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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

#181

Post by matt_wulfeck »

dmalvarado wrote: post #131
bluedino wrote: post #118

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…

The thing with that though is that you can buy a Surfacebook in a lot of different places. Macbook is mostly the Apple Store, or at least that is the perception. Ever notice how unbusy the Apple section at Best Buy is?

Maybe it's my own experience, but I've only ever see a surfacebook at the MS flagship store.

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

#182

Post by rcavezza »

TruthSHIFT wrote: post #170
jstsch wrote: post #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 ac…

I'm glad you're having a good experience with the new MBP. However, I wouldn't plug a $.70 adapter into a $3000 computer. Maybe you should splurge and spend $10 on the Apple adapter.

Although price can sometimes be an indicator of quality, it doesn't necessarily mean quality. I think this is especially true when the alternative higher priced product has a lot of "Brand Value" that can be attributed to the higher price.

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

#183

Post by TruthSHIFT »

dandare wrote: post #141

I for one am very excited about PR articles like this. It is not worth much but it may be that proverbial drop in a full glass to persuade Apple to release new upgrade to MBP much sooner than it otherwise would.

Apple would love to release an upgraded MBP. Unfortunately, Intel's lack of support for low-power RAM is holding them back:

https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/21/phil-schiller-again-breaks-do...

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

#184

Post by soylentcola »

rocky1138 wrote: post #152
EasyTiger_ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just installed Windows 10. My start menu by default was full of stuff I will never ever use. After deleting/uninstalling apps (where it would allow me) the OS decides to install Candy Crush and other games I never asked for. Unacceptable.

Get some perspective. Operating systems have included simple games since the 80s. Minesweeper, anyone?

While I agree that it's more a minor annoyance than a dealbreaker (for me at least), the fact remains that there's a big difference between including a simple game or two and installing (or "suggestive-selling") a "freemium" money-sink from a third party.

Basically the way I look at it in order of annoyance/offensiveness:

- Free, standalone application made by same company (this is a free gift as far as I'm concerned)

- Free, standalone application made by another company (ok, this is starting to approach crapware but as long as it can be uninstalled and doesn't try to sell me anything, I'll deal)

- Link, installer, or preinstalled application that requires later purchase from same company (OK, this is an ad and pretty offensive)

- Link, installer, or preinstalled application requiring later purchase from third party (this is most certainly unwanted crapware that they were paid to include)

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

#185

Post by hesdeadjim »

I'm stuck working in Windows 10 right now due to VR only being supported by it. I spent around 8 hours getting AutoHotkey set up so that most of my shortcuts are back to Mac versions (I use mac keyboard, just can't beat it). The last missing link was Linux Subsystem for Windows. I now use my standard Vim setup and besides being limited to 16 colors (ugh), everything mostly just works.

I'd switch back to Mac given the choice, but the embarrassingly bad hardware specs make it a complete no-go for game development.

Edit: I also use Cmder to give me a very capable console window.

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

#186

Post by pdimitar »

jimbokun wrote: post #142

No numbers, so no way to evaluate how significant this is. For the record, just played with the TouchBar in the Apple Store, and think it's super cool. Also love the humongous track pad, and believe USB-C support will explode in the near future. So I'm curious to see sales numbers for Surface vs. the new MacBook Pros. Might be more "switchers" to Surface, but also a big increase in MacBook Pro sales overall.

As a guy who uses the top bar of keys a lot, I wouldn't buy the new MBPs even for $500.

IMO that was a foolhardy decision; Macs are (were?) very popular amongst designers and programmers, why limit the accessibility of the keyboard? Do you realize how many strokes on the Esc key a VIM-using dev does per day?

It's as if Apple doesn't care about the professional audience anymore.

They should've offered a "touch bar" and "normal bar" variants for their laptops IMO.

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

#187

Post by tuddman »

lucisferre wrote: post #153
blahblah12 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+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 rest…

Wow, we have a bunch on order at our office. If we have even half these problems they are all going back and we're getting Dell's or Lenovo's. Which is a really sad and disappointing outcome for me to consider.

I was a solid proponent of OSX for all development. I've only had to go through 2 macbooks in the better part of a decade, upgrading the OSX versions along the way ... and so, when it was time recently to buy macbook #3, I was actually a little sad that Apple's slipped so much recently and I had to go with an Asus zenbook (of course gutting windows 10 and running Ubuntu :-) Its running great, with none of the issues I was having with Mavericks.

yes, I would've liked to stick with Apple & OSX. no, I don't feel I could and still be as productive as I need to be.

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

#188

Post by tdb7893 »

santaclaus wrote: post #88
Aldo_MX wrote: 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.

The only time I've had any problems on windows is if the font is too small.

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

#189

Post by mark_l_watson »

I bought a very inexpensive HP Stream 11 a few years ago to experiment with Windows 10, and I think Microsoft has generally improved the environment a lot. After a few months of experimenting with Windows 10, I put Ubuntu on this laptop, and I use it while traveling.

That said, I had to buy a new laptop last month and after almost getting a Surface Pro + keyboard, I ended up with a MacBook. I decided that I didn't want to change my workflow (writing, programming in Haskell, Java, various Lisps).

However, I will carefully evaluate Microsoft laptops (purchased from Microsoft: signature editions don't have crap-ware on them) in a few years when I need another laptop.

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

#190

Post by matt_wulfeck »

iLoch wrote: post #150

My Mac just went belly up - a software corruption in my encrypted partition has rendered Mac OSX unusable. I took it to Apple, they spent over an hour throwing every piece of software they had at it. Their own diagnostic tools were freezing up from this issue. The tests that did run indicated no problem with the physical hardware, and indeed Windows runs flawlessly. So their totally shit software destroyed itself and…

It's nice that they spent a hour trying to recover your software. How much did they charge for that? Now see what happens when you encounter a similar issue with another manufacturer. I'm sure they'll have people dedicated to fixing it for free.

Backups in OSX are extremely easy. The easiest I've ever seen. I can reinstall from my encrypted USB hard drive with just a few clicks. It comes online exactly how it was when the backup was taken! And I can choose from daily snapshots going back more than a year!

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