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The new MacBook

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Re: The new MacBook

#631

Post by walshemj »

nkoren wrote: post #261

This is a beautiful machine. Once again, Apple excels at hardware. But what the living hell is going wrong with Apple's desktop software? OS X and Apple's applications suite have been getting steadily worse with every release. Look at the App store: the latest releases of OS X, iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, and Numbers are (in stark contrast to earlier versins) all rated at 2.5/5 stars, with the plurality being 1-star revie…

Try using OSx server to migrate an office of mostly standalone macs to a modern centrally managed system its truly awful no tools no documentation

Re: The new MacBook

#632

Post by walshemj »

hrktb wrote: post #610
nsxwolf wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious - what do Finder complainers consider the gold standard of file browsers that Finder should aspire to be? I do most of my file management at the command line so I don't experience the pain of Finder very often, and I've generally been able to get Finder to do what I want without much fuss. Windows Explorer is, to me, a painful experience (but its 1980s DOS command line is so much worse) I've found the various…

I also think the Finder interface is just fine because there are so many other ways to navigate around. From the command line of course, spotlight works great as well, and usually files and folders will also be better browsed from the application managing them (e.g.A text editor's file panel, or photo management software, vlc or itunes, etc.) But, what iritates me is very poor handling of network shares. Those are cr…

Finder is rubbish windows 3.1 is better

Re: The new MacBook

#633

Post by city41 »

727374 wrote: post #577
nsxwolf wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious - what do Finder complainers consider the gold standard of file browsers that Finder should aspire to be? I do most of my file management at the command line so I don't experience the pain of Finder very often, and I've generally been able to get Finder to do what I want without much fuss. Windows Explorer is, to me, a painful experience (but its 1980s DOS command line is so much worse) I've found the various…

Nobody is claiming a gold standard. With that said, I prefer windows explorer because you can simply type a path into the address bar (with tab completion if you need it) and navigate to a place on the filesystem. That's all. If finder added this one feature I'd be overjoyed. Instead, I find myself opening up menus to get to so many locations on the machine. For example, if you want to simply go to your home director…

why do you need to use the go menu? command+shift+h takes you home. The keyboard shortcuts are listed right in the go menu you refer to. It's also a default in the Favorites pane on the left side of all Finder windows.

I agree Finder could use some work, but I find your criticisms odd. If anyone is fantastic at consistent, system-wide keyboard shortcuts, it's Apple.

Re: The new MacBook

#634

Post by nostrademons »

nsxwolf wrote: post #561
SiVal wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can't really tell how well software is working when looking at the device edge-on, and that's apparently the way Apple looks at them most of the time. I mean this more metaphorically than literally, but I'm so tired of complaints about the ridiculously primitive Finder being met with, "the edge of the iMac now appears even thinner, now that we've repositioned formerly convenient connectors and such into a…

Curious - what do Finder complainers consider the gold standard of file browsers that Finder should aspire to be? I do most of my file management at the command line so I don't experience the pain of Finder very often, and I've generally been able to get Finder to do what I want without much fuss. Windows Explorer is, to me, a painful experience (but its 1980s DOS command line is so much worse) I've found the various…

I'm a big fan of the Finder of System 7. It seemed to hit the sweet spot where you could do just about everything you needed to easily (it had collapsible tree views, folders, computed folder sizes, drag & drop, copy & paste, labels, etc.), but it didn't try to hide things from you or restrict what you could do, it didn't get too fancy and guess at your common tasks, it actually showed your filesystem instead of Apple's prescribed guess at what your filesystem should do, and it was still simple enough that you could wrap your head around exactly how it worked.

There seems to be this phenomenom where good products seems to get better right up until they get mainstream adoption, and then they steadily get worse. It's like up till then you have room to improve, and then suddenly you've hit the pinnacle of product design in your category, but rather than hold it there, you have to make random changes so your employees have something to do and don't quit.

(To be fair, the one company that's tried the "great, let's make a great product, kill off the competition, and then hold it there and reassign all the people" was Microsoft with IE6, and that worked fine up until Firefox and Chrome came around and then completely screwed them over.)

Re: The new MacBook

#635

Post by benologist »

RexRollman wrote: post #448
nkoren wrote: post #261

This is a beautiful machine. Once again, Apple excels at hardware. But what the living hell is going wrong with Apple's desktop software? OS X and Apple's applications suite have been getting steadily worse with every release. Look at the App store: the latest releases of OS X, iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, and Numbers are (in stark contrast to earlier versins) all rated at 2.5/5 stars, with the plurality being 1-star revie…

I'm not saying you're wrong but I personally haven't any issues with OS X Yosemite.

Yesterday was the first time this year I was able to open pages from youtube on the first try instead of over a 20 - 40 minute process of refreshing, resetting wifi, resetting router etc trying to get complete page loads with playing video. I had entire days where Skype text messages was the only internet access I had. Apple's forums have ten thousands of posts on people's wifi being ruined like this for this entire year and counting.

