19 ms·

> but it is about selling luxury hardware. Somewhat true but things are changing. While there are plenty of “luxury” Apple devices like Vision Pro or fully dec

by klabb3 2y ago

> but it is about selling luxury hardware. Somewhat true but things are changing. While there are plenty of “luxury” Apple devices like Vision Pro or fully decked out MacBooks for web browsing we no longer live in a world where tech are just lifestyle gadgets. People spend hours a day on their phones, and often run their life and businesses through it. Even with the $1000+/2-3y price tag, it’s simply not that much given how central role it serves in your life. This is especially true for younger generations who often don't have laptops or desktops at home, and also increasingly in poorer-but-not-poor countries (say eg Eastern Europe). So the iPhone (their best selling product) is far, far, far more a commodity utility than typical luxury consumption like watches, purses, sports cars etc. Even in the higher end products like the MacBooks you see a lot of professionals (engineers included) who choose it because of its price-performance-value, and who don’t give a shit about luxury. Especially since the M1 launched, where performance and battery life took a giant leap.

_the_inflator 2y ago
I disagree. Apple is selling hardware and scaling AI by utilizing it is simply a smart move. Instead of building huge GPU clusters, having to deal with NVIDIA for GOUs (Apple kicked NVIDIA out years ago because of disagreements), Apple is building mainly on existing hardware. This is in other terms utilizing CPU power. On the other hand this helps their marketing keeping high price points when Apple now is going to differentiate their COU power and therefore hardware prices over AI functionality correlating with CPU power. This is also consistent with Apple stopping the MHz comparisons years ago.
- klabb3 2y ago
  Did you reply to the right comment? Feels like we’re talking about different things altogether.
- bingbingbing777 2y ago
  What AI is Apple scaling?
  - bionhoward 2y ago
    Seen MLX folks post on X about nice results running local LLMs. https://github.com/ml-explore/mlx https://github.com/ml-explore/mlx Also, Siri, and consider: you’re scaling AI on apple’s hardware, too, you can develop your own local custom AI on it, there’s more memory available for linear algebra in a maxed out MBP than the biggest GPUs you can buy. They scale the VRAM capacity with unified memory and that plus a ton of software is enough to make the Apple stuff plenty competitive with the corresponding NVIDIA stuff for the specific task of running big AI models locally.
    - Wytwwww 2y ago
      > there’s more memory available for linear algebra in a maxed out MBP than the biggest GPUs you can buy. But this hardly applies to 95% if not more people of all people running Apple's hardware, the fastest CPU/GPU isn't worth much if you can fit any at least marginally useful LLM model on the 8GB (or less on iPhones/iPads) of memory that you device has?
KptMarchewa 2y ago
[flagged]
- vr46 2y ago
  Countering a lazy reference with some weird racist stereotype was the best you could do?
  - KptMarchewa 2y ago
    It's not a stereotype, no one programs on phones here.
    - vr46 2y ago
      True, should have just said nonsense
- klabb3 2y ago
  Clumsily phrased. What I meant is that iPhones or similar priced smartphones are affordable and common for say middle class in countries with similar purchase power to Eastern European countries. You’d have to go to poorer countries like Vietnam or Indonesia for iPhones to be “out of reach”, given the immense value it provides. Heck now I see even Vietnam iPhone is #1 vendor with a 28% market penetration according to statcounter. That’s more than I thought, even though I was just there… Speaking of India, they’re at 4% there. That’s closer to being luxury.
  - immibis 2y ago
    I think US is their main market, though. The rest of the world prefers cheaper better phones and doesn't mind using WhatsApp for messaging, instead of iMessage.
    - klabb3 2y ago
      As a single market, US is probably biggest. I’m seeing numbers that say that the “Americas” is a bit less than half of global revenue, and that would include Canada and all of South and Latin America. So the rest of the world is of course very important to Apple, at least financially. > doesn't mind using WhatsApp for messaging Well WhatsApp was super early and way ahead of any competition, and the countries where it penetrated had no reason to leave, so it’s not exactly like they settle for less. It has been a consistently great service (in the category of proprietary messaging apps), even after Zuck took over.
coffeebeqn 2y ago
Engineers use MacBook pros because it’s the best built laptop, the best screen, arguably the best OS and most importantly - they’re not the ones paying for them.
- BobbyTables2 2y ago
  I have one and hate it with a passion. A MacBook Air bought new in the past 3 years should be able to use Teams (alone) without keeling over. Takes over a minute to launch Outlook. My 15 year old Sony laptop can do better. Even if Microsoft on Mac is an unmitigated dumpster fire, this is ridiculous. I avoid using it whenever possible. If people email me, it’d better not be urgent.
  - riddlemethat 2y ago
    I avoid using Outlook on any device, but I wouldn't complain about my Surface tablet's performance based on how poorly iTunes performs...
  - josephg 2y ago
    Is it an Apple silicon or Intel machine? Intel macs are crazy slow - especially since the most recent few versions of macOS. And especially since developers everywhere have upgraded to an M1 or better.
    - saagarjha 2y ago
      No MacBook Air from the last 3 years is Intel-based
