As controversial and divisive the recent U.S. presidential election was, the new 2016 MacBook Pros from Apple are also rather surprising. Although it has received quite a fair bit of negative impressions, unusual for an Apple flagship product, the new MacBook Pros are apparently selling very well. Truly, surprisingly, incredibly well.
In fact, according to data from Slice Intelligence, the new MacBook Pros are selling more in just its first five days of activity than all of Microsoft Surface Book since 26 Oct 2015, ASUS Chromebook Flip since 17 June 2015, Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 since 31 May 2016, and Lenovo Yoga 900 since 19 Oct 2015, put together.
This is really incredible. Many people thought last year’s Microsoft Surface Pro was very good. I personally didn’t like their hinge design, but apparently many other people do. But despite how much positive reviews the Surface Pro received, since its availability on 26 Oct 2016, it has only sold about a quarter of what the new MacBook Pros are doing in five days.
Remember last year’s 12-inch MacBooks which were, sort of, quite cool? Well, the new MacBook Pros have sold over 80% of all the 12-inch MacBooks have sold since 10 April 2015.
Just think about that a moment and let those numbers sink in.
Perhaps this is all a reflection of the pent up demand for new MacBook Pros. The prior generation had retained the same fundamental design since 2012, which is awfully long. Even considering that the last time that anything had changed at all in the last generation 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro specs was in early 2015, it’s still quite a long time by Apple’s standards in the past.
There are three versions of the new MacBook Pro. The entry level 13-inch model has no Touch Bar, and then there are both the 13-inch and 15-inch models with Touch Bar. The latter two are more “pro”, because the first one, the entry level 13-inch with no Touch Bar, has a somewhat lower-spec performance.
I agree with many of the criticisms on the Touch Bar. It looks like a cool gimmick. I don’t use much of the function keys anyway, so it’s not like the Touch Bar will negatively impact how I use the Mac.
But, oh wait, I am an vi user and I use the ESC key extensively. This is the bit that worries me somewhat about how the Touch Bar will work for me. It’s a good thing that the key in question is in the corner, so locating it in the blind shouldn’t be difficult. Yet, it is undeniable that a real key would feel so much more natural. On the other hand, we’ll have to wait to see if the Touch Bar will work in its place.
Moving forward, I think some of us are still left unsure where Apple stands on the future of its notebook lineup. Are they still keen to push the MacBook Pros to developers and creative professionals? Or are they now more focused on consumer gadgets like iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches?
The record sales of the 2016 MacBook Pro is testament of the demand. But I think users are likely to now start considering alternatives.
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