Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

The very first MacBook Pro

I am typing this on a 2006 MacBook Pro, the very first pro Apple laptop with an Intel processing chip. The college me could only wish to afford such a beast of a machine. And here I am using it now to blog, some 16 years later. Because the keyboard is phenomenal to type on. This era of Apple keyboard is as good as it gets: excellent travel with superb stability.

The reason I have this old-as-heck MacBook Pro is because one of the campus labs (finally) retired a bunch from service. Of course, any time tech gets recycled, the vultures start to circle. I normally don't go for any of the Apple stuff, because I already have the latest laptop and professional display. But this particular MacBook Pro caught me eye, primarily because it was something I pined for way back when.

It's not unlike car guys buying their childhood hero cars after they've earned some money as an adult. Except I was able to get this MacBook Pro for absolutely free.

The laptop runs arguably the best macOS (or OS X, as it was back in the day) ever: 10.6 Snow Leopard. This was back in a time when major updates for macOS happens every few years, unlike the annual cadence of today. I'm surprised to find a copy of Snow Leopard is available for download at the Internet archive. Though how legit and legal that method is, I cannot say for sure.

What I can say is that it works, because I used that link to make a bootable USB stick to then do a clean macOS install. This vintage of MacBook Pro predates any Internet recovery methods, so the royal you must use an installation media to wipe the system.

I have to say it's pretty neat to touch this old tech again, and to see that it still works, for the most part. Modern websites no longer work because the browser/operating system is too out of date. But I don't need this for that. I'm only using this for the fantastic keyboard to type out stuff like this.

Ya'll nasty

Working in IT tech support, I’ve seen my fair share of absolutely filthy computers coming in for service. As someone who keeps my own stuff pristinely clean, I can’t fathom how others live with the grime that’s on their laptops. Dust and food particles all over the keyboard deck; fingerprints and oil on the screen surface. Needless to say, I wear gloves before I handle the laptops. Even before these COVID times.

I think there’s a spectrum of bothersome in relation to how dirty something is to people. Everybody can objectively attest to what clean is. No one would accept a brand new out of the box computer that’s full of dust. However, filthiness level is entirely subjective. A single smudge would bother the heck out of me, while others can live with a display full of fingerprints.

On that note, I always wondered why people feel the need to touch their screens (hence the fingerprints left over). Then I realized most are not. The dirt on the screen is actually caused by the keyboard deck. You type out an email with your grubby fingers whilst in the middle of eating a sandwich. That oily imprint then gets transferred to the screen when the laptop is closed. Mystery solved. The rest of you are filthy and dirty.

Every laptop that comes into my hands at work, I clean them up nicely before commencing service. Not because I’m doing the users a solid. It’s more for me because I don’t like working on a dirty laptop. Indeed, many of them remark on how clean their computer is upon returning to them. Like I said, we can all objectively agree to what absolute clean is. It’s the level of unclean that’s seemingly in dispute!

One laptop to rule

So I recently purchased a 16-inch MacBook Pro as a “one laptop to rule them all” replacement for both my 2017-vintage iMac and 2019-vintage 15-inch MacBook Pro. Admittedly this is a bit of a frivolous expense because I could have simply sold the iMac and kept the still relatively new 15-inch laptop as the main workhorse. But, who doesn’t like the latest and greatest things, am I right? Buying the 16-inch MacBook Pro allowed me to do something I’ve wanted to do for the longest time: custom spec a laptop to what I need, rather than anchoring to a certain purchase price (read: being cheap). If this is indeed one laptop to rule them for a long time, then might as well go for it fully.

The primary extra cost is the two terabyte SSD upgrade over the paltry 512 gigabyte standard issue. I want to fit my extensive collection of music and the back-catalog of digital photos - some 800 gigabytes worth - right onto the same MacBook Pro, rather than storing them on an external drive like I have done since the Mac mini I bought back in 2014. With this new laptop I no longer have to plug in a drive anytime I want to listen to music or edit pictures, and I have to say it’s well worth the extra cost for this convenience. This 16-inch MacBook Pro now quite literally holds my entire digital life.

Don’t worry, it’s very well backed up.

Some of you may ask why would I buy current 16-inch MacBook Pro when the entire computing world knows Apple will soon be releasing laptops running their own silicon chips, rather than the current Intel products. There’s much expectation the future Macs with Apple silicon will run rings around the Intel chips both in terms of speed and efficiency, so why I didn’t I simply wait a bit? Why buy what is surely the last of a dying breed of laptops?

