I wish they will fix at least the keyboard issues in the 2018 models. Damn Apple.
Oh sure, tons of "I have a perfectly working linux on x" but drilling down it always boils down to fiddling, updating, manually correcting some value somewhere, tweaking.. etc.
I switched to a mac some 8 years ago on the desktop and 6 years ago as my daily driver laptop. I would love to break out of the apple ecosystem for something more free but I just have not been convinced it exists yet.
With all the complaints about macos, rightfully so, quality seems to be degrading somehwat, the HW/SW combination is still unbeaten in my book. I run Fusion on it, with a Windows Server VM and Linux VM w shared homedir so I can run whatever tools best fit for the job. Only real gripe is memory limit of 16GB. Oh and the touchbar. Fuck the touchbar. Could have been nice as an addition above the Fn key row.
Now let's hope my keyboard holds out ;)
> It's a UNIXy system, that actually works with the hardware.
You'd think there'd be a big market for an "it just works" Linux-based laptop.
I've had great experiences running Ubuntu derivatives on Dell Latitude E-series, as long as they don't have Nvidia graphics. I'm sure plenty of Thinkpad owners will tell you the same.
TL;DR: I've had the opposite experience as you.
I am optimistic though, seriously think that when my current macbook is up for replacement there will be a handful of capable machines with proper (HW) linux support.
For me however, lacking that positive first hand experience is what makes me keep ordering macs.. for now.
That ... doesn't follow. It's OS X that I buy Macs for. I have a very small number of complaints about it, but many more about every other OS I've ever used. Like mutt: it sucks less.
Also: I loved my previous Mac devices. I don't love my recent MacBook Pro. But the next Mac I buy in a few years time, they'll probably have fixed it up by then. Switching to a whole new ecosystem for the interim strikes me as crazy.
that depends entirely on what your daily activities are.
If you're a web developer and are somewhat competent, you'd be best served with fedora or ubuntu. You're able to fully customize your system, use tiling window managers such as i3wm and can actually use the same daemons as the production system will be using.
If you're a designer that uses the Adobe Suite, there is little difference between osx and windows. both work most of the time and have their own faults and upsites. if you're already in the apple ecosphere, there is little reason to change to windows - as there isn't really anything better there. Nor is there a reason to switch to mac from windows...
If you're a gamer, there really isn't anything but windows -- even today. Its gotten better with Steam, but the performance hit for non-windows systems is brutal.
If you're just an average user that only wants to use facebook, webmail and browse the internet, you'd be best served with a chromebook/chromebox. That literally just works with no manual configuration necessary anywhere. Its just that there is very little you can do on it. (The Android integration is still beta, so that doesn't count)
this list is obviously not exhaustive. I'm just trying to make a point with some examples.
I'm sure being able to fully customise your system is appealing to some, the rest of us just want to get stuff done.
Ps. Web developer since 1994.
Quite.
I want audio and auto-suspend and battery management to just work, to be able to buy peripheries that I know will work.
Also, without wanting to hit the snark too much:
>> If you're a web developer and are somewhat competent, you ... can actually use the same daemons as the production system will be using.
When you become _very_ competent, you'll be running all of those in VMs or Docker or whatever.
It seems i've offended you in some way.
I did not mean to imply that all competent web developers should be using ubuntu or fedora. You can be a very efficient and great programmer without ever using any linux distribution in your life. After all, StackOverflow seems to be quite good at what it does and its run on windows iirc.
Its just that you'll occasionally run into problems. If you're inexperienced with linux distributions you'll have to google their solution, making even a trivial problem such as '$PROGRAM not found' a very painful experience. And you won't really get to utilize the usability improvements from i3wm for example.
so to summarize: you don't need to use linux to be a competent developer. You won't be able to really use linux unless you're already an experienced and competent developer which is open to find new workflows. You could install it and use it, sure, but you'D become another example of why "linux desktop doesn't work"
I just want a Unix-based laptop and I treat apple like a good community-run skin that has really good testing with a small set of hardware. That works for me.
In the rare case that I want to customize something or an developing for someone who wants customization, I’ll virtualization. I’ve been lucky enough (or maybe unfortunate since it’s fun) to not do anything related to hardware for a decade or so.
Been using computers daily for 33 years and have no need for this. I mean, I tried once out of curiosity, but can't see the appeal. Of course, everyone's different and "you do you!" etc :-) Like the grandparent poster, macOS is the "least worst" option for me so far.
Try to install OSX on different hardware combinations (once you get chameleon working) and you will find out that it sucks, maybe even harder than Windows/Linux.
Probably
> Linux and Windows supports a much broader range of hardware combination, obviously the perfect combination and work doesn't exist for them
Yes
> Try to install OSX on different hardware combinations
Why would I do that when I can buy a Mac?
