10 ms·

I wonder if anyone else here is old enough to remember the "I'm a Mac", "And I'm a PC" ads. There was one that was about all the annoying security pop-ups Wind

by timmg 1y ago

I wonder if anyone else here is old enough to remember the "I'm a Mac", "And I'm a PC" ads. There was one that was about all the annoying security pop-ups Windows (used to?) have. (FWIW, it starts here: https://youtu.be/qfv6Ah_MVJU?t=230 https://youtu.be/qfv6Ah_MVJU?t=230 .) Lately I've gotten so many of these popups on Mac that it both annoys and amuses the hell out of me. "Die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain", I guess. But, man, Apple hardware still rocks. Can't deny that.

throitallaway 1y ago
> But, man, Apple hardware still rocks. Can't deny that. Ah yes, the Johnny Ive era of "no ports on Macbooks except USB-C, and hope you like touchbars!" was fantastic. Not to mention how heavy the damn things are. Oh and the sharp edges of the case where my palms rest. And the chiclet keyboards with .0001 mm of key travel. I'll take a carbon fiber Thinkpad with an OLED display any day of the week, thank you. Macbooks feel like user hostile devices and are the epitome of form over function.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  I owned multiple Macbooks that built a positive static charge when they were on, instilling a Pavlovian fear of being shocked into anyone that used it. Those were fun.
  - therein 1y ago
    They still do. My m1, m1max and m4max Macbook Pros all build a positive static charge. It isn't even something that renders it "returnable" because I observed it on every single Macbook in the last 4-5 years so I just assume that's just how Macbook Pros are now.
    - jacobolus 1y ago
      This hasn't changed in at least 2 decades: I was getting zapped by Apple metal laptops circa 2004. But I have never encountered this problem when using a grounded plug. It was also a lot worse for me when plugged into outlets in an old house in Mexico, especially when my bare feet were touching the terracotta floor tiles; it's not really an issue in a recently re-wired house in California with a wood floor, using the same laptops, power strips, etc. If you are having this issue and you currently plug a 2-pronged plug into a grounded outlet, try using Apple's 3-pronged plug instead, and I expect it would go away. If you don't have grounded outlets, then that's a bit more complicated to solve.
      - therein 1y ago
        That's what confuses me, I am using the cable with three prongs, it is grounded. I am beginning to suspect some other appliance I am plugging into it that is responsible of the build-up of charge, but then why is it not finding its way to the ground... something doesn't add up but has been my experience consistently.
        jacobolus 1y ago
        Perhaps the outlet isn't properly grounded?
    - trallnag 1y ago
      Is there any laptop with a metal body out there that does not have this issue? I've had two RedmiBook by Xiaomi and both has that vibrating electric feeling to them when plugged in.
      - Liftyee 1y ago
        It's an artifact of the charger. This comment explains it well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45686427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45686427
  - drum55 1y ago
    That’s nothing to do with static electricity, it’s capacitive coupling through the safety capacitors in the power supply. The chassis sits at 90vac or so as a result, it’s not a safety issue it’s FCC compliance for emitted noise.
    - ash_091 1y ago
      Is this generally true for laptops / phones? I've often wondered why I can tell by touch whether a device is charging or not from the slight "vibration" sensation I get when gently touching the case.
      - hex4def6 1y ago
        For ungrounded / 2-prong outlet devices, yeah. It's often noticeable if you have a point contact of metal against your skin; sharp edge / screw / speaker grill, etc. Once you have decent coupling between your body and the laptop, you won't feel the tingle / zap. They're called Y-caps if you want to delve deeper into them and their use in power supplies.
      - knifie_spoonie 1y ago
        I get that too. I was wondering if it was just me.
  - swiftcoder 1y ago
    If you use the 3-prong version of the power adapter to connect to a grounded outlet, this problem goes away. Of course, Apple doesn't actually sell a 3-prong plug for their charger in Europe... so us lucky folks in the EU have to get a 3rd party one off the internet
    - jen20 1y ago
      Yes, they do. [1] for Italian outlets, [2] for many of the others. I'm sure I don't need to continue. [1]: https://www.apple.com/it/shop/product/mw2n3ci/a/prolunga-per-alimentatore?fnode=4ba86bc4693978780bb9dd0ea07046cc31778b69b51bd3275f1effd3c17b22a7368e89419e1c906d3dad5e1368ab9104718ed4ccee5b63ea30c9ba019f136c0c00e7424387d9f88d50c36f051315f364496f3efa20749c88d8830dd9c61ace32 https://www.apple.com/it/shop/product/mw2n3ci/a/prolunga-per... [2]: https://www.apple.com/fr/shop/product/mw2n3z/a/câble-d’extension-pour-adaptateur-secteur?fnode=f0f7e965117efe3d2059cd2edc3f93d6e3963a77159af16130698b9b85ac407bb6216391e18bc612e6cebd3a99bf9e9ca50a62ec0988d4ec12409f7aee2c2515748ffbb594d5319e02589eaec499ac651eeccaaeaea5b5d2417a3f29e1a7a108 https://www.apple.com/fr/shop/product/mw2n3z/a/câble-d’exten...
      - theodric 1y ago
        I suspect what they meant is that there isn't an official Schuko nub that slides onto the brick and lets you hang it directly from the socket rather than carrying an extra meter of cable around. There is a BS1363 one, and those are only legit feasible in a grounded configuration (although I guess you could use a plastic ground spade to lift the child protection slider inside the socket if you were a particularly unpleasant engineer). Nice for those of us in British-adjacent countries.
      - swiftcoder 1y ago
        I'm talking about the non-corded variants. Carrying an extra metre of cable around just to get the grounding prong is not great. As another poster mentioned, it's particularly annoying because Apple does ship the UK adapter in 3-pin grounded form
        1y ago
- NexRebular 1y ago
  I miss the Powerbook G3 series. That was some fantastically modular design.
- kbolino 1y ago
  I don't mind that the Macbooks only have USB-C ports. Unlike many PCs, where the USB-C ports can't be used for charging, or can't be used for high-speed data transfer, or can't be used for external displays, or can't be used by certain software that only speaks USB 2.0, etc., the Macbooks let any USB-C port do anything. It's a forward-thinking decision, even if it was primarily made for aesthetic reasons. What I do mind is that there's only 3 of them.
  - wingworks 1y ago
    I only have 2 USB-C ports, and most of the time I have nothing plugged in (but power). Sometimes ethernet USB-C when moving large files.
  - ndiddy 1y ago
    The transition era was certainly annoying, but now that it's over I think the Mac experience is objectively worse. My PC laptop has 2 USB-C ports that can be used for charging, display, 40 Gbps transfer, etc., just like my Macbook Air. The difference is that the PC also has 2 USB-A ports and an HDMI port. This means that I'm able to plug in a flash drive or connect an external display without having to remember to bring a dongle with me.
    - kbolino 1y ago
      I largely agree that PCs have caught up feature-wise, but because they took longer to get there, I still have a couple crappy USB-C ports on PCs that are otherwise fine. The problem with the 2 USB-C ports on modern PC laptops is that one of them pretty much has to be reserved for the charger, whereas the MBP has a MagSafe port that you can charge with instead. So it really only feels like you have one USB-C port and the other ports are just there as a consolation. That might work out to roughly equal, but I don't think it leaves the Mac off worse. I don't hate the dongles so much though. It wouldn't have hurt to have some USB-A and HDMI on the MBP--the Minis can pull it off, so clearly the hardware is capable--but more (Thunderbolt) USB-C would still be the best option IMO. USB-A (definitely) and HDMI (probably) will eventually be relics someday, even if they are here for a little while longer.
