How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists • Hacker News Board

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#161

Post by elliotec » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 5:21 PM UTC

badsock wrote: post #110

dashundchen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most insane part of this to me, is the inability to upgrade or repair any of the desktop Macs by making them locked down, soldered machines. These are machines meant to sit on a desk. Who cares about shaving off few centimeters of desk space if means you can't replace your RAM or hard disk or video card with off the shelf parts? I find this both anti-user and environmentally unfriendly.

Seriously, if anyone has a technical answer to this I'd love to know what it is. Right now I can't intepret the soldered-on ram in desktops as anything other than a user-hostile cash grab.

I'm pretty sure it is exactly just a user-hostile cash grab.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#162

Post by 72deluxe » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

pilsetnieks wrote: post #128

coldtea wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programming, photo editing at scale, and recording/mixing music. It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful Compared to a five year old 17"? More like double the power. And unbelievably faster SSD (even if you have a…

> it will be nowhere near as fast as the ones in current MPBr unless you pay top dollar Even with top dollar you cannot squeeze more than ~550 MB/s out of SATA3, compared to the ostensibly 2+ GB/s in the new MBPrs with NVMe.

Heh I have recently upgraded to a SATA3 SSD in my 2012 MBP and was amazed at the speed. The NVMe ones seem insane.

Anything is better than the 5200rpm Toshiba drive my MacBook came with, that's for sure!!

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#163

Post by mtw » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

deedubaya wrote: post #13

I still think macOS/OSX provides the best user experience for personal computing. It's the lack of substantial hardware updates which is driving users away. If creatives are going to pay a premium for a Mac, there should be something to differentiate it between the competition besides the privilege to run macOS. Heck, it should have something to differentiate it from the last model! I'll still recommend Macs for my f…

Agree but software-wise, macOS also begins to show bugs and be annoying. Not at all like Windows but with their lack of focus, I wouldn't be surprised to see Ubuntu or Win10 become better in 2,3 years

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#164

Post by fooker » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

autoreleasepool wrote: post #106

After being an Apple "Loyalist" for over 15 years, I recently sold my rMBP and built a desktop (i7 4790k, GTX 1080, 16Gb DDR3 @ 2933Mhz). It was by far the best hardware decision I have ever made. Building the system was an absolute blast. Plus, I now have an extremely powerful PC with first class Linux support, tons of I/O ports, and no vendor lock in. The best part is it cost me about 1/3 of the price of a (maxed-o…

I am puzzled about missing homebrew.. You said you are installing Xubuntu, which comes with an excellent package manager with less issued than a brew user is likely to run into.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#165

Post by Fnoord » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #122

iplaw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same boat as you. I have a late-2011 17" MBP with an i7, maxed out RAM, and a 512GB SSD. I think that the graphics processor is starting to fail and I'm starting to experience some very odd DNS-related issues with the OS. I am very unsatisfied with my replacement options.

My GPU failed. The Apple stores offers (or at least offered) a $300 "We will fix anything wrong with your MBP" deal. They replaced the motherboard. Now, that is a great example of "Why buy Apple?" You think I'm gonna get a deal like that from Dell?

1) They don't do that with the MBP from 2010. Not even if you bought the 3 year extended warranty. Worse, it can break again, at any time, because it is a hardware defect. 2) Only after extensive pressure did Apple start this project, and only for 2011 MBPs.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#166

Post by wlesieutre » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #59

beat wrote: post #16

My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programming, photo editing at scale, and recording/mixing music. It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful, has a smaller screen and less I/O functionality, and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I d…

In the same boat with a maxed out 2010 17" MBP. RAM is maxed and I've upgraded the HD 3 times. The lack of a new 17" is blocking my upgrade entirely and has me shopping for Linux laptops at the point that it finally dies. I use my laptop as a second screen when I work and a screen smaller than 17 makes it less functional in terms of readability from a distance.

I don't know how the Linux support is, but if you're looking for a 17" performance machine I've read good things about the Razer Blade Pro.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13344566/razer-blade-pro-...

http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro

4K, 32 GB DDR4, dual PCIe SSDs, i7-6700HQ, GTX 1080 (a real desktop one apparently), SDXC reader, Thunderbolt 3, plus a full compliment of legacy ports.

Doesn't come cheap at $3,699, but you can save $10 if you sign up for their newsletter ;)

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#167

Post by stillworks » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

ythn wrote: post #17

scrrr wrote: post #4

For me, there's still no alternative. And I also will not recommend anything but a Mac to friends and family. They just have the best personal computer on the market, period.

Out of all the devices I've ever owned, my Apple devices have had the most hardware failures. My iPhone 4S's headphone jack stopped working. I bought a replacement and installed it myself (which was a nightmare) but it was still broken. Turns out the logic board had an issue and replacing that is hundreds of dollars. My Macbook Pro 2010's hard drive cable failed. New one was $50. I've never had any hardware issues wi…

For every " has given me most trouble whereas has been reliable" example, there will be a " has given me most trouble whereas has been reliable" example.

