Windows on New Macbook Pro Permanently Damages Speaker Due to Poor Drivers

It's a slippery slope of optimization that only works when you control the OS (or drivers at least) and the hardware together, but one slip-up can be catastrophic.

Besides, you could always write software that damages your hardware. For example you could kill your hard disk or SSD quite easily with bad file using code (just recently Spotify had a bug that could kill an SSD in a short period of time by writing TB of data), and lots of other things besides.

"Probing memory-mapped PCI devices may have unpredictable results and may theoretically damage your system, so once again we discourage its use." 1

[1] http://wiki.osdev.org/Detecting_Memory_(x86)

And the speakers were probably chosen for form factor.

[1] http://www.globaldelight.com/boom/index.php

i fear they are going into a mid-late 1990s period of stagnation and product confusion, but this time there's no steve jobs.

It's all relatively minor in isolation; voicemail consistently fails to load messages multiple times before it succeeds, voicemail occasionally crashes, apps get stuck halfway down the screen after I swipe to check the notification screen, texts and iMessages sometimes show up hours or days late, notifications appear on the lock screen but are missing when I unlock the phone, the weather app sometimes displays a blank temperature, web sites have broken behavior with auto-playing, the state of the device when using volume controls changes unpredictably, and so on.

Most of these are undoubtedly caused by my service provider, or a 3rd party app, or me fat-thumbing an interface, or my complete misperception of a UI paradigm, or are otherwise not Apple's fault. But that's entirely besides the point, because we're talking about my emotional reaction, not reality, and we're talking about something Apple used to bend over backwards to control.

If the common narrative about Apple's modern successes being rooted in design sensibilities is correct, I don't see them being able to sustain leadership in the areas where they've been leading. The good news for Apple is that there still aren't better alternatives for customers who are heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem. The bad news is that there eventually will be, and also that there is material economic harm in keeping customers but losing their enthusiasm.

1. What do you mean relative numbers?

2. Any stats to back this up, as I've seen conflicting data?

Regardless, of course it's not going to be a big seller. It's the 10th(?) generation of a device everybody already owns. It's also the third year running the design hasn't changed at all (presumably as they want to make a big splash on next years 10th anniversary).

As for the MacBook's, in my experience ordinary people don't really put all that much decision making into buying a computer. They want something that looks nice and almost any computer on the market has the power they need for Word, Facebook, and email. The touch bar is something all my non-tech friends think is really cool and makes them want a new MacBook.

The Watch update may not have amounted to much but you're completely ignoring watchOS 3 - that was huge. They managed to make a pretty crappy device really good with only a software update. Early adopters don't need to splash out another load of cash on a piece of hardware, they can get most of the benefit through a free software update.

While I agree there has been nothing mind blowing I also haven't seen anything mind blowing on an Android device or software update, a PC, or any wearable device. Also, I really struggle to find things that my iPhone/Mac don't do that I need them to do. What substantial new features did you seek from the new MacBook?

If they just kept making the same stuff with minor hardware updates, you would hear much less criticism, if any at all.

As a proof, look at the complaints about their newest products, here or elsewhere. They all focus on the new features. Nobody is complaining that Apple is not trying to bring new stuff to the table. On the contrary, the problem is that they are trying hard to innovate on something that should stay in "maintenance mode."

It may be a cultural American thing, because I really don't understand why they are doing it. I think they are shooting themselves in the foot.

I've been using Macs since the mid 80s, and I'm trying to think of some, but am drawing a blank.

The only possibilities I can think of are the two processor switches (680x0 -> PPC followed by PPC -> Intel) or maybe the first release of OSX (but that's not necesarily hardware related).

I know there is a perfect misalignement of stars between Apple release plan and Intel roadmap. But that is still scary for the future of the Mac line. It looks like half-assed effort to give a last kick in the laptop area before slowing things down like with the Mac Pro.

2016 is really not living up to its expectations.

The only thing that is different now is the piling on of negative social media commentary that adds no value. This is why we can't have nice things.

Worst off, Apple is likely to create a third iPhone model which is highest end, premium and meant to milk more cash. Apple still think all its fanboy can tolerate its strategy of high profit from RAM add ons. It is likely due to political thingy the next 4 years will make Apple hard sell to convince users that iCloud is safe.

TouchBar and Retina ID is making the MacBook Pro hardware more complex. But how long will finger print tech last before the next tech take over? They are making something that is not applicable for other Mac models such as iMac (so you build a TouchID panel on the side of the screen?), Mac Pro and Mac mini. I believe Apple is retiring Mac Pro and Mac mini next, but will need to keep iMac due to sale volume. Someone please tell me how feasible it is to implement Touch ID on external keyboard? This whole thing does not look like holistic design to me, something like how you need to turn back the Apple MagicMouse in order to charge.

Which top tier computer manufacturer other than Apple is selling 3 year old computer hardware? I hope Apple will never use the word 'magic' in their ads anymore. I hope Apple has the courage to adopt USB-C for its iPad and iPhone. I hope Google will lower Pixel by $200 dollars. I hope Google will develop its own Linux notebook for its own employees and then the rest of the world. I hope Microsoft will develop a version of Windows on top of Linux core and file systems. Or the Surface group just buy Canonical. I hope Facebook will have an App Store for us to run React Native app or something like WeChat mini app over the web.

But Macbook Pro is an premium laptop. It should not be happening.

I don't know where you're getting this from. Between me and my family, I know of at least 6 tech companies that use tens of thousands of MBPs and most of the users there are professionals. The complaints we are seeing on reddit is not indicative of the number of laptops Apple is selling.