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Comment by kevin_b_er | Hacker News Reader

Apple has fully adopted the philosophy of form over function. It looks pretty and thus gets people to buy it. The "Pro" line is now more MacBook Plus than Pro(fessional), where the screen is bigger and its got a few more toys, but the same reduced reliability and usability in favor of looks. You are no longer their target market. They are targeting people who still want a laptop but want an Apple Fashion Statement.

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Their philosophy of prioritizing form more than most is not really the issue IMO. OP's complaints are really just flat out mistakes Apple has made. For example:

1. The low-travel butterfly keys would be fine for most folks (even if the low-travel is less comfortable to some, thereby prioritizing form), if they didn't break.

2. The touch bar seems useless to basically everyone, not just the HN set. It's not driving sales the way other things to (such as the quest for thinness)

3. Only one port on the 12" Macbook is probably the right approach, but becomes silly on the "Pro" machines.

That worked right up until Microsoft started taking pro hardware seriously. I keep seeing long-time Apple fans say Windows 10 is a few major revisions from being tolerable on top of some kind of Surface.

I completely agree with you but I would counter with why not have both? This appeared to be the approach that Apple was taking with their pro line for years (Jobs-era). Either buy a macbook / air which is cool and hip or if you need to get real work done, get a pro model that has everything you need. Slap new hardware in the pro model every year and you have a winner.

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