271–280 of 644 posts
It’s not just the keyboard, either. I’ve been buying Macs since they switched to Intel in 2006 and the most recent MacBook Pros are the most problematic I’ve ever had. - Bluetooth seems to be fundamentally flawed at a hardware level. AirPods, Plantronics, doesn’t matter. It just randomly connects and disconnects as it pleases. - USB-C dongles are a minefield of poor functionality However, I’ve run Linux off and on si…
i am absolutely laughing at this macbook pro 2017 i bought. the keyboard has been replaced 3 times now...the screen was replaced for stagelight effect(broken connector)...they replaced the whole top bit for that(everything north of the hinge gets replaced) i finally pawned it off on someone else and they promptly fried the motherboard due to water damage(the air intake ports lead directly to the motherboard so good l…
Woa. For the X1 Carbon, Lenovo actually designed ducts to channel accidental water ingress away from the important parts. It's kind of sad that Apple gets away with just focusing on the glitzy externals - and that their plethora customers don't care.
Try that with a Coke or fancy Starbucks drink and you'll have sticky residue that requires you to replace the keyboard or clean it very, very thouroughly.
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What is "unixy" about brew or docker?
I don't know much about brew (or MacOS at all) but docker is native linux technology. Docker for Mac runs linux in a VM in the background. The MacOS docker experience is similar to running anything in a VM: slower, memory limits, poor IOPS.
Macos can use the xhyve hypervisor (bhyve port) which again points to “unixy” roots — it runs freebsd for example.
Through the years I spent quite some time hacking about to get bsd running on other hypervisors, and for the longest of time it was just a hassle with abysmal performance (vmware esx, xen/xenserver).
Docker on osx is by the way completely seamless from a UX perspective.
As a mobile/laptop dev experience I still think the new air is great. ;)
Lack of competition in the Apple ecosystem, plain and simple. I think people know this before making the jump. Or they work for a company that forces them into choosing between a windows or osx laptop. I'm in this crowd and I have no love for either. I despise apple hardware but hate windows itself far more. Most people are best served with a good chromebook. That crowd won't be the ones frequenting this type website…
Apple Inc has a monopoly on regular users' hardware for their iOS/OS.
Windows, Linux, Android, Windows Phone OS (when that was a thing), did not. Companies were able to try and provide the best hardware in order to win customers.
Apple doesn't have provide the best hardware, regular users only have one hardware provider to choose from if they want Apple's iOS/OS.
(The average regular user is not going to make a Hackintosh.)
It’s not just the keyboard, either. I’ve been buying Macs since they switched to Intel in 2006 and the most recent MacBook Pros are the most problematic I’ve ever had. - Bluetooth seems to be fundamentally flawed at a hardware level. AirPods, Plantronics, doesn’t matter. It just randomly connects and disconnects as it pleases. - USB-C dongles are a minefield of poor functionality However, I’ve run Linux off and on si…
Also, the trackpads on Mac just work. I recently made a foray back into Windows a few years ago and was disappointed to learn that PC trackpads have made little progress in the intervening decade. Is it really easier to touchscreenify your entire software stack than to build a sane touchpad?
I know I'm in the minority here, since I do so much on the keyboard and don't use the mouse or the fancy trackpad features, but it's really infuriating.
Edit: I must be getting old, because I much prefer the ~2015 MB Airs: no touch bar, yes appropriately sized trackpad and magsafe.
In the past five years I have used the following; Thinkpad x230, Thinkpad X1 carbon, Thinkpad x370 yoga, Thinkpad X1 Yoga, Surface Pro 3,4,5, Surface Laptop, Surface Book 1,2, and a hackintosh Thinkpad X230. I was a big fan of the ThinkPads because their keyboards tend to have solid travel and they have trackpoint. Having the ability to type and move the cursor without moving your hands off home row is great. The Surface lineup has built in touch and pen capabilities that does come in handy for note taking in meetings. As does the Thinkpad Yoga line. For a year or so, I thought the ThinkPad Yoga line was a good compromise. But, then I started to have problems with random reboots, PWM screen, bluetooth issues, random CPU usage. I chalked that up to part Windows. I bought a refurbished top-spec x230 and hackintoshed that. It was a good middle ground for "user upgradable hardware" + MacOS. I kept that thing for 1.5 years and towards the end I used it as my primary device. That was the start of me creeping back to MacOS. edit: Newer Thinkpad models made battery replacement harder by removing the swappable second battery option. I carried the x230 everywhere with an extra battery that was awesome, but I still didn't get great battery life. I look back and find it funny that I carried up to two batteries around for that thing and probably had less battery life than the new MacBooks.
I prefer to have something that just works. I bought the MacBook 2018 upon release and its been a workhorse with zero issues thus far. Day to day, I work in adtech and dabble in python on the side. I can't say that for any of the machines above. I even hook this up to en eGPU and play Dirt Rally on high settings. I miss the TrackPoint and touch screen of some other models but I am doing just fine. Instead, I use an iPad Pro with pencil. That is a far better tablet for writing than the Surface line due to the superior app ecosystem on iOS (see Paper, procreate, Pixelmator Photo, Affinity design and photo, etc).
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The thing charges in no time at all, and lasts forever. It is a seriously overstated "problem". It is my work mouse for 99% of my working time, and as a very heavy user of it I love the mouse, and it just isn't something that enters my mindspace at all. I feel like this conversation is one half people who have and use the mouse, and who have no problem with it, and one half people who don't use the mouse and imagine…
It's a stupid design. So what if a lot of people aren't affected by it? My mouse is wireless. When it says battery low you know what I do? I plug it in and it looks just like a wired mouse for an hour. Tell me what exactly you get in exchange for losing that feature? Sexiness?
An hour? A 2 minute charge will run a Magic Mouse for a full work day.
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If you don’t have to tune Linux to get it to work, then why does every single complaint about Linux’s battery life in laptops get met with “install TLP?” Of course Windows is shit in this respect too these days. I got two extra hours of battery life from my X1 Carbon by wiping the disk and installing Windows LTSB. But even then I still have to police things, watching for driver updates or software installs that rando…
The only thing I have had to configure on the last two laptops I've installed is, weirdly, to go to sleep when I close the lid. The battery life on the X1 Carbon is about one and a half to two hours, which i think is acceptable given that the battery is reporting less than half of its original capacity.
I had slowly been moving into the Apple ecosystem, buying an iPad, iPhone, and even a HomePod and Apple Music. I was largely motivated by a respect for Apple's stance on privacy. Then it came time for me to buy a laptop and I encountered these numerous reports of Apple screwing up one of the most basic parts of the computer. I couldn't justify spending so much on a laptop plus AppleCare, which would only result in ge…
> I couldn't justify spending so much on a laptop Apple MacBooks lately are being priced on par with the competition. You want premium screen and trackpad - you will have to pay just as much for a windows laptop.