Is it just me or is Apple starting to fall woefully behind non-mac hardware competitors in both price and perf?
I used to look forward to these announcements, now it's just 'we upgraded to a +1 generation config (still 1-2 generations behind what others are doing), that'll be 2000 bucks thanks'. Advertising 4 cores and 2018 Iris graphics as if it's some kind of achievement, when competitors have full dGpu solutions and 6 cores in same sized chassis at the same price bracket. They're taking a bit of a piss at this point.
Perhaps, but show me build quality on the same level in the PC world. Even though I find Apple lagging behind it's previous standards in build quality, it's still better that most in the PC world.
(I'm still on a mid 2015 MBP and completely content to stay with it.)
It's carbon fiber composite and machined aluminum. Yes, there is some plastic, but it's solid as shit.
No coil whine in mine. Touchpad idk, because I don't care that much about miniscule differences in touchpads, but it does the job as well as any high end laptop. All touchpads are trash imo, so I find it hard to prefer one over the other.
Most important for me when writing code is keyboard and screen. The kn is acceptable. The matte screen is a must for me. Even if it was all plastic, tbh I'd still take it for the matte screen.
I think we have different subjective tastes, I use my laptop docked most of the time, but the touchpad on macs is the only acceptable one I've used. All others fall that 5-10% below in performance and smoothness that makes them unusable. It's miniscule, but it's the most important final few percentage points.
Not a huge fan of matte screens either, I like pretty colors that pop and rarely work outside. Although I did have a privacy screen on my computer for a bit which was fun.
I also own a Precision M3800 (the business version of XPS 15). It is on par performance-wise but not in fit and finish (rubberized wrist-rest? what was Dell thinking?) Granted there are many generations of the XPS 15.
I feel like a broken record but I must push back on the 'quality'. Just in personal experience, we've had macs swell up, keyboards repeatedly fail, expensive repairs.
Maybe the fit-and-finish is high grade but actualy _quality_ is alarmingly low, IMHO, especially for the price.
And if you're on a machine from 5 years ago, maybe you missed the recent plummet.
I think the person you replied to is saying that while the grade of macbooks is good (which normal people call quality), the quality of macbooks is not (ie, does what it says on the tin, and the keyboard lasts the life of the laptop).
It's the BMW argument. Great interior, power, handling. Feels like quality. Actual quality sucks because the thing needs more repairs than a Toyota.
I have a T480 and it’s the worst laptop I’ve ever owned. Had to send it back once for repairs already. The regular charging port no longer works so I use one of the other USB-C ports, which is now crumbling from the inside. The touchpad moves on its own. And worse, a failed firmware update has corrupted the Intel Management Engine (MeSpiLock failed message every boot) that I refuse to install Windows to fix. Finally, the absurdity of the never-fixed throttling issue on Linux — and Docker if you use Windows — makes it an awful machine for any kind of development. I spent a good chunk of money on this computer and I feel stuck with it. I will stay far away from Thinkpads in the future. Wide berth advised.
You have the last good one. My 2015 died and my employer gave me a 2017 that promptly died 3 months later. Apple Care and the genius bar were a pretty shitty customer service experience but I eventually got it back. The keyboard is worse than the rubber domes on the $200 Walmart Black friday special I got several years ago. That's not a joke. For the 2017 model Ram maxed out at 16gb which made it a laughing stock for that era. The touchpad is bigger and still good, but feels substantially worse than the 2015. After a year the battery life was a joke @ <50% brightness. It doesn't feel noticably faster than the 2015 either.
My 2015 was the best laptop I've ever used by a longshot. Thinkpads of the same era match it in build quality and have slightly better keyboards but the touchpad and the Mac workflow are something I grew to love.
The keyboard on the 2017 was so bad when a coworker with an old model was showing me how to do something on my laptop he genuinely thought it was broken.
It might depend on your typing style. If you hit the keys with force, you might prefer rubber domes/mech keyboards, if you flow around the keyboard just gently tapping the keys, butterfly is amazing. I would easily pay $200 for a desktop keyboard that gives the same typing experience.
I'm fairly heavy handed so maybe that's why it doesn't appeal to me. I use Box Navy switches on one of my mechanical keyboards. Those are notoriously heavy.
Kailh might make something lighter than MX blues. Not sure what's out there on the light side. I'm sure cherry or someone must make something nice that still clicks. I also use linear switches around 60-70g.
Browns are lighter. Low profile Kailhs are even lighter. Right now I am using a scissor switch keyboard and I enjoy it a lot, but I am going to give kailh low profile browns a try. I like the general feeling of mech keyboards, but I don't like blues. I hope browns will be it. If not, scissor switch works well for me too, although my keyboard has issues with polling rate, sometimes when I type fast it swaps keys around.
I have a work provided 2019 13" Mac Book Pro. I was hesitant to let them replace my 2014 MBP because of all the negative press about the new keyboards. FWIW, I now prefer the 2019 keyboard over my personal 2014's MBP, the latter's keyboard now seems mushy and imprecise. So, aside from the touchbar, which I still don't love, I prefer the 2019 MBP over the older model.
That's what I've been saying as well to those who ask. The last good one. Even though it was the staingate one. Typing this on a banged up 2015 13inch. It's seen MacOS, Win for a year and now is on Kubuntu. Battery doesn't hold an hour, but I have yet to overcome the reluctance to pay for something not as good.
Well, competitors are still behind Apple. They offer worse touchpad, worse screens (it's either 16:9 or weird resolution), no macOS, worse speakers, worse microphone, worse battery.
Objectively not, but in practice a lot of people are locked in Apple ecosystem, for long time MacBooks were the only good laptops for development with support of communicators, graphic tools etc.
It's changing with Linux and WSL, but can't blame people to stay with macOS if it works for them.
Personally I'm using linux and thinkpad, but even x1 carbon falls short to MacBooks in areas I mentioned before.
Yep, I'm using an X1 Yoga, still not nearly as nice to use as OSX on a Macbook Pro that's 3 years older than it, and that's with either Windows or Linux. Ubuntu touchpad drivers are pretty bad, the windows ones are tolerable but still fail at multi-finger gestures. I really like the touchscreen, but the display colors/look aren't nearly as good. Overally pretty disappointed for a system that's close to top-spec when compared to my base spec MBP from years earlier (but it does run my Windows applications for work which I need).
Laugh as much as you want but to me (and many others) it actually is. I would look at other manufacturers for their hardware, but sadly it's all non-MacOs and I value this operating system above anything else for my needs (work and personal).
Except they aren't. I need a top class desktop operating system with top class unix environment support and tools. Windows10 might be getting close to a top class desktop os, but sadly WSL is years behind and simply feels like forced afterthought. Linux fills the unix env/tools box, but doesn't even gets close to desktop operating system quality bar of MacOS.
macOS is definitely not a top class UNIX environment, not even by a long shot. It is an alien hybrid of outdated BSD tools and toolchains. Even Xcode, which was amazing a decade ago, is now a joke compared to other environments and specialized tools nowadays.
Since Jobs died, the company has slowly allowed their development-focused machines and toolset to rot. The company now only caters to artists and it shows with their "Pro" offerings, including the Mac Pro.
As for the desktop features, all 3 major operating systems are the same. Claiming otherwise is not knowing how to use each of them.
I'm not sure if you're claiming that Linux is a "major desktop operating system" (desktop added for clarity based on the context of your statement), but if you are your statement is badly misinformed.
I use Linux in (many) VMs where I have to in order to run esoteric toolchains for embedded stuff. There is no distribution of Linux that provides bulletproof basic desktop usability anywhere near the level of OS X or Windows 10. Nothing even in the same ballpark. And I've used Linux since the days when Slackware came on a set of 3.5" floppies, so I'm not some Linux hater or incompetent here -- I've got a significant amount of experience with the OS in many of its flavors. When you can get any distribution of Linux to accurately handle plugging in external monitors every time, maybe we can talk.
Xcode is an excellent IDE - it's second really only to Visual Studio.
My only complaint about Macs today is the Touch Bar, because they replaced my f-keys with it and it's useless to me as a developer. That's at least partially mitigated by my das keyboard.
Nearly every other dev I know uses a MacBook Pro. The Mac Pro is a production machine for movies, it's not really part of the discussion here.
It's not a major operating system outside of server use.
Your claim was this:
"As for the desktop features, all 3 major operating systems are the same. Claiming otherwise is not knowing how to use each of them." -- that's a demonstrably false statement, which you're apparently trying to walk back now by claiming server installations are the same as desktop use. Linux has essentially zero desktop market share, because it's a very poor desktop OS, and is in no way comparable to either of the leading desktop operating systems, which was your claim. And no one I know uses Linux as a desktop inside another OS. Plenty of people use an ssh session into a Linux machine to compile things, but that's not using it as a desktop. Very few people would want to use an OS in a VM as their main desktop, especially since that doesn't even resolve the issues that make it a terrible desktop OS!
I'm using Xcode on a MacBook Pro to do C++ development for an embedded system right now. I've used it to write C applications in the past. I don't do webdev ever and generally don't do mobile. Nearly everyone in my field uses a MacBook Pro, for everything from firmware development up. The webdev kids seem to be the the Linux zealots from what I've seen.
> It's not a major operating system outside of server use.
You are forgetting Android, embedded, web servers, networking equipment of all kinds, HPC and supercomputing, HFT, automotive, aerospace and many other fields.
Linux is, by far, the operating system with the most deployed systems out there.
> that's a demonstrably false statement, which you're apparently trying to walk back now by claiming server installations are the same as desktop use
I am not backing from anything, and I have not claimed anything about servers so far until this post.
Linux is the third desktop operating system, whether you like it or not. At home, in fact, it is not that far from macOS (4%), Linux (1%).
Given you talk about "demonstrable" things, I refer you to surveys like Steam's.
At work, Windows is even more prevalent, and those surveys do not include VM (work/non-gaming) usage where most people I know use it.
> Nearly everyone in my field uses a MacBook Pro, for everything from firmware development up
Perhaps you are in the US, where Apple has a disproportionate market share (up to 30% IIRC) compared to anywhere else in the world. I also work on embedded and no one uses a Mac here, nor Xcode. A ThinkPad or a Dell with a Linux VM is the proper choice. Xcode for firmware development sounds very odd, too.
The entire context of the discussion was desktop operating systems, not embedded devices. Aerospace doesn't run Linux on anything I've ever even heard of, that would be foolhardy to the extreme. They're running things like QNX and different variants of real time operating systems. Automotive does run it on non-critical things, but even that is pretty silly. Most critical systems on vehicles do not run Linux either. Most networking gear doesn't run Linux -- some consumer things do, but many run some form of BSD or some proprietary OS(ios).
Android is barely Linux (and if you want to add mobile phones into the discussion you'd have to realize that iOS is actually the same thing as OS X..), and the rest aren't desktop operating systems at all -- and many of them don't run Linux either.
But again, the context, and your comment, was about the desktop. Linux isn't there.
You call Linux the "third" desktop operating system by default because its desktop share isn't exactly zero. It's quite close to zero, but not exactly. That's all.
Windows & OS X are the only major desktop operating systems.
And yes, I'm in the US. I'm not sure that really matters that much. Obviously different shops will do things differently. You don't use a Mac, so your worldview is that they aren't a thing. That's simply not correct. There's a wide world outside your bubble. A Thinkpad / Dell with a Linux VM is your choice, not "the proper" choice.
I'm not an OS zealot -- I use both of the major desktop operating systems, and I use others where they're appropriate -- have used Linux for decades. Until Linux has MS Office running natively on it, it will never have a desktop market. No, it's still not the year of the Linux Desktop. Probably never will be.
And Xcode is a perfectly usable C & C++ IDE. Why wouldn't you use it for firmware?
> Aerospace doesn't run Linux on anything I've ever even heard of, that would be foolhardy to the extreme.
It will shock you to learn that most stuff out there now works on Linux and soft RT Linux. For hard RT where Linux does not fit the bill, specialized operating systems are used.
> Android is barely Linux
It is actually 100% Linux.
> the rest aren't desktop operating systems at all
Luckily not everyone working on about half a dozen of them thinks like you!
> You call Linux the "third" desktop operating system by default because its desktop share isn't exactly zero.
1% is "near zero"? So millions and millions of desktops are "zero"?
We should be telling Canonical, Valve, Microsoft and hundreds of other companies that depend on "desktop" Linux to work!
> And yes, I'm in the US. I'm not sure that really matters that much.
As I explained, the market share in the US is wildly different than in the rest of the world.
> You don't use a Mac, so your worldview is that they aren't a thing.
Hah. I have used Apple systems and Xcode for many years. I own (have owned, my last was right before the Touch Bar debacle) several Macs in my life. That is why I know a decade ago they were on top of their game and now the ecosystem sucks for devs.
In another thread I said I think the culture of the Mac died with Jobs and the company switched to the profitable part too much (the iPhones and such).
> Until Linux has MS Office running natively on it, it will never have a desktop market.
Desktop market != Office market. Of course Linux has almost no market on typical companies with employees doing Word and Excel 8-5.
> And Xcode is a perfectly usable C & C++ IDE. Why wouldn't you use it for firmware?
Because everything else is just plainly better, or open source, or free, or cross-platform, or...
Yes, Xcode is perfectly usable for C++. SublimeText + plugins is perfectly usable, too. I can also do my job pretty well with gedit or vim or emacs. And if needed I can do it with bloody Notepad too. That does not mean I choose them nor that they are the best.
Not in aerospace or anywhere else where life & safety are at stake. I'm quite familiar with those worlds, and Linux doesn't exist there.
Android is not 100% Linux. It's a phone OS that runs a Linux kernel and essentially nothing else that even looks like a desktop Linux (remember, that's the discussion).
Yes, 1% is near zero. For desktop use, the only people who use Linux are devs who are completely buried in the Linux world, and OS zealots. The market outside of that vanishingly small sector of desktop users is zero -- not close to zero, not 1%, zero. No one runs Linux on the desktop because they want to run Linux on the desktop -- you don't even do it. They run it because they have no other alternative, or because their religion demands it.
Nothing has changed in the Mac "ecosystem" to make their machines worse for devs in the last ten years. I'm really at a loss to even begin to understand what you are talking about here. It simply isn't so.
Again, your opinion is that you don't like Xcode. Nothing else you've posted suggests a real fact.
I've written plenty of code in vi -- even in ed, in Netbeans, whatever. I like Xcode because it works really well, and if you're in the Mac ecosystem it's designed to work well there. I don't care if an IDE is open source, I don't care if it's "free" (Xcode is), and I don't care if it's cross platform. Those items mean nothing to me, they do nothing for me. If I need to write on a linux system I'll pull up netbeans or eclipse. Or I'll write it in an ssh session using vi. So what?
You're continuing to state your opinions as though they are some objective fact. You don't like Macs for some reason since Jobs died. That's your opinion. It doesn't match that of many others.
I think you're missing the point where I treat the "top class desktop operating system with top class unix environment support and tools" as a whole, and not as two separate things. To me MacOS is the top class desktop operating system with top class unix env support, nothing else gets close to this definition. Other operating systems could get close to other definitions, maybe even surpass it, but not to this one.
Sure, your needs are your needs, but the person you're replying to is saying they aren't objectively worse, not subjectively. Windows/Linux on a PC laptop is an obviously-viable tool for a great many people, and those people may want to start looking at what's available if they aren't satisfied with Apple's offerings. Personally I'm not a fan of treating laptops as anything more than nice SSH clients to the more powerful machines where I do my actual work, but again that's subjective :)
I'll amend that a bit, I assume many of the people you speak of are in my camp, and that camp is a bit different than what you described.
Mostly I don't care about OSX. Some days i actually would prefer Linux. The reason I'm on OSX though is because I've been down the Linux desktop road, many times, and between the software and/or faulty configuration experience I use avoid it.
Random problems when I'm trying to work drive me mad. I use OSX to avoid problems.
Objectively worse? No. You are right that competitors are not objectively worse for lacking MacOS. Still, there is a large population (myself included) who is most comfortable working in macOS and considers the “Apple tax” lower than the switching costs of changing OSs.
Yes, it does. As someone who does audio recording, design work and programming, Macos, with it's unix shell that allows all my programming tools to work and the excellent support by creative software, is the only OS that works.
The design tools may also work on windows, but the development story is hilariously bad. And no, WSL 1 or 2 with all their performance hits and weird edgecases don't qualify at all to a native unix shell.
Linux is superior to macos for software development, but the creative software support is non-existant.
Really, for someone like me (and I bet there are many others like me) Macos is the the only os that works.
Where I have to use Linux, I just boot up a headless VM and ssh into it from my Mac. Saves me a lot of headache trying to run a real Linux machine and deal with x and all its BS.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the X series ThinkPads are the main competitor to the MacBook Pro series. IE, thin and targeted at professionals.
It's been years since an X-series has had a removable battery and the option for two of them. Decent-quality screens are a significant upcharge and even then barely match the Apple screen. And going over to their website, an X1 carbon 7th gen with a 10th gen Intel processor still uses LPDDR3, just like the Apple.
If you do a real comparison - beyond just "processor cores/speed, ram and disk quantity", you'll find that there really isn't a huge difference in price for specs and that you can comfortably buy the one you prefer and not feel ripped off.
I would say both the X and T series are MacBook Pro competitors. The T series aren't usually as compromisingly thin as the X Series but still aren't much thicker than an Ethernet port so they're still thin in my book. They're definitely way thinner than the P series machines.
P1 hits the sweet spot of thin AND pro. Same size as the X1 Extreme series, but geared toward business users. You can actually open it up and do some upgrades. RAM up to 64gb, up to a xeon processor, and the 1st gen is able to include nvidia quaddro gpus.
Ah yes, the P1 is an excellent machine and still manages to stay pretty thin. Its definitely an outlier of thinness in the P-series though, but is absolutely one which does not fit with my earlier comment of the P series being a bit thicker.
FWIW, most of the T series also have a good number of FRUs (field-replaceable units, what customers can easily swap out). Some models, especially the "s" versions, will have some soldered RAM but often the non-"s" versions will allow you to swap out both sticks. Wireless chips and SSDs are user-replaceable. Internal batteries are held in by screws and not glue so they're easy to replace when they age. Pretty easy to work on overall. My T460s is over 4 years old and still going strong.
I no longer care about removable batteries. I finally recycled my 2011 MacBook Air late last year, after 8 years of hard service doing development work on the go. The battery had half of what it once had, but the CPU and Ram could no longer keep up.
Removable batteries were more important back when batteries sucked, now they last the life of the machine.
Many laptops offer upgradeable RAM and some upgradeable CPUs. All laptops of my family have upgradeable RAM for instance. SSDs bays and M2 slots as well.
All LiIon batteries are around 80-85% of capacity in around 350-500 charge cycles given a decent controller and no excessive heat (which macbooks are overall bad at).
Upgradeable ram would be the only thing I’d want from Apple. With the advent of Dropbox & similar it’s been a long long time since I’ve run out of disk space. And as I’ve said before, I typically see laptops struggling to perform long before seeing their batteries give up on me.
This is just a matter of usage. MacBook Pro batteries have never lasted me more than ~3 years before signficant degredation (usually marked by swelling, needing replacement to avoid having the touchpad eject from the machine), and that number held from pre-unibody to post-retina. As an anecdote, the later generations seemed to degrade faster than the earlier ones.
If hardware quality and design is desirable, there are a several options on the market. Surface Pro are extremely nice if you're into Windows. X1 Carbon is a nice option if you are after a durable and compact laptop. Razer Blade is basically a performant gaming laptop in a MacBook Pro body (though you don't have to play games on it).
Still, even with all the software and hardware issues of the recent years, there is something in Apple's computers that makes me want to keep using them.
We have some at work and I don't think they are worth the money. Same for the Surface Book. I have it as my main laptop now but I think I will go back to a HP ZBook.
I would argue that macOS isn't the selling point it used to be but it's still less annoying to me to work with than WSL on Windows 10 or wrestling with a Linux distro and shitty display drivers.
Let's ignore no 120/144/240 Hz screens, no good GPU (or any dedicated GPU in most models), no CUDA, no Zen2, no workstation CPUs, no high-capacity RAM, finicky keyboard, bad warranty, no Linux support, bad Windows support, no proper OpenGL, no Vulkan, no Direct3D, no 32-bit software, no Ethernet, no FireWire, no USB-A, no optical drive, no HDMI, no DP, no VGA...
Definitely all advantages!
Let's also ignore all vendors with laptops that have better hardware, better warranty or better prices.
I use the VGA port in many conference talks I give. Modern, digital projectors are still not a guarantee and it is very awkward to go ask around for another laptop or a dongle.
I have FireWire hardware still around that I have no plan on replacing until it breaks.
Around half my games are 32-bit.
I have a library of BluRays with my favorite shows at home. I also bought some kid shows for my daughter 6 months ago that came in a DVD set.
But yeah, go laugh and make a comparison with PS/2. Everyone I listed is still in use today and many laptop vendors provide ports for them. Some will go out soon, some won't for years.
Just because you continue to use VGA, PS2, and FireWire doesn’t mean that everyone needs that. You have extremely niche needs, especially in a laptop, it’s utterly unsurprising that Apple won’t add the hardware to support them.
First of all, I haven't said I use PS/2. Quite the opposite. Trying to group all ports in the same place as a very outdated one is being intellectually dishonest. Things like FireWire and VGA are already on the way out and are not present in new laptops, but laptops used today still have them.
If I have "extremely niche needs", then why do almost all laptops sold include Ethernet/RJ-45, several USB-A ports, HDMI output, card readers, etc.?
Not everyone has bought into $50 USB-C dongle land.
They’re not done migrating to USB-C, that’s why. Every single year non-mac laptops slowly get thinner and trade another USB-A port for USB-C. The fact that all my work colleagues were issued a USB-C dock is going to accelerate this trend.
I can’t tell you the last time I saw a coworker directly use anything other than the USB-C port on their laptops, even on Lenovos with other ports. It’s only a matter of time.
Honestly, the “$50 USB-C dongle” has been great. I plug in a single cord and it provides two displays, power, USB, and Ethernet. This is everything that work laptop docks promised decades ago, except it’s an open standard! If I were to switch from a Mac to a Dell or a Lenovo, I wouldn’t need to change a thing about my current setup. Heck, I don’t even use an Apple power charger when traveling anymore, since my Anker is smaller and can barely keep my MBP topped off.
Have you looked at the latest line of business class Dells? Most of them don’t have Ethernet ports nor do they have card readers. Most of the consumer line computers don’t either. Dell is still the number one or number two PC vendor.
For digital media, especially for kids, there are many better alternatives -- including ripping the DVDs, copying them to a MicroSD card and buying a cheap Fire tablet. But, Disney+, with an iPad ($329), and Apple Arcade (no ad ridden, play to win games) is a godsend for kids.
If I was going to play optical media, I’d be more interested in getting it to play on my TV than my laptop. Every time I played a DVD on the last laptop I had with a DVD drive it was always a nightmare to deal with power, HDMI, and deal with the laptops tendency to go to sleep. I’d rather just buy a dedicated optical player for the TV and be done with it.
My time is worth way more than dealing with ripping DVDs, to be honest.
Yes, streaming platforms are convenient, but no, I don't want to be limited to whatever Disney+ or Apple Arcade wants me or my kid to watch/play. I choose what shows/games are worth, not the other way around. I will pay to watch a show in streaming, but I don't pay streaming to have something to watch. If that makes sense...
>> I use the VGA port in many conference talks I give. Modern, digital projectors are still not a guarantee and it is very awkward to go ask around for another laptop or a dongle
Ever thought about buying your own dongle? Sincle you give many conference talks it might be a great investment :)
FWIW all those you mention can be added with a USB device (even DOS, you can boot FreeDOS via a CD or even external floppy on modern PC) whereas the stuff jfkebwjsbx mentions cannot (except the optical drive).
High refresh rate screen is the only thing I'd want from that list. I'll upgrade my 2017 MBP when/if a model with >120Hz display comes out. For me it's been the greatest thing in consumer space since HDD to SSD upgrades. Having made the switch on desktop, going back to 60 Hz makes all motions (even scrolling a web page) appear incredibly choppy and distracting for a hour or two until my eyes readapt.
The resolution part is insane. I use my work Macbook at 125% scaling, which would be equivalent to 100% on a WQHD screen. There are some available on some very specific (expensive) ThinkPads from a generation I don't want and the new Ryzen ASUS Zephyrus G14 (but it seems like they absolutely don't want to sell it, I seriously have found no listing for it after spending a long time hunting down the actual model code).
There are some 4k models, but those bring more weird fractional scaling problems with them (especially bad on Linux), have battery life and are usually super expensive.
Oh ... and it's all 14 or 15" models. I'd happily take a 17 or 19" laptop - I just want enough portability so I can carry it around in a bag while commuting and have it on a desk most of the time, but, while there are some okay 17" offerings (barely any "pro" devices, though, so no swappable RAM) there is not one (apart from the insanely expensive ZBook) offering with a higher than FHD screen.
What the fuck?! Why? Don't most people use their laptops as only somewhat portable work stations? Am I the only one who finds a larger screen with more content useful?
Razor has a 17” laptop that can be configured to have a 4K display, but you also have to upgrade the GPU to a RTX 2080 Max-Q. The RAM and storage is end user replaceable though and you’d have an absolute beast of a machine that could handle pretty much anything you’ll ever throw at it. It is $3700 though.
https://www.razer.com/gaming-laptops/razer-blade-pro/shop
Apple has never been particularly great on the price/performance ratio of their laptops. You buy their laptops for the fully integrated package, not for the specs.
Never been a mac person, but I do agree it appears to be a bit lackluster. Its not the same comparison, but for ~1800 a new home workstation with 2070 Super / 3900x 12 core CPU becomes a pretty powerful machine.
I haven't owned a mac in a while since employment now supplies me with a laptop. But my experience with this point of view is that it's about holistic vs. non-holistic thinking. When someone points at specs and tells me that X is better than Y for price, they're getting to that conclusion by ignoring a whole bunch of variables. To take this to the extreme, I had a friend genuinely say, "Why did you spend $90 on a baby monitor? You can just get a RPi, Camera, microphone, and wire it together for like $45."
I have an xps-15 for work and it's... it's okay. It's decent hardware. But I want a mac because I need a non-Windows environment and I'm just dead tired of all the jank in Ubuntu. I no-longer try to undock it because doing so is either a full reboot or the resolution/scaling gets messed up and video memory corrupts (my fonts became colour vomits).
For me, buying a Mac is basically, "here's a ton of money. Now I don't have to think about these things for 7 years." (except the last few macs questionable hardware absolutely ruined this peace of mind...)
All OSs have their issues. I use Windows and Ubuntu daily and have had work macbooks.
In a lot of cases it does come down to what you are used to, as there are design differences that aren't necessarily worse or better but when you get used to one the other feels janky.
At any rate, in Ubuntu's case things like display support are worse - especially multiple different DPI screens (yes, there are workarounds). UI is less slick in places. Some software is better supported while some have worse support. Things like that.
I've seen this mentioned a few times now on HN as a drawback of Ubuntu. Are multiple monitors really that much of a benefit that so many people use them?
Until this pandemic forced me to make do with one monitor at home, I rarely used the built in screen on my work laptops; I counted on the dual monitors on my desk. The idea of using a laptop display alone is baffling to me.
absolutely. I find a pretty common workflow for me is writing code in one window while having documentation (or a header file) open in another. it's not the end of the world if I have to alt-tab back and forth, but it's much more efficient if I don't have to.
a 24-27" monitor suitable for coding is only $200-300. if you code for money, it seems like a no brainer to just get two.
I've tried multiple monitors a number of times through the years, and it's only been a net benefit when doing things like streaming and/or presenting via video conference (so you can have a preview monitor / live chat separate).
Other than that, my brain and neck both work a lot better with one large 4K display (currently 27" but I've been thinking about going 32").
and this is why I still use two 20-inch 4:3-ratio monitors in portrait mode (combined screen is 2400x1600) -- I can look at each monitor with minimal neck movement and the viewing angle for each half is independent. when i've tried a single, curved ultra-wide I still felt like the outer third on each side was a tilted away too much
I've got an entire monitor (really a 55" 4k TV) devoted to all the chat windows and communications I'm running for my team, another 4k monitor that I actually use to code, and then my laptop sits to the side as an auxiliary monitor where I can look things up and what not.
I need to run three monitors and it was a nightmare to get resolutions and scaling all correct. Even now, if I undock it might never wake up or have corrupt memory. I also had to shut off the graphics adapter switching capability so it always runs off Nvidia and therefore I have maybe 2 hours battery life in a text editor.
But, nothing about the Apple ecosystem prevents them from also adopting the latest hardware. The only reason it could that I can think of is that it genuinely takes them 2 years to test the latest Intel CPU in each new laptop.
Compatibility with low power mobile ram is usually the thing with Apple; they care more about long battery life, especially long sleep times, than raw CPU performance.
I've been feeling a lot more of this jank from MacOS than my other devices at this point. I have a 2017 15" MBPtb and a custom desktop that dualboots Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04.
Frustrations I've had to deal with in MacOs that have just not been pain points in other OSes (yeah, not even on Ubuntu):
* No DisplayPort MST support[1]. I spent a large chunk of money on a monitor that had MST so I could daisy chain across two monitors and charge my laptop all with one cable and no separate dock sitting on my desk. I was heartbroken to see that it JustWorks™ on Windows 10 using the MacBook or desktop, but not on MacOS. I ended up needing to buy another expensive dock and sacrifice some desk real estate.
* If you use bluetooth audio headsets, the sound balance randomly shifts to the right if you change volume while the CPU is under load[2].