This is neither a moral stance nor a philosophical one, it's a practical one. I want a stable reliable machine to be productive on, and not to irritate me more than is strictly necessary. That's been a Mac for the last 15 years or so. One dud model in that time is not enough to get me playing with XF86config, tweaking the Registry again, or powering off my laptop when I'm done with it.
Maybe to contrast pumped prices for hardware found on other vendors' hardware, costing half or a third of it? (true especially for the entry level MacBooks, which have same hw of a 500€ laptops from Hp or Lenove
> It's OS X that I buy Macs for
As the grand-parent you're replying to notes, it doesn't work so well on non-Apple systems. The hardware is secondary.
Everybody assumed that the refresh would take a winning formula and adjust it a little bit. Nobody assumed that Apple would completely screw up the keyboard, hose things with the touch bar, abuse people by only having USB-C ports, kill the MagSafe power, and still not offer modern processor and memory specs.
Everybody then assumed that when all these problems came out, Apple would own up and make it right. The fact that Apple is NOT doing that is finally pissing people off.
My wife likes hers.
However, people are always more vocal about things they don’t like. We expect things to work right, and when they do, it is not supposed to be a remarkable event. It’s supposed to be normal.
Crap not working right is infuriating and we let everyone know about that stuff.
That said, you can learn a lot from negative comments by seeing if the things that people complain about would bother you or not.
Negative commentary by itself doesn’t matter if what people complain about is irrelevant to you. On the contrary, if all people can find to complain about is stuff that doesn’t matter to you, you are golden.
Touchbar complaints that matter to me are primary escape key related. Otherwise it’s just meh to me. On my work keyboard the escape key is awkward so I mostly use ctrl-[. And I think my iPad “smart” keyboard doesn’t even have escape so that has reinforced it for me. I don’t really notice much anymore.
So the escape key isn’t a deal breaker for me. I mostly just don’t care about the touch bar. Don’t have one on my computer though.
However, the thin mbpr keyboards sound like thunder and that drives me nuts. The key breakage/stop working deal would suck but I can’t gauge how common that really is.
They all make abnoxious noise though. I won’t upgrade until that is fixed. I’d give up my establishment in the macOS ecosystem and go Linux with a thinkpad maybe.
Personally, the touch bar is a bridge too far and I won't be buying another mac. But it does take something like this (which I consider pretty egregious) to push me over the edge, so I can understand why others might choose otherwise.
Beyond that, though, 1) the cooling is the best, every previous model melted my lap, 2) I absolutely love the flexibility of USB-C, 3) I can charge whatever side suits the cable better which depends on where I am, 4) I can use powerbanks for emergency juice, 5) the screen is brighter than ever, 6) it's thinner and lighter than the previous gen, 7) the SSD is faster than the previous gen by quite a bit, 8) ditched the MagSafe proprietary power connector, I now use generic USB-3 stuff and have numerous chargers that work fine. USB-C's withdrawal tension is just right to avoid all the issues MagSafe helped with.
It can (at least with a suitable gloss on 'better'). For practical purposes there are only 3 OSs to choose from. I had determined to ditch macs because of the new fake keyboard, but having reacquainted myself with both linux & windows to prepare for the move, I'm now back to desperately hoping Apple brings out a MB with a real keyboard this year. All operating systems are horrible. MacOS is no exception, but it's the most manageable horror. It seems to me to be a bit like democracy: it's the worst except for all the others.
So, an interesting takedown[1] of Apple engineering was posted on /r/videos yesterday. I can't speak to the veracity, but there's some interesting claims there that if true would make me think twice before buying an Apple Laptop (specifically because of very long-standing issues and warranty shenanigans). There's a segment on the keyboard towards the second half as well.
are you listening, apple?
And then I got a 2017 Macbook Pro at my new job. Never mind that the keys are reported to stick (mine haven't yet), it just feels terrible. Virtually zero throw in the switch. And a personal pet peeve, they made the same mistake Microsoft did with their ergo keyboard for 1 sad iteration (before they fixed it in later models) - they changed the arrow keys from the standard upside-down T layout to a diamond layout. Those designers at Apple wanted symmetry so they made it happen. Too bad it kills the ergonomics.
But the trackpad is where it really goes downhill. It's physically huge for no good reason. Worse (and the reason I'm seriously looking to see if I can swap it for an older model), it routinely (like 20% of the time) mistakes 1- and 2-finger clicks for each other. I never know which it's going to do. I never experienced this at all with any of my older Macbook Pros and Macbook Airs. Good luck giving a presentation - you're awkwardly fumbling with context menus when you don't want them, etc... audience will think you've never used a computer before. And yes, I've disabled all the stupid gesture stuff because it was even worse before I did so.
The "only 2 USB C ports and a headphone jack" is the icing on the cake. I could live with it if it were the only issue, but it just annoys me that I need to bring a docking station with me to stay plugged in while presenting and using any usb peripheral. What's the benefit here - maybe 1/2 mm thinner?