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Apple still makes great products. Nothing can beat a MacBook (especially the new ones), AirPods work pretty well. Many (most?) people that use iPhones or Apple

Apple still makes great products. Nothing can beat a MacBook (especially the new ones), AirPods work pretty well. Many (most?) people that use iPhones or Apple Watches love them.

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gjsman-1000 4y ago
They are getting worse particularly in the software department. Two that really grind my gears (there are others): MacOS on Apple Silicon for an extremely long time (maybe it's solved now? 2 years later?) which caused incredibly glitchy, almost unusable cursor movement if you let your battery drain to 0%, then plugged it back in and woke it from hibernate. Screen Time in macOS is unbelievably, ludicrously, fully broken. Nothing about it works almost at all. Metrics for children don't show up. Web filtering falls open after a few hours at random (presumably because the background services crash). The "site not allowed" page predates HTML5 and randomly doesn't work. You can't block built-in apps like Apple News, the best you can do is set a 1-minute time limit. Tons of IP Addresses and Apple phone-home addresses get blocked on the "allowed sites only" mode resulting in constant popups. I had to pay for Qustodio because it's just useless. Also, it has elementary bugs that are horrifying. For example, the pane where you add allowed websites doesn't remember websites you just added when you dismiss it - so if you open the pane again without a reboot, and add another site, it forgets the one you added last time you opened the pane. However janky other things might be on macOS, Screen Time with "Allowed Sites Only" is by far the most broken thing on macOS, bar none. Try using it with your younger children and rage in frustration as it crashes-open silently and allows Private Browsing with no filtering after a few hours.
- jensensbutton 4y ago
  My M1 Pro still randomly loses internet requiring a restart.
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    My asus wifi card in my pc does that too
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    Have you tried flushing the DNS cache?
    - typon 4y ago
      This has almost become a meme at this point. Anyone in the office who has a problem with their internet on the Macbook, I just send them this: sudo dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
      - JamesSwift 4y ago
        yep, been a part of my bash aliases for about a decade now?
  - therein 4y ago
    Likely that it is related to Bluetooth as well. Especially if you have AirPods connected. I noticed the wireless connection quality degrades significantly when the device is connected to an AirPod.
  - atribecalledqst 4y ago
    I haven't seen mine lose Internet entirely, but I have seen it randomly switch between the two Wi-Fi networks I have set up where I live. I eventually got frustrated with this and then told it it can't automatically connect to one of them anymore.
- abdusco 4y ago
  > almost unusable cursor movement if you let your battery drain to 0%, then plugged it back in and woke it from hibernate. Argh. I hate it when this happens. It's infuriating that this hasn't been fixed yet.
- flutas 4y ago
  > They are getting worse particularly in the software department. I actually just found one that has me scratching my head... If I plug a USB-C -> Ethernet adapter in to my M1 MBP on OSX Ventura...it brings down the entire network. Just ethernet + adapter + power is fine, plug it into the laptop, entire network dies.
  - bartvk 4y ago
    Which USB-C -> Ethernet adapter is that?
    - flutas 4y ago
      It's a Insignia one from BB[0], so probably not the best QA on it. Still trying to determine why and when though, as this adapter used to be fine. [0]: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-7-port-type-c-hub-with-gigabit-ethernet-adapter/6259291.p?skuId=6259291 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-7-port-type-c-hub-with...
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
    Do they run their own DHCP server on a laptop maybe?
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    That's a weird one. When you say it brings it down, what do you mean is actually occurring? I have a USB ethernet adapter in use on my M1 MBP running Ventura as I write this, and it's been completely fine. But if there's a gotcha out there lurking, I'd be interested to know what triggers it.
    - flutas 4y ago
      > When you say it brings it down, what do you mean is actually occurring? All wired devices on the network (except for an AP strangely enough) drop all connections and can't get DNS responses. I haven't had the time to dig in further than that yet though. Someone did reply with this link[0], which may be the same or similar to what I'm experiencing just a different scenario. [0]: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2022/05/11/usb-c-hubs-breaking-ethernet-networks/ https://mjtsai.com/blog/2022/05/11/usb-c-hubs-breaking-ether...
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  > They are getting worse particularly in the software department. I would argue the opposite. Their software has historically been terrible. OG iTunes ranks at the top of the worst pieces of software I've ever used - rendered the iPod almost useless for me. Their software is still unimpressive, but I'd argue it's trending in the right direction. The App Store is functional. Safari is not terrible. Their email client is fine. The Apple TV UI is pretty snazzy, etc.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    Yea I don't get this either. I find while maybe lacking some features, a lot of their applications work either just fine or great. Apple Maps for example, the Podcasts app, many others.
    - gjsman-1000 4y ago
      You have to be kidding, right? The Apple Podcasts app is widely considered one of Apple's worst - and before Apple started playing "rating pop up" shenanigans, it was rated only 1.8 stars on the App Store. https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/19/apple-podcasts-app-store-rating-jump/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/19/apple-podcasts-app-store-rati...
      - ericmay 4y ago
        I use it every day and it works just fine for me. What's wrong with it?
  - sn0wf1re 4y ago
    The Apple TV is a multi-user device with extremely poor multi-user support. Considering how long it has been used by B&Bs it amazes me that Apple has never allowed guest access. Music App sometimes breaks. It just doesn't play certain sections of some songs, even on replay, closing the app doesn't help; a device reboot is required to play songs in their entirety. And this happens on both devices that are connected via hardwire as well as wifi/LTE. Considering Apple's revenue it is ridiculous how long bugs persist in their applications.
- bink 4y ago
  The first example is oddly specific. I think you can find flaws like that with almost any software or hardware manufacturer, regardless of monopoly status. The second example is, I think, a perfect example of what most large companies do, which is to neglect specific features in favor of others. People want to work on the "new hotness" rather than maintain something written 10 years ago by a team that no longer exists. I don't think either suggests that Apple software is getting worse as a whole. The simple fact that they rolled out an entirely new architecture and it's worked pretty flawlessly (except for some fraction of people when the battery drains to 0 and it hibernates and needs a restart) suggests to me that they aren't just resting and pulling in money based on their monopoly status (which they don't even have in any industry).
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    > The first example is oddly specific. I think you can find flaws like that with almost any software or hardware manufacturer, regardless of monopoly status. True... but this one has caught me, over and over, and it makes me paranoid of a low battery. Before I just had a lazy habit of not getting off the couch until the battery actually died from 0%. Now I panic the moment it turns red, because the cursor bug quickly makes working miserable and requires a restart for my sanity. > I don't think either suggests that Apple software is getting worse as a whole. To me, it suggests they are letting more surface-level bugs get a pass than previously. Before, they might have had poorly designed software once in a while, but not things this basic and easily discoverable.
    - PTcartelsLOL 4y ago
      Gawd... a restart... unthinkable. You should try windows...
    - Aeolos 4y ago
      Seems to have been finally fixed on MacOS Venture 13.0. But 2 years of this bug was embarrassing.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    There was a time when Apple would release a new version that was basically a maintenance release. And they would squash a bunch of bugs. I think a lot of people still remember this. Perhaps through some objective measure, it’s still ok. But I agree it all feels worse.
- atribecalledqst 4y ago
  A lot of folks are disagreeing with you in the replies but I actually agree with you to be honest. I recently got a new Macbook Pro after my old one unexpectedly died and there are a lot of things in Monterey that I find highly annoying relative to the last version I was on (High Sierra). I complained about Music in another reply. One thing that really annoys me that I don't remember from High Sierra is this weird "overbounce"/"overscroll" functionality. This drives me absolutely nuts! Preview does this for example, and actually so does Firefox (but you can disable it there). If you open up a PDF in Preview, set the zoom so that a full page width is entirely within view (i.e. no scrolling needed), then scroll a bit to the side anyway, you'll see what I'm talking about. The viewport moves even though the full page width is in view. I've found that this triggers even when I'm trying to scroll down, resulting in a weird, glitchy scroll feel. I feel like I should temper the bad with the good a bit though. For example I have not had Bluetooth fail randomly with this new computer, whereas it failed quite a lot on my last one -- often requiring a reboot to fix.
- tomxor 4y ago
