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Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?

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Re: Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?

#91

Post by gotofritz »

allwein wrote: post #83
gotofritz wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. First of all you ignore the whole dongle / headphones / incompatibility with iPhone side of things. I have been thinking of switching over for a while because I can't stand Apple, the company, I hate having to pay €100 for a new charger if something happens to the old one, or having to buy dongles. I detest iTunes and Preview, I don't like having Xcode dictate what goes in my machine, I don't wa…

iTunes I understand, but what don't you like about Preview? I think it's actually one of the best parts of the mac. I'm also confused at what you mean by blurry monitors and Xcode dictating what goes in your machine?

Preview's "modern" file model which forces you to duplicate files to work on them and then automatically creates files on the filesystem with a name you don't want and you then have to go and clean up.... annoying. A lot of non Mac monitors (I have two HPs at the moment) are not very sharp used with a Mac. Apparently only Apple monitors work well with MBP - this could be balooney by anti-mac it people, but the fact that the monitor is not sharp is a fact. With XCode the fact that you have to download the whole XCode when you just want Make for example, and it comes with its own version of Ruby, etc, and it causes havoc if you have installed your own version of Ruby. brew is good, but luckily certain core unix tools only seem to come with XCode

Re: Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?

#92

Post by dyeje »

It depends. My current laptop MBP Retina will probably last a long time. If USB-C support is good and the new function row turns out well, then I will probably buy it. If not, I'll probably go for something else (maybe just another MBP Retina if they're still up to snuff).

Re: Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?

#93

Post by EdwardMSmith »

threesixandnine wrote: post #80
hypercluster wrote: post #79

Actually I did the opposite. Just bought my first Macbook ever. And not even the Pro but a Macbook Air! I know, bad screen and all. But I wanted to get into iOS development and I couldn't justify spending even more. But apart from the screen I don't think it's a bad machine. The XPS base model with 4GB -at leaste in my country- is more expensive.

What is wrong with the screen? I hear this all the time but to me screen on Air is perfectly fine.

I had (have) an Air, and used it for 3 years until the motherboard died. I used to look at retina screens and wonder what the big deal was - really didn't see that dramatic a difference, sure it was a bit sharper, but the air was fine.

When the air died, I had major deadlines, and Apple wasn't going to get to repairing it for over a week, so in a bit of a panic, I bought a 13" macbook pro retina, so I could restore from backup and get right back working.

Ended up taking a couple runs at repairing the air (which actually was a wonderful experience - they replaced the main board for something like $300, and also gave me a new battery at the same time for free (was not expecting that at all).

But, when I got the air back and turned it on, after having gotten used to the retina screen, I couldn't believe how blurry and low contrast the screen on the air was. Was a huge difference.

CSB...

Re: Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?

#95

Post by rnovak »

gotofritz wrote: post #91
allwein wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iTunes I understand, but what don't you like about Preview? I think it's actually one of the best parts of the mac. I'm also confused at what you mean by blurry monitors and Xcode dictating what goes in your machine?

Preview's "modern" file model which forces you to duplicate files to work on them and then automatically creates files on the filesystem with a name you don't want and you then have to go and clean up.... annoying. A lot of non Mac monitors (I have two HPs at the moment) are not very sharp used with a Mac. Apparently only Apple monitors work well with MBP - this could be balooney by anti-mac it people, but the fact t…

What?

Citations for any of these? I have 'make' installed on my mbp without XCode (along with clang, etc), and I use my mbp with 2 24" monitors all the time (in clamshell mode), and it's no less sharp than it is with a desktop.

Re: Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?

#96

Post by ksherlock »

gotofritz wrote: post #76
jonpaine wrote: post #41

Personally, I'm kind of amused by the appalled and horrified tech bloggers I see posting about the sky falling. I keep reading about "life long" Apple users threatening to switch ecosystems because of an SD card slot. Or function keys. I mean, people must step through A LOT OF CODE to have that impact this kind of decision. My perspective is biased by my moving in the opposite direction. I'm just in the process of co…

It's not that simple. First of all you ignore the whole dongle / headphones / incompatibility with iPhone side of things. I have been thinking of switching over for a while because I can't stand Apple, the company, I hate having to pay €100 for a new charger if something happens to the old one, or having to buy dongles. I detest iTunes and Preview, I don't like having Xcode dictate what goes in my machine, I don't wa…

Apple no longer sells monitors.

Re: Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?