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - josephg 2y ago
        You could certainly still buy new intel macbooks 3 years ago from Apple. Plenty of people did - particularly given a lot of software was still running through rosetta at the time. The M1 air was only released in November 2020. With a bit of slop in the numbers, its very possible the parent poster bought an intel mac just before the M1 launched.
jojobas 2y ago
Spending your life on a phone is still a lifestyle "choice".
nox101 2y ago
price-performance is not a thing for a vast majority of users. Sure I'd like a $40k car but I can only afford a $10k car. It's not nice but it gets me from a to b on my min-wage salary. Similarly, I know plenty of friends and family. They can either get 4 macs for $1000 each (mom, dad, sister, brother) so $4k. Or they can get 4 windows PCs for $250 so $1k total. The cheap Windows PCs suck just like a cheap car sucks (ok, they suck more), but they still get the job done. You can still browse the web, read your email, watch a youtube video, post a youtube video, write a blog, etc.. My dad got some HP celeron. It took 4 minutes to boot. It still ran though and he paid probably $300 for it vs $999 for a mac. He didn't have $999.
- klabb3 2y ago
  I’m not saying one or the other is better for your family members. But MacBooks last very long. We'll see about the M series but for myself for instance I got the M1 air without fans, which has the benefit of no moving pieces or air inlets, so even better. My last one, a MBP from 2011 lasted pretty much 10 years. OS updates are 8-10y. > The cheap Windows PCs suck […], but they still get the job done For desktop, totally. Although I would still wipe it with Ubuntu or so because Windows is so horrible these days even my mom is having a shit time with only browsing and video calls. A random laptop however is a different story. Except for premium brands (closer to Apple prices) they tend to have garbage battery life, infuriating track pad, massive thermal issues, and preloaded with bloatware. Apple was always better here, but now with the lower power/heat of the ARM chips, they got soooo much better overnight.
  - nox101 2y ago
    > A random laptop however is a different story. Except for premium brands (closer to Apple prices) they tend to have garbage battery life, infuriating track pad, massive thermal issues, and preloaded with bloatware. Apple was always better here, but now with the lower power/heat of the ARM chips, they got soooo much better overnight. To the person with no budget, all that doesn't matter. They'll still get let $250 laptop and put up with the garbage battery life (find a power outlet), infuriating trackpad (buy an external mouse for $10), bloatware (most users don't know this and just put up with it), etc.... I agree Apple is better. But if your budget is $250 and not $1k then you get what you can get for $250 and continue to feed your kids and pay your rent.
chipdart 2y ago
> Somewhat true but things are changing. While there are plenty of “luxury” Apple devices like Vision Pro or fully decked out MacBooks for web browsing we no longer live in a world where tech are just lifestyle gadgets. I notice your use of the weasel word "just". We undoubtedly live in a world where Apple products are sold as lifestyle gadgets. Arguably it's more true today than it ever was. It's also a world where Apple's range of Veblen goods managed to gain footing in social circles to an extent that we have kids being bullied for owning Android phones. Apple's lifestyle angle is becoming specially relevant because they can no longer claim they sell high-end hardware, as the difference in specs between Apple's hardware and product ranges from other OEMs is no longer noticeable. Apple's laughable insistence on shipping laptops with 8GB of RAM is a good example. > Even in the higher end products like the MacBooks you see a lot of professionals (engineers included) who choose it because of its price-performance-value, and who don’t give a shit about luxury. I don't think so, and that contrasts with my personal experience. All my previous roles offered a mix of MacBooks and windows laptops, and MacBooks were opted by new arrivals because they were seen as perks and the particular choice of windows ones in comparison were not as impressive, even though they out-specced Apple's offering (mid-range HP and Dell). In fact in a recent employee's review their main feedback was that the MacBook pro line was under-specced because at best it shipped with only 16GB of RAM while the less impressive HP ones already came with 32GB. In previous years, they called for the replacement of the MacBook line due to the rate of keyboard malfunctions. Meaning, engineers were purposely picking the underperforming option for non-technical reasons.
- lynx23 2y ago
  I bought my first Apple product roughly 11 years ago explicitly because it had the best accessibility support at the time (and that is still true). While I realize you only see your slice of the world, I really cringe when I see the weasel-word "lifestyle". This "Apple is for the rich kids"-fairytale is getting really really old.
- pembrook 2y ago
  Apparently you’ve never used Apple Silicon. There’s no PC equivalent in terms of specs. Also, I think you’re misunderstanding what a Veblen good is and the difference between “premium” and “luxury.” Apple does not create luxury or “Veblen” goods like for example, LVMH. An easy way to discern the difference between premium and luxury — does the company advertise the product’s features or price? For example, a Chanel handbag is almost entirely divorced from its utility as a handbag. Chanel doesn’t advertise features or pricing, because it’s not about the product’s value or utility, it’s what it says about your personal wealth that you bought it. That’s a Veblen good. Apple heavily advertises features and pricing. Because they sell premium products that are not divorced from their utility or value.
