Is it just me or is Apple starting to fall woefully behind non-mac hardware competitors in both price and perf?
I used to look forward to these announcements, now it's just 'we upgraded to a +1 generation config (still 1-2 generations behind what others are doing), that'll be 2000 bucks thanks'. Advertising 4 cores and 2018 Iris graphics as if it's some kind of achievement, when competitors have full dGpu solutions and 6 cores in same sized chassis at the same price bracket. They're taking a bit of a piss at this point.
I haven't owned a mac in a while since employment now supplies me with a laptop. But my experience with this point of view is that it's about holistic vs. non-holistic thinking. When someone points at specs and tells me that X is better than Y for price, they're getting to that conclusion by ignoring a whole bunch of variables. To take this to the extreme, I had a friend genuinely say, "Why did you spend $90 on a baby monitor? You can just get a RPi, Camera, microphone, and wire it together for like $45."
I have an xps-15 for work and it's... it's okay. It's decent hardware. But I want a mac because I need a non-Windows environment and I'm just dead tired of all the jank in Ubuntu. I no-longer try to undock it because doing so is either a full reboot or the resolution/scaling gets messed up and video memory corrupts (my fonts became colour vomits).
For me, buying a Mac is basically, "here's a ton of money. Now I don't have to think about these things for 7 years." (except the last few macs questionable hardware absolutely ruined this peace of mind...)
But, nothing about the Apple ecosystem prevents them from also adopting the latest hardware. The only reason it could that I can think of is that it genuinely takes them 2 years to test the latest Intel CPU in each new laptop.
Compatibility with low power mobile ram is usually the thing with Apple; they care more about long battery life, especially long sleep times, than raw CPU performance.
I've been feeling a lot more of this jank from MacOS than my other devices at this point. I have a 2017 15" MBPtb and a custom desktop that dualboots Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04.
Frustrations I've had to deal with in MacOs that have just not been pain points in other OSes (yeah, not even on Ubuntu):
* No DisplayPort MST support[1]. I spent a large chunk of money on a monitor that had MST so I could daisy chain across two monitors and charge my laptop all with one cable and no separate dock sitting on my desk. I was heartbroken to see that it JustWorks™ on Windows 10 using the MacBook or desktop, but not on MacOS. I ended up needing to buy another expensive dock and sacrifice some desk real estate.
* If you use bluetooth audio headsets, the sound balance randomly shifts to the right if you change volume while the CPU is under load[2].
* No built in window snapping or hotkeys is kind of ridiculous in 2020. Yeah, I have paid for apps like BetterTouchTool and Moom, but it's ridiculous that this is something users have to buy standalone. I often end up assisting coworkers on their machines, and it sucks when they don't have anything setup for snapping.
* Turning WiFI off and back on quickly sometimes results in the second action being ignored. That's such a ridiculous bug to still be there.
At this point, the only killer MacOS exclusive apps I still use are iTerm2 and Homebrew (and I guess XCode out of necessity for iOS/Mac target compilation). If Apple keeps on the trajectory they've been on, I feel like I'll shift away from MacBooks for my next machine.
I need to run three monitors and it was a nightmare to get resolutions and scaling all correct. Even now, if I undock it might never wake up or have corrupt memory. I also had to shut off the graphics adapter switching capability so it always runs off Nvidia and therefore I have maybe 2 hours battery life in a text editor.
All OSs have their issues. I use Windows and Ubuntu daily and have had work macbooks.
In a lot of cases it does come down to what you are used to, as there are design differences that aren't necessarily worse or better but when you get used to one the other feels janky.
At any rate, in Ubuntu's case things like display support are worse - especially multiple different DPI screens (yes, there are workarounds). UI is less slick in places. Some software is better supported while some have worse support. Things like that.
I've seen this mentioned a few times now on HN as a drawback of Ubuntu. Are multiple monitors really that much of a benefit that so many people use them?
absolutely. I find a pretty common workflow for me is writing code in one window while having documentation (or a header file) open in another. it's not the end of the world if I have to alt-tab back and forth, but it's much more efficient if I don't have to.
a 24-27" monitor suitable for coding is only $200-300. if you code for money, it seems like a no brainer to just get two.
I've got an entire monitor (really a 55" 4k TV) devoted to all the chat windows and communications I'm running for my team, another 4k monitor that I actually use to code, and then my laptop sits to the side as an auxiliary monitor where I can look things up and what not.
Until this pandemic forced me to make do with one monitor at home, I rarely used the built in screen on my work laptops; I counted on the dual monitors on my desk. The idea of using a laptop display alone is baffling to me.
I've tried multiple monitors a number of times through the years, and it's only been a net benefit when doing things like streaming and/or presenting via video conference (so you can have a preview monitor / live chat separate).
