Homebrew will remain unaffected, since it does not set the quarantine bit on its binaries (which are usually invoked from the terminal anyways). Homebrew Cask opts in to Gatekeeper so it’ll be subject to notarization requirements.
autogen.sh isn't intended to be invoked for user installs. Users are supposed to invoke ./configure, with the configure script being generated by a developer invoking autogen.sh and readily packaged as part of the software's tarball.
> Not only that, there are and were multiple ways of installing software in Linux
Technically true, but practically false. To this day I get told that I shouldn't be even trying to use software that isn't in the repo. There are still a whole lot of applications released with a Windows binary and a tar.xz of source for Linux.
At DebConf 2014, none other than Linus himself bitched out the community for how difficult distributing things for Linux was. It should not require an army of maintainers across a score of repos to distribute software. And it isn't like the technology to make it simple isn't available. AppImage has been around since 2004 (it was called Klik at the time) and its existence has and continues to be largely ignored by the community. Other parts of the community are openly hostile to the very concept of simple application distribution, like Drew DeVault.
The situation is so awful, that recently when I wanted to use an application on my Linux laptop I found it easier to run the Windows version under WINE than get the Linux version installed.
And the most infuriating thing about it all is how incredibly resistant the community is to doing anything to change this situation.
AppImage & snapd & flatpak are poor solutions to a real problem. It's better to wait until someone comes up with a good solution than accept a bad one.
I would agree about snapd and flatpak, but AppImage is pretty close to ideal. The only more ideal way I can think of is if AppImage didn't require FUSE and could embed an icon (there was a proposal for an embedded icon standard in ELF, which was thoroughly ignored by the community).
It has been 20 years. How much longer should we wait for functionality the original Macintosh included in 1984?
I know a lot of developers who get by fine without Homebrew. Either they use another package manager or they’re happy with downloading applications and packages from the internet and using those.
It ist not only a bit excessive, it is completely wrong. Most software for the Mac comes as disk images from the creator. You just drag the application to your programs folder and thats it. That is the way I installed most programs on my Mac. The App Store is nice to have but a less common way of installing programs. Also, services like the notarisation offered by Apple show clearly, while they love their App Store, they clearly support alternatives.
I'm no fan of MacOS, but I certainly agree with you on this point - there are a multitude of ways to install software on MacOS, and it doesn't go out of it's way to prevent me from using those.
Apple 2019: if your problem is not google-trivial, there's nothing you can do. Calling Apple's tech support line does not help, because they will just type your problem description into Google and read the first hit.
Really? My experience of calling Apple tech support (to troubleshoot something to do with Messages on my Mac) was that they were surprisingly well-informed, and they fixed my issue with approximately zero patronising, script-parroting, is-it-turned-on? nonsense.
Is not nonsense as most simple problems are caused by simple mistakes. Don't reflect your experience with computers and tools to the average user's experience.
Well, OK, it’s reasonable place to start, but I think most of the HN crowd will have experienced the frustration of being unable to break out of that model. Obligatory XKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/806/
Uhh it’s an extremely stupid question if they’re asking for support about a word processor bug visible on screen. Blindly defending arbitrary practices out of context is stupid. Stop doing it.
My one experience with Apple support was a complete disappointment. iOS 11 made my iPhone 6+ unusable. Their only suggestion was to try rebooting it. This was right before the battery scandal broke.
I had the same issue with XCode update. Today, the download finally started, progress bar reached 100% then... XCode was not installed. Infuriating. Too bad Microsoft don’t allow easy access to LTSB and destroyed Windows UI. I feel the state of commercial OS declined sharply in the last decade.
Something about Catalina has been causing issues with both installing Xcode and massively increased phantom disk usage (not just related to TimeMachine). I didn’t experience the former (have colleagues who did though), but did experience the later and had it self correct (on a machine without TM enabled).
My recollection of Linux in year 2000 was it was very easy to understand how everything worked. If you were searching for "terminal commands from discussion forums, type them in and hope for the best" then you were definitely doing it wrong (in 2000 and now).
Most likely to be a driver (or even hardware) bug. I had a SB AWE32 card which would do that, and I even hacked on the driver for a while to try to diagnose it before concluding the soundcard was probably taking PCI bus master and never releasing it, not really something that Linux could do anything about.
It's possible that the equivalent Windows driver - which didn't crash - had a secret workaround to prevent it from tickling the hardware bug. I used to work on OS-9 drivers for custom hardware at my first job, and we usually ended up bodging the driver to fix hardware bugs, because respinning the hardware was terribly expensive or even not possible in the time available.
Creative was notorious for having chipset-specific PCI bus master issues even on Windows. The only way to fix it was to disable bus master, and that is what Creative drivers did on Windows.
On Linux you were expected to be a grown boy and do it yourself in the BIOS.
Sounds about right. I switched to Mac in 2009 (from linux) and still have not found any reason to go back. I agree that a lot of stuff in the macOS world could be better. But things would have to get a lot worse before switching would make sense.
TL;DR: A user is as frustrated with the Apple experience in 2019 as s/he was in 2000 with Linux. Then that user goes on to rant about some things that frustrate him/her, completely ignoring that one is FOSS and by no means a hardware manufacturer while the other is proprietary and primarily a hardware manufacturer.
Trying to write a non-serious article doesn't give you a free pass to say things like "[linux] fanboys are condescending elitist computer nerds" or that "[Apple] fanboys are condescending elitist hipster latte web site designers".
Not that it's illegal, but he shouldn't be surprised if people just dismiss him whatever message he's trying to send just because he seems insufferable.
This is not a discussion I intend to extend, especially in the context of this silly article.
I will say that you can write whatever the hell you want on the internet and the reach you'll get will probably be the free pass or not, it's not for you or me to decide.
He can say whatever he wants, people can upvote whatever they want, commenters can comment whatever they want. I'm just trying to justify a viewpoint you could be taking when interacting with this article...
> Trying to write a non-serious article doesn't give you a free pass to say things like
Yes and no. Technically it's his blog and he can put whatever he wants if he doesn't want people to take him seriously. I'm not saying I agree with his language used but he probably wasn't expecting it to feature on news aggregaters and it's not like internet discussions comparing Apple and Linux are known for being devoid of arguments and heated knee-jerk comments; even without the initial flamebait.
I'm not remotely convinced by the article. It's clear the author thinks he has clickbait title and just ran an article on it, it's compltely beneath HN, Linux == macOS? Please.
The title might indeed be flamebait, but I can relate to parts of the rant:
- after 2 years, my LG Ultrafine 5K still won't turn on at least once a week. During the first year, it was even freezing the MBP (monitor is up to date).
- after 2 years using it, touch bar still feels like a miss, a toy gadget, now I need to carry an external keyboard (together with many dongles). And touch bar is still buggy, I have to switch apps to unlock it at least once a week. Not really "Pro" AFAIC.
- kernel_task runs at 50% CPU now and then for no reason (cannot reproduce, no logs)
- I need to reboot my MBP once a week for no reason (cannot reproduce, no logs), I don't care for the few minutes lost, it's just I can't debug it easily
- restriction on Safari Extensions requires to publish through App Store only, which killed uBlock Origin (at least for now)
kernel_task is due to high temperature on the left thunderbolt ports caused by charging. Plug your charger into the right side instead and it'll go away in about 15 seconds.
As someone running my 2015 MPB into the ground this sounds absolutely insane. I love MacOS, but this is on par with the “you’re holding it wrong” insanity. I really hope Apple gets their newer MBP straightened out before I have to buy a new laptop.
Yes but no because it is 2019. It's simply a list of things that Linux sucked at and Apple is now dropping support as it no longer matters or things that affect a very small number of its users.
I remember when I tried to use Linux as my desktop operating system because it was up and coming to destroy Windows.
>External monitors
I don't know how you can have a problem with that. I have a 10gbp dongle from Amazon with HDMA, DVI and VGA output and works with no configuration. On Linux, I had to do some hacky stuff on the terminal to get a monitor to somewhat work(wouldn't turn off, would come back from sleep mode etc.)
>Software installation
I don't feel any pressure to use Mac Appstore, in fact, I never use Mac Appstore. I also, in fact, know that people don't actually use Mac Appstore because here are many stories about Mac Appstore being useless for developers
>Hardware compatibility
The given example is an Android phone. That's nothing like the given example of not being able to use your graphics card on Linux. The Android phone is not an integral part of the Mac user experience, it is a separate computer that you may choose not to use if that computer's vendors are not providing decent support.
>Technical support
I would agree that Apple lacks on the phone support but Mac power users are much more polite on the internet than the grumpy Linux gurus out there that will not hesitate you to tell you how stupid you are for not being able to solve that basic problem. Also, there are Apple stores where you can hand over your computer and get it fixed.
