What really annoys me about Apple and what shows up again in this review: In each keynote the highlight how "green" they are and how much they care about the environment.
But if they really would care about waste reduction and the environment then they would have switched over to USB-C for their phones (one truly universal type of cable = less waste), they would have kept the headphone jack (bluetooth earphones are a waste of precious resources), and they would produce laptops and desktops which are serviceable and upgradable by the user. Every single one of their products is made for "use it two years, throw it away when it breaks and buy a new one". Unfortunately other companies aren't much better, e.g. Microsofts Surface laptops which are impossible to repair.
And yet, now that they've climbed to the top of the heap built on planned obsolescence and chasing after relentless growth quarter after quarter, maybe it's time for them to use their wealth and influence to shape the market more thoroughly. Instead of simply continuing to chase more growth for the sake of the board's approval.
A few months ago the trackpad on my late 2014 rMBP began to malfunction. I brought it to an apple repair centre and they had to replace the battery, keyboard, laptop and the aluminium top case of the laptop. A lot of people, when presented with the quote they gave me would very likely just get a new laptop and throw the old one away.
If they were even slightly commited to the environment they would have the option to replace only the trackpad, it's not even the same part, they're attached by only a few screws!
It's very easy to find things your company already do for another reason and say you're doing it for the planet. I don't think there's more than this to apple's "commitment to the environment"
I'm actually amazed that almost every time I go to the Genius Bar for service, there are people paying ~50% of purchase price on repairs for their Mac/Book/Pad/Pros instead of refusing service and buying something new. Going with my first comment in this thread, my perception is that people have a much stronger connection with the thing they bought rather than optimizing for cost.
To add another anecdote: a few years ago my wife dropped her iPhone 4 into water and it died shortly after. I told her to shut it off and even disassembled it to see if anything was salvageable (it wasn't for my level of DIY). She paid probably 75% of the original purchase price to have it "fixed" which meant pretty much a new phone dropped into the old housing. Contrast that with one week ago when my iPhone 7 fell out of my pocket while biking and got run over by a car (only one tire hit, squarely over the thing). There were only three scratches to the side of the aluminum and a cracked rear camera glass cover. Not even a scuff to the screen. Apple quoted me $320 for the "repair" which I refused and semi-jokingly replied that I'd wait for the next battery recall. For now I have a $5 replacement part coming which I'll install myself, but if it shows any other issues down the line I'll likely just buy a newer model and give the old one to a family member or use it for whatever still works– there's almost always a use for old Apple products that still turn on.
> people have a much stronger connection with the thing they bought rather than optimizing for cost
Assuming people want to stay in the iOS ecosystem: Isn’t choosing the less expensive option (repair) instead of the more expensive option (buying a new iPhone) optimizing for cost?
That’s assuming they weren’t already planning to replace their phone soon.
Personally, I’m four iPhone versions behind, and am probably going to wait one more refresh cycle before getting a new phone. But if my phone broke today, I’d just buy the currently-new model and then not buy the one a year from now. Either way is fine with me.
If you're going to upgrade every N years/product cycles just to keep up with hardware advancements, then paying for a repair is money spent on a device that will be out of date sooner. Depending on how close/far you are from an anticipated upgrade it might make more sense to reset the clock.
My MacBook Pro is from 2011. If the logic board fails, I'll get a new machine without question even though it serves me fine and the repair would be 1/4 or less than a new model of the same tier. If I had an iPhone X and it needed a $500 repair today, I might pay for that if I had no intention of getting the iPhone X 2 or whatever it gets called. If I really wanted the "X 2", I'd start looking at other options whether that's a cheaper iPhone, a special plan from my cell provider, etc.
What I'm trying to describe is that rather than calculate what's best based on their own habits, consumers will react based on their gut feeling. Apple marketing definitely has an effect on that feeling but so does the desire to remain within Apple's ecosystem and therefore keep giving them money in one way or another.
Also (especially for laptops), the new option is more about different tradeoffs than better hardware. I use the headphone jack on my 6 plus daily, and don’t want to screw with dongles in my car, or replace my $100+ headphones with non-existent Bluetooth versions.
I can’t deal with the new laptop keyboards, so I’ll pay more than the purchase price of a new one for a repair of the old one.
(Though, in practice, I’ve found their repairs to generally be quite reasonably priced, and much more convenient/ reliable than any other manufacturer repair service I have dealt with)
> Every single one of their products is made for "use it two years, throw it away when it breaks and buy a new one". Unfortunately other companies aren't much better, e.g. Microsofts Surface laptops which are impossible to repair.
That is completely false. I'm typing this on a "MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)" that still works great. The MacBook I had before that lasted me about five years as well. The laptop I had before that one did break after two years, but that was because my cat spilled a bunch of soda into it while it was running (and the genius bar people spent an entire weekend trying to recover data from it anyways, and then gave me a huge discount on a new one).
I get that it's a bit ridiculous that you can't add more ram, but realistically speaking the biggest upgrades come from the motherboard and processor architecture and there's not a lot of laptops that will let you swap that out anyways.
I agree that they could reduce consumption and make life easier by consolidating connectors and not screwing around with those already established. However, in my experience whatever I buy from Apple tends to last longer and I definitely don't throw any of it out until it's completely unusable. In the cases where their product isn't more durable (e.g. certain MagSafe connectors) people tend to baby them because of the cost to replace. In over 15 years of buying Apple products, the only products I've discarded were a pair of earbuds that were stepped on and torn and a MagSafe charger which caught fire (early MacBook Pro). I think in some sense it's Apple customers customers who keep them "green" just by holding on to their stuff as long as possible.
