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It's been a while since I used mine since it was destroyed after falling 18 inches onto a wood floor (corner bent, screen connection shorted) but I'm pretty sur

It's been a while since I used mine since it was destroyed after falling 18 inches onto a wood floor (corner bent, screen connection shorted) but I'm pretty sure the Macbook 12 keyboard is worse. Maybe by a millimeter or so. There is absolutely no way in hell a keyboard like this should be found on a laptop favored by software engineers. I'm not sure if Apple is seeing the writing on the wall here, but why not just launch a developer line? Make it thicker, heavier, give it more battery, a keyboard with a proper amount of travel, larger keys, more keys, whatever. Ditch the retarded touch bar. More ram. More config options. More ports. If they want to keep topping themselves on largely meaningless metrics and/or aesthetic self indulgence then by all means do so -- sell those to the rest of the market. The bulk of the market will buy the pretty ones. Give me an uglier one that isn't so awful to actually use. Or, seriously, start dying the death of a thousand cuts. I'm really close to pulling out of the Apple ecosystem and retooling for other work. I'm sure I'm not the only one. What? Don't care about the people who work on iOS/macOS software professionally? Don't need us? Why don't you go talk to Microsoft about that.

code_duck 8y ago
I already decided to not buy a new MacBook, and now i’m making a similar decision with the iPhone after 6 years. My main issue is instability of the OS. I could list issues for an hour, but it also doesn’t help that I can’t reliably connect remove photos on my phone via Linux, since apparently Apple changes important things about the connection protocol every 3-6 months. The instability of spellcheck is shocking too - ever since 10.5, it mishandles edited text in a very nonfunctional way. If Apple is going to make iOS buggy and second rate, there goes my main reason to use an iPhone. Same with Mac hardware. Those are the parts that are supposed to be the good things about Apple - iOS and MacBook hardware quality were my reasons to buy their products.
- davidf18 8y ago
  You should use Apple with Apple. The more different vendors you use, the additional complexity you introduce. Unless there is a compelling reason to use Linux, why not use MacBook and iPhone? That is what I've done since 2012 (when Verizon offered iPhone) and have had a reasonable user experience. iPhones offer much better security that Brand X. In store support for the units if needed. Also, regarding keyboards, the MacBook keyboard reviewed is the 2017, and it has been replaced by an improved keyboard on the 2018 model. It would be much more helpful to review the 2018 model keyboard. I used it in the store and it is an improvement over the 2017 models.
- code_duck 8y ago
  Oh, and even worse, I can’t even connect my phone to my MacBook currently, which is running Sierra. I suppose Apple doesn’t consider that a priority because they assume you can upgrade. Sadly, the MB won’t upgrade to High Sierra - it gives an incomprehensible error every time after about 20 minutes.
scrollaway 8y ago
> There is absolutely no way in hell a keyboard like this should be found on a laptop favored by software engineers. I don't quite get it. Why are software engineers favoring such a laptop? Shouldn't this be worded the other way around? "There is no way a laptop with a keyboard like this should be favored by software engineers"...?
- rjzzleep 8y ago
  It's tiny, super light, has decent battery, an "ok" CPU, 16GB ram and you can hook up a whole bunch of external peripherals including GPU via thunderbolt 3. It also doesn't have the coil whine the xps has and arguably better worldwide support when you use the premium partners rather than the apple store itself. In general the Macbooks aren't that much more expensive than the alternatives. Not that I'm directly comparing it to the xps, since the macbook pro is probably more closely related to the xps, but still there's no other device with 16gb RAM in that segment. In terms of CPU the performance is pretty much on par with the Macbook air although it's CPU was last updated in 2015 I don't have one. I still use my 4 year old Macbook air. The only thing that bothers me is that I usually dual boot with linux and the newer macbooks are getting worse to run linux on.
  - cm2187 8y ago
    When comparing to dell, I invite you to compare it to the latitude rather than xps. Latitudes are much more functional, not meant to be a fashion statement, have a keyboard with page up/down keys (which few other laptop keyboard have), while being light, powerful and upgradable. The only problem is that the fingerprint reader sucks.
    - chrisseaton 8y ago
      > not meant to be a fashion statement Is this a polite way of saying they're ugly?
      - atomi 8y ago
        Another way of thinking about this is that Dell made little to no compromises on function for aesthetics.
jorvi 8y ago
