I appreciate your points and I've been mostly ignoring the posts here and on social media constantly complaining about the new MacBook Pro. Howerver, as a whole there are signs things may be heading downward for Apple.
> The Watch is selling well (dominating its category), iPhone 7 selling well (same), new MacBook is too early to tell.
Apple Watch revenue barely shows up on their 10Q and 10K (see the mysterious other category), it is basically a non-factor to their performance and stock. I question why they even released the watch. iPhone actually is not selling as well as expected, they have cut orders[1] multiple times. There are widespread reports of users returning their new MacBook Pro's as well and switching to PCs/Linux.
FoundationDB was acquired in 2015 nearly 2 years ago. The others I can't speak too, but doesn't seem like it will make any impact. Think about this, Apple could and should have acquired either NetFlix or Tesla if they wanted too either last year or the year before... Now, both are too large and expensive for Apple to buy.
> There are widespread reports of users returning their new MacBook Pro's as well and switching to PCs/Linux.
Without any data to back the claim up, I'm reasonably sure this is just a loud, extremely small, minority. There are some things wrong with the new MacBook Pros, but, in my opinion, they are still, very likely, the best laptops out there.
I postponed a purchase of a fully loaded 13 inch model because of the lack of compelling enhancements (not sold on the bar) and these reports of battery life issues likely mean I will not make the purchase at all. At least 3 people I know are in the same boat and could have purchased at launch. While purely anecdotal and selection bias (all of us work in tech), but that's close to $10k in sales right there.
Best case, I'll skip this generation, but I'm strongly considering razer blade stealth + core.
I'm in dire need for an upgrade, too, and have been broken up about the fact that there is no dGPU-free option this time around. As well as the battery life issues, which probably are at least tangentially related to the dGPU.
If there was any clarity as to when we could expect a new MBP, I'd very strongly consider waiting. But otherwise, I'm thinking I'll just bite the bullet on the current one, mainly because of the keyboard (entirely subjective, but I very much like it), and the screen (just as subjective). Anecdotally, I've seen a reasonable number of people say that the new MBPs run cooler and quieter, which, to me, is very appealing in a laptop.
As far as TouchBar goes: while playing with it at the store, I found some reasonably cute uses that might offset the loss of function keys, such as the seek-bar for Picture-in-Picture or AirPlay videos. And, of course, TouchID.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: if at all feasible – definitely wait for a refresh. But, personally, after taking the time to think about it, I've found sufficient reasons to upgrade even to the 2016 model.
Had my new rMBP+TB machine for a month now, and I seriously can't see any use of the Touchbar that makes a difference to me. I simply don't ever look up there. Its not useful in bed - when laying down with laptop on lap, I can't even see the Touchbar screen.
So to me its a near-total useless 'feature' that has the potential to be reverted in the next generation. Unless I see a really killer app for it, I'll just continue ignoring it - and one of the reasons I may not see it, is that Apple are discouraging developers from using it as a display and requiring, rather, that it be used as a control surface. If I had an RSS feed on the thing, I'd find it a lot more useful - but Apple have a policy against that sort of thing. This seems like a broken policy, to me, though ..
That's just the thing - my upgraded '12 15 inch MBP with 16GB RAM can last me until the chassis give out. To help with weight while traveling, I've been using an iPad + VPS for coding.
Switching back to Linux no longer feels like a downgrade after a year of VIM over SSH.
Then there is Consumer Report not recommended the MacBook Pro for the first time ever! Today, Apple claimed there was a bug in Safari[1] which caused the very poor battery life in their report. Sounds very fishy.
It doesn't sound fishy at all, that was the most obvious explanation right off the bat. The battery was inconsistent when Safari was running, but consistent when Chrome was used in its place. That's a massive neon sign pointing to a bug in Safari causing problems, and loads of people said this as soon as the report came out.
Six and a half years ago, Steve Jobs literally told people to hold the iPhone 4 in a better way to keep it from losing reception. Software is hard. Hardware is harder. Doesn't sound fishy at all to me.
> Apple Watch revenue barely shows up on their 10Q and 10K (see the mysterious other category), it is basically a non-factor to their performance and stock.
It usually takes a few iterations for an Apple product before it becomes successful. The iPhone, iPod, and iPad all had pretty weak sales for a few years before they take off. I say it's too early to judge the success or failure of the Apple Watch.
> iPhone actually is not selling as well as expected, they have cut orders[1] multiple times.
There have been reports of Apple cutting iPhone orders basically every year. People somehow seem to forget that.
> There are widespread reports of users returning their new MacBook Pro's as well and switching to PCs/Linux.
The Mac line is what I'm actually worried about. I think we'll see this year how they see the future of the Mac. My guess is that they are to switch to their own ARM based processors, especially now when Microsoft is developing ARM support for Windows. Perhaps not this year but not too far into the future.
> The Watch is selling well (dominating its category), iPhone 7 selling well (same), new MacBook is too early to tell.
Apple Watch revenue barely shows up on their 10Q and 10K (see the mysterious other category), it is basically a non-factor to their performance and stock. I question why they even released the watch. iPhone actually is not selling as well as expected, they have cut orders[1] multiple times. There are widespread reports of users returning their new MacBook Pro's as well and switching to PCs/Linux.
FoundationDB was acquired in 2015 nearly 2 years ago. The others I can't speak too, but doesn't seem like it will make any impact. Think about this, Apple could and should have acquired either NetFlix or Tesla if they wanted too either last year or the year before... Now, both are too large and expensive for Apple to buy.
[1] - https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+cuts+iphone+orders