As you see, it isn't just Apple, it's our whole economy. Building products that are durable and maintainable are better for the user and a less wasteful us of resources, but building things to be disposable is better for the short-term corporate bottom line. So all manufacturing tends to move in that direction.
Apple sells not so much a tech product as an aspiration. By buying Apple you are a better person, and better persons care about the environment. It would be against their brand to not care.
One day, it will be very cool and "woke" to pay taxes. You will see then how much noise Apple will be making about "paying their dues" well and beyond the minimal requirements and loop-holes.
I'm certainly not advocating a one child policy!! I haven't really thought much about high car taxes; I tend to think car ownership will go away once they drive themselves, though I don't know about the pollution impact.
My point was that people make choices, and the ultimate end result of economic activity should be the satisfaction of people, not other goals, and that the particular ones that happen to drive person X wild (or that they want to higlight for the purposes of virtue signalling) simply reflect personal choices as well. I have my own bugbears in this regard, though they happen to be different from the GP poster's.
I actually do have an opinion on childbearing. I am a parent and enjoyed it tremendously but by hanging around with other parents there are many, perhaps a majority, who seem like they would have been happier having fewer, or even none. Certainly that is the case of one of my parents. It's great to have a child because you want one, sad to do it because you think you ought to. But I don't think that should be a policy issue; if there's any policy issue in there it's haveing an educational system that encourages people to make decisions that will make them happy. Hmm, good luck with that.
In the scheme of things cabling is a relatively trivial point. Perhaps a better target to find fault with is lack of easy memory upgrade, or use of sealed rechargeables in mouse and especially keyboard. Apple are far from unique in claiming, perhaps undeserved, green credentials.
In general Apple and Thinkpad seem to be the only brands that will last. I suspect it is environmentally far better, for all their faults, to keep a machine for 5 years rather than have 2 or 3 cheaper machines over the same period.
So what would you suggest that doesn't require a rethink of the whole tech industry?
On the contrary, my Apple computers have lasted longer and have been more reliable than any other computers I've ever used.
While my dad gets a new PC laptop seemingly every 2 years, my Macbooks last 4-5 years easily while taking a whole lot of abuse.
And since Apple products tend to hold their value really well, there's a thriving second-hand economy for these products that doesn't really exist for other manufactures. So older products get re-used by people looking for cheaper Macs or iPhones or whatever.
One last point: no one really upgrades computers anymore, especially not laptops. Desktop computers are rare in the home now, and the people who are really spending a lot of effort into maintaining their desktop rigs are gamers and video professionals. Upgrading becomes a moot point when a system lasts as long as 5 years. By that time, there is far newer technology and upgrading is no longer worth it or feasible (newer motherboard types, incompatible RAM pins, etc).
The best way to do good for the environment is to create a reliable product with sustainable materials that serves it's purpose for as long as possible and then continues to deliver value through re-use. That's exactly what they're doing and it's the smart way to do it - it becomes a natural part of the product lifecycle with no additional effort required from the customer.
Yes Apple do highlight how "green" they are, and you can read their annual reports and decide for yourself if it's a deserved point of pride or not for them: https://www.apple.com/environment/
I will say they are probably one of the more transparent manufacturers in the industry, with initiatives ranging from carbon neutral office buildings down to the material sciences level in their products.
>The best way to do good for the environment is to create a reliable product with sustainable materials that serves it's purpose for as long as possible and then continues to deliver value through re-use.
>That's exactly what they're doing
No.
Only a couple of days ago there was a NY Times article posted here on how the iPad has become obsolete just because the software isn't being updated anymore.
The reason extremely old iOS devices (not just iPads) are not receiving OS support any longer is because iOS 11 switched to 64-bit architecture (dropping 32-bit support) and all apps written going forward will be compiled for 64 bit processor architectures.
Apple is industry leading in terms of software support for their hardware. Which other manufacturer provides OS updates for 4+ years? Certainly not any of the Android OEMs.
It's not as black and white as "it's supported" or "it's not supported". There's a lot of context around certain decisions that gets filtered out of articles like the one you're referring to.
microsoft? linux distros? Lets not pretend ARM devices falling out of support isnt anything but OEM apathy, its not like the hardware suddenly stopped functioning.
>Only a couple of days ago there was a NY Times article posted here on how the iPad has become obsolete just because the software isn't being updated anymore.
Like with the WMDs, don't believe all you read on the NYTs. And generally, don't get your tech news from the mainstream press.
The iPads that are left behind are those released before 2013 -- so like 5 years ago. And even those will still function just fine, just wont get any new updates.
Now, consider how Android phones and tablets often don't even get an official update to the next version of Android than the one they came with for comparison...
You are being very creative with “obsolete”. I use an iPhone 4s and it is not obsolete by any means. It works just fine. Don’t blame the manufacturer if you want the latest shiny new gadget and expect all the bells and whistles to work on hardware >5yrs old.
Please link to the benchmarks that show safari to be slower than Firefox. If an app developer choos s to stop supporting older iOS, that is something Apple has no control over.
You are fundamentally at odds with what Apple provides. You have the freedom to choose android and lineagos and maintain all that yourself. If that works better, Good for you and no need to depend on Apple.
The argument agianst using some hobby OS is that of security and trustability and maintainability. If you are personally comfortable doing it - good. Not everyone does, though.
> Please link to the benchmarks that show safari to be slower than Firefox.
I thought this was common knowledge; at the very least it is common knowledge that Firefox is on par with Chrome right now and usually pulls ahead slightly with 57/58. [1] [2] [3] [4] and one benchmark where Safari came ahead [5]. So I consider my prejudice that this is common knowledge wrong (if anyone else got such benchmarks, by all means).
