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Apple’s 2016 in review

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Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#331

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

visarga wrote: post #186
wineisfine wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shift is the pure neglect towards the dev community. Something that most likely would not have happened so blatant and fast under Jobs. It is also completely not necessary that making great phones excludes a company from making at least decent upgrade cycles in their computer hardware. Why should one exclude the other?

> It is also completely not necessary that making great phones excludes a company from making at least decent upgrade cycles in their computer hardware. You bet! all those billions sitting in their coffers and they still couldn't pull their asses to achieve progress. It is like Microsoft of the XP era. I was pulling my hairs in 2003 cursing at Bill Gates, then switched to Mac until now. But I think the Mac era is ove…

> He's really great in his humanitarian work.

I'm sure a lot of what Gates is currently doing is praiseworthy.

But to be even-handed, we should also remember the means by which he obtained a lot of the money he's giving away.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#332

Post by scott_karana »

jakelarkin wrote: post #37

the brand new Macbook Pro has last-generation Intel CPUs. I remember when Jobs announced one of the first Intel Macbook Pros with chips that no other manufacturer had even been given the chance to ship yet.

Admittedly, "Switching a whole product lineup from IBM to Intel" is the sort of multi-billion dollar deal that will give you lots of pull, pre-release goodies, and bulk discounts with a provider.

But it's a one-time trick. We can't expect them to do it all the time.

You won't, and shouldn't, get preferential treatment for "upgpraded an existing laptop to use the newest model of the same CPU".

(Switching to ARM right now could potentially allow for a nice repeat, though)

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#333

Post by Larrikin »

mrmondo wrote: post #15
quasse wrote: post #6

The day Apple makes a power cord that doesn't have a cable sheath with the consistency and durability of silly putty is the day I will recognize them as back on track. It's a small detail, but the power cord is the one part of the computer that users have no choice but to interact with every day and they've been ignoring the problems with them for the better part of half a decade. Every Mac at work either has detache…

Of all the MacBooks, MacBook Pros and idevices I've had over the years (including my still running perfectly Jan 2011 MBP) I've never had a single issue with any power cord tearing / breaking or power supply even fail as far as I can remember. I always assume when I hear of people with this problem that they're disrespecting their hardware by jamming it in doors / desks or perhaps have pets that chew on them.

The only cords I've ever had an issue with have been Apple cords. I've literally never had a cord from a different company break or fray unless it was a freak accident e.g. having my foot on a dangling headphone cord and yanking my head up.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#334

Post by scott_karana »

pier25 wrote: post #313
scott_karana wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple themselves have a support article specifically addressing how to handle their power cords gingerly... ;) https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201600

99% of users won't see this though.

Seriously? You don't think even 2% users are going to lift the brick using its own cord, or (accidentally) pull the cable past its safe bend radius, or wrap it tightly around the Apple-provided cable-wrapping arms?

There's a reason why everyone else uses thicker cables and strain relief.

And it's not because of end-user negligence: it's because of engineering pragmatism.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#335

Post by wl »

bsdetector wrote: post #315
wl wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've experienced these UI hangs. It's the OS reacting poorly to memory pressure.

Seen this on a family member's Mac. It ground to a halt in exactly the same way computers have for ages when too much virtual memory is being used. I think what's happened is that every single developer at Apple has SSDs on their work and home computers so they get wasteful with memory. When iPhoto needs 150% memory to update an index you're not even going to notice that with an SSD, but with an HDD the system can fr…

I see memory pressure cause even SSD-equipped Macs grind to a halt in this way.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#336

Post by pier25 »

scott_karana wrote: post #334
pier25 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of users won't see this though.

Seriously? You don't think even 2% users are going to lift the brick using its own cord, or (accidentally) pull the cable past its safe bend radius, or wrap it tightly around the Apple-provided cable-wrapping arms ? There's a reason why everyone else uses thicker cables and strain relief. And it's not because of end-user negligence: it's because of engineering pragmatism.

To be able to ignore the instructions you have to be able to read them first. ;)

Although all this is irrelevant since Apple phased out mag safe, the "ears" that hold the cable, and added a removable cable.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#337

Post by illumin8 »

bangonkeyboard wrote: post #102
loosescrews wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve was a notoriously hard person to work with. Realistically, anyone who Steve was likely to name as his successor would be a follower, someone who went along with whatever Steve said and told him what he wanted to hear. What Apple needed was another person like Steve, but unfortunately, by letting Steve select that person, they ended up with someone completely unlike Steve.

