6 ms·

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 ke

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.
- stevage 1y ago
  Apple produced at least three mice that were very different and terrible in different ways. Their laptops are good, but don't waste your time defending their other peripherals.
  - tavavex 1y ago
    I've barely ever tried them, but I've never liked the shaping of any that I have held, and I don't think that the touchpad addition justified the discomfort that it causes in all other use cases. That being said, the whole "Apple added the charging port on the bottom to be evil and prevent you from using the mouse" thing had become such an entrenched internet fable over the last decade that it's impossible for me to come by it and not comment on it. I'll clarify that no one but the designers themselves knows the original intention, but since it's the exact same design as the AA model, just with internal changes, it seems like an open-and-shut case.
    - cwillu 1y ago
      “I'll clarify that no one but the designers themselves knows the original intention, but since it's the exact same design as the AA model, just with internal changes, it seems like an open-and-shut case.” “Legendary attention to detail” Indeed, it is pretty open-and-shut.
    - jorvi 1y ago
      We do know the intention though. Apple thinks a mouse with a cable looks messy and ugly, so they made the mouse charge fast and put the port on the bottom. Made it impossible to use it whilst charging but you could get 2 hours of use out of like 10 minutes or charging. The end result Apple hoped for was people always seeing the mouse on the desk, cableless, charged. I'm surprised it came out during the Jobs era because he strongly believed in "form follows function".
      - tavavex 1y ago
        Again, this is something that's often repeated all over the internet, but there is no source for this, it's just speculation - and fairly unconvincing speculation at that, since it has to go so far in assigning the designers these strong opinions and unwillingness to compromise just for it all to make sense. I feel like what I proposed is a far simpler and more straightforward explanation. Occam's razor and all. Just look at what the mouse looked like through its generations[1]. When redesigning it, they obviously just took out the single-use battery compartment and replaced it with a section containing the rechargeable battery and the charging port. In fact, they really couldn't have done it any other way, because the mouse is so flat that its top and bottom sides taper all the way to the desk, with no space for a charging port. So, when making the gen 2 model, just putting the port where it is was probably a far simpler drop-in solution that saved them from having to redesign the rest of the mouse. [1] https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0572/5788/5832/files/magic_mouse_1_and_magic_mouse_two_back_e1c1df49-f1ee-4e13-a037-f72a3e9c2c6a_1024x1024.webp https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0572/5788/5832/files/magic...
anothernewdude 1y ago
Also they leak charge onto the case.
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  Found this out one time when I went to touch my MBA and it was like I stuck my finger in a light socket.
- kogir 1y ago
  Any properly grounded device will do that with specifically incorrect electrical wiring and/or a shoddy charger. Did this happen with a properly wired outlet, and an undamaged Apple charger? I have doubts that it did, as that would warrant a safety recall.
  - Liftyee 1y ago
    Can confirm it does happen. UK, both on my ThinkPad and a friend's MacBook when plugged in. It's a somewhat unavoidable side effect of the switching AC adapter designs - the output is isolated from the mains, but there is a tiny leakage current that can sometimes be felt as a "vibration". This is completely safe (far below the currents needed to cause harm) and no recall is needed.
    - cachius 1y ago
      Thank you. I always felt this vibration and wondered what it was.
    - mapmap 1y ago
      If you replace the two prong plug on the AC adapter for a three prong cable, your MacBook case will be properly grounded and you won’t feel any vibration.
  - raydev 1y ago
    Cast aside your doubts, I've been to different parts of Europe a few times with different, healthy MBPs (I buy a new one every 4-5 years) with healthy adapters. Plugging into the wide EU outlet with the Apple-manufactured plug, from the "World Travel Adapter Kit", can lead to uncomfortable "vibration" that you feel when you touch the top case, depending on the the hotel/airbnb. Whenever I visit I expect I should charge while I'm not using the device.
combyn8tor 1y ago
> 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 Apple have a couple of extra mechanisms in place to remind us to buy a new device: - On iOS the updates are so large it doesn't fit on the device. This is because they purposely put a small hard drive i. It serves a second purpose - people will buy Apple cloud storage because nothing fits locally. - No longer providing updates to the device after just a few years when it's still perfectly fine. Then forcing the app developer ecosystem to target the newer iOS version and not support the older versions. But it's not planned obsolescence when it's Apple, because they're the good guys, right? They did that 1984 ad. Right guys?