I have a Black MacBook from 2009. Still working. The shell has developed a slight flex and the fan gets as loud as a blender but still perfectly serviceable.

The iPhone I bought in 2009 kept going until end of 2012, at which point I decided getting a new iPhone would be too expensive. After shying away from not buying an iPhone due to it being expensive and having tried everything from HTC devices, Nexus devices and even Lumia Windows Phones, finally back to iPhone. (Lumia was very nice though and quite like the Windows Phone experience)

The iPad 2 from 2012 is still not willing to give up. Keeps a good battery charge.

Recently I got a MacBook. It gets a lot of hate from a lot of people. But I will say it here... I LOVE that keyboard ! Works for me and I find it better than the MacBook Air. (This is again subjective)

It is not hard to see that I am an Apple Fan Boi and consume the Apple Kool Aid BUT I have had Lenovo, Thinkpad and HP Windows laptops from work. Lenovo with Windows Vista kept spinning it's fans even in Sleep Mode when I had left nothing running on it. HP blew it's mainboard. Thinkpad was the only one which kept going and I quite liked the tracking nipple on it.

I got a MacBook Pro (2014). Have not experienced any major hiccups. It runs pretty much everything that a developer needs.

I think Apple are going through the change and everybody is feeling the pain of change.

Things will be OK in a couple of years. I hope...

BUT Apple need to sort out issues with some of it's iOS apps. The Music app is Wonky. ! WhatsApp leaves the message text box hanging on screen if I force touch into WhatsApp from lock screen !!! And this is happening on a 6s.

Nothing is perfect and nothing is worst ever.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#168

Post by module0000 » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #16

My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programming, photo editing at scale, and recording/mixing music. It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful, has a smaller screen and less I/O functionality, and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I d…

> This week, my mother's crappy Windows computer died, and I bought her a Chromebook. It was great! I'm now seriously considering getting a Chromebook for myself for day-to-day web browsing and such, and retiring the MBP to music and photos only. If I can figure out how to run Vagrant on one

This is tricky, the vagrant part. Virtualization extensions aren't compiled for the chromeos kernel. You can do it, but it requires downloading the chromeos kernel source, configuring the modules to be compiled, recompiling and booting with that. This means substantially more work if you want to upgrade the software, since each upgrade means you have to repeat the kernel compilation step.

The development side of it is simpler though - you can load whatever you want on it once you put it into development mode.

tldr; it's possible, but not without some time and effort, and it may not be worth your time. When I need to vagrant on a chromebook, it starts and ends with SSH'ing to a linux machine that can run vagrant.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#169

Post by FussyZeus » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

muninn_ wrote: post #124

stuckagain wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the chain of adapters that beat was complaining of.

We're living in a transitory period as we move from a world of wires and connectors to a wireless world. This is the pain we have to endure as technology is pushed forward. If it were up to the luddites and their obsession with compatibility, a laptop would have a dvd drive, firewire, usb-a, usb-c, thunderbolt, hdmi, dvi, vga, sd, microsd,vga, and display port all in one laptop chassis. Having one single port, that c…

Except there needs to be some BENEFITS on the other side. What you're saying is he should upgrade for the sake of upgrading, at great cost, to something that will do effectively the same thing except in a bass-ackwards fashion.

I'm not opposed on principle to a Macbook with a touchbar but I'm not buying, why? Because it has plus or minus the same specs as my current model which also connects to my monitors and everything else I use. Why would I impose that cost and pain on myself? Just to have the latest and greatest for the sake of it? Screw that, I'd rather be a luddite than a lemming.

Re: How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

#170

Post by 72deluxe » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

electic wrote: post #37

beat wrote: post #16

My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programming, photo editing at scale, and recording/mixing music. It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful, has a smaller screen and less I/O functionality, and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I d…

I did take a close look at the Surface Pro. Sorry, the build quality is nowhere near a MacBook Pro. Secondly, I found the touch screen very gimmicky. I tried using it for a week and found that my hand just hurt lifting it up repeatedly and also hated switching context from the keyboard to the screen. Not to mention, the screen was full of smudge marks after awhile. To be honest, I really found myself using the keyboa…

Oddly I found the kickstand on the Surface Pro irritating to work with because the device becomes impossible to use on your lap, as you need to put the Surface quite far up your leg, and then the kickstand is further along than the length of your leg (hanging over your knees). So it becomes impractical to use.

The OS has done quite well to optimise battery I thought - App Nap has been great. If I reboot my MBP into Windows (so same hardware, different OS), I get worse battery life.

Agree with the ports - the Surface Pro I use at work has 1 USB port so plug in a wired mouse and you can't plug in your USB key. Despite the love of wifi, ports are a great way to keep your device useful.