arvinsim 2y ago
Macbooks are not bang-for-buck. Most engineers I know buy it because it's like Windows but with Unix tools built-in.
- aplummer 2y ago
  I would be interested if there exists a single better value machine in $ per hour than my partners 2012 MacBook Air, which still goes
  - jpc0 2y ago
    Any decent laptop from the same era. My parents are using both HP ProBooks and Lenovo Thinkpads from that era currently and they are working perfectly and maintenance costs are lower than the same era macbooks... I own a MacBook Air, I won't be buying another purely because the moment I need to upgrade anything or repair anything it's effectively ewaste.
- goguy 2y ago
  Not found any good proxy which works well with cisco VPN software. Charles and proxyman work intermittently at best and require disconnecting from the VPN and various such dances. Fiddler on windows works flawlessly.
ActorNightly 2y ago
>Even in the higher end products like the MacBooks you see a lot of professionals (engineers included) who choose it because of its price-performance-value, and who don’t give a shit about luxury. Most CS professionals who write code have no idea what it takes to build a desktop, so the hardware that they chose is pretty much irrelevant because they aren't specifically choosing for hardware. The reason Apple gets bought is mostly by anyone, including tech people, is because of ecosystem. The truth is, nobody really care that much about actual specs as long as its good enough to do basic stuff, and when you are indifferent to the actual difference but all your friends are in the ecosystem, the choice is obvious. You can easily see this yourself: ask these "professionals" about the details of the Apple Neural engine, and its a very high chance that they will repeat some marketing material, while failing to mention that Apple does not publish any real docs for ANE, you have to sign your code to run on ANE, and you have to basically use Core ML to utilize the ANE. I.e if they really cared about inference, all of them would be buying laptops with discrete 4090s for almost the same price. Meanwhile, if you look at people who came from EE/ECE (who btw on the average are far better coders than people with CS background, based on my 500+ interviews in the industry across several sectors), you see a way larger skew towards Android/custom built desktops/windows laptops running Linux. If you lived and breathed Linux and low level OS, you tend appreciate all the power and customization that it gives you because you don't have to go learn how to do things.
- daviddever23box 2y ago
  Coming from both environments, I'd be wary of making some of these assertions, especially when you consider that any ecosystem that optimizes software and hardware together (from embedded devices all the way to general-purpose computing machines) is generally going to perform well, given the appropriate engineering focus. This applies regardless of (RT)OS / hardware choice, i.e., it's simply common sense. The signing of binaries is a part of adult developer life, and is certainly required for the platforms you mention as well. Unquestionably, battery life on 4090-based laptops sucks on a good day, and if you're working long hours, the last thing you want to have to do is park yourself next to your 350W adapter just to get basic work done.
  - 2y ago
hinkley 2y ago
Most of Apple’s money comes from iPhones.
kmacdough 2y ago
It's not about price-performance value at all. Mac is still the most expensive performance. And Apple is only particularly popular in the US. Android phones dominate most other markets, particularly poor markets. Apple is popular in the US because a) luxury brands hold sway b) they goad customers into bullying non-customers (blue/green chats) and c) they limit features and customizability in favor of simpler interfaces. It's popular with developers because a) performance is valuable even at Apples steep cost b) it's Unix-based unlike Windows so shares more with the Linux systems most engineers are targeting.
- rjha 2y ago
  I have never been an apple fanboy. Till 2022, I was on android phones. Work issued either Thinkpad or XPS variants. However, I have owned apple books since 2004 starting from panther era. I sincerely believe that apple provides best features and performance combination in the given price for laptops. Here I feel that I-hate-apple crowd is just stuck with this notion of luxury overpriced brand when it is clearly not the case. Apple has superior hardware at better price points. Last time I was doing shopping for a laptop, I could get similar features only at a 30% - 40% price premium in other brands. I am typing this on an apple M2 air and try finding similar performance under 2000 USD in other brands. The responsiveness, the (mostly) sane defaults and superior rendering and fonts make it worth it. The OS does not matter so much as it used to do in 2004 and the fact that I have a unix terminal in 2024 is just incidental. I have turned off auto updates and I do not use much of phone integration apart from taking backups and photo copying. I switched to an iPhone in 2022 from a 200 US$ Samsung handset. Here, I would say that not everyone needs an iPhone. My old phone used to do all the tricks I need on this one. However, the camera is really and photos are really great. If I buy an iPhone next time, it would be just for the photos it takes.
tomcar288 2y ago
you can get a laptop with a much bigger screen and a keyboard for as little as 100 to 300$ and it will be much much easier to get work done on, than an apple phone. so i think apple is still very much a luxury product.