Realistically, nobody cares about Safari. macOS has a low market share, and running Safari on it won't allow you to integrate with other browsers (if you stick to Apple ecosphere that's OK though). On iOS you got no choice; you'll always use WebKit, but running something like Firefox allows you to integrate it with your other devices. And on other devices, Safari doesn't run.
> You have the freedom to choose android and lineagos and maintain all that yourself.
Maintain all that yourself is a hyperbole. There is nothing to maintain if you run LineageOS. All you do is install the most recent version (for my port its ~every week). The only thing you need to maintain is your baseband.
Contrast that to you running an iOS version from August 2016. Do you think there have been zero vulnerabilities in the software you're using for 1,5 years? Think again.
Just useless benchmarks. None of them show any real world website load and render times. That is what matters to the end user. With JavaScript it is easy for the initial load time to overshadow whatever gains you get after jit warms up. Also safari uses WebKit and it has been maintained and updated decently.
> None of them show any real world website load and render times.
Not really, because not all users visit the same websites, and even then it doesn't matter equally on every website. That's why we have... benchmarks. Multiple, btw. But feel free to share your benchmarks.
> Also safari uses WebKit and it has been maintained and updated decently.
Not sure why you mention that, but I'll casually mention it has certainly not been maintained and updated decently on your ancient iPhone/iOS. I don't have to be Chinese/Russian/NSA folks to know that much.
> I use an iPhone 4s and it is not obsolete by any means. It works just fine.
Which iOS version do you run? Does that iOS version still get security and reliability updates? If no, do you still consider your iPhone 4s unsupported?
According to my source [1]: Original: iOS 5.0. Last: iOS 9.3.5, released August 25, 2016. The phone was available since October 2011/January 2012. So it was supported for 4,5 years which is very good for the standards of that period. But it seems that with 9.x being EOL the phone came to an end.
With Android devices, it works different, because when those are EOL you can install firmware like LineageOS or PostmarketOS on it. Although those are not officially supported, it can give a device a second life. One disadvantage is that baseband updates don't occur anymore.
How can you be so sure lineageos has not been malwared by some Chinese/Russian/nsa folks? I can trust android and iOS, cannot get myself to trust others. Moreover, the base os is not your only choice. You are free to port Firefox to iOS 5.x and install it on your device. No one is stopping you from doing it. Just crying over not have lineageos available for iOS is silly and a red herring.
> The 4s runs whatever latest it can be updated to.
Which is a 1,5 years old OS which received no further updates. Check all WebKit CVE from August 2016 till now (all of 2017 at least). I did a quick search, and found 2 RCEs with exploit available: CVE-2017-2471, CVE-2017-7089.
> How can you be so sure lineageos has not been malwared by some Chinese/Russian/nsa folks?
How can you be sure iOS is not malwared by some Chinese/Russian/NSA folks?
At least in LineageOS you can publicly check all source code and commits.
> I can trust android and iOS
I actually advice against using Android; I suggest LineageOS for microG [1]. Not because of Chinese/Russian/NSA folks but because of Google folks. They spy on Android users. Not with microG though.
You probably don’t drop them often. Every dell laptop I’ve owned broke when dropped. Ive dropped the glue and aluminum MacBooks dozens of times and nothing ever broke.
I can't say I've dropped them at all. But maybe that's where we differ; I also don't EXPECT to, so I don't buy for that eventuality (dozens? really? Over 24 times!?).
i use my laptops an average of 6-8 hours a day over 7 days a week. I pack them to go to work, unpack to work, disconnect to get to meetings, carry it back to reconnect, repack, unpack and setup at home, carry to the couch, pick up take to bed, etc.
In two years that’s like 7,000 opportunities to drop it.
This has been true in the past, but the tiny 27” monitor in this machine is already obsolete, and will be even more obsolete in a few years once the lcd replacements have matured. So, this model will be a $10k footrest / minitower by 2020.
> Every single one of their products is made for "use it two years, throw it away when it breaks and buy a new one"
That’s absolutely rubbish - totally false. I got six years out of one of my MacBooks - it still actually works fine as a web browsing machine but is a bit slow. The next went well for four years but was taken out by a faulty graphics card. Luckily Apple replaced it free-of charge with a model four years newer, which is still going strong after three years. I don’t foresee having to replace that for at least another two or three years either.
I’ve got three years out of each of my my iPhones too, whereas many of my friends with Android phones seem to replace theirs as often as every year and a half, which is about how long they tend to get updates, unlike iPhones that keep getting them for years.
Apple's OS support for iOS devices has generally been quite generous -- 5 years is typical. For example, iOS 11, which was released in September 2017, dropped support for the iPhone 5, which was released in September 2012.
Virtually no Android users know how to install LineageOS, as a mobile developer all usage stats show that Android fragmentation is real and awful. Huge percentage of Android users never get updates.
If my mother doesn't know what "LineageOS" is then it's completely irrelevant to this discussion.
It's especially odd that you'd bring up something like a niche OS when we're talking about environmental impact at scale. The amount of people that even know what "LineageOS" is a minuscule number relative to the global impact of software like iOS and Android.
Simply put, LineageOS does not matter - at all. I'm glad that you like it, and it's cool that there's an option for you to install that on your phone but it just does not matter in the same way that Linux on desktop simply does not matter if you're talking about consumer product.
I think you're completely missing my point. At scale, this is not a real solution.
Sure I can install it for my mom, but we're talking about billions of people here.
At the risk of sounding arrogant, I have to really urge you to think differently and stretch your imagination a bit more here. Systems thinking at scale makes this something more than simply a technology problem/discussion.
Have you ever heard of the saying "A tool that no one knows about isn't useful at all"?
The point was that one person riding a bicycle will not solve environmental problems if everyone else drives a car and the infrastructure is built for cars.
