Mostly we code...sometimes we write. Every once in a while, we podcast.

Look, I know Apple is the most successful company on the planet. Everything they do is golden. When Tim Cook announces a new product, it's as if pearlescent unicorns suddenly start barfing out rainbows of magical cashflow that run shimmering through the land. Lines of fervent supplicants, hopeful tears running down their cheeks, stretch out the doors of Apple's retail temples: the faithful waiting to be guided to the altar by chirpy, blue-shirted acolytes. Newly anointed consumers swoon in orgiastic rapture and start speaking in tongues. Apple can do no wrong. So I know what I'm about to say is literally heresy. But here it is:

I think the new MacBooks suck.

They suck.



Especially the Pros. There's nothing "Pro" about them any more. They've been whittled down into neutered shadows of their formerly incredibly useful selves. They've been streamlined into idiocy. They're the modern computing equivalent of a thoroughbred racing horse: fast, but so delicately inbred that you're constantly worried they're about to blow out one of their spindly little balsa wood legs before they can even make the backstretch. MacBooks are basically a fashion accessory now. They've become what the Air always was: an anodized sex symbol. They're less about getting work done than getting laid. Or would be, if they hadn't been castrated in the process. They suck, because they're incapable of doing anything else.




No more 17" screens. Hasn't been one for years. I hate that. I used to actually be able to use my Macbook Pro for video editing
without an external monitor, dammit. I loved that extra screen real-estate. Those days are now but a distant memory of a better, simpler time. The rumor is that Apple phased out the 17" models because, gee, somehow they just couldn't figure out how to make a Retina display that large. That's right: a veritable horde of South Korean production engineers just couldn't seem to lay their hands on a couple thousand spare LCD crystals anywhere inside LG's state-of-the-art Paju production ziggurat. Uh huh. My guess is that Apple was more concerned that 17 inches just wouldn't fit into ScarJo's Vuitton handbag, so they axed it.

Gone is the Ethernet port. Yeah, thanks, guys. Now I have to carry another goddamned adapter dongle to jam my Ethernet cable into, so it, in turn, can be jammed into your goddamned Thunderbolt orifice. I just live for carrying around goddamned dongles. I really do. Because I actually enjoy having one more thing I can lose, or forget, or have the dog swallow. And I also love paying an extra $35 for the privilege of becoming a sleek, spiritually-actualized EtherThunderboltian! That's awesome! Thanks for making my life more childlike and wondrous! Memo to Apple: the entire freakin' world uses Ethernet ports to go hardwire to the 'Net, not Thunderbolt, k? And sometimes wireless just won't get it done. Sweet Jesus...




Need a CD drive with your MacBook? Oh, you can carry that separately, too. And plug it in where? Why, into a USB port, of course. Wait, did we mention that we've gone from three USB ports down to two, and the 2015 12" MacBook only has
one? Ummm, what? The actual? Fuzz?!? So now I get to purchase a powered USB hub to plug in all my external devices (presuming I didn't accidentally leave them sitting in the hookah bar back in the terminal at Marrakesh). It sure would be nice if a few of those USB devices would plug into, I dunno, like, a laptop or something. But noooooooo! I know, I know: beauty cannot be created without pain. Thanks for being unstinting with mine, Apple.

Let me guess: next time around the freaking monitor will be a detachable dongle that I have to plug into some Thunderbolt port somewhere "back there," right? But wait, where does my detachable keyboard plug into? What? You say there's only one Thunderbolt port now? But I'm already using that port to plug in the detachable CPU that's currently melting its throbbing, bitch-hot Core i31 atomic heart right through the titanium skin of my Bureau Architecte standing desk, dammit!




But you say you shaved a crucial .25mm off your svelte, comely bezel and thereby saved me another 14 grams worth of weight? Wow! That's like, what? An entire fun-sized 3 Musketeers bar or something, right? That weight savings has
really made my life more joyful and wondrous, because it freed up some extra weight for the grocery sack I'll be using to carry around all my goddamned adapter dongles. Or maybe I'll just stuff them all into my Louis Vuitton...



About Jon Parshall

Jon has been working in the computer software industry for over 20 years. He joined CodeWeavers in 2002 as COO. Contact Jon at jparshall@codeweavers.com and learn more about his professional accomplishments on LinkedIn.