9 ms·

I honestly don't think they will ever fix it. Why should they? People keep buying the product! At this point, I'm on a 2012 MBPr and I keep on deferring to t

I honestly don't think they will ever fix it. Why should they? People keep buying the product! At this point, I'm on a 2012 MBPr and I keep on deferring to the next year and waiting to see if it's resolved. They are pushing me ever year to say F-it and build a hackintosh. I'm holding out some hope for the new rumoured 16" to come back to the original 2012-2015 design, but I know Apple is belligerent and will release an even thinner design! My dream spec would be: - the 2012-2015 chassis - improved 4k oled screen and bezel less design - arm processor which will do away with throttling and fans - no touchbar - 2012-2015 keyboard - 2012-2015 touchpad not the massive one in newer models - magsafe I can wait a couple of years, but in 2021... Apple won't get my money anymore.

runjake 8y ago
> People keep buying the product! Not all of us. I was saving up for a high-end MBP but the 2018s came out with essentially the same design and little public acknowledgement of the keyboard flaw, so I ended up building a rather beefy hackintosh with that money, instead. I miss the portability, but gained power, thermal headroom, the ability to upgrade/replace individual parts, and a ton of expansion. It is glorious. And I paid a fraction of what I would have paid Apple.
- didgeoridoo 8y ago
  Care to share your build? Thinking that this will be my direction soon as well...
  - runjake 8y ago
    I make it a personal policy to never recommend a hackintosh to someone, as it does require some work (albeit, it was less work to install macOS than Windows 10 [but both were relatively pain-free installs]). That said, I cover my build here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19433038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19433038
    - taude 8y ago
      How is it less work to install macOS than Windows 10? I personally ran a Hackintosh for two years, bought all the right parts according to Tony Mac, and after getting tired of fiddling each time with the upgrade cycle of the OS, I just went full in with Windows 10, and it was dead simple to install and setup, and it's been stable, simple, and reliable.
- williamstein 8y ago
  I switched to Chromebooks from OS X almost entirely because of Apple's keyboard fail.
- pier25 8y ago
  I switched to an iMac 5K instead of buying a new MBP. I've had too many hackintosh headaches in the past decade.
xnyan 8y ago
With how much money they make from iOS vs mac, I don't see how shareholders are doing anything but screaming at them to ditch the expensive legacy platform called mac. As soon as xcode can run on a iPad pro, I think they drop (""sunset"") macos.
- Hamuko 8y ago
  >As soon as xcode can run on a iPad pro, I think they drop (""sunset"") macos. How many people on the Apple engineering team are just screaming to work full time using nothing but iPads? How many Apple designers are waiting to get rid of their iMac Pros and switch to using whatever Photoshop version is available on the iPad? Or do you think Apple would give them Windows desktops to work on?
  - thinkmassive 8y ago
    If I needed a Mac, and the OS+software were the same, I think I'd prefer an iPad Pro with a mechanical keyboard over any of the low-travel laptop keyboards
  - plorkyeran 8y ago
    Many Apple engineers aren't particularly happy with the current hardware choices. The teams in charge of hardware don't really care what the software people want.
codemac 8y ago
The thinkpad carbon x1 has been a dream for me, I highly recommend it to my nerdy and lost Macbook brethren. However, I'm already on linux and have lived life out of emacs for decades, so I am biased. The folks that have invested in the Apple ecosystem are the most fucked - it's difficult to actually replace each part, and I don't begrudge anyone for deciding that spending $$$ instead of time is a good trade off.
- zaccus 8y ago
  I have a T580. What am I missing out on?
  - c256 8y ago
    For most people: either Adobe Creative Cloud or a stable OS underneath that doesn’t have “turn it off and back on, and then try reinstalling the driver” as a super-frequent troubleshooting step. Note that I’m not saying the Apple experience is obviously better; there aren’t good options for many of us. Personally, I’m still using a 2011 MBP that I haven’t been willing to upgrade. :-(
benologist 8y ago
I think the EU is going to have quite a windfall in court when Apple shuts down the free repair program for these machines.
chronofar 8y ago
Man I hope they don't listen to requests like these. I'm all for an improved screen, arm processor w/ better thermals, better and more reliable keyboard, but the design needs to move forward not backward. I can't imagine how anyone can use a 2012-2015 macbook and think the chassis and keyboard should be reverted to that in 2020. I mean it was great at the time, but would be horribly outclassed today. Despite various issues with the new mac design, it was a good step forward and by most measures makes the previous generation feel old by comparison. Yes maybe they're over-optimizing for lightness and thinness, but these are indeed important aspects of a portable device and should not be ignored entirely. They just need to correct the balance a bit more toward the middle, not go back in time.
- Aloha 8y ago
  > I mean it was great at the time, but would be horribly outclassed today. By what?
  - chronofar 8y ago
    Any modern ultra-book.
    - asdff 8y ago
      What's wrong with it? Tons of IO. Thin and light enough. Magsafe. Scissor keys. Throw in a USB-C port and boom, state of the art again.
      - chronofar 8y ago
        Well nothing's "wrong" per say, but since we're talking opinions here I don't think it was thin or light enough, I don't care for mag safe (I'm generally careful where I put cords and find mag safe annoying if anything), actually like the new keyboard better (though I don't care for either that much), and much prefer having 4 interchangeable USB-C/TB3 ports that I can use for anything (video/audio output, midi, external storage, power out or in, etc). Sure I have to have a dongle or two, but I've actually found that to be not a big deal and overall pretty nice. And that's just the things you highlighted, not mention other things like the better touchpad, better speakers, brighter screen, finger-reader, etc. I mean I get why people have preferences for the things you mentioned, but I'd call them appeals to "comfort and familiar" not "state of the art."
api 8y ago
> arm processor which will do away with throttling and fans Not if you want desktop performance comparable to a Core i7/i9. The ARM64 A## chips can perform like desktop chips but they can't sustain that performance without thermal throttling. To offer sustained performance they'll need cooling (and probably also more cache, deeper pipelines, etc.). ARM64 is not really that much more efficient than X64. It's slightly more efficient due to simpler instruction encoding but it's not huge. Instruction decoding is not the majority of the silicon on a modern chip.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bigtex 8y ago
No thanks on going back to Magsafe. On a 2009 machine I went through 3 chargers and you could only buy from Apple. With USB C I can at least buy a third party adapter and replace the cable if it brakes.

