Live data from Hacker News

How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

bloomberg.com

41–50 of 587 posts

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly doubt it would cost $3000 to replace your 5 year old macbook.

I also have the same type of maxed-out 2011 17" MacBook Pro. The replacement for that I am looking at costs $3500-$4200.

Sorry that's just not possible. There are gamer targeted systems that are better specs than anything apple ever made (even after market upgrades) in the sun $2k range.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#42
post #5

Has anyone taken the Novena laptop designs and tried to produce an updated version? Seems like fairly obvious Kickstarter material there. https://www.kosagi.com/w/index.php?title=Novena_Main_Page

https://puri.sm/ seem to have picked up that baton. Looking at their machines, pretty successfully too. If they can survive and get past teething issues and a couple of silly choices they could have a great future.

The 15"/i7 looks really nice. Thanks!

I'd still be interested in a true Novena successor too though. The integrated FPGA for instance...

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#43
Alienated is too strong a word. Do I feel as an Apple customer a little forgotten about because I like MacBook Pros? Absolutely. Was my family members with tech surprised by the new Surface products? Absolutely. Did a long-term, self-described "Apple fan boy" complain about the releases while wearing a first generation Apple Watch? Absolutely. Alienated? Eh, I don't think any of us think badly of the Apple brand or wouldn't consider their next product.

(The Surface Pro demo set to a version of Pure Imagination was more of an Apple presentation than Apple has done in the last couple of years. It is a constant horse race and the clear lead Apple had narrowed quite a bit. I was stunned by how bad their demo of the new Macbook was while the same week that had the Surface Pro. Watching them awkwardly DJ on the space of a row of keys was cringe-worthy. I'm not sure how that got green-lit)

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#44
post #16

My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programming, photo editing at scale, and recording/mixing music. It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful, has a smaller screen and less I/O functionality, and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I d…

Same boat as you. I have a late-2011 17" MBP with an i7, maxed out RAM, and a 512GB SSD. I think that the graphics processor is starting to fail and I'm starting to experience some very odd DNS-related issues with the OS.

I am very unsatisfied with my replacement options.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#45
post #16

My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programming, photo editing at scale, and recording/mixing music. It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful, has a smaller screen and less I/O functionality, and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I d…

I have a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with i7 processor and I would not trade my Macbook Pro (3 1/2 years old) for it. The Surface frequently heats up to be too hot to hold as a tablet and just isn't nearly as fast.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#46
post #16

My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programming, photo editing at scale, and recording/mixing music. It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful, has a smaller screen and less I/O functionality, and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I d…

I bought a Chromebook Pixel out of curiosity and have loved every minute of it. It's fun and really slick, and even as the most expensive, by far, it's still a fraction the cost. It was easy to put Linux on it for real dev, and I keep hearing about more and more methods (https://mrchromebox.tech). Plus it has all the Play Store apps now. Everyone I know is just waiting for work to buy them a Surface, but doesn't want to pay for it themselves.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#47
post #24

More than a single event, it is the string of events which create the disappointment. While Apple is indeed bound by Intels schedule for CPU upgrades, this would not prevent Apple from regular other components in their devices. A computer like the Mini should get yearly updates - and there is no good reason to solder in the memory. While it kept the very same design, it went from a quad-core i7 to a dual-core, with f…

The lack of affordable storage in the retina and up laptops and even desktops has been a deal breaker for me. I am on a five year old mbp and am seriously considering a hackintosh to be a daily driver. That's a whole big can of worms though.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#48
> To be fair, Apple depends on Intel Corp., which still makes key chips for Macs. Like the rest of the PC industry, Apple's innovation and product cycles are sometimes constrained by when Intel produces new chips—a process that's getting more difficult.

So, given that constraint, maybe Apple should make it easy for the end user to upgrade everything else (e.g. RAM and flash storage) instead of really hard or impossible.

But, it's more like "You're stuck with this new Intel processor which is basically similar to the previous one, so we'll just bind it as permanently as possible to all of the other components so that, when you want a larger drive, you'll have to replace the processor too."

Maybe Intel is dictating this "permanent glue and solder" strategy to Apple...

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#49
post #16

My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programming, photo editing at scale, and recording/mixing music. It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful, has a smaller screen and less I/O functionality, and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I d…

If I can figure out how to run Vagrant on one

You could ssh into another computer.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#50
post #24

More than a single event, it is the string of events which create the disappointment. While Apple is indeed bound by Intels schedule for CPU upgrades, this would not prevent Apple from regular other components in their devices. A computer like the Mini should get yearly updates - and there is no good reason to solder in the memory. While it kept the very same design, it went from a quad-core i7 to a dual-core, with f…

The most insane part of this to me, is the inability to upgrade or repair any of the desktop Macs by making them locked down, soldered machines.

These are machines meant to sit on a desk. Who cares about shaving off few centimeters of desk space if means you can't replace your RAM or hard disk or video card with off the shelf parts?

I find this both anti-user and environmentally unfriendly.

Post reply on HN