Seems ironic. When I worked there, all Apple employees had a Mac on their desk and probably used it on a daily basis. Yet the CEO thinks he needs to assure the employees that Apple is still committed to improving them.
Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac
311–320 of 623 posts
Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which roots? The System 8 and 9 days, when my Mac would freeze on me every day? Throughout its history, Apple has had its ups and downs when it comes to quality on the desktop. There have been high points (System 7, OS 10.4 or so?) and low points, just as Microsoft have had their Windows 2000 and (shudder) Windows Me. There are no "roots", there are only local minima and maxima.
Wtf, Win 2000 was boss. It took the desktop in the XXI century with the NT kernel. Sure, it had some security issues, but it was the best desktop ever at the time, and a real revolution.
Indeed, and it was the foundation for WinXP, which must surely still be the best Windows version ever in terms of user satisfaction and durability.
Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny I'm the exact opposite. Only on a MBPr for the hardware, otherwise would prefer Linux to OSX. Lightweight tiling window manager + Vim keybinds for all apps = super efficient. With OSX I actually have to use the mouse. How quaint.
how do you get vim keybinds in every app?
Also curious!
Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac
#314The 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…
It's been several years now that I've been wondering if my current Macbook might be my last one. I love the one I have (it's a late 2011 17" Macbook Pro with a ton of custom upgrades), but they don't make anything like it anymore, it's harder to do your own upgrades, and new versions of their beautiful OS are getting uglier.
Windows is a no go for me. I want a unix underneath, and Windows has its own share of ugly (though I do keep hearing nice things about Surface). I haven't looked at Linux distros lately, but I'm hoping there's one that's as nice and pretty as OS X in its better days.
Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I tried Ubuntu and couldn't get over the ugly font and not being able copy paste from anything to anything else Please elaborate. I mean... Universal copy paste has just been working the last 20 years... Unless I'm missing something basic?
I remember that ctrl+c and ctrl+v didn't work across applications. I think Terminal was one of them. Couldn't copy and paste into it. Out of the box anyway.
This is why I prefer OSX,the command + V works in terminal because command + V is not mapped to anything in the terminal.
Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac
#316It's actually kind of amazing to see the discourse shift against Apple and the new MacBook Pro to the point where it seems almost self-reinforcing. Like someone turned the reality distortion field on backwards or something.
I've been wanting a mac laptop the size and weight of a MacBook Air 13" but with a retina display for years, and the ability to connect usb, power and external display with just a single cable is just icing on the cake. The TouchBar - meh, but using TouchID to unlock 1Password is handy if not revolutionary. But the point is, by most standards the new MBPs are great laptops for most professionals, especially software developers - solid build quality, fast, great screens, long battery life and lightweight. Sure, there are undoubtedly some people who really need to plug a ton of USB-A devices every day or need more than 16gb to run a ton of VMs or something, and for those it must be an unwelcome regression. But honestly, I have a hard time believing that can make up more than 5-10% of the market of the previous models.
I can't really see how that can explain the public opinion turning against them to quite the extent that it has. I'm guessing it's a combination of several other factors: 1) Apple hasn't made a really revolutionary product since Jobs died. (Apple Watch was an honest try, but the product category was as dead a fish as the nay-sayers predicted). We expect these people to produce magic every x years, and they are long over-due with their next miracle. They put out an evolutionary product but it gets judged against the revolution that we were longing for. 2) Microsoft's entry into the laptop market has been with some surprisingly solid, and even innovative products (e.g. the Surface Book). They might not quite be revolutionary, but they are at least more so than the new MBP is. And their willingness on taking on niche markets (e.g. a Cintiq-killer for graphic designers) is contrasting with Apple's 'regression to the mean' where niche audiences are increasingly being neglected in favor of the less demanding mainstream consumer. Those 5-10% Apple just pissed off might not make a big difference on the bottomline themselves, but they are part of the hip trendsetters that used to be the poster child for the mac platform.
Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac
#317Earlier 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…
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.
You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to make a prettier UI, but apparently it is.
Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
KDE certainly is powerful and the Kparts system is amazing. However, in the beauty category I would put it at the bottom of the bunch.
So, did you use a recent version?
I have to concur, the latest Fedora 25 with the KDE Plasma is a beauty to use. Put it on a new Thinkpad X1 Carbon, screen is amazing, fonts crystal clear, all very smooth.
Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac
#319So many questions here. I'm sure Blackberry's CEO once said "Blackberry is not dead" – when the CEO worries about it, it means there's huge worries about it throughout the company. Were macOS leaders leaving in mass or something?
Also, there's not a single fact in Tim Cook's statement. It's not "We're investing in X or Y". It's not "Stay for 6 months and you'll be so stunned with our next release". It's not "We're planning a Macbook in 1 year to shut down criticism about last Macbook". It's "Please don't jump ship pleaaaaaase".
OTOH I'm super happy that Tim Cook noticed that there was a problem with the new Macbook and acknowledges it. It makes me hopeful, maybe he's going to take the right actions.
> the Apple Watch led to ResearchKit, which led to CareKit
That's the very wrong names to drop if Tim Cook wants to illustrate "How Apple employees get excited with anything". I haven't heard of them, and I follow IT news pretty thoroughly. They're rather an illustration that Apple employees are focussed on little things, the middle-management is too free to wander off in lower-innovation areas.
The first thing I've learnt about innovation is first you need to execute well. People expect touchscreens, USBs/jack/Fn keys, a bug-free core system, 1-To HDDs, popular games... It's not innovation, it's just execution, which serves as a basis before going 10 steps ahead of everyone.
I just don't see why the statement is directed to employees. What's wrong with Apple's credit in the eyes if the the employees, are they getting demotivated? Isn't it rather the fanbase who needs convincing? Was the communique leaked on purpose to reassure the market?
Next thing you know, Apple removes the Control key.
Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Having a VM in picture decimates video and storage performance. No, using shit virtualization software decimates those. You can pass through both the GPU and the disk directly to the VM.
You are ignoring the context, which is that of a portable VM. 1. You obviously can't direct map local fixed drives, and direct access to USB drives yields the same 200-300 MBps read performance, which also has a lot of jitter. 2. To pass-through a GPU you need to be running an ESXi with all the consequences. In particular, moving a VM, while doable through export/import, becomes a royal pain in the ass. PS. And try a…
>1. You obviously can't direct map local fixed drives, and direct access to USB drives yields the same 200-300 MBps read performance, which also has a lot of jitter.
Of course you can, and if you want to access the "host" OS just boot the drive in a VM and hope for the best.
USB will be just as bad as it'd be without VMs.
>2. To pass-through a GPU you need to be running an ESXi with all the consequences. In particular, moving a VM, while doable through export/import, becomes a royal pain in the ass.
I think for this you'd probably just want to use a live distro with KVM rather than messing with ESXi. But yeah, it'll be significantly harder. It's a strange problem so you'll need something more configurable than vmware player.
>PS. And try and express your thoughts in a bit more civil manner next time.
I don't see anything offensive in my comment, unless I'm supposed to be offended by your "pain in the ass" wording.