> What Apple needed was another person like Steve... They had one. Tim fired him.

Yes, but Forstall was responsible for skeumorphism across all of iOS, so I'm not certain he really was as visionary as Jobs.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#338

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

caconym_ wrote: post #126
wineisfine wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shift is the pure neglect towards the dev community. Something that most likely would not have happened so blatant and fast under Jobs. It is also completely not necessary that making great phones excludes a company from making at least decent upgrade cycles in their computer hardware. Why should one exclude the other?

How do you figure "pure neglect"? What are the features you're missing in the current Mac lineup? Which products from other manufacturers make a meaningful improvement on Apple's offering for "devs"?

Here's one piece of anecdata, not for a "dev" but for another high-end use case: professional photography.

My wife is a professional photographer. Her current photo-editing computer is a Windows 7 desktop with 16 GB of RAM.

We know Windows 7's days are numbered, so we're starting to think about her next editing computer. The two most obvious options are (a) some Apple product, or (b) a computer running Windows 10.

Here are the major criteria for the replacement, which need to remain true for 3+ years after the computer's purchase:

(1) It must legally run current Adobe products. (2) Can support > 16 GB RAM during its lifetime. (3) There must be minimal unplanned downtime. (4) The price can't be exorbitant, relative to a medium-high end PC. TCO should also be reasonable. (5) It must be convenient to transfer photos from her camera's SD card. (6) We'd like to minimize the time and attention we put into initial setup and maintenance.

So the most obvious options (currently) are:

* Apple: MacPro, iMac, or MacBook Pro

* PC: Windows 8 or Windows 10

Here's how I score the options, although perhaps someone will correct me:

(1) Easily satisfied by all options listed.

(2) No MacBook Pro satisfies this. Fast SSD for swap is helpful but sub-optimal.

(3) Windows 10 (non-enterprise) fails this, because of unavoidable updates. MacPro and iMac fail this because (AFAIK) Apple doesn't offer loaners for these during warranty work.

(4) For initial purchase cost, the MacPro is a fail, and the MacBook Pro is nearly a fail. However, all current Apple products are potential TCO fail given the lack of user-replaceable components.

(5) AFAIK the desktop Macs fail this, although connecting an external USB reader should be easy enough. I suspect the MacBook Pro would be more hassle, given its ports/dongles mess.

(6) All of the options should satisfy this criterion well-enough.

As far as I can tell, the winner is a Windows 8 PC.

Why is no Apple product a viable winner, given our criteria?

- Nothing in the current lineup meets all our criteria.

- We don't know if/when something will be added that meets our criteria.

- We're not sure what Apple's longer-term plans are, so we don't want to invest time/money into a PC-to-Apple transition, just to need to reverse it in a few years.

The three issues listed immediately above strike me as a pointless fail in Apple's strategy, at least relative to my wife's business's needs.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#339

Post by scott_karana »

pier25 wrote: post #336
scott_karana wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You don't think even 2% users are going to lift the brick using its own cord, or (accidentally) pull the cable past its safe bend radius, or wrap it tightly around the Apple-provided cable-wrapping arms ? There's a reason why everyone else uses thicker cables and strain relief. And it's not because of end-user negligence: it's because of engineering pragmatism.

To be able to ignore the instructions you have to be able to read them first. ;) Although all this is irrelevant since Apple phased out mag safe, the "ears" that hold the cable, and added a removable cable.

Fair point about the ears and user replacability.

Still, Apple's Lightning cables are also extremely vulnerable to bending and abrasion. What makes you think their USB-C cables will be much better?

Non-technical customers who can't afford to buy new cables, or don't know to use better aftermarket cables, are already known to resort to using springs from pens as ad-hoc strain relief: https://www.google.ca/search?q=iphone+charger+spring

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#340

Post by wl »

acdha wrote: post #322
wl wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've experienced these UI hangs. It's the OS reacting poorly to memory pressure.

Parts of the UI hanging can be memory pressure (or, at least in the past, things like network issues with e.g. LDAP or network home directories) but I've never seen that halt animations, mouse motion, or stop the clock from updating. I do agree that Apple needs to get better at I/O scheduling – even with an SSD the experience is less responsive than BeOS was on 90s PC hardware — but the animation loop has typically b…

> I've never seen that [memory pressure] halt animations, mouse motion, or stop the clock from updating.

This is exactly what I've seen. If I catch it early enough and can get the UI to respond to me tabbing to the terminal, I can kill Safari's web content processes or whatever it is that's leaking memory and it goes away.

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