Other than that, my brain and neck both work a lot better with one large 4K display (currently 27" but I've been thinking about going 32").
and this is why I still use two 20-inch 4:3-ratio monitors in portrait mode (combined screen is 2400x1600) -- I can look at each monitor with minimal neck movement and the viewing angle for each half is independent. when i've tried a single, curved ultra-wide I still felt like the outer third on each side was a tilted away too much
In engineering we say option X is objectively better than Y, if X is superior on all metrics. This is generally not true, so wether X is better than Y is going to subjective. So we will always end up with endless discussions with "yes but this.. yes but that..".
Well, competitors are still behind Apple. They offer worse touchpad, worse screens (it's either 16:9 or weird resolution), no macOS, worse speakers, worse microphone, worse battery.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the X series ThinkPads are the main competitor to the MacBook Pro series. IE, thin and targeted at professionals.
It's been years since an X-series has had a removable battery and the option for two of them. Decent-quality screens are a significant upcharge and even then barely match the Apple screen. And going over to their website, an X1 carbon 7th gen with a 10th gen Intel processor still uses LPDDR3, just like the Apple.
If you do a real comparison - beyond just "processor cores/speed, ram and disk quantity", you'll find that there really isn't a huge difference in price for specs and that you can comfortably buy the one you prefer and not feel ripped off.
I would say both the X and T series are MacBook Pro competitors. The T series aren't usually as compromisingly thin as the X Series but still aren't much thicker than an Ethernet port so they're still thin in my book. They're definitely way thinner than the P series machines.
P1 hits the sweet spot of thin AND pro. Same size as the X1 Extreme series, but geared toward business users. You can actually open it up and do some upgrades. RAM up to 64gb, up to a xeon processor, and the 1st gen is able to include nvidia quaddro gpus.
Ah yes, the P1 is an excellent machine and still manages to stay pretty thin. Its definitely an outlier of thinness in the P-series though, but is absolutely one which does not fit with my earlier comment of the P series being a bit thicker.
FWIW, most of the T series also have a good number of FRUs (field-replaceable units, what customers can easily swap out). Some models, especially the "s" versions, will have some soldered RAM but often the non-"s" versions will allow you to swap out both sticks. Wireless chips and SSDs are user-replaceable. Internal batteries are held in by screws and not glue so they're easy to replace when they age. Pretty easy to work on overall. My T460s is over 4 years old and still going strong.
I no longer care about removable batteries. I finally recycled my 2011 MacBook Air late last year, after 8 years of hard service doing development work on the go. The battery had half of what it once had, but the CPU and Ram could no longer keep up.
Removable batteries were more important back when batteries sucked, now they last the life of the machine.
This is just a matter of usage. MacBook Pro batteries have never lasted me more than ~3 years before signficant degredation (usually marked by swelling, needing replacement to avoid having the touchpad eject from the machine), and that number held from pre-unibody to post-retina. As an anecdote, the later generations seemed to degrade faster than the earlier ones.
Many laptops offer upgradeable RAM and some upgradeable CPUs. All laptops of my family have upgradeable RAM for instance. SSDs bays and M2 slots as well.
All LiIon batteries are around 80-85% of capacity in around 350-500 charge cycles given a decent controller and no excessive heat (which macbooks are overall bad at).
Upgradeable ram would be the only thing I’d want from Apple. With the advent of Dropbox & similar it’s been a long long time since I’ve run out of disk space. And as I’ve said before, I typically see laptops struggling to perform long before seeing their batteries give up on me.
Laugh as much as you want but to me (and many others) it actually is. I would look at other manufacturers for their hardware, but sadly it's all non-MacOs and I value this operating system above anything else for my needs (work and personal).
Except they aren't. I need a top class desktop operating system with top class unix environment support and tools. Windows10 might be getting close to a top class desktop os, but sadly WSL is years behind and simply feels like forced afterthought. Linux fills the unix env/tools box, but doesn't even gets close to desktop operating system quality bar of MacOS.
macOS is definitely not a top class UNIX environment, not even by a long shot. It is an alien hybrid of outdated BSD tools and toolchains. Even Xcode, which was amazing a decade ago, is now a joke compared to other environments and specialized tools nowadays.
Since Jobs died, the company has slowly allowed their development-focused machines and toolset to rot. The company now only caters to artists and it shows with their "Pro" offerings, including the Mac Pro.
As for the desktop features, all 3 major operating systems are the same. Claiming otherwise is not knowing how to use each of them.
I'm not sure if you're claiming that Linux is a "major desktop operating system" (desktop added for clarity based on the context of your statement), but if you are your statement is badly misinformed.
I use Linux in (many) VMs where I have to in order to run esoteric toolchains for embedded stuff. There is no distribution of Linux that provides bulletproof basic desktop usability anywhere near the level of OS X or Windows 10. Nothing even in the same ballpark. And I've used Linux since the days when Slackware came on a set of 3.5" floppies, so I'm not some Linux hater or incompetent here -- I've got a significant amount of experience with the OS in many of its flavors. When you can get any distribution of Linux to accurately handle plugging in external monitors every time, maybe we can talk.
