This week on The CultCast: Happy? Disappointed? Downright pissed off? Don’t miss our “Hello Again” Mac event reactions! Plus: Pros and cons of Apple’s new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar; and the two big omissions in Apple TV’s new TV app.
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CultCast #254 – Hello, indeed! Subscribe on iTunes
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On the show this week
MacBook Pro pros
- The new MacBook Pro won’t ship for another two to three weeks, but members of the media who got their fingers on the new Touch Bar came away from Apple’s event with rave reviews.
- TechCrunch: “The Touch Bar is, in a word, neat…. The strip itself is glossy. Not quite slick, but frictionless enough so as to run a finger across with little effort. It’s quick and responsive, reacting to multi-touch and the amount of pressure the user applies. It also adapts quite quickly as you toggle between different apps.”
- Versatile: You now get Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1, DisplayPort, and charging abilities on every port.
- Brighter screen with better color.
- Engadget came away particularly impressed by the screen on the new MacBook Pro models, calling it “stunning” when in person and “a noticeable upgrade” from the previous generation of MacBook Pros.
- Massive new trackpad.
- Headphone jack!
- Upgraded GPU and processor.
- 60hz refresh rates on 4K and 5K displays.
- Second-generation “fine-tuned” butterfly mechanism keyboard.
- Now available in space gray and silver.
MacBook Pro nos
- Previous MacBook Pros started at $1,299 (13-inch) and $1,999 (15-inch). New MacBook Pros (with the Touch Bar) start at a whopping $1,799 (13-inch) and $2,399 (15-inch).
- USB-C ports mean dongles for everything, including regular USB peripherals.
- No SD card slot.
- No HDMI out.
- Your current iPhone cable won’t work.
- Your Thunderbolt cables and peripherals won’t work without Apple’s new $50 adapter.
- No MagSafe.
- Dongles for literally everything:
- iPhone
- AirPods
- SD card readers
- Ethernet
- Thunderbolt 2 peripherals
- DisplayPort monitors
- No other Macs announced or updated
- AirPods delayed
- 13-inch Macbook Air not updated but will continue to be sold for time being. 11-inch Macbook Air retired.
- So long, non-retina MacBook Pro.
- Previous gen MacBook Pro with Intel graphics still for sale but at the same price.
About Apple’s new TV app
Apple’s TV app doesn’t work with the two best streaming services
- Apple revealed its plan to own your TV screen today with a new app called TV. The new service aims to unify your TV experience on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV by taking you straight to content, but the two best streaming services won’t be available.
- Neither Amazon Prime Video nor Netflix will participate in Apple’s new feature.
- Netflix confirmed “we are not participating and evaluating the opportunity…”
Erfon Elijah is the producer and host of The CultCast. When not editing podcasts or watching Mrs. Doubtfire, you’ll find him on Xbox Live hunting CoD Ghosts foes like the Predator. Here are his tweets…
7 responses to “The pros and cons of Apple’s new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, this week on The CultCast”
I don’t think I ever was so angry and pissed off about a newly released product.
The MacBook Pro is my bread and butter, I spend hours daily on it doing my work. For years I built up my system around Apple hardware and software trusted Apple they will deliver the goods and this is a massive fail. And it is not the only fail.
Probably the over reaction this MBP is causing amongst hardcore and longtime Apple users is partly coming from the underlying general direction Apple is taking – slowly and surely shafting the people that had faith and supported the company in the past when it almost went belly up. Now it seems, media professionals are collateral.
I agree.
I’ve never seen a top quality company treat their customers so rude, arrogant and with total lack of understanding of their users needs. Just incredible. I am so angry I can’t even sleep.
Jonathan Ive is about to do a George Lucas. From loved to hated. This is totally insane.
If we don’t see a change very soon. Apple as the professionals know it is dead. There will only be bling left. Golden iPads and luxury accessories.
And this is done with very very bad timing. Microsoft has changed style and making better hardware and software than ever.
“The reason to move on: courage.” – Phil Schiller
Hey Phil, the emperor is naked.
My first Apple computer was a IIe I bought when I was in college. It was followed by an original 128K Mac and a long succession of Apple desktops and laptops, iPhones, tablets and other products. I had hoped that Apple would update 13″ the MacBook Air, the best consumer laptop ever, with a faster processor, more storage and a Retina display. I was hugely disappointed by Thursday’s announcement. Not only did Apple not update the best non-professional laptop in their range, but they also introduced a hugely expensive model that instead of adopting smart and useful tech such as a detachable 2-in-1 design, introduced a weird and unnecessary TouchBar. Following the adoption of USB-C and elimination of the MagSafe connection and several other head-scratchers, it’s hard to figure out what Apple wants to be.
APple can take that new laptop and shove it…! Underpowered like hell, overpriced beyond hell and they are incapable of upgrading anything else in their Mac line, despite being years overdue. No more apple for me!
I don’t use mbp as much, but Apple been giving big f u to us. I’m a Mac Pro user and I won’t tolerate with this sht*
Coming from the UK we’ve had the double insult of a price hike because of the fall in the £ against the $ and then the additional cost of the mac, so it’s around $1,000, which I think you’ll agree is absolutely mental. They also increased the price of the existing lines overnight so an iMac is now around £250 more than it was prior to the launch.
& here’s the thing. My MacBook sits next to my external monitor, keyboard and mouse so the new trackpad is rendered useless, also a lot of the features seem to be covered already by keyboard shortcuts, mouse and trackpad. In the same way they brought out a stylus for fine artwork detail why would I use a finger for editing in final cut pro. I’ve used some iMovie on the iPad and iphone and like the ability to edit photos on the screen BUT I’m editing on the screen, looking at the image opposed to looking down and hovering over keys and a trackpad that may hinder the editing experience.
It reminded me a lot of the launch of the watch which all said and done was a poor first gen product.
You’ve got Phil Schiller telling you you can scroll through your photos really easily, and you can just see that he’s thinking “this is a bloody stretch what you gona need here is bionic eyes to see the 5mm images.”
4 years to develop this is a joke. Apple aren’t done but I think we’re all getting a bit long in the tooth for the Apple Hyperbole.
Think my MBP will last me another few years yet so see what comes down the pipe.
Oh and do you think when the £ recovers we’ll see a price drop……. In your dreams
The new MBP release makes you suspicious of Apple in really trying to accelerate the post-PC era. They seem to have remove everything that people loved and added stuff that everyone seemed to hate.