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Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

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Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#341

Post by everyone »

rayiner wrote: post #317
everyone wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like someone who does not know Windows. If you buy a machine that comes with windows, and just use it off the shelf it, is a total mess as you say. (As well as probably loaded with crapware) If you know Windows youre gonna install LTSC on that machine and have a nice productive time. I am curious, do you buy a mac and just use it for work without any setup, off the shelf? If so that is a point in its favour I…

Funny you say that, because I wiped whatever was on my X1 Carbon and installed LTSC. Then I had to install the Lenovo touchpad driver because two finger scrolling didn’t work. But that installed a “synaptic touchpad enhancement” background task that was a marked battery hog. The touchpad driver would restart the service if it was killed, so I had to delete the executable. (It led to no apparent change in functionalit…

Thats fair enough. Laptops can be very finicky for drivers.

I've been using LTSC on my work / gaming desktop for about 6 months and its been the best OS experience ive had since DOS. Everything works perfectly, and otherwise it just stays out of my way.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#342

Post by viraptor »

Dunedan wrote: post #311
deaddodo wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver, and Windows? Nah, get away... Linux hasn't had issues with the major wifi chipsets in ages. It's as plug and play as Mac and Windows are. There are plenty of reasons people might choose to avoid Linux, but drivers (outside of specialty, niche or obscure hardware) aren't really a reason anymore.

> Linux hasn't had issues with the major wifi chipsets in ages. … except (ironically) if you use Linux on a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. In this case there are severe issues with the wifi firmware making wifi completely unusable: https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux#wi-fi

The annoying thing is that for once this is an actual bug in the firmware and the upstream doesn't care about fixing it. It's simply not fixable on Linux side without rewriting the whole wifi stack to use Mac's model. It's not the typical "Linux hasn't got a driver", but without digging into the issue it looks like that.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#344

Post by earenndil »

deaddodo wrote: post #263
endymi0n wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only come to the same conclusion. Typing this on a 2018 MacBook 15 inch, and it's a disaster. I still keep accidentally hitting the Touchbar ten times per day while typing (it's not a press-bar, duh), I need a dongle for _everything and their mother_, battery lifetime isn't good, the keyboard is prone to mistyping and double clicks, the screen doesn't get bright enough sometimes, I can't get any higher spec har…

> I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver, and Windows? Nah, get away... Linux hasn't had issues with the major wifi chipsets in ages. It's as plug and play as Mac and Windows are. There are plenty of reasons people might choose to avoid Linux, but drivers (outside of specialty, niche or obscure hardware) aren't really a reason anymore.

Driver for my wifi card under linux crashes. Granted it is a 'staging' driver, but it's still a pretty bad look.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#345

Post by mwfunk »

bsaul wrote: post #254

Funny how people used to be apple hardware sold the software after steve jobs decided to end the mac clone strategy. But judging by all the comments out there, it feels now that the only reason people buy mac hardware is because of mac os.

I never had that impression, I always felt like the software sold the hardware. The hardware was always premium hardware with premium prices and correspondingly premium margins, but because the hardware was so good, people who bought it mainly for the software felt good about their purchase, and didn't mind paying extra for higher-end hardware than they might otherwise buy for themselves. This avoids the race-to-the-bottom dynamic that resulted in the Windows PC market getting saturated in low-quality, low-margin hardware for so many years.

Put another way, having great software enables upselling thriftier consumers on the hardware, which is the thing that actually makes money, especially now that OS upgrades are free and don't make money on their own. As long as both the software and the hardware are indeed great, then people feel good about their purchase.

If it's no longer the best hardware (or the best software), then that positive reinforcement loop goes away, and you end up with users who still like macOS, but not as much as they used to, who are doubly frustrated because they feel like they have to spend even more money on hardware that is no longer best-in-class, and has features that they're paying extra for that they view as negatives (touchbar, butterfly keyboard, unergonomically huge trackpad, minimal ports, dongletown, unasked for levels of thinness that forces so many compromises, greatly diminished resale value, etc.).

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#346

Post by bufferoverflow »

akamel wrote: post #67
nothis wrote: post #46

I checked their store out of curiosity. Switching from 512MB to 1TB SSD: +$400 WHY? This is literally the only thing that bothers me about Apple pricing. I get that you pay for the design, I get the quirks like introducing touch bar, everything. But I don't get why upgrading from a $50 to a $100 SSD adds 400 dollars.

Because they don't use slow SSDs. The read / write speeds on the SSD in the Macbook Pro are insane. see: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/2018-macbook-pro-fastes... we are talking at least 6x what other laptops use.

A fast 1TB NVMe SSD costs $105, and that's retail. So your narrative doesn't make much sense. 10x cost can only be explained by profit margins.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#348

Post by fmajid »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #201
andyfleming wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is some claim that they've fixed the keyboard issue. Aside from that, across 2 MacBook Pro's and a MacBook Air, I've had 0 keyboard issues. I don't know if I've just gotten lucky, kept my keyboard clean, or what, but it just has never been a problem for me.

The failure rate of the butterfly keyboard design is clearly orders of magnitude too high and is the sort of thing people should genuinely lose their jobs over (and perhaps they have). But "orders of magnitude too high" might well mean one or two percent, rather than one or two tenths of a percent; outside the company, I don't think we have any reasonable estimates of the failure rate, just anecdotes. My work laptop…

Anecdotally, at my company, the failure rate is closer to 30%.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#349

Post by viraptor »

jlarocco wrote: post #233
soperj wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hardware specs? They usually very outdated. They didn't update the air processor for like 4 generations.

The hardware specs are "meh" at best, but the build quality is still better than the competitor.. I have a newer Thinkpad for work, and it feels cheap and plastic compared to my MBP. The Lenovo creaks when I pick it up with one hand, and just feels flimsy. The MBP feels solid and integrated. I'd love a 2013 MBP with modern components.

Thinkpad doesn't say much. What series? Thinkpads range from supermarket offer bin to mobile workstations like P1.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#350

Post by eptcyka »

endymi0n wrote: post #111
gilbetron wrote: post #74

After 8 years of macbooks, after using the 2018 model, I switched to a Dell Precision 5530 running Ubuntu 18.04 and it is awesome. The hardware is great, and having Unix under it all was the only real reason I liked Macs (used to be hardware, too). Granted, I don't need Adobe stuff, or anything else that doesn't run or have an alternative on Ubuntu (although it is dual-booted with Win10, but I've never used it, just…

I can only come to the same conclusion. Typing this on a 2018 MacBook 15 inch, and it's a disaster. I still keep accidentally hitting the Touchbar ten times per day while typing (it's not a press-bar, duh), I need a dongle for _everything and their mother_, battery lifetime isn't good, the keyboard is prone to mistyping and double clicks, the screen doesn't get bright enough sometimes, I can't get any higher spec har…

I've not compiled my own kernel in the last 5 years and all of my hardware has been supported. Not saying that you can't run into h/w compatibility issues with Linux today, but I don't think that you should keep yourself from using Linux as a daily driver if you're worried about hardware compatibility. Just get a thinkpad, and you'll be golden.
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