>Advocate behaviour
Oh god, this is no comparison. Lunux power users are the worst. They are out there to get you down, they are angry, unfriendly and arrogant. They are on a mission. Maybe they should seek help just as Linux Trovalds.
Plugging a dongle or clicking on a DMG file and dragging an icon is no comparison to fiddling in the terminal following precise commands where mistakes can brick your machine.
Linux was something you downloaded for $0 and half the fun was tinkering on it.
Apple is a proprietary product that you pay a hefty premium compared to other available options for.
It's getting to the point where even the most full-throated Apple advocates have to admit that things are not going in the right direction, and normies are starting to bitch and moan about their Macbooks more than Windows laptops that cost half to a quarter. They really need to focus on quality, if they want to remain a viable platform.
Apple laptops are incredibly good. But I did notice, switching to a 2012 temporarily, that I only missed like... half a dozen things. It was half the speed, twice the mass, but it got the job done shockingly well. I hated the old hinge trackpad, and the keys weren't to my liking. A few apps (mostly iPad ports) had typography that was hard to read on a non-Retina display. I switched back to the 2018 and yes it was a huge relief, but I could have switched back to my 2018 model 3 or 4 days ago and that says something.
1. Never once seen an issue with USB-C to HDMI or VGA connections. It doesn't even make any sense since MacBook Pro users with external, third party monitors are an extremely common combination.
2. I just downloaded Caret (Markdown editor) from their website and used Homebrew to install a CLI tool. Nothing has changed between the current OSX and previous ones.
3. If you have a tech support issue go into the Apple Store and work with them 1-1. Very rare to find anything that someone in the store doesn't know.
4. MacBook Pro has 4 USB-C ports.
5. If you resort to calling groups of people "condescending elitist hipster latte drinkers" then pretty sure you've lost the argument.
Totally agree, a few years ago I had a 2015 27inch iMac with AppleCare which ended up getting a smudge under the display. Apple repaired it no problem.
About a year later, the stand became a little loose so over the course of the day it would end up tilting down.
Apple sympathised this was the 2nd time I had to send it in for a repair, they ended replacing with a similar specced iMac from the current year. They also give me the opportunity to upgrade any components I wanted just like if I was buying new. They also give me another 3 years of Apple Care. Ended up upgrading the CPU and GPU for about £300 and getting a brand new 2018 iMac
Obviously this is anecdotal but its things like this which keep me going back to Apple.
It depends on the person you get to help you, I think. Some friends have had faulty power supplies replaced even out of warranty but I was told they couldn't help me and I had to buy a new one. It's down to luck, I think.
100% agreed on the luck. I took my 2007 era MacBook to the Apple Store in 2009 or so for a battery that had begun to swell, and incidentally that had suffered from the notorious cracked top case issue. I had a friend that worked at the Genius Bar but he was busy with another customer so I just got luck of the draw with regard to technician.
Despite being out of the 1 year warranty without Apple Care, the woman who took my computer put in a work order to have the top case replaced and handed me a new battery off the shelf and rang it up $0.00
My friend was free as I was walking out of the store, and asked what it was I came in for. I explained about the top case and battery and when he realized I was getting the repair and replacement for free, he looked incredulous and said that he would've charged anyone for both of those without warranty or AppleCare.
And yet I'd bet the laptop was still cheaper tham a comparable one from Apple, where the built-in upcharges are for thinness, macOS, and extortionate non-upgradeable RAM that you'd better buy up front because you don't want to be stuck with not enough RAM in a year or two.
Does it matter when getting good support from Apple requires buying AppleCare? Dell is solving the problem of not having physical stores to do servicing by sending people in trucks.
Does two years of Apple Care get you on site and accidental coverage for under $200? Oh and no deductible. Apples per incident Accidental Damage on a Covered AppleCare+ device is $99-299.
I've found I got this to work reliably when I connected the same monitor to the same port every time. I'm not sure how well other OSes handle this though.
I'll second this. I work between home and two different offices, each with it's own monitor configuration. The offices each have the same model of monitor, but I configure them to be on different sides of the laptop itself. This has worked flawlessly for years, including with Catalina.
I'm living in a country without Apple Store. When my Macbook broke, I went to authorized service center. They replaced SSD. It took over a month. So if it would be my work machine, I wouldn't be able to work for over a month. This is just unacceptable.
If you are a professional it's unacceptable to only have one work machine and no backup machine.
What if it was stolen or broken entirely instead of "SSD needs replacement"?
Then there would be nobody to replace it for you (in a month or a day), but you'd still have work to do. At best you would buy a new one, set it up again, and lose a few days to get back on track while your customers wait.
And that's assuming you have the credit at hand then and there (and you don't need to do any market research, but can just grab a machine).
Backups (both hardware and data) or not, a month turnaround is still awful and unacceptable, and reason enough to switch suppliers. Companies that take business customers seriously offer same-day on-site service.
You can send in a computer to Apple for a turn around of less than a week in most cases. Because they decided to go to a physical location, it probably caused a delay. I'm not defending the store in any way but that definitely isn't the best place to go if you know there is not a store in your area.
Depends, a small protip, if you have an apple product that died because of water. Go to an apple reseller in a country without apple store. Most of the times they will turn a blind eye on the water damage and just repair it since they get paid by repairs.
I live in a country without an Apple store (Iceland) and I have no problems. There are multiple Apple Authorized Service Providers here that provide excellent support and service. And Iceland is a teeny tiny market so I imagine it's even easier in most parts of the world.
replacement of batter and screen was done in two days, given that parts were ordered and shipped from another city. not bad. But I understand what original article owner writes. sometimes non usb keyboards stop working and only plugging them in into the port on the hub and replugging them back into the system block gets them recognized again.
Only if you get one with a Touch Bar - which are the more expensive end of the MBP range.
However many users don’t like the Touch Bar. For myself, I used escape and the F-keys a lot and the idea of remapping caps lock is really more of a kludge than a proper fix (not least of all because I do frequently hope between USB keyboards and Linux laptops as well - so pressing caps lock isn’t a habit I particularly want ingrained into muscle memory).
Given the premium you pay for Apple and the form factor of USB-C, having more than 2 ports shouldn’t be a feature reserved for the upper tiers of MacBook Pro’s. In fact it never used to be back before MBPs took on the design stylings of their “Air” counterparts.
That change happened literally only a couple of months ago (maybe 3 tops). Seems a bit pedantic to down vote him/her when their point was true for most of the last 3 years.
I can’t code with those damn things. I got one from work and returned it, I do not understand how they decided people needed it. I haven’t looked at my keyboard since Mavis Beacon back in elementary school and suddenly it demands my attention, so annoying
I have to all but disable them (using spacer elements to make most of it blank, disabling per-app buttons so it stays that way all the time) to make them tolerable. Otherwise I brush the bottom edge of it too often, making a variety of undesired shit happen.
So they hiked the prices in order to give me a "feature" I wouldn't care about even if it did work well, and have to effectively disable to be able to use the laptop. Thanks.
If they'd kept prices about the same (the modest spec bump certainly didn't justify such a large increase...) and left off the damn touchbar I'd be on a new one now. Still on my 2014 instead, tempted to drop a few hundred on a fast Dell or Lenovo and stick Linux on it but knowing it'd just piss me off so much I'd return it. Really wish anyone would give them some real competition on their OS.
Wish they’d still stick with the function keys... but axed it off this year. Regardless it’s ridiculous to sell any machine with only two ports.... even the $35 Raspberry pi has ports than this!
I'm good with 2 available ports like my MBPs 2015 have (as they still have MagSafe; which I prefer, btw). The problem with MB(P)s with 2 USB-C is that one is used for charger, hence you got effectively only 1 port.
I would encourage you to reconsider rebinding the caps lock key, unless you have a good reason to keep it (perhaps you're a COBOL programmer?).
You can change it to behave that way for all usb keyboards and you can also use xmodmap or a program called xcape to add dual functionality to the key in linux.
Not the OP but I too switch between lots of systems. The idea of reconfiguring each and every one of them, including work colleagues machines, physical terminals for on-prem systems, my wife Windows laptop and so on and so forth, just to fix a bad design on a singular work laptop, seems like insanely bad advice. Instead I'm going to order myself a Linux machine for my next upgrade and have my hardware function the way I find productive.
YMMV but the appeal of MBPs for me was never OSX/macOS but rather the build quality of their hardware. I don't feel that's the case any longer. I guess if Macs are your main platform then remapping might be a more favourable option but for people where the MBP is the outlier (like myself) changing everything else to fit is just bad advice.
It's your prerogative to do what you want with your machine.
Caps lock being on the home row is a bad design in my opinion. Remapping it to something useful is making your hardware work for you, not against you. You obviously can't make your coworkers change their behavior but you're completely in control of your own, where most of your work is likely being done.
