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Has Apple sounded the last POST?

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Re: Has Apple sounded the last POST?

#31

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway_ab wrote: post #24
userbinator wrote: post #11

Apple has always chosen form over function, and this isn't any exception; the aesthetics of a "clean" boot process is clearly more important to them than being able to easily figure out what's happening, and I suspect at least part of the reason for this opaqueness is to encourage learned helplessness and visits to the Apple Store (which may result in upselling or otherwise exchange of $$$) when something doesn't wor…

> Apple has always chosen form over function Having used an M1 MacBook Pro and iPad Pro I can't say I agree with you on this. Apple silicon MacBook Pro's are incredible - powerful, long battery life, fan-less most of the time, they are the breath of fresh air and kick in the butt the laptop/pc industry out of the stale state it was in. The iPad Pro is an impressive device for digital art and other creative applicatio…

[deleted]

Re: Has Apple sounded the last POST?

#33

Post by replygirl »

Nevermark wrote: post #27
replygirl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the m1 macbook pro with the touch bar and usbc only, or the m1 macbook pro where apple went from that to a refresh of the 2012-15 design as a capitulation to years of complaints about form-over-function?

You seem to be equating imperfection with complete failure. That's a little under-nuanced for this forum. If those Macs were really so flawed complaints would have died off as everyone migrated away from them. Instead, people loved them enough to put up with rough edges, while passionately posting their frustrations.

i didn't say anything about perfection or failure. i don't know how a generous/good-faith interpretation led you to that

i agree with you that the computers were good, but i was responding to a post that used an m1 macbook pro as a counterexample to apple choosing form over function, when really it's emblematic of their pattern of occasionally going obviously too far toward form

Re: Has Apple sounded the last POST?

#34

Post by whartung »

userbinator wrote: post #11

Apple has always chosen form over function, and this isn't any exception; the aesthetics of a "clean" boot process is clearly more important to them than being able to easily figure out what's happening, and I suspect at least part of the reason for this opaqueness is to encourage learned helplessness and visits to the Apple Store (which may result in upselling or otherwise exchange of $$$) when something doesn't wor…

> Personally, I very much like the detailed and informative POST screens that older PCs default to, and indeed the whole audiovisual experience[1] of the boot process.

I was having some issue, that I can't recall, a while ago on my iMac. So, I turned on the "verbose boot", which dumps the messages as the OS is starting up. I can't say what's POST and what's not. I think these messages are, umm, post POST.

But, here's the experience.

First it starts with an, essentially, 80x24 window with a 12pt font in the middle of the screen. Quickly, that screen vanishes, and the text shrinks down to at least 1/2 of that size (or, perhaps its still a 12 point font, but now it's on a 5K screen, and not scaled). The tiny text scrolls along on a drive in theater size screen, essentially, for me, unreadable due to both size, speed, and volume. It's not quite "Matrix" indecipherable, but it's close.

Since it doesn't outright fail with a message stuck saying "here's where it broke", the display is, honestly, not particularly useful.

I can see if the crisis is so bad that if it does, indeed, just stop and stick on some very interesting line, then it may be useful. But as a waterfall of messages, it wasn't helpful with my problem, and I'm betting, for many, it's likely not helpful to them either.

In the end, all of these messages are logged and better viewed at your leisure after booting, again, assuming you get that far. But even if it did fail, it's such small text, my fear is that the it would print something out, go "oh that's bad" and restart before you could even make sense of it.

A modern OS is spectacularly complicated, necessitating a very messy boot process. It does not surprise me that anyone would want to hide that.

Re: Has Apple sounded the last POST?

#35

Post by userbinator »

brigade wrote: post #28
userbinator wrote: post #11

Apple has always chosen form over function, and this isn't any exception; the aesthetics of a "clean" boot process is clearly more important to them than being able to easily figure out what's happening, and I suspect at least part of the reason for this opaqueness is to encourage learned helplessness and visits to the Apple Store (which may result in upselling or otherwise exchange of $$$) when something doesn't wor…

What diagnostics would even help an average user repair any issue that isn't resolved by a DFU revive? Even for a PC all the POST failure guides don't have any branches that depend on what's happening or anything the screen says, it's all "well try jiggling things, reinstall Windows, update BIOS, and swap hardware components until it works"

At least it will help explain what's wrong to someone else.