* No built in window snapping or hotkeys is kind of ridiculous in 2020. Yeah, I have paid for apps like BetterTouchTool and Moom, but it's ridiculous that this is something users have to buy standalone. I often end up assisting coworkers on their machines, and it sucks when they don't have anything setup for snapping.
* Turning WiFI off and back on quickly sometimes results in the second action being ignored. That's such a ridiculous bug to still be there.
At this point, the only killer MacOS exclusive apps I still use are iTerm2 and Homebrew (and I guess XCode out of necessity for iOS/Mac target compilation). If Apple keeps on the trajectory they've been on, I feel like I'll shift away from MacBooks for my next machine.
In engineering we say option X is objectively better than Y, if X is superior on all metrics. This is generally not true, so wether X is better than Y is going to subjective. So we will always end up with endless discussions with "yes but this.. yes but that..".
>Is it just me or is Apple starting to fall woefully behind non-mac hardware competitors in both price and perf?
Since forever... Ok, perhaps adding the SSDs was a great touch. However, Apple is considered a fashion brand, where you pay more for the brand, itself. In virtually any regard Lenovo business laptops are a better price/value proposition: easily extensible - more memory, m2 slots, docking, pcb with conformal coating, easily serviceable keyboard, touch pads, replaceable battery, etc. A lot better thermals, like a lot. And when it comes to perf. it's not even remotely close.
And yes, multiple USB-A slots, HDMI, display port, rj-45, no dongle nonsense.
They just didn't seem to last as long, for one reason or another. They were fine when functional. We just replaced them at a much greater rate than our Macbooks. BUT this was about 2 years ago, so a lot of our macbooks were older devices without the new keyboard mechanism.
In my personal life, my 2010 pro is still going strong. My mother uses it now - no complaints. Some things have failed, the optical drive. But man is that thing a tank.
I can defend their "chassis" as being ahead of the competition and you basically paying for the time they spent shaving shit off until it's perfect. But that damn touch bar. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the most custom of custom random hardware part, adding like half a smartphone's production cost to it. How much productivity can that thing possibly add? Who on earth says, "yea that touch bar, certainly worth more than 1TB of SSD space and 16GB of RAM!".
They don’t expect everyone who bought the last computer update to buy this one. I work on a 13” MacBook Air from 2014 and it’s time for an update. $1500 for this feels like exactly what I’ve been waiting for.
When was the last time that over a period of years each update to a MacBook Pro was a monumental upgrade? Maybe early 2000s when they went from PowerPC to Intel? I think you’re just remembering this rosier than it really was.
It's even worse when you notice that two of the four "new" models come with an 8th gen Intel CPU, and DDR3 memory, it's like they replaced the keyboard from the previous model and they're calling it "new".
Between selling cpu's 2 generations behind, the keyboard issues, and thermal problems in the Macbook Airs, it really seems like Apple is trying its best to alienate buyers from their laptop line. Just recommended a coworker a Macbook Air for her son, an i7, 16Gb of RAM and 512Gb SSD. From off to account creation, the fan was already running. By the time the laptop was showing the desktop it was burning to touch. Some more testing and I found out the CPU was at 94-98ºC after 4 minutes. Turns out it is by design (just take a look at the photos of the cpu cooler, separated from the fan https://www.ifixit.com/News/36480/theres-something-new-in-th...). She just returned the laptop and is exploring options from Dell and Lenovo.
Even if you like MacOS, you now have to wait before buying anything Apple until you can see a teardown just to see if it's going to survive even casual use.
Between selling cpu's 2 generations behind, the keyboard issues, and thermal problems in the Macbook Airs,
What thermal problems? I have had the Air 2020 in the Core i5 configuration for two weeks and the fan rarely spins up. Even when it does, I can touch the hottest part of the laptop without problems.
From off to account creation, the fan was already running.
That's not strange. Spotlight spends the first whatever amount of time on indexing the hard drive. Indexing implies parsing various files/file formats. This usually ends when indexing is done.
With the fixed keyboard, the MacBook Air 2020 is finally a MacBook that I love again, which I can't really say of the two butterfly Pros I had before (with the first I really disliked the keyboard, the second had a Touch Bar and I always had trouble pressing the Esc key blindly).
Honestly since Intel chips have almost all flatlined into 14nm, with the only minute improvements coming from better binning, I don't think the selling CPUs 2gens behind is an issue.
Edit-they're actually selling the 10th gen chip, not 8th gen like you describe
It's been like this since forever. I can't remember a point in time where price per performance was a selling point for apple products, barring seriously oldschool machines.
They had the build quality + trendy side of the market shored up for a small time, but even then thinkpads were an easy match, albeit extremely untrendy.
For the last long while, since the regoodification of dell and the general shift towards catching up with mac in build quality across the market, they've been a poor choice for anyone looking to maximize their value.
I'm frankly shocked that someone finds this surprising these days.
The "apple tax" has been a thing for decades now.
I have never owned a mac but I listen to a mac-centric podcast and from their complaints I am not sure why I, a non-programmer, would ever pay the apple tax to buy one.
This is really typical “missing the point” when it comes to Apple hardware.
First, Apple hardware was never bleeding edge even in 2010. That’s not ever how they operated. They’ve really never played the spec war. They don’t even publicly state the RAM spec in the iPhone while Android competitors make it into a price segmenting feature.
What these computers give out is all the stuff people really care about.
The computer’s shape and even the large ancient-looking top bezel are giving you a more comfortable typing surface compared to the XPS 13 where your palms slip off the edge if your hands are too big.
Skip forward to the part talking about typing comfort.
The speakers in the Air and Pro are best in class and nothing comes close. That’s something the customer will notice and care about.
The microphones in Apple machines are incredible. Something the customer will notice and care about when they use the computer on conference calls.
And nobody else has made a trackpad anywhere near as good. Still.
I dispute the assertion that there’s a computer out there in this same form factor with a discrete GPU at a similar price point with similar specs, and if there is I’m sure it’s a GeForce MX and not a GTX or RTX, in other words, not really worth the trouble. In reality, nobody buying this class of computer gives a shit about the graphics card. Investing battery life into one is a bad trade-off. I’d also like to see this mythical computer you speak of, what model are you talking about?
I also dispute your claims on pricing in general. Dell, for example, places a gate on 16GB of RAM
and the high DPI display to the highest XPS 13 model. It’s way less configurable than a similar Mac. A lot of Windows computers that seem to be equivalent to Macs omit features like a high DPI display or make them an upgrade and act like 1080p is “good enough” for customer spending almost a grand or more and doing mostly text work. I find that oversight unacceptable: a high DPI display should absolutely be standard on any computer over $700 that isn’t intended for gaming, IMO.
Expecting 6 cores or the very latest generation of every component is beside the point. Nobody notices that stuff. Only benchmarks can see the difference.
What actually makes a good computer is good ergonomics, good display, good battery life, good speakers, good microphones. The hardware internals are, in 2020 when computer performance is improving at a slower rate than ever before, nearly a complete afterthought.
Has Apple ever designed a product solely around just a couple of specs? No. Consumers unfortunately fail to realize this and compare A vs B based on cherry picked specs. The reason you can't get a top of the line CPU and GPU in the MacBook is that Apple would then have to increase the price past the point which the machine would have broad appeal, or make concessions in other important areas.
What are those important areas?
- Speakers, Mic, Webcam
- Trackpad
- Aluminum chassis and form factor
- Touch ID
- Mac OS (like it or not, this is perhaps the most important feature for those considering Macs.)
It's very possible the competitive landscape has changed since 2010 and they are placing more focus on these ancillary features than before, but the strategy has always appeared to be to deliver a superior holistic machine. I, and their financials would argue they have been doing that from before 2010 through now.
Just a spec bump and addition of the Magic Keyboard. Sure, 10th gen CPU and up to 4TB/32GB, but no 6-core CPU, no 14" screen. A lot of people are going to be disappointed.
What's the target audience for 14'' 6-core? Perhaps not as wide as a 13'' 4-core that's significantly cheaper. Those looking for a highest spec mbp would probably look into 16'' anyway
Spec bump (not even wifi6) is an indicator of a major design upgrade coming in the fall. I expect a significant exterior change or the switch to Arm processors come October.
maybe 4 cores are enough for development using non-compiled languages, and if you don't use Chrome and Electron apps, and not running several VMs and docker containers.
Some programming languages like Julia and Erlang/Elixir will happily use all the cores available on your laptop to speed up calculations, run builds, tests and other development tasks.
4 cores is actually more than enough to do almost all development. I work on a four core PC right now (i7-4770k) running Linux and couple VMs and containers, one VM dedicated to running Windows 10 which is in turn running Citrix client. I have two 4K monitors and bunch of hardware. I work on webapps, backend software, have couple IDEs running at the same time and probably Zoom session, not to mention huge amount of Chrome tabs.
It all works without hitch and if there is a hitch it is typically Chrome or Gnome misbehaving, not lack of cores.
Yes. Now just avoid running those poor Electron apps which actually impact battery life on all laptops. No user shouldn't need to get a laptop with a i7 CPU with 16GB to 32GB of RAM and a high end GPU to run your over-engineered chat app.
I get this all the time with my MacBook that I use for development. Run 1 or 2 of them is fine, but 10 or more at the same time and it will run the machine down to the ground.
They're not going anywhere and it's only going to get more prevalent when Apple moves to ARM. Can't see Catalyst apps being a compelling alternative to the benefits of Electron to any team who has to answer to a budget.
I don't agree with it ideologically because I moved to mac because I loved how Cocoa apps felt, but honestly Microsoft has the right idea in just embracing it because it isn't going anyway any time soon so best just to make sure they run well on your platform.
I find compilation painful even on my desktop, and cost of operation is still on my mind when I’m trying to do a quick demo to people. I feel like people here who are professionals make enough to justify buying away these latencies and distractions.
I agree with your last sentence. As with any tools, it depends on your usage.
But saying that 4 cores is ridiculous misses the truth. A lot of people, myself included, use 4 core machines completely successfully.
If you need more, there is absolutely nothing wrong with paying more for more powerful machine. It's just not every PC on the market has to have absolutely most powerful configuration available at the moment.
Unless you are using your laptop as a server or using a boatload of electron apps, 4 high performance x86 cores are more that enough in a 13-inch laptop.
After upgrading from a mid-2014 13 inch MBP (8GB Ram, Dual-core i5) to a MBP 16inch (32gb ram, i9 5.0ghz Turbo Boost), apps like Slack and VS Code really do run a lot faster and I have many more apps open than I used to before. Maybe I could have done well with just the i7 and 16gb of ram, but it's good to know that this computer should be good for web development for the next five years.
Yeah, if only I could get the 16" Pro with the keyboard of the Air. I need a bit more cpu power and ram than the Air can offer sadly.
Eh, my mid-2015 MBP with an i7-4780HQ and 16gb of memory will do for now. I occasionally bump into the memory limit but hopefully I can hold out until a fully sane keyboard is an option.
I assume you're talking about the latest Air? I have the 2018 model and the keyboard is awful. Awkward to type on and it frequently registers single key presses as double-presses (or, sometimes, no press at all).
I use function keys all the time and am indifferent to the Touch Bar. It's fine. I just set it to show the function keys all the time and off we go. I don't need tactile feedback for keys for non-typing keys.
I look at the screen when using a computer, not the top of my hands. Therefore a set of dynamic "keys" aren't adding value to my computer experience, and frankly I'd prefer the physical feedback of a key with actual travel (e.g. standard F# row).
The Touch Bar is, at its core, an anti-pattern for people who cannot touch type and frankly a cop-out because Apple didn't want to add a touch screen (due to the high cost of updating MacOS).
Personally, I brush my fingers across it all the time and trigger random functions.
A touch bar that was pressure sensitive with haptic feedback would fix it for me, but mixing keys that you need to press down with a screen you just have to touch in the same area just creates a mess.
I use function keys extensively by touch. It's the most infuriating thing too when my hands drift while feeling for keys and I accidentally press a bunch of keys on the touchbar without realizing it.
I used a macbook with a touchbar for about 6 months. Never again.
Can't change the laptop volume with your eyes closed, I use my MBP to listen to podcasts in bed sometimes so like to alter the volume just by knowing where the keys are, not having to sit up and fumble with some touch screen widget.
FWIW, I have BetterTouchTool configured so that a two finger swipe/scroll anywhere on the bar adjusts volume and a three finger one adjusts brightness.
I just looked to check. Still no physical Fn keys, still shallow butterfly keyboard. That's a pass.
Hopefully Apple comes to its senses some day and creates a computer that is designed for actual work, where a single beard follicle is not going to make it unusable midday.
And how do these scissors work with beard follicle? It's all the same to me, really, if it can't survive piece of hair. For the past 20 years I have been using Thinkpads.
My last one is T440s which I bought immediately it was available and still wait for it to die. I would like a MBP but seeing what the Thinkpad went through I just don't think so. I spilled stuff on it not once but twice, once hot latte and once a liter of mineral water in a bag. I had to open it and stand it on its side while open so that water drains out of it... Then I had to disassemble it and dry individual leaves of which the screen is composed of.
I had to take the rest of the day off in both cases to save my laptop but other than that I was ready for work the next day, files intact, tools in place.
Thinkpad keyboard is completely unlike Apple keyboards, however the technology is called. Just the key travel on Thinkpad is probably more than entire thickness of Apple keyboard.
I think that's egotistical gatekeeping. There's no basis for 64GB being "pro" and 32GB not (or even 16GB or 8GB, for that matter). You can make millions of dollars on an MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM. Your use case does not dictate what is a reasonable amount for other professionals.
Have you ever been to a FAANG campus? There are thousands of engineers walking around with MacBooks. I’m pretty sure those engineers would be considered to be professional
You are moving the goalposts. So the high end version of the laptop is “pro” but the cheaper one isn’t? Doesn’t this follow for other similar ultra books?
Why does a computer have to be cheap-ish to be “pro”?
Because it carries the "Pro" label. Why not just call it Macbook then? Why release what is essentially 2 products under one label, confusing consumers. It's predatory because Apple charges way too much for way too little when it comes to the Intel Gen8 models of the 2020 MBP.
Yep. You can get a MBA though. Not nearly as "airy" as they used to be, given that the screen is 13" too and you can get a decent amount of RAM in there. CPU still isn't great, but probably you're not doing super CPU intensive stuff with a 13" MBP.
Interesting to see they upgraded the RAM, but still kept it LPDDR3, even though all other Macs have DDR4 (except for the MacBook Air, which as LPDDR4X). At this price point I would honestly expect DDR4 in a "Pro" machine.
I wish I could find the old HN comment I’m thinking of; there was some combination of memory size, board compatibility, chipset and ram that slowed Apple from moving from LPDDR3 to LPDDR4. Such restrictions might still apply to the older chips used in their non-flagship machines.
That is, if I could remember the specific details.
Intel CPUs don't support LPDDR4(X) until Ice Lake. So previous MacBooks stuck at LPDDR3 (then max capacity is limited to 16GB) or go to DDR4(more max capacity but more power consumption).
It's interesting. From the GPU and the remainder of the configuration (2 USB-C ports), the two cheaper models seem to be the same as the 2019 MacBook Pro, but with the fixed keyboard plus double the SSD storage for the same price. If this is the case, then the CPU/GPU are even weaker than the mid-2018 4 USB-C ports model.
Which raises the question, why would anyone (who doesn't care about the Touch Bar) buy the 1499 MacBook Pro and not the 1499 MacBook Air? The Air is slower in multi-core benchmarks, but offers double the SSD at that price (512GB), has 3733‑MHz LPDDR4 memory, and has a more power-efficient 10th generation CPU, AVX-512, and probably better GPU.
Disappointed we didn't see a 14" in a 13.3" body, or anything otherwise exciting here.
I for one prefer the butterfly keyboard. So the magic keyboard is at best a neutral move (I think a downgrade). For those folks who loathe the butterfly, I'm sure they'll be delighted at a 13" with the new magic keyboard. For me, it looks like the 2018 will continue to be on my desk. Happy that I maxed it at time of purchase.
Probably have hard-coded screen paint calculations for typical macOS and a need for massive multi-year refactor to allow non-typical screen sizes (e.g. 1cm more when removing the bezels on 13").
Now all Apple laptops feature magic keyboards. Butterfly switches are no more!
I’m not convinced by the value of the thirteen inch pro versus the air. Same screen size, keyboard, and ports. Similar upgrade path.
I know that not all i5/i7 etc are created equal, and the 13 inch pro uses chips that draw more power, but could someone explain the more concrete difference in performance that a user would see day to day?
The idea is that the additional room in the boost clock should allow you to open new chrome tabs and load GMail slightly faster, but if you're doing any sort of sustained performance task, you're going to hit thermal limits within a minute or two.
That's only considering the boost clock though. The thermal package on the MacBook Air is __horrid__. The MBP can sustain longer periods of boost, albeit with fans spinning up. The new MBA will literally throttle in minutes on medium/high loads due to the dysfunctional semi-passive cooling design.
Even the last Pro will destroy the Air when it comes to something like video encoding, 3D rendering, etc. Anything that will run full-tilt for longer than 20 seconds.
It is faster in things like Geekbench or browser benchmarks, and if you're buying the Air you're probably not using it to do heavy lifting.
Even the last Pro will destroy the Air when it comes to something like video encoding, 3D rendering, etc. Anything that will run full-tilt for longer than 20 seconds.
The new Pro 13 (except for the most expensive configuration) have 8th generation CPUs, whereas the Air has 10th generation GPUs. Usually newer Intel generations have more extensive support for hardware encoding/decoding. The Air 2020 CPUs support AVX-512. The 2020 Airs have a faster GPU. Finally, the Airs have 3733 MHz LPDDR4X RAM and the Pros 2133 MHz LPDDR3. It's not always a given that these 8th generation Pros will be faster on a given task.
Compiling on multiple cores, most probably. Video encoding, decoding, etc. Not necessarily.
It is faster in things like Geekbench or browser benchmarks,
Single core, the Air 2020's CPU is a tad faster than the 8th generation that they put in these MacBook Pros. Multicore the Pros win, but by not that wide a margin.
For most people, the MacBook Pro 13" 2020 in the first two configurations (1499 and 1799) will be nearly equally fast for most practical purposes. So, it's mostly about whether you prefer the extra storage of the Air at the same price point or the Touch Bar. If you want something faster than ballpark Air, you should get the most expensive configuration or the Pro 16".
I downgraded from a 2015 retina mbp 15" to a 13", and the 15" just seems monstrous now. I love the size of 12"-13" laptops. They weigh less, are much more portable, and I don't actually need all that real estate.
What I find irritating is the fact that you have to get the 2ghz CPU in order to be able to get 32gb RAM. It feels like artificial price inflation because the refresh is definitely not as exciting as people had hoped (no 14" micro LED screen, like every single "leak" suggested).
Also, the base CPU is an 8th gen chip, you need to fork out a lot of extra $$$ to get to 10th gen.
Agreed. MacBook Air has quad-core in similar clock ranges but tops out at 16GB of RAM. Pay an extra $1300-ish for Pro, you can get 32GB of RAM. There's literally nothing else in this refresh that's compelling.
And the only reason I want that RAM is for Chrome.
32Gb of ram requires DDR4 which in this case, requires 10th gen chips.
Reading through this, I can't help but think this feels like Apple's 2.5Ghz PowerMac G5 all over again, back in like 2004.
Back then, they promised a 3Ghz G5 CPU in under a year and IBM just couldn't do it. Apple even noted it as why they were switching to Intel at the time. They couldn't keep promises and it seemingly pissed Steve off to the point of basically trashing them on stage.
This order sheet only makes sense if you think: 'What would they do if Apple couldn't get enough 10th gen parts and they showed up late?'
Obviously they would skew them to the high end models as they move mostly lower spec models. That way your product line still offers the fastest Intel hardware. But it makes for a messy nonsensical spec sheet that confuses customers.
When should I get the 8th Gen i7 that Turbos to 4.5Ghz but then when should I get the 10th Gen i7 that Turbos to 4.1Ghz?
It seems to not mention 'Intel' until nearly half way through and exclusively uses it as a technical descriptor twice. (not `Intel's newest processors`, but instead the `10th Generation Intel Core' and 'Intel Iris Plus') The first reference to the CPU just calls them '10th gen processors'. It's like watching a person refer to an ex. This is the first Macbook Pro with a 10nm processor...why don't they say that?
This mess of product line just isn't Apple-like...And I think it has them pissed.
It's non-obvious, but the 13" MacBook Pro is actually two different computers. On the low end it has a 15W CPU, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, and a single fan, and on the high end it has a 28W CPU, four Thunderbolt 3 ports, and a dual-fan system. The low end version can only be configured with 16GB of memory, whereas the high end version can be configured with 32. It's not artificial price inflation, they're actually different computers.
(p.s. - I mentioned the fans not because it's an important spec for consumers, but to highlight that the two variants are physically different internally, it's not just about swapping in a 28W CPU for a 15W one)
But of course, as is the Apple way, this is deliberately unclear. You would have no idea about this at all unless you were, at-minimum, keeping up with Intel CPU improvements (or regularly browsed Hacker News.)
If you're a dumb customer who doesn't care about how fast your computer is, then why are you going out of your way to buy the more expensive macbook, instead of buying an Air?
Caring about how fast your computer is isn't the same thing as caring about CPU generations, wattage or cooling solutions. Everyone wants their computer to run fast, and people know that the more expensive MacBooks are faster.
No, there is nothing clear about marketing a brand new laptop with a 3-year old CPU alongside a current-gen one under the same name. It's exactly as the parent comment said, they may as well be two completely different models of computer.
I really think you're off base here. Apple list the different models together with their specs (including the generation of the CPU). Are you saying that they have to make them look different because they have different internals? For most users the experience of using any of these models would be exactly the same.
It's astonishing how far the MBP has fallen in ten years. My 2010 MBP was and still is the perfect laptop design. Look what Apple has taken away from us: MagSafe, SD card slot, optical audio I/O, RJ45, USB-A, even the top row of our keyboards. What have we gained? The same internal advances that are in every other computer, a gimmicky touch bar, fragile keyboard mechanism, and USB-C.
What's really sad is that none of this decline was necessary. All they had to do was leave the perfect laptop alone, and go on upgrading the internals. Were they selling the 2010-2012 MBPs at a loss or something?
Could have been fixed much quicker, I don't see why we are saying they did a good job on that problem when they just replaced it in exactly the normal product cycle.
Could have been fixed within a year but it would have cost more money so nah just ship a faulty product for 4 years they'll eat it up anyway and replace it when we were gonna do a redesign anyway.
MagSafe was flawed - I’m glad it’s gone. It had massive reliability issues due to dust getting in between the connectors - which ending up causing charging problems, excessive heat at the charging port and countless charging adapter replacements.
I’m on a 2012 MBP and MagSafe has worked flawlessly for 8 years for me. I think I might hold on to my MBP until it doesn’t boot up anymore, there’s no upside to “upgrading” right now, besides being able to double the ram. MagSafe, 2012 keyboard destroys 2020’s, no Touch Bar, and most importantly- it’s rock-solid reliable.
I had the very last edition magsafe connector on my 2015ish macbook. And _that_ one had the infuriating problem that the charge port got so hot that it would melt the insulation right off of the wire! I replaced the charger every few months, and it just kept happening.
On a 2013 Macbook air, MagSafe has worked perfectly for me for the last 7 years. Saved my laptop a couple of times too. Way more worth it than AppleCare.
I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to use an optical drive in the past 5 years. I'm guessing most of us are in a similar situation. For those instances, I pull out an old external USB blu-ray player.
Optical audio I/O. Many people might not know this, but you could actually plug in an optical S/PDIF cable into your Macbook Pro, on both the "microphone" input and "headphones" output line, to get digital audio in and out.
The top level commenter was not talking about an optical drive like CDs or DVDs, they were talking about having optical audio connectivity through a TOSLINK mini plug.
Ah. I used to plug my old original Core 2 Duo MBP into a 5.1 system using a mini TOSlink cable, but since HDMI started doing surround audio I haven't had a need for optical audio connections. It was cool seeing a LED inside the audio jack, however.
A bit disappointing the 32GB ram option is only available on the £1,799 model (which, when added, bumps the price to £2,199)
Interestingly on that model the RAM is running at a higher speed (3733MHz LPDDR4X vs. 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory)
I'm still running my MBP from 2015 which is mostly fine, but Firefox and co. eat the RAM so would be good for an update. Although for work I use the 16" 2019 model with 32GB and Firefox uses 27GB of that quite easily...
Bragging about a "dedicated escape key", T-shaped arrow pad and better keyboard in the marketing materials for this thing is the very definition of chutzpah.
I bought an Honor Magicbook for half the price. It's lightweight, has a beautiful case, proper touchpad (so I don't use my external apple touchpad anymore), nice keyboard, long battery life, and I can run whatever OS I want on it (I'm using Ubuntu atm, but I might try Fedora). It has usb-c, usb-a, hdmi, and headphone jacks. Everything just works.
I gave up on Mac when they broke their keyboards and started locking me out of everything. Once my macbook died, I never looked back.
A little disappointed it’s not the rumoured 14” model as I’ve been looking to replace both my 15” and 13” MacBooks.
Also, regarding other comments on “just” the 4 core CPU - it’s probably all they could squeeze in without having to redesign the chassis/thermal design. I’m going to hold off for a tear down to see if they have improved the cooling system like they did (Or claimed to) with the 16” version.
Yeah. But coming from a marketing executive like Phil, this kind of "not coming out with it" doesn't mean "never." It means "not coming out with it this next upcoming version." I think the rumor will stay alive.
I’ve always found the 13” Pros to be the “worst of both worlds” compromise. You don’t get the svelte lightness of the Air, or the generous desktop or raw power of the big boy. Whatever your priority is, it’s just not there. A 14” screen would have at least differentiated the product.
I think a lot of these are bought by corporate bean counters and people who assume that Airs must be awful if they’re the most affordable.
(Yes, I’ve used them, my current “burner” is a ‘17 escape key model)
Having used a '15 (I think) 13" Pro for two internships, I actually found it met my needs really well. I personally can't stand any 14"+ laptop, so the 13" Pro hit a great spot for me of being:
* Svelte enough to watch Netflix in bed with or throw in my bag to take on a commute
* Powerful enough that I never had major performance issues when plugged in at my desk at work, driving an external monitor
I look back on that machine and those internships fondly, and I could see myself going for a 13" MBP (or 14", if they ever release it) when I next need to upgrade my laptop - after I finish undergrad :)
I have owned two Airs. Macbook Pros are so thin and light these days that I don't understand what Air brings to the table anymore. I mean, a 13" Macbook Pro is 3 lbs.
Ideally Macbook Pros would be thicker and heavier for better thermals and performance, and then Airs would have a purpose again.
We are talking about a 3.1 lb MBP versus a 2.8 lb MBA with basically the same dimensions. In addition, the Air has a dimmer screen, fewer ports, inferior display color space, and from what I've read, inferior thermal headroom. The two things the MBA has going for itself is better price and price to performance ratio. It also has a longer battery, but the gap is thinner than it once was (11 hours vs 10 hours).
I'm still using a 2014 13'' MBP as my secondary machine and for web dev it's fine. It would be great if it was a bit faster, but being a 6 year old machine I'm surprised it's still so usable.
For me the 13'' is the perfect balance between mobility and performance. At least for web dev, obviously not for video editing or gaming.
I also love my 2014 13" Pro and have been desperately waiting for them to add the 32GB RAM option and physical esc key to upgrade. I think GP underestimates how many people find the 13" Pro to be the perfect sweet spot to balance power with portability.
An advantage of the 13” is the lack of discrete GPU.
If you don’t need one, you won’t have to care about tweaking for power consumption (like adding utilities to force disable it) and your laptop will be less likely to take off like a jet engine.
I had to take the 15” to get the 32G RAM on the previous iteration, and it made me wish I could have had a 13” option at that time.
To me this pricing sits too closely with the iPad Pro plus magic keyboard, which Apple has been trying to sell as good enough to be your next Computer. What’s also puzzling is that the new iPad Pro and magic keyboard combo is so heavy it’s basically a laptop.
I was curious how the 13 inch was priced so I compared it to a new Dell XPS 13. Dell has a better processor (maybe, [2]) , but I couldn't find the option to upgrade the Dell to 4TB internal SSD, so I compared both with the 2 TB option. Ram is the same at 32GB.
Dell came out to $2399[0] USD and Apple came out to $2999[1] USD.
Dell Pros:
* Row of function buttons (I've used BTT to customize my touch-bar to the point where it's a little bit of a tossup, but years of muscle memory still haunt me)
* Better processor (maybe [2])
* Cheaper
* MicroSD reader
Apple Pros:
* Better Trackpad
* More Ports (Upgraded Dell only has 2 USB-C, while Upgraded MBP has 4)
* Better hardware support
* Better resale value
Objectively, seems to me that list used to be a lot longer on the Apple side. IMHO I think the Touch Bar disappointment is probably over dramatized by developers, it's not too bad a couple years in and BTT has made it so I can run whatever macros I want in any application, so overall tossup in my mind. I still miss mag-safe adapters though. I still don't understand that decision.
Also, I'm happy with the new Magic Keyboard. I have the 16 inch MBP right now, and I will say that even though I prefer the travel of the '12-'15 era keyboards, this typing experience is far superior than the faulty butterfly keys.
I'm hoping given how they've walked the keyboard back, and how the new Mac Pro is actually a Pro machine that they're headed back in the right direction (post Jony Ive). A $600 price difference for this machine is probably worth it in my mind, just given my experience with resale value, longevity and lack of competitors, but there's a lot of room improvement.
