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How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

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Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US $14.81 reballing = someone heats up your GPU with a paint gun to make it "work" for about a day to a week. its a scam

That's just the price of diagnostics. If you read further you'll see that the full repair price is £169 + shipping. But yes, that confused me at first as well. They replace the GPU and use lead solder.

Charging "diagnostic" fee is also a scam ;-).

The sad reality is there doesnt exist a reliable source of _real_ new replacement GPU chips. Almost every single chip from china is either a pull from dead laptop or old stock(1). Chinese counterfeit markings, clean them up and sell as new.

The absolute best case scenario is you get really new old stock and it will survive at least 2 years, but in reality it will most probably be a pull from recycled trash with week-month lifespan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OogV7pbqEGQ

1- Nvidia chips were ALL factory defective (bad underfill between die and bga carrier), every single GPU at least up to FERMI has a limited life span dependent on thermal stress. Nvidia had to issue huge recall and restart manufacturing of ancient chips with fixed underfill formula - they only did a limited run for select partners (Dell, Apple) and those chips are pretty much _gone_ from the market.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the price of diagnostics. If you read further you'll see that the full repair price is £169 + shipping. But yes, that confused me at first as well. They replace the GPU and use lead solder.

Charging "diagnostic" fee is also a scam ;-). The sad reality is there doesnt exist a reliable source of _real_ new replacement GPU chips. Almost every single chip from china is either a pull from dead laptop or old stock(1). Chinese counterfeit markings, clean them up and sell as new. The absolute best case scenario is you get really new old stock and it will survive at least 2 years, but in reality it will most pro…

At least with the AMD 67X0 models of the MBP the problem isn't the chip itself, but the solder connection (or lack thereof). Same issue as the XBOX 360 RROD. So just replacing from lead free solder to lead solder does the trick.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#575
post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm buying, yes it is.

wow, What a douchebag.

Personal attacks are not allowed on HN and will get your account banned, so please don't. We'd appreciate it if you'd read the following, and post only civil and substantive comments from now on:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#576
post #575
post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow, What a douchebag.

Personal attacks are not allowed on HN and will get your account banned, so please don't. We'd appreciate it if you'd read the following, and post only civil and substantive comments from now on: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

I stand by my comment. Feel free to do what you think is right.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#577
post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, come on. Apple outsold competing laptops five days after release. They should release new laptops every five days!

The 9to5mac article (and the cnet article it references) uses a chart from Slice Intelligence...which looks like it gathers information from its coupon and package tracking app (which I've never heard of).

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not get a cheap powerful desktop for heavyweight processing, and a cheap lightweight laptop for mobility? $3K is a ridiculous amount of money considering modern options. Examples: Dual Xeon E5-2690 + 64GB RAM + 1TB HDD = $1250 http://www.ebay.com/itm/391654102568 Dual Xeon X5670 + 128GB RAM + 2TB HDD = $1600 http://www.ebay.com/itm/361745717969 Dual Xeon E5-2670 + 128GB RAM + 8TB HDD = $1900 http://www.ebay.com/i…

if you're going THERE, why not get a cloud VM and a chromebook?

Sometimes you want a GPU near a display.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#579

Hardware is not the only problem Apple has right now vis-a-vis developers. Apple's flagship IDE, XCode, is also lagging behind, at least when talking about C++ development, but even Swift doesn't get too much love it seems. Having used it since at least version 5, XCode 8 has been a frustrating experience for me starting from day one, when it defaulted to Swift version 3.0 and so broke all of the existing Swift proje…

Xcode was the buggy "single program" replacement for Project Builder and Interface Builder. It really never got over the bugs. I wish they had gone the other way an embraced the parts and components so we could at least add stuff beyond the current model. Thinking about it, this whole must be in xcode to read the documentation is still a pain in the butt. I miss printing the pdfs (much easier on my eyes or I could us…

I highly recommend Dash. It recently got yanked from the App Store, but the iOS version was subsequently open-sourced: https://github.com/Kapeli/Dash-iOS so you can build and install it yourself. I'd like an e-ink version, too, but an iPad is a close second.

I use the Mac version constantly. I haven't had to open the Xcode documentation window for months.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 priorit…

Thank you. So for the laptop (as opposed to the desktop) if I understand you, a more powerful dGPU isn't important, but longer battery life would be. As for me and people like me at the university (e.g. students, researchers, etc), we complain that the 15" 2015 laptop is too heavy because on its own (I'm in NYC so we walk, take subways which are faster than Uber or Taxi by far during busy times of the day which are f…

Again, it's a matter of perspective. Strictly speaking, I don't need a faster dGPU for audio. But I also work in VR, and right now I need a separate computer for that, even with a brand new "pro" laptop with a pay-through-the-nose dGPU option, which is yet another disappointment.

As for the weight, again it's a matter of perspective. If it's too heavy for you, that's a valid complaint. But I carry my machine, and a charger, at minimum, everywhere I go, and I frequently have to check to make sure I remembered to put it in my bag because I can barely feel it. At that point, for me, remembering what carrying a 10lb machine everywhere felt like, making it some fraction of a pound lighter just does not take priority over better battery or more power.

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