Xcode is an excellent IDE - it's second really only to Visual Studio.
My only complaint about Macs today is the Touch Bar, because they replaced my f-keys with it and it's useless to me as a developer. That's at least partially mitigated by my das keyboard.
Nearly every other dev I know uses a MacBook Pro. The Mac Pro is a production machine for movies, it's not really part of the discussion here.
It's not a major operating system outside of server use.
Your claim was this:
"As for the desktop features, all 3 major operating systems are the same. Claiming otherwise is not knowing how to use each of them." -- that's a demonstrably false statement, which you're apparently trying to walk back now by claiming server installations are the same as desktop use. Linux has essentially zero desktop market share, because it's a very poor desktop OS, and is in no way comparable to either of the leading desktop operating systems, which was your claim. And no one I know uses Linux as a desktop inside another OS. Plenty of people use an ssh session into a Linux machine to compile things, but that's not using it as a desktop. Very few people would want to use an OS in a VM as their main desktop, especially since that doesn't even resolve the issues that make it a terrible desktop OS!
I'm using Xcode on a MacBook Pro to do C++ development for an embedded system right now. I've used it to write C applications in the past. I don't do webdev ever and generally don't do mobile. Nearly everyone in my field uses a MacBook Pro, for everything from firmware development up. The webdev kids seem to be the the Linux zealots from what I've seen.
> It's not a major operating system outside of server use.
You are forgetting Android, embedded, web servers, networking equipment of all kinds, HPC and supercomputing, HFT, automotive, aerospace and many other fields.
Linux is, by far, the operating system with the most deployed systems out there.
> that's a demonstrably false statement, which you're apparently trying to walk back now by claiming server installations are the same as desktop use
I am not backing from anything, and I have not claimed anything about servers so far until this post.
Linux is the third desktop operating system, whether you like it or not. At home, in fact, it is not that far from macOS (4%), Linux (1%).
Given you talk about "demonstrable" things, I refer you to surveys like Steam's.
At work, Windows is even more prevalent, and those surveys do not include VM (work/non-gaming) usage where most people I know use it.
> Nearly everyone in my field uses a MacBook Pro, for everything from firmware development up
Perhaps you are in the US, where Apple has a disproportionate market share (up to 30% IIRC) compared to anywhere else in the world. I also work on embedded and no one uses a Mac here, nor Xcode. A ThinkPad or a Dell with a Linux VM is the proper choice. Xcode for firmware development sounds very odd, too.
The entire context of the discussion was desktop operating systems, not embedded devices. Aerospace doesn't run Linux on anything I've ever even heard of, that would be foolhardy to the extreme. They're running things like QNX and different variants of real time operating systems. Automotive does run it on non-critical things, but even that is pretty silly. Most critical systems on vehicles do not run Linux either. Most networking gear doesn't run Linux -- some consumer things do, but many run some form of BSD or some proprietary OS(ios).
Android is barely Linux (and if you want to add mobile phones into the discussion you'd have to realize that iOS is actually the same thing as OS X..), and the rest aren't desktop operating systems at all -- and many of them don't run Linux either.
But again, the context, and your comment, was about the desktop. Linux isn't there.
You call Linux the "third" desktop operating system by default because its desktop share isn't exactly zero. It's quite close to zero, but not exactly. That's all.
Windows & OS X are the only major desktop operating systems.
And yes, I'm in the US. I'm not sure that really matters that much. Obviously different shops will do things differently. You don't use a Mac, so your worldview is that they aren't a thing. That's simply not correct. There's a wide world outside your bubble. A Thinkpad / Dell with a Linux VM is your choice, not "the proper" choice.
I'm not an OS zealot -- I use both of the major desktop operating systems, and I use others where they're appropriate -- have used Linux for decades. Until Linux has MS Office running natively on it, it will never have a desktop market. No, it's still not the year of the Linux Desktop. Probably never will be.
And Xcode is a perfectly usable C & C++ IDE. Why wouldn't you use it for firmware?
> Aerospace doesn't run Linux on anything I've ever even heard of, that would be foolhardy to the extreme.
It will shock you to learn that most stuff out there now works on Linux and soft RT Linux. For hard RT where Linux does not fit the bill, specialized operating systems are used.
> Android is barely Linux
It is actually 100% Linux.
> the rest aren't desktop operating systems at all
Luckily not everyone working on about half a dozen of them thinks like you!
> You call Linux the "third" desktop operating system by default because its desktop share isn't exactly zero.
1% is "near zero"? So millions and millions of desktops are "zero"?
We should be telling Canonical, Valve, Microsoft and hundreds of other companies that depend on "desktop" Linux to work!
> And yes, I'm in the US. I'm not sure that really matters that much.
