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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

#411

Post by seanwilson »

tracer4201 wrote: post #342

I honestly don't understand all these quality sacrifices just to make things thinner. It makes the product actually feel somewhat cheap and brittle. The same thing confuses me with smartphones. Everyone keeps making these bacteria and finger print magnets thinner... the minute you drop it, it's shattered or unuseable... and so then you're buying a case to protect it from scratches and shatter... so what's the point o…

> I honestly don't understand all these quality sacrifices just to make things thinner. It makes the product actually feel somewhat cheap and brittle.

I never understood this. I read often in reviews about how the weight of something makes it feel more expensive and "premium". For something you're carrying around all the time, you want it to be light and manufacturing something light is usually going to be more expensive.

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

#412

Post by annabellish »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #371
sneak wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If sales increase when it is thinner, it stands to reason that customers want thinner devices. Just because you disagree with them doesn’t mean you’re not wrong for saying there is zero disadvantage. The disadvantage is not giving customers what they want.

We can’t know that. There would have to be two otherwise identical devices, one thick; more robust; larger battery.

Of course we can know that. Basically all manufacturers save apple have a very long tail of non-flagship phones which nobody really pays much attention to, but which absolutely can answer questions like that. They have dozens of models, mostly basically identical save for minor changes.

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

#413

Post by vivan »

I was one of those annoying Apple evangelists for years. My 2010 MacBook Pro was my baby and I loved it. Eventually it got to the point where I had to replace it (after 7 years!) and when I went to look around at the new MacBook Pro range, I was so disgusted by all the problems that I ended up getting a Dell XPS 13.

I consider my original MBP and the following models to be some of the best laptops you could buy at the time. If I could buy a 2015 MBP with a modern processor I would do it in a heartbeat.

Meanwhile I wouldn't recommend the current range of Apple laptops to anyone.

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

#414

Post by jacquesm »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #357
Symbiote wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Running Linux, of course. I wish more people would. That's the best way to get any issues fixed, whether by filing bug reports, writing up a workaround on a wiki or Stackoverflow to help others, or fixing the bug. It's important for us to own our own tools, and keep the right to do with them as we wish. We expect this for our servers, but ignore it for laptops and desktops. If developers continue like this, then us…

And why do you think that a lot of people who are painfully aware of all the issues you mention still refuse to use Linux on a laptop while happily using it on servers? There is a riduculous repetitiveness about this debate. For me and many others, Linux on a laptop has always been unstable, insecure, hot and noisy. Many specific issues can be fixed if you put in the effort, but on almost every dist-upgrade something…

I'm running linux on all my machines, including a Macbook Air and it works very well. Unstable, insecure, hot and noisy would not be words I would use to describe my setup.

The only noisy machine here is parked in another room and given its size and processing power it is noisy but that goes with the territory. Apple doesn't make anything that is even remotely equivalent.

Which means I can run the same software on all my machines which is another benefit.

And yes, I've been doing this for decades.

As for 'dist-upgrade', I don't normally do that, I go for long term stable releases and upgrade when the hardware gets replaced, which is once every few years.

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

#415

Post by keymone »

isostatic wrote: post #398
keymone wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> haven't had a hardware problem in linux since 2005 have you heard of GUI?

I've run xubuntu on this thinkpad since 2010, currently 16.04. I've just rdesktopped into a windows machine to run a cisco ASA tool. Just had to reboot it. YMMV of course, and the plural of annecdote isn't data, but I find it hard to raise bugs when they don't affect me.

well i consider myself fairly technical and i've been trying various linuxes since 2003 - every single time there were some issues that i can't imagine non-technical person to deal with.

no matter the distro, no matter the desktop environment, no matter the hardware.

graphics drivers, sound system, xorg config, multiple monitors, wifi, you name it.

so excuse me if i take your comment about "no hardware problem since 2005" with a grain of salt.

