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Comment by dstryr | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you that we are constantly bombarded with propaganda, but a lot of the backlash is coming from long-time Apple users such as myself, who feel that Apple is no longer making computers for us. And you know what? That's perfectly fine, they're a business and are catering to the high end where the margins are best.

The proof is littered all over HN and Reddit where blog posts all begin with the same defense, "I"ve been using Macs since... and have bought Apple since this, this and this."

Personally, I wish there were a company selling a generic looking, uni-body notebook, similar in aesthetic and price to the new Xiaomi laptop. If some company could optimize hardware like that specifically for Linux, from the ground up, then maybe I could ditch this aging mid-2011 Macbook Air running Linux.

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> ...but a lot of the backlash is coming from long-time Apple users such as myself, who feel that Apple is no longer making computers for us. And you know what? That's perfectly fine, they're a business and are catering to the high end where the margins are best.

I don't even think Apple is catering to the high end here. If they were, the new MBP would be shipping with a lot more horsepower. It seems like they are catering to the casual user who is happy to pay a premium to have a slick-looking Apple product but doesn't actually have demanding computing needs. Many college students would fall in this category.

The high-end buyers that would pay a premium to have a powerful Macbook to do serious development or multimedia computing have been left out in the cold.

Maybe there are enough of the casual buyers that Apple thought it made more sense to cater to them than the professionals. But Apple easily could've made a machine that catered to both markets if they had better vision.

I should have probably clarified that 'high end' was referencing the luxury goods crowd, not high end professionals.

I agree in that I wish there were better generic Linux laptop alternatives to Apple but I find something very distasteful about a company like Xiaomi.

They're not quite passing off their goods as Apple's but they're not far off it.

Apple's current vision might not be my current vision but at least it's authentically theirs.

I agree with this as well and regret having bought a Xiaomi phone despite its great value. This is the reason I will not be purchasing this laptop.

I've also been using Apple computers since Apple II. I've had every Apple PC, iPod and iPhone and I've been a loyal fan and loved it.

But these are just words. Actually, I just lied, but you would have probably believed me, because, why would I lie in a comment ? Well, why not ? :) I got my first ever Mac in 2008 and I've only owned an iPhone 5 and 6.

So truth and falsehood on the internet is very cheap - it costs nothing to write something outrageous - and people would probably not even notice it.

Being paid to write a lie ? Easy money...

But I totally agree on the need for an open source alternative to Apple.

I'd also like to see an open source version of UIKit..

With Swift being open source, I think people are already working on it. You'll have an army of iOS devs ready to build cool Linux applications in their favourite language, using familiar UI concepts. I'd love to get involved into something like this ;).

You can compare previous product launch discussions on reddit/hn yourself and gauge the feelings at the time.

Furthermore, you can see the products yourself and decide what is a major improvement for yourself - without needing to relate to what someone says on an article.

It bears to remember that this is microsoft, the company which until 2012, had no hardware product of its own.

I use a surface today, and the new studio which was launched is a poor product because of its graphics card which is substandard compared to whats on the market now.

But its still a significant step ahead, and all these changes are happening along side getting one core together. The braver company today is Msft.

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