51–60 of 71 posts
> Remove old junk like the Dashboard and DVD Player apps. Should just include those the app store as well. Not mentioned are the many years old bugs with multi displays and networking. I just want Apple to take a year and really fix all the core problems they've introduced. No more new features until the existing stuff works!
The App Store is Apple's package manager. It's not going anywhere.
Topping my wishlist would be for Apple to not have to put every product in the same "fashion bauble" category and consider pro, workhorse computers to be a different type of thing with different criteria. Both the Mac Pro and the MacBOOK Pro should be treated as workhorses, not show horses, and optimized for practical usefulness. Less emphasis on looking thinner and more fashionable and more on keyboards that feel gr…
• Thinner means lighter —i.e. more luggable, which you'd think would be an important consideration for a workhorse. • Apple's ecosystem (at least for business leasing) is sort of like the luxury car ecosystem: there are rather few models, and they're not very customized, but there's a dealership close enough to you that if there's any problem—any problem at all—with your [under-warranty] device, the idiomatic "soluti…
Thinner means more luggable, but if it restricts a workhorse machine from having more than the 16gb of ram the base model can also have because they can't fit enough battery to power it, then why not go all the way and shrink it to the size of the 12" MacBook? Well, because of the other components you might say! But, if the CPU throttles, the GPU throttles, the keyboard stops working and the anti-reflective coating peels off, all because of the thermal stress the machine is under when used as a workhorse, then is not much of a workhorse is it? Besides, no one is asking for an aircraft carrier, the thickness of the 2015 version was good enough for nearly everybody, specially when you do have laptops like the MacBook that do make those compromises.
Apple is sort of a luxury brand but the problem is they want it both ways. They want to be seen as an aspirational brand and as a workhorse brand. That is why they keep releasing FinalCut, Logic, and XCode. At some point those two ambitions are going to collide; most people think they already did.
No one is asking for a tank, you are presenting a false dichotomy as no one is confusing professional with ruggedized. Every serious complain about the MacBook Pro is about specs, ports and reliability, not unbreakability. In fact, based on your previous point about luxury machines I say you are the one that is confused. Are MacBook Pros professional machines or not? If they are luxury items as you claim then by all means don't make them waterproof but if they want to aim it at people editing 8K video on-site in Africa, which happens by the way, then ffs make the screen less reflective.
Please fix the dumpster fire that is AppKit! Doing a grep for angry words in my source code and commits reminded me of some traumas over the years… * Core Data's generated classes are broken for one-to-many relationships * NSTableView is a total mess. Lots of things don't work quite right. For example, calculating the correct height for a row of wrapped text is nearly impossible without hackily adding a few points he…
The only features that vital necessities.
* Peripheral Shield - “firewall” I/O security and disablement on 2008+ machines. Many a disk cloner and malware loaders use USB, Thunderbolt or FireWire to install their stack.
* Deep Sleep that works. /var/vm/sleepimage is 1 GiB but it has 16 of RAM.
* Official internal OS tweak platform that’s sandboxed.
* Open source much more of macOS and iOS.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
• Thinner means lighter —i.e. more luggable, which you'd think would be an important consideration for a workhorse. • Apple's ecosystem (at least for business leasing) is sort of like the luxury car ecosystem: there are rather few models, and they're not very customized, but there's a dealership close enough to you that if there's any problem—any problem at all—with your [under-warranty] device, the idiomatic "soluti…
Everything you said is right, but you are missing the point. Thinner means more luggable, but if it restricts a workhorse machine from having more than the 16gb of ram the base model can also have because they can't fit enough battery to power it, then why not go all the way and shrink it to the size of the 12" MacBook? Well, because of the other components you might say! But, if the CPU throttles, the GPU throttles,…
Personally, I see the MBP as a hybrid use-case device, much like the Nintendo Switch: it throttles when freestanding (because it has nowhere to dissipate its heat to), but it runs more quickly when "docked." So you can use it for light things portably, and for heavy things at a desk.
Unlike the Switch, there's no first-party dock for the MBP, but search "mbp cooling dock" and you'll see many accessories designed specifically for the MBP to enable this workflow.
