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Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware'

109 points by jordybg 8y ago

jonknee 8y ago
Hear, hear! I type this on a "Late 2013" MacBook Pro that I would have upgraded years ago if the replacements were desirable and they can't even keep those up to date.
- mschuster91 8y ago
  The Mid 2015 MBP is decent, it still has an SD card slot, USB3, MagSafe and two TB ports, as well as a real keyboard.
- jwalton 8y ago
  I'm on a mid-2012 with a failing battery, some keys don't work unless - shall we say - you push them with conviction, and just a few weeks ago it had a bit of a tumble and the LCD panel is now cracked. I'm debating whether I should buy a 2015 15", or wait for October to see if anything shows up in the next refresh. -_-
at-fates-hands 8y ago
I know a lot of people I know have seen this coming and in the past few years have either switched to Windows (creative types) or to Linux (developer types). It's fascinating to see Apple's fall from grace. They were once considered the go to hardware vendor in nearly every market segment, are now being easily passed by their competitors.
- samplesizeme 8y ago
  I would be back in the Linux camp if I could find a combination of hardware and software that matches the MBP touchpad experience.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  The figures don't show that, Mac sales are continuing to rise whilst the rest of the industry is in decline. There are clearly some vocal critics here, that isn't real evidence though.
  - pwinnski 8y ago
    I think rising Mac sales are masking the problems for Apple. From Apple's perspective, rising sales demonstrates that the criticisms are coming from a tiny discontented minority. From my perspective, sales may be rising for many reasons, but these criticism don't bode well for the future. All these new Mac users will face the same problems, and that will slow replacement rate.
    - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
      But they will know what the statistics are for returned faulty hardware. If the reliability rate is as bad as implied then I can't imagine them ignoring it.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Developer type on Windows. Being a developer is not a synonym for UNIX like development.
- themagician 8y ago
  No you don’t, no it’s not, no they weren’t, and no they aren’t. Apple has never had a majority market share in any segment. Ever. There was a time where they were popular in Japan and where they were popular in the creative fields, particularly print, advertising and film because of a few specialized applications (Quark, Final Cut, etc.). They ended up popular in college campuses post iPod and popular with developers in the 2006/2007 time frame after they switched to x86 because the combination of x86 and Unix made for a pretty developer friendly box. The new line of hardware has its problems, but that’s always been the case. The current line has a high failure on keyboards, the previous line had a problem with delaminating screens, the line before that thermal problems. They are selling more today than any other point in history and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  My wife's photo business still prefers (new) Macs for editing work in Photoshop and Lightroom. Everything is just much less hassle than with Windows, despite the reduced choice in hardware. Also, there's no risk of Microsoft forcing an breaking update on here during her busy season.
bogle 8y ago
The keyboards. The failure rate makes them a risky purchase. You could be just out of warranty and locked out of your machine. This is happening and driving people away. I personally am really going to miss that perfect trackpad as it's not going to be another MacBook Pro for me until this is fixed.
- masklinn 8y ago
  Touch bar as well, the theoretical upsides were few and didn't really pan out. It would have been an interesting and possibly useful addition to function keys (especially at a $300 markup) but it's just awful as replacement.
  - jkcl 8y ago
    I concur. Buying my MacBook with touch bar add-on was a decision I regret every day. And every day I miss the old function keys. In addition, Apple replaced my keyboard (all of sudden, the 'b' key ceased working) and managed to damage the Touch ID part of the bar, replacing which led to replacing the entire logic board. The keyboard has been so bad that I'm expecting it to go again soon, and next time, it won't be in warranty. Apple, please sort it out. You're still ahead of the pack if you can (a) fix the quality/bugs, and (b) stop making bad and very experimental design decisions.
  - nottorp 8y ago
    Laptop wise, the touch bar is useless and the non touch bar model is castrated. Worse, I like to use my (2012) mbpro in an open balcony. Judging by all the rumors, you can't do that with a 2015+ model because the first grain of dust that the wind brings in will ruin your keyboard and put you on the hook for a $700 top case replacement. No thanks. Couple that with no expandable desktop available since 2012...
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  Aren't they on the third iteration of those keyboards now, I wonder if the failure rate is still high. I guess we will find out when the next revision of laptops comes out, if they really are unreliable then Apple will fix it as it is clearly doing them some reputational damage.
titzer 8y ago
I switched back to a Linux workstation, after being "all mac laptop" since 2003 (!). My current Macbook Pro is from 2010 and my professional Macbook pro from 2015. The newest Macbooks with their stupid keyboards and USB-C only are total garbage, IMO. Sad.
- wklauss 8y ago
  I ended up buying a new 2017 15 inch MacBook Pro and it's really been not that bad. Yes, you have to use a USB-A to USB-C dongle here and there but at least for my daily use, it's not been terribly inconvenient. The machine is light and thin and I enjoy it immensely, although I'm a little scared about the keyboard (so far no problems). Touchbar?... meh. Neither like not dislike. I don't know. I understand the new MacBooks are not perfect for everybody but for me it has been more than OK, and I love the huge trackpad. I feel like a lot of the criticism seems excessive or are complaints that could very well be applied to the sad state of the PC industry as a whole.
  - izacus 8y ago
    Needing a dongle "here and there" means that now I need to carry it with me at all times. And that means both USB-A and HDMI dongles. More things I need to worry about to make my 3500EUR machine useful. This is a clear usability regression and the "USB-C" only future doesn't seem to be happening until end of lifetime of this machine. The keyboard feels bad and my space has started failing. This is also a clear regression with no benefit over previous model. Touchbar is still useless with pretty much no features over function keys (excluding TouchID on the power button). Pretty much no 3rd party apps use it well and the fact that it can't hold global app shortcuts make it significanly less useful than the previous keys. Another clear regression. It's not that the new Macs are bad machines, it's that Apple made a few baffling decisions which make the user experience worse over previous models. With pretty much no benefits.
    - titzer 8y ago
      > With pretty much no benefits. It sure is thin! And nice looking! Marchitecture, IMO.
Spooky23 8y ago
I sadly gave up on the Mac. My next personal device is a Dell XPS. The platform is great, and I liked the (declining) 3rd party ecosystem, but if the company doesn't give a crap about the platform, why should I? It's probably too late, but Apple needs to break the industrial design team's stranglehold on the platform. You can only focus on things that the customer doesn't care about for so long. I pulled the plug when my colleague had to spend about $350 on magic dongles for his $2k laptop.
- RhodesianHunter 8y ago
  I'm 2 months into owning mine and still trying to figure out the right combination of cables to plug into everything I used to plug into my 2010. If I hadn't sunk so much money into it at this point I'd be throwing it against the wall.
- slantyyz 8y ago
  >> I sadly gave up on the Mac. My next personal device is a Dell XPS. Switching is a mixed bag. I notice (at least on HN) that there are two types of people on Mac. People who are highly sensitized to details and those who are not. If you're sensitized to stuff like touch pads, coil whine, etc., you may not find pleasure in switching to a PC, because PC makers don't spend a lot of time on those details. If, however, you're not sensitized to small details, switching to PC is a pretty painless process.
  - ropeadopepope 8y ago
    > If, however, you're not sensitized to small details, switching to PC is a pretty painless process. There's another category to consider: Those who use mostly open source apps and those who prefer a better user experience. Switching is easy if you're the former. Not so much if you're the latter. The Mac app ecosystem is hands down the best there is. Mac apps are not just easy to use, but pleasant. Windows apps are ugly and often difficult to use. Heaven help you on Linux.
    - slantyyz 8y ago
nixgeek 8y ago
I was excited about the Touch Bar, but it turns out function keys were entirely adequate. Anyone actually using it for more on a regular basis? Touch ID on the other hand is incredibly useful, although much like the iPhone, it seems inevitable we will see Face ID sometime soon (which critics may point out just means Apple has caught up with Windows Hello).