My hardware does already work for me. Remapping caps lock is a micro-optimisation where as committing keystrokes to muscle memory is not. So the jarring effect I'd experience when switching back to a system that doesn't have caps lock remapped would easily outstrip any benefit I'd receive from it.
I switch between different keyboard layouts fairly frequently (I use a kinesis advantage 2 which is quite different from traditional keyboards) so maybe it is just being used to being somewhat uncomfortable when having to type on other keyboards that is making it harder to appreciate the difficulty it actually presents to others.
It seems like you are using different keyboards constantly so fixing it on one laptop maybe doesn't offer you much benefit. I doubt that everyone that reads this is constantly changing keyboards, though. For those it would certainly be beneficial unless they are for whatever reason using caps lock frequently.
Regarding the first point, I had to give up on using an external monitor because fonts look blurry and give me a headache after a while. The same monitor with Windows and Linux shows perfectly fine fonts. I tried all sort of incantations found on forums, and nothing works.
"Things break at random for reasons you can't understand and the only way to fix it is to find terminal commands from discussion forums, type them in and hope for the best."
Thanks, but I already tried that in the past. I didn't notice any difference. Maybe it looks decent if you have a screen with high enough resolution, but ony my 1080p screen it still looks bad.
Apple redid font smoothing with Mojave, and now it looks like garbage on non-retina displays. Most 4K displays seem to be bigger, rather than denser, so you can't do much to fix it.
I brought an Apple PowerBook G4 back in 2005, and one of the standard system configs allowed you to calibrate the subpixel rendering parameters of fonts for the built-in display, as well as any external displays. It remembers each external display by serial model so that it could load the correct calibration profile for that particular display each time it's plugged in. I must have obsessively calibrated each of my displays at least ten times.
Was this feature removed from OSX? Or did OP try it already and it didn't help much? Honest question here; I haven't touched a mac in over a decade.
I tried. It didn't help, the root issue is that Apple removed anti-aliasing, which is the only thing that can make fonts look readable on a 1080p resolution display. An old MacBook running OSX 10.6 looks perfectly fine on my external monitor.
Is your Mac running the external monitor in its native resolution?
I have a 4k display, and when I select the "Looks like 3840 x 2160" option, UI elements are too small. Selecting "Looks like 2560 x 1440" results in blurry fonts. So I've selected "Looks like 1920 x 1080", and thanks to Retina, fonts are crystal clear. Unfortunately, UI elements (such as the menu bar at the top of the screen) are pretty gigantic now, but I live with it.
Things change, deal with it. I've swapped USB cables to USB-C cables. Only USB drives, which i rarely use anymore require an adapter. Meanwhile, I can use all 4 ports to:
- Run a display
- Charge my laptop
- Charge a phone
- Connect a drive
I can even use a single port to both charge the laptop and run a screen with multiple USB devices attached to it.
I now need to daisy chain converters to use my PS/2 mouse on my MacBook though, so that's a bit of a hassle.
I mean, that’s fantastic for you, but not everyone has the money to just upgrade all of their equipment the moment a port changes, so we’re forced to buy $100 adapters for everything.
It’d be fun if at least the iPhone was chargeable with usb-c, but even that requires an adapter.
That's such weird reasoning. You spend over 1k (3k in my case) to get the latest version of a premium brand laptop, but can't afford the cables? Those cables cost $2-5 each on AliExpress. If that's too much, you definitely shouldn't be spending over 1k on a laptop.
Also, there are usb-c to lightning cables, so I'm not sure why you think you need an adapter.
Wait... why can't you do that anymore? I charge, drive 2 displays, and have several chargers and USB devices plugged in just via the 4 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports. Is your complaint the number of ports or the fact that they're USB-C? It sounds like the specific benefit was only the variety of ports unless I'm reading this wrong...
On your first point, I agree if you’re talking about first party adapters. The issue is that a lot of people and companies buy third-party and those are a crapshoot.
At my office all Mac users get cheap multi port usb-c dongles and they’re terrible. The HDMI connections display content that’s too contrast-y and end up giving users headaches. It’s very frustrating.
Had an issue with my space bar. Brought it in for a recall, had it back within 5 days. The fixed it in house and didn’t send it to a 3rd party. Speed and Apple employees fixing things had me put on my slippers.
Meanwhile HP doesn’t want to fix my work Zbook because while the high pitch fan whine is annoying, the computer still functions. Keys and the little mouse button are falling off after one year.
Lenovo ThinkPads have like a 2 day turnaround. Good service and speed isnt exclusive to Apple, do they really deserve credit for something many companies execute well? Apple brought enterprise level support to consumers, past enterprise price.
In my experience Lenovo Thinkpad hardware customer service easily beats Apple in efficiency and speed. You spend considerably less time debating the topic than with Apple and Dell. "Hey this is broken, did you try this, ok send it in, we will ship you a box." Or for less than $100 you can have 2-3 years on-site. On a higher end X1 Carbon right now 2 year on site with accidental damage (ad is usually depot only, but the on site covers normal failures) is less than $200. 5 days to get my laptop back to me would feel slow.
> 5. If you resort to calling groups of people "condescending elitist hipster latte drinkers" then pretty sure you've lost the argument.
As a condescending elitist hipster latte drinker on an ultralight convertible Lenovo Yoga + Windows 10, I feel excluded. The days that condescending elitist hipster latte drinkers only used Mac have long passed.
“Oh, please. People don’t _actually use_ macs while drinking their lattes anymore (except maybe ironically). Lenovo (running Windows with the Linux Subsystem enabled) is the only halfway decent way to get work done. Unless of course you’re one of those hipsters running Arch. I’ve been meaning to try that, actually.” -actual 2019 computing hipster, probably
Wait, is Arch back to being a hipster thing? I thought we'd graduated to well-known distro.
I've been using Arch since '06, back when Judd was still in charge and the repos were divided up in terms of "stuff Judd maintains" and "stuff other devs maintain." It was this small community project that nobody had really heard about, and I got so used to it just not being a thing that when (sometime in the range of '10 - '12?) folks started talking about it as a hipster thing, it really took me by surprise. A few years later it seemed like it was just one of the more well known "hands on" distros with great docs, and I was glad to have that phase be done with.
A recent survey of /r/linux users even had Arch as the most commonly used distro. I know it's not an unbiased sample and that Ubuntu is probably the most widely used all up, but it was still a surprise. Arch is mainstream - for a Linux distro.
Though I am not a "condescending elitist hipster latte drinker" (or at least I hope I am not), I agree with most of OPs sentiments. I would like to see Apple invest more into making sure their stuff "just works", because that's why I use their systems: they are the least-crappy of anything that is out there today.
I won't pick up the bait here, but I'll just say that I regularly use Mac OS, Windows and Linux, and I have good reasons for saying that Mac OS sucks the least of those three systems for desktop use.
> 1. Never once seen an issue with USB-C to HDMI or VGA connections. It doesn't even make any sense since MacBook Pro users with external, third party monitors are an extremely common combination.
Last year I had a lot of problems with this. It was pretty common[1] that USB-C to HDMI cables would work at first and then stop working in a particular port. Sometimes rebooting helped. Sometimes swapping the cable for another in the same port helped. Sometimes using another port immediately helped. There was never a good explanation for why this was happening; most resources blamed the cables. After some software update last year, suddenly all these bad cables are fine in any port.
As of this summer, there's a shiny new issue where connecting to GMail (at least) from System Preferences doesn't work, which I discovered through changing my password recently. SysPref claims it needs to open a Google login in Safari (even though that isn't my system browser!), but when Safari opens, it's to a blank page. Again, searching makes this seem like a pretty well-known problem, but no one has a solution, and Apple seems silent on it, and enough people do not have the problem that a common response is that those of us experiencing the issue must be doing or have done something wrong. And maybe we are(!), but I'd sure like to know what.
> 3. If you have a tech support issue go into the Apple Store and work with them 1-1.
Well, that literally hadn't occurred to me (for problem 2, above); I would have assumed store employees don't know anything one couldn't google immediately?
[1] I was quite annoyed that this went on long enough for me to have an opinion like "pretty common" for these connections not to work sometimes, over more than half a dozen such cables.
i have those problems still, sometimes after waking up, so i play the game have i tried this usb-c port or not. it usualy works after one two times. thank god i have 4 of them. i have a 2 external monitors and usually close the macbook.
but hey at least it works. on my linux laptop it allways forgets the layout that i had and resorts to puting the external monitor right, and dont ger me started on X and fractional scalling.
You can use xrandr to load your specific layout at startup. If you don't wanna be bothered with crafting an xrandr command, you can use arandr to generate the script for you.
