Apple fans are coming to hate Apple software • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple fans are coming to hate Apple software

#171

Post by Ezhik » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 11:05 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #3

It's not just software. While I'm still a fan of Macbooks, I'm getting close to abandoning ship thanks to the increasingly un-repairability of these things. I have a Macbook from ~2008 that's still functional as a media PC thanks to memory/SSD upgrades and battery replacements over the years. My current Macbook Pro has memory soldered on to the motherboard and a battery glued to the case. The SSD is technically repla…

I run OS X on a ThinkPad T420, and this unholy combo is an experience I am honestly enjoying a lot.

I like having a 9 cell battery, I like having >1TB of storage, the ThinkPad keyboard and TrackPoint, and I like being able to take the thing apart.

At the same time, I also like OS X. I get UNIX underlyings, yet can continue to use software like Photoshop. And there's just a big bunch of subjective things that IMO OS X just does better, like scrolling and font rendering.

Still, the device is growing older, and I honestly have no idea what to replace it with once the time finally comes. The strange combo I have doesn't really have a modern equivalent. Do I sacrifice modularity to stay with OS X? Do I go to Windows or Linux to keep modularity with a modern ThinkPad (which are getting too close to the way modern MacBooks are, sadly).

Re: Apple fans are coming to hate Apple software

#172

Post by to3m » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 11:05 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #107

ksubedi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I liked Mac OS X, I recently jumped ship from my early 2015 retina macbook pro to a dell xps 13 and i am super happy. Windows 10 is definitely not the same but it is much much better than how windows 8 used to be. The biggest factor that got me to switch was how locked down the hardware was and i couldnt even replace the battery if i wanted to. And i got the 128gig version thinking there would be aftermark…

> couldnt even replace the battery if i wanted to Just take it into an Apple Store and pay the $129 to replace it. I've replaced a battery once on my 2012 MacBook Pro so would not consider this to be a reason to pick one platform over another. > aftermarket storage upgrade option I agree this sucks. But personally I am happy for Apple to focus on I/O performance at any cost even if it means no aftermarket upgrades. I…

The retina ones are $199 in the USA: https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=Unite...

Re: Apple fans are coming to hate Apple software

#173

Post by legitster » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 11:06 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #38

I don't much care about the software - I haven't used iTunes in years, don't use Mail, etc. etc. - it's the operating system I care about. Wi-fi has been buggy on OS X for literally years now. And each new major release seems to bring some new pain point where it refuses to turn on, refuses to connect, doesn't transmit data... and on and on. There's no way Apple can't know about this - it must drive their own employe…

Wi-Fi is crappy because Apple cuts lots of corners as a way to save battery life. Roaming can be a huge drain on the battery, so disabling or reducing the frequency of certain wireless functions is a quick and dirty way to improve battery life. It's so easy to pass off wireless problems to access points, so I imagine Apple had been doing it for years before anyone noticed.

Re: Apple fans are coming to hate Apple software

#174

Post by slantyyz » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 11:06 PM UTC

midnitewarrior wrote: post #96

paxtonab wrote: post #18

...[Mossberg] fingered iTunes for the desktop "I dread opening the thing" This is so spot on. It feels like they rearrange iTunes every month, especially the mobile version. Recently I noticed that I'd be searching for a song (that I have on my phone) and it would default to their streaming service.... Why would I want to use my data to stream a song that I already have on my phone?

If Steve were alive, people would be getting fired after comments from Walt such as these.

>> If Steve were alive...

Well, if he was alive, a lot of weird design choices would not have been made. Like the pencil sticking out of the iPad, that weird battery pack, the magic mouse with the charging port on the bottom, etc.

Re: Apple fans are coming to hate Apple software

#175

Post by Eric_WVGG » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 11:06 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #159

It's kinda weird to read commentators talking as if this was the end of a golden age of Apple. From my perspective, their application software has always sucked. It was there because you need apps to bootstrap a platform and attract enough users to attract developers. But you can't really expect a consumer electronics company to have the best application for a given niche once the niche has been identified and attrac…

Could you please express your opinions without using the term "brainwashing"? I think Safari and iMessages are vastly superior to Chrome and Hangouts and that doesn't make me an idiot.