As I explained, the market share in the US is wildly different than in the rest of the world.
> You don't use a Mac, so your worldview is that they aren't a thing.
Hah. I have used Apple systems and Xcode for many years. I own (have owned, my last was right before the Touch Bar debacle) several Macs in my life. That is why I know a decade ago they were on top of their game and now the ecosystem sucks for devs.
In another thread I said I think the culture of the Mac died with Jobs and the company switched to the profitable part too much (the iPhones and such).
> Until Linux has MS Office running natively on it, it will never have a desktop market.
Desktop market != Office market. Of course Linux has almost no market on typical companies with employees doing Word and Excel 8-5.
> And Xcode is a perfectly usable C & C++ IDE. Why wouldn't you use it for firmware?
Because everything else is just plainly better, or open source, or free, or cross-platform, or...
Yes, Xcode is perfectly usable for C++. SublimeText + plugins is perfectly usable, too. I can also do my job pretty well with gedit or vim or emacs. And if needed I can do it with bloody Notepad too. That does not mean I choose them nor that they are the best.
Not in aerospace or anywhere else where life & safety are at stake. I'm quite familiar with those worlds, and Linux doesn't exist there.
Android is not 100% Linux. It's a phone OS that runs a Linux kernel and essentially nothing else that even looks like a desktop Linux (remember, that's the discussion).
Yes, 1% is near zero. For desktop use, the only people who use Linux are devs who are completely buried in the Linux world, and OS zealots. The market outside of that vanishingly small sector of desktop users is zero -- not close to zero, not 1%, zero. No one runs Linux on the desktop because they want to run Linux on the desktop -- you don't even do it. They run it because they have no other alternative, or because their religion demands it.
Nothing has changed in the Mac "ecosystem" to make their machines worse for devs in the last ten years. I'm really at a loss to even begin to understand what you are talking about here. It simply isn't so.
Again, your opinion is that you don't like Xcode. Nothing else you've posted suggests a real fact.
I've written plenty of code in vi -- even in ed, in Netbeans, whatever. I like Xcode because it works really well, and if you're in the Mac ecosystem it's designed to work well there. I don't care if an IDE is open source, I don't care if it's "free" (Xcode is), and I don't care if it's cross platform. Those items mean nothing to me, they do nothing for me. If I need to write on a linux system I'll pull up netbeans or eclipse. Or I'll write it in an ssh session using vi. So what?
You're continuing to state your opinions as though they are some objective fact. You don't like Macs for some reason since Jobs died. That's your opinion. It doesn't match that of many others.
I think you're missing the point where I treat the "top class desktop operating system with top class unix environment support and tools" as a whole, and not as two separate things. To me MacOS is the top class desktop operating system with top class unix env support, nothing else gets close to this definition. Other operating systems could get close to other definitions, maybe even surpass it, but not to this one.
Sure, your needs are your needs, but the person you're replying to is saying they aren't objectively worse, not subjectively. Windows/Linux on a PC laptop is an obviously-viable tool for a great many people, and those people may want to start looking at what's available if they aren't satisfied with Apple's offerings. Personally I'm not a fan of treating laptops as anything more than nice SSH clients to the more powerful machines where I do my actual work, but again that's subjective :)
I'll amend that a bit, I assume many of the people you speak of are in my camp, and that camp is a bit different than what you described.
Mostly I don't care about OSX. Some days i actually would prefer Linux. The reason I'm on OSX though is because I've been down the Linux desktop road, many times, and between the software and/or faulty configuration experience I use avoid it.
Random problems when I'm trying to work drive me mad. I use OSX to avoid problems.
Objectively worse? No. You are right that competitors are not objectively worse for lacking MacOS. Still, there is a large population (myself included) who is most comfortable working in macOS and considers the “Apple tax” lower than the switching costs of changing OSs.
Yes, it does. As someone who does audio recording, design work and programming, Macos, with it's unix shell that allows all my programming tools to work and the excellent support by creative software, is the only OS that works.
The design tools may also work on windows, but the development story is hilariously bad. And no, WSL 1 or 2 with all their performance hits and weird edgecases don't qualify at all to a native unix shell.
Linux is superior to macos for software development, but the creative software support is non-existant.
Really, for someone like me (and I bet there are many others like me) Macos is the the only os that works.
Where I have to use Linux, I just boot up a headless VM and ssh into it from my Mac. Saves me a lot of headache trying to run a real Linux machine and deal with x and all its BS.
Objectively not, but in practice a lot of people are locked in Apple ecosystem, for long time MacBooks were the only good laptops for development with support of communicators, graphic tools etc.
It's changing with Linux and WSL, but can't blame people to stay with macOS if it works for them.
Personally I'm using linux and thinkpad, but even x1 carbon falls short to MacBooks in areas I mentioned before.