  All the children comments to this post are amusing... Some things get worse, some get better, some things depend on the use case. They all miss the point. The problem with Apple in it's relentless mission of maximising vertical integration, is that you are forced to align with their decisions at every single level, whether it's technical, social or political. "Cult" doesn't do it justice, Apple is has gone far beyond this. Most other proprietary tech is not like this because the pieces are smaller with some reasonable degree of either interchangeability or combinability. Apple isn't neutral technology it's some kind of political entity. When you sign up, you are handing over all control, which is fine until they do something you don't like at which point your only choice is abandon the entire thing or accept it - I don't give a crap about NFTs, but I give a crap about some things, and I don't want to be part of an ecosystem where I can be pushed around. I don't blame the people who are stuck in it, it's hard to exit something that can define a lot about how you work with technology, they are essentially the victim of a big bully with a very difficult to stomach exit strategy.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    tomxor, you may survive us yet. Unfortunately, many of the hackers on this site aren't willing to see the forest for the trees. We're too busy fighting over myopic identity politics to imagine a future without the problems we face today.
- superdisk 4y ago
  Similar frustration and mind boggling for me when I found that the "custom focus" feature on iOS just does... nothing. It's a feature where you're supposed to be able to select which specific apps can send notifications to you, so I made one which allows Slack to come through (for work) and blocks everything else. Instead, it just allows everything through as if the "custom focus" wasn't enabled at all. No seriously, I'm baffled. How was this released?
p0pcult 4y ago
...according to some. Nothing like the trifecta of ipod/itunes/iphone under Steve.
nikanj 4y ago
Especially now that they’ve abandoned the race to be ever thinner and eliminate keys for a touch bar
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Happiest I've been about a computer in a while was when they backtracked on the things they'd removed from the MBP and put them back. Combined with the M1, it finally became the first MBP since 2015 that I thought was an actual improvement over all previous versions.
- olyjohn 4y ago
  Now if they can just put a fucking headphone jack back in the iPhone, kthx. Batteries are getting denser, mainboards are getting smaller, phones are bigger than ever... but no room for a headphone jack! I guess they just want to sell more AirPods.
  - checkyoursudo 4y ago
    The interesting thing that I have found happening is that I just don't listen to music/podcasts on my iPhone much anymore. I don't at all when I am out anymore, and I only do at home when I can have it on speaker. I guess Bluetooth'd to my car once in a while. That's about it. I wonder if/assume that the profits from Air Pods bought by everyone else makes up for the loss in music purchase from people like me? I dunno...
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2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
> Nothing can beat a MacBook At what? Price? Performance? Gaming? I/O?
- koonsolo 4y ago
  I'm a Linux guy, not an Apple fan. But the hardware is always top notch. If you look at the MacBook: the trackpad, the sound, the battery life, the overall quality, ... I haven't found any laptop hardware that comes even close to it. If you know a product that does, please let me know so I can buy one and run Linux on it :).
  - TinyRick 4y ago
    I have a Dell XPS from around 2018 that I run arch on. Only issue I've had is needing to replace the battery once due to swelling (very easy to swap), but otherwise the hardware and specs are on par with my work assigned Macbook.
    - dlivingston 4y ago
      But how does it feel to use? On my MacBook Pro, the trackpad and keyboard feel like I am manipulating text and windows at the speed of thought. On my work-assigned Dell, with specs ~matching my MacBook, it feels like there's a hidden friction to everything I do. Like going from skating on ice to jogging on sand.
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        Had a 2019 16" XPS and I'd describe the keyboard as borderline unusable. It was weirdly squeaky and if you hit a key on the edge a bit it just wouldn't register so I had so many typing mistakes.
      - TinyRick 4y ago
        I have never noticed any friction when performing any task on my XPS. I will admit I'm not a Mac/Apple guy myself, so for me it's the opposite (I'm much slower on my work Mac than doing the same thing on my personal Dell)
trap_goes_hot 4y ago
Apple is incredibly profitable, but Lenovo, dell, hp combined ship 60% of the laptops worldwide. Customers overwhelmingly choose non-Apple laptops.
- viscanti 4y ago
  Apple routinely has 90%+ of the laptop marketshare for computers that cost $1,000 or more. Seems weird to compare their marketshare to markets they're not competing in.
  - dotnet00 4y ago
    How does that say anything except that Apple laptops are so expensive that for anything they don't need Apple for they don't have to spend $1k?
  - trap_goes_hot 4y ago
    Apple laptops are not invisible or unknown to buyers, and customers overwhelmingly choose non-Apple laptops, as shown by the sales numbers. I don't get what we're disagreeing over. Or is it the case that secretly everyone wants to purchase Apple products but they just don't have the money?
sneak 4y ago
My iPhone hostname is Capitulation because I reluctantly switched back because Graphene is worse. I miss ssh clients that don't Philip K Dick me. I miss syncthing. I miss being able to use non-Apple services to sync my photos. I miss being able to run any apps I want from the web without identifying myself to a vendor. I miss NewPipe and I miss background apps and I miss basic local mp3 players that don't report what I play to remote parties against my will.
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  Hilariously (at least to me), that was the hostname for my first iPhone when I gave up on the HTC I was using and got a 1st-gen iPhone. WinMo was SO AWFUL, man. re: SSH clients, what does "PKD me" mean? Have you tried Blink?
  - sneak 4y ago
    Blink is the one in question. Never before have I ever been enraged by an ssh client.
    - ubermonkey 4y ago
      Wow! I love it. What's not working for you?
- tpush 4y ago
  Wondering why you found Graphene to be worse?
throwawaymaths 4y ago
Did no one here get utterly destroyed when updating to Ventura deleted your git, requiring you to either: 1. install xcode, which requires apple id, which your company might not support Or 2. Side load git, which your company's security policy might prohibit?
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  That sounds unpleasant. Hasn't been a problem for me, however, my work laptop is managed 100% through our corporate IT folks, including the Apple OS updates and packages. I've never needed a personal Apple ID to get Xcode.
- radicalbyte 4y ago
  I doubt that many people here would stick with companies who had both of those policies.
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    99% of the time it's not a problem, but yes, I am leaving the company for other reasons
- tourist2d 4y ago
  Sounds like a crappy company.
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    The root cause is the apple update deleting git. I mean wtf
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      I'm curious about that. Git has been part of xcode CLI tools for years, I can't recall the last time it came by default with the OS.
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smoldesu 4y ago
See, this is your problem. Abhorrent business practices can exist alongside great products, just look at Nestle. Nothing will excuse them for pumping freshwater out of inland lakes, or paying for paramilitary organizations to oppress their slave labor camps. It just means that people are fine eating Hershey Bars without thinking about the child labor that made their chocolate.
- homonculus1 4y ago
  Hershey bars are made by Hershey, not by Nestle.
  - bluejekyll 4y ago
    There is the oddity of KitKat in the US being made by Hershey but Nestle internationally.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I was expecting a Nestle product in your last sentence. Also, pretty sure effectively all chocolate benefits from child labor because of where cocoa trees are located.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    FWIW Hershey was also accused of child labor/slavery alongside Nestle, but you're right and I fumbled that one at the 95-yard-line.
    - egberts1 4y ago
      Right. And that would be fumbling at the "5" yard line but the opponent touched and miraculously tipped the ball back to you, and you recovered and still made your points (puns intended).
      - fsckboy 4y ago
        there's no "the" 5 yard line, there's your 5 yard line and their 5 yard line, and there's 90 yard lines in between them.
busymom0 4y ago
I disagree. While they may make decent products, the quality and attention to detail has gone down. Especially the UX has gone downhill entirely. Look at how bad the wallpaper changing UX is on iOS 16 for example.
coconut08 4y ago
their hardware is good and the ecosystem is good, but their software is god awful. macos has essentially zero window management to speak of and it's refusal to adopt vulkan has siloed it off from the rest of the industry. if they would just stop being stupid and adopt vulkan they would pick up support for a large number of games for free. it also has really bad multimonitor support.
croes 4y ago
Crumbs beat a MacBook
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
teawrecks 4y ago
Nothing can beat a macbook at what? I literally can't think of one thing. Maybe battery life? Maybe? It's surely not compatibility, long term support, reparability, or performance per $1. They dropped support for every graphics APIs except their own. They launched a greenwashing campaign that is always out of stock of parts, updates are mandatory regularly regress performance on old hardware, and we all know you're paying an apple premium for the same performance as something 60-70% the price. They used to define good build quality, but most laptops are pretty sturdy these days.
- babypuncher 4y ago
  You're not evaluating laptops holistically. You can always find something that is lighter, runs faster,or has a longer battery, but right now it's tough to find any laptop that can compete with the current crop of MacBooks in all these metrics at once. The only place Apple really falls behind some of the competition is repairability.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    If you ignore price, sure
    - babypuncher 4y ago
      Laptops comparable to Apple laptops in performance metrics AND build quality are usually priced pretty similarly.
- checkyoursudo 4y ago