I think "better processor" can only fall into the Dell camp if it's confirmed that they're running it at a 25W TDP all-the-time and not the default 15W, or else Apple's chip choices will likely win because they can consume more power (but I don't know the actual model #s Apple is using).
Yeah, that's the stupid part about tech specs honestly--so many hidden caveats--I always thought it was interesting that Apple benchmarks usually outperform competitors when comparing similar hardware, usually to things like this.
Mostly annoyed now, because you are correct, it's running at 15W[0][1].
I've moved to a 16" as well, the touchbar is fine IMO. The biggest issue before this update was just removing the escape key. I've mostly adjusted to switching caps lock to escape now because of it.
My biggest disappointment in this 13" upgrade is that it is still 13 inch. The display quality has increased over the years, but resolution/size has stayed the same since 2012.
That and the continued use of the same 720P webcam. Hopefully we get a FaceID enabled mac in 2021 where they put in a decent camera.
Yeah I noticed this too. In PC land, most ultrabooks have thinner bezels so this form factor would either have a 14” display or it would have a 13” display in the same footprint as the old 12” MacBook.
My $800 13” HP Envy for example only has about 2mm of bezels on its 4k display.
Apple is falling behind here which is strange considering how much they fetishize thinness.
Nice comparison but from personal experience I'd count the 'Killer' WiFi/BT as a giant negative on the XPS. I've had no shortage of issues with it on Linux and Windows.
That's really interesting. I've had a Killer wifi module in a Razer Blade Stealth running Debian 10 for about a year and I have never had any issues at all.
Bluetooth may have hit the right spot for demand but whoever came up with the spec wasn't smart enough to get it below thousands of pages for its spec and now every manufacturer has random quality of Bluetooth drivers. Bluetooth needs s replacement but it's kind of too late.
I recently switched from an Air to an XPS 15 9570. I was very excited, it seemed to have all the best qualities of a MacBook, minus the shotty keyboard, and superior performance per dollar (at the time).
Things went downhill rather quickly. I've had massive cooling issues, I've removed and replaced the thermal paste. I've been forced to operate the laptop on the "Cool" thermal setting; downgrading the performance of the processor. Now, the two of the screws in palm rest, which hold the screen in place, have sheered right off. Doing some digging, this was commonplace with this particular model.
I'm not doing anything particularly intense either. Docker with a few containers running a dev website.
I can't speak for the latest XPS 15 7590 build quality however.
I will never buy a dell again, had an XPS 9550 (£2.7k 32gb ram, top of the range) - they had a chip in to detect a valid dell power adapter and that went so they wanted over 600 to replace the motherboard.
I bought a macbook and use the dell charger (udb-c) to charge my macbook.
My step-daughter spilled water on her MBA. It would no longer charge. It would run connected to AC, and the battery health was fine, but the "charging circuit" needed replaced, according to diagnostics.
Okay, I thought. $200, maybe $300, including parts and labor.
Not quite. They wanted $879. "Maybe we should look at getting you into a new Macbook instead?"
No thanks. It was almost never used unplugged anyway.
My 9370 is definitely just plain USB-PD, doesnt require a Dell charger. I can charge it with a inexpensive Anker charger.
600 is pricey for a mainboard replacement, but none of the other vendors are much better, including Apple. I previously had a Thinkpad that died shortly out of warranty, and they actually wanted more to fix it than I paid for it new.
I had an old XPS13, and eagerly ordered the XPS15 9570 fully loaded the moment it was available in the UK.
What followed was a year of fan noise, thermal throttling, GPU switching problems and many hours lost trying to get the right combination of Ubutunu + Nvida drivers working.
So when my house was burgled and that machine got stolen, I went back to the XPS13 form factor. Smaller, lighter, longer battery life, quieter. Only disadvantage being the max of 16GB RAM.
Once the XPS13 finally arrives with 32GB RAM I may well upgrade again.
The new MacBook Pro may tempt me, but I am certainly not giving up proper function keys.
I have a 9570 as well. I ordered the bare minimum memory and storage so I could swap in my own 16GB of RAM and 1 TB SSD. I also applied thermal pads to the VRMs and (less importantly) heatpipes so they conduct to the chassis. Lastly, I undervolted the CPU with Intel XTU. I have had no throttling issues and it has been a steadfast partner. I've never had a laptop I liked more. It took some upfront work, and that's not everyone's bag, but I honestly could not find a decent laptop that met my specs for under $3000. This one did it for $1600.
I've had a company-issued XPS 9570 for the last year, and overall I haven't had any big issues.
Cooling is sub-par, but I think that's mostly due to the Intel i9-8950HK running way over the advertised TDP during Turbo. Dell has been tweaking their cooling profile in subsequent BIOS updates, at with the latest version (1.15) they're quite aggressive on ramping up the fans to keep things cool. Which is good from a performance perspective, but really annoying to sit beside all day. While I didn't experience severe thermal throttling, I did end up disabling Turbo as it made the laptop sound like a jet engine too often for my taste.
My only other complaint would be that despite Dell's claims of 100W+ power delivery from their ThunderBolt dock (above and beyond what USB-C PD can deliver), I frequently find the laptop discharging the battery under moderate load (high CPU, idle dGPU) when connected via USB-C to the dock. Using the supplied DC charger solves this, but it's still a poor user experience.
At my previous employer I had a 2017 MBP. IMHO an XPS/Precision is a better option as you can (in no particular order): upgrade the RAM, upgrade the SSD, run Linux on it, and (until the new MBP release) had a much better keyboard experience.
As others have noted, Dell's enterprise warranty support is fantastic. I was able to invoke the warranty to replace a motherboard in a Latitude I bought used on eBay; they sent a technician to my house to replace it free of charge.
I had similar experience with 9360. The notebook freezes under heavy load and I have to restart (it happens once a day when working on rather large Android project). The webcam on the bottom left of the screen is a bad joke (I think they moved it elsewhere later?).
"Hollywood movie makers" and specifically VFX artists have long moved to linux/windows workstations as the performance on mac side has stagnated until the recent release of the Mac Pro but it was too little too late.
Writers and sound engineers are still firmly in the Mac camp though due to their tools being mac exclusives.
The Apple list is shorter because you ignored nearly all of the differentiating features enabled by the Apple ecosystem. You also ignored many of the non-obvious details of the Mac hardware.
I did a similar comparison a few years ago and had a very similar list and came to the same conclusion (about $500 more for the Apple, but it was probably worth it in known reliability and resale). The only thing I would have added was that Apple's camera quality hasn't improved in 10+ years, which sucks if you're working remote (hopefully now everyone notices this).
A lot of the hardware things I liked about Mac laptops got stripped off (MagSafe, charging indicator, SD card slot).
I imagine everything else is up to personal workflow. My wife was looking at another Mac laptop because she wanted to transition GarageBand projects from her iPad. Since, in practice, the files often crash when doing this and she has to export/import that workflow is useless and she's looking at a Windows laptop.
I'd be curious what kind of things you would put on your list.
I’ll not that I use windows, Mac, and Linux (arch and Ubuntu) all equally effectively. In no particular order, here are some things about macs that are often missed:
FaceTime, iPhone, sms/iMessage integration that works even when phone is not nearby.
T2 chip/Secure Enclave.
Easier to use full disk encryption.
Note’s built in capability to encrypt specific notes with a private, unrecoverable password.
Faster system software updates.
Most apps shipping as DMG rather than installer packages, which allows me to install them without granting admin rights.
Family members who have macs ask me for help far less than those with windows.
The trackpad is vastly superior. I actually prefer thinkpad-style trackpoints, but thinkpads aren’t what they used to be. The Mac trackpad feels good to touch, the taptic full-pad pseudo-clicking is superior to physical button presses, and the multi-pressure level support is occasionally useful. The gestures work well and feel natural.
Find my Mac/iPod/iPhone is implemented in a privacy preserving method. It’s also super useful to be able to simply say to my laptop “hey Siri, where is my phone?” to have it trigger the audio beacon.
The speakers on the new 16” MBP are excellent. I use my headphones much less now.
I love the look of Macbook monitors more than most pc laptop monitors. Of course, some pc laptops have comparable or exactly the same panel, but the price goes up pretty fast.
Photos is an imperfect replacement for Picasa (RIP). However it has some features my family loves, like automatically figuring out groups of related events and generating movies from photos of family trips, then surprising me with a phone notification.
Many of the built in apps feature end-to-end encryption.
I feel like windows 10 is always spying on me. I have to spend hours configuring a fresh windows install to turn off all the garbage. Not signing into a Microsoft account with windows 10 causes all kinds of limitations, like not being able use fingerprint readers.
The microphone array on the new MBP works very well such a shame it wasn’t paired with a better camera.
Access to a terminal. I spend most of my time in vim. WSL just isn’t comparable (yet) in terms of integration and ease of use.
There are also things that are much worse about macs, but that aren’t dealbreakers for me:
Horrible software quality, going back decades, in ways that really matter. The only times I’ve ever lost data due to software is when OSX corrupted a drive. Backups are vital, and they must be stored on non-Apple devices/services. This is a hidden cost no one ever talks about, even though the internet is rife with Mac/time machine data loss anecdotes.
Extremely uncomfortable sharp edges.
Safari is so close to being useful, but falls short. I configure it to wipe out everything on close, and use it as a sort of super-private-mode browser.
QuickTime is garbage.
Application file associations are super finicky.
There is no built in method to set the screen to native resolution, needlessly inflicting blurry screens.
Apple might blow it again with the hardware for years, meaning no upgrade path.
The machines are under-ventilated, under-powered, under-rammed.
Lack of games support.
Horrible battery life if you do anything intensive. Factorio burns through a full battery in about 90 minutes.
I wish they would make a “kids edition” laptop that is cheaper, made of plastic for dent-resistance, and can be locked down in the same way as iOS.
I wish it had a built in hyper visor or allowed me to run apps in something like sandboxie.
I wish I could change the the window manager (I happily used Arch for years and fell in love with the tiling window manager spectrwm).
The lack of a 4K screen on the MBP makes me sad. I had a thinkpad p1 with a 4K screen and it was stunning (but a power hog).
I have an older XPS 13 with a glass screen (same design but previous generation) and one big annoyance is that every time you open the laptop, the screen will have grease marks across the centre where the keys have touched the glass while closed.
I've had this happen once, and the Apple store replaced the screen no questions asked. I usually use a microfibre cloth between the screen and the keyboard though. It's a problem with all (modern) laptops from what I can tell - my Thinkpad T480s suffers from it, though my X220 does not.
If you’re into that kind of thing, RadTech makes microfleece screen protectors and sleeves that are already sized appropriately for various Apple products.
I cannot agree more. At least for myself i would add MacOS as a huge plus over any other laptop. I know many people work in Linux but I just for the life of me cannot make it as comfortable as MacOS.
The integration with iOS/iMessages/keychain/homekit /FaceTime is extremely convenient for me. I don't mind paying extra for it, and I like that they have stores near me.
I really like Linux, but switched to macOS years ago because the quality of most Linux software outside of the GNU ecosystem is very unpredictable and commonly faulty. Companies seem to hate supporting Linux, and I've had enough distro updates break my OS in the past that eventually I just got beaten down. MacOS gives me a Unix shell, a consistent UI, and I've never had a system update lead to a black screen, or a new UI that I hate, or half my installed software being broken. Let's not even get started on the support for most Linux distros. Even Ubuntu has what I would consider to be dreadful support, unless maybe you're a corporate client of theirs.
Linux is good if you can configure it for a very specific purpose, like a server, or a graphics workstation, or even web development. For general purpose, its warts grow the more you use it. Hopefully someone has a dangerous looking Bash one-liner that will solve all your problems.
The thing I dont understand about OSX is the Finder situation. It's just awful. Installation is awful, finding applications is awful, navigating to the system folders is awful.
It's very much like Windows and it's pretending Desktop is the root folder and then hiding everything behind databases of My Documents.
Dont make me jump through hoops to find computery stuff.
> Dont make me jump through hoops to find computery stuff.
I'm curious what "computery" stuff you're looking for? If you're trying to modify stuff a "normal user" wouldn't touch, you'd be better off on the command line. Finder isn't meant for people who want to muck around with the system because everyday normal users shouldn't be messing with system files.
Personally I hardly ever use Finder. Cmd+Space to launch apps and then I use those apps to manage their document types. I develop using VSCode and I'm on iTerm I'd say 75% time anyways.
I don't get why power users shouldn't be afforded the power of graphical file management. The command line is not an adequate substitute for quickly navigating and managing the filesystem to me.
Maybe I'm not a "power user," but I'm using the Finder for graphical file management roughly every day and it's just not a super big issue for me.
These "Macs aren't for power users" threads always kind of fascinate me, because it's so clear how differently people define "power user," and at times it feels like a lot of people define it as "this system has defaults that I don't like" or, even more often around here, "If I ever feel like I have to touch my mouse the system is crap." Whereas for me, I want a launcher/workflow runner like Alfred, which very often is my "command line" for a lot of functionality. I can assign a keyboard shortcut to anything in any menu in any application at the system level. I can wrap Unix scripts in Automator actions and put them in the Service context menu, so I can highlight text in any application and run it through a filter with a single click. I drag the proxy document icon in the title bar of windows to perform actions on that file all the time. To me, these are totally "power user" things, while I've never once thought "man, if only I had a mouse-free tiling 'window' manager that just split the screen in multiple sections with no overlapping windows I would be so much more productive."
Also, I'm typing this on a 2020 Macbook Air and it has a terrific keyboard. With the release of this 13" MacBook Pro, AFAIK this eliminates the butterfly keyswitch from their lineup.
I've actually found `open` to be the most indispensable thing on MacOs. The Linux versions don't cut it (`xbg-open` or something?) it opens applications in the foreground of the shell process so it takes over the terminal you were working in, so you have to write aliases to background the process.
You can write a script for that, something like `xdg-open $1 & disown` will cut it already. However managing the default applications on Linux is a ridiculous pain in the ass.
Seems really simple to open "Macintosh HD" in the Finder and find all the "computer-y stuff" I could want. I also added my homedir to the "favorites" list. There's also the very handy cmd-shift-g shortcut for "Go to folder" that autocompletes paths on tab (also under the Go menu which has a bunch of handy links, including Home, Computer, etc.).
I usually navigate directories from the command line. If I want to do something that needs Finder (like drag and drop a file) I run an "open ." to pop a Finder window with the current directory.
Yeah, I'm sorry but the idea of dealing with linux compatibility on a laptop or running Windows is a complete dealbreaker for me. despite how bad the macbook pros get i just can't switch.
I switched from Mac to Linux a few years back, haven't regretted it for a second (well, there were a few seconds in there that were touch-and-go).
I now run a tiling window manager (i3wm) on a Debian distro (PureOS, came with the laptop) and I'm enjoying it immensely.
I still use an external Apple keyboard (a magic keyboard from 2015 - y'know, when they were good hehe). The trackpad has never been quite up to the Mac's standard, so I use an external mouse too. But I was using an external keyboard and mouse even on the MBP, so no change there (just the option to switch to trackpad isn't as awesome).
After the Mac I bought a Dell XPS 15, which ran Linux fine but I had issues with the dual-boot and GRUB setup - I could probably have fixed them, but meh.
I then bought a Purism 13, which has been awesome (apart from a niggling problem with the space bar). Having a laptop designed from the ground up to be open, maintainable, and running Linux is an amazing experience. I had a problem with the screen on this one and tech support said "open up the back of the case and have a look to see if anything looks odd". I had more or less the exact same issue with the MBP and had to do without my laptop for a week while they replaced the screen.
> I still miss mag-safe adapters though. I still don't understand that decision.
As someone who’s never had a tripping accident with a magsafe charger but has had to replace multiple damaged chargers despite being careful, I welcome that change. Spending 90€ because Apple doesn’t know how (or doesn’t care) to make cables with a modicum of durability isn’t fun. With USB-C, presumably (I don’t own one of these) I could get better cables or replace them cheaper if they got frayed.
If that's something you're worried about, there are USB-C magnet attachments you can buy. If it's something you don't worry about, now you have way more options for chargers and cables.
I can't find a source for this right now, but IIRC USB-C was designed such that the cable was always the weak point, so in cases of extreme stress the cable will break before the port does.
Yeah as someone who used MagSafe for probably a decade and then switched to a USB-C MBP (now counting 3 years), I much prefer USB-C. And I'm a really clumsy person, and have two small children running around.
I probably went through one Apple MagSafe charger a year. One of them I literally only used on my desk, and the cable fell apart in 6 months, the Apple Store guy accused me of all kinds of abuse to avoid replacing it under warranty. Even with crappy amazon marketplace noname Chinese 90W USB-C cables, I've been totally fine for 3 years now.
With USB-C you can get cheaper third party chargers with all kinds of options (including full-featured Thunderbolt docks), you can use literally any old USB power bank, you can just switch out the cable when it wears out or gets chewed on, charge on the right side of the computer [the latter also really helps with the yanking risk].
As a long time PC user I'd say the Razer Blade series of laptops are far closer to Macbook replacements than Dell's machines. Plus you get a nice discrete GPU to boot. I've been using my 15" blade for several years now - and they are even better now.
As a long-time Apple user who switched to Windows/Linux after Apple decided to ditch discrete GPUs and open standards for graphics, 100% this. Razer Blades are the spiritual successors to the pre-unibody Macbooks.
That said, I've had terrible luck with Razer batteries, and their only warranty replacement option involves a multi-week turnaround. It's a good thing I'm pretty handy and replacements can be had on the usual sources.
After several years I can unequivocally say I still hate the touch bar. I love touch ID, but the bar needs to go.
USB-C was all about standardizing. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, I did love magsafe, but I also love that in theory someday I'll have one cable to rule them all. And I'll be able to charge my headphones/laptop/phone/random device with a usb-c cable instead of needing 8 of them.
The best way I can sell Thunderbolt 3/USB-C to myself is that at Apple's size, they need to be able to sell (to consumers, courts, governments) that they aren't being anti-competitive, so by switching to designs that are open and standardized (Thunderbolt 3 is a spec, not a patent) they can better sell their market dominance as not driven by patents and lawyers.
Before any of you see that and go "awesome, exactly what I was looking for!" - I've had several coworkers try various models of those adapters and all have told me they universally suck. Don't waste your money.
I trust Apple could do it with quality - frankly I'd be willing to spend $50+ for a reliable version of that.
I've got another trick to use in place of a Magsafe type cable. Get a cable that is a few feet longer than you need, and attach a couple magnets a few feet apart on the cable. Then click the magnets together. Now you have a cable with a loop that is held closed by the magnets. If someone trips over the cable, the magnets come apart and pull out slack from that loop, instead of pulling the cord on the back of the laptop.
Not quite as good as having the cord detach, but it still helps in the majority of minor trip-induced cord pulls (depending on how much clack in the cable you leave bundled between the two magnets).
No, I was thinking of designing and 3D-printing a magnet holder clip -- didn't realize someone else thought of it too. I guess what they say is true, there is no unique new ideas.
Is what you saw just a couple clip on magnets (like what I was thinking), or is it a two-piece cord held together by magnets (like the previous comment mentioned)? That would be cool if someone already makes this as a product.
The product was a full integrated cable. I won't buy it for that reason as I would 1) like to retrofit my existing cables and 2) be able to choose the cable for the spec of the cable itself. If you made a clip and magnet for retrofitting on existing cables I would buy it if it was offered for a reasonable price.
Anecdotally, I’ve been using one of these (different brand but looks exactly the same) with zero issues between a Thinkpad X1 and a USB-C hub. It’s extremely convenient to be able to attach everything (PD, HDMI, USB) from a single cable that’s literally touchless. The magnet and positioning allows it to automatically connect when I set the laptop on my desk, and to use the laptop elsewhere I just pick it up and carry it away. Much better than a floppy MagSafe that only does power.
If you look into those magnetic things a little bit you'll notice they don't support full thunderbolt data rates. It’s largely physics that’s holding us up, not necessarily Apple. In theory data rates don’t matter strictly for charging but then we’d be back at a different cable/port for charging vs data transfer which would be subpar UX. If nothing else I think it’s why you only see these things aftermarket. I do share your sentiment, though.
I've been using that exact adapter for several months now and I'm pretty happy with it. Carries power and data for my home setup + I have a separate one just for power for my mobile setup. What were your coworkers' complaints about it?
In my experience, they're good for power. Driving a 2.5k monitor over DisplayPort works reasonably well if the computer is on a solid surface (not your lap).
But they don't work well for 4k video (especially with a direct HDMI adapter) or USB 3.0 data.
Apple makes up for a small percentage of all laptops sold, even if you compare manufacturers (rather than "Apple" vs "Windows machine"). They have a smaller share of laptop sales than HP, Dell, or Lenovo, and very close to the same (depending on when you look) as Acer and ASUS:
There are unfortunately some devices that are nominally USB C but don't actually support the spec properly, like the Nintendo Switch. So some caution is required still.
The Switch may or may not freak out in the face of arbitrary USB-C chargers; but it's always supported Apple's USB-C chargers just fine. (I get the sense that Nintendo developed the console by relying on Apple USB-C chargers, until they made their own.)
I'm REALLY hoping this was the last major revision of iPhone (and airpods) to retain lightning. I won't hold my breath but I hope they finally make the move to usb-c.
Consolidate on something, at least. Here are the connectors to devices purchased from Apple in the past 12 months:
Beats Studio headphones: micro-USB (for serious, Apple?)
Beats Powerbeats Pro: Lightning
iPad Pro: USB-C
iPhone XS (a little more than 12 months ago): Lightning
See a pattern there? Yeah, me neither. I might as well have purchased them from separate vendors. And Lightning at this point isn't even a standard within Apple, it's just some jackass proprietary shit you have to buy special cables for.
So now that I'm mostly working from home, I bought a Thunderbolt monitor, and the setup is actually pretty awesome. The montior has both USB-C and USB-A inputs. I've got a physical network cable plugged and my USB-A mechanical keyboard plugged into the monitor; and of course the monitor also acts as a charger for the laptop.
Boom -- instant docking station: Plugging in a single standard cable gives me power, ethernet, monitor, and external keyboard.
Obviously you have to carry around a USB-C adapter when actually traveling, but if you get a good all-in-one adapter that does ethernet, HDMI, and USB-A, I haven't found it too disruptive. Hopefully the USB-C form factor will take over and then stay as long as USB-A has.
There were two I was looking at with the same LCD component, but just different configuration of controls & placement of external USB. The one I ended up going with was LG32UL950 because I found a place that had a $150 discount; now forgotten the other brand/model. The screen is so huge I've had to spend some time figuring out how to use the space effectively, but overall I'm pretty happy.
I've used the Dell U3219Q for over a year for this purpose. Importantly, the monitor provides 90W of power, which is needed for the larger laptops, especially when running power intensive tasks. Most USB-C monitors do not provide enough power.
I have volume and display brightness buttons, also a mute button and play/pause. They are permanent and don’t switch with the application. Pretty much like it was before the Touchbar....
I tried to use the Touchbar for a while without customization but I never could get the hang of it. It just seems useless.
I hate it so much that I started to carry an TKL keyboard all the time with me just to avoid using this piece of sh*t touch bar and internal keyboard (MBP 2017).
As a developer it is crucial that I can use my keyboard without any looks but as there is no way to tell which function key you press on the touch bar the bar itself is completely useless for me.
Beside the butterfly switches one of the worst things Apple has ever introduced to their computers.
I just purged Apple from my life largely because the touchbar continues to live on. Love my new Lenovo, btw.
As a workaround for the touchbar that worked pretty well, I bought a silicon keyboard protector for the Apple Magic Keyboard, cut out the area for the function keys, and used hot glue to glue it over the touch bar.
Prevented the touchbar from activating at the slightest touch and did return some of the feel of actually having a row of keys.
Plus, the hot glue causes no damage to the aluminum and does hold for a good period of time.
Turn this into a product people could purchase and you'd become rich :)
My GF has a 2019 macbook pro and is using a silicon keyboard protector to avoid the touchbar as well.
I want to upgrade my macbook, but I've laughed so often at its 30$ fix for its 2000$ laptop that I just can't update to a macbook with touchbar with a straight face anymore.
I hate the Touch Bar as well, and I am very happy with my 2020 Air with a fixed keyboard and no Touch Bar. But can't you just remove the icons from the Touch Bar or set it to display the Fn keys?
The problem is that it is too easy to accidentally touch. Even if you set it to the Fn keys, a slightless faint of electrical conductivity between a side of your finger and the touchbar while you are pressing a number suffices for a key press. With a real key, you actually have to properly press the key. That might happen by accident, but is definetely harder.
Yes. It's the moments when you're carefully editing something really important... precisely pasting some line into a new location... you double and triple checked that everything is right.... and then BOOM your window is gone and replaced by some other app, or a control panel or... some weird thing happens and you're not sure what.
They eventually put a stronger spring under it so it was harder to press, but it was still terrible. There was actually a thriving after-market for $3.25 "RESET KEY PROTECTORS": square plastic tube shields that fit over the reset key so you had to stick your finger down inside of it to press reset.
RESET KEY PROTECTOR, which prevented accidental RESET on the earliest models of the Apple II, was available for only $3.25 from Special Systems Design. This was necessary because the RESET key, on the upper right of the keyboard, was easy to press because it had the same spring action as the other keys on the keyboard. Various methods (like this product) were used to stiffen that key, and make it harder to press.
This brought back memories of using my first computer, a Mac IIci my dad gave to me and my brother. We had the mouse set up in front of it in a way that it was way pretty easy to hit the reset and debugger buttons, which seemed to happen more often in the middle of a spited game for some reason...
I swear on my Apple ][ (which had the stiffer spring under reset) you had to press ctrl at the same time. Mine had an after-marked Videx keyboard controller though, and maybe that was a feature of that controller?
There is a switch on the keyboard interface card inside the ][+ that allows you to toggle between requiring CTRL be held down, or just pushing the reset key.
I would assume that this was added later, and wasn't available on the earlier models.
So many homemade tweaks to fix glaring issues in expensive, premium products...
Remember the iPhone 4 where you had to hold your phone in a certain way so it wouldn't block the antenna? It's amazing that Apple can pump out products with issues like this year after year and still be a top dog.
You make it sound like Apple is the only one making hardware that has issues sometimes. They simply have to be better than the competition, and most of the time they seem to be.
Signal strength would be better if you hold it in a certain way and this was true for some other phones as well. I had an iPhone 4 and never paid attention to how I held it, and it always worked perfectly fine. Maybe it's because I used a bumper most of the time (like most people, at least here in Europe).
The return rate of the iPhone 4 was much lower than that of the 3GS [1], so apparently it did not affect many users in practice.
It's still bad design, but when I compare it to widespread issues I had with other tech devices relatively minor (e.g. spontaneously resetting Moto X 2013, self-destructing Moto 360 smartwatch back, etc., constant BlueTooth headphone drops on the Nokia 7 or 7.1).
The (by far) worst Apple design issue that affected me and people I know was the butterfly keyboard. It has left me sour for years and I considered to stop using Macs. I am very happy they have finally resolved that now. But many of the butterfly MacBooks were simply defective products. Only the later generations with seals hold up pretty well.
I admire your resourcefulness and dedication, but it hurts me that people are resorting to literally cutting and pasting hardware workarounds just to recreate what had been a standard part of computer keyboards for decades until some highly paid, well-meaning design team decided to screw with it completely unnecessarily.
Hey Apple laptop division, if you or your social-listening analysts are reading this: I hope the price inflation permitted by inclusion of the Touch Bar helped offset the lost lifetime value of the customers that it continues to repel.
They didn't do it unnecessarilly, Apple's whole thing has been always shipping something different for the sake of being different. Sometimes it works fine, and sometimes it flops hard.
See - gems like the iMac hockey puck mice. I still wonder - who thought that was a good idea..?
Yes, you can customize and remove all the buttons so it effectively does nothing. I only have volume control on mine.
This thread is a little odd with the heavy-handed touchbar hate.
Yeah, I don't like the butterfly keys, but the touchbar seems neutral to me. I've never accidentally hit the touchbar while typing. And while it has always seemed a bit gimmicky, I do appreciate some of the controls (sound, brightness, etc.).
It’s not just that. Where’s the tactile escape key? I’ve had my 2019 for a couple of months and this is the most frustrating change over my glorious 2015 mbp
Honestly, this is a pretty regular occurrence and, in my opinion, just stems from people not even giving the Touch Bar a fair shake. As someone whose job is split between software/web development and media production/design, I'm incredibly happy with the Touch Bar. The only places I see people complaining about it is here on Hacker News and other developer-heavy sites where people just refuse to change their workflows even the slightest. I get that they don't want to and feel like they shouldn't have to but it's so ridiculous to me.
I would be upset if Apple removed the Touch Bar now. Sure, offer a Touch Bar-less option for these Luddites who won't even consider an alternative option but don't regress for their sake.
I believe the default for Ctrl-1 is to go to the first space.
But what I meant is to hold down the spacebar, then hit 1, and to make that be the same as hitting the F1 key. Because with a touchbar, there is often no F1 key, or you have to look to find it.
The Karabiner Elements profile called SpaceFN has the spacebar do double duty: If you hold it down and then press another key, then it acts as a modifier (like shift and ctrl and cmd). If you just hit the spacebar itself then it acts as the normal space key.
The touch bar forces you to look at what you're doing in a place that should strictly be muscle-memory, and it's a flat surface that isn't safe to touch in an area where you rest your hands.
More than once I've hit the "back" button and inadvertently evicted myself from a browser video call, just by putting my hands on the keyboard.
tl;dr - Glad they brought back the escape key, now get rid of the rest of the touch bar.
