Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it • Hacker News Board

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#211

Post by horsawlarway » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

alpaca128 wrote: post #159

blub wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On paper Windows is good. In practice the telemetry and the story behind its introduction and how they handled communication means that I won't consider Windows as a primary OS candidate until there's a CEO change at least. It's disappointing to see so many being ignorant about this topic.

I completely agree. Also the automatic updates which potentially just close an open session including unsaved files is not something that helps trust. Windows has become less transparent and much more controlling, actively ignoring or overriding user preferences, and I don't know why I should use a software like that, not to mention pay for the "privilege" of being messed with.

I run Arch for most of my dev work so maybe I'm just missing it, but I do a fair bit of dev/testing on windows machines and I don't EVER have this happen.

Like - Literally never in the past two years have I lost work due to auto updates.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#212

Post by rcarmo » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

losvedir wrote: post #118

Very interesting post. I actually have been feeling almost the opposite lately. My work laptop is a 2017 MacBook Pro, and a couple months ago I dusted off my old personal laptop, a Mid-2013 MacBook Air to work on a side project. The thing that blew me away is the Air feels a lot snappier! I honestly don't know what it is, and think I must have done something to my work laptop. I notice it most with VSCode, which seem…

Even though the Code team has gone to excruciating lengths to reduce input latency, there is a lot of cruft in any OS. I have noticed that Windows and Linux have, in general, quicker _perceived_ response time than macOS, which I partially attributed to smoother animations and an overall sense that the machine is doing a _lot_ in the background (Spotlight, for instance, has been a constant pain.)

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#213

Post by oh_hello » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

HugoDaniel wrote: post #17

I have the new 16 MBP and love the touch bar. I find it much easier to change brightness/sound (place the finger and drag); I find it much easier to control apps, like music, safari, and all, and the habituation period was shorter than with the keys back in the day (when i started using macs). I would love to be able to easily customize the touch bar though, the author mentions BetterTouchTool, looks good, might be w…

I agree. I upgraded from a 2013 15" to the new 16" as soon as it came out. I expected the Touch Bar to be worthless based on everything I had heard. Over the months I've found myself using it more and more. It isn't nearly critical, but as I come to discover certain uses they get added to my rotation. As many have pointed out, there is a discoverability problem with this feature and I don't see how that is fixable.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#214

Post by horsawlarway » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

ck425 wrote: post #145

modernerd wrote: post #123

The XPS 17 will be my next “MacBook”. It should be out this month and it ticks all the boxes for me (great screen, supposedly good cooling, user-replaceable SSD/RAM, acceptable weight and size for a 17" laptop). https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/13/21257006/dell-xps-17-15-r... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyRUWM_LOPQ I've been trying Windows again after ~20 years on Macs (via a borrowed Lenovo Carbon X1 and then a s…

How is the touchpad? Every non-apple touch pad I've ever used has bee terrible.

I use an older xps-15, mostly running linux, and the trackpad is excellent.

I switch between it and a mac for work, and the experience is 95% identical.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#215

Post by noxToken » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

alpaca128 wrote: post #159

blub wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On paper Windows is good. In practice the telemetry and the story behind its introduction and how they handled communication means that I won't consider Windows as a primary OS candidate until there's a CEO change at least. It's disappointing to see so many being ignorant about this topic.

I completely agree. Also the automatic updates which potentially just close an open session including unsaved files is not something that helps trust. Windows has become less transparent and much more controlling, actively ignoring or overriding user preferences, and I don't know why I should use a software like that, not to mention pay for the "privilege" of being messed with.

You can sent your Internet connection to "metered" to stop this. I hate that you can't just outright disable forced updates, but this is the working solution that MS offers.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#216

Post by rcarmo » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #143

sneak wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Local labor laws require that I have a "external" keyboard when working at my desk Whaaa? Why? Where?

Denmark, among others I assume. Using your laptop, without external monitor and keyboard is only allowed as an exception, even when working from home, and only for a short period of time. You can use the laptop monitor as a secondary display. It's a pretty good law, which forces employers to provide you with an ergonomically sound work environment. You're also required to have a height adjustable desk and chair... an…

Honest question: How does that work for remote? I do have a home office with a window, chair and whatnot, but many of my colleagues don't.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#217

Post by rednum » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

I did switch from 2012 Macbook Air to 2019 Macbook Pro a few weeks ago and I can't agree more with the article. One of the reasons I'm using Mac instead of Linux is that I make music. And the new Macbook sucks for this purpose: the same recording settings I used on my old laptop are not usable on the new one. 90% of time things work fine, but sometimes I get glitches and pops in the middle of the recording. Why? Who knows. I did everything I could like closing other apps, disabling ton of things running in background; I freeze tracks in my DAW but things still break sometimes. I really hope some update from Ableton/Apple fixes things soon; if not I'm considering downgrade from Catalina.

But wait, there's more! Sometimes I got glitches even when I'm not recording but playing tracks. I have this problem on literally the same Ableton projects that used to "just work" on the old machine (same number of tracks/plugins). The workaround is to restart the laptop. Seriously, it feels like Windows XP all over. I can't imagine playing live shows with such unreliable setup - fortunately I just make tracks for my own, but if I were to go out for some kind of jam session or open mic I'd consider switching to Windows.

EDIT: One more thing that sucks about new MacOS: dropping 32 bit compatibility. RIP all 32 bit VSTs. Fortunately I don't use that many plugins and it turned out everything I really care about has 64 bit version. But if it didn't, then I'd hold on to the old OS as long as possible.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#218

Post by modernerd » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:41 PM UTC

adevx wrote: post #156

modernerd wrote: post #123

The XPS 17 will be my next “MacBook”. It should be out this month and it ticks all the boxes for me (great screen, supposedly good cooling, user-replaceable SSD/RAM, acceptable weight and size for a 17" laptop). https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/13/21257006/dell-xps-17-15-r... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyRUWM_LOPQ I've been trying Windows again after ~20 years on Macs (via a borrowed Lenovo Carbon X1 and then a s…

If the XPS 17 has decent Linux driver support, a high brightness matt display option, I'm all in.

It has an anti-reflective coating but it's not matte. The screens are 500 nits (same as MBP). Not sure about Linux driver support yet. The Arch Wiki is normally my go-to for that but the laptop is very new. https://wiki.archlinux.org/

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#219

Post by jonheller » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

tpush wrote: post #37

"8-9 hours with all apps closed except Safari. Browsing lightly, with an occasional video, and brightness at the literal minimum. This brightness level is only realistic if it's night time. In a normally lit environment you need to set the brightness level at around 50%." "When I push the laptop a bit more, with a few Docker containers, Pycharm running, Google Chrome with some Docs opened, and brightness near the max…

I have a six month old Thinkpad X1 Carbon and get about 1.5 hours. Pretty ridiculous.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#220

Post by nmcfarl » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #143

sneak wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Local labor laws require that I have a "external" keyboard when working at my desk Whaaa? Why? Where?

Denmark, among others I assume. Using your laptop, without external monitor and keyboard is only allowed as an exception, even when working from home, and only for a short period of time. You can use the laptop monitor as a secondary display. It's a pretty good law, which forces employers to provide you with an ergonomically sound work environment. You're also required to have a height adjustable desk and chair... an…

A window is amazing! My first 3 jobs were window free as were jobs 7 and 8.

I've had 9 jobs total in the 25 years I've been working professionally and those 5 windowless jobs, account for about 5 of those years. I burn out pretty fast in the dark.