- rgovostes 1y ago
  > No longer providing updates to the device after just a few years when it's still perfectly fine. This is a weird one to complain about because Apple leads the industry in supporting older devices with software updates. iOS 26 supports devices back to 2019. And they just released a security update for the iPhone 6S, a model released a full decade ago, last month. The oldest Samsung flagship you can get Android 16 for is their 2023 model (Galaxy S23), and for Google the oldest is the 2021 model (Pixel 6).
  - netsharc 1y ago
    "You cheated on me last night!" "This is a weird one to complain about, look at Donnie, he cheated on his girlfriend 3 times last month!"
    - throawayonthe 1y ago
      i don't get it, how long do you think is reasonable?
      - jasomill 1y ago
        I tend to look at technology prices in terms of cost per unit time of useful life. If Apple continues to supply updates for six-year-old phones, iPhone 17 prices range from $11/month (base model iPhone 17) to $28/month (iPhone 17 Pro Max w/2TB storage), meaning it's only about 20% more expensive to store data on a RAID 10 array of iPhone 17 Pro Maxes running current iOS versions than on standard-tier S3 (not a relevant comparison, obviously, but it amuses me). So I don't know what's reasonable, but Apple's policies certainly appear to be. I'm still salty that Apple no longer offer battery service on my OG Apple Watch, however, so reason has its limits.
NaomiLehman 1y ago
n=4 but my niece spilled a whole cup of milk and a whole cup of matcha on my M2 (twice on 1 device). I just flipped it up, dried it out with a hair dryer (apparently shouldn't do that) and it still works 2 years later. Can't relate to what you're saying, had 4 MacBooks, and many PCs too.
WWLink 1y ago
> 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! ???? ctrl+a and ctrl+e? That works on most Linux setups, too. Only Microsoft screws that up. I love how in Mac Office apps, Microsoft also makes ctrl+a and ctrl+e do what they do in windows lol.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
raydev 1y ago
Can you be specific about your bad experiences with Apple hardware? I've gone through 5 MacBook Pros since 2008 and my only complaint was the old Intel models always got too hot. Nothing ever broke on them and I guess I kept them relatively clean? I also have all of the adapters that came with the MBPs too, all perfectly functioning, the oldest still attached and powering my 2013 model with the dead battery (2008 model was sold, still working). The magsafe cable is pretty yellow now, and maybe a little wonky from the constant travelling, but no fraying/fire hazard yet.
coldtea 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! None of the above sound like anybody's actual experience. Which is also they have the biggest resale value retention among PC laptops, and biggest reported user satisfaction. Now, if you were about the lack of ports (at least for a period) or the crappy "butterfly" keyboard (for a period), you'd have an actual point. Home/End is just Control-A/E. Never seen "molten keyboard plastic". I'm sure you can find some person who has that somewhere on the internet. I doubt it's a problem beyond some 0.0001% rare battery failures or something like that. "yellow spots burned into a display with its own heat exhaust". Not sure what this even means. Especially AS Macs don't even get hot. I haven't heard the fan ever, and I use a M1 MBP of 5+ years with vms and heavy audio/video apps. "when its charger dies in a month" is just bs.
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  Staingate? I had a GPU issue (that was the subject of a recall that matched my symptoms precisely (and I could make the MBP core dump on demand in the Genius Bar) but "recall declined, does not fail diagnostics". Damaged charging circuit on an MBA. Laptop worked perfectly. Battery health check fine. Just could not charge it. "That will be a $900 repair. Maybe we can look at getting you into a new Mac?" (for one brief moment I thought they were going to exchange mine... no, they wanted me to buy one. And of course, my MBA couldn't be traded in because it was damaged...). I've also had multiple Magsafe connectors fray to the point of becoming like a paper lantern with all the bare wire visible, despite the cable being attached to a desk with cable connectors so there was near zero cable stress (and often only plugged/unplugged once a week).
- gamblor956 1y ago
  While I was in law school, every student who had an Apple laptop had to get their laptop replaced at least once (some multiple times) over the course of our program. The biggest problem was the bulging keyboard, due to the bulging battery, but their were also numerous issues with displays and with chargers not lasting very long. Most chargers lasted at least a semester, but few of the Apple chargers lasted an entire school year. They simply weren't designed with durability in mind. Quite humorously, after one student's laptop keyboard began bulging during torts, the professor began an impromptu lecture on product liability laws. The only PC laptops that were replaced were the ones that got damaged in accidents (car accidents, dropped off a balcony, used as a shield in self defense during a robbery, etc.). Dell Latitudes of that era were sturdy, and not noticeably heavier than their fragile Apple counterparts.

