Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

macrumors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 145 posts

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#131

Post by eitland »

megaman22 wrote: post #85
white-flame wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, that was because of battery life, not thickness. The limits on that particular Intel chipset are 16GB LPDDR3 or 32GB non-low power DDR4, and Apple chose to use the LPDDR3. I have a basic 32GB DDR4 laptop* which was contemporary to the touchbar MBP, and while I'm very happy with the running battery life, the suspended battery life isn't as long as I would prefer (usually doesn't last 24 hours). I suspect…

I'll be honest, I haven't bothered with suspend/hibernate in years, because it is so broken on every Windows machine I've ever tried. In these days of SSDs and OS's that boot up in five seconds, I just turn off my machine whenever I put it away not on AC power.

No big Windows fan but IIRC suspend/resume has mostly worked just as well on all my recent Windows laptops as on my old Macbook Pro and they both easily beats ny current Ubuntu setup.

Still prefer my Ubuntu on Dell setup though.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#132

Post by skygazer »

StyloBill wrote: post #93
nik736 wrote: post #49

I don't get the hate about the MBP. I have the 13-inch 2017 model without the TB and I absolutely LOVE it. It's such a master piece, I simply love it and use it as my daily driver. I also don't have any problems with my keyboard, I only can tell good things about it. The 2 ports suck, but I never was in need of more, I only use the power adapter and the USB C to HDMI/DP cable that goes in my 4K screen and that's it.…

"I don't get the hate because I don't need more ports anyway." See how this is anecdotal? Pretty sure if you were to have different use-cases you'd like your MPB a lot less.

I don't think it's necessarily reasonable to expect everyone to only communicate some consensus view. I understand my opinion here is only a sample-of-one, but I generally need a collection of individual reports before I can aggregate them.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#133

Post by Const-me »

zdw wrote: post #30

I think this is a combination of issues: USB-C's ecosystem was confusing and good products never materialized, or if they did nobody could find them in the sea of junk. The lack of hardware updates, which seems to have started with the 5-10% performance bumps Intel piddled out in the absence of competition from AMD from 2011-2017. Most of the CPU's and GPU's that could have been used frankly weren't much better than…

> Most of the CPU's and GPU's that could have been used frankly weren't much better than what they'd replace

Agree about CPUs, disagree about GPUs. GPUs have been making very good progress all these years.

E.g. nVidia’s 1080 Ti (2017) is almost twice as fast as the similarly priced 980 Ti (2015). The 780 Ti (2013) is about the same as 980Ti but 680 (2012) is again about 2x slower than 980 Ti.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#134

Post by pasbesoin »

I remain pretty sure that Apple's Mac line is going ARM. Their own custom, highly performant version.

However, I don't believe this excuses current circumstances.

And a chip swap doesn't address the other, current hardware problems.

I am not a Mac person, so my opinion doesn't carry much weight, on that basis. Nonetheless, having been reading what's going on, I'd say:

If your career depends on Mac, and you can afford it, I'd buy a 2015 MacBook Pro before they're gone. Even if it feels like a "waste of money", weigh that against being without an acceptable machine until Apple gets it together.

I'd also spend for the longer term AppleCare, to try to guarantee having a working machine until same.

If things don't improve, soon, I wonder what the second-hand market for these will end up looking like.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#135

Post by LyndsySimon »

zdw wrote: post #30

I think this is a combination of issues: USB-C's ecosystem was confusing and good products never materialized, or if they did nobody could find them in the sea of junk. The lack of hardware updates, which seems to have started with the 5-10% performance bumps Intel piddled out in the absence of competition from AMD from 2011-2017. Most of the CPU's and GPU's that could have been used frankly weren't much better than…

> USB-C

I've had two MBPs with only USB-C ports, and this is a complete non-issue to me. I have a "microdock" that gives me the ports I want when I want them and otherwise stays put away. Even on my Samsung TabPro, which only has a single USB-C port, it's not really an issue.

> lack of hardware updates

This is a huge issue for me. Apple has kept the pricing high on their notebooks while not improving performance. The only thing they have going for them from my POV these days is build quality and macOS. Others are catching up in build quality, and even Windows 10 supports native Linux well enough that macOS has lost much of its luster.

> keyboards

Meh. I don't really have an opinion on this one. I'm typing on a "new" MBP keyboard right now and it works fine. It's a bit sensitive to sand and other particles, but so far I've not had one actually fail to the point that the issue wasn't resolved with a few hard keypresses and a shot of compressed air.