- RhodesianHunter 8y ago
  I hate it. The only time I use it is to adjust volume or screen brightness, both things I used to be able to do with a single key press.
- adanto6840 8y ago
  I was excited to try leveraging it for something useful when playing our computer game (SimAirport) but I basically hit a dead end (or at least an undocumented end) when trying to interface with it from Unity. Within a month of the purchase I ended up having keyboard issues & returned it; purchased a refurb 2015 instead. It'll be my last Mac laptop (after >10 MBPs lifetime) unless they really get their act together.
H1Supreme 8y ago
For years and years, I've advocated that Apple should just release the OS like Windows. It runs fine on a lot of PC hardware you can buy off the shelf (I've built a few PC's that do just this). And, with the Nvidia drivers that were released a year or two ago, most graphics cards people want to run are available. I realize that there's a lot involved with suddenly trying to support an array of hardware. But, maybe release with a set of suggested hardware, and a "no guarantees" sort of license. I've always enjoyed MacOs, but the hardware has been a joke for some time now. My old G5 Mac Pro was the pinnacle of Mac desktops, imo.
- outside1234 8y ago
  This is a lot harder problem than it sounds. MacOS on a random piece of hardware would be out of the box a lot like the shitshow that desktop Linux is on a random piece of hardware. 90% of things would work and 10% wouldn't. This is a matrix test problem of massive proportions and it would be hard for Apple to fund this, especially now that they have anchored the price of MacOS to $0.
- npongratz 8y ago
  Apple did in fact license their OS in the 1990s. Did not work out very well, financially, for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone#Licensed_Macintosh_clones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone#Licensed_Macin...
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Indeed. However: much of the system is now based on FOSS; and given user upgrades have been free since, what, Snow Leopard in 2009?, there’s a case for them open sourcing the OS and saying “derivatives are fine provided no trademarks are used” or something like that.
  - protomyth 8y ago
    The Newton didn't work out for them, but the iPhone and iPad did. The current conditions are different than the past.
- 8y ago
lucisferre 8y ago
Completely agree. Reliability has plummeted with almost every release since the retina MBP. Crashes are a regular thing and most of the physical "improvements" outside of compactness and weight have been unwanted. The touch bar in particular is just a dead appendage. But my previous and extensive experiences with Linux and Windows ecosystems tell me that the grass is not greener, so I stay and put up with the problems.
- gutnor 8y ago
  > Crashes are a regular thing and most of the physical "improvements" outside of compactness and weight have been unwanted. I feel like the 3D touchpad is completely underrated but it really is amazing. It does everything that the mechanical one was doing except better. 2 years after getting it, I still can't believe it is not mechanical.
  - lucisferre 8y ago
    It's neat when you realize it doesn't actually move, and it is definitely an innovation, but it doesn't really improve the experience in any considerable way. But I'll give you that. It's also less likely to get stuck in any way.
thisisblurry 8y ago
Previous conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588
atonse 8y ago
The most dangerous thing here is that the public is increasingly getting the message and idea that Apple's mac hardware is decomposing. They really need to make this a priority. I fear that the success of the iPhone is blinding them to the importance of the mac. And you can tell because they're kicking ass when it comes to iOS devices. They're so far ahead in certain areas, it's not even funny. This is reminding me of the Steve Ballmer years at MS. The financials looked GREAT, even though the company completely stagnated when it came to technology (with some exceptions like the Developer Division). Similarly, the Mac division's strong imbalance now of choosing form over function (the designers have taken over the asylum, removing ports, making keyboards thinner that nobody asked for), is going to continue hurting them until they change course drastically. Hopefully we see it soon. Meanwhile, I am clinging on to my MacBook Pro from 2015, still the best MacBook Pro I've owned.
- c12 8y ago
  Remember when Apple killed their server devision? It wasn't because it wasn't profitable - because it was. They killed it because it wasn't profitable enough to be anything other than a rounding error on their accounts. I fear the same is happening with the MacBook line up when compared against the profits from iOS devices.
  - pier25 8y ago
    I don't know. The Mac still represents a 10% of revenue for Apple, and I'm sure most of that comes from laptops.
    - Uw7yTcf36gTc 8y ago
      revenue is not profit though...
- slantyyz 8y ago
  > The most dangerous thing here is that the public is increasingly getting the message and idea that Apple's mac hardware is decomposing. Not sure "the public" is very aware of any of the stuff going on (or more accurately, not going on) with Macs at Apple. I don't think the general public reads or hears any Apple news outside of what the main stream media reports. Most of the complaints about the touchbar, keyboard, etc. don't trickle up to the MSM. The MSM is more interested in reporting about iPhone news than Macs.
metabrew 8y ago
Mid-2012 MBP with SSD, retina, and 16gb here. I've got an HDMI port, SD card reader, two USB ports, two thunderbolt ports, magsafe power, and a proper, reliable keyboard. I despair at the current crop of mac hardware. If this machine dies on me before some decent mac hardware arrives, I'm not sure what i'll do - but it definitely won't involve buying a new macbook with the touchbar, stupid keyboards, and no ports.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bootsz 8y ago
  Amen
- fredley 8y ago
  Same camp. One of my thunderbolt ports just died, and the screen itself is glitching more and more frequently. I'm praying that it hangs in there long enough for Apple to produce a machine I actually want to upgrade to, and that feels like an upgrade without compromise. If it dies before that happens I'll be reluctantly shopping for non-Mac hardware.
- dbattaglia 8y ago
  I've used 2 new touchbar Mac for work since early 2017. When it came time to replace my ancient personal 2011 MBP I ended up just spending the $2000 for the "new" 2015-era MBPs that Apple still sells. While it's a bummer to spend that kind of money for a 3 year old spec machine, I still prefer it over my work machine with that dreadful low profile keyboard and useless touch strip. If things don't improve come next upgrade cycle I think I'm going to just find something that runs Ubuntu reasonably well.
- unknown_apostle 8y ago
  Yep. And no 32GB because they just had to make it 1mm thinner.
  - white-flame 8y ago
bootsz 8y ago
I have an early 2013 MBP that I'm going to hang on to as long as I possibly can. It is truly a wonderful machine. I'm long out of warranty and just opted to pay $600 for repairs rather than upgrade. Really hope apple can turn things around before it finally kicks the bucket for good. Pretty amazing and sad how a company can take something so good and completely ruin it. To be fair it probably doesn't help that our culture is so obsessed with constant new-ness in tech, expecting huge advances every single year which puts pressure on companies to come up with shiny new features all the time. If it ain't broke...
grzm 8y ago
Discussion of the actual article this piece addresses from 4 days ago (over 300 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588
zdw 8y ago
I think this is a combination of issues: USB-C's ecosystem was confusing and good products never materialized, or if they did nobody could find them in the sea of junk. The lack of hardware updates, which seems to have started with the 5-10% performance bumps Intel piddled out in the absence of competition from AMD from 2011-2017. Most of the CPU's and GPU's that could have been used frankly weren't much better than what they'd replace, so from that standpoint, upgrading the hardware was kind of pointless for an extremely minor performance benefit. The keyboards situation is horrible. Failure prone and loud without much point. Apple is making a lot of money in the iOS ecosystem. Success hides problems, and it seems like "if it's not broken, don't fix it" was used as an excuse to let the Mac languish. As someone who did nearly all of Apple's IT-related certs in the mid 00's then watched them slowly decontent and destroy all of their OS X Server and related software almost immediately as iOS was on the rise, I don't see good things coming on the horizon. If you're on a Mac, try to start using primarily OSS software and. Don't get stuck on a platform that might get abandoned tied to a workflow on software that isn't portable. The silly thing is that Apple could (and should) invest in the Mac as it was pretty great, and could be great again. I'm not holding my breath.
- subway 8y ago
  What's wrong with USB-C? It's seen a pretty wide-spread uptake over the last couple years, and you're hard pressed to find a new laptop from any manufacturer that doesn't use it for charging.