+1 to TouchBar hate. It was a major factor in "upgrading" my personal machine to a 2020 Air, which is the best (least-worst?) of all worlds: Touch ID + F-keys. Luckily the size/performance tradeoff works for me; but anyone who needs the fastest Mac portable is boned.
My work machine is the new 16" MBP, and while the new keyboard is the best they've ever made, and the return of Esc is welcome, the goddamn TouchBar still drives me up a wall (especially when tweaking audio volume, which is something one wants to do instantly and reflexively).
Open the System Preferences app.
Select the Keyboard option (third row, sixth item)
On the first tab (also called Keyboard), locate the dropdown for "Touch Bar shows" and choose "Expanded Control Strip".
The UX for volume and brightness on the touchbar isn't as intuitive as I'd expect from Apple, but you can press and slide to adjust them. Took me a few weeks to realize I didn't have to tap the volume or brightness button and then adjust using the up or down buttons.
Whoa. I've been on the 16" MBP for a few months now and didn't know that. This reduces my hatred of the touch bar by double digit percentages, for sure. Thank you!
My wife bought a MacBook Air last year, and the row of function keys with Touch ID sensor at the end is perfect. I'm so jealous, and hope they add the option to get that keyboard layout on the next iteration of the MBP.
> I also love that in theory someday I'll have one cable to rule them all
True, although they could have done what many of the pc laptop makers have done. They still provide their proprietary charger with many models (ie. ThinkPad connector), but the USB-C port can also be used to charge the computer if you one already or want to pony up for a USB-C charger. For example, I've used my macbook pro charger to charge my last couple PC laptops too (ThinkPad and Acer). Like you said, then I only need one charger on my desk.
I assume these manufacturer's do this because their own charger, especially the barrel chargers that some manufacturers use, are cheaper than USB-C chargers/cables. In Apple's case, they could have kept the magsafe connector because it's a better connector. But, I assume it was lost to cost savings or aesthetics.
My gripe with the touch bar is that for every IDE you have to customise it to see the function keys by default. It's so damn annoying. Why can't the default layout be just the Fn keys ?
Because 95% of the people don't use them and for them having an emoji picker, a volume, brightness control is more useful. The small group of people who actively use the Fn keys can just enable this checkbox at the settings.
FWIW, I really hate IDEs (usually ported over from other platforms with little thought) that use function key shortcuts for commonly-used actions. I instantly remap "run" in every IDE to ⌘R.
The touch bar is really, really awful. I'd definitely pay more to get rid of it.
- It's incredibly sensitive, so a slightly misplaced touch on the number row sometimes results in a wild function key that snaps me out of whatever I'm doing (launches iTunes, goes to Spaces, adjusts brightness).
- It's distracting. It's either a lighted row of fake buttons, or a constantly changing offering of useless app shortcuts. It turns on and off (again, distracting).
- The UX of using it as function keys is in every way worse than a physical button. You can't tell if the click registered by feel. Sometimes it even seems like it reacts to a click but then nothing happens.
I’ve found that the Touch Bar’s fundamental flaw is that it doesn’t handle unintended touches well (which sadly affects multiple Apple technologies, including my Watch and even the trackpad occasionally), and that is directly related to the fact that it has no raised elements.
Furthermore, one of its main added features — the ability to do gestures that keys can’t do — just isn’t valuable. I haven’t seen a single example of something that was easier to do on the Touch Bar when I have a giant screen and trackpad/mouse already. I don’t need micro-scrubber interfaces or color sliders or Emoji bars, and the volume/brightness sliders are imprecise.
Despite customizing the bar with BetterTouchTool, including “vibrate” feedback, I invariably found I had to remove more and more things from the bar over time. Any functions in the central part of the bar were invariably triggering by accident. It was just too distracting to have things randomly happening when my finger slid onto something that doesn’t feel like an active panel.
Now, therefore, I have a Touch Bar with just a few things: a battery status indicator on the left end (near the thankfully-now-real Esc key), and the brightness/volume/mute on the right (near the wonderful Touch ID). And that’s it. It is literally 70% empty space now. This is ridiculous for something as complex and expense-adding as the Touch Bar. A complete failure of a technology.
> I’ve found that the Touch Bar’s fundamental flaw is that it doesn’t handle unintended touches well (which sadly affects multiple Apple technologies, including my Watch and even the trackpad occasionally), and that is directly related to the fact that it has no raised elements.
It's the worst. I constantly hit mute instesd of backspace.
Changing the volume or brightness is a complete pain now. It used to be just tap the key a couple of times and that was it. I would do it as a reflex without interrupting the work I was doing. Now I have to look at where the 'button' is, and then tap and slide. Completely awful.
Open the System Preferences app.
Select the Keyboard option (third row, sixth item)
On the first tab (also called Keyboard), locate the dropdown for "Touch Bar shows" and choose "Expanded Control Strip".
- Their “Customize Control Strip” sheet provides an arbitrary subset of volume buttons, which don’t include the ones I want. (Specifically, separate volume buttons and not “button that shows slider first”.)
- Previously I was very accustomed to feeling for the volume buttons, and even using modifier keys for very fine-grained volume changes. With default Touch Bar keys, this is basically impossible. It is sort-of-OK with BetterTouchTool customization but it took me awhile to find a combination that I liked. And, still not as good as the original volume/modifier keys.
This doesn't change that I have to look for the on screen buttons and can't just reflexively change the volume while doing something else. Changing the volume or brightness or whatever now becomes a discete task that stops me doing what I was doing before. This * 10 over the course of a day adds up to lots of distractions ovet time.
My touch bar freezes every hour or so when changing volume. I then have to close the laptop, wait for a second, and then open the laptop again. It's awful.
This is the only thing that I don't like about the touch bar. It freezes every so often for me too. However, the fix is a lot easier for me. I just open spotlight search (CMD + Spacebar) and it fixes it.
You can also kill the relevant process: `killall ControlStrip`. I haven't had the precise problem you describe, but this did often suffice to fix strange frozen touch-bar problems.
> Despite customizing the bar with BetterTouchTool, including “vibrate” feedback, I invariably found I had to remove more and more things from the bar over time. Any functions in the central part of the bar were invariably triggering by accident. It was just too distracting to have things randomly happening when my finger slid onto something that doesn’t feel like an active panel.
Is there any way to disable the fixed `esc`? I could just ignore the touch bar, except for that. It haunts my vim experience and my attempts to use full-screen (which `esc` exists by default), since apparently my left little finger tends to rest there without my realising (maybe because I'm a vimmer?).
You mentioned the volume/brightness sliders as being imprecise. I don’t have a MBP, but I noticed that touchscreen sliders are really difficult to use accurately. Whenever I slide to a value I wanted, lifting my finger inevitably moves the slider over just a little bit selecting an adjacent value (just by virtue of my finger not being lifted straight up). Is this the issue?
I’m sure I have had sliders mishave like that, too. Mostly I just don’t want a slider in the first place; I prefer feeling for the volume up/down keys and tweaking the volume bit by bit, sometimes using modifier keys for extra precision. It is incredibly easy to input “slightly louder” in the old way. It is unnecessarily hard to input “slightly louder” with a wonky touch slider. And, at times I have blown up the speaker by touching it the wrong way.
You can just flick left/right on the volume/brightness icons to adjust a single increment, without having to bring out the slider. This isn't documented anywhere, it's another one of those hidden features you just have to learn.
The Asus Zenbook, and the Asus Zenbook Duo, seem to expand on the idea in a more useful way. I am a bit surprised we didn't see the Macbook Pro go to a similar design (I.E. using the track pad as a display, or moving the track pad and adding a second display).
Same here: I love the Touch ID but the touch bar is awful. The bar always moves around and the buttons I want are always at a different spot or just not there.
Magsafe or no Mac. Also touch bar needs to go. I mean, regardless of usability, just look at that eyesore! It used to be that Macs were for professionals. Now it's for showoffs only. Sorry. I really used to love Macs...
Everything is going wireless. There are still some items that require plugging in but headphones, keyboards and mice, even hard drives, are all going wireless.
I don't understand why people hate the touch bar or the keyboard. It's imperfect yes but the entire MBP keyboard+trackpad layout enables me to be insanely productive. The only reason I don't buy something like a Mac Mini is because I can't get a peripheral keyboard that is the same as the one on the MBP. The only thing I wish it had was a number pad.
Maybe you're just not realizing its potential. I definitely recommend checking out some cool extensions to the touch bar such as Pock https://pock.dev/
The Touchbar is terrible for Visual Studio Debugging. I have to take my eyes off the screen and cant rest my finger on F10 to step through code. That is ANTI productive. One of the reasons I spring for a macbook is so I can run MacOS, Windows or Linux on solid hardware. The touchbar is fine for things like Logic ProX or some other non development tool, but I need permanent function keys to work in Windows/Visual Studio. Thats a large part of what I do. IMO the touch bar is a GREAT idea if you also have physical function keys on the keyboard.
I guess a large part is that you can't use it without looking at it. If you're a touch typist you want to be able to do everything on the computer without thinking or moving your hands from the home row.
1. The keyboard. Ugh. The keyboard was ostensibly changed to shave half a millimeter off the thickness of an MBP. 0.5mm. The old chiclet keyboard was fine. The new one is basically worse in every way. It's louder, feels crappier to type on, has a high failure rate (as witnessed by Apple's free repair program) and is otherwise expensive to replace. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about the keyboard; and
2. The touch bar. This was is more mixed. The big problem is you don't have an option for not having it and Apple's reason for adding it is simply to raise the ASP (average selling price) of Mac SKUs. That's it. The old Macbook Air was too successful. Many people object to it because you lost a row of function keys with tactile feedback (ie physical key). Some really objected to the loss of a physical Escape button. Probably vim users.
I agree with you that Touch ID is great. I sure wish the latest iPhones had it (you could put a sensor on the back if you didn't want to lose the screen real estate). Face ID is absolutely atrocious.
Anyway, the problem here is that basically Johnny Ive went insane, chasing thinness to the extreme. Design is the art of compromise (as they say) and no compromising on thinness led to shitty products (eg the 12" Macbook).
There are many people here (myself included) that for years simply wanted a 13" Macbook Air with an upgraded screen (as close to edgeless as possible and higher res) and more memory. That's it. We waited for years. We got the shitty 12" Macbook instead.
It's incredibly frustrating to be so close to perfection but to take a giant step backwards instead.
Well put. I tried the new 16" keyboard, and while its way better than my 2018 MBP, its still not good enough. Chasing thinness really just seems to be something a select few wanted. As the name implies, I wanted a "Pro" laptop that had high spec processing, ram and storage. What I got is a laptop that doubles as a lap warmer, white noise generator, and user hostile to OS environments other than MacOS. So now I have a mid spec Surface Pro for development, and use the macbook for more creative type endeavors. I wish I could find a way to extract the keyboard from this surface and put it in my macbook. That would make me less annoyed by the heat and fan while running windows.
I disagree with everything stated here and, maybe I'm just lucky, but I haven't had any issues at all with the keyboard on any of my Macbook Pros (work, personal, or my SO's) and I can't go back to not having a Touch Bar.
I'm really curious about the numbers surrounding this. Especially with the latest sales figures, I'm curious if this is just a vocal minority or if most users agree with you that this is a step backward.
I don't hate it as much as I hate that it isn't an option. If it were a $500 add on I would never ever choose it as an option for my laptop, and now it's kind of mandatory if you want a fast macOS laptop. I will accept a laptop from my company with the touchbar, but I don't know that I would be willing to buy one myself. It's been a while since I used windows or linux as my dev OS, but might be willing to give it a shot with a good thinkpad. I hope apple makes it an option for the bigger faster MBP
I can't stand the Macbook Pro keyboard and touchpad. I accidentally input the touchpad on the regular basis because it's enormous, and the keyboard slows down my typing speed substantially. My "o" repeats somewhat often as well, as other people have suggested.
My best quality of life improvement with this machine was to connect an external windows keyboard and mouse. Swap the windows key with the alt key, and you have a beautiful macos keyboard.
USB-C is all about having a thinner connector and giving the appearance of standardizing.
Previously if the cable fit, it worked. There were just a bunch of different cables but that had largely settled down to USB-A cables to like 2 maybe 3 connectors on the other end.
Now we have cables that have the same connector on each end but do vastly different things and there's no clue as to what.
- Does it carry data or just power?
- Does it carry a video signal?
- How much data can it carry?
- How much power can it charge?
A USB-C cable that does everything is limited to about 30cm (1 foot) in length, give or take. I know because I use them to connect to a USB-C dock. If I wanted a longer cable to connect to something else, I could. I'd just have to remember not to use it for the dock.
Somewhere I read that USB-C's cable design was informed by Apple's experience with thee lightning connector. In particular, one of the changes is that the lightning connector has the springs on the hardware side, which means that if the springs break, you have a major headache. USB-C puts the springs in the connector, so if the springs break, you just buy a new cable. That seems like a pretty big improvement, to me.
exactly :/ Just plain silly.
I've already seen two phones in the wild with the damaged usb-c port. User made an error and tried to charge usb-c with micro usb? Yes. Was that preventable with a better design? Yes.
I decided to become an early adopter of "USB-C for everything" in ~2017 and do not regret it. Between my laptops (work + personal), tablet, phone, VR, game console, headphones it is really nice to have a single 65w wall wart and a single cable that works for everything and only need to bring one charger.
The one holdout still is an e-ink e-reader, the Kindle Oasis's top review is a one-star review talking about lack of USB-C.
I might switch to an apple-based consumer tablet when they put USB-C on them. The pro tablet models already have USB-C but I don't need that kind of power.
USB-C is really nice. There are some complaints about cables but if you buy brand name cables (anker, cable matters, etc) they seem to last forever and don't have the problems the tech blogs speculate about.
I think twice in five years am I glad I had the magsafe adapter but I'm happy to live without it to avoid carting around a proprietary charger all the time. We lost my wife's magsafe charger while traveling and found out that those cannot be bought for any price when in rural areas, especially outside of first-world countries. Every town has a shop that sells/services USB-C phones/tablets/laptops though.
USB-C would take off like wildfire if there actually existed any proper USB-C hubs - not what's currently called a "USB-C hub" which is more like a breakout box which at best replicates the single USB-C port it takes up and adds a bunch of legacy ports; I'm talking about a proper hub that plugs into a single port and turns it into multiple ports, like those dirt cheap old USB-A hubs. You literally cannot move to an all-USB-C existence because with rare exceptions 1 port = 1 device.
A hub with multiple USB-C downstream ports cannot exist with any sort of reasonable UX. The C port supports multiple "alternate modes," which remap USB-data pins to other functions (like DisplayPort, HDMI, Thunderbolt, analog audio, etc.)
The various alternate modes are not simply transporting display/audio/Thunderbolt data over a USB channel. It's the difference between packet switching and circuit switching.
Plugging in, for example, an HDMI adapter to one downstream port affects what devices can be plugged in to other downstream ports.
A true HDMI adapter would revert all other downstream ports to USB 2.0. But... an HDMI adapter that's really a DisplayPort with internal DP -> HDMI converter can potentially allow USB 3.0 on the other downstream ports (or, potentially, ONE other port with DP and the rest with USB 2.0).
Either way, plugging in the HDMI adapter means your USB-C headphones might stop working (depending on whether they are analog or have an internal DAC).
How are users expected to understand that they need a certain type of USB-C headphones and a certain type of HDMI adapter in order for both to work at the same time?
From the point of the user: I have a mouse, a keyboard, a display, an external drive, and occassionally I need to plug in a flash drive, printer or some other device. There is one or two of those new small rounded USB ports on my computer which is not enough. How can I possibly plug in everything I need?
It's not the users' fault that the whole USB-C thing amounts to a very fast, very efficient and elegant garbage fire. It's the greatest port ever, it can do everything, except not at the same time, so I have to choose whether I want to plug in my keyboard or my display.
A standard data cable for laptops is fine I guess, but I want a distinct power-only cable that isn't complicated enough to enable malware attacks. And battery swaps. And a pony.
Given my experience with non MS Surface touch screens, I'm not really sure if I consider that a strong pro--if I were writing the sales pitch for the laptop yeah, it's a pro, but in terms of day to day use, I'm not sure how much I'm looking for a touchscreen on a laptop.
Regardless though, the gesture support on MacOS touch-pads would probably cancel it out as anything I'd probably do with the touchscreen frequently could be supported through a gesture.
Have you ever purchased a Dell ? Well I just did (Dell XPS 13 2-in-1) last month and let me tell how you how horrible the driver and support has been. I really wish I could chuck this brand new 1400$ device out the Window for days of troubleshooting I've got through. I deeply regret it and wish I purchased a Surface device instead (note I'm not an Apple user)
For the price premium and judging by the quality of the drivers that Apple produces, I WOULD MUCH RATHER PAY THE PREMIUM than struggle with Dell.
Bluetooth and Sound. Take a look at the XPS forums, there's more than a dozen posts on each topic. Dell engineers haven't pushed a fix in over a month after delivering faulty BIOS drivers.
I tried to return the POS but Dell wont take it back since I was a few days past their 30 day return policy. Let's not forget I had to deal with a minor fallout due to the pandemic, but their "customer service" department doesn't care about personal issues and difficulties customers have had during the last month and only profit and sales.
I had a dell latitude at work - horrific. Replaced with an xps-13 - much better, but wouldn't recommend. At home replaced my mbp with a surface laptop, deleted windows installed linux - bliss.
It's pretty disappointing how few ports the XPS 13 has. Only two data ports (both USB-C), but it's really only gonna one because you're gonna be using the other one for charging all the time. And I use hardware security keys for everything so I always have one plugged into my laptop, so if have zero ports free and would need to attach a USB-C hub to do anything else. At least there's wireless keyboard and mice ...
Any idea on battery life comparisons between the two? I'm not an Apple fan by any stretch, and don't have any Apple hardware at all except MacBooks, but honestly, the Mac here might be worth the extra money for the ports, build quality, and longevity. My current laptop is a 2013 top of the line MacBook Pro 15" that is still chugging along fine without any problems.
One reason I'll recommend an Apple product over any PC to friends is the Apple Store. Aside from being able to see and play with the hardware, Apple's support experience is better than any PC maker's.
Why doesn't Dell open a store in every neighborhood that has an Apple store? They should be able to match the Apple consumer experience, but more importantly (to Dell), they could run business support operations from those stores.
I'd be a lot more likely to buy the XPS machine you mentioned if I could take it someplace when the coil whine becomes apparent.
5 years ago I destroyed my dells screen, thrre was someone driving to my place the same day and he replaced the screen on site and I could work on. Where would apple ever do this?
This is what a lot of people don't know. If you pay for premium support from Dell, it is significantly better than the support experience with Apple.
No having to check for appointment slots each day, hoping to get one two weeks out. No having to arrive at the store at the start of the day, get in the same-day queue, and hope to get seen for a 15 min checkup within 4 hours, and then lose your machine for days, if not weeks, while the repairs are done off site.
Dell premium consumer (consumer, not talking about their business support options here) support gets you next day engineer to your home, with replacement parts on hand to repair your fault in your home. Three unsuccessful repairs on the same component results in a total replacement, usually with an upgrade.
If an Apple user is having trouble setting up Time Machine, they can book a slot at the store to have somebody help them configure that. Is Dell going to send somebody to my parents home to help them with that?
Apologies, if it wasn't clear given context, I was explicitly talking about hardware support. Dell doesn't do vertical integration of hardware and software, so I doubt they'll send someone to your parents home to help them configure Windows (or Ubuntu).
That said, your parents will still be subject to having to check for appointment slots each day, hoping to get one two weeks out, or waiting in store for hours for the next slot.
They'll also be subject to lots of random bugs in Time Machine, which has become a decidedly second class citizen as far as support within macOS goes. I cannot reliably do a time machine backup over wifi anymore, and am now subject to doing it via USB only instead. This is a much bigger problem now that my USB disk is still stuck in the office, and I've been unable to get into the office for over 2 months.
> Dell doesn't do vertical integration of hardware and software
That's a good point. It's a reason why comments like the one at the top comparing a Dell to an Apple computer don't make a lot of sense. They aren't apples-to-apples comparisons.
BTW, your Apple store experience sounds terrible. We have a handful of Apple things in my home and have used in-store support probably ten times over the years and have never had the experience you describe.
It's the experience I've been facing in London, UK for the last 5 years.
I'm 'fortunate' to have those options when I'm in London. Friends and family in other parts of Europe don't have a store near them, and their only support option is to send their faulty unit away for 2-4 weeks, which often results in me doing their support for them, as I'm (or I suppose, was) often flying through and could do it as a favour.
> That's a good point. It's a reason why comments like the one at the top comparing a Dell to an Apple computer don't make a lot of sense. They aren't apples-to-apples comparisons.
Yes, and no. This is a technical forum. The software support Apple offers isn't (and probably shouldn't be) useful to the vast majority on here, as any software support you can get from an Apple store, you can get on Google significantly faster.
Within that context, I think the comparison is reasonable. We can all fix any software issues we run into (within limits, those limits vary by platform, arguably more limited in Apple land) ourselves, and those that we can't we're at the mercy of our upstream supplier anyway.
From my experiences dealing with Apple Support regarding software bugs that have come about through software updates, I have no positive things to say. They did offer me $200 worth of accessories to make up for all of my time they wasted after ~18 months of one incident, but that's a poor amount of compensation for the amount of my real time they wasted.
For what it's worth, my experience closely mirrors oarsinsync's, as far as Dell vs. Apple consumer-level hardware support goes.
The Dell tech who came to my house (next day) had people skills as good as any Apple Genius, and better tech skills to boot. He was in and out in less than 45 minutes, and I think he finished less than 24 hours after I called Dell (though that isn't promised as part of the contract).
I'm still happily in the Apple camp, mostly because I do appreciate the integrated ecosystem. However, there's simply no comparison when it comes to after-sales hardware support--Apple has a lot to learn from Dell.
I don't doubt that you've had a better Apple Store experience than some of us, but:
1. I've had poor Apple service in several cities across the US, so I think good service is the exception rather than the rule
2. Many small/medium cities only have one Apple store (which is inconvenient) and rural places have none (which is worse). As far as I know, there are no geographical restrictions, within the lower 48, on where Dell will travel for next-day at-home service.
3. Dell at-home support costs about the same as AppleCare+.
This right here. I worked along side IT at a medium/large manufacturing company for my internship and a few times they had Dell support specialists driving out to fix hardware on the spot or give you a new one same day. For their company iPads the support was- "drive a half hour to the nearest Apple store with the shit and hope they can help you."
For years my employer paid for on-site support and when we would call for help, the technician was almost always from some third party service (Unisys?). The experience was rarely good.
Dell has way better support than Apple. (I only have experience with it in Europe, but I think in the US would be the same)
You don't need to take anywhere. You call support and a technician will show up at your office/house and change the part on the spot. [1]
Where Apple shines is when you travel internationally. Apple offer an international warranty. If you buy a product in the EU they will fix/exchange it under warranty in the US or anywhere else in the world.
Keep in mind that is not the basic warranty service. If you buy prosupport your call will not be routed to India and you can get the in-home or in-business service. If not, you'll be having a bad time.
> Why doesn't Dell open a store in every neighborhood that has an Apple store?
How would they manage to keep any competitive pricing if they do that? They have cheap prices because they hire totally cheap support labors doing crappy support.
~~2399$~~ 2999$ (EDIT: see replies) in the US, and.... 3924$ for the same model if you buy it in Europe (3629 EUR). That's a bit outrageous.
I still have a Macbook Air 2013, and have been looking for an upgrade for like 5 years, but I was not willing to pay 4k for a laptop with a worse keyboard, a worse power plug, an OS that in 2020 still doesn't have any kind of windows tiling capabilities and quite poor virtual desktops support, a useless touchbar, no wifi6, and the worst webcam ever made.
Selling it at twice the price that in the US doesn't help. I can pay for a plane ticket, and still get it cheaper there.
Also, for a company that markets their laptops as having great displays, its quite ironic that their OS still doesn't support any kind of window tiling to use them efficiently in 2020. The display isn't micro-LED either, so it is instantaneously outdated, and well... the retina display doesn't help you see your macbook-using coworkers any better because their webcams have a resolution of 1x1 pixels.
in Europe, I can chose whatever keyboard I want, and I would think it's the same for the US store. I've configure both MacBooks I bought in the last decade with English keyboards because it's the only layout where {} and [] don't seem like a cruel joke by language designers.
As an individual, I can just by it in the US for personal use, and carry it over. But if you intent to transporting them for selling them, the story is very different.
Legally, you are required to pay VAT and import duty when buying in the US and importing it, even for personal use.
Chances are, you aren't checked. But if you are, having the original packaging or charger will be noticed by customs. They might even have data to determine country of origin from a serial number, or notice that it's a version that wasn't available when you left for the US etc. And if they ask, the burden of proof is yours to show you bought it in the EU.
How long does one need to stay in the US for that not to hold ?
I lived there for one year, and bought a lot of stuff in the US for personal use (like clothes). When I moved back to Europe, I just moved everything with me without paying any VAT.
I was worried that they would make me pay VAT from socks and underwear to laptop, phone, and everything. Asked about it, and was told that I didn't had to pay anything.
This is not EU specific, duty is typically due on consumer good when you move them between countries if you haven't owned them long enough. It's not always enforced or enforceable of course, but it's there. See for example people buying cars on either side of the US and Canada border for use on the other side.
> What's stopping me from buying them all up at the Apple store and selling them to overseas customers?
Import duties and VAT. VAT accounts for much of the price difference, OP didn't explain which Europe they're talking about, but assuming a 20% VAT a 2999 machine costs $3598.8 to the end-user.
Means you're working with a 325.2 price difference, which doesn't even cover import duties.
So pretty much as ever, if you're round-tripping through the US, picking up an MBP there is nice. It does not however make for a business.
> So pretty much as ever, if you're round-tripping to the US, picking up an MBP there is nice.
Just keep in mind that if you stay in the US for less than 6 months, you should be paying VAT on it on your way back (see other comments). Otherwise this probably counts as tax evasion, which comes with pretty hefty fines in some EU countries.
The price $2999 in the US. There's no markup here, Apple's EU pricing just includes 20% VAT ($600) and implicit AppleCare (~$300) as required by EU consumer law.
> implicit AppleCare (~$300) as required by EU consumer law
I wouldn't say AppleCare is the same as having the extended warrenty to obey the EU consumer law. AppleCare includes a bunch of things that are outside of normal "warrenty" coverage.
While this is probably true, I don't think it would be entirely fair to beat apple up for not having an EU only warranty program tuned to the minimal that is required.
I'd love for someone to chime in with specific details. I looked quickly at the French and US sites to compare. France does offer AppleCare+ for 299,00 € on a random MacBook I chose.
The US page is pretty clear that it extends a 1-year hardware warranty to 3-years and extends 90 days of technical support. In recent years they seem to focus more on accidental damage (with an additional per-incident fee).
The French website is more hand-wavy around improved hardware warranty. It also mentions the tech support, but the value seems to be the accidental damage.
The accidental damage math in the US is a tough one for me. $300 for AppleCare+ and $50 per incident goes a long way towards paying outright for a repair or buying a new laptop. The hardware warranties seem to be significantly better in Europe and historically the biggest value-add in the US. AppleCare+ just seems a lot less useful in Europe.
> its quite ironic that their OS still doesn't support any kind of window tiling to use them efficiently in 2020
Luckily, the accessibility API make this quite possible to do if you're one of the people that can't work without it. (Do keep in mind that note everyone uses tiling to work "efficiently".)
> The display isn't micro-LED either, so it is instantaneously outdated
What? How many computers actually ship with microLED today?
> the retina display doesn't help you see your macbook-using coworkers any better because their webcams have a resolution of 1x1 pixels
Even with the current climate, reading text and looking at images in retina resolution is a huge part of most people's jobs. If you haven't tried a Retina Display, I suggest you do: it's quite nice.
I think the resale value is Apples real strength. When I upgraded my 2016 13” mbp to the new airbook, Apple offered 60-70% of the airbook cost in return for the mbp. Because tech-wise there are just so many hood options. I ended up selling it to a local third party reseller that I’ve used in the past for 80% of the cost of the air. I can’t remember the original price for the mbp, but it was around what the air cost me.
Compare that to the surface pro my wife has, which essentially lost all its value the moment she walked out the store. It’s an excellent machine by all means, and Linux subsystem is great, but it’s not actually cheaper than a Mac when you factor in the resale value.
I do live in Denmark, and things may be different elsewhere, but the only hardware that has any resale value around here is Apple.
I have the latest Dell model (XPS 13 9300), and I'm left with a bit of chagrin as I probably would have looked into this new 13" MBP instead had it been available a few months ago, but overall I've been happy with my purchase. I'm not really "in" the Apple ecosystem so I'm probably a bit biased though.
A few other Dell Pros:
* 16:10 aspect ratio. The 4K touchscreen in general is fantastic, nearly borderless and really stunning in person. Dell has honed in on some great industrial design for the XPS 13 line. The laptop is incredibly compact for the feature set and screen size.
* Keyboard is fantastic. Trackpad is great, but not quite Mac level. They have been improving this considerably over the years and this latest iteration is the best yet.
* Linux support, even though I ended up not using it due to "okay" HiDPI support.
* i7, FWIW. Not sure the thermals really allow you to take advantage of full perf gains from the better processor.
* Another Dell Pro which has made me feel better about the purchase has been the free year of Next Day On-Site ProSupport. My original lid had a mark on it and no shit they scheduled a technician to come to my apartment and replace it the next day. Macs obviously have the advantage of Apple stores but in this case I was really happy with the level of CS Dell was able to provide.
