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'The MacBook Pro's One-Year-Old Signature Feature Touch Bar Has No Future, But Users Are Required To Pay a Premium For It' (chuqui.com)
Chuq Von Rospach, a former Apple employee and commentator, has criticized the MacBook-maker to force consumers to pay extra for the Touch Bar -- a signature feature of the last year's MacBook Pro lineup -- in order to have the highest-end MacBook Pro currently available. He writes: The current [MacBook Pro] line forces users to pay for the Touch Bar on the higher end devices whether they want it or not, and that's a cost users shouldn't need to pay for a niche technology without a future. So Apple needs to either roll the Touch Bar out to the entire line and convince us we want it, or roll it back and offer more laptop options without it. [...] So what's the future of the Touch Bar? I don't know. I'm not sure Apple does, either. I was fascinated that when Apple released the iMacs earlier this year not one word was mentioned about the Touch Bar or Touch ID and support for them via an updated keyboard or trackpad was nowhere to be found. I'm taking that as an indication that after the lackluster response to this with the laptop releases, they've gone back to the drawing board a bit before rolling it out further.
I agree. Because Apple has made some good decisions in the past, all of their decisions are good.
A lot of anti-Apple people like to say that, and if they've rarely used Macs, they probably believe it. But there really is something to "It just works". I say that as a user who is fluent in Windows, macOS and Linux. Obviously, it doesn't ALWAYS "just work" - it's a computer and nothing is perfect. But compared to my Windows and Linux boxes, for day-to-day stuff, I have to do far less fiddling with my Macs.
Yes, Apple users do pay a premium, but for most of them, they do so for the ease of use and reliability, not for some naive devotion to fashionability.
Relax. They're busy removing all that crap.
Beyond being attractive, which is more important in many households than you'd believe, they are pure tech porn when you open them up. They are so well laid out and so well fabricated. Perhaps that is why they have such a high resale value. Go check eBay for yourself. It is amazing what a 5 year old MacBook goes for.
I know him, too, and I happen to agree with him. But I don't think that was intended as a cheap shot at him, so much as a cheap shot at Apple for the whole headphone thing. :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
What happened to the decade after 10 base T cable? How shitty was your mac? Fuck, I guess you needed to be forced new technology if you held on 10 years too long. How the fuck was this modded funny?