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How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

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Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#551

Post by HillaryBriss »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #531
HillaryBriss wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes. totally. i'm surprised Apple even offers mechanical hard drives in their Macs any more. they're soooooooo slow. they make the whole machine feel like a wet sponge.

Storage. 1TB+ SSDs are still quite pricey.

But, for the system drive, the drive that's inside the machine where the OS is installed and loaded from, the drive that cannot be (easily) replaced on most Macs -- why, nowadays, would anyone buying a new computer they're going to use for several years want that drive to be an old-school, 200 MB/s HDD?

Apple still gives users the option to buy the slow system drive (i.e. shoot themselves in the foot) rather than forcing them to ante up for (at least a 256GB) flash system drive.

But, given it's Apple we're talking about, I find it really, really weird. Historically, Apple is notorious for denying the user these kinds of choices (e.g. a floppy disk drive, optical drive, user upgradeable RAM ...)

But slow system drives? Apple lets people buy those all day long. I don't get it.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#552

Post by 40_pending »

beat wrote: 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…

Have to agree with you. I'm still lugging around my 2011 17" MBP. For work I've been issued a recent 13"(not the newest MBP) and it does not perform significantly better than my 2011.

I'd have long ago just settled on a linux laptop if I wasn't dependent on the media apps on the mac(Logic Pro & FCPX).

I might look at Windows a little more seriously depending on how Bash for Windows development comes a long. Currently it is not feasible to develop in my stack on Windows though without a VM.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#553

Post by kristofferR »

uabstraction wrote: post #492
kristofferR wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

macOS is great because it combines a flawless UNIX system (with homebrew, the only package manager I've been satisfied with) and a nice GUI with apps that work/look great by default. Linux has a massive lack of good apps. Simple things like a decent calendar app on Linux doesn't seem to exist.

Homebrew is a children's toy compared to APT or Portage. There's no argument about general polish or calendar apps in particular though. It's a trade off. You can have rough edges but community control and 100+ backup plans, or you can have sleek, polished, but at the mercy of next year's soldered RAM and SSD pricing guidelines. I personally love breaking things to figure out how they work, but some people have a job…

Homebrew works way better than APT for me at least (I've never tried Portage). APT is definitely a way better option for servers, but at a high cost by sacrificing usability.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#554

Post by dkonofalski »

elliotec wrote: post #549
dkonofalski wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phone comes with everything you need to charge it. It is neither absurd nor user-hostile. Inconvenient, maybe. Annoying, yes. Anything else is an exaggeration.

I mean, you're pretty wrong about this, but that's ok.

How am I wrong? The phone comes with a charger and a power block. Unless you want to clarify, your statement means nothing.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#555

Post by dkonofalski »

elliotec wrote: post #550
dkonofalski wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do. You don't have to plug in an iPhone to the computer to do anything, unless you're a developer. The majority of people using the iPhone and the new Macbook have no need to plug it in.

PS, most of us here are developers.

Of course and that includes me. We need to get better, though, and realize that our needs are not representative of everyone that might purchase a tech product.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#556

Post by sqeaky »

slededit wrote: post #467
sqeaky wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of the RAM could be used as a file cache, but it is a moot point. 100% CPU use on each of the 4/8 cores/threads. Nothing but more CPU horsepower will significantly speed that up.

If you look at a detailed graph of CPU usage you should see a pumping action as the CPU goes full bore and then stalls out waiting for data. Filling in those stalls is what gives you the extra performance.

What is your preferred tool for gathering this kind of detailed data?

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#557

Post by xenihn »

weaksauce wrote: post #475
xenihn wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/pcparts45/saved/#view=YfcHxr

Thanks! Wow that's a hd monitor. I have a 30" 2560x1600 and I thought that was nice. how do you like it?

It's really nice, but text can be hard to read without scaling or enlarging it. I haven't looked at any other 4k or 5k displays, but I think a 30" 4k would be much better. Sadly those are really expensive at the moment. The P2715Q is the best IPS 4k monitor in the price range, plus I got a great deal on a used one.