    - 1y ago
- stetrain 1y ago
  Most of what you're talking about is from MacBooks of 5+ years ago on a completely different processor architecture.
- icedchai 1y ago
  I find the keyboards terrible, even the modern ones. I much preferred the 2006-2007 MacBook Pro keyboards.
- IshKebab 1y ago
  Those are all legit criticisms but also be fair. They eventually did get rid of the touchbar. USB-C-only was merely ahead of its time. They improved the keyboards. And even at their worst they were still much better than any Windows laptops, if only for the touchpad. I have yet to use a Windows laptop with a touchpad even close to the trackpad's that Apple had 15 years ago. And the build quality and styling is still unbeaten. Do Windows laptop makers still put shitty stickers all over them?
  - SkyeCA 1y ago
    USB-C only is still a nuisance to this very day and remains the thing I hate most about my Macbook. Without fail there is never an adapter to be found when I need it.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      I'm kinda bewildered to see people defend it. Even Apple knew they were wrong, they didn't put an HDMI port on the new Mac chassis by mistake. Case in point that people will never admit that Apple messes up, even if Apple themselves will.
- linepupdesign 1y ago
  [dead]
- bschwindHN 1y ago
  That era sucked for sure, but since (I think) 2021, macbook pros have magsafe, 3x USB-C, an HDMI port, and an SD card. I had a 2014 MBP I was waiting to upgrade once they came up with a sensible redesign, and I'd say they did! I still have my 2014, along with a 2021 MBP for work, and still love them as machines for my usage profile - writing software/firmware, and occasional PCB design. The battery life is good, M-series performance is great, screen is decent-to-good, trackpad is still best in class, and macos is _okay_ in my book. The keyboard isn't amazing as I prefer mechanical for sure, but I still type faster on a macbook keyboard than anything else. That being said, I designed a mechanical keyboard that sits on top of the macbook keyboard so I can enjoy that better typing experience. Pretty dang happy with my setup.
AlexandrB 1y ago
> But, man, Apple hardware still rocks. Can't deny that. They really dodged a bullet there. 2016-2020 Apple laptop hardware definitely didn't rock. It's good they did an about-face on some of those bad ideas.
- AceJohnny2 1y ago
  Are you referring to the butterfly keyboard and TouchBar? FWIW, I think the Touchbar was close to being a good idea, it was just missing haptics.
- ayaros 1y ago
  The fact they were able to turn around their hardware division after all that is the only thing which gives me hope they might be capable of doing an about-face on software.
- righthand 1y ago
  Debatable since the nub is still around on all their devices. My M3 work laptop definitely feels like a playskool toy. You can’t get more brain dead that taking away important screen real estate then making the argument that you get more real estate because it’s now all tucked into a corner. God forbid there be a black strip on the sides of the screen. How did we ever live?!??
  - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
    Except Apple increased the height of the screen by exactly as many pixels as the notch is tall, so yes, your windows actually do get more real estate compared with the pre-notch models. I’m not going to argue that it’s free of problems, but it doesn’t come at the cost of usable desktop space. Also worth pointing out that this design allows a substantial footprint reduction, which for example puts the 13.6” Macbook Air within striking distance of traditional bezel 12” laptops in terms of physical size. Some people care about that.
    - righthand 1y ago
      It does come at the cost of useable desktop space because if you don’t use a separate monitor with your portable device, you can’t see or use icons in the task bar. And peoples suggestions is to install 3rd party software or just deal with it. It doesn’t help that fanatics feel the need to tell you which parts of the screen are and aren’t important real estate. Like fuck me and my opinions right? “Well actually mathematically there’s more real estate in less convenient places so it’s fine.” Is so…depressing to watch people just give in to any little idea that comes out of this company’s PR department, like their logic is The Only truth.
gettingoverit 1y ago
Oh, that smell of molten keyboard plastic, those yellow spots burned into a display with its own heat exhaust, those laser-machined loudspeaker holes next to keyboard, all filled with grime! How I miss that time on a Macbook, with all the chords you have to press whenever you need a Home or End button to edit the line! Not to mention the power button right next to backspace. It's so rewarding when its charger dies in a month, and you feel superior to your colleague, whose vintage 6 months old charging cable with none of that extraneous rubber next to the connector catches fire along with your office. What a time to be alive! The best part is the motherboard produced in a way to fail due to moisture in a couple of years, with all the uncoated copper, with 0.1mm pitch debugging ports that short-circuit due to a single hair, and the whole Louis Rossmann's youtube worth of other hardware features meant to remind you to buy a new Apple laptop every couple of years. How would you otherwise be able to change the whole laptop without all the walls around repair manuals and parts? You just absolutely have to love the fact even transplanting chips from other laptops won't help due to all the overlapping hardware DRMs. I'll go plug the cable into the bottom of my wireless Apple mouse, and remind myself of all the best times I had with Apple's hardware. It really rocks.
- nativeit 1y ago
  Was there a Gateway that did better?
- tavavex 1y ago
  A Macbook is the only Apple device I have in my entire array of computers and computer-related stuff, so I've got plenty of points of comparison. While Apple's hardware design isn't perfect, all of what you bring up seems wildly blown out of proportion to me. I can say I've never seen anyone with molten keyboards and displays. I've used the charger cable on my main charging brick for about five years now, and it's still going strong, despite being used for charging everything everywhere. And while Apple has committed many sins in terms of doing their absolute best at preventing anyone from touching their sacred hardware (we just need DRMed cables and enclosures to complete the set), this only affects repair. In terms of planned obsolescence, Macbooks statistically don't seem much less reliable than any other laptops on the market. They make up a majority of the used laptop market where I am. And of course, just had to bring up the whole mouse charger thing. Back when Apple updated their mouse once and replaced the AA compartment with a battery+port block in the same spot to reuse the old housing, and a decade later people still go on about the evil Apple designers personally spitting in your face for whatever reason sounds the most outrageous.
PaulHoule 1y ago
The funny thing is the annoying popups on Windows look like advertising copy from the web post Microsoft getting grid and flexbox into HTML to support HTML-based applications. They at least try to be visually enticing. Annoying popups on MacOS look like the 1999 remake of the modal dialogs from the 1984 Mac, I guess with some concessions to liquid glass. Funny that a lot of people seem to have different Liquid Glass experiences, are we being feature flagged? I don't see the massive disruption to icons that the author seems but it does seem to me that certain icons have been drained of all their contrast and just look bleh now, particularly the settings icon on my iPhone. I don't see a bold design based on transparency, I just see the edges of things look like they've been anti-antialiased now. It's like somebody just did some random vandalization of the UI without any rhyme or reason. It's not catastrophic but it's no improvement.
- qmr 1y ago
  It is catastrophic if you have older devices. All this wank to waste the power of faster and faster chips.
