6 ms·

I think what he's going for is that, had you kept your original MBP, you would be unsatisfied. Not saying he's right or wrong there. However, I think it is fai

by rozap 14y ago

I think what he's going for is that, had you kept your original MBP, you would be unsatisfied. Not saying he's right or wrong there. However, I think it is fair to say that the majority of Apple fans often have a pretty frequent upgrade cycle. Consequently I don't think there are too many "long term customers" of Apple products in his sense of the word. I think Meaty is really going for "long term" customer as in - infrequent customer, keeping devices for long term.

eropple 14y ago
I'd be "unsatisfied" because a slow processor, a 4GB RAM maximum, and a shitty GPU would suck, sure. I upgrade and sell my old machines on a yearly basis or so because paying a $300-$400 delta (sell the old one, buy the new one) is worth it to have something in the target area for Apple and for developers. There's no point for me in keeping older devices long-term because nobody really targets the trailing edge. I spend more on car repairs in any given year than I do on my laptop upgrades; it is just not a significant amount of money. If "people who keep old stuff" was what he was really going for, he's doing poorly at describing it, because I don't think that "long term customer" doesn't mean "customer who refuses to upgrade for geologic eras" among reasonable folks. And I certainly don't think an ecosystem where newer devices are generally preferred is a symptom of "bad engineering"--more "engineering decisions he doesn't like." Every MBP iteration has made me much more pleased to actually use the machine, and that's the core of what matters.
- Tipzntrix 14y ago
  You see with Windows, Microsoft targetted (or at least went WAY out of their way to accommodate) the trailing edge. hell, they even held support for many DOS programs for a long time. This pattern looks like it might be changing with Metro though.
  - eropple 14y ago
    Microsoft did, sure, but I'm referring more to application and game developers. The OS features are nice-to-haves to be sure, but if your applications are outpacing your hardware...
    - Tipzntrix 14y ago
      That's mostly fair, but gigantic multiplayer experiences have in general tried to target more modest min. reqs., like Starcraft II on the competitive side, or all of those East asian MMOs on the casual side.
      - eropple 14y ago
        Starcraft II actually really chugged on my 2009-vintage MBP. It was one of the games I was thinking of. =)
cloverich 14y ago
My Wife has my old MBP circa 2008. Its still runs surprisingly well - outside the new trackpad and larger size, I don't notice a difference using that compared to my current. While I like the T61 (alot), when I left my previous job I was given the choice of keeping either it or the MBP (both with similar specs). I chose the MBP and haven't regretted it once.
greedo 14y ago
In my circle, I would disagree. I'm using a 6 year old Mac Pro, have a 2006 Mac mini as an HTPC, another as a fileserver in the basement. Our household has an original iPad, an iPad 3G, two iPhone 3GS used as ersatz iPod Touches for the kids. I did recently upgrade to the iPhone 5 from the iPhone 3GS, but that's because I don't want to be on a two year treadmill. The only issue I ever had was with a balky videocard in the Mac Pro that would die after about 4 months of World of Warcraft. Apple was quick to replace the card twice without any troubles. So everyone's mileage varies. Since I recently upgraded to an SSD in the Mac Pro, and bumped up the memory to 32GB, I see no need to replace this machine until it suffers a serious mechanical failure. The only downside is that it'll forever be stuck running Lion.
- nileshk 14y ago
  If you have the right video card, you can get Mountain Lion running with these instructions: http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47 http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47 This worked for me with my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 w/ an ATI HD5770 graphics card. I do have an issue where it often doesn't come back from sleep, so I never put it to sleep, but other than that it's been flawless so far. I haven't spent any time looking into the sleep issue, maybe it's a solvable problem. By strictly hardware performance standards, the Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 did not deserve to lose support so soon, and are still more than adequate. Especially the 8-core versions, which have benchmarks higher than many 2012 Macs. If you have a 4 core model: I researched putting in replacement CPUs a while back (but never went through with it). Replacing a CPU in a Mac Pro is not the easiest and is a bit of a pain from what I hear, but it is possible, and if you have 4 cores right now you can get a serious CPU performance boost with the right 8 core CPU upgrades (2 x 4-core CPUs, that is). There are many options that will will work. If you're interested, I can give you more details on which CPUs work.
  - greedo 14y ago
    I have the four core model; I'm not sure for my work flow that faster CPUs or more cores would really help much compared to the cost. My SSD upgrade has really given it new life in terms of responsiveness. Thanks for the link to the workaround. Hopefully it isn't something that will get broken with updates.