Scaling is a mess though, totally agree with that.
the problem for me is having mixed dpi monitors and fractionql scaling. for laptop monitor 150% to work it scales everything 2x, that also means that my external 27" 2560 which should be 1x is rendered to 5120 and that is causing stuttering and lag, at least i think it is, tried different drivers and so on. if i set the external monitor to 125 scaling then the rendered resolution is 4k and that works better, ni shuttering and lag.
i dont know why it does need to run the external monitor to 2x if i want 1x. and i lost way to much time playing with the setup. ubuntu 1904, if you have any new ideas im willing to try it.
Becasue X11 doesn't support mixed dpi monitors, so you are using a hack where it pretends to have the same dpi and downsample where necessary.
For proper mixed dpi under Linux, you must use Wayland. But then, under Wayland, the fractional scaling is still not done (the wayland apps will work fine at given fractional scale, but x11 app will be @1 upsampled, i.e. blurry. That includes the browsers).
YMMV, but since switching to Wayland I've found issues like that to be a lot less common. Not gone completely, but rare enough that I never remember the last time when it finally occurs again. ;)
can you share your setup or screenshot ?
have you enabled fractional scaling
gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"
I constantly still have problems with my Dell 4k monitor (first gen and last year's model), where it doesn't wake properly from sleep. Most of the time, I resolve it with the following.
- Switch the USB-C port from one to another
- Open up my laptop from clamshell mode and switch the cables around
- Unplug my monitor
- Restart my computer
The nuclear option of rebooting my computer and monitor always seems to work.
I have the same issue, but I'm also using the Dell 180w dock with it. I just have to switch ports for the USB-C cable that comes from the dock 1-4 times. Usually the first plug in produces nothing on the monitor. The first port swap gets me on the external display, but at 1920x1080 resolution. The 2nd port swap gets me back at 4k on the external.
I have this exact same problem - 2018 MBP, Dell U3415W. Sometimes it works, sometimes I can move the mouse enough to get it to work, sometimes the monitor won't wake up at all, sometimes the monitor wakes up and has a VGA screen resolution. I thought I had "fixed" it by turning off sleep mode in the MBP, but after a couple of days of working properly it started failing to wake up again.
I know its a problem with the macOS somewhere but Apple just doesn't seem to be focused on fixing these types of things. Even if you file a bug report it disappears into the ether and is never heard from again.
I own a Dell P2715Q 4K monitor and was having similar issues across operating systems. My understanding is Dell silently fixed this in firmware on new units, but provides no way of updating the firmware in the field.
I face the problem on a daily basis connecting my external monitor with my Macbook Pro and Mac Mini via thunderbolt. Either monitor is not detected or I am not able to wake the computer from sleep when the external monitor is connected.
I have constantly had issues with Apple miniDP to VGA adaptors completely failing to detect projectors correct resolutions and they just fall back to 800x600. Holding down alt and clicking on the resolution drop down never provides the right resolution you are looking for either. Not fun to do a presentation on such a setup.
Linux 2000: writing a post summarizing Linux's issues will compel a point by point response in which a fanboy will either tell you "works for me" or "you're holding it wrong".
Apple 2019: writing a post summarizing Apple products' issues will compel a point by point response in which a fanboy will either tell you "works for me" or "you're holding it wrong".
{any technology} {any year}: writing a post summarizing X products' issues will compel a point by point response in which a fanboy will either tell you "works for me" or "you're holding it wrong".
Well, if I made a set of superficially good argument about African American in the US and concluded with something like "Niggers, by far the less evolved human species", wouldn't that cast some serious doubt on my work ?
That's exagerated of course, but really if you can't help yourself to stay civil for a whole article, there is no way your bias have not tainted the rest of the article.
Name calling means garbage article and a waste of time for readers.
I'm currently experiencing issues with trying to use an nVIDIA eGPU as apparently only AMD cards are supported officially. Display port chaining also fails to work as it only mirrors displays.
Literally every day I come to work I have to fiddle with my usb-c to hdmi connector (yes, I replaced it once).
Not to mention a bunch of other weird things, like relocking 10 seconds after I login occasionally and having to restart so my headphone jack works (2017 macbook pro).
I have relatively other complaints (keyboard, dongles) as a first time mac user, but weird stuff like the above does remind me of past linux experiences.
I think part of the problem is rose-colored glasses. macOS definitely has bugs today. The question is, is it actually any worse than it was 12 years ago (in what was probably the Mac's heyday in terms of attention from Apple)? I'm not sure it is.
It's interesting you say 12 years ago -- 12 years ago was Leopard which according to Apple, contained over 300 changes / enhancements.
That is similar to Catalina with its too many new untested features.
Then they fixed the bugs in Snow Leopard.
The severity of Catalina's bugs are much greater than Snow Leopard. For example, there is now simultaneously a Mail deletion bug and iCloud bug to ruin your data across all machines.
This Macbook Pro has an actual keyboard, magsafe power port, continues to function great, works great with external monitors (HDMI port). Other than feeling squeezed for RAM and that the CPU isn't the fastest anymore, it was well worth the purchase price.
I have a 2012 MacBook Pro (same design as yours) and agree with you. I think it's probably the best laptop design Apple ever shipped. My work laptop is one of the new ones, and I don't particularly mind the USB-C ports, but the keyboard and the touch bar are pretty bad.
As an early-2013 MacBook Pro user, I concur. I bought the one-notch-below-top-of-the-line model, and it has been well worth the price.
Since then the hardware has gotten worse, and with MacOS Catalina, the software is worse as well (the removal of 32-bit support affects my workflow; I can't use MacOS Catalina).
The sad thing is, nothing else has really gotten better. I'm leaning toward side-grading to Linux, but there's risk involved in buying a full-spec machine for Linux and perhaps finding it doesn't do everything I need it to do.
Anecdata point #2: I've had minimal problems with my 2 TB/USBC->HDMI connectors (esp with Mojave), across 2017, 2018 and 2019 MBP 15". Perhaps your cable isn't the best?
> 5. If you resort to calling groups of people "condescending elitist hipster latte drinkers" then pretty sure you've lost the argument.
Agreed. It always surprises me to see this kind of text in an argument outside of a grade school schoolyard. I've never once read anything like this and thought to myself, "Well, that proves it! This guy's right!"
What’s the alternative? How about a school that does what it’s supposed to? A school where teachers have agency, where kids aren’t allowed to physically assault one another, where creative thought is encouraged instead of stifled. Where students aren’t made to wake up at the crack of fucking dawn and wear giant backpacks everywhere fucking up their backs. You vapid fucking idiot. How is it fucking poor kids over to have that? How am I wrong for being angry or advocating alternatives in light of the fact that there are so vanishingly few public schools that are any good at all? You are clearly the product of one
It's fucking over poor people because you didn't propose anything other than "get rid of public schools".
You're wrong for being angry because you're a fucking dweeb that thinks you're smarter than you actually are; like most of the libertarian shits on this site.
> Apple 2019: plugging an external projector will most likely not work. Fanboys are very vocal that this is the fault of projector manufacturers for not ensuring that their HW works with every Apple model.
Glad I'm not the only one having issues getting my non-antialiased fonts to render properly on external monitors. Crossing fingers for 2020.
A semi-related issue I've had as well is macOS has a tendency to try and use the wrong colour space for HDMI monitors, causing everything to appear purple.
Mine was flickering on a Dell external monitor. It didn't happen so much if you had it as the main monitor (i.e. the one the tab-application switcher appeared on). Other wise it would constantly go into power saving mode and then come back on - works fine with Debian!
I do believe that macos is not as stable, performant or well thought out as it used to be. There are also a few recurring bugs that really annoy me (search not working in Apple Mail forcing me to reindex for example)
But, I think this article is over the top... I've never had issues with external monitors (nor know anyone who had some), I never use the App store (I oppose it on principle) and when
I've had a non standard issue with my mac, the technician proved knowledgeable and quickly figured I did know what I was doing so didn't baby talk me. It turned out to be a hardware problem but I was impressed with how well they diagnosed it.
This has happened to me: my external monitor created harmonic interference with its electrical frequency and literally prevented wifi from reaching my mac.
It's something i never thought possible but here we are; not saying this is mac's fault but monitor issues are not uncommon and this definitely didn't happen with windows.
FWIW, my new MacBook using an external dock and USB-C to display port has insane problems. I have to unplug and plug back in at least once per day, and even worse, sometimes after sleep the monitor will work, but typing and clicking will be laggy, which I am sometimes able to resolve only by unplugging the monitor and plugging back in, but other times it requires a restart.
Specifically the USB-C to HDMI dongle for the Macbook seems to be totally useless. It has terrible reviews, is one of the only Apple products I've ever seen that required multiple full machine reboots to install a driver, and is just completely unreliable.
We'll see if the new version is any better, but I'm not hopeful given either Apple doesn't seem to really know what devices are supposed to be able to play 4K iTunes content or may have just silently pulled the feature at the last minute and not told anyone.