  While I haven't used every laptop out there, the Macbook track pad is the only one that I have used that has not made my fingertip skin hurt after a short time of use. I know this is a little weird, and I have never talked to another person with this problem, but all of the cheap plastic ones, strangely textured ones, smooth-yet-somehow-massively-friction ones all make my skin hurt. The Apple one doesn't for whatever reason. I think I had a Gateway laptop a long time ago that also didn't heat my fingers to temperatures comparable to the surface of the sun or cause me pain to use. Like a really long time ago. I go to the local store and try out track pads every so often (like once per year maybe?), and they are all just shit. That's enough to keep me buying Macbooks for now. Like I said, this is a weird issue that I have never known anyone else to have, but it is a pretty critical one for me. Also, I just want to point out, that I only mean the materials of the track pad itself, not the drivers or anything. I have no complaints about e.g. Linux track pad drivers. I put Fedora on my wife's Surface Pro 8, and the track pad drivers there are fine, for example.
erdos4d 4y ago
> Nothing can beat a MacBook You can't upgrade the RAM, it has a weird processor that tons of code won't run on, and it starts at $2K. I have the latest one sitting on my desk right now from my work and it is a useless brick that I can't do any actual work on because so much code we use simply won't compile on it. I use a mini from 2018 for actual work and the macbook runs teams and zoom. Complete joke of a computer.
roody15 4y ago
Hmm apple still makes great hardware but I think software wise quality has suffered and this quote applies… For example on you phone you will get a red alert in settings … when you click it … says Try apple music for 3 months .. or will say setup apple pay … or sometimes say sign in with icloud. (even after declining multiple times) These are just ads disguised as systems alerts … hurts the experience and comes off as cheap. Also on Apple Computers and Phones alike it keeps asking to sign in and use icloud. But then gives you only 5gigs of space … not enough to even backup your phone and then tries to upsell a monthly fee for expanded storage. The software is designed to confuse users into purchasing when simply taking photos. New iphone with 64 gigs of storage 40 gigs free …. user gets message they are out of space in icloud and can purchase more space. They are quite aware that many users are not savy enough to know they don’t need to use icloud at all with photos or anything. Every time you update the phone it prompts you to “sign in” or “create and account”. Again comes off as cheap and pushy. I can go on and on but money crunchers are definitely at the table with software these days.
- startupsfail 4y ago
  I’m surprised that Apple, as a company that had been carbon neutral since 2020 and had pledged to protect the environment hadn’t banned any use of Bitcoins from their platform altogether. Crypto carbon footprint is mind-boggling, estimates are 200 million tonnes of CO2 since the launch, not including the CO2 emitted to manufacture the hardware. Coinbase, that popularised all that mining to the general public should be considered as evil as other large CO2 emitters. And worse, all of these carbon emissions are for nothing, crypto seem only to be contributing to more exchanges crashes, fraud, money laundering and crime. With nothing to show on the positive side.
  - Mistletoe 4y ago
    You are confusing Bitcoin with crypto. Ethereum uses drastically less energy after it transitioned to proof of stake. Many other cryptocurrencies are similar. https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption Nor do I agree with your assessment of banning Bitcoin because its power usage doesn’t match what we would like. I assume we all somewhat believe in the free market and the free market is solving this problem. Bitcoin price appreciation has been anemic at best and is only about 2% over the SP500 (+54%) in the past five years. Ethereum is quite a different story. +177%. Innovation is working. How much power and materials are wasted when Apple releases incremental changes with a new number each year to resell the same thing to materialistic buyers annually? Should they ban themselves for the greater good of the planet? I’d say so. https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/apples-colossal-e-waste-timebomb/ https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/apples-colossal-e-w... >Assuming the ecosystem was made up entirely of iPhones, an iPhone, on average, weighs 150g and are 130mm long. This means that you're looking at a pile of iPhones weighing 250,000 metric tons (the Empire State Building weighs in at roughly 330,000 metric tons), and if laid end-to-end would circle the Earth more than five times. And that’s just the e-waste. How much energy went into making them, how many dollars were wasted paying salaries and gas etc.?
WanderPanda 4y ago
They are really good compared to whats out there but they are far from excellent in many details. They are still quite far from Microsoft where almost every detail is atrocious and only the whole is making the cut because the sum of the parts is quite terrible.
mint2 4y ago
The cellular Apple watch has a terrible flaw. The networks only support it on the premium feature post paid contract plans and not on any prepaid plan. There’s no way to have a prepaid cell plan and add a watch for yourself. It’s an awful user experience. This limitation has no logical reason other than short sighted cell company greed and lack of Apple pushback
DiabloD3 4y ago
Unfortunately, none of that is true. Apple hasn't made a product worth owning in a long long time. Macbooks no longer can run Windows and don't quite run Linux yet (the two largest OSes in the world, and Linux On The Desktop(tm) is a bigger market share than OSX), iPhones still can't run Android after all these years (the majority phone OS), and Apple Watches suffer the issues all the smart watches have (no real good use case, battery lives of a day or less, violates "zero distraction" ethical concerns, sensors are fulltime uploaded to the cloud and there are no good Federal controls on personal data in the US, etc). I see no reason to ever buy Apple until they actually catch up to the rest of the world. Apple is a cult, and a very expensive one to buy into.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Defining a phone as worth owning as "being able to run android" is very arbitrary. I believe that nothing but the iphone is worth owning because the other's can't run iOS yet. Android just isn't suitable for real world usage yet.
  - DiabloD3 4y ago
    Hand me an iPhone, and I have zero clue what to do beyond the superficial launcher similarities; I'd have to Google anything that's not immediately obvious. Android is simple to use because it already uses the semi-universal UI language that all other OSes (Windows, Linux's gaggle of DEs, ChromeOS, etc) and apps use. The only people I know that own iPhones IRL are older people who aren't tech savvy (and all of them admit they don't know how to use their phone, and only make phone calls, text messages, and Facebook shit with it); I don't know a single Gen X, Millennial, or Gen Z (in or outside of the tech industry, in or outside of the US) with one. If Android is "not suitable for real world usage", then no phone is.
    - coffeebeqn 4y ago
      They’re both targeted for dumb consumers. There’s no reason to pretend that either OS is somehow incomprehensibly difficult for the end user
anderber 4y ago
Honestly, the Pixel Buds are better than the AirPods. So it's not a guarantee that Apple makes the best products. However, I do like their phones and laptops better.
rvba 4y ago
Do games even work on a MacBook? Does it have Excel with macros?
- musicale 4y ago
  > Do games even work on a MacBook? Windows games and Steam games? Some. See https://applesilicongames.com https://applesilicongames.com App Store games, including iPad games? Lots of them. Apple Arcade? Check, some 200+ curated games including some interesting exclusives like Fantasian. Game streaming services? Yep. Remote play from Steam/Xbox/PlayStation/etc.? Yep. > Does it have Excel with macros? Yes, it does. You might be surprised to learn that the first release of Excel was for the Macintosh in 1985. A Windows version was released in 1987.
  - fishcrackers 4y ago
    the most popular results on that website, require emulating windows or game streaming. from personal experiance the mouse movement in almost any game on my m1-pro before i sold it was borked, and even 'native' games that were supposed to work didn't feel good at all tabbing out of counter-strike go usually froze my macbook requiring a restart the ergonomics of the laptops are generally also poor (keyboard is flat, glossy screen, limited angle on the screen hinge so it requires serious hunching )
  - mycocola 4y ago
    While you responded factually, it feels disingenuous to portray an Apple computer as a capable gaming device. It is not. Not for the newest, not for the best. Not for the classics, not for the indies. Streaming has failed to impress the market, and the Apple Arcade remains an unfulfilling curiosity for those who think of gamers as a bit stinky and unproductive.
    - ask_b123 4y ago
      On the other hand, having both Windows and Mac, I probably use my Mac more often when it comes to gaming. At the very least 1:1. Or 1:1:1 if I include my iPad. Some of the games I play on Mac: Slay the Spire, Civ 6, Through the Ages, Nova Drift, Wizard of Legend and quite a few visual novels/text based games. Hmmm, I would call most of them indies.
thinkmcfly 4y ago
Nothing can beat a MacBook except for all of the computers that can.
- speed_spread 4y ago
  How many computers come with a USB baseball bat?
stickfigure 4y ago
If they ever lock up MacOS the way they do iOS, I'll be on Ubuntu or Windows by the end of the week. I'm sure I'll miss the UX. Oh well.
amelius 4y ago
Give me consumer choice over great products any time.
SkyPuncher 4y ago
I just switched to iPhone from Android after 10+ years on Android. iPhone is everything that I expected Android to be, but has failed to become. As the smartphone market has matured, iPhone and Android are essentially at parity in functionality. Android is completely fragmented and isolated. Every brand is pushing their slightly broken version of their integration. Everything is buried behind clicks/apps/configurations. I've been amazed at how well my various Apple devices integrate and how well they optimize for the flows that I care about most. For example, using the AndroidTV remote requires closing your current app, pulling up the app launcher, scrolling to AndroidTV, waiting for the app to load, waiting for the app to find devices, pick a target device, wait for the device to load, try to use a half-assed AndroidTV app. Switch back to whatever app you were using before. By contrast, iPhone places it in the command center. Pull down from anywhere, click the remote-icon, boom, control your TV. Doesn't even mess with your current app.
