Some Background

I have a bad habit of putting more background in these posts than I need to. So, if you want to know a bit more about the history of the product line, and the context of this review, read on. Otherwise, feel free to skip to the next section.

For my new job (I just graduated) as a professional software engineer, I got my hands on a 2016 MacBook Pro as my personal machine. I’ve been interested to get a look at this machine for quite a while, and now that I do have one, I’m going to go over my first impressions, and in particular looking at how I feel about many of the hardware changes that were introduced in this generation.

At the time of writing, this is not the newest MacBook. Apple does two kinds of hardware releases, major releases and minor releases. Major releases introduce the “game-changers”, while minor releases bring about more incremental improvements and work on maturing the product line. The clearest example of this is in the iPhone line - the major releases increment the device number (iPhones 4, 5, 6, 7), while the minor versions append a modifier to the version number (iPhones 4S, 5S, 6S, arguably SE). The mac line is no different, but it doesn’t have the clear naming conventions. The conventions kind of exist, but are somewhat loosely defined. In general, Apple’s pro notebook line can be broken up into the following major releases, in addition to typically offering a minor release every year:

PowerBook (1991)
PowerBook G3 (1998)
PowerBook G4 (2000)
MacBook Pro (2006)
MacBook Pro Unibody (2008) - a.k.a. MBP Unibody
MacBook Pro Retina (2012) - a.k.a. rMBP
MacBook Pro Touch Bar (2016) - a.k.a. MBP TB

I’ve used a number of these machines. These are the PowerBook G4, the MBP Unibody, the rMBP, and now, the MBP TB. The model years on these were 2006, 2011, 2012, and 2016, respectively, for what it’s worth. So I think I have a pretty good sense of how the line has progressed. For that reason, most of my comparison points will be relative to the rMBP, because that’s the last major release.

First impressions

I walked into the temporary office, where laptop sat open, waiting for me. I was slightly taken aback at first, because of the color difference. It’s a “Space Gray” model, which differs somewhat from their traditional color scheme, essentially going from a silver/black scheme to a gray/black scheme. This wasn’t a bad thing - not at all. Just a bit of a shock, given that I’ve never seen a MBP that looks like this.

In 2006, Apple produced an entry-level MacBook (not pro) that was made of black polycarbonate, as opposed to (what had become) their signature white. This color was pretty popular, and for a long time, I saw people gripe about not having a dark color available. I guess Apple listened. :P

Anyway, as I got into using it, I started to notice the changes pretty quickly. I’m going to start at the top and work my way down.

The Display Panel

Starting at the top… that’s the webcam! In the last four years, it’s gone from a 720p camera to… a 720p camera. Some people may care about this. Personally, I see webcams as being useful for video chatting/conferencing, for which 720p is perfect. I’m sure someone will see this as a downside, but if I’m really going from top to bottom, I should mention it.

The bezels on the display are smaller. This means that the computer has the same size display as previous generations, while the laptop still winds up having a smaller physical footprint. This gives it a very “polished” feel.

The display is still 2880x1800 (or 1440x900 HiDPI), same as the rMBP. However, Apple chose to optimize the UI to scale differently. UI elements are the same size as if you scaled the resolution of the previous generation to 1680x1050, while still looking its best. I’ve felt cramped on previous macs’ screens, so this is a welcome improvement, even if I’m not totally comfortable yet. Also worth noting is that Apple’s updated the color gamut to P3. All I can say is that the display looks great. Vivid colors are vivid, mellow colors are mellow. It’s hard to appreciate until you’ve moved from using a traditional display 8+ hours a day to a P3. Not a wonderful improvement, but my eyes feel better after work than they should.

All-in-all, incremental display improvements refining what’s there and making it better. They also addressed a lot of wish lists (namely more spacious UI and P3 color), so I’d call that a success.

Finally I’ll mention the hinge. Again, minor difference. Instead of two points of connection between the main computer and the display panel (at the edges), there’s an interlocking hinge, like you’ll see on a door. Unlike the previous generation, there are no air vents in the hinge - it’s just a hinge. It feels very solid and is visually appealing.

Keyboard & Trackpad

I’m going to have a section dedicated to the touch bar, since that’s the big new feature of this release. So this will just be pure keyboard/trackpad.

The keyboard is great. It took me about an hour to get used to it, but it’s got these shallow yet powerful clicks that feel great to me as a touch typist. It’s like typing on a mechanical keyboard, but without the size of the keys or the range of movement. This is accomplished by the changes Apple made to the key mechanism, which they call the “butterfly” mechanism. The technology has also had some time to mature before being introduced into this machine, which has helped it. Essentially, it makes the keys much “shorter” and cuts down on excess space, allowing the keys to be physically larger, and to have shallower key-presses. If you’re typing all day (like I am), having a good keyboard is wonderful.

Also, because of how shallow and wide the new keys are on the keyboard, it’s had the side effect of fixing something that always kind of bugged me - light flowing out from the sides of keys on the backlit keyboard (as opposed to just shining through the letters). It’s not gone, of course, but it’s substantially less noticeable than any other laptop keyboard I’ve used. Kind of nit-picky, but it’s my review and I’ll write it how I want to.

The keyboard also includes a touch ID sensor, like many iPhones before it. I thought this was lame at first, but it wound up being pretty convenient. The sensor is very fast and very accurate, which makes it pretty useful. I have an Apple Watch that I can use to automatically unlock my computer, but I’ve wound up using the touch ID to unlock it anyway because of how convenient it is.

