Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake | Hacker News Reader

Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

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573 pointsaaronbrethorst627 comments

The Benjamin Button review of improvements in older Macs compared with newer ones:

https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the...

Guess this guy was pleased with his slower processor too.

Keyboard and processor are unrelated dimensions of improvement.

Probably still come out ahead with the additional time spent slower processing entails compared to Genius Bar visits and repair times. Ferrari vs Camry sort of thing.

I spend less than 10% of my time at my computer maxing my processor. I spend more than 90% of my time using the keyboard. I’ve seriously considered selling my 2017 MBP and buying a 2018 MBA. Then I heard the problems still haven’t been solved with that model and nixed that idea. But I would much rather have a slower machine with a reliable/comfortable keyboard than a faster machine with a brittle/uncomfortable one.

Speed and utilization are not the same. My 2018 MBP was a great speed improvement over the 2015 MBP I previously used, even in cases where the 2015 MBP wasn't using all cores (which really rarely happened, since for the workloads I use, multiple Electron apps and Docker for Mac, typing in Slack would start stuttering as soon as multiple cores were in constant use). I don't think it was ever usable enough at 6-7 cores maxed for me to start new things to try to use that last core...

I've had the opposite experience.

I use a mid 2012 retina that I bought used and have spilled water on 4 times. I keep 10 chrome windows open with around 15-20 tabs open each. In addition to microsoft word, sketch/figma, atom/pycharm/rubymine/intellij, multiple preview books, multiple iterm instances, postgres, and the Books app.

I don't have any trouble except when using docker for mac (which I just use the cloud for now) and photoshop.

I would like to get a new laptop though.

> I don't have any trouble except when using docker for mac

That's... the same experience? Not "opposite", for sure.

If you spend big bucks on a MBP, and still have problems with performance, you could start using the cloud or a home server for that docker stuff. Scaleway has reasonable priced servers, or you buy something like a simple Zotac Mini PC to run as linux server at home.

Do you happen to know any great guide for setting it up properly?

I did it a while back with docker machine but I remember it being quite the hassle and didn't work as smoothly as a locale instance, damn shame since docker is the number obesity leading reason I keep running out of ram on my laptop.

I have had a good time with Cloud9, now part of AWS. I default to t2.nano and scale it up for large bursts of workload.

This is exactly why I went for a 2015 MBP instead of a newer one last year. Having a better keyboard and physical escape/function keys (plus the significantly lower price) outweighed the lack of USB C/Thunderbolt 3. This may have a shorter "tail", in terms of long term utility, but hopefully there'll be a MBP refresh at around that time. If that is still found wanting, I suppose I can join the Thinkpad+Linux club.

I did the same, for the same reason. It’s a joy to use and every time I read one of the (so many) articles on the MB butterfly keyboard, I am reminded that I made the right choice. The 2015 MBP really is the best Mac laptop - which if you want a Mac rather than a Linux box, the best laptop ever - https://marco.org/2017/11/14/best-laptop-ever

I also chose this route last June. My coworkers upgraded to the new rendition later and I've since listened to them complain about the keyboard and mess around with adapters in literally every meeting room. The hdmi port is incredibly useful, I've never had issues in any meeting room and it's inclusion means I never have to carry adapters around. Not so with my colleagues, they need one even just to share files with a thumb drive.

I hope someone at Apple comes to their senses and makes the next big refresh of the Pro turn it into a Pro computer again.

The lack of emphasis of good input is absolutely maddening when people were buying macbooks with lousy specs for the price, low-res displays for the price, who absolutely loved the fantastic trackpad, adequete keyboard, and good build quality.

Now the devices are getting more fragile and the keyboards aren't even average they're junk. The touchbar is shit. Apple seems to be regressing to their form over function puck mouse days.

Meanwhile desktop consumers are realising how undervalued input has been for a long time and are buying $100 keyboards in great quantities.

> The touchbar is shit.

It really is. Way to go making it impossible to (un)mute and adjust the volume without opening my eyes.

And in exchange of what, really? The privilege of losing the physical Esc?

Not to mention the touchid sensor is completely terrible. It never - ever - works for me. I never had this level of problem with touchid on the iPhone ...

The new iCloud Keychain password prompt, which shows only touchid with password prompt hidden behind a button is fucking terrible — along with the auto submit behavior after filling out the form - which very often results in extra password required popups.

I’m starting to wonder if anyone at apple is using this stuff — maybe corporate disabled all these features for security reasons and apple developers actually aren’t allowed to use in practice ...?

I use TouchID all the time. I think yours is simply broken, to be honest.

I have found the TouchID to be similarly unreliable. It's possible thought it's a mixture of different human factors (iPhone TouchID is easier to touch the same way every time) and more immature hardware.

No problem with touchId on my 2018 MBA. Actually it works with wet fingers better then my 6s.

I thought the missing escape would be the thing that drove me nuts since I spend a reasonable chunk of my day in VI. Turns out, it is the damn siri button above the delete. Not quite sure how I keep hitting it.

Same here. After a few weeks I finally found out how to remove that button. Who wants to speak out loud to their laptop anyway?

I would... if it did anything useful. “Hey Siri, mark a 2h task for Project X in Xero”. But it doesn’t do anything remotely like that, yet. Supposedly the next release will have Shortcuts, which should offer a bit more extensibility.

Who?

People that type with two fingers and can't tell the difference between Safari and google.

You live in a bubble my friend. I've seen it in the wild and it's a marvel to watch how much they use it.

I don't need peak processor power, but I sure would like a modern processor underclocked for battery life.

You can get the benefits of a faster processor without constantly maxing it out. A faster clocked processor will complete tasks faster. If you’re just browsing the internet, no difference, but if you do any type of compilation the extra cores and speed will make a significant difference.

In the case of node and client side development, the extra speed can shave seconds off hot code injection and compilation times on every code change (every time you save the file).

> If you’re just browsing the internet, no difference,

Even the modern web continually maxes many processors. Google Docs/Sheets, Slack, Hangouts. "Just browsing the web" has become a compute intensive task.

The only substantial difference between my 2011 MBP and 2018 MBP for what I use it for (browsing the web, the lightest of computation) is that the 2018 model has really sharp edges that make me hate carrying it around. For my heavier workloads even the latest, top-of-the-line MBP is completely inadequate.

Which is a shame since MBPs were once the fastest Windows laptops on the market. I don't think the form factor really allows for a true workstation laptop anymore akin to say the Lenovo W series.

My personal laptop is a 2012 MacBook Pro. Still going strong.

Pretty asinine comment. Most heavy duty computing is done on cloud systems these days.

There are niches like video editing, but those are increasingly becoming GPU dependent.

I don't know if you've noticed but Intel chips have hardly improved over the years. They've been content with die shrinks for since sandy bridge. And even then, they've had to turn off the speculative hacks because of spectre and meltdown.

Apple also doesn't care about thermal performance. Look at how their i9 models throttle and perform worse than the i7 variants.

If you're buying apple you aren't putting performance first and foremost. It's either because of mac os or the design. You've been able to buy much faster windows laptops for far less money since they switched to intel. That's why a lot of devs have switched to lenovo.

I think my 2007-ish macbook pro had the best keyboard of all. Light action concave keys

I don't think that the superiority of concave keys gets the attention it deserves.

- the keys fit your finger better - the force of the keypress is evenly distributed across the surface of your finger, especially as the key bottoms out. New keyboards deform your finger pad as you press down and are less comfortable.

- the concave shape helps you locate the keys and center your fingers by feel. This leads to more accurate finger placement initially and as you type. You will type more accurately.

Sounds simliar to the Thinkpad keys/keyboards - the best in the industry IMO. Mac trackpad + Thinkpad keyboard = perfect laptop :)

If you are speaking about the 7 row Thinkpad keyboards from before the Lenovo acquisition I totally agree.

yes, this early style MacBook Pro keyboard was my favorite, as well! I could never understand the preference for the newer ("chiclet") keyboards.

A comic from the same month making the same point: http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2016/10/29/the-new-macbooks-ar...

"We want to make a laptop so thin you'll close it and never find it again."

A co-worked of mine convinced the company to buy them a MacBook (the first the company has ever purchased) to replace their aging Dell laptop. They have been doing more and more work on the company's iOS app and the aging Mac mini the company had purchased needed to replaced anyway.

After having the laptop for just over a year, they called me upset as the laptop would no longer power on. After some gentle interrogation they admitted that they had eaten a snack near the laptop and that, perhaps, a small amount of seltzer had "hit the keyboard". I had them bring it to the Apple Store and Apple refused to repair it under the warranty as it had "water damage." I had asked the company to purchase the extended warranty but that had been lost in the shuffle. My co-worker ended up shelling out ~$1000 out of pocket as they needed to get work done and they had very real feelings of guilt. After all, they did _eat_ near to the laptop.

I agree no laptop should get wet, or have a dollop of guacamole sauce splashed across the keyboard, or have the display sprayed with a fine mist of Coca-Cola as someone laughs and an unexpected joke. But these things happen and I don't think Apple is helping anyone by making laptops that can't withstand these common mishaps.

Is it normal for companies to expect employees to pay for accidentally damaged equipment? At everywhere that I've worked, some accidental damage was treated as a cost of doing business, and IT would replace it.

No that is not at all normal

I don't think so... Generally all of the Dell's have an extended warranty and, so far, most of the damage has been covered under that. Where I work there is also an insurance policy to cover laptop damage, they are currently in talks with the insurance company to get the damage covered.

I think that in the end my co-worker will be refunded the money. I don't think they will be left with the bill.

In many companies that's the case. I hate it.

Let them sue. They'll lose if they can't prove negligence.

I guess parent and you are talking in the US context, but to add another data point in France it's not even legal. If the employee did it on purpose or by (grave or repeated) negligence then you can fire them with fault, if they really tried to harm the company "faute lourde" and then sue them for damage.

But making them pay for repairs for a laptop after accidental every day accident? You would lose up in prud'homme court faster than ever (its the worker / employees court).

Absolutely not. Maybe if there's a pattern of repeated irresponsible behavior, I could see a little bit of an argument for it, but the more likely state of affairs would be that the problem employee would only ever be given shitty or cast-off machines.

Frankly, I'd see it as more reasonable to FIRE someone who repeatedly failed to care for company equipment appropriately.

Not a single company I've worked for has had a policy of employees paying for accidental damage.

IMX, it varies. At the hospital I worked, damaged equipment was replaced without question, but only doctors were issued laptops or iPaqs (this was pre-smartphone). If the same individual kept damaging equipment it went to the individual's lead or supervisor for disciplinary reasons, but I only ever saw that once when a guy threw three iPaqs against a wall (never found out why).

At the school district I work, the policy for staff is similar to the policy for students.

If the damage is caused through normal wear, the district pays.

If the damage from a preventable accident and a first incident, the district pays. Everybody gets one excused.

If the damage from a preventable accident and it's a second or later incident, the staff member is charged $25 or the cost of the repair (whichever is greater).

If the damage is intentional, then the staff member always pays. This comes up more often than you might expect.

Stuff like lost keyboard keys we didn't track, but pretty much everything else we did. We have about 600 staff devices. There's usually one or two individuals every year who are careless enough or unfortunate enough to have to pay for damage to their district issued system. I recall one teacher whose children kept damaging her work laptop. That year she bought 3 chargers (cord cut) and a laptop (it had to have been thrown or dropped over 10 feet). She was told she couldn't take her laptop home anymore.

Simply put, the district does not have the funding to replace laptops that staff members damage.

> If the damage is intentional, then the staff member always pays. This comes up more often than you might expect.

I’m guess the children example you mentioned might be one example of this?

That does happen and it is considered intentional, but, no I meant the staff themselves damaging them. Drawing on them (the screen in particular, which often doesn't come off cleanly), popping the keys off and on until they break, flexing parts of the case (hinge covers) until it breaks, getting angry and hitting the computer and breaking something. Anything you would expect a kid to do we've seen teachers admit to doing themselves.

Kids do that stuff too, but they also do stuff like break headphones off in the jack, punch a hole in the screen with a pen, gouge the screen with scissors or a hobby knife, smash them on the ground, stand on them, sit on them, etc.

Remarkable! Thanks for sharing.

AFAIK it's normal for companies to have warranties for expensive computer equipment. The small tech startups I'm familiar with just buy consumer AppleCare or the equivalent, while the bigger companies I'm familiar with have big enterprise warranty plans.

> My co-worker ended up shelling out ~$1000 out of pocket as they needed to get work done and they had very real feelings of guilt.

Ouch! Really? What kind of company wouldn't pay for this repair? And isn't this some sort of legal issue? The laptop doesn't belong to your co-worker so they can't really authorize repair of it. Just a weird situation, that.

I think this may have been lost in my post: the Genius at the Apple Store was clear and insistent when they diagnosed the issue with the laptop that the customer was at fault. It is my suspicion that Apple is trying to push blame onto the customer and I think that is unfair at least in some situations.

It reminds me of the extended warranty on phones; you get one because in the course of regular use you might drop the phone. In this case Apple has made these machines deliberately brittle and now you really need to get that extended warranty because in the course of regular use you might sneeze on the keyboard or drop crumbs of something onto it.

They also need to get work done ASAP and while we have spare Dell laptops on-hand, we don't have any spare MacBooks. I expect them to be reimbursed eventually, there is an insurance policy that covers lost or damaged laptops.

You can get one of these for really cheap... I use them to type in other languages

https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32774074005.html

And if you care about mushiness the TPU ones are great compared to the silicone ones. example [1].

Yeah, I don't understand this whole, "my expensive computer isn't bulletproof sentiment". One of the things I was stoked about and ultimately a major factor that won me over when I bought my personal MacBook Pro back in late 2013 was that you could buy a matte screen protector and keyboard cover that fit like a glove. I had a friend with a 2009 MBP that was in amazing condition despite being his only machine when he was in high school, living by the couch and frequently being the entertainment source while eating. He had promptly put it in a case and put a keyboard cover on after receiving it.