- no_carrier 4y ago
  > By contrast, iPhone places it in the command center. Pull down from anywhere, click the remote-icon, boom, control your TV. Doesn't even mess with your current app. It's exactly the same on Android - pull down the notifications shade and click on the TV remote icon.
  - SkyPuncher 4y ago
    Perhaps this works correctly with some combination of Android devices, but it has not ever worked on the devices I've owned.
ilyt 4y ago
Well, if you ignore the price
999900000999 4y ago
Depends on what you need vs how much money you have. Outside the US it's far more common to see Android phones and PCs. If you make 1k per month, buying a 1500$ phone makes less sense. Don't get me wrong, I love my Air, but my big Windows laptop can do different thing. For music Logic alone is worth buying a cheaper Mac. But good luck gaming on a MacBook air vs a gaming laptop. Both cost the same price after all But that gaming laptop will have your back in serious pain if you carry it every day around a college campus. When I was younger I had the most fantastic time installing Ubuntu on a Chromebook
eloff 4y ago
MacBook is twice the price of comparable hardware in a Dell or Lenovo. I mean it varies based on models being compared, but when I bought my laptop last year, that was the price difference. I like Macs, but not enough to justify that.
csomar 4y ago
Honestly, the current status of iOS is sh*t. I left macOS and am doing my own Linux config because I found it's actually a better experience even if I suffer config hell from time to time. I need my phone, however. Some stuff like having a Google maps with GPS are very valuable. Being able to join a meeting call while still going out is also another advantage. Then you have a bunch of apps that now I can live without but don't want to (like Apple Pay, Banking Apps, Taking a photo...) Point is: If there is an alternative, I'd switch immediately. And please don't suggest Android as that is Apple with extra-messy-steps.
worik 4y ago
> Apple still makes great products. Nothing can beat a MacBook I have quite a few computers on my desk these days. * Late model Windows laptop * M1 MAcOS laptop * iPad * Android phone * Raspberry Pi The point of telling this story is the computer with, by a long distance, best development environment/tools is the Raspberry Pi. As for user experience, the Windows machine is not too bad, the iPad and Android phone are horrid limited little things. I prefer the Pi, but I can recognise the quality of the MacOS environment. My taste is with the Raspberry Pi. Especially because I can turn of the (fucking) GUI and use it in true text mode. I learnt programming on the then magical Macintosh computers 1989-1992. They were really something technologically. So far ahead of anything else within ten times the cost. Those days are gone for Apple. Thank you for the memories.
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
  > best development environment/tools is the Raspberry Pi The best development environment for _you_ is the Raspberry Pi. Most people are going to want a GUI. Most users (even the vast majority of developers!) are not comfortable using a terminal 24/7. Most are going to be using whatever IDE they learned on, or whatever their team uses. That's certainly going to be a full GUI IDE that is resource-hungry. Even not considering those aspects, just compiling code takes forever. I've tried using a Raspberry Pi before as a day-to-day device. It works okay, but you're going to miss speed quickly
windexh8er 4y ago
I will vehemently disagree. I've owned multiple iterations of MacBook Pro laptops over the last decade. At least 6 different, top tier, variations including Intel and M series. They all have had glaring flaws. From garbage keyboards to excessive CPU utilization. My current 16" M1, with 32GB of RAM's keyboard is still a joke for as premium as Apple claims it to be and external video, even with Thunderbolt, is still riddled with quirks. Is it good hardware? Yes. It's pretty. It's manufactured well. But to me it's basically akin to a Porsche skinned car with a motor & transmission from a US manufacturer circa 2001. It just isn't as great as everyone makes them out to be. The M series is a huge improvement, but if I'm spending my personal money I'm not plunking it down on any Apple laptop. I get far more bang for my buck with shopping out a top tier Lenovo quite honestly. They're not perfect either but I've recently invested in a new T series and handed down a T470 to a family member. Over the course of that time I've replaced one of the two batteries (in less than 20 minutes) with common tools, I've upgraded the RAM, I've upgraded the NVME and I've upgraded the wireless. All making the laptop faster and more relevant. Sure, Apple wins hands down on the convenience ecosystem. But to get things done and build things the Lenovo is my choice all day long. I don't need a Retina screen and I could care less if a pair of Airpods connects to it. If paying the premium is worth it for those frivolous things then great. But I'm sick of the hardcore shilling of Apple as a serious work machine. Sure if you're doing A/V - I get that. But besides being better on power consumption (I still get ~7 hours out of the T470) there's no draw anymore for me. The software ecosystem has taken a huge hit over the years in quality on OS X and Apple has made too many breaking transitions for me to trust their hardware with my dollars anymore. Finally, privacy. It's clear at this point Apple's position on privacy is a marketing effort and little else. They do just as little as they really need to make it feel "better". But Apple doesn't much care about privacy but would rather control the walled (with dollars) garden. To clarify I'm not running Windows on my personal hardware.
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
  I think there's something to be said about the general appreciation on Hacker News for the ARM MacBook. It's sounds like you've had a bad experience. Some of those things (e.g. 'garbage keyboard') are subjective. Others, like high CPU usage and external video issues, are things that most don't seem to run into. I'm not saying that excuses the problems or invalidates your experience, but I hope that you can acknowledge that most people don't have that problem with their MacBooks. I agree that the software side of Apple products in general aren't great. There are so many issues.
mc32 4y ago
Companies that get complacent and lazy tend to get eaten by competitors, even if they are fat-cat monopolists, eventually. Apple knows this, I think, which may be why they keep on making pretty good products. Although, to be fair, they are not monopolists but part of a duopoly.
dt3ft 4y ago
HP zbook can surely beat a MacBook?
ricardobayes 4y ago
I think the sweet spot is a $600 lenovo (or other brand). They have a reasonably good screen, 16GB of RAM, a good gfx card (gtx3050), if you need one. I find it really difficult to fork out an additional $1500 for something marginally better (and in certain ways more limiting).
mejutoco 4y ago
Apple is still one of the best, but it is not immune to this (others are worse). Just tonight my phone updated, and the time now looks completely different. Small rant ahead. In the last updates they changed how alarms are set (rotatory dial to enter the numbers one by one and back to rotatory dial next update). Why did they change that? I believe just for change sake. Also I could see if I had an alarm set at a quick glance (next to wifi indicator top right); now it only shows on the lock screen. I wish they would let it be or hid it under a configuration option, but that goes against Apple minimalism. While all of these changes were happening there were small bugs on the alarms, like the one with different timezones documented on a short video here https://twitter.com/mejutoco/status/1526100127668224002 https://twitter.com/mejutoco/status/1526100127668224002 Don't get me wrong, Apple is so ahead of other companies. I think until more companies rise to their standards they won't polish these issues, since they face no competition. But they are not perfect.
- atyppo 4y ago
  My mother also can't use the redesigned alarm easily and is now forced to ask Siri (which always works great!). She's legally blind and can't see red and black contrast. What a stupid design from Apple that can't be changed. I'm convinced Apple's accessibility team is either for optics or is full of people that have never met someone with a disability.
okasaki 4y ago
Macbooks and iPhones really aren't that great. There's some sort of mass delusion going on. Macbooks are just overpriced basic laptops. A lot of people just use them to run Linux software but it's way worse than running it on Linux. Performance is great if all you're doing is video editing, which is what youtube reviewers love to focus on. For the rest of us, it's bleh.
prakhar897 4y ago
I've used android for a few yesrs and ios for an year. I can confidently say that iphone has much much worse ux than a stock android. Every standard action 5 additional clicks, devices have much less battery size and life, doing anything in general is a pain in the a*.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  My experience is that ios feels a lot like Niagara if you use the app library. Applications are pretty much the same. Notifications are marginally more annoying on ios but only marginally. I miss some intents, Firefox and Android clients are better on Android. The Apple watch is a lot better than the Android offering however. All things considered, it wasn't much of a change. Ios and Android are not particularly different.
kwanbix 4y ago
I think that nothing today can beat the M1/M2 CPU/GPU, but a ThinkPad, in my humble opinion, is much better than any MacBook (again, not counting CPU/GPU): - mate screen - trackpoint (if you haven't used it you don't know what you are missing) - keyboard - carbon body (much more warm than the metal unibody). I would love for apple to license the M1/M2 to Lenovo.
jclardy 4y ago
iPads are also the class leader in tablets, there really isn't anything close. The problem is all of these product lines were likely already in R&D during the Jobs era (With the exception of maybe AirPods.) Not the current designs of course, but the ideas. I think the real test will be this upcoming year and the supposed launch of the Apple headset, as I don't think there will be any greater test of Apple's current design/marketing/hardware/software prowess. People are already sour on the idea of the "metaverse" so it'll be interesting if Apple can sell something new/different/useful in the space.
_wolfie_ 4y ago
Dunno, maybe? I personally am reasonably happy with my new ryzen-based thinkpad. If nothing else, the macbook has so little ports and everything needs an adapter.

