My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4 • Hacker News Board

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#411

Post by shuckles » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 7:29 PM UTC

iAMkenough wrote: post #39

shuckles wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s classic Apple commenter not know about Apple. They offered matte display upgrades to the MacBook Pro almost 20 years ago. The current glossy black display only became a product line wide choice with the retina displays in 2012, likely because they didn’t prioritize getting an appropriate matte glass finish on the retina screens due to low demand.

I can make the same argument about you. Matte display was the standard prior to Unibody MacBook Pros in 2008. Glossy was an available option, but not the product line wide choice. The top of the line Late 2008 MacBook Pro (not Unibody) included: > An antiglare CCFL-backlit 17" widescreen 1680x1050 active-matrix display (a glossy display was offered via build-to-order at no extra cost, and a higher resolution LED-back…

I wasn’t making claims that Apple was marketing one as better or implying some contradiction between glossy and matte upgrades, so this information isn’t relevant to my point. Matte has been sold as an upgrade in the lineup for a long time which is contradictory to the point I was replying to.

Your citation is doubly irrelevant because the primary benefit of the glossy upgrade in the year or so it was an upgrade (glossy has been standard for 18 years) was a wider color gamut and higher resolution, not the glossiness of the screen itself.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#412

Post by shuckles » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 7:34 PM UTC

marcosscriven wrote: post #31

shuckles wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s classic Apple commenter not know about Apple. They offered matte display upgrades to the MacBook Pro almost 20 years ago. The current glossy black display only became a product line wide choice with the retina displays in 2012, likely because they didn’t prioritize getting an appropriate matte glass finish on the retina screens due to low demand.

Are you an Apple commenter?

No since I’m not making claims about the company and its marketing directly.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#413

Post by bigyabai » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 9:33 PM UTC

GeekyBear wrote: post #129

rottencupcakes wrote: post #16

It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option, and then to eventually roll out a matte screen as a "premium" feature with a bunch of marketing around it.

It's certainly on brand for Apple to face widespread criticism in the past for having matte screens as the default (computer magazines of the day found that matte finishes made screens too dim) only to face renewed criticism for dropping the thing they were previously criticized for.

Brightness is a solved issue.

It's more on-brand for an Apple apologist to grope around the annals of history looking for some circuitous justification that makes other people look silly when no such example exists.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#414

Post by RossBencina » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 6:05 AM UTC

kcplate wrote: post #390

RossBencina wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reckon it makes some sense for Apple users . You have to be willing (and financially able) to upgrade when Apple says. Apple forcefully obsoletes their products way too quickly to be a viable option if you care about longevity[0]. I have five excellent-condition still-perfectly-working Apple products next to me, none of which have current operating system support from Apple. [0] EDIT: for reference, my previous Thi…

Describe “forcefully obsoletes”? I ran a 2008 MBP until 2019. Then…gave it to my wife who used it until 2022. Finally retired it after the battery swelled. I suspect I could have replaced the battery and she could have got another couple of years out of it if I really needed. Not once did that device ever feel obsolete.

I think we have different definitions of obsolescence. Mine is basically "the ability to continue to use the device for the original purpose that I purchased it for." In my case, developing Mac OS software (that's the only reason I own Macs, I do all of my day to day computing on Windows and Linux.) I completely agree with you that the hardware is in no sense obsolete, the software is a different matter. For example my original Retina iPad started feeling obsolete as soon as Safari stopped rendering modern websites, even though the device hardware does not feel obsolete. Another example is that every Mac Mini that I have bought was useless to me as soon as I could not upgrade the OS and run the latest XCode on it.

In my view the forcefull obsolescence mechanism comprises the following strongly interacting practices:

1. Not supplying operating system updates for "older" hardware (actually not that old). Depending on your security posture this point alone may be sufficient.

2. Aggressively deprecating APIs and nudging developers to use the new APIs (i.e. nudging applications to not support the operating systems that run on the older OS that you have to run on the old hardware -- see point 1)

3. Ratcheting operating system upgrades with new hardware. There is no way to control the OS version that you use independent of hardware: replacing a machine always forces an OS upgrade.

4. Requiring the latest OS to run the latest development tools.

In combination, these practices create a treadmill that keeps everything "new" and anything older than 3 years not compatible. There's probably more to it than this but that's what I could write down quickly.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#415

Post by RossBencina » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 6:10 AM UTC

45764986 wrote: post #315

RossBencina wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reckon it makes some sense for Apple users . You have to be willing (and financially able) to upgrade when Apple says. Apple forcefully obsoletes their products way too quickly to be a viable option if you care about longevity[0]. I have five excellent-condition still-perfectly-working Apple products next to me, none of which have current operating system support from Apple. [0] EDIT: for reference, my previous Thi…

>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.

I use Macs to develop Mac OS software. I need a recent OS to run the latest XCode and I need to test on the latest OS that my customers are using.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#416

Post by asdff » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 12:35 AM UTC

deaddodo wrote: post #381

asdff wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been more or less the same as long as I've used it (20 years or so). Familiarity is a plus. It is a pretty simple and straightforward tool. I'm not sure what you might find perplexing about Finder.

Who said it was perplexing? If anything, it's the opposite. It's so simple and rudimentary as to be antithetical to filesystem navigation. Back/forward operate on history, not on hierarchy; at least have an "Up" button. There's no easy way to navigate the non-prescribed folders without adding every folder to the favorites list; hell, there's not even a "Home" link by default. Simple location navigation is hidden behi…

cmd+g is not hidden it is a menu bar item under "Go". You can navigate hierarchy with the path on the footer. I believe home link is in fact default, its been there on the sidebar as long as I can remember (only it is called your user folder not "Home").

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#417

Post by entropicdrifter » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:52 PM UTC

jhbadger wrote: post #326

asdff wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The type of person shelling out 3k for a computer is not running it until the wheels come off.

I don't think you can say that -- I paid about that for my 2021 M1 Max with 64GB and I'm still using it four years later as my main machine. There's an argument to be made to buy an expensive computer every 5 years or so rather than a cheaper one that you need to replace every 2 years because it's become unbearably slow.

That's so far from my personal idea of "running it till the wheels fall off" that your comment genuinely reads like a parody of an out of touch wealthy person trying to justify their wild spending habits.

I've been using the same PC that I built in 2013 continuously since then. Every four or five years or so I'll buy one part in the $500 range to keep it updated. It's currently got a Ryzen 7800X3D, 32GB DDR5, and a Radeon RX 6700XT, so it's easily outperforming a brand new $3000 Macbook Pro in most workloads that I actually care about.

My initial investment in it was $1200. My total investment over the last 12 years has been about $3000.

Buying disposable computers simply does not make any financial sense to me.