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.

stevage 1y ago
Apple produced at least three mice that were very different and terrible in different ways. Their laptops are good, but don't waste your time defending their other peripherals.
- tavavex 1y ago
  I've barely ever tried them, but I've never liked the shaping of any that I have held, and I don't think that the touchpad addition justified the discomfort that it causes in all other use cases. That being said, the whole "Apple added the charging port on the bottom to be evil and prevent you from using the mouse" thing had become such an entrenched internet fable over the last decade that it's impossible for me to come by it and not comment on it. I'll clarify that no one but the designers themselves knows the original intention, but since it's the exact same design as the AA model, just with internal changes, it seems like an open-and-shut case.
  - cwillu 1y ago
    “I'll clarify that no one but the designers themselves knows the original intention, but since it's the exact same design as the AA model, just with internal changes, it seems like an open-and-shut case.” “Legendary attention to detail” Indeed, it is pretty open-and-shut.
  - jorvi 1y ago
    We do know the intention though. Apple thinks a mouse with a cable looks messy and ugly, so they made the mouse charge fast and put the port on the bottom. Made it impossible to use it whilst charging but you could get 2 hours of use out of like 10 minutes or charging. The end result Apple hoped for was people always seeing the mouse on the desk, cableless, charged. I'm surprised it came out during the Jobs era because he strongly believed in "form follows function".
    - tavavex 1y ago
      Again, this is something that's often repeated all over the internet, but there is no source for this, it's just speculation - and fairly unconvincing speculation at that, since it has to go so far in assigning the designers these strong opinions and unwillingness to compromise just for it all to make sense. I feel like what I proposed is a far simpler and more straightforward explanation. Occam's razor and all. Just look at what the mouse looked like through its generations[1]. When redesigning it, they obviously just took out the single-use battery compartment and replaced it with a section containing the rechargeable battery and the charging port. In fact, they really couldn't have done it any other way, because the mouse is so flat that its top and bottom sides taper all the way to the desk, with no space for a charging port. So, when making the gen 2 model, just putting the port where it is was probably a far simpler drop-in solution that saved them from having to redesign the rest of the mouse. [1] https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0572/5788/5832/files/magic_mouse_1_and_magic_mouse_two_back_e1c1df49-f1ee-4e13-a037-f72a3e9c2c6a_1024x1024.webp https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0572/5788/5832/files/magic...

anothernewdude 1y ago

Also they leak charge onto the case.

heavyset_go 1y ago
Found this out one time when I went to touch my MBA and it was like I stuck my finger in a light socket.
kogir 1y ago
Any properly grounded device will do that with specifically incorrect electrical wiring and/or a shoddy charger. Did this happen with a properly wired outlet, and an undamaged Apple charger? I have doubts that it did, as that would warrant a safety recall.
- Liftyee 1y ago
  Can confirm it does happen. UK, both on my ThinkPad and a friend's MacBook when plugged in. It's a somewhat unavoidable side effect of the switching AC adapter designs - the output is isolated from the mains, but there is a tiny leakage current that can sometimes be felt as a "vibration". This is completely safe (far below the currents needed to cause harm) and no recall is needed.
  - cachius 1y ago
    Thank you. I always felt this vibration and wondered what it was.
  - mapmap 1y ago
    If you replace the two prong plug on the AC adapter for a three prong cable, your MacBook case will be properly grounded and you won’t feel any vibration.
- raydev 1y ago
  Cast aside your doubts, I've been to different parts of Europe a few times with different, healthy MBPs (I buy a new one every 4-5 years) with healthy adapters. Plugging into the wide EU outlet with the Apple-manufactured plug, from the "World Travel Adapter Kit", can lead to uncomfortable "vibration" that you feel when you touch the top case, depending on the the hotel/airbnb. Whenever I visit I expect I should charge while I'm not using the device.

combyn8tor 1y ago

> 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 Apple have a couple of extra mechanisms in place to remind us to buy a new device: - On iOS the updates are so large it doesn't fit on the device. This is because they purposely put a small hard drive i. It serves a second purpose - people will buy Apple cloud storage because nothing fits locally. - No longer providing updates to the device after just a few years when it's still perfectly fine. Then forcing the app developer ecosystem to target the newer iOS version and not support the older versions. But it's not planned obsolescence when it's Apple, because they're the good guys, right? They did that 1984 ad. Right guys?