by klabb3 2y ago

_the_inflator 2y ago

I disagree. Apple is selling hardware and scaling AI by utilizing it is simply a smart move. Instead of building huge GPU clusters, having to deal with NVIDIA for GOUs (Apple kicked NVIDIA out years ago because of disagreements), Apple is building mainly on existing hardware. This is in other terms utilizing CPU power. On the other hand this helps their marketing keeping high price points when Apple now is going to differentiate their COU power and therefore hardware prices over AI functionality correlating with CPU power. This is also consistent with Apple stopping the MHz comparisons years ago.

klabb3 2y ago
Did you reply to the right comment? Feels like we’re talking about different things altogether.
bingbingbing777 2y ago
What AI is Apple scaling?
- bionhoward 2y ago
  Seen MLX folks post on X about nice results running local LLMs. https://github.com/ml-explore/mlx https://github.com/ml-explore/mlx Also, Siri, and consider: you’re scaling AI on apple’s hardware, too, you can develop your own local custom AI on it, there’s more memory available for linear algebra in a maxed out MBP than the biggest GPUs you can buy. They scale the VRAM capacity with unified memory and that plus a ton of software is enough to make the Apple stuff plenty competitive with the corresponding NVIDIA stuff for the specific task of running big AI models locally.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    > there’s more memory available for linear algebra in a maxed out MBP than the biggest GPUs you can buy. But this hardly applies to 95% if not more people of all people running Apple's hardware, the fastest CPU/GPU isn't worth much if you can fit any at least marginally useful LLM model on the 8GB (or less on iPhones/iPads) of memory that you device has?