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

#416

Post by hrktb »

tracer4201 wrote: post #342

I honestly don't understand all these quality sacrifices just to make things thinner. It makes the product actually feel somewhat cheap and brittle. The same thing confuses me with smartphones. Everyone keeps making these bacteria and finger print magnets thinner... the minute you drop it, it's shattered or unuseable... and so then you're buying a case to protect it from scratches and shatter... so what's the point o…

> The same thing confuses me with smartphones.

I like how John Siracusa explains the concept of "naked robotic core"

To paraphrase, the phone is the computing unit, and the user customizes it to fit it's usage.

People that never dropped a phone in their life can use it as is. People who work in construction can put hardcore shells that survive multiple floor drops. Those who like furry cases can go wild and those who want to build accessories around the phone have a smaller target to do so.

Seeing it this way, having the phone thin enough than you can put the case you want without the whole package being bulky is a feature.

To touch on the laptops, a few grams shoved off won't matter and don't justify a huge sacrifice. But the size and weight drop we had from the 15" Lombard laptops to today's 15" don't all happen in dramatically, and keeping a goal of having the next machine thinner than the previous one can help achieve huge progress in the long term.

I am not a fan of the current keyboards, but I can't throw them the stone for trying to make things thinner and lighter. I was super happy to see the lighter 2013~2015 models, and I don't want them to just settle and say "we're good enough for the next 20 years, we don't care anymore".

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

#417

Post by VexorLoophole »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #394
VexorLoophole wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working with Unix-Servers every day i still would struggle with a Linux Machine. Tried it in the past and getting things to work wasn't a problem at all. But 1) i have to admit that i like all this full aluminum fuckery (shame on me) 2) MacOS is for me more "batteries included" then any Unix-Flavor. Yes there a often alternatives on Linux, still i really like to get my shit done quick and easy with tools like preview…

The XPS line has a similar build than the MBP. In regards to tools, you can usually find a distro that is "batteries included", try KDE as your DE - There's great tools like Okular, Dolphin... Insomnia is a pretty looking Paw alternative etc, however I think the advantage with Linux is that you can often build it how you want, without the junk that is there and you don't even know what it does, but it consumes CPU cy…

Yes, i know.

I really don't want to say "MacOS > Unix" because of any reasons i mentioned. I also had ArchLinux as main OS on my Desktop, and also tried a new KDE Flavor.

But for me personally it was never as good as MacOS. Maybe i wasn't trying hard enough, or don't want to loose any spent $ on MacOS only software. Dunno. Anyway i just hope for myself that i can get a great MacBook again ;)

(What i missed the most on MacOS was always a fast and keyboard focused window manager like 2bwm. In the end i was able to recreate this behavior with hammerspoon and some custom lua scripts in combination with alfred. MacOS just looks sometimes a bit bloated with all these rounded egdes, drop shadows etc.)

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

#418

Post by jarym »

Stupid Apple - I blame Schiller.

They won’t support 32Gb ram because it might decrease battery life and requires them to reengineer the logic board but they’re totally cool with a fragile ass keyboard GLUED to a battery! Really there’s no way to call this anything other than insanity.

I remember the media used to talk about the ‘halo effect’ - well I’m someone who has Almost every MBP between 2002-2012 and every iPhone until the 7 plus.... right now I doubt they’ll make a real pro laptop and so I’m likely gonna switch to a Dell XPS. /end frustration

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

#420

Post by xg15 »

sneak wrote: post #363
neuronic wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how this can fly over peoples heads, but the point is marketing. There is virtually zero disadvantage in making the phones 2mm thicker and add to their robustness and battery life this way. Virtually zero... except _marketing_ and hence sales.

If sales increase when it is thinner, it stands to reason that customers want thinner devices. Just because you disagree with them doesn’t mean you’re not wrong for saying there is zero disadvantage. The disadvantage is not giving customers what they want.

This is the usual excuse to justify questionable design decisions. It ignores which information customers use to make their decisions and how we have whole business sectors that do nothing else than control and shape this information. (PR, marketing and advertising)

By the same logic, if a crappy movie (by reviews) nevertheless earns a good profit on the first weekends due to an intense marketing campaign and flashy, misleading trailers, that would magically make it a good movie, because obviously "customers wanted that".

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