  - seec 1y ago
    I am pretty sure that the whole pitch was that it would make people upgrade because they aren't selling enough iPhones anymore. Realistically the vast majority of people can use an iPhone made after 2020 and not care about "upgrading" almost forever. The incremental upgrades are largely irrelevant for most people, it's just good enough and it's just a phone. So, they have to make the older phones feel bad to use to give a reason for upgrading because otherwise most won't care to do it. It's not the first time Apple has done that and it has been their strategy for a while now. The "free" updates are the most bullshit marketing success I have ever seen.
linguae 1y ago
Yes! I wholeheartedly agree! I teach C++ programming classes as part of my job as a professor. I have a work-issued MacBook Pro, and I make heavy use of Terminal.app. One of the things that annoy me is always having to click on a dialog box whenever I recompile my code and use lldb for debugging. Why should I need to click on a dialog to grant permission to lldb to debug my own program? It wasn't always like this on the Mac. I had a Core Duo MacBook that ran Tiger (later Leopard and Snow Leopard) that I completed my undergraduate computer science assignments on, including a Unix systems programming course where I wrote a small multi-threaded web server in C. Mac OS X used to respect the user and get out of the way. It was Windows that bothered me with nagging. Sadly, over the years the Mac has become more annoying. Notarization, notifications to upgrade, the annoying dialog whenever I run a program under lldb....
- qmr 1y ago
  Tried iTerm?
- stevage 1y ago
  Terminal app is terrible, use iTerm if you possibly can.
  - coolsunglasses 1y ago
    *ghostty
    - kergonath 1y ago
      Ghostty is very janky (though less on Mac than on Linux). It’s promising but needs a lot of polish. So in the meantime I reverted to iTerm.
  - astrange 1y ago
    That has nothing to do with developer prompts.
- astrange 1y ago
  > Why should I need to click on a dialog to grant permission to lldb to debug my own program? Because apps and web browser tabs run as your user and otherwise they would be able to run lldb without authorization. So, this is the authorization.
deleted 1y ago
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threetonesun 1y ago
Unsurprising that they'd end up there, at the time Mac was allowed to get away with fewer security pop-ups by (relative) obscurity. Fortunately Windows still manages to run ahead as the even worse villain, as I wouldn't even let a Windows 11 PC in my house these days.
qmr 1y ago
I can't stand the stupid dance required to run a third party app every single time. Get the fuck out of my way and let me use what is supposedly my computer. They become more shitware and Microsoft like with every update.
- NaomiLehman 1y ago
  That's true, but macOS is still further from the current equivalent of Windows than it ever was.
  - qmr 1y ago
    Yes, Windows 11 is horrendous. Years and years ago, I fought the good fight, full desktop Linux fulltime. I see and hear from a lot of people it's pretty great these days though, and you can do whatever the new cool fork of WINE is or a VM for games / software compatibility. Definitely not moving to 11. When 10 gets painful enough I'll probably try Devuan or Arch or something for desktop use.
    - aryonoco 1y ago
      I used Linux exclusively from 1999 to 2012. I gave up in 2012 and switch to Mac. I’ve just switched back to Linux, and I can confirm. It’s different, it’s very different. And it’s very good. I realised how much I’ve just been fighting Apple everyday in newer versions of Mac. I was going to ask my boss for a new MacBook Pro soon but now I’m having second thoughts.
      - qmr 1y ago
        Similar timeframes! Any distro recs?
        rmunn 1y ago
        I'd suggest Linux Mint if you want Ubuntu with a GUI that doesn't suck, though Kubuntu is probably a decent choice (KDE isn't to my taste visually so I don't use it, but it absolutely doesn't suck and many people like it). If you want a rolling release instead because you want to live on the bleeding edge, Arch is hard to beat.
latexr 1y ago
> I wonder if anyone else here is old enough to remember the "I'm a Mac", "And I'm a PC" ads. Those ads ran from 2006 to 2009. That’s between 16 and 19 years ago. How young do you imagine the typical HN commenter is? > There was one that was about all the annoying security pop-ups Windows (used to?) have. Those have been relentlessly mocked on the Mac for years. I remember a point where several articles were written making that exact comparison. People have been calling it “macOS Vista” since before Apple Silicon was a thing. > WIW, it starts here: https://youtu.be/qfv6Ah_MVJU?t=230 https://youtu.be/qfv6Ah_MVJU?t=230 A bit better quality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqZ8AqmLPY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqZ8AqmLPY
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  > Those ads ran from 2006 to 2009. That’s between 16 and 19 years ago. How young do you imagine the typical HN commenter is? Part of getting old is accepting that 20 years was a long time ago and not everyone is going to remember the same commercials we saw two decades ago, including people who were children during the ad campaign.
mvdtnz 1y ago
I often get third party popups from software vendors which asks me for my MacOS password. I have checked several times and these are "legit" (as in, the popup comes from a who it says it does and it's a reputable company). It's wild to me that Apple have painted themselves into a world where it's expected that users give their OS password to third party apps.
- KerrAvon 1y ago
  Wait, that's actually never legit. If the password popup comes from the OS on behalf of the vendor, that's OK; the third-party party never has access to your password, just a time-limited auth token to allow it to do something privileged.
  - mvdtnz 1y ago
    Ok? I don't know if it's the OS on behalf of the app or not. It's a password prompt that doesn't even have an affordance for biometrics, unlike other MacOS admin prompts. It's commonplace in MacOS applications. This is an example of what I'm talking about https://www.reddit.com/r/Slack/comments/1geva4f/how_do_i_stop_this_on_end_user_accounts_admin/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Slack/comments/1geva4f/how_do_i_sto...
    - afandian 1y ago
      This is good for security becuase you're giving temporary access for a helper binary to do privileged stuff in a limited scope. From the UX perspective, yes, it is triggered from the app. It's been a long time since I used the Core Foundation API but you trigger a request, and then get back a token from the OS that grants you permission to do stuff. I don't know if this is current or not: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Security/Conceptual/authorization_concepts/03authtasks/authtasks.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000995-CH206-TPXREF16 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Se...
  - deleted 1y ago
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- 1y ago
bsenftner 1y ago
Fuck man, I worked on the original Mac OS back in '83, when all the work was in assembly. Know what happened? Apple happened. That company is fucked up something supreme. The entire premise behind that original graphical UI was never user experience, it was 'the users are idiots, we have to control them'.
- philistine 1y ago
  We know each and every person who worked on the Mac because of projects like folklore.org. Which one are you?
  - AceJohnny2 1y ago
    as his user profile indicates: Blake Senftner. I don't see him mentioned on folklore.org, but that doesn't mean he didn't participate in some way.
    - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
      He worked on a beta as part of the Apple Professional Developer's Program at Harvard.
    - pmontra 1y ago
      https://www.quora.com/profile/Blake-Senftner https://www.quora.com/profile/Blake-Senftner > Original Macintosh Beta Tester and Mac 3rd Party Developer (‘83-’85)
    - bsenftner 1y ago