  - grk 8y ago
    https://marco.org/2017/10/14/impossible-dream-of-usb-c https://marco.org/2017/10/14/impossible-dream-of-usb-c
    - yebyen 8y ago
      This sounds like an absolutely horrifying state of affairs. I did not know what a bullet I dodged by opting for the non-touchbar 2015-Mac that still has those regular old USB-A and HDMI/Mini-DP ports. > Many Android phones support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge over USB-C, which is different — usually — from the official, better, newer USB-C Power Delivery (PD) standard. Apple products, some Android phones, and the Nintendo Switch use USB-C PD. Quick Charge devices don’t get any benefit — usually — from PD chargers, and vice versa. ... and this is just a small sample.
dschuetz 8y ago
I'm having a deja-vue. 25 years ago Apple was facing a similar decline in product diversity, innovation and novelty. With Steve Jobs gone forever I don't think Apple will survive that one. By a long shot Apple will burn through their cash very fast, with mediocre products and no innovation in the pipeline. And I don't see another innovation genius like Steve Jobs with a determined vision to come around at Apple these days. Good luck with that!
- bborud 8y ago
  Actually, Apple had too much product diversity and one of the things Jobs did was to simplify the product lineup and make sure that each product counted. Apple have maintained a relatively simple product lineup when it comes to the computers, the problem is that they no longer know how to make products that deliver where it counts. (Of course, they do have boneheaded products like the dead end stovepipe Mac Pro, which completely misses the point of what power-hungry users with generous budgets need, but it appears as sort of a tradition to have the odd boneheaded computer to satisfy the egos of designers. Given the past history of Apple I think it is safe to say that high end users have never been a great priority)
- mtzaldo 8y ago
  They can do what MS is doing in the Mobile market... focus on software... They can bring those "great" applications (including iOS development) to Windows/Linux/BSD.
- scarface74 8y ago
  25 years ago in 1993, Apple was doing well. The Macintosh was also doing well, rising from 1.3 million units in 1990 to its all-time high of 4.5 million units in 1995. Macintosh market share peaked at 12% in 1993. It was a boom time for Apple, with the future looking bright. https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/
Shivetya 8y ago
August 15th is the date I am concerned with because that is when the iMac was introduced. That is such an ideal date to release the next upgrade to the iMac line. There have been rumors floating about of a new chassis which would provide separation from the new iMac Pro. I am still one of those dreamers who would love a headless Mac with some ability to add drives and even swap a video card. however Apple has not even bothered with a new display in ages so I doubt they would have a new headless mac without one. Still happily using my 2013 iMac 27 780M video, last of the models that is not Retina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac
dstroot 8y ago
Apple needs to differentiate it’s lines further. The MacBook can be 2 mm thin and light as a feather for those who value those features. However, the MacBook Pro should be a true pro machine with a great keyboard, great screen, necessary ports, and built like a tank. Thinness obsession has gotten a bit far IMHO.
intrasight 8y ago
From a business standpoint, it's hard for Apple to justify investing in a product like that contributes a small and diminishing fraction of their revenue.
- jonknee 8y ago
  What a ridiculous statement. It's over 9% of their (giant) business, it would be a Fortune 500 company itself if not part of Apple.
  - intrasight 8y ago
    9% is small - and it is shrinking
dictum 8y ago
The MBP is a dead horse at this point, so I took a look at the current iMacs (I'm used to working on a 27 inch display and 5K tempts me; a standalone high quality display isn't much cheaper than going with an iMac). All stock models still come with HDDs. I hope someone finds some Enron-level accounting trickery at Apple and the whole thing comes crashing down fast, and some other company can take the role Apple had from early 2000s to early 2010s.
unknown_apostle 8y ago
What can't they just take the old non-touch bar 15 inch MBP chassis, put a decent CPU in that and go to 32 GB using regular DDR4? We'd still have decent enough battery life.
- criddell 8y ago
  That's what I wonder too. There's so much love for the machines of a few years ago with all the ports and the old keyboard. Why not just update that machine?
addedlovely 8y ago
Recently got my Mac Book Pro nicked by a kid on a moped - mid meeting. Sadly am not impressed with the touch bar, lack of USB, keyboard failures and the hardware is definitely due an update - or a price drop. There's only so long I'll hold out and wait for an update. Am currently thinking of getting an iMac - then a chrome book for meetings (so when it get's stolen again it's not too brutal). Anyone else got other recommendations? Assume windows isn't the blue screen mess I remember of days gone past.
- pier25 8y ago
  > Am currently thinking of getting an iMac - then a chrome book for meetings This is exactly what I did. It's a great combo. The current iMac 5K is amazing value if you consider how much a 5K monitor costs. I agree with most complaints about the Mac, except for the 5K iMac which IMO is the best Mac ever made.
msie 8y ago
If only we heard from someone inside Apple. Maybe there’s strife in the company? Jony Ive dragging his heels on a design? Some middle manager obstructing progress? Supply line issues?
- protomyth 8y ago
  Well, they fired Scott Forstall a couple of years back. I really think its because a COO is now the CEO and the biggest concern for the Mac line is maximizing profit margin in the supply chain by producing older models or making questionable quality affecting decisions. Operations running your company seems to be worse than Marketing. I miss Product People.
nik736 8y ago
I don't get the hate about the MBP. I have the 13-inch 2017 model without the TB and I absolutely LOVE it. It's such a master piece, I simply love it and use it as my daily driver. I also don't have any problems with my keyboard, I only can tell good things about it. The 2 ports suck, but I never was in need of more, I only use the power adapter and the USB C to HDMI/DP cable that goes in my 4K screen and that's it. Havn't used any regular USB devices for years anyways. The only thing I hate about it is the super slow CPU, but that's only partly because of Apple.
- StyloBill 8y ago
  "I don't get the hate because I don't need more ports anyway." See how this is anecdotal? Pretty sure if you were to have different use-cases you'd like your MPB a lot less.
  - skygazer 8y ago
    I don't think it's necessarily reasonable to expect everyone to only communicate some consensus view. I understand my opinion here is only a sample-of-one, but I generally need a collection of individual reports before I can aggregate them.
- Joeri 8y ago
  The only thing I hate about it is the super slow CPU, but that's only partly because of Apple. If apple had upgraded the MBP internals for WWDC, it could have had the i7 8650U by now, instead of the i7 7660U. That's a quad core part compared to a dual core part, which runs up to 50% faster in multi-threaded workloads.
ballenf 8y ago
Ben Thompson at Stratechery may not have been the first to suggest this, but he has made a strong argument that Apple should spinoff the Mac business. Either to a subsidiary or to a 3rd party. I see a lot of risk and potential downsides, but with each new disaster of MBP released or eternity between updates it becomes more attractive. The tight integration with the iPhone (phone calls, messages, handoff) might suffer and that would be painful.
oneweekwonder 8y ago
Personally I'm in love with my MacBook Air. Any similar ultrabook alternative at $950+-?
slewis 8y ago
Interestingly for me, the annoyances of the new MacBook have faded into the background (no escape key, worse keyboard). I learned to hit ctrl+[ in vim, and don’t mind the keyboard until a key sticks for a little while. Meanwhile I can’t imagine going back to the thicker form factor. I don’t mean to downplay people’s issues, and Apple definitely didn’t do a wonderful job here. But I do find that my day to day experience is net positive. Humans are very adaptable.
- huebnerob 8y ago
  I agree and have the same feelings, but there should at least be an option for people who don’t want to prioritize size over performance. Apple is the worlds biggest company, they can do better than ‘one size fits all’. Yes, that mantra is also part of their design philosophy, but it needs to be executed intelligently not blindly. There’s a long but diverse tail of professional use cases, and there’s definitely not a single box that can hold all of them.
- matwood 8y ago
  It may be unpopular, but I agree. I held off as long as I could, but finally ended up with a 2017 MBP. It works fine. I like the keyboard feel. It is a bit noisy though, and I worry about failures, but good so far. USB-C means I plug less into the computer than I used to. The dongle situation is a bit overblown. My 2014 MBP already had special cables for mini-display port and a dongle for gigabit ethernet. I am annoyed that Apple cannot seem to just do simple upgrades though. Not every release has to be some out of this world new design.
