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

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91–100 of 145 posts

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

#91

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.

I switched from Windows to Mac in autumn-2013. I really hope that either Apple get their act together or that Microsoft ecosystem finally get the simple things such as hibernate and trackpads working properly before this machine gives up the ghost.

> hibernate and trackpads working properly

I haven't had any problem with hibernation on Windows laptops - quite the contrary: MacBooks don't have a visible "I am powered on" indicator once closed, which means that if e.g. some Chrome tab or whatever random crap keeps the system awake I only notice it when arriving at work, pulling the MacBook out of the bag and having a superheated mess with empty battery in my hand.

The trackpads on the other hand... haven't seen any Windows trackpad manufacturer that combines:

- decent size (=2015-era MBP)

- decent materials (=the metal/glass combo that Apple uses, instead of black plastic that grows INCREDIBLY nasty looking after 2 years)

- decent functionality (reliable gesture recognition without having to worry at buy time if the included touchpad is Synaptics, Elantech or Alps, or a knock-off)

- decent placement (=at surface level like a MBP, not 2+mm recessed which invites dirt to accumulate)

- can tolerate wet/oily fingers (yes, I admit, I am one of those typical nerds eating pizza while working)

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

#92

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.

rMBP mid 2012 here, i am totally agree with you. Unless they have made a Macbook Pro with OLED or Micro LED display, 10nm+ CPU (preferably 7nm) and 32GB+ RAM options, THERE IS NO NEED TO UPDATE THIS 6 YEAR OLD LAPTOP! Apple...

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

#93
post #49

I don't get the hate about the MBP. I have the 13-inch 2017 model without the TB and I absolutely LOVE it. It's such a master piece, I simply love it and use it as my daily driver. I also don't have any problems with my keyboard, I only can tell good things about it. The 2 ports suck, but I never was in need of more, I only use the power adapter and the USB C to HDMI/DP cable that goes in my 4K screen and that's it.…

"I don't get the hate because I don't need more ports anyway."

See how this is anecdotal? Pretty sure if you were to have different use-cases you'd like your MPB a lot less.

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

#94

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…

True, but I was taking a short cut :-) With the old "thick" MBP chassis (which was plenty thin for me), they could put in DDR4 and still have enough battery life.

Btw never managed to get 24 hours out of any MacBookPro?

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

#95
post #31
post #17

The most dangerous thing here is that the public is increasingly getting the message and idea that Apple's mac hardware is decomposing. They really need to make this a priority. I fear that the success of the iPhone is blinding them to the importance of the mac. And you can tell because they're kicking ass when it comes to iOS devices. They're so far ahead in certain areas, it's not even funny. This is reminding me o…

Remember when Apple killed their server devision? It wasn't because it wasn't profitable - because it was. They killed it because it wasn't profitable enough to be anything other than a rounding error on their accounts. I fear the same is happening with the MacBook line up when compared against the profits from iOS devices.

I don't know. The Mac still represents a 10% of revenue for Apple, and I'm sure most of that comes from laptops.

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

#96
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't they on the third iteration of those keyboards now, I wonder if the failure rate is still high. I guess we will find out when the next revision of laptops comes out, if they really are unreliable then Apple will fix it as it is clearly doing them some reputational damage.

The currently shipping keyboard is the one with the most problems. The earlier keyboards weren't that bad once you got used to them -- they didn't choke on a speck of dust.

I thought it was the 2016 ones with the most issues, and the not the 2017 update?

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

#97

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 to that long ago with MacOS 7. It didn't work so well, since they undercut sales of their own hardware. Jobs killed the licensing when he returned to the company. Today, OS X is good enough that is still gets people to buy their outdated hardware. They'd be crazy to license it and give up that lockin. It's not a good situation, but we're not going to see OS X licensed to other manufacturers anytime soon.

Yes, the OS is great, but at this point the hardware is so unacceptable that they're going to lose all my business. If they split the OS out they'd at least get me to pay for that part.

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

#98
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…

Mobile took precedence during the last decade, but now everyone is starting to realize that tablets and smartphones aren't going to replace regular computers for a large portion of the population.

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple did to that long ago with MacOS 7. It didn't work so well, since they undercut sales of their own hardware. Jobs killed the licensing when he returned to the company. Today, OS X is good enough that is still gets people to buy their outdated hardware. They'd be crazy to license it and give up that lockin. It's not a good situation, but we're not going to see OS X licensed to other manufacturers anytime soon.

Those clones weren't too bad though. And IIRC, Power Computing did way more to evangelize the Mac platform at the time than Apple did. Their ads were great.

The clones were great. TOO great, they were a superior value to what Apple was selling on the high end, which was why they had to go.

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

#100
If you want a real MacBook Pro, I don't understand why they axed the 17" line. Those machines were beasts. Everyone I know who got one in college is still running them almost a decade later. For really doing work, a full keyboard and screen real-estate is king.
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