      I was a teen game developer with my own games in Sears & K Mart nationwide for the US, for the Vic-20 and the C-64, and was invited as a representative of the independent games industry. When my involvement was ending, Apple then told me they changed their mind and was not going to support independent games for the Mac at all. But offered to waive that restriction if I paid them $30K and gave them full editorial control over what I published. Nope.
mrcwinn 1y ago
Mac is great hardware to be sure. I have to say though, I much prefer an S25 Ultra with Samsung's version of "nanotexture" — even with iPhone 17's improved (?) anti-reflective screen. I've been very patient with iOS 26. I tell myself - so long as its foundation is right, they'll iron out these details. But it is properly bad often and at times extremely frustrating.
markus_zhang 1y ago
> But, man, Apple hardware still rocks. Can't deny that. This makes me extra sad. The HW is very good and very expensive, but the SW is mediocre. I bought an iPhone 16 a few months ago and I swear that is the first and last iPhone I'd purchase. I'd happy sell it at half of the price if someone local wants it. Edit: Since people asked for points, here is a list of things that I believe iOS does not do well: - In Android Chrome, I can set YouTube website to desktop mode, and loop the video. I can also turn off the screen without breaking the play. I can't do this in Safari however I tried. - In Safari, I need to long-press a button to bring up the list of closed tabs. How can anyone figure it out without asking around online? - In Stock app, a few News pieces are automatically brought up and occupy the lower half of the screen when it starts up. This is very annoying as I don't need it and cannot turn it off. - (This is really the level of ridiculous) In Clock, I fucking cannot set an one time alarm for a future date (Repeat = Never means just today), so I had to stupidly set up weekly alerts and change it whenever I need a new one-time. I hope I'm too stupid to find the magic option. - Again, in Clock, if I want to setup alarm for sleep, I have to turn on...sleep. This is OK-ish as I can just setup a weekly alarm and click every weekday. So far, I think Mail and Maps are user friendly. Maps actually show more stuffs than Google Map, which is especially useful for pedestrians. Weather is also good and I have little complain about it.
- KerrAvon 1y ago
  What are your actual complaints? And have you tried the trash fire that is Android?
  - rezonant 1y ago
    Do you think they just got a smartphone for the first time a few months ago?
  - markus_zhang 1y ago
    I updated my reply ^
  - kiwijamo 1y ago
    I switched to Android in 2021 after almost a decade using iPhone and I was surprised to find modern Android is actually very good. I remember the early days of Android being a trash fire but since around ~2020 it seems to have gotten a lot better. For various reasons im looking to switch back to the iPhone but I know it'll be a case of giving up some good things on Android in exchange for other things being better on the iPhone.
deleted 1y ago
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jeffbee 1y ago
You're not sure if anyone on HN is more than 14 years old? I mean, I feel you, but the odds are...
abustamam 1y ago
I recently installed Ubuntu on my gaming machine. It was a bit of a learning curve, but I am still able to game, and I can play around with software without being treated like a criminal. It's great. I still use Mac for dev, but only because I don't really feel like messing around with Linux on a work computer.
- Liftyee 1y ago
  Not far from my philosophy. If I'm being paid, I'll use whatever I'm getting paid to use. But on my own, I'll choose to learn tools that will be around for a long time, and won't get taken away by some rent-seeking company (i.e. open-source).
- musicale 1y ago
  Ubuntu is great once you remove the motd advertisements.
  - abustamam 1y ago
    Maybe I'm just too used to advertising blatantly in my windows env that I'm not noticing ads on Ubuntu. Which MOTD ads are you talking about?
    - musicale 1y ago
      The ones you remove by setting ENABLED=0 in /etc/motd-news apt remove ubuntu-advantage-tools https://canonical.com/legal/motd https://canonical.com/legal/motd https://support.tools/remove-ubuntu-pro-advertisement-apt-update/ https://support.tools/remove-ubuntu-pro-advertisement-apt-up...
a022311 1y ago
I watched the whole video and laughed so hard! Thanks for sharing this!
fukawi2 1y ago
I do not understand this rhetoric of Apple hardware being so amazing. The only moderately impressive thing they've done for years is the M chips. Beyond that, it's just crippled, overpriced, and unrepairable. They have shiny cases, yay. I'll take my ugly Thinkpad and actually get shit done over a shiny case and glossy screen.
- gf000 1y ago
  I mean, having 2 hours of active use vs 10 hours is quite a bit of difference, quite a bit more meaningful than "shiny case".
- musicale 1y ago
  I think it's a bit more than that. I like that I can easily swap the SSD and DRAM in my Thinkpad. But Apple has definitely done some interesting things including: - good thermals (especially vs. Thinkpad P series), even supporting fanless operation on the MacBook Air - excellent microphone and speaker array (makes people much more intelligible on both sides during Zoom calls) - excellent multitouch trackpad with good palm rejection (though for a trackpoint device Thinkpad is your best bet) - unified GPU and CPU memory with up to 135 GB/s bandwidth (downside: DRAM is not upgradable) - host-managed flash storage (downside: SSD is not upgradable) And of course the 10-20 hour battery life is hard to beat. Only downside is I'll forget to plug in at all. Historically, Apple has innovated quite a bit in the laptop space, including: moving the keyboard back for the modern palm rest design (PowerBook, 1991); active-matrix color display (PowerBook 180c, 1993); integrated wi-fi and handle antenna (iBook, 1999); Unix-based OS that could still run MS Office and Photoshop (Mac OS X, 2000 onward); full-featured thin metal laptop with gigabit ethernet (PowerBook G4 Titanium, 2001); pre-ultrabook thin laptop that fits in a manila envelope (MacBook Air, 2008); high-resolution display and all-flash storage in an ever-thinner design ("Retina" MacBook Pro, 2012); going all-in on USB-C/Thunderbolt and 5K external "retina" display (MacBook Pro, 2016); unprecedented performance, and a tandem OLED display with <10ms touch-to-pixel latency, in an absurdly thin iPad, which can also be used as a "laptop" (iPad M4 + magic keyboard, 2024); etc. Some of the innovations also failed, such as the touchbar, dual-controller trackpad, and "butterfly" keyboard which plagued the 2016 models.
pjmlp 1y ago
I am, better, I am old enough to have seen Apple in the good and bad times, and tell that Apple's major attention to detail, and catering to developers, was a side effect from being really close to shutdown the whole business. Now they have plenty of money, the attitude during early Apple years is back.
estimator7292 1y ago
I have flipped every imaginable switch and even set up a work profile, and I have not yet been able to turn off desktop notifications on my new work Mac. Every time I log in there's a persistent notification about... something stuck in the corner. The notification does not explain itself, clicking it just drops me into a system menu. Usually there's three or four such notifications queued up. So it just lives there permanently on the desktop and I avoid using the thing as much as possible. I do all of my work functions through SSH and leave the Mac in a corner of my desk with the screen closed. I swear, MacOS actively tries to be as annoying and intrusive as possible. Every time I touch the damn thing some new behavior reveals itself. Like there are two sets of hotkeys for copy/paste and which one you need to use appears to be entirely random per-window. Thankfully work lets me use linux on my main machine and I almost never have to deal with goddamn MacOS. I would rather daily drive Windows 11 with copilot and cortana and piles of bossware than plain MacOS.