#97

Post by gotofritz »

rnovak wrote: post #95
gotofritz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preview's "modern" file model which forces you to duplicate files to work on them and then automatically creates files on the filesystem with a name you don't want and you then have to go and clean up.... annoying. A lot of non Mac monitors (I have two HPs at the moment) are not very sharp used with a Mac. Apparently only Apple monitors work well with MBP - this could be balooney by anti-mac it people, but the fact t…

What? Citations for any of these? I have 'make' installed on my mbp without XCode (along with clang, etc), and I use my mbp with 2 24" monitors all the time (in clamshell mode), and it's no less sharp than it is with a desktop.

I never said that monitors work better with desktop computers as opposed to laptops. I said that only Apple monitors are sharp when connected to laptops, as opposed to non Apple monitors. Wasn't that clear?

Re: Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?

#98

Post by rnovak »

gotofritz wrote: post #97
rnovak wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Citations for any of these? I have 'make' installed on my mbp without XCode (along with clang, etc), and I use my mbp with 2 24" monitors all the time (in clamshell mode), and it's no less sharp than it is with a desktop.

I never said that monitors work better with desktop computers as opposed to laptops. I said that only Apple monitors are sharp when connected to laptops, as opposed to non Apple monitors. Wasn't that clear?

Again, citation? What monitors are you comparing? I honestly hope you're not truly complaining that a 1080p monitor looks less sharp than a 4k or 5k display.

Also, where's your citation/article/anything that you can't get Make without installing XCode?

Re: Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?

#99

Post by __jal »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #68
__jal wrote: post #53

This isn't quite the question asked, but it pertains. My personal laptop is a 2010 MBP. I was waiting to replace it until, well, I saw the new one. Now, I'm really undecided. I'm planning on borrowing a laptop to run Debian on and see how much my workflow changes. I spend a lot of time in vim and the terminal in general, connected to mostly Linux machines, so in that sense, at least system directories will be more si…

I recommend giving Antergos a try it's based on Arch Linux, and I'd also recommend i3wm - it's a tiled window manager that makes your workspace seem like you're in vim i.e. tons of shortcuts and hardly need to touch the mouse, and it's extremely low on memory/ram resource usage.

I appreciate the advice. I rather like Debian, personally, and am kinda past the point where playing with different distros is enjoyable. Debian is an extremely solid base on which to build anything newer I need, and it just works[1].

I'm resigned to the crappy state of window managers on Linux. I don't believe it has gotten materially better since the 90s. Honestly, to me, that's fine, if the annoyances stay at a dull roar (which basically means avoiding the slough of despond called Gnome[2]). I use a tiling WM called awesome[3], and for me it sucks slightly less that the other ones I've tried in the last couple years.

[1] Additionally, on one machine at home I have Windows running in a VM with VGA-passthrough, and that's enough of a hassle to get working that I really don't relish learning yet another checklist for, e.g., generating initramfs or whatever.

[2] Yeah, apparently some people honestly like it. Good for them. I have no idea what's going on in the project, but the actual product exhibits all of Apple's UX arrogance bundled with only a tiny fraction of Apple's UX ability. Whatever the story is, it took me perhaps 10 minutes before wishing I could do something more violent than `apt-get purge`.

[3] https://awesomewm.org/

Re: Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?

#100

Post by phaus »

yequalsx wrote: post #50

Went to a Microsoft store to buy a Surface Book. They are very expensive and have roughly same specs as a MacBook Pro. I really like the look and feel of the Surface Book and I was hoping it would replace my MacBook Pro + iPad Pro. I'm still mulling over the purchase since the keyboard froze up when I was checking it out and it reminded me why I went to Macs 10 years ago.

People always mention things like this when they badmouth PCs. My MBP freezes once in a while, the keyboard sometimes becomes unresponsive and I frequently have to plug-in my ethernet adapter multiple times in order to get it to connect.

I'm sure many of these issues would be easy to fix, but that isn't the point. The point is that MacOS if often reported to be a miraculous piece of software that always works and never has the issues that Windows/Linux have. I use all three operating systems on a daily basis and MacOS/Windows are honestly about the same in terms of random, petty but annoying issues that pop up out of nowhere and demand attention. Linux isn't too far behind, but when I do have a problem it generally takes longer to figure out how to fix it on Linux.

As far as the hardware goes. My MBP has slightly better build quality than my T550, but IMO they ruined the keyboard on the new version. My T550's keyboard has the function keys acting as function keys only as a secondary function and its really annoying. My MBP's keyboard is close to perfect (keys are a little worse than T550, but the layout is better).

I think the touch-screen bar should have been an addition, not a replacement.

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