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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

#341

Post by lmm »

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…

Have you used a Surface Book? I bought mine as a development laptop with the touchscreen/pen as a bonus, but was pleasantly surprised at how nice they've been (I'm only an amateur/hobby drawer though)

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

#342

Post by mattkevan »

hollander wrote: post #270
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

Don't get it either. Most themes or skins or whatever for Linux desktops (including the default ones) are pretty terrible - the fit and finish is generally poor. If I'm going to be staring at something for 8+ hours a day the inconsistencies really start to grate.

Most of those desktop screenshots remind me of Winamp skins from back in the day - yes it's a great piece of software and endlessly customisable, but most of those customisations are terrible. Like a 14 year old with a copy of Neuromancer and MS Paint.

I'm constantly trying Linux distros and DEs and the answer when I talk about this is 'Well if you spend time tweaking it...'

NO, that's not the right answer. Endless configuration options means there wasn't the will to make a design decision and stick to it. 'Customisation' can be an excuse for a poor job. That's why Elementary OS is the least horrible desktop, even if it still has issues. Their lack of global menus may be a questionable decision, but at least it's a decision.

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

#343

Post by phire »

lisper wrote: post #26

What I really want is for my state (SSD, RAM, maybe the CPU, but probably not the GPU) to be easily detachable from my human interface devices (keyboard, mouse, display). I want to be able to use a desktop in one place, then unplug a small unit which contains the aforementioned state (i.e. the equivalent of a sleeping laptop but with no keyboard or display), carry that someplace else, plug it in to a different set of…

> maybe the CPU

It's a good question if a CPU should be included or not. On the one hand, I want a desktop class CPU in some situations and a laptop class CPU in other situations. And it would be nice to upgrade your entire computer without even having to shutdown the OS.

On the other hand, an Skylake or Kabby lake laptop class processor is actually the same silicon as the desktop class processor, just but with some cores disabled, clocked at a lower speed and binned for low power usage instead of performance.

So theoretically, you could have CPU which can be a quad core desktop processor when plugged into a beefy power source and cooling solution, but disables cores and downclocks when power and cooling is more limited.

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

#344

Post by pjmlp »

ctack wrote: post #219
bsg75 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I always return to XFCE. It may not be rapidly evolving, but if I'm running a Linux desktop, I want simple.

I never understood why XFCE is not the default for Ubuntu desktop. It was(is?) part of Xubuntu, the lightweight Ubuntu distro, years ago. I had the most basic entry level laptop, but I managed to connect 2 external monitors to it while the tiling would remember the locations of all programs in all three monitors and it was FAST. Nothing I have tried since has touched it. It set me up for a lot of disappointment! I no…

Not everyone misses CDE.

At least that is what it reminded me of.

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

#345

Post by w0utert »

jest3r1 wrote: post #322
m12k wrote: post #316

It'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…

It's easy to explain. Price. I've been wanting a mac laptop the size and weight of a MacBook Air 13" ... how about the size and weight and price?? They removed a bunch of ports, reduced battery life and upped the price. USD $1799 to $2799 (with touch bar). Pricing is out of reach. Especially if you live outside of the USA where exchange rate kills it completely. I love the 13" Macbook Air, just wish they would add re…

>> It's easy to explain. Price

I second that. I also agree with the OP that the amount of complaining about the MBP is a little weird considering it's still one of the nicest laptops you can get for the vast majority of users, but the fact that they found it necessary to increase the price even further really is somehwat insulting considering the few improvements they added compared to the (already very good) Macbook Pro. For all the waiting, I either expected more innovation, or better pricing. I'm not saying they should have decreased their prices, but they could at least have provided better and more options at the lower end.

Apple could have saved itself so much negative sentiment by simply not being so damn greedy, and by updating their existing desktop hardware (Mac Pro and Mac Mini) more often. They've now painted themselves in a corner where they can't serve a sizeable part of their target audience, but are asking crazy prices for them, even by Apple's standards.

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

#346

Post by pjmlp »

ux-app wrote: post #298
72deluxe wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to use Windows all the time at home but as my Windows 10 installation believes it is up to date (but is clearly an old build number, irritatingly/stupidly only visible in the settings app and not my computer > Properties), it really is not up to date and I have no idea when Microsoft will decide that it is. It's rubbish. And the lack of consistency throughout the OS (icons different everywhere, duplicati…

Yeah the design issues really get to me too. I'm a Windows guy through and through. I've been on Windows since 3.11. I'm not moving to any other OS, but wow is the design fucking horrible. With MS's budget, how bloody hard could it be to actually get a design grad to unify the design? It's seriously 2 months of work for a handful of people. It drives me up the wall.

Sometimes I think there are less people working there than what we think.

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

#347

Post by hawski »

toyg wrote: post #244
mikesickler wrote: post #56

Earlier 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.

I'm quite sure mikesickler had in mind the contrast between W2k and Me. The former being the good and the latter being the bad.

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

#348

Post by pmarreck »

bosie wrote: post #251
SkyMarshal wrote: post #229

Earlier 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?

For OS X at least...

https://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/cocoa-text.html

If you haven't yet tweaked these "not well-advertised" settings, this may indeed turn out to be a "this changes everything!" moment for you

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

#349

Post by pjmlp »

nottorp wrote: post #336
imagetic wrote: post #82

I personally think the iMac has been an amazing all-in-one package. It's simplicity gives it an appeal that has made it a near-perfect tool for casual users who want to avoid the quirkiness of Windows. The iMac also scales up to heavy-hitting design work and I rarely see a lot of complaints until you get to render heavy applications or try to do multi-track and high resolution video editing and motion graphics, which…

The iMac is "amazing" only if you don't do CPU intensive stuff with it. Otherwise it whirrrs and throttles down. Personally I care more about the whirrring than the thermal throttling, but it's not amusing to not get the CPU/GPU speed you paid for either. The Mac Pro is a video editing appliance ATM. What they don't have is a developer/hobbyist oriented desktop. And this will bite them in the ass long term, because t…

For many of us this means Objective-C, Swift and their frameworks and tooling, so we are covered as "developer/hobbyist oriented desktop" target.

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

#350

Post by SiVal »

yakult wrote: post #44
lisper wrote: post #26

What I really want is for my state (SSD, RAM, maybe the CPU, but probably not the GPU) to be easily detachable from my human interface devices (keyboard, mouse, display). I want to be able to use a desktop in one place, then unplug a small unit which contains the aforementioned state (i.e. the equivalent of a sleeping laptop but with no keyboard or display), carry that someplace else, plug it in to a different set of…

I would go a bit further: I want my state to be inside a seamless hardware agnostic VM, that I can access anywhere through public terminals that I only partially trust. I would have the option of either having my storage with me that I plug in, or in the cloud and I just provide 2fa. My device would have a cpu/gpu/etc befitting a mobile device, and the most barebones / untrusted terminals would just be screen/inputs/…

I'm hoping to one day be able to use my phone as this device.
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