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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

#301

Having interfaced with Apple in a different way (apart from owning a new MBP and an iPhone X) 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). But the single most horrible experience I've had with Apple in the last year was trying to get software published on the App Store. That's a department that's so larg…

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…

They couldn't even come up with the answer of keeping a hashtable of the pointers to check for duplicates?

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

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

It has been the opposite for me since about Windows 7.

Work MacBook - have to restart it to get USB ports to work, screen flickers when you plug in an external monitor like X windows on an Unix terminal from '99 with a bad conf file... Comeon.

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

#304

> 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.

For me OSX is a nightmare for usability. Just the window management alone can drive you insane.

I am not a person who has one just application open at a time.

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

#305
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…

Only thing I'm considering is a thinkpad x1 carbon. But the last time I tried putting linux on a laptop I had a few issues submitted to the linux kernel and still didn't have the laptop working perfectly (Asus zenbook) within a week I returned it and bought a MacBook pro. Might be time for another go.

Ubuntu has worked perfectly on my last two thinkpads, an X220 and X1 Carbon (4th gen). That's almost 7 years now. I think only the only real caveat is that the fingerprint reader isn't supported. I can't speak for other laptop brands, but just get a thinkpad (or a dell xps).

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

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW AppleCare for this price of machine has been the same duration and roughly the same price since forever, even before MBPs. What they have quietly changed is now you can only buy it in the first 60 days instead of the first year which was a big surprise to me buying a new MBP. It had been the first year for a very, very long time — since inception IIRC. Of course I learned of this change after I'd already had my…

The link from SyneRyder’s comment indicates that you can still buy AppleCare anytime in the first year. The only thing subject to the 60-day limit is AppleCare+ (which includes accidental damage).

Good catch. Pasting here for others:

> As for the Mac, customers who have had their Macs for longer than 60 days but less than a year are not eligible for AppleCare+ but are still able to purchase a standard AppleCare Protection Plan, MacRumors has learned. Apple is only offering AppleCare+ for Mac on its website, so customers will need to call in to Apple Support to make the standard AppleCare purchase. Standard Mac AppleCare is priced at $149 to $349, depending on the machine.

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

#307
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hopefully Systemd won’t mount your firmware on a rw partition and brick the laptop in an unfortunate update?

(Sarcasm aside... I’d flip in a heartbeat but despite macOS’s lapses, every single time I had to deal with a Linux desktop I regretted it.)

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

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has anumeric keypad so the touchpad is in the correct place.

It's the number pad that's in the wrong place. It should not be on the laptop. I've got a HP with a number pad because no 15" model doesn't have one. I never use it (the number pad) but I have to shift the whole machine to the right to have the touchpad and the "real" keyboard in front of me. So most of the vern is on the right of my eyes. Great design!

Different users different requirements.

I bought Lenovo Thinkpad P50 instead of Dell XPS because the Thinkpad has a full keyboard.

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

#309
post #189

I wish apple would just make a line of laptops aimed at professionals. They could give us back a real keyboard, give us back USB ports, give us back swappable batteries, and give us back SD card readers (although this could be microsd at this point). They could even call it "macbook professional" or something like that. /s There is just absolutely no reason for these changes. The lack of USB ports on this laptop is s…

A MicroSD reader would be fairly useless. Outside of phones, MicroSD isn't really used, and nobody uses MicroSD for transferring files. SD cards are still the standard format for cameras, which are the main use case for SD card slots.

Every SD card I’ve bought in the last few years has just been a microSD card with full size adapter.

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

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The issue with Apple's unix environment is that it comes with BSD tools. A lot of functionality that you'd expect to work doesn't end up working, which can be frustrating. You have to go through some pretty annoying steps [1], which are more involved than the steps required to get a Linux environment on Windows [2].

1: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/69223/how-to-repla... 2: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10

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