I have the 12" MacBook and the keyboard is absolutely miserable. I seriously got warned by the Apple Store when I bought it that if I got any dust on the keyboard at all that the keys would get stuck, which is totally unrealistic. It turned out to be true, which has meant I mostly just don't use a laptop anymore, as the keyboard is just so unpleasant. I have had it on my todo list to move all of my data back to my now-repaired 11" MacBook Air (which had a totally reasonable keyboard), but that entire task is just so depressing. A few days ago I was talking to someone I know who loves their 12" MacBook and how they find the keyboard just fine... and then he seriously told me that some incredibly large percentage of the time his O key doesn't work and I'm just sitting there totally dumbfounded wondering how he could even use such a machine.

That said, I could see myself sharing your same disillusionment if I have to upgrade from my 4.5 year old Macbook Pro. I don't think I've ever had a laptop for more than 3 years, and I was happy to have an even shorter cycle when it came to Apple computers. I helped a good friend purchase a new MBP, and the most I can say is that I'm happier that she's on the MBP than on the old Dell laptop that she reverted from Windows 7/10 to XP. But I'm willing to wait another year or 2 for a improved model.

However I wouldn't say all of these are terrible faults any different from what they've done before. As a vertically integrated, full-ecosystem brand Apple has consistently chosen to design towards where they feel the industry ought to be, not where it is incrementally advancing towards. They did this with thunderbolt vs firewire, and they are doing it now with bluetooth 5 vs headphone jacks. With Airbuds you can have a single earpiece (well, two) that provides high quality two-way audio for your macbook while working, your phone while driving, and your watch while running, and eventually your HomePod while walking around the house, and their handoff technology automatically switches between them. THAT is what they were designing towards, but they just didn't tell us that when they introduced the iPhone 7.

Is this good or bad? It depends. It is a lack of personal choice and a concession of liberty. Ted Kaczynski* would be appalled at everything Apple represents, for reasons that as a libertarian I can understand. However Apple's "abuse" of its monopolist position has allowed the creation of a highly integrated and seamless technology ecosystem that genuinely makes my life better, at some cost to my pocketbook, and could not have existed in a free market. And since no one is forced to buy Apple.. is that still a bad thing? It's definitely not black and white.

* Not someone I usually bring into conversations, but I saw Manhunt recently and it was rather thought provoking. Highly recommend watching, regardless of whether you typically enjoy police procedurals.

This week I have lost a whole day of my life to printer problems on windows 10. Apple stuff in the house just prints!

So experiences do differ...

Also, why is it a rant? That's what I think is going on, and those are some points that explain why I think this way.

I get that people are upset that Apple's gone full bore on USB-C "early," but they did that with USB, period. When the first iMac came out in 1998, it was the first computer to have only USB ports--and pretty much nobody was making USB peripherals back then. (And one of the two USB ports on the iMac was guaranteed to be taken up by your keyboard/mouse, so as USB took off, Apple was also early to the "not having enough ports" game. Heyo!)

There are legitimate things to complain about with the current MBP models; I don't like the keyboard, either, although I certainly don't have any problem with battery life. (My understanding is that it varies much more sharply than previous models depending on the system load.) I think only 2 USB-C ports on the low-end 13" model (the one I have) is too few. I think all of the laptops should probably have SD slots (c'mon, Jony, SD cards are thin, okay?). And at least so far, the Touch Bar hasn't justified itself. But when it comes to going all-in on USB-C, I'm not one of the ones who thinks that's a mistake on Apple's part. If anything, I think it's a mistake not to swap the Lightning port on the iPad Pro for a USB-C port.

Apple quite obviously sees the notebook market as secondary. I don't blame them. i-device sales far outpace notebook sales.

But not everybody feels that way. I can get a pretty damn impressive linux box for the same cost.

It usually includes updates (or myself by mistake? not sure) making my system so broken that I have to reinstall and start again from scratch.

This year I thought I'd try with the Pro after the MacBook Air wasn't upgraded with retina, but if I have to spend almost EUR 2,000 and have faulty hardware and a broken OS that shows my password in clear text, might as well spend 1/3 to get a just-as-good laptop with elementary OS on it.

I hear that a lot, but I always wonder what distro people are using or what they do to their machines or what hardware they have etc.