Linux 2000: There is only One True Way of installing software: using distro packages. If you do anything else you are bad and you should feel bad.
This isn't true. People have been running `./configure && make && make install` since long before 2000 and long after 2000 as well.
Also, IIRC "alien" already existed in 2000, letting you install packages packaged for other distros (e.g. installing rpm on Debian).
Linux 2000: if your problem is not google-trivial, there's nothing you can do. Asking friends for assistance does not help, because they will just type your problem description into Google and read the first hit.
My recollection is that in 2000 people were less prone to just do a websearch and then give up when no relevant results are returned. People would ask in IRC or mailing lists.
Hell, in 2001 I had Linux on my home machine and I didn't have an internet connection at all. The only way to get things to work was to rely on friends and to figure stuff out for myself.
It was also more normal to spend days or weeks on a problem and not expect everything to be handed to you on a silver platter via Google or StackOverflow.
> It was also more normal to spend days or weeks on a problem and not expect everything to be handed to you on a silver platter via Google or StackOverflow.
Excuse me but that is definitely not what someone should be doing unless they don't have any actual work to do and instead can use all their time to play with Linux distro configurations. It is unacceptable to have to resort to spending days or weeks on a problem. That is an absolute show stopper for almost everyone.
You can "defend" Linux with the fact that it is a open source project that is maintained and improved by people in their free time, and that is absolutely okay and acceptable. But you can't then complain why hasn't Linux taken over the desktop. Why? Because, unlike on servers where the only person responsible for it is a "guru", everyone uses a PC and expects it to work and let them use it to accomplish work or entertain themselves. If Linux cannot do that, people won't use it, no matter the [whether subjective or objective] freedom-restrictions, dark patterns, privacy violations and outright illegal activity of Microsoft, or the [subjectively?] overpriced Apple ecosystem.
edit: Also, I'd like to add that I use Ubuntu exclusively at home and have a super-paranoid-level network firewall setup that blocks and monitors all traffic, and use AOSP on my phone with only blobs for GPU, SoC initialization and the magic black box that is the baseband processor. I use Ubuntu because it works for me better and more often than Windows, but I am a geek and I know things that my parents don't.
Okay bad example they also use Linux that I forced on them to be able to remotely administer it. But in any case people use what works for them best. I cannot afford an update that gets stuck on Getting things ready... and risk shutting down the PC and having it do a mandatory recovery or rollback procedure. Linux breaks less often for me because I pick my hardware and software and set it up. But nobody can expect that of people and they shouldn't have to. Death by a thousand paper cuts and rough edges and all.
Why isn't this true? Of course you can do "anything else", the claim is that you are generally advised to not do that, e.g. https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian (point 1.3)
In many cases the things he claims are past linux behavior remains the same today. Perhaps he hasn't used Linux in recent years?
> External Monitors
Plugging in monitors in linux today frequently does not behave as you expect. The chances of errant behavior is significantly higher on linux than any other operating system. I can't speak to apple computers not working with projectors, but it seems like he's comparing apples to oranges here.
> Software Installation
The "One True Way" of installing software is still the case in linux. Installing outside of the native package manager's repositories is discouraged. Installing of any software on mac is 'discouraged' in that you need to authorize just about every installation you do on the app store. Homebrew does not require sudo to install applications, though GUI applications will generally still need an okay from the user to open and use. The outlier in software installation is Windows, where it is still encouraged to install executables downloaded on the internet.
> Hardware comaptibility
Linux and MacOS both bake hardware compatibility into the kernel. You will still run into weird cases where a display port out on your graphics card won't work with linux for some indiscernible reason. This is admittedly significantly better than it was in 2000, however.
> Laptop features
Linux didn't have dedicated laptops in 2000. The fact that they lacked USB ports has nothing to do with Linux.
Current macbook pros have 4 usb ports (other than entry level mbp 13). Retina macbook pros had 2. I'm certain he's talking about usb-a ports, however. This isn't unique to Apple laptops, however. Most PC laptops manufactured today lack more than 2 usb type a ports. It's very difficult to find.
> Advocate behavior
It's pretty remarkable how someone can be so condemning of condescending elitist behavior while simultaneously being a condescending elitist jerk.
> It's pretty remarkable how someone can be so condemning of condescending elitist behavior while simultaneously being a condescending elitist jerk.
Had the exact same thought!
> I can't speak to apple computers not working with projectors
I can. I organize hack days all over the globe and have to deal with lots of different types of laptops from virtually all manufacturers. Apple laptops (even old ones going back to the mid-2000s) virtually never have an issue connecting to a projector as long as you have the right adapter (my gear bag has like 15, but most of those aren’t for Apple laptops, I think I primarily use ~3 for them). I certainly can’t say that for Windows (admittedly mostly due to shitty laptop hardware, not Windows’ fault directly), let alone Linux.
>In many cases the things he claims are past linux behavior remains the same today. Perhaps he hasn't used Linux in recent years?
I'm not sure what hardware you're using. On my end Linux so stable I haven't had a crash in years. Though, I have had some Firefox updates not render sites correctly. That and the default desktop behavior isn't ideal. Setting Force Full Composition Pipeline makes everything run as smooth as butter, similar to how OSX feels. It really should be the default behavior. All in all, Linux is far more stable and usable as a desktop today.
In the end everyone's opinions on these things are going to be informed by their individual experiences. Linux is generally going to lag behind windows in hardware support since most hardware is designed, tested, and supported with Windows.
I installed Mint on my father's computer and it has been rock solid for him. I tend to find ways to break installations, but that's certainly not linux's fault. That said, it's still very much a mixed bag for me.
No, it's not. Most prominently Apple costs thousands, Linux is a community driven kernel and software distributions on top of it, which commonly are free of charge. From that perspective his comparisons are nil. Linux doesn't make computers that have problems. Apple has its own closed ecosystem of hardware and software, Linux is Open Source Software. To say that modern Apple systems are just as bad as Linux systems 20 years ago is making Linux look bad, it's an unfair comparison. Remember Apple 20 years ago? It was even worse than today!
I have run into the storage problem a number of times, yeah. Once there was a `.Trash` file in some hard-to-access place that needed deleting. And if your Time Machine backups are failing, they can create a big cache somewhere mysterious in the file system. I have told Time Machine to ignore docker files as well, not sure if it helped in every case. In one case I deleted all my node_modules folders, and Time Machine backup succeeded and macOS deleted it's prepared backup files, freeing up tonnes of space.
We'll see if it occurs again with Catalina.
All the other stuff is almost entirely wrong, in my experience.
> It consisted of running tmutil from the command line and giving it a bunch of command line arguments that did not seem to make sense or have any correlation to the thing that I wanted to do.
It’s not completely obvious, but when you delete something it doesn’t disappear immediately because your Mac will keep it around on a local Time Machine snapshot so that it can keep decent history even if you’re away from your backup drive for a bit. And even if this wasn’t the case, with APFS copy-on-write deleting a file won’t necessarily free up space on your filesystem if there’s another copy hanging around.
I have to say that I was outraged and reminded how much I hate the culture of machine maintenance glorification culture popular among the Linux people. Top-notch trolling.
Apple people will be outraged about this post, even if it's mostly a joke.
My conclusion from it is that there are difficult topics, and, apparently, changing standards fast is not helping at all. (DisplayPort was finally more or less working, but sure, swap to another display outlet... and the same for a lot of things).
There is no time to build systems (hw or sw, or god forbid, the two together) that are _mainly_ bug free with common hardware. Windows XP in it's final days was close to this. The most stable desktop linux distribution I used was a short lived Linux Mint release, 10 (Julia), which doesn't make any sense.
Maybe if standards we slowed down a bit and we'd give more time to sand the rough edges tech history wouldn't constantly run in circles.
I haven’t thought of it this way before but I think you’re right. External monitor support does break randomly and hardware support through dongles is extremely flakey.
A small excerpt from my personal list of woes:
- Using a USB-c <-> DVI cable gives the monitor a purple hue. An HDMI cable does not. Also, this isn’t an issue in bootcamp.
- Can’t use the serial debugger of a Particle Photon because it can’t use the dongle’s USB-A interface directly.
- Sometimes the Touch Bar goes completely unresponsive for ~10s. Sometimes, after a reboot or after waking from sleep, it just doesn’t start at all.
- At one point the speakers started blasting white noise at the loudest volume for no apparent reason. Closed the lid, opened it, same thing. Rebooted the machine and never encountered that problem again.
- If a certain kind of network error occurs when setting up Time Machine then System Preferences will hang completely for ~5 minutes.
In many ways the experience is what I would expect if I could run Linux on this machine: Hardware kind of works with lots of random bugs.