We've all come across people online saying "it doesn't work" without any further explanation but asking for help.

This is the computer equivalent of encouraging that, by essentially preventing people from giving more information even when asked.

Re: Has Apple sounded the last POST?

#36

Post by doctor_eval »

intelVISA wrote: post #16
doctor_eval wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the opposite. I see all that junk on a PC booting and I think to myself, well, what happens if one of those tests fail? I'm gonna reboot. And if it keeps failing, I'll take it to a shop. If I take a Mac to the Apple store, they will run their in-house diagnostics and tell me what's wrong. If I take a PC to the PC store, they will run their own diagnostics and tell me what's wrong. So what benefit does this messy…

is this... serious?

Absolutely serious. What do you want me to do? I’m uninterested in fixing it myself.

To be clear: I don’t have an opinion about whether or not POST is technically necessary. It is or it isn’t, whatever. I’m just responding to the commentary that somehow Apple’s approach to POST is wrong and that POST messages are somehow important in and of themselves.

Just because POST messages float your boat doesn’t mean that they’re necessary or critical, and I for one am happy with them out of my life.

Re: Has Apple sounded the last POST?

#37

Post by doctor_eval »

StillBored wrote: post #17
doctor_eval wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the opposite. I see all that junk on a PC booting and I think to myself, well, what happens if one of those tests fail? I'm gonna reboot. And if it keeps failing, I'll take it to a shop. If I take a Mac to the Apple store, they will run their in-house diagnostics and tell me what's wrong. If I take a PC to the PC store, they will run their own diagnostics and tell me what's wrong. So what benefit does this messy…

Ah cause a part of POST is link training/etc, which can make some rough approximation of error rate from SERDES eye reports. Its the same problem with computers that lack ECC, without actual hardware tests (be that POST, or HW/SW error detection) your simply praying to the data corruption and crash gods that nothing goes wrong. And frighteningly a lot of things can actually be going wrong long before you will notice…

I’m not suggesting power on initialisation or important tests should stop, that’s silly.

I’m just talking about all the text logging that clutters the screen; I think it’s unnecessary.

Re: Has Apple sounded the last POST?

#38

Post by stephen_g »

userbinator wrote: post #11

Apple has always chosen form over function, and this isn't any exception; the aesthetics of a "clean" boot process is clearly more important to them than being able to easily figure out what's happening, and I suspect at least part of the reason for this opaqueness is to encourage learned helplessness and visits to the Apple Store (which may result in upselling or otherwise exchange of $$$) when something doesn't wor…

They tend not to upsell you much at the Apple Store… Last time one of my MacBooks was well and truly stuffed, they ended up eventually just giving me a new laptop that was four years newer (it was the Nvidia graphics chip fault in the 2011 MacBook Pro, before the official repair program started. They tried replacing the logic board twice but when the second one failed they just swapped the laptop for a brand new 2015 model for no charge).

When that laptop’s battery started to fail almost six years later, I was surprised that it wasn’t much to fix (about US$200 for the battery replacement). I only replaced that laptop, almost eight years old, a few months ago!

Re: Has Apple sounded the last POST?

#39

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

replygirl wrote: post #33
Nevermark wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be equating imperfection with complete failure. That's a little under-nuanced for this forum. If those Macs were really so flawed complaints would have died off as everyone migrated away from them. Instead, people loved them enough to put up with rough edges, while passionately posting their frustrations.

i didn't say anything about perfection or failure. i don't know how a generous/good-faith interpretation led you to that i agree with you that the computers were good, but i was responding to a post that used an m1 macbook pro as a counterexample to apple choosing form over function, when really it's emblematic of their pattern of occasionally going obviously too far toward form

I bought the M1 with the Touch Bar intentionally because I like the Touch Bar. Even apart from the Touch Bar, it’s the best new laptop I’ve bought since I first switched to Macs in ‘07
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