I agree with sentiment that some laptops are going to get eaten over, but I don't think it's the manufacturer's job to make sure that it can tolerate that. Some people are never going to eat over their laptop. Like I don't bring food near my. I can tell you from experience that if I want full power on my MBP I need to take it out of its plastic case and definitely take off the keyboard cover. And I do do this when the task at hand warrants it, but most of the time I keep the cover on, and I appreciate the flexibility.

[1] I recently replaced my old one and bought this; I'd recommend it. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQFFSAG

Thanks for the tip, bought it.

I’m in no way defending Apple’s keyboards and there are some real issues with tiny bits of dust completely ruining a keyboard, but normal laptops have always been susceptible to even a little liquid damage.

But if your coworker couldn’t just go to his manager, tell them what happened and the company paid for it, that says more about the company.

I know somebody who spilled a whole slurpee into a cheap desktop keyboard once and had it continue working fine. I would pay extra. To have a laptop like that for sure.

A desktop keyboard is a completely different story than a laptop. It can be much thicker and therefore more mechanical than a laptop keyboard.

I don’t need my laptop to be slurpee-proof, and given the trade offs of laptop design I hope it isn’t. I’d think this would add significant heft to the device to be able to guarantee such performance.

Fair enough, but I'd just say that I don't mind an extra half inch if the device weighed the same. IMHO, 10 year old 13 inch laptops were plenty small, but I do appreciate the lower weights

Sure, I wouldn't mind a tiny bit thicker to get the old MBA/MBP style keyboard back. I also loved the "Blackbook" keyboard, and the 12" Aluminum PowerBook. Those were the days!

I wouldn't mind a bump in weight just because of how stupid the compromises have become. Maybe not back to 6 pound laptops but still.

Desktop keyboards have wider tolerances to work with even if they're cheap. Lenovo has managed to figure out how to make a spill-proof laptop keyboard though.

At least for myself, I fully expected Apple to fix the laptop. I had read about these keyboards and their issues, I was really surprised when Genius refused to take it in for warranty repair.

I suspect that if we had purchased the extended warranty, there's a good chance it would have been covered. Reading through the text of on their website it seems like this kind of thing might even be somewhat expected (like people understand that phones will be dropped).

"Coverage for up to two incidents of accidental damage, each subject to a service fee of $99 for screen damage or external enclosure damage, or $299 for other damage, plus applicable tax."

https://www.apple.com/support/products/mac.html

Coverage for accidental damage is not available from Apple for Mac products. You would need third party coverage

Check out the link above from Apple's website, the quote is from their extended warranty page.

AppleCare Plus definitely would have covered this incident, no question.

Spilling liquid on the keyboard resulting in not being able to power on the machine is different than the sensitive keyboard issues due to debris.

I wouldn't expect Dell to give me a free repair on my XPS if I had "only accidentally spilled a little bit of water in it."

If the problem was really just eating a snack near the laptop resulting in some keys not working right due to crumbs then Apple most likely would have covered that.

> normal laptop have always been susceptible to even a little liquid damage

Check out Thinkpads

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/landingpage/small-business/reso...

I came here to say this as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U5n2WaMMHo

I was a real dumbass myself one day and spilled a glass of water on my Lenovo in a cafe. I took it apart just in case to dry out, but I'm not sure I even needed to. I put it together and it was just fine.

I have an Apple laptop for work and I work in cafes a lot. I assumed that Apple of all companies would consider this lifestyle issue, but now I'll be extra careful. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that times have changed for Apple.

Annecdata. I had someone accidentally knock a glass of water over a working T440s and it died.

They're water resistant not water proof. If you pour water right down the CPU vents you're gonna have a bad time.

OP suggested otherwise...

I deliberately poured water onto my thinkpad T430 a total of 3 times in 6 years. All three times, I did it while the laptop was running.

The second time I did it, the laptop turned off as I was pouring the water. The drains are only so big; water can only move so fast through them. I had poured the water so fast that it overflowed the drains and the keyboard, and run into the motherboard.

I pulled the battery, keyboard, and access panels, and let the laptop dry overnight. I turned it on the following morning, and it worked without any problems.

So yeah, spill-resistant laptops have their limits. Dumping a quart / liter of water on them all at once is beyond their limits. And you may get unlucky with spilling onto the laptop in just such a way that it gets into something. In general, however, they seem to be very effective at preventing damage from liquid spills.

Exactly. Here is Louis Rossmann dumping a pint of water on his Lenovo https://youtu.be/ig3xI8dUdm0?t=1702

A nice exception to that rule were (are?) the HP G series. Similar in class to latitude. A staple of corporate class laptops. Their keyboards are spill proof and have internal drainage channels for coffee not to puddle or get into the internals. I've seen it work a couple times, after a cleanup those Laptops were back at their (messy) user's desks.

HP (ProBook/Elitebook/Z Book), Lenovo (Thinkpad), Dell (Latitude and even a few Inspirons) - the classic trifecta of business devices has had spill-resistant keyboards since...dunno, basically forever.

And yes, it's my experience as well - they have prevented quite a lot of workplace drama. :)

I had that happen to my 2012 MBP.

Ordered replacement top case with keyboard assembly off ebay.

Took a very long day to take it all apart, transfer to new top, and reassemble.

Worked first time.

A few months later random keys would glitch.

I use it like a desktop when I need to now.

Honestly any Laptop you pay 1200+ on should "survive"(1) you _splashing_ Coffee on it, not just a view drops of liquid. It's totally technical doable in a number of ways and the only thing in its way is because you are fanatic about getting your laptop another mm thinner and/or profit margins.

(1): Survive in the sense that it's in general fine and you at most have to replace some easy to replace not super expensive part. I for example splashed ~1/2L of Orange juice on my Laptop, and it was fine except for the keyboard (due to it being orange juice, water probably would have been fine). Removing the keyboard so that I can continue working with an external one took ~10min for an inexperienced person. And the replacement Keyboard had a price of ~80 Euro with Backlight 40 without, also easy to put back in.

Several years ago, I had a Sony Vaio VGN-FS115M and it was in the waterproof laptop sleeve in my bag. I literally poured a whole hot latte with sugar in the sleeve and the laptop was swimming in coffee. I took it out, removed the battery, disassembled it, took away all visible stains carefully with a good quality paper towel and let it dry. A year later the only thing not working was the lan port and I blame the sugar for that... If the same thing happened today my laptop would be long dead before I could disconnect the battery...

I am sorry for what happened. But I just can't understand people who drink and eat at the same table with electronics. It is hard to happen, but eventually it will and will damage everything, so why doing that, this upsets me when I see people taking risks for nothing. Foods and drinks shouldn't stay outside kitchen.

Your kids are different from my kids then.

So what? You've never carried your laptop to a café and bough some coffee and a donut?

It's 2019, I'm not saying laptops should withstand me dropping an entire can of soda on top of the keyboard, but I should be able to eat near it or maybe even above it without any serious repercussions.

"this upsets me when I see people taking risks for nothing" this happens all the time, for every task. Life is practically a game of balancing risk and reward. Different people balance risk in different ways. Perhaps they accept the risk, but find that the productivity boost or convenience of eating at their desk is worth the small risk of paying for the price of a new laptop/keyboard. Or perhaps they have mistunderstood the risk, having never (yet) suffered through the process of replacing it.

By Bay Area standards, you work for a super shitty company.

I don't think anyone was prepared for this to be something that wasn't covered under warranty or, if it wasn't covered, so expensive.

Where I work there is an insurance policy to cover laptop damage, they are currently in talks with the insurance company to get the damage covered. I think that in the end my co-worker will be refunded the money. I don't think they will be left with the bill.

I think it's terrible for any company to cause an employee to reasonably think they need to pay out of pocket for the company's equipment. "Bay Area standards" have little to do with it. My first part-time job was doing tech support for a small town public school district that had very little money and was far from a flashy Bay Area tech company, but they had a supply contract with HP that covered equipment failure and damage.

Not only are Thinkpad keyboards the most comfortable and satisfying on the market, you can literally pour water on them and it will drain out the bottom of the laptop without ever touching internal components.

After using my Thinkpad for about six months, I can't go back. The keyboard is amazing, build quality is rock solid, screen is 4k with 100% RGB, and you can actually upgrade the thing.

I buy a laptop because I need a mobile keyboard experience. Why on earth would I buy a laptop with a keyboard that feels awful and can't handle normal use?

Honestly, if I absolute had to have OSX, I would just buy a Mac Mini and deal with the stationary aspect of it. Macbooks are just that bad. If I desperately needed portable Mac, I would probably even be willing to deal with iOS on the iPad pro over a Macbook.

I want to like Thinkpads for their hardware quality, but I cannot get over Lenovo stuffing malware into their systems, even after they got caught. How can I be put at ease?

That was IdeaPad, nothing to do with ThinkPad.

Good to know, thanks! Do both lines have completely different engineering and management leadership? That might put me at some ease.

The Ideapads are built like the cheap piece of crap x86 Windows laptops you can buy from anyone. They are fine for grandma checking her email but they are not meant to be on the move or do anything hard. I'm assuming the engineering teams are totally different. Thinkpads aren't cheap and the build quality generally shows that.

Thinkpad quality is nowhere near what it was when IBM was building them however :(

I think the perceived quality of older TPs is higher, but the objective quality is not so.

They do. Thinkpads are made out of magnesium and are super durable. Build quality is pretty great. Should be more reliable than a mac.

Mac build quality really isn't all that great. Lots of glue and plastic hinges. Motherboard design is also atrocious. Check out Louis rossman on YouTube. I remember seeing a video where the webcam died because a thermal sensor stopped working and for some reason the webcam was wired into the same bus.

They also solder in ram and ssds now. They removed the data recovery port so if your ssd kicks the bucket there's no way to recover anything. That's what the T2 chip is for- they market it as some magical coprocessor but it's just an ARM chip that acts as a drive and ram controller so they can use soldered parts on the cheap.

The ThinkPad team is still Tokyo based https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Yamato_Facility the IdePad is from China.

well, you can do what I do and wipe the OS. Though, that's a bit of a time investment.

That's obvious, and certainly the first thing I'd do upon receiving such a device. But given how Lenovo got caught more than once pushing malware (after promising they'd fix it), I worry the problem could be deeply engrained in their product philosophy, and as such, I don't know that I'd even trust their firmware.

But maybe people change, and maybe I'm just being paranoid and depriving myself unnecessarily from hardware that I would like. (FWIW, I have used Thinkpads and greatly liked their keyboards, enough that I do consider them for every hardware refresh).

The harddrive that came with my ThinkPad hasn't seen electricity since it left the factory, I replaced it before I ever turned the laptop on.

The hard drive isn't the only place malware can live (the BIOS would be one example of another place).

Well, you do what you can.

Didn't the firmware add their malware to windows boot files, if detected? Not an issue if you can use another os, but if you need windows for some reason...

The malware was only found on the IdeaPad series (their consumer line). From reporting on it, the management team is separate from their business (Thinkpad) line, and the malware came from the 3rd party software packages that were included to subsidize the production of the low-end lines.

Those 3rd party packages are not a concern for the Thinkpad lines, since the higher business price point supports the lines without the need for subsidizing.

When I bought my thinkpad I booted directly to the Debian installer via USB and wiped the disk. I get great battery life (check the Arch wiki for tips on your specific machine to fix a few issues that may give it bad battery at first install).

The keyboard is wonderful and everything except the fingerprint scanner works great.

I get twenty goddamn hours from my X270 and it's incredible. I never use the fingerprint scanner, so I recommend Thinkpads all the time. Good connectivity too, although I'd appreciate maybe another USB port or two.

Just reinstall the OS

My only complaint with ThinkPads is that they are ugly as hell and I'm not an Apple fanboy. A device should look beautiful, clean and simple that you are looking at all day.

I'm not sure I agree. The newer ThinkPads, especially the thin lines like the P1 and X1 are beautiful devices, solid metal, matte black, very clean. Sure, they sell a few big and fat workstation designs as well, but you are getting an enormous amount of customizability and upgradeability for that. They have an option for every preference.

And even if you think all the models are ugly, a premium laptop is a very expensive purchase. Function follows form for most people when it comes to that kind of spending.

> A device should look beautiful, clean and simple that you are looking at all day.

That's valid. For my part, I literally could not care less how the device looks. I'll take the ugly one that works better any day of the week.

In my eyes, my Thinkpads (an T430 and X40, both deceased :-( ) do look beautiful, clean, and simple.

Thinkpads are IMO one of the few products that look better as they age. The traces of wear (and maybe a few appropriate stickers) give them the character that they are missing when new. There is something "real" and honest about that look - I like it very much.

I have a T460, and after typing on my work laptop (2015 MB Pro, by office policy), it feels heavenly going back to it at the end of the day. That keyboard is lightyears ahead of the Apple chiclet keys. I still fondly miss the actual scissor style keys of yesteryear Thinkpads, but I'll still take any Thinkpad keyboard over an Apple keyboard any time.

Macbooks used to survive that too. My 2009-ish Pro got half a liter of sweet tea to the keyboard. Keypresses sounded crunchy for almost a year, but otherwise it worked fine.

I still have a 2009 MBP (although was running linux for the last 5 years), I only just upgraded to a Dell XPS 13 this year.

Here's the funny thing: the keyboard started to fail after 9 years of use, this is the only thing that pushed me to finally get a PC replacement (new macs are terrible linux machines) - the little rubber domes under the keys just started cracking and breaking apart so some keys feel really squidgy - mind you they still work at least.

So there's a pretty insane statistic for you:

    - 2009 MBP = 9 years of keyboard use (my main computer)
    - 2019 MBP = <1 year before everyone has problems

Edit: RE the water thing, these models have a big sticky piece of plastic under the whole keyboard which seals it to the top case (I considered trying to replace it - although no one makes new ones so it seems kinda pointless, and quite difficult)

Just do what Apple would do and replace the entire top case. They typically run $30-$50 on eBay for older MBPs. That and a SSD upgrade (if you haven’t done that already) and you will have a functional backup computer again.

I added an SSD over half a decade ago, that's why I was absolutely fine with it's performance (at least after moving to linux and a minimal WM, OS X died for me long ago from bloat)... it's only the human interfaces that started to physically fail.