Dell Cons:
* I was previously an (Arch) Linux user and have given Windows 10 a shot this time around, mostly because I don't have the time to be fiddling with config files these days. And while Windows does "just work", some things are a little janky still. From what I've heard of MacOS these days, things are not necessarily perfect there either, so maybe a toss-up. I will say Windows being so linux-friendly with WSL has made the transition much easier.
* Two ports has been not really a huge issue. I find that either I'm docked, in which case I have a whole other set of ports to use, or I'm not really plugging in more than two USB C accessories at the same time.
That new aspect ratio has me desperately wanting to upgrade.
Well that and I have xps 15 and that was fine when I took a class a year or two ago but I find it a bit bigger than I like for laying about on the couch and etc.
MacBook ( Pro, Air or just MacBook ) has always been using 16:10 ratio.
16:10 on Dell is something new in the PC space that everyone is making a big fuss about it. Although I hope this change will finally run across the industry so we are back to 16:10 instead of stupid video consumption orientated 16:9 Ratio.
Interesting, I did not realize this. I also did not realize that Retina is not 4k, though I doubt this makes a huge amount of difference on the tiny screen sizes.
Funny. You pine for 16:10 everywhere and I pine for 4:3 everywhere. If software is eating the world, then why doesn't the ultimate screen ratio for development take over computers?
Old things are new again. 16:10 was the standard around 10 years ago. I still have an old Dell Core 2 Duo circa 2010 that has a resolution of 1920:1200
Genuinely curious, have you had your MacBook Pro knocked over from the power cord since switching away from MagSafe?
Lots of people complain about missing MagSafe but I’ve never seen or heard of this actually happening. I’m sure it has happened but it just doesn’t seem like a big problem. For me, just in the past month I’ve had the usb charger yanked out by the cord multiple times by people and pets tripping over it while working from home, but the laptop is heavy enough that it doesn’t budge and the cable comes out cleanly.
The benefit of having a standard port now, being able to get monitor, power, and usb connected through one cable, or being able to use the usb-c charger to charge other devices when traveling, is well worth the change IMO. I also used to get little metal specks stuck in the MagSafe port, and then realize the laptop hasn’t been charging all day and have to clear it out and make sure the contacts were connected securely. I wasn’t a big fan of MagSafe at all.
The very first day I had my first USB-C mac i had an incident with my standing desk that Magsafe would have saved.
These days I tend to use my laptop at my desk with external monitors, but the thing that worries me the most when I'm somewhere else is the yanking of the cable weakening the and/or reducing the reliability. I had to re-solder the power adaptor on an old Acer a few times, I don't think I've got the parts or skills (or time) to do that on a few year old Mac.
The good thing about USB-C chargers, if you break the cable you can just buy a new one. No soldering necessary. I chew through a lot of MagSafe charges in the past few years. I fixed most of them, but you can't disassemble them without damaging it.
EDIT: If you talking about the connector inside your laptop, that is a different story.
MagSafe was great when the average battery life was under four hours. You have to be plugged-in in weird places. It saved my laptop a couple of times when I was at University. The problem is not just knocking over the whole laptop, but you can damage the port as well.
With the current 8+ hours battery life, I only have it plugged in when I'm at my desk, so no risk of tripping over.
For me, the standard port overweights any other downside.
I can see that it's not a necessity for many people, but I still have a 2015 13" Macbook Pro with MagSafe in addition to a newer 15" Macbook Pro, and my experience using both every day is that I positively mourn the difference.
I'm shocked that Apple has not taken it upon themselves to ensure that there's a usable magnetic adapter for the USB-C port, under their brand or through a partner. I've tried a couple of third-party adapters that were utter failures. I hope somebody succeeds someday, preferably Apple or with Apple's blessing, because I would be very slow to try another third-party adapter otherwise.
I have younger kids, who would sometimes kick my cord with MagSafe and it wouldn't be a big deal; I would just connect again. Now I don't use my laptop around my kids if I'm charging.
I knocked it over with MagSafe and it still failed to disconnect. It was the 2011 L-shaped plug and I managed to yank it at the perfectly wrong angle I suppose. The macbook lived but ended up with scratches and dents (that's how I discovered that an aluminum chassis maybe wasn't the best idea for a laptop). The new flimsy usb-c cable has a better chance of actually disconnecting.
I haven't had an incident yet, but I'm way more careful with a young kid (or myself). Leaving one charging on a couch, for example, isn't something I'm comfortable with both because of it sliding a foot or two on to the carpet or bending the connector.
More annoyance comes from removing of the charging indicators that were on the magsafe port. The only clue is a small "ding" sound when it starts charging, but is easy to miss and won't happen in deep sleep. I've plugged in a laptop not noticing someone had unplugged the other end until the next morning my computer was still dead. It was also nice that you could see that amber charging light turn green so you knew it was charged without opening the lid and waking it up.
I was concerned about that myself, but so far so good. I suspect the ability to charge on either side makes a difference. I usually plug in on whatever side is closer to a wall and out of the way. Combined with all the other usb-c/tb benefits, i think the tradeoff is worth it.
It really stuns me how “MacOS” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Pros (or the Cons). That’s literally the main discriminant between choosing an Apple machine over any other brand, and there’s no mention of it.
By missing that main difference the comparison is reduced to pure comparison of commodities, and of course the result is that the Apple machine is ‘unjustifiably’ more expensive. The Apple ecosystem is literally why people buy Apple machines rather than any other brand.
MacOS has really stagnated over the years. I first started using it back in 2004, where its main competitor was pre-SP2 Windows XP. At that time you could really call MacOS advanced. At this point, it's sort of a wash. Windows does things better, Mac does other things better, and it mostly comes down to preference.
The old argument about security is mostly a wash now as well. (whereas with pre-SP2 Windows XP vs. OSX 10.4, you could legitimately claim that OSX was more secure.)
My apps on Windows: KeePass, Chrome, Thunderbird, Putty, Oracle VM, Idea, EditPad Pro, Paint.NET, Battle.net, Discord, foobar2000.
My apps on macOS: Chrome, Thunderbird, OracleVM, Idea, Battle.net, Discord. Can replace Putty with Terminal ssh (I like Putty more, but that's not a big deal), can replace KeePass with text file (less security, but not a big deal either), can replace EditPad Pro with TextEdit (worse replacement, but I can live with it), can replace Paint.NET with Gimp. Not sure about foobar2000, may be DeadBeef.
And there's no software on macOS that I would miss in Windows. So that's questionable about third-party apps, at least for me. The only thing that I loved in macOS is its Terminal, because I know bash, but recently I learned a bit of PowerShell, so it's not a big advantage anymore. Also I can always spin up CentOS VM if necessary.
Useful figures, so thanks for providing those. It's been a few months since I last looked into the latest prices. I agree with you that it's still worth it.
However, I feel that without comparing the OS and tight OS integration, this doesn't represent one of the most important aspects of a comparison between the two, when considering a purchase.
I go through this same loop every time I buy a new machine... yes, usually it's "no more Apple for me!" especially when I do the price comparison. So I waver for a couple of weeks whilst I research the latest hardware and Linux distros. But then I end up buying an Apple machine. It's been the same story for me for the last 17 years.
There's plenty of people like me out there that definitely don't want to use Windows, and that want a Unix that gets out of the way. I love Linux, especially on the server, but it's generally too much hassle on a laptop and so I always gravitate back to macos.
If the $600 is an Apple tax for that, then I will gladly continue to pay it. Over the 3 years lifetime of a developer machine (or more!), my time is definitely worth more than $600 compared with constantly fiddling with Linux kernal modules and other hardware support issues. I just want to get some work done without interruptions.
Definitely would love the exact same machine without the TouchBar, though. Perhaps that would shave off $100?
Thanks. I'm am aware of this. I research this all the time, and regularly come away disappointed. I don't know if I verbalised clearly enough, but I have actively wanted good options for years, and I'm always open to whatever alternatives are current at the time of purchase.
Seriously, I'm in the market for a new laptop and there are still too many concerns relating to support for these devices... not just Dell but usually for whatever manufacturer I'm looking at. Once you start reading about people's experiences there are always issues - many of which have been discussed to death on HN.
Just because Dell claim that Linux is officially supported does not mean that it will be a smooth ride. I don't think that has changed much at all over the last few years? But perhaps this year is different.
Do you own this though? If you're using this new XPS model without power consumption issues, excellent wifi (wifi chips issues seem to always be the main downer), good mousepad behaviour? Perhaps it's finally not a problem? I will gladly lap up any positive news that you can give on this front.
I switched from a macbook to a system76 laptop around 6 years ago and the only negative I noticed functionality-wise was the worse trackpad. But I would guess that different users are sensitive to different problems.
E.g. power management isn't much of an issue for me because I use my laptop unplugged for only a couple hours per day, so I wouldn't have noticed any problems related to that.
I have been keeping an eye on the system76 stuff too - not just Dell. For a long time system76 seemed to only make laptops with large keyboards with extra number pads and asymetric mouse pads which put me off (many manufacturers do this, so it's not just them).
I notice that they finally have more tenkeyless models, so slowly but surely my checklist is being satisfied. Are you still able to use a recent version of Pop!_OS after all this time, or are you using another recent version of another distro? I'm interested in the longevity in terms of being able to install up to date OSes over the years. I mean that really shouldn't be an issue with Linux - support usually only gets better as time advances and new drivers / modules are written, but it would be nice to know how you got on, regardless.
I bought the laptop back when System76 used Ubuntu and have never tried their Pop!_OS, and I use Fedora nowadays. Haven't had any problems with newer versions of Fedora.
I'm using the Thinkpad X1 Carbon 7th generation and I feel like with the latest Ubuntu 20.04 LTS it's finally at the level of usability I want in a Linux laptop. Everything works out of the box, including the speakers, camera, microphone, wifi & bluetooth, and fingerprint reader. I can even use my fingerprint for sudo! (I did have to run one or two commands to get that working though). The trackpad is also great, if a little small. Probably comparable to the Dell's. Also haven't got a chance to test real-world power consumption because I'm stuck at home lately (thank COVID for that) but it seems to be okay.
That's awesome! I just bought the new XPS 13 (9300) with 32gb of ram. Unboxing it today, I've heard it works flawlessly with Ubuntu 20.04 except the fingerprint reader, and Dell says that will be possible later this year.
Thanks. When you say "without much issue", have you ever lost more than a few hours to "required tinkering" over those years, or was it pretty much plain sailing?
Anything else I should take a look at? What would your ideal next laptop be?
Not the OP but I've been using various Thinkpads running Ubuntu since 2010. Been using Linux for many years prior to that on desktops. Also have my family kitted out with them (again on Ubuntu). It is possible to use just fine from a default install with none to very minor tinkering required. However if you do put in a few hours of tinkering you'll reap the rewards in having the laptop behave exactly how you want it to. Here's a hint, install tlp along with the thinkpad kernel access source ("sudo apt-get install tlp tp-smapi-dkms" on Ubuntu) and set the battery charge thresholds. This will help with runtime on battery and also extend the life of the battery itself. is set to start charge at 88% and stop at 95%. In the past five years my battery has only depleted by a few percent in capacity.
I have used Macs (had 2 Mac Book Pros and a Mac Mini) and Windows but its Linux all the way now, specifically Ubuntu LTS. Not sure how people put up with Windows 10's constant forced updates. If it has to be Windows give me Windows 10 LTSC.
Ideal next laptop? Probably a Thinkpad X1 Carbon gen 7 or Dell XPS 2020.
>> have you ever lost more than a few hours to "required tinkering" over those years
- Not really. And Linux ecosystem has improved tremendously in last 10 years.
For one of the colleague at the office, tried some Thinkpad , but that was not such a good experience. Now everyone on the team (> 30 people) gets Ubuntu Laptop or Desktop.
If you are going to use it main dev machine, then definitely Latitude. Ask Dell guys to preinstall it for you. They will install proprietary drivers for you.
I also have Macbook Pro 2015 model. Don't expect trackpad experience like it. I always use external mouse and keyboard any way.
XPS 9560 4k model (2017 15") using Arch Linux. Recently formatted and re-installed arch (i had made a mess of some core linux things over the years and wanted a clean slate), and I don't recall any specific issues that were not user error trying to install or maintain an arch installation. The main "problem" that comes to mind is optimizing battery life while getting maximum performance from the discrete GPU. I chose not to go down that path--I just dual boot windows for games. As far as system stability goes, I've had zero issues with anything noteworthy. I've never done anything unique to my kernel settings on this device. Everything that i've needed worked out of the box. I may have needed to install some packages for drivers based on my device to improve performance (install nvidia drivers, possibly proprietary touchpad drivers).
Specifically: excellent wifi support, 5-7 hours of battery life, never had a trackpad issue.
Risk areas that i haven't investigated: backlight controls aren't working right now...thats the only thing that comes to mine.
And this is using arch. I'm sure Ubuntu is even more seamless.
I'm on the same machine. Also on Arch linux with Gnome Wayland as my DE.
It's been a complete delight. Actually, it's been leaps and bounds better than macOS Catalina on my work machine.
For me, the transition to Wayland made a HUGE difference. Trackpad actually feels basically the same as macOS, and better than windows 10.
Multi-monitor support is better than macOS (which loses my monitor arrangement consistently with two identical monitors and through a usb-c dock).
Bluetooth works as expected. (Not so for macOS catalina anymore, they've fucked up an truly astounding number of things...)
Suspend/resume are both fine.
Battery life is actually around 10 hours if I'm just doing light dev.
Basically - I've been pestering my office to let me switch for a while now. I'd take an XPS running linux over the current iteration of macbook/macOS hands down.
I came to Macs as a longtime Windows/Linux user for software developmemt. There's no way I would ever go back. My 2015 Air is rock solid, never any problems despite being used 8-12 hours per day and you get Unix underneath. Just bought a new Air so I can have a backup machine.
I'm in a similar position and I can answer for my situation. I bought iPad 3 back in 2012 I think. I liked it a lot and I bought iPhone 4S which I liked even more (until they released iOS 7 but that's theme for another rant). After that I understood that I love Apple approach and decided to buy a Macbook as I wanted to write some apps and also needed new laptop at that time. I bought Retina Macbook Pro 15" mid 2012.
Well, it was worst laptop I ever saw. Software was good, I still love it. SSD broke in the second month, so I took it to repair and it was in repair for another month until replacement SSD arrived. Thankfully it was covered by warranty and that's the only good thing about this situation. I used it for 2 years and then it just started to tear apart.
Charger cable failed. I bought new at aliexpress, tried to replace it and almost caused a fire, so I had to buy a new charger which costs like a cheap laptop LoL.
Keyboard failed. Right now half of keys just do not work, another half of keys work if pressed hard enough. And I did not spill anything there, they just don't register presses. I'm using USB keyboard to work on it.
Audio port failed. There's some switch there to detect optical cable or something like that. That switch is stuck, so red laser always lighting out of there and macOS thinks that I inserted a headphones, so speakers do not work. And headphones do not work either. I'm using USB headphones if I need sound.
It sometimes panics. I think that something's wrong with GPU. It's Nvidia GPU and I've read that it was poorly soldered. Not sure.
Its battery almost dead, it can live for a 10 minutes of low-power usage. Of course I can't replace a battery, because it's glued.
Even on charger it gets hot on load pretty quickly and then it starts to throttle. Its CPU going lower than 1GHz. And system becomes very laggy, everything slow as hell. Its cooling just terrible. Sure, it's a laptop, but I never experienced such a slowdown with other laptops. I was very disappointed with Apple engineering.
I've used few laptops in my life. Not a single one of them caused so many issues. Not a single one of them had faulty charger cable. All of them have easily replaceable battery.
Also in my country I'm paying heavy Apple tax, Apple devices typically cost 30-50% more than in US, but other manufacturers have more sane prices, so I would have to pay much more extra.
I went back to Windows and I'm pretty happy. I never liked Windows, but since Windows 10 it's actually good OS that works much more stable than macOS and have all the software I need.
My last hope was Mac Pro. But its price is just absurd, so that hope is vanished. Basically Apple does not make any computer that I would want to buy, all computers are antithetical to my needs. I want something that's reliable, bulky, powerful and repairable. Preferably a PC, as I don't really need a laptop. And they focus on the opposite properties. So while I loved macOS, there's nothing to run it on.
I'm thinking about hackintosh and probably will build my next computer considering it (can run Windows anywhere, so can select hackinosh-friendly parts anyway). But it seems that hackintosh in the future might be doomed (more proprietary hardware, may be even ARM migration), so probably that won't be a way to go either.
What funny is that I'm in a similar position regarding phones. I hate large screen phones and with discontinuing iPhone SE 1 Apple stopped producing the only phone that I'd want to buy. I'm using iPhone 8 now, but I don't like it and thinking about buying SE 1 instead. Too bad that Androids don't have any phones for me either, so it's more about phone industry rather than just Apple.
Yeah, secretly I hope that some guy from Apple will read similar responses and will decide to release Mac Mini Pro or something like that, so I can just put good GPU there, put it on my desk, configure it with some entry Xeon CPU and ECC RAM and that's for $2-3k. And if something breaks or just in the future when I would want upgrades, I could just buy some Samsung SSD, put it there and enjoy improved performance, rather than spending all the money again for slightly bumped specs. Just an ordinary workstation computer with macOS support and reasonable price, nothing extra-ordinary.
Could not agree more with this. I'd sooner buy an "ancient" secondhand MacBook Air than use Windows or attempt to use Linux on a laptop.
I find the the touch bar obviously annoying, but that annoyance is so minor compared with the annoyances of Windows or running Linux on a laptop. Honestly it seems like a lot of people have quite the double standard when it comes to Apple products.
This is also coming from someone who was forced to use Windows professionally for several years (worked on CAD software).
I've had very good experiences with Linux on my laptop. Definitely more stable than windows, literally never had to fiddle with kernel modules or any sort of hardware support. Battery life is actually better than in windows.
You have to be a bit careful with the hardware, especially non Intel wifi/Bluetooth seems not well supported. And Nvidia graphics are a bit risky, but of the alternative is a MacBook that shouldn't matter as much
I've heard this a lot over the years, but it's never held up to scrutiny.
Usually there's a lot of manual config, driver issues, shitty hardware support, screen resolution issues, bad battery life, laptop suspend issues, terrible trackpad support, connecting to external monitor issues, etc.
I've had the best luck with Thinkpads and I still like Linux and have fun with this kind of thing, but it's not even close to macOS and I don't think it's really close to Windows either.
My issue with desktop/laptop Linux has always been the quality of the GUI-based software.
While I appreciate that people put in tons of time and effort to make these things available for free, I’d rather pay for something better, and on Linux I usually can’t.
As an example, our dev machines at the office run Linux, and it’s a great platform for the majority of the work we do. But I have to keep a Windows VM around for Office, because I can’t trust that LibreOffice isn’t going to completely mangle a file that I need to send to a client.
For me, this idea that time invested on your machine is time lost to the void... just doesn't add up. Like, at all. Shouldn't one of the point of honing your craft be to become intimately knowledgeable about the tools that you use every single day?
I have some musician friends. They do that for a living. They've had the same guitars for years, maybe even decades. They know how the guitar works, how to change its strings & pick-ups, how it behaves in different rooms. They notice how it ages, how it breaks, how it _really_ works. When it breaks they get the exact same model. It's a good thing.
For me, the real tradeoff is getting locked-in into an ecosystem that is privately owned, profit driven. That's the real tax right there.
Apple has lost me as a customer for their computers. The software has been getting flakier for years, the butterfly fiasco, and their inexplicable decision to continue shipping laptops missing 15% of the keyboard. I'm on a System 76 Darter Pro now. Pop OS has been fantastic. Great specs for the money, and while it certainly isn't Mac-level hardware, it's fine. At this point, the Darter has a far superior keyboard, even comparing to the newest MBP keyboards.
I still need a Mac for my music and photo collection, and to sync my phone. But since my 2015 MBP is dying, I'm in the market for a used Mac Mini.
Apple still has me as a customer, when it comes to work solutions. I have to use windows at home for gaming, no way around it.
MacOS vs Windows 10 is a MUCH lesser difference than MacOS vs Windows 8 and below. If Apple doesn't put more focus into their computers over the next 5 years the tide may truly turn.
Also before someone mentions Linux, I really love linux. I used linux out of NEED in college but I find myself maintaining it too much for it to be worth it vs MacOS when it comes to work. I have access to linux servers for running most of my code anyway so perhaps I'm a special user.
The other important differentiator is the OS. I can’t (reliably) get MacOS on a Dell laptop so my choice is clear: either keep using the MBP I have or upgrade. At this point I don’t want to go back and try re-learning Windows.
The real news is that you can get 32gb RAM and 4TB SSD in a 13-inch form factor
Sometimes its not really about the price, its about "can you?".
I'm glad Apple (and Dell) is addressing the market, alongside the improvements in the technology in their supply chain.
There have definitely been some years where I have been pretty sure something was possible but everyone was holding out for another year because a processor came out too late, or some totally antitrust violating agreement, or milking consumers, all while we just had to assume there were some quality control or battery life issue.
I am glad to know this is going to be generally available.
According to the forum posts, it's happening to everyone who uses the default plug, the extension that comes with a 3 pin plug resolves the issue.
I have one short and one long cable, and am only just now realizing the issue. I'd simply assumed the short one was a fake I'd gotten.
Can't speak to why your iPhone and iPad do the same thing, I've experienced it when using sketchy cheap lightning cables or wall adapters (including ghost touching), but not when using better built stuff (like AmazonBasics or Anker).
That's assuming that your house have grounded sockets. My house does not and most of old houses in my country are the same, only new houses have ground.
Language changes and evolves over time, this is normal and natural. Just because "elecrocuted" at one time only meant died from electricity, it doesn't mean it can't mean now that one simply got a jolt and didn't die.
Or do you still think "Google" just means a big number? Do you "literally" means "exactly" or can also be used to show strong feeling or emphasis.
More specifically, you're using the non-grounded plug rather than a grounded one. Since the laptop is metal, it passes it to you and to the ground instead of through the dedicated circuit.
>More specifically, you're using the non-grounded plug rather than a grounded one
Yes, the one that comes with extremely expensive European 2019 16" Macbook Pro is not grounded.
I'm not sure they sell the grounded lead anymore. But maybe I should charge my work macbook with my personal xps 13 charger which is grounded (yay usb-c!)
Are you in Europe perchance? I have a feeling that wiring in the EU is more prone to sparks than in the US, so maybe grounding behaves differently as well, due to some sort of variation in building and wiring codes.
* Much higher resolution screen (3840x2400 vs 2560x1600)
* Smaller and lighter (not by much though) and thinner bezels
* Better hardware support (apple hardware has bad support under anything but macOS and I can't think of any hardware which is supported under mac but not on windows).
> apple hardware has bad support under anything but macOS and I can't think of any hardware which is supported under mac but not on windows
I had to read this a few times. You mean third-party hardware and peripherals, right? I first read it as running Windows on Mac hardware, which Bootcamp supports. Linux usually lags a few years and often isn't solid. Battery life usually isn't as good.
Paradoxical to your peripheral experience, I often much prefer macOS' experience to Windows with things like mice and printers since they often use standard, builtin tools instead of requiring third-party drivers with terrible UIs. For most things in the past 10-15+ years they support both Mac/Windows.
One pro Windows laptops usually have over Mac is the Mac webcams have the same quality from their laptops over a decade ago. Cameras are something Apple used to brag about (both including them standard and the quality of them).
I haven't had a Dell in awhile, 4+ years, but I have to say, the Macs that I've had felt just as sturdy as the day I bought it. My personal MBP I got is from early 2017, and my new MBP I got for work less than a year ago feel exactly the same, besides one having stickers I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
Every dell I've had starts creaking at the hinges after just a few uses. Doesn't feel as sturdy, the $600 difference is worth the longevity and integrity of the macbook hardware alone.
> A $600 price difference for this machine is probably worth it in my mind.
Agreed. Recently bought the 16 inch MBP after considering Lenovo and Dell. Prices between the machines weren't that much different (Lenovo came to 7200 minus some discount to bring it down to MBP price).
End of the day I didn't want to deal with Linux drivers (no M$ for me) and I wanted something that worked. Plus, the touchpad on an Apple device can't be beat. It's not a perfect machine, mainly Catalina issues I suspect, but worth it IMO.
Back then, Apple hardware only differentiated in hard disk spaces for the different prices and provided equal experience to users and now their lineup is such a mess and if you want 4 ports, you have to take 512GB space which is typically way too big and no clear distinction between Air and Pro but more like Pro is Air + all sorts of random options.
The xps is a plastic laptop with a plastic hinged small trackpad. The mbp trackpad alone is worth the extra money. I keep a laptop for 4-5 years. It’s not worth interacting thousands of times a day with an outdated subpar input device to save $10 a month.
I’ve been watching the xps closely and the internal stats are good but the “plastic laptop with a small hinged trackpad” aspect of it make it a no go for me at the price point.
Per the specs on the dell website, it's a milled aluminum chassis. Guess that could technically mean there's plastic somewhere, but they seem to be selling the fact it's not plastic.
Through some kind of engineering magic, they've been able to make it out of thin aluminum while still retaining the creaky plastic feeling Dell is known for.
The top shell and the bottom shell are thin aluminum but the rest of the laptop is plastic. The bottom assembly is a plastic body screwed into a thin aluminum shell. Unfortunately I don’t have a link but there are reviews on YouTube where people subject it to the “twist test” and the laptop body creaks and visibly twists under light manual force.
>I will say that even though I prefer the travel of the '12-'15 era keyboards, this typing experience is far superior than the faulty butterfly keys.
I still dont like the new Magic Keyboard travel. It feels to me exactly the same as butterfly. The whole typing experience just sucks. But given a lot of people ( DHH ) are saying it feels the same as Magic Keyboard on the iMac ( Which I will probably never understand ), the likelihood of that ever coming back to the Mac is near Zero. May be even Magic Keyboard on iMac will one day be the same as well.
I wonder if someone will make a plastic keyboard cover that adds back the few mm key travel, along with "artificial" buttons to cover up the Touch Bar.
In case anyone ask why not the MacBook Air, it is because the CPU run up to 90C with passive cooling. I dont know how long will the product last under medium load usage.
This comparison is at the higher end, but I am curious about the $1799 version of the Macbook Pro - with the new 10th Gen processors, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB storage.
Depending on what your needs are, the TouchID and T2 might be pros (or cons). Same thing with macOS, but that might simply be a matter of 'need it' and 'do not need it' and isn't much of a gradient. If you need macOS, you'll buy a Mac and the whole comparison matters a whole lot less.
I'd say - based on my experience w/ work-issued dell's, the Apple keyboard is better. Even the butterfly...the dell keys were prone to falling off (albeit I suppose you could repair them w/o replacing the entire chassis....)
I hope the Mac screen is still better. We bought a couple of Thinkpad T490's on discount. The internals are fine, good processors, battery life, keyboard, but the trackpad sucks and the screen is noticeably still worse than my 2014 MacBook Pro...
> I still miss mag-safe adapters though. I still don't understand that decision.
I really dislike the mag-safe adapter on my 2015 Mac (the first Mac I've ever had). It often feels like you only have to sneeze in the direction of the connector and it pops right off.
I get the problem they're trying to solve, I too don't want to go back to the old style of connector where you could accidentally rip it out of the motherboard. I just want something a little firmer than magsafe.
I'm guessing you have MagSafe2. I only had MagSafe1 laptops and thought they were great. I might be mistaken, but I thought I had heard of Apple tweaking the magnets on different models.
In my case, the Apple OS gives me exactly what I need. Apple holds all the cards, and are able to set the price. Wish it was lower, but I am glad the OS works as well as it does. The control that Apple has over both the hardware and software is key to that.
For others, Windows is exactly what they need (I see this a lot with hardware hacker stuff. It's very hard to get Apple versions of a lot of the tools I need). They do have a lot more choices, but I prefer my experience. Well worth the difference in price, for me.
Dell XPS + Linux Mint seems like it would be an incredible development machine. I used to love OS X because everything "just worked" and you still got a real bash environment. I think Linux has caught up in terms of UX. I installed Linux Mint on my desktop recently and Cinnamon is really nice. All the tools I need are there, and I had no drivers issues whatsoever.
I see little reason to continue buying into the Apple ecosystem. I switched from iPhone to an S9+ a couple years back and plan to keep this phone for at least another few years unless it dies.
I think in general people are getting sick of the upgrade cycle. Gadgets are getting good enough that they can last multiple release cycles. I think consumer electronics companies are going to need to find a way to evolve, or they really will be running into the classic "not enough consumers" problem.
I have an xps-13, and it has been pretty unreliable. The first one I got died mysteriously, luckily I was able to exchange it for a working one. After a couple years of occasional use, the screen died (my guess is it was probably just the cable).
I still don't use it unless I need more processing power, preferring to use my 2016 Macbook 12" for everything other than compiling Rust code. The Macbook has held up great, and I even did the infamous glued in battery replacement myself.
I will probably get a Macbook pro in the next few years instead of another non-mac computer.
1,106 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 393 ms ] threadI used to look forward to these announcements, now it's just 'we upgraded to a +1 generation config (still 1-2 generations behind what others are doing), that'll be 2000 bucks thanks'. Advertising 4 cores and 2018 Iris graphics as if it's some kind of achievement, when competitors have full dGpu solutions and 6 cores in same sized chassis at the same price bracket. They're taking a bit of a piss at this point.
(I'm still on a mid 2015 MBP and completely content to stay with it.)
