6 ms·

Serviceability is improved (though still not amazing) in all the machines with chassises redesigned during the "M" era — the "notched" MBP 14/16 and Air have ea

Serviceability is improved (though still not amazing) in all the machines with chassises redesigned during the "M" era — the "notched" MBP 14/16 and Air have easily accessible bottom screws (no need to remove rubber feet first) and don't have batteries glued in. Keyboards can be changed independently from the top case too. Notably, many Windows laptops fail on both of those counts (like the LG Gram which hides screws under adhesive-attached feet). But yes, it's difficult to find laptops as well-rounded as MacBooks are. Generally laptops will require you to make significant sacrifices in multiple categories to be good at one or two things, which is less true of MacBooks (particularly the 14"/16" Pro models), especially if you want good performance without the laptop being huge and bulky and/or have horrible battery life with constantly-screaming fans. The 14"/16" models get you performance in the ballpark of a desktop Ryzen 5800X while unplugged and still getting great battery life while also being silent and still reasonably portable, along with a killer screen, great speakers, decent keyboard and great trackpad.

tambourine_man 4y ago
Macs, for me, are the software. This is something that became pretty evident during the Intel era. And I bought Macs exclusively when the hardware was both much slower and pricier than PCs (68k and PPC), because I loved the software so much. Funny to read such an opposite opinion. I don’t mind the pretty casing, but it’s icing on the cake.
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  On a second thought, there where some transformative hardwares though. The iMac 5k for me, almost a decade later, is still better than anything other vendors have to offer. It’s my childhood dream monitor. Such a shame that they never sold it separately. The M series laptops seem like an inflection point as well. A fanless powerhouse with more than a day's work of battery life and best in class monitor and trackpad.
  - pram 4y ago
    They do: https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/ https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/
    - tambourine_man 4y ago
      You’re correct! How could I forget. Thanks. Shows I haven’t been shopping for Macs in a long time.
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    > Such a shame that they never sold it separately. Well, they sold the controversial LG 5K, which was the same panel, but certainly not the same build quality. I've got one, and it's... fine, and for a very long time was literally the only 5K monitor you could buy, but for the price it is not a well-built piece of kit. (And the first two versions had weird bugs) They now (nearly a decade later) finally sell a fully first-party one, which is very similar.
    - musicale 4y ago
      The 2016 LG 5K is still my preferred monitor. In retrospect it was a surprisingly good investment at its $974 introductory price (~$1100 in 2022.) The Apple Studio Display certainly improves on it, but at ~$1600 it costs more than a midrange 24" iMac. It's too bad that the iMac 5K didn't support Target Display Mode. Maybe Apple will bring it back someday along with a new 27" iMac.
      - rsynnott 4y ago
        I was really hoping this would come back once it was feasible (at the time it came out, the only vaguely well-supported way to do it would have been two DP cables, but later versions of DP and Thunderbolt 3 and better can handle 5k without trouble), but, given that the 5K iMac is now gone, I wouldn't hold out too much hope...
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  I'm personally a fan of macOS as well, but I can see the draw in wanting to run something else on them. I have a ThinkPad dual booting Windows and Fedora and it's not terrible as far as generic x86 laptops go, but in many ways it's not as nice as my work MacBook. If Linux ran as well on say a MacBook Air as it does on that ThinkPad, the ThinkPad would likely be replaced with an Air and any Windows needs being handled by a Windows VM or RDP session to my custom built tower.
- beebeepka 4y ago
  I am with the other guy - great hardware, with the m1, married to a barely usable software. I hadn't been forced to used it in a decade, and imho, but hasn't gotten much better. At least it's got brew going for it. Horrible peripherals, too. I guess you love them for the same reasons I hate them.
- coutego 4y ago
  I'm quite sure it's just a question of what you are used to. It is for me, anyway. My first PC (~year 2000) came with Windows but I wanted to use some software that only existed for Unix at the time and I was used to work in Unix anyway, so I heard about Linux and installed it. Great, I got an OS I was used to and the software I needed for my project. When finally I had to use Windows for work a couple of years later it took time to adapt and, even to this day, I just find it easier to use Linux. It's just a metter of what you are used to. Last year I bought a MacBook, because of the M1, and I can't get used to the "weirdness" of MacOS, specially the keyboard and the window management. Every other machine I use (Linux, Windows or ChromeOS) uses the same keybindings but in MacOS the same software I use everywhere else (e.g. Chrome) has been forced to change the standard keybindings to something else and and it's even not configurable. Programs just don't implement stuff as C-c to copy and C-v to paste. Programs link that functionality to S-c and S-v, instead. WTF? This means there is no remapping of the keyboard that can fix this, since the software itself is broken. For me, this makes the machine pretty unusable. I'm a keyboard guy and quite fast at it. But when I'm in MacOS I waste a lot of time finding the right keybindings even for switching Windows. Example: S-w to close a tab but C-TAB to switch tabs %~(
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    > Last year I bought a MacBook, because of the M1, and I can't get used to the "weirdness" of MacOS, specially the keyboard and the window management. For what it's worth, long time Mac users feel that *nix desktops and Windows have the same kind of "weirdness" you describe here. The majority of modern macOS conventions can be traced back to the original 1985 Mac or the 5-10 years following its introduction. I started on macOS but can switch between control schemes pretty fluidly these days, thanks to having regularly used all three major OSes for several years. That said I wish there were at least one Linux DE that cloned macOS conventions as faithfully as the rest have cloned Windows conventions (with the exception of GNOME, which is more like what you'd get if you turned iPadOS into a desktop OS with Windows keyboard shortcuts).
