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Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

9to5mac.com

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Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#111

Post by Dan_Nguyen »

potatosoup wrote: post #54
Kevin_S wrote: post #49

Just wanted to add an opinion you don't see as much here, as a non-developer. It's not just developers who are pretty upset about the new Macbook, myself and my fiance were both in the market, and my fiance used a MBP through college. She pretty much fought me on the new MBP until she tried it in store, and promptly was against it. She's going with a Surfacebook and I'll probably go with the new Dell XPS 15 with the…

What was she actually against in the new MBP? (New MBP user myself, don't like the touch bar, but otherwise a fine machine.)

I'm a developer myself, but I do have non developer reasons for not liking the new MacBook.

* No SD reader: not ubiquitous in the age of smartphones, but I take pics with my DSLR on vacations and not having an internal card reader makes me unhappy. I could add a card reader, which leads me to my next point

* USB-C only: USB C is the future. However, that future hasn't fully arrived yet and migrating would be pricey all in one go. My external drive, external card reader, and thumb drive are all USB A. Sure I could buy the adapter but with MacBook > Adapter > External Card Reader > SD card, I lose the portability I have with my current MacBook. Same goes for my always inserted 64 GB tiny thumb drive full of movies.

* MagSafe: I'm clumsy, and MagSafe is a big deal for me. I understand the appeal of USB C and being able to replace a single cable versus the whole charger, but I'd rather have the clumsy-proof nature of MagSafe

* Keyboard: highly subjective and personal opinion, but I prefer more travel on my keyboard. I've used the new butterfly on the new MBP, but I still like my old keyboard.

* Price: on top of the aforementioned adapters and new accessories, the MBP itself has a higher base model price.

Obviously my thoughts are personal and not universal, but my reasons for not wanting the new MBP for non developer reasons.

Honestly as a developer the only thing that would bug me with software development specifically would be the lack of FN keys.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#112

Post by iSnow »

edblarney wrote: post #71
jclardy wrote: post #10

Makes sense with Apple's current terrible product line setup. Both the retina MacBook and 2016 MacBook Pro are much more niche than their last generation. Also much more confusing as the MacBook Air successor is $500 more than the 13" Air was (The non-touchbar MacBook Pro is the spiritual successor to the air.) The true 13" Pro for 2016 is also $500 more than the last gen. The 12" MacBook is there...but it is a super…

I just bought a new Macbook, and I can say that it's a great product. Probably the best on the market. The problem I had was cost - they are over-priced. Yes, I've heard the argument that if you want 'x RAM with y CPU' etc it will 'cost just as much' - but this is just no longer true. The Macs with 16G memory are crazy expensive. My Mac has 200-ish G hard-drive which is f-ing retardedly small. They should all have 1T…

I would really love to love Apple. But at this point, my eco conscience kicks in. Buying a laptop that cannot be upgraded in any way, be it RAM, SSD, or WIFI card... that's just too much. I have no idea how big the ecological footprint of a laptop is, but it has to be huge. Once my 2012 Macbook Air kicks the dust, I'll look at Lenovo laptops.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#113

Post by iSnow »

bostand wrote: post #107
jerven wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got myself a Dell precision 5510 with Ubuntu out of the box. A lot more capable than the most power full current macbook pro, weighs slightly less then the macbook pro from 2009 I am typing this on (moving files across to the new dell) After 16 years of Mac use I don't regret the switch.

Is this a 15" laptop? I recently realized that a modern 15" can be much more ergonomic yet almost as small and light as a 13" from a couple of years back.

I've seen the precision 5510 and while I wouldn't say it is beautiful, it is really small for a 15". At 2Kg (with the large battery), it is still heavy, though.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#114

Post by Chos89 »

brianwawok wrote: post #90
aconz2 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you want to write yesterday's software, use a laptop" - me / paraphrase of Alan Kay I think? I get why people are still blacksmiths making door handles and I think that's great. But I'd rather be in a giant machine shop making aircraft carriers.

I have no idea where this analogy is going. I'd rather be on a mountain making sleds?

Don't be a douche, it was a good analogy.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#115

Post by walrus01 »

I switched to OSX when it was at v10.4, the very first generation of Intel chipset Macbook Pros came out. I switched because it was the closest thing I could get to a proper fully integrated desktop environment with a BSD-like command line and full Unix-ish functionality (macports, etc). The first generation of Macbook Pro (Core Duo) had a full complement of ports that were state of the art when it was released. Now OSX is becoming a bullshit iOS-like walled garden of app store garbage and the hardware is marketed at people who like shiny, non-repairable consumer throwaway junk, and nothing has a proper complement of I/O ports. Ugh.