Re: The new MacBook

#637

Post by 72deluxe »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #412
72deluxe wrote: post #349

I'm not sure if I'm an old fart or something (I'm 31) but this has to be the daftest MacBook I've ever seen. I have a 2012 MacBook non-retina, with DVD writer and all the ports I need (MagSafe, Gigabit ethernet, FireWire, ThunderBolt (also Mini DisplayPort so I don't need fiddly adapters to connect to TVs), 2 USB ports, an SD card slot, as well as headphone output, and line input (both switchable to digital optical S…

I don't honestly know whether the new MacBook is something that I'd want -- but I do know that for my purposes my late-2013 MacBook Pro kicks your MBP's butt. It's lighter, much faster, has a much better screen, and I don't really care much about the fact that I can't replace the battery. I'm still regularly getting eight hours offline. And realistically, when I'm traveling with my laptop it's rare that I'm plugging…

Hey, mine's a quad core 2.6GHz i7 with 16GB of RAM; it isn't a slouch and isn't anywhere near needing replacing - that's why the user-replacable battery means that this isn't a throwaway item after a few years. If I bought a car with a battery in it that I couldn't replace, it'd be stupid, but the same is being accepted on laptops.

Admittedly the disk is a major slowdown on this but I have a LOT of data to cart around (VMs, dev environments, and recorded audio and video).

I can take this thing all over the world and not worry about a bag of cables and adapters. It replaced my desktop machine and still fits that need, which is a good thing I think.

You're right about the screen though :-(

Re: The new MacBook

#638

Post by IkmoIkmo »

nilkn wrote: post #527
jrochkind1 wrote: post #196

Do I understand right that it's got one port, which can be used for either power or USB, but not both at once? Man, that's the future? I was hoping they'd give it two USB ports, if it was supposed to serve as the new full powered macbook. It never occured to me they'd actually take away a port, and give you charging or USB peripheral but not both at once. Bah humbug.

If this is true, it's a complete deal breaker. I don't think I'm being unreasonable here. I couldn't even use the laptop in clamshell mode with a monitor, which I do sometimes.

You can you just need externals which means an extra $50-150 depending on what you need, and it puts into perspective the notion of this MB being the most portable device in the Mac lineup.

I kind of see the MB as very solid upgrade to anyone using the 11 inch MBA for non-dev stuff (e.g. school) and is rich enough to be willing to pay 30-40% extra, despite it being hard to figure this type of user to really need 8gb of ram for example.

For anyone on the 13 inch lineup, it feels like a step back either in performance, battery, ports, price, screen size.

I mean, 13' MBA? Cheaper, bigger screen, better ports, better battery. Not many people will really care that the MB is a tiny bit lighter/compact to the extent they're willing to give up all these things, except if they cared so much to have gotten the 11', hence how I see the MB as being an upgrade to the 11' MBA.

Unless you really wanted a retina display and want to give up screen space, a few hours of battery, pay a premium and have to get a bunch of peripherals.

Re: The new MacBook

#639

Post by mark_l_watson »

rayiner wrote: post #584
nkoren wrote: post #261

This is a beautiful machine. Once again, Apple excels at hardware. But what the living hell is going wrong with Apple's desktop software? OS X and Apple's applications suite have been getting steadily worse with every release. Look at the App store: the latest releases of OS X, iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, and Numbers are (in stark contrast to earlier versins) all rated at 2.5/5 stars, with the plurality being 1-star revie…

Yosemite is moderately buggy, and iOS 8 is buggy as shit. Meanwhile, I've been using Outlook 15 and now the Office 2016 Preview, and I have to say I'm really impressed. Thanks to Microsoft, and despite Apple, I'm really loving my Mac right now.

Thanks for mentioning the preview; I am downloading it right now. I assume that it is all compatible with the Office 365 web services.

Re: The new MacBook

#640

Post by 72deluxe »

egypturnash wrote: post #512
72deluxe wrote: post #349

I'm not sure if I'm an old fart or something (I'm 31) but this has to be the daftest MacBook I've ever seen. I have a 2012 MacBook non-retina, with DVD writer and all the ports I need (MagSafe, Gigabit ethernet, FireWire, ThunderBolt (also Mini DisplayPort so I don't need fiddly adapters to connect to TVs), 2 USB ports, an SD card slot, as well as headphone output, and line input (both switchable to digital optical S…

I'm a forty-something lady who is almost but not quite on the edge of replacing her 2013 Air with this. My current machine has two USB ports, power, Mini Displayport, audio, and an SD card. I do not think I have ever plugged an SD card into this computer. I think I may have plugged one into one of my computers once . I was happy to ditch a DVD drive a few years ago when I bought my first Air; I think I used one of th…

It's a different target audience then. We can safely say my obscure needs are not their target :-)

Thanks for the info about the USB-C connector; I still find it odd that other similarly sized devices fit more ports on without the need for external adapters; it almost seems that they've put the port on just because they can.

Edit: having looked again at it, I was amazed by the tiny innards! The space metal grey looks good; perhaps I was too harsh.

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