What is with this knee-jerk defense of Apple every time someone suggests holding them to a higher consumer standard?

You can sell good products while still embracing open technologies.

It's protection of one's investment. One doesn't just buy a laptop from Apple but one invests in all the devices, apps, ecosystem and brand. It's why past apple users express so much hurt when the company crosses a line. To leave or even to criticise hurts psychologicaly and financially. Thus it is logical to protect ones investment and defend the brand on social media.

This extends to many brands of course for example AWS or anything where time or the person is invested but it's most easily noticeable with Apple on HN.

Yes. We live in a world where our only real freedom is our purchasing decisions. I think that leads to people making brands, TV shows, video games, etc. a big enough part of their identity that criticism of that thing feels like criticism of them personally.

How is a laptop an investment? Its a tool one uses, but it doesn't generate a return, properly speaking. Or would you say that all tools are investments?

You pay $800 and you get your value. The market obviously decided that the value provided is good enough, since their sales are good. Just because you value certain things doesn't mean the collective does.

Just because some sliver (OK, large sliver) of their consumer base is satisfied with this shit doesn't mean that they didn't live a sizeable amount of people stranded for both hardware and software options. Because they did.

I used to be able to slam an MBP down on the woodworking table, open it up and start typing. Now there is no slamming, because they flimsy. No typing near dust, because they get stuck in the keyboard. Every app is a single window, so you can't chat with two people at once. Everything is in the cloud, so you wait on your very fast computer to do networking all the f.in time (even opening Finder). The UI has lost so much of it's legibility that I don't know what I'm looking at half the time anymore. Active window? Maybe not? What does that label say? Why is this a modal? Where is the "don't ask again items" preference pane?

We have parted ways, I think. I'm not riding with them anymore.

Flimsy? MacBooks? Are we in different universes?

Keyboard is/was a valid concern. But flimsy, I’m not seeing.

Pretty sure I could murder someone with my M1 MacBook Air, clean it, and then write code.

Or poke a hole in the screen by leaving a single speck of sand on the keyboard before closing the lid.

There used to be a thick glass panel in front of it, but no more.

Again, don’t know where you’re getting this. 2020 MacBook Air has a glass panel. Ctrl-F “glass” on https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs/.

Would you please do something for me?

Open your new MacBook Air, place a single grain of sand smack in the middle of the keyboard between the G and the H. Close the lid.

Turn around and sit on it.

Tell me all about glass then. If you record it I'll have a listen.

Holy crap, now I have to sit on it? That’s a bit different than the original claim…

Only way to make sure.

Alternatively, throw a pinch of sand on the keyboard, close the lid, bag the Mac. Now, with some vigor, take it out blindly by any corner and trow it down on the thick wooden table, slamming it with it's own weight.

A few times.

And tell me how that gentle test went for you. :)

Send my condolences to any laptops you use.

Macbooks are easily the flimsiest devices I own if not for the display alone. I've dropped a Thinkpad out of a moving vehicle, and it booted up like nothing happened. My Macbook tumbled 2 feet onto a concrete floor and now the $600 topcase is destroyed...

This is the market being insane though, because they pay a premium because of branding.

Which is especially hilarious in low-income countries like mine. The cheapest latest iPhone (I don't remember what the current number is) costs about 3 median monthly incomes. Most of the population cannot afford one, so what do you do? get a loan and pay in monthly installments until the next one comes out, of course.

This isn't a rare occurrence, I'd say ⅓ of my acquaintances do this. The power of marketing at its finest.

It used to be, circa 2009-2015, for me and mine.

But not so anymore. Yes you pay. Yes the price is fair for what's on offer. No, it's not quality, and not the general direction I'm interested in, at all. Not in hardware, not in software.

I have a different definition of "best".