Just give me a state of the art Thinkpad with full I/O ports that runs OSX please.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#116

Post by dahdum »

010a wrote: post #74
ComputerGuru wrote: post #19

The biggest problem that Apple is creating for itself is not one that is being discussed directly in most of these threads: it's not about the loss in Mac sales, which they clearly don't give a damn about. It's the exodus of producers from their platform. Think about it. For those of you that were Mac fans before the iPhone and before it was cool to be so, who else do you know that used a Mac? Forget why, just who? T…

I have to disagree. Completely. First: Your theory isn't new. It's been discussed to death here and elsewhere. Second: There's no evidence that content creators are actually leaving the Mac. It's easy to look at the new machines and Apple's trends and conclude that, but go look on Youtube at any major content creator. FCPX is still popular. If not, Adobe on OSX is still very popular. I'm not suggesting that no one ha…

"There is little evidence that their dedication to professional machines is wavering on a systemic level."

Right now you can't buy anything close to a top performance desktop from them, at any price. You can argue the same for the laptops. It's clearly not a priority, and since you note it hasn't hurt their bottom line, I don't think a single refresh cycle is going to right the ship.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#117

Post by ComputerGuru »

supernovae wrote: post #45
ComputerGuru wrote: post #19

The biggest problem that Apple is creating for itself is not one that is being discussed directly in most of these threads: it's not about the loss in Mac sales, which they clearly don't give a damn about. It's the exodus of producers from their platform. Think about it. For those of you that were Mac fans before the iPhone and before it was cool to be so, who else do you know that used a Mac? Forget why, just who? T…

Microsoft didn't ditch "metro".. its just UWP.. they were sued because metro was apparently copyrighted. UWP is good.. wish devs would embrace it but to be honest, the dev community is up the asses of iOS so deep they can't see the forrest form the trees.. Windows 10 has 400million + users and growing and Xbox One has 25 million devices... come on devs.. write some (good) apps please! C# is actually kind of fun too

I think we are talking past one another here. I've been a Windows developer longer than I've been a Mac developer, and write C# on a daily basis.

Microsoft _did_ ditch the all-metro approach they took with Windows 8. You start up your PC and you see the familiar desktop. There's a start menu, even if it's different, with live tiles and all. It feels like an improvement, not like an alien intrusion. But the biggest difference is that metro apps and native Win32 apps can and do co-exist side-by-side on the same desktop. Metro/UWP apps are no longer full screen on a 30" desktop, they just have a different "feel" but they're otherwise treated the same way as any other app you use. A dashboard with "tiles" to access your apps Xbox-style was never the right interface for PCs (touch screen is such a fad and even if it's not, it's not for everyone, everywhere and it isn't productive) and MS finally realized and embraced that with Windows 10.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#118

Post by nickjj »

tekklloneer wrote: post #52
monk_e_boy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dell Alienware is so much better value. Amazing keyboard, run any game you like, super fast. I don't care about Win10 either way. It unlocks with facial recognition. It weighs more than my car (but I leave it on my desk 99% of the time) I just couldn't justify buying an Apple, as much as I wanted one. [edit] how the hell do I keep getting down voted for voicing my opinion? Lol. Nope. You're opinion is wrong, lose…

The flip side is that I needed a laptop to take with me to events, so I got a $750 dell xps13. If I were a college student, I'd be eyeing the $1200 version extremely hard versus an equivalent specced macbook pro at $1700 Or, the $750 version (which is what I have) versus a $1000 macbook that's significantly less powerful.

You can spend about $350 and get a high quality 13" IPS 1080p display Chromebook that weighs under 3 pounds if you're willing to spend 5 minutes putting in an SSD and installing Linux natively on it.

I've been using the above set up for half a year now roughly and it's great. I can do all of my development work, writing, browsing, etc. without feeling like I'm giving up much for those sorts of tasks and the price is very reasonable.

Details can be found at:

https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromeboo...

Its physical profile is really small too. Perfect for putting into a backpack and doing some traveling with it.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#119

Post by visarga »

marssaxman wrote: post #40

I was a Macintosh user since 1985, one of the die-hard faithful who stuck around all the way through Apple's late-'90s doldrums, but I haven't bought a Mac in years and at this point it's hard to imagine why I'd ever feel like paying that premium again. Not that there's anything wrong with them - Apple still makes very nice computers. The simple fact is that computers in general crossed my "good enough" threshold en…

Same happened with my digital camera. I love them but I see no need to get a better one.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#120

Post by bostand »

iSnow wrote: post #113
bostand wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a 15" laptop? I recently realized that a modern 15" can be much more ergonomic yet almost as small and light as a 13" from a couple of years back.

I've seen the precision 5510 and while I wouldn't say it is beautiful, it is really small for a 15". At 2Kg (with the large battery), it is still heavy, though.

What is the battery life of the smaller-battery configuration?

I wouldn't care less about its beauty if it has a good keyboard, a good screen and not awful battery life...

With that said, you are the first one ive heard saying the new dell is not good looking.

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