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The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

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Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#141

Post by drtz »

serge2k wrote: post #109
twblalock wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess we might have just hit peak-phone handset. This is what happens in mature product segments. The first iPhone was released 9 years ago, and that was the last real revolution -- a smartphone whose front was pretty much all screen. Everything Apple and everyone else has done since then has been incremental -- better screens, larger screens, better cameras, faster processors, thinner chassis -- but definitely t…

Things like touchId were amazing features in their own right though. Now the best they can do is a second lens for kinda bokeh and adding a touch bar instead of physical keys on the macbook. While dumping the headphone jack and magsafe (and HDMI and SD).

> Things like touchId were amazing features in their own right though.

Touch ID is cool and all, but in 2016 calling it "amazing" is a bit of a stretch. ThinkPads first got a fingerprint reader more than a decade ago: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/37017.html

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#142

Post by dingo_bat »

blinkingled wrote: post #82
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's first and foremost a bad DPI independence API design, largely due to a terrible backwards compatibility of an even more terrible legacy stack. It is fixed somewhat in their modern stacks, such as WPF and UWP, but the vast majority of Windows software is not written with these frameworks. While it is understandable why the legacy baggage is there and cannot be removed, the end result is a big mess, still to this…

As most new apps start to be built on UWP that issue will go away. Also, I am not sure what DPI issues you're facing but I have run W10 on my rMBP for quite some time and it's been thoroughly pleasant. Perhaps your issues are fuzzy text due to mixed DPI, multi monitor setup?

UWP is dead imo. Microsoft is ignoring the signs that can tell it to accept it gracefully. There is not one uwp app that I use. They are just not reliable. A splash screen will show up, and then disappear. The app won't launch. You open the fb messenger app and then switch desktops to work. 2 hours later the messenger is nowhere to be found. It just disappears. No error no notification. Nothing. First I thought it's fb incompetence. But this happens with the built in photos app. The built in mail app. Even shell elements (start menu, notification shade) are buggy. Windows 10 is a great os as long as you avoid any interaction with uwp stuff.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#143

Post by pjlegato »

jimbokun wrote: post #8

I was thinking recently how Bill Gates often said the biggest competitor to Windows was the previous version of Windows. Alternate OSes didn't have enough market share or compatible software to really be a threat, but customers always had the option of just not upgrading. iPhone seems in a very similar position. Sure, there are some people who will switch from iPhone to an Android phone. But Apple's biggest challenge…

They've long solved that challenge. After a few generations of phone (read: a few years), all new iOS upgrades simply refuse to install on your old phone. Then, after a short while, your apps auto-upgrade themselves and then stop working, one by one, because they won't run on such an old iOS. You then have no choice but to buy a new phone.

I found this out by getting stranded on the side of the road somewhere after I discovered that Uber had auto-upgraded itself in the background, and the new one refused to launch on my old phone.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#144

Post by pjlegato »

kilroy123 wrote: post #118

I keep reading about how unhappy people are with Apples latest reveal. I feel the same way. No way am I upgrading my 2015 Mac Book Pro with the new one. Still, Apple will not change a thing unless people actually vote with their wallets. If you're really so upset, do NOT buy this damn computer! If this latest line sees very little sells, they'll get the idea.

Suppose you need a new computer for work. Your other options are Windows or a Linux desktop experience, both of which are vastly worse in other ways. (No, I don't want to dork around with spending days compiling kernel patches and installing soundcard drivers before I can use the computer.)

I'd gladly buy any other laptop that was simple and just worked out of the box in the sense that a Mac does. But there aren't any.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#145

Post by kartickv »

blinkingled wrote: post #82
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's first and foremost a bad DPI independence API design, largely due to a terrible backwards compatibility of an even more terrible legacy stack. It is fixed somewhat in their modern stacks, such as WPF and UWP, but the vast majority of Windows software is not written with these frameworks. While it is understandable why the legacy baggage is there and cannot be removed, the end result is a big mess, still to this…

As most new apps start to be built on UWP that issue will go away. Also, I am not sure what DPI issues you're facing but I have run W10 on my rMBP for quite some time and it's been thoroughly pleasant. Perhaps your issues are fuzzy text due to mixed DPI, multi monitor setup?

UWP apps have a lot of limitations compared to WPF/Win32 apps. As I understand it, UWP apps can't record audio in the background or act as a Bluetooth accessory, to give two examples.

So, even if a developer is willing to invest the time to rewrite an app to use UWP, the app will lose a lot of functionality. Microsoft has again poorly architected their APIs.