by timmg 1y ago

throitallaway 1y ago

> But, man, Apple hardware still rocks. Can't deny that. Ah yes, the Johnny Ive era of "no ports on Macbooks except USB-C, and hope you like touchbars!" was fantastic. Not to mention how heavy the damn things are. Oh and the sharp edges of the case where my palms rest. And the chiclet keyboards with .0001 mm of key travel. I'll take a carbon fiber Thinkpad with an OLED display any day of the week, thank you. Macbooks feel like user hostile devices and are the epitome of form over function.

bigyabai 1y ago
I owned multiple Macbooks that built a positive static charge when they were on, instilling a Pavlovian fear of being shocked into anyone that used it. Those were fun.
- therein 1y ago
  They still do. My m1, m1max and m4max Macbook Pros all build a positive static charge. It isn't even something that renders it "returnable" because I observed it on every single Macbook in the last 4-5 years so I just assume that's just how Macbook Pros are now.
  - jacobolus 1y ago
    This hasn't changed in at least 2 decades: I was getting zapped by Apple metal laptops circa 2004. But I have never encountered this problem when using a grounded plug. It was also a lot worse for me when plugged into outlets in an old house in Mexico, especially when my bare feet were touching the terracotta floor tiles; it's not really an issue in a recently re-wired house in California with a wood floor, using the same laptops, power strips, etc. If you are having this issue and you currently plug a 2-pronged plug into a grounded outlet, try using Apple's 3-pronged plug instead, and I expect it would go away. If you don't have grounded outlets, then that's a bit more complicated to solve.
    - therein 1y ago
      That's what confuses me, I am using the cable with three prongs, it is grounded. I am beginning to suspect some other appliance I am plugging into it that is responsible of the build-up of charge, but then why is it not finding its way to the ground... something doesn't add up but has been my experience consistently.
      - jacobolus 1y ago
        Perhaps the outlet isn't properly grounded?
  - trallnag 1y ago
    Is there any laptop with a metal body out there that does not have this issue? I've had two RedmiBook by Xiaomi and both has that vibrating electric feeling to them when plugged in.
    - Liftyee 1y ago
      It's an artifact of the charger. This comment explains it well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45686427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45686427
- drum55 1y ago
  That’s nothing to do with static electricity, it’s capacitive coupling through the safety capacitors in the power supply. The chassis sits at 90vac or so as a result, it’s not a safety issue it’s FCC compliance for emitted noise.
  - ash_091 1y ago
    Is this generally true for laptops / phones? I've often wondered why I can tell by touch whether a device is charging or not from the slight "vibration" sensation I get when gently touching the case.
    - hex4def6 1y ago
      For ungrounded / 2-prong outlet devices, yeah. It's often noticeable if you have a point contact of metal against your skin; sharp edge / screw / speaker grill, etc. Once you have decent coupling between your body and the laptop, you won't feel the tingle / zap. They're called Y-caps if you want to delve deeper into them and their use in power supplies.
    - knifie_spoonie 1y ago
      I get that too. I was wondering if it was just me.
- swiftcoder 1y ago
  If you use the 3-prong version of the power adapter to connect to a grounded outlet, this problem goes away. Of course, Apple doesn't actually sell a 3-prong plug for their charger in Europe... so us lucky folks in the EU have to get a 3rd party one off the internet
  - jen20 1y ago
    Yes, they do. [1] for Italian outlets, [2] for many of the others. I'm sure I don't need to continue. [1]: https://www.apple.com/it/shop/product/mw2n3ci/a/prolunga-per-alimentatore?fnode=4ba86bc4693978780bb9dd0ea07046cc31778b69b51bd3275f1effd3c17b22a7368e89419e1c906d3dad5e1368ab9104718ed4ccee5b63ea30c9ba019f136c0c00e7424387d9f88d50c36f051315f364496f3efa20749c88d8830dd9c61ace32 https://www.apple.com/it/shop/product/mw2n3ci/a/prolunga-per... [2]: https://www.apple.com/fr/shop/product/mw2n3z/a/câble-d’extension-pour-adaptateur-secteur?fnode=f0f7e965117efe3d2059cd2edc3f93d6e3963a77159af16130698b9b85ac407bb6216391e18bc612e6cebd3a99bf9e9ca50a62ec0988d4ec12409f7aee2c2515748ffbb594d5319e02589eaec499ac651eeccaaeaea5b5d2417a3f29e1a7a108 https://www.apple.com/fr/shop/product/mw2n3z/a/câble-d’exten...
    - theodric 1y ago
      I suspect what they meant is that there isn't an official Schuko nub that slides onto the brick and lets you hang it directly from the socket rather than carrying an extra meter of cable around. There is a BS1363 one, and those are only legit feasible in a grounded configuration (although I guess you could use a plastic ground spade to lift the child protection slider inside the socket if you were a particularly unpleasant engineer). Nice for those of us in British-adjacent countries.
    - swiftcoder 1y ago
      I'm talking about the non-corded variants. Carrying an extra metre of cable around just to get the grounding prong is not great. As another poster mentioned, it's particularly annoying because Apple does ship the UK adapter in 3-pin grounded form
      - 1y ago
NexRebular 1y ago
I miss the Powerbook G3 series. That was some fantastically modular design.
kbolino 1y ago
I don't mind that the Macbooks only have USB-C ports. Unlike many PCs, where the USB-C ports can't be used for charging, or can't be used for high-speed data transfer, or can't be used for external displays, or can't be used by certain software that only speaks USB 2.0, etc., the Macbooks let any USB-C port do anything. It's a forward-thinking decision, even if it was primarily made for aesthetic reasons. What I do mind is that there's only 3 of them.
- wingworks 1y ago
  I only have 2 USB-C ports, and most of the time I have nothing plugged in (but power). Sometimes ethernet USB-C when moving large files.
- ndiddy 1y ago
  The transition era was certainly annoying, but now that it's over I think the Mac experience is objectively worse. My PC laptop has 2 USB-C ports that can be used for charging, display, 40 Gbps transfer, etc., just like my Macbook Air. The difference is that the PC also has 2 USB-A ports and an HDMI port. This means that I'm able to plug in a flash drive or connect an external display without having to remember to bring a dongle with me.
  - kbolino 1y ago
    I largely agree that PCs have caught up feature-wise, but because they took longer to get there, I still have a couple crappy USB-C ports on PCs that are otherwise fine. The problem with the 2 USB-C ports on modern PC laptops is that one of them pretty much has to be reserved for the charger, whereas the MBP has a MagSafe port that you can charge with instead. So it really only feels like you have one USB-C port and the other ports are just there as a consolation. That might work out to roughly equal, but I don't think it leaves the Mac off worse. I don't hate the dongles so much though. It wouldn't have hurt to have some USB-A and HDMI on the MBP--the Minis can pull it off, so clearly the hardware is capable--but more (Thunderbolt) USB-C would still be the best option IMO. USB-A (definitely) and HDMI (probably) will eventually be relics someday, even if they are here for a little while longer.
  - 1y ago
stetrain 1y ago
Most of what you're talking about is from MacBooks of 5+ years ago on a completely different processor architecture.
icedchai 1y ago
I find the keyboards terrible, even the modern ones. I much preferred the 2006-2007 MacBook Pro keyboards.
IshKebab 1y ago
Those are all legit criticisms but also be fair. They eventually did get rid of the touchbar. USB-C-only was merely ahead of its time. They improved the keyboards. And even at their worst they were still much better than any Windows laptops, if only for the touchpad. I have yet to use a Windows laptop with a touchpad even close to the trackpad's that Apple had 15 years ago. And the build quality and styling is still unbeaten. Do Windows laptop makers still put shitty stickers all over them?
- SkyeCA 1y ago
  USB-C only is still a nuisance to this very day and remains the thing I hate most about my Macbook. Without fail there is never an adapter to be found when I need it.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    I'm kinda bewildered to see people defend it. Even Apple knew they were wrong, they didn't put an HDMI port on the new Mac chassis by mistake. Case in point that people will never admit that Apple messes up, even if Apple themselves will.
linepupdesign 1y ago
[dead]
bschwindHN 1y ago
That era sucked for sure, but since (I think) 2021, macbook pros have magsafe, 3x USB-C, an HDMI port, and an SD card. I had a 2014 MBP I was waiting to upgrade once they came up with a sensible redesign, and I'd say they did! I still have my 2014, along with a 2021 MBP for work, and still love them as machines for my usage profile - writing software/firmware, and occasional PCB design. The battery life is good, M-series performance is great, screen is decent-to-good, trackpad is still best in class, and macos is _okay_ in my book. The keyboard isn't amazing as I prefer mechanical for sure, but I still type faster on a macbook keyboard than anything else. That being said, I designed a mechanical keyboard that sits on top of the macbook keyboard so I can enjoy that better typing experience. Pretty dang happy with my setup.

