Why you shouldn't get the new MacBook Pro

On Tuesday October 14th, Apple announced revisions to both the MacBook and MacBook Pro. The gist of the changes to the MacBook Pro is a hardware boost, new one-peice aluminum body, bigger trackpad with mulitouch and no button, and the biggie: a glossy, reflective, glass screen. 

UPDATE: Latest episode of the GDGT podcast played with the new MacBook Pro and found the shiny screen to be horrible. They also had similar frustrations with the removal of firewire 400.

The New Screen

The MacBook Pro is marketed to and adopted by media professionals who do graphic design and video production on the run. It is a professional notebook (tempted to call it laptop but since they burn laps, they are now notebooks) line. Why then would Steve Jobs put a glass, highly reflective screen on this when the majority of design professionals prefer a matted screen? Was there no one at any of the meetings who could have asked "won't a glass screen be a pain to look at with any sort of ambient lighting"? This is like taking a pickup truck that has been designed and adopted by construction works and releasing a new one without the cargo bed.

No Choice

I understand the draw of reflective, shiny screens on the consumer line: people like shiny and the colours are a bit more vibrant, but a professional product should be designed for professionals. At the very least they could have offered a matte option, giving  consumers the choice. Instead, all their products are now covered in glass. 

Why Glass?

Since we're not given a choice, why did Apple have to pick glass? Both the trackpad and screen are covered in a layer of glass. Yes, glass. How does one design a new, one-peice aluminum frame and then cover the screen with glass? I'm not sure if they didn't realize or just didn't care that people are going to be carrying these things in their backpacks and that they do cost a significant amount of money. Did adding glass to a portable, $2000 computer not go off on anyone's radar?

Goodbye Firewire 400

I like Mac's or I wouldn't have spent $2000 on the most expensive notebook I've ever bought. I just don't see Steve's "vision" when he decided to not only add a shiny glass screen to the professional model of the MacBook, but take away the choice to pick a matted screen. This same "vision" decided to take out firewire alltogether on the MacBook line and firewire 400 on the MacBook Pro line. Who cares if video editors use firewire and the MacBook Pro is marketed to video editors? As Steve said: USB won, buy new cameras. If USB won, why wasn't another usb port added in the place of the FW400 port? The new MacBook's lost all FireWire but look identical to the MacBook Pro. Now the line between consumer and pro laptops is blurred. 

Get a Refurb

If you're into photography or multimedia design, grab an old MacBook Pro from the Apple Refurbished store, which have been dropped ridiculously in price.