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Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

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Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#121
I recently went back to Windows from macOS. Now I have many USB ports, a DVD burner, an ethernet port, an SD card slot, an HDMI output, a decent graphics card, expandability and compatibility. All things I'm not allowed to have on Macs any more.

Mac fanboys tell me "You idiot, you don't need any of that stuff." Actually I do. They tell me "No you are wrong." No, that's not correct. They don't actually know more about my requirements than I do. The real question is what bedevils the fanatics to insist they know more than the real experts such as myself? They make their claims with no knowledge or information with the insistence and loudness of a fundamentalist religious fanatic. Exploring this strange phenomenon is even more interesting I think than wondering what laptop one should get.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#122
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mac has passed the hardware diagnostics at the Apple Store multiple times. The components are unchanged from Yosemite, which did not have these issues. The OS has been freshly reinstalled, with the same problems. This is also just one of a myriad of issues that have plagued the OS. Sierra has introduced me to new and wonderful ways to fail: http://i.imgur.com/HbVLWDq.png

If git is failing due to a system-wide file limit, that would explain why other programs are also failing. Perhaps some process has gone mad with creating files and if you find and delete those it will help things recover. (I agree with your general point -- just trying to be helpful in getting your computer back working.)

I reached the same conclusion, and the prime suspect in my investigations is Safari 10. However, once the system has hit the file limit, it never fully recovers without a reboot.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#123
It feels like Apple the PC is neglected for Apple the phone/tablet. If I'm looking for a mobile device, I'm looking at Apple. But for laptop and desktop, their offerings don't seem as great.

The cloud approach is making it less necessary to keep the PC within the Apple ecosystem. iOS devices already don't have expandable storage, and most data ends up being on iCloud or other internet services.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#124

At the local mall if you go to the Microsoft store you might find 15 people in there, very empty feeling. Meanwhile, there are probably 3-400 in the Apple store. >> More people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before. Our trade-in program for MacBooks was our best ever You could trade-up with up to $650 credit for your working MacBook Pro or Air. I'm assuming they were giving similar values as you would w…

Not in Boston. The Microsoft store consistently has more than the Apple Store...often a dozen people waiting in line as well to play the HTC vive and Xbox.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#125
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely an example of YMMV, if someone claims that macOS is better than Windows because of a prettier UI and smoother font rendering, I simply laugh. For me it is more important to have a file manager that doesn't lock itself creating .DS_Store files in the middle of an I/O operation (ex. copying a folder from an external drive). To be fair, Windows has the same issue with Thumbs.db files, but I can't reme…

If I'm staring at something for 10 hours a day smoother font rendering is a big benefit.

Smoother means less legible, at least on low DPI screens. But it seems to be a personal preference as to what someone will actually like more.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#126
post #111

I am one of them.

Yeah, recently bought my first windows laptop in about 15 years. Not a surface but one of the Lenovo yogas. It's a neat little device and I enjoy the touch screen, but everything feels just slightly jankier than my macbook, especially scrolling / touchpad.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Great" on Windows is "typical" on macOS. The approach to rendering fonts is completely different, where Windows tends to nudge things towards pixel boundaries and in so doing ends up distorting the type considerably. Font rendering on Windows is barely better than Linux.

It really depends on DPI of your monitor. I have both MBPr and Windows PC with 4k 24'' monitor. On FullHD I can't look at Windows, on 4k it looks great (UI looks more sharp than in macOS, fonts looks almost as good as in macOS). And Linux fonts rendering is not even near - last time I saw it, it was completely awful, although it was on FullHD monitor, not 4k.

On 4K a Windows machine looks tolerable, but I'd hold back from calling it "great". It's more like the deficiencies are less obvious.

Windows has long been indifferent to faithfully representing fonts, to accurately representing colors. They've always promoted readability at the cost of mangling fonts, and of performance.

The macOS rendering system has always been set up with high-DPI displays in mind, they were able to work out a lot of rendering problems on things like the iPhone and iPad before committing to the computer version of same.

Windows on a 4K display looks close to but not quite as good as a Mac on a 1440p display, it's just that stark.

This is all personal preference obviously, but having done a lot of design work I'm more easily irritated by little quirks.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#128

I'm one of the people that switched from a MacBook Pro to the new Surface Book. The ENTIRE experience was dreadful for me. The day I went into the Microsoft store to purchase it (Black Friday), their credit card system was down, so I had to wait around for nearly 2 hours until they finally figured things out. That wouldn't typically upset me, but my brother-in-law went through something similar just 2 weeks prior. As…

Trackpads are one of the main things that other companies just can't get right, even on premium devices. Given how long ago Apple 'solved' trackpads, I'm amazed that the rest of the industry hasn't caught up.

I believe that Apple has patented a lot of what makes their touchpads so great, which makes it difficult for competitors to make an equivalent.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#129

I can't believe anyone using macOS for their professional workflow would consider switching to Windows 10 despite all the criticism leveled at Apple's hardware (most of which I think is totally justified). I use Windows professionally (for .NET development) and I think Windows 10 is still light-years behind, with an unstable, jarring OS experience full of bugs and niggles and unloved and underdeveloped touch interfac…

Two days ago, immediately after several programs crashed and shortly before the entire OS locked up, I managed to capture this: http://i.imgur.com/ecCPlcs.png That is Crash Reporter crashing. The following is the last screenshot I was able to take before the system stopped being able to write files: http://i.imgur.com/IK7j98P.png Sierra has been an absolute nightmare in every respect that I have been forced to reboot…

+1 to this. I purchased a brand new touchbar 2016 MacBook Pro. At a cost of 2800 dollars to me.

I've had the following problems:

1) They wrote a driver that blew out my speaker and I had to wait 5 weeks for a replacement. http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/11/30/apple-updates-boot... 2) There is graphical tearing and glitching everywhere. http://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/02/new-macbook-pro-graphics... 3) The OS restarts itself randomly. 4) You cannot plug in an external monitor and use a bluetooth mouse simultaneously.

I love macOS. I make software for macOS. The decline is real and people should start considering alternatives.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#130
Just to chime in. Since the displeased are always loud. I got my maxed out TouchBar MBP 15" about two weeks ago and I'm really happy with it.

It replaces a Mid-2010 MBP 17". It's light, fast and has a gorgeous screen.

After a week, I even prefer the new thin keyboard versus the old. My external keyboard feels like trudging through mud. No trouble hitting the ESC-key on the touch bar. The context awareness of it is actually pretty great.

For USB-connectivity I simply bought a few convertors on AliExpress for about 70 cents each. How often do I plug those in? Almost never. Everything is wireless these days.

Except for those two 5K screens coming soon... but I wish Apple would release them for € 200 more with a nice alu bezel ;) or 5K iMacs with target display mode, that'd be fine too.

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