For me it's still software, the hardware is definitely solid. My experience is from when Windows 10 first came out so maybe it's all fixed now. The process to upgrade involved waiting for the bubble to pop-up in the bottom right. It didn't after a week so I had to search out the command line incantation to make it show up. Once I got it to show up, it did nothing until the 5th or 6th restart. Once it started to install it took 3 days, running constantly, on a brand new Surface Book. After that I remained unsold on Windows yet again.
The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be
321–330 of 467 posts
Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be
#322I don’t really understand the value of a touch screen on a laptop. Specially for a Software Developer. It is easier and quicker to move your hand (while typing) to the touch pad rather than to the display. I think TouchBar (which is underrated) makes sense because in that case you don’t need to move your hand up, it just is there along with the keyboard. Plus I really don’t like those huge touch-optimised buttons on Windows. A laptop is meant to be used with a mouse pointer which is much much more precise than a finger, hence allowing macOS to display smaller buttons maximising screen realestate.
Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not spying on me and not transmitting unknown to me personal information to unknown parties would be a killer feature. I treat any windows machine as if it has a keylogger and submits all my activity to all major governments (maybe only one today and “all” in a few years when my data gets sold, shared or stolen). This is a serious issue for me.
disclaimer: MS employee, this is solely my opinion Does the GDPR do anything to put your concerns on this issue to rest? (By those regulations, MS is required, under penalty of very large fines, to not do what you are accusing them of doing.)
It's my understanding that companies only need to comply with GDPR when providing services to end users in the EU and that companies that comply with GDPR globally are only doing so due to resource constraints that Microsoft doesn't face.
However, I'm probably less informed on GDPR than the average HN user, so it's very possible that my understanding is off-base or incomplete.
Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be
#324I don’t really understand the value of a touch screen on a laptop. Specially for a Software Developer. It is easier and quicker to move your hand (while typing) to the touch pad rather than to the display. I think TouchBar (which is underrated) makes sense because in that case you don’t need to move your hand up, it just is there along with the keyboard. Plus I really don’t like those huge touch-optimised buttons on…
A touch screen on MacOS would make sense if you're an iOS developer. You could quickly test touch interactions directly in the iOS Simulator without having to send the app to a phone or tablet.
Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be
#325It’s 2018 and I still see people walking around with Windows laptop lids open because they presumably have no confidence in Windows’ ability to sensibly preserve state after closing the lid. Software matters, and how it integrates with hardware. And I keep waiting for them to fix just the basics in Windows 10. Not utterly losing both the sizes and positions of all windows just because the laptop was undocked. Not fai…
This and other similar things are so often and easily ignored. I see people talking about Macs not supporting pro use. But hey, tell me, how am I going to power my 6 external displays on a Surface product of any kind?
I get that people want some more variety and excitement, and maybe feel like the Thunderbolt port thing is problematic (despite absolutely enabling my most “pro” setup I’ve ever had on my ’17 13” TB MBP) and obviously the keyboard design has issues.
But as a whole package it’s still the best commercial product you can buy in its space, and considering actual size, has no real competition even if you ignore the many, many software issues one faces when leaving the warm, design-loving embrace of the macOS software ecosystem.
I’ll reconsider this situation after Microsoft releases a Surface product that isn’t almost guaranteed to require one or more returns to the store and oh, yeah, has Thunderbolt 3 support so I can plug in 2 cables to get: 6 external displays (1 4k, 5 2560x*), NVMe speeds to external storage, gigabit ethernet, digital audio, SD card reader, spare ports, etc. etc. (aka OWC TB3 Dock with nearly every port in use.)
There are a few non-MS laptops that might handle the hardware requirements I meet with my current setup, but, nothing that couples the hardware with the Software. Show me even one single app that matches the care and design of Things for macOS + iOS, for example. These are things I use every. single. day. for nearly every. single task.
Frankly, I look forward to Apple fixing some of their issues with the MBP line and hopefully by then the situation with mobile processors will be improved enough to allow for some bigger memory footprints and the like, though, honestly, despite running minikube based workflows locally, I’ve never ran out of RAM at 16GB. I guess it’s because I don’t use Slack.
Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be
#326I don’t really understand the value of a touch screen on a laptop. Specially for a Software Developer. It is easier and quicker to move your hand (while typing) to the touch pad rather than to the display. I think TouchBar (which is underrated) makes sense because in that case you don’t need to move your hand up, it just is there along with the keyboard. Plus I really don’t like those huge touch-optimised buttons on…
It's fantastic for pretty much any kind of design work. Even you're a software developer building UIs and web interfaces and such. Also great for kids (who generally have less developed motor skills.)
Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I saw a dude in the elevator (this year) because his Windows 10 started installing updates when he shut it down, but he needed to leave the office. I get so much crap when I say this online, but Windows is a complete shit show. Yeah, there are issues with macOS, but it is lightyears better. Yeah, I know Apple has dropped the ball on hardware, but my 5 year old MBP is just fine.
> Windows is a complete shit show I have more problems with my late 2016 MBP now than I do with any of the Win10 machines I use, and I've been using both OSs for 25+ years. The whole" Windows is a shit show" feels like the tired diatribe of people that want to crap on Microsoft but haven't actually used the OS themselves in years.
Okay, so recent story from a Mac user here. My boss got a new Surface thing - I don’t know which exact model, sorry - and actually he really likes it. (He’s also a Mac guy.)
So we’re sitting on a plane and he’s showing me how easy it is to sort email in tablet mode, and it blue-screens. Really unlucky, right, because normally it doesn’t do that of course. But hey, shit happens, we chuckle, whatever.
So he puts it in the seat pocket. Then 45 minutes later we land, so he gets it out of the seat pocket. And the thing is burning hot because it hasn’t shut down. It’s just sitting there, on the blue screen, fans going mental.
This is a device made by Microsoft, running Microsoft software. And we’re in 2018. And that’s the default behaviour. It’s not great, is it?
Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Windows is a complete shit show I have more problems with my late 2016 MBP now than I do with any of the Win10 machines I use, and I've been using both OSs for 25+ years. The whole" Windows is a shit show" feels like the tired diatribe of people that want to crap on Microsoft but haven't actually used the OS themselves in years.
Okay, so recent story from a Mac user here. My boss got a new Surface thing - I don’t know which exact model, sorry - and actually he really likes it. (He’s also a Mac guy.) So we’re sitting on a plane and he’s showing me how easy it is to sort email in tablet mode, and it blue-screens. Really unlucky, right, because normally it doesn’t do that of course. But hey, shit happens, we chuckle, whatever. So he puts it in…
This exact same thing happens to my MBP, and it's 2018. In fact, it happened today then I unplugged it from an external display and it froze and didn't respond to closing the lid.
Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
One persons bloatware is another persons answer to "So .. what can I do?" Every major OS distribution I know of come with at least 1-2 games
Personally.... I feel that if I don't use Onedrive I shouldn't see a prominent Onedrive icon always visible in Explorer or have onedrive.exe constantly running in the background using resources. So I guess I'm stuck with using hacks to keep my operating system from shilling products at me.
It's no different than Apple's integration with iCloud, but I agree with you. OneDrive is one of the first things I uninstall.
Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be
#330It’s 2018 and I still see people walking around with Windows laptop lids open because they presumably have no confidence in Windows’ ability to sensibly preserve state after closing the lid. Software matters, and how it integrates with hardware. And I keep waiting for them to fix just the basics in Windows 10. Not utterly losing both the sizes and positions of all windows just because the laptop was undocked. Not fai…
This and other similar things are so often and easily ignored. I see people talking about Macs not supporting pro use. But hey, tell me, how am I going to power my 6 external displays on a Surface product of any kind? I get that people want some more variety and excitement, and maybe feel like the Thunderbolt port thing is problematic (despite absolutely enabling my most “pro” setup I’ve ever had on my ’17 13” TB MBP…
> I see people talking about Macs not supporting pro use. But hey, tell me, how am I going to power my 6 external displays on a Surface product of any kind?
I have many friends, most of whom are professionals, but none of whom are software devs. A bunch of them do devops and SRE work, a bunch of them are creative professionals, and a bunch of them are in other professional services, like finance and law. Personally, I work for an "IT services" company, essentially doing outsourced devops and ops for numerous other professional services companies.
What I'm getting at is that I know literally hundreds of professionals, across my personal and work life. The sum total of those in my life who need or use 6 displays: Zero.
You are not, in any way shape or form, a typical professional. If you need 6 displays (which you might, but I'd bet a dollar you don't) you're basically so far out of the ballpark of standard professional that you're on the moon.
Let's not pretend that the Surface Pro — or the Macbook Pro, for that matter — are in any way not suitable for the vast majority of professionals.