AlexandrB 1y ago

> But, man, Apple hardware still rocks. Can't deny that. They really dodged a bullet there. 2016-2020 Apple laptop hardware definitely didn't rock. It's good they did an about-face on some of those bad ideas.

AceJohnny2 1y ago
Are you referring to the butterfly keyboard and TouchBar? FWIW, I think the Touchbar was close to being a good idea, it was just missing haptics.
ayaros 1y ago
The fact they were able to turn around their hardware division after all that is the only thing which gives me hope they might be capable of doing an about-face on software.
righthand 1y ago
Debatable since the nub is still around on all their devices. My M3 work laptop definitely feels like a playskool toy. You can’t get more brain dead that taking away important screen real estate then making the argument that you get more real estate because it’s now all tucked into a corner. God forbid there be a black strip on the sides of the screen. How did we ever live?!??
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  Except Apple increased the height of the screen by exactly as many pixels as the notch is tall, so yes, your windows actually do get more real estate compared with the pre-notch models. I’m not going to argue that it’s free of problems, but it doesn’t come at the cost of usable desktop space. Also worth pointing out that this design allows a substantial footprint reduction, which for example puts the 13.6” Macbook Air within striking distance of traditional bezel 12” laptops in terms of physical size. Some people care about that.
  - righthand 1y ago
    It does come at the cost of useable desktop space because if you don’t use a separate monitor with your portable device, you can’t see or use icons in the task bar. And peoples suggestions is to install 3rd party software or just deal with it. It doesn’t help that fanatics feel the need to tell you which parts of the screen are and aren’t important real estate. Like fuck me and my opinions right? “Well actually mathematically there’s more real estate in less convenient places so it’s fine.” Is so…depressing to watch people just give in to any little idea that comes out of this company’s PR department, like their logic is The Only truth.

gettingoverit 1y ago

Oh, that smell of molten keyboard plastic, those yellow spots burned into a display with its own heat exhaust, those laser-machined loudspeaker holes next to keyboard, all filled with grime! How I miss that time on a Macbook, with all the chords you have to press whenever you need a Home or End button to edit the line! Not to mention the power button right next to backspace. It's so rewarding when its charger dies in a month, and you feel superior to your colleague, whose vintage 6 months old charging cable with none of that extraneous rubber next to the connector catches fire along with your office. What a time to be alive! The best part is the motherboard produced in a way to fail due to moisture in a couple of years, with all the uncoated copper, with 0.1mm pitch debugging ports that short-circuit due to a single hair, and the whole Louis Rossmann's youtube worth of other hardware features meant to remind you to buy a new Apple laptop every couple of years. How would you otherwise be able to change the whole laptop without all the walls around repair manuals and parts? You just absolutely have to love the fact even transplanting chips from other laptops won't help due to all the overlapping hardware DRMs. I'll go plug the cable into the bottom of my wireless Apple mouse, and remind myself of all the best times I had with Apple's hardware. It really rocks.

nativeit 1y ago
Was there a Gateway that did better?
tavavex 1y ago
A Macbook is the only Apple device I have in my entire array of computers and computer-related stuff, so I've got plenty of points of comparison. While Apple's hardware design isn't perfect, all of what you bring up seems wildly blown out of proportion to me. I can say I've never seen anyone with molten keyboards and displays. I've used the charger cable on my main charging brick for about five years now, and it's still going strong, despite being used for charging everything everywhere. And while Apple has committed many sins in terms of doing their absolute best at preventing anyone from touching their sacred hardware (we just need DRMed cables and enclosures to complete the set), this only affects repair. In terms of planned obsolescence, Macbooks statistically don't seem much less reliable than any other laptops on the market. They make up a majority of the used laptop market where I am. And of course, just had to bring up the whole mouse charger thing. Back when Apple updated their mouse once and replaced the AA compartment with a battery+port block in the same spot to reuse the old housing, and a decade later people still go on about the evil Apple designers personally spitting in your face for whatever reason sounds the most outrageous.

