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Apple Is Listening

marco.org

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Re: Apple Is Listening

#141

Post by jac_no_k »

Actually, I think Microsoft's effort is putting much needed pressure on Apple. My wife about a year ago got a Microsoft Surface 6, the tablet with keyboard + trackpad. It was about the same price as a MacBook and with a bundle, the Microsoft Office suite came included. It works well for my wife's use case and she's able to stay with her preferred interface.

Hardware has been trouble free, Windows 10 with One Drive makes it straight forward to change machines, apps run well as a normal user account, and to my knowledge it hasn't been hit with any malware. The screen being capable of touch interface, can actually be cleaned!

In comparison, my last of the "good" MBPr from 2015 has a partially fouled screen because the slightly greasy keys touched the screen. I am so annoyed when the screen is dark but I'm in a well lit room.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#142

Post by newscracker »

mkozlows wrote: post #39
saagarjha wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That culture of saying nothing and the surprising customers with things is like betting in Vegas. Note that Apple quite publicly said that they had issues with the "trashcan" Mac Pro design and that it would take them a couple of years to resolve them.

Yeah, they said that in 2017 -- four years after it was introduced in 2013 and left to languish. And even then, you had to cross your fingers and hope that what they came up with would be good for you. (And based on the pricing of the new Mac Pro compared to the old ones, there's probably a lot of people for whom it won't be a good replacement.)

> Yeah, they said that in 2017 -- four years after it was introduced in 2013 and left to languish.

To add insult to injury, what I dislike about Apple is not reducing prices while component prices have fallen and it’s (generally) cheaper to make devices after volume sales. I’ve said this before, that Apple should be deeply ashamed on its pricing of old and outdated hardware.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#143

Post by ubercow13 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #48
scarface74 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that's an old popular meme in the Apple community... "That might work for Marco". Marco didn't come from money or have any connections. He found a job on Craigslist working for a random guy named David Karpe as his first employee. They started Tumblr and he lucked out when it got acquired by Yahoo and made a few million. But the acquisition happened after he started a blog that became popular, wrote Instapap…

I don't think the OP was saying that he doesn't deserve his money, but it really is absolutely absurd. Apple is an international company, worth a trillion dollars selling millions of devices. I work in the UK. I make about 80k a year pre-taxes. That's an average, if not relatively high salary for a developer. "Regular old enterprise developers" don't make 5000 bucks in two weeks, at least not in 99% of the developed…

Seems more like double the average

Re: Apple Is Listening

#144

Post by dewey »

RickSanchez2600 wrote: post #97
linguae wrote: post #28

I’m glad that Apple is finally updating their Macs again, but at the same time Apple has doubled-down on its refusal to sell user-serviceable, upgradeable, and expandable hardware at prices that are within reach for most customers. The laptops have soldered RAM and soldered storage. The Mac Mini and iMac Pro thankfully have DIMMs, but in order to keep the warranty, you have to visit an Apple-approved repair center to…

With Apple making the Mac Pro so expensive it opens up the grey market for Hackintosh PCs to run MacOS at a fraction of the cost. If Apple wants to beat the Hackintosh they need an ATX based Mac that doesn't cost $5999 but more like $999 that can be upgraded with a better graphics card and etc.

If the Mac Pro is too expensive and a Hackintosh is the alternative you are not the target audience. Then you are probably better served with a iMac Pro or a upgraded Mac Mini.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#145

Post by eridius »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #116
rangibaby wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $1500 Pro Display (sans XDR) that's basically the 5K panel from the iMac Pro. Apple sells LG 5k displays for $1,299.95. AFAIK it is the same panel as the 27" iMac and iMac Pro.

I'm aware of that one, but there are folks who'd prefer to buy an Apple-branded monitor as long as there wasn't anything dreadful about it, for both aesthetic reasons and because there's usually a couple nice touches that aren't on the third-party one. I said $1500 instead of $1300 because I assume any Apple product will cost at least 20% higher than it should. :) More to the point, it's unclear if Apple is still act…

I'd buy a $1500 Apple monitor if for no other reason than the fact that Apple would actually put a decent set of speakers on it¹, like they did with the Apple Cinema Display.

¹It's not clear to me if the Pro Display XDR actually has speakers at all, but its audience can be expected to buy a set of high-end speakers too, whereas a monitor aimed at actual users would need built-in speakers.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#146

Post by tomduncalf »

aiyodev wrote: post #133
linguae wrote: post #28

I’m glad that Apple is finally updating their Macs again, but at the same time Apple has doubled-down on its refusal to sell user-serviceable, upgradeable, and expandable hardware at prices that are within reach for most customers. The laptops have soldered RAM and soldered storage. The Mac Mini and iMac Pro thankfully have DIMMs, but in order to keep the warranty, you have to visit an Apple-approved repair center to…

> you have to visit an Apple-approved repair center to have a specialist perform the upgrade, which costs more than doing it yourself That has not been my experience. The Apple store just refreshed my 2015 Macbook pro: new screen, new bottom case, new fan, etc. Did not charge me anything. Apple products last much longer than others and are much cheaper to maintain.