KptMarchewa 2y ago

[flagged]

vr46 2y ago
Countering a lazy reference with some weird racist stereotype was the best you could do?
- KptMarchewa 2y ago
  It's not a stereotype, no one programs on phones here.
  - vr46 2y ago
    True, should have just said nonsense
klabb3 2y ago
Clumsily phrased. What I meant is that iPhones or similar priced smartphones are affordable and common for say middle class in countries with similar purchase power to Eastern European countries. You’d have to go to poorer countries like Vietnam or Indonesia for iPhones to be “out of reach”, given the immense value it provides. Heck now I see even Vietnam iPhone is #1 vendor with a 28% market penetration according to statcounter. That’s more than I thought, even though I was just there… Speaking of India, they’re at 4% there. That’s closer to being luxury.
- immibis 2y ago
  I think US is their main market, though. The rest of the world prefers cheaper better phones and doesn't mind using WhatsApp for messaging, instead of iMessage.
  - klabb3 2y ago
    As a single market, US is probably biggest. I’m seeing numbers that say that the “Americas” is a bit less than half of global revenue, and that would include Canada and all of South and Latin America. So the rest of the world is of course very important to Apple, at least financially. > doesn't mind using WhatsApp for messaging Well WhatsApp was super early and way ahead of any competition, and the countries where it penetrated had no reason to leave, so it’s not exactly like they settle for less. It has been a consistently great service (in the category of proprietary messaging apps), even after Zuck took over.

coffeebeqn 2y ago

Engineers use MacBook pros because it’s the best built laptop, the best screen, arguably the best OS and most importantly - they’re not the ones paying for them.

BobbyTables2 2y ago
I have one and hate it with a passion. A MacBook Air bought new in the past 3 years should be able to use Teams (alone) without keeling over. Takes over a minute to launch Outlook. My 15 year old Sony laptop can do better. Even if Microsoft on Mac is an unmitigated dumpster fire, this is ridiculous. I avoid using it whenever possible. If people email me, it’d better not be urgent.
- riddlemethat 2y ago
  I avoid using Outlook on any device, but I wouldn't complain about my Surface tablet's performance based on how poorly iTunes performs...
- josephg 2y ago
  Is it an Apple silicon or Intel machine? Intel macs are crazy slow - especially since the most recent few versions of macOS. And especially since developers everywhere have upgraded to an M1 or better.
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    No MacBook Air from the last 3 years is Intel-based
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - josephg 2y ago
      You could certainly still buy new intel macbooks 3 years ago from Apple. Plenty of people did - particularly given a lot of software was still running through rosetta at the time. The M1 air was only released in November 2020. With a bit of slop in the numbers, its very possible the parent poster bought an intel mac just before the M1 launched.

jojobas 2y ago

Spending your life on a phone is still a lifestyle "choice".

nox101 2y ago

price-performance is not a thing for a vast majority of users. Sure I'd like a $40k car but I can only afford a $10k car. It's not nice but it gets me from a to b on my min-wage salary. Similarly, I know plenty of friends and family. They can either get 4 macs for $1000 each (mom, dad, sister, brother) so $4k. Or they can get 4 windows PCs for $250 so $1k total. The cheap Windows PCs suck just like a cheap car sucks (ok, they suck more), but they still get the job done. You can still browse the web, read your email, watch a youtube video, post a youtube video, write a blog, etc.. My dad got some HP celeron. It took 4 minutes to boot. It still ran though and he paid probably $300 for it vs $999 for a mac. He didn't have $999.