- jkcl 8y ago
  I agree with this in principle, but repeated hardware failures are likely to test my patience to its limits. Since I cannot see myself switching to a combination of by and large inferior hardware and (at least what I consider) inferior OS on other platforms without considerable comprises and pain, I've persevered with the OS bugs. Sadly, hardware failures are too disruptive and costly to put up with in the long run.
ksubedi 8y ago
Like someone else said in another comment, the grass is not green on the other side. I tried every windows flagship option out there from Asus convertibles to XPS 15 (still have this) and my experience was not even close to what I had hoped for. From big issues like coil whine on the XPS 15 to little issues like battery randomly dying, it seems like no other manufacturer cares about quality control and human user experience at all. Ended up getting a 2017 touch-bar 15' pro and could not have been happier. At least with MacBook I do not have to think about the machine getting in my way while I am trying to do something productive. The keyboard situation is bad but I am sure at one point they are going to have to do a recall or offer free repairs (Apple has done this before, look at the GPU issues). The touchbar issue is overblown. Once I adjusted my workflows to use touchbar and customized the touchbar for the apps I frequently use I have definitely been a little more productive than my old macbook. People do not like adapting to changes. USB C is not a problem anymore, since most of my devices are using USB C already I can usually get away with just couple of cables (usb c and lightning) while traveling.
- vivafrance 8y ago
  Get an x1 carbon, install FreeBSD with gnome. Hardware and software blow windows and macOS out of the water. I can’t fathom how people think MacOS has angood desktop is — everything is a struggle with their os.
  - ksubedi 8y ago
    I have not tried x1 carbon but literally all lenovo laptops I have tried have horrible trackpads (palm rejection issues on linux, weird tracking). MacOS is a good OS because it has a very human centric UI and it makes me very productive. Virtual Desktops that work flawlessly with trackpad, shortcuts like control command f to switch apps back and forth between fullscreen help me easily focus on task in hand, app quality is miles ahead of windows (scaling issues anyone?) and linux just doesn't have enough software available for anything other than development (video editors, graphics design etc).
- pier25 8y ago
  Mobile took precedence during the last decade, but now everyone is starting to realize that tablets and smartphones aren't going to replace regular computers for a large portion of the population.
Yuioup 8y ago
Why don't you get a decent laptop and put Linux on it?
- pier25 8y ago
  For me, it's mainly because of the Mac ecosystem.
- psychometry 8y ago
  Because some people care about user experience.
virusduck 8y ago
It would be heartening if someone from Apple at least said they were hearing the complaints. Number one, IMO, being this idiotic keyboard. Then the ports, then the touchbar fiasco. Stagnation is not nearly as big an issue as those issues. As others have said, change in technology in general has stagnated. If I HAD to buy a new laptop today, I might buy a Macbook, but I'd have a hard look at the state of the competition's trackpads first. Then probably go with the older MBAir with the better keyboard....
bborud 8y ago
Is there any indication that Apple is taking these complaints to heart? I suspect that the lack of updates may be indicative of Apple switching to an ARM based CPU for their laptops and desktop machine. If this is the case it probably wouldn't make sense for them to invest a lot in designing a new laptop around an Intel processor. It would also explain the delays since they would both need to get to grips with the hardware design AND provide a solution for running software compiled for x86 on ARM. While they have done this before, the task is much bigger this time as there is considerably more software available for the Mac that would need to work on the new architecture. Of course, this still raises questions. The first being how long it would take to stabilize the platform again. The second whether Apple will be sufficiently interested in the desktop/laptop market to deliver more consistent and meaningful product updates going forward. If they are indeed going to ignore the desktop/laptop market the interesting question would be how this would affect the sales of their other products. My guess is that if they manage to break up with developers, through inaction or otherwise, there is probably going to be a slow decline that nobody gets particularly worried about until it can't be compensated for with cheap sales tricks.
ballenf 8y ago
"sandworm101" commented[0] in the prior discussion that: > Given Apple's grip on users, they may even see laptops as a competitor to their iPhone business. Time on the macbook is time not on the iPhone. You can't get very much free / OSS software for your iPhone. You can't get around Apple's 30% cut on paid software. At least subconsciously, I believe this thinking explains a lot. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17313613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17313613
jorisw 8y ago
I - a web developer - am very content with my 2016 MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar. The only beef I got is that the keyboard gets dusty and spongy over time. I'm hoping that Apple will at some point release a 15" MacBook Pro without Touch Bar.
megaman22 8y ago
If you want a real MacBook Pro, I don't understand why they axed the 17" line. Those machines were beasts. Everyone I know who got one in college is still running them almost a decade later. For really doing work, a full keyboard and screen real-estate is king.
mainliningfbs 8y ago
Isn't the bigger issue for Apple that iOS is run by devs on the Mac platform? If devs start moving away from Mac computers, it becomes less likely they will develop for the App Store.
BerislavLopac 8y ago
I've been repeating this point over and over but: if you are a software developer AND your target platform is non-Apple Unix -- in other words if you're developing for Web or Android -- there isn't a single reason to choose Mac over a solid PC running Linux. I've used Mac for years before switching to Linux, and two years ago had the chance to revisit Mac as the primary development machine for about 10 months, and my opinion only became stronger. That doesn't mean that MacOS is not a solid system, and even Apple hardware is quite good -- I've recently bough a 2013 MacMini (the one with an optical drive) as my main home theatre and am quite happy. But as a software developer, I find using the same platform I'm developing for a very important detail.
okket 8y ago
Previous discussion from a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588 (331 comments)
thisisit 8y ago
Original link to the author's article: https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2018/06/14/on-the-sad-state-of-macintosh-hardware/ https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2018/06/14/on-the-sad-state-o... which was discussed earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588
peatmoss 8y ago
I am a former Mac user who has “come home” to Linux and BSD in recent years. Between the sad state of the Mac ecosystem (I like both the hardware AND software less today than I did 7 years ago) and the repost about desktop Linux UX this morning, I feel like the F/OSS and Mac communities have missed a golden opportunity. If I had a time machine and a magic wand, I’d certainly have blessed the GNUStep project to build the desktop many of us wish we had today. Had some hypothetical GNUStep desktop captured the mindshare of the majority of Linux desktops, I could imagine living in a world today in which Mac and Linux software were more or less a recompile away from portability. I could imagine a world in which some developers prefer building Mac software with GNUStep tooling. And I imagine a world in which Apple’s focus, priorities, and missteps weren’t an existential threat to people trying to make their living on the Mac.
alasdair_ 8y ago
My biggest issues is the lack of memory past 16gb in the "pro" line of macbooks. Right now I'm working on some integration tests with 5-6 different codebases and I have an intellij window for each. Then I have a couple of dozen chrome tabs open, a bunch of terminals and (most importantly for memory) a whole stack of docker containers and virtual machines. 16gb is a major blocker.
pasbesoin 8y ago
I remain pretty sure that Apple's Mac line is going ARM. Their own custom, highly performant version. However, I don't believe this excuses current circumstances. And a chip swap doesn't address the other, current hardware problems. I am not a Mac person, so my opinion doesn't carry much weight, on that basis. Nonetheless, having been reading what's going on, I'd say: If your career depends on Mac, and you can afford it, I'd buy a 2015 MacBook Pro before they're gone. Even if it feels like a "waste of money", weigh that against being without an acceptable machine until Apple gets it together. I'd also spend for the longer term AppleCare, to try to guarantee having a working machine until same. If things don't improve, soon, I wonder what the second-hand market for these will end up looking like.

