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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

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Apple often snob this laws? Have they changed their behaviour? If I remember correctly, in EU, up to just one or two years ago they were refusing to service products under warranty older than one year if you didn't have Apple Care even though the law mandates a 2 year warranty period.

The UK has a nice catch all for such things in addition to the EU laws; From the 'Sale and Supply of Goods Act 1994' ~~~ For the purposes of this Act, goods are of satisfactory quality if they meet the standard that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking account of any description of the goods, the price (if relevant) and all the other relevant circumstances. For the purposes of this Act, the qualit…

> The Consumer Rights Act 2015 became law on 1 October 2015, replacing three major pieces of consumer legislation - the Sale of Goods Act, Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations, and the Supply of Goods and Services Act. It was introduced to simplify, strengthen and modernise the law, giving you clearer shopping rights.

https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-...

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

#502
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 mostly agree with you. But really, who needs +16GB RAM on their laptop?! I think the need for more RAM is correlated with the need for more CPU clock, more powerful graphic card, and a better Motherboard, all of which result in a huge decrease in battery life (which is supposed to be a laptop's main strength over heavy, power-consuming PC).

I would think most developers would like at least 16gb

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

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how this can fly over peoples heads, but the point is marketing. There is virtually zero disadvantage in making the phones 2mm thicker and add to their robustness and battery life this way. Virtually zero... except _marketing_ and hence sales.

its not like the change of thickness is a single variable from one gen of a phone to the next. Id wager there are other variables that make people purchase new phones rather than 1mm shaved off.

If they're anything like me, it's because they broke their old, thin phone.

Which is why I'm now happy with my relatively chunky Moto G5S

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

#504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how this can fly over peoples heads, but the point is marketing. There is virtually zero disadvantage in making the phones 2mm thicker and add to their robustness and battery life this way. Virtually zero... except _marketing_ and hence sales.

If Apple released a new phone or laptop this September and specifically marketed it as being better built and longer lasting (and therefore thicker and heavier), I'd buy it. Am I the only one?

But didn't you buy the previous phones anyway?

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

#505
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…

At same boat as you, and just have migrated all my activities to Windows on 64 Gb Core i7 8 gen CPU desktop. It's a real booster for my day to day work. I love and miss the aesthetics of macOS and Magic Mouse swipes. However let's face it, Apple alone cannot stand the pace. It just cannot compete with hordes of companies from all over the world who do their part of job really really good. Gigabyte, ASUS, Samsung, Int…

We all lose in the long run. Those companies all existed in 2005, but Apple was streets ahead of them for the average person. Apple pushed the industry forward. Remember what the typical phone was like before the iphone? Or the typical mp3 player before the ipod? Sure, the ipod may have had less space than a Nomad and no wifi, but it was what people actually wanted.

The question is, is apple really going backwards, or is it a case of "I don't like change".

The longer you use something, the more you don't like anything different. Is USB-C really a step back from magsafe? Is removing the function keys really a step back? How about removing 3.5mm jacks from a phone?

I've used /etc/network/interfaces to configure my network for 2 decades. Netplan is thus stupid and terrible. Except if I look at it objectively netplan is better. It deprecates those nice comfy hacks and configs I don't even think about, so of course I don't like it.

My local hifi shop tell me that the bose qc35s jumped off the shelves like hotcakes compared with the 25s, because they were wireless and rechargable. I don't like them because I like 3.5mm. But as the man said:

Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty- five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

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

#506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am currently using this horrible keyboard. Hate this thing. Before I've been using a mechanical keyboard, but coworkers complained that it was too loud. I like loud keybords. The sound is so pleasant and satisfying I want it to be even more intense. I want to feel vibration every time I hit the key. And when I hit enter I want there to be a minor earthquake. This apple trash keyboard doesn't have Shift+Insert. The…

The Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard does not have loud switches, but feels much better than the Magic Keyboard. Only the function keys are not great.

The ergonomic/natural/arc keyboards are, by far, the best products Microsoft ever sold. I do love the Apple trackpads, however. There is no better way to work on a Mac.

As for my Linuxing, I have a Unicomp "Battleship" (PC122 keyboard) that's loud as hell, but has the best feel since the beam spring keyboards God added to the IBM 3270's when it made them in the 6th day.

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

#507
post #397

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…

I'd agree with that, I run stock ubuntu on a thinkpad t460p. I have only one issue which is that display scaling is not fractional, its in set values which doesn't play well with resolutions above 1080p. Thats a gnome issue though and doesn't stop the screen working perfectly when the resolution is set to 1080p instead of 2550x1440 or whatever it is.

This is trivial to fix actually. Ubuntu 16.04 had "fractional" scaling by default but in reality all it did was between 1x and 2x use 1x with larger fonts. 18.04 lost that with the gnome transition but you can just change the font scaling manually. Less convenient and polished but still there in the tweak tool. Firefox also includes a scaling option in the configs. With those two settings my T460s with the 2560x1440 screen looks great. It does suck that the Gnome transition in the new LTS has been so bad. For all its quirks the Unity on Xorg experience was actually very stable and polished for years now.

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

#508

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 problem is actually in one of the subtitle

>No Margin for Error

I don't mind the whole case of notebook being unserviceable for a iFixit prospective. I don't think anyone does. But it must be done to perfection that it doesn't ever need repairing. That means assuming no water spillage, under normal conditions, less then 0.1% of repair are needed in a 4 years timeframe. That is what I think is good enough for a thinner, integrated trade off.

But that is an ideal they never achieved, and they have been let loose for years. USB-C Over Power, Logic Board burnt out, Keyboard failure, Power Supply not working, SSD Failure, Memory Failure, GPU failure, Display Panel problems. The amount of crap we have been putting up with considering they are some of the most expensive laptop in the market, and we are paying the premium really for using macOS.

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

#509
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 Apple I want figures out how you put 32GB RAM in a thin laptop while preserving battery life!

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

#510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what can they do? Make the battery thinner so they can get sane key travel back within the case without increasing overall thickness? Go back to previous thickness; it wasn't that bad, and thin for the most powerful portable they sell isn't necessarily a good thing. They could even couple it with advancements in battery tech to finally put 32GB on their laptop.

That's my preferred answer. We can have magsafe back too. :) Sadly Apple rate thinness too highly, so I suspect they'll not give it up easily.

> We can have magsafe back too. :)

Yes please. Honestly the new format is such a clusterfuck of unwanted features, poor hardware implementation, and removal of wanted features that it makes you wonder how it got out the door.

Hanging onto my circa 2013 MBP until they come up with a more appealing offer, or going elsewhere.

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