>But if they really would care about waste reduction and the environment then they would have switched over to USB-C for their phones (one truly universal type of cable = less waste), they would have kept the headphone jack (bluetooth earphones are a waste of precious resources), and they would produce laptops and desktops which are serviceable and upgradable by the user.
All three things sound inconsequential regarding the environment. First, there are so many iPhones out there and there have been hundreds of millions of lighting cables sold before USB-C was a thing -- you suggest throwing those is better for the environment? Besides, each iPhone comes with a free such cable. If it came with a free USB-C cable it would have been better for the environment because?
Second, "bluetooth earphones are a waste of precious resources". Doesn't that contradict your first statement, about the waste of resources cables represent? Not to mention that old headphones can be used with new iPhones with a tiny adapter.
Lastly, "Every single one of their products is made for "use it two years, throw it away when it breaks and buy a new one", nope. In fact it's the opposite, Macs have a better lifetime, and more resale value than your average PC. And people use old iPhones and iPads perfectly fine. And of course, when you're done, they can recycle the whole thing.
The “better resale value” thing needs to be addressed. People keep using this as evidence of the Mac or iphone’s longevity, but I hardly doubt that’s the cause for the better resale value. Broken, non-working Mac products also have better resale value than the equivalent Windows products. It seems far more likely the better resale value is simply because
(a) Their parts have higher value due to Apple using proprietary parts, rather than cheap openly available parts, making them valuable for repairers
(b) Apple does not sell products below a certain price range, so if someone’s kid wants a portable Mac, but they can’t afford to spend more than $500, they have to go the second hand route. In the Windows world you have a plethora of new devices available at a fraction of the cost of any new device, therefore making it impossible for the old device to hold its value since it isn’t competing only with its original price.
do note that Microcenter has been selling the base config at $1000 for some time now. Originally people thought to be a one off sale but it keeps coming back. Going out on a limb here to say I doubt Microcenter is doing this without Apple's blessing or assistance on pricing.
A "equal" in numbers iMac can go over three thousand making the jump not that much more.
barefeats.com has some great eGPU and other comparison testing with this machine
Important caveats on the Microcenter pricing: that's $1,000 OFF, not $1,000 total. And that price is only available for in-person pickup and limited to one per household. Nice if you can take advantage of it, but not for everyone.
Agreed, though we will all need to pray that GPU costs come down - I saw 1080s on Amazon going for $1400 the other day, granted it was just a spot check and I’m sure it’s cheaper elsewhere.
> So we ran into heat sink problems with MacPro. Also, people wanted a pro machine to be extensible and upgradeable.
> We learned from our mistakes. We give you the non-upgradable non-extensible iMac Pro that is also a heat sink problem.
[1][2]
Apple has completely dropped the ball on the pro market. Not only did the completely missed the mark with the "trashcan" MacPro (in all respects: the pros didn't want it, Apple themselves couldn't iterate and improve on the design), but they have all but abandoned anything pro-related:
- MacOS stagnates.
- MacBook "Pro" is not really a pro machine [2]
- iMac Pro is a bone thrown to the crowds to wow and please, and it has "trashcan" Mac Pro written all over it
- Thanks to the USB-c SNAFU you can't even connect external monitors to Macbook "Pro"s reliably (keeping the native color range and resolution)
And there are multiple other issues big and small. To that end, Ars Technica's "Bad" and "Ugly" conclusions are quite damning.
1. MacOSX has not been stagnating. The focus has just been on behind the scenes improvements e.g. exclusive 64-bit, Metal 2, APFS and I am very glad this is the case. Apple needs a lot more of this.
2. MacBook Pro definitely has issues (keyboard) but in every other respect it is a pro machine. If you can provide an alternative I would be thrilled to know about it. And if "pro" = "lots of ports" well frankly I have standardised on WiFi, BT and USB-C for all my devices and so I haven't missed any of them.
3. iMac Pro is not designed for crowds. And it isn't a replacement for the Mac Pro which is coming this year.
4. I connect dual monitors to my MacBook Pro every single day and have never had issues with the color gamut or resolution changing.
ad 2) touchbar is a gimmick making tasks more difficult (you have to visually check what you're doing), battery time is lower in comparison with older MBP, touchpad is uncomfortably big (touching it accidentally). The ports are not really an issue in comparison.
All this feels like they deprecated the Pro series, and replaced it with... this. Honestly - what is the difference between Macbook and MBP now - the touchbar?
Agree with 1. Disagree entirely with 2. I have two MacBook Pros (one from work) and the keyboards both have issues. One is newer and they tried to fix it, didn't work. The touchbar is a gimmick. It's decent on small workloads, and of course is fairly useless on heavy workloads. But none of that surprises me. They push the limits of what is possible with hardware design. The worst part is price. These macbook pros are close to $4k each. Go ahead and look what you can buy for $4000 if you aren't buying apple. You can get laptops that are much cheaper, much faster, somewhat extendible, and _well designed_. This is probably the last macbook i'll buy unless something changes.
Apple definitely is dropping the ball on its professional customers. These machines are great for browsing the web or writing some code (assuming you have an external keyboard), but anytime you need to do some actual computation, you need an EC2 instance or a different workstation. The DL/ML community is more or less left out unless they use an external GPU chassis (which is trash).
I get that they are not trying to make workstations or servers, in any case, higher end chassis should be extendible, at least if you want professionals to use your products.
Anyone dropping ~10k on an iMac Pro either has more money than they know what to do with, or they're a fool.
