Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

This makes me so sad. My laptop is a tool that I use for close to 12 (maybe even more!) hours per day. Every single day. It is the tool I use more than any other tool. It is such an important part of my life. It's so important that it work well.

I remember when I got my first MBP (it was a 2010 model). I had long been a linux user, and getting the mac was something I had done begrudgingly. I remember how the little LED on the front would fade (not blink!) on and off. I thought it was really cool. I heard a story (maybe from here, actually?) that the apple engineers studied the way that humans breathe when they're sleeping, and modeled the fade after that.

When I told this story to one of my friends (a long time mac user) she just laughed and said "Welcome to mac, Ryan.".

I can't imagine a "welcome to mac" story like that one anymore. The only version of "welcome to mac" I can think of is Apple seemingly crippling their own hardware. Can't use your headphones on their $1000 (!) phone? Welcome to mac! Can't plug anything USB into your laptop without an adapter? Welcome to mac! Can't even plug your $1000 phone into your $1500 laptop made by the same company without an adapter? Welcome to mac!

The new MBPs are just such a downgrade. I totally get why they dropped the optical drive when they did. Online/flash storage was getting cheap enough and ubiquitous enough that it was a real replacement for CDs.

This is not the case with USB-C, evidenced by the fact that apple doesn't even use it on their own consumer electronics yet (!!!).

The new macs are really pretty. I do not understand and probably will never understand their hardware design decisions.

I was in your spot also. Had an x200/x201 hybrid running Arch. Dropped it on concrete from 6' in a server room one day sending it to the morgue. I was in the anti-apple camp until my work offered me a replacement of either a MBPr or an X1 Carbon. I made the switch to the MBPr because of the 16:10 screen (I can't stand 16:9 in a laptop).

My god was that an eye opening experience. I'm still on my 4 year old 13" MBPr and it works flawlessly. It's easily the best consumer computing product I've ever used/owned. Everything is thought out so well.

The new macs have so much that I like, but the touchbar, the new keyboard, the dropping of the sd-card slot (hobby photographer here), and the dropping of magsafe seem like huge regressions to me. Everything else is great. I firmly support the USB-C switch. The new chassis is amazing, the new P3 display, and TB3 put it close to perfection.

Apple is so, so, close to making the perfect laptop again. Give me a quad core 13" MBPr with no touchbar, improve the keyboard, and return magsafe and the sd-card slot and I'll dish out the money. Until then, my amazing 2014 MBPr will continue to be my daily driver.

> This is not the case with USB-C, evidenced by the fact that apple doesn't even use it on their own consumer electronics yet (!!!).

The biggest problem IMO is that Apple decided to outsource the whole connectivity problem to third party. Apple provides no [1] cable, no monitor, no external anything that uses the ports. At the very least Apple could have done some sort of certification program so that their user are not left with an infinite combination of unmarked cables of varying capability, or something to show commitment and strategy.

That's like removing the headphone jack and failing to provide their Airpods for months. But at least they announced the Airpods ...

2015 was a terrible year for Apple, the year they did nothing right - not because their product were bad just meh, but their delivery, the PR was terrible. 2016 is ok so far, but following 2015 it does not feel like enough.

[1] OK they provide cable and dongle, the point is that there is no USB-C product line or anything special around them, nothing that really help or make USB-C cool, just Apple-basic package as exiting as the ashtray option in a Tesla.

> 2016 is ok so far,

I think you have your years off.

> I totally get why they dropped the optical drive when they did. Online/flash storage was getting cheap enough and ubiquitous enough that it was a real replacement for CDs.

> This is not the case with USB-C, evidenced by the fact that apple doesn't even use it on their own consumer electronics yet (!!!).

A better comparison would be when the original iMac abruptly dropped support for SCSI, ADB, and serial in favor of USB, which was almost unknown at the time. The iMac drove demand for USB peripherals and started us down the path to USB becoming ubiquitous, but everyone griped about it at the time and there were all sorts of ADB-to-USB adapters for awhile.

That being said, I think USB-C does have some serious issues which Marco outlines well in another post: https://marco.org/2017/10/14/impossible-dream-of-usb-c

>> the original iMac abruptly dropped support for SCSI, ADB, and serial in favor of USB

Except, the next few updates of that iMac brought 2 FireWire ports, a 56k modem port, ethernet, and a Mezzanine slot

And you could put an SCSI card into that Mezzanine slot.

We had a generation B iMac, and it was an incredibly versatile machine.

It worked with all our old SCSI stuff (Scanner, ZIP drive), supported all the new USB printers (no need to get a "Mac" printer anymore)...

Only stupid thing was that all those connectors where squeezed into a tiny space behind that a small door.

I loved that computer.

I completely agree with you. As a long time Mac user I remember how Macs would delight you with the details. The thoughtfulness that went into making your life easier, to facilitate getting your work done.

With this latest generation of MacBooks, it seems that you have to constantly struggle to adapt to them, not the other way. You need to bring dongles to connect peripherals, the charger no longer has MagSafe and the LED that used to tell you when it was charging and when it was fully charged, etc.

Same story here. I had used a mix of Fedora/Debian with a custom window manager for the longest time. Then reluctantly got a macbook and had a great user experience.

I used to love Macbooks, now I hate them with passion.

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