So, today, for the first time in *25* years of Apple, I downgraded | Hacker News Reader

So, today, for the first time in 25 years of Apple, I downgraded

buzzways.at

62 pointsstanleyhtml31 comments

Got tired of re-buying 2011 Macbook Pros because it was getting kinda ridiculous. Decided the only things I actually care about are Lightroom, the keyboard, decent drivers and power management, and a terminal app.

New machine is a Dell XPS 15 running Windows. Keyboard and build is almost identical to Macbook, no N-key rollover but I can live without. Otherwise, meh, why is everyone still so attached to these dumb overpriced machines?

That Dell is the first laptop I have used that has a build quality and trackpad that is truly equal (if not better) than Apple's. I bought the Precision 5520 pre-installed with Ubuntu, and have never loved a machine so much.

Because my experience with Dell laptops have been the exact opposite over the years across many devices. I now avoid Dell hardware

Not only am i still running on a 2012 Air because of Apple's seemingly conscious middle finger to developers, but i refuse to purchase any >= 2016 laptops for my company. We have made roughly $30,000 in laptop purchases in the last 24 months. All have been aftermarket '14 and '15 MBP's with loaded ram and replaced batteries. This isn't what i want to do, but i refuse to service keyboard and heating issues on a regular basis.

But i get it. Anything that doesn't run iOS amounts to quarterly revenue rounding errors. But until i can develop iOS apps ON iOS (shiver), their laptops remain a prerequisite to the app store's viability. I have to imagine this current path will come to back to bite them in some measurable way aside from the financials mentioned above.

Middle finger to developers is right.

It's even worse for us in ops who are supporting you devs.

You want to develop on OSX, but Apple terminated their 1U server line aeons ago, so build farms and CI pipelines that are actually building all those wonderful iOS apps are forced to use racks and racks of mac minis -- a consumer-grade product not in the least suitable for enterprise use. They've gotten worse over the years too, as last I checked their RAM is now soldered on to the motherboard so it's not even upgradable. Cooling of these racks of mac minis is a nightmare, and it's a real waste of space as well, as there's a lot of wasted space in the racks betwen the four mac minis per U. Mac Pro's were another option that was just as bad in its own way.

Theoretically you could run OSX on a Supermicro or something (as a so-called "hackintosh"), but it's not supported and (though IANAL) seems to go against Apple's Terms of Service which only allow running OSX on Apple hardware, so it's usually not a realistic option, even though it might be a lot less hassle than running on dinky consumer-grade Apple hardware.

I'm not sure if Apple even has half a clue as to what it takes to support its development ecosystem, or maybe it just doesn't care because it's raking in the dough hand over fist no matter what they do.

It always pays to look at the alternatives. Sometimes the latest isn't the greatest. Unfortunately, time is particularly cruel to computing hardware and software. Downgrading to an old laptop is, at best, a temporary fix. The author of this article should consider other OS's and hardware manufacturers.

>Unfortunately, time is particularly cruel to computing hardware

Not anymore, not really so. A desktop I own from 2008 is still usable for daily browsing after an SSD upgrade, and runs all the games I care about playing (given that I play rarely).

Agreed. I just purchased a new notebook, and it was really odd to switch to a new machine that's not phenomenally better than the old one in multiple ways. When I switched from a 2008 Dell Inspiron to a 2012 Asus Zenbook, it was a huge upgrade: dim 720p -> bright 1080p, HDD -> SSD, much more compact, much lighter. My new notebook is basically the same than the old one, except with newer components all around and better upgradability. (The soldered-in 4 GB RAM was the only real issue with the Zenbook.)

See also Maciej Cegłowski's “Benjamin Button Reviews The New MacBook Pro” https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the...

I guess the author didn't buy the version with the touch bar. That thing is not just useless, it's actively detrimental to the user experience.

I cannot count the number of times I accidentally pressed escape, or had to press twice for one of the buttons to register.

I get it that he's ranting, but there's nothing new here.

Apple software quality started to go downhill a long time ago, and now their hardware is catching up. It makes sense because hardware has a longer lead time. Anybody who disagrees can try explaining the mess that iTunes has become, or why I have to reboot both my phone and laptop (almost) every time I try tethering.

For what it's worth, I don't think I really remember iTunes ever being remotely good.