> try to start using primarily OSS software

This is probably the key to why I'm both dissatisfied with Apple and not as upset as others seem to be about it. I moved to macOS in ~2011 because I wanted a durable laptop, and planned to install ArchLinux on it. I gave macOS a shot and it was "close enough" to Linux that it didn't make sense to deal with all the headaches of dealing with a non-native OS.

> Apple is making a lot of money in the iOS ecosystem

... and as best I can tell, that's where they're innovating too. I sold my personal MBP this spring, bought a 6th-gen iPad, and haven't looked back. It's more than suitable for mobile media consumption, programming (via MOSH to a remote server), and photo processing.

Unless something big changes, my next machine will probably be an iPad Pro in a couple of years. I have no plans at this time to ever buy a laptop for myself again.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#136

Post by radicalbyte »

mschuster91 wrote: post #91
radicalbyte wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched from Windows to Mac in autumn-2013. I really hope that either Apple get their act together or that Microsoft ecosystem finally get the simple things such as hibernate and trackpads working properly before this machine gives up the ghost.

> hibernate and trackpads working properly I haven't had any problem with hibernation on Windows laptops - quite the contrary: MacBooks don't have a visible "I am powered on" indicator once closed, which means that if e.g. some Chrome tab or whatever random crap keeps the system awake I only notice it when arriving at work, pulling the MacBook out of the bag and having a superheated mess with empty battery in my hand…

In the last few years I've had top of the line Dell and Lenovo laptops, neither got hibernate right. Both had a 15-20% chance of being empty in the morning.

Touchpads are a joke. They're either tiny or they constantly register phantom movements (random cursor jumps). I wouldn't be surprised if that's something which Apple solve in software to be honest; if it was in hardware you'd expect other brands to have caught up already.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#137

Post by mschuster91 »

radicalbyte wrote: post #136
mschuster91 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hibernate and trackpads working properly I haven't had any problem with hibernation on Windows laptops - quite the contrary: MacBooks don't have a visible "I am powered on" indicator once closed, which means that if e.g. some Chrome tab or whatever random crap keeps the system awake I only notice it when arriving at work, pulling the MacBook out of the bag and having a superheated mess with empty battery in my hand…

In the last few years I've had top of the line Dell and Lenovo laptops, neither got hibernate right. Both had a 15-20% chance of being empty in the morning. Touchpads are a joke. They're either tiny or they constantly register phantom movements (random cursor jumps). I wouldn't be surprised if that's something which Apple solve in software to be honest; if it was in hardware you'd expect other brands to have caught u…

> if it was in hardware you'd expect other brands to have caught up already

I think it's possible that Apple leverages knowledge from the iDevices lineup there. After all Apple has had a massive headstart in capacitive multi-touch sensoring... and a boatload of patents to match.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#138

Post by scarface74 »

dschuetz wrote: post #35

I'm having a deja-vue. 25 years ago Apple was facing a similar decline in product diversity, innovation and novelty. With Steve Jobs gone forever I don't think Apple will survive that one. By a long shot Apple will burn through their cash very fast, with mediocre products and no innovation in the pipeline. And I don't see another innovation genius like Steve Jobs with a determined vision to come around at Apple these…

25 years ago in 1993, Apple was doing well.

The Macintosh was also doing well, rising from 1.3 million units in 1990 to its all-time high of 4.5 million units in 1995. Macintosh market share peaked at 12% in 1993. It was a boom time for Apple, with the future looking bright.

https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#139

Post by lucisferre »

gutnor wrote: post #71
lucisferre wrote: post #12

Completely agree. Reliability has plummeted with almost every release since the retina MBP. Crashes are a regular thing and most of the physical "improvements" outside of compactness and weight have been unwanted. The touch bar in particular is just a dead appendage. But my previous and extensive experiences with Linux and Windows ecosystems tell me that the grass is not greener, so I stay and put up with the problem…

> Crashes are a regular thing and most of the physical "improvements" outside of compactness and weight have been unwanted. I feel like the 3D touchpad is completely underrated but it really is amazing. It does everything that the mechanical one was doing except better. 2 years after getting it, I still can't believe it is not mechanical.

It's neat when you realize it doesn't actually move, and it is definitely an innovation, but it doesn't really improve the experience in any considerable way. But I'll give you that. It's also less likely to get stuck in any way.

Re: Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

#140

Post by Uw7yTcf36gTc »

pier25 wrote: post #95
c12 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when Apple killed their server devision? It wasn't because it wasn't profitable - because it was. They killed it because it wasn't profitable enough to be anything other than a rounding error on their accounts. I fear the same is happening with the MacBook line up when compared against the profits from iOS devices.

I don't know. The Mac still represents a 10% of revenue for Apple, and I'm sure most of that comes from laptops.

revenue is not profit though...
Post reply on HN