Unlike macOS, where there's no penalty to adopting the latest APIs. It's not as if, to use the Touch Bar, you have to give up access to other capabilities, like recording audio in the background.

More information: https://kartick-log.blogspot.in/2016/08/how-powerful-is-uwp-...

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#146

Post by Pxtl »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #90
blinkingled wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As most new apps start to be built on UWP that issue will go away. Also, I am not sure what DPI issues you're facing but I have run W10 on my rMBP for quite some time and it's been thoroughly pleasant. Perhaps your issues are fuzzy text due to mixed DPI, multi monitor setup?

I am not using UWP apps. Most of the software I use on Windows are either MFC or Windows Forms. These can also be DPI aware and render correctly, but they require proactive developer support, which is not something that is happening in the Windows developer world right now. Either software is abandonware (but still works), or issues are open and remain open or are simply closed with "won't fix" status. Most developer…

What's funny is that supporting high DPI on a winforms app isn't even hard. Even if you size all your widgets in pixels, if you just do a little playing with the scaling options and just try out the ui on high DPI, it seems to work pretty well except for the old icons. I forgot what the setting is called, but theres a (non-defaukt) scaling option or two that seemed to "just work" as it were.

The harder part is to consistently fix everything that uses the old win2000 8pt default font instead of a modern one.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#147

Post by mwfunk »

stcredzero wrote: post #15
fluxsauce wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> M$FT I'm sorry, are you from the past?

Some of us are. Once, a long time ago, using the $ was "cool." And "so it goes" with all forms of online culture. (Has Kurt Vonnegut gone out of fashion yet? I used to coxswain crew boats past his summer home.) I would be quite amused if young "Microsofties" suddenly decided to co-opt "Micro$haft" but with a Richard Roundtree vibe.

Let's be clear: using the $ was NEVER cool by any stretch of the imagination, it was just a lot more common in the Internet of the '90s. The people who thought it was cool were always the same people who think it's funny to make up derogatory puns for the names of things they don't like, such as "Internet Exploder" or "Crapple". This is a category of humor that will be forever associated with bitter, angry, condescending-yet-clueless, neckbearded, fedora-wearing morbidly obese IT guys with phone holsters and Bluetooth earpieces that continued making "all your base" references well into the 2000s.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#148

Post by jsz0 »

kilroy123 wrote: post #118

I keep reading about how unhappy people are with Apples latest reveal. I feel the same way. No way am I upgrading my 2015 Mac Book Pro with the new one. Still, Apple will not change a thing unless people actually vote with their wallets. If you're really so upset, do NOT buy this damn computer! If this latest line sees very little sells, they'll get the idea.

> I keep reading about how unhappy people are with Apples latest reveal.

That's probably because a lot of the people who are happy no longer bother to read or comment on these types of stories. There's just too much negativity and it's the same for Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. People with positive opinions are basically no longer welcome to participate in the discussion.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#149

Post by [deleted] »

nicolas_t wrote: post #88

The Surface Studio is a major coup for Microsoft not because it'll necessarily sell well (although I think it has the potential to) but because it's made Microsoft cool. I showed the video to my wife and she was so impressed that she looked at all the videos Microsoft did detailing the development. She's been a mac user for more than 20 years and tt's the first time she's ever looked at a Microsoft product. Apple dur…

[deleted]

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#150

Post by kartickv »

tajen wrote: post #96
yladiz wrote: post #52

The thing is, hardware is important but software is arguably more important because it's what you interact with every day (yes, you interact with the hardware too but not directly, besides the keyboard and touch pad). In that respect, I trust Apple more than either Microsoft or Google. I will not trust Google with any of my data unless it's necessary and Microsoft isn't so great in my eyes either due to their ad and…

A paid Linux! That's what I said on this comment about "Ask HN – What innovation would you want to see", which 84 people upvoted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12570030 I wish we would have executed on that wish a year ago, because with the two Microsoft & Apple events, it's clear there is demand for "a Surface Studio, but not with Windows 10". Yesterday people effectively said they stay on Macs because of mac…

Your paid Linux idea won't work, because money is not the only thing holding back the open-source community. Other reasons are:

- Design isn't appreciated or valued. A successful OS effort can't be driven only by engineers.

- An obsession with choice as an end to itself, and being unable to say, "This is what we think the best user experience will be. You can't change it."

- Fragmentation with too many APIs, GUI toolkits, and so on.

- Participants focusing on users like themselves (tinkerers and geeks) rather than typical end-users who want to use the device to get their real work done, rather than messing with the system.

Until you have a plan to address all these, throwing more money at the open-source community won't produce a macOS-quality OS.

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