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Find me a comparable computer that: - Ships with anything other than Windows (Linux, OSX, BSD, etc) - Has a corporate warranty You'll quickly find that Apple

by swebs 7y ago

Find me a comparable computer that: - Ships with anything other than Windows (Linux, OSX, BSD, etc) - Has a corporate warranty You'll quickly find that Apple has this market cornered. To many people, you're not paying the extra money for the goodness of Apple. You're paying to avoid the badness of Windows. There's also some software that works on Macs, but not Linux machines that may be necessary for the job.

curt15 7y ago
"Find me a comparable computer that: - Ships with anything other than Windows (Linux, OSX, BSD, etc) - Has a corporate warranty" Support for mac-only software notwithstanding, Dell's workstations officially support RHEL, have Nvidia GPUs for CUDA workloads, and come with up to five years warranty with on-site service. You can probably find comparable HP Z-series workstations too.
jotm 7y ago
HP offers Linux on their Z workstations, which have been reliable workhorses for decades. I believe Dell does, too.
dahauns 7y ago
>-Has a corporate warranty Has Apple finally started to offer one comparable to the Big Three? (SLAs, Onsite service with guaranteed reaction times and HW replacements and so on) Serious question - this was actually a big argument against Pro Apple workstations in the past. >-Ships with anything other than Windows Well, you won't get macOS of course, but all big workstation manufacturers sell workstations with Linux preinstalled. It's really nothing unusual and hasn't been for quite some time.
- volkl48 7y ago
  In at least some cases, yes. https://support.apple.com/applecare-enterprise-service https://support.apple.com/applecare-enterprise-service I do not know what the criteria are to be able to get on that program, though.
  - dahauns 7y ago
    Huh, consider me (cautiously) impressed. (And slightly ashamed, since I completely failed to find this information before writing my post. :) ) At least at first glance, it seems they have learned their lesson in this area.
  - ryanlol 7y ago
    Not really comparable if it's only US and Canada.
_Wintermute 7y ago
Dell will ship you a dual socket workstation with either RedHat or Ubuntu, even better is you can get it with an Nvidia GPU.
wayneftw 7y ago
Hmm, well I'd honestly do just about anything I could to avoid macOS. If only I could compile iOS apps without it, I wouldn't have to deal with their backwards and incapable UI. Hopefully soon I'll be able to use VSCode to remotely work on my Mac though! - https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/24 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/24 > You'll quickly find that Apple has this market cornered. No they don't. Not the market for people who just need a corporate Unix box. At my consultancy we have a mix of machines with many people running a System 76 tower or laptop and you'll find plenty of folks here on HN who will name Dell, Lenovo or HP as their supplier. Perhaps you're thinking of just the market for people who do the absolute highest end video work for the film industry? Other than that, I don't see it. And Windows has been rock solid for a massive amount of users and developers of various types since Windows 2000.
- lostgame 7y ago
  >> I wouldn't have to deal with their backwards and incapable UI. Well, that’s, like, your opinion, man... No, seriously, I feel the same way about Windows’ UI. I mean, did you ever use Windows 8? And Windows 10 has built-in ads by default in the UI/UX? Windows XP SP3 was peak Windows, IMHO - the awful part about them making an abortive mess bastard child of the UI/UX in 8 was that there are millions of non-techie people who literally know how to follow one sequence of events on their computer, and that usually starts with ‘press start’. Windows 8’s awfulness is probably what drove a lot of those people to iPads. If you’re learning a new user interface idiom anyways, and even Microsoft Office is on the iPad; why stick with Windows?
  - wayneftw 7y ago
    I don't know anybody that does serious work on iPads. Every quarter there are only ~9 million iPads sold for every ~34 million Lenovo/HP/Dell laptops and half of those iPads have got to be for kids from what I can see. Sure, an iPad is fine for consuming documents and doing light markup. However, if you're going to create things you're going to need to be multi-tasking and - hey, I have multiple iPads and I use them all the time - but I'd love to have a contest between what I can get done with Windows/Linux versus what you can do on an iPad because there's just no comparison as far as I can see. I'll add macOS to that too. It's not even in the same class as Windows/Linux. I watch people using macOS daily and I swear, they are constantly swiping to find that full-screen app they lost because of the complete lack of window management in macOS. They'll put Chrome into full screen and then struggle to get the detached devtools window back up. They'll have to install things like iTerm with it's own tiling manager, to manage 3 terminal windows. Apple just doesn't care about practical things, they are constantly focusing on how things look, how thin or light