The main target audience of MacBook Pro started with designers, writers and musicians (just looking on the shelf towards my old Titanium PowerBook G4).
There are not so much professional use cases which will agree on removing screen estate and adding visual distraction. Screen estate is the main difference in professional UX.
One of the reasons that I mentioned the Framework laptop is that a small company can get super-close to professional audience when searching pro solutions with common sense.
The Mighty Apple with trillions in bank cannot come-up with something "innovative" and chooses the "trade off" approach?
> The Mighty Apple with trillions in bank cannot come-up with something "innovative" and chooses the "trade off" approach?
Do you think having money means Apple never has to make tradeoffs? There are always tradeoffs. It's just not possible to make a good webcam that exists in the tiny space at the top of an ultra-thin screen with ultra-thin bezels. Most manufacturers just make terrible webcams, including the Framework that you've brought up as a good alternative (which has much thicker bezels besides).
That's one way to go. Another way is to make space for the webcam. Apple can't magically throw money at every conceivable problem until it disappears.
You don't have to buy one of the new MacBooks. I suspect that most designers aren't going to have as much of a problem with it as you're suggesting, though. Outside of full screen most folks won't notice it after a while, and when you go to full screen Apple adds a black bezel anyway.
> It's just not possible to make a good webcam that exists in the tiny space at the top of an ultra-thin screen with ultra-thin bezels.
Maybe they could consider, you know, not dogmatically pursuing ultra-thin bezels for their own sake?
> and when you go to full screen Apple adds a black bezel anyway.
That's good to hear, but that then entails entirely removing a chunk of vertical screen real estate - which is already at a premium (relative to horizontal) with widescreen aspect ratios. Contrast with the Framework (or, similarly, the Pixelbook), which doesn't need to do that and boasts a 3:2 aspect ratio to improve upon that vertical real estate.
A laptop with thick bezels and no notch is the same as a laptop with no bezels, a notch and those pixels disabled in software. It sounds like you want it both ways - you don’t want to lose your vertical real estate (“which is already at a premium”). And you don’t want the notch. In the same paragraph talking about how important vertical real estate is, you hold up other laptops like the framework as ideal even though they lose vertical real estate via the chunky bezel.
I’m confused. Do you want design aesthetics (no notch)? Or do you want more vertical real estate (less bezels + a notch)? Having both would be the best. But given we can’t have that, if you were in charge of the MacBook Pro design, what would you choose?
I still don't understand. Lets say we have two machines:
- Machine 1 has a large top bezel and no notch
- Machine 2 has a tiny top bezel and a notch, but the pixels to either side of the notch are disabled in software (and never used). The part of the display thats enabled has identical geometry to machine 1.
Aesthetics aside, aren't these machines identical in every way? You have a strong preference for machine 1. Why?
> There are not so much professional use cases which will agree on removing screen estate and adding visual distraction. Screen estate is the main difference in professional UX.
You seem to have a misunderstanding of the new screen? Apple is reducing the bezel around the screen to provide you more screen space. How do you handle front-facing utilities like a webcam when you use up all available space? Their solution is to surround that area with a small boundary (the dreaded notch).
You can see that the Framework Laptop you cite has a large bezel around it to provide that top bar. You have less screen area here.
From the screenshots, it looks like programs running in full screen mode are pushed down to leave that top area, to give you your distraction free experience: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/
Yes, I clearly see in the first frame a wallpaper with black background that hides the notch.:)
So they give me a real estate by removing the bezel and remove the vertical display space to hide the notch.
Nice solution, but as I sad, not for my use-case.
Why does it not work for your use case? When the areas either side of the notch are unused (as in full screen mode) you just have a regular 16:10 screen with a top bezel. If previous MacBook screens worked for you then this one will too.
The stated resolution of the screen is 3024x1964. If you do the math, this basically amounts to a 3024x1890 16:10 display, with a 3024x74 extra display on top that is interrupted in the middle. Considering that the menu bar usually has empty space in the middle, isn't it a strict screen estate gain to move the menu to this extra display?
I mean, what would you have preferred, exactly? If they had stuck to a 3024x1890 display, no one would have had the slightest complain, but it would be unequivocally less than what we're getting. Again: the notch is located outside of the same 16:10 screen every other MBP has.
The main target audience of MacBook Pro started with designers, writers and musicians (just looking on the shelf towards my old Titanium PowerBook G4).
There are not so much professional use cases which will agree on removing screen estate and adding visual distraction. Screen estate is the main difference in professional UX.
One of the reasons that I mentioned the Framework laptop is that a small company can get super-close to professional audience when searching pro solutions with common sense.
The Mighty Apple with trillions in bank cannot come-up with something "innovative" and chooses the "trade off" approach?