4 ms·

Comments like these always make me wonder if I'm the only person in the world still delighted by Apple products. I mean I alone can not be responsible for their

by jakeva 6y ago

Comments like these always make me wonder if I'm the only person in the world still delighted by Apple products. I mean I alone can not be responsible for their sales volume. And then I start to wonder if I should be more critical of Apple, so I fire up my Windows machine and think silently "No, this is still a worse experience". So I fire up my Ubuntu and have the same reaction. I just don't understand the vitriol some people have for Apple, to me it is hands down always the better platform.

j-pb 6y ago
Better doesn't mean good. Currently I'm waiting for the beachball of death when trying to get into the boot volume selection menu. I think this mac is bricked...
- jakeva 6y ago
  Ok, well let me add that I do find it good. I never seem to have the problems people complain about. I don't know why, so I'm always baffled by all the complaints.
skrtskrt 6y ago
Mac always works great for me, the hardware (post keyboard fix or pre keyboard problems) is good, so I stick with it. For 95% of users, Mac just works with the exception of how MS Office programs can be pretty meh on Mac. I have tried Linux machines at work and at home, and I appreciate the open values of Linux, but I think it's few years before touchpads and multi-screen graphics are really as slick and reliable as Mac for everyone not just HN power users. The tinkerer in me will buy a Linux machine eventually, but I have tendency to tinker instead of getting things done, which prevents me from going Linux at the moment. Mac OS just works, feels, and looks good by default and gets out of my way. I am also waiting to see how the next couple of years of CPU wars plays out before committing to a Linux laptop like a ThinkPad with all that stuff soldered in place. Can't see myself ever going back to Windows which I grew up with. Windows 10 just looks and feels and acts miserable.
bjoli 6y ago
I have had too many issues that were too complicated to solve. Add to that weird hardware issues (the touch-ic debacle hit me and apple was shitty about it, 2 failed SATA cables (WTF!!) and the apple store wanted to charge me $500 and burn my data. What was the chip that magically became desoldered in newer macbooks? I had that. Apple fixed it not by resoldering, but by putting a rubber thing on the chip that made the chassi push it in place. For that they 1. deleted all my data and 2. claimed warranty didn't cover it. I ended up having to go through the Swedish consumer agency. I think they make decent stuff but are quite possibly the worst company I have ever dealt with. I will never buy an apple product ever again. It was like an abusive relationship.
matwood 6y ago
> Comments like these always make me wonder if I'm the only person in the world still delighted by Apple products. I mean I alone can not be responsible for their sales volume. I agree with you, but I've admittedly never used macOS migration assistant because I find it easier to just copy over a few directories and get to work. Even when I've had Apple products fail, I've had great experiences with support in and out of warranty. And the little touches how devices interop and the like are a delight.
sushisource 6y ago
At least for me the reaction is largely emotional. I like using my linux desktop because I can set it up exactly how I want, and macOS just doesn't roll that way. Now, I'm not really the target market, so whatever, but there are a few things that upset me about it: 1. I could really, really love macOS if they had a "don't treat me like a child" checkbox I could hit somewhere that would turn off some of the more obnoxious default behaviors. It took me a solid 5 minutes to figure out how to navigate to the root of the filesystem on a new MBP I recently was given at a new job. The most intuitive thing I could think to do was double click the name of the folder I was in ("Recents", by default when you first open it), which seems to do nothing except make a little icon appear and grow/shrink the window in Big Sur. Neat. The left pane, by default, literally has no means of navigating to the filesystem root. OSX has seemingly always wanted to pretend the filesystem doesn't exist. I like the filesystem. Stop trying to hide things from me. 2. This point is actually more a credit to apple than anything - the rendering, touch input, display management, etc on macOS is stellar, and it makes me angry I can't have the same level of polish on my linux install. I really, really want something that is as smooth as the macOS experience but with the customize-ability of linux. Apple pisses me off because they are incredibly close to that goal but they find it philosophically objectionable (for business reasons that I understand, but it still pisses me off)
- klelatti 6y ago
  Thanks for a really balanced comment. Just on the ability to customise point - I've always thought that the Mac strikes a good balance - most things I want to change I can (including what is shown in the Finder sidebar) but also things that I really shouldn't be spending my time on I can't. Much as I like much of the linux distros I've tried I spend too much time tinkering!
- jeffkeen 6y ago
  > I like using my linux desktop because I can set it up exactly how I want, and macOS just doesn't roll that way. I'm not trying to have an argument here, but I've never really understood what is the "exactly how you want" that Mac OS doesn't provide? Would you mind sharing some details? Is it just a matter of not being familiar with the places to change the defaults to something more to your liking, or is it actually missing the ability to do something you need? I've been a Mac user since the 80s, I write software for a living, and I understand that among tech folk there is a continental divide between convention and configuration, and I think that might translate to choice in OS, too. Seems to me that most Mac users are on the convention over configuration side, and most people who are anti-MacOS are the opposite; they want to configure every bit. Just wondering if that's the case here, too, or if there's more to it specifically.
rimliu 6y ago
No. Just some people are trying to use macOS as any OS they have used before that. Instead of using macOS.
mirthflat83 6y ago
You are not alone. Apple products are the best
haswell 6y ago
I'm with you. I've had my share of Apple skepticism over the years (and even some unwarranted Apple hate earlier in my life), but these days, I use Apple products because for the most part, they just work. There are absolutely valid criticisms of Apple and their products, but this is not limited to Apple. It does seem that critics are especially vocal, and this drowns out the happy users who don't necessarily have reasons to go around proclaiming their happiness. Squeaky wheels and all that...
chipotle_coyote 6y ago
You're not the only person. I have my share of complaints, to be sure, and I do genuinely think their software QA has dropped over the last five or six years -- and their tendency to provide little to no diagnostic information when anything goes wrong is an occasional source of frustration. (I think their hardware is still pretty good, but the utter failure of the butterfly keyboard -- with some of the "why is this thing here" reaction the market has had to the Touch Bar thrown in -- has overshadowed that.) But I still like Apple products, by and large. I like the software that I'm using that's Mac-only. I still find a lot of small little things about the UX to be nicer, for me, than even recent experiences with Windows and various flavors of Linux. I could certainly move to Linux if I felt that I had to, but I suspect I'd spend literally years hitting what I considered to be rough edges. And, to the OP's point, I've used Migration Assistant a fair amount over the years and it's always worked fine for me, and I don't think I've come across many, if any, stories of it seriously failing before.
theonemind 6y ago
Apple's better, but not nearly as good as they could be. Even MacOS doesn't follow their human interface guidelines. The butterfly keyboards really are sensitive to dirt, it's a problem. The touchbar is bad, it's really bad. MacOS does not have much of a lead over windows in terms of usability, and is much worse at multitasking (not at a technical level, at a UI level.) The obsession with thinness is a bit much, and they have pushed it to the point where they have compromised internal reliability and build quality and cut off ports and useful features for millimeters no one cares about. Their machines are now hot glued together and nigh unrepairable and unrecyclable, and so an environmental catastrophe as well. They can do better. The M1 is an example of the kind of thing they're capable of pulling off from their position. It's much like Warren Buffett once said, Berkshire Hathaway, the company that made him one of the wealthiest men in the world, was the biggest mistake of his life--the opportunity cost was going into insurance, where he projects he could've made much more money. They're the best, but a sorry disappointment compared to what they could be.