runjake 8y ago

> People keep buying the product! Not all of us. I was saving up for a high-end MBP but the 2018s came out with essentially the same design and little public acknowledgement of the keyboard flaw, so I ended up building a rather beefy hackintosh with that money, instead. I miss the portability, but gained power, thermal headroom, the ability to upgrade/replace individual parts, and a ton of expansion. It is glorious. And I paid a fraction of what I would have paid Apple.

didgeoridoo 8y ago
Care to share your build? Thinking that this will be my direction soon as well...
- runjake 8y ago
  I make it a personal policy to never recommend a hackintosh to someone, as it does require some work (albeit, it was less work to install macOS than Windows 10 [but both were relatively pain-free installs]). That said, I cover my build here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19433038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19433038
  - taude 8y ago
    How is it less work to install macOS than Windows 10? I personally ran a Hackintosh for two years, bought all the right parts according to Tony Mac, and after getting tired of fiddling each time with the upgrade cycle of the OS, I just went full in with Windows 10, and it was dead simple to install and setup, and it's been stable, simple, and reliable.
williamstein 8y ago
I switched to Chromebooks from OS X almost entirely because of Apple's keyboard fail.
pier25 8y ago
I switched to an iMac 5K instead of buying a new MBP. I've had too many hackintosh headaches in the past decade.

xnyan 8y ago

With how much money they make from iOS vs mac, I don't see how shareholders are doing anything but screaming at them to ditch the expensive legacy platform called mac. As soon as xcode can run on a iPad pro, I think they drop (""sunset"") macos.