PaulHoule 1y ago

The funny thing is the annoying popups on Windows look like advertising copy from the web post Microsoft getting grid and flexbox into HTML to support HTML-based applications. They at least try to be visually enticing. Annoying popups on MacOS look like the 1999 remake of the modal dialogs from the 1984 Mac, I guess with some concessions to liquid glass. Funny that a lot of people seem to have different Liquid Glass experiences, are we being feature flagged? I don't see the massive disruption to icons that the author seems but it does seem to me that certain icons have been drained of all their contrast and just look bleh now, particularly the settings icon on my iPhone. I don't see a bold design based on transparency, I just see the edges of things look like they've been anti-antialiased now. It's like somebody just did some random vandalization of the UI without any rhyme or reason. It's not catastrophic but it's no improvement.

qmr 1y ago
It is catastrophic if you have older devices. All this wank to waste the power of faster and faster chips.
- seec 1y ago
  I am pretty sure that the whole pitch was that it would make people upgrade because they aren't selling enough iPhones anymore. Realistically the vast majority of people can use an iPhone made after 2020 and not care about "upgrading" almost forever. The incremental upgrades are largely irrelevant for most people, it's just good enough and it's just a phone. So, they have to make the older phones feel bad to use to give a reason for upgrading because otherwise most won't care to do it. It's not the first time Apple has done that and it has been their strategy for a while now. The "free" updates are the most bullshit marketing success I have ever seen.

linguae 1y ago

Yes! I wholeheartedly agree! I teach C++ programming classes as part of my job as a professor. I have a work-issued MacBook Pro, and I make heavy use of Terminal.app. One of the things that annoy me is always having to click on a dialog box whenever I recompile my code and use lldb for debugging. Why should I need to click on a dialog to grant permission to lldb to debug my own program? It wasn't always like this on the Mac. I had a Core Duo MacBook that ran Tiger (later Leopard and Snow Leopard) that I completed my undergraduate computer science assignments on, including a Unix systems programming course where I wrote a small multi-threaded web server in C. Mac OS X used to respect the user and get out of the way. It was Windows that bothered me with nagging. Sadly, over the years the Mac has become more annoying. Notarization, notifications to upgrade, the annoying dialog whenever I run a program under lldb....

qmr 1y ago
Tried iTerm?
stevage 1y ago
Terminal app is terrible, use iTerm if you possibly can.
- coolsunglasses 1y ago
  *ghostty
  - kergonath 1y ago
    Ghostty is very janky (though less on Mac than on Linux). It’s promising but needs a lot of polish. So in the meantime I reverted to iTerm.
- astrange 1y ago
  That has nothing to do with developer prompts.
astrange 1y ago
> Why should I need to click on a dialog to grant permission to lldb to debug my own program? Because apps and web browser tabs run as your user and otherwise they would be able to run lldb without authorization. So, this is the authorization.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

threetonesun 1y ago

Unsurprising that they'd end up there, at the time Mac was allowed to get away with fewer security pop-ups by (relative) obscurity. Fortunately Windows still manages to run ahead as the even worse villain, as I wouldn't even let a Windows 11 PC in my house these days.

qmr 1y ago

I can't stand the stupid dance required to run a third party app every single time. Get the fuck out of my way and let me use what is supposedly my computer. They become more shitware and Microsoft like with every update.

NaomiLehman 1y ago
That's true, but macOS is still further from the current equivalent of Windows than it ever was.
- qmr 1y ago
  Yes, Windows 11 is horrendous. Years and years ago, I fought the good fight, full desktop Linux fulltime. I see and hear from a lot of people it's pretty great these days though, and you can do whatever the new cool fork of WINE is or a VM for games / software compatibility. Definitely not moving to 11. When 10 gets painful enough I'll probably try Devuan or Arch or something for desktop use.
  - aryonoco 1y ago
    I used Linux exclusively from 1999 to 2012. I gave up in 2012 and switch to Mac. I’ve just switched back to Linux, and I can confirm. It’s different, it’s very different. And it’s very good. I realised how much I’ve just been fighting Apple everyday in newer versions of Mac. I was going to ask my boss for a new MacBook Pro soon but now I’m having second thoughts.
    - qmr 1y ago
      Similar timeframes! Any distro recs?
      - rmunn 1y ago
        I'd suggest Linux Mint if you want Ubuntu with a GUI that doesn't suck, though Kubuntu is probably a decent choice (KDE isn't to my taste visually so I don't use it, but it absolutely doesn't suck and many people like it). If you want a rolling release instead because you want to live on the bleeding edge, Arch is hard to beat.

latexr 1y ago

> I wonder if anyone else here is old enough to remember the "I'm a Mac", "And I'm a PC" ads. Those ads ran from 2006 to 2009. That’s between 16 and 19 years ago. How young do you imagine the typical HN commenter is? > There was one that was about all the annoying security pop-ups Windows (used to?) have. Those have been relentlessly mocked on the Mac for years. I remember a point where several articles were written making that exact comparison. People have been calling it “macOS Vista” since before Apple Silicon was a thing. > WIW, it starts here: https://youtu.be/qfv6Ah_MVJU?t=230 https://youtu.be/qfv6Ah_MVJU?t=230 A bit better quality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqZ8AqmLPY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqZ8AqmLPY

heavyset_go 1y ago
> Those ads ran from 2006 to 2009. That’s between 16 and 19 years ago. How young do you imagine the typical HN commenter is? Part of getting old is accepting that 20 years was a long time ago and not everyone is going to remember the same commercials we saw two decades ago, including people who were children during the ad campaign.

mvdtnz 1y ago

I often get third party popups from software vendors which asks me for my MacOS password. I have checked several times and these are "legit" (as in, the popup comes from a who it says it does and it's a reputable company). It's wild to me that Apple have painted themselves into a world where it's expected that users give their OS password to third party apps.

KerrAvon 1y ago
Wait, that's actually never legit. If the password popup comes from the OS on behalf of the vendor, that's OK; the third-party party never has access to your password, just a time-limited auth token to allow it to do something privileged.
- mvdtnz 1y ago
  Ok? I don't know if it's the OS on behalf of the app or not. It's a password prompt that doesn't even have an affordance for biometrics, unlike other MacOS admin prompts. It's commonplace in MacOS applications. This is an example of what I'm talking about https://www.reddit.com/r/Slack/comments/1geva4f/how_do_i_stop_this_on_end_user_accounts_admin/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Slack/comments/1geva4f/how_do_i_sto...
  - afandian 1y ago
    This is good for security becuase you're giving temporary access for a helper binary to do privileged stuff in a limited scope. From the UX perspective, yes, it is triggered from the app. It's been a long time since I used the Core Foundation API but you trigger a request, and then get back a token from the OS that grants you permission to do stuff. I don't know if this is current or not: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Security/Conceptual/authorization_concepts/03authtasks/authtasks.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000995-CH206-TPXREF16 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Se...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
1y ago

bsenftner 1y ago

Fuck man, I worked on the original Mac OS back in '83, when all the work was in assembly. Know what happened? Apple happened. That company is fucked up something supreme. The entire premise behind that original graphical UI was never user experience, it was 'the users are idiots, we have to control them'.

philistine 1y ago
We know each and every person who worked on the Mac because of projects like folklore.org. Which one are you?
- AceJohnny2 1y ago
  as his user profile indicates: Blake Senftner. I don't see him mentioned on folklore.org, but that doesn't mean he didn't participate in some way.
  - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
    He worked on a beta as part of the Apple Professional Developer's Program at Harvard.
  - pmontra 1y ago
    https://www.quora.com/profile/Blake-Senftner https://www.quora.com/profile/Blake-Senftner > Original Macintosh Beta Tester and Mac 3rd Party Developer (‘83-’85)
  - bsenftner 1y ago
    I was a teen game developer with my own games in Sears & K Mart nationwide for the US, for the Vic-20 and the C-64, and was invited as a representative of the independent games industry. When my involvement was ending, Apple then told me they changed their mind and was not going to support independent games for the Mac at all. But offered to waive that restriction if I paid them $30K and gave them full editorial control over what I published. Nope.