by rozap 14y ago

eropple 14y ago

I'd be "unsatisfied" because a slow processor, a 4GB RAM maximum, and a shitty GPU would suck, sure. I upgrade and sell my old machines on a yearly basis or so because paying a $300-$400 delta (sell the old one, buy the new one) is worth it to have something in the target area for Apple and for developers. There's no point for me in keeping older devices long-term because nobody really targets the trailing edge. I spend more on car repairs in any given year than I do on my laptop upgrades; it is just not a significant amount of money. If "people who keep old stuff" was what he was really going for, he's doing poorly at describing it, because I don't think that "long term customer" doesn't mean "customer who refuses to upgrade for geologic eras" among reasonable folks. And I certainly don't think an ecosystem where newer devices are generally preferred is a symptom of "bad engineering"--more "engineering decisions he doesn't like." Every MBP iteration has made me much more pleased to actually use the machine, and that's the core of what matters.

Tipzntrix 14y ago
You see with Windows, Microsoft targetted (or at least went WAY out of their way to accommodate) the trailing edge. hell, they even held support for many DOS programs for a long time. This pattern looks like it might be changing with Metro though.
- eropple 14y ago
  Microsoft did, sure, but I'm referring more to application and game developers. The OS features are nice-to-haves to be sure, but if your applications are outpacing your hardware...
  - Tipzntrix 14y ago
    That's mostly fair, but gigantic multiplayer experiences have in general tried to target more modest min. reqs., like Starcraft II on the competitive side, or all of those East asian MMOs on the casual side.
    - eropple 14y ago
      Starcraft II actually really chugged on my 2009-vintage MBP. It was one of the games I was thinking of. =)

cloverich 14y ago

My Wife has my old MBP circa 2008. Its still runs surprisingly well - outside the new trackpad and larger size, I don't notice a difference using that compared to my current. While I like the T61 (alot), when I left my previous job I was given the choice of keeping either it or the MBP (both with similar specs). I chose the MBP and haven't regretted it once.

greedo 14y ago

In my circle, I would disagree. I'm using a 6 year old Mac Pro, have a 2006 Mac mini as an HTPC, another as a fileserver in the basement. Our household has an original iPad, an iPad 3G, two iPhone 3GS used as ersatz iPod Touches for the kids. I did recently upgrade to the iPhone 5 from the iPhone 3GS, but that's because I don't want to be on a two year treadmill. The only issue I ever had was with a balky videocard in the Mac Pro that would die after about 4 months of World of Warcraft. Apple was quick to replace the card twice without any troubles. So everyone's mileage varies. Since I recently upgraded to an SSD in the Mac Pro, and bumped up the memory to 32GB, I see no need to replace this machine until it suffers a serious mechanical failure. The only downside is that it'll forever be stuck running Lion.

nileshk 14y ago
If you have the right video card, you can get Mountain Lion running with these instructions: http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47 http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47 This worked for me with my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 w/ an ATI HD5770 graphics card. I do have an issue where it often doesn't come back from sleep, so I never put it to sleep, but other than that it's been flawless so far. I haven't spent any time looking into the sleep issue, maybe it's a solvable problem. By strictly hardware performance standards, the Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 did not deserve to lose support so soon, and are still more than adequate. Especially the 8-core versions, which have benchmarks higher than many 2012 Macs. If you have a 4 core model: I researched putting in replacement CPUs a while back (but never went through with it). Replacing a CPU in a Mac Pro is not the easiest and is a bit of a pain from what I hear, but it is possible, and if you have 4 cores right now you can get a serious CPU performance boost with the right 8 core CPU upgrades (2 x 4-core CPUs, that is). There are many options that will will work. If you're interested, I can give you more details on which CPUs work.
- greedo 14y ago
  I have the four core model; I'm not sure for my work flow that faster CPUs or more cores would really help much compared to the cost. My SSD upgrade has really given it new life in terms of responsiveness. Thanks for the link to the workaround. Hopefully it isn't something that will get broken with updates.