Apple still makes great products. Nothing can beat a MacBook (especially the new ones), AirPods work pretty well. Many (most?) people that use iPhones or Apple Watches love them.

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gjsman-1000 4y ago

They are getting worse particularly in the software department. Two that really grind my gears (there are others): MacOS on Apple Silicon for an extremely long time (maybe it's solved now? 2 years later?) which caused incredibly glitchy, almost unusable cursor movement if you let your battery drain to 0%, then plugged it back in and woke it from hibernate. Screen Time in macOS is unbelievably, ludicrously, fully broken. Nothing about it works almost at all. Metrics for children don't show up. Web filtering falls open after a few hours at random (presumably because the background services crash). The "site not allowed" page predates HTML5 and randomly doesn't work. You can't block built-in apps like Apple News, the best you can do is set a 1-minute time limit. Tons of IP Addresses and Apple phone-home addresses get blocked on the "allowed sites only" mode resulting in constant popups. I had to pay for Qustodio because it's just useless. Also, it has elementary bugs that are horrifying. For example, the pane where you add allowed websites doesn't remember websites you just added when you dismiss it - so if you open the pane again without a reboot, and add another site, it forgets the one you added last time you opened the pane. However janky other things might be on macOS, Screen Time with "Allowed Sites Only" is by far the most broken thing on macOS, bar none. Try using it with your younger children and rage in frustration as it crashes-open silently and allows Private Browsing with no filtering after a few hours.

jensensbutton 4y ago
My M1 Pro still randomly loses internet requiring a restart.
- iamacyborg 4y ago
  My asus wifi card in my pc does that too
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  Have you tried flushing the DNS cache?
  - typon 4y ago
    This has almost become a meme at this point. Anyone in the office who has a problem with their internet on the Macbook, I just send them this: sudo dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
    - JamesSwift 4y ago
      yep, been a part of my bash aliases for about a decade now?
- therein 4y ago
  Likely that it is related to Bluetooth as well. Especially if you have AirPods connected. I noticed the wireless connection quality degrades significantly when the device is connected to an AirPod.
- atribecalledqst 4y ago
  I haven't seen mine lose Internet entirely, but I have seen it randomly switch between the two Wi-Fi networks I have set up where I live. I eventually got frustrated with this and then told it it can't automatically connect to one of them anymore.
abdusco 4y ago
> almost unusable cursor movement if you let your battery drain to 0%, then plugged it back in and woke it from hibernate. Argh. I hate it when this happens. It's infuriating that this hasn't been fixed yet.
flutas 4y ago
> They are getting worse particularly in the software department. I actually just found one that has me scratching my head... If I plug a USB-C -> Ethernet adapter in to my M1 MBP on OSX Ventura...it brings down the entire network. Just ethernet + adapter + power is fine, plug it into the laptop, entire network dies.
- bartvk 4y ago
  Which USB-C -> Ethernet adapter is that?
  - flutas 4y ago
    It's a Insignia one from BB[0], so probably not the best QA on it. Still trying to determine why and when though, as this adapter used to be fine. [0]: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-7-port-type-c-hub-with-gigabit-ethernet-adapter/6259291.p?skuId=6259291 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-7-port-type-c-hub-with...
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
  Do they run their own DHCP server on a laptop maybe?
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  That's a weird one. When you say it brings it down, what do you mean is actually occurring? I have a USB ethernet adapter in use on my M1 MBP running Ventura as I write this, and it's been completely fine. But if there's a gotcha out there lurking, I'd be interested to know what triggers it.
  - flutas 4y ago
    > When you say it brings it down, what do you mean is actually occurring? All wired devices on the network (except for an AP strangely enough) drop all connections and can't get DNS responses. I haven't had the time to dig in further than that yet though. Someone did reply with this link[0], which may be the same or similar to what I'm experiencing just a different scenario. [0]: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2022/05/11/usb-c-hubs-breaking-ethernet-networks/ https://mjtsai.com/blog/2022/05/11/usb-c-hubs-breaking-ether...
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
> They are getting worse particularly in the software department. I would argue the opposite. Their software has historically been terrible. OG iTunes ranks at the top of the worst pieces of software I've ever used - rendered the iPod almost useless for me. Their software is still unimpressive, but I'd argue it's trending in the right direction. The App Store is functional. Safari is not terrible. Their email client is fine. The Apple TV UI is pretty snazzy, etc.
- ericmay 4y ago
  Yea I don't get this either. I find while maybe lacking some features, a lot of their applications work either just fine or great. Apple Maps for example, the Podcasts app, many others.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    You have to be kidding, right? The Apple Podcasts app is widely considered one of Apple's worst - and before Apple started playing "rating pop up" shenanigans, it was rated only 1.8 stars on the App Store. https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/19/apple-podcasts-app-store-rating-jump/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/19/apple-podcasts-app-store-rati...
    - ericmay 4y ago
      I use it every day and it works just fine for me. What's wrong with it?
- sn0wf1re 4y ago
  The Apple TV is a multi-user device with extremely poor multi-user support. Considering how long it has been used by B&Bs it amazes me that Apple has never allowed guest access. Music App sometimes breaks. It just doesn't play certain sections of some songs, even on replay, closing the app doesn't help; a device reboot is required to play songs in their entirety. And this happens on both devices that are connected via hardwire as well as wifi/LTE. Considering Apple's revenue it is ridiculous how long bugs persist in their applications.
bink 4y ago
The first example is oddly specific. I think you can find flaws like that with almost any software or hardware manufacturer, regardless of monopoly status. The second example is, I think, a perfect example of what most large companies do, which is to neglect specific features in favor of others. People want to work on the "new hotness" rather than maintain something written 10 years ago by a team that no longer exists. I don't think either suggests that Apple software is getting worse as a whole. The simple fact that they rolled out an entirely new architecture and it's worked pretty flawlessly (except for some fraction of people when the battery drains to 0 and it hibernates and needs a restart) suggests to me that they aren't just resting and pulling in money based on their monopoly status (which they don't even have in any industry).
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  > The first example is oddly specific. I think you can find flaws like that with almost any software or hardware manufacturer, regardless of monopoly status. True... but this one has caught me, over and over, and it makes me paranoid of a low battery. Before I just had a lazy habit of not getting off the couch until the battery actually died from 0%. Now I panic the moment it turns red, because the cursor bug quickly makes working miserable and requires a restart for my sanity. > I don't think either suggests that Apple software is getting worse as a whole. To me, it suggests they are letting more surface-level bugs get a pass than previously. Before, they might have had poorly designed software once in a while, but not things this basic and easily discoverable.
  - PTcartelsLOL 4y ago
    Gawd... a restart... unthinkable. You should try windows...
  - Aeolos 4y ago
    Seems to have been finally fixed on MacOS Venture 13.0. But 2 years of this bug was embarrassing.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  There was a time when Apple would release a new version that was basically a maintenance release. And they would squash a bunch of bugs. I think a lot of people still remember this. Perhaps through some objective measure, it’s still ok. But I agree it all feels worse.
atribecalledqst 4y ago
A lot of folks are disagreeing with you in the replies but I actually agree with you to be honest. I recently got a new Macbook Pro after my old one unexpectedly died and there are a lot of things in Monterey that I find highly annoying relative to the last version I was on (High Sierra). I complained about Music in another reply. One thing that really annoys me that I don't remember from High Sierra is this weird "overbounce"/"overscroll" functionality. This drives me absolutely nuts! Preview does this for example, and actually so does Firefox (but you can disable it there). If you open up a PDF in Preview, set the zoom so that a full page width is entirely within view (i.e. no scrolling needed), then scroll a bit to the side anyway, you'll see what I'm talking about. The viewport moves even though the full page width is in view. I've found that this triggers even when I'm trying to scroll down, resulting in a weird, glitchy scroll feel. I feel like I should temper the bad with the good a bit though. For example I have not had Bluetooth fail randomly with this new computer, whereas it failed quite a lot on my last one -- often requiring a reboot to fix.
tomxor 4y ago
All the children comments to this post are amusing... Some things get worse, some get better, some things depend on the use case. They all miss the point. The problem with Apple in it's relentless mission of maximising vertical integration, is that you are forced to align with their decisions at every single level, whether it's technical, social or political. "Cult" doesn't do it justice, Apple is has gone far beyond this. Most other proprietary tech is not like this because the pieces are smaller with some reasonable degree of either interchangeability or combinability. Apple isn't neutral technology it's some kind of political entity. When you sign up, you are handing over all control, which is fine until they do something you don't like at which point your only choice is abandon the entire thing or accept it - I don't give a crap about NFTs, but I give a crap about some things, and I don't want to be part of an ecosystem where I can be pushed around. I don't blame the people who are stuck in it, it's hard to exit something that can define a lot about how you work with technology, they are essentially the victim of a big bully with a very difficult to stomach exit strategy.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  tomxor, you may survive us yet. Unfortunately, many of the hackers on this site aren't willing to see the forest for the trees. We're too busy fighting over myopic identity politics to imagine a future without the problems we face today.
superdisk 4y ago
Similar frustration and mind boggling for me when I found that the "custom focus" feature on iOS just does... nothing. It's a feature where you're supposed to be able to select which specific apps can send notifications to you, so I made one which allows Slack to come through (for work) and blocks everything else. Instead, it just allows everything through as if the "custom focus" wasn't enabled at all. No seriously, I'm baffled. How was this released?