No coil whine in mine. Touchpad idk, because I don't care that much about miniscule differences in touchpads, but it does the job as well as any high end laptop. All touchpads are trash imo, so I find it hard to prefer one over the other.
Most important for me when writing code is keyboard and screen. The kn is acceptable. The matte screen is a must for me. Even if it was all plastic, tbh I'd still take it for the matte screen.
Not a huge fan of matte screens either, I like pretty colors that pop and rarely work outside. Although I did have a privacy screen on my computer for a bit which was fun.
If you have your laptop permadocked, why do you care about touchpad? Surely you use a mouse?
Maybe the fit-and-finish is high grade but actualy _quality_ is alarmingly low, IMHO, especially for the price.
And if you're on a machine from 5 years ago, maybe you missed the recent plummet.
It's the BMW argument. Great interior, power, handling. Feels like quality. Actual quality sucks because the thing needs more repairs than a Toyota.
https://www.brainbok.com/guide/pmp/study-notes/quality-vs-gr...
My 2015 was the best laptop I've ever used by a longshot. Thinkpads of the same era match it in build quality and have slightly better keyboards but the touchpad and the Mac workflow are something I grew to love.
The keyboard on the 2017 was so bad when a coworker with an old model was showing me how to do something on my laptop he genuinely thought it was broken.
It's changing with Linux and WSL, but can't blame people to stay with macOS if it works for them.
Personally I'm using linux and thinkpad, but even x1 carbon falls short to MacBooks in areas I mentioned before.
Since Jobs died, the company has slowly allowed their development-focused machines and toolset to rot. The company now only caters to artists and it shows with their "Pro" offerings, including the Mac Pro.
As for the desktop features, all 3 major operating systems are the same. Claiming otherwise is not knowing how to use each of them.
I use Linux in (many) VMs where I have to in order to run esoteric toolchains for embedded stuff. There is no distribution of Linux that provides bulletproof basic desktop usability anywhere near the level of OS X or Windows 10. Nothing even in the same ballpark. And I've used Linux since the days when Slackware came on a set of 3.5" floppies, so I'm not some Linux hater or incompetent here -- I've got a significant amount of experience with the OS in many of its flavors. When you can get any distribution of Linux to accurately handle plugging in external monitors every time, maybe we can talk.
Xcode is an excellent IDE - it's second really only to Visual Studio.
My only complaint about Macs today is the Touch Bar, because they replaced my f-keys with it and it's useless to me as a developer. That's at least partially mitigated by my das keyboard.
Nearly every other dev I know uses a MacBook Pro. The Mac Pro is a production machine for movies, it's not really part of the discussion here.
For desktop in bare metal, Linux is extremely bad, yes, but most people use it as a desktop in a VM within another host OS.
Xcode is an excellent IDE... if you don't know better or are into iOS/Swift development (due to legal reasons).
I know nobody that uses a MacBook Pro in my field. I know it is common in webdev and specially mobile dev fields, though, so I give you that.
Your claim was this:
"As for the desktop features, all 3 major operating systems are the same. Claiming otherwise is not knowing how to use each of them." -- that's a demonstrably false statement, which you're apparently trying to walk back now by claiming server installations are the same as desktop use. Linux has essentially zero desktop market share, because it's a very poor desktop OS, and is in no way comparable to either of the leading desktop operating systems, which was your claim. And no one I know uses Linux as a desktop inside another OS. Plenty of people use an ssh session into a Linux machine to compile things, but that's not using it as a desktop. Very few people would want to use an OS in a VM as their main desktop, especially since that doesn't even resolve the issues that make it a terrible desktop OS!
I'm using Xcode on a MacBook Pro to do C++ development for an embedded system right now. I've used it to write C applications in the past. I don't do webdev ever and generally don't do mobile. Nearly everyone in my field uses a MacBook Pro, for everything from firmware development up. The webdev kids seem to be the the Linux zealots from what I've seen.
You are forgetting Android, embedded, web servers, networking equipment of all kinds, HPC and supercomputing, HFT, automotive, aerospace and many other fields.
Linux is, by far, the operating system with the most deployed systems out there.
> that's a demonstrably false statement, which you're apparently trying to walk back now by claiming server installations are the same as desktop use
I am not backing from anything, and I have not claimed anything about servers so far until this post.
Linux is the third desktop operating system, whether you like it or not. At home, in fact, it is not that far from macOS (4%), Linux (1%).
Given you talk about "demonstrable" things, I refer you to surveys like Steam's.
At work, Windows is even more prevalent, and those surveys do not include VM (work/non-gaming) usage where most people I know use it.
> Nearly everyone in my field uses a MacBook Pro, for everything from firmware development up
Perhaps you are in the US, where Apple has a disproportionate market share (up to 30% IIRC) compared to anywhere else in the world. I also work on embedded and no one uses a Mac here, nor Xcode. A ThinkPad or a Dell with a Linux VM is the proper choice. Xcode for firmware development sounds very odd, too.
Android is barely Linux (and if you want to add mobile phones into the discussion you'd have to realize that iOS is actually the same thing as OS X..), and the rest aren't desktop operating systems at all -- and many of them don't run Linux either.
But again, the context, and your comment, was about the desktop. Linux isn't there.
You call Linux the "third" desktop operating system by default because its desktop share isn't exactly zero. It's quite close to zero, but not exactly. That's all.
Windows & OS X are the only major desktop operating systems.
And yes, I'm in the US. I'm not sure that really matters that much. Obviously different shops will do things differently. You don't use a Mac, so your worldview is that they aren't a thing. That's simply not correct. There's a wide world outside your bubble. A Thinkpad / Dell with a Linux VM is your choice, not "the proper" choice.
I'm not an OS zealot -- I use both of the major desktop operating systems, and I use others where they're appropriate -- have used Linux for decades. Until Linux has MS Office running natively on it, it will never have a desktop market. No, it's still not the year of the Linux Desktop. Probably never will be.
And Xcode is a perfectly usable C & C++ IDE. Why wouldn't you use it for firmware?
It will shock you to learn that most stuff out there now works on Linux and soft RT Linux. For hard RT where Linux does not fit the bill, specialized operating systems are used.
> Android is barely Linux
It is actually 100% Linux.
> the rest aren't desktop operating systems at all
Luckily not everyone working on about half a dozen of them thinks like you!
> You call Linux the "third" desktop operating system by default because its desktop share isn't exactly zero.
1% is "near zero"? So millions and millions of desktops are "zero"?
We should be telling Canonical, Valve, Microsoft and hundreds of other companies that depend on "desktop" Linux to work!
> And yes, I'm in the US. I'm not sure that really matters that much.
As I explained, the market share in the US is wildly different than in the rest of the world.
> You don't use a Mac, so your worldview is that they aren't a thing.
Hah. I have used Apple systems and Xcode for many years. I own (have owned, my last was right before the Touch Bar debacle) several Macs in my life. That is why I know a decade ago they were on top of their game and now the ecosystem sucks for devs.
In another thread I said I think the culture of the Mac died with Jobs and the company switched to the profitable part too much (the iPhones and such).
> Until Linux has MS Office running natively on it, it will never have a desktop market.
Desktop market != Office market. Of course Linux has almost no market on typical companies with employees doing Word and Excel 8-5.
> And Xcode is a perfectly usable C & C++ IDE. Why wouldn't you use it for firmware?
Because everything else is just plainly better, or open source, or free, or cross-platform, or...
Yes, Xcode is perfectly usable for C++. SublimeText + plugins is perfectly usable, too. I can also do my job pretty well with gedit or vim or emacs. And if needed I can do it with bloody Notepad too. That does not mean I choose them nor that they are the best.
Android is not 100% Linux. It's a phone OS that runs a Linux kernel and essentially nothing else that even looks like a desktop Linux (remember, that's the discussion).
Yes, 1% is near zero. For desktop use, the only people who use Linux are devs who are completely buried in the Linux world, and OS zealots. The market outside of that vanishingly small sector of desktop users is zero -- not close to zero, not 1%, zero. No one runs Linux on the desktop because they want to run Linux on the desktop -- you don't even do it. They run it because they have no other alternative, or because their religion demands it.
Nothing has changed in the Mac "ecosystem" to make their machines worse for devs in the last ten years. I'm really at a loss to even begin to understand what you are talking about here. It simply isn't so.
Again, your opinion is that you don't like Xcode. Nothing else you've posted suggests a real fact.
I've written plenty of code in vi -- even in ed, in Netbeans, whatever. I like Xcode because it works really well, and if you're in the Mac ecosystem it's designed to work well there. I don't care if an IDE is open source, I don't care if it's "free" (Xcode is), and I don't care if it's cross platform. Those items mean nothing to me, they do nothing for me. If I need to write on a linux system I'll pull up netbeans or eclipse. Or I'll write it in an ssh session using vi. So what?
You're continuing to state your opinions as though they are some objective fact. You don't like Macs for some reason since Jobs died. That's your opinion. It doesn't match that of many others.
Mostly I don't care about OSX. Some days i actually would prefer Linux. The reason I'm on OSX though is because I've been down the Linux desktop road, many times, and between the software and/or faulty configuration experience I use avoid it.
Random problems when I'm trying to work drive me mad. I use OSX to avoid problems.
The design tools may also work on windows, but the development story is hilariously bad. And no, WSL 1 or 2 with all their performance hits and weird edgecases don't qualify at all to a native unix shell.
Linux is superior to macos for software development, but the creative software support is non-existant.
Really, for someone like me (and I bet there are many others like me) Macos is the the only os that works.
They don't have the TrackPoint, only glossy screens, not even 16:9, no Linux support, only one battery instead of two replacable ones, and so on.
But if only Apple would release Unix computers that would be a moot point I guess.
It's been years since an X-series has had a removable battery and the option for two of them. Decent-quality screens are a significant upcharge and even then barely match the Apple screen. And going over to their website, an X1 carbon 7th gen with a 10th gen Intel processor still uses LPDDR3, just like the Apple.
If you do a real comparison - beyond just "processor cores/speed, ram and disk quantity", you'll find that there really isn't a huge difference in price for specs and that you can comfortably buy the one you prefer and not feel ripped off.
FWIW, most of the T series also have a good number of FRUs (field-replaceable units, what customers can easily swap out). Some models, especially the "s" versions, will have some soldered RAM but often the non-"s" versions will allow you to swap out both sticks. Wireless chips and SSDs are user-replaceable. Internal batteries are held in by screws and not glue so they're easy to replace when they age. Pretty easy to work on overall. My T460s is over 4 years old and still going strong.
Removable batteries were more important back when batteries sucked, now they last the life of the machine.
All LiIon batteries are around 80-85% of capacity in around 350-500 charge cycles given a decent controller and no excessive heat (which macbooks are overall bad at).
Serviceable batteries are very important.
Hold on, I would actually buy a macbook if the hardware wouldn't be annoyingly incompatible with Linux.
Still, even with all the software and hardware issues of the recent years, there is something in Apple's computers that makes me want to keep using them.
We have some at work and I don't think they are worth the money. Same for the Surface Book. I have it as my main laptop now but I think I will go back to a HP ZBook.
Definitely all advantages!
Let's also ignore all vendors with laptops that have better hardware, better warranty or better prices.
I have FireWire hardware still around that I have no plan on replacing until it breaks.
Around half my games are 32-bit.
I have a library of BluRays with my favorite shows at home. I also bought some kid shows for my daughter 6 months ago that came in a DVD set.
But yeah, go laugh and make a comparison with PS/2. Everyone I listed is still in use today and many laptop vendors provide ports for them. Some will go out soon, some won't for years.
If I have "extremely niche needs", then why do almost all laptops sold include Ethernet/RJ-45, several USB-A ports, HDMI output, card readers, etc.?
Not everyone has bought into $50 USB-C dongle land.
I can’t tell you the last time I saw a coworker directly use anything other than the USB-C port on their laptops, even on Lenovos with other ports. It’s only a matter of time.
Honestly, the “$50 USB-C dongle” has been great. I plug in a single cord and it provides two displays, power, USB, and Ethernet. This is everything that work laptop docks promised decades ago, except it’s an open standard! If I were to switch from a Mac to a Dell or a Lenovo, I wouldn’t need to change a thing about my current setup. Heck, I don’t even use an Apple power charger when traveling anymore, since my Anker is smaller and can barely keep my MBP topped off.
If anything they should be complaining about the continued use of the lightning adapter on iOS devices.
Well, that or Qi. I don’t plug my phone in often anymore.
Why would I ask for dongle. I know plenty of sales people who live and die by adapters like these: https://www.amazon.com/QGeeM-Adapter-Thunderbolt-Compatible-...)
You seem to want the equivalent of a Homermobile for laptops.
Yes, streaming platforms are convenient, but no, I don't want to be limited to whatever Disney+ or Apple Arcade wants me or my kid to watch/play. I choose what shows/games are worth, not the other way around. I will pay to watch a show in streaming, but I don't pay streaming to have something to watch. If that makes sense...
Open the drive, put DVD in, click "go" on HandBrake. Rinse and repeat.
You have all the time in the world to work while your machine is encoding them. And Plex makes the organization brainless.
Ever thought about buying your own dongle? Sincle you give many conference talks it might be a great investment :)
That was the point...
You probably mean IEEE-1394
There are some 4k models, but those bring more weird fractional scaling problems with them (especially bad on Linux), have battery life and are usually super expensive.
Oh ... and it's all 14 or 15" models. I'd happily take a 17 or 19" laptop - I just want enough portability so I can carry it around in a bag while commuting and have it on a desk most of the time, but, while there are some okay 17" offerings (barely any "pro" devices, though, so no swappable RAM) there is not one (apart from the insanely expensive ZBook) offering with a higher than FHD screen.
What the fuck?! Why? Don't most people use their laptops as only somewhat portable work stations? Am I the only one who finds a larger screen with more content useful?
?!?!?!!?!?
But it's just cherrypicking isn't it...
Never been a mac person, but I do agree it appears to be a bit lackluster. Its not the same comparison, but for ~1800 a new home workstation with 2070 Super / 3900x 12 core CPU becomes a pretty powerful machine.
I have an xps-15 for work and it's... it's okay. It's decent hardware. But I want a mac because I need a non-Windows environment and I'm just dead tired of all the jank in Ubuntu. I no-longer try to undock it because doing so is either a full reboot or the resolution/scaling gets messed up and video memory corrupts (my fonts became colour vomits).
For me, buying a Mac is basically, "here's a ton of money. Now I don't have to think about these things for 7 years." (except the last few macs questionable hardware absolutely ruined this peace of mind...)
im thinking about moving to ubuntu, what sort of jank is annoying you?
At any rate, in Ubuntu's case things like display support are worse - especially multiple different DPI screens (yes, there are workarounds). UI is less slick in places. Some software is better supported while some have worse support. Things like that.
Until this pandemic forced me to make do with one monitor at home, I rarely used the built in screen on my work laptops; I counted on the dual monitors on my desk. The idea of using a laptop display alone is baffling to me.
a 24-27" monitor suitable for coding is only $200-300. if you code for money, it seems like a no brainer to just get two.
If you have a wide or ultra wide monitor, it is better. Otherwise, a good desktop manager with virtual desktops helps a ton.
Other than that, my brain and neck both work a lot better with one large 4K display (currently 27" but I've been thinking about going 32").
I've got an entire monitor (really a 55" 4k TV) devoted to all the chat windows and communications I'm running for my team, another 4k monitor that I actually use to code, and then my laptop sits to the side as an auxiliary monitor where I can look things up and what not.
Frustrations I've had to deal with in MacOs that have just not been pain points in other OSes (yeah, not even on Ubuntu):
* No DisplayPort MST support[1]. I spent a large chunk of money on a monitor that had MST so I could daisy chain across two monitors and charge my laptop all with one cable and no separate dock sitting on my desk. I was heartbroken to see that it JustWorks™ on Windows 10 using the MacBook or desktop, but not on MacOS. I ended up needing to buy another expensive dock and sacrifice some desk real estate.
* If you use bluetooth audio headsets, the sound balance randomly shifts to the right if you change volume while the CPU is under load[2].
* No built in window snapping or hotkeys is kind of ridiculous in 2020. Yeah, I have paid for apps like BetterTouchTool and Moom, but it's ridiculous that this is something users have to buy standalone. I often end up assisting coworkers on their machines, and it sucks when they don't have anything setup for snapping.
* Turning WiFI off and back on quickly sometimes results in the second action being ignored. That's such a ridiculous bug to still be there.
At this point, the only killer MacOS exclusive apps I still use are iTerm2 and Homebrew (and I guess XCode out of necessity for iOS/Mac target compilation). If Apple keeps on the trajectory they've been on, I feel like I'll shift away from MacBooks for my next machine.
[1]: https://medium.com/@sebvance/everything-you-need-to-know-abo...
[2]: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/280145/macbook-pro...
Since forever... Ok, perhaps adding the SSDs was a great touch. However, Apple is considered a fashion brand, where you pay more for the brand, itself. In virtually any regard Lenovo business laptops are a better price/value proposition: easily extensible - more memory, m2 slots, docking, pcb with conformal coating, easily serviceable keyboard, touch pads, replaceable battery, etc. A lot better thermals, like a lot. And when it comes to perf. it's not even remotely close.
And yes, multiple USB-A slots, HDMI, display port, rj-45, no dongle nonsense.
Sure on the specs/$ they were better, but overall I preferred my macbooks.
In my personal life, my 2010 pro is still going strong. My mother uses it now - no complaints. Some things have failed, the optical drive. But man is that thing a tank.
XPS 13 has had thin bezel for a long time now. Sporting smaller chassis than macs on same screen size. Here's first google result, from 2015:
https://www.ibtimes.com/dell-xps-12-xps-13-xps-15-hands-ultr...
And here is a list of various laptops with thin bezels from different brands:
https://www.colourmylearning.com/2018/09/laptops-with-minima...
When was the last time that over a period of years each update to a MacBook Pro was a monumental upgrade? Maybe early 2000s when they went from PowerPC to Intel? I think you’re just remembering this rosier than it really was.
They should change their ambiguous tone and show the real progress in these mac.
I can absolutely get a better laptop at a reasonable price than these products and the features that offers and be more productive.
Between selling cpu's 2 generations behind, the keyboard issues, and thermal problems in the Macbook Airs, it really seems like Apple is trying its best to alienate buyers from their laptop line. Just recommended a coworker a Macbook Air for her son, an i7, 16Gb of RAM and 512Gb SSD. From off to account creation, the fan was already running. By the time the laptop was showing the desktop it was burning to touch. Some more testing and I found out the CPU was at 94-98ºC after 4 minutes. Turns out it is by design (just take a look at the photos of the cpu cooler, separated from the fan https://www.ifixit.com/News/36480/theres-something-new-in-th...). She just returned the laptop and is exploring options from Dell and Lenovo.
Even if you like MacOS, you now have to wait before buying anything Apple until you can see a teardown just to see if it's going to survive even casual use.
What thermal problems? I have had the Air 2020 in the Core i5 configuration for two weeks and the fan rarely spins up. Even when it does, I can touch the hottest part of the laptop without problems.
From off to account creation, the fan was already running.
That's not strange. Spotlight spends the first whatever amount of time on indexing the hard drive. Indexing implies parsing various files/file formats. This usually ends when indexing is done.
With the fixed keyboard, the MacBook Air 2020 is finally a MacBook that I love again, which I can't really say of the two butterfly Pros I had before (with the first I really disliked the keyboard, the second had a Touch Bar and I always had trouble pressing the Esc key blindly).
Edit-they're actually selling the 10th gen chip, not 8th gen like you describe
Not the 13". It was still packing a Core 2 Duo and the screen was 1280x800, when the Air was running 1440x900. The battery life was amazing, though!
It's been like this since forever. I can't remember a point in time where price per performance was a selling point for apple products, barring seriously oldschool machines.
They had the build quality + trendy side of the market shored up for a small time, but even then thinkpads were an easy match, albeit extremely untrendy.
For the last long while, since the regoodification of dell and the general shift towards catching up with mac in build quality across the market, they've been a poor choice for anyone looking to maximize their value.
I'm frankly shocked that someone finds this surprising these days.
No headphone port on the SE, forced touchbar on MBP.
My next laptop may not be a Mac because of the touchbar.
First, Apple hardware was never bleeding edge even in 2010. That’s not ever how they operated. They’ve really never played the spec war. They don’t even publicly state the RAM spec in the iPhone while Android competitors make it into a price segmenting feature.
What these computers give out is all the stuff people really care about.
The computer’s shape and even the large ancient-looking top bezel are giving you a more comfortable typing surface compared to the XPS 13 where your palms slip off the edge if your hands are too big.
https://youtu.be/5hMie-xZFzQ
Skip forward to the part talking about typing comfort.
The speakers in the Air and Pro are best in class and nothing comes close. That’s something the customer will notice and care about.
The microphones in Apple machines are incredible. Something the customer will notice and care about when they use the computer on conference calls.
And nobody else has made a trackpad anywhere near as good. Still.
I dispute the assertion that there’s a computer out there in this same form factor with a discrete GPU at a similar price point with similar specs, and if there is I’m sure it’s a GeForce MX and not a GTX or RTX, in other words, not really worth the trouble. In reality, nobody buying this class of computer gives a shit about the graphics card. Investing battery life into one is a bad trade-off. I’d also like to see this mythical computer you speak of, what model are you talking about?
I also dispute your claims on pricing in general. Dell, for example, places a gate on 16GB of RAM and the high DPI display to the highest XPS 13 model. It’s way less configurable than a similar Mac. A lot of Windows computers that seem to be equivalent to Macs omit features like a high DPI display or make them an upgrade and act like 1080p is “good enough” for customer spending almost a grand or more and doing mostly text work. I find that oversight unacceptable: a high DPI display should absolutely be standard on any computer over $700 that isn’t intended for gaming, IMO.
Expecting 6 cores or the very latest generation of every component is beside the point. Nobody notices that stuff. Only benchmarks can see the difference.
What actually makes a good computer is good ergonomics, good display, good battery life, good speakers, good microphones. The hardware internals are, in 2020 when computer performance is improving at a slower rate than ever before, nearly a complete afterthought.
What are those important areas?
- Speakers, Mic, Webcam - Trackpad - Aluminum chassis and form factor - Touch ID - Mac OS (like it or not, this is perhaps the most important feature for those considering Macs.)
It's very possible the competitive landscape has changed since 2010 and they are placing more focus on these ancillary features than before, but the strategy has always appeared to be to deliver a superior holistic machine. I, and their financials would argue they have been doing that from before 2010 through now.
Arrogance is an Apple trademark, but they now have become complacent regarding their products ( not their financial performance though.. )
EDIT:
maybe 4 cores are enough for development using non-compiled languages, and if you don't use Chrome and Electron apps, and not running several VMs and docker containers.
Some programming languages like Julia and Erlang/Elixir will happily use all the cores available on your laptop to speed up calculations, run builds, tests and other development tasks.
It all works without hitch and if there is a hitch it is typically Chrome or Gnome misbehaving, not lack of cores.
I get this all the time with my MacBook that I use for development. Run 1 or 2 of them is fine, but 10 or more at the same time and it will run the machine down to the ground.
The advantage is that it allows people to make windows, Mac and Linux apps with ease.
They're not going to go anywhere unless there is a better alternative.
Coding native is a waste of money in most cases. Especially for a chat app.
Hardware manufactures sell computers. The computers they sell need to be able to perform well on the applications that exist today.
There's no point saying the apps are shitty if the laptop they're trying to sell doesn't run well with it.
Maybe today laptops should have 16gb of ram at a minimum.
AMD's resurgence has shown Intel in some cases dropping the price of their CPUs by 50%. Maybe cheaper computers need to be more powerful.
I don't agree with it ideologically because I moved to mac because I loved how Cocoa apps felt, but honestly Microsoft has the right idea in just embracing it because it isn't going anyway any time soon so best just to make sure they run well on your platform.
But saying that 4 cores is ridiculous misses the truth. A lot of people, myself included, use 4 core machines completely successfully.
If you need more, there is absolutely nothing wrong with paying more for more powerful machine. It's just not every PC on the market has to have absolutely most powerful configuration available at the moment.
Eh, my mid-2015 MBP with an i7-4780HQ and 16gb of memory will do for now. I occasionally bump into the memory limit but hopefully I can hold out until a fully sane keyboard is an option.
Either that or hacklapintosh it
I actually really like the touch bar. I don't use it very often, but I never used function keys.
The Touch Bar is, at its core, an anti-pattern for people who cannot touch type and frankly a cop-out because Apple didn't want to add a touch screen (due to the high cost of updating MacOS).
A touch bar that was pressure sensitive with haptic feedback would fix it for me, but mixing keys that you need to press down with a screen you just have to touch in the same area just creates a mess.
Additionally, the Touch Bar has awful latency... hundreds of milliseconds to reconfigure itself when switching between apps??
I used a macbook with a touchbar for about 6 months. Never again.
Hopefully Apple comes to its senses some day and creates a computer that is designed for actual work, where a single beard follicle is not going to make it unusable midday.
My last one is T440s which I bought immediately it was available and still wait for it to die. I would like a MBP but seeing what the Thinkpad went through I just don't think so. I spilled stuff on it not once but twice, once hot latte and once a liter of mineral water in a bag. I had to open it and stand it on its side while open so that water drains out of it... Then I had to disassemble it and dry individual leaves of which the screen is composed of.
I had to take the rest of the day off in both cases to save my laptop but other than that I was ready for work the next day, files intact, tools in place.
Weird thing to belittle someone over there man.
I'm sorry, but 8GB LPDDR3 and 256GB SSD with 2 USB-C ports and jet engine fans aren't really that "Pro".
Why does a computer have to be cheap-ish to be “pro”?
That is, if I could remember the specific details.
Which raises the question, why would anyone (who doesn't care about the Touch Bar) buy the 1499 MacBook Pro and not the 1499 MacBook Air? The Air is slower in multi-core benchmarks, but offers double the SSD at that price (512GB), has 3733‑MHz LPDDR4 memory, and has a more power-efficient 10th generation CPU, AVX-512, and probably better GPU.
Yes there is, it's clearly there in every picture of the keyboard.
I for one prefer the butterfly keyboard. So the magic keyboard is at best a neutral move (I think a downgrade). For those folks who loathe the butterfly, I'm sure they'll be delighted at a 13" with the new magic keyboard. For me, it looks like the 2018 will continue to be on my desk. Happy that I maxed it at time of purchase.
Maybe an ARM Macbook in 2021 is in my future.
Semi-sarcasm.
I’m not convinced by the value of the thirteen inch pro versus the air. Same screen size, keyboard, and ports. Similar upgrade path.
I know that not all i5/i7 etc are created equal, and the 13 inch pro uses chips that draw more power, but could someone explain the more concrete difference in performance that a user would see day to day?
The idea is that the additional room in the boost clock should allow you to open new chrome tabs and load GMail slightly faster, but if you're doing any sort of sustained performance task, you're going to hit thermal limits within a minute or two.
I prefer the butterfly. I got the new 16 and promptly returned it. I missed the crispness of the butterfly.
It is faster in things like Geekbench or browser benchmarks, and if you're buying the Air you're probably not using it to do heavy lifting.
The new Pro 13 (except for the most expensive configuration) have 8th generation CPUs, whereas the Air has 10th generation GPUs. Usually newer Intel generations have more extensive support for hardware encoding/decoding. The Air 2020 CPUs support AVX-512. The 2020 Airs have a faster GPU. Finally, the Airs have 3733 MHz LPDDR4X RAM and the Pros 2133 MHz LPDDR3. It's not always a given that these 8th generation Pros will be faster on a given task.
Compiling on multiple cores, most probably. Video encoding, decoding, etc. Not necessarily.
It is faster in things like Geekbench or browser benchmarks,
Single core, the Air 2020's CPU is a tad faster than the 8th generation that they put in these MacBook Pros. Multicore the Pros win, but by not that wide a margin.
For most people, the MacBook Pro 13" 2020 in the first two configurations (1499 and 1799) will be nearly equally fast for most practical purposes. So, it's mostly about whether you prefer the extra storage of the Air at the same price point or the Touch Bar. If you want something faster than ballpark Air, you should get the most expensive configuration or the Pro 16".
Not that we are flying anytime soon. Could as well get an iMac...
Also, the base CPU is an 8th gen chip, you need to fork out a lot of extra $$$ to get to 10th gen.
And the only reason I want that RAM is for Chrome.
Reading through this, I can't help but think this feels like Apple's 2.5Ghz PowerMac G5 all over again, back in like 2004.
Back then, they promised a 3Ghz G5 CPU in under a year and IBM just couldn't do it. Apple even noted it as why they were switching to Intel at the time. They couldn't keep promises and it seemingly pissed Steve off to the point of basically trashing them on stage.
This order sheet only makes sense if you think: 'What would they do if Apple couldn't get enough 10th gen parts and they showed up late?'
Obviously they would skew them to the high end models as they move mostly lower spec models. That way your product line still offers the fastest Intel hardware. But it makes for a messy nonsensical spec sheet that confuses customers.
When should I get the 8th Gen i7 that Turbos to 4.5Ghz but then when should I get the 10th Gen i7 that Turbos to 4.1Ghz?
You know what floored me?
This press release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/05/apple-updates-13-inch...
It seems to not mention 'Intel' until nearly half way through and exclusively uses it as a technical descriptor twice. (not `Intel's newest processors`, but instead the `10th Generation Intel Core' and 'Intel Iris Plus') The first reference to the CPU just calls them '10th gen processors'. It's like watching a person refer to an ex. This is the first Macbook Pro with a 10nm processor...why don't they say that?