For your first problem, perhaps some monitor auto detection has gone crazy with a colour profile. Have a look under System Preferences -> Displays -> Colour (you need to have the monitor plugged in to tweak it.)
Maybe one of the pins in the DVI connector is dodgy? Have you tried another connector/DVI cable/DVI source to rule out the display? I know you said it didn't happen in bootcamp but perhaps there's some deep magic happening.
712 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 306 ms ] threadIsn't this sentiment a bit excessive. Homebrew is a perfectly safe and accepted way of installing software.
https://discourse.brew.sh/t/code-signing-installed-executabl...
Technically true, but practically false. To this day I get told that I shouldn't be even trying to use software that isn't in the repo. There are still a whole lot of applications released with a Windows binary and a tar.xz of source for Linux.
At DebConf 2014, none other than Linus himself bitched out the community for how difficult distributing things for Linux was. It should not require an army of maintainers across a score of repos to distribute software. And it isn't like the technology to make it simple isn't available. AppImage has been around since 2004 (it was called Klik at the time) and its existence has and continues to be largely ignored by the community. Other parts of the community are openly hostile to the very concept of simple application distribution, like Drew DeVault.
The situation is so awful, that recently when I wanted to use an application on my Linux laptop I found it easier to run the Windows version under WINE than get the Linux version installed.
And the most infuriating thing about it all is how incredibly resistant the community is to doing anything to change this situation.
It has been 20 years. How much longer should we wait for functionality the original Macintosh included in 1984?
Really? My experience of calling Apple tech support (to troubleshoot something to do with Messages on my Mac) was that they were surprisingly well-informed, and they fixed my issue with approximately zero patronising, script-parroting, is-it-turned-on? nonsense.
Is not nonsense as most simple problems are caused by simple mistakes. Don't reflect your experience with computers and tools to the average user's experience.
It's possible that the equivalent Windows driver - which didn't crash - had a secret workaround to prevent it from tickling the hardware bug. I used to work on OS-9 drivers for custom hardware at my first job, and we usually ended up bodging the driver to fix hardware bugs, because respinning the hardware was terribly expensive or even not possible in the time available.
On Linux you were expected to be a grown boy and do it yourself in the BIOS.
I believe the author is exaggerating it a little bit. Local time machine snapshots are not arcane secret knowledge (man 8 tmutil).
It’s a play on taking some ballpark similiarities and making it seem like Apple 2019 and Linux 2000 are alike.
Some might enjoy it, some might not but this is not meant as serious technical piece.
Not that it's illegal, but he shouldn't be surprised if people just dismiss him whatever message he's trying to send just because he seems insufferable.
I will say that you can write whatever the hell you want on the internet and the reach you'll get will probably be the free pass or not, it's not for you or me to decide.
He can say whatever he wants, people can upvote whatever they want, commenters can comment whatever they want. I'm just trying to justify a viewpoint you could be taking when interacting with this article...
Note that he says Linux and Apple fanboys. You can still like either while being realistic about their flaws and shortcommings.
Also, learn to take a joke.
Yes and no. Technically it's his blog and he can put whatever he wants if he doesn't want people to take him seriously. I'm not saying I agree with his language used but he probably wasn't expecting it to feature on news aggregaters and it's not like internet discussions comparing Apple and Linux are known for being devoid of arguments and heated knee-jerk comments; even without the initial flamebait.
I have Macs. I love them, they are probably my favorite computers.
I still found this funny & amusing. It is clearly not meant as a serious argument.
- after 2 years, my LG Ultrafine 5K still won't turn on at least once a week. During the first year, it was even freezing the MBP (monitor is up to date).
- after 2 years using it, touch bar still feels like a miss, a toy gadget, now I need to carry an external keyboard (together with many dongles). And touch bar is still buggy, I have to switch apps to unlock it at least once a week. Not really "Pro" AFAIC.
- kernel_task runs at 50% CPU now and then for no reason (cannot reproduce, no logs)
- I need to reboot my MBP once a week for no reason (cannot reproduce, no logs), I don't care for the few minutes lost, it's just I can't debug it easily
- restriction on Safari Extensions requires to publish through App Store only, which killed uBlock Origin (at least for now)
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-find...
Took me a long time to figure out too. I had the same frustration, that there is no way to debug the problem. A debug kernel is a PITA.
I remember when I tried to use Linux as my desktop operating system because it was up and coming to destroy Windows.
>External monitors
I don't know how you can have a problem with that. I have a 10gbp dongle from Amazon with HDMA, DVI and VGA output and works with no configuration. On Linux, I had to do some hacky stuff on the terminal to get a monitor to somewhat work(wouldn't turn off, would come back from sleep mode etc.)
>Software installation I don't feel any pressure to use Mac Appstore, in fact, I never use Mac Appstore. I also, in fact, know that people don't actually use Mac Appstore because here are many stories about Mac Appstore being useless for developers
>Hardware compatibility The given example is an Android phone. That's nothing like the given example of not being able to use your graphics card on Linux. The Android phone is not an integral part of the Mac user experience, it is a separate computer that you may choose not to use if that computer's vendors are not providing decent support.
>Technical support I would agree that Apple lacks on the phone support but Mac power users are much more polite on the internet than the grumpy Linux gurus out there that will not hesitate you to tell you how stupid you are for not being able to solve that basic problem. Also, there are Apple stores where you can hand over your computer and get it fixed.
>Advocate behaviour Oh god, this is no comparison. Lunux power users are the worst. They are out there to get you down, they are angry, unfriendly and arrogant. They are on a mission. Maybe they should seek help just as Linux Trovalds.
Apple is a proprietary product that you pay a hefty premium compared to other available options for.
It's getting to the point where even the most full-throated Apple advocates have to admit that things are not going in the right direction, and normies are starting to bitch and moan about their Macbooks more than Windows laptops that cost half to a quarter. They really need to focus on quality, if they want to remain a viable platform.
2. I just downloaded Caret (Markdown editor) from their website and used Homebrew to install a CLI tool. Nothing has changed between the current OSX and previous ones.
3. If you have a tech support issue go into the Apple Store and work with them 1-1. Very rare to find anything that someone in the store doesn't know.
4. MacBook Pro has 4 USB-C ports.
5. If you resort to calling groups of people "condescending elitist hipster latte drinkers" then pretty sure you've lost the argument.
About a year later, the stand became a little loose so over the course of the day it would end up tilting down.
Apple sympathised this was the 2nd time I had to send it in for a repair, they ended replacing with a similar specced iMac from the current year. They also give me the opportunity to upgrade any components I wanted just like if I was buying new. They also give me another 3 years of Apple Care. Ended up upgrading the CPU and GPU for about £300 and getting a brand new 2018 iMac
Obviously this is anecdotal but its things like this which keep me going back to Apple.
Despite being out of the 1 year warranty without Apple Care, the woman who took my computer put in a work order to have the top case replaced and handed me a new battery off the shelf and rang it up $0.00
My friend was free as I was walking out of the store, and asked what it was I came in for. I explained about the top case and battery and when he realized I was getting the repair and replacement for free, he looked incredulous and said that he would've charged anyone for both of those without warranty or AppleCare.
No charge.
Accidental Damage adds $49, $99, $129, $199, $219.
Does two years of Apple Care get you on site and accidental coverage for under $200? Oh and no deductible. Apples per incident Accidental Damage on a Covered AppleCare+ device is $99-299.
Not had that problem personally in at least 3 MacOS major releases. What version of MacOS are you using?
Not once the order was not correct when reconnecting.
What if it was stolen or broken entirely instead of "SSD needs replacement"?
Then there would be nobody to replace it for you (in a month or a day), but you'd still have work to do. At best you would buy a new one, set it up again, and lose a few days to get back on track while your customers wait.
And that's assuming you have the credit at hand then and there (and you don't need to do any market research, but can just grab a machine).
At least this was my experience a few years back.
It's the best service shop I've dealt with.
Granted that's still better support as non-business you'd get from one of the PC OEMs, but still crap.
Where I'm from, all official Apple premium resellers do the job just fine.
FTFY.
I don’t care if there’s an Apple-store 50km away if I need my computer working now.
Only if you get one with a Touch Bar - which are the more expensive end of the MBP range.
However many users don’t like the Touch Bar. For myself, I used escape and the F-keys a lot and the idea of remapping caps lock is really more of a kludge than a proper fix (not least of all because I do frequently hope between USB keyboards and Linux laptops as well - so pressing caps lock isn’t a habit I particularly want ingrained into muscle memory).
Given the premium you pay for Apple and the form factor of USB-C, having more than 2 ports shouldn’t be a feature reserved for the upper tiers of MacBook Pro’s. In fact it never used to be back before MBPs took on the design stylings of their “Air” counterparts.
So they hiked the prices in order to give me a "feature" I wouldn't care about even if it did work well, and have to effectively disable to be able to use the laptop. Thanks.