p0pcult 4y ago

...according to some. Nothing like the trifecta of ipod/itunes/iphone under Steve.

nikanj 4y ago

Especially now that they’ve abandoned the race to be ever thinner and eliminate keys for a touch bar

rootusrootus 4y ago
Happiest I've been about a computer in a while was when they backtracked on the things they'd removed from the MBP and put them back. Combined with the M1, it finally became the first MBP since 2015 that I thought was an actual improvement over all previous versions.
olyjohn 4y ago
Now if they can just put a fucking headphone jack back in the iPhone, kthx. Batteries are getting denser, mainboards are getting smaller, phones are bigger than ever... but no room for a headphone jack! I guess they just want to sell more AirPods.
- checkyoursudo 4y ago
  The interesting thing that I have found happening is that I just don't listen to music/podcasts on my iPhone much anymore. I don't at all when I am out anymore, and I only do at home when I can have it on speaker. I guess Bluetooth'd to my car once in a while. That's about it. I wonder if/assume that the profits from Air Pods bought by everyone else makes up for the loss in music purchase from people like me? I dunno...

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2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

> Nothing can beat a MacBook At what? Price? Performance? Gaming? I/O?

koonsolo 4y ago
I'm a Linux guy, not an Apple fan. But the hardware is always top notch. If you look at the MacBook: the trackpad, the sound, the battery life, the overall quality, ... I haven't found any laptop hardware that comes even close to it. If you know a product that does, please let me know so I can buy one and run Linux on it :).
- TinyRick 4y ago
  I have a Dell XPS from around 2018 that I run arch on. Only issue I've had is needing to replace the battery once due to swelling (very easy to swap), but otherwise the hardware and specs are on par with my work assigned Macbook.
  - dlivingston 4y ago
    But how does it feel to use? On my MacBook Pro, the trackpad and keyboard feel like I am manipulating text and windows at the speed of thought. On my work-assigned Dell, with specs ~matching my MacBook, it feels like there's a hidden friction to everything I do. Like going from skating on ice to jogging on sand.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Had a 2019 16" XPS and I'd describe the keyboard as borderline unusable. It was weirdly squeaky and if you hit a key on the edge a bit it just wouldn't register so I had so many typing mistakes.
    - TinyRick 4y ago
      I have never noticed any friction when performing any task on my XPS. I will admit I'm not a Mac/Apple guy myself, so for me it's the opposite (I'm much slower on my work Mac than doing the same thing on my personal Dell)

trap_goes_hot 4y ago

Apple is incredibly profitable, but Lenovo, dell, hp combined ship 60% of the laptops worldwide. Customers overwhelmingly choose non-Apple laptops.

viscanti 4y ago
Apple routinely has 90%+ of the laptop marketshare for computers that cost $1,000 or more. Seems weird to compare their marketshare to markets they're not competing in.
- dotnet00 4y ago
  How does that say anything except that Apple laptops are so expensive that for anything they don't need Apple for they don't have to spend $1k?
- trap_goes_hot 4y ago
  Apple laptops are not invisible or unknown to buyers, and customers overwhelmingly choose non-Apple laptops, as shown by the sales numbers. I don't get what we're disagreeing over. Or is it the case that secretly everyone wants to purchase Apple products but they just don't have the money?

sneak 4y ago

My iPhone hostname is Capitulation because I reluctantly switched back because Graphene is worse. I miss ssh clients that don't Philip K Dick me. I miss syncthing. I miss being able to use non-Apple services to sync my photos. I miss being able to run any apps I want from the web without identifying myself to a vendor. I miss NewPipe and I miss background apps and I miss basic local mp3 players that don't report what I play to remote parties against my will.

ubermonkey 4y ago
Hilariously (at least to me), that was the hostname for my first iPhone when I gave up on the HTC I was using and got a 1st-gen iPhone. WinMo was SO AWFUL, man. re: SSH clients, what does "PKD me" mean? Have you tried Blink?
- sneak 4y ago
  Blink is the one in question. Never before have I ever been enraged by an ssh client.
  - ubermonkey 4y ago
    Wow! I love it. What's not working for you?
tpush 4y ago
Wondering why you found Graphene to be worse?

throwawaymaths 4y ago

Did no one here get utterly destroyed when updating to Ventura deleted your git, requiring you to either: 1. install xcode, which requires apple id, which your company might not support Or 2. Side load git, which your company's security policy might prohibit?

rootusrootus 4y ago
That sounds unpleasant. Hasn't been a problem for me, however, my work laptop is managed 100% through our corporate IT folks, including the Apple OS updates and packages. I've never needed a personal Apple ID to get Xcode.
radicalbyte 4y ago
I doubt that many people here would stick with companies who had both of those policies.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  99% of the time it's not a problem, but yes, I am leaving the company for other reasons
tourist2d 4y ago
Sounds like a crappy company.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  The root cause is the apple update deleting git. I mean wtf
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    I'm curious about that. Git has been part of xcode CLI tools for years, I can't recall the last time it came by default with the OS.
4y ago

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smoldesu 4y ago

See, this is your problem. Abhorrent business practices can exist alongside great products, just look at Nestle. Nothing will excuse them for pumping freshwater out of inland lakes, or paying for paramilitary organizations to oppress their slave labor camps. It just means that people are fine eating Hershey Bars without thinking about the child labor that made their chocolate.

homonculus1 4y ago
Hershey bars are made by Hershey, not by Nestle.
- bluejekyll 4y ago
  There is the oddity of KitKat in the US being made by Hershey but Nestle internationally.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
I was expecting a Nestle product in your last sentence. Also, pretty sure effectively all chocolate benefits from child labor because of where cocoa trees are located.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  FWIW Hershey was also accused of child labor/slavery alongside Nestle, but you're right and I fumbled that one at the 95-yard-line.
  - egberts1 4y ago
    Right. And that would be fumbling at the "5" yard line but the opponent touched and miraculously tipped the ball back to you, and you recovered and still made your points (puns intended).
    - fsckboy 4y ago
      there's no "the" 5 yard line, there's your 5 yard line and their 5 yard line, and there's 90 yard lines in between them.

busymom0 4y ago

I disagree. While they may make decent products, the quality and attention to detail has gone down. Especially the UX has gone downhill entirely. Look at how bad the wallpaper changing UX is on iOS 16 for example.

coconut08 4y ago

their hardware is good and the ecosystem is good, but their software is god awful. macos has essentially zero window management to speak of and it's refusal to adopt vulkan has siloed it off from the rest of the industry. if they would just stop being stupid and adopt vulkan they would pick up support for a large number of games for free. it also has really bad multimonitor support.

croes 4y ago

Crumbs beat a MacBook

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teawrecks 4y ago

Nothing can beat a macbook at what? I literally can't think of one thing. Maybe battery life? Maybe? It's surely not compatibility, long term support, reparability, or performance per $1. They dropped support for every graphics APIs except their own. They launched a greenwashing campaign that is always out of stock of parts, updates are mandatory regularly regress performance on old hardware, and we all know you're paying an apple premium for the same performance as something 60-70% the price. They used to define good build quality, but most laptops are pretty sturdy these days.

babypuncher 4y ago
You're not evaluating laptops holistically. You can always find something that is lighter, runs faster,or has a longer battery, but right now it's tough to find any laptop that can compete with the current crop of MacBooks in all these metrics at once. The only place Apple really falls behind some of the competition is repairability.
- ilyt 4y ago
  If you ignore price, sure
  - babypuncher 4y ago
    Laptops comparable to Apple laptops in performance metrics AND build quality are usually priced pretty similarly.
checkyoursudo 4y ago
While I haven't used every laptop out there, the Macbook track pad is the only one that I have used that has not made my fingertip skin hurt after a short time of use. I know this is a little weird, and I have never talked to another person with this problem, but all of the cheap plastic ones, strangely textured ones, smooth-yet-somehow-massively-friction ones all make my skin hurt. The Apple one doesn't for whatever reason. I think I had a Gateway laptop a long time ago that also didn't heat my fingers to temperatures comparable to the surface of the sun or cause me pain to use. Like a really long time ago. I go to the local store and try out track pads every so often (like once per year maybe?), and they are all just shit. That's enough to keep me buying Macbooks for now. Like I said, this is a weird issue that I have never known anyone else to have, but it is a pretty critical one for me. Also, I just want to point out, that I only mean the materials of the track pad itself, not the drivers or anything. I have no complaints about e.g. Linux track pad drivers. I put Fedora on my wife's Surface Pro 8, and the track pad drivers there are fine, for example.