Yep, I'm using an X1 Yoga, still not nearly as nice to use as OSX on a Macbook Pro that's 3 years older than it, and that's with either Windows or Linux. Ubuntu touchpad drivers are pretty bad, the windows ones are tolerable but still fail at multi-finger gestures. I really like the touchscreen, but the display colors/look aren't nearly as good. Overally pretty disappointed for a system that's close to top-spec when compared to my base spec MBP from years earlier (but it does run my Windows applications for work which I need).
The resolution part is insane. I use my work Macbook at 125% scaling, which would be equivalent to 100% on a WQHD screen. There are some available on some very specific (expensive) ThinkPads from a generation I don't want and the new Ryzen ASUS Zephyrus G14 (but it seems like they absolutely don't want to sell it, I seriously have found no listing for it after spending a long time hunting down the actual model code).
There are some 4k models, but those bring more weird fractional scaling problems with them (especially bad on Linux), have battery life and are usually super expensive.
Oh ... and it's all 14 or 15" models. I'd happily take a 17 or 19" laptop - I just want enough portability so I can carry it around in a bag while commuting and have it on a desk most of the time, but, while there are some okay 17" offerings (barely any "pro" devices, though, so no swappable RAM) there is not one (apart from the insanely expensive ZBook) offering with a higher than FHD screen.
What the fuck?! Why? Don't most people use their laptops as only somewhat portable work stations? Am I the only one who finds a larger screen with more content useful?
Razor has a 17” laptop that can be configured to have a 4K display, but you also have to upgrade the GPU to a RTX 2080 Max-Q. The RAM and storage is end user replaceable though and you’d have an absolute beast of a machine that could handle pretty much anything you’ll ever throw at it. It is $3700 though.
https://www.razer.com/gaming-laptops/razer-blade-pro/shop
Let's ignore no 120/144/240 Hz screens, no good GPU (or any dedicated GPU in most models), no CUDA, no Zen2, no workstation CPUs, no high-capacity RAM, finicky keyboard, bad warranty, no Linux support, bad Windows support, no proper OpenGL, no Vulkan, no Direct3D, no 32-bit software, no Ethernet, no FireWire, no USB-A, no optical drive, no HDMI, no DP, no VGA...
Definitely all advantages!
Let's also ignore all vendors with laptops that have better hardware, better warranty or better prices.
FWIW all those you mention can be added with a USB device (even DOS, you can boot FreeDOS via a CD or even external floppy on modern PC) whereas the stuff jfkebwjsbx mentions cannot (except the optical drive).
I use the VGA port in many conference talks I give. Modern, digital projectors are still not a guarantee and it is very awkward to go ask around for another laptop or a dongle.
I have FireWire hardware still around that I have no plan on replacing until it breaks.
Around half my games are 32-bit.
I have a library of BluRays with my favorite shows at home. I also bought some kid shows for my daughter 6 months ago that came in a DVD set.
But yeah, go laugh and make a comparison with PS/2. Everyone I listed is still in use today and many laptop vendors provide ports for them. Some will go out soon, some won't for years.
For digital media, especially for kids, there are many better alternatives -- including ripping the DVDs, copying them to a MicroSD card and buying a cheap Fire tablet. But, Disney+, with an iPad ($329), and Apple Arcade (no ad ridden, play to win games) is a godsend for kids.
My time is worth way more than dealing with ripping DVDs, to be honest.
Yes, streaming platforms are convenient, but no, I don't want to be limited to whatever Disney+ or Apple Arcade wants me or my kid to watch/play. I choose what shows/games are worth, not the other way around. I will pay to watch a show in streaming, but I don't pay streaming to have something to watch. If that makes sense...
If I was going to play optical media, I’d be more interested in getting it to play on my TV than my laptop. Every time I played a DVD on the last laptop I had with a DVD drive it was always a nightmare to deal with power, HDMI, and deal with the laptops tendency to go to sleep. I’d rather just buy a dedicated optical player for the TV and be done with it.
Just because you continue to use VGA, PS2, and FireWire doesn’t mean that everyone needs that. You have extremely niche needs, especially in a laptop, it’s utterly unsurprising that Apple won’t add the hardware to support them.
First of all, I haven't said I use PS/2. Quite the opposite. Trying to group all ports in the same place as a very outdated one is being intellectually dishonest. Things like FireWire and VGA are already on the way out and are not present in new laptops, but laptops used today still have them.
If I have "extremely niche needs", then why do almost all laptops sold include Ethernet/RJ-45, several USB-A ports, HDMI output, card readers, etc.?
Not everyone has bought into $50 USB-C dongle land.
They’re not done migrating to USB-C, that’s why. Every single year non-mac laptops slowly get thinner and trade another USB-A port for USB-C. The fact that all my work colleagues were issued a USB-C dock is going to accelerate this trend.