    - jemmyw 4y ago
      There is a tool that makes Linux act as if it has Mac keybindings. https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto I've been using it, with some custom config, and it's made life a lot easier as I use a Mac and Linux laptop at the same time.
- psychoslave 4y ago
  I started to use a Mac for work a few months ago, first time in my life. I am still often frustrated with keyboard shortcuts, despite having installed a dedicated software to not feel in such an alien place. Sure there is a lot of muscle memory you can blame here. But how does it happens that the default OS doesn't provide the software option? Brew is nice, but here too it's community work filling the hole of the default. I miss the home, end and del key on the integrated keyboard. The only way to shutdown the integrated screen and still have the camera usable is to duplicate the screen and diminish brightness to zero. Or use a magnet. Seriously? No key to show the contextual keyboard. Where is my select and paste with middle click, outside iTerm2 (community provided)? Why is there no straight forward way to browse the actual file path in Finder, when a shortcut allows to copy it? It's possibly the file manager that made me feel the most clueless in my life. It is not like everything is utterly horrible, but I was very surprised at how frustrating it could be as a daily driver. I didn't discovered anything that I would miss from it when I go back on something as basic as a vanilla Gnome.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    > Why is there no straight forward way to browse the actual file path in Finder, when a shortcut allows to copy it? In Finder, selecting View > Show Path Bar will place a persistent path bar on each window. Additionally command clicking the proxy icon that appears when hovering over finder titlebars will open a path menu (and also works in any application with a proxy icon in its titlebar). To go to a path, select Go > Go to Folder… or tap Command-Shift-G. This can be rebound to a more convenient shortcut in System (Preferences|Settings) > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts. Command-Option-C will copy the path of the currently selected item to the clipboard.
    - psychoslave 4y ago
      Wonderful, thank you so much. :)
  - breakfastduck 4y ago
    Option + arrow / cmd + arrow does exactly the same as end / home etc, if you've just not found that yet. I always find it interesting when people complain about keyboard shortcuts on macOS - but I feel exactly the same when I use anything else. macOS keyboard shortcuts are amazing and os-wide. But they're not made obvious. Its really kinda snobbish that apple just assume you know them they treat it like 'because obviously youve used a mac forever'.
- Maursault 4y ago
  > And I bought Macs exclusively when the hardware was both much slower and pricier than PCs (68k and PPC), because I loved the software so much. Incredible that these myths are being perpetuated by a Mac user. The fact is that at release, new Macs (including 68k and PPC) were always the most performant machines available in their class. Always. You could buy a cheaper x86, but it wasn't as powerful on that date. And the fact is, Mac prices were and are always within $100 of a feature-matched PC. The problem was consistently that PC consumers didn't want the included hardware features, wanted other features that weren't included, and translated that they could buy a much shittier PC for less as Macs being outrageously expensive. It was always bullshit. Ornery PC consumers were never Apple's market. Macs were and are the computer "for the rest of us." And, ironically, everything Apple designs gets copied poorly by Microsoft and PC manufacturers. Asahi is the inverse of Hackintosh. Both ideas are somewhat ridiculous. I want a Ford engine in my Chevy powered by tomato soup!
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    At release, they mostly were. As soon as G3 was released it screamed. But then Intel kept bumping MHz every 6 months or so. Same with the G5, but that margin lasted even less. The G4 was just a sad period in the PPC line up on desktops. They made for good laptops though.