109 points by jordybg 8y ago

Hear, hear! I type this on a "Late 2013" MacBook Pro that I would have upgraded years ago if the replacements were desirable and they can't even keep those up to date.

mschuster91 8y ago
The Mid 2015 MBP is decent, it still has an SD card slot, USB3, MagSafe and two TB ports, as well as a real keyboard.
jwalton 8y ago
I'm on a mid-2012 with a failing battery, some keys don't work unless - shall we say - you push them with conviction, and just a few weeks ago it had a bit of a tumble and the LCD panel is now cracked. I'm debating whether I should buy a 2015 15", or wait for October to see if anything shows up in the next refresh. -_-

at-fates-hands 8y ago

I know a lot of people I know have seen this coming and in the past few years have either switched to Windows (creative types) or to Linux (developer types). It's fascinating to see Apple's fall from grace. They were once considered the go to hardware vendor in nearly every market segment, are now being easily passed by their competitors.

samplesizeme 8y ago
I would be back in the Linux camp if I could find a combination of hardware and software that matches the MBP touchpad experience.
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
The figures don't show that, Mac sales are continuing to rise whilst the rest of the industry is in decline. There are clearly some vocal critics here, that isn't real evidence though.
- pwinnski 8y ago
  I think rising Mac sales are masking the problems for Apple. From Apple's perspective, rising sales demonstrates that the criticisms are coming from a tiny discontented minority. From my perspective, sales may be rising for many reasons, but these criticism don't bode well for the future. All these new Mac users will face the same problems, and that will slow replacement rate.
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    But they will know what the statistics are for returned faulty hardware. If the reliability rate is as bad as implied then I can't imagine them ignoring it.
pjmlp 8y ago
Developer type on Windows. Being a developer is not a synonym for UNIX like development.
themagician 8y ago
No you don’t, no it’s not, no they weren’t, and no they aren’t. Apple has never had a majority market share in any segment. Ever. There was a time where they were popular in Japan and where they were popular in the creative fields, particularly print, advertising and film because of a few specialized applications (Quark, Final Cut, etc.). They ended up popular in college campuses post iPod and popular with developers in the 2006/2007 time frame after they switched to x86 because the combination of x86 and Unix made for a pretty developer friendly box. The new line of hardware has its problems, but that’s always been the case. The current line has a high failure on keyboards, the previous line had a problem with delaminating screens, the line before that thermal problems. They are selling more today than any other point in history and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
My wife's photo business still prefers (new) Macs for editing work in Photoshop and Lightroom. Everything is just much less hassle than with Windows, despite the reduced choice in hardware. Also, there's no risk of Microsoft forcing an breaking update on here during her busy season.

bogle 8y ago

The keyboards. The failure rate makes them a risky purchase. You could be just out of warranty and locked out of your machine. This is happening and driving people away. I personally am really going to miss that perfect trackpad as it's not going to be another MacBook Pro for me until this is fixed.

masklinn 8y ago
Touch bar as well, the theoretical upsides were few and didn't really pan out. It would have been an interesting and possibly useful addition to function keys (especially at a $300 markup) but it's just awful as replacement.
- jkcl 8y ago
  I concur. Buying my MacBook with touch bar add-on was a decision I regret every day. And every day I miss the old function keys. In addition, Apple replaced my keyboard (all of sudden, the 'b' key ceased working) and managed to damage the Touch ID part of the bar, replacing which led to replacing the entire logic board. The keyboard has been so bad that I'm expecting it to go again soon, and next time, it won't be in warranty. Apple, please sort it out. You're still ahead of the pack if you can (a) fix the quality/bugs, and (b) stop making bad and very experimental design decisions.
- nottorp 8y ago
  Laptop wise, the touch bar is useless and the non touch bar model is castrated. Worse, I like to use my (2012) mbpro in an open balcony. Judging by all the rumors, you can't do that with a 2015+ model because the first grain of dust that the wind brings in will ruin your keyboard and put you on the hook for a $700 top case replacement. No thanks. Couple that with no expandable desktop available since 2012...
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
Aren't they on the third iteration of those keyboards now, I wonder if the failure rate is still high. I guess we will find out when the next revision of laptops comes out, if they really are unreliable then Apple will fix it as it is clearly doing them some reputational damage.

titzer 8y ago

I switched back to a Linux workstation, after being "all mac laptop" since 2003 (!). My current Macbook Pro is from 2010 and my professional Macbook pro from 2015. The newest Macbooks with their stupid keyboards and USB-C only are total garbage, IMO. Sad.

wklauss 8y ago
I ended up buying a new 2017 15 inch MacBook Pro and it's really been not that bad. Yes, you have to use a USB-A to USB-C dongle here and there but at least for my daily use, it's not been terribly inconvenient. The machine is light and thin and I enjoy it immensely, although I'm a little scared about the keyboard (so far no problems). Touchbar?... meh. Neither like not dislike. I don't know. I understand the new MacBooks are not perfect for everybody but for me it has been more than OK, and I love the huge trackpad. I feel like a lot of the criticism seems excessive or are complaints that could very well be applied to the sad state of the PC industry as a whole.
- izacus 8y ago
  Needing a dongle "here and there" means that now I need to carry it with me at all times. And that means both USB-A and HDMI dongles. More things I need to worry about to make my 3500EUR machine useful. This is a clear usability regression and the "USB-C" only future doesn't seem to be happening until end of lifetime of this machine. The keyboard feels bad and my space has started failing. This is also a clear regression with no benefit over previous model. Touchbar is still useless with pretty much no features over function keys (excluding TouchID on the power button). Pretty much no 3rd party apps use it well and the fact that it can't hold global app shortcuts make it significanly less useful than the previous keys. Another clear regression. It's not that the new Macs are bad machines, it's that Apple made a few baffling decisions which make the user experience worse over previous models. With pretty much no benefits.
  - titzer 8y ago
    > With pretty much no benefits. It sure is thin! And nice looking! Marchitecture, IMO.

Spooky23 8y ago

I sadly gave up on the Mac. My next personal device is a Dell XPS. The platform is great, and I liked the (declining) 3rd party ecosystem, but if the company doesn't give a crap about the platform, why should I? It's probably too late, but Apple needs to break the industrial design team's stranglehold on the platform. You can only focus on things that the customer doesn't care about for so long. I pulled the plug when my colleague had to spend about $350 on magic dongles for his $2k laptop.

RhodesianHunter 8y ago
I'm 2 months into owning mine and still trying to figure out the right combination of cables to plug into everything I used to plug into my 2010. If I hadn't sunk so much money into it at this point I'd be throwing it against the wall.
slantyyz 8y ago
>> I sadly gave up on the Mac. My next personal device is a Dell XPS. Switching is a mixed bag. I notice (at least on HN) that there are two types of people on Mac. People who are highly sensitized to details and those who are not. If you're sensitized to stuff like touch pads, coil whine, etc., you may not find pleasure in switching to a PC, because PC makers don't spend a lot of time on those details. If, however, you're not sensitized to small details, switching to PC is a pretty painless process.
- ropeadopepope 8y ago
  > If, however, you're not sensitized to small details, switching to PC is a pretty painless process. There's another category to consider: Those who use mostly open source apps and those who prefer a better user experience. Switching is easy if you're the former. Not so much if you're the latter. The Mac app ecosystem is hands down the best there is. Mac apps are not just easy to use, but pleasant. Windows apps are ugly and often difficult to use. Heaven help you on Linux.
  - slantyyz 8y ago

nixgeek 8y ago

I was excited about the Touch Bar, but it turns out function keys were entirely adequate. Anyone actually using it for more on a regular basis? Touch ID on the other hand is incredibly useful, although much like the iPhone, it seems inevitable we will see Face ID sometime soon (which critics may point out just means Apple has caught up with Windows Hello).

