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...)
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...
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.
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 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.
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.
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").
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.
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.
Serviceable batteries are very important.
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).
But if only Apple would release Unix computers that would be a moot point I guess.
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.
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.
But it's just cherrypicking isn't it...
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?
?!?!?!!?!?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
(I'm still on a mid 2015 MBP and completely content to stay with it.)
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.
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...
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?
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.
No headphone port on the SE, forced touchbar on MBP.
My next laptop may not be a Mac because of the touchbar.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.