Earlier quoted context omitted.
"OS decides to install Candy Crush and other games I never asked for. Unacceptable. " - I would like more details on this. I don't think I've heard of that before?
Not sure if you're being sarcastic (there's the non-Nexus Android experience after all), but I did a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro on my gaming machine a while ago. Full retail license and an official .iso downloaded from Microsoft. There's barely anything installed on that machine, however I was also surprised to find Candy Crush in my start menu after a while. It's probably just a shortcut to the store, but it do…
Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before
251–260 of 329 posts
Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before
#252I've seen/used the Surface and honestly it's a lot like the iPad Pro in that it feels like the sort of computer I'd happily hand to someone who doesn't actually need a PC, but I'd hate to have it be my development experience. The Surface is a bit more full-featured due to it having less of a sandboxed app model, but it's underpowered for the stuff I do with a computer. On the other hand the new MBP is pretty good. It has some annoyances (USB-C annoys me once every couple weeks so far, and the keyboard takes getting used to), but it's fast, light, and has a beautiful display. And I can run everything on it that I need to.
Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
No OS license key. No "Patch Tuesday". No finger pointing between hardware vendor and OS vendor. No third party drivers necessary to clean boot. Built-in backup system, both to "cloud" if desired or external hard disk if preferred. Application signing that serves to protect users rather than nag them into unquestioningly running anything and everything as administrator. Fantastic, fully native support for the wealth…
> No OS license key Not something you see as a user, at least on the Surface. > No "Patch Tuesday" Because Apple leaves you running vulnerable software for months at a time. (Remember the zlib double free?) > No finger pointing between hardware vendor and OS vendor. No third party drivers necessary to clean boot. Not an issue with Surface. > Fantastic, fully native support for the wealth of open-source software avail…
The Surface is a big step forward in terms of eliminating a lot of nuisances from the Windows experience but it also proves that the biggest nuisance of all is OEMs. Eliminating them also cuts out a lot of reasons for using Windows in the first place, like low-cost equipment. I agree it's a great product, but it's also great because of the tight integration you get with a unified hardware/OS vendor. Dell, HP and others don't have this luxury, so their experience is always second-rate.
Also "Linux on Windows" is a huge step forwards, but sheesh, it's still atrocious compared to proper native support. It's like a slick version of Cygwin. Remarkable but not a drop-in replacement for Linux.
You can compile GUI apps on macOS, but I've never needed to. The one app that depended on that was Wireshark, but I found a way to use tcpdump instead. It's mostly a non-issue.
Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before
#254I'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…
But I have found with some units, after you move the device the trackpad does have issues. In a few cases (perhaps once every 2 weeks) I have to disconnect and reconnect the base to fix them.
> 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.
Every store's shopping experience on black friday ranges from barely tolerable to unbearable. You know where I had to drop by on black friday to do a chore for my hospital-bound sister? The Apple Store. It was an unpleasant experience.
> I also realized, as mainly a pro user, that I don't have much use / need for the touch screen or tablet portion of the device.
What does this mean? Do pro users not look at or create webpages, mobile apps? Touch works everywhere but IDEs.
I find myself accidentally touching my corporate macbook's screen all the time to click a distant link because it's so much faster than the trackpad travel, and I'm better at home-rowing my hands from a high position rather than a wrist swivel.
Needless to say, I am sick of being "forced" to use OSX. It's slower for my purposes, it's less developer friendly, and the battery life on most of these devices is just atrocious the instant you start doing I/O intensive things like compilation.
My Surface book w/ battery saver mode on still goes 6+ hours doing clojure and kotlin compilations periodically with battery saver on, with only maybe a 10-15% speed loss (which amounts to less than 10 seconds per compile in my worst case). That's substantially better than any mac product I have.
Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which MacBook are you using that you consider "relatively new," but Apple stopped supporting? In my experiences with Apple, support has gone on for years, and in the case of my original iBook, a full decade. It has gotten shorter over the last few years, but Sierra officially supports computers from 2009, which after 7 years I don't consider new any more.
AFAIK, the 2011 MBPs are no longer supported for hardware repairs (although they will run the latest OS). Maybe that's what the parent is referring to? FWIW, the 15" 2011 MBPs with the i7 quad cores, GPU issues aside, are still pretty fast when compared to the latest Macs using the ultrabook CPUs.
The GGP specifically stated that "Apple discontinued OS support and updates". This is either incorrect, or the GGP has a very different definition of "relatively new" than I do - with 7 year old hardware being supported on Sierra, he'd have to be talking about something 8+ years old...
Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before
#256I am a Surface convert after Apple discontinued OS support and updates for my still powerful, healthy, relatively new Macbook. Surface is much more flexible and provides a greater degree of customization. It is the perfect hybrid between and tablet and a laptop device. I'm just as comfortable using it as a consumption device on the couch as I am using it as a production device on a desk. It really feels like Apple ha…
Which one? Cause anything they discontinued support for isn't really "relatively new".
"It really feels like Apple has become more and more hostile to the "production" crowd"
I absolutely do not buy this argument at all. Usually it's made by people who's definition of "production crowd" is so narrow as to only include what they do.
Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before
#257I am a Surface convert after Apple discontinued OS support and updates for my still powerful, healthy, relatively new Macbook. Surface is much more flexible and provides a greater degree of customization. It is the perfect hybrid between and tablet and a laptop device. I'm just as comfortable using it as a consumption device on the couch as I am using it as a production device on a desk. It really feels like Apple ha…
Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before
#258I tried to make this switch because I bought into all the online criticism of the new MBP. The build quality was very lacking compared to the new MBP. The screen wobbled like crazy even when just typing on it. The model I was using had a really horrible display with active ghosting (not sure if that's the correct term -- it appeared that the refresh rate was just very low, so moving the cursor around or dragging a wi…
I'd personally love to try out a laptop that converts. But I guess the use-case in question in this thread is for professional usage where I haven't found utility.
Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before
#259I'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.
Well, my wife has a brand-new Lenovo ThinkPad running Windows 10, which is probably one of the better-quality non-Apple laptops. My five-year-old son recently tried my old MacBook for the first time after using nothing but Mommy's before to watch Minecraft videos, and the first thing he said to me was, "Wow, Daddy! The trackpad on your old laptop is so much better than the one on Mommy's laptop."
This was not prompted by any audible parental Apple fanboyism. Somewhere, Steve Jobs is smiling...
Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before
#260I tried to make this switch because I bought into all the online criticism of the new MBP. The build quality was very lacking compared to the new MBP. The screen wobbled like crazy even when just typing on it. The model I was using had a really horrible display with active ghosting (not sure if that's the correct term -- it appeared that the refresh rate was just very low, so moving the cursor around or dragging a wi…
It sounds to me like you had a somewhat defective model. That said, the surface book is not the best physical laptop computer and will always be less stable than a standard hinge laptop.
> Windows now has the Ubuntu subsystem, but I immediately ran into serious dealbreaker issues. I couldn't get Haskell or Elm to run on it because a core system call hadn't been implemented yet. The team is aware of it and I'm sure it's slated to be fixed soon, but I still couldn't do my work on the laptop without firing up a VM or dual booting.
Why not just use Powershell and the windows builds? They work fine. Powershell isn't going to kill you.
But it's also weird, because I got GHC to compile just fine.