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How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

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Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's very useful, especially to scroll while reading an article I don't understand why someone using a laptop would want to scroll by lifting their arm up to the screen, rather than just moving two fingers on the touchpad where their hand is already resting.

When reading more than few lines of text on the screen, my hands do not tend to remain on the keyboard. They instead drift up the sides of the computer, making the screen closer than the touchpad. Not to mention, having the option to use both certainly doesn't harm anyone.

> They instead drift up the sides of the computer, making the screen closer than the touchpad.

Hmm… if you did that on a new MacBook Pro, wouldn't drifting up the side leave your thumbs somewhere near the Touch Bar? Maybe Apple should add support for scrolling on its edges. Of course, that'd still be a much smaller target than the screen... on the other hand, it would work regardless of window positioning and even with an external monitor.

I'm only speculating, since I don't think I've gotten into that habit myself (not having a touchscreen).

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just lack of hardware updates, but the lack of complete system categories. It's the height of hypocrisy to tout a green approach to things, while not even offering an upgradable machine, e.g. a tower. All-in-ones like the iMac are usually discarded if either the motherboard or the display goes south, whereas a tower is easily fixed. Also, power users are left out in the cold, with the Mac Pro the only system fitt…

> Apple should bite the bullet and license macOS for third-party hardware Please, please, no. Presumably you've never gone through this particular form of hell: 1. You have a [Toshiba|Dell|HP] laptop. You've upgraded something. You need [graphics|sound|network] drivers. 2. You go to [Toshiba|Dell|HP].com to get those drivers. You navigate to the "Support" page for your laptop model. 3. You - you, the user - are prese…

In the case of Hackintosh, the easiest builds use already supported hardware. The reference builds on tonymacx86.com need very little if any tweaking.

There are also high quality third party drivers, for instance Creative Labs, Logitech and NVIDIA Web Drivers.

If things move more to using USB C and Thunderbolt, that situation will only get better and better.

In short, it's already a non-issue.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#363
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a USB-C to FireWire exist?

If only there were a wired protocol that is high-speed, has a standard connector, can deliver power, and has both bandwidth and latency controls ... wouldn't that be wonderful? Then we wouldn't have to reinvent all of these wires. (Yes, sarcasm. That protocol is called Ethernet. And basically every high-speed interface we currently have is a bad reimplementation of it for political reasons.)

Ethernet is not as cheap as USB 2 for low-cost/low-performance devices. And it's not as fast (plus higher overhead) than Thunderbolt for high perfomance applications. Thunderbolt is (very loosely speaking) PCIe extended outside of the computer.

(And yes, I'm assuming bare ethernet frames, not IP or such)

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#364
post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 daisy-chain multiple adapters to get Firewire. Fuck that, as long as possible. To be fair, with the new Macs you still get to daisy chain adapters... Here's the thing, nobody can take away how great the Macs we have…

--- 2016 Razer Blade ($2,099) 16 GB System Memory (DDR4, 2133 MHz) NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5 VRAM) Intel® Core i7-6700HQ Quad-Core Processor (2.6GHz / 3.5GHz) 256GB (PCIe M.2) options for 512/1024 14.0-in. IGZO QHD+, 3200x1800, capacitive multi-touch http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade#QHD+%20-%20256GB What you linked to isn't 2016 Blade.

That's not $2,099. It's 2,999.99€

What's the battery and noise/heat level like on those?

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#365
What is going on with Apple and management? It seems like they are struggling to put enough manpower behind their many different hardware (MacBook, iPhone, iPad, Mac Pro, etc) and software (iOS, MacOS, tvOS, pro software, etc) to make sure they stay up to date, but I'm not sure why they aren't just throwing more manpower at it.

Honestly, a team that did nothing but update the MacPro every few months with the latest hardware can't cost that much, especially compared to Apple's coffers. Unless they are so blinded by the need to have huge margins. They don't need to change the industrial design for every iteration.

I'm just confused as to why they aren't committing more of their resources towards making their products better, instead, they seem to be hamstrung by a lack of manpower and engineers.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lift your arm up? I can rest my arm on the desk and have my thumb in the lower right corner of the screen. It's actually much nicer than having my hand in front of me slightly raised to have two fingers to scroll with. Try it now.

Yes, but then you just have one hand on the keyboard. So now to type, you have to bring your right hand down, and resume typing. The distance there is greater vs. using the touchpad. I just have to flick my wrist and boom, I am on the touch pad scrolling. On Surface, assuming I hate the touchpad and want to use the screen, I have to take my hand off the keyboard, put it on the screen and start scrolling.

Why do you assume that you have to use the screen or the touchpad exclusively? Surely if you're going to be fliting back and froth between keyboard and scrolling you'll use the touchpad but if you're reading a longer form article you rest your hand on the desk with your thumb on the screen and scroll comfortably. Both can work.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you identify specifically the critical features of OS X that aren't replicable with a reasonable amount of effort on other systems? I've spent considerable time using all 3 major OSes as daily drivers and while each platform has perks, I've never felt a strong commitment to OS X for daily use. I'm curious what many people feel is so crucial about it that they'd consider switching to the massively unstable Hackint…

Apart from what the sibling posters said about great indie software:

Linux just doesn't seem to be very trackpad-friendly. There is a messy diaspora of tools that translate fixed gestures into hotkeys, and it doesn't help that Linux distros are transitioning from synaptics to libinput. libinput doesn't even have kinetic scrolling, for example.

It's not just muscle memory - every kind of mouse (traditional, 'gamer', vertical) has given me back pain. I wouldn't have expected that, but this is my #1 reason for staying in the Apple ecosystem.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#368
I'd add that they had a questionable choice of the Mac and MacBook models they released macOS Sierra for.

They left out hardware perfectly capable of running it as if they're trying to force upgrades on people who don't use their computer for computational intensive tasks.

I know that these computers are still going to work with El Capitan, but what happens when its security updates will stop? Also, some applications already require Sierra and that's not going to get better.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lift your arm up? I can rest my arm on the desk and have my thumb in the lower right corner of the screen. It's actually much nicer than having my hand in front of me slightly raised to have two fingers to scroll with. Try it now.

Yes, but then you just have one hand on the keyboard. So now to type, you have to bring your right hand down, and resume typing. The distance there is greater vs. using the touchpad. I just have to flick my wrist and boom, I am on the touch pad scrolling. On Surface, assuming I hate the touchpad and want to use the screen, I have to take my hand off the keyboard, put it on the screen and start scrolling.

Screen scrolling is for those cases where you do not need to type. Which is actually a lot of online content consumption these days.

If you never do prolonged reading on your devices, then yes, it's not a scenario for you specifically. But many people find it quite useful.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#370
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there were a wired protocol that is high-speed, has a standard connector, can deliver power, and has both bandwidth and latency controls ... wouldn't that be wonderful? Then we wouldn't have to reinvent all of these wires. (Yes, sarcasm. That protocol is called Ethernet. And basically every high-speed interface we currently have is a bad reimplementation of it for political reasons.)

How I long for the day when I can configure the subnet mask of my mouse, the mDNS settings of my graphics card, and the routing table of my PCH! (Yes, sarcasm. Two can play.)

You know using IP is not a requirement for using Ethernet.
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