1. OSX has not been stagnating. It’s been regressing. Design patterns that used to be encouraged by Apple led to first party and third party apps that were small, focused, inter-operated with other apps and were extremely scriptable. All this was supported by window handling that made it easy to support a workflow involving multiple apps. The new design patterns encourage apps that are to be used full screen, have low visual density, and does not encourage inter-app communication or scripting at all, and with the sandbox actively discouraged it.
Even Gruber has been pointing out how Apple is encouraging apps that eschew all the advantages that OSX has over iOS to the point that it’s much better for devs to simply build web apps (his focus is more on the sandbox though so that’s another way OSX has regressed).
Long overdue unfortunately. I have a trashcan, a cube, a mini, a plus, laptops... I like MacOS, but I wish they would have build modular computers earlier.
Whether or not it will be modular is anyone’s guess. Meanwhile by the time it is released (if it is released), it will have been almost 4 years since the previous update, and almost 6 years since the last MacPro actually wanted by professionals.
In addition to the new iMac Pro, Apple is working on a completely redesigned, next-generation Mac Pro architected for pro customers who need the highest-end, high-throughput system in a modular design, as well as a new high-end pro display.
I'd wait and see. The previous iteration was called the most expandable Mac Pro yet. And we ended up what we ended up with.
So far I wouldn't hold my breath. The newest iMac they call "Pro"? It's a pain to even change the RAM in that thing. So much for "listening to the pros".
Literally nobody who's in the target audience for the iMac Pro (photographers, video editors, professional musicians, etc.) would ever consider using a hackintosh. If your paycheck depends on your tech, you want stability and supportability.
Out of curiosity, how much extra time would you say it would take someone who knows nothing about hackintoshes to buy one and use it as a daily driver? Is is possible to buy one that works out of the box?
It is not possible to buy one "out of the box" as far as I know. I would budget at least 2 hours of overhead to learn the basics (it's a lot easier nowadays then it used to be). If every part you pick is 100% compatible, you'll have a much better time; getting unsupported parts working is a pretty big headache.
Agreed. As a technically savvy person who knows nothing about hackintoshes the opportunity cost of researching, learning, buying, setting up, and dealing with upgrades far outweighs the potential savings of, what? Maybe 1-2k? In terms of professional work, 1-2k is nothing for peace of mind and ease of use.
"Literally" formally means exactly, but informally it can be used as a form of emphasis or to mean "figuratively".
Many people think that the informal use is a recent development, and perhaps a sign that the speaker has a poor grasp of English.
They are incorrect on both counts. Examples of older use by people who undoubtedly had excellent grasps of English are found in the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, and others going at least as far back as 1769. More on this in this article from Merriam-Webster on the angry comments directed at them by readers who think MW is corrupting the language [1].
They note that most other major dictionaries agree (in a middle finger to the critics, they say "Literally ever modern dictionary includes this definition"). They also note it has been in MW since 1909...I think they are trying to imply that the people who just noticed it there and were writing those angry comments are slow.
Sadly, this means people like you and me, who would prefer it to just have the formal meaning should really give up correcting or making fun of the informal usage, lest we literally look like idiots.
Right, That why these people will buy Windows PC with better hardware. Spec is nothing impressive you can get cheaper EPYC workstation with almost twice as much power.
This iMac Pro is not enough pro for pro-people and too expensive for amateurs.
I'm not sure who your "pro-people" are, but for tons of actual professionals (working in million dollar projects) this iMac Pro has more than enough specs for the rest 5+ years.
I think the point is that you can spend 10-30% as much for a faster windows/linux box, or for a slower mac that covers 99.9% of the workloads this thing does.
I'm not sure what community he's talking about, but I can well imagine the Apple Tribe looking down on anything but pure OEM equipment, and anything that allows such a thing.
Because they also have "proprietary" tools (UniBeast, MultiBeast) which at one point required a paid sub iirc which ticked off the osx86 community that was all about FOSS.
It is a nitpick for sure, but I am still amazed that a machine like this, obviously designed to be the best and look (and cost) the part, comes with a measly 1 year warranty out of the box. It takes away from the feeling that Apple has confidence in the product, imo.
For reference, European regulations will force them to upgrade that for free to at least 2 years, which is deemed a 'normal life time'.
I think the iMac Pro is just another validation that the latest MacBook Pro machines are not "Pro" at all. Where is the touch keyboard for the iMac Pro? Why does the iMac Pro have an SD Card slot? If those are indeed "Pro" features, why then were they changed on the MacBook Pro?
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 159 ms ] threadBut if they really would care about waste reduction and the environment then they would have switched over to USB-C for their phones (one truly universal type of cable = less waste), they would have kept the headphone jack (bluetooth earphones are a waste of precious resources), and they would produce laptops and desktops which are serviceable and upgradable by the user. Every single one of their products is made for "use it two years, throw it away when it breaks and buy a new one". Unfortunately other companies aren't much better, e.g. Microsofts Surface laptops which are impossible to repair.
Fortunately, its not all they care about. Its possible to have multiple priorities, you know.
If they were even slightly commited to the environment they would have the option to replace only the trackpad, it's not even the same part, they're attached by only a few screws!
It's very easy to find things your company already do for another reason and say you're doing it for the planet. I don't think there's more than this to apple's "commitment to the environment"
To add another anecdote: a few years ago my wife dropped her iPhone 4 into water and it died shortly after. I told her to shut it off and even disassembled it to see if anything was salvageable (it wasn't for my level of DIY). She paid probably 75% of the original purchase price to have it "fixed" which meant pretty much a new phone dropped into the old housing. Contrast that with one week ago when my iPhone 7 fell out of my pocket while biking and got run over by a car (only one tire hit, squarely over the thing). There were only three scratches to the side of the aluminum and a cracked rear camera glass cover. Not even a scuff to the screen. Apple quoted me $320 for the "repair" which I refused and semi-jokingly replied that I'd wait for the next battery recall. For now I have a $5 replacement part coming which I'll install myself, but if it shows any other issues down the line I'll likely just buy a newer model and give the old one to a family member or use it for whatever still works– there's almost always a use for old Apple products that still turn on.
