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The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

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Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#61

Post by sosborn »

SamBam wrote: post #59
adamlett wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I do not know why Google doesn't just come in and absolutely dominate Apple in the 'laptop geared towards developers'-market" There could be many reasons. Off the top of my head: * Google is not a devices company (disregarding recent forays into the the high end smartphone market), but a services company. It's not in their DNA to this, and it doesn't fit their (current) business model. The don't have the required ha…

> The "pro" market is not big, its probably not growing Not sure I agree with that, when we're teaching everybody and their grandparents how to program, in order to compete in the "new economy." Doubly-so for developing countries. I would hope that the proportion of developers in the world should be increasing.

Developers are but a small portion of "pro." Also, the stuff being taught to everybody and their grandparents would do fine on 10-year-old netbooks.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#62

Post by mixmastamyk »

sosborn wrote: post #61
SamBam wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "pro" market is not big, its probably not growing Not sure I agree with that, when we're teaching everybody and their grandparents how to program, in order to compete in the "new economy." Doubly-so for developing countries. I would hope that the proportion of developers in the world should be increasing.

Developers are but a small portion of "pro." Also, the stuff being taught to everybody and their grandparents would do fine on 10-year-old netbooks.

Indeed, I learned CS on a 486 and the code I wrote ran mind-bogglingly fast on a Pentium.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#63

Post by ni-hil »

vetinari wrote: post #20
nerdponx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's not. At least not until someone starts making aluminum unibody laptops with Retina displays running some enterprise Linux distro in which everything on the desktop "just works" including printing and networking.

Printing and networking in Linux is a solved problem. HiDPI is going through a growing pains, and some things for enterprises are better on Linux than macOS (have you seen what FreeIPA can do? You can have Kerberos+OTP authenticated VPN, for example). What's wrong with all the PC laptops is an attention to detail. Just have look at the recent Dell XPS thread. I mean - coil whine? In 2016? Seriously?

Audio, monitor detection, battery life, etc. are not solved problems though. Linux is mostly fine, but there is still a lot of little things that makes it "painful" to use on a day to day basis.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#64

Post by canuckintime »

orbitur wrote: post #48
_pmf_ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple doesn't make design decisions based on redundant stock. One would like to think that way.

All the (expensive and custom-manufactured) evidence backs up that thinking, so I'm not sure why you're being snarky about it.

iPhone 5c, iPhone SE, Apple watch series 1 etc use evidence that Apple takes availability of stock parts into design considerations.

That doesn't imply that the Apple Watch poor sales theory is correct though

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#65

Post by curried_haskell »

userbinator wrote: post #21
curiousgal wrote: post #2

For a company that targets Professionals, some Apple policies seems rather hostile towards them.

I think by "professional" they do not really mean "power user" or "developer", but the stereotypically computer-illiterate user who happens to be a professional in a different field.

Exactly. They mean someone like a design professional who is just a usual computer illiterate user who knows Photoshop.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#66

Post by adamlett »

SamBam wrote: post #59
adamlett wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I do not know why Google doesn't just come in and absolutely dominate Apple in the 'laptop geared towards developers'-market" There could be many reasons. Off the top of my head: * Google is not a devices company (disregarding recent forays into the the high end smartphone market), but a services company. It's not in their DNA to this, and it doesn't fit their (current) business model. The don't have the required ha…

> The "pro" market is not big, its probably not growing Not sure I agree with that, when we're teaching everybody and their grandparents how to program, in order to compete in the "new economy." Doubly-so for developing countries. I would hope that the proportion of developers in the world should be increasing.

We may be talking about different things. I was talking specifically about laptops that are directly comparable with Apple's pro line (i.e. expensive). I seems doubtful that the market for expensive laptops will find much growth in the developing world.

Even if it should prove true that the proportion of high end users is expanding relative to the entire market, it will still just be a bigger slice of a smaller pie. The PC market has been declining for quite some time. That doesn't mean that there will not still be lucrative niches within that market, but does Google really strike you as a company that would or should go for a niche in a contracting market?

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#67

Post by ubernostrum »

SamBam wrote: post #59
adamlett wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I do not know why Google doesn't just come in and absolutely dominate Apple in the 'laptop geared towards developers'-market" There could be many reasons. Off the top of my head: * Google is not a devices company (disregarding recent forays into the the high end smartphone market), but a services company. It's not in their DNA to this, and it doesn't fit their (current) business model. The don't have the required ha…

> The "pro" market is not big, its probably not growing Not sure I agree with that, when we're teaching everybody and their grandparents how to program, in order to compete in the "new economy." Doubly-so for developing countries. I would hope that the proportion of developers in the world should be increasing.

The real issue is that your conception of "pro" is off. The "pro" users Apple traditionally targeted were not software developers. Their laptops became popular among developers not because of the hardware, but because of a quirk of Apple's corporate history which led to OS X being a Unix under the hood, which in turn meant it was a computer you could do all your developer-y things on without the living hell of trying to run Linux as your desktop OS.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#68

Post by micaksica »

ubernostrum wrote: post #67
SamBam wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "pro" market is not big, its probably not growing Not sure I agree with that, when we're teaching everybody and their grandparents how to program, in order to compete in the "new economy." Doubly-so for developing countries. I would hope that the proportion of developers in the world should be increasing.

The real issue is that your conception of "pro" is off. The "pro" users Apple traditionally targeted were not software developers . Their laptops became popular among developers not because of the hardware, but because of a quirk of Apple's corporate history which led to OS X being a Unix under the hood, which in turn meant it was a computer you could do all your developer-y things on without the living hell of tryin…

I agree with your statement, however, running Linux as a desktop OS is definitely not that bad anymore.

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#69

Post by [deleted] »

ubernostrum wrote: post #67
SamBam wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "pro" market is not big, its probably not growing Not sure I agree with that, when we're teaching everybody and their grandparents how to program, in order to compete in the "new economy." Doubly-so for developing countries. I would hope that the proportion of developers in the world should be increasing.

The real issue is that your conception of "pro" is off. The "pro" users Apple traditionally targeted were not software developers . Their laptops became popular among developers not because of the hardware, but because of a quirk of Apple's corporate history which led to OS X being a Unix under the hood, which in turn meant it was a computer you could do all your developer-y things on without the living hell of tryin…

[deleted]

Re: The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros

#70

Post by vetinari »

ni-hil wrote: post #63
vetinari wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Printing and networking in Linux is a solved problem. HiDPI is going through a growing pains, and some things for enterprises are better on Linux than macOS (have you seen what FreeIPA can do? You can have Kerberos+OTP authenticated VPN, for example). What's wrong with all the PC laptops is an attention to detail. Just have look at the recent Dell XPS thread. I mean - coil whine? In 2016? Seriously?

Audio, monitor detection, battery life, etc. are not solved problems though. Linux is mostly fine, but there is still a lot of little things that makes it "painful" to use on a day to day basis.

I admit that last few years my experience with Linux is limited to T and X-series Thinkpads. On them, almost everything worked out of the box, including the fingerprint reader and WWAN networking. The only thing that I found not installed out-of-the box was tlp (power management daemon, it relates to battery life you mentioned). After a 'dnf install tlp tlp-rdw' it was solved too and that takes care of the almost qualifier in the previous sentence.

The other issue I had was with external monitor was, that the primary display for the login screen was the built-in display, not the external monitor (that's my subjective preference. After login, the arrangement was according to user preferences).

Both certainly not earth shattering. If other laptops or computers have more serious problems, that's issue to be solved by their manufacturer. They are selling their wares to you, after all, why would you accept incomplete support?

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