Re: Apple fans are coming to hate Apple software

#176

Post by tluyben2 » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 11:06 PM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #84

dasil003 wrote: post #36

My take on this is not that Apple has gotten worse, but that they have actually gotten better at cloud services. Whereas no one actually used MobileMe or iDisk, their new generation of cloud services is actually being used. It's true that they're losing ground because Google has defined a bar for cloud services that they can't reach, but they are trying and not entirely failing at it. The secondary aspect is the surf…

> My take on this is not that Apple has gotten worse, but that they have actually gotten better at cloud services. Which isn't saying much, since they're still terrible. Their cloud-synced Notes.app is almost unusable; every time I add a note on the phone there's maybe a one-in-three chance it'll sync to the desktop immediately, a one-in-three chance it'll sync the next day, and a one-in-three chance it'll appear thr…

For me it always 'syncs' but in a very original way; I get 3-4 copies after a sync on all devices. Not even sure how you make a bug like that. Not complaining though it is better than no sync.

Re: Apple fans are coming to hate Apple software

#177

Post by wlesieutre » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 11:07 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #159

It's kinda weird to read commentators talking as if this was the end of a golden age of Apple. From my perspective, their application software has always sucked. It was there because you need apps to bootstrap a platform and attract enough users to attract developers. But you can't really expect a consumer electronics company to have the best application for a given niche once the niche has been identified and attrac…

There are some Google products that I like, but I don't think I've ever had a good experience with Hangouts. Maybe it's rose tinted lenses, but it seems like multi-person video chatting with screen sharing has been getting uniformly worse ever since iChat AV.

More recently, there are online alternatives like https://appear.in/ that I've been happy with, and which don't require you to install a browser plugin like Hangouts.

Re: Apple fans are coming to hate Apple software

#178

Post by sn0v » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 11:07 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #159

It's kinda weird to read commentators talking as if this was the end of a golden age of Apple. From my perspective, their application software has always sucked. It was there because you need apps to bootstrap a platform and attract enough users to attract developers. But you can't really expect a consumer electronics company to have the best application for a given niche once the niche has been identified and attrac…

True that.

Plus using third party services is just smart in that it avoids vendor lock-in and makes it easier to switch out of the platform(s) should you choose to do so.

Re: Apple fans are coming to hate Apple software

#179

Post by radicalbyte » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 11:07 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #106

NicoJuicy wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full stack developer here on Windows, not everything maxed out. Payed 550€ for my laptop ( 8 gb, ..) 2 years ago, everything is still working fine and it's still enough ( Visual Studio is supposed to be a "heavy" program). = 23 € / month till now and still dropping... And it's hardly game over with my laptop. When i'm at 3 years, it will cost me about 15,2 € / month. I'll probably use it for longer. But let's say i d…

Can you run Docker on Windows yet? We're a Docker/Python/Go stack.

You can run it in a virtual box VM and ssh in. Works fine, at least as long as you have lots of RAM & a fast HDD. It does suck battery though.

Re: Apple fans are coming to hate Apple software

#180

Post by usaphp » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 11:07 PM UTC

miimbles wrote: post #154

rayiner wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparable laptops aren't really any better. The rMBP is a lot more repairable than say the Surface Book (which won't let you even open the case without possibly cracking the display). At least Apple has a battery replacement service at an advertised price--what'll Dell charge you to replace the non-servicable battery in the XPS13 or XPS15? And no other PC laptop hits that right sweet spot of power/battery/display qu…

I'm not sure about the battery, as it's brand new, and I don't have a need to replace it yet, but the RAM and SSD are both user replaceable on the XPS15. The battery looks like it would be a fairly easy swap as well, as long as you could source the new one.

> "as long as you could source the new one"

Thats the most difficult part. Original battery costs a fortune (some of them cost almost half of the new basic laptop). And if you decide to get a third party alternative - its basically a russian roulette, you never know what you gonna get, most of them are just terrible and barely last couple months