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

#451

Post by matwood » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:46 PM UTC

Lio wrote: post #421

matwood wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honestly, I think a docking situation like that looks awesome. I like the idea of just usb-c, but Apple was probably a bit ahead of the curve here. In a year no one will be talking about it, and places like monoprice will have cheap dongles.

I also get what Apple is trying to do. My current MBP has the sd-card reader. I use it because I have a d7100, but everyone else I know with a mbp has literally never used that reader. For them it's a complete waste of space/weight. It is easy to get caught up in what we (as in HNers) need, and miss the fact that many people probably never using anything beyond the power port.

It's a similar situation with the removal of the headphone jack. Apple has stats and those show that the majority of people either use the headphones that come with the phone or have bought BT ones. Apple got ripped hard, but the rumors are most of the flagships coming out next year will also not have a headphone jack.

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

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Post by bshimmin » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:47 PM UTC

Jgrubb wrote: post #423

scholia wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Apple have something like a 10% market share. I think what you see in coffee shops and on expensive commuter trains is not at all representative; if you go into a Starbucks in a trendy part of east London, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Apple had a 95% market share, but I'm pretty sure if you go to, say, eastern Europe you'll see very, very few Macs.

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

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Post by rasjani » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

pronik wrote: post #427

mej10 wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Trackpads (buttons) on thinkpads are not well designed and I doubt anyones mental health who says otherwise.

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

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Post by justin66 » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

pwython wrote: post #443

deanCommie wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think every one of my friends with a MBP was a fisher price-loving brainless slave to Steve Jobs. Then I actually had to use one for work. I'll never go back. It's the little things that are not so little: 1) The wake speed 2) The battery life 3) The overall comfort and feel of the keys and the trackpad compared to ANYTHING I've ever used before from Lenovo or Dell. I can live in Mac mode and build almost a…

> And if I need to do anything for Windows, I just use Boot Camp. In my head I imagine 90% of Mac users that use Boot Camp just need it to play PC games. :) Then again, I suppose there's still really specific obscure software out there that is Windows only (or Win/IIS devs that prefer Mac hardware). Which reminds me, I wonder if I'll ever see 3ds Max on MacOS.

Given the high quality and low cost of VMWare Fusion, I tend to assume the same thing.

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

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Post by crummy » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:56 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #399

BoorishBears wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Zenbook. Windows for development isn't nearly as convinent as OSX. Yes there's lots of customization you can do to make it bearable. Powershell isn't as awful as CMD, but projects aren't supporting Powershell as much as bash any time this decade AFAIK. The Linux subsystem works, but the flow between Windows and Linux is lacking. I tried Linux. Linux doesn't handle my mix of high DPI and normal DPI monitors (…

> Linux doesn't handle my mix of high DPI and normal DPI monitors (every month I'm told Wayland is going to support it "soon") so I can't use it. This, this, this. I have been trying off and on for a couple years to move from MacOS to Linux and the HiDPI situation is a mess. Apparently it's not much better in Windows, so maybe if someone is coming from Windows they are used to problems. But, coming from MacOS where I…

I had similar experiences with Windows hiDPI support but they've all been resolved in the last year with recent software updates.

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

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Post by NikolaNovak » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:56 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…

Don't forget Thinkpad T-series also has keyboard drain channels; go ahead and spill :)

[my friend also does a demonstration where he shuts down the lid of his running Thinkpad and walks on it, then opens up the lid and keeps working... yay exoskeleton :]

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

#457

Post by Declanomous » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:57 PM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #438

deanCommie wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think every one of my friends with a MBP was a fisher price-loving brainless slave to Steve Jobs. Then I actually had to use one for work. I'll never go back. It's the little things that are not so little: 1) The wake speed 2) The battery life 3) The overall comfort and feel of the keys and the trackpad compared to ANYTHING I've ever used before from Lenovo or Dell. I can live in Mac mode and build almost a…

The trackpads on Macs are amazing (though I hear good things about the Surface Book and some newer Dells). But I've fallen in love with the trackpoint (red nub) on the Thinkpad.

I used a really old laptop that had a mini-trackball. I personally think that was the best human interface device I ever used on a laptop.

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

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Post by duck2 » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:59 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…

I have surfed through distros, desktop environments and window managers for nearly a year.

My equillibrium point is suckless.org's dwm[0] with all defaults except using Terminus as font and Super(windows) instead of Alt key. ~6 months, no irritation, no configuration change.

Tiling window managers which have extensive configuration options are useful as tinkering material, but not actual working environments. If you want a tiling window manager not for eye appeal and beauty but for simplicity and ease of use, look at r/unixporn/ and use whatever they are not using.

[0]: http://dwm.suckless.org/

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

#459

Post by mulletbum » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 3:01 PM UTC

pwython wrote: post #443

deanCommie wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think every one of my friends with a MBP was a fisher price-loving brainless slave to Steve Jobs. Then I actually had to use one for work. I'll never go back. It's the little things that are not so little: 1) The wake speed 2) The battery life 3) The overall comfort and feel of the keys and the trackpad compared to ANYTHING I've ever used before from Lenovo or Dell. I can live in Mac mode and build almost a…

> And if I need to do anything for Windows, I just use Boot Camp. In my head I imagine 90% of Mac users that use Boot Camp just need it to play PC games. :) Then again, I suppose there's still really specific obscure software out there that is Windows only (or Win/IIS devs that prefer Mac hardware). Which reminds me, I wonder if I'll ever see 3ds Max on MacOS.

I know for me the big take away for having bootcamp is PowerShell. I work in Office 365, so the modules aren't built to work with it yet, even though there is a working version of PowerShell. Other than that, a couple interactions with Active Directory always cause me problems, so it is easier to just have a Windows Installation hanging out.

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

#460

Post by allworknoplay » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 3:03 PM UTC

This sycophantic gladhanding drives me up the wall.

>> ...it does result in truly impressive results from time to time, like the recent AirPods, which are an incredible weaving together of Apple’s hardware and software teams to produce something that works so much better than what came before it’s laughable.

If apple focused on great hardware and software like it did through the 2000s rather than unnecessary, un-asked-for "courage" bloat, people wouldn't be asking these questions in the first place.