3 ms·

I didn't state that other laptops beat the shit out of a specced MacBook (though I am sure they exist). If I need performance, I will use a workstation or a ser

I didn't state that other laptops beat the shit out of a specced MacBook (though I am sure they exist). If I need performance, I will use a workstation or a server, they pack Xeon CPUs, CUDA-capable GPUs, etc. Moreover, their CPUs don't throttle under high load. For me, using a Mac for high-performance computing is a long-passed station. My criticism was that MacBooks have become bad laptops for their price. They have a limited number of ports with USB-C, which is not well-supported yet. They keyboard has serious problems, which I don't assume to be a fluke, since I know multiple persons with stuck keys. They are not expandable. And macOS has regressed quite a bit in the last few years. Some of these problems are acceptable in isolation, but regressions are piling up. Then there is crap like that the first generation of Apple's USB-C multi port adapters didn't actually support USB-3.0 transfer speeds, but contain a USB 2.0 hub. Back then I dropped 160 Euro on two adapters (this was before the MBP 2016-related price drop) to use my MacBook with existing screens, projectors, and USB devices. They give you a whole lot of crap about the transfer speeds, but sell you USB 2.0 adapters (!). --- Again, I have been a Mac user for 10 years. In that time I probably bought 5 or 6 Macs, since for some time I used both a Mac Mini and a MacBook. For may years, they were so far ahead of the competition, it was not even funny (excellent suspend support in 2007, MagSafe, battery indicator LEDs, OS X was simply better). I was a strongly advocating Macs among friends and family. Unfortunately, I just can't do that anymore. The risk is too big that they get a flawed keyboard or that they are too frustrated with the 1/2/4 USB-C ports.

auslander 8y ago
'bad laptops for their price' - market says they are OK for the price :)) Look in 5 years, you'll resell your macbook for half the price. Dell laptop? You'd have it in trash bin 2 years ago. I careful with my stuff. Whats the price of changing keyboard by apple?
- kalleboo 8y ago
  > Look in 5 years, you'll resell your macbook for half the price. I would not buy a 2016/2017 MacBook out of warranty. When the keyboard eventually goes bad, you're looking at a $700 repair
auslander 8y ago
> macOS has regressed quite a bit in the last few year Curious what was the regression, honestly
- danieldk 8y ago
  Just to name few random regressions that I ran into the last year or so: - Location services steals focus from XQuartz. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7964085 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7964085 - Emacs (non-X11 version) regularly triggers a bug in the display server that freezes it hard. Haven't been able to debug it further. I have mostly stopped using Emacs on macOS because of this bug. - Every few reboots, my Mac freezes and I have to do a hard reboot. - Every few days or so, sound stops working. I have to do a sudo killall coreaudiod and then everything is fine again. Well, except the volume control in the system tray, that comes back after a couple of hours. - Some monitoring tools, like htop freeze macOS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16082861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16082861 - Keynote doesn't open some older Keynote presentations correctly anymore (e.g. things converted with PDF2Keynote). Also, longer-term: Spaces was much nicer for power users than Mission Control. The Mac App Store seems to become slower all the time. Airport Utility is pretty limited compared to the older version. The killed genuinely useful Pages features like linked text boxes when they rebased on iOS iWork (they are finally back after years). Etc. I guess I don't have to mention the embarrassing security bugs that we had since the High Sierra release.
  - auslander 8y ago
    XQuartz and Emacs is open source, not MacOS. Checking other stuff ... lol, compare your grievances to windows folks and you'd have a nice grin all over your face forever :)) > my Mac freezes ... sound stops working reinstall Mac OS fresh, erasing the drive. 99% you hacked your OS badly.
    - danieldk 8y ago
      XQuartz and Emacs is open source, not MacOS. But these bugs are in macOS. An unprivileged program should not be able to crash the display server. reinstall Mac OS fresh, erasing the drive. 99% you hacked your OS badly. No, I recently did a fresh install (along with the usual NVRAM, PRAM reset, etc.)

auslander 8y ago

'bad laptops for their price' - market says they are OK for the price :)) Look in 5 years, you'll resell your macbook for half the price. Dell laptop? You'd have it in trash bin 2 years ago. I careful with my stuff. Whats the price of changing keyboard by apple?

kalleboo 8y ago
> Look in 5 years, you'll resell your macbook for half the price. I would not buy a 2016/2017 MacBook out of warranty. When the keyboard eventually goes bad, you're looking at a $700 repair

auslander 8y ago

> macOS has regressed quite a bit in the last few year Curious what was the regression, honestly

danieldk 8y ago
Just to name few random regressions that I ran into the last year or so: - Location services steals focus from XQuartz. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7964085 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7964085 - Emacs (non-X11 version) regularly triggers a bug in the display server that freezes it hard. Haven't been able to debug it further. I have mostly stopped using Emacs on macOS because of this bug. - Every few reboots, my Mac freezes and I have to do a hard reboot. - Every few days or so, sound stops working. I have to do a sudo killall coreaudiod and then everything is fine again. Well, except the volume control in the system tray, that comes back after a couple of hours. - Some monitoring tools, like htop freeze macOS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16082861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16082861 - Keynote doesn't open some older Keynote presentations correctly anymore (e.g. things converted with PDF2Keynote). Also, longer-term: Spaces was much nicer for power users than Mission Control. The Mac App Store seems to become slower all the time. Airport Utility is pretty limited compared to the older version. The killed genuinely useful Pages features like linked text boxes when they rebased on iOS iWork (they are finally back after years). Etc. I guess I don't have to mention the embarrassing security bugs that we had since the High Sierra release.
- auslander 8y ago
  XQuartz and Emacs is open source, not MacOS. Checking other stuff ... lol, compare your grievances to windows folks and you'd have a nice grin all over your face forever :)) > my Mac freezes ... sound stops working reinstall Mac OS fresh, erasing the drive. 99% you hacked your OS badly.
  - danieldk 8y ago
    XQuartz and Emacs is open source, not MacOS. But these bugs are in macOS. An unprivileged program should not be able to crash the display server. reinstall Mac OS fresh, erasing the drive. 99% you hacked your OS badly. No, I recently did a fresh install (along with the usual NVRAM, PRAM reset, etc.)