The New MacBook Pro: A Missed Opportunity

It’s hard to avoid Apple announcements for new hardware and the introduction of the new MacBook Pro is no exception.

I live on both sides of the fence using PC and Mac. I don’t lean in one direction over the other, but when it comes to development, using a Mac is definitely less stressful.

I have been waiting for Apple to release a worthy new MacBook to upgrade my 13″ 2014 MacBook Pro which I use for all of my front-end development projects.

While the new OLED touch bar is cool, it’s not enough to warrant upgrading for me. Apple missed so many opportunities to step up to the plate and change the game.

Where is the touchscreen?

Apple added in a screen touch bar, but they should have taken a page out of the book of $500 Windows laptops and added in a touchscreen.

My wife uses an almost 3 year old $500 HP laptop which has a touchscreen and while you might assume it is gimmicky, it works really well and in confined spaces like bed, a train or on a plane: it can be a Godsend.

I think a touchscreen on a MBP might be more useful than people think. I find 13″ is a good size for a tray table on a plane, but typing means I have to contort my hands into a weird uncomfortable position.

Anyone who questions the usefulness of a touchscreen display on a laptop has obviously never used one before, because they’re incredibly useful and other vendors have shown they work well.

Beyond 16gb of memory

When it comes to working with large files, running virtual machines… the more memory, the better. MacBook Pro’s have notoriously been lacking in the Ram department. To make matters worse, Apple solder in everything, so you can’t manually add in more.

With the new MBP range, the maximum size memory you can add is 16gb. Welcome to 2012, Apple.

I think this is one of the biggest letdowns of the new MacBook Pro range. Memory is important and we can live without Core i7 processors and powerful graphics cards (for professional purposes), but 16gb of memory? Really?

The newly announced Microsoft Surface Book might be more expensive, but Microsoft offer far greater customisation options, a touch screen, more modern hardware like core i7 processors and 32gb of ram as an option.