TB2 on miniDP which connects to almost all my gear at home, that will be a $50 adapter sir!
You have a DSLR and want to off load images to your MAC? We killed the SD card, go buy an SD card reader (in USB C good luck!).
Along with the iPhone 7 it seems todays Apple customer is required to carry a bag of dongles and adapters in order to use their Apple gear. My current MBP, Well on one side I’ve got USB, firewire, thunderbolt, an SD card slot and one of those old fashioned earphone jacks from 100 years ago. What a piece of garbage, being able to plug into things and use them!
I too am really puzzled by the LG thing. I bought a Mac Pro when the new cylinder macs came out. Great machine. I make video, music, code and game on it. At the time it seemed like a no-brainer that we’d see a new ACD. But I’ve had to go to ASUS for a decent 27″ display. Come on Apple, we don’t care if you use Samsung, LG or whomever. Give us a new TB display!
I’m sure some idiot at Apple crunched the numbers and said ‘well sales are down, kill that product’. Of course they were down, when you were still selling a $1000 2k display, we could buy a 4k display for the same price or a decent 2k for half of that. And my ASUS has wider color gamut.
Call me a realists but I expected a price in increase. I’ve been around tech enough to understand a contextual, multitouch oled touch bar with Touch ID would cost money to develop, produce, and implement. Anyway my 8 years old Mac was ready for an upgrade so I bought a new 13″ MBP w/512gb SSD and Touch bar.
I expected a price increase. But not a $500 price increase.
I know this is terribly superficial of me, and perhaps also shows me up as a person of no taste, but… what the hell. I was GUTTED – DEVASTATED, I tell you! – that Apple chose to deny me my passionately-held wish for a GOLD MacBook Pro. I really LOVE the look of the gold MacBook, and I was sorely tempted to buy one; but I need a more powerful laptop than that, and want a bigger screen. So I was fully expecting a colour choice, and I equally fully expected that one of those choices would be gold. I really mean this, actually; I was TRULY disappointed when the colour choice was revealed as just Silver or Space Grey, trivial let-down though it may be. I have a gold 13″ iPad Pro, so why shouldn’t I be able to have a gold equivalent ‘pro’ laptop? If gold is ‘pro’ in one Apple line, why should it be ‘bling’ in the other? (Apple’s version of gold is actually really tasteful.) Anyway, I’ve opted for Space Grey instead, but I’m REALLY not happy about it; especially considering these obscene prices that Apple’s asking. I really need a new laptop NOW, and I can’t wait any longer, so I’ve ordered a 15″ Space Grey model – and it’s painfully expensive and the wrong colour. Doubtless Apple will decide to add gold as a new colour option next year, which will annoy me even further, because I intend my new laptop to last me for a good number of years (my previous one is a 17″ model from 2007! – i.e. the last pre-unibody Aluminium model, and nearly a decade old). I’m sure I’ll love the new machine, but the fact that it isn’t the colour I was wanting will always be a bit of an annoyance – especially if Apple DOES introduce a gold version later (which I’d put money on it doing).
I agree with most of the points in this article, but ESPECIALLY with the ‘MagSafe for USB-C’ section. Looking at this realistically, I can quite see why the idea has been dumped for this new interface in GENERAL. I mean, it’s just so flexible that it’d be irresponsible to make general-purpose connectors magnetically (and thus easily) removable. If you’ve got a RAID array attached to your MacBook Pro, the last thing you’d want would be to knock the cable out in the middle of a bit write operation and corrupt your data. BUT NEVERTHELESS, having said all that, if you’re going to use one of the ports PURELY for power – i.e. as a direct replacement for the old power socket, not involving data at all – then there’ NO REASON not to retain the MagSafe idea. There was a rumour a few days ago that Apple was indeed going to provide some sort of MagSafe ‘dongle’, and I was very happy about that. I can see NO REASON AT ALL why Apple shouldn’t have devised something like the Griffin BreakSafe cable, with a tiny little magnetic bit that goes into the MacBook and to which the cable attaches in a MagSafe way. That would have been JUST PERFECT. But they haven’t, so I’m cheesed off about that. MagSafe was absolutely one of the best ideas that Apple ever came up with, and to just dump it is brain-dead in a way that I wouldn’t expect from Apple. (And yes, I COULD buy a Griffin BreakSafe… but unfortunately all the reviews suggest that it’s pretty clunky and doesn’t work very well. I’d have expected Apple to do the job properly and get it right.)
I wanted 2TB at the 1TB price, or close to it. +$1200 is huge amount. You’ll never get that back in resale value – i.e., no second-hand buyer will give you an extra thousand dollars more than a used 1TB machine to get the 2TB. Macs *used* to hold their value, however, there’s such a large second-hand market now the prices are dropping. Makes it hard to invest in a $5000 laptop every year.
All I’ve wanted every year, a MacBook Pro 17″