This mess of product line just isn't Apple-like...And I think it has them pissed.
Makes the switch to their own ARM chips even more plausible.
(p.s. - I mentioned the fans not because it's an important spec for consumers, but to highlight that the two variants are physically different internally, it's not just about swapping in a 28W CPU for a 15W one)
What's really sad is that none of this decline was necessary. All they had to do was leave the perfect laptop alone, and go on upgrading the internals. Were they selling the 2010-2012 MBPs at a loss or something?
Could have been fixed within a year but it would have cost more money so nah just ship a faulty product for 4 years they'll eat it up anyway and replace it when we were gonna do a redesign anyway.
Ignoring that me buying 5 chargers across the life of a device is far worse for the environment than just 1.
My Titanium Powerbook charger still remains un-frayed and I used that laptop everyday for 9 years.
I upgraded to a thinkpad.
Interestingly on that model the RAM is running at a higher speed (3733MHz LPDDR4X vs. 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory)
I'm still running my MBP from 2015 which is mostly fine, but Firefox and co. eat the RAM so would be good for an update. Although for work I use the 16" 2019 model with 32GB and Firefox uses 27GB of that quite easily...
> djhworld
At least Apple seems to have listened to customer feedback here.
I gave up on Mac when they broke their keyboards and started locking me out of everything. Once my macbook died, I never looked back.
Also, regarding other comments on “just” the 4 core CPU - it’s probably all they could squeeze in without having to redesign the chassis/thermal design. I’m going to hold off for a tear down to see if they have improved the cooling system like they did (Or claimed to) with the 16” version.
I think a lot of these are bought by corporate bean counters and people who assume that Airs must be awful if they’re the most affordable.
(Yes, I’ve used them, my current “burner” is a ‘17 escape key model)
* Svelte enough to watch Netflix in bed with or throw in my bag to take on a commute
* Powerful enough that I never had major performance issues when plugged in at my desk at work, driving an external monitor
I look back on that machine and those internships fondly, and I could see myself going for a 13" MBP (or 14", if they ever release it) when I next need to upgrade my laptop - after I finish undergrad :)
Ideally Macbook Pros would be thicker and heavier for better thermals and performance, and then Airs would have a purpose again.
For me the 13'' is the perfect balance between mobility and performance. At least for web dev, obviously not for video editing or gaming.
The Pro is barely any thicker and barely any heavier.
If you don’t need one, you won’t have to care about tweaking for power consumption (like adding utilities to force disable it) and your laptop will be less likely to take off like a jet engine.
I had to take the 15” to get the 32G RAM on the previous iteration, and it made me wish I could have had a 13” option at that time.
Dell came out to $2399[0] USD and Apple came out to $2999[1] USD.
Dell Pros:
* Row of function buttons (I've used BTT to customize my touch-bar to the point where it's a little bit of a tossup, but years of muscle memory still haunt me)
* Better processor (maybe [2])
* Cheaper
* MicroSD reader
Apple Pros:
* Better Trackpad
* More Ports (Upgraded Dell only has 2 USB-C, while Upgraded MBP has 4)
* Better hardware support
* Better resale value
Objectively, seems to me that list used to be a lot longer on the Apple side. IMHO I think the Touch Bar disappointment is probably over dramatized by developers, it's not too bad a couple years in and BTT has made it so I can run whatever macros I want in any application, so overall tossup in my mind. I still miss mag-safe adapters though. I still don't understand that decision.
Also, I'm happy with the new Magic Keyboard. I have the 16 inch MBP right now, and I will say that even though I prefer the travel of the '12-'15 era keyboards, this typing experience is far superior than the faulty butterfly keys.
I'm hoping given how they've walked the keyboard back, and how the new Mac Pro is actually a Pro machine that they're headed back in the right direction (post Jony Ive). A $600 price difference for this machine is probably worth it in my mind, just given my experience with resale value, longevity and lack of competitors, but there's a lot of room improvement.
[0] https://imgur.com/a/p6RA9HF
[1] https://imgur.com/a/f6ii7h9
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23067768
Mostly annoyed now, because you are correct, it's running at 15W[0][1].
[0] https://imgur.com/a/ry5eAIy
[1] source for [0] (pg 11) https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/xps-13-7390-2-in-1-laptop_se...
My biggest disappointment in this 13" upgrade is that it is still 13 inch. The display quality has increased over the years, but resolution/size has stayed the same since 2012.
That and the continued use of the same 720P webcam. Hopefully we get a FaceID enabled mac in 2021 where they put in a decent camera.
My $800 13” HP Envy for example only has about 2mm of bezels on its 4k display.
Apple is falling behind here which is strange considering how much they fetishize thinness.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22957573
[2]: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-find...
Things went downhill rather quickly. I've had massive cooling issues, I've removed and replaced the thermal paste. I've been forced to operate the laptop on the "Cool" thermal setting; downgrading the performance of the processor. Now, the two of the screws in palm rest, which hold the screen in place, have sheered right off. Doing some digging, this was commonplace with this particular model.
I'm not doing anything particularly intense either. Docker with a few containers running a dev website.
I can't speak for the latest XPS 15 7590 build quality however.
I bought a macbook and use the dell charger (udb-c) to charge my macbook.
Okay, I thought. $200, maybe $300, including parts and labor.
Not quite. They wanted $879. "Maybe we should look at getting you into a new Macbook instead?"
No thanks. It was almost never used unplugged anyway.
600 is pricey for a mainboard replacement, but none of the other vendors are much better, including Apple. I previously had a Thinkpad that died shortly out of warranty, and they actually wanted more to fix it than I paid for it new.
on any intensive work it would get so hot that i could not rest my hands on it.
What followed was a year of fan noise, thermal throttling, GPU switching problems and many hours lost trying to get the right combination of Ubutunu + Nvida drivers working.
So when my house was burgled and that machine got stolen, I went back to the XPS13 form factor. Smaller, lighter, longer battery life, quieter. Only disadvantage being the max of 16GB RAM.
Once the XPS13 finally arrives with 32GB RAM I may well upgrade again.
The new MacBook Pro may tempt me, but I am certainly not giving up proper function keys.
Except MacOS.
Cooling is sub-par, but I think that's mostly due to the Intel i9-8950HK running way over the advertised TDP during Turbo. Dell has been tweaking their cooling profile in subsequent BIOS updates, at with the latest version (1.15) they're quite aggressive on ramping up the fans to keep things cool. Which is good from a performance perspective, but really annoying to sit beside all day. While I didn't experience severe thermal throttling, I did end up disabling Turbo as it made the laptop sound like a jet engine too often for my taste.
My only other complaint would be that despite Dell's claims of 100W+ power delivery from their ThunderBolt dock (above and beyond what USB-C PD can deliver), I frequently find the laptop discharging the battery under moderate load (high CPU, idle dGPU) when connected via USB-C to the dock. Using the supplied DC charger solves this, but it's still a poor user experience.
At my previous employer I had a 2017 MBP. IMHO an XPS/Precision is a better option as you can (in no particular order): upgrade the RAM, upgrade the SSD, run Linux on it, and (until the new MBP release) had a much better keyboard experience.
As others have noted, Dell's enterprise warranty support is fantastic. I was able to invoke the warranty to replace a motherboard in a Latitude I bought used on eBay; they sent a technician to my house to replace it free of charge.
If you live in a city with good Dell support, you could probably have managed to replace it. Sounds like a hardware problem.
Hardly, considering the lack of professional tools support outside Hollywood movie makers.
Writers and sound engineers are still firmly in the Mac camp though due to their tools being mac exclusives.
We use 0 apple specific apps. We write python and Vue.js using pycharm.
So from a business use case, do you want windows, Linux, or Mac hot keys? Python and everything runs everywhere.
(Biggest problem is Windows Home doesn’t run Docker as well, but it can be worked around)
A lot of the hardware things I liked about Mac laptops got stripped off (MagSafe, charging indicator, SD card slot).
I imagine everything else is up to personal workflow. My wife was looking at another Mac laptop because she wanted to transition GarageBand projects from her iPad. Since, in practice, the files often crash when doing this and she has to export/import that workflow is useless and she's looking at a Windows laptop.
I'd be curious what kind of things you would put on your list.
FaceTime, iPhone, sms/iMessage integration that works even when phone is not nearby.
T2 chip/Secure Enclave.
Easier to use full disk encryption.
Note’s built in capability to encrypt specific notes with a private, unrecoverable password.
Faster system software updates.
Most apps shipping as DMG rather than installer packages, which allows me to install them without granting admin rights.
Family members who have macs ask me for help far less than those with windows.
The trackpad is vastly superior. I actually prefer thinkpad-style trackpoints, but thinkpads aren’t what they used to be. The Mac trackpad feels good to touch, the taptic full-pad pseudo-clicking is superior to physical button presses, and the multi-pressure level support is occasionally useful. The gestures work well and feel natural.
Find my Mac/iPod/iPhone is implemented in a privacy preserving method. It’s also super useful to be able to simply say to my laptop “hey Siri, where is my phone?” to have it trigger the audio beacon.
The speakers on the new 16” MBP are excellent. I use my headphones much less now.
I love the look of Macbook monitors more than most pc laptop monitors. Of course, some pc laptops have comparable or exactly the same panel, but the price goes up pretty fast.
Photos is an imperfect replacement for Picasa (RIP). However it has some features my family loves, like automatically figuring out groups of related events and generating movies from photos of family trips, then surprising me with a phone notification.
Many of the built in apps feature end-to-end encryption.
I feel like windows 10 is always spying on me. I have to spend hours configuring a fresh windows install to turn off all the garbage. Not signing into a Microsoft account with windows 10 causes all kinds of limitations, like not being able use fingerprint readers.
The microphone array on the new MBP works very well such a shame it wasn’t paired with a better camera.
Access to a terminal. I spend most of my time in vim. WSL just isn’t comparable (yet) in terms of integration and ease of use.
There are also things that are much worse about macs, but that aren’t dealbreakers for me:
Horrible software quality, going back decades, in ways that really matter. The only times I’ve ever lost data due to software is when OSX corrupted a drive. Backups are vital, and they must be stored on non-Apple devices/services. This is a hidden cost no one ever talks about, even though the internet is rife with Mac/time machine data loss anecdotes.
Extremely uncomfortable sharp edges.
Safari is so close to being useful, but falls short. I configure it to wipe out everything on close, and use it as a sort of super-private-mode browser.
QuickTime is garbage.
Application file associations are super finicky.
There is no built in method to set the screen to native resolution, needlessly inflicting blurry screens.
Apple might blow it again with the hardware for years, meaning no upgrade path.
The machines are under-ventilated, under-powered, under-rammed.
Lack of games support.
Horrible battery life if you do anything intensive. Factorio burns through a full battery in about 90 minutes.
I wish they would make a “kids edition” laptop that is cheaper, made of plastic for dent-resistance, and can be locked down in the same way as iOS.
I wish it had a built in hyper visor or allowed me to run apps in something like sandboxie.
I wish I could change the the window manager (I happily used Arch for years and fell in love with the tiling window manager spectrwm).
The lack of a 4K screen on the MBP makes me sad. I had a thinkpad p1 with a 4K screen and it was stunning (but a power hog).
https://www.radtech.com/products/screensavrz-macbook-pro-key...
Linux is good if you can configure it for a very specific purpose, like a server, or a graphics workstation, or even web development. For general purpose, its warts grow the more you use it. Hopefully someone has a dangerous looking Bash one-liner that will solve all your problems.
It's very much like Windows and it's pretending Desktop is the root folder and then hiding everything behind databases of My Documents.
Dont make me jump through hoops to find computery stuff.
I'm curious what "computery" stuff you're looking for? If you're trying to modify stuff a "normal user" wouldn't touch, you'd be better off on the command line. Finder isn't meant for people who want to muck around with the system because everyday normal users shouldn't be messing with system files.
Personally I hardly ever use Finder. Cmd+Space to launch apps and then I use those apps to manage their document types. I develop using VSCode and I'm on iTerm I'd say 75% time anyways.
For navigating: try ranger.
https://github.com/ranger/ranger
These "Macs aren't for power users" threads always kind of fascinate me, because it's so clear how differently people define "power user," and at times it feels like a lot of people define it as "this system has defaults that I don't like" or, even more often around here, "If I ever feel like I have to touch my mouse the system is crap." Whereas for me, I want a launcher/workflow runner like Alfred, which very often is my "command line" for a lot of functionality. I can assign a keyboard shortcut to anything in any menu in any application at the system level. I can wrap Unix scripts in Automator actions and put them in the Service context menu, so I can highlight text in any application and run it through a filter with a single click. I drag the proxy document icon in the title bar of windows to perform actions on that file all the time. To me, these are totally "power user" things, while I've never once thought "man, if only I had a mouse-free tiling 'window' manager that just split the screen in multiple sections with no overlapping windows I would be so much more productive."
Also, I'm typing this on a 2020 Macbook Air and it has a terrific keyboard. With the release of this 13" MacBook Pro, AFAIK this eliminates the butterfly keyswitch from their lineup.
Just press cmd+shift+period in the Finder to unhide all the hidden files and directories.
You can also write `open /path/to/somewhere` from any location in your terminal window to open the Finder at that spot.
I now run a tiling window manager (i3wm) on a Debian distro (PureOS, came with the laptop) and I'm enjoying it immensely.
I still use an external Apple keyboard (a magic keyboard from 2015 - y'know, when they were good hehe). The trackpad has never been quite up to the Mac's standard, so I use an external mouse too. But I was using an external keyboard and mouse even on the MBP, so no change there (just the option to switch to trackpad isn't as awesome).
I then bought a Purism 13, which has been awesome (apart from a niggling problem with the space bar). Having a laptop designed from the ground up to be open, maintainable, and running Linux is an amazing experience. I had a problem with the screen on this one and tech support said "open up the back of the case and have a look to see if anything looks odd". I had more or less the exact same issue with the MBP and had to do without my laptop for a week while they replaced the screen.
As someone who’s never had a tripping accident with a magsafe charger but has had to replace multiple damaged chargers despite being careful, I welcome that change. Spending 90€ because Apple doesn’t know how (or doesn’t care) to make cables with a modicum of durability isn’t fun. With USB-C, presumably (I don’t own one of these) I could get better cables or replace them cheaper if they got frayed.
I was also excited for the possibility of being able to charge on either side, until I learned that comes at a cost: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-find...
I don't have enough experience with USB-C devices to know but micro USB ports ended up being too fragile if you have toddlers.
If you’ve ever had an accident with it, which I never had.
I don’t doubt that removing magsafe is a loss in the aggregate; I’ve only mentioned the alternative is likely to be better for me.
A better option still would be if they made durable magsafe cables. But they don’t, so here we are.
I probably went through one Apple MagSafe charger a year. One of them I literally only used on my desk, and the cable fell apart in 6 months, the Apple Store guy accused me of all kinds of abuse to avoid replacing it under warranty. Even with crappy amazon marketplace noname Chinese 90W USB-C cables, I've been totally fine for 3 years now.
With USB-C you can get cheaper third party chargers with all kinds of options (including full-featured Thunderbolt docks), you can use literally any old USB power bank, you can just switch out the cable when it wears out or gets chewed on, charge on the right side of the computer [the latter also really helps with the yanking risk].
That said, I've had terrible luck with Razer batteries, and their only warranty replacement option involves a multi-week turnaround. It's a good thing I'm pretty handy and replacements can be had on the usual sources.
USB-C was all about standardizing. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, I did love magsafe, but I also love that in theory someday I'll have one cable to rule them all. And I'll be able to charge my headphones/laptop/phone/random device with a usb-c cable instead of needing 8 of them.
https://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Adapter-Connector-Quick-Char...
Before any of you see that and go "awesome, exactly what I was looking for!" - I've had several coworkers try various models of those adapters and all have told me they universally suck. Don't waste your money.
I trust Apple could do it with quality - frankly I'd be willing to spend $50+ for a reliable version of that.
Not quite as good as having the cord detach, but it still helps in the majority of minor trip-induced cord pulls (depending on how much clack in the cable you leave bundled between the two magnets).
Is what you saw just a couple clip on magnets (like what I was thinking), or is it a two-piece cord held together by magnets (like the previous comment mentioned)? That would be cool if someone already makes this as a product.
In my experience, they're good for power. Driving a 2.5k monitor over DisplayPort works reasonably well if the computer is on a solid surface (not your lap).
But they don't work well for 4k video (especially with a direct HDMI adapter) or USB 3.0 data.
Apple makes up for a small percentage of all laptops sold, even if you compare manufacturers (rather than "Apple" vs "Windows machine"). They have a smaller share of laptop sales than HP, Dell, or Lenovo, and very close to the same (depending on when you look) as Acer and ASUS:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/818439/global-notebook-c...
Macbook, Ipad Pro, Cheap phone (Moto G / Pixel 3A) everything on my desk shares just one power brick.
Beats Studio headphones: micro-USB (for serious, Apple?)
Beats Powerbeats Pro: Lightning
iPad Pro: USB-C
iPhone XS (a little more than 12 months ago): Lightning
See a pattern there? Yeah, me neither. I might as well have purchased them from separate vendors. And Lightning at this point isn't even a standard within Apple, it's just some jackass proprietary shit you have to buy special cables for.
Boom -- instant docking station: Plugging in a single standard cable gives me power, ethernet, monitor, and external keyboard.
Obviously you have to carry around a USB-C adapter when actually traveling, but if you get a good all-in-one adapter that does ethernet, HDMI, and USB-A, I haven't found it too disruptive. Hopefully the USB-C form factor will take over and then stay as long as USB-A has.
With BetterTouch Tool I have set it up so it's halfway usable. Still worse than the old function buttons though.
I tried to use the Touchbar for a while without customization but I never could get the hang of it. It just seems useless.
I simply H A T E it.
I hate it so much that I started to carry an TKL keyboard all the time with me just to avoid using this piece of sh*t touch bar and internal keyboard (MBP 2017).
As a developer it is crucial that I can use my keyboard without any looks but as there is no way to tell which function key you press on the touch bar the bar itself is completely useless for me.
Beside the butterfly switches one of the worst things Apple has ever introduced to their computers.
As a workaround for the touchbar that worked pretty well, I bought a silicon keyboard protector for the Apple Magic Keyboard, cut out the area for the function keys, and used hot glue to glue it over the touch bar.
Prevented the touchbar from activating at the slightest touch and did return some of the feel of actually having a row of keys.
Plus, the hot glue causes no damage to the aluminum and does hold for a good period of time.
Turn this into a product people could purchase and you'd become rich :)
I want to upgrade my macbook, but I've laughed so often at its 30$ fix for its 2000$ laptop that I just can't update to a macbook with touchbar with a straight face anymore.
https://www.idownloadblog.com/2019/02/27/customizing-touch-b...
It's ridiculous.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e3/1b/53/e31b53767fad646fc635...
They eventually put a stronger spring under it so it was harder to press, but it was still terrible. There was actually a thriving after-market for $3.25 "RESET KEY PROTECTORS": square plastic tube shields that fit over the reset key so you had to stick your finger down inside of it to press reset.
https://apple2history.org/history/ah13/
RESET KEY PROTECTOR, which prevented accidental RESET on the earliest models of the Apple II, was available for only $3.25 from Special Systems Design. This was necessary because the RESET key, on the upper right of the keyboard, was easy to press because it had the same spring action as the other keys on the keyboard. Various methods (like this product) were used to stiffen that key, and make it harder to press.
https://imgur.com/a/jGpcT4Z
Special Systems Design ad for Apple ][ Reset Key Protector, from Apple Orchard v1n1 1980 Mar Apr, page 107.
https://archive.org/details/Apple-Orchard-v1n1-1980-Mar-Apr/...
Those of us from a windows / unix back ground where for ever pushing the power button when we wanted to eject a floppy.
edit: indeed, yes it was:
https://archive.org/details/Videx_Enhancer_II_Installation_a...
I forgot how amazing this controller was:
https://archive.org/details/Videx_Enhancer_II_Installation_a...
It had macros:
https://archive.org/details/Videx_Enhancer_II_Installation_a...
Remember the iPhone 4 where you had to hold your phone in a certain way so it wouldn't block the antenna? It's amazing that Apple can pump out products with issues like this year after year and still be a top dog.
The return rate of the iPhone 4 was much lower than that of the 3GS [1], so apparently it did not affect many users in practice.
It's still bad design, but when I compare it to widespread issues I had with other tech devices relatively minor (e.g. spontaneously resetting Moto X 2013, self-destructing Moto 360 smartwatch back, etc., constant BlueTooth headphone drops on the Nokia 7 or 7.1).
The (by far) worst Apple design issue that affected me and people I know was the butterfly keyboard. It has left me sour for years and I considered to stop using Macs. I am very happy they have finally resolved that now. But many of the butterfly MacBooks were simply defective products. Only the later generations with seals hold up pretty well.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4
Hey Apple laptop division, if you or your social-listening analysts are reading this: I hope the price inflation permitted by inclusion of the Touch Bar helped offset the lost lifetime value of the customers that it continues to repel.
See - gems like the iMac hockey puck mice. I still wonder - who thought that was a good idea..?
That said, I would choose physical keys over a touch bar myself.
It's great that it doesn't bother you, but some of us use those keys.
It have an easy solution, though... I just won't buy one.
I would be upset if Apple removed the Touch Bar now. Sure, offer a Touch Bar-less option for these Luddites who won't even consider an alternative option but don't regress for their sake.
But what I meant is to hold down the spacebar, then hit 1, and to make that be the same as hitting the F1 key. Because with a touchbar, there is often no F1 key, or you have to look to find it.
The Karabiner Elements profile called SpaceFN has the spacebar do double duty: If you hold it down and then press another key, then it acts as a modifier (like shift and ctrl and cmd). If you just hit the spacebar itself then it acts as the normal space key.
More than once I've hit the "back" button and inadvertently evicted myself from a browser video call, just by putting my hands on the keyboard.
tl;dr - Glad they brought back the escape key, now get rid of the rest of the touch bar.
My work machine is the new 16" MBP, and while the new keyboard is the best they've ever made, and the return of Esc is welcome, the goddamn TouchBar still drives me up a wall (especially when tweaking audio volume, which is something one wants to do instantly and reflexively).
Open the System Preferences app. Select the Keyboard option (third row, sixth item) On the first tab (also called Keyboard), locate the dropdown for "Touch Bar shows" and choose "Expanded Control Strip".
True, although they could have done what many of the pc laptop makers have done. They still provide their proprietary charger with many models (ie. ThinkPad connector), but the USB-C port can also be used to charge the computer if you one already or want to pony up for a USB-C charger. For example, I've used my macbook pro charger to charge my last couple PC laptops too (ThinkPad and Acer). Like you said, then I only need one charger on my desk.
I assume these manufacturer's do this because their own charger, especially the barrel chargers that some manufacturers use, are cheaper than USB-C chargers/cables. In Apple's case, they could have kept the magsafe connector because it's a better connector. But, I assume it was lost to cost savings or aesthetics.
Because then no software would have used it. (Said ironically)
- It's incredibly sensitive, so a slightly misplaced touch on the number row sometimes results in a wild function key that snaps me out of whatever I'm doing (launches iTunes, goes to Spaces, adjusts brightness).
- It's distracting. It's either a lighted row of fake buttons, or a constantly changing offering of useless app shortcuts. It turns on and off (again, distracting).
- The UX of using it as function keys is in every way worse than a physical button. You can't tell if the click registered by feel. Sometimes it even seems like it reacts to a click but then nothing happens.
Furthermore, one of its main added features — the ability to do gestures that keys can’t do — just isn’t valuable. I haven’t seen a single example of something that was easier to do on the Touch Bar when I have a giant screen and trackpad/mouse already. I don’t need micro-scrubber interfaces or color sliders or Emoji bars, and the volume/brightness sliders are imprecise.
Despite customizing the bar with BetterTouchTool, including “vibrate” feedback, I invariably found I had to remove more and more things from the bar over time. Any functions in the central part of the bar were invariably triggering by accident. It was just too distracting to have things randomly happening when my finger slid onto something that doesn’t feel like an active panel.
Now, therefore, I have a Touch Bar with just a few things: a battery status indicator on the left end (near the thankfully-now-real Esc key), and the brightness/volume/mute on the right (near the wonderful Touch ID). And that’s it. It is literally 70% empty space now. This is ridiculous for something as complex and expense-adding as the Touch Bar. A complete failure of a technology.
It's the worst. I constantly hit mute instesd of backspace.
Changing the volume or brightness is a complete pain now. It used to be just tap the key a couple of times and that was it. I would do it as a reflex without interrupting the work I was doing. Now I have to look at where the 'button' is, and then tap and slide. Completely awful.
Open the System Preferences app. Select the Keyboard option (third row, sixth item) On the first tab (also called Keyboard), locate the dropdown for "Touch Bar shows" and choose "Expanded Control Strip".
- Their “Customize Control Strip” sheet provides an arbitrary subset of volume buttons, which don’t include the ones I want. (Specifically, separate volume buttons and not “button that shows slider first”.)
- Previously I was very accustomed to feeling for the volume buttons, and even using modifier keys for very fine-grained volume changes. With default Touch Bar keys, this is basically impossible. It is sort-of-OK with BetterTouchTool customization but it took me awhile to find a combination that I liked. And, still not as good as the original volume/modifier keys.
Is there any way to disable the fixed `esc`? I could just ignore the touch bar, except for that. It haunts my vim experience and my attempts to use full-screen (which `esc` exists by default), since apparently my left little finger tends to rest there without my realising (maybe because I'm a vimmer?).
I predict a future with USB-D that's incompatible with USB-C and on and on...
Maybe you're just not realizing its potential. I definitely recommend checking out some cool extensions to the touch bar such as Pock https://pock.dev/
1. The keyboard. Ugh. The keyboard was ostensibly changed to shave half a millimeter off the thickness of an MBP. 0.5mm. The old chiclet keyboard was fine. The new one is basically worse in every way. It's louder, feels crappier to type on, has a high failure rate (as witnessed by Apple's free repair program) and is otherwise expensive to replace. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about the keyboard; and
2. The touch bar. This was is more mixed. The big problem is you don't have an option for not having it and Apple's reason for adding it is simply to raise the ASP (average selling price) of Mac SKUs. That's it. The old Macbook Air was too successful. Many people object to it because you lost a row of function keys with tactile feedback (ie physical key). Some really objected to the loss of a physical Escape button. Probably vim users.
I agree with you that Touch ID is great. I sure wish the latest iPhones had it (you could put a sensor on the back if you didn't want to lose the screen real estate). Face ID is absolutely atrocious.
Anyway, the problem here is that basically Johnny Ive went insane, chasing thinness to the extreme. Design is the art of compromise (as they say) and no compromising on thinness led to shitty products (eg the 12" Macbook).
There are many people here (myself included) that for years simply wanted a 13" Macbook Air with an upgraded screen (as close to edgeless as possible and higher res) and more memory. That's it. We waited for years. We got the shitty 12" Macbook instead.
It's incredibly frustrating to be so close to perfection but to take a giant step backwards instead.
I'm really curious about the numbers surrounding this. Especially with the latest sales figures, I'm curious if this is just a vocal minority or if most users agree with you that this is a step backward.
My best quality of life improvement with this machine was to connect an external windows keyboard and mouse. Swap the windows key with the alt key, and you have a beautiful macos keyboard.
USB-C is all about having a thinner connector and giving the appearance of standardizing.
Previously if the cable fit, it worked. There were just a bunch of different cables but that had largely settled down to USB-A cables to like 2 maybe 3 connectors on the other end.
Now we have cables that have the same connector on each end but do vastly different things and there's no clue as to what.
- Does it carry data or just power?
- Does it carry a video signal?
- How much data can it carry?
- How much power can it charge?
A USB-C cable that does everything is limited to about 30cm (1 foot) in length, give or take. I know because I use them to connect to a USB-C dock. If I wanted a longer cable to connect to something else, I could. I'd just have to remember not to use it for the dock.
How is this a good user experience?
USB-3 standard is even a bigger mess. This whole USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2 is the biggest clusterfuck in the history of naming things.
Spring failure is less probable than breaking a male part of a connector.
If a spring breaks, you have a second one.
If both break, you keep the charging functionality.
You break the male connector. Game Over.
The one holdout still is an e-ink e-reader, the Kindle Oasis's top review is a one-star review talking about lack of USB-C.
I might switch to an apple-based consumer tablet when they put USB-C on them. The pro tablet models already have USB-C but I don't need that kind of power.
USB-C is really nice. There are some complaints about cables but if you buy brand name cables (anker, cable matters, etc) they seem to last forever and don't have the problems the tech blogs speculate about.
I think twice in five years am I glad I had the magsafe adapter but I'm happy to live without it to avoid carting around a proprietary charger all the time. We lost my wife's magsafe charger while traveling and found out that those cannot be bought for any price when in rural areas, especially outside of first-world countries. Every town has a shop that sells/services USB-C phones/tablets/laptops though.
A hub with multiple USB-C downstream ports cannot exist with any sort of reasonable UX. The C port supports multiple "alternate modes," which remap USB-data pins to other functions (like DisplayPort, HDMI, Thunderbolt, analog audio, etc.)
The various alternate modes are not simply transporting display/audio/Thunderbolt data over a USB channel. It's the difference between packet switching and circuit switching.
Plugging in, for example, an HDMI adapter to one downstream port affects what devices can be plugged in to other downstream ports.
A true HDMI adapter would revert all other downstream ports to USB 2.0. But... an HDMI adapter that's really a DisplayPort with internal DP -> HDMI converter can potentially allow USB 3.0 on the other downstream ports (or, potentially, ONE other port with DP and the rest with USB 2.0).
