This generation was the one that made me finally give up on MBPs, and now I'm even more glad. The lack of 8th gen intel, removal of magsafe (an innovation they were previous, rightly, proud of), lack of actual touchscreen, and ever increasing prices. Other friends who do a lot of photography (a key market for apple!?) were miffed at the removal of the SD card slot.
I went for a HP Spectre and have been very impressed. touchscreen changes things entirely - reading papers is a joy. Giving a demo is easy with a 360 degre hinge so i can prop it on the table... oh and it was half the price, for better specs (the resolution is crazy).
I'm still open to MBPs in the future, as I loved my 2010, 2012, and 2014 versions, but they need to look at what made them great for the 'pro' market, and think about how to servie that, not just turn them in to a more expensive version for the image conscious.
Magsafe have saved my numerous nd expensive MBP's more time than I can count. I don't plan to buy another one until they either add it back, or cut the price in half.
My pet theory is that most of Apple, as most of the industry, believe that what was selling MBP's was their design. Design as in fashion, or watches. But I don't think that was it, it was rather design as in furniture classics, as in quality tools, where the goal is for form and function to become one.
According to me, it is evidenced by how eg. iPhone4/5 feels really nice in the hand whereas 6 and up feels like holding a slippery bar of soap, minus the nice smell.
I really hope they find their way, because Windows still want me do stab myself each time I use it, and getting Linux on a portable still doesn't feel very tempting, even if I could find a hardware that has good touchpad, rigid chassis, a keyboard that doesn't feel like it's made of cheese, webcam that actually has colors, and microphones with echo cancellation that actually works, some battery life, not too noisy, good screen. Most fail already at the touchpad.
I've yet to meet anyone who has had magsafe that didn't think it was brilliant. I'm also assuming it's now patentented so nobody else can make something similar.
I did find it annoying however (in a precursor to Apple becoming a company who make dongles) how I had to buy a tiny magnetic block to use my v1 charger with my next laptop.
Lack of 8th gen intel? That's Coffee Lake, which is in all the 2018 MacBook Pros. Intel's failures at 10nm (Cannon Lake, their previous target for 8th gen) are very well known and have been holding up the entire industry, and that's 100% on Intel. Those chips still aren't shipping.
It's a common misconception the last few years that Apple isn't shipping the latest Intel chips. Aside from the expectations/reality mismatch of Intel's 10nm woes, there's at least two other reasons this misconception persists:
1. Volume - A few PC manufacturers sometimes ship new Intel chips right when they come out, but often that is a paper launch or in super limited quantities. MacBooks are bought by millions and can only use Intel chips when they're available in volume and have shipped with what was available at the time.
2. Features - Intel staggers the release of their new generations so that they ship ones with certain (usually cut down) features first, such as a Y-series part sans GPU, or a K-series for desktops. Apple uses specific intel chips with specific features like beefier GPUs, which sometimes come out a bit later.
Every once in a while a lower volume Mac doesn't get refreshed, like iMacs are right now. Since Intel updates have been pretty incremental in certain SKUs there's not a strong reason to update those until significant new technologies come along.
I really do wish they'd go touchscreen. Several times per week, I try to touch my work MBP's screen because I'm so used to my surface that I use at home.
I don’t think Apple will ever release a 2-in-1. Why? It’ll cannibalize their own product lines, the MacBook Pro and iPad Pro. Microsoft doesn’t really have that issue, and hence can make that product.
Honestly, there’s an opportunity here for some companies like Microsoft and Google to catch up in terms of innovation by designing products that Apple would never.
Apple has never been shy to cannibalize their own sales, in fact it's straight out of the Steve Jobs playbook (“If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will”). I'd challenge you to find a company better at it than they are.
Examples include:
iPod mini cannibalizing iPod
iPhone cannibalizing all iPods
iPad cannibalizing Macs
iPad (2017) cannibalizing iPad Pro
iPhone XR cannibalizing iPhone XS
They're even organized to support product cannibalization, being functionally organized instead of divisionally. If they had an 'iPod division', that division would fight tooth & nail against the 'iPhone division' to keep their P&L running.
They're not doing a 2-in-1 because it's not a product they feel makes sense right now. That's all.
I went for a HP Spectre and have been very impressed. touchscreen changes things entirely - reading papers is a joy. Giving a demo is easy with a 360 degre hinge so i can prop it on the table... oh and it was half the price, for better specs (the resolution is crazy).
I'm still open to MBPs in the future, as I loved my 2010, 2012, and 2014 versions, but they need to look at what made them great for the 'pro' market, and think about how to servie that, not just turn them in to a more expensive version for the image conscious.