I can’t tell you the last time I saw a coworker directly use anything other than the USB-C port on their laptops, even on Lenovos with other ports. It’s only a matter of time.
Honestly, the “$50 USB-C dongle” has been great. I plug in a single cord and it provides two displays, power, USB, and Ethernet. This is everything that work laptop docks promised decades ago, except it’s an open standard! If I were to switch from a Mac to a Dell or a Lenovo, I wouldn’t need to change a thing about my current setup. Heck, I don’t even use an Apple power charger when traveling anymore, since my Anker is smaller and can barely keep my MBP topped off.
Have you looked at the latest line of business class Dells? Most of them don’t have Ethernet ports nor do they have card readers. Most of the consumer line computers don’t either. Dell is still the number one or number two PC vendor.
>> I use the VGA port in many conference talks I give. Modern, digital projectors are still not a guarantee and it is very awkward to go ask around for another laptop or a dongle
Ever thought about buying your own dongle? Sincle you give many conference talks it might be a great investment :)
High refresh rate screen is the only thing I'd want from that list. I'll upgrade my 2017 MBP when/if a model with >120Hz display comes out. For me it's been the greatest thing in consumer space since HDD to SSD upgrades. Having made the switch on desktop, going back to 60 Hz makes all motions (even scrolling a web page) appear incredibly choppy and distracting for a hour or two until my eyes readapt.
I would argue that macOS isn't the selling point it used to be but it's still less annoying to me to work with than WSL on Windows 10 or wrestling with a Linux distro and shitty display drivers.
If hardware quality and design is desirable, there are a several options on the market. Surface Pro are extremely nice if you're into Windows. X1 Carbon is a nice option if you are after a durable and compact laptop. Razer Blade is basically a performant gaming laptop in a MacBook Pro body (though you don't have to play games on it).
Still, even with all the software and hardware issues of the recent years, there is something in Apple's computers that makes me want to keep using them.
We have some at work and I don't think they are worth the money. Same for the Surface Book. I have it as my main laptop now but I think I will go back to a HP ZBook.
It's even worse when you notice that two of the four "new" models come with an 8th gen Intel CPU, and DDR3 memory, it's like they replaced the keyboard from the previous model and they're calling it "new".
Between selling cpu's 2 generations behind, the keyboard issues, and thermal problems in the Macbook Airs, it really seems like Apple is trying its best to alienate buyers from their laptop line. Just recommended a coworker a Macbook Air for her son, an i7, 16Gb of RAM and 512Gb SSD. From off to account creation, the fan was already running. By the time the laptop was showing the desktop it was burning to touch. Some more testing and I found out the CPU was at 94-98ºC after 4 minutes. Turns out it is by design (just take a look at the photos of the cpu cooler, separated from the fan https://www.ifixit.com/News/36480/theres-something-new-in-th...). She just returned the laptop and is exploring options from Dell and Lenovo.
Even if you like MacOS, you now have to wait before buying anything Apple until you can see a teardown just to see if it's going to survive even casual use.
Between selling cpu's 2 generations behind, the keyboard issues, and thermal problems in the Macbook Airs,
What thermal problems? I have had the Air 2020 in the Core i5 configuration for two weeks and the fan rarely spins up. Even when it does, I can touch the hottest part of the laptop without problems.
From off to account creation, the fan was already running.
That's not strange. Spotlight spends the first whatever amount of time on indexing the hard drive. Indexing implies parsing various files/file formats. This usually ends when indexing is done.
With the fixed keyboard, the MacBook Air 2020 is finally a MacBook that I love again, which I can't really say of the two butterfly Pros I had before (with the first I really disliked the keyboard, the second had a Touch Bar and I always had trouble pressing the Esc key blindly).
Honestly since Intel chips have almost all flatlined into 14nm, with the only minute improvements coming from better binning, I don't think the selling CPUs 2gens behind is an issue.
Edit-they're actually selling the 10th gen chip, not 8th gen like you describe
Perhaps, but show me build quality on the same level in the PC world. Even though I find Apple lagging behind it's previous standards in build quality, it's still better that most in the PC world.
(I'm still on a mid 2015 MBP and completely content to stay with it.)
You have the last good one. My 2015 died and my employer gave me a 2017 that promptly died 3 months later. Apple Care and the genius bar were a pretty shitty customer service experience but I eventually got it back. The keyboard is worse than the rubber domes on the $200 Walmart Black friday special I got several years ago. That's not a joke. For the 2017 model Ram maxed out at 16gb which made it a laughing stock for that era. The touchpad is bigger and still good, but feels substantially worse than the 2015. After a year the battery life was a joke @ <50% brightness. It doesn't feel noticably faster than the 2015 either.
My 2015 was the best laptop I've ever used by a longshot. Thinkpads of the same era match it in build quality and have slightly better keyboards but the touchpad and the Mac workflow are something I grew to love.