RhodesianHunter 8y ago
I hate it. The only time I use it is to adjust volume or screen brightness, both things I used to be able to do with a single key press.
adanto6840 8y ago
I was excited to try leveraging it for something useful when playing our computer game (SimAirport) but I basically hit a dead end (or at least an undocumented end) when trying to interface with it from Unity. Within a month of the purchase I ended up having keyboard issues & returned it; purchased a refurb 2015 instead. It'll be my last Mac laptop (after >10 MBPs lifetime) unless they really get their act together.

H1Supreme 8y ago

For years and years, I've advocated that Apple should just release the OS like Windows. It runs fine on a lot of PC hardware you can buy off the shelf (I've built a few PC's that do just this). And, with the Nvidia drivers that were released a year or two ago, most graphics cards people want to run are available. I realize that there's a lot involved with suddenly trying to support an array of hardware. But, maybe release with a set of suggested hardware, and a "no guarantees" sort of license. I've always enjoyed MacOs, but the hardware has been a joke for some time now. My old G5 Mac Pro was the pinnacle of Mac desktops, imo.

outside1234 8y ago
This is a lot harder problem than it sounds. MacOS on a random piece of hardware would be out of the box a lot like the shitshow that desktop Linux is on a random piece of hardware. 90% of things would work and 10% wouldn't. This is a matrix test problem of massive proportions and it would be hard for Apple to fund this, especially now that they have anchored the price of MacOS to $0.
npongratz 8y ago
Apple did in fact license their OS in the 1990s. Did not work out very well, financially, for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone#Licensed_Macintosh_clones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone#Licensed_Macin...
- ben_w 8y ago
  Indeed. However: much of the system is now based on FOSS; and given user upgrades have been free since, what, Snow Leopard in 2009?, there’s a case for them open sourcing the OS and saying “derivatives are fine provided no trademarks are used” or something like that.
- protomyth 8y ago
  The Newton didn't work out for them, but the iPhone and iPad did. The current conditions are different than the past.
8y ago

lucisferre 8y ago

Completely agree. Reliability has plummeted with almost every release since the retina MBP. Crashes are a regular thing and most of the physical "improvements" outside of compactness and weight have been unwanted. The touch bar in particular is just a dead appendage. But my previous and extensive experiences with Linux and Windows ecosystems tell me that the grass is not greener, so I stay and put up with the problems.

gutnor 8y ago
> Crashes are a regular thing and most of the physical "improvements" outside of compactness and weight have been unwanted. I feel like the 3D touchpad is completely underrated but it really is amazing. It does everything that the mechanical one was doing except better. 2 years after getting it, I still can't believe it is not mechanical.
- lucisferre 8y ago
  It's neat when you realize it doesn't actually move, and it is definitely an innovation, but it doesn't really improve the experience in any considerable way. But I'll give you that. It's also less likely to get stuck in any way.

thisisblurry 8y ago

Previous conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588

atonse 8y ago

The most dangerous thing here is that the public is increasingly getting the message and idea that Apple's mac hardware is decomposing. They really need to make this a priority. I fear that the success of the iPhone is blinding them to the importance of the mac. And you can tell because they're kicking ass when it comes to iOS devices. They're so far ahead in certain areas, it's not even funny. This is reminding me of the Steve Ballmer years at MS. The financials looked GREAT, even though the company completely stagnated when it came to technology (with some exceptions like the Developer Division). Similarly, the Mac division's strong imbalance now of choosing form over function (the designers have taken over the asylum, removing ports, making keyboards thinner that nobody asked for), is going to continue hurting them until they change course drastically. Hopefully we see it soon. Meanwhile, I am clinging on to my MacBook Pro from 2015, still the best MacBook Pro I've owned.

c12 8y ago
Remember when Apple killed their server devision? It wasn't because it wasn't profitable - because it was. They killed it because it wasn't profitable enough to be anything other than a rounding error on their accounts. I fear the same is happening with the MacBook line up when compared against the profits from iOS devices.
- pier25 8y ago
  I don't know. The Mac still represents a 10% of revenue for Apple, and I'm sure most of that comes from laptops.
  - Uw7yTcf36gTc 8y ago
    revenue is not profit though...
slantyyz 8y ago
> The most dangerous thing here is that the public is increasingly getting the message and idea that Apple's mac hardware is decomposing. Not sure "the public" is very aware of any of the stuff going on (or more accurately, not going on) with Macs at Apple. I don't think the general public reads or hears any Apple news outside of what the main stream media reports. Most of the complaints about the touchbar, keyboard, etc. don't trickle up to the MSM. The MSM is more interested in reporting about iPhone news than Macs.

metabrew 8y ago

Mid-2012 MBP with SSD, retina, and 16gb here. I've got an HDMI port, SD card reader, two USB ports, two thunderbolt ports, magsafe power, and a proper, reliable keyboard. I despair at the current crop of mac hardware. If this machine dies on me before some decent mac hardware arrives, I'm not sure what i'll do - but it definitely won't involve buying a new macbook with the touchbar, stupid keyboards, and no ports.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bootsz 8y ago
Amen
fredley 8y ago
Same camp. One of my thunderbolt ports just died, and the screen itself is glitching more and more frequently. I'm praying that it hangs in there long enough for Apple to produce a machine I actually want to upgrade to, and that feels like an upgrade without compromise. If it dies before that happens I'll be reluctantly shopping for non-Mac hardware.
dbattaglia 8y ago
I've used 2 new touchbar Mac for work since early 2017. When it came time to replace my ancient personal 2011 MBP I ended up just spending the $2000 for the "new" 2015-era MBPs that Apple still sells. While it's a bummer to spend that kind of money for a 3 year old spec machine, I still prefer it over my work machine with that dreadful low profile keyboard and useless touch strip. If things don't improve come next upgrade cycle I think I'm going to just find something that runs Ubuntu reasonably well.
unknown_apostle 8y ago
Yep. And no 32GB because they just had to make it 1mm thinner.
- white-flame 8y ago

bootsz 8y ago

I have an early 2013 MBP that I'm going to hang on to as long as I possibly can. It is truly a wonderful machine. I'm long out of warranty and just opted to pay $600 for repairs rather than upgrade. Really hope apple can turn things around before it finally kicks the bucket for good. Pretty amazing and sad how a company can take something so good and completely ruin it. To be fair it probably doesn't help that our culture is so obsessed with constant new-ness in tech, expecting huge advances every single year which puts pressure on companies to come up with shiny new features all the time. If it ain't broke...

grzm 8y ago

Discussion of the actual article this piece addresses from 4 days ago (over 300 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588

zdw 8y ago

I think this is a combination of issues: USB-C's ecosystem was confusing and good products never materialized, or if they did nobody could find them in the sea of junk. The lack of hardware updates, which seems to have started with the 5-10% performance bumps Intel piddled out in the absence of competition from AMD from 2011-2017. Most of the CPU's and GPU's that could have been used frankly weren't much better than what they'd replace, so from that standpoint, upgrading the hardware was kind of pointless for an extremely minor performance benefit. The keyboards situation is horrible. Failure prone and loud without much point. Apple is making a lot of money in the iOS ecosystem. Success hides problems, and it seems like "if it's not broken, don't fix it" was used as an excuse to let the Mac languish. As someone who did nearly all of Apple's IT-related certs in the mid 00's then watched them slowly decontent and destroy all of their OS X Server and related software almost immediately as iOS was on the rise, I don't see good things coming on the horizon. If you're on a Mac, try to start using primarily OSS software and. Don't get stuck on a platform that might get abandoned tied to a workflow on software that isn't portable. The silly thing is that Apple could (and should) invest in the Mac as it was pretty great, and could be great again. I'm not holding my breath.

