MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production • Hacker News Board

Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production

#451

Post by varispeed » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

the_other wrote: post #92

varispeed wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor quality comes from the fact we have outsourced manufacturing. Nobody knows how to make things properly. Here in the UK you won't even find competent sheet metal fabricator (except for military or when you have more money than sense, but then whatever you want to sell will be dead in the water because of unaffordability).

> Poor quality comes from the fact we have outsourced manufacturing. My experience with software development suggests this is not the main driver. The main driver seems to be management not caring about quality, UX, long term maintainance costs, externalities, and by viewing customer service as a cost rather than as branding.

Software development is not the same by any stretch of imagination.

Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production

#452

Post by rationalist » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #450

rationalist wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top-spec computers will always shit the bed when they aren't taken care of properly (bloatware, blocked airflow, etc)

No bloatware, it's been thoroughly cleaned. Only software friend actually uses is installed.

If the computer has been overworked in the past, it permanently slows it down. Heat can permanently change the electrical resistance of the metal conductors in the computer's components.

Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production

#453

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 2:19 PM UTC

DanielHB wrote: post #427

rbanffy wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from the GUI environment, the Mac is a Unix and I find it hard to notice much difference between it and a Linux. I use MacPorts on my Macs and there is no drama with command line tools. On my work Mac I don’t have sudo and I still could install MacPorts with zero issues.

sed has different syntax on macos because macos is based on BSD. Really annoying to get a ticket "fix this build script for macos" and it is freaking sed compatibility issues. edit: to be fair that happened once, but it was annoying

MacPorts provides GNU equivalents to the native BSD ones. You can always check if there is a `gsed` binary and use it (or check the OS, but checking direct behavior is always best).

But yes, macOS is a Unix, not a Linux.

Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production

#454

Post by joseda-hg » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

prmoustache wrote: post #420

brandon272 wrote: post #321

I have always had this notion that buying a Mac is the "premium" option, not just in quality, but maybe in price too. I am in the process of trying to find a business notebook for my spouse who is a Windows user. The goal is to have something that is as close to a Macbook Air as possible in terms of price, weight, performance and durability. What I am learning is that nothing that like that exists in the PC world. It…

> appears to come with a pretty poor trackpad in comparison. What is this trackpad obsession with macbooks? Granted I use mostly a mouse when on my desk but I am mostly a thinkpad user (but I've used dell and hp professionally in the past too) and to me trackpads have been a solved problem for around 2 decades. They work fine. I slide my finger and the pointer move. I use 2 of them and it scrolls, etc. What is so dif…

Mac trackpads (And even the Magic Trackpad itself) is AFAIK best in class Good enough that some people even do trackpads on desktop

Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production

#455

Post by juancn » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

xp84 wrote: post #157

nozzlegear wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing about Apple is that as the "IT" guy for my family, its ecosystem is the one which needs the least attention from me. Same here. Whenever a family member asks which kind of device they should buy, I just tell them to get the Apple device. They're going to come to me if they ever need help with it, and that happens an order of magnitude less with Apple stuff. Plus, I don't even know how to do anything in Wi…

They added a second right-click menu in Explorer now. IDK if this is Windows 11 or if 10 had this. When you right-click a file, you get a shorter menu with a larger font. But it might not have the option you want -- you have to click "Show more options" at the bottom. Then it lags for 1 second (this is a Core Ultra 9 with 64GB of RAM btw) and opens a new one, with the old font metrics, and that one also has all the t…

At least setting search works and every single setting has a command line version too.

Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production

#456

Post by cozzyd » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #332

protocolture wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I was an X1 Carbon True Believer for a while but I cant justify their current prices. It used to be 1200 bucks or so cheaper than the equivalent macbook (probably saying as much will piss off the "Thinkpads were never cheap weridos but thats fine)

There was a time the T series where the go-to if you wanted a good Linux laptop as well. I'm typing this on an old T470P (7700HQ/32GB/2560x1440) that is running my TV - it's uptime is measured in months (usually for a kernel upgrade). Just a stellar machine but the new ones don't seem to be worth the price. It is somewhat remarkable that no one has managed to get close to Apple quality by now . I think the major manu…

I'm happy with my P14s (AMD, Gen6) (running Linux, obviously). Fortunately I got it last fall with 64 GB of RAM before that was exorbitantly expensive...

Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production

#457

Post by UltraSane » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #345

baq wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask serious security folks at serious orgs if they can afford to not run crowdstrike regardless of OS.

Can any serious security folks at serious orgs confirm they can't afford not to run crowdstrike?

The alternative it a strict zero trust network design with very internet access only via RDP or similar protocols. Not many companies are willing to do this.

Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production

#458

Post by juancn » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 2:38 PM UTC

adjejmxbdjdn wrote: post #112

juancn wrote: post #24

I ended up getting two (one for each of my daughters). The thing about Apple is that as the "IT" guy for my family, its ecosystem is the one which needs the least attention from me. It really just works. They have used Windows and Linux before (my kids and wife, that is), but something is always not quite right and needs my involvement. These days gone 100% Mac, my interventions are usually initial setup and whenever…

I’ve faced far more issues with relatives with Macs than when they had Linux. The key with Linux was giving them an LTS Ubuntu but not messing with it at all. The problem with macOS recently has been that it keeps changing how things work which would result in the relatives messing around and messing up the system. Ubuntu has been pretty rock solid and reliable, while not changing anything drastically enough to lead…

The issue is when it updates.

The moment it runs an update all bets are off. It's always audio for me, it breaks in the weirdest ways.

Mac updates are the best in the industry, period.

Close to zero chance of having an issue (unless you're messing with third-party kernel extensions).

Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production

#459

Post by juancn » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

antaviana wrote: post #166

juancn wrote: post #24

I ended up getting two (one for each of my daughters). The thing about Apple is that as the "IT" guy for my family, its ecosystem is the one which needs the least attention from me. It really just works. They have used Windows and Linux before (my kids and wife, that is), but something is always not quite right and needs my involvement. These days gone 100% Mac, my interventions are usually initial setup and whenever…

My greatest concern about Mac hardware is that they are perfectly operational by the time software-driven programmed obsolescence comes its way, even when it is a nice problem to have. I have 3 iMacs 27 (2019) which have a gorgeous display, but the lack of software updates to the OS effectively bricks them via enterprise conditional access rules or with the ongoing drop of legacy OS support by key apps. This programm…

They get updates forever, and even after they're usable anyway.

They even get serious security updates even after that period, and you can install linux if you really want to, but it makes no sense to me.

Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production

#460

Post by vablings » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 2:49 PM UTC

prmoustache wrote: post #400

thewebguyd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing about Apple is that as the "IT" guy for my family, its ecosystem is the one which needs the least attention from me. This is true in business/enterprise IT also. Any big company that's done a switch, or at least offered an employee choice, almost immediately saw a huge drop in help desk workload from mac users. Legacy win32 apps aside, it's baffling to me that Windows is still the dominant share of comput…

A company CTO told me once that he was a linux user at home but windows was the only option from a soc2 auditing point of view as MacOs faired barely better than linux in the fleet device management area.

RHEL has support for SOC2 requirements. RHEL is also very nice in general