    - Maursault 4y ago
      > The G4 was just a sad period in the PPC line up on desktops. Not really. In 1999, the US government classified them as supercomputers and banned their export to over 50 countries. Apple tried to make hay of it, but almost immediately started lobbying to get the ban lifted. The last G4 tower was released in June 2003 and discontinued a year later and just got old by 2006 because Motorola already left AIM, and IBM wasn't delivering. Not Apple's fault, and the reason for the platform jump to Intel. But, again, at release, any of the high end G4 machines were faster than any consumer Intel tower, though 2003-2006 gave them plenty of time to catch up and pass the G4. The Mirrored Drive Doors 2003 dual 1.25GHz G4 was... is still a pretty sweet machine. It is still in use in Pro Tools studios because Digi equipment and plugins were expensive, and none of the PPC Digi components work on Intel. Try sourcing one. You'll be shocked what MDD 2003 DP sell for in 2022 at 18-19yo.

tambourine_man 4y ago

Macs, for me, are the software. This is something that became pretty evident during the Intel era. And I bought Macs exclusively when the hardware was both much slower and pricier than PCs (68k and PPC), because I loved the software so much. Funny to read such an opposite opinion. I don’t mind the pretty casing, but it’s icing on the cake.

tambourine_man 4y ago
On a second thought, there where some transformative hardwares though. The iMac 5k for me, almost a decade later, is still better than anything other vendors have to offer. It’s my childhood dream monitor. Such a shame that they never sold it separately. The M series laptops seem like an inflection point as well. A fanless powerhouse with more than a day's work of battery life and best in class monitor and trackpad.
- pram 4y ago
  They do: https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/ https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    You’re correct! How could I forget. Thanks. Shows I haven’t been shopping for Macs in a long time.
- rsynnott 4y ago
  > Such a shame that they never sold it separately. Well, they sold the controversial LG 5K, which was the same panel, but certainly not the same build quality. I've got one, and it's... fine, and for a very long time was literally the only 5K monitor you could buy, but for the price it is not a well-built piece of kit. (And the first two versions had weird bugs) They now (nearly a decade later) finally sell a fully first-party one, which is very similar.
  - musicale 4y ago
    The 2016 LG 5K is still my preferred monitor. In retrospect it was a surprisingly good investment at its $974 introductory price (~$1100 in 2022.) The Apple Studio Display certainly improves on it, but at ~$1600 it costs more than a midrange 24" iMac. It's too bad that the iMac 5K didn't support Target Display Mode. Maybe Apple will bring it back someday along with a new 27" iMac.
    - rsynnott 4y ago
      I was really hoping this would come back once it was feasible (at the time it came out, the only vaguely well-supported way to do it would have been two DP cables, but later versions of DP and Thunderbolt 3 and better can handle 5k without trouble), but, given that the 5K iMac is now gone, I wouldn't hold out too much hope...
kitsunesoba 4y ago
I'm personally a fan of macOS as well, but I can see the draw in wanting to run something else on them. I have a ThinkPad dual booting Windows and Fedora and it's not terrible as far as generic x86 laptops go, but in many ways it's not as nice as my work MacBook. If Linux ran as well on say a MacBook Air as it does on that ThinkPad, the ThinkPad would likely be replaced with an Air and any Windows needs being handled by a Windows VM or RDP session to my custom built tower.
beebeepka 4y ago
I am with the other guy - great hardware, with the m1, married to a barely usable software. I hadn't been forced to used it in a decade, and imho, but hasn't gotten much better. At least it's got brew going for it. Horrible peripherals, too. I guess you love them for the same reasons I hate them.
coutego 4y ago
I'm quite sure it's just a question of what you are used to. It is for me, anyway. My first PC (~year 2000) came with Windows but I wanted to use some software that only existed for Unix at the time and I was used to work in Unix anyway, so I heard about Linux and installed it. Great, I got an OS I was used to and the software I needed for my project. When finally I had to use Windows for work a couple of years later it took time to adapt and, even to this day, I just find it easier to use Linux. It's just a metter of what you are used to. Last year I bought a MacBook, because of the M1, and I can't get used to the "weirdness" of MacOS, specially the keyboard and the window management. Every other machine I use (Linux, Windows or ChromeOS) uses the same keybindings but in MacOS the same software I use everywhere else (e.g. Chrome) has been forced to change the standard keybindings to something else and and it's even not configurable. Programs just don't implement stuff as C-c to copy and C-v to paste. Programs link that functionality to S-c and S-v, instead. WTF? This means there is no remapping of the keyboard that can fix this, since the software itself is broken. For me, this makes the machine pretty unusable. I'm a keyboard guy and quite fast at it. But when I'm in MacOS I waste a lot of time finding the right keybindings even for switching Windows. Example: S-w to close a tab but C-TAB to switch tabs %~(
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  > Last year I bought a MacBook, because of the M1, and I can't get used to the "weirdness" of MacOS, specially the keyboard and the window management. For what it's worth, long time Mac users feel that *nix desktops and Windows have the same kind of "weirdness" you describe here. The majority of modern macOS conventions can be traced back to the original 1985 Mac or the 5-10 years following its introduction. I started on macOS but can switch between control schemes pretty fluidly these days, thanks to having regularly used all three major OSes for several years. That said I wish there were at least one Linux DE that cloned macOS conventions as faithfully as the rest have cloned Windows conventions (with the exception of GNOME, which is more like what you'd get if you turned iPadOS into a desktop OS with Windows keyboard shortcuts).