The keyboard on the 2017 was so bad when a coworker with an old model was showing me how to do something on my laptop he genuinely thought it was broken.
I have a work provided 2019 13" Mac Book Pro. I was hesitant to let them replace my 2014 MBP because of all the negative press about the new keyboards. FWIW, I now prefer the 2019 keyboard over my personal 2014's MBP, the latter's keyboard now seems mushy and imprecise. So, aside from the touchbar, which I still don't love, I prefer the 2019 MBP over the older model.
That's what I've been saying as well to those who ask. The last good one. Even though it was the staingate one. Typing this on a banged up 2015 13inch. It's seen MacOS, Win for a year and now is on Kubuntu. Battery doesn't hold an hour, but I have yet to overcome the reluctance to pay for something not as good.
It might depend on your typing style. If you hit the keys with force, you might prefer rubber domes/mech keyboards, if you flow around the keyboard just gently tapping the keys, butterfly is amazing. I would easily pay $200 for a desktop keyboard that gives the same typing experience.
I'm fairly heavy handed so maybe that's why it doesn't appeal to me. I use Box Navy switches on one of my mechanical keyboards. Those are notoriously heavy.
Kailh might make something lighter than MX blues. Not sure what's out there on the light side. I'm sure cherry or someone must make something nice that still clicks. I also use linear switches around 60-70g.
Browns are lighter. Low profile Kailhs are even lighter. Right now I am using a scissor switch keyboard and I enjoy it a lot, but I am going to give kailh low profile browns a try. I like the general feeling of mech keyboards, but I don't like blues. I hope browns will be it. If not, scissor switch works well for me too, although my keyboard has issues with polling rate, sometimes when I type fast it swaps keys around.
I feel like a broken record but I must push back on the 'quality'. Just in personal experience, we've had macs swell up, keyboards repeatedly fail, expensive repairs.
Maybe the fit-and-finish is high grade but actualy _quality_ is alarmingly low, IMHO, especially for the price.
And if you're on a machine from 5 years ago, maybe you missed the recent plummet.
I think the person you replied to is saying that while the grade of macbooks is good (which normal people call quality), the quality of macbooks is not (ie, does what it says on the tin, and the keyboard lasts the life of the laptop).
It's the BMW argument. Great interior, power, handling. Feels like quality. Actual quality sucks because the thing needs more repairs than a Toyota.
I have a T480 and it’s the worst laptop I’ve ever owned. Had to send it back once for repairs already. The regular charging port no longer works so I use one of the other USB-C ports, which is now crumbling from the inside. The touchpad moves on its own. And worse, a failed firmware update has corrupted the Intel Management Engine (MeSpiLock failed message every boot) that I refuse to install Windows to fix. Finally, the absurdity of the never-fixed throttling issue on Linux — and Docker if you use Windows — makes it an awful machine for any kind of development. I spent a good chunk of money on this computer and I feel stuck with it. I will stay far away from Thinkpads in the future. Wide berth advised.
It's carbon fiber composite and machined aluminum. Yes, there is some plastic, but it's solid as shit.
No coil whine in mine. Touchpad idk, because I don't care that much about miniscule differences in touchpads, but it does the job as well as any high end laptop. All touchpads are trash imo, so I find it hard to prefer one over the other.
Most important for me when writing code is keyboard and screen. The kn is acceptable. The matte screen is a must for me. Even if it was all plastic, tbh I'd still take it for the matte screen.
I think we have different subjective tastes, I use my laptop docked most of the time, but the touchpad on macs is the only acceptable one I've used. All others fall that 5-10% below in performance and smoothness that makes them unusable. It's miniscule, but it's the most important final few percentage points.
Not a huge fan of matte screens either, I like pretty colors that pop and rarely work outside. Although I did have a privacy screen on my computer for a bit which was fun.
I also own a Precision M3800 (the business version of XPS 15). It is on par performance-wise but not in fit and finish (rubberized wrist-rest? what was Dell thinking?) Granted there are many generations of the XPS 15.
Apple has never been particularly great on the price/performance ratio of their laptops. You buy their laptops for the fully integrated package, not for the specs.
>Is it just me or is Apple starting to fall woefully behind non-mac hardware competitors in both price and perf?
Since forever... Ok, perhaps adding the SSDs was a great touch. However, Apple is considered a fashion brand, where you pay more for the brand, itself. In virtually any regard Lenovo business laptops are a better price/value proposition: easily extensible - more memory, m2 slots, docking, pcb with conformal coating, easily serviceable keyboard, touch pads, replaceable battery, etc. A lot better thermals, like a lot. And when it comes to perf. it's not even remotely close.
And yes, multiple USB-A slots, HDMI, display port, rj-45, no dongle nonsense.
They just didn't seem to last as long, for one reason or another. They were fine when functional. We just replaced them at a much greater rate than our Macbooks. BUT this was about 2 years ago, so a lot of our macbooks were older devices without the new keyboard mechanism.