Either way, plugging in the HDMI adapter means your USB-C headphones might stop working (depending on whether they are analog or have an internal DAC).
How are users expected to understand that they need a certain type of USB-C headphones and a certain type of HDMI adapter in order for both to work at the same time?
It's not the users' fault that the whole USB-C thing amounts to a very fast, very efficient and elegant garbage fire. It's the greatest port ever, it can do everything, except not at the same time, so I have to choose whether I want to plug in my keyboard or my display.
You cant. That's the entire point of my post. There's no way to accommodate your desire[1] with the USB-C port.
[1] To plug everything into one port with some sort of port expander thingy and have it "just work".
Regardless though, the gesture support on MacOS touch-pads would probably cancel it out as anything I'd probably do with the touchscreen frequently could be supported through a gesture.
For the price premium and judging by the quality of the drivers that Apple produces, I WOULD MUCH RATHER PAY THE PREMIUM than struggle with Dell.
I'm never buying Dell
Any idea on battery life comparisons between the two? I'm not an Apple fan by any stretch, and don't have any Apple hardware at all except MacBooks, but honestly, the Mac here might be worth the extra money for the ports, build quality, and longevity. My current laptop is a 2013 top of the line MacBook Pro 15" that is still chugging along fine without any problems.
Why doesn't Dell open a store in every neighborhood that has an Apple store? They should be able to match the Apple consumer experience, but more importantly (to Dell), they could run business support operations from those stores.
I'd be a lot more likely to buy the XPS machine you mentioned if I could take it someplace when the coil whine becomes apparent.
No having to check for appointment slots each day, hoping to get one two weeks out. No having to arrive at the store at the start of the day, get in the same-day queue, and hope to get seen for a 15 min checkup within 4 hours, and then lose your machine for days, if not weeks, while the repairs are done off site.
Dell premium consumer (consumer, not talking about their business support options here) support gets you next day engineer to your home, with replacement parts on hand to repair your fault in your home. Three unsuccessful repairs on the same component results in a total replacement, usually with an upgrade.
That said, your parents will still be subject to having to check for appointment slots each day, hoping to get one two weeks out, or waiting in store for hours for the next slot.
They'll also be subject to lots of random bugs in Time Machine, which has become a decidedly second class citizen as far as support within macOS goes. I cannot reliably do a time machine backup over wifi anymore, and am now subject to doing it via USB only instead. This is a much bigger problem now that my USB disk is still stuck in the office, and I've been unable to get into the office for over 2 months.
That's a good point. It's a reason why comments like the one at the top comparing a Dell to an Apple computer don't make a lot of sense. They aren't apples-to-apples comparisons.
BTW, your Apple store experience sounds terrible. We have a handful of Apple things in my home and have used in-store support probably ten times over the years and have never had the experience you describe.
I'm 'fortunate' to have those options when I'm in London. Friends and family in other parts of Europe don't have a store near them, and their only support option is to send their faulty unit away for 2-4 weeks, which often results in me doing their support for them, as I'm (or I suppose, was) often flying through and could do it as a favour.
> That's a good point. It's a reason why comments like the one at the top comparing a Dell to an Apple computer don't make a lot of sense. They aren't apples-to-apples comparisons.
Yes, and no. This is a technical forum. The software support Apple offers isn't (and probably shouldn't be) useful to the vast majority on here, as any software support you can get from an Apple store, you can get on Google significantly faster.
Within that context, I think the comparison is reasonable. We can all fix any software issues we run into (within limits, those limits vary by platform, arguably more limited in Apple land) ourselves, and those that we can't we're at the mercy of our upstream supplier anyway.
From my experiences dealing with Apple Support regarding software bugs that have come about through software updates, I have no positive things to say. They did offer me $200 worth of accessories to make up for all of my time they wasted after ~18 months of one incident, but that's a poor amount of compensation for the amount of my real time they wasted.
The Dell tech who came to my house (next day) had people skills as good as any Apple Genius, and better tech skills to boot. He was in and out in less than 45 minutes, and I think he finished less than 24 hours after I called Dell (though that isn't promised as part of the contract).
I'm still happily in the Apple camp, mostly because I do appreciate the integrated ecosystem. However, there's simply no comparison when it comes to after-sales hardware support--Apple has a lot to learn from Dell.
I don't doubt that you've had a better Apple Store experience than some of us, but:
1. I've had poor Apple service in several cities across the US, so I think good service is the exception rather than the rule
2. Many small/medium cities only have one Apple store (which is inconvenient) and rural places have none (which is worse). As far as I know, there are no geographical restrictions, within the lower 48, on where Dell will travel for next-day at-home service.
3. Dell at-home support costs about the same as AppleCare+.
I'm a macbook fanboy but holy hell that is some GREAT service from dell.
Dell should bring that all in-house.
You don't need to take anywhere. You call support and a technician will show up at your office/house and change the part on the spot. [1]
Where Apple shines is when you travel internationally. Apple offer an international warranty. If you buy a product in the EU they will fix/exchange it under warranty in the US or anywhere else in the world.
[1] https://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/services/uk/en/in_home_s...
Dell's higher tier hardware support is pretty great, but it isn't an apples-to-apples (sorry) comparison.
How would they manage to keep any competitive pricing if they do that? They have cheap prices because they hire totally cheap support labors doing crappy support.
I still have a Macbook Air 2013, and have been looking for an upgrade for like 5 years, but I was not willing to pay 4k for a laptop with a worse keyboard, a worse power plug, an OS that in 2020 still doesn't have any kind of windows tiling capabilities and quite poor virtual desktops support, a useless touchbar, no wifi6, and the worst webcam ever made.
Selling it at twice the price that in the US doesn't help. I can pay for a plane ticket, and still get it cheaper there.
Also, for a company that markets their laptops as having great displays, its quite ironic that their OS still doesn't support any kind of window tiling to use them efficiently in 2020. The display isn't micro-LED either, so it is instantaneously outdated, and well... the retina display doesn't help you see your macbook-using coworkers any better because their webcams have a resolution of 1x1 pixels.
You can change the layout in the apple store when buying it here, but that adds 4 weeks to the delivery time..
As an individual, I can just by it in the US for personal use, and carry it over. But if you intent to transporting them for selling them, the story is very different.
Chances are, you aren't checked. But if you are, having the original packaging or charger will be noticed by customs. They might even have data to determine country of origin from a serial number, or notice that it's a version that wasn't available when you left for the US etc. And if they ask, the burden of proof is yours to show you bought it in the EU.
I lived there for one year, and bought a lot of stuff in the US for personal use (like clothes). When I moved back to Europe, I just moved everything with me without paying any VAT.
I was worried that they would make me pay VAT from socks and underwear to laptop, phone, and everything. Asked about it, and was told that I didn't had to pay anything.
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/calculation-c... (the linked PDF).
Import duties and VAT. VAT accounts for much of the price difference, OP didn't explain which Europe they're talking about, but assuming a 20% VAT a 2999 machine costs $3598.8 to the end-user.
Means you're working with a 325.2 price difference, which doesn't even cover import duties.
So pretty much as ever, if you're round-tripping through the US, picking up an MBP there is nice. It does not however make for a business.
Just keep in mind that if you stay in the US for less than 6 months, you should be paying VAT on it on your way back (see other comments). Otherwise this probably counts as tax evasion, which comes with pretty hefty fines in some EU countries.
I wouldn't say AppleCare is the same as having the extended warrenty to obey the EU consumer law. AppleCare includes a bunch of things that are outside of normal "warrenty" coverage.
The US page is pretty clear that it extends a 1-year hardware warranty to 3-years and extends 90 days of technical support. In recent years they seem to focus more on accidental damage (with an additional per-incident fee).
The French website is more hand-wavy around improved hardware warranty. It also mentions the tech support, but the value seems to be the accidental damage.
The accidental damage math in the US is a tough one for me. $300 for AppleCare+ and $50 per incident goes a long way towards paying outright for a repair or buying a new laptop. The hardware warranties seem to be significantly better in Europe and historically the biggest value-add in the US. AppleCare+ just seems a lot less useful in Europe.
If so it wouldn't have much to do with apple, no?
Luckily, the accessibility API make this quite possible to do if you're one of the people that can't work without it. (Do keep in mind that note everyone uses tiling to work "efficiently".)
> The display isn't micro-LED either, so it is instantaneously outdated
What? How many computers actually ship with microLED today?
> the retina display doesn't help you see your macbook-using coworkers any better because their webcams have a resolution of 1x1 pixels
Even with the current climate, reading text and looking at images in retina resolution is a huge part of most people's jobs. If you haven't tried a Retina Display, I suggest you do: it's quite nice.
Maybe, but I think the price gap used to be a lot longer too?
(As in, Apple's dragged it up (or perhaps arguably dragged up build quality or whatever that's impacted price) not vice versa.)
* macOS
Personally this is a con.
Compare that to the surface pro my wife has, which essentially lost all its value the moment she walked out the store. It’s an excellent machine by all means, and Linux subsystem is great, but it’s not actually cheaper than a Mac when you factor in the resale value.
I do live in Denmark, and things may be different elsewhere, but the only hardware that has any resale value around here is Apple.
A few other Dell Pros:
* 16:10 aspect ratio. The 4K touchscreen in general is fantastic, nearly borderless and really stunning in person. Dell has honed in on some great industrial design for the XPS 13 line. The laptop is incredibly compact for the feature set and screen size.
* Keyboard is fantastic. Trackpad is great, but not quite Mac level. They have been improving this considerably over the years and this latest iteration is the best yet.
* Linux support, even though I ended up not using it due to "okay" HiDPI support.
* i7, FWIW. Not sure the thermals really allow you to take advantage of full perf gains from the better processor.
* Another Dell Pro which has made me feel better about the purchase has been the free year of Next Day On-Site ProSupport. My original lid had a mark on it and no shit they scheduled a technician to come to my apartment and replace it the next day. Macs obviously have the advantage of Apple stores but in this case I was really happy with the level of CS Dell was able to provide.
Dell Cons:
* I was previously an (Arch) Linux user and have given Windows 10 a shot this time around, mostly because I don't have the time to be fiddling with config files these days. And while Windows does "just work", some things are a little janky still. From what I've heard of MacOS these days, things are not necessarily perfect there either, so maybe a toss-up. I will say Windows being so linux-friendly with WSL has made the transition much easier.
* Two ports has been not really a huge issue. I find that either I'm docked, in which case I have a whole other set of ports to use, or I'm not really plugging in more than two USB C accessories at the same time.
Well that and I have xps 15 and that was fine when I took a class a year or two ago but I find it a bit bigger than I like for laying about on the couch and etc.
MacBook ( Pro, Air or just MacBook ) has always been using 16:10 ratio.
16:10 on Dell is something new in the PC space that everyone is making a big fuss about it. Although I hope this change will finally run across the industry so we are back to 16:10 instead of stupid video consumption orientated 16:9 Ratio.
The build quality of the XPS line is just not up to snuff.
That is an understatement.
Lots of people complain about missing MagSafe but I’ve never seen or heard of this actually happening. I’m sure it has happened but it just doesn’t seem like a big problem. For me, just in the past month I’ve had the usb charger yanked out by the cord multiple times by people and pets tripping over it while working from home, but the laptop is heavy enough that it doesn’t budge and the cable comes out cleanly.
The benefit of having a standard port now, being able to get monitor, power, and usb connected through one cable, or being able to use the usb-c charger to charge other devices when traveling, is well worth the change IMO. I also used to get little metal specks stuck in the MagSafe port, and then realize the laptop hasn’t been charging all day and have to clear it out and make sure the contacts were connected securely. I wasn’t a big fan of MagSafe at all.
These days I tend to use my laptop at my desk with external monitors, but the thing that worries me the most when I'm somewhere else is the yanking of the cable weakening the and/or reducing the reliability. I had to re-solder the power adaptor on an old Acer a few times, I don't think I've got the parts or skills (or time) to do that on a few year old Mac.
EDIT: If you talking about the connector inside your laptop, that is a different story.
With the current 8+ hours battery life, I only have it plugged in when I'm at my desk, so no risk of tripping over.
For me, the standard port overweights any other downside.
Still, I wouldn't want to discharge the battery if it's not needed as to save the cycles.
I'm shocked that Apple has not taken it upon themselves to ensure that there's a usable magnetic adapter for the USB-C port, under their brand or through a partner. I've tried a couple of third-party adapters that were utter failures. I hope somebody succeeds someday, preferably Apple or with Apple's blessing, because I would be very slow to try another third-party adapter otherwise.
More annoyance comes from removing of the charging indicators that were on the magsafe port. The only clue is a small "ding" sound when it starts charging, but is easy to miss and won't happen in deep sleep. I've plugged in a laptop not noticing someone had unplugged the other end until the next morning my computer was still dead. It was also nice that you could see that amber charging light turn green so you knew it was charged without opening the lid and waking it up.
By missing that main difference the comparison is reduced to pure comparison of commodities, and of course the result is that the Apple machine is ‘unjustifiably’ more expensive. The Apple ecosystem is literally why people buy Apple machines rather than any other brand.
I’m also mystified nobody else brought this up.
The old argument about security is mostly a wash now as well. (whereas with pre-SP2 Windows XP vs. OSX 10.4, you could legitimately claim that OSX was more secure.)
Now we have better third party apps on macOS than Windows but OS stopped advancing but who cares about OS anymore? It's all about apps nowadays.
My apps on macOS: Chrome, Thunderbird, OracleVM, Idea, Battle.net, Discord. Can replace Putty with Terminal ssh (I like Putty more, but that's not a big deal), can replace KeePass with text file (less security, but not a big deal either), can replace EditPad Pro with TextEdit (worse replacement, but I can live with it), can replace Paint.NET with Gimp. Not sure about foobar2000, may be DeadBeef.
And there's no software on macOS that I would miss in Windows. So that's questionable about third-party apps, at least for me. The only thing that I loved in macOS is its Terminal, because I know bash, but recently I learned a bit of PowerShell, so it's not a big advantage anymore. Also I can always spin up CentOS VM if necessary.
However, I feel that without comparing the OS and tight OS integration, this doesn't represent one of the most important aspects of a comparison between the two, when considering a purchase.
I go through this same loop every time I buy a new machine... yes, usually it's "no more Apple for me!" especially when I do the price comparison. So I waver for a couple of weeks whilst I research the latest hardware and Linux distros. But then I end up buying an Apple machine. It's been the same story for me for the last 17 years.
There's plenty of people like me out there that definitely don't want to use Windows, and that want a Unix that gets out of the way. I love Linux, especially on the server, but it's generally too much hassle on a laptop and so I always gravitate back to macos.
If the $600 is an Apple tax for that, then I will gladly continue to pay it. Over the 3 years lifetime of a developer machine (or more!), my time is definitely worth more than $600 compared with constantly fiddling with Linux kernal modules and other hardware support issues. I just want to get some work done without interruptions.
Definitely would love the exact same machine without the TouchBar, though. Perhaps that would shave off $100?
Seriously, I'm in the market for a new laptop and there are still too many concerns relating to support for these devices... not just Dell but usually for whatever manufacturer I'm looking at. Once you start reading about people's experiences there are always issues - many of which have been discussed to death on HN.
Just because Dell claim that Linux is officially supported does not mean that it will be a smooth ride. I don't think that has changed much at all over the last few years? But perhaps this year is different.
Do you own this though? If you're using this new XPS model without power consumption issues, excellent wifi (wifi chips issues seem to always be the main downer), good mousepad behaviour? Perhaps it's finally not a problem? I will gladly lap up any positive news that you can give on this front.
E.g. power management isn't much of an issue for me because I use my laptop unplugged for only a couple hours per day, so I wouldn't have noticed any problems related to that.
I have been keeping an eye on the system76 stuff too - not just Dell. For a long time system76 seemed to only make laptops with large keyboards with extra number pads and asymetric mouse pads which put me off (many manufacturers do this, so it's not just them).
I notice that they finally have more tenkeyless models, so slowly but surely my checklist is being satisfied. Are you still able to use a recent version of Pop!_OS after all this time, or are you using another recent version of another distro? I'm interested in the longevity in terms of being able to install up to date OSes over the years. I mean that really shouldn't be an issue with Linux - support usually only gets better as time advances and new drivers / modules are written, but it would be nice to know how you got on, regardless.
Looking at that 7th generation model now. Actually... that looks really nice. And 20.04 LTS would be pretty good for me.
That's awesome! I just bought the new XPS 13 (9300) with 32gb of ram. Unboxing it today, I've heard it works flawlessly with Ubuntu 20.04 except the fingerprint reader, and Dell says that will be possible later this year.
Anything else I should take a look at? What would your ideal next laptop be?
I have used Macs (had 2 Mac Book Pros and a Mac Mini) and Windows but its Linux all the way now, specifically Ubuntu LTS. Not sure how people put up with Windows 10's constant forced updates. If it has to be Windows give me Windows 10 LTSC.
Ideal next laptop? Probably a Thinkpad X1 Carbon gen 7 or Dell XPS 2020.
- Not really. And Linux ecosystem has improved tremendously in last 10 years.
For one of the colleague at the office, tried some Thinkpad , but that was not such a good experience. Now everyone on the team (> 30 people) gets Ubuntu Laptop or Desktop.
If you are going to use it main dev machine, then definitely Latitude. Ask Dell guys to preinstall it for you. They will install proprietary drivers for you.
I also have Macbook Pro 2015 model. Don't expect trackpad experience like it. I always use external mouse and keyboard any way.
Not tried XPS series yet, So can't comment.
Specifically: excellent wifi support, 5-7 hours of battery life, never had a trackpad issue.
Risk areas that i haven't investigated: backlight controls aren't working right now...thats the only thing that comes to mine.
And this is using arch. I'm sure Ubuntu is even more seamless.
It's been a complete delight. Actually, it's been leaps and bounds better than macOS Catalina on my work machine.
For me, the transition to Wayland made a HUGE difference. Trackpad actually feels basically the same as macOS, and better than windows 10.
Multi-monitor support is better than macOS (which loses my monitor arrangement consistently with two identical monitors and through a usb-c dock).
Bluetooth works as expected. (Not so for macOS catalina anymore, they've fucked up an truly astounding number of things...)
Suspend/resume are both fine.
Battery life is actually around 10 hours if I'm just doing light dev.
Basically - I've been pestering my office to let me switch for a while now. I'd take an XPS running linux over the current iteration of macbook/macOS hands down.
I can't understand the appeal outside the marketing gimmicks.
Well, it was worst laptop I ever saw. Software was good, I still love it. SSD broke in the second month, so I took it to repair and it was in repair for another month until replacement SSD arrived. Thankfully it was covered by warranty and that's the only good thing about this situation. I used it for 2 years and then it just started to tear apart.
Charger cable failed. I bought new at aliexpress, tried to replace it and almost caused a fire, so I had to buy a new charger which costs like a cheap laptop LoL.
Keyboard failed. Right now half of keys just do not work, another half of keys work if pressed hard enough. And I did not spill anything there, they just don't register presses. I'm using USB keyboard to work on it.
Audio port failed. There's some switch there to detect optical cable or something like that. That switch is stuck, so red laser always lighting out of there and macOS thinks that I inserted a headphones, so speakers do not work. And headphones do not work either. I'm using USB headphones if I need sound.
It sometimes panics. I think that something's wrong with GPU. It's Nvidia GPU and I've read that it was poorly soldered. Not sure.
Its battery almost dead, it can live for a 10 minutes of low-power usage. Of course I can't replace a battery, because it's glued.
Even on charger it gets hot on load pretty quickly and then it starts to throttle. Its CPU going lower than 1GHz. And system becomes very laggy, everything slow as hell. Its cooling just terrible. Sure, it's a laptop, but I never experienced such a slowdown with other laptops. I was very disappointed with Apple engineering.
I've used few laptops in my life. Not a single one of them caused so many issues. Not a single one of them had faulty charger cable. All of them have easily replaceable battery.
Also in my country I'm paying heavy Apple tax, Apple devices typically cost 30-50% more than in US, but other manufacturers have more sane prices, so I would have to pay much more extra.
I went back to Windows and I'm pretty happy. I never liked Windows, but since Windows 10 it's actually good OS that works much more stable than macOS and have all the software I need.
My last hope was Mac Pro. But its price is just absurd, so that hope is vanished. Basically Apple does not make any computer that I would want to buy, all computers are antithetical to my needs. I want something that's reliable, bulky, powerful and repairable. Preferably a PC, as I don't really need a laptop. And they focus on the opposite properties. So while I loved macOS, there's nothing to run it on.
I'm thinking about hackintosh and probably will build my next computer considering it (can run Windows anywhere, so can select hackinosh-friendly parts anyway). But it seems that hackintosh in the future might be doomed (more proprietary hardware, may be even ARM migration), so probably that won't be a way to go either.
What funny is that I'm in a similar position regarding phones. I hate large screen phones and with discontinuing iPhone SE 1 Apple stopped producing the only phone that I'd want to buy. I'm using iPhone 8 now, but I don't like it and thinking about buying SE 1 instead. Too bad that Androids don't have any phones for me either, so it's more about phone industry rather than just Apple.
And they lacked features I was used to. I hear they finally got widgets, so that I suppose is solved.
I find the the touch bar obviously annoying, but that annoyance is so minor compared with the annoyances of Windows or running Linux on a laptop. Honestly it seems like a lot of people have quite the double standard when it comes to Apple products.
This is also coming from someone who was forced to use Windows professionally for several years (worked on CAD software).
You have to be a bit careful with the hardware, especially non Intel wifi/Bluetooth seems not well supported. And Nvidia graphics are a bit risky, but of the alternative is a MacBook that shouldn't matter as much
Usually there's a lot of manual config, driver issues, shitty hardware support, screen resolution issues, bad battery life, laptop suspend issues, terrible trackpad support, connecting to external monitor issues, etc.
I've had the best luck with Thinkpads and I still like Linux and have fun with this kind of thing, but it's not even close to macOS and I don't think it's really close to Windows either.
While I appreciate that people put in tons of time and effort to make these things available for free, I’d rather pay for something better, and on Linux I usually can’t.
As an example, our dev machines at the office run Linux, and it’s a great platform for the majority of the work we do. But I have to keep a Windows VM around for Office, because I can’t trust that LibreOffice isn’t going to completely mangle a file that I need to send to a client.
My work machine is a 13" macbook pro on Catalina, my personal project machine is a 15" dell xps from 2017.
Of the two, I'm delighted by the XPS running Arch/Gnome/Wayland.
I'm much, MUCH less delighted by the Catalina crap box.
I have some musician friends. They do that for a living. They've had the same guitars for years, maybe even decades. They know how the guitar works, how to change its strings & pick-ups, how it behaves in different rooms. They notice how it ages, how it breaks, how it _really_ works. When it breaks they get the exact same model. It's a good thing.
For me, the real tradeoff is getting locked-in into an ecosystem that is privately owned, profit driven. That's the real tax right there.
With any luck the mag-safe connector will be back in a couple of years. Of course Apple will call it "new".
Returning to magsafe would be a downgrade when you can just magsafe-ify any of the ports yourself with a cheap adapter.
I still need a Mac for my music and photo collection, and to sync my phone. But since my 2015 MBP is dying, I'm in the market for a used Mac Mini.
MacOS vs Windows 10 is a MUCH lesser difference than MacOS vs Windows 8 and below. If Apple doesn't put more focus into their computers over the next 5 years the tide may truly turn.
Also before someone mentions Linux, I really love linux. I used linux out of NEED in college but I find myself maintaining it too much for it to be worth it vs MacOS when it comes to work. I have access to linux servers for running most of my code anyway so perhaps I'm a special user.
Sometimes its not really about the price, its about "can you?".
I'm glad Apple (and Dell) is addressing the market, alongside the improvements in the technology in their supply chain.
There have definitely been some years where I have been pretty sure something was possible but everyone was holding out for another year because a processor came out too late, or some totally antitrust violating agreement, or milking consumers, all while we just had to assume there were some quality control or battery life issue.
I am glad to know this is going to be generally available.
This is still a problem: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3969131
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-pro-giving-me-e...
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/10545/is-it-bad-th...
I have one short and one long cable, and am only just now realizing the issue. I'd simply assumed the short one was a fake I'd gotten.
Can't speak to why your iPhone and iPad do the same thing, I've experienced it when using sketchy cheap lightning cables or wall adapters (including ghost touching), but not when using better built stuff (like AmazonBasics or Anker).
That said, I did feel the electric current when the 2012MBP was not grounded, but the 2017 model does not have the same problem.
Or do you still think "Google" just means a big number? Do you "literally" means "exactly" or can also be used to show strong feeling or emphasis.
Google doesn't mean big number, do you mean googol?
Yes, the one that comes with extremely expensive European 2019 16" Macbook Pro is not grounded.
I'm not sure they sell the grounded lead anymore. But maybe I should charge my work macbook with my personal xps 13 charger which is grounded (yay usb-c!)
The three posts you provided are from 2012, 2013, and 2011. So is it really still a problem?
* Much higher resolution screen (3840x2400 vs 2560x1600)
* Smaller and lighter (not by much though) and thinner bezels
* Better hardware support (apple hardware has bad support under anything but macOS and I can't think of any hardware which is supported under mac but not on windows).
I had to read this a few times. You mean third-party hardware and peripherals, right? I first read it as running Windows on Mac hardware, which Bootcamp supports. Linux usually lags a few years and often isn't solid. Battery life usually isn't as good.
Paradoxical to your peripheral experience, I often much prefer macOS' experience to Windows with things like mice and printers since they often use standard, builtin tools instead of requiring third-party drivers with terrible UIs. For most things in the past 10-15+ years they support both Mac/Windows.
One pro Windows laptops usually have over Mac is the Mac webcams have the same quality from their laptops over a decade ago. Cameras are something Apple used to brag about (both including them standard and the quality of them).
The touch bar still sucks, but eventually all design decisions Apple makes are justified by users.
Every dell I've had starts creaking at the hinges after just a few uses. Doesn't feel as sturdy, the $600 difference is worth the longevity and integrity of the macbook hardware alone.
Agreed. Recently bought the 16 inch MBP after considering Lenovo and Dell. Prices between the machines weren't that much different (Lenovo came to 7200 minus some discount to bring it down to MBP price).
End of the day I didn't want to deal with Linux drivers (no M$ for me) and I wanted something that worked. Plus, the touchpad on an Apple device can't be beat. It's not a perfect machine, mainly Catalina issues I suspect, but worth it IMO.
After using the Dell for a month and finally sending it back, I can tell you that this was the deal breaker for me.
"Peak MacBook Pro" was 2013 (once they fixed the screen-coating deterioration).
Sadly, Jobs' vision is fading out.
I’ve been watching the xps closely and the internal stats are good but the “plastic laptop with a small hinged trackpad” aspect of it make it a no go for me at the price point.
You also "forgot" to mention that the xps 13 is probably easier to fix if anything goes wrong.
Regarding hardware support... what do you mean exactly? If it's warranty, dell is probably as good as apple.
I still dont like the new Magic Keyboard travel. It feels to me exactly the same as butterfly. The whole typing experience just sucks. But given a lot of people ( DHH ) are saying it feels the same as Magic Keyboard on the iMac ( Which I will probably never understand ), the likelihood of that ever coming back to the Mac is near Zero. May be even Magic Keyboard on iMac will one day be the same as well.
I wonder if someone will make a plastic keyboard cover that adds back the few mm key travel, along with "artificial" buttons to cover up the Touch Bar.
In case anyone ask why not the MacBook Air, it is because the CPU run up to 90C with passive cooling. I dont know how long will the product last under medium load usage.
What are you basing that on?
I hope the Mac screen is still better. We bought a couple of Thinkpad T490's on discount. The internals are fine, good processors, battery life, keyboard, but the trackpad sucks and the screen is noticeably still worse than my 2014 MacBook Pro...
I really dislike the mag-safe adapter on my 2015 Mac (the first Mac I've ever had). It often feels like you only have to sneeze in the direction of the connector and it pops right off.
I get the problem they're trying to solve, I too don't want to go back to the old style of connector where you could accidentally rip it out of the motherboard. I just want something a little firmer than magsafe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagSafe#MagSafe_2
I believe the Surface have their version of MagSafe and support charging via USB-C...I wish that was the direction Apple went with.
The top end is the Core i7-1068NG7 and the i5 is the Core i5-1038NG7. They are both 28W parts with the highest end integrated GPU that Intel sells.
I buy an operating system.
In my case, the Apple OS gives me exactly what I need. Apple holds all the cards, and are able to set the price. Wish it was lower, but I am glad the OS works as well as it does. The control that Apple has over both the hardware and software is key to that.
For others, Windows is exactly what they need (I see this a lot with hardware hacker stuff. It's very hard to get Apple versions of a lot of the tools I need). They do have a lot more choices, but I prefer my experience. Well worth the difference in price, for me.
I see little reason to continue buying into the Apple ecosystem. I switched from iPhone to an S9+ a couple years back and plan to keep this phone for at least another few years unless it dies.
I think in general people are getting sick of the upgrade cycle. Gadgets are getting good enough that they can last multiple release cycles. I think consumer electronics companies are going to need to find a way to evolve, or they really will be running into the classic "not enough consumers" problem.
I still don't use it unless I need more processing power, preferring to use my 2016 Macbook 12" for everything other than compiling Rust code. The Macbook has held up great, and I even did the infamous glued in battery replacement myself.
I will probably get a Macbook pro in the next few years instead of another non-mac computer.
Other than that, I completely agree
No big announcement, 14” will come at wwdc