Six Colors MacBook with Touch Bar Review

Jason Snell just published his review of the new MacBook with Touch Bar. The review focuses on the Touch Bar. Overall, he’s a fan. 

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“When you think about that top row of function keys, they really were a peculiar remnant of a past age. Rather than ditch them entirely, Apple has transformed that space into something more interesting, with contextual content that brings app features to the foreground in a way that traditional app interfaces don’t. Even if all the Touch Bar did was replace inscrutable function keys with keys with proper, explanatory labels it would be helpful, but it does a lot more than that.”
— Jason Snell

I’m not in the market for a MacBook Pro, but if I was, I’d definitely get one with the Touch Bar. 

The New MacBook Pro Keyboard


I spent some time typing on the new MacBook Pro keyboard. This keyboard may turn out to be the most controversial decision in this new MacBook Pro design. Apple explains the new keyboard is the “second generation” of the butterfly mechanism that first appeared on the 12” Retina MacBook. These new keys have significantly less travel than the traditional MacBook keyboards. A lot of people hate it. For others it is not a problem. (Interestingly, I’ve never heard of anyone loving the butterfly keyboards.) I’m not very picky about keyboards and I was fine with the MacBook butterfly keyboard.

Anyway, having typed on the new MacBook Pro keyboard I can report that if you are on a scale of one to five with one being the MacBook butterfly keyboard and five being the old MacBook keyboard, I’d put the second generation butterfly keyboard in the new MacBook Pro at a two. It definitely feels like a bit more travel than the MacBook keyboard but if you hated the MacBook keyboard, I suspect you won’t be very excited about this one either.

Jazz Friday – Joey Alexander, Countdown



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I wrote up Joey Alexander, the 13-year-old Indonesian jazz prodigy pianist earlier this year. Joey just released a new album, Countdown (Apple Music)(iTunes), The last time I wrote about Joey, I explained that he is more than just technically proficient. He also plays with his heart. You can hear that even more in the new album. This album is full of John Coltrane music (another Jazz Friday alum) and it’s delicious from beginning to end. 

My favorite track is Countdown (Apple Music)(iTunes). I wouldn’t however listen to that track while driving. I could see myself accelerating to 100mph during the piano solo.

The Retina Tax

Jason Snell wrote an interesting piece about Mac pricing and retina screens. He posits that the increased cost of retina Macs may be partly due to Apple creating an artificial divide between retina and non-retina Macs. This allows them to charge a premium price. There may be something to his hypothesis but I also think the additional costs of retina screens and the processors and graphics engines to drive them are a factor. (Jason concludes its probably a bit of both of these factors.) Apple is rarely the first to drop prices on hardware but I do think that eventually Apple will have retina Macs for under $1,000. Other vendors are already pulling this off.

Whether the reason for the increased cost of retina machines is actual costs or Apple padding its profit margin (or probably both), the next time you buy a Mac, I strongly suggest getting the reatina screen. Even if it requires saving your pennies a little bit longer, you’ll love that retina screen every time you use your Mac.

Clockwise 162

Speaking of podcasating, I also guested today on the Clockwise podcast where we covered the future of laptop keyboards, whether VR can be good at anything beyond entertainment, the growing importance of encryption, and a watchOS 3 check-in.

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MPU 349: MPU+, A Corn-u-copia of Nerdiness

This month’s MPU Feedback show includes more on the iCloud vs. Dropbox debate, macOS Sierra, more on the new MacBook Pro, and Katie is super-excited about her VESA mount.

Sponsored include:

  • Casper: Because everyone deserves a great night sleep. Get $50 off with the code ‘MPU’
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  • The Omni Group We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad. 
  • Sanebox Stop drowning in email!

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TextExpander Public Groups

TextExpander has a new feature called Public Groups. With it, anyone can offer to share a TextExpander group publicly. There are already several interesting public groups. I have shared my “foreign thanks” group that automatically expands to say thank you in the language of choice. For instance typing “klingonthanks” renders “QA TLHO'” (of course in all caps).

Because the public groups are served up from the TextExpander.com site, when the original author makes alterations to the list, it automatically pushes the change out to subscribers. So if you look at my foreign thanks list and find a language I left out, let me know and I will update it for everyone. I plan on publishing several more of my more useful TextExpander groups through the TextExpander Public Groups in the next month. Keep your eyes out.

If you’re a TextExpander subscriber, I recommend checking out the public groups. You can even subscribe from iPad and iPhone and you’ll find quite a few that are even more useful than my “foreign thanks” group.

Touch Bar on an External Keyboard

Daniel Jalkut recently wrote this piece about the Touch Bar coming to an Apple external keyboard. That would allow for the Touch Bar to be used with desktop Macs and MacBooks used in clamshell mode. Daniel thinks they’ll eventually get there. 

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“I find it impossible to believe that Apple would go to all this work, both on the Touch Bar itself, and across the entire range of its own apps and OS features, unless it had a grand vision for the Touch Bar that extends way beyond the internal keyboard of its premium notebook computers.”
— Daniel Jalkut

I agree. I’m certain it would need more charging (and perhaps a bigger battery) than the current external keyboard and I’m guessing it will be pretty pricey but I fully expect a Touch Bar enabled external keyboard to eventually show up from Apple.

LumeCube’s Life Lite


The LumeCube team has a new photo/video-friendly light that fits in your pocket, the Life Lite. I own a LumeCube and love it. Being able to light my subject from the back or side with a little bit of tech I can keep in my pocket is awesome. I went ahead and backed the Life Lite so now I’ll have two.