I know you can pick up spare parts for these but the problem is that they are all as old (they are commonly advertised as new on ebay, but they are not), they are used parts, and it is quite a lot of work to get all the guts out of the top case, only to replace it with a slightly less used components.

The best middle ground I could think of is to selectively replace rubber domes as they fail by cutting out the bits of silicone and gluing in new ones... only needs to pop of one key at a time.

I lost my 2009 MBP to a smaller water spill than that on the keyboard, so I don’t think there was any special design reason yours survived. Additionally, I don’t remember any special claims about those models and liquids.

It had a big plastic plane below the keyboard. Not the watertight with a drain hole type of Thinkpads, but still good enough if you're quick with turning the thing upside down.

Note that I believe the water pouring trick does not apply to the Thinkpad Carbon X1. I killed a third gen X1 years ago from a water spill. Luckily Lenovo fixed it for $500.

It really irritates me how much of a form over function bad laptop the X1 is. Yet Lenovo won't sell stuff like their best screens with say their T-series lineup so you have to make compromises either way.

What are the issues? I love my X1. I had one for work a few years ago and finally bought my own recently. It’s perfect for me. Can’t upgrade the ram, but that’s par for the course on ultraportables.

I dislike the keyboard.

I dislike them ditching the spill proofing.

I dislike the general lack of upgradability/repairability.

I would much rather have the t4xxs form factor with better quality components but you have to go x1.

According to the specs [1], the X1 Carbon Gen 3 does have a spill-resistant keyboard, and the current Gen 6 too. Given the compact design, maybe the liquid just couldn't escape from under the laptop in time, so it soaked the motherboard from below?

[1] https://www.lenovo.com/au/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/X1-...

Yeah, it definitely wasn’t the keyboard that was the biggest issue, it was the motherboard. I guess a spill resistant keyboard is great, but if you don’t have a spill resistant motherboard...

Spill resistant keyboard means there are slits inside that channel the water under the laptop without it reaching the motherboard.

I remember knocking over a bottle of water onto my T420 freshman year of college. I knew the drain holes were there but never tested it. It was pretty nerve-wracking for a few minutes wiping up all the water and seeing my laptop still working.

I did the same thing. I need OSX, but hate the current laptop lineup. So I got a Mac Mini, eGPU, and a killer screen. Cheaper than an iMac, crazy performance, and very upgradable (apart from the soldiered SSD). Looking hard at a Thinkpad for my next laptop, even as a strict OSX user since 2004.

I agree it's great hardware. Do you run Linux? Because my problem with Lenovo is Windows. It's hot garbage despite the perception that Windows is decent again.

But what's not great hardware is the touchpad. I always miss the Apple touchpad. It's perfect.

I run Ubuntu on a Thinkpad X1 Carbon. Runs beautifully out of the box, install was very easy, and I haven’t had a single issue with it.

I run Fedora 29 on TP Carbon X1 6th gen. Perfect - no issues for me.

Carbon touchpad is one of the bext non-Mac ones I have tried. is it perfectly up to par with Mac...no, but I havent found any that were.

Can I get my TP keyboard and Mac track/touchpad? That would be nice :)

The keyboards are good (although I'm also totally fine with the Macbook 2015 keyboard). However Lenovo and all others in the windows universe can't provide any touchpad experience that is close to what Apple can offer.

On my last Thinkpad I mostly opted to use an external mouse. On my Macbook I absolutely don't miss it.

As a Mac and iOS user, I often feel that I'm just putting up with their bad hardware to use their operating system nowadays.

I have ruined several keyboards (3 Apple, 1 HP) by accidentally spilling water/coffee on them. What I don't understand is how do these devices get completely destroyed by small amounts of liquid.

I've disassembled these keyboards, cleaned and dried them out to no avail. Is something getting shorted out permanently ? Is some sensor getting ruined ? what exactly is happening and is there nothing that can be done to revive them.

Corrosion is almost always to blame. Corrosion damage can often be repaired with some microsoldering work.

I damaged my company 2017 MBP by dropping it ~24" when I caught the cord on my foot. The Genius Bar wanted me to pre-authorize $800 of charges before they would even look at it. I was a bit appalled that I couldn't pay any kind of diagnostic fee.

A moment of silence for the dearly departed MagSafe.

I think laptops SHOULD be water resistant actually and that it's bullshit to not be able to eat and drink at my computer. So I buy durable computers instead of the MBP. Probably the only think that's truly inadvisable is drinking stuff like sugary drinks and milk at the computer because that crap is really hard to clean. Drink water.

I've always liked Lenovo computers ability to take a spill.

I just came back to a MacBook Pro 2018 after several years of experimenting with Windows machines. Based on this thread I am outlier – I enjoy using the trackpad, touch strip, and the keyboard seems fine.

In the past five years I have used the following; Thinkpad x230, Thinkpad X1 carbon, Thinkpad x370 yoga, Thinkpad X1 Yoga, Surface Pro 3,4,5, Surface Laptop, Surface Book 1,2, and a hackintosh Thinkpad X230. I was a big fan of the ThinkPads because their keyboards tend to have solid travel and they have trackpoint. Having the ability to type and move the cursor without moving your hands off home row is great. The Surface lineup has built in touch and pen capabilities that does come in handy for note taking in meetings. As does the Thinkpad Yoga line. For a year or so, I thought the ThinkPad Yoga line was a good compromise. But, then I started to have problems with random reboots, PWM screen, bluetooth issues, random CPU usage. I chalked that up to part Windows. I bought a refurbished top-spec x230 and hackintoshed that. It was a good middle ground for "user upgradable hardware" + MacOS. I kept that thing for 1.5 years and towards the end I used it as my primary device. That was the start of me creeping back to MacOS. edit: Newer Thinkpad models made battery replacement harder by removing the swappable second battery option. I carried the x230 everywhere with an extra battery that was awesome, but I still didn't get great battery life. I look back and find it funny that I carried up to two batteries around for that thing and probably had less battery life than the new MacBooks.

I prefer to have something that just works. I bought the MacBook 2018 upon release and its been a workhorse with zero issues thus far. Day to day, I work in adtech and dabble in python on the side. I can't say that for any of the machines above. I even hook this up to en eGPU and play Dirt Rally on high settings. I miss the TrackPoint and touch screen of some other models but I am doing just fine. Instead, I use an iPad Pro with pencil. That is a far better tablet for writing than the Surface line due to the superior app ecosystem on iOS (see Paper, procreate, Pixelmator Photo, Affinity design and photo, etc).

I have a 2016 MBP and love the keyboard. I've never had any problems with it. That's not to dismiss people who have experienced quality issues. I don't mind the touch bar, but it's not particularly useful.

I'm adding onto this -- I have a 2017 edition of the MBP for work, and I have a faulty keyboard. I hated it. "The touchbar is stupid", I proclaimed.

I recently bought a 2018 edition for the wife because she has always expressed a desire of owning one of her own (my work always provided me with a mac). The keyboard is much improved.

Additionally, watching a "normal" user interact with a Mac and a touchbar, versus me, a developer was eye opening, and I suddenly realized there is a lot more to the puzzle we are so blind to. She loves it. Sure, it is an "emoji bar" when she is in iMessage, but she also loves the scrolling functionality it provides in Photos.

I still don't see much use for it personally, but I am no longer a rapid opponent of it as I once was. There's always been extra ports and features on other laptops I've used in the past, and I never seemed so critical of those as well. Maybe I bought into the mob mentality? Going back to my wife, her work provided her with a Thinkpad Yoga. It has a touch screen, and a stylus. Ok touch screens I am not the biggest fan of, but I happen to think the stylus is cool! I am sure there were many users of the previous Thinkpads at her company that were going "What!? A stupid stylus? Who needs this!" I realized I was doing the same thing with the new MBP.

Touchbar or not, it is still the most quality, aesthetically pleasing, well built laptop I use, and it still remains miles beyond any PC I ever used as well, Inspirons, XPSes, Surfaces included.

I don't think people would be complaining nearly as much if they simply added the touchbar above the existing keys rather than replacing them. Or left the esc and power keys while putting the touchbar in between them. Lots of things they could have done.

The replacing the existing keys is a good point. I don't feel the pain of the ESC key since I remap caps lock to it, I always thought "Function" keys were relics of a bygone era, (and unergonomic to use), and the little black doodad functions just as well as a power button as any other one I have ever used.

For me, father of a 6yo daughter, the "emoji bar" is worth every penny.

Thinking about it, I've spent almost half of my career on computers that didn't have function keys (even though they usually had ESC as a physical one).

I like my 2018 MBP. I even like the keyboard. The touch bar is kinda "meh," but I think it's more a software issue than hardware: Apple's interface guidelines make no sense to me. Why can't developers use it to give me a little extra display real estate if that's what they AND I (the user!) want? Why must it be treated purely as an input device?

I bought the 2018 MacBook Pro shortly after its release and I'm pleased with my purchase. I don't really like the keyboard, but I spend the vast majority of my time at a desk with an external keyboard and mouse anyway. My laptop is basically a desktop that I lug to and from work everyday. USB-C has been great for me because it means that I can have 1 hub that handles power, my external monitor, network, and all of my other peripherals. I tell people it's like having a docking station that works 100% of the time.

I don't like the keyboard because I find that I accidentally repeat keystrokes on it a lot. Maybe I just need more practice or lighter fingers. I also have to admit that I don't like to eat around it for fear of spilling crumbs on the keyboard. I've always been pretty tidy around my laptops, but I've never been this worried. It's not a deal breaker for me (obviously), but I hope they fix the keyboard's issues in the next version.

I'm in the same boat as you. I wish my company had issued me the model without the touchbar, as I very much would prefer physical function and esc keys but other than that I love the machine and have never had issues.

The one thing I would change is that I seem to have to reach way over to the right side of the trackpad to get a "right-click".

I also have a ~2016 macbook air and the keyboard SUCKS in comparison to the butterfly keyboard.

You should be able to right-click anywhere on the trackpad with a two finger tap.

As a sibling said you can set it to have two-finger taps be right click.

On my older (smaller trackpad) MBP I thought that setting was dumb and I avoided it. On the newer (2018) I was having a hard time reaching all the way to the right, so I finally decided to give two-finger tap another try.

Years ago a developer friend told me that for any workflow change you should give it one week of total commitment, no switching back and forth, then decide if you want to stick with it.

For me that was more than enough time to learn to love the two-finger right click. As with most successful workflow switches, the one week evaluation deadline came and went without me noticing, and I never looked back.

I feel the exact same way and have always recommended Macs to friends, family and cwoorkers as the computere that "just works." I'm been suspicious of people who disagree with that sentiment — to each their own, but I don't think there's much dispuute that Macs just work.

Yet, now, heere I am with a 2018 MacBooko Pro that repeats keys randomly — somoetimes out of theorder they were pushed— andstarting to wonder if I need to change my recommendation. The laptop has been "fixed" twice now and always works just fine for a day or two before reevertinig back to the same old state. I clean the keyboard daily with compressed air, thouugh that's largely become a symbolic gesture that doesn't fix the issue but at least makes me feel like I'm not crazy.

All that said, much like the author of the article, I'm so bought in to the Apple ecosystem at this point that I've resorted to a certain kind of stooicism — thiis is apparently the set of circumstances I have been giiven and I must live with it.

(Note: no, I'm not too lazy to correct typos noor a partiicluarly poor typer — this post is the unedited resulut of typing on my broken keyboard. Just be happy double spaces don't show up by default in DOM elements.)

I finally took my 2018 MBP in and they replaced the upper case (I guess keyboard, touchbar, and more?) to fix the keyboard issue.

The work took about 2 days (drop-off, return). But I ended up buying a keyboard cover for it because the risk of particulate putting me in this situation again - and the consequences of that occurring - are of greater cost than the annoyance of a plastic film over the keyboard.

I recommend you take it in and do the same.

My MBA2012 had some nasty issues with wifi disconnections which happened independant of the router being used. Used a USB wifi or ethernet adapter as a workaround sometimes sacrificing half my USB ports. Trackpad was great and I am blown away that people complain about it since I consider it the market leader. Outlived most of my other laptops even if it had annoying recurring issues for its lifespan.

Still recommended macs to others until Tim Apple took over the company and the laptops became poor quality machines. I thought the initial MBPr was the most incredible laptop I've ever seen.

Naa you’re not alone. I love the new MBP keyboard. My experience to suggests what we have here is a vocal minority. I type faster with the new style keyboard, I enjoy the springiness of the keys and their much larger size than previous iterations. I also like how their backlighting works compared to the old style. If people are having trouble with them, Apple should resolve those issues, but in my opinion the keyboards and new MBPs are excellent machines.

I love the feel, but in my 2016 I did have the spacebar stop working on one side (the side I tend to use more often) because of dirt ingress.

My favorite keyboard ever, though, is the current 'Magic Keyboard'. It's like the perfect medium between the old chicklet-style that felt rather mushy to me and the new butterfly mechanism that's almost too rigid.

Sadly, it seems Apple does not want to go back to that feel in their mobile line :(

The grip I have with the newer Pros is the *@($ Touch Bar. It's sad that the new Air has exactly what I wanted—addition of Touch ID but no Touch Bar—but the so-called Pros still have the Touch Bar. I have yet to find a touch typist who believes the Touch Bar to be a good reason to pay a few hundred extra for it.

Keyboards are a very personal thing. I think the butterfly is usable and pleasing, but that the magic keyboard is a dreadful downgrade from the previous one that was more or less identical to the previous-gen Macbooks (which were very adequate).

My favorite keyboard, beam-spring being a thing of the past, is the Model M (Unicomp still builds them). I love it, even if my family would rather have me not typing after 10 PM.

I absolutely love my touchbar, and would hate to see it go. I know per context where each key I need is.