> FinalCut, Logic, and XCode
Two of those persist for the sake of enterprise media-production companies that fund the engineering resources for them all on their own. If Apple were trying to push these for new customers, they'd still be making Xserves, as the hardware to go with this software. New companies need render-nodes, right? But they aren't, because these apps are only for these "legacy" media companies that already have render-farms and don't need Apple selling them render-nodes.
Xcode exists because Apple uses it to make macOS and iOS. (And because the period where MPW sucked and CodeWarrior was third-party and so hard to get new features supported in was a bad time to be an Apple system-software developer.)
> No one is asking for a tank
No, but a keyboard that'll keep working when you spill bacon grease on it, or a computer that won't choke in a sandstorm, is pretty damn ruggedized. Most computers, regardless of manufacturer, are not capable of surviving those onslaughts.
> editing 8K video on-site in Africa
See, this is what I was getting at with the difference in perspectives here. A ruggedized workstation would work just sitting around outside in the heat and dust and light of the savannah. Whereas a professional workstation is—like a server, or (in previous decades) a news crew's satellite uplink—something that exists in a designated editing-room in a designated trailer you're hauling around with the crew.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At 100% zoom level, the type is not rendered with crisp edges. It looks as if someone had applied a mild gaussian blur. Only once you zoom in, the outlines are sharp as they should be. I have this issue on a 2012 and 2015 MBP as well as on a MP 5.1. With the built in screens, Eizos and a NEC SV. The only thing thats common across all builds is the OS. If you think you dont have this issue, compare the rendering of Pr…
Curious: (1) Do you have some screenshots demonstrating this issue and (2) perhaps an example PDF that others could download for the purpose of issue reproduction? (I have not seen this issue, nor am I able to reproduce this issue after repeatedly trying under Preview. I have compared it with on-screen rendering under Acrobat XI, as well.) // Preview 10.0 (944.5), macOS 10.13.4 (17E202), MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017)
> At 100% zoom level, the type is not rendered with crisp edges. It looks as if someone had applied a mild gaussian blur. Only once you zoom in, the outlines are sharp as they should be.
a number of times.
Running on a 12" (Retina) Macbook w/ macOS 10.13.4 and Preview 10.0 (944.5).
1) Here's a screenshot (100% on left, zoomed in on the right) - https://s3.amazonaws.com/citruspi-tmp/Screen+Shot+2018-06-01...
2) PDF being used - https://cdn.beastnet.works/bfc7d34daac8e7630541d49b591b1b62/...
It also happens within the PDF viewer in Safari - text and icons look a lot crisper when zoomed in.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everything you said is right, but you are missing the point. Thinner means more luggable, but if it restricts a workhorse machine from having more than the 16gb of ram the base model can also have because they can't fit enough battery to power it, then why not go all the way and shrink it to the size of the 12" MacBook? Well, because of the other components you might say! But, if the CPU throttles, the GPU throttles,…
> why not go all the way and shrink it to the size of the 12" MacBook? Personally, I see the MBP as a hybrid use-case device, much like the Nintendo Switch: it throttles when freestanding (because it has nowhere to dissipate its heat to), but it runs more quickly when "docked." So you can use it for light things portably, and for heavy things at a desk. Unlike the Switch, there's no first-party dock for the MBP, but…
MacBook Pros throttle even on "docks". They can't magically dissipate more heat when stationary on a desk.
> New companies need render-nodes, right? But they aren't, because these apps are only for these "legacy" media companies that already have render-farms and don't need Apple selling them render-nodes.
Companies need lots of things. One of them is a Pro Apple laptop. Apple has no problems charging Pro prices, they should in return give a Pro machine.
> No, but a keyboard that'll keep working when you spill bacon grease on it, or a computer that won't choke in a sandstorm, is pretty damn ruggedized.
You are being unreasonably extreme. No one is asking for anything more than what we already had. A keyboard that is defeated by dust particles, dust!, is a failed product at any price and in any category, let alone in the luxury non-pro market where you want Apple to focus on. You should be even more outraged than the rest of us! Which Rolex dies when you eat a sandwich wearing it?
> See, this is what I was getting at with the difference in perspectives here. A ruggedized workstation would work just sitting around outside in the heat and dust and light of the savannah. Whereas a professional workstation is—like a server, or (in previous decades) a news crew's satellite uplink—something that exists in a designated editing-room in a designated trailer you're hauling around with the crew.
