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Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

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Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#511

Post by Lio »

karatestomp wrote: post #404
cannam wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still don't have anything that's USB-C aside from adapters for work laptop The USB-C thing is culturally a bit curious. It's been three or four years since reviewers of laptops and the like started complaining if they didn't have USB-C ports - but there still seems to be very little need for them. The few devices I've acquired that have a USB-C socket on the device have all come with a cable having a USB3 type A…

I don't get why they didn't do a transitional design for a few years. Replace the Thunderbolt ports with USB-C but leave the rest the same. It takes me probably damn near a decade to cycle even half my peripherals to a new interface, and I bet that's closer to the norm than people going out and replacing 100% of their stuff with USB-C and Bluetooth within a year, so going to using a port that I had not even actually…

What kills me is that Apple are still so random about ports themselves.

They could have replaced the USB-A to Lighting cable and charger they ship with iPhones for USB-C to Lightning years ago.

(Personally I’d like to see Lightning replaced too but that’s a different story).

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#512

Post by nvarsj »

grandinj wrote: post #346
nvarsj wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simply not true. Install Ubuntu or Fedora, run Gnome 3 and everything "just works". You can't use Arch as an example here - it is intentionally very basic, and takes a lot of effort to learn as you do almost everything from scratch. While many people appreciate that level of control, it is unnecessary if you're just trying to get work done.

Not with the ongoing Wayland, Systemd, Pipewire, etc, rewrite-from-scratch work. e.g. I don't have working VNC server at all on latest Fedora, with either X11 or Wayland, and no sign of it being fixed anytime soon. And that is just one of many irritations with desktop linux, that simply don't occur on Windows, mostly because of MS superior QA

> that simply don't occur on Windows, mostly because of MS superior QA

You're comparing an OS that hasn't had a major release in almost 5 years to a bleeding edge Linux distribution. Install an older LTS version of Ubuntu or Debian and things will be quite stable.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#513

Post by karatestomp »

Lio wrote: post #511
karatestomp wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why they didn't do a transitional design for a few years. Replace the Thunderbolt ports with USB-C but leave the rest the same. It takes me probably damn near a decade to cycle even half my peripherals to a new interface, and I bet that's closer to the norm than people going out and replacing 100% of their stuff with USB-C and Bluetooth within a year, so going to using a port that I had not even actually…

What kills me is that Apple are still so random about ports themselves. They could have replaced the USB-A to Lighting cable and charger they ship with iPhones for USB-C to Lightning years ago. (Personally I’d like to see Lightning replaced too but that’s a different story).

Going USB-C on their phones and tablets while also swapping the Thunderbolt ports and maybe the power ports on their computers for USB-C, then leaving it that way for three years or so before removing the other ports, seems like it would have been a much better lead-in if they really had to do it. At least then we'd have been able to slowly accumulate USB-C dongles without feeling bitter about it, since they'd work on i-devices too so feel like they're providing some kind of benefit or future-proofness. As it is it's 2020 and I still feel like I'm wasting money buying either USB-C or Lightning dongles—the former because I don't need them for anything but very new Macbooks, and the latter because surely they're going to switch those to USB-C eventually (surely... right?) so those thunderbolt cables and adapters will become junk long before they should.

[EDIT] go figure, my wife just today bought a new iphone, wants to put some music from her 2019 Macbook Air onto it, needs to plug it in at least once in order to do that (have to plug in first to enable wifi sync), and can't because the phone shipped with a fucking USB-A cable and the single lightning-to-usb cable we have in our house is missing. This is going down right now. So much for not needing USB-A ports on a laptop in 2020 even if you're fully in the Apple ecosystem. She's so annoyed I wouldn't be surprised if she returns the phone. I mean granted the phone isn't the latest model but it came out way after they made the all-USB-C switch on their laptops.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#514

Post by cameronbrown »

nvarsj wrote: post #198
cameronbrown wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the experience is terrible for the uninitiated. And this is coming from someone who ran Arch as their primary OS since I was 10. Laptop Linux on the whole is not a fun experience for those who just want a machine to work (which was what MacBooks were supposed to be about). I just bought a Surface Laptop 3, and the machine is great. The hardware is nice, Windows on a laptop has improved tenfold since I've last…

It's simply not true. Install Ubuntu or Fedora, run Gnome 3 and everything "just works". You can't use Arch as an example here - it is intentionally very basic, and takes a lot of effort to learn as you do almost everything from scratch. While many people appreciate that level of control, it is unnecessary if you're just trying to get work done.

I'm not using Arch as the baseline - just saying that I'm familiar with Linux.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#515

Post by Spivak »

derefr wrote: post #448
anikk wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you stop the MSFT advertisements? - All of these are possible without telemetry. - There is a deceptive button on install that does not work. - Make it opt-in for submissive persons who want to please MSFT.

> Make it opt-in for submissive persons who want to please MSFT. Users don't read. Anything that's opt-in will never be opted into, because users won't even look at what the dialog says. (See also: organ donation.) Most of UX design isn't targeted at people with opinions; it's targeted at the 99% of users who want to never make any decisions at all, because they don't see the system they're interacting with as their…

The shorter version is that opt-out exists so the people that care don't get angry. If the percent of people who opt-out becomes non-negligible it will cease to be opt-out.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#516

Post by garmaine »

stevewodil wrote: post #487
garmaine wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use FileVault encryption with a secure password.

No, it's encrypted either way. With FileVault enabled it just won't automatically mount and decrypt when connected to the T2 chip

That doesn’t matter if the password is known, guessable, or nonexistent.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#518

Post by nickflood »

karatestomp wrote: post #361
drcongo wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make music on a 2018 iPad Pro and now I can never upgrade that because they've removed the headphone jack on the new ones. What's "Pro" about an iPad without a headphone jack?

Shit, seriously? We use a first-gen big pro on our (electric) piano at home and being able to run midi into the iPad while also using headphone-out on the iPad is key for our use. I guess at least the new ones use USB-C so there are more adapter options so maybe there's a USB + headphone jack adapter out there, but 1) it's entirely stupid that we'd need one, and 2) if it's not a first-party Apple adapter we'd be roll…

Finding a usb-c adapter which has a good DAC may be a process in itself. I got several $20-$40 adapters from China, and they all have a very tinny, absolutely atrocious sound on their headphone jack.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#519

Post by nickflood »

swiley wrote: post #195
blub wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On paper Windows is good. In practice the telemetry and the story behind its introduction and how they handled communication means that I won't consider Windows as a primary OS candidate until there's a CEO change at least. It's disappointing to see so many being ignorant about this topic.

Not to mention your computer being randomly unavailable every other week or so.

Updates are pushed to Windows once a month.

In fact, they are published on Update Tuesday - the second Tuesday of every month.

Re: Seven years later, I bought a new MacBook. For the first time, I don't love it

#520

Post by niemenmaa »

llampx wrote: post #504

The author pretty much proves why Apple doesn't listen to any of the ranty feedback from Apple lovers (not to be confused with Apple users) The author time and again says he'd pay for this feature or pay to not have the touchbar, whereas he could have put his money where his mouth is and bought a Thinkpad or XPS or Latitude etc. He's doing himself a disservice by continuing to buy Macs and we're doing ourselves a dis…

Yeah. To each of their own, but I was actually surprised that the verdict in the end was "When combined with an iPhone it makes for an unbeatable user experience."

I loved Macs after using my 2012 Air for five years (my parents used it until last year) and MBP 2015 for work. Then they got me MPB 2018 and that was enough Apple for me. It was absolutely terrible. I don't care how many times I have to reinstall Arch to my Dell XPS 13, it's still a better experience.

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