klabb3 2y ago
I’m not saying one or the other is better for your family members. But MacBooks last very long. We'll see about the M series but for myself for instance I got the M1 air without fans, which has the benefit of no moving pieces or air inlets, so even better. My last one, a MBP from 2011 lasted pretty much 10 years. OS updates are 8-10y. > The cheap Windows PCs suck […], but they still get the job done For desktop, totally. Although I would still wipe it with Ubuntu or so because Windows is so horrible these days even my mom is having a shit time with only browsing and video calls. A random laptop however is a different story. Except for premium brands (closer to Apple prices) they tend to have garbage battery life, infuriating track pad, massive thermal issues, and preloaded with bloatware. Apple was always better here, but now with the lower power/heat of the ARM chips, they got soooo much better overnight.
- nox101 2y ago
  > A random laptop however is a different story. Except for premium brands (closer to Apple prices) they tend to have garbage battery life, infuriating track pad, massive thermal issues, and preloaded with bloatware. Apple was always better here, but now with the lower power/heat of the ARM chips, they got soooo much better overnight. To the person with no budget, all that doesn't matter. They'll still get let $250 laptop and put up with the garbage battery life (find a power outlet), infuriating trackpad (buy an external mouse for $10), bloatware (most users don't know this and just put up with it), etc.... I agree Apple is better. But if your budget is $250 and not $1k then you get what you can get for $250 and continue to feed your kids and pay your rent.

chipdart 2y ago

> Somewhat true but things are changing. While there are plenty of “luxury” Apple devices like Vision Pro or fully decked out MacBooks for web browsing we no longer live in a world where tech are just lifestyle gadgets. I notice your use of the weasel word "just". We undoubtedly live in a world where Apple products are sold as lifestyle gadgets. Arguably it's more true today than it ever was. It's also a world where Apple's range of Veblen goods managed to gain footing in social circles to an extent that we have kids being bullied for owning Android phones. Apple's lifestyle angle is becoming specially relevant because they can no longer claim they sell high-end hardware, as the difference in specs between Apple's hardware and product ranges from other OEMs is no longer noticeable. Apple's laughable insistence on shipping laptops with 8GB of RAM is a good example. > Even in the higher end products like the MacBooks you see a lot of professionals (engineers included) who choose it because of its price-performance-value, and who don’t give a shit about luxury. I don't think so, and that contrasts with my personal experience. All my previous roles offered a mix of MacBooks and windows laptops, and MacBooks were opted by new arrivals because they were seen as perks and the particular choice of windows ones in comparison were not as impressive, even though they out-specced Apple's offering (mid-range HP and Dell). In fact in a recent employee's review their main feedback was that the MacBook pro line was under-specced because at best it shipped with only 16GB of RAM while the less impressive HP ones already came with 32GB. In previous years, they called for the replacement of the MacBook line due to the rate of keyboard malfunctions. Meaning, engineers were purposely picking the underperforming option for non-technical reasons.

lynx23 2y ago
I bought my first Apple product roughly 11 years ago explicitly because it had the best accessibility support at the time (and that is still true). While I realize you only see your slice of the world, I really cringe when I see the weasel-word "lifestyle". This "Apple is for the rich kids"-fairytale is getting really really old.
pembrook 2y ago
Apparently you’ve never used Apple Silicon. There’s no PC equivalent in terms of specs. Also, I think you’re misunderstanding what a Veblen good is and the difference between “premium” and “luxury.” Apple does not create luxury or “Veblen” goods like for example, LVMH. An easy way to discern the difference between premium and luxury — does the company advertise the product’s features or price? For example, a Chanel handbag is almost entirely divorced from its utility as a handbag. Chanel doesn’t advertise features or pricing, because it’s not about the product’s value or utility, it’s what it says about your personal wealth that you bought it. That’s a Veblen good. Apple heavily advertises features and pricing. Because they sell premium products that are not divorced from their utility or value.

arvinsim 2y ago

Macbooks are not bang-for-buck. Most engineers I know buy it because it's like Windows but with Unix tools built-in.

aplummer 2y ago
I would be interested if there exists a single better value machine in $ per hour than my partners 2012 MacBook Air, which still goes
- jpc0 2y ago
  Any decent laptop from the same era. My parents are using both HP ProBooks and Lenovo Thinkpads from that era currently and they are working perfectly and maintenance costs are lower than the same era macbooks... I own a MacBook Air, I won't be buying another purely because the moment I need to upgrade anything or repair anything it's effectively ewaste.
goguy 2y ago
Not found any good proxy which works well with cisco VPN software. Charles and proxyman work intermittently at best and require disconnecting from the VPN and various such dances. Fiddler on windows works flawlessly.