subway 8y ago
What's wrong with USB-C? It's seen a pretty wide-spread uptake over the last couple years, and you're hard pressed to find a new laptop from any manufacturer that doesn't use it for charging.
- grk 8y ago
  https://marco.org/2017/10/14/impossible-dream-of-usb-c https://marco.org/2017/10/14/impossible-dream-of-usb-c
  - yebyen 8y ago
    This sounds like an absolutely horrifying state of affairs. I did not know what a bullet I dodged by opting for the non-touchbar 2015-Mac that still has those regular old USB-A and HDMI/Mini-DP ports. > Many Android phones support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge over USB-C, which is different — usually — from the official, better, newer USB-C Power Delivery (PD) standard. Apple products, some Android phones, and the Nintendo Switch use USB-C PD. Quick Charge devices don’t get any benefit — usually — from PD chargers, and vice versa. ... and this is just a small sample.

dschuetz 8y ago

I'm having a deja-vue. 25 years ago Apple was facing a similar decline in product diversity, innovation and novelty. With Steve Jobs gone forever I don't think Apple will survive that one. By a long shot Apple will burn through their cash very fast, with mediocre products and no innovation in the pipeline. And I don't see another innovation genius like Steve Jobs with a determined vision to come around at Apple these days. Good luck with that!

bborud 8y ago
Actually, Apple had too much product diversity and one of the things Jobs did was to simplify the product lineup and make sure that each product counted. Apple have maintained a relatively simple product lineup when it comes to the computers, the problem is that they no longer know how to make products that deliver where it counts. (Of course, they do have boneheaded products like the dead end stovepipe Mac Pro, which completely misses the point of what power-hungry users with generous budgets need, but it appears as sort of a tradition to have the odd boneheaded computer to satisfy the egos of designers. Given the past history of Apple I think it is safe to say that high end users have never been a great priority)
mtzaldo 8y ago
They can do what MS is doing in the Mobile market... focus on software... They can bring those "great" applications (including iOS development) to Windows/Linux/BSD.
scarface74 8y ago
25 years ago in 1993, Apple was doing well. The Macintosh was also doing well, rising from 1.3 million units in 1990 to its all-time high of 4.5 million units in 1995. Macintosh market share peaked at 12% in 1993. It was a boom time for Apple, with the future looking bright. https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/

Shivetya 8y ago

August 15th is the date I am concerned with because that is when the iMac was introduced. That is such an ideal date to release the next upgrade to the iMac line. There have been rumors floating about of a new chassis which would provide separation from the new iMac Pro. I am still one of those dreamers who would love a headless Mac with some ability to add drives and even swap a video card. however Apple has not even bothered with a new display in ages so I doubt they would have a new headless mac without one. Still happily using my 2013 iMac 27 780M video, last of the models that is not Retina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac

dstroot 8y ago

Apple needs to differentiate it’s lines further. The MacBook can be 2 mm thin and light as a feather for those who value those features. However, the MacBook Pro should be a true pro machine with a great keyboard, great screen, necessary ports, and built like a tank. Thinness obsession has gotten a bit far IMHO.

intrasight 8y ago

From a business standpoint, it's hard for Apple to justify investing in a product like that contributes a small and diminishing fraction of their revenue.

jonknee 8y ago
What a ridiculous statement. It's over 9% of their (giant) business, it would be a Fortune 500 company itself if not part of Apple.
- intrasight 8y ago
  9% is small - and it is shrinking

dictum 8y ago

The MBP is a dead horse at this point, so I took a look at the current iMacs (I'm used to working on a 27 inch display and 5K tempts me; a standalone high quality display isn't much cheaper than going with an iMac). All stock models still come with HDDs. I hope someone finds some Enron-level accounting trickery at Apple and the whole thing comes crashing down fast, and some other company can take the role Apple had from early 2000s to early 2010s.

unknown_apostle 8y ago

What can't they just take the old non-touch bar 15 inch MBP chassis, put a decent CPU in that and go to 32 GB using regular DDR4? We'd still have decent enough battery life.

criddell 8y ago
That's what I wonder too. There's so much love for the machines of a few years ago with all the ports and the old keyboard. Why not just update that machine?

addedlovely 8y ago

Recently got my Mac Book Pro nicked by a kid on a moped - mid meeting. Sadly am not impressed with the touch bar, lack of USB, keyboard failures and the hardware is definitely due an update - or a price drop. There's only so long I'll hold out and wait for an update. Am currently thinking of getting an iMac - then a chrome book for meetings (so when it get's stolen again it's not too brutal). Anyone else got other recommendations? Assume windows isn't the blue screen mess I remember of days gone past.

pier25 8y ago
> Am currently thinking of getting an iMac - then a chrome book for meetings This is exactly what I did. It's a great combo. The current iMac 5K is amazing value if you consider how much a 5K monitor costs. I agree with most complaints about the Mac, except for the 5K iMac which IMO is the best Mac ever made.

msie 8y ago

If only we heard from someone inside Apple. Maybe there’s strife in the company? Jony Ive dragging his heels on a design? Some middle manager obstructing progress? Supply line issues?

protomyth 8y ago
Well, they fired Scott Forstall a couple of years back. I really think its because a COO is now the CEO and the biggest concern for the Mac line is maximizing profit margin in the supply chain by producing older models or making questionable quality affecting decisions. Operations running your company seems to be worse than Marketing. I miss Product People.

nik736 8y ago

I don't get the hate about the MBP. I have the 13-inch 2017 model without the TB and I absolutely LOVE it. It's such a master piece, I simply love it and use it as my daily driver. I also don't have any problems with my keyboard, I only can tell good things about it. The 2 ports suck, but I never was in need of more, I only use the power adapter and the USB C to HDMI/DP cable that goes in my 4K screen and that's it. Havn't used any regular USB devices for years anyways. The only thing I hate about it is the super slow CPU, but that's only partly because of Apple.

StyloBill 8y ago
"I don't get the hate because I don't need more ports anyway." See how this is anecdotal? Pretty sure if you were to have different use-cases you'd like your MPB a lot less.
- skygazer 8y ago
  I don't think it's necessarily reasonable to expect everyone to only communicate some consensus view. I understand my opinion here is only a sample-of-one, but I generally need a collection of individual reports before I can aggregate them.
Joeri 8y ago
The only thing I hate about it is the super slow CPU, but that's only partly because of Apple. If apple had upgraded the MBP internals for WWDC, it could have had the i7 8650U by now, instead of the i7 7660U. That's a quad core part compared to a dual core part, which runs up to 50% faster in multi-threaded workloads.

ballenf 8y ago

Ben Thompson at Stratechery may not have been the first to suggest this, but he has made a strong argument that Apple should spinoff the Mac business. Either to a subsidiary or to a 3rd party. I see a lot of risk and potential downsides, but with each new disaster of MBP released or eternity between updates it becomes more attractive. The tight integration with the iPhone (phone calls, messages, handoff) might suffer and that would be painful.

oneweekwonder 8y ago

Personally I'm in love with my MacBook Air. Any similar ultrabook alternative at $950+-?

slewis 8y ago

Interestingly for me, the annoyances of the new MacBook have faded into the background (no escape key, worse keyboard). I learned to hit ctrl+[ in vim, and don’t mind the keyboard until a key sticks for a little while. Meanwhile I can’t imagine going back to the thicker form factor. I don’t mean to downplay people’s issues, and Apple definitely didn’t do a wonderful job here. But I do find that my day to day experience is net positive. Humans are very adaptable.