You should tell all the pros carrying their laptops into war zones that they've been doing it wrong all these years. No, wait, they have been working fine even in the dust and in sunlight, despite not having armor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why not go all the way and shrink it to the size of the 12" MacBook? Personally, I see the MBP as a hybrid use-case device, much like the Nintendo Switch: it throttles when freestanding (because it has nowhere to dissipate its heat to), but it runs more quickly when "docked." So you can use it for light things portably, and for heavy things at a desk. Unlike the Switch, there's no first-party dock for the MBP, but…
> I see the MBP as a hybrid use-case device, much like the Nintendo Switch: it throttles when freestanding (because it has nowhere to dissipate its heat to), but it runs more quickly when "docked." So you can use it for light things portably, and for heavy things at a desk. MacBook Pros throttle even on "docks". They can't magically dissipate more heat when stationary on a desk. > New companies need render-nodes, rig…
Cooling docks. The kind of docks that have case-fans in them, and often are made of porous metal than makes direct contact with a large portion of the surface-area of the bottom of the device, making them gigantic heat-sinks.
> You should tell all the pros carrying their laptops into war zones that they've been doing it wrong all these years. No, wait, they have been working fine even in the dust and in sunlight, despite not having armor.
Err... those are ruggedized devices, whatever you want to call them. By "ruggedized" I'm not referring to laptops with extra armour tacked onto them (e.g. "mil-spec ruggedization"); but rather to laptops built to certain specs regarding tolerances of heat/cold/light/dust/radiation/vibration/etc. You know, like how a satellite is ruggedized.
A lot of laptops are ruggedized, by this standard. Everything produced under the ThinkPad brand, the HPe brand, etc. is ruggedized. But, outside of these, most laptops aren't. Your average HP Pavillion, or Asus Chromebook, won't survive a war zone. In general, consumer electronics won't survive a war zone. (Some lower-quality consumer electronics won't even survive the cargo hold of a plane.)
And everything Apple makes, even for "professionals", is consumer electronics.
You wouldn't expect the iPad Pro to survive in a war zone without absolutely "babying" it, right? It's a piece of delicate, finicky consumer electronics that happens to be targeted at one particular type of professional—artists—whose needs don't include ruggedness. Well, Macs are pieces of delicate, finicky consumer electronics that happens to be targeted at college students, businesspeople and engineers, none of whose needs usually include ruggedness either. No real difference.
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> You are being unreasonably extreme. No one is asking for anything more than what we already had.
To be clear, I was replying explicitly to this line from the root of this comment thread:
> keyboards that ... go on working just fine when splashed with bacon & eggs
That's not your average laptop keyboard; that is, in fact, only the keyboards in ruggedized laptops that can do that.
> True Color and hyperlink support in the Terminal app Why? Isn’t iTerm better in every imaginable way? > Markdown support in the Notes app. Including code blocks and syntax highlighting. 1) there’s plenty of good apps (better than Notes.app anyway) that support this already 2) I’d argue we both do, but I’d rather them focus on the important bits (stability/performance/etc) and leave the niche app features to the eco…
It is really good, but there should always be alternatives. Right now I use iTerm, but both Terminal.app and Alacritty are viable alternatives I want to see improve.
> True Color and hyperlink support in the Terminal app Why? Isn’t iTerm better in every imaginable way? > Markdown support in the Notes app. Including code blocks and syntax highlighting. 1) there’s plenty of good apps (better than Notes.app anyway) that support this already 2) I’d argue we both do, but I’d rather them focus on the important bits (stability/performance/etc) and leave the niche app features to the eco…
I get your point, and somewhat agree, but I think it's important to remember that the two (feature updates to Terminal and Notes vs. stability/performance/etc.) aren't typically mutually exclusive; the developer that would implement Markdown support in Notes isn't likely the same developer that would be implementing performance/stability enhancements to the core of the OS.
How about the option to remove the dock entirely? Spotlight and Launchpad are preferable alternatives for opening apps, Mission Control works way better for switching between apps, and the list of running apps can be stuffed into the top menu with a pulldown list that can display diagnostic info and give a nice way to switch-to or force quit. I hide the dock and keep it off to the side, as I find it more annoying tha…
Any time I use a different machine, those are the first things that I completely and totally disable.
For me, the dock and the menu bar are much better solutions than any of the above, and they are in the category of "if it ain't broke, don't bloody flippin' fix it!!!"