> I'm not sure if Apple is seeing the writing on the wall here, but why not just launch a developer line? Make it thicker, heavier, give it more battery, a keyboard with a proper amount of travel, larger keys, more keys, whatever. Ditch the retarded touch bar. More ram. More config options. More ports. I would celebrate this if not for the fact that they'd find a way charge €3000-5000 for it. RIP if you like to use a MacBook as a university student. > What? Don't care about the people who work on iOS/macOS software professionally? Don't need us? Why don't you go talk to Microsoft about that. All the Macs together present about 5-10% of Apple's revenue. On their scale, that's still a big chunk of money, but that figure makes it quite obvious why it takes the bank bench to the iPhone. Hell, I'm surprised they put as much effort in their iPads, considering those also only present ~10% of their revenue. The iPhones are the big money maker with around 70% of their revenue.
ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
I was Apple from the Macintosh SE until a couple years ago. Finally had enough and put the (significant) effort into shifting over. It took some time getting used to Windows again (hadn't really used it since 98SE other than sporadically), updating all my habits and muscle memory, etc. Haven't regretted it once. The machine I built for half the price of the equivalent Mac STILL makes me feel all warm and happy a year later. It feels weird to have more performance than I'd ever need, while spending so little. Windows 10 is perfectly usable, unlike multiple predecessors. WSL is amazing, and basically gives you that *nix-terminal-in-an-instance feel that used to be a unique feature of OSX. It's easier than ever to switch, and there's less reasons than ever not to. Apple is treading dangerous waters I reckon. I seriously think if more Apple users knew how far Windows PCs had come, they'd be switching now, as I know I myself held off for a fair while just because I was hesitant to believe it had gotten that much better.
- mgkimsal 8y ago
  Based on the comment, I'm assuming you built a desktop system. Is there an equivalent for laptops? I keep looking at Surface books, and... get tempted, then read about something that seems like a major flaw, so I hold off. $3k would be a lot to drop on a machine, so... I want some assurances it would be worthwhile switching from a MBP (2015).
  - ivan_gammel 8y ago
    Dell XPS 13 is my primary choice for last 5 years (I had 2 work laptops from this product line and still own a model from 2015). The only bug in it is a nosecam.
    - rootbear 8y ago
      And the wretched touchpad with its constant false triggers. I love my XPS 13, but I always use it with mouse, as the touchpad is so terrible.
      - ivan_gammel 8y ago
mgkimsal 8y ago
a developer model without a touchbar would mean nothing would ever get written for the touchbar.
dpark 8y ago
> but why not just launch a developer line? Make it thicker, heavier, give it more battery, a keyboard with a proper amount of travel, larger keys, more keys, whatever. Ditch the retarded touch bar. More ram. More config options. More ports. Creating a new line probably costs Apple hundreds of millions in R&D costs, to say nothing of the opportunity costs from putting some of their best hardware engineers on this project. I would imagine that Tim Cook looks at the dev market, compares to the cost, and says “no fucking way”. Of course add to that the fact that “heavy and thick” is not a plus to most software devs either. The real market is probably much smaller than you’d like to believe.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  HP, Thinkpad and Dell seem to find enough market to bother. I sincerely doubt a model variant costs hundreds of millions either, or the majority of the laptop market would be unsustainable.
  - eadmund 8y ago
    > I sincerely doubt a model variant costs hundreds of millions either, or the majority of the laptop market would be unsustainable. Yeah, but the majority of the laptop market aren't doing brain-damaged things like removing ESC keys, adding pointless touchbars and designing keyboards which are beautiful to look at but which fail at actual typing. And the majority of the laptop market don't have to pay for Sir Jonathan Ive to remove all colour, ornament, affordance and delight from the design, moving as close to a featureless white rounded-rectangular prism as possible as he can for this iteration. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple have to pay an order of magnitude (or two) per model, just to end up with something which is ultimately sub-par.
  - dpark 8y ago
    Thicker with more ports is not a “variant”. That’s an entirely custom housing with a different battery and possibly a different board to support the new ports. This is equivalent to the split between MacBook and MacBook Pro. Dell, HP, and Lenovo also do not do what Apple is asked to do here. You can buy a thick heavy laptop from Dell. You cannot, however, buy a slightly thicker, slightly heavier XPS 13. If you want the flagship “ultra book”, you buy the one they sell. Otherwise you buy the plastic Inspiron or whatever which is an entirely different class of product and does not feel particularly premium.
microcolonel 8y ago
> corner bent, screen connection shorted Mine only took five inches of drop. :- ) Glad to be out of that ecosystem though. I've been doing my primary work on Linux since I started my (nascent) career, and it's only gotten better. I occasionally have to virtualize Windows (for data compatibility, reverse engineering, or cross-validation reasons [and in one case, to test a windows program developed primarily against Wine, which turned out never to have been necessary]).