huebnerob 8y ago
I agree and have the same feelings, but there should at least be an option for people who don’t want to prioritize size over performance. Apple is the worlds biggest company, they can do better than ‘one size fits all’. Yes, that mantra is also part of their design philosophy, but it needs to be executed intelligently not blindly. There’s a long but diverse tail of professional use cases, and there’s definitely not a single box that can hold all of them.
matwood 8y ago
It may be unpopular, but I agree. I held off as long as I could, but finally ended up with a 2017 MBP. It works fine. I like the keyboard feel. It is a bit noisy though, and I worry about failures, but good so far. USB-C means I plug less into the computer than I used to. The dongle situation is a bit overblown. My 2014 MBP already had special cables for mini-display port and a dongle for gigabit ethernet. I am annoyed that Apple cannot seem to just do simple upgrades though. Not every release has to be some out of this world new design.
jkcl 8y ago
I agree with this in principle, but repeated hardware failures are likely to test my patience to its limits. Since I cannot see myself switching to a combination of by and large inferior hardware and (at least what I consider) inferior OS on other platforms without considerable comprises and pain, I've persevered with the OS bugs. Sadly, hardware failures are too disruptive and costly to put up with in the long run.

ksubedi 8y ago

Like someone else said in another comment, the grass is not green on the other side. I tried every windows flagship option out there from Asus convertibles to XPS 15 (still have this) and my experience was not even close to what I had hoped for. From big issues like coil whine on the XPS 15 to little issues like battery randomly dying, it seems like no other manufacturer cares about quality control and human user experience at all. Ended up getting a 2017 touch-bar 15' pro and could not have been happier. At least with MacBook I do not have to think about the machine getting in my way while I am trying to do something productive. The keyboard situation is bad but I am sure at one point they are going to have to do a recall or offer free repairs (Apple has done this before, look at the GPU issues). The touchbar issue is overblown. Once I adjusted my workflows to use touchbar and customized the touchbar for the apps I frequently use I have definitely been a little more productive than my old macbook. People do not like adapting to changes. USB C is not a problem anymore, since most of my devices are using USB C already I can usually get away with just couple of cables (usb c and lightning) while traveling.

vivafrance 8y ago
Get an x1 carbon, install FreeBSD with gnome. Hardware and software blow windows and macOS out of the water. I can’t fathom how people think MacOS has angood desktop is — everything is a struggle with their os.
- ksubedi 8y ago
  I have not tried x1 carbon but literally all lenovo laptops I have tried have horrible trackpads (palm rejection issues on linux, weird tracking). MacOS is a good OS because it has a very human centric UI and it makes me very productive. Virtual Desktops that work flawlessly with trackpad, shortcuts like control command f to switch apps back and forth between fullscreen help me easily focus on task in hand, app quality is miles ahead of windows (scaling issues anyone?) and linux just doesn't have enough software available for anything other than development (video editors, graphics design etc).
pier25 8y ago
Mobile took precedence during the last decade, but now everyone is starting to realize that tablets and smartphones aren't going to replace regular computers for a large portion of the population.

Yuioup 8y ago

Why don't you get a decent laptop and put Linux on it?

pier25 8y ago
For me, it's mainly because of the Mac ecosystem.
psychometry 8y ago
Because some people care about user experience.

virusduck 8y ago

It would be heartening if someone from Apple at least said they were hearing the complaints. Number one, IMO, being this idiotic keyboard. Then the ports, then the touchbar fiasco. Stagnation is not nearly as big an issue as those issues. As others have said, change in technology in general has stagnated. If I HAD to buy a new laptop today, I might buy a Macbook, but I'd have a hard look at the state of the competition's trackpads first. Then probably go with the older MBAir with the better keyboard....

bborud 8y ago

Is there any indication that Apple is taking these complaints to heart? I suspect that the lack of updates may be indicative of Apple switching to an ARM based CPU for their laptops and desktop machine. If this is the case it probably wouldn't make sense for them to invest a lot in designing a new laptop around an Intel processor. It would also explain the delays since they would both need to get to grips with the hardware design AND provide a solution for running software compiled for x86 on ARM. While they have done this before, the task is much bigger this time as there is considerably more software available for the Mac that would need to work on the new architecture. Of course, this still raises questions. The first being how long it would take to stabilize the platform again. The second whether Apple will be sufficiently interested in the desktop/laptop market to deliver more consistent and meaningful product updates going forward. If they are indeed going to ignore the desktop/laptop market the interesting question would be how this would affect the sales of their other products. My guess is that if they manage to break up with developers, through inaction or otherwise, there is probably going to be a slow decline that nobody gets particularly worried about until it can't be compensated for with cheap sales tricks.

ballenf 8y ago

"sandworm101" commented[0] in the prior discussion that: > Given Apple's grip on users, they may even see laptops as a competitor to their iPhone business. Time on the macbook is time not on the iPhone. You can't get very much free / OSS software for your iPhone. You can't get around Apple's 30% cut on paid software. At least subconsciously, I believe this thinking explains a lot. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17313613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17313613

jorisw 8y ago

I - a web developer - am very content with my 2016 MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar. The only beef I got is that the keyboard gets dusty and spongy over time. I'm hoping that Apple will at some point release a 15" MacBook Pro without Touch Bar.

megaman22 8y ago

If you want a real MacBook Pro, I don't understand why they axed the 17" line. Those machines were beasts. Everyone I know who got one in college is still running them almost a decade later. For really doing work, a full keyboard and screen real-estate is king.

mainliningfbs 8y ago

Isn't the bigger issue for Apple that iOS is run by devs on the Mac platform? If devs start moving away from Mac computers, it becomes less likely they will develop for the App Store.

BerislavLopac 8y ago

I've been repeating this point over and over but: if you are a software developer AND your target platform is non-Apple Unix -- in other words if you're developing for Web or Android -- there isn't a single reason to choose Mac over a solid PC running Linux. I've used Mac for years before switching to Linux, and two years ago had the chance to revisit Mac as the primary development machine for about 10 months, and my opinion only became stronger. That doesn't mean that MacOS is not a solid system, and even Apple hardware is quite good -- I've recently bough a 2013 MacMini (the one with an optical drive) as my main home theatre and am quite happy. But as a software developer, I find using the same platform I'm developing for a very important detail.

okket 8y ago

Previous discussion from a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588 (331 comments)

thisisit 8y ago

Original link to the author's article: https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2018/06/14/on-the-sad-state-of-macintosh-hardware/ https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2018/06/14/on-the-sad-state-o... which was discussed earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588

peatmoss 8y ago

I am a former Mac user who has “come home” to Linux and BSD in recent years. Between the sad state of the Mac ecosystem (I like both the hardware AND software less today than I did 7 years ago) and the repost about desktop Linux UX this morning, I feel like the F/OSS and Mac communities have missed a golden opportunity. If I had a time machine and a magic wand, I’d certainly have blessed the GNUStep project to build the desktop many of us wish we had today. Had some hypothetical GNUStep desktop captured the mindshare of the majority of Linux desktops, I could imagine living in a world today in which Mac and Linux software were more or less a recompile away from portability. I could imagine a world in which some developers prefer building Mac software with GNUStep tooling. And I imagine a world in which Apple’s focus, priorities, and missteps weren’t an existential threat to people trying to make their living on the Mac.

alasdair_ 8y ago

My biggest issues is the lack of memory past 16gb in the "pro" line of macbooks. Right now I'm working on some integration tests with 5-6 different codebases and I have an intellij window for each. Then I have a couple of dozen chrome tabs open, a bunch of terminals and (most importantly for memory) a whole stack of docker containers and virtual machines. 16gb is a major blocker.

pasbesoin 8y ago

I remain pretty sure that Apple's Mac line is going ARM. Their own custom, highly performant version. However, I don't believe this excuses current circumstances. And a chip swap doesn't address the other, current hardware problems. I am not a Mac person, so my opinion doesn't carry much weight, on that basis. Nonetheless, having been reading what's going on, I'd say: If your career depends on Mac, and you can afford it, I'd buy a 2015 MacBook Pro before they're gone. Even if it feels like a "waste of money", weigh that against being without an acceptable machine until Apple gets it together. I'd also spend for the longer term AppleCare, to try to guarantee having a working machine until same. If things don't improve, soon, I wonder what the second-hand market for these will end up looking like.