My current laptop at home has been getting every 6 monthly Ubuntu in-place upgrade since 13.04 and hasn't had an issue. Same with the kids second hand laptops. But I choose Thinkpads and make sure I always get Intel graphics and wifi chipsets for compatibility.

Based on my colleagues experiences though - I don't have anywhere as much upgrade confidence at work with my Macbook Pro though (still on El Capitan).

I paid 275 for my Moto G5, and it's about 10 times better (IMO) than the last iPhone I owned, which cost 3 times as much.

Its too bad that the cameras tend to be subpar, though.

And god forbid one goes wrong because the repair and aftercare service at least in the U.K. is dire. I was told a handset was water damaged after it failed. Turns out it’s shipped to a 3rd party repairer who blames it on you if they can’t fix it. I had to hit moneyclaim (small claims court) to get it back.

Ergo I bought a 6s and have had zero problems with it. It just works.

And you know what? I just don't care. The security updates have been pushed in a timely manner, even for Marshmallow if they were required at the system level. Application updates (including to System WebView and security critical services) continue to deliver new functionality.

But yeah, if you want a great camera and consistent full system updates, you should probably skip these.

You can pay a lot for an Android phone too!

I have the premium devices for both (Surface Book and Google Pixel) and I still have daily annoyances.

On Windows 10, you will lose audio if the computer goes to sleep while connected to a TV via HDMI - requiring a restart. It was reported over a year ago and a similar issue exists with external monitors.

Windows Hello recognizes me but occasionally does not log me in and gives me no indication why. Is it a bug or a security feature? It's been over a year without a fix.

If I adjust the angle of my Surface Book display, the keyboard will not work for a few seconds due to a common hardware issue. It wouldn't bother me except the Surface Book is extremely top heavy and simply typing with the keyboard on your lap can make the display wobble causing the keyboard to cut out every few seconds.

The Surface Book power cable from the outlet to the brick is so short the brick cannot reach the floor from a common outlet height.

The Surface Pro 4 had minor light bleed issues. Microsoft attempted to fix it, but the new Surface Pro 2017 has even worse light bleed issues (except for the devices given to tech bloggers).

On Android:

Google removed the headphone jack from the Pixel 2.

If I ask Google to Remind Me of X when I get Home, it often reminds me days later (even though I use Google maps every day for navigation).

If I use Ok Google to dial my wife while I'm driving, it asks "Mobile or Skype". If it doesn't hear me properly, which happens 25% of the time, it repeats the question. But if I answer, "Mobile" it searches Google Maps for all Mobile gas stations :)

Ouch, who let the intern design that one?... Kidding, but really did they not QA test this and how did nobody at QA not say this was a terrible idea? I'll stick to my wireless trackball..

The mouse also just looks weird when flipped over to charge, and you can't really try to even charge it while it's in a backpack if you wanted to, due to the 90deg angle it makes when plugged in.

That certainly seems like a more logical explanation than literally no one at Apple anticipating such an obvious design consequence for a major accessory.

How old is your Macbook Pro? Mine is 4 years and I still get 7-8 hours of charge even though I have been using the Battery almost everyday.

Just as I don't think there is such a thing as a perfect place to live, a perfect person to spend your life with, a perfect food to eat every day of your life, I also don't think the perfect computer company exists, the perfect laptop exists... But when I weigh all the conveniences and quality of my MBP with other non-Apple machines I've owned, it really is a no-brainer for me.

I guess the 15" has a bigger battery.

I personally think that it's the screen. Not sure. As we're speaking, Finder is taking up 12GB of memory as well as lots of CPU: https://imgur.com/a/RwSvI (I just installed High Sierra 2 days ago, though).

Reset the SMC. It was doing this multiple times per day for me also, but it hasn't been an issue since I did this a couple days ago.

I have to reset the SMC or the computer will restart by itself while I'm in the middle of programming..?

This is a EUR2000 laptop we're talking about, not a Game Boy.

No, it's not. Try recovering your iCloud password from the web right now. I couldn't believe it either.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204921

"For your security, recovery includes a waiting period that may be several days or longer depending on the information you can provide to verify your identity. Apple Support cannot help you shorten this time. "

Probably undiscerning cut-and-paste from some FUD article, without actually verifying it themselves. I say this because the text of the article might have changed since that little nugget was stashed away, as one can find the following text in the linked article: "Next, wait for the recovery process to finish, which might take a few days or more." And I say "without verifying it" because, well, that has nothing to do with changing your password. Had it actually been tried, it would become evident that these are two very different operations.