rgovostes 1y ago
> No longer providing updates to the device after just a few years when it's still perfectly fine. This is a weird one to complain about because Apple leads the industry in supporting older devices with software updates. iOS 26 supports devices back to 2019. And they just released a security update for the iPhone 6S, a model released a full decade ago, last month. The oldest Samsung flagship you can get Android 16 for is their 2023 model (Galaxy S23), and for Google the oldest is the 2021 model (Pixel 6).
- netsharc 1y ago
  "You cheated on me last night!" "This is a weird one to complain about, look at Donnie, he cheated on his girlfriend 3 times last month!"
  - throawayonthe 1y ago
    i don't get it, how long do you think is reasonable?
    - jasomill 1y ago
      I tend to look at technology prices in terms of cost per unit time of useful life. If Apple continues to supply updates for six-year-old phones, iPhone 17 prices range from $11/month (base model iPhone 17) to $28/month (iPhone 17 Pro Max w/2TB storage), meaning it's only about 20% more expensive to store data on a RAID 10 array of iPhone 17 Pro Maxes running current iOS versions than on standard-tier S3 (not a relevant comparison, obviously, but it amuses me). So I don't know what's reasonable, but Apple's policies certainly appear to be. I'm still salty that Apple no longer offer battery service on my OG Apple Watch, however, so reason has its limits.

NaomiLehman 1y ago

n=4 but my niece spilled a whole cup of milk and a whole cup of matcha on my M2 (twice on 1 device). I just flipped it up, dried it out with a hair dryer (apparently shouldn't do that) and it still works 2 years later. Can't relate to what you're saying, had 4 MacBooks, and many PCs too.

WWLink 1y ago

> 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! ???? ctrl+a and ctrl+e? That works on most Linux setups, too. Only Microsoft screws that up. I love how in Mac Office apps, Microsoft also makes ctrl+a and ctrl+e do what they do in windows lol.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

raydev 1y ago

Can you be specific about your bad experiences with Apple hardware? I've gone through 5 MacBook Pros since 2008 and my only complaint was the old Intel models always got too hot. Nothing ever broke on them and I guess I kept them relatively clean? I also have all of the adapters that came with the MBPs too, all perfectly functioning, the oldest still attached and powering my 2013 model with the dead battery (2008 model was sold, still working). The magsafe cable is pretty yellow now, and maybe a little wonky from the constant travelling, but no fraying/fire hazard yet.

coldtea 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! None of the above sound like anybody's actual experience. Which is also they have the biggest resale value retention among PC laptops, and biggest reported user satisfaction. Now, if you were about the lack of ports (at least for a period) or the crappy "butterfly" keyboard (for a period), you'd have an actual point. Home/End is just Control-A/E. Never seen "molten keyboard plastic". I'm sure you can find some person who has that somewhere on the internet. I doubt it's a problem beyond some 0.0001% rare battery failures or something like that. "yellow spots burned into a display with its own heat exhaust". Not sure what this even means. Especially AS Macs don't even get hot. I haven't heard the fan ever, and I use a M1 MBP of 5+ years with vms and heavy audio/video apps. "when its charger dies in a month" is just bs.

FireBeyond 1y ago
Staingate? I had a GPU issue (that was the subject of a recall that matched my symptoms precisely (and I could make the MBP core dump on demand in the Genius Bar) but "recall declined, does not fail diagnostics". Damaged charging circuit on an MBA. Laptop worked perfectly. Battery health check fine. Just could not charge it. "That will be a $900 repair. Maybe we can look at getting you into a new Mac?" (for one brief moment I thought they were going to exchange mine... no, they wanted me to buy one. And of course, my MBA couldn't be traded in because it was damaged...). I've also had multiple Magsafe connectors fray to the point of becoming like a paper lantern with all the bare wire visible, despite the cable being attached to a desk with cable connectors so there was near zero cable stress (and often only plugged/unplugged once a week).
gamblor956 1y ago
While I was in law school, every student who had an Apple laptop had to get their laptop replaced at least once (some multiple times) over the course of our program. The biggest problem was the bulging keyboard, due to the bulging battery, but their were also numerous issues with displays and with chargers not lasting very long. Most chargers lasted at least a semester, but few of the Apple chargers lasted an entire school year. They simply weren't designed with durability in mind. Quite humorously, after one student's laptop keyboard began bulging during torts, the professor began an impromptu lecture on product liability laws. The only PC laptops that were replaced were the ones that got damaged in accidents (car accidents, dropped off a balcony, used as a shield in self defense during a robbery, etc.). Dell Latitudes of that era were sturdy, and not noticeably heavier than their fragile Apple counterparts.