Because I am of the mindset that you should buy what you need right now, instead of constantly waiting for that’s next. You’ll never be disappointed if you get what you need right this moment, and use fully that particular thing’s potential. You wouldn’t have time to think about whether or not something new is on the immediate horizon, and that you’ll be missing out on something better, if only you had waited. One constant in the tech world is that improvement is always coming up next, so if the fear-of-missing-out emotion is strong in you, then you’ll never be satisfied no matter how long you wait.

I bought what I wanted right now and am enjoying the new machine immensely. For sure the Apple silicon Macs will be brilliant, but future potential is not something for the present me to fret over.

Trading it in

In the quest to consolidate and simplify my life, in preparation for the time when COVID is over and we all go back to what once was normal (as of this writing, hopefully early next year?), I am selling my barely a year old 15-inch Macbook Pro. The laptop was bought as a bandaid option during a difficult time last year - when my main computer the iMac was unceremoniously taken away from me - and as specified it doesn’t fit what I need going forward. While indeed I am taking a rather huge chunk of loss in depreciation, sometimes in life you have to spend the money to get what you want.

I am stingy 95% of the time so I can afford to spend somewhat frivolously during the small 5%. Exhibit A: the GT3.

Anyways, the 2019 version of the 15-inch Macbook Pro is a fantastic machine, but the reason I am trading it in (for cash to be used on a future Macbook Pro) is because the particular unit I bought is lacking in storage space and memory. Apple’s largest laptop is appropriately expensive, and speccing for larger SSD drives and extra RAM increases the price rather dramatically. It was an emergency situation at the time of purchase of my 15-inch unit, so I didn’t have the foresight (or money, honestly) to spec the machine the way I would have liked. “Poverty spec” - the absolute base model - was what I ended up purchasing.

Armed with only a 256 GB SSD drive, space becomes precious really quickly, especially dealing with 100 MB RAW files from the Sony A7R2 and 4K footage from the GoPro. I am not able to fit my music collection onto the main drive itself, because it would take up half the room. To listen to music I had to plug in an external drive, which is slightly burdensome and a hassle if I wanted to move the Macbook somewhere off the desk. The goal with whatever Macbook Pro I buy in the future is to opt for enough hard-drive space that I can fit the entirety of my digital life onto the laptop and still have vast amount of space in reserves for my photography and video projects. I want to be able to just grab that one computer and take everything with me wherever.

One laptop to hold them all. Tolkien would be proud, I’m sure.

You're getting a Dell!

At work, we are imaging a whole bunch of Dell laptops in preparation for the looming Fall semester (still remote, mind you), and I have to say there’s nothing quite like the intoxicating smell of brand new computer hardware. Don’t worry, it’s not just Dell machines - the sweet scent of Apple computers will come hopefully in a few weeks’ time. For now, it’s Windows laptops made by Dell, and in handling over a few dozen of them over the past week, I’ve come to one concluding revelation: it’s so nice to have various type of ports built into the a laptop.

I am the biggest Apple fanboy as there is, but even I have to admit the decision to feature only USB-C ports - and nothing else - on the Macbook line is a massive inconvenience, especially in the education environment. Back last year when my main machine was a Macbook Pro, each and every time I needed to import photos from my camera via SD card, I would forget that I first have to get the USB-C to SD card adapter out of the drawer. Were it a Dell machine - or any typical PC laptop, really - I’d be able to stick the card right in, no fussing with adapters. The hashtag “dongle life” is a real thing, and can get massively annoying.

Most annoying is in classrooms when users need to connect to a projector or television; we never get calls from PC people needing an HDMI adapter, because most of them have it built right in - it’s always Apple users who need a dongle for practically everything. A laptop with many type of ports is a convenience I didn’t realize I wanted until I had to image a load of Dell laptops recently, juggling between many USB (type A, obviously) sticks and ethernet cables. Add to that the ability to upgrade hard drive and memory by the user, and it’s a small wonder why I stuck with Apple laptops even after their transition to USB-C ports only.

Oh right: build quality. The precision assembly of a Macbook Pro is second to none (ignore the episode regarding the butterfly keyboard), and the equivalent Dell feels chunky and flimsy in comparison. “Why does the display lid need to be this thick?”, you’d ask, and “Why is the keyboard deck not absolutely rigid?” Of course, depending on the person, this may or may not be high on the list of things that matter to you in a laptop; for me, how tactilely wonderful a Macbook Pro is to hold and use is worth the hassle of dealing with dongles all the time.

I'm not getting the 16-inch Macbook Pro

Let’s note for the record that I have - thus far - uphold my pledge to not buy the AirPods Pro.