code_duck 8y ago

I already decided to not buy a new MacBook, and now i’m making a similar decision with the iPhone after 6 years. My main issue is instability of the OS. I could list issues for an hour, but it also doesn’t help that I can’t reliably connect remove photos on my phone via Linux, since apparently Apple changes important things about the connection protocol every 3-6 months. The instability of spellcheck is shocking too - ever since 10.5, it mishandles edited text in a very nonfunctional way. If Apple is going to make iOS buggy and second rate, there goes my main reason to use an iPhone. Same with Mac hardware. Those are the parts that are supposed to be the good things about Apple - iOS and MacBook hardware quality were my reasons to buy their products.

davidf18 8y ago
You should use Apple with Apple. The more different vendors you use, the additional complexity you introduce. Unless there is a compelling reason to use Linux, why not use MacBook and iPhone? That is what I've done since 2012 (when Verizon offered iPhone) and have had a reasonable user experience. iPhones offer much better security that Brand X. In store support for the units if needed. Also, regarding keyboards, the MacBook keyboard reviewed is the 2017, and it has been replaced by an improved keyboard on the 2018 model. It would be much more helpful to review the 2018 model keyboard. I used it in the store and it is an improvement over the 2017 models.
code_duck 8y ago
Oh, and even worse, I can’t even connect my phone to my MacBook currently, which is running Sierra. I suppose Apple doesn’t consider that a priority because they assume you can upgrade. Sadly, the MB won’t upgrade to High Sierra - it gives an incomprehensible error every time after about 20 minutes.

scrollaway 8y ago

> There is absolutely no way in hell a keyboard like this should be found on a laptop favored by software engineers. I don't quite get it. Why are software engineers favoring such a laptop? Shouldn't this be worded the other way around? "There is no way a laptop with a keyboard like this should be favored by software engineers"...?

rjzzleep 8y ago
It's tiny, super light, has decent battery, an "ok" CPU, 16GB ram and you can hook up a whole bunch of external peripherals including GPU via thunderbolt 3. It also doesn't have the coil whine the xps has and arguably better worldwide support when you use the premium partners rather than the apple store itself. In general the Macbooks aren't that much more expensive than the alternatives. Not that I'm directly comparing it to the xps, since the macbook pro is probably more closely related to the xps, but still there's no other device with 16gb RAM in that segment. In terms of CPU the performance is pretty much on par with the Macbook air although it's CPU was last updated in 2015 I don't have one. I still use my 4 year old Macbook air. The only thing that bothers me is that I usually dual boot with linux and the newer macbooks are getting worse to run linux on.
- cm2187 8y ago
  When comparing to dell, I invite you to compare it to the latitude rather than xps. Latitudes are much more functional, not meant to be a fashion statement, have a keyboard with page up/down keys (which few other laptop keyboard have), while being light, powerful and upgradable. The only problem is that the fingerprint reader sucks.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    > not meant to be a fashion statement Is this a polite way of saying they're ugly?
    - atomi 8y ago
      Another way of thinking about this is that Dell made little to no compromises on function for aesthetics.

jorvi 8y ago

> I'm not sure if Apple is seeing the writing on the wall here, but why not just launch a developer line? Make it thicker, heavier, give it more battery, a keyboard with a proper amount of travel, larger keys, more keys, whatever. Ditch the retarded touch bar. More ram. More config options. More ports. I would celebrate this if not for the fact that they'd find a way charge €3000-5000 for it. RIP if you like to use a MacBook as a university student. > What? Don't care about the people who work on iOS/macOS software professionally? Don't need us? Why don't you go talk to Microsoft about that. All the Macs together present about 5-10% of Apple's revenue. On their scale, that's still a big chunk of money, but that figure makes it quite obvious why it takes the bank bench to the iPhone. Hell, I'm surprised they put as much effort in their iPads, considering those also only present ~10% of their revenue. The iPhones are the big money maker with around 70% of their revenue.

