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The Mac Platform Decline

milen.me

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Re: The Mac Platform Decline

#91

Post by baby »

eknkc wrote: post #84
Chyzwar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is already superior for developers. You servers all running Linux, all dev tools are first released in Linux, everything just work with most hardware. For professional like video editing, photography, CADs, audio etc Windows is better when you can buy better hardware for the same price as Mac. There is no reason to by Mac when most hardware is terribly outdated and you don't know when next upgrade will happen.

I'm doing web dev on macOS. Tried to plan how I'd work on Linux desktop if I ditched Mac and it doesn't look that bright actually. - I basically can't stand the usability linux desktop environments. But this is subjective. - Our designers use a lot of mac software. I sometimes need to work with Sketch, Photoshop etc. Even if it's in read only fashion. - Our team lives in Slack. Turns out these is no decent slack app…

> - Our team lives in Slack. Turns out these is no decent slack app for linux and I'd have to use the web app. No thanks.

the slack app for other platforms are made from the web app (Electron).

Re: The Mac Platform Decline

#92

Post by walterbell »

jarjoura wrote: post #66
simonbarker87 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah I see you've also read the stratechery article about apple's structure :-) I think it's pretty clear from the WWDC Gruber interview panel that the execs who love the Mac are Schiller and Federighi but you're right that it's speculation. Either way, we can be negative and whinge or take this update as a glimmer of hope - because whatever we choose to do Apple aren't paying us any attention on HN!

They all read these comments silently, and I have a few friends who feel burned by all the negative press. Some have spent a really long time and many hours on this latest laptop. There's definitely a camp inside the company who believe windows should take the pros back as they were burned by the whole Final Cut Pro rewrite fiasco. There's also a camp who want to see the MacPro continue on and understand brand mindsh…

> Windows should take the pros back

Did you mean one Apple camp doesn't want "pros", as defined by video editing? Is that because those users have already left, or are not worth keeping?

Re: The Mac Platform Decline

#93

Post by jasonjei »

trurl wrote: post #82
jasonjei wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TouchBar killed the tactile ESC key. People using vim or BootCamp and/or Linux, Windows, VMware, or Photoshop are in for a more difficult ride. So instead of having access to ESC/Func keys, we can type emoji or use Apple Pay. The hardware on all Macs are updated on a very infrequent basis as mentioned in the article. GPUs sold with machines today are often the same as ones sold years ago. Apple killed their external…

I really think too many people are making a big deal of the TouchBar. I'm a vim user, and when the first rumors of it surfaced earlier this year I switched ESC to capslock and after a day or so adapted just fine. I don't know that I really need any of the things TouchBar offers, but it seems to be unreasonably vilified without no one actually using it. For me the key issue is the performance, which no amount of key r…

I'm just wondering how one will install certain OSes if the Func keys aren't usable during OS install in Boot Camp. I don't remember being able to remap an installer hotkeys easily. Maybe Apple doesn't want that demographic, or perhaps we'll have to connect a USB-C keyboard.

Boot Camp drivers are also terribly out of date.

Re: The Mac Platform Decline

#94

Post by swozey »

mafro wrote: post #74
angryteabag wrote: post #44

Easy fix, bring macOS to non Apple hardware.

I don't think "easy" is the way to describe that endeavour. Ever tried a hackintosh?

Hackintoshing is incredibly easy now. You can grab a build off of reddit that works perfectly. The issues lie in when you use hardware that has never been in an Apple, for instance there's no Kaby Lake support until Apple releases something with KB.

The most common issues if you don't buy all Intel/Nvidia are the wifi and BT which can be alleviated by $10 usb receivers. Touch screen of course is a no go.

Clover, the latest Hackintosh installer is very easy.

Re: The Mac Platform Decline

#95

Post by WaltPurvis »

mafro wrote: post #74
angryteabag wrote: post #44

Easy fix, bring macOS to non Apple hardware.

I don't think "easy" is the way to describe that endeavour. Ever tried a hackintosh?

>> Ever tried a hackintosh?

Yes, I've been running a hackintosh for several years now. It works flawlessly. What point are you trying to make?

