My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4 • Hacker News Board

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#391

Post by kcplate » Sun, Nov 02, 2025, 12:51 PM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #319

45764986 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have five excellent-condition still-perfectly-working Apple products next to me, none of which have current operating system support from Apple. If they're working perfectly, why does it matter if they have current operating support? It doesn't seem like you're dependent on Apple.

Software drops support for certain OS versions even if the device still can run it. The first iPad Pro can’t run adobe products for example. The Mac is a bit more resilient to this, but it’s still worrying as yearly improvements become subtler.

> The first iPad Pro can’t run adobe products for example.

That’s more on Adobe than Apple though right?

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#392

Post by tomhow » Sun, Nov 02, 2025, 1:47 PM UTC

lobochrome wrote: post #154

LeoPanthera wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, traditional matte screen finishes exhibited poor optical qualities by scattering ambient light, which tended to wash out colors. This scattering process also affected the light from individual pixels, causing it to refract into neighboring pixels. This reduced overall image quality and caused pixel-fine details, such as small text, to appear smeary on high-density LCDs. In contrast, well-designed glossy…

[flagged]

Please don't do this here. If a comment seems unfit for HN, please flag it and email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can have a look.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#393

Post by lotsofpulp » Sun, Nov 02, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

whatevaa wrote: post #349

bdangubic wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually can’t think of one hobby that costs less than $3k

Running. You only need good shoes, really. Words from coworker running marathons.

Also a safe public area to run in. Clean air, sidewalks, and a safe environment for women/people of certain skin tones are unfortunately unavailable to a very large portion of the world. Even in much of the US.

The neighborhoods with sidewalks cost a lot more, in my experience.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#394

Post by oscu0 » Sun, Nov 02, 2025, 2:31 PM UTC

jsomedon wrote: post #239

Is it possible to install previous macOS version on newest macbook model? I see people having terrible experience with macOS Tahoe yet I am considering purchasing a macbook..

On M5 MacBook Pro: no, simply because no builds with drivers for it exist

On all others, including the M4 MacBook Air and the M4 Pro/Max MacBook Pro currently for sale: yes. At most you'll have to make a bootable USB if it's already got Tahoe installed, you can even install in place (but some things might break, of course)

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#395

Post by 45764986 » Sun, Nov 02, 2025, 3:37 PM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #319

45764986 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have five excellent-condition still-perfectly-working Apple products next to me, none of which have current operating system support from Apple. If they're working perfectly, why does it matter if they have current operating support? It doesn't seem like you're dependent on Apple.

Software drops support for certain OS versions even if the device still can run it. The first iPad Pro can’t run adobe products for example. The Mac is a bit more resilient to this, but it’s still worrying as yearly improvements become subtler.

[dead]

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#396

Post by ksec » Sun, Nov 02, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

prmoustache wrote: post #370

hu3 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I currently have a 160hz and a 240hz monitor. And I can tell the difference between them when scrolling pages with tons of text. There's less ghosting in 240hz. And scrolling on 60hz to me looks blurry. I'd like to think that those who don't notice the difference have improved brain GPUs that can compensate for ghosting.

How can you know it is not bias? For what its worth you might have never noticed any difference if you didn't knew they weren't refreshing at the same frequency.

For those of us who can see it, they are very noticeable. And could be told in blind testing 100% of times. After all 240Hz is still 4.1ms per frame, Again I have to point to this Microsoft Research Video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOvQCPLkPt4

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#397

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 02, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #225

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That they've worked hard to be able to afford nice things? What do you think it says, exactly? This is a pretty irritating comment.

Worked hard, won a lottery, whatever. It mostly says that these are people with tens of thousands to burn on fun stuff, and such people are a rather narrow slice of the population. There's nothing bad about that, it's just a rather niche community, whose opinions may not be very relevant for the large majority of people outside that niche.

[deleted]

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#398

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 02, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #310

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That they've worked hard to be able to afford nice things? What do you think it says, exactly? This is a pretty irritating comment.

That was not a judgment, good or bad. Simply an observation.

[deleted]

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#399

Post by nine_k » Sun, Nov 02, 2025, 10:18 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #243

nine_k wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked hard, won a lottery, whatever. It mostly says that these are people with tens of thousands to burn on fun stuff, and such people are a rather narrow slice of the population. There's nothing bad about that, it's just a rather niche community, whose opinions may not be very relevant for the large majority of people outside that niche.

HN is that niche community though. HN is a forum targeting a niche community that skews technical no matter where someone is physically from, and that community skews relatively rich. Concern trolling that there are starving kids in Africa when there are literal billionaires posting here; I mean sure, I'm not saying we shouldn't say something for fear of their feelings. Nor am I saying that everyone here must be rich…

HN is a specific slice, but not along the financial line. For each @pmarca or @pg or other founder who has made many millions, there is likely 10k other users, mostly engineers, but not only, all the way to people who are currently unemployed and homeless. The fact that HN has "everyone", and a uniquely relevant person would almost always show up in every thread, is one of the very attracting properties of HN for me.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#400

Post by brailsafe » Sun, Nov 02, 2025, 11:21 PM UTC

kcplate wrote: post #391

torben-friis wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software drops support for certain OS versions even if the device still can run it. The first iPad Pro can’t run adobe products for example. The Mac is a bit more resilient to this, but it’s still worrying as yearly improvements become subtler.

> The first iPad Pro can’t run adobe products for example. That’s more on Adobe than Apple though right?

I'd argue it's a bit of both. In my case, I have an iPad 3, which runs iOS 9 compatible apps, but iOS itself doesn't backup the app files, so when various developers pulled their files off the app store for those old iOS versions, I lost access to the old software that did work, which really doesn't make want to buy another iOS device. Less of a problem on mac though.