mrcwinn 1y ago

Mac is great hardware to be sure. I have to say though, I much prefer an S25 Ultra with Samsung's version of "nanotexture" — even with iPhone 17's improved (?) anti-reflective screen. I've been very patient with iOS 26. I tell myself - so long as its foundation is right, they'll iron out these details. But it is properly bad often and at times extremely frustrating.

markus_zhang 1y ago

> But, man, Apple hardware still rocks. Can't deny that. This makes me extra sad. The HW is very good and very expensive, but the SW is mediocre. I bought an iPhone 16 a few months ago and I swear that is the first and last iPhone I'd purchase. I'd happy sell it at half of the price if someone local wants it. Edit: Since people asked for points, here is a list of things that I believe iOS does not do well: - In Android Chrome, I can set YouTube website to desktop mode, and loop the video. I can also turn off the screen without breaking the play. I can't do this in Safari however I tried. - In Safari, I need to long-press a button to bring up the list of closed tabs. How can anyone figure it out without asking around online? - In Stock app, a few News pieces are automatically brought up and occupy the lower half of the screen when it starts up. This is very annoying as I don't need it and cannot turn it off. - (This is really the level of ridiculous) In Clock, I fucking cannot set an one time alarm for a future date (Repeat = Never means just today), so I had to stupidly set up weekly alerts and change it whenever I need a new one-time. I hope I'm too stupid to find the magic option. - Again, in Clock, if I want to setup alarm for sleep, I have to turn on...sleep. This is OK-ish as I can just setup a weekly alarm and click every weekday. So far, I think Mail and Maps are user friendly. Maps actually show more stuffs than Google Map, which is especially useful for pedestrians. Weather is also good and I have little complain about it.

KerrAvon 1y ago
What are your actual complaints? And have you tried the trash fire that is Android?
- rezonant 1y ago
  Do you think they just got a smartphone for the first time a few months ago?
- markus_zhang 1y ago
  I updated my reply ^
- kiwijamo 1y ago
  I switched to Android in 2021 after almost a decade using iPhone and I was surprised to find modern Android is actually very good. I remember the early days of Android being a trash fire but since around ~2020 it seems to have gotten a lot better. For various reasons im looking to switch back to the iPhone but I know it'll be a case of giving up some good things on Android in exchange for other things being better on the iPhone.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

jeffbee 1y ago

You're not sure if anyone on HN is more than 14 years old? I mean, I feel you, but the odds are...

abustamam 1y ago

I recently installed Ubuntu on my gaming machine. It was a bit of a learning curve, but I am still able to game, and I can play around with software without being treated like a criminal. It's great. I still use Mac for dev, but only because I don't really feel like messing around with Linux on a work computer.

Liftyee 1y ago
Not far from my philosophy. If I'm being paid, I'll use whatever I'm getting paid to use. But on my own, I'll choose to learn tools that will be around for a long time, and won't get taken away by some rent-seeking company (i.e. open-source).
musicale 1y ago
Ubuntu is great once you remove the motd advertisements.
- abustamam 1y ago
  Maybe I'm just too used to advertising blatantly in my windows env that I'm not noticing ads on Ubuntu. Which MOTD ads are you talking about?
  - musicale 1y ago
    The ones you remove by setting ENABLED=0 in /etc/motd-news apt remove ubuntu-advantage-tools https://canonical.com/legal/motd https://canonical.com/legal/motd https://support.tools/remove-ubuntu-pro-advertisement-apt-update/ https://support.tools/remove-ubuntu-pro-advertisement-apt-up...

a022311 1y ago

I watched the whole video and laughed so hard! Thanks for sharing this!

fukawi2 1y ago

I do not understand this rhetoric of Apple hardware being so amazing. The only moderately impressive thing they've done for years is the M chips. Beyond that, it's just crippled, overpriced, and unrepairable. They have shiny cases, yay. I'll take my ugly Thinkpad and actually get shit done over a shiny case and glossy screen.

gf000 1y ago
I mean, having 2 hours of active use vs 10 hours is quite a bit of difference, quite a bit more meaningful than "shiny case".
musicale 1y ago
I think it's a bit more than that. I like that I can easily swap the SSD and DRAM in my Thinkpad. But Apple has definitely done some interesting things including: - good thermals (especially vs. Thinkpad P series), even supporting fanless operation on the MacBook Air - excellent microphone and speaker array (makes people much more intelligible on both sides during Zoom calls) - excellent multitouch trackpad with good palm rejection (though for a trackpoint device Thinkpad is your best bet) - unified GPU and CPU memory with up to 135 GB/s bandwidth (downside: DRAM is not upgradable) - host-managed flash storage (downside: SSD is not upgradable) And of course the 10-20 hour battery life is hard to beat. Only downside is I'll forget to plug in at all. Historically, Apple has innovated quite a bit in the laptop space, including: moving the keyboard back for the modern palm rest design (PowerBook, 1991); active-matrix color display (PowerBook 180c, 1993); integrated wi-fi and handle antenna (iBook, 1999); Unix-based OS that could still run MS Office and Photoshop (Mac OS X, 2000 onward); full-featured thin metal laptop with gigabit ethernet (PowerBook G4 Titanium, 2001); pre-ultrabook thin laptop that fits in a manila envelope (MacBook Air, 2008); high-resolution display and all-flash storage in an ever-thinner design ("Retina" MacBook Pro, 2012); going all-in on USB-C/Thunderbolt and 5K external "retina" display (MacBook Pro, 2016); unprecedented performance, and a tandem OLED display with <10ms touch-to-pixel latency, in an absurdly thin iPad, which can also be used as a "laptop" (iPad M4 + magic keyboard, 2024); etc. Some of the innovations also failed, such as the touchbar, dual-controller trackpad, and "butterfly" keyboard which plagued the 2016 models.

pjmlp 1y ago

I am, better, I am old enough to have seen Apple in the good and bad times, and tell that Apple's major attention to detail, and catering to developers, was a side effect from being really close to shutdown the whole business. Now they have plenty of money, the attitude during early Apple years is back.

estimator7292 1y ago

I have flipped every imaginable switch and even set up a work profile, and I have not yet been able to turn off desktop notifications on my new work Mac. Every time I log in there's a persistent notification about... something stuck in the corner. The notification does not explain itself, clicking it just drops me into a system menu. Usually there's three or four such notifications queued up. So it just lives there permanently on the desktop and I avoid using the thing as much as possible. I do all of my work functions through SSH and leave the Mac in a corner of my desk with the screen closed. I swear, MacOS actively tries to be as annoying and intrusive as possible. Every time I touch the damn thing some new behavior reveals itself. Like there are two sets of hotkeys for copy/paste and which one you need to use appears to be entirely random per-window. Thankfully work lets me use linux on my main machine and I almost never have to deal with goddamn MacOS. I would rather daily drive Windows 11 with copilot and cortana and piles of bossware than plain MacOS.