We should all advocate for continuous improvements for machines we rely day to day. What I learned is that no one else is making a better laptop than Apple. I tried a lot of machines and spent way too much money and time trying to make them worthwhile. The Surface line is riddled with issues. I defended it in the past (see old comments from me), because I felt Apple was not innovating. But, hindsight I would rather have a reliable machine. Wifi would break all the time on Surfaces, battery would drain on its own while in my bag, the pen would lag, etc. I don't think anyone would be happy if Apple release a similar product. I gave the Surface team several tries through their iterations and they never fixed the main issues.

Someone else said it, the new Apple wireless keyboards are great. I have one at work and at home.

Same here as well. I've had stuff get caught in my (mid-2017) keyboard a few times, but never anything that didn't clear on its own after a few keypresses and I've never had issues with repeated or missed keypresses.

(That said, I have to agree with one of the other child commenters here-- the current Magic Keyboard is actually my favorite of Apple's recent keyboards. Similar feel to the tbMBP keyboards (more crisp and clicky than the older keyboards from the pre-touchbar rMBPs), with a bit more travel and a more robust mechanism, and the numpad version has a nice, big T-layout for the arrow keys rather than whatever the heck is going on with the arrow keys on the tbMBP.)

Also totally happy with my 2016 MBP, keyboard and all.

The T series still has the removable batteries, and the newer model years (T460 and up) have weights equivalent to the older X240 and below.

My T460 is within 0.5lbs (~0.25kg) of my work-issued 2015 MBP 13in, and from my quick searches, that seems to be generally consistent up to the modern T490 & 2018 MBP 13s.

I don't have a modern Thinkpad or MBP to compare, but my T460 still gets ~4-5hrs of normal usage, or 2-3hrs of heavy usage (strategy gaming like FTL or Rimworld, running VMs and python dev work, etc). My 2015 MBP 13 gets fairly similar times.

I very much like my MBP keyboard and touchbar as well. And I know plenty of people that share the sentiment.

I do share your sentiment. I live in a country with lots of "dust". I had concerns after reading people reviews but went ahead and bought the latest 2018 version.

Two things:

1- I really enjoy the new Macbook Pro keyboard. Way more than the 2014 one.

2- It is really dusty and I need to clean every week. Partly, because I work on cafes a lot.

So far (6 months), it has been going strong. No issues (the trackpad can be annoying at times, but that's it).

It’s not just the keyboard, either. I’ve been buying Macs since they switched to Intel in 2006 and the most recent MacBook Pros are the most problematic I’ve ever had.

- Bluetooth seems to be fundamentally flawed at a hardware level. AirPods, Plantronics, doesn’t matter. It just randomly connects and disconnects as it pleases.

- USB-C dongles are a minefield of poor functionality

However, I’ve run Linux off and on since 2007 and Windows for 20+ years and I still wouldn’t give up macOS as my daily driver. Even with the issues above it still has an excellent display, I like the keyboard (waiting to start having issues), and the battery life is the best I’ve ever had.

I’m glad to hear desktop Linux works for some people, but I just don’t have time to a.) tune and configure it to work and have decent battery life with whatever hardware I choose or b.) troubleshoot it when it randomly decides to break itself on update.

>Even with the issues above it still has an excellent display, I like the keyboard (waiting to start having issues), and the battery life is the best I’ve ever had.

I don't understand this.

I understand not liking Linux Desktop(I hate it, but LOVE LOVE LOVE Ubuntu Server, fav OS of all time)

And... the screen is what has you sold on Apple OS?

I'm flustered at this logic. Pretty screen-> Good operating system

I only imagine you use your laptop as a facebook machine. Would a cellphone do?

I send easily 8-10 hours per day looking at my screen. Screen quality has a large effect on how tied my eyes are at the end of the day. When I was younger it wasn't as noticeable but I'm not young anymore and my eyes are noticeable happier with the MacBook Pro screen that any other screen I've tried.

For me it's an issue of eye health.

There are plenty of non-Apple hidpi laptops.

How is win or linux support for those these days?

Pretty poor. At fractional scaling on Windows, expect that even preinstalled applications (Computer Management, for instance) will be very fuzzy. GNOME works fairly nicely, but as usual expect glitches and strange scaling problems with non-GTK applications, multiple monitors, etc.

I continue to prefer a screen where it has a high pixel density but is plenty usable without any scaling.

Dunno about Windows, but on GNU/Linux (Plasma user here) it's pretty solid these days. It's problematic on X11 only when you have multiple screens with different DPIs, but I connect external screens only for movies or slides, so that's a non-issue for me - plus if you're fine with Wayland (I'm not yet, but it's close) it's pretty much solved there.

Just like there is more to cameras than megapixels, there is more to a display than resolution. Simply saying “hidpi” does not necessarily solve the problem.

It is good experience to be able to buy Apple device and be sure that everything there is pretty good. Choosing among thousands of alternatives is pretty frustrating. What brand should I choose? HP, Dell, Lenovo, IBM, Acer, Asus, whatever? I need good display, fast CPU, good battery life, enough RAM. Pretty vague requirements. You are buying Macbook and it's just good, you don't have any regrets, because its CPU is one of the fastest, RAM is enough for most tasks, build is good, devices are just working with all drivers included, etc. I think that people love Apple because of that. They put their trust to this brand, they are paying astronomical margins and they expect to receive the best in return. It's hard to earn that trust.

>buy Apple device and be sure that everything there is pretty good.

The alternative is that you spend 30 minutes of research and get a superior product cheaper.

This isnt an opinion, this is reality.

You can find a computer with better specs than Apple, cheaper. I'm not sympathetic to the 'mom' who doesn't know what RAM is, they get penalized by Apple for being an uninformed consumer.

Is there any reason for a 'Nerd' to pick Apple?

> Is there any reason for a 'Nerd' to pick Apple?

You are making a typical nerd assumption, which is to equate "better product" with "better specs".

The rest is just marketing.

Apple is very good at Marketing.

EDIT: Will someone explain what this theoretical 'non spec' thing that matters is? The Apple logo?

It’s almost as if an Apple troll script broke free from alpha testing long before it was ready.

“But the replies are just canned crap you found on online forums from five years ago.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll fix it before it is public-facing.”

Oops, guess not.

> Will someone explain what this theoretical 'non spec' thing that matters is?

That's hard to do, since you're being vague about the meaning of "specs".

How about this: you find an example of a non-Apple laptop that you think has "the same specs" or better as a 15-inch MBP, and I'll point out how it's different.

> EDIT: Will someone explain what this theoretical 'non spec' thing that matters is? The Apple logo?

Mostly the OS. I don't cringe before plugging into an unfamiliar external display. The touchpad isn't so bad it makes me feel like I have to carry a mouse if I plan to use the device for any length of time. The built-in "office" suite of apps are my favorite I've used, anywhere. Preview is indispensable for working with PDFs—I've never even known PDFs to be more than barely tolerable to work with outside Apple's world. It's Unixy, so many of my preferred tools work natively on it. It has lots of built-in stuff that's less convenient or works less well on Linux (modifier key remapping, screen sharing, and more).

I've been around the block with Linux on the desktop. Around and around and around, in fact. I could tolerate Windows—not as a work OS, but for gaming, anyway—all the way from 3.1 to 8, but 10's aggressively unpleasant. Now MacOS is the only desktop OS that doesn't drive me to swear at it multiple times a day while using it. That's worth some money, when I have to use some OS just about 365 days a year.

Touchbar's beyond dumb and into "harms UX" territory, though. The keyboard two generations ago—on the fatter Macbooks that still had disc drives—is noticeably better than either since, and the butterfly keyboards are awful. Unfortunately every other option is so much worse that they can afford to screw up badly for years on end and I still can't bring myself to switch.

My answer would be pretty much the same. Although I prefer the fit and finish of Apple hardware, I could live with the hardware of a high-end laptop from another manufacturer. But I'm absolutely unwilling to give up MacOS in exchange for Windows or Linux (and I say that as someone who used Ubuntu for many years on the desktop).

> The alternative is that you spend 30 minutes of research and get a superior product cheaper.

Then it breaks and you have to send it back for warranty and wait months until they repair it. Plastic breaks, etc. It's not that simple.

“Specs” are a very minor piece of what most people, including nerds, care about in a laptop.

“Why would anyone ever buy a BMW, when you can get a Dodge Challenger with more horsepower for cheaper?”

Marketing?

EDIT: Specs are everything. Not just HP. Specs are how many USB ports the vehicle has. The colors of buttons. The comfort.

Also, I wasnt sure if you thought a BMW was actually better. They are lower rated, but BMW has a huge marketing presence in the US.

If you really think marketing is the only reason someone could prefer a more expensive but lower horsepower car, then this conversation is a waste of time.

In response to your edit: if you define "specs" broadly enough to include the comfort and the color of buttons, then sure, "specs are all that matters", tautologically.

On the other hand, with this broad of a definition, no, there is no other computer on the market with the same "specs" as a Macbook Pro.

Native iOS development (for almost a decade now, jesus), and I've yet to find a touchpad that feels as good (tell me another to go try and I promise I will, although I'm sure it'll be tough to overcome my own muscle memory/bias).

As for the touchpad, those of us with ThinkPads just use the TrackPoint, which is (IMO) better than any touchpad. Off-brand TrackPoint-esque pointing sticks (on Dells or HPs) are usually absolute junk and go to maximum speed no matter how lightly you push it.

The touchpad has the advantage of being immediately intuitive, but after a little work on an old ThinkPad (an X220 from eBay is about $130 shipped) you’ll probably be able to appreciate both sides. I like how I don’t have to leave home row to do a little clicking around.

If you end up getting a machine of that era, maybe try this guide for my favorite OS, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18370327

> As for the touchpad, those of us with ThinkPads just use the TrackPoint

Our standard-issue work laptop is a thinkpad, and I find the trackpoint super annoying. It's good for quickly adjusting the cursor while typing (which you can do just fine using the keyboard), but awful for moving long distances or scrolling (lack of inertial scrolling).

Have you tried the MacBook Touchpad? All my windows and linux machines have been Thinkpads and while I prefer to use the trackpoint on them, the touchpad on a MacBook wins easily in my experience.

In my experience: it’s ”unix” on a laptop that just works.

Easy access to up-to-date tooling through brew: zsh, docker, bash, vim et al.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a Linux only user since the 90’s and for many years used the dell xps developer edition.

But, the mac touchpad (I know, I’m doing it wrong) and screen coupled with superior battery time as well as solid sleep/wakeup makes for a great experience.

The new air, without the ridiculous touchbar and updated keyboard is actually pretty great.

One nerds ¢2.

What is "unixy" about brew or docker?

Well, it’s a different paragraph and sentence isn’t it? :)

Whether the tools are “unixy” is of course an interesting discussion. :p

I guess my line of thought was: kind of “unix” -> kind of “posix” -> kind of compatible with a lot of your familiar tooling.

All this equals pretty good platform for many nerds.

I could have made myself more clear.

I don't know much about brew (or MacOS at all) but docker is native linux technology. Docker for Mac runs linux in a VM in the background. The MacOS docker experience is similar to running anything in a VM: slower, memory limits, poor IOPS.

True, but the overhead is not that bad due to HW virtualization support.

Macos can use the xhyve hypervisor (bhyve port) which again points to “unixy” roots — it runs freebsd for example.

Through the years I spent quite some time hacking about to get bsd running on other hypervisors, and for the longest of time it was just a hassle with abysmal performance (vmware esx, xen/xenserver).

Docker on osx is by the way completely seamless from a UX perspective.

As a mobile/laptop dev experience I still think the new air is great. ;)

macOS is a BSD system. I think that was the point

I wish...

macOS is its own thing, where some functionality is provided by some very old versions of BSD tools. But using it feels pretty different from using a modern BSD variant.

Yes Linux does indeed just work on new Dell laptops now. I can personally testify that wasn't always the case. In years gone by it was a world of pain for the 1st 6 months while open source developed drivers for hardware they hadn't seen until the laptop was released.

That all changed when Dell started selling versions of their laptops with Linux pre-installed. And it didn't change a little bit either, in many cases it was a complete reversal. Drivers got released on Linux _before_ Windows - in particular Intel video drivers were repeatedly released on Linux before Windows in my case.

I presume that's developers are moving to Linux now. That was driven home to me just now when reading the Bling Fire post here, learning Bling Fire is an internal library used by MS's Bing search engine - then noticing all the instructions had a very nix'y feel, and the benchmark environment was Ubuntu.

The apple hardware: crap keyboard, any slight usage leads to blaring fans and immediate thermal throttling. Options mean end users could actually pick something that fits their needs and not have to live with what Apple thinks YOU need. There have been times when choices haven't been good on the non apple side but in recent years the apple's few top down dictated choices on the hardware side have led to clearly inferior products.

My non-negotiable requirements for a laptop are as follows. If there were a non-Apple model that fit these criteria, I would consider switching. Do you know of any?

(1) Unibody metal construction

(2) Extremely high-quality and high-resolution screen

(3) All-SSD storage

(4) High-quality trackpad with multi-touch gesture support (all gestures must work perfectly 100% of the time, and the acceleration/deceleration should feel physically natural)

(5) Unix-like operating system pre-installed out of the box (no having to set it up myself) and fully supported. (Doesn’t have to be macOS. Ubuntu or FreeBSD would be fine).

That kind of looks like throwing a darf, and then painting the bullseye after.

In any case, the Huawei Matebook pro x would seem to fit all but the default unix OS requirement.

I dont think any PC comes with any unix os by default, other than apple, but given the ease of setup I'm not inclined to view that requirement as anything other than a way to select what you wanted a first

I guess your definition of "ease of setup" is not the same as mine.

If I could be guaranteed that everything work perfectly out of the box with no weird driver issues when I burn and install an Ubuntu .ISO, I agree that the OS being default is not a necessity.

But I've only heard of this being the case on a small whitelist of "known to work well with Linux" devices, like Thinkpads, etc., which don't fulfill the other conditions.

Again, I'm not just arguing ideology, here: I'd be genuinely happy for you to show me a non-Apple laptop that meets my criteria, if one exists.

