Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac • Hacker News Board

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#421

Post by Lio » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:07 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #404

Lio wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the original poster but I'll have a go... 1. OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock so I can connect my existing monitor and wired network (not yet available): $279. 2. Replacement for my USB-A Superdrive: $39.99 3. Thunderbolt 3 hdmi media kit for presentations: $49 4. USB-C SD card reader: $29 5. USB-C to Lightning cable: $20 6. USB-C to USB-A dongle so I can connect my ANT+ dongle: $9 7. Power supply extension cable (you don'…

Just a note. If you get the TB 3 dock most of the other dongles are redundant unless you need the functionality on the go.

Yep that occurred to me too.

It becomes a case of do you disconnect and bring the TB 3 dock with you, buy a second 'traveling' dock or get just what you need for travel and hope for the best.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#422

Post by kalleboo » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:09 PM UTC

charlesism wrote: post #415

wildmusings wrote: post #400

Personally, luxury laptop lines don't make sense for me at this point. There was a time when it was the only way to get decent hardware, but those days are long gone. Four years ago I spilled water on my 2009 17" MBP (RIP) and Apple wanted $1200 for the repair. Instead, I spent ~$1300, including three-year accident-protection insurance where they show up at your house THE NEXT DAY, on a Thinkpad T530 and I couldn't b…

> I don't get the attraction of luxury laptop lines at this point. I'd love a luxury laptop: a machine I could upgrade and maintain with minimum hassle, a machine with a properly designed cooling system that would last years without breaking down. Apple doesn't make those anymore. It makes machines with parts glued together, and drives soldered to the board, whose GPUs overheat and die after a few months.

Venturing into car analogy territory, luxury cars are notorious for needing a lot of (expensive) maintenance and not having user-accessible repairs.

You want either a daily driver car or a ricer.

(I don't disagree - Apple used to manage to make computers that were a rare a meld of all kinds - the eminently upgradeable PowerMac G4 with the hinged door! - but not any longer)

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#423

Post by Jgrubb » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:11 PM UTC

scholia wrote: post #374

adamlett wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was not the pro users who made Apple rich. It was the consumers buying iPods, and later iPhones. Pro users are at the same time extremely demanding and extremely conservative. Apple has never done much to cater to that market, and the fact that they have so many pro users these days is a happy accident which has more to do with how awful these people used to be treated when they were Windows users, and not a lot t…

> Apple's mission has always been to make computing accessible to the masses (remember the slogan: "The computer for the rest of us"?), not to make it better for the elite few who already know how to use one. Except the masses buy Windows 10 laptops that cost $199 or whatever. The Mac has never been "accessible to the masses" because they won't pay Apple's prosumer prices...

I suppose it depends on which masses you're referring to, but when I look around at any public place in New Jersey where there are people on laptops, I always see a very healthy representation of Mac users. Of all ages.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#424

Post by nothis » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:11 PM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #400

Personally, luxury laptop lines don't make sense for me at this point. There was a time when it was the only way to get decent hardware, but those days are long gone. Four years ago I spilled water on my 2009 17" MBP (RIP) and Apple wanted $1200 for the repair. Instead, I spent ~$1300, including three-year accident-protection insurance where they show up at your house THE NEXT DAY, on a Thinkpad T530 and I couldn't b…

So isn't $1500 still within the "luxury" category? You can get a perfectly fine laptop for $500.

You mention 1080p. I believe the high-res displays (think 4k-ish/Retina) are still super expensive, even for non-Apple machines and they make a huge difference for me. For professionals working with print, it's an absolute bliss to "not see pixels" anymore and I generally love it for just reading super crisp text. Then there's the "little things" that even fewer high end laptops get right and Apple tends to nail (like the glass-surface trackpad).

I don't get the "open ended" pricing (>$2500), either. I don't get why versions of the same base model with $200 worth of better hardware cost $500 more, that's the Apple idiot-tax. But the existence of high-end laptops alone? Dude, I spend like half my day in front of that thing, for years. People don't raise an eye brow on you spending +/- 25% on a car yet I'd argue for many people, you get way more use out of a laptop. It's worth paying a little extra, IMO.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#425

Post by tannhaeuser » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:12 PM UTC

20andup wrote: post #207

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, switched to a Dell XPS13 after 15 years of macs (Still use an iMac at work). Dell quality has been very bad though, I'm not amused. Linux bash on Windows also helped me a lot to transition development work to Windows.