by jakeva 6y ago

j-pb 6y ago

Better doesn't mean good. Currently I'm waiting for the beachball of death when trying to get into the boot volume selection menu. I think this mac is bricked...

jakeva 6y ago
Ok, well let me add that I do find it good. I never seem to have the problems people complain about. I don't know why, so I'm always baffled by all the complaints.

skrtskrt 6y ago

Mac always works great for me, the hardware (post keyboard fix or pre keyboard problems) is good, so I stick with it. For 95% of users, Mac just works with the exception of how MS Office programs can be pretty meh on Mac. I have tried Linux machines at work and at home, and I appreciate the open values of Linux, but I think it's few years before touchpads and multi-screen graphics are really as slick and reliable as Mac for everyone not just HN power users. The tinkerer in me will buy a Linux machine eventually, but I have tendency to tinker instead of getting things done, which prevents me from going Linux at the moment. Mac OS just works, feels, and looks good by default and gets out of my way. I am also waiting to see how the next couple of years of CPU wars plays out before committing to a Linux laptop like a ThinkPad with all that stuff soldered in place. Can't see myself ever going back to Windows which I grew up with. Windows 10 just looks and feels and acts miserable.

bjoli 6y ago

I have had too many issues that were too complicated to solve. Add to that weird hardware issues (the touch-ic debacle hit me and apple was shitty about it, 2 failed SATA cables (WTF!!) and the apple store wanted to charge me $500 and burn my data. What was the chip that magically became desoldered in newer macbooks? I had that. Apple fixed it not by resoldering, but by putting a rubber thing on the chip that made the chassi push it in place. For that they 1. deleted all my data and 2. claimed warranty didn't cover it. I ended up having to go through the Swedish consumer agency. I think they make decent stuff but are quite possibly the worst company I have ever dealt with. I will never buy an apple product ever again. It was like an abusive relationship.

matwood 6y ago

> Comments like these always make me wonder if I'm the only person in the world still delighted by Apple products. I mean I alone can not be responsible for their sales volume. I agree with you, but I've admittedly never used macOS migration assistant because I find it easier to just copy over a few directories and get to work. Even when I've had Apple products fail, I've had great experiences with support in and out of warranty. And the little touches how devices interop and the like are a delight.