> any slight usage leads to blaring fans and immediate thermal throttling

This has been my experience with Windows machines, interestingly. On the other hand, if my Mac makes fan noise I know exactly what caused it and it's going to be a compile job I kicked off, not some random driver spinning out of control in the background…

Lots of reasons. I’m pretty comfortable with my nerd cred (was programming graphics algorithms in C in high school) but buying a windows laptop was a Byzantine experience for me. I need a good screen, good battery life, and good keyboard/touchpad. There are Windows laptops that have one or more, but it’s hard to find one that has all four, and even if you do, there is no guarantee that the same model will have the same qualities on the next iteration.

Because they are so cost sensitive, Windows laptop makers build SKUs based on the hardware that’s available and cheap. So maybe you get a great display, but there was a good deal on crappy touchpads. Or you get a lottery where the same laptop can come with screens of widely varying quality (Toms hardware just did a piece about this with respect to Lenovo).

My Windows laptop purchase recently went like this. I was looking for a replacement for my 2012 MacBook Pro Retina 15”. Dell was out because of coil whine (which has been a problem with Dell machines since I owned an XPS 15 17 years ago). I stare at text all day so a high-DPI display is clutch. But almost every PC vendor make you choose between 4K and 5 hours of battery life, or HD and 10 hours. No well balanced 3K display with 8-10 hours like Apple has. (Again, this is because they’re stuck with what the hardware manufacturers are offering, they don’t have the clout and margins to demand custom panels.) Same thing with Lenovo’s 15” laptop options (they do have a 3K 15” display but it’s quite dim). HP didn’t have Precision touchpads. The Surface machines I’ve owned have been a Q&A disaster (it took them how long to get connected standby working?) And the 15” Surface Book is too much fiddily convertible tablet shit I’d never use. I ended up with an X1 Carbon, which was a bit of a compromise because I wanted a 15” screen. But it ticked the boxes of good screen (WQHD), good battery life, etc. It took a lot more than 30 minutes, and in the end I didn’t get exactly what I was looking for.

Even then it wasn’t sunshine and rainbows. Lenovo has awful quality control. I had to reinstall the Os to get rid of Lenovo crap-ware (and gained 2 hours of battery life in the process). I got a few dead pixels within 6 months. They replaced the screen, but now the bezel is peeling (it is just a fucking sticker, on a laptop that’s $1,500 even heavily discounted). The fibocom WWAN module has never worked properly (like requires a reboot every day after getting disconnected). So the one paper advantage over an apple machine is a dud. (And again, it’s because Lenovo sources parts from whatever is on sale that day—the Sierra modules that come on other iterations of the X1C are great.)

> spend 30 minutes of research and get a superior product cheaper.

I'll humor you.

dell.com * Choose between home or work → I'll go with work since it's for development * Choose between Latitude, Vostro, Inspiron, Precision, XPS, G Series, Chromebook, and Deals → I'll go with Precision as I'm a professional creator (whatever that means). * Choose between 3000 Series, 5000, or 7000 → I'll take 5000 for the performance * Choose 5520, 5530, or 2-in-1 5530 → umm I'll guess at 5530 because it's a little cheaper * Now it lists 4 actual models I could buy

The comparable mac is 11% more, but if you buy an Office license for Windows and can use Pages/Numbers on a Mac then the price is the same.

The real difference in my opinion is that Apple does a good job of directing you to the right machine, and you know that your purchase will be good. Whereas Dell and others offer a myriad of confusing options (e.g. Inspiron vs Vostro?) and some of those options will be complete crap.

I'm sure I could repeat the process and get a better deal elsewhere but it will certainly take me more than 30 minutes to find it. So, yeh, for price sensitive consumers you can optimize for price. Not all of us 'nerds' prioritize for price however. I work in an office with Dells, Thinkpads, Asus, etc. Some of those machines are complete duds, as well we are starting to cycle out 2 year old laptops because their specs when purchased were crap, while my 2015 mac still outperforms those.

There are several Apple laptops buying once is still a decision to make based on cost. And it might not work out like mine where the space keeps on decreasing and on restart it comes back. If not for ios programming i would have preferred a windows/linux laptop.

How about wifi? I am experiencing random wifi disconnects ever since the mid-2014 MBP all throughout the current-gen 12” MB. It’s so infuriating that I had to disable wifi and Bluetooth altogether and switch to a dongle with an Ethernet connector. I changed routers and even my home (!!) to see if the issue persists (it does). And I’m not alone, forums have similar cases dating years prior to me.

> tune and configure it to work

You really don't have to do that. For example: I put Ubuntu Mate on a 2009 Macbook that could not run MacOs anymore (too slow). I had to install a wifi driver, and that was it. Everything else worked out of the box.

My current Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop is running the same OS, and needed 0 drivers installed.

I put Antergos on an Intel Nuc (that I later switched to Ubuntu Server). Again, no configuration, and no issues with drivers.

I will mention that Mate has some font scaling problems if you're running two monitors with different resolutions (spoiler: you can't), but I know that other distro's handle that just fine.

Another legacy hardware user here. I have a HP laptop from early 2008 that pretty much can't run anything. I no longer have Linux on my daily driver, and I'll need to occasionally break out that laptop for dev purposes. Ubuntu has been a godsend for that laptop.

Unfun fact: although the Wi-Fi spec is backwards compatible, a lot of places only serve 802.11n and forward making legacy hardware impossible to use on their network.

If you don’t have to tune Linux to get it to work, then why does every single complaint about Linux’s battery life in laptops get met with “install TLP?”

Of course Windows is shit in this respect too these days. I got two extra hours of battery life from my X1 Carbon by wiping the disk and installing Windows LTSB. But even then I still have to police things, watching for driver updates or software installs that randomly leave some service running that keeps the CPU from sleeping. It’s like nobody tests these things.

The only thing I have had to configure on the last two laptops I've installed is, weirdly, to go to sleep when I close the lid.

The battery life on the X1 Carbon is about one and a half to two hours, which i think is acceptable given that the battery is reporting less than half of its original capacity.

If the battery is reporting less than half, wouldn't that also be something that really needs to be configured?

It's old, I got it used, and I haven't replaced the battery yet.

So just 4 hours with a new battery? For light usage, the minimum is 8 hours. (Even my first-gen Macbook got that much, 12-13 years ago.)

This guy has a Windows 7 sticker, so I believe it is a 2012-2103 gen 1. 4-5 hours seems to be reasonable.

I just installed OpenBSD to my ThinkPad X200. 5 hours of battery life, everything worked out of the box, and closing the lid suspends the machine, opening it up brings it awake. Every time.

I tend to go with older laptops, but they are definitely fast enough and I like how robust the experience is.

> If you don’t have to tune Linux to get it to work, then why does every single complaint about Linux’s battery life in laptops get met with “install TLP?”

That's evidence that there exists something that Linux users recommend to people who complain about having battery problems on Linux, not evidence of widespread problems with Linux that require expertise to get the operating system to "work" at all.

> It’s like nobody tests these things.

What's really happening is perverse incentive structures. Ideally all energy use of every app would be accounted for and, somehow, relayed back to the original "responsible agent" (e.g. a signed app being responsible for all its subprocesses). This then needs to be tied to some valuation.. in an app store, you could say e.g. lower commission based on energy efficiency, or just a higher ranking score.

Currently, resource usage suffers from the tragedy of the commons, and it will remain that way until we fix the incentives.

OSX is starting on that road, as you can see with the Energy tab in activity monitor. I wonder if they will take further steps with it, but it's a good start. (You'd then want e.g. browsers to allow push the accounting down to invidual sites; now we're suddenly attacking death-by-JS as well.)

One day! But until that day, you are right: nobody tests those things. Why would they? Honestly, if you're creating drivers for something, worrying about energy use is... is so inconsequential it's borderline altruistic. Who will ever, really notice? It's basically charity work. That needs to change.

Apple has public and private metrics for battery life that at least incentivize the internal teams.

There are also orders of magnitude difference between a sleeping device and an idle device, and an idle device to a fully loaded device. We are talking three weeks to 20 hours to 35 minutes. And that gap will only continue to get larger

I tried putting Linux on my 2015 Macbook Pro and found that sleep was totally broken with no workaround, which is a dealbreaker on a laptop. It was a known bug for a year before a patch hit the kernel to fix it, and that kernel didn't come with a standard Ubuntu install until a year after that.

> You really don't have to do that.

Actually you don't have to do that, which is not the same thing at all.

I find this one of the oddest moves of those who (for reasons mysterious to me) find OS's worthy of advocacy. When you say to them 'with Linux I find X', their response is "no you don't". Where is the conversation supposed to go from there?

I install a couple of distros on every new laptop I buy, and perhaps once again during its lifetime. I have in reality found it a tremendous pain and time-suck, with each attempt taking a few days reading and fiddling, more than in total I've spent 'administering' desktop OS X or Windows over a couple of decades.

I've persevered out of a combination of nostalgia (I did run Slackware full-time for some years), wistfulness about some gnu/linux goodies (i3 etc), and ethical preferences. But on every occasion I just find it to be more time than it's worth. I have many more important things to do with my precious and limited time on this planet than mess with OS's

[ as an aside, I was prompted after writing the above to try again, and added a Fedora 29 partition to play around with. I'm pleasantly surprised by how much immediately works. Early days as yet ]

> USB-C dongles are a minefield of poor functionality

Since most of my peripherals have a detachable cord, I just bought a couple of USB-C <-> whatever cables and now I'm fully 'native' USB-C. Suddenly the couple of USB-A host devices I have around feel incredibly legacy (an old MacBook, Xbox One).

> Bluetooth seems to be fundamentally flawed / USB-C dongles

I do have a USB-C-to-many-things hub but I never use it now, yet it should be noted that the thing is so badly shielded that it throws WiFi down the curb every single time I used to plug a device or even SD card into it, so it might affect bluetooth too. I have zero issues with the same devices but using USB-C cables.

I have the same thing happening with a Maxtor usb stick. When I plug it into my 2017 MBP (via a usb-c to usb-a dongle), wifi connectivity will drop to what feels like an unreliable 1200 baud connection.

Apparently, it is an issue due to the metal unibody. It took me way longer than I care to admit to figure out the usb stick was causing the problem. :-(

Fun fact: try gently swiping your finger over the unibody while charging, and then without charging. You'll feel something like a vibration in the former case.

I prefer quality plastic.

> but I just don’t have time to a.) tune and configure it to work and have decent battery life with whatever hardware I choose or b.) troubleshoot it when it randomly decides to break itself on update

From my experience, troubleshooting macOS when it randomly decides to break is almost a Windows-like experience - lots of frustration and no sensible help on the internet (unless your problem is so trivial it gets solved by something like NVRAM reset, because this is the best advice you can count on online). I absolutely prefer GNU/Linux where, if something breaks, it's not that hard to get it back to sensible state.

For my workstation, no matter the OS, I’m going to revert what I did.

If that doesn’t fix it, I’m going to format and restore with a backup. I have better things to do.

Of course it depends, but I'd say that formatting and restoring from backup takes way longer than fixing an average system hick-up - provided that you have access to meaningful logs, which is where GNU/Linux works pretty well.

Or you can just use a proper linux distro that allows systemwide rollbacks like nixos.

I just realized, wait, windows has had that feature since at least 2000! Is that not standard on linux distros?

But doesn't malware like to hide in there in Windows? I've had it turned off for years on my Windows machines for that reason.

That sounds like a poor strategy over just running Windows Defender or the like

Or, use Darch with Ubuntu (or whatever you want).

https://godarch.com

From about 7 years of troubleshooting mac problems, it's actually worse than Windows problems. First, you find people discussing the problem where everyone claims it doesn't exist and no solutions are found. Then you find the problem and solution for mac os from 2008, and that solution definitely doesn't work, but might also break things worse. Then you decide, it's best to just make sure your headphones aren't on when you start itunes in 2014, because there is a 10% chance of really loud static instead of music (mysteriously fixed in the next major release)

It really is kind of amusing how forum threads with Mac owners asking for help usually have at least a few people that instead of responding to the question take the opportunity to relate how their Mac has been working perfectly for them and never had that problem. I like my Mac and my Windows and my Linux boxen, I'm not a Mac hater, but I only see this on Mac related forums.

Amusing in a "when did we stop playing on grass" kind of way.

I've never really seen it for Windows forums -- everyone, including Windows fans, seems to admit at least Windows gets broken; so it's more hmm, that shouldn't happen, check this log or that log or do this rather time consuming thing (reinstall clean, etc).

For Linux forums, there is a small contingent of this never happens to me on Linux Yggdrasil, so try that. Except instead of a distro that died 20+ years ago and will not be getting updates, they have some other distro nobody has ever heard of and may not be getting updates.

And don't forget one of the most infuriating aspects of Apple community troubleshooting: The group of people questioning the premise of your problem and saying you shouldn't even want to do what you want to do.

Even worse than answers.microsoft.com. Ok, almost. (Let's not be too harsh here.)

I have gotten the same when posting to many technical communities. Sometimes it's a good thing (I've actually agreed in some cases) and sometimes it's awful.

I agree that it's infuriating when it's something reasonable that you're trying to do, but I've experienced this in many tech forums, and programmers have been some of the worst offenders in this category for me in the past, actually.

It's like half the comments on this very thread.

You see it ITT as well!

Don't forget a radar bug ID which you can't see but any bug you file gets closed as a duplicate of it.

I curse this every time I am troubleshooting a Mac problem and someone replies to a forum thread with "reset the PRAM".

Yeah, I've had persistent trouble with LaunchServices and nothing I've found on the net helps. All the suggestions are wild shots in the dark.

Oddly enough, with enough history knowledge and resources like Microsoft Windows Internals, I find troubleshooting Windows to be a dream compared to MacOS. If something acts funny on Windows, I have a plethora of free and open source tools to instrument internal systems and audit operating system performance. Meanwhile on MacOS, it seems like any program not provided with the operating system is closed source and costs $100 a year, and when something breaks, I don't even know where to start looking. My wifi is not playing nice with my home wireless router? No clue what the issue is, guess it's time for my twice-weekly reboot

Very much there with you. I run MacOS on my MBP for work. I built a workstation at home and run Ubuntu on it. I decided to upgrade to latest Ubuntu drooling over the GNOME perf improvements and I have a system that wont connect to any network and the settings app won't open and would like to send a crash dump to Canonical :-(

I can afford such problems on my personal desktop, google the issues and spend a part of day fixing some poor QA release bugs, but not on a machine that I use and rely on for $ paying work.