I just bought an xps 15 running arch linux to replace my mba 13. The build quality is poorer for sure. My main complains. Keyboard: - Cheap plastic that doesn't feel nice to type for long hours - Oh I miss the mac keyboard layout, the control and alt keys on are hard to adjust on windows and linux especially when copy and paste puts your fingers in awkward positions Touchpad: - Good, but still a ways to go compared t…

What's the problem with the XPS keyboards? I have an XPS 13 skylake (early 2016) and I absolutely love the keyboard. I'm saying this as a touch typist who actually used a Model M keyboard (best keyboard ever made, period; fingers just fly over it) back in the day. I found the XPS keyboards way better than that of Mac notebooks, especially the newer ones found in last year's 12" Macbook, and now in the Macbook Pros.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#426

Post by wildmusings » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:13 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #413

wildmusings wrote: post #400

Personally, luxury laptop lines don't make sense for me at this point. There was a time when it was the only way to get decent hardware, but those days are long gone. Four years ago I spilled water on my 2009 17" MBP (RIP) and Apple wanted $1200 for the repair. Instead, I spent ~$1300, including three-year accident-protection insurance where they show up at your house THE NEXT DAY, on a Thinkpad T530 and I couldn't b…

> Yeah, it's not thin and weighs 1.5 pounds more than a 15" MBP. It also doesn't run OS X, and lots of other stuff. If you try to understand it as "value for money", then there are far better computers for number crunching that are way cheaper than a Mac. Instead with Mac you get lots of marginal returns, that, if you have the money can appreciate, and they are all focused on things other than raw performance per dol…

>Even not having to bother with 200 customization options is a feature for some.

I agree with that. Buying a PC is still a terrible experience. Lenovo alone has more than 20 different lines of laptops.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#427

Post by pronik » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

mej10 wrote: post #408

wildmusings wrote: post #400

Personally, luxury laptop lines don't make sense for me at this point. There was a time when it was the only way to get decent hardware, but those days are long gone. Four years ago I spilled water on my 2009 17" MBP (RIP) and Apple wanted $1200 for the repair. Instead, I spent ~$1300, including three-year accident-protection insurance where they show up at your house THE NEXT DAY, on a Thinkpad T530 and I couldn't b…

Some people literally get joy out of using things that are well designed and don't feel cheap. When it is a device you are going to use constantly for work and other things then it becomes very easy to justify buying a "luxury" laptop. I used the same iMac for 5 years (only added an SSD) and have used the same MBP for 4 years and it still has a lot of life left.

ThinkPads are well-designed and do not feel cheap. There are just two things they are not: extra-thin and shiny.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#428

Post by bluedino » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:15 PM UTC

dom0 wrote: post #236

wineisfine wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had the same thing. Turns out, I'm more of a design snob then I thought I was. Trying to move away from macOS and trying out Windows and a few Linux distro's, my god it's all ugly. I don't care much about Apple hardware specifically, but they got my hooked because of the OS. Pretty lame.

Give an up-to-date KDE a shot.

KDE was trash when Ubuntu first started and chose GNOME but I'm sure they are kicking themselves now.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#429

Post by charlesism » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:15 PM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #422

charlesism wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't get the attraction of luxury laptop lines at this point. I'd love a luxury laptop: a machine I could upgrade and maintain with minimum hassle, a machine with a properly designed cooling system that would last years without breaking down. Apple doesn't make those anymore. It makes machines with parts glued together, and drives soldered to the board, whose GPUs overheat and die after a few months.

Venturing into car analogy territory, luxury cars are notorious for needing a lot of (expensive) maintenance and not having user-accessible repairs. You want either a daily driver car or a ricer. (I don't disagree - Apple used to manage to make computers that were a rare a meld of all kinds - the eminently upgradeable PowerMac G4 with the hinged door! - but not any longer)

My metaphor is leaking! My point is that I would be quite happy to buy a $3000 machine if it were stelar quality, and I could rely on it for the next five years. Some people will always pay top dollar for pro gear. If you use and rely on a piece of equipment enough, it's worth it.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#430

Post by bluedino » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:18 PM UTC

lobster_johnson wrote: post #141

enjo wrote: post #17

The latest rev pushed me to a PC for the first time in like 15 years. It's partly because I didn't love the new Macbook Pro, but also cause hey..change is fun sometimes. I'm very happy with my new Surface Book. I never thought I'd like the touchscreen as much as I do. I LOVE being able to go to tablet mode for calls and stuff where I sort of want to just wander around. The pen has completely changed how I do flow-cha…

I'm also considering a switch, but Windows drives me up the wall whenever I touch it. macOS has been getting uglier and more awkward to use the last few years, but Windows is still the king of ugly. So I've been considering Linux as my first option. I fired up a few VMs and dipped my toes in various Linux desktop environments: Elementary, Fedora 25, and Ubuntu (Unity) so far. These are all GNOME 3 variants. And... oh…

>> but Windows is still the king of ugly.

>> So I've been considering Linux as my first option.

Linux re-defines ugly. It works great but it's very kludgy. Like many others I can setup my workflow on any of the three machines and have tried it out on many different machines from Dell to IBM to Apple. Sublime, terminals, Chrome/FireFox, DropBox, it works well enough on anything but I made my current choice on 'niceness', battery life, screen, and form-factor, even if it cost me a couple hundred dollars more. On a machine I use for 3 years it's 30-40 cents a day.