Even with the text issue, I think that it's still a significant upgrade over the Thunderbolt displays I was using before (I was using 2). Not quite as huge as going from my previous non-IPS 1920x1200 monitor to 2560x1440, though.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#558

Post by esun »

TylerE wrote: post #76
DigitalJack wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Just buy something from newegg and call it "workstation." Apple has two things going for them: top notch physical quality laptops and macOs. That's really it. Who cares how shiny a desktop workstation is... ideally you don't even see it. the only reason to buy a desktop from Apple is macOs. And if that doesn't matter to you, why by from apple at all? And for that matter why buy a desktop from anyone when you can…

There are more useful attributes to a well-made desktop system than "shiny". "Quiet" is a big one.

There are a lot of great quiet options in the PC building market right now, like PSUs that don't turn a fan at all under normal loads.

It is possible to build a PC or Hackintosh that is as quiet as a Mac Mini.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#559

Post by intopieces »

pfranz wrote: post #521
intopieces wrote: post #183

The new MacBook Pros outsold competing laptops five days after release. https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/09/2016-macbook-pro-sales/ The article linked here doesn't name any sources, just vague "people familiar withs" and "inside sources."

I think that's expected when the gap between releases was about twice what previous updates have been[1]. Even if people are underwhelmed with some of the decisions there is pent up demand. People that pay attention have been waiting two years for this update "any minute now." [1] http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Retina_MacBook_Pro

There is pent up demand among the loyalist the Apple alienated? Sounds like an excellent position to be in. Apple ought to alienate them some more, it seems tk be working well for them.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#560

Post by Miredly »

davidf18 wrote: post #344
Miredly wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual problem for me (audio engineer/music production) isn't so much the new machine itself, it's that after /years/ of stagnation, at a much-hyped keynote titled "Hello Again", referencing the original Mac launch, it's the only machine we got, and it's not much better than the machine that came before it. Essentially what this signaled to me, and a lot of other people, is that Apple has lost sight of the distin…

Thank you for your reply, but I'm still a bit confused. I would have liked an NVidea dGPU instead of the AMD for GPU processing with CUDA so that is a disappointment, but from my understanding, the AMD 14nm node GPUs consume much less power than the NVidea GPUs. The new 15" unit is smaller and somewhat lighter with a longer battery life so for those that value portability, this is really helpful. I see value in havin…

I think your confusion is stemming from your perspective. To you, smaller and lighter is unequivocally a Good Thing- However my 2013 MBP 15" is already light enough that I can one hand it comfortably, and can carry it everywhere without noticing. If they'd allowed the new machine to stay at the same thickness, they could have gotten more battery life out of it, which would be something that I would consider a priority- They could also have conceivably crammed a newer, faster graphics card in to it, which in a time when the entire world is starting to look towards AR development, would be a welcome addition. There are a lot of creative professionals, like writers and some developers, for whom the new machine is fine, but there are plenty who have a massive investment in outboard peripherals (that now need a couple hundred dollars worth of adaptors), as well as requirements for power that's now being offered in PC portables but not Macs, and for us the new machine with its compromises and price inflation was a slap in the face.

As for what wasn't released alongside it, I'm talking about desktop machines. Apple's desktop machines are direly out of date. Speaking only as an audio engineer, I need a machine that I can rack in a machine room and slot my dante card in to. There are many more who have multi-card HDX setups who are even more screwed by the current Mac desktop situation. For apple to use "Hello Again" in their teaser for the event and then /not/ release a new Mac desktop was another slap in the face to people who have been waiting /years/ now to upgrade.

So again, to answer your question in the context of the 2016 rMBP, The machine itself was slightly disappointing. The fact that it was the only machine that we got at that event compounded the disappointment exponentially- and the combination of the two is indicative of a thought pattern at Apple that's out of touch with what their long term userbase has always used their Macs for.

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