Assuming people want to stay in the iOS ecosystem: Isn’t choosing the less expensive option (repair) instead of the more expensive option (buying a new iPhone) optimizing for cost?
Personally, I’m four iPhone versions behind, and am probably going to wait one more refresh cycle before getting a new phone. But if my phone broke today, I’d just buy the currently-new model and then not buy the one a year from now. Either way is fine with me.
My MacBook Pro is from 2011. If the logic board fails, I'll get a new machine without question even though it serves me fine and the repair would be 1/4 or less than a new model of the same tier. If I had an iPhone X and it needed a $500 repair today, I might pay for that if I had no intention of getting the iPhone X 2 or whatever it gets called. If I really wanted the "X 2", I'd start looking at other options whether that's a cheaper iPhone, a special plan from my cell provider, etc.
What I'm trying to describe is that rather than calculate what's best based on their own habits, consumers will react based on their gut feeling. Apple marketing definitely has an effect on that feeling but so does the desire to remain within Apple's ecosystem and therefore keep giving them money in one way or another.
I can’t deal with the new laptop keyboards, so I’ll pay more than the purchase price of a new one for a repair of the old one.
(Though, in practice, I’ve found their repairs to generally be quite reasonably priced, and much more convenient/ reliable than any other manufacturer repair service I have dealt with)
That is completely false. I'm typing this on a "MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)" that still works great. The MacBook I had before that lasted me about five years as well. The laptop I had before that one did break after two years, but that was because my cat spilled a bunch of soda into it while it was running (and the genius bar people spent an entire weekend trying to recover data from it anyways, and then gave me a huge discount on a new one).
I get that it's a bit ridiculous that you can't add more ram, but realistically speaking the biggest upgrades come from the motherboard and processor architecture and there's not a lot of laptops that will let you swap that out anyways.
One day, it will be very cool and "woke" to pay taxes. You will see then how much noise Apple will be making about "paying their dues" well and beyond the minimal requirements and loop-holes.
I understand a number of Apple employees have children, which has an even greater impact on the environment.
And many of them use motor vehicles of one sort or another to get to work. Have they no shame?????
This thread has just degenerated to “world has many problem, let’s just blame Apple”
My point was that people make choices, and the ultimate end result of economic activity should be the satisfaction of people, not other goals, and that the particular ones that happen to drive person X wild (or that they want to higlight for the purposes of virtue signalling) simply reflect personal choices as well. I have my own bugbears in this regard, though they happen to be different from the GP poster's.
I actually do have an opinion on childbearing. I am a parent and enjoyed it tremendously but by hanging around with other parents there are many, perhaps a majority, who seem like they would have been happier having fewer, or even none. Certainly that is the case of one of my parents. It's great to have a child because you want one, sad to do it because you think you ought to. But I don't think that should be a policy issue; if there's any policy issue in there it's haveing an educational system that encourages people to make decisions that will make them happy. Hmm, good luck with that.
In general Apple and Thinkpad seem to be the only brands that will last. I suspect it is environmentally far better, for all their faults, to keep a machine for 5 years rather than have 2 or 3 cheaper machines over the same period.
So what would you suggest that doesn't require a rethink of the whole tech industry?
While my dad gets a new PC laptop seemingly every 2 years, my Macbooks last 4-5 years easily while taking a whole lot of abuse.
And since Apple products tend to hold their value really well, there's a thriving second-hand economy for these products that doesn't really exist for other manufactures. So older products get re-used by people looking for cheaper Macs or iPhones or whatever.
One last point: no one really upgrades computers anymore, especially not laptops. Desktop computers are rare in the home now, and the people who are really spending a lot of effort into maintaining their desktop rigs are gamers and video professionals. Upgrading becomes a moot point when a system lasts as long as 5 years. By that time, there is far newer technology and upgrading is no longer worth it or feasible (newer motherboard types, incompatible RAM pins, etc).
The best way to do good for the environment is to create a reliable product with sustainable materials that serves it's purpose for as long as possible and then continues to deliver value through re-use. That's exactly what they're doing and it's the smart way to do it - it becomes a natural part of the product lifecycle with no additional effort required from the customer.
Yes Apple do highlight how "green" they are, and you can read their annual reports and decide for yourself if it's a deserved point of pride or not for them: https://www.apple.com/environment/
I will say they are probably one of the more transparent manufacturers in the industry, with initiatives ranging from carbon neutral office buildings down to the material sciences level in their products.
No.
Only a couple of days ago there was a NY Times article posted here on how the iPad has become obsolete just because the software isn't being updated anymore.
Apple is industry leading in terms of software support for their hardware. Which other manufacturer provides OS updates for 4+ years? Certainly not any of the Android OEMs.
It's not as black and white as "it's supported" or "it's not supported". There's a lot of context around certain decisions that gets filtered out of articles like the one you're referring to.
Android continues to run everything also on a 32-bit CPU and iOS does not.
Like with the WMDs, don't believe all you read on the NYTs. And generally, don't get your tech news from the mainstream press.
The iPads that are left behind are those released before 2013 -- so like 5 years ago. And even those will still function just fine, just wont get any new updates.
Now, consider how Android phones and tablets often don't even get an official update to the next version of Android than the one they came with for comparison...
Android devices at least have the option for 3rd party software. No such luck with iDevices.
Also it's not a fair to comparison between _all_ of the Android vendors in one bucket and Apple.
