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Apple Is Listening

marco.org

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Re: Apple Is Listening

#271

Post by nl »

wyclif wrote: post #161
killjoywashere wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Vim user who occasionally uses a touchbar MacBook, I don't even think about the touchbar. Mainly because I don't use it for anything. Let me repeat that: nothing. It does not enter my mind. Until I hit escape and I'm still in text entry mode. Because the escape key didn't fire. I appreciate the collaborator who sent this thing to me, so I have excellent field experience on which to base my decision to "nope, nev…

I'm now using an early 2017 MacBook Pro 13" "Escape" (14,1 sans Touch Bar), with the 2nd-gen butterfly keyboard. My main workflow revolves around iTerm2, zsh, tmux, and NeoVim. Even though I have a real Esc key, I usually use Ctrl-[ as it's closer to the home row and faster for me. Far more worrying to me is the butterfly keyboard in this scenario (for dev). The Ctrl, Tab, Return, and especially the A, J, K, D, and T…

We all know that heat is the enemy of Li-ion batteries. I'm working remote in SE Asia, and even with office A/C it's very hot here. This laptop is a little over a year old, has never been used outdoors or outside an office, and it's already in "Service Battery" mode and shutting down at around 70% charge.

Something sounds very wrong there. Unless you are regularly using it in areas above 35° C it shouldn't really matter.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#272

Post by scarface74 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #140
scarface74 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What point are you trying to make? You said your computers are a hair over $10K a piece. The base price of the Mac Pro is $6000. Unless you think that Apple is going to charge $4000 to upgrade from 32GB to 96GB.

On the iMac pro 32 to 128 costs 2k, there is no 96. Then there is storage, display, gpu and the fact that the referenced machine was purchased months or years in the past vs months in the future. Assuming the user can do basic numeric comparison I'm assuming that his 10k includes substantial extras beyond ram that would also have to be added to the equivalent Mac.

Well seeing that

- none of the upgrades have been announced.

- he didn’t say anything about specs besides the memory and processor

- you can get third party RAM for the iMac Pro.

So the question remains - what point was he trying to make? Unless he like the other poster was bundling the cost of the monitor with the Mac Pro as if you have to buy both.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#273

Post by Hackbraten »

unicornfinder wrote: post #269
djmobley wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, they haven’t...

Indeed. I could be wrong but I genuinely suspect that Apple just aren't that bothered about hackintosh users.

Although it’s purely anecdotal, I know people for whom their Hackintosh served as a gateway drug for switching to a real Mac.

They’ve been sticking to Macs since.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#274

Post by Hackbraten »

arcticbull wrote: post #158
oarsinsync wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked, you have to disable signature checking on kernel extensions. For some, having to trade off that level of security is a pretty big flaw.

I mean, that was standard until what 2 years ago? Not checking extensions was okay for about 42 years, I’m not sure anything really changed in the last 2. I doubt that most security experts will tell you otherwise when getting a signing certificate takes all of 5 minutes. The benefit you get is revocation but it really depends on your threat model right?

Have you recently tried to get Apple to hand out a kext signing certificate?

Convincing Donald Trump of climate change being real seems easier than that.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#275

Post by bartread »

The article mentions it in passing but they still need to fix the Macbook Pro: the keyboard sucks, it doesn't have enough ports of any kind (and I hate carrying dongles - they eventually always get lost), it's not upgradeable[1], the battery is too weak to sustain heavy workloads for long when running unplugged. They do at least seem to be introducing models with more horsepower.

I'm still "surviving" on a late-2015 15" MBP, which is making me twitchy because I'm down to one machine after my late-2011 17" MBP - which I used as my studio machine (built-in Firewire FTW) - died last week due to the somewhat infamous discrete GPU overheating issue (and Apple will no longer repair it; possibly fair enough after 8 years trouble-free use). I've resorted to buying a heatgun and some thermal paste to try fixing it, and will probably source a spare machine from that era for scavenging parts in future. I'm also considering a used 27" iMac from a similar era for the studio, although it's not so convenient to tote around.

