When you have an issue, and complain about it or even ask advice what to do, I've often encountered toxic behavior from Apple fans. Denying the problem's existence and such.
The problem is of course what to heck to buy. MacBooks do have nice features, like fast wakeup and an excellent touchpad, that I still haven't seen matched in the "Windows" laptop camp.
Everything is perfectible but to say it's not a good and resilient design as compared to other laptops is just non-sense. Nothing is 100% fail-proof we must be realistic.
I had issues with apple products, but nothing so bad that a visit at a genius bar couldn't solve in a reasonable manner. Yet I will loose trust the day they let me down in an intolerable way, but surely not based on hearsay's from the web.
My point is, when buying those laptops, you do take a risk on whether your use case and your individual unit is going to experience issues. This was all hypothetical to me as well, until my friends paid their money to find out whether it was real or not.
Apple's history of design issues and ignoring them goes all the way back to the Powerbook G3 and G4 Cube. This isn't some sudden drop in quality. People just have short memories.
I also remember having a Toshiba something-or-other 10 years ago and hating the touchpad in comparison to a Mac. So, just saying, I've seen how bad it can be. The XPS has given me no issues aside from having to make sure I change the click behavior (tap to click really annoys me).
Back on the thinkpad now.
Edit: this sort of denialism makes me feel dirty owning an iphone.
The touchpad is nice (except from right clicking with 2 fingers, but I think you can change it with software), the hardware is beautifully made, battery lasts 12 hours (maybe around 8-10 with normal usage) and you get in a windows tablet too.
My only problem was the pricetag, 2.6k is kinda a lot, for the specs that aren't the best you can get, but it's good for development work, I can also play some games on it and use photo editing tools.
This was the only windows laptop that I really liked, (my previous was a thinkpad from 8 years ago).
I recently upgraded my MacMini Server 2012 with max ram and SSDs. My Air is still going strong, so this may be the last time I get a Mac. Which is too bad. Their older machines were really really nice. The new ones are kinda shit.
Had they just kept releasing the same models with upgraded specs and none of the crazy price increases and improvements we’d all be upgrading. I don’t even mind the soldered in stuff if the machine was reliable. I use and Air. Now their keyboards don’t even work.
While you're at it you can also screw the battery in instead of gluing it in place. Or screw the keyboard in instead of riveting it in place.
All of this is a reality in my Dell XPS 15. Keyboard is screwed in with 20-something tiny screws, it's firmly in place and it makes keyboard replacement a $20 affair that you can even do yourself should a bad day happen when you bump your drink onto it. The battery can be freshened up as well should you keep your laptop for more than a couple of years while using it daily, and it costs $80. Should your laptop fail completely you can salvage the data from it just by plugging the drive into another laptop or desktop (Apple removed a "lifeboat" connector from their 2018 MBP for example, not much was occupying its space though), you can upgrade the RAM fad down the line if your use case changer or OS becomes more demanding. Etc.
This is already possible and is happening right now, so Apple doing the Apple thing is not excusable by their laptops being thin or light, or portable or whatever.
"We'll fix it in a later iteration, possibly" isn't a credible attitude from a company whose prices are already wildly inflated and hard to justify.
I think the real issue here is the failure of Apple to acknowledge the technical flaw. That, and the the poor customer service. If it's a design issue, it should be covered in the warranty : it would be costly on a short term perspective, but in this specific case I think it would be worth it, as it would keep customers happy with the brand.
Which is one of the Key Point of Genius Bar, these front line Genius were suppose to Report back all sort of problems with their Product so the design team would know. Steve make sure this so they can services their customer better. Look at the Genius Bar now.
Beside what they are doing with their reputation and customers loyalty, I’m wondering how is it going to affect their engineering culture within the company itself.
They are very biased with their strategies in everything and they hardly change them. Same situation Microsoft was in some years ago.