Translation: we can't be bothered to come up with a secure solution so we offload that onto our users.

Not sure where you got that quote from - it's not in the link you pasted.

Try this link.

> Account recovery is an automated process designed to get you back into your Apple ID account* as quickly as possible and deny access to unauthorized users. For your security, recovery might take several days or longer, depending on the verification information that you can provide.

The keys are so shallow that after normal use (no crumbs or anything like that) they start having problems.

As for battery life, they had to make it 4mm thinner just for the sake of it, and the screen sucks all the battery. I wish it was thicker but I could actually use it without keeping plugging it in.

The keyboard is the best I've ever used in terms of typing, but it only lasted a few months, which is not what you'd expect for a premium laptop.

Apple you POS! THe only thing that keeps your MBP some what usasble is the "so far" stellar state restore post crash.

What are you on about? Audio jack is there.

>They placed the charger for their wireless mouse under the mouse so you can't use it while charging

And? Mouse lasts MONTHS on a single charge. It notifies you 12 hours ahead that it needs charging. A 5 min charge can last you an hour.

I think this is a lot better than having a hole on the side of your mouse at all times.

This is an issue only to those who've never used it.

>and the list goes on and on--particularly with software.

Please list it. I'm dying to know more!

>It's just not premium stuff anymore.

Silly opinion.

>I've already switched to Android, and I am not buying another computer from them.

We're talking about Macs. What does Android have to do with it? You're mixing up your hate memes.

PS: You clearly never even owned a Macbook Pro. You're probably getting your "facts" from bullshit 4chan memes.

But it only pops out when there's like 1% battery left in the mouse - basically making sure you will lose power soon. The sheer lack of thinking here boggles the mind. Guys, it's an alert, it's not useful at all if I get it right before the bad thing happens.

How would you like it if I switched on my turn signal 1 second before I actually turn my vehicle in front of you?

https://www.macworld.com/article/3024515/macs/how-to-disable...

And it's absolutely not 15%. That would be fantastic. It's in the low single digits.

- users would have a better experience if the mouse was wireless

- if left to their own devices, users will tend to leave the mouse plugged in and use it as a wired mouse

so they solved that contradiction by taking away the option of missing out on wirelessness.

Which works fine, so I'm glad Logitech decided not to be assholes about it.

The mouse runs off of a single rechargable AA battery (came with an Eneloop brand NiMH which are well regarded). If your battery dies you can either plug it in to charge or just pull the battery and swap in a fresh one. Since it's a standard battery you can toss the dead one in a normal NiMH charger.

A+ mouse, would recommend.

Especially since Apple made and sold their own NiMH batteries and chargers until 2016. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-battery-charger-white/120...

https://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/apples-rechargeable-aa-b...

Where 'better experience' is defined as 'not having a mouse until it charges back up'?

One would expect a little more thought would go into designing it.

Because Lightning cables are too flimsy, so doing so has a chance to break the cable at the connector end.

They removed the audio jack from their phones and their "pro" laptops barely have any ports left. Some people use those, you know.

> I think this is a lot better than having a hole on the side of your mouse at all times.

The OP clearly doesn't.

> Please list it. I'm dying to know more!

Just a few of the top of my head:

mDNSResponder, GPU drivers, WiFi issues, Safari used to crash a lot, goto fail, there was the fun one were the GPU driver was loaded too late so that ... something something color profiles ... your screen had a blue tint the whole fucking time. Lots of good stuff, really.

> Silly opinion.

I'd love to elaborate on this one but I'm afraid my MBP will overheat when continue typing.

From the tone you're using and the things you're saying it looks like you're lost and are looking for Reddit.

I have no interest in taking your comment seriously and reply to your accusation that I am not writing this comment from a MacBook Pro.

What baffles me about the MM 2, why didn’t they put a notch at the top so you could plug the Lightning cable in and use it while it is charging?

The next one will, to match the new phone

The hate on the new macbook pro's was especially interesting - they are solid machines and my company had no issues as they started provisioning over the old ones for new employees.