So trust me when I say this: I am not buying the new 16-inch Macbook Pro that Apple announced yesterday. Not that I don’t want to, because let’s face it who amongst us techies wouldn’t want the latest and greatest from Apple - or any other company. My personal obstacle preventing me from buying the 16-inch Mac laptop is that I am currently typing this on a 2019 edition 15-inch Macbook Pro, which I had just bought a few months ago. It would be highly reckless to get the new 16-inch unit and then have to figure out some way to offload this still very fresh 15-inch, for presumably a considerable loss of the original $2,300 I paid.

Don’t let the Porsche fool you: I can’t make cavalier money moves like that.

At least internally the 16-inch Macbook Pro is largely the same as the now discontinued 15-inch version: it retains 9th-generation Intel processors, though graphic power gets a slight bump thanks to updated chips from AMD. You can now spec memory up to 64 gigabytes and hard-drive space up to 8 terabytes, which is quite insane on both counts. A videographer can literally import and edit 8K content right on the laptop, with no need for external Thunderbolt storage. Apple isn’t messing around with the ‘Pro’ designation, though you’ll just have to ignore the fact the webcam is still has a paltry 720P resolution. I guess Apple thinks professionals aren’t frequent users of video conferencing.

The biggest point of contention with the current era of Apple laptops is the wildly unreliable ‘butterfly’ keyboard, and in response Apple has finally switched back to the ‘scissor’ mechanism in the 16-inch Macbook Pro. If you like typing on the latest magic keyboards that comes bundled with iMacs (I don’t) then Apple says you’re going to enjoy a similar experience on the 16-inch laptop. This change is a mix for me, because I absolutely love the tactile feel of the butterfly mechanism, though I can understand the frustration of users from the standpoint that no matter how great it feels to type, a keyboard is utterly useless if it malfunctions frequently. I clean the deck of my 15-inch Macbook Pro religiously to hopefully avoid the fate many owners have succumbed to.

The one feature I am truly jealous of in the new 16-inch Macbook Pro - not the physical escape key or the massively better sounding speakers - is the return of the ‘inverse-T’ arrow key layout. For as much as I love the butterfly keyboard, the placement the arrow keys is the worse ergonomic design Apple has ever produced. The full-height left and right keys make it frustratingly impossible to use the arrow grid by touch alone. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve mistakenly hit the shift key thinking it was the up arrow. Future owners of the 16-inch Macbook Pro are a lucky bunch indeed.

Sadly I’ve still got a few more years yet with the 15-inch Macbook Pro. God willing the butterfly keyboard doesn’t fail on me.

Apple's sneaky fix for its butterfly keyboard

Last week Apple (finally) updated the internals of their Macbook Pro line with the latest Intel processors, among other improvements (optional 32GB of ram!). The news however was overshadowed because all focus was on whether or not Apple has fixed the issues with their butterfly-switch keyboards. The greatest laptop in the world would be quite useless if mere grains of sand can render keys wholly inoperative. Bold move indeed if Apple kept the same keyboard in the new refresh.

The good news is Apple did update the keyboard in the new Macbook Pros, calling it their third generation butterfly mechanism. Missing from the PR literature however is any mention of fix for sticking and unresponsive keys. With multiple lawsuits in preparation against it, Apple is likely not at liberty to openly admit any faults innate to prior generation butterfly keyboards. Therefore the official company line is that the gen-three butterfly keys are quieter than the previous versions.

Journalists who’ve had a first-hand look have found this to be true.

The team at iFixit did their usual diligence and tore open a brand new 2018 Macbook Pro. They found that underneath each key-cap is a silicone membrane/gasket covering the butterfly mechanism. The new part appears to be what’s damping the clicking noise (ergo quieter as Apple says), though it also functions to prevent small dust particles from seeping in further underneath the key-caps - a de-facto remedy for the malfunctioning keys problem.

So it seems Apple did fix the issues of the old butterfly keyboards; they just won’t say so officially, again probably due to the pending lawsuits. A PR move dictated by the needs of the lawyering brigade.

Nevertheless, owners of Mac laptops outfitted with the first or second generation butterfly mechanism ought to demand that Apple retrofit this rubber gasket solution onto their Macbooks. On the other hand I wouldn’t buy a Mac laptop that hasn’t got the gen-three butterfly keys; Apple needs to update the rest of its laptop lineup quickly.

Apple should also continue to work on its 'Portrait Mode' algorithms. The blur on the stem as it meets the flower head is horrendous.