Sadly I don’t believe this will be true of the newer generation butterfly keyboard laptops. Seems like the keyboards are more or less guaranteed to fail at some point and if it’s outside the 4 year extended guarantee window, tough luck, given the risk requires replacing the whole logic board. Real shame and I hope there is a new design soon addressing this!

Re: Apple Is Listening

#147

Post by jasonkester »

colmvp wrote: post #10

Back in 2012, I bought the original rMBP. It fit everything I needed: it was thinner than my previous laptop as it had no optical drive, it was lightweight, it had a gorgeous screen, good enough keyboard, and seemed like a reasonable price for a higher end laptop work computer. I've used it everyday since 2012, and aside from the battery which I eventually replaced, it's been functioning without a hitch. From the 90s…

The worrying part is that in order to keep using the good MacBooks from the past, you need to keep them on the OS version that they shipped with.

I have a 2012 MacBook Air that was crazy fast, weighed four grams, and even ran windows 7. Sure, the drive was small, but it was perfect.

But some time in 2015 or so I made the terrible strategic blunder of upgrading to the latest OS version. Performance immediately dropped to zero, and now when I open it up for any reason, I just spend my whole time watching it spin uselessly trying to idle along with one browser tab open. It's sad to see it so reduced.

I've had the same experience with every iPad I've ever owned. Delightful, responsive machines that get auto-updated to brick status over the course of about three years. (I have every model up to air 3, and the only one still working perfectly is the old 1st gen air that I've kept on iOS 8 and spend a minute every day carefully dismissing the auto update prompt).

I have one of the sacred 2015 MacBook Pros, which now can't edit videos using the new format exported from my wife's iPhone x. An OS upgrade would solve that. But the machine is too precious to risk it.

I don't know what the solution is.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#148

Post by earthnail »

xenospn wrote: post #137
newscracker wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way. Macs have become more expensive and less friendly for upgrading RAM and storage, the two most important things that need to be user upgradeable for longevity and reducing e-waste (I don’t care much about CPU/GPU upgrades). Even the new Mac mini is quite expensive compared to its predecessors. Mac mini used to be the cheap and beginner level entry into Macs/macOS. The current hardware may be worth…

I’ve been using my 2013 MBP every day since it came out, through my previous startup, an acquisition, and now my new startup. It’s been perfect, except for the fact that it only has 8GB of ram, and cannot be upgraded.

Used my 2010 MBP through uni life, startup life and acquisition. After which I allowed it to retire. But it served me a solid seven years.

I'm actually one of these few people who's also happy with the new MBP.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#149

Post by linguae »

saagarjha wrote: post #108
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m hearing this excuse way too much. People that aren’t doing that deserve a version of a Mac Pro they can buy.

What's wrong with Mac Mini or iMac Pro?

Here are my issues as a user of a 2013 Mac Pro:

- Neither the Mac Mini nor 2019 Mac Pro are user-serviceable; you have to take your Mac to an Apple-approved repair center if you want to upgrade your RAM (see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205041#one and https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208377). I guess it's nice to have DIMMs when the computer is out of warranty, but I'd like to preserve my warranty and not have to pay Apple's prices for RAM upgrades plus labor costs.

- The storage is soldered onto the motherboard in the Mac Mini, which precludes upgrading or replacing storage.

- The storage for the iMac Pro is a special proprietary design, precluding the use of industry-standard M.2 NVMe flash drives. (Granted, the 2013 Mac Pro doesn't use industry standard M.2 NVMe drives, either, although I've read that it's possible to use some standard NVMe drives in the 2013 Mac Pro with the help of an adapter.)

- The iMac Pro at $4999 is still much more expensive than the previous generation base Mac Pro, which was $2999.

- The iMac Pro is an all-in-one design. I prefer desktop computers that are not housed inside a monitor; what happens if the monitor fails?

Re: Apple Is Listening

#150

Post by tomduncalf »

clay_the_ripper wrote: post #22

Once they replace this travesty of a generation of MBP, I’ll agree with this. I’ve been impressed recently with the improvements in software and hardware. I have a maxed out 2015 MBP and I won’t buy the most generation under any circumstances. I buy laptops with the expectation it will last at least 4 years, and I have no confidence that this generation will last that long. I have full confidence though that the rumo…

To be fair it should last for four years, as that’s how long the keyboard replacement program covers it for. I’m not aware of any other critical flaws, although repairiability of this generation is probably quite bad overall.

Whether it will last much more than 4 years I’m not sure, I’m not that confident - could be worth mashing some biscuit into the keyboard just shy of the 4 year mark to get a replacement ;)

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