>"My attempt to install an alternative browser ended with this message: Firefox requires iOS 10.3 or later."
A Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 2013 - same age as that iPad - has Android 7.1 with all the latest bells and whistles (Firefox).
I expect to upgrade to Android 8.0 (LineageOS 15) later this year.
Edit: The author tried to install Firefox because Safari had become so slow it was unusable.
It does not run on Android < 4.1 either, but the devices remain useful since you can update Android even if the vendor support is long gone.
Thus an Android tablet with similar hardware as the iPad has potential for a longer lifespan.
I've not yet seen any valid arguments to counter this.
How exactly does that work for security, trustability?
I thought this was common knowledge; at the very least it is common knowledge that Firefox is on par with Chrome right now and usually pulls ahead slightly with 57/58. [1] [2] [3] [4] and one benchmark where Safari came ahead [5]. So I consider my prejudice that this is common knowledge wrong (if anyone else got such benchmarks, by all means).
Realistically, nobody cares about Safari. macOS has a low market share, and running Safari on it won't allow you to integrate with other browsers (if you stick to Apple ecosphere that's OK though). On iOS you got no choice; you'll always use WebKit, but running something like Firefox allows you to integrate it with your other devices. And on other devices, Safari doesn't run.
> You have the freedom to choose android and lineagos and maintain all that yourself.
Maintain all that yourself is a hyperbole. There is nothing to maintain if you run LineageOS. All you do is install the most recent version (for my port its ~every week). The only thing you need to maintain is your baseband.
Contrast that to you running an iOS version from August 2016. Do you think there have been zero vulnerabilities in the software you're using for 1,5 years? Think again.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=firefox-...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7cymaz/quick_firef...
[3] http://www.zdnet.com/article/just-how-fast-is-firefox-quantu...
[4] https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/firefox-quantum-vs-chrome
[5] https://www.kaklabs.com/browser/benchmark-browser-safari-11-...
Not really, because not all users visit the same websites, and even then it doesn't matter equally on every website. That's why we have... benchmarks. Multiple, btw. But feel free to share your benchmarks.
> Also safari uses WebKit and it has been maintained and updated decently.
Not sure why you mention that, but I'll casually mention it has certainly not been maintained and updated decently on your ancient iPhone/iOS. I don't have to be Chinese/Russian/NSA folks to know that much.
Which iOS version do you run? Does that iOS version still get security and reliability updates? If no, do you still consider your iPhone 4s unsupported?
According to my source [1]: Original: iOS 5.0. Last: iOS 9.3.5, released August 25, 2016. The phone was available since October 2011/January 2012. So it was supported for 4,5 years which is very good for the standards of that period. But it seems that with 9.x being EOL the phone came to an end.
With Android devices, it works different, because when those are EOL you can install firmware like LineageOS or PostmarketOS on it. Although those are not officially supported, it can give a device a second life. One disadvantage is that baseband updates don't occur anymore.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4S
How can you be so sure lineageos has not been malwared by some Chinese/Russian/nsa folks? I can trust android and iOS, cannot get myself to trust others. Moreover, the base os is not your only choice. You are free to port Firefox to iOS 5.x and install it on your device. No one is stopping you from doing it. Just crying over not have lineageos available for iOS is silly and a red herring.
Which is a 1,5 years old OS which received no further updates. Check all WebKit CVE from August 2016 till now (all of 2017 at least). I did a quick search, and found 2 RCEs with exploit available: CVE-2017-2471, CVE-2017-7089.
> How can you be so sure lineageos has not been malwared by some Chinese/Russian/nsa folks?
How can you be sure iOS is not malwared by some Chinese/Russian/NSA folks?
At least in LineageOS you can publicly check all source code and commits.
> I can trust android and iOS
I actually advice against using Android; I suggest LineageOS for microG [1]. Not because of Chinese/Russian/NSA folks but because of Google folks. They spy on Android users. Not with microG though.
[1] https://lineage.microg.org/
And my Ubuntu boxes are running on 10 year old Dells. <shrug>
In two years that’s like 7,000 opportunities to drop it.
That’s absolutely rubbish - totally false. I got six years out of one of my MacBooks - it still actually works fine as a web browsing machine but is a bit slow. The next went well for four years but was taken out by a faulty graphics card. Luckily Apple replaced it free-of charge with a model four years newer, which is still going strong after three years. I don’t foresee having to replace that for at least another two or three years either.
I’ve got three years out of each of my my iPhones too, whereas many of my friends with Android phones seem to replace theirs as often as every year and a half, which is about how long they tend to get updates, unlike iPhones that keep getting them for years.
No such option for iPhones.
When the support runs out you will be left hanging.
Is it actually a decent experience with support for current play store apps, etc?
It's even officially supported by the project.
It will also run faster than stock roms since there is no vendor bloat.
Most users don't know how to update even if there are vendor supported updates available.
It's especially odd that you'd bring up something like a niche OS when we're talking about environmental impact at scale. The amount of people that even know what "LineageOS" is a minuscule number relative to the global impact of software like iOS and Android.
Simply put, LineageOS does not matter - at all. I'm glad that you like it, and it's cool that there's an option for you to install that on your phone but it just does not matter in the same way that Linux on desktop simply does not matter if you're talking about consumer product.
If your mother can not install LineageOS then you or somebody else can do it for her.
Sure I can install it for my mom, but we're talking about billions of people here.
At the risk of sounding arrogant, I have to really urge you to think differently and stretch your imagination a bit more here. Systems thinking at scale makes this something more than simply a technology problem/discussion.
Have you ever heard of the saying "A tool that no one knows about isn't useful at all"?
I'm not sure what to say to this. I really don't have any answers to big societal problems.