sushisource 6y ago

At least for me the reaction is largely emotional. I like using my linux desktop because I can set it up exactly how I want, and macOS just doesn't roll that way. Now, I'm not really the target market, so whatever, but there are a few things that upset me about it: 1. I could really, really love macOS if they had a "don't treat me like a child" checkbox I could hit somewhere that would turn off some of the more obnoxious default behaviors. It took me a solid 5 minutes to figure out how to navigate to the root of the filesystem on a new MBP I recently was given at a new job. The most intuitive thing I could think to do was double click the name of the folder I was in ("Recents", by default when you first open it), which seems to do nothing except make a little icon appear and grow/shrink the window in Big Sur. Neat. The left pane, by default, literally has no means of navigating to the filesystem root. OSX has seemingly always wanted to pretend the filesystem doesn't exist. I like the filesystem. Stop trying to hide things from me. 2. This point is actually more a credit to apple than anything - the rendering, touch input, display management, etc on macOS is stellar, and it makes me angry I can't have the same level of polish on my linux install. I really, really want something that is as smooth as the macOS experience but with the customize-ability of linux. Apple pisses me off because they are incredibly close to that goal but they find it philosophically objectionable (for business reasons that I understand, but it still pisses me off)

klelatti 6y ago
Thanks for a really balanced comment. Just on the ability to customise point - I've always thought that the Mac strikes a good balance - most things I want to change I can (including what is shown in the Finder sidebar) but also things that I really shouldn't be spending my time on I can't. Much as I like much of the linux distros I've tried I spend too much time tinkering!
jeffkeen 6y ago
> I like using my linux desktop because I can set it up exactly how I want, and macOS just doesn't roll that way. I'm not trying to have an argument here, but I've never really understood what is the "exactly how you want" that Mac OS doesn't provide? Would you mind sharing some details? Is it just a matter of not being familiar with the places to change the defaults to something more to your liking, or is it actually missing the ability to do something you need? I've been a Mac user since the 80s, I write software for a living, and I understand that among tech folk there is a continental divide between convention and configuration, and I think that might translate to choice in OS, too. Seems to me that most Mac users are on the convention over configuration side, and most people who are anti-MacOS are the opposite; they want to configure every bit. Just wondering if that's the case here, too, or if there's more to it specifically.

rimliu 6y ago

No. Just some people are trying to use macOS as any OS they have used before that. Instead of using macOS.

mirthflat83 6y ago

You are not alone. Apple products are the best

haswell 6y ago

I'm with you. I've had my share of Apple skepticism over the years (and even some unwarranted Apple hate earlier in my life), but these days, I use Apple products because for the most part, they just work. There are absolutely valid criticisms of Apple and their products, but this is not limited to Apple. It does seem that critics are especially vocal, and this drowns out the happy users who don't necessarily have reasons to go around proclaiming their happiness. Squeaky wheels and all that...

chipotle_coyote 6y ago

You're not the only person. I have my share of complaints, to be sure, and I do genuinely think their software QA has dropped over the last five or six years -- and their tendency to provide little to no diagnostic information when anything goes wrong is an occasional source of frustration. (I think their hardware is still pretty good, but the utter failure of the butterfly keyboard -- with some of the "why is this thing here" reaction the market has had to the Touch Bar thrown in -- has overshadowed that.) But I still like Apple products, by and large. I like the software that I'm using that's Mac-only. I still find a lot of small little things about the UX to be nicer, for me, than even recent experiences with Windows and various flavors of Linux. I could certainly move to Linux if I felt that I had to, but I suspect I'd spend literally years hitting what I considered to be rough edges. And, to the OP's point, I've used Migration Assistant a fair amount over the years and it's always worked fine for me, and I don't think I've come across many, if any, stories of it seriously failing before.

theonemind 6y ago

Apple's better, but not nearly as good as they could be. Even MacOS doesn't follow their human interface guidelines. The butterfly keyboards really are sensitive to dirt, it's a problem. The touchbar is bad, it's really bad. MacOS does not have much of a lead over windows in terms of usability, and is much worse at multitasking (not at a technical level, at a UI level.) The obsession with thinness is a bit much, and they have pushed it to the point where they have compromised internal reliability and build quality and cut off ports and useful features for millimeters no one cares about. Their machines are now hot glued together and nigh unrepairable and unrecyclable, and so an environmental catastrophe as well. They can do better. The M1 is an example of the kind of thing they're capable of pulling off from their position. It's much like Warren Buffett once said, Berkshire Hathaway, the company that made him one of the wealthiest men in the world, was the biggest mistake of his life--the opportunity cost was going into insurance, where he projects he could've made much more money. They're the best, but a sorry disappointment compared to what they could be.