ObsoleteNerd 8y ago

I was Apple from the Macintosh SE until a couple years ago. Finally had enough and put the (significant) effort into shifting over. It took some time getting used to Windows again (hadn't really used it since 98SE other than sporadically), updating all my habits and muscle memory, etc. Haven't regretted it once. The machine I built for half the price of the equivalent Mac STILL makes me feel all warm and happy a year later. It feels weird to have more performance than I'd ever need, while spending so little. Windows 10 is perfectly usable, unlike multiple predecessors. WSL is amazing, and basically gives you that *nix-terminal-in-an-instance feel that used to be a unique feature of OSX. It's easier than ever to switch, and there's less reasons than ever not to. Apple is treading dangerous waters I reckon. I seriously think if more Apple users knew how far Windows PCs had come, they'd be switching now, as I know I myself held off for a fair while just because I was hesitant to believe it had gotten that much better.

mgkimsal 8y ago
Based on the comment, I'm assuming you built a desktop system. Is there an equivalent for laptops? I keep looking at Surface books, and... get tempted, then read about something that seems like a major flaw, so I hold off. $3k would be a lot to drop on a machine, so... I want some assurances it would be worthwhile switching from a MBP (2015).
- ivan_gammel 8y ago
  Dell XPS 13 is my primary choice for last 5 years (I had 2 work laptops from this product line and still own a model from 2015). The only bug in it is a nosecam.
  - rootbear 8y ago
    And the wretched touchpad with its constant false triggers. I love my XPS 13, but I always use it with mouse, as the touchpad is so terrible.
    - ivan_gammel 8y ago

mgkimsal 8y ago

a developer model without a touchbar would mean nothing would ever get written for the touchbar.

dpark 8y ago

> but why not just launch a developer line? Make it thicker, heavier, give it more battery, a keyboard with a proper amount of travel, larger keys, more keys, whatever. Ditch the retarded touch bar. More ram. More config options. More ports. Creating a new line probably costs Apple hundreds of millions in R&D costs, to say nothing of the opportunity costs from putting some of their best hardware engineers on this project. I would imagine that Tim Cook looks at the dev market, compares to the cost, and says “no fucking way”. Of course add to that the fact that “heavy and thick” is not a plus to most software devs either. The real market is probably much smaller than you’d like to believe.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
HP, Thinkpad and Dell seem to find enough market to bother. I sincerely doubt a model variant costs hundreds of millions either, or the majority of the laptop market would be unsustainable.
- eadmund 8y ago
  > I sincerely doubt a model variant costs hundreds of millions either, or the majority of the laptop market would be unsustainable. Yeah, but the majority of the laptop market aren't doing brain-damaged things like removing ESC keys, adding pointless touchbars and designing keyboards which are beautiful to look at but which fail at actual typing. And the majority of the laptop market don't have to pay for Sir Jonathan Ive to remove all colour, ornament, affordance and delight from the design, moving as close to a featureless white rounded-rectangular prism as possible as he can for this iteration. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple have to pay an order of magnitude (or two) per model, just to end up with something which is ultimately sub-par.
- dpark 8y ago
  Thicker with more ports is not a “variant”. That’s an entirely custom housing with a different battery and possibly a different board to support the new ports. This is equivalent to the split between MacBook and MacBook Pro. Dell, HP, and Lenovo also do not do what Apple is asked to do here. You can buy a thick heavy laptop from Dell. You cannot, however, buy a slightly thicker, slightly heavier XPS 13. If you want the flagship “ultra book”, you buy the one they sell. Otherwise you buy the plastic Inspiron or whatever which is an entirely different class of product and does not feel particularly premium.

microcolonel 8y ago

> corner bent, screen connection shorted Mine only took five inches of drop. :- ) Glad to be out of that ecosystem though. I've been doing my primary work on Linux since I started my (nascent) career, and it's only gotten better. I occasionally have to virtualize Windows (for data compatibility, reverse engineering, or cross-validation reasons [and in one case, to test a windows program developed primarily against Wine, which turned out never to have been necessary]).