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Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

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Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#291

Post by ibeckermayer »

hahuang65 wrote: post #273

Respectfully I disagree. In fact MacBooks are slowly become the LEAST viable option, at least for me personally. It's all about personal requirements and I suppose, taste. Don't get me wrong, the MacBook is a fantastic laptop, especially for the creative professional and laypeople. For me, as a Linux user and enthusiast, MacBooks have slowly become less and less viable each year. I bought my first MacBook in 2007, in…

Genuine question -- what low level things can't you access on a MacBook? I've been using them for years and have never run into anything I needed that I outright couldn't access. It could well just be that I'm not digging into that level of detail though.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#292

Post by can16358p »

MBCook wrote: post #287
can16358p wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With ARM adoption it might again be an option. I'm using Windows ARM in Parallels on M1 Mac and use Visual Studio perfectly. Microsoft says "it might not work" yet it works flawlessly. YMMV though.

But isn’t a huge part of Windows the ecosystem of applications? That largely doesn’t exist on ARM though correct? Or does Windows have an emulation solution built in for that.

Yes, emulation.

Visual Studio 2022 is x64 and is running under emulation in an ARM environment (M1 Max) and is working perfectly.

While it's not native performance, it's close and the gap will even get narrower by time.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#293

Post by can16358p »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #178
can16358p wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, because you'd be potentially looking at it and using it for hours almost every day for years as a professional? For me something I spend my time that much should look nice. That combined with the parts inside is perfection, which is the M1 MBP for me.

How much are you actually looking at a laptop's aesthetics versus looking at the information displayed on a screen though? Does it really matter to you to have something pretty sitting on your desk while you work? That seems really weird to me. Personally I couldn't care less. Especially in the context of a professional work laptop which is a machine that goes onto the corner of my desk and I plug a bunch of other th…

Of course I care if I have something pretty on my desk. I care about aesthetics of everything around me that I interact with/see/experience on my daily life, especially if it's something literally designed for me to look at for hours every day, like a computer.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#294

Post by blackoil »

johnklos wrote: post #71
bostonsre wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels a lot more like a dual os system than just running a vm inside of windows. The integration between the two is pretty seamless and powerful. e.g. this is in my wsl .bashrc file, it writes to my windows clipboard by running the powershell.exe windows executeable: function cb () { powershell.exe -command "\$input | set-clipboard" } Mac is unix sure, but they have diverged from the popular main stream linux dist…

I think you have that backwards: it's Linux that has diverged from the Unix way of doing things. All the various gotchas and different ways are Linux-isms. After all, which came first, and which came later, then changed? macOS is more consistent with the BSDs than Linux is with older Linux or one distro is with another.

This is useful info for trivia quiz but if no practical value. As the server is now all Linux, that is the right way.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#295

Post by cookiengineer »

Everybody blames Linux DEs for looking inconsistent, but every time I have to use Windows 10, I see an OS with more than 5 different UI styles. There's no consistency among the OS anymore eversince Windows 7.

Pardon me, but I think Microsoft should get their shit together if they want to stop losing users and devs to MacOS.

Having a new UI style on the Desktop and every single click on it leads to a completely unpredictable UI doesn't have anything to do with "center".

When people ask me what to get I always answer "just get a macbook" because even when I would love to give them a shiny Linux laptop, the amount of maintenance work on there is insanely high. Macbooks compared to my Linux systems are basically maintenance free once they are setup.

Of course that depends on whether you want to develop software on it...but let's not kid ourselves here: most users are not developers. And most users don't want to use i3wm or the Terminal.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#296

Post by blackoil »

uoaei wrote: post #123
stonogo wrote: post #9

XPS is prosumer grade at best. You need a Precision or Latitude product (preferably a Latitude 7xxx) to get a quality product.

My Latitude 7370 is hard-capped at 8GB RAM. Because they soldered it directly to the motherboard. Real "what the fuck" moment, and I am reminded every time of this constraint because opening a Slack call freezes my computer for about a minute if I commit the heinous crime of leaving my IDE open.

If you are planning to buy macbook, I have a bad news for you. Some laptops have both soldered RAM plus a slot, so 8 is soldered and you can get additional 8 or 16.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#298

Post by lostmsu »

cookiengineer wrote: post #295

Everybody blames Linux DEs for looking inconsistent, but every time I have to use Windows 10, I see an OS with more than 5 different UI styles. There's no consistency among the OS anymore eversince Windows 7. Pardon me, but I think Microsoft should get their shit together if they want to stop losing users and devs to MacOS. Having a new UI style on the Desktop and every single click on it leads to a completely unpred…

Huh? Who ever blamed Linux DEs for looking inconsistent, except the dedicated Linux users?

Consistency is not that big of a deal. It is usually poor hardware support, installation/update issues, and lack of software where Linux falls flat on its face.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#299

Post by lawkwok »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #88
uniqueuid wrote: post #24

I may be an outlier, but for me, the problem with non-mac machines is that they seem just careless. Steve jobs famously said "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste.", and this seems true to me for almost all hardware manufacturers, and to a larger degree still for software. Why does nobody care about creaking plastic? About sticky-feeling texture? About uneven weight distribution? About the sound…

> Why does nobody care about creaking plastic? About sticky-feeling texture? About uneven weight distribution? About the sound that materials make when handling them? Because the value of a laptop is the parts inside, not the presentation. Why would I care about those things? Or at least why would I care about them enough to make me spend more than I have to?

This is like asking why should you care about a creaky chair? It works as a chair regardless and you don’t even see it when you are sitting on it. Who cares about sticky castors when you are at your desk for hours at a time?

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#300

Post by sdflhasjd »

ppetty wrote: post #225
sdflhasjd wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vent? I recently had an issue where my Internet connection went down, I was left with my phone and a tiny data cap. The work I was doing required an Internet connection, but when I tethered my mac, it kept trying to download gigabytes of updates. It ended in a stalemate with seeming no way to pause, cancel or cap the download. Both windows and Linux will set you set download cap, flag connections as metered, pause do…

You can cancel a download, but if you've enabled automatic updates macOS might not be aware that you have data limits. And that's terrible. Maybe file a bug or support ticket with Apple. But the rest of your post is puzzling. The original post was about buying a MacBook & how awful that might be. You're describing developing Apple apps for Apple's platform (and 2FA for a dev account). How would you do those things wi…

Okay, that little rant about iOS may have been a little off target, but the picture I was trying to paint about the "Apple way" is that is desires absolute commitment to their ecosystem, anything less and you find yourself with shoddy compromise.
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