erdos4d 4y ago

> Nothing can beat a MacBook You can't upgrade the RAM, it has a weird processor that tons of code won't run on, and it starts at $2K. I have the latest one sitting on my desk right now from my work and it is a useless brick that I can't do any actual work on because so much code we use simply won't compile on it. I use a mini from 2018 for actual work and the macbook runs teams and zoom. Complete joke of a computer.

roody15 4y ago

Hmm apple still makes great hardware but I think software wise quality has suffered and this quote applies… For example on you phone you will get a red alert in settings … when you click it … says Try apple music for 3 months .. or will say setup apple pay … or sometimes say sign in with icloud. (even after declining multiple times) These are just ads disguised as systems alerts … hurts the experience and comes off as cheap. Also on Apple Computers and Phones alike it keeps asking to sign in and use icloud. But then gives you only 5gigs of space … not enough to even backup your phone and then tries to upsell a monthly fee for expanded storage. The software is designed to confuse users into purchasing when simply taking photos. New iphone with 64 gigs of storage 40 gigs free …. user gets message they are out of space in icloud and can purchase more space. They are quite aware that many users are not savy enough to know they don’t need to use icloud at all with photos or anything. Every time you update the phone it prompts you to “sign in” or “create and account”. Again comes off as cheap and pushy. I can go on and on but money crunchers are definitely at the table with software these days.

startupsfail 4y ago
I’m surprised that Apple, as a company that had been carbon neutral since 2020 and had pledged to protect the environment hadn’t banned any use of Bitcoins from their platform altogether. Crypto carbon footprint is mind-boggling, estimates are 200 million tonnes of CO2 since the launch, not including the CO2 emitted to manufacture the hardware. Coinbase, that popularised all that mining to the general public should be considered as evil as other large CO2 emitters. And worse, all of these carbon emissions are for nothing, crypto seem only to be contributing to more exchanges crashes, fraud, money laundering and crime. With nothing to show on the positive side.
- Mistletoe 4y ago
  You are confusing Bitcoin with crypto. Ethereum uses drastically less energy after it transitioned to proof of stake. Many other cryptocurrencies are similar. https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption Nor do I agree with your assessment of banning Bitcoin because its power usage doesn’t match what we would like. I assume we all somewhat believe in the free market and the free market is solving this problem. Bitcoin price appreciation has been anemic at best and is only about 2% over the SP500 (+54%) in the past five years. Ethereum is quite a different story. +177%. Innovation is working. How much power and materials are wasted when Apple releases incremental changes with a new number each year to resell the same thing to materialistic buyers annually? Should they ban themselves for the greater good of the planet? I’d say so. https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/apples-colossal-e-waste-timebomb/ https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/apples-colossal-e-w... >Assuming the ecosystem was made up entirely of iPhones, an iPhone, on average, weighs 150g and are 130mm long. This means that you're looking at a pile of iPhones weighing 250,000 metric tons (the Empire State Building weighs in at roughly 330,000 metric tons), and if laid end-to-end would circle the Earth more than five times. And that’s just the e-waste. How much energy went into making them, how many dollars were wasted paying salaries and gas etc.?

WanderPanda 4y ago

They are really good compared to whats out there but they are far from excellent in many details. They are still quite far from Microsoft where almost every detail is atrocious and only the whole is making the cut because the sum of the parts is quite terrible.

mint2 4y ago

The cellular Apple watch has a terrible flaw. The networks only support it on the premium feature post paid contract plans and not on any prepaid plan. There’s no way to have a prepaid cell plan and add a watch for yourself. It’s an awful user experience. This limitation has no logical reason other than short sighted cell company greed and lack of Apple pushback

DiabloD3 4y ago

Unfortunately, none of that is true. Apple hasn't made a product worth owning in a long long time. Macbooks no longer can run Windows and don't quite run Linux yet (the two largest OSes in the world, and Linux On The Desktop(tm) is a bigger market share than OSX), iPhones still can't run Android after all these years (the majority phone OS), and Apple Watches suffer the issues all the smart watches have (no real good use case, battery lives of a day or less, violates "zero distraction" ethical concerns, sensors are fulltime uploaded to the cloud and there are no good Federal controls on personal data in the US, etc). I see no reason to ever buy Apple until they actually catch up to the rest of the world. Apple is a cult, and a very expensive one to buy into.

Gigachad 4y ago
Defining a phone as worth owning as "being able to run android" is very arbitrary. I believe that nothing but the iphone is worth owning because the other's can't run iOS yet. Android just isn't suitable for real world usage yet.
- DiabloD3 4y ago
  Hand me an iPhone, and I have zero clue what to do beyond the superficial launcher similarities; I'd have to Google anything that's not immediately obvious. Android is simple to use because it already uses the semi-universal UI language that all other OSes (Windows, Linux's gaggle of DEs, ChromeOS, etc) and apps use. The only people I know that own iPhones IRL are older people who aren't tech savvy (and all of them admit they don't know how to use their phone, and only make phone calls, text messages, and Facebook shit with it); I don't know a single Gen X, Millennial, or Gen Z (in or outside of the tech industry, in or outside of the US) with one. If Android is "not suitable for real world usage", then no phone is.
  - coffeebeqn 4y ago
    They’re both targeted for dumb consumers. There’s no reason to pretend that either OS is somehow incomprehensibly difficult for the end user

anderber 4y ago

Honestly, the Pixel Buds are better than the AirPods. So it's not a guarantee that Apple makes the best products. However, I do like their phones and laptops better.

rvba 4y ago

Do games even work on a MacBook? Does it have Excel with macros?

musicale 4y ago
> Do games even work on a MacBook? Windows games and Steam games? Some. See https://applesilicongames.com https://applesilicongames.com App Store games, including iPad games? Lots of them. Apple Arcade? Check, some 200+ curated games including some interesting exclusives like Fantasian. Game streaming services? Yep. Remote play from Steam/Xbox/PlayStation/etc.? Yep. > Does it have Excel with macros? Yes, it does. You might be surprised to learn that the first release of Excel was for the Macintosh in 1985. A Windows version was released in 1987.
- fishcrackers 4y ago
  the most popular results on that website, require emulating windows or game streaming. from personal experiance the mouse movement in almost any game on my m1-pro before i sold it was borked, and even 'native' games that were supposed to work didn't feel good at all tabbing out of counter-strike go usually froze my macbook requiring a restart the ergonomics of the laptops are generally also poor (keyboard is flat, glossy screen, limited angle on the screen hinge so it requires serious hunching )
- mycocola 4y ago
  While you responded factually, it feels disingenuous to portray an Apple computer as a capable gaming device. It is not. Not for the newest, not for the best. Not for the classics, not for the indies. Streaming has failed to impress the market, and the Apple Arcade remains an unfulfilling curiosity for those who think of gamers as a bit stinky and unproductive.
  - ask_b123 4y ago
    On the other hand, having both Windows and Mac, I probably use my Mac more often when it comes to gaming. At the very least 1:1. Or 1:1:1 if I include my iPad. Some of the games I play on Mac: Slay the Spire, Civ 6, Through the Ages, Nova Drift, Wizard of Legend and quite a few visual novels/text based games. Hmmm, I would call most of them indies.

thinkmcfly 4y ago

Nothing can beat a MacBook except for all of the computers that can.

speed_spread 4y ago
How many computers come with a USB baseball bat?

stickfigure 4y ago

If they ever lock up MacOS the way they do iOS, I'll be on Ubuntu or Windows by the end of the week. I'm sure I'll miss the UX. Oh well.

amelius 4y ago

Give me consumer choice over great products any time.