All three things sound inconsequential regarding the environment. First, there are so many iPhones out there and there have been hundreds of millions of lighting cables sold before USB-C was a thing -- you suggest throwing those is better for the environment? Besides, each iPhone comes with a free such cable. If it came with a free USB-C cable it would have been better for the environment because?
Second, "bluetooth earphones are a waste of precious resources". Doesn't that contradict your first statement, about the waste of resources cables represent? Not to mention that old headphones can be used with new iPhones with a tiny adapter.
Lastly, "Every single one of their products is made for "use it two years, throw it away when it breaks and buy a new one", nope. In fact it's the opposite, Macs have a better lifetime, and more resale value than your average PC. And people use old iPhones and iPads perfectly fine. And of course, when you're done, they can recycle the whole thing.
A "equal" in numbers iMac can go over three thousand making the jump not that much more.
barefeats.com has some great eGPU and other comparison testing with this machine
> So we ran into heat sink problems with MacPro. Also, people wanted a pro machine to be extensible and upgradeable.
> We learned from our mistakes. We give you the non-upgradable non-extensible iMac Pro that is also a heat sink problem.
[1][2]
Apple has completely dropped the ball on the pro market. Not only did the completely missed the mark with the "trashcan" MacPro (in all respects: the pros didn't want it, Apple themselves couldn't iterate and improve on the design), but they have all but abandoned anything pro-related:
- MacOS stagnates.
- MacBook "Pro" is not really a pro machine [2]
- iMac Pro is a bone thrown to the crowds to wow and please, and it has "trashcan" Mac Pro written all over it
- Thanks to the USB-c SNAFU you can't even connect external monitors to Macbook "Pro"s reliably (keeping the native color range and resolution)
And there are multiple other issues big and small. To that end, Ars Technica's "Bad" and "Ugly" conclusions are quite damning.
----
[1] Quoting myself, https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/940673994126249987
[2] Mac Pro's issues: https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/4/15175994/apple-mac-pro-fai...
[3] "The Best Laptop Ever Made" https://marco.org/2017/11/14/best-laptop-ever and "Fixing the MacBook Pro" https://marco.org/2017/11/24/fixing-the-macbook-pro
2. MacBook Pro definitely has issues (keyboard) but in every other respect it is a pro machine. If you can provide an alternative I would be thrilled to know about it. And if "pro" = "lots of ports" well frankly I have standardised on WiFi, BT and USB-C for all my devices and so I haven't missed any of them.
3. iMac Pro is not designed for crowds. And it isn't a replacement for the Mac Pro which is coming this year.
4. I connect dual monitors to my MacBook Pro every single day and have never had issues with the color gamut or resolution changing.
All this feels like they deprecated the Pro series, and replaced it with... this. Honestly - what is the difference between Macbook and MBP now - the touchbar?
Apple definitely is dropping the ball on its professional customers. These machines are great for browsing the web or writing some code (assuming you have an external keyboard), but anytime you need to do some actual computation, you need an EC2 instance or a different workstation. The DL/ML community is more or less left out unless they use an external GPU chassis (which is trash).
I get that they are not trying to make workstations or servers, in any case, higher end chassis should be extendible, at least if you want professionals to use your products.
Anyone dropping ~10k on an iMac Pro either has more money than they know what to do with, or they're a fool.
Even Gruber has been pointing out how Apple is encouraging apps that eschew all the advantages that OSX has over iOS to the point that it’s much better for devs to simply build web apps (his focus is more on the sandbox though so that’s another way OSX has regressed).
https://daringfireball.net/2018/02/non_native_apps_threat_to...
Whether or not it will be modular is anyone’s guess. Meanwhile by the time it is released (if it is released), it will have been almost 4 years since the previous update, and almost 6 years since the last MacPro actually wanted by professionals.
In addition to the new iMac Pro, Apple is working on a completely redesigned, next-generation Mac Pro architected for pro customers who need the highest-end, high-throughput system in a modular design, as well as a new high-end pro display.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/imac-pro-most-powerfu...
So far I wouldn't hold my breath. The newest iMac they call "Pro"? It's a pain to even change the RAM in that thing. So much for "listening to the pros".
iMac Pro = 158 808
1080 Ti = 213 913
Reference: https://imgur.com/wfU94cb
Single-Core Score: 5255
Multi-Core Score: 35165
https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/425
Single-Core Score: 5209
Multi-Core Score: 14855
https://i.imgur.com/mHmSf9s.png
Single-Core Score: 6096
Multi-Core Score: 26949
Choose what you want, I know what i want.
I didn't build mine to save money, I did it because it's fun to learn and test.
I tried the beta of many Windows even the Georgia and longhorn ones. It was a lot more frustrating than this
Many people think that the informal use is a recent development, and perhaps a sign that the speaker has a poor grasp of English.
They are incorrect on both counts. Examples of older use by people who undoubtedly had excellent grasps of English are found in the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, and others going at least as far back as 1769. More on this in this article from Merriam-Webster on the angry comments directed at them by readers who think MW is corrupting the language [1].
They note that most other major dictionaries agree (in a middle finger to the critics, they say "Literally ever modern dictionary includes this definition"). They also note it has been in MW since 1909...I think they are trying to imply that the people who just noticed it there and were writing those angry comments are slow.
Sadly, this means people like you and me, who would prefer it to just have the formal meaning should really give up correcting or making fun of the informal usage, lest we literally look like idiots.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-lite...
This iMac Pro is not enough pro for pro-people and too expensive for amateurs.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/february/2018/
Is this like a RAID0 setup, or something else?
For reference, European regulations will force them to upgrade that for free to at least 2 years, which is deemed a 'normal life time'.