4 ms·

> What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I think the new MBPs are, well... not good, consi

> What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I think the new MBPs are, well... not good, considering the price. I really like my 2012 MacBook Air. It's still going strong, although I wish I had went for the 8GB of RAM instead of just 4. But when I was talking about the new models with my friends and coworkers, a lot of us shared one thought: We don't think it's worth the money, but we can't spend $2000 on a laptop anyway, so whatever. So we're not the target market. It seems that people here don't really want one either, so 'Developers who frequent Hacker News' also doesn't seem to be the target... It seems like maybe it's just 'wealthy people who want a sleek-looking, well made piece of hardware', which it is. Maybe it includes businesses that will provide one to their employees, and will buy the extra dongles and whatnot. There's probably a lot of them in each group. If I had the money, and didn't care that it didn't have the fastest processor, the ability to have a crazy amount of RAM, and would need an extra damn cable just to connect my iPhone, I would love to buy one too. One thing seems pretty certain, and it's that there is room for a competitor to jump in and make a great laptop for the people who are looking for something different. I really hope someone can make it work.

DanHulton 10y ago
I really wish I agreed with you. Unfortunately, there's literally nobody who can step in here and make a truly competitive product, since it won't run the same OS. I mean, I develop for the web, so I could very well switch to Windows or Linux at this point, and after some pain points, I'd probably be back up and running and around 90% as happy as I was before. But that last 10%, where things don't work quite like I want them to, well, that would grate. And over time, I'm probably going to grow to hate that machine. Plus, what about people who make iOS apps? Or heck, even just develop for the Mac? There's literally no other option than a Mac. This is a big part of why people are so upset, is because we can't just wait for a competitor to jump in and save us. We've let ourselves become dependant on Apple, and -- like you put it -- we seem not to be the target market anymore. As much our fault as theirs maybe, I'm not one to judge, but it still sucks.
- rukuu001 10y ago
  > Plus, what about people who make iOS apps? Or heck, even just develop for the Mac? There's literally no other option than a Mac. The message from Apple seems to be 'get an iMac'. They seem to prefer their developers to be stationary :/
- guelo 10y ago
  There's also a 10% that works better on Windows than on Macs and you're not currently aware of it. I've switched between Macs and Windows and Linux as my daily driver several times and there's always an annoyance when you switch and everything doesn't work the way you want t. But it goes away quickly, within days. And then the next time you switch you're again annoyed that things don't work the way the new way you're used to. Actually, I've been mostly using Macs for the last 4 years and I still think window management and the Finder are inferior to Windows'.
  - milesokeefe 10y ago
    I agree re: win > macOS on window management but why do you prefer the file explorer? The lack of tab support is a major pain point for me on the windows explorer, that combined with the great file preview support that Finder has makes it much more useful to me. There may be some features I'm missing though, I only use Win10 for gaming.
    - guelo 10y ago
      Hmm, you're right, Finder has a lot of good things over Explorer, also search is mostly superior. I get annoyed by things like forced hidden system folders, fewer fields available for file sorting (I've been annoyed by being unable to sort images by resolution), how they try to hide the path of files which is especially annoying for search results. I guess it's another of those things where some things are better and some things are worse.
Ar-Curunir 10y ago
You still need people to develop for your platform, and delivering underpowered machines does not help with that.
easychris 10y ago
I'm not sure about the "Business as target market" thing. In our 12-person company I introduced Macs and now everyone uses one instead of a PC. I'm not sure if businesses would have switched to Macs without some kind of endorsement from a "Hacker"-friend or employee. If the common perception about Macs withings IT experts will change to "look nice but really not worth their money" I imagine in the long run that could hurt the sales to non-experts too.

DanHulton 10y ago

I really wish I agreed with you. Unfortunately, there's literally nobody who can step in here and make a truly competitive product, since it won't run the same OS. I mean, I develop for the web, so I could very well switch to Windows or Linux at this point, and after some pain points, I'd probably be back up and running and around 90% as happy as I was before. But that last 10%, where things don't work quite like I want them to, well, that would grate. And over time, I'm probably going to grow to hate that machine. Plus, what about people who make iOS apps? Or heck, even just develop for the Mac? There's literally no other option than a Mac. This is a big part of why people are so upset, is because we can't just wait for a competitor to jump in and save us. We've let ourselves become dependant on Apple, and -- like you put it -- we seem not to be the target market anymore. As much our fault as theirs maybe, I'm not one to judge, but it still sucks.

rukuu001 10y ago
> Plus, what about people who make iOS apps? Or heck, even just develop for the Mac? There's literally no other option than a Mac. The message from Apple seems to be 'get an iMac'. They seem to prefer their developers to be stationary :/
guelo 10y ago
There's also a 10% that works better on Windows than on Macs and you're not currently aware of it. I've switched between Macs and Windows and Linux as my daily driver several times and there's always an annoyance when you switch and everything doesn't work the way you want t. But it goes away quickly, within days. And then the next time you switch you're again annoyed that things don't work the way the new way you're used to. Actually, I've been mostly using Macs for the last 4 years and I still think window management and the Finder are inferior to Windows'.
- milesokeefe 10y ago
  I agree re: win > macOS on window management but why do you prefer the file explorer? The lack of tab support is a major pain point for me on the windows explorer, that combined with the great file preview support that Finder has makes it much more useful to me. There may be some features I'm missing though, I only use Win10 for gaming.
  - guelo 10y ago
    Hmm, you're right, Finder has a lot of good things over Explorer, also search is mostly superior. I get annoyed by things like forced hidden system folders, fewer fields available for file sorting (I've been annoyed by being unable to sort images by resolution), how they try to hide the path of files which is especially annoying for search results. I guess it's another of those things where some things are better and some things are worse.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago

You still need people to develop for your platform, and delivering underpowered machines does not help with that.

easychris 10y ago

I'm not sure about the "Business as target market" thing. In our 12-person company I introduced Macs and now everyone uses one instead of a PC. I'm not sure if businesses would have switched to Macs without some kind of endorsement from a "Hacker"-friend or employee. If the common perception about Macs withings IT experts will change to "look nice but really not worth their money" I imagine in the long run that could hurt the sales to non-experts too.