they are or how they can make the most amount of money by removing options and claiming everything is always better that way, when really it just serves to remove the amount of work they have to do to support things like you know, physical buttons, headphone jacks, options/modes in software and so forth. Anyway, the UI in Windows 8 and 10 were also completely configurable to make it more like the original Windows UI. If you don't like the default configuration you can change it or install 1 program (7+ taskbar tweaker) to make it just about perfect. What I really, really like is being able to do things the way I want to do them and not the way some godless corporation has decided it should be. Apple just gives you nearly zero choice compared to Windows and most obviously, Linux. They're just on the wrong end of the spectrum for how I like to do things. And I never got any ads on Windows - just pre-installed apps like Candy Crush and Skype. I'm assuming they installed Candy Crush because it's a lot, lot more popular than Solitaire or Minesweeper with today's crowd. This is no different than Apple pre-installing things on macOS/iOS. And before anyone says anything about Apple not pre-installing 3rd party software...I think that's incorrect. If you want to use any of the Unix aspects of macOS, you have to start off with Apple's lame and old versions of even basic Unix utilities and programming environments until you go and install some other 3rd party things to fix the situation. That's way worse than having to right-click a Candy Crush icon to remove it once IMO. Pressing Start is one popular way of starting a program on Windows, so I don't understand that line of argumentation.
ganonm 7y ago
Apple service is atrocious. Don't they make you book an appointment and turn up at their store just to get someone to look at it? I hear of people who spend more time taking their laptops to the local Apple store than most people with major illnesses spend going to the doctor... I bought a Dell XPS13 laptop recently which unfortunately had a non functioning motherboard. I contacted Dell and a technician came to my house first thing the next day and replaced it, no questions asked. Totally hassle free. I'd take that any day over having to book an appointment to see a 'Genius'.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  > Apple service is atrocious. Don't they make you book an appointment and turn up at their store just to get someone to look at it? I can't speak for anyone else, but the last time I had trouble with my MacBook (five years or more ago now, the touchpad had cracked, IIRC), I made an appointment in the morning to come in in the afternoon. Walked up, explained the problem, gave them the machine, and they called me back to pick it up a few hours later. That's not bad, IMO. Home service is awesome, but unless things have changed recently, I don't think that's common. It also may be different for wear-and-tear fixes vs. DOA replacements; Dell has a strong interest in fixing the latter as quickly as possible to protect their reputation. Most companies, most of the time, expect you to come to them to get service.
  - sjagoe 7y ago
    I've dealt with both Lenovo and Dell with on-site next day service. I thought it was a standard option across the industry for business PC warranty.
    - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      It may be. I was thinking of standard warranties, though. I'd expect a business warranty to be different.
- AgloeDreams 7y ago
  They also will ship you a box and ship it to a service center, I've been shocked on the turnaround time on that even with major service. From Me getting the box to getting the laptop back it was just two days (I ship on day one, they get it overnight on day two, they ship back out with a new Logic Board and cables, then I get it on day three.)
dekhn 7y ago
Dell does this.
xnyan 7y ago
Apple’s warranty service is terrible compared to the alternatives like Dell. A couple years ago I had a failed key on a laptop with a service warranty. Dell had a tech in my living room with the repair parts in less than 24 hours. Apple could not possibly do that today. Maybe you don’t need it, but if you care about warranty service Apple is not the answer
- greedo 7y ago
  https://support.apple.com/applecare-enterprise-service https://support.apple.com/applecare-enterprise-service
alexis_fr 7y ago
> You’re not paying the goodness of Apple > You’re paying to avoid the badness of Windows Are you telling me there is a market of an intermediate OS? Because I would be ready to pay about $250/year/user for a Linux that is as good as Mac, but with cheaper and more maintainable gear than the iMac. It’s almost as if Apple were trying to tell us there’s an intermediate market up for grabs, but they’re still to close to it for any incumbent to try their luck. Canonical was close to it, but stuck to the wrong business model and decided to switch to Unity in 2013 instead of stabilizing Ubuntu. Product roadmaps are hard. Jony Ive is available, just saying ;)
ryanlol 7y ago
>- Ships with anything other than Windows (Linux, OSX, BSD, etc) It doesn't exactly sound like it would be any kind of a problem for you to install your own OS if you're willing to accept a manufacturer supplied BSD.