This is why both my work and personal machines only run LTS versions.

I rather use rolling releases. This way the breakage is contained to 5-10 minute fixing sessions once in a few months, instead of a huge whole-day upgrading session every new release.

I haven't experienced whole-day upgrading sessions in a long time. YMMV.

Does that mean you don't have such issues when upgrading from LTS to LTS? No snark. Seriously asking. Are LTS versions generally better in this regard?

Canonical says LTS are for polish and non-LTS are new features: https://www.ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle

> Interim releases will introduce new capabilities from Canonical and upstream open source projects, they serve as a proving ground for these new capabilities.

I'm not sure it's the MBP thats the problem with the Bluetooth - My iMac at work has the mouse disconnect randomly at least a couple of times a week.

We've also got it happening to us on our 2015 MBPs in work, at least 3 of us have experienced it. Some more than others.

I use AirPods daily with my 2015 MBP and never have disconnect issues. When I first got the AirPods it was far less reliable but I believe a firmware update a couple months after launch cleared up whatever issues I was having.

I happen to have two 2015 15" MBPs, both with Mojave installed. My personal laptop works flawlessly, no disconnects or issues. My work one has constant disconnects, unrecognized devices, etc. It's frustrating.

It sounds like you're spending as much time on finicky Bluetooth and USB-C as you might spend on battery tuning on Linux.

Also, the trackpads on Mac just work. I recently made a foray back into Windows a few years ago and was disappointed to learn that PC trackpads have made little progress in the intervening decade. Is it really easier to touchscreenify your entire software stack than to build a sane touchpad?

In terms of sensitivity it's good, but the new MBPs also have this enormous trackpad that makes it so I can't use the keyboard without accidentally swiping it all the time and moving the cursor in a way that does something I don't want.

I know I'm in the minority here, since I do so much on the keyboard and don't use the mouse or the fancy trackpad features, but it's really infuriating.

Edit: I must be getting old, because I much prefer the ~2015 MB Airs: no touch bar, yes appropriately sized trackpad and magsafe.

I'm 'old' too: when I finally decided to replace my 2010 15" MBP last summer I opted for a 2015 model. Keyboard durability, battery life and ports were the main considerations, but ease of repair factored in, too. (I mean, 1/10 is better than 0/10, right?)

The work-issued 2017 MBP I was using at the time is bit smaller and lighter but the bigger trackpad and brighter screen were not worth the downsides for a personal machine that I expect to use for at least five years.

I got my company to purchase me a 2015 last year too. Best choice ever. Love the keyboard, have spilled wine on It and it still works and I have all the ports I need!

The bigger trackpad is a huge downer in other ways too. I can't keep the laptop on my tummy while lying on a sofa.

Does anyone know the motivation for making them big and so close to the edge?

Older Apple laptops had palm rejection that basically worked, but the palm rejection on the MacBook Pro trackpad doesn't work properly for many people, and there's still no fix for it.

This is surprising and disappointing, because Apple's iPad (for example) still has excellent palm rejection.

Combining the awful butterfly keyboard with the disaster of a trackpad, it's really one of the least usable laptops Apple has ever produced.

The only thing that has worked for me is to use an external keyboard and trackpad. ;-(

Meanwhile, if you're like me and don't like how the mouse or trackpad respond, you're SOL, because there is zero configuration allowed. Try using a non-magic mouse on a mac. It's hell.

What? I do have a non-magic mouse. What issues do you have?

Pointer speed was atrocious and turning off stupid acceleration was impossible without crazy plist hacking

I paid $20 for USB Overdrive, an excellent third-party driver, so I could continue using my ancient MS Intellimouse when its drivers took a turn for the worse. You can set speed and acceleration separately, and the curves are as good as the MS ones.

Flexgate

> I’m glad to hear desktop Linux works for some people, but I just don’t have time to a.) tune and configure it to work and have decent battery life with whatever hardware I choose

So you are comparing a finely tuned OS for a specific hardware to using linux with whatever hardware you throw at it? Why don't you just pick a specific hardware that works with linux well e.g. thinkpads?

But does it really? I’m using Xubuntu on two different Thinkpads, an old T420 and a pretty recent T580.

On both, I have the same awful problems with waking up the laptop after it went to sleep mode (when closing the lid). It will wake up at first, allow me to enter the password in the screen locker, then screen goes black and that’s it. Have to reboot then, losing all unsaved data. Google search shows, plenty of people out there with the same problem, but the only “solution” seems to be “oh, just disable screen locking”.

So if Thinkpads are the known-good choice for Linux... then I don’t want to know how it behaves on other laptops...

> Why don't you just pick a specific hardware that works with linux well e.g. thinkpads?

You can't, because Lenovo changes out the hardware randomly every year. Look at the long list of Linux problems with the latest X1 Carbon: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X1_Carb...

The whole selling point of Macs - the lack of need to 'tune'. Yet I even had to do this with my 2014 model - otherwise, the laptop would run hot to the touch. It is troubling to see the trend happening.

I've tuned and configured my WindowMaker desktop in 2003, and it didn't change much since then, through many, many upgrades of hardware and software, switch to 64 bits, etc. Oldies are goldies. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

> a.) tune and configure it to work and have decent battery life with whatever hardware I choose

Literally all you have to do is install powertop.

> b.) troubleshoot it when it randomly decides to break itself on update.

I've been running Linux desktop for almost 2 years now and I've never had that happen. Unlike when I used Windows, where a W10 update would be forced into my system and either change functionality or fundamentally break something.

I'm on a 2013 retina and wouldn't swap for the new ones even if somebody paid me to. It has regressed in a bunch of ways and the only thing I would get for that is a slightly faster CPU. Which doesn't really matter. If I had a significant workload, I would not put it on a laptop anyways.

15+ years as an Apple user, this is my biggest pet peeve.

The other two being:

- the touch strip, which I find mostly annoying. I'd prefer physical buttons with the ability to show different labels (a la Optimus keyboard).

- whichever idiot thought putting the power plug at the bottom of the Magic Mouse was a good idea.

The other big one is when they removed the Injection-molded end caps, "cable savers" from their cords.

Dropping the magnetic power cord connector is a major issue for me, but otherwise I wholeheartedly agree.

Magplug charging is magical! Easily the best contribution to computer design from Apple, ever.

And then it gets dropped...

I wonder if the poor hardware has to do with increasingly outsourced R&D. I mean, everyone at Apple is rich, why should they bother with all the hard details ...

I don't have any sources for this, but I always assumed they dropped the magplug because it was too thick and they wanted to use usb-c exclusively.

> too thick

Exactly. And my life improved so much since I reduced the backpack carrying my laptop by 1mm...

Whilst Apple was the first company to bring magnetically coupled power cabling to computers with MagSafe, the idea/design wasn't original; it's been a common design for kitchen appliances in the Japanese market since the year ~2000.

The cool thing with USB-C on the Pros is you can charge from any of the USB-C plugs, on both sides! On my old Mac the magsafe plug always seemed to be on the wrong side no matter where I seemed to be (Murphy's law). I wore out multiple mag safe cables from being bent too sharply around to the opposite side of the laptop where the nearest plug to my desk, bed, seat in the airport always seemed to be. Then there is the dream, that one day, one day, we might have a single charging cable for all of our devices; laptop, phone, tablet etc. Ironically Apple is the one preventing that day from being a reality right now by hanging on to the lightening connector on the iPhone. I would gladly give up magsafe for USB-C to become the one true connector and charger.

Long ago, I had a Dell laptop with ports on the back. Never an issue, cables out of the way, out of sight.

You missed charging the Apple Pencil on the ipad pro.

Arrow keys being disabled in Safari iOS

3D Touch

Removing the 3.5mm Jack...

> You missed charging the Apple Pencil on the ipad pro.

You plug the Pencil into the iPad to pair it. It comes with an adapter that you use to charge it with a regular cable.

That's not what Apple says on their docs. They say:

"To charge your Apple Pencil (1st generation), plug your Apple Pencil INTO THE Lightning connector on your iPad. You can ALSO charge it with a USB Power Adapter by using the Apple Pencil Charging Adapter that came with your Apple Pencil. "

(Emphasis mine).

Besides, you shouldn't need to plug it that way to pair it either.

The docs don't seem to disagree with me.

> Besides, you shouldn't need to plug it that way to pair it either.

Agreed. And glad that's not necessary for the latest generation.

>The docs don't seem to disagree with me.

You said "You plug the Pencil into the iPad to pair it. It comes with an adapter that you use to charge it with a regular cable."

As a response to the parent, your comment makes sense only if you meant to imply: "you're not supposed to plug it to charge it, only to pair it".

But if you meant to imply that as the right way to do things as according to Apple, you're wrong.

Apple suggests to plug it to the iPad to charge it (not just to pair it), and mentions the charge cable only as something you can "also" do.

In other words, Apple doesn't say you're just meant to "plug the Pencil into the iPad" only to pair it, and not only it doesn't discourage users to charge by plugging to the iPad, it suggests it.

Say you are tasked with writing something that can be done 2 different ways. Both have the same end-result.

In one way there's a single step.

In the other way, there's 2 steps and it involves another piece of equipment.

How might you write the documentation on how to do that thing?

Personally, I'd go with two sentences. The first that describes how to do the thing in one step. The latter, how to also do it in two steps and with another piece of equipment. I'm genuinely curious, is there a better way to approach that?

>Say you are tasked with writing something that can be done 2 different ways. Both have the same end-result.

That's my whole argument. That Apple presents it as 2 different equally good ways to achieve the same end result (and even mentions the pencil-protruding-dangerously way first and the second way as an aside).

In case you've lost context, I made the point to answer the parent commenter, who said that "the pencil-protruding-dangerously" is not a problem, because you're meant to charge the Pencil the cable-extension way in the first place (and sticking it directly to the iPad is just needed once at first to "pair it").

Well, my point is, if that's "how you're meant" to do it, (a) nobody told Apple, (b) Apple themselves suggested this fact to no one, and in fact went on to recommend the "just stick it" way as (a) equally good as the other, (b) first.

>Personally, I'd go with two sentences.

This is only OK if you assume both ways are equally safe and good. Which is my whole point: that Apple assumes that, and presents them as such -- when in fact they are not.

As for how I'd do it: "You can charge your Pencil with the provided cable adapter. In an immediate need, you can also just stick it on your iPad, but be careful, it's a brain damaged way, and it's easy to snap the egde that way".

Ah, I see how I misunderstood the point you were making in context. I read the word "can" in the point where it's not there.

I still don't agree that it's a particularly dangerous method of charging the device [1]. But I get that you'd change the wording since you feel it's dangerous.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE9hHO4hM0c

Also, remember when they

- removed the SCSI port

- removed the floppy disk drive

- removed the CD ROM

It hurt EVERY time. The pain does not get less when they do it over and over again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_bypcPW5O4

Guess which one apple (and everyone else) is using despite this being available for two years? (Not aptX) Wireless just isn't ready yet.

I clicked... long video that shows Bluetooth audio out-of-sync with computer video, due to 220 ms delay vs aptX 40 ms delay.

Once they decided to make the mouse chargeable it was inevitable the plug would go underneath. A plug that allowed you to continue to use the mouse wouldn't stand up to the stress and strain of being dragged around your desk.

I'm confused. You mean like on a wired mouse, where the cord is constantly exposed to the strain of the movement and is typically just fine for many many years? I have Microsoft Intellimouse devices which are many years old and work perfectly. The differences between a USB plugged in cable and a permenantly attached cable don't seem relevant in this instance.

It's not the cord itself that would be exposed to the strain of the movement.

It's the Lightning connector which was never designed to be moved within the socket tens of thousands of times a day.

It's not like it HAD to have the Lightning connector. It's not like it uses it for any of its other capabilities except charging.

You just design in a sinuous strain relief channel. Then any craptastic connector will survive.

To be fair, Apple's industrial design team seem no more likely to come up with a remotely adequate sinuous strain relief channel than to put a telescopic antenna or physical keypad on the iPhone. The MacBook Air and iPhone are literally the only consumer electronics gadgets whose cables I've needed to replace due to fraying at the join, and that's with adapters released after Apple lost class action lawsuits over strain relief issues with the previous generation Macbooks.

>A plug that allowed you to continue to use the mouse wouldn't stand up to the stress and strain of being dragged around your desk.

Plugs not being able to stand up the stress and strain were never Apple's concern.

Apple cables (for lighting, charing MBPs, etc) have easily strained since time immemorial.

You mean like the logitech mx 2s, easily the best mouse I ever owned ?

Not the way Apple treats cords and plugs, anyway.

I am consistently annoyed when Apple, who has the magnetic charging plug patent until 2025, refuses to use it in exactly the applications where it would be most beneficial.

> whichever idiot thought putting the power plug at the bottom of the Magic Mouse was a good idea.

For those not familiar with the Apple Mouse, the commenter means that the power plug is on the part that you’re supposed to have on the mousepad, meaning you can’t charge it while using it, at all.

Easily the worst way to design a mouse, ever. I don’t understand how it was approved.

Probably the same person who approved Apple pencil 1 charging...

Haha, that's even worse yeah. The easiest way to break the end!

Apple Pencil 1 actually came with an adapter to charge it.

I take it you've never used it before.

I take it you've never read Apple's instructions before:

"To charge your Apple Pencil (1st generation), PLUG YOUR Apple Pencil INTO THE Lightning connector ON YOUR iPad. You can ALSO charge it with a USB Power Adapter by using the Apple Pencil Charging Adapter that came with your Apple Pencil." Emphasis mine.

Apple not only designed this BS way to charge, but also promoted it as the canonical way on their official docs (even on their videos).

I'm not following, why emphasise the words you did? Reminds me of Austin Powers not being able to control the volume of his voice.