If they'd kept prices about the same (the modest spec bump certainly didn't justify such a large increase...) and left off the damn touchbar I'd be on a new one now. Still on my 2014 instead, tempted to drop a few hundred on a fast Dell or Lenovo and stick Linux on it but knowing it'd just piss me off so much I'd return it. Really wish anyone would give them some real competition on their OS.
All MBPs in my company have 2 USB-C ports because my company (like many others) only buys the cheapest model of laptops.
1 port? Apple, I will go ahead and follow the USB C revolution. But you think that'll happen with effectively 1 port?
You can change it to behave that way for all usb keyboards and you can also use xmodmap or a program called xcape to add dual functionality to the key in linux.
YMMV but the appeal of MBPs for me was never OSX/macOS but rather the build quality of their hardware. I don't feel that's the case any longer. I guess if Macs are your main platform then remapping might be a more favourable option but for people where the MBP is the outlier (like myself) changing everything else to fit is just bad advice.
Caps lock being on the home row is a bad design in my opinion. Remapping it to something useful is making your hardware work for you, not against you. You obviously can't make your coworkers change their behavior but you're completely in control of your own, where most of your work is likely being done.
It seems like you are using different keyboards constantly so fixing it on one laptop maybe doesn't offer you much benefit. I doubt that everyone that reads this is constantly changing keyboards, though. For those it would certainly be beneficial unless they are for whatever reason using caps lock frequently.
https://github.com/LumingYin/macOSLucidaGrande
Note for me, this makes the ••• dots go away when typing passwords into system prompts. Fine!
Really skimped and got a peasant model there, eh?
(Note that this is sarcasm directed at Apple’s pricing, not at rusk, who I assume is a very decent human being.)
Was this feature removed from OSX? Or did OP try it already and it didn't help much? Honest question here; I haven't touched a mac in over a decade.
Fixed the issue for me.
I've got an LG one at home, and heading into work where I have 2 27" monitors, but only 1440p always feels like a downgrade.
I have a 4k display, and when I select the "Looks like 3840 x 2160" option, UI elements are too small. Selecting "Looks like 2560 x 1440" results in blurry fonts. So I've selected "Looks like 1920 x 1080", and thanks to Retina, fonts are crystal clear. Unfortunately, UI elements (such as the menu bar at the top of the screen) are pretty gigantic now, but I live with it.
Maybe we should specify it to mean USB ports you can use for something without an adapter.
- Run a display
- Charge my laptop
- Charge a phone
- Connect a drive
I can even use a single port to both charge the laptop and run a screen with multiple USB devices attached to it.
I now need to daisy chain converters to use my PS/2 mouse on my MacBook though, so that's a bit of a hassle.
It’d be fun if at least the iPhone was chargeable with usb-c, but even that requires an adapter.
Also, there are usb-c to lightning cables, so I'm not sure why you think you need an adapter.
Charge, drive 2 displays, use a YubiKey, connect to a wired network and have a spare USB for charging my phone or connect a Time Machine backup.
Without daisy chain or a hub that's no longer possible.
I know I'm an outlier but still, new laptops offer less and less ports, including my Lenovo T580, and that's a shame for some.
Wait... why can't you do that anymore? I charge, drive 2 displays, and have several chargers and USB devices plugged in just via the 4 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports. Is your complaint the number of ports or the fact that they're USB-C? It sounds like the specific benefit was only the variety of ports unless I'm reading this wrong...
You may have missed the YubiKey and the wired network. :-)
At my office all Mac users get cheap multi port usb-c dongles and they’re terrible. The HDMI connections display content that’s too contrast-y and end up giving users headaches. It’s very frustrating.
Meanwhile HP doesn’t want to fix my work Zbook because while the high pitch fan whine is annoying, the computer still functions. Keys and the little mouse button are falling off after one year.
In my experience Lenovo Thinkpad hardware customer service easily beats Apple in efficiency and speed. You spend considerably less time debating the topic than with Apple and Dell. "Hey this is broken, did you try this, ok send it in, we will ship you a box." Or for less than $100 you can have 2-3 years on-site. On a higher end X1 Carbon right now 2 year on site with accidental damage (ad is usually depot only, but the on site covers normal failures) is less than $200. 5 days to get my laptop back to me would feel slow.
As a condescending elitist hipster latte drinker on an ultralight convertible Lenovo Yoga + Windows 10, I feel excluded. The days that condescending elitist hipster latte drinkers only used Mac have long passed.
“Oh, please. People don’t _actually use_ macs while drinking their lattes anymore (except maybe ironically). Lenovo (running Windows with the Linux Subsystem enabled) is the only halfway decent way to get work done. Unless of course you’re one of those hipsters running Arch. I’ve been meaning to try that, actually.” -actual 2019 computing hipster, probably
I've been using Arch since '06, back when Judd was still in charge and the repos were divided up in terms of "stuff Judd maintains" and "stuff other devs maintain." It was this small community project that nobody had really heard about, and I got so used to it just not being a thing that when (sometime in the range of '10 - '12?) folks started talking about it as a hipster thing, it really took me by surprise. A few years later it seemed like it was just one of the more well known "hands on" distros with great docs, and I was glad to have that phase be done with.
(I'm about to. Probably to a Thinkpad with some Linux.)
Apple Store is a crowd of tired as hell staff who's only desire is to get rid of you.
In the meantime, Windows "just works."
Last year I had a lot of problems with this. It was pretty common[1] that USB-C to HDMI cables would work at first and then stop working in a particular port. Sometimes rebooting helped. Sometimes swapping the cable for another in the same port helped. Sometimes using another port immediately helped. There was never a good explanation for why this was happening; most resources blamed the cables. After some software update last year, suddenly all these bad cables are fine in any port.
As of this summer, there's a shiny new issue where connecting to GMail (at least) from System Preferences doesn't work, which I discovered through changing my password recently. SysPref claims it needs to open a Google login in Safari (even though that isn't my system browser!), but when Safari opens, it's to a blank page. Again, searching makes this seem like a pretty well-known problem, but no one has a solution, and Apple seems silent on it, and enough people do not have the problem that a common response is that those of us experiencing the issue must be doing or have done something wrong. And maybe we are(!), but I'd sure like to know what.
> 3. If you have a tech support issue go into the Apple Store and work with them 1-1.
Well, that literally hadn't occurred to me (for problem 2, above); I would have assumed store employees don't know anything one couldn't google immediately?
[1] I was quite annoyed that this went on long enough for me to have an opinion like "pretty common" for these connections not to work sometimes, over more than half a dozen such cables.
but hey at least it works. on my linux laptop it allways forgets the layout that i had and resorts to puting the external monitor right, and dont ger me started on X and fractional scalling.
Scaling is a mess though, totally agree with that.
i dont know why it does need to run the external monitor to 2x if i want 1x. and i lost way to much time playing with the setup. ubuntu 1904, if you have any new ideas im willing to try it.
For proper mixed dpi under Linux, you must use Wayland. But then, under Wayland, the fractional scaling is still not done (the wayland apps will work fine at given fractional scale, but x11 app will be @1 upsampled, i.e. blurry. That includes the browsers).
(No, I don't know why it still isn't fixed yet.)
i cannot run it at 200, 150 is perfect, i need fractional scaling
https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-218458
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/72759
- Switch the USB-C port from one to another - Open up my laptop from clamshell mode and switch the cables around - Unplug my monitor - Restart my computer
The nuclear option of rebooting my computer and monitor always seems to work.
I know its a problem with the macOS somewhere but Apple just doesn't seem to be focused on fixing these types of things. Even if you file a bug report it disappears into the ether and is never heard from again.
Apple 2019: writing a post summarizing Apple products' issues will compel a point by point response in which a fanboy will either tell you "works for me" or "you're holding it wrong".
[0] https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/03/rude-or-mean-comput...
It shows a disregard for the facts that some may rightfully call "flamebait".
They concluded with it. Resorting to it would mean that they had no other arguments to make.
That's exagerated of course, but really if you can't help yourself to stay civil for a whole article, there is no way your bias have not tainted the rest of the article.
Name calling means garbage article and a waste of time for readers.
Not to mention a bunch of other weird things, like relocking 10 seconds after I login occasionally and having to restart so my headphone jack works (2017 macbook pro).
I have relatively other complaints (keyboard, dongles) as a first time mac user, but weird stuff like the above does remind me of past linux experiences.
That is similar to Catalina with its too many new untested features.
Then they fixed the bugs in Snow Leopard.
The severity of Catalina's bugs are much greater than Snow Leopard. For example, there is now simultaneously a Mail deletion bug and iCloud bug to ruin your data across all machines.
Catalina needs a Snow Catalina.
