Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard • Hacker News Board

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

#921

Post by stefanfisk » Sun, Jul 01, 2018, 2:08 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #467

stefanfisk wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's also very dependent on what you want to use your computer for. as a frontend dev I want a mix of Adobe CS and a bunch of primarily posix compatible tools, and then Windows is seriously suboptimal. but even beyond that the sheer number of popups and shit I need to close when starting from a clean install on Windows makes me want to punch the computer, and naturally that is a very subjective experience. and stuff…

> as a frontend dev I want a mix of Adobe CS and a bunch of primarily posix compatible tools, and then Windows is seriously suboptimal. Not sure why it's suboptimal, WSL is amazing. I am primary a frontend dev as well and do most of my building / start-up / testing of my work inside of a terminal. It's great and Adobe works great as well with the added bonus of the better Windows dropdowns (Mac OS dropdowns drive me…

Not to retort, but Mac also has keyboard navigation for the menus, but the default setting for focusing the menu is ^F2 which is quite bad.

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

#922

Post by DavideNL » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 2:36 PM UTC

dsuth wrote: post #514

tluyben2 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, updates is why I really dislike Windows. The rest I can live with. I prefer Ubuntu + i3 or Mac OS X, but if I have to use Windows, then it’s mostly doable besides the updates. Be it updates to the OS or Visual Studio (which is why I do use it; Xamarin); random breakage and it takes far too long and happens far too often.

Honestly updates seems to be a more or less solved problem in Win10, for general use at least.

Well... about 3 months ago my Windows 10 machine got stuck updating. Basically it just kept endlessly updating the same update consuming huge amount of resources;

At first I figured i just let it do it's thing so i waited and waited and just kept it running over night. After a few days i noticed it was the exact identical update it kept installing over and over.

I searched online, and many people were having exactly the same problem. At that time there wasn't a solution yet. So in the end, i just gave up...

- i'm a developer btw so i have at least some technical knowledge :)

(can't remember the exact KBxxxxx number unfortunately.)

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

#923

Post by muddi900 » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 4:27 AM UTC

ender89 wrote: post #728

cptskippy wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They no longer have Steve Jobs Quality Control? He was the type of person to play with something for 5 minutes and say "yeah... no" or to eagerly take something he liked and abuse the hell out of it for 24 hours then come back with a laundry list of improvements. He was a jerk and he cared deeply about user experience. In his absence you have what exactly? Tim Cook lacks vision, if you want your mountain moved to Plu…

It's more like Steve Jobs was such an uncompromising asshole that he would rather throw a substandard product in the garbage than put out something he considered lesser. He didn't have vision, nothing he "made" was revolutionary at all, and he didn't make anything after the NeXT. Steve Jobs was amazing at two things: getting in on the ground floor (the iphone came out so quickly after the first all touch screen smart…

Steve Jobs was responsible for the original Macintosh, the device that constantly over-heated and had the same repairability problems then as these Mac Book Pros.

I know Jobs is Silicon Valley Jesus, but he did not walk on water.

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

#924

Post by jjtheblunt » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #772

reitanqild wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both linux and Windows seems to get basic text selection right, yes. Of modern desktop os-es, Mac OS X was the only one who has ever consistently surprised me on this . It might not be a big deal to everyone but for me who - deal with text day out and day - and prefer to keep my hands at the keyboard (even when I have a nice trackpad) small thing like this matters. Just like details like a good trackpad matters to ot…

The text selection shortcuts are completely consistent on modern OS X, in my experience. At least, I can't find an app where shift+alt+right_arrow doesn't select a word.

they have been for 30 years, NeXTstep and non-NeXTstep MacOS. I think Larry Teslar of Apple (long ago now) was part of that. Also, TextFields in the NeXT and now Apple codebase know various Emacs key bindings by default.

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

#925

Post by wlll » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 2:25 PM UTC

noway421 wrote: post #429

wlll wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what can they do? Make the case thicker.

they are already invested in the current chassis, and it's not changing for at least two next generations

Well, I'll buy one in three generations time then ;)

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

#926

Post by fukuro » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 7:37 AM UTC

pjlegato wrote: post #835

pedrocr wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This, right here, is an excellent case-in-point illustration of the reason Linux isn't widely used on laptops: even on expensive, high end hardware with excellent Linux support, and the most popular distribution, very basic functionality like screen resolution not only doesn't "just work" out of the box -- getting it to work properly at all requires serendipitously stumbling across a random forum post somewhere that…

I'm running linux (manjaro - kde) on my thinkpad T470. It works marvelous, scaling works without issue, adding screens, updating, hibernate/sleep. It all just works.

Currently haven't rebooted my laptop for 45 days, updated in the middle (while still being able to work) and still works wihout issue.

Meanwhile my windows desktop keeps forcing updates/reboots every week interrupting my work. Also interesting to mention: windows always has the fans on of my laptop, on linux only under heavy load.

Bought the laptop especially for the linux support on the thinkpad series, very happy with it.

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

#927

Post by namibj » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 1:30 PM UTC

tdumitrescu wrote: post #646

namibj wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider asking for a new Battery next gift-giving holiday (Christmas?). If it's not that much, it's likely worth it unless it'd be of no use.

If it were only the battery, I'd replace it, but getting a new system will also scratch the itch to upgrade hardware specs. There's also some piece rattling around inside the case which must have broken off early on... (to my point about fragility compared to macbooks)

Consider (used) thinkpads. There are places that refurbish them, also selling you devices that just got out of their lease, due to the owner bailing out after only a few months. They are frequently available for half-price in good-as-new with still some warranty on them, which you don't need on the T and X series (not the carbon though). They need one screwdriver, for full disassembly.