And no new Macs were announced once more
Are you planing to move away to Linux or Windows now that Apple is lagging behind and seems not to care?
I am impressed with Ubuntu on Windows. Some bugs, but overall I can see this working for me. Since I use Ubuntu in production, the Linux environment is closer to production than a Mac shell.
I have felt lately, though, that the Mac vs Windows vs Linux debate is getting less relevant with most things being in a web browser. The diminishing requirement for Windows around 5 years ago caused me to switch to Mac. And now back to Windows.
I can see myself buying a Mac again, though. Maybe even a Chromebook.
Are you using that new fangled Linux literally in Windows thing I heard of? How's that going?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux
[2] https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/03/30/ubuntu-on-windows-the...
My only complaint thus far is that all the packages that you can get via apt-get seem really ancient. I had to go through hell building a lot of stuff myself to get anything remotely recent running.
After much pain, I finally got our product built and running, ran it then tried to connect to it and it core dumped. That's probably my fault I guess. I haven't dug into that yet, but there must be some platform difference I'm not aware of.
Anyway, it seems pretty stable in general although a little quirky. Having direct access between the Windows file system and the *nix side is pretty cool too.
I don't think I'll be switching to it full time but it is certainly interesting.
I think this is an Ubuntu issue, even on stand-alone Ubuntu. I assume the subsystem lets you add PPAs like in vanilla Ubuntu?
Maybe I screwed something up, but I really did try.
It still has a lot of rough edges, but they seem to be actively working on it, so I'm hopeful this leads to a virtuous cycle of more developers using it and more investment from Microsoft.
Docker
The shell being closer to production was more for familiarity sake. For me, I used to think I was going to be Mac for a long time because "Mac has a bash shell." Windows has a bash shell. In practice, I mostly use the ssh command! :)
Oh and the console window in Windows is now resizable! That drove me crazy.
I believe the current strategy is to have a container that contains your full build environment, push your source files in by mounting a folder, and then use file watchers to automatically rebuild/rerun.
And no, my 2013 MBP still works just fine and probably will for years.
That said, if I bought one tomorrow and a new one came out before the "no questions asked" return policy ends, I'd switch them.
I am hoping that I am satisfied with my current one for the next couple of years at least, especially now that we are in the in-between. Sadly, I think that the OLED bar is going to be a deal breaker for me.
As much as I don't want to, I am also considering a Windows laptop. The Gigabyte Aero 14 looks really good due to the long battery life that I've come to expect from the MacBook Pro.
Mine does too, but the lack of hardware updates is disconcerting enough that my next hardware(laptop/desktop) purchase won't be from Apple. I really like OS X/macOS, but the overall attitude seems to be that they just don't care, so I'll look to something that does care a little more.
That's fine, it is their (or their board's?) choice on what to pursue, but I don't have to buy either. Their priorities have shifted away from macOS and the hardware that runs it. If those priorities haven't shifted, they should consider a retreat or some meeting to determine why fans like myself and many others in this thread feel that way. They should ask themselves why it is taking so long between updates to the Mac Pro, etc. They should ask themselves why they have "Pro" in the name but then leave the hardware out of date (especially since its own name kinda implies it is for power users that want powerful machines).
They dropped the quad-core and it was almost immediately unavailable.
Now, in all fairness this was because a quad-core with the newer CPU required a different motherboard to the dual-core, so this was an Intel/economies of scale issue.
However there is still no quad-core option available.
I got tired of waiting and put together a (much cheaper) Gentoo Linux box.
I was then looking at buying a MacBook Pro laptop, but couldn't see the point in paying a premium for older hardware. I bought a Chromebook Pixel instead.
I am not regretting either decision.
I bought the iPhone SE because I knew it would be the last iPhone with a headphone jack. I don't expect Apple to have a change of heart so no doubt when the time comes to replace my iPhone I will have to buy Android.
It's a shame. Apple used to care about users because it needed to look after them. That made good engineering a priority. Nowadays it believes in good marketing instead. And so for example we have ever thinner iPhones that mechanically flex and eventually cause screen issues if they don't just break outright.
With Apple you pay a premium price for a premium product. It's no longer a premium product - but it's still a premium price.
Tell me, what is the logic behind buying a beautiful but fragile iPhone if you must encase it in an Otter Box just to survive daily use and the occasional drop? Who cares how thin it is or about the hue of the rose gold if it's buried inside a thick case?
I read a story about how Apple despised the look of Dell charging cables with their thick cable reinforcers everywhere a cable interfaced with a plug or electrical component. So Apple made thin cables with no reinforcers that would easily get damaged from normal use, and people would have to go buy more cables.
Why have iPhone screens been so fragile? Because they are pretty. All my iPhone friends would keep using their cracked phones because they didn't want to pay to fix them. What's so pretty about walking around with a cracked screen?
The world was a better place when Nokia engineering was a dominant influence. Attractive durability is superior to what Apple sells.
i think you're forgetting in the age of plastic laden laptops the things like the air were considered impressive engineering wise. overpriced, sure. but solid. the built quality of my old macbook pro was leaps and bounds beyond any pc equivalent at the time. apple trackpads/screens and touch sensitivity have still yet to be matched.
you can criticize apple's pricing, proprietary lock-in and a host of other things, but i think quality of engineering is definitely not one of them.
My late 2013 rMBP is still great, but I do admit I'm eyeing an XPS 15 (or similarly spec'ed machine) and putting Ubuntu on it. For the price of a 15" MBP, twice the RAM, touch screen, 4K display, etc seems quite appealing.
Did you go with the 1080p or 1440p screen? I've never had a laptop with a very good screen (have a nice monitor for my desktop though) and I'm not sure how well higher resolutions will translate to a smaller screen size.
Your experiences would be a great help to me!
Part of lack of wow factor may be the fact that when I first uninstalled Windows and switched to Linux my resolution in general was all messed up - some apps would take up too much screen space, others would be tiny. There was no consistency and it ruined the experience (one miraculous dnf update day this seems to have been largely resolved, but I still do not find anything special about the 1440p display experience on the laptop).
Apple is looking more and more like a megacorp as the Steve Jobs DNA fades away.
Windows 10 just doesn't appeal to me. And most new notebooks have various problems running Linux. Plus, the battery life on most notebooks sucks when compared to MBAs.
I stopped giving money to Apple when they started gluing batteries and soldering memories. That's just disrespectful both to the environment and to the end customer.
If the rumors are true, they're coming out with new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iPad, and perhaps a new Mac Pro in October, which is just in one month.