SkyPuncher 4y ago

I just switched to iPhone from Android after 10+ years on Android. iPhone is everything that I expected Android to be, but has failed to become. As the smartphone market has matured, iPhone and Android are essentially at parity in functionality. Android is completely fragmented and isolated. Every brand is pushing their slightly broken version of their integration. Everything is buried behind clicks/apps/configurations. I've been amazed at how well my various Apple devices integrate and how well they optimize for the flows that I care about most. For example, using the AndroidTV remote requires closing your current app, pulling up the app launcher, scrolling to AndroidTV, waiting for the app to load, waiting for the app to find devices, pick a target device, wait for the device to load, try to use a half-assed AndroidTV app. Switch back to whatever app you were using before. By contrast, iPhone places it in the command center. Pull down from anywhere, click the remote-icon, boom, control your TV. Doesn't even mess with your current app.

no_carrier 4y ago
> By contrast, iPhone places it in the command center. Pull down from anywhere, click the remote-icon, boom, control your TV. Doesn't even mess with your current app. It's exactly the same on Android - pull down the notifications shade and click on the TV remote icon.
- SkyPuncher 4y ago
  Perhaps this works correctly with some combination of Android devices, but it has not ever worked on the devices I've owned.

ilyt 4y ago

Well, if you ignore the price

999900000999 4y ago

Depends on what you need vs how much money you have. Outside the US it's far more common to see Android phones and PCs. If you make 1k per month, buying a 1500$ phone makes less sense. Don't get me wrong, I love my Air, but my big Windows laptop can do different thing. For music Logic alone is worth buying a cheaper Mac. But good luck gaming on a MacBook air vs a gaming laptop. Both cost the same price after all But that gaming laptop will have your back in serious pain if you carry it every day around a college campus. When I was younger I had the most fantastic time installing Ubuntu on a Chromebook

eloff 4y ago

MacBook is twice the price of comparable hardware in a Dell or Lenovo. I mean it varies based on models being compared, but when I bought my laptop last year, that was the price difference. I like Macs, but not enough to justify that.

csomar 4y ago

Honestly, the current status of iOS is sh*t. I left macOS and am doing my own Linux config because I found it's actually a better experience even if I suffer config hell from time to time. I need my phone, however. Some stuff like having a Google maps with GPS are very valuable. Being able to join a meeting call while still going out is also another advantage. Then you have a bunch of apps that now I can live without but don't want to (like Apple Pay, Banking Apps, Taking a photo...) Point is: If there is an alternative, I'd switch immediately. And please don't suggest Android as that is Apple with extra-messy-steps.

worik 4y ago

> Apple still makes great products. Nothing can beat a MacBook I have quite a few computers on my desk these days. * Late model Windows laptop * M1 MAcOS laptop * iPad * Android phone * Raspberry Pi The point of telling this story is the computer with, by a long distance, best development environment/tools is the Raspberry Pi. As for user experience, the Windows machine is not too bad, the iPad and Android phone are horrid limited little things. I prefer the Pi, but I can recognise the quality of the MacOS environment. My taste is with the Raspberry Pi. Especially because I can turn of the (fucking) GUI and use it in true text mode. I learnt programming on the then magical Macintosh computers 1989-1992. They were really something technologically. So far ahead of anything else within ten times the cost. Those days are gone for Apple. Thank you for the memories.

shepherdjerred 4y ago
> best development environment/tools is the Raspberry Pi The best development environment for _you_ is the Raspberry Pi. Most people are going to want a GUI. Most users (even the vast majority of developers!) are not comfortable using a terminal 24/7. Most are going to be using whatever IDE they learned on, or whatever their team uses. That's certainly going to be a full GUI IDE that is resource-hungry. Even not considering those aspects, just compiling code takes forever. I've tried using a Raspberry Pi before as a day-to-day device. It works okay, but you're going to miss speed quickly

windexh8er 4y ago

I will vehemently disagree. I've owned multiple iterations of MacBook Pro laptops over the last decade. At least 6 different, top tier, variations including Intel and M series. They all have had glaring flaws. From garbage keyboards to excessive CPU utilization. My current 16" M1, with 32GB of RAM's keyboard is still a joke for as premium as Apple claims it to be and external video, even with Thunderbolt, is still riddled with quirks. Is it good hardware? Yes. It's pretty. It's manufactured well. But to me it's basically akin to a Porsche skinned car with a motor & transmission from a US manufacturer circa 2001. It just isn't as great as everyone makes them out to be. The M series is a huge improvement, but if I'm spending my personal money I'm not plunking it down on any Apple laptop. I get far more bang for my buck with shopping out a top tier Lenovo quite honestly. They're not perfect either but I've recently invested in a new T series and handed down a T470 to a family member. Over the course of that time I've replaced one of the two batteries (in less than 20 minutes) with common tools, I've upgraded the RAM, I've upgraded the NVME and I've upgraded the wireless. All making the laptop faster and more relevant. Sure, Apple wins hands down on the convenience ecosystem. But to get things done and build things the Lenovo is my choice all day long. I don't need a Retina screen and I could care less if a pair of Airpods connects to it. If paying the premium is worth it for those frivolous things then great. But I'm sick of the hardcore shilling of Apple as a serious work machine. Sure if you're doing A/V - I get that. But besides being better on power consumption (I still get ~7 hours out of the T470) there's no draw anymore for me. The software ecosystem has taken a huge hit over the years in quality on OS X and Apple has made too many breaking transitions for me to trust their hardware with my dollars anymore. Finally, privacy. It's clear at this point Apple's position on privacy is a marketing effort and little else. They do just as little as they really need to make it feel "better". But Apple doesn't much care about privacy but would rather control the walled (with dollars) garden. To clarify I'm not running Windows on my personal hardware.

shepherdjerred 4y ago
I think there's something to be said about the general appreciation on Hacker News for the ARM MacBook. It's sounds like you've had a bad experience. Some of those things (e.g. 'garbage keyboard') are subjective. Others, like high CPU usage and external video issues, are things that most don't seem to run into. I'm not saying that excuses the problems or invalidates your experience, but I hope that you can acknowledge that most people don't have that problem with their MacBooks. I agree that the software side of Apple products in general aren't great. There are so many issues.

mc32 4y ago

Companies that get complacent and lazy tend to get eaten by competitors, even if they are fat-cat monopolists, eventually. Apple knows this, I think, which may be why they keep on making pretty good products. Although, to be fair, they are not monopolists but part of a duopoly.

dt3ft 4y ago

HP zbook can surely beat a MacBook?

ricardobayes 4y ago

I think the sweet spot is a $600 lenovo (or other brand). They have a reasonably good screen, 16GB of RAM, a good gfx card (gtx3050), if you need one. I find it really difficult to fork out an additional $1500 for something marginally better (and in certain ways more limiting).

mejutoco 4y ago

Apple is still one of the best, but it is not immune to this (others are worse). Just tonight my phone updated, and the time now looks completely different. Small rant ahead. In the last updates they changed how alarms are set (rotatory dial to enter the numbers one by one and back to rotatory dial next update). Why did they change that? I believe just for change sake. Also I could see if I had an alarm set at a quick glance (next to wifi indicator top right); now it only shows on the lock screen. I wish they would let it be or hid it under a configuration option, but that goes against Apple minimalism. While all of these changes were happening there were small bugs on the alarms, like the one with different timezones documented on a short video here https://twitter.com/mejutoco/status/1526100127668224002 https://twitter.com/mejutoco/status/1526100127668224002 Don't get me wrong, Apple is so ahead of other companies. I think until more companies rise to their standards they won't polish these issues, since they face no competition. But they are not perfect.

atyppo 4y ago
My mother also can't use the redesigned alarm easily and is now forced to ask Siri (which always works great!). She's legally blind and can't see red and black contrast. What a stupid design from Apple that can't be changed. I'm convinced Apple's accessibility team is either for optics or is full of people that have never met someone with a disability.

okasaki 4y ago

Macbooks and iPhones really aren't that great. There's some sort of mass delusion going on. Macbooks are just overpriced basic laptops. A lot of people just use them to run Linux software but it's way worse than running it on Linux. Performance is great if all you're doing is video editing, which is what youtube reviewers love to focus on. For the rest of us, it's bleh.

prakhar897 4y ago

I've used android for a few yesrs and ios for an year. I can confidently say that iphone has much much worse ux than a stock android. Every standard action 5 additional clicks, devices have much less battery size and life, doing anything in general is a pain in the a*.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
My experience is that ios feels a lot like Niagara if you use the app library. Applications are pretty much the same. Notifications are marginally more annoying on ios but only marginally. I miss some intents, Firefox and Android clients are better on Android. The Apple watch is a lot better than the Android offering however. All things considered, it wasn't much of a change. Ios and Android are not particularly different.

kwanbix 4y ago

I think that nothing today can beat the M1/M2 CPU/GPU, but a ThinkPad, in my humble opinion, is much better than any MacBook (again, not counting CPU/GPU): - mate screen - trackpoint (if you haven't used it you don't know what you are missing) - keyboard - carbon body (much more warm than the metal unibody). I would love for apple to license the M1/M2 to Lenovo.

jclardy 4y ago

iPads are also the class leader in tablets, there really isn't anything close. The problem is all of these product lines were likely already in R&D during the Jobs era (With the exception of maybe AirPods.) Not the current designs of course, but the ideas. I think the real test will be this upcoming year and the supposed launch of the Apple headset, as I don't think there will be any greater test of Apple's current design/marketing/hardware/software prowess. People are already sour on the idea of the "metaverse" so it'll be interesting if Apple can sell something new/different/useful in the space.

_wolfie_ 4y ago

Dunno, maybe? I personally am reasonably happy with my new ryzen-based thinkpad. If nothing else, the macbook has so little ports and everything needs an adapter.