Other options include buying a Windows laptop (probably Lenovo, which seem decent), although I hate Windows so would prefer to avoid it. Linux, although perfectly fine for a lot of what I do (and would I think be fine on many Lenovo models), will only run Ableton Live via Wine, which is not a prospect that fills me with joyful anticipation (ditto, Microsoft Office, I believe).

[1] A lot of people love the 2015 models and, I agree, they're not bad, but the rot had already set it. For me, peak MBP occurred a few years earlier, back in 2011: HDD and memory are both upgradeable, battery is easily replaced, and in fact the modular design of the interior makes it fairly straightforward to pull out and replace or clean most internal components (motherboard, optical drive, fans, etc.). The GPU overheating design flaw is, however, a big fail, so these machines are still far from perfect.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#276

Post by sensecall »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #183
jac_no_k wrote: post #141

Actually, I think Microsoft's effort is putting much needed pressure on Apple. My wife about a year ago got a Microsoft Surface 6, the tablet with keyboard + trackpad. It was about the same price as a MacBook and with a bundle, the Microsoft Office suite came included. It works well for my wife's use case and she's able to stay with her preferred interface. Hardware has been trouble free, Windows 10 with One Drive ma…

My late 2013 MBPr battery finally died recently, and I took it to an Apple store for service. Two days and $199 later I have it back with a new battery (and keyboard, which is attached to the battery) and in like-new condition. It looks and feels like a brand new computer. Probably worth seeing if having Apple Service can do the same for yours, but via a screen replacement.

I had a similar experience with my 2012 rMBP last year. Out of warranty: screen, logic board, keyboard and battery replaced.

Charge? £0.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#277

Post by viraptor »

nathana wrote: post #218
Alupis wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't someone like you be better served on a 32 or 64 core Threadripper workstation then? I assume there's I/O bottlenecking in there somewhere, but for the rest, surely you're not 100% pegging all 16 cores all the time, but more parallelism would still benefit you to a certain extent... While not costing $6k+ for a base 8 core machine.

If you're targeting Apple platforms with your builds, just how does a Threadripper workstation address the problem? (And don't say Hackintosh...)

https://github.com/tpoechtrager/osxcross/

It may not be a viable solution for every project, but it does work for many.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#278

Post by auggierose »

unicornfinder wrote: post #227
auggierose wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get a Mac-Mini, 8-core with 64GB Ram, and an eGPU. You will have no problem hitting that $3500 target, make it $4000 for a fantastic eGPU. Also, why are you refusing to look at the iMac Pro? Best machine I ever had.

The Mac mini caps out at a 6 core.

My bad, was confusing it. Still, there is not much you can do with 8 but not with 6.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#279

Post by coldtea »

Angostura wrote: post #270
coldtea wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually, I'm in the middle of writing an e-mail to the Tim address at Apple, saying that if it takes the environment seriously (and I commend them on what they have done so far) they really need to take the next step, be truly 'courageous' and prioritise repairability and expandability in their forthcoming products. That's not how capitalism works. Between green and more profit, it will always pick more profit. Th…

> Between green and more profit, it will always pick more profit. Absolutely. If your customers start choosing you rather than your competitors due to your green credentials, then in can lead to more profit. In exactly the same way that Apple is gambling that security will lead to more profit, despite the fact that selling customer data is clearly a profitable short term opportunity.

>Absolutely. If your customers start choosing you rather than your competitors due to your green credentials, then in can lead to more profit.

Yeah, that's not gonna happen either. That will be the last concern of the majority of consumers...

And of course companies need to sabotage their sales (tell customers "just keep upgrading your existing model, buy less, etc") to get those actual (not ecology-theater) green credentials, which no company and no competitors are gonna do either.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#280

Post by [deleted] »

coldtea wrote: post #263
empath75 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple has doubled-down on its refusal to sell user-serviceable, upgradeable, and expandable hardware at prices that are within reach for most customers. This is like saying Ferrari has doubled down on its refusal to sell a budget hatchback for families.

No, it's saying like a company building "computers for the rest of us", that had traditionally had lines affordable by common pros, now only sells stuff suitable high end pro studios and cheaper mass market stuff, with no in-between regular pro tier. They already have models in the "regular hatchback for families" range (and had since forever). It's the mid-tier that suffers.

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