Because (a) the emphasised parts describe the very method the parent said isn't how you're supposed to charge the Apple Pencil (b) they show what Apple not only recommends this method, but recommends it firat and without any qualifications, whereas what the parent said it the "canonical" way is mentioned as an aside qualified by "you can also".

I could just paste the whole excerpt, but I wanted to "rub the relevant part "in the face", so to speak.

I take it you are familiar with the concept of adding emphasis to a statement to highlight some part, right?

If you're asking for the specific use of caps, it's because italics don't look very well in HN, and I can't bold IIRC.

Apparently I've been flagged and I'm having trouble finding the parent comment. What I recall was "YOUR" also emphasised, and I did not follow why. Underscores around the word also work for emphasise.

I only found about the adapter after almost a year of owning the 1st gen. By then I was already desperate to switch to the new, vastly improved design.

It was just a terrible idea, no excuses. Requiring a dongle only adds insult to injury.

Right! This is one of my biggest peeves with anti-Apple complainers...there are a few legitimate complaints with some of Apple's current designs but this isn't one! Apple Pencil 2 wireless charging nonwithstanding, this is the better design. Plugging in to your iPad is much better than having to dig out a cable, plug it into the Pencil, plug the other end somewhere else. Just think when your Pencil dies, which is more convenient?

>Just think when your Pencil dies, which is more convenient?

Just think, when your Pencil plug end snaps, because it was protruding from the end of the iPad and you've dropped it, or hit something, or made a sudden move, etc, how convenient would that be?

It's a bad design, end of story.

Do you feel like the design of the 2nd generation Pencil for the 3rd generation iPad is _better_?

Personally I don't like moving from Lightning to a more-proprietary non-standard magnetic interface. I think the first generation Pencil has a much better design in this regard, since now we have it working with the standard iPad and iPad Air.

But, I think the design of the first generation Pencil is pretty good, so I'm curious of your thoughts since you find it to be a bad design.

>Do you feel like the design of the 2nd generation Pencil for the 3rd generation iPad is _better_?

Yeah, very much so. Both the charging and also the better grip.

>Personally I don't like moving from Lightning to a more-proprietary non-standard magnetic interface.

That's a non issue with the Apple Pencil, because it's already a proprietary product itself, inherently tied to the iPad. It's not like it's a cross-product/cross-platform device, and needs a standard charging interface. You'll need an iPad to use it in the first place, so might as well charge it with one.

No arguments here on the grip, that's clearly a win.

It _is_ cross product insofar as it's on the iPad, iPad Air, and iPad Pro. This is pretty useful for me and my partner since we can simply share a single Pencil since neither of us rely too much on it. But that's just an exception case, I'm sure.

Lightning is proprietary, but very common. I've got a half dozen Lightning cables lying around. If I want to pair the Pencil to a new device, I simply plug it into the Lightning interface and it's ready to go.

I was trying to think of a better phrase than what I used "more-proprietary", since both are at 100% proprietary that doesn't come across how I intend.

Basically I strongly dislike these weird interfaces that we're putting on the iPad -- the one for the keyboard wasn't great, and the addition of the one for the Pencil also doesn't feel great. But, if that's the direction that best serves the function provided then I suppose it's fine. My hope then is that we get those to move down to the lower-end devices (as we've seen with the Air getting the keyboard cover).

The Pencil comes with a female–female Lightning adapter. If you’re worried about snapping it, you can easily plug it into a normal cable.

I have not once heard of anyone having their Apple Pencil’s plug break because it was protruding. There is significant strain relief and it would take significant effort bordering on malicious intent to break it.

I've used the Magic Mouse, found the bottom charger to be a non-issue in practice because it stays charged pretty much forever anyway, and charges enough to get you back on your feet if you somehow let it run all the way down in just a minute or two.

Pencil 1's terrible, though. It's led to many a "oh I could use my Pencil for this... oh it's dead, yet again. I'll just charge it... but I want to keep using my ipad, so where's the pinkie-nail-sized adapter again? Eh, screw it, I'll do something else."

[EDIT] also, when's it done? Dunno. Oh and the tiny adapter is directional, though either side kinda fits whichever way you put it, but I guess putting an arrow on it or making the ends different colors wouldn't have been "beautiful" so there's a little getting-it-right ritual every time. Get it wrong and it won't charge. Which, again, any little LED indicator of charging status would've solved that problem, too.

The one that provides strain relief for lateral movements that may occur whenever anybody touches the other end of the lever you just jammed into the socket, with the fulcrum being the point of contact with the connector.

This is another example of sound engineering taking a back seat to user-facing design.

Instead of a fully removable cap, I would have used a tether to keep it secured to the device, and the connector would be on a short cord with a 90-degree connector. A removable clip would then secure the device to the edge of the pad as it charges. Otherwise the whole thing could flop around without damage to the male connector or female socket. Though this is all with the benefit of hindsight, everyone ought to know better than to plug anything into anything else without some strain relief.

Yet many phone makers have done the same thing now, where you can't use wired headphones and charge the phone at the same time.

Several wrongs don't make a right.

Oh I'm just pointing out companies are still just as stupid now as they were then.

Have you actually used the mouse? I haven't, but hearing from people that have actually used it (and not gotten all worked up about how bad this design is in theory) - they actually thought it was the BETTER design as the battery charged ridiculously fast. Meaning when they ran out they would charge it for a minute and got like a couple hours of use. This resulted in them actually using it as a wireless mouse instead of a wired one.

Same with the pencil 1st gen - it charged so fast that it having a male port actually made sense as it made on the go charging feasible.

> Meaning when they ran out they would charge it for a minute and got like a couple hours of use.

That's a minute longer than you should have to wait to keep using your mouse. I can appreciate that they minimized the impact of the poor design, but that doesn't mean it's not a poor design.

> This resulted in them actually using it as a wireless mouse instead of a wired one.

Does that improve functionality at all? It sounds like the same style-over-substance design that's led Apple to sacrifice important functionality for unnecessary size/weight cuts in the last few years.

So you are saying that putting the port in the wrong place made it charge faster?

I have used the mouse, yes— I understand what you're pitching, but I think that ultimately the user can decide whether they want it to be a wireless mouse or a wired mouse, depending on their needs.

Putting it on the bottom did nothing but remove that optionality for the user, and that can be really frustrating.

Unless the reason it charged so quickly was because it connected to the bottom of the mouse, I don't see the justification.

However the lightning charge cable is not necessarily the right thickness, flexibility, or length to be appropriate for use as a wired mouse.

The thing charges in no time at all, and lasts forever. It is a seriously overstated "problem".

It is my work mouse for 99% of my working time, and as a very heavy user of it I love the mouse, and it just isn't something that enters my mindspace at all.

I feel like this conversation is one half people who have and use the mouse, and who have no problem with it, and one half people who don't use the mouse and imagine that it's some critical issue that they would face daily. And the latter are busy down arrowing anyone who isn't outraged about a non-issue.

It's a stupid design. So what if a lot of people aren't affected by it?

My mouse is wireless. When it says battery low you know what I do? I plug it in and it looks just like a wired mouse for an hour.

Tell me what exactly you get in exchange for losing that feature? Sexiness?

The magic mouse is easily the best mouse I've ever used. It feels nice, works great, and the capacitive touch feature is one I now consider mandatory.

Could they put the port somewhere else? Not with the current design (and it's a design that works spectacularly well for flicking and scrolling with fingers on the touch surface -- it seems to be a bit more than a design for looks). Well I suppose they could put it on the left or the right, but that would be stupid. They can't fit it on the ends. So they should have designed it for a non-issue that users of the mouse have no trouble with?

> I plug it in and it looks just like a wired mouse for an hour.

An hour? A 2 minute charge will run a Magic Mouse for a full work day.

I use the Apple Mouse on a daily basis. This criticism is blown way out of proportion.

I agree that it's a very ridiculous placement, but do you have a better idea where it should be placed? IMO, this is the best option given the constraints.

The usual ridicule is that you can't use it when it's charging. To me, it's a non-issue at all:

- When the battery drops to a low level (4% I think?), you will see a notification on your device reminding you that the charge is low. So have never been caught in a situation where I needed to charge the mouse while using it. - The battery lasts a long time. Apple claims that it lasts 2 months per full charge. Based on anecdotal evidence from myself and a friend, it lasts 3 months per full charge. So this 2 months claim isn't based on some super unrealistic assumption that Apple makes. So why is this important? Because at 4% when you receive the warning notification, the mouse can still run for another 2 days! (Assuming constant usage everyday and one full charge lasts 60 days, then 4% = 60 / 100 * 4 = 2.4.) - Finally, it charges super fast, too. A couple of minutes of charges can run a full day. So if you come to the office to find your mouse out of charge (because you forgot to charge it for the past 2 days despite the notifications), then plug it in before you get your coffee and you're good to go.

My point is that, yes, the charging port placement is ridiculous, but 1) I don't think there are better options and 2) it's really not that big of a deal because it is extremely unlikely that you'd need to charge while you're using it.

> but do you have a better idea where it should be placed?

How about having a small notch at the front of the mouse, like every other mouse I've used? It can then be simultaneously wired, and usable. Maybe you're right that it's usually not frustrating, but I was trying to use this mouse at my office once and it wasn't charged, and it seemed pointless to wait before using it.

> then plug it in before you get your coffee and you're good to go

What if I don't want to test my mouse before coffee? What if I have urgent emails to answer?

I understand that it isn't a world-breaking choice, but I don't understand why they would choose to change this. I love Apple, but this seems like one of those situations where a company changes something just to change it, claiming it's new and innovative, but actually reduces usability.

> What if I don't want to test my mouse before coffee? What if I have urgent emails to answer?

Plug it in once a month (when it's at ~50% or so) for an hour or two when you finish your day or go to lunch?

Yeah, I thought it was a huge, stupid mistake when I heard about it, until I was handed one at work. The charge lasts weeks, it's not like it runs down in a day or two. It's not a major problem.

The point isn’t that there are solutions to keeping it charged. The point is it’s a needless concession for Apple to make when other wireless mouses have found elegant ways to achieve simultaneous use and charging. This wasn’t an instance of Apple reinventing something that will later seem so obvious.

It is obvious. People will leave wireless mice plugged in all the time out of superstition or worry. Apple’s way elegantly eliminates that possibility. Anybody who wants to plug in their wireless mouse may purchase another.

I agree it's an edge case, but it's got to be infuriating if it used up its last bit of power before a presentation and you just have to wait there because they couldn't bear to make it look a tad less pretty.

Is there any other context in which Apple would tolerate an avoidable two minutes of wait time? Definitely not for their web pages!

https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Gaming-Mic...

I use this mouse with my desktop PC. It's got a port in the front to connect via USB to charge while allowing the user to use the mouse. Furthermore it supports wireless charging.

I'm shocked Apple thought putting it at the bottom was a good design decision.

> Easily the worst way to design a mouse, ever. I don’t understand how it was approved.

I do. It was on purpose. They do not want people using the wireless mouse as a wired mouse with a short, thick cord not designed for it. Which is totally what my parents would do.

That's easily solved by disabling the mouse when it's connected to the cable. If what you're asserting is true, at by disabling it they could have avoided this endless mocking.

> disabling the mouse when it's connected to the cable

Like this wouldn't invite even more outrage?

Talk about user hostility.

The original Mac (and IIRC Lisa) had neither function nor arrow keys. Apple wanted users to use the mouse to move and to prevent software developers from building software that didn't feel like a Mac program.

NeXT workstations never had function keys.

> They do not want people using the wireless mouse as a wired mouse with a short, thick cord not designed for it. Which is totally what my parents would do.

That's still stupid as hell, as it basically asserts you're not allowed to use your computer if your mouse is out of batteries.

Logitech's MX master came with a super long cable (it's at least 150cm / 5 ft), pretty flexible, and the charging port's at the top of the mouse. When it's out of battery it just becomes a wired mouse for a short while, it's super convenient. The Anywhere 2S is the same, and for all that I preferred the VX Nano overall, not having to hunt for a pair of emergency battery when I forget/forgot to recharge the 2S is extremely useful.

In fact that's pretty much the only thing I dislike about my Apple Wireless Keyboard: if I forget to charge/change the batteries when it starts whining it becomes dead weight.

Or maybe they didn't want to support both Bluetooth and USB data communication. Or create user confusion if it didn't act as a USB mouse when plugged in?

People still bringing up the Magic Mouse.

The idea is you weren't supposed to leave it plugged in.

2 hours of charging = 2 months of use so it's not like charging was supposed to be a regular occurrence.

>The idea is you weren't supposed to leave it plugged in.

The idea is I don't care about the idea. If I forgot to charge it, or come back from holidays and it's off, I want to be able to plug in and still work.

Like with every other mouse.

Not to mention: when the charge lasts so long (2 months) it's even easier to forget to recharge it and take it for granted. Unlike something you need to charge e.g. daily or so, this is something that stays out of your mind for months on end -- until it fails.

> If I forgot to charge it, or come back from holidays and it's off, I want to be able to plug in and still work.

As I mentioned elsewhere. You plug it in, go get a cup of coffee and come back with a day+ of usage.

What if you're in the middle of collaborative work? What if you're playing a multiplayer game? Are you going to insist everybody else gets a cup of coffee too?

It doesn't sound like you want a wireless mouse then. When the batteries die in mine it takes much longer than 2 minutes to change them out.

And after 2 months, the charge depletes when you need it the most and now you can't use the mouse (even in a handicapped state where you plug it in and use it at the same time) since the stupid charging port is on the bottom instead of being literally anywhere else.

I remain baffled some people just take whatever Apple shoves down their throat. It's a design _atrocity_. Just like Apple Pencil V1, iPhone 4 antenna issues, iPhone 6 bending screens, butterfly insanity on the MacBooks. I don't buy this 'you're holding it wrong'-attitude anymore.

And it's also completely different from removing a headphone jack – you could actually see that as a form of progress. But charging a mouse without being able to use it – try and convince me that is progress.

It's still an inelegant and goofy design — from a company that prides itself on caring about design and with a history of making fun of other companies' designs.