This Macbook Pro has an actual keyboard, magsafe power port, continues to function great, works great with external monitors (HDMI port). Other than feeling squeezed for RAM and that the CPU isn't the fastest anymore, it was well worth the purchase price.
Since then the hardware has gotten worse, and with MacOS Catalina, the software is worse as well (the removal of 32-bit support affects my workflow; I can't use MacOS Catalina).
The sad thing is, nothing else has really gotten better. I'm leaning toward side-grading to Linux, but there's risk involved in buying a full-spec machine for Linux and perhaps finding it doesn't do everything I need it to do.
Agreed. It always surprises me to see this kind of text in an argument outside of a grade school schoolyard. I've never once read anything like this and thought to myself, "Well, that proves it! This guy's right!"
Apple's adapter only goes to 4k@30Hz. Which have you found to work? My monitor only has usb-c and two 4k hdmi@60 and two HDMI 4k@30.
It's also annoying that Netflix on Mac doesn't do 4k where even my lowly Surface Go does.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MUF82AM/A/usb-c-digital-a...
It's fucking over poor people because you didn't propose anything other than "get rid of public schools".
You're wrong for being angry because you're a fucking dweeb that thinks you're smarter than you actually are; like most of the libertarian shits on this site.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I agree with what you're saying, but as a pedantic factual correction, the 13" MacBook Pro has two.
Glad I'm not the only one having issues getting my non-antialiased fonts to render properly on external monitors. Crossing fingers for 2020.
But, I think this article is over the top... I've never had issues with external monitors (nor know anyone who had some), I never use the App store (I oppose it on principle) and when
I've had a non standard issue with my mac, the technician proved knowledgeable and quickly figured I did know what I was doing so didn't baby talk me. It turned out to be a hardware problem but I was impressed with how well they diagnosed it.
It's something i never thought possible but here we are; not saying this is mac's fault but monitor issues are not uncommon and this definitely didn't happen with windows.
We'll see if the new version is any better, but I'm not hopeful given either Apple doesn't seem to really know what devices are supposed to be able to play 4K iTunes content or may have just silently pulled the feature at the last minute and not told anyone.
This isn't true. People have been running `./configure && make && make install` since long before 2000 and long after 2000 as well.
Also, IIRC "alien" already existed in 2000, letting you install packages packaged for other distros (e.g. installing rpm on Debian).
Linux 2000: if your problem is not google-trivial, there's nothing you can do. Asking friends for assistance does not help, because they will just type your problem description into Google and read the first hit.
My recollection is that in 2000 people were less prone to just do a websearch and then give up when no relevant results are returned. People would ask in IRC or mailing lists.
Hell, in 2001 I had Linux on my home machine and I didn't have an internet connection at all. The only way to get things to work was to rely on friends and to figure stuff out for myself.
It was also more normal to spend days or weeks on a problem and not expect everything to be handed to you on a silver platter via Google or StackOverflow.
And you can still do this on macOS too!
Excuse me but that is definitely not what someone should be doing unless they don't have any actual work to do and instead can use all their time to play with Linux distro configurations. It is unacceptable to have to resort to spending days or weeks on a problem. That is an absolute show stopper for almost everyone.
You can "defend" Linux with the fact that it is a open source project that is maintained and improved by people in their free time, and that is absolutely okay and acceptable. But you can't then complain why hasn't Linux taken over the desktop. Why? Because, unlike on servers where the only person responsible for it is a "guru", everyone uses a PC and expects it to work and let them use it to accomplish work or entertain themselves. If Linux cannot do that, people won't use it, no matter the [whether subjective or objective] freedom-restrictions, dark patterns, privacy violations and outright illegal activity of Microsoft, or the [subjectively?] overpriced Apple ecosystem.
edit: Also, I'd like to add that I use Ubuntu exclusively at home and have a super-paranoid-level network firewall setup that blocks and monitors all traffic, and use AOSP on my phone with only blobs for GPU, SoC initialization and the magic black box that is the baseband processor. I use Ubuntu because it works for me better and more often than Windows, but I am a geek and I know things that my parents don't.
Okay bad example they also use Linux that I forced on them to be able to remotely administer it. But in any case people use what works for them best. I cannot afford an update that gets stuck on Getting things ready... and risk shutting down the PC and having it do a mandatory recovery or rollback procedure. Linux breaks less often for me because I pick my hardware and software and set it up. But nobody can expect that of people and they shouldn't have to. Death by a thousand paper cuts and rough edges and all.
> External Monitors
Plugging in monitors in linux today frequently does not behave as you expect. The chances of errant behavior is significantly higher on linux than any other operating system. I can't speak to apple computers not working with projectors, but it seems like he's comparing apples to oranges here.
> Software Installation
The "One True Way" of installing software is still the case in linux. Installing outside of the native package manager's repositories is discouraged. Installing of any software on mac is 'discouraged' in that you need to authorize just about every installation you do on the app store. Homebrew does not require sudo to install applications, though GUI applications will generally still need an okay from the user to open and use. The outlier in software installation is Windows, where it is still encouraged to install executables downloaded on the internet.
> Hardware comaptibility
Linux and MacOS both bake hardware compatibility into the kernel. You will still run into weird cases where a display port out on your graphics card won't work with linux for some indiscernible reason. This is admittedly significantly better than it was in 2000, however.
> Laptop features
Linux didn't have dedicated laptops in 2000. The fact that they lacked USB ports has nothing to do with Linux.
Current macbook pros have 4 usb ports (other than entry level mbp 13). Retina macbook pros had 2. I'm certain he's talking about usb-a ports, however. This isn't unique to Apple laptops, however. Most PC laptops manufactured today lack more than 2 usb type a ports. It's very difficult to find.
> Advocate behavior
It's pretty remarkable how someone can be so condemning of condescending elitist behavior while simultaneously being a condescending elitist jerk.
Windows is definitely a laggard with respect to package management. But even Windows has choco these days, https://chocolatey.org
Had the exact same thought!
> I can't speak to apple computers not working with projectors
I can. I organize hack days all over the globe and have to deal with lots of different types of laptops from virtually all manufacturers. Apple laptops (even old ones going back to the mid-2000s) virtually never have an issue connecting to a projector as long as you have the right adapter (my gear bag has like 15, but most of those aren’t for Apple laptops, I think I primarily use ~3 for them). I certainly can’t say that for Windows (admittedly mostly due to shitty laptop hardware, not Windows’ fault directly), let alone Linux.
I'm not sure what hardware you're using. On my end Linux so stable I haven't had a crash in years. Though, I have had some Firefox updates not render sites correctly. That and the default desktop behavior isn't ideal. Setting Force Full Composition Pipeline makes everything run as smooth as butter, similar to how OSX feels. It really should be the default behavior. All in all, Linux is far more stable and usable as a desktop today.
I installed Mint on my father's computer and it has been rock solid for him. I tend to find ways to break installations, but that's certainly not linux's fault. That said, it's still very much a mixed bag for me.
We'll see if it occurs again with Catalina.
All the other stuff is almost entirely wrong, in my experience.
It’s not completely obvious, but when you delete something it doesn’t disappear immediately because your Mac will keep it around on a local Time Machine snapshot so that it can keep decent history even if you’re away from your backup drive for a bit. And even if this wasn’t the case, with APFS copy-on-write deleting a file won’t necessarily free up space on your filesystem if there’s another copy hanging around.
Apple people will be outraged about this post, even if it's mostly a joke.
My conclusion from it is that there are difficult topics, and, apparently, changing standards fast is not helping at all. (DisplayPort was finally more or less working, but sure, swap to another display outlet... and the same for a lot of things).
There is no time to build systems (hw or sw, or god forbid, the two together) that are _mainly_ bug free with common hardware. Windows XP in it's final days was close to this. The most stable desktop linux distribution I used was a short lived Linux Mint release, 10 (Julia), which doesn't make any sense.
Maybe if standards we slowed down a bit and we'd give more time to sand the rough edges tech history wouldn't constantly run in circles.
A small excerpt from my personal list of woes:
- Using a USB-c <-> DVI cable gives the monitor a purple hue. An HDMI cable does not. Also, this isn’t an issue in bootcamp.
- Can’t use the serial debugger of a Particle Photon because it can’t use the dongle’s USB-A interface directly.
- Sometimes the Touch Bar goes completely unresponsive for ~10s. Sometimes, after a reboot or after waking from sleep, it just doesn’t start at all.
- At one point the speakers started blasting white noise at the loudest volume for no apparent reason. Closed the lid, opened it, same thing. Rebooted the machine and never encountered that problem again.
- If a certain kind of network error occurs when setting up Time Machine then System Preferences will hang completely for ~5 minutes.
In many ways the experience is what I would expect if I could run Linux on this machine: Hardware kind of works with lots of random bugs.
For what it’s worth this happens both with a 15” and a 13” MBP from different years.