by swebs 7y ago

curt15 7y ago

"Find me a comparable computer that: - Ships with anything other than Windows (Linux, OSX, BSD, etc) - Has a corporate warranty" Support for mac-only software notwithstanding, Dell's workstations officially support RHEL, have Nvidia GPUs for CUDA workloads, and come with up to five years warranty with on-site service. You can probably find comparable HP Z-series workstations too.

jotm 7y ago

HP offers Linux on their Z workstations, which have been reliable workhorses for decades. I believe Dell does, too.

dahauns 7y ago

>-Has a corporate warranty Has Apple finally started to offer one comparable to the Big Three? (SLAs, Onsite service with guaranteed reaction times and HW replacements and so on) Serious question - this was actually a big argument against Pro Apple workstations in the past. >-Ships with anything other than Windows Well, you won't get macOS of course, but all big workstation manufacturers sell workstations with Linux preinstalled. It's really nothing unusual and hasn't been for quite some time.

volkl48 7y ago
In at least some cases, yes. https://support.apple.com/applecare-enterprise-service https://support.apple.com/applecare-enterprise-service I do not know what the criteria are to be able to get on that program, though.
- dahauns 7y ago
  Huh, consider me (cautiously) impressed. (And slightly ashamed, since I completely failed to find this information before writing my post. :) ) At least at first glance, it seems they have learned their lesson in this area.
- ryanlol 7y ago
  Not really comparable if it's only US and Canada.

_Wintermute 7y ago

Dell will ship you a dual socket workstation with either RedHat or Ubuntu, even better is you can get it with an Nvidia GPU.

wayneftw 7y ago

Hmm, well I'd honestly do just about anything I could to avoid macOS. If only I could compile iOS apps without it, I wouldn't have to deal with their backwards and incapable UI. Hopefully soon I'll be able to use VSCode to remotely work on my Mac though! - https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/24 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/24 > You'll quickly find that Apple has this market cornered. No they don't. Not the market for people who just need a corporate Unix box. At my consultancy we have a mix of machines with many people running a System 76 tower or laptop and you'll find plenty of folks here on HN who will name Dell, Lenovo or HP as their supplier. Perhaps you're thinking of just the market for people who do the absolute highest end video work for the film industry? Other than that, I don't see it. And Windows has been rock solid for a massive amount of users and developers of various types since Windows 2000.

lostgame 7y ago
>> I wouldn't have to deal with their backwards and incapable UI. Well, that’s, like, your opinion, man... No, seriously, I feel the same way about Windows’ UI. I mean, did you ever use Windows 8? And Windows 10 has built-in ads by default in the UI/UX? Windows XP SP3 was peak Windows, IMHO - the awful part about them making an abortive mess bastard child of the UI/UX in 8 was that there are millions of non-techie people who literally know how to follow one sequence of events on their computer, and that usually starts with ‘press start’. Windows 8’s awfulness is probably what drove a lot of those people to iPads. If you’re learning a new user interface idiom anyways, and even Microsoft Office is on the iPad; why stick with Windows?
- wayneftw 7y ago
  I don't know anybody that does serious work on iPads. Every quarter there are only ~9 million iPads sold for every ~34 million Lenovo/HP/Dell laptops and half of those iPads have got to be for kids from what I can see. Sure, an iPad is fine for consuming documents and doing light markup. However, if you're going to create things you're going to need to be multi-tasking and - hey, I have multiple iPads and I use them all the time - but I'd love to have a contest between what I can get done with Windows/Linux versus what you can do on an iPad because there's just no comparison as far as I can see. I'll add macOS to that too. It's not even in the same class as Windows/Linux. I watch people using macOS daily and I swear, they are constantly swiping to find that full-screen app they lost because of the complete lack of window management in macOS. They'll put Chrome into full screen and then struggle to get the detached devtools window back up. They'll have to install things like iTerm with it's own tiling manager, to manage 3 terminal windows. Apple just doesn't care about practical things, they are constantly focusing on how things look, how thin or light they are or how they can make the most amount of money by removing options and claiming everything is always better that way, when really it just serves to remove the amount of work they have to do to support things like you know, physical buttons, headphone jacks, options/modes in software and so forth. Anyway, the UI in Windows 8 and 10 were also completely configurable to make it more like the original Windows UI. If you don't like the default configuration you can change it or install 1 program (7+ taskbar tweaker) to make it just about perfect. What I really, really like is being able to do things the way I want to do them and not the way some godless corporation has decided it should be. Apple just gives you nearly zero choice compared to Windows and most obviously, Linux. They're just on the wrong end of the spectrum for how I like to do things. And I never got any ads on Windows - just pre-installed apps like Candy Crush and Skype. I'm assuming they installed Candy Crush because it's a lot, lot more popular than Solitaire or Minesweeper with today's crowd. This is no different than Apple pre-installing things on macOS/iOS. And before anyone says anything about Apple not pre-installing 3rd party software...I think that's incorrect. If you want to use any of the Unix aspects of macOS, you have to start off with Apple's lame and old versions of even basic Unix utilities and programming environments until you go and install some other 3rd party things to fix the situation. That's way worse than having to right-click a Candy Crush icon to remove it once IMO. Pressing Start is one popular way of starting a program on Windows, so I don't understand that line of argumentation.