Re: The Mac Platform Decline

#96

Post by snom380 »

walter_bishop wrote: post #39

Yahoo finance says they're doing well. If this is a sign of decline then most companies would be happy getting such results. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL?ltr=1

Yes. And Microsoft was doing extremely well during Ballmers reign, and BlackBerry was doing extremely well for many years after iPhones release.

Current revenue doesn't necessarily say anything about future decline, you need to look deeper than that.

Re: The Mac Platform Decline

#97

Post by eknkc »

baby wrote: post #91
eknkc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm doing web dev on macOS. Tried to plan how I'd work on Linux desktop if I ditched Mac and it doesn't look that bright actually. - I basically can't stand the usability linux desktop environments. But this is subjective. - Our designers use a lot of mac software. I sometimes need to work with Sketch, Photoshop etc. Even if it's in read only fashion. - Our team lives in Slack. Turns out these is no decent slack app…

> - Our team lives in Slack. Turns out these is no decent slack app for linux and I'd have to use the web app. No thanks. the slack app for other platforms are made from the web app (Electron).

Yeah but they are integrated (native notifications, file access, a window that does not go away with the browser or tied to it, decent looking chrome etc). When I need to use it that much I prefer an app, even if it's a shell actually.

Re: The Mac Platform Decline

#98

Post by tingol »

eknkc wrote: post #84
Chyzwar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is already superior for developers. You servers all running Linux, all dev tools are first released in Linux, everything just work with most hardware. For professional like video editing, photography, CADs, audio etc Windows is better when you can buy better hardware for the same price as Mac. There is no reason to by Mac when most hardware is terribly outdated and you don't know when next upgrade will happen.

I'm doing web dev on macOS. Tried to plan how I'd work on Linux desktop if I ditched Mac and it doesn't look that bright actually. - I basically can't stand the usability linux desktop environments. But this is subjective. - Our designers use a lot of mac software. I sometimes need to work with Sketch, Photoshop etc. Even if it's in read only fashion. - Our team lives in Slack. Turns out these is no decent slack app…

Well Sketch and Photoshop are more design less dev so there's not much of a choice for those people.

Have you tried ScudCloud on linux?

Re: The Mac Platform Decline

#99

Post by snom380 »

fzzzy wrote: post #55
snom380 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but Steve Jobs also released lots of products with rough edges like that. (Remember "antennagate"?) I think we won't see how Apples management really works until there's a new product space that Apple entirely misses, and I don't think we've seen that yet (it could be AI, VR, or something entirely different we haven't thought of). If they miss that just like Microsoft did in the tablet / mobile space, then we…

Steve Jobs died just over a year after antennagate. He had already been extremely sick for years at that point.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but he was still CEO at that point (his biography has a section about how he dealt with the antennagate issue) after having made a recovery from the transplant.

Re: The Mac Platform Decline

#100

Post by grzm »

jasonjei wrote: post #52

I see a lot of parallels of Tim Cook's Apple to John Sculley's Apple. Tim Cook's, like John Sculley's, is focused on immediate short-term bottom line improvements rather than long-term investments. John Sculley kept staying the course, and Tim Cook is doing much of the same. If anything, the most recent iteration of MBP is sidelining serious developers and content producers. So yes, Apple's bottom line is growing. Lo…

Off the top of my head, I remember Apple under Sculley/Amelio* as

- proliferation and fragmentation of Apple hardware

- licensing of the OS to other hardware makers

Under Cook,

- Apple processors

- improvements in manufacturing (materials, component integration, energy efficiency)

These seem to be much longer-term projects than what was happening under Sculley. What are you thinking of in particular in terms of "immediate short-term bottom line improvements" under Cook?

In terms of revenue, there have been increases in revenue from services (which includes iCloud and Apple Music)[0], increasing from 3.4 to 5.8 billion USD from 2013 Q1 to 2016 Q3. That's about 20% (eyeballing from "Apple Revenue by Category" chart) of iPhone revenue. I'm not sure how this necessarily ties in to the Sculley/Cook parallel though. At first blush, it doesn't look like services is increasing at the expense of other categories.

[0]: https://sixcolors.com/post/2016/10/apple-financial-results-l...

Yeah, we're going from Jobs to another CEO, so there are changes. I don't see a lot of other parallels, though.

* Edited: After reading linguae's comment, I realized I was misremembering Sculley for Amelio, lumping it all into a "post-Jobs" era.

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