ActorNightly 2y ago

>Even in the higher end products like the MacBooks you see a lot of professionals (engineers included) who choose it because of its price-performance-value, and who don’t give a shit about luxury. Most CS professionals who write code have no idea what it takes to build a desktop, so the hardware that they chose is pretty much irrelevant because they aren't specifically choosing for hardware. The reason Apple gets bought is mostly by anyone, including tech people, is because of ecosystem. The truth is, nobody really care that much about actual specs as long as its good enough to do basic stuff, and when you are indifferent to the actual difference but all your friends are in the ecosystem, the choice is obvious. You can easily see this yourself: ask these "professionals" about the details of the Apple Neural engine, and its a very high chance that they will repeat some marketing material, while failing to mention that Apple does not publish any real docs for ANE, you have to sign your code to run on ANE, and you have to basically use Core ML to utilize the ANE. I.e if they really cared about inference, all of them would be buying laptops with discrete 4090s for almost the same price. Meanwhile, if you look at people who came from EE/ECE (who btw on the average are far better coders than people with CS background, based on my 500+ interviews in the industry across several sectors), you see a way larger skew towards Android/custom built desktops/windows laptops running Linux. If you lived and breathed Linux and low level OS, you tend appreciate all the power and customization that it gives you because you don't have to go learn how to do things.

daviddever23box 2y ago
Coming from both environments, I'd be wary of making some of these assertions, especially when you consider that any ecosystem that optimizes software and hardware together (from embedded devices all the way to general-purpose computing machines) is generally going to perform well, given the appropriate engineering focus. This applies regardless of (RT)OS / hardware choice, i.e., it's simply common sense. The signing of binaries is a part of adult developer life, and is certainly required for the platforms you mention as well. Unquestionably, battery life on 4090-based laptops sucks on a good day, and if you're working long hours, the last thing you want to have to do is park yourself next to your 350W adapter just to get basic work done.
- 2y ago

hinkley 2y ago

Most of Apple’s money comes from iPhones.

kmacdough 2y ago

It's not about price-performance value at all. Mac is still the most expensive performance. And Apple is only particularly popular in the US. Android phones dominate most other markets, particularly poor markets. Apple is popular in the US because a) luxury brands hold sway b) they goad customers into bullying non-customers (blue/green chats) and c) they limit features and customizability in favor of simpler interfaces. It's popular with developers because a) performance is valuable even at Apples steep cost b) it's Unix-based unlike Windows so shares more with the Linux systems most engineers are targeting.

rjha 2y ago
I have never been an apple fanboy. Till 2022, I was on android phones. Work issued either Thinkpad or XPS variants. However, I have owned apple books since 2004 starting from panther era. I sincerely believe that apple provides best features and performance combination in the given price for laptops. Here I feel that I-hate-apple crowd is just stuck with this notion of luxury overpriced brand when it is clearly not the case. Apple has superior hardware at better price points. Last time I was doing shopping for a laptop, I could get similar features only at a 30% - 40% price premium in other brands. I am typing this on an apple M2 air and try finding similar performance under 2000 USD in other brands. The responsiveness, the (mostly) sane defaults and superior rendering and fonts make it worth it. The OS does not matter so much as it used to do in 2004 and the fact that I have a unix terminal in 2024 is just incidental. I have turned off auto updates and I do not use much of phone integration apart from taking backups and photo copying. I switched to an iPhone in 2022 from a 200 US$ Samsung handset. Here, I would say that not everyone needs an iPhone. My old phone used to do all the tricks I need on this one. However, the camera is really and photos are really great. If I buy an iPhone next time, it would be just for the photos it takes.

tomcar288 2y ago

you can get a laptop with a much bigger screen and a keyboard for as little as 100 to 300$ and it will be much much easier to get work done on, than an apple phone. so i think apple is still very much a luxury product.