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Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

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Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#261

Post by Fnoord »

FireBeyond wrote: post #37
enjo wrote: post #17

The latest rev pushed me to a PC for the first time in like 15 years. It's partly because I didn't love the new Macbook Pro, but also cause hey..change is fun sometimes. I'm very happy with my new Surface Book. I never thought I'd like the touchscreen as much as I do. I LOVE being able to go to tablet mode for calls and stuff where I sort of want to just wander around. The pen has completely changed how I do flow-cha…

Same here. My employer, who is almost exclusively Mac, were reluctant to get me the new MBP. I got a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition (Kaby Lake) and so far, so good. Am very happy. Like you say, I wish it had the Apple touchpad (but not the new one - that's getting _too_ big). Everything else is great. The Infinity Edge screen, beautiful keyboard...

Been considering getting one. They come with option of Ubuntu. But I read too many complaints on things like coil whine, HiDPI, and low uptime on battery.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#262

Post by sangnoir »

jpatokal wrote: post #118
bane wrote: post #47

I kind of feel like, once you're talking publicly about things like if you are committed or not, you probably aren't and are trying to keep people from fleeing while you figure out what to do or while some long-term strategy kicks in.

This was a private comm internal to Apple, not a public communication. Also, in this situation, denial is the lesser of two evils. Because if there are rumors that "X is going to be killed", and you don't squash them, that's even more suspicious.

> This was a private comm internal to Apple, not a public communication

PR departments (and governments) concoct and intentionally "leak" internal docs to the press all the time as a back-channel. This particular Apple missive reads like a press release[1].

I recently read an interesting article on how governments benefit from unsanctioned leaks as they provide cover for planned leaks. The same dynamic applies to companies, planned leaks are a mechanism for good PR that they do not want to be officially recognized as PR. I wish I could find the link, I can't find it in my history :-(

1. "The current generation iMac is the best desktop we have ever made, and its beautiful Retina 5K display is the best desktop display in the world."

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#264

Post by toyg »

jacobolus wrote: post #247
toyg wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and the iPad Pro were real duds. Good concepts, underwhelming execution ("let's just slap iOS on a big-ass screen, it will do").

The larger size iPad Pro is an amazing drawing tablet, I’m really glad to have one. I’d recommend one to anyone trying to take notes with a pen, make sketches, design anything (from furniture to web apps), work as an illustrator, etc. I find the pen and display to beat anything else available right now, unless you need a very large display. There’s definitely room for software to catch up for other types of uses, but…

> that’s more a matter of third party developers stepping up.

I think the hardcore sandboxing iOS forces doesn't really work well with "Pro" workflows. Say you want to edit a Word document and insert a picture - unless both your word processor app AND image-editing app are somehow integrated with dropbox / icloud, you can't do it; if you don't want to store your multi-gb image on "the cloud", you can't work with it; etc etc. Are these use-cases for laptops only? Yeah, maybe; but that's the sort of thing the iPad Pro was supposed to do.

I was (and still am) a big supporter of laptop-replacing tablets, but Apple didn't really manage to pull it off with this device. MS seems to have nailed it better, and I'll probably get a Surface-like as soon as prices come down a bit.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#266

Post by canuckintime »

comex wrote: post #130
rocky1138 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also a good indicator: “I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore?" Tim Cook told the paper during a trip to visit Apple's flagship store in London for the debut of its powerful big-screen tablet, the new iPad Pro. "No really," he said, "why would you buy one?” http://fortune.com/2015/11/10/apple-ceo-tim-cook-pc/

No offense, but this is like one of those false stories in politics that keeps spreading no matter what the fact checkers say. I've seen that quote posted on HN like five times now. It doesn't mean what you think it means. Tim Cook isn't actually so undisciplined that he would call an entire product line of his company useless in an interview. In Apple's world, "PC" means Windows PC; the Mac is not a "PC". As Gruber…

And I've seen that DaringFireball 'rebuttal' posted a couple of times even though it's false

"No Gruber is just plain wrong. I thought I remembered Cook using "PC" to mean Mac and WinPC, and, after a little Googling, found I was right" [1]

[1] https://myfreakinname.blogspot.com/2016/11/john-hodgman-is-n...