Hamuko 8y ago
>As soon as xcode can run on a iPad pro, I think they drop (""sunset"") macos. How many people on the Apple engineering team are just screaming to work full time using nothing but iPads? How many Apple designers are waiting to get rid of their iMac Pros and switch to using whatever Photoshop version is available on the iPad? Or do you think Apple would give them Windows desktops to work on?
- thinkmassive 8y ago
  If I needed a Mac, and the OS+software were the same, I think I'd prefer an iPad Pro with a mechanical keyboard over any of the low-travel laptop keyboards
- plorkyeran 8y ago
  Many Apple engineers aren't particularly happy with the current hardware choices. The teams in charge of hardware don't really care what the software people want.

codemac 8y ago

The thinkpad carbon x1 has been a dream for me, I highly recommend it to my nerdy and lost Macbook brethren. However, I'm already on linux and have lived life out of emacs for decades, so I am biased. The folks that have invested in the Apple ecosystem are the most fucked - it's difficult to actually replace each part, and I don't begrudge anyone for deciding that spending $$$ instead of time is a good trade off.

zaccus 8y ago
I have a T580. What am I missing out on?
- c256 8y ago
  For most people: either Adobe Creative Cloud or a stable OS underneath that doesn’t have “turn it off and back on, and then try reinstalling the driver” as a super-frequent troubleshooting step. Note that I’m not saying the Apple experience is obviously better; there aren’t good options for many of us. Personally, I’m still using a 2011 MBP that I haven’t been willing to upgrade. :-(

benologist 8y ago

I think the EU is going to have quite a windfall in court when Apple shuts down the free repair program for these machines.

chronofar 8y ago

Man I hope they don't listen to requests like these. I'm all for an improved screen, arm processor w/ better thermals, better and more reliable keyboard, but the design needs to move forward not backward. I can't imagine how anyone can use a 2012-2015 macbook and think the chassis and keyboard should be reverted to that in 2020. I mean it was great at the time, but would be horribly outclassed today. Despite various issues with the new mac design, it was a good step forward and by most measures makes the previous generation feel old by comparison. Yes maybe they're over-optimizing for lightness and thinness, but these are indeed important aspects of a portable device and should not be ignored entirely. They just need to correct the balance a bit more toward the middle, not go back in time.

Aloha 8y ago
> I mean it was great at the time, but would be horribly outclassed today. By what?
- chronofar 8y ago
  Any modern ultra-book.
  - asdff 8y ago
    What's wrong with it? Tons of IO. Thin and light enough. Magsafe. Scissor keys. Throw in a USB-C port and boom, state of the art again.
    - chronofar 8y ago
      Well nothing's "wrong" per say, but since we're talking opinions here I don't think it was thin or light enough, I don't care for mag safe (I'm generally careful where I put cords and find mag safe annoying if anything), actually like the new keyboard better (though I don't care for either that much), and much prefer having 4 interchangeable USB-C/TB3 ports that I can use for anything (video/audio output, midi, external storage, power out or in, etc). Sure I have to have a dongle or two, but I've actually found that to be not a big deal and overall pretty nice. And that's just the things you highlighted, not mention other things like the better touchpad, better speakers, brighter screen, finger-reader, etc. I mean I get why people have preferences for the things you mentioned, but I'd call them appeals to "comfort and familiar" not "state of the art."

api 8y ago

> arm processor which will do away with throttling and fans Not if you want desktop performance comparable to a Core i7/i9. The ARM64 A## chips can perform like desktop chips but they can't sustain that performance without thermal throttling. To offer sustained performance they'll need cooling (and probably also more cache, deeper pipelines, etc.). ARM64 is not really that much more efficient than X64. It's slightly more efficient due to simpler instruction encoding but it's not huge. Instruction decoding is not the majority of the silicon on a modern chip.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

bigtex 8y ago

No thanks on going back to Magsafe. On a 2009 machine I went through 3 chargers and you could only buy from Apple. With USB C I can at least buy a third party adapter and replace the cable if it brakes.