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Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

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Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#281

Post by analogmemory »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #145
dingo_bat wrote: post #121

> In the meantime, let’s give some other companies a shot. Dell and HP have gorgeous, reliable, repairable flagship laptops that are getting rave reviews. Right now, I think they’ve done more to earn your business than Apple has. The laptop mentioned in the "rave review" link is an elitebook 840 g5. I have been using the 840 g1 as my primary laptop for the last 4 years and it really is a sturdy device. The hardware i…

Windows is so terrible, though. I could never go back.

I've been curious to see if could get a laptop to be a dual boot linux and hackintosh

https://www.modmy.com/how-dual-boot-macos-and-linux-hackinto...

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#282

Post by workinthehead »

berti wrote: post #245
hsienmaneja wrote: post #16

Apple, please put back in full size up and down arrow keys

I'm curious what you use them for? I've always prefered WASD for directions (too many games in my youth!), and always saw the arrow keys as a waste of space, too far away to use regularly.

Uh, seriously? Moving cursors around? Some of us use computers for things other than games, child.

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#283

Post by geomark »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #272
stefanfisk wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is what's keeping me from switching. every time I try spending a day on Windows I remember just how much macOS "just works", even if it has warts all over the place.

See, I've always used both and I just don't understand this whole "I have to spend a day on Windows making X work". I haven't experienced this in at least a decade. Windows 10 "just works" with every device and software I've thrown at it.

That's the thing about anecdotes, one person's experience is completely opposite of anothers. I got a laptop with Windows 10 on it and immediately experienced the "100% disk utilization problem", which makes it basically unusable. I Googled around and found hundreds of posts about the problem and many dozens of suggested fixes of which zero worked (for me). So it's sitting on a shelf until I get around to installing Ubuntu on it, which has always just worked for me (which is the opposite of some other people's experiences).

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#284

Post by microtonal »

blub wrote: post #258
stcredzero wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had someone in an interview in Berlin ask me to write a garbage collector. In CSC 202, our professor talked about using reference counts. Jeez. I think my profs covered ref counting as an introduction, then also went on to cover mark/sweep and generational collectors. We also covered compaction, copying and bump allocation. I don't think it took that long. If I were running a shop that focused on, say Java, I would…

You're trying really hard to find a connection between implementing a GC and debugging memory leaks... and failing. The whole freaking point of a GC like say Java's is that an average programmer can use it without having to understand how exactly it's implemented. Of course it won't hurt to know that, but it's not at all mandatory knowledge. One just has to know which situations the GC can't cope with and avoid them.…

One just has to know which situations the GC can't cope with and avoid them.

Unfortunately, many programmers believe that since Java uses garbage collection, you do not have to think about GC and ownership at all.

Oracle had to replace the fast implementation of substring that just returns a slice of a String (O(1) time) by a copying implementation (O(n)), because too many programmers do not know the basics of ownership/garbage collection and would accidentally hold on to larger strings.

Seeing the implementation details of reference counting, mark-sweep collection, and perhaps a generational collector once, makes you more aware of memory and ownership issues, even if you forget the nitty gritty details later.

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#285

Post by School-Cotton »

repsilat wrote: post #178
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is so terrible, though. I could never go back.

Twoish years ago I moved from Linux full time to Windows at home and whatever the Apple OS is called at work. The Apple one was a pain. Command line tools are almost but not quite right (zcat in particular just doesn't work) and I found the user experience pretty annoying at first but passable after that. Still don't really understand how "installing software" is supposed to go, and lots of struggle against Homebrew…

> zcat in particular just doesn't work

?

I used `zcat` on macOS just today. What issue do you have with it?

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#286

Post by mulmen »

gaius wrote: post #248
stcredzero wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the issue is, and continues to be, growing pains. They're certainly losing the lead in software engineer talent (giving it away to whom, I'm not sure). I keep on interviewing recent Comp Sci graduates who have a 3.75 or a 4.0 and who can't tell me how to implement cycle detection -- to the extent that they could write a pseudocode function signature or some kind of concretely implementable design. Many of the…

who can't tell me how to implement cycle detection You should read this before asking that again http://www.nihlos.com/2009/05/04/stupid-interview-questions/ When my Macbook Pro is "locked" it flashes an image of the desktop screen just before switching to the login prompt. Same with my Mac Mini on the lock screen. Very easy to start a camera going (say an iPhone) waggle the mouse and get a screenshot of any locked M…

I think this is because the Mac doesn’t lock at all by default. The actual behavior seems to be “prompt for password after screen saver is interrupted” so that flash is the time it takes the OS to realize the screensaver just turned off and it’s time to ask for the password on the lock screen.

When I leave my Mac I always do a ctrl-shift-eject/power to force the lock immediately.

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#287

Post by strls »

yonkshi wrote: post #264
dleslie wrote: post #252

I like machines that are built to take a beating. My penultimate laptop was an HP Mini 101; I only replaced it on a whim, and still use it from time to time. The keys have been worn to be smooth, concave and most are missing the printed text. When I last opened it up to add an SSD a suprising amount of sand came pouring out; having been taken to many beaches, tossed in bags, and generally used outdoors it had accumul…

How’s the Linux battery management for laptops? This and driver compatibility are usually my biggest concern. I remember 2/3 windows laptops I used were having trouble sleeping/waking up when lids were shut

I think it depends on the model. I run arch on a Thinkpad and the battery life is about what I expect given the battery size. CPU voltage and fan is modulated properly. No lid or sleep issues whatsoever.

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#288

Post by arvinsim »

eric-hu wrote: post #134
manigandham wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't notice if it was 5lbs either, the human body is much more capable than that unless we're talking about small children. People routinely carry much bigger and heavier things. Perhaps if it was still a netbook/macbook air product then it would make sense, but we also have iphones and ipads now which actually seem to be getting bigger so there's no reason why the most mobile powerful computing device must b…

I own a 2012 MacBook pro 15' and work gave me a 2016. The difference is about 1.5 pounds, going from 5.6 pounds to 4 pounds. The difference is big enough that I've slowly started using my work laptop for most of my personal needs too, even though I initially wanted to keep my work laptop clean of unnecessary personal data.

But then again, would you have noticed the heaviness of the 2012 if you weren't given the 2016?

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#289

Post by terminalcommand »

repsilat wrote: post #178
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is so terrible, though. I could never go back.

Twoish years ago I moved from Linux full time to Windows at home and whatever the Apple OS is called at work. The Apple one was a pain. Command line tools are almost but not quite right (zcat in particular just doesn't work) and I found the user experience pretty annoying at first but passable after that. Still don't really understand how "installing software" is supposed to go, and lots of struggle against Homebrew…

Linux doesn't cut it for me after I've tried a BSD. It isn't as bad as Windows, but BSDs have a certain kind of elegance. And because the things you can do on them are limited (browsing and coding) and there aren't as many packages you are much more focused.

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#290

Post by strls »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #211
acomjean wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they'll gradually improve the keyboard. It won't be great but it will be good enough. like the "don't hold it that way" antenna gate problem and the phone bending problems.. They'll fix.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4#Antenna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_6#Chassis_bending Honestly, its hard to get off the mac ecosystem though. I have a macbook pro, and am starting to look at linux laptops. Th…

As someone who'd been in the Mac ecosystem and paid the price in time and expense of leaving for a PC a few years back, I'm starting to lean back toward the Mac side. The amount of fiddling and headaches I'm dealing with on Windows is just a huge waste of time. Had to reinstall all my programs after a recent Windows update ruined the OS.

Windows is truly a pain like never before. Going Linux can be very easy these days, depending what you do on the machine.
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