Now - the trackpad. It’s huge. They made it as big as they possibly could. Was this merited? Not really. It’s nice to not have to worry about hitting the sides of the trackpad while using it, but I don’t really notice when switching between computers. What is notable however, is that the click sensitivity of the trackpad is uniform throughout, as opposed to being less effective at the top, like the pre-force-touch implementations. I appreciate this.

The Ports

4 Thunderbolt 3 ports (USB-C) and a 3.5mm aux jack.

I like USB-C. I do. It’s compatible with pretty much any kind of device, and has massive potential throughput. I have defended Apple pretty often in their decision to migrate to USB-C, and I stand by the arguments I made - the throughput capacity, the potential to consolidate ports, the small footprint, the convenience, and the standardization - I still feel those are all sound points.

However, I was partially wrong, because I was mis-informed. The MBP TB does NOT support what’s called daisy-chaining. Daisy-chaining is, essentially, being able to run multiple external monitors off of one port. It’s supported if, and only if, the external monitors both support thunderbolt 3. Many do not. Windows does not have this issue, so Apple - if you’re going to push for standardizing ports, do it right.

If it weren’t for that one daisy-chaining issue, it would be perfect - I could connect and disconnect my entire workstation with one plug.

The Touch Bar

This is it - the big one.

The touch bar is something that takes a long time to get used to. I’m still not used to it. Like similar new technologies, you have to figure out what you want to get out of it, and you need to wait for software developers to catch up on supporting it. Apple’s been making an attempt to lead the way with this in their own apps - and they’ve had some success. Typically what they attempt to do is make their toolbar items accessible from within the touch bar, more conveniently. This can be hit-and-miss. For example, in Preview, it’s great. Being able to quickly switch between highlighting and markup in an intuitive, touch-based interface is great. In mail and safari, I’ve memorized all the shortcuts I care to use, so it only serves to offer me a chance to mis-click. That’s not to say I know how to do it better, it’s more of a commentary on the limits of the touch bar.

The touch bar has largely followed my expectations in terms of how it’s used. It’s actually not bad for touch-typing for apps you use heavily, in the same way that you gradually learn to touch-type on the keyboard. The biggest downfall here is that because the touch bar is a touch device, and not a physical device, no pressure is necessary to click the buttons on it. If your finger brushes against the touch bar, it’s likely going to trigger some sort of action.

The Biggest Successes

Microsoft has done a great job of taking advantage of the touch bar. They nailed it. In my opinion, they are the golden standard of what developers should try to do with the touch bar. That said, the complexities of Microsoft Office are well-suited to something that tries to abstract away complexity like the touch bar does.

BetterTouchTool is a big winner from the touch bar. BTT is a utility that allows for customizing global and app-specific shortcuts, using multi-touch gestures on trackpad, mouse, and iPhone, as well as custom keyboard shortcuts. The developer behind it has also been working on touch bar support, so you can add custom buttons to do… well… just about anything in a smart, semi-context-dependent way. To be completely honest, I haven’t quite figured out how the touch bar integrates into my workflow yet, so I just have a few buttons. One toggles showing/hiding hidden files when I have finder open, one opens a Terminal, and one acts as a “delete” key (as opposed to backspace). It basically makes a near-fully customizable touch bar for any app, with some caveats imposed by the system. I’ve also set up some application-specific options, like adding a button to “beautify” code in the Atom code editor, and do some keyboard shortcuts in messaging apps like Slack.

Finally, I’ll mention that it’s great for media. The brightness and volume controls are seamless, convenient, and intuitive. Whenever you’re playing media, you can click a button and gain access to standard media controls and scrubbing. It’s simple, but it gives you fine control over your media without breaking workflow in the least - this is appreciated.

The Internals, and other Small Notes

As expected, there are internal improvements over previous generations, especially my now-older 2012 machine. They went back to including a discrete GPU standard in 15” models. The CPU has made incremental improvements as expected; this is running a 2.9GHz quad-core i7 processor, as opposed to my 2012’s 2.3GHz. It also uses newer processor architectures from Intel, which also offers performance improvements.

The memory is still lackluster. Apple has fallen behind the curve, offering only 16GB of RAM. Modern workstations should at least go up to 32GB, or even 64GB. Now, I only need 16GB, as the most intense things I do usually includes running a few slim virtual machines at once, for which 16 is plenty. But for other professionals, this could easily fall short.

The speakers in the machine also offer substantial improvements in maximum output over previous generations. For a laptop, they’re pretty beefy speakers. The problem is that, since it is ultimately just a laptop, there’s a limit to how high the volume can go before there’s sound distortion. If I were Apple, I’d be hesitant to raise the max volume any further before finding a way around the present distortion at higher volume levels.

Apple claims that the battery lasts 10 hours, but I’ve seen more like 6. It’s entirely possible that this is due to the nature of my usage, which tends to be battery intensive, but it’s not as consistent as it is on other platforms like the iPad. This is somewhat to be expected, but I figured I’d note it.

Wrapping Up

Overall, I’m quite fond of this computer. It’s a pretty big refresh, all things considered, which is appreciated when it comes to Apple’s pro notebook line. The touch bar is interesting and useful, if a bit unpolished, and Andreas Hegenberg swoops in to save the day with BetterTouchTool. The keyboard is fantastic - I simply love typing on it. The display looks really sharp. It’s not a game-changer, and you can still probably hold off on updating, but if it’s time to upgrade, this is certainly a very nice computer to work with.

2016 MacBook Pro Review