ganonm 7y ago

Apple service is atrocious. Don't they make you book an appointment and turn up at their store just to get someone to look at it? I hear of people who spend more time taking their laptops to the local Apple store than most people with major illnesses spend going to the doctor... I bought a Dell XPS13 laptop recently which unfortunately had a non functioning motherboard. I contacted Dell and a technician came to my house first thing the next day and replaced it, no questions asked. Totally hassle free. I'd take that any day over having to book an appointment to see a 'Genius'.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago
> Apple service is atrocious. Don't they make you book an appointment and turn up at their store just to get someone to look at it? I can't speak for anyone else, but the last time I had trouble with my MacBook (five years or more ago now, the touchpad had cracked, IIRC), I made an appointment in the morning to come in in the afternoon. Walked up, explained the problem, gave them the machine, and they called me back to pick it up a few hours later. That's not bad, IMO. Home service is awesome, but unless things have changed recently, I don't think that's common. It also may be different for wear-and-tear fixes vs. DOA replacements; Dell has a strong interest in fixing the latter as quickly as possible to protect their reputation. Most companies, most of the time, expect you to come to them to get service.
- sjagoe 7y ago
  I've dealt with both Lenovo and Dell with on-site next day service. I thought it was a standard option across the industry for business PC warranty.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    It may be. I was thinking of standard warranties, though. I'd expect a business warranty to be different.
AgloeDreams 7y ago
They also will ship you a box and ship it to a service center, I've been shocked on the turnaround time on that even with major service. From Me getting the box to getting the laptop back it was just two days (I ship on day one, they get it overnight on day two, they ship back out with a new Logic Board and cables, then I get it on day three.)

dekhn 7y ago

Dell does this.

xnyan 7y ago

Apple’s warranty service is terrible compared to the alternatives like Dell. A couple years ago I had a failed key on a laptop with a service warranty. Dell had a tech in my living room with the repair parts in less than 24 hours. Apple could not possibly do that today. Maybe you don’t need it, but if you care about warranty service Apple is not the answer

greedo 7y ago
https://support.apple.com/applecare-enterprise-service https://support.apple.com/applecare-enterprise-service

alexis_fr 7y ago

> You’re not paying the goodness of Apple > You’re paying to avoid the badness of Windows Are you telling me there is a market of an intermediate OS? Because I would be ready to pay about $250/year/user for a Linux that is as good as Mac, but with cheaper and more maintainable gear than the iMac. It’s almost as if Apple were trying to tell us there’s an intermediate market up for grabs, but they’re still to close to it for any incumbent to try their luck. Canonical was close to it, but stuck to the wrong business model and decided to switch to Unity in 2013 instead of stabilizing Ubuntu. Product roadmaps are hard. Jony Ive is available, just saying ;)

ryanlol 7y ago

>- Ships with anything other than Windows (Linux, OSX, BSD, etc) It doesn't exactly sound like it would be any kind of a problem for you to install your own OS if you're willing to accept a manufacturer supplied BSD.