In my personal life, my 2010 pro is still going strong. My mother uses it now - no complaints. Some things have failed, the optical drive. But man is that thing a tank.
I can defend their "chassis" as being ahead of the competition and you basically paying for the time they spent shaving shit off until it's perfect. But that damn touch bar. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the most custom of custom random hardware part, adding like half a smartphone's production cost to it. How much productivity can that thing possibly add? Who on earth says, "yea that touch bar, certainly worth more than 1TB of SSD space and 16GB of RAM!".
Has Apple ever designed a product solely around just a couple of specs? No. Consumers unfortunately fail to realize this and compare A vs B based on cherry picked specs. The reason you can't get a top of the line CPU and GPU in the MacBook is that Apple would then have to increase the price past the point which the machine would have broad appeal, or make concessions in other important areas.
What are those important areas?
- Speakers, Mic, Webcam
- Trackpad
- Aluminum chassis and form factor
- Touch ID
- Mac OS (like it or not, this is perhaps the most important feature for those considering Macs.)
It's very possible the competitive landscape has changed since 2010 and they are placing more focus on these ancillary features than before, but the strategy has always appeared to be to deliver a superior holistic machine. I, and their financials would argue they have been doing that from before 2010 through now.
This is really typical “missing the point” when it comes to Apple hardware.
First, Apple hardware was never bleeding edge even in 2010. That’s not ever how they operated. They’ve really never played the spec war. They don’t even publicly state the RAM spec in the iPhone while Android competitors make it into a price segmenting feature.
What these computers give out is all the stuff people really care about.
The computer’s shape and even the large ancient-looking top bezel are giving you a more comfortable typing surface compared to the XPS 13 where your palms slip off the edge if your hands are too big.
Skip forward to the part talking about typing comfort.
The speakers in the Air and Pro are best in class and nothing comes close. That’s something the customer will notice and care about.
The microphones in Apple machines are incredible. Something the customer will notice and care about when they use the computer on conference calls.
And nobody else has made a trackpad anywhere near as good. Still.
I dispute the assertion that there’s a computer out there in this same form factor with a discrete GPU at a similar price point with similar specs, and if there is I’m sure it’s a GeForce MX and not a GTX or RTX, in other words, not really worth the trouble. In reality, nobody buying this class of computer gives a shit about the graphics card. Investing battery life into one is a bad trade-off. I’d also like to see this mythical computer you speak of, what model are you talking about?
I also dispute your claims on pricing in general. Dell, for example, places a gate on 16GB of RAM
and the high DPI display to the highest XPS 13 model. It’s way less configurable than a similar Mac. A lot of Windows computers that seem to be equivalent to Macs omit features like a high DPI display or make them an upgrade and act like 1080p is “good enough” for customer spending almost a grand or more and doing mostly text work. I find that oversight unacceptable: a high DPI display should absolutely be standard on any computer over $700 that isn’t intended for gaming, IMO.
Expecting 6 cores or the very latest generation of every component is beside the point. Nobody notices that stuff. Only benchmarks can see the difference.
What actually makes a good computer is good ergonomics, good display, good battery life, good speakers, good microphones. The hardware internals are, in 2020 when computer performance is improving at a slower rate than ever before, nearly a complete afterthought.
It's been like this since forever. I can't remember a point in time where price per performance was a selling point for apple products, barring seriously oldschool machines.
They had the build quality + trendy side of the market shored up for a small time, but even then thinkpads were an easy match, albeit extremely untrendy.
For the last long while, since the regoodification of dell and the general shift towards catching up with mac in build quality across the market, they've been a poor choice for anyone looking to maximize their value.
I'm frankly shocked that someone finds this surprising these days.
The "apple tax" has been a thing for decades now.
I have never owned a mac but I listen to a mac-centric podcast and from their complaints I am not sure why I, a non-programmer, would ever pay the apple tax to buy one.
Never been a mac person, but I do agree it appears to be a bit lackluster. Its not the same comparison, but for ~1800 a new home workstation with 2070 Super / 3900x 12 core CPU becomes a pretty powerful machine.
They don’t expect everyone who bought the last computer update to buy this one. I work on a 13” MacBook Air from 2014 and it’s time for an update. $1500 for this feels like exactly what I’ve been waiting for.
When was the last time that over a period of years each update to a MacBook Pro was a monumental upgrade? Maybe early 2000s when they went from PowerPC to Intel? I think you’re just remembering this rosier than it really was.
I used to look forward to these announcements, now it's just 'we upgraded to a +1 generation config (still 1-2 generations behind what others are doing), that'll be 2000 bucks thanks'. Advertising 4 cores and 2018 Iris graphics as if it's some kind of achievement, when competitors have full dGpu solutions and 6 cores in same sized chassis at the same price bracket. They're taking a bit of a piss at this point.