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#267

Post by fauigerzigerk »

glaberficken wrote: post #243
lobster_johnson wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also considering a switch, but Windows drives me up the wall whenever I touch it. macOS has been getting uglier and more awkward to use the last few years, but Windows is still the king of ugly. So I've been considering Linux as my first option. I fired up a few VMs and dipped my toes in various Linux desktop environments: Elementary, Fedora 25, and Ubuntu (Unity) so far. These are all GNOME 3 variants. And... oh…

> "Meanwhile, there's little consistency between apps (and Elementary tries to remove menu bars as a concept, what's up with that?), and everything feels put together randomly by people with widely divergent ideas of what a kind of desktop environment to aspire to." This is the product of dictatorship style development on one side (Windows, OSX) Vs democracy on the other side (Linux distros). Democracy implies divers…

It's not democracy vs dictatorship. It's individualism/pluralism vs central planning. You can have central planning with democratic legitimacy or without it.

But I don't actually think the horrible state of desktop Linux is down to any of that. Device drivers are Linux's big problem. Desktop environments are a simple matter of getting used to them and learning what to tweak.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#268

Post by somecallitblues »

enjo wrote: post #17

The latest rev pushed me to a PC for the first time in like 15 years. It's partly because I didn't love the new Macbook Pro, but also cause hey..change is fun sometimes. I'm very happy with my new Surface Book. I never thought I'd like the touchscreen as much as I do. I LOVE being able to go to tablet mode for calls and stuff where I sort of want to just wander around. The pen has completely changed how I do flow-cha…

What kind of anti virus program did you buy for it?

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#269

Post by Fnoord »

BoorishBears wrote: post #124
taigeair wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on its impact on how you do development? One reason I still have a mac is because it's so developer friendly. Linux is very time-consuming to make things work with and is incompatible with various hardware. Also some mac software is great.

I have a Zenbook. Windows for development isn't nearly as convinent as OSX. Yes there's lots of customization you can do to make it bearable. Powershell isn't as awful as CMD, but projects aren't supporting Powershell as much as bash any time this decade AFAIK. The Linux subsystem works, but the flow between Windows and Linux is lacking. I tried Linux. Linux doesn't handle my mix of high DPI and normal DPI monitors (…

Problem is that each software upgrade from Apple contains important security and reliability fixes. You get those even on old Mac hardware (my MBP is 6 years old now). On a Hackintosh, you don't know whether those software upgrades are going to work, or if they will break or brick your system. On top of that, when I looked around, I couldn't find some kind of good guide advising me which ultrabook to buy as Hackintosh. There's no clear comparisons and just a lot of homebrew mentality. I'm not interested in that; I want something which works well, and stays working well.

> OS X also has a lot of mindshare.

Sure, but I expect that to go down now. IMNSHO, YMMV.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#270

Post by hollander »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #220
wineisfine wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had the same thing. Turns out, I'm more of a design snob then I thought I was. Trying to move away from macOS and trying out Windows and a few Linux distro's, my god it's all ugly. I don't care much about Apple hardware specifically, but they got my hooked because of the OS. Pretty lame.

Take a look at reddit.com/r/unixporn

I never get these screenshots of desktop backgrounds. It's background-porn. The fact that it's made on Linux and has a Linux menubar and different fonts than Windows or Mac - who cares?

I've used Ubuntu since seven years at work, the mac since 17 years, Windows not anymore since seven years, unless when helping others. I would change to Linux anytime if all would just work, meaning Photoshop and other software that now doesn't work. Plus the mac is still my favorite piece of hardware. When I bought this 2015 Macbook, I've looked for a good Linux laptop, and came out at about the same price. Then the choice was easy.

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