I remember being forced to use it when I got my first iPod over a decade ago and it was an awful bloated mess which couldn't deal with my mp3 collection properly (~50+GB at the time). I could count on it to just corrupt or reformat my iPod, crash, hang or corrupt the library at least once a month.

It left a very bad taste in my mouth and I have not purchased Apple hardware or software since.

I have a 2015 MacBook Pro that I.T. has offered to replace.

Nooooope! By the looks of how things are trending, I'm keeping this thing until I move on or they fire me.

I got a new MBP for work, and every time I go home to my ~2015 model I am so happy to not be typing on this new shitty keyboard, and that is to say nothing of the oversized trackpad always accidentally causing me to move my cursor with my palm.

Absolutely. I'm in the very same boat. The ~2015 15" models are the best laptops Apple have made so far. (I use one of the new models at work, and they are worse - keyboard, useless touch-bar, ports)

But this is still subjective. The objective problem is the reliaility of the butterfly keyboard, but there are people who prefer it and the giant trackpad. I really like them and when I had to use my old MBA for a week I suffered not because of that shitty TN display but also because of the input devices on it.

I've been looking at the librem 15, I like the idea of a mostly open source laptop, I'd like to do some more digging to see if I can find something more or less comparable to the macOS experience though.

Maybe, elementaryOS 5 + librem 15?

>but now I could randomly fail to click something if I rested my palm wrong.

Anyone else dislike the larger trackpad because of that?

Frankly, I have the 2015 MBP and this still happens to me every once in a while. So a bigger track pad is one of the _many_ reasons I have no intention of "upgrading" any time soon.

2015 mbp for sale. I gotta say, 2018 is not error free, but it is fast, and it works, and it supports 2 4K monitors without an eGPU.

I can charge, run external hard drive, and 2 external monitors, and 3 usb devices and and speakers and an SD card on 1 cable. I do wish the cal digit dock was included, though.

I'm in a similar situation: I used to use a 2016 macbook pro with touchbar, but couldn't tolerate more with it, so I switched to a 13' macbook air(while I can still buy this device) earlier this year. I couldn't be more happier.

One thing I disagree with the author, is that I don't think this is downgrade, I consider this is an upgrade, cuz there's more in a computer than just the spec.

Tho I'm not sure what I will use in 3 years, there might not be trustworthy macbook air anymore then.

I am sure the Dell XPS 15 that gets mentioned a lot in this thread is an OK alternative, but IMHO nothing beats the OLED screen eye-saving and AI-goodness of an Alienware 13

One advantage Apple has here is they’ve eliminated the tyranny of choice that I see with non-Mac laptops.

Which one should I buy? How much should I spend? What do I really need? I am paralyzed.

OTOH, I know an MBP will do fine, and the price is $1200, which is steep, but I have nothing to compare it to.

Not saying this is good, but I would think this drives a lot of inertia, which Apple is certainly counting on as they try to improve their profit margins.

These tweets bring up valid points, but it’s obvious that the conversation is optimized for Twitter and not getting anything done.

I own two identical 2015 macbook's pro (I live in two places).. and I love to read articles like this one :)

Honestly I'm shocked that there isn't a company in the SFBA that just buys up busted 2015 MBPs and refurbs them to sell at a much higher price. Maybe they're afraid of getting sued into oblivion by Apple. Or maybe time travelers from the future are depleting our recent timeline of 2015 MBPs.

Repair shop owner here. A 2015 MBP is basically 3 parts: the screen, the logic board, and what Apple calls the “top case” (the metal component where your keyboard and trackpad hang out.)

RAM went bad? Tough, it’s soldered onto the board. LCD cracked? Well, Apple doesn’t make parts easily available to anyone except Apple, so unless you’re Apple authorized, you’re stuck buying them from resellers who’ve stripped them from other laptops. That screen replacement runs hundreds of dollars.

It’s the unfortunate reality of Apple making non-repairable, soldered-on boards to make their laptops a few mm thinner.

I highly recommend the Dell XPS series. I switched over to a Dell XPS 15 and really like it!

Would a RAM socket and a regular module physically fit in place of the soldered-on module?

Nothing new here. And no discussion about what he misses in the older one, etc.

I disagree, each complaint is something that he didn’t have with the previous hardware or software

Ugly Black Slab over Shiny Aluminum Thing any day.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com