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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

#441

Post by exergy »

hrktb wrote: post #416
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…

First of all, I disagree that people _want_ to put furry cases on their phones. Too many people have walked around for too long with giant cracks on their screens that they've realised it's better to slap on a case, even with the ugliness that goes with it. Having some minion drawing on the back of the case is just a minor positive.

More importantly though, I cannot stand how glib Apple is with their devices. Surely the engineers and managers in charge _must_ realise the responsibility on their shoulders. Are they OK with many more people contracting carpal tunnel or RSI because of the choices they made? What about the environmental costs of needing to replace perfectly functioning components like speakers just to replace a keyboard? Just for the sake of A E S T H E T I C S?

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

#442

Post by bertolo1988 »

caycep wrote: post #157
dingo_bat wrote: post #121

> 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…

My work Dell does not hold a candle to my MBP in build quality or reliability. Good thing we bought the Dell service whateveritis that lets us send back broken ones to be replaced

Bought the XPS 15, unpacked it, touched it and sent it back on the same day.

I am not paying 2k for a laptop that wobbles.

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

#443

Post by nstart »

thirdsun wrote: post #230
dingo_bat wrote: post #121

> 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…

I'd have absolutely no problem using PC hardware. I'd love to be able to pick my components and build a better desktop for half of the price - in fact I already have such a machine for gaming purposes. However unless I can put macOS on it that hardware is useless to me. As a web developer I want a unix environment and I'm not sure if Windows' subsystem for Linux is going to cut it. However I also use a lot of audio s…

I can confirm that window's wsl and bash systems are moving along very quickly. I moved to windows about a month back and have only one use case for which I need to boot ubuntu up: docker with symlinked folders.

Apart from the above use case, I've missed nothing. There's some hacking I'm attempting to do to get vscode to use the underlying bash mechanism for its code linting tools but that's more a preparation for the inevitable moment when some linting tool or package depends purely on a Linux/Unix environment.

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

#444

Post by girvo »

jarym wrote: post #418

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 iPho…

I thought the RAM thing would decrease battery life, because it requires a different intel chipset — as shown by the contemporary laptops from other manufacturers with the same CPUs and chipset topping out at 16GB as well?

I could be misremembering, and it frustrates me either way, but I was certain that Intel also held some blame for this?

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

#445

Post by adulakis »

vivan wrote: post #413

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 th…

Me too, would immidiately buy 2015 mbp if i could get it with the ssd, memory and cpu of my 2017 mbp!

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

#446

Post by kanishkdudeja »

jarym wrote: post #418

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 iPho…

The Dell XPS 13 has been a solid work machine for me.

Portable, powerful, comes with USB Type A and C ports, Thunderbolt 3 and comes with one of the best keyboards in laptops.

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

#447

Post by reitanqild »

stef25 wrote: post #422
AsyncAwait wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For me and many others, Linux on a laptop has always been unstable, insecure, hot and noisy. I've successfully converted many people with similar claims over to Linux and here's what I've found; most of them were trying Linux on a subpar, non-standard laptop, (Like an old MacBook or a slow Celeron), to lower their investment if they don't like it, which is fine, but then comparing the experience to their high end M…

FWIW, my Macbook (not my primary machine) cost me 400€ second hand and I spent another 100€ upgrading to 8GB Ram and an SSD drive. It's a ten year old machine which runs like a dream. I challenge anyone to find a better computing solution for 500€. You could install Linux on a 500€ laptop but you wouldn't have the keyboard or screen quality of the Macbook, nor would have access to the Apple ecosystem. A lot of progra…

> You could install Linux on a 500€ laptop but you wouldn't have the keyboard or screen quality of the Macbook, nor would have access to the Apple ecosystem.

I used a 2009 MacBook pro for close to 3 years.

The following are my opinions, they are not valid for everyone but for some of us they are very valid:

Keyboard had ctrl in a different spot than every other keyboard I ever spent significant time with. (Disclaimer: some other laptops come configured this way but I remap it in bios if it is my machine.)

Keyboard lacked home, end, page up and page down keys. Instead it had extra arrow keys that non of the two resident apple fans in my office could tell me the idea behind.

Basic things like selecting a word using the keyboard would take one of three key combos depending on which app. I think sometimes it was ctrl-shift-arrow, sometimes alt-shift-arrow and sometimes fn-shift-arrow. Resident mac fan explained it was because of an ongoing transition between quartz and cocoa or something.

The application menus would appear on one screen only, often far away from the application it belonged to.

So, while I wish more people would use Macs (because 1. Lots of people like it. 2. it forces application developers to think cross platform which benefits me as a Linux user, and 3. It also increases competition) I also wish people would understand that Macs are not the best choice for everyone.

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

#448

Post by manigandham »

badpun wrote: post #399
manigandham wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You drop more weight just going to the bathroom in the morning. I find it extremely hard to believe that a few pounds makes a difference to any physically capable adult.

It does. If the laptop is light enough, you can handle it (grab it, put it back on the table etc.) comfortably with one hand even while laying away from it etc. It becomes almost as comfortable to quickly grab as a tablet or a phone.

Laptops are not designed to be handled with one hand. It's a nice benefit but it definitely should not be the target, especially at the cost of better usability, which is the entire issue here.

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

#449

Post by robinduckett »

kanishkdudeja wrote: post #446
jarym wrote: post #418

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 iPho…

The Dell XPS 13 has been a solid work machine for me. Portable, powerful, comes with USB Type A and C ports, Thunderbolt 3 and comes with one of the best keyboards in laptops.

The XPS 15 is a bit better, I got one from last year for about the same price as my 13

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

#450

Post by vosper »

exergy wrote: post #441
hrktb wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

First of all, I disagree that people _want_ to put furry cases on their phones. Too many people have walked around for too long with giant cracks on their screens that they've realised it's better to slap on a case, even with the ugliness that goes with it. Having some minion drawing on the back of the case is just a minor positive. More importantly though, I cannot stand how glib Apple is with their devices. Surely…

People - lots of people - absolutely want to put furry cases on their phones. Don’t underestimate the desire to accessorize.
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