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

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

#361

Post by karatestomp »

drcongo wrote: post #314
rednum wrote: post #217

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…

I make music on a 2018 iPad Pro and now I can never upgrade that because they've removed the headphone jack on the new ones. What's "Pro" about an iPad without a headphone jack?

Shit, seriously? We use a first-gen big pro on our (electric) piano at home and being able to run midi into the iPad while also using headphone-out on the iPad is key for our use. I guess at least the new ones use USB-C so there are more adapter options so maybe there's a USB + headphone jack adapter out there, but 1) it's entirely stupid that we'd need one, and 2) if it's not a first-party Apple adapter we'd be rolling the dice that it works at all, let alone that it'll still work in six months—which is a big part of the problem with this dumbassed dongle-verse they've created, that most of the dongles on the market are awful so you can't always count on finding a version of the thing you need that actually works with your hardware.

Or I guess they expect me to buy Bluetooth heaphones, but... why? We have like three sets of corded ones two of which are quite good, and about a dozen pairs of ear buds. We don't need new headphones. We need a headphone jack.

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

#362

Post by anikk »

modernerd wrote: post #190
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 understand abstaining from a platform on principle. But it's pretty simple to opt-out of non-essential telemetry because so many people complained about it in Windows 10: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-view-and-manage-diagnosti... I set telemetry to 'basic' which means I'm comfortable with essential system data being sent in return for my system gaining updates and security patches. Microsoft does a better job…

It is not at all simple to "opt-out" (i.e. remove malicious software).

I checked the box "no telemetry" on install, yet I still had to disable dozes of spyware "options" manually later. One of them was a keylogger! Microsoft is in the black hat business.

> telemetry can benefit product teams

Pure marketing. If product teams what to know about issues, how about setting up decent bug-trackers like everyone else?

Reporting issues is a convoluted, humiliating and mostly futile process.

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

#363

Post by mehrdadn »

philliphaydon wrote: post #356
mehrdadn wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain what's so good about the Windows Terminal? I've tried it multiple times and been disgusted every time. The grayscale smoothing looks ugly as hell, the font is large as if I'm elderly, you can't even right-click to get a menu in the window, and opening Settings fires up Visual Studio of all things with GUIDs that I have no idea what to do with. All I see is it has tabs which I've lived without in eve…

> the font is large as if I'm elderly It's probably the easiest to configure terminal ever... https://www.hanselman.com/blog/HowToMakeAPrettyPromptInWindo... > and opening Settings fires up Visual Studio of all things Settings opens what ever editor is your default for .json files. > with GUIDs that I have no idea what to do with 1 guid to identify each option? I guess Windows Terminal was designed for developers and…

It seems to have been specifically designed for developers who enjoy a difficult UX because anything not up to that standard that is childish to them, which in my experience is the same thing Linux tools optimize for. I guess Windows has been very much trying to cater to that sector, so maybe now I can understand its appeal.

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

#364

Post by anikk »

modernerd wrote: post #350
SahAssar wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as essential telemetry. There should be an option to turn it off completely.

Let's say Microsoft adds one. You tick it and what MS currently considers “essential telemetry” is turned off completely, instantly, and for real. The risk seems to be that people who don't understand the implications of not sharing basic telemetry, when faced with a box that says “share nothing”, “share essential“, and “share essential and optional” would choose “share nothing” every time, because it just _feels_ be…

Could you stop the MSFT advertisements?

- All of these are possible without telemetry.

- There is a deceptive button on install that does not work.

- Make it opt-in for submissive persons who want to please MSFT.

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

#365

Post by StavrosK »

fluffything wrote: post #353

I also still have the same MacBook air as the author and have been wanting to upgrade for... 2 years or so. Not only the Webcam is a downgrade. You also loose Magsafe. Not a big loss, but a downgrade none the less. > The touchbar. [...] Regular users probably find it useful and cute. No they don't. My GF bought herself a new Macbook because... she has an iPhone and thought "For what I use the computer, any computer s…

Can she disable the touchbar?

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

#366

Post by wtetzner »

goatinaboat wrote: post #208
alpaca128 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the automatic updates which potentially just close an open session including unsaved files is not something that helps trust This is literally a preference setting. There are cases where you want to force it e.g. a sysadmin pushing security patches over the weekend but other than that you set the time window, or no window and it just gives a notification that patches are available and you reboot whenever you want to.

Admittedly it's been a couple of years since I've used Windows 10, but at that time there was no way to disable the automatic updates. Even the registry hacks didn't work for me.

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

#367

Post by rednum »

nwsm wrote: post #349
rednum wrote: post #217

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…

You probably want to use an external DAC or audio interface. That solved a lot of glitch/pop noises for me.

I record via interface (Focusrite Scarlett 2nd gen) and also have pop issues with it; when I used it with my old laptop it worked much, much better (on the same settings).

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

#368

Post by fluffything »

StavrosK wrote: post #365
fluffything wrote: post #353

I also still have the same MacBook air as the author and have been wanting to upgrade for... 2 years or so. Not only the Webcam is a downgrade. You also loose Magsafe. Not a big loss, but a downgrade none the less. > The touchbar. [...] Regular users probably find it useful and cute. No they don't. My GF bought herself a new Macbook because... she has an iPhone and thought "For what I use the computer, any computer s…

Can she disable the touchbar?

I've offered to help, but she doesn't want to mess with configuration. I've posted in other threads how she "fixed" it.

She actually bought one of those keyboard covers, cut off the touchbar part, and fixed it with tape.

She literally has a crappy piece of plastic on top of her keyboard that physically prevents here from accidentally touching the touchbar. A 10 dollar hack on a 2k$ machine.

I don't think she will buy an expensive Apple product, ever.

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

#369

Post by zamalek »

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…

We use Dell Precisions at work and just a fair warning: Dell is completely clueless when it comes to software/firmware. We had stability issues for months with our laptops, which were fixed for the most part by firmware updates. A good amount of the laptops never came round, even though they are identical models and now have the same firmware running on them.

I have considered BYOD a Gigabyte Aero. I will personally never purchase a Dell for myself.

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

#370

Post by cannam »

karatestomp wrote: post #238
rednum wrote: post #217

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…

My wife's been having repeated AV glitches on her '19 Macbook Air. Video audio cuts out after a few minutes very frequently, across browsers and even on local players and for audio on locally-downloaded podcasts. Video calls do similar things, which has, you know, been a problem. Best I can figure is there are some bad software + hardware glitches with some of the Siri-related stuff and maybe the fingerprint chip. Di…

> I still don't have anything that's USB-C aside from adapters for work laptop

The USB-C thing is culturally a bit curious. It's been three or four years since reviewers of laptops and the like started complaining if they didn't have USB-C ports - but there still seems to be very little need for them. The few devices I've acquired that have a USB-C socket on the device have all come with a cable having a USB3 type A plug on the other end, never a C to C cable.

(I see the article mentions this, but I found it striking because to facilitate home working I've just bought two new devices with USB-C at the device end, and both came with cables to an A socket)

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