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    There is a tool that makes Linux act as if it has Mac keybindings. https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto I've been using it, with some custom config, and it's made life a lot easier as I use a Mac and Linux laptop at the same time.
psychoslave 4y ago
I started to use a Mac for work a few months ago, first time in my life. I am still often frustrated with keyboard shortcuts, despite having installed a dedicated software to not feel in such an alien place. Sure there is a lot of muscle memory you can blame here. But how does it happens that the default OS doesn't provide the software option? Brew is nice, but here too it's community work filling the hole of the default. I miss the home, end and del key on the integrated keyboard. The only way to shutdown the integrated screen and still have the camera usable is to duplicate the screen and diminish brightness to zero. Or use a magnet. Seriously? No key to show the contextual keyboard. Where is my select and paste with middle click, outside iTerm2 (community provided)? Why is there no straight forward way to browse the actual file path in Finder, when a shortcut allows to copy it? It's possibly the file manager that made me feel the most clueless in my life. It is not like everything is utterly horrible, but I was very surprised at how frustrating it could be as a daily driver. I didn't discovered anything that I would miss from it when I go back on something as basic as a vanilla Gnome.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  > Why is there no straight forward way to browse the actual file path in Finder, when a shortcut allows to copy it? In Finder, selecting View > Show Path Bar will place a persistent path bar on each window. Additionally command clicking the proxy icon that appears when hovering over finder titlebars will open a path menu (and also works in any application with a proxy icon in its titlebar). To go to a path, select Go > Go to Folder… or tap Command-Shift-G. This can be rebound to a more convenient shortcut in System (Preferences|Settings) > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts. Command-Option-C will copy the path of the currently selected item to the clipboard.
  - psychoslave 4y ago
    Wonderful, thank you so much. :)
- breakfastduck 4y ago
  Option + arrow / cmd + arrow does exactly the same as end / home etc, if you've just not found that yet. I always find it interesting when people complain about keyboard shortcuts on macOS - but I feel exactly the same when I use anything else. macOS keyboard shortcuts are amazing and os-wide. But they're not made obvious. Its really kinda snobbish that apple just assume you know them they treat it like 'because obviously youve used a mac forever'.
Maursault 4y ago
> And I bought Macs exclusively when the hardware was both much slower and pricier than PCs (68k and PPC), because I loved the software so much. Incredible that these myths are being perpetuated by a Mac user. The fact is that at release, new Macs (including 68k and PPC) were always the most performant machines available in their class. Always. You could buy a cheaper x86, but it wasn't as powerful on that date. And the fact is, Mac prices were and are always within $100 of a feature-matched PC. The problem was consistently that PC consumers didn't want the included hardware features, wanted other features that weren't included, and translated that they could buy a much shittier PC for less as Macs being outrageously expensive. It was always bullshit. Ornery PC consumers were never Apple's market. Macs were and are the computer "for the rest of us." And, ironically, everything Apple designs gets copied poorly by Microsoft and PC manufacturers. Asahi is the inverse of Hackintosh. Both ideas are somewhat ridiculous. I want a Ford engine in my Chevy powered by tomato soup!
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  At release, they mostly were. As soon as G3 was released it screamed. But then Intel kept bumping MHz every 6 months or so. Same with the G5, but that margin lasted even less. The G4 was just a sad period in the PPC line up on desktops. They made for good laptops though.
  - Maursault 4y ago
    > The G4 was just a sad period in the PPC line up on desktops. Not really. In 1999, the US government classified them as supercomputers and banned their export to over 50 countries. Apple tried to make hay of it, but almost immediately started lobbying to get the ban lifted. The last G4 tower was released in June 2003 and discontinued a year later and just got old by 2006 because Motorola already left AIM, and IBM wasn't delivering. Not Apple's fault, and the reason for the platform jump to Intel. But, again, at release, any of the high end G4 machines were faster than any consumer Intel tower, though 2003-2006 gave them plenty of time to catch up and pass the G4. The Mirrored Drive Doors 2003 dual 1.25GHz G4 was... is still a pretty sweet machine. It is still in use in Pro Tools studios because Digi equipment and plugins were expensive, and none of the PPC Digi components work on Intel. Try sourcing one. You'll be shocked what MDD 2003 DP sell for in 2022 at 18-19yo.