Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

macrumors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 145 posts

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#81

Post by iClaudiusX »

metabrew wrote: post #18

Mid-2012 MBP with SSD, retina, and 16gb here. I've got an HDMI port, SD card reader, two USB ports, two thunderbolt ports, magsafe power, and a proper, reliable keyboard. I despair at the current crop of mac hardware. If this machine dies on me before some decent mac hardware arrives, I'm not sure what i'll do - but it definitely won't involve buying a new macbook with the touchbar, stupid keyboards, and no ports.

Don't forget they cut battery capacity from 99/75 Wh (15/13") down to 76/50 Wh to save less than 3 mm thickness

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#82

Post by vivafrance »

ksubedi wrote: post #66

Like someone else said in another comment, the grass is not green on the other side. I tried every windows flagship option out there from Asus convertibles to XPS 15 (still have this) and my experience was not even close to what I had hoped for. From big issues like coil whine on the XPS 15 to little issues like battery randomly dying, it seems like no other manufacturer cares about quality control and human user exp…

Get an x1 carbon, install FreeBSD with gnome. Hardware and software blow windows and macOS out of the water. I can’t fathom how people think MacOS has angood desktop is — everything is a struggle with their os.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#84

Post by protomyth »

msie wrote: post #48

If only we heard from someone inside Apple. Maybe there’s strife in the company? Jony Ive dragging his heels on a design? Some middle manager obstructing progress? Supply line issues?

Well, they fired Scott Forstall a couple of years back. I really think its because a COO is now the CEO and the biggest concern for the Mac line is maximizing profit margin in the supply chain by producing older models or making questionable quality affecting decisions. Operations running your company seems to be worse than Marketing. I miss Product People.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#85

Post by megaman22 »

white-flame wrote: post #77
unknown_apostle wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. And no 32GB because they just had to make it 1mm thinner.

Technically, that was because of battery life, not thickness. The limits on that particular Intel chipset are 16GB LPDDR3 or 32GB non-low power DDR4, and Apple chose to use the LPDDR3. I have a basic 32GB DDR4 laptop* which was contemporary to the touchbar MBP, and while I'm very happy with the running battery life, the suspended battery life isn't as long as I would prefer (usually doesn't last 24 hours). I suspect…

I'll be honest, I haven't bothered with suspend/hibernate in years, because it is so broken on every Windows machine I've ever tried. In these days of SSDs and OS's that boot up in five seconds, I just turn off my machine whenever I put it away not on AC power.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#86

Post by H1Supreme »

atonse wrote: post #26
H1Supreme wrote: post #9

For years and years, I've advocated that Apple should just release the OS like Windows. It runs fine on a lot of PC hardware you can buy off the shelf (I've built a few PC's that do just this). And, with the Nvidia drivers that were released a year or two ago, most graphics cards people want to run are available. I realize that there's a lot involved with suddenly trying to support an array of hardware. But, maybe re…

I don't agree with this. I think Apple is right in that the real value comes from top to bottom integration. For example, when they can ensure that there's a certain set of bluetooth and wireless chipsets, they can test against those, and have features tied to them. But that becomes increasingly difficult as you diversify hardware.

Except they aren't presenting any "value" right now. Everything is old and overpriced. It's been that way for the last 5 years. Many Mac users have been asking for an upgradable tower like the old G5's forever. We get jack shit.

I know it's a bad business move for Apple to license the OS. But, I'm failing to see a scenario where OEM's don't jump at the chance to make computers the integrate just as tightly as Apple does with their own hardware.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#87

Post by bborud »

dschuetz wrote: post #35

I'm having a deja-vue. 25 years ago Apple was facing a similar decline in product diversity, innovation and novelty. With Steve Jobs gone forever I don't think Apple will survive that one. By a long shot Apple will burn through their cash very fast, with mediocre products and no innovation in the pipeline. And I don't see another innovation genius like Steve Jobs with a determined vision to come around at Apple these…

Actually, Apple had too much product diversity and one of the things Jobs did was to simplify the product lineup and make sure that each product counted.

Apple have maintained a relatively simple product lineup when it comes to the computers, the problem is that they no longer know how to make products that deliver where it counts.

(Of course, they do have boneheaded products like the dead end stovepipe Mac Pro, which completely misses the point of what power-hungry users with generous budgets need, but it appears as sort of a tradition to have the odd boneheaded computer to satisfy the egos of designers. Given the past history of Apple I think it is safe to say that high end users have never been a great priority)

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#88

Post by protomyth »

npongratz wrote: post #14
H1Supreme wrote: post #9

For years and years, I've advocated that Apple should just release the OS like Windows. It runs fine on a lot of PC hardware you can buy off the shelf (I've built a few PC's that do just this). And, with the Nvidia drivers that were released a year or two ago, most graphics cards people want to run are available. I realize that there's a lot involved with suddenly trying to support an array of hardware. But, maybe re…

Apple did in fact license their OS in the 1990s. Did not work out very well, financially, for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone#Licensed_Macin...

The Newton didn't work out for them, but the iPhone and iPad did. The current conditions are different than the past.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#89

Post by mtzaldo »

dschuetz wrote: post #35

I'm having a deja-vue. 25 years ago Apple was facing a similar decline in product diversity, innovation and novelty. With Steve Jobs gone forever I don't think Apple will survive that one. By a long shot Apple will burn through their cash very fast, with mediocre products and no innovation in the pipeline. And I don't see another innovation genius like Steve Jobs with a determined vision to come around at Apple these…

They can do what MS is doing in the Mobile market... focus on software... They can bring those "great" applications (including iOS development) to Windows/Linux/BSD.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#90

Post by matwood »

slewis wrote: post #60

Interestingly for me, the annoyances of the new MacBook have faded into the background (no escape key, worse keyboard). I learned to hit ctrl+[ in vim, and don’t mind the keyboard until a key sticks for a little while. Meanwhile I can’t imagine going back to the thicker form factor. I don’t mean to downplay people’s issues, and Apple definitely didn’t do a wonderful job here. But I do find that my day to day experien…

It may be unpopular, but I agree. I held off as long as I could, but finally ended up with a 2017 MBP. It works fine. I like the keyboard feel. It is a bit noisy though, and I worry about failures, but good so far. USB-C means I plug less into the computer than I used to. The dongle situation is a bit overblown. My 2014 MBP already had special cables for mini-display port and a dongle for gigabit ethernet.

I am annoyed that Apple cannot seem to just do simple upgrades though. Not every release has to be some out of this world new design.

Post reply on HN