To me, it just reeks of laziness, just like the iPhone X "notch" and the Pencil gen 1 charging. In all these fairly recent examples, Apple basically gave up and didn't even bother trying.

> whichever idiot thought putting the power plug at the bottom of the Magic Mouse was a good idea.

Do you have one? It charges very quickly. Basically go make a cup of coffee and it's charged for the day+ when you get back. Leave it plugged in overnight and it's good for almost a month.

So the device design decides when you can or cannot work. That is not acceptable. There are many 'what ifs' to consider.

Like every mouse that uses a charging dock?

Yes, equally bad.

Exactly, the option to plug and use the mouse when needed should be there. That is good design, keeping your user in mind.

Having that option makes folks anxious about using their mouse when it’s not plugged in.

Like every mouse that uses changeable batteries? If you don't want the tradeoffs of a wireless mouse, do not use one.

Discontinuing MagSafe should also be on this list.

Being able to plug the AC adapter into either side of the laptop > MagSafe.

For me MagSafe > plugging into either side or any usbc so ️

Well, you are obviously wrong. /s

Why not a plug on the back, out of sight?

I just wish the touch strip had haptic feedback. I don't mind it, but often times I'll find that I've accidentally rested my finger on the escape key and can't figure out why applications/menus aren't working properly.

https://github.com/niw/HapticKey

I read somewhere that it was a deliberate design decision to not make users think that while plugged in, it is a regular USB mouse. Indeed, I have a Logitech Bluetooth mouse with a micro USB port in its front. It turns out that this is for charging only, not for the mouse interface. This leads to some challenging troubleshooting when the battery dies or it otherwise doesn’t work.

> “So, just curious, why did you buy another one?” she asked, referring to the 2018 MacBook Air I’d gotten six months after selling the Pro.

I was hoping she talked more about this part, but brushing it aside by bringing up "Apple ecosystem" is pretty unsatisfactory. It does tell you, though, that Apple has its target demographic by the balls, and broken keyboards are certainly not chasing them away.

Macbooks will get fixed the day tech journalists start writing articles about how they tried a Windows laptop and liked it.

My laptop of choice (X1 Carbon) consistently gets a pretty good rep for its keyboard. I'm still using my ~6.5 year old first generation (top spec) and the keyboard remains flawless.

But then again they actually test for foreign particle ingression:

https://solutions.lenovo.com/resource-center/pc-solutions/pa...

Practically any laptop has a good keyboard compared to the first two generations of butterfly keyboards. I have suffered through a MacBook Pro with the second generation butterfly mechanism. Although I liked the feel of the pristine keyboard, pretty soon specks of dusts made keys get stuck/repeat regularly. I also had a can of compressed air to blow out the dust regularly.

Between the broken keyboard and only 2 USB-C port, I hated that laptop. I know have a MacBook Pro with a 3rd generation butterfly keyboard (which has the dust seals) and 4 USB-C ports. I am finally starting to like MacBooks again. So far the keyboard has been fine. Touch ID on a MacBook is absolutely brilliant, flying through 1Password and sudo prompts is awesome. The new True Tone screen is awesome. The largest downside: MacBooks have become even more expensive than they already were.

Why did I stay on a Mac? Three reasons: 1) I use a lot of Mac-specific apps (OmniGraffle, Deckset, Things) that I absolutely love. 2) macOS is still a great operating system. 3) The hardware is still simply better. The last point two points notice now that I work remotely and I Skype with my colleagues nearly daily. When I Skype with someone with a MacBook or iMac, the sound quality is great and without a lot of distortion. When I Skype with someone that uses a ThinkPad or another PC laptop, the sound quality is typically bad, their mics pick up a lot of noise, and somehow noise cancellation seems to work quite badly. Then there are OS-specific problems (which may also be Skype bugs), e.g. if someone shares their screen with me, I see the mouse pointer when they are on a Mac, but if they are on Linux there is no mouse pointer.

Be happy until also this keyboard starts failing.

We'll see whether the rubber seals keep out the dust permanently or just delays the speck of death. If the dust gets in it'll be a whole lot harder to remove with compressed air.

About the sound thing - I recently discovered that this is because the Macbook has several microphones which allows for ambient noise reduction. Something I wish was easier to set up for personal use - I use a webcam to stream tabletop roleplaying games, and ambient noise is a big problem.

It also has a bezel that’s just a sticker you can peel off. Also, screen and keyboard lottery.

I do IT orders in a research institute, a MBP user wants a big memory machine to do server side data analysis, and wants to order the iMac pro 128 GB ram. He’s shocked to learn that for the same price he can get a Dell Epyc server with 512 GB ram. Guess what he still wants? The iMac, for the “ecosystem”.

I think that people underestimate the cost for most people to switch to another system.

If you use any system for years, there are many ingrained habits that are hard to unlearn. Then there are probably applications that they use that have no direct replacements on Windows or Linux (e.g. OmniGraffle). Sure, there may be applications within the same class (diagramming), but even if they are as polished, it takes time to become as productive in a replacement.

Most people who are not tech enthusiasts just want things to stay as they know them. For a normal user, switching to another OS and applications is like switching from QWERTY to Dvorak - a long, tedious process, that will reduce productivity for one or two years.

Somewhat ironically, using a unix-variant is the easiest way to stick to what you know. Windows and to some extend macOS has gone through some design fads. Apple ditches/replaces fully functional programs, such as Quicktime 7, Aperture, and iWork (it took many years to get linked text boxes back). Whereas on a unix, you can still work like it is 1979 if you want to.

>> I think that people underestimate the cost for most people to switch to another system.

I've been using all three major OS-es extensively for years, so for me switching wouldn't actually be that much of a problem. The simple fact of the matter is that I prefer macOS for almost anything, by far. No lock-in required.

Like someone above me already posted, I also fully agree Apple has seriously messed up with these keyboards, and in general appears to have a major problem with their design priorities (both in hardware and software). But that doesn't mean their platform isn't great (for me, even the best available) for many use-cases. If you forget about keyboard problems, high price, and for some (very narrow subset of) use cases insufficient specs.

The other commenter makes good points re: the cognitive cost of switching platforms, but let me give you another point of view: the Apple ecosystem is, actually, shockingly good.

My Apple Watch unlocks all of my Macs. When I join a new WiFi network on my iPhone, those credentials are immediately available to my iPad. When my iPhone rings, it pauses video playing on my Apple TV until I ignore the call. To send a link from my iPad to a friend on WhatsApp, I can copy the link on my iPad and paste it into WhatsApp on my iPhone - automatically. I can use my iPhone as a remote camera to insert a photo into a Notes document on my Mac with one action. The list goes on.

Yes, there are absolutely problems and Apple has made some dumb choices (I don't mind the butterfly keyboards but I hate the razor-sharp palmrests...), but overall it's incredibly cohesive in a way that I feel lots of people don't really grasp.

> When my iPhone rings, it pauses video playing on my Apple TV until I ignore the call. To send a link from my iPad to a friend on WhatsApp, I can copy the link on my iPad and paste it into WhatsApp on my iPhone - automatically.

I get what you appreciate, but its not for everyone. I like my tools smart but still 100% predictive by me. Like one device erasing the clipboard of another device.

> I get what you appreciate, but its not for everyone

I know you didn't mean it this way, but for illustrative purposes this is precisely the kind of reasoning people use to downplay the value of an ecosystem, whether it's Apple or Google or (eventually, I assume) Samsung.

"I don't want this, therefore it's not a valuable thing."

Of course no product will be (or should be) the be-all, end-all solution for everyone in the world. The fact that it isn't shouldn't be a mark against it or against the people who choose it, though.

Come to think of it, this is applicable to a huge number of products and strategies in our industry.

Let me add a few more:

1) SMS/iMessages synced across all devices and able to send from any of the devices e.g. Mac or non-4G iPad.

2) 2FA codes received on your iPhone are automatically populated in Safari text fields on your Mac.

3) Safari window opened on an iPhone will appear as an icon on the Mac so you can easily pick up where you left off. Works for a number of other apps as well. And in every direction.

4) AirDrop is really great for quick, adhoc file transfers.

The built-in messaging platform (iMessage & FaceTime) is brilliant. Microsoft shoud've done the same since they bought Skype (and back then Skype was actually good software) but instead they decided to turn it to garbage.

I don't understand how Microsoft or Google managed to screw up messaging so bad.

It is a level of utter incompetence (especially from Google) that surely is unrivalled. I mean what Apple has implemented really isn't all that complex.

Google is somewhat understandable, they don't really want to be in that business (also their corporate culture encourages short-lived projects).

But Microsoft? Why the hell did they even buy Skype? Same story with LinkedIn - the entire product is garbage now.

I mean, LinkedIn was always bad, but what changes were you talking about? I can't recall noticing anything different on the site in nearly a decade. Only thing I can think of is the ability to accept all invited.

They used to have a good native iOS app back in the early days. They now replaced that with an Apache Cordova or React Native app (actually it’s probably too shitty to be a React Native app).

It is the worst pile of shit I have ever used. I’ve used non-native apps like that before but this is the worst I’ve seen so far.

And of course, the app has the usual dark patterns around trying to get you to share your contacts, add a photo (there’s a persistent banner at the top of the feed asking you to add a photo and follow some “sources” - hashtags full of spam that is - even though I’ve had the account for 2 years now so they clearly should know I am not going to do any of those things no matter how many times they ask).

Microsoft also has Lync (now renamed to Skype for Business in what must be one of the worst naming decisions since Javascript). Then there is Teams, of course.

When I switched from macOS to linux, the things I missed the most were AirDrop and being able to text from my computer. I'll admit I still haven't found substitutes for either that are nearly as nice.

KDE Connect?

I don't use it anymore but I think this covers some of it.

Looks like a neat project but it's only available for Android phones.

I use Message for Web for texting from my computer, but then when I switched from macos to linux, I also switched from iphone to android.

Just a data point, I desperately hoped the SMS iMessages thing worked (my wife can thumb type way faster.. how to get competitive edge..) but never worked between a iPhone SE and MBP for me. The messages just never showed up on the MBP despite all the tutorials I followed. That’s great that it worked for you but let’s not pretend SMS conveniences should inform purchasing choices for computationally intensive data analysis projects.

That palm rest corner is razor sharp even compared to earlier MBP designs, and it finally made me get a silicone palm/lower arm rest.

It is probably the best purchase I’ve made the last few years, I’m so happy with it every single day and it just makes working with laptops such a joy.

Make sure to get an extra wide one, mine is something like 70cm wide and I can keep my mouse and laptop a good distance apart and have the silicone support under both my arms.

Wait what? You're using a palm rest, therefore the laptop is on you desk. And you don't have a real keyboard and mouse plugged into it?

I use a separate mouse when I’m at my own desk, but not when I’m in a classroom or something like that.

My desk isn’t really deep enough for both a laptop, a keyboard, and my arms to fit comfortably on it.

The use case was server side data analysis. If it’s important work the researcher should get the much much more powerful server and run Linux like most sane people do. Who cares if your server can pair with your Apple Watch or use WhatsApp.

For all we know, the researcher could've also mistaken their real RAM requirements and 64GB would give them equal performance. I'd rather walk them through the options and then let them make the decision that they're most comfortable with, rather than mandating something that they don't want and which might make them less efficient as a result.

The research project in question will use as much RAM as is available, and we already have 128gb machines available, and access to larger. Why, for just running some MATLAB scripts through SSH would you need to stay with the Apple ecosystem for that?

I have no idea. Could be some OS X package oddity, or maybe they just like to AirDrop stuff to themselves?

In any case, I suspect if you do a little discovery with that person - what specific problem are you trying to solve by staying with a Mac? - you'll find the answer. You might even be able to convince them to change their order if you find it's something that can be easily worked around in a way they hadn't thought of.

As someone who has been on the researcher's side of this conversation, I can tell you that I'm always happy to discuss my reasoning with someone in your position who's genuinely trying to help me. On the flip side, I get very annoyed when they're just being obstinate because they disagree with my choice on spec (and this is an endemic problem in corporate purchasing orgs.)

Yeah I get your point of view. I have a MBP. I also maintain a HPC cluster. I didn’t blindside this person with a refusal, rather I asked what use he had for a maxed out iMac pro. When he said it would be used essentially as a shared server for remotely running data analyses, I explained the other options (dell server mentioned above).

As the IT guy I also have to deal with when these macs break or they are misconfigured, which happens a lot more easily than the Windows machines because the latter are in a domain and managed. The Mac guys are way too “I know what I’m doing” until they can’t get the printer working.

If Mac didn’t involve huge increases in price and integration pains for the organization I would be less negative but that’s how it is.

Also since you mentioned research, in my domain people buy those MacBooks because they can, because they are a status symbol, just to run Word and read PDFs, because all the big people in our field have macs. I see this as a cult to be honest.

Have you considered that, alternatively, those people choose Macs because they find them nice to use or that they prefer OS X to Windows? The Apple cult definitely exists, but the anti-Apple cult is equally real and to be honest they both blow my mind.

Yep. I still think it’s a cargo cult effect: I can just hear them thinking “if I use a Mac I will have a higher impact factor” lol

Thanks! I thought I’d drown in the Apple fans here

I’m sure you’ve enumerated a number of “user stories” of PMs in Apple but none of that should apply to a public sector research project involving computationally intensive data analysis. This guy needs a dual socket Xeon with tons of ram and none of the BS

I get what you're saying, but...if more people in tech thought of themselves as PMs (whose primary job, sidetracked though it may be in some places, is to develop a sense of empathy for their customers...) we'd all be in a better place.

But on the other hand, iCloud is shit. The rules for what photos sync where, and which ones are safe to delete from my phone are puzzling, to say the least. Music syncing rarely goes smoothly because some tracks, for some unknown reason, can't be copied due to DRM. Podcast management is a nightmare, partially because the app is so badly designed, but that is compounded by podcasts not being on the device you want them to be on. (I have gotten into situations where I can't download a podcast because the app thinks it shouldn't or doesn't need to or who the hell knows.) Family sharing is a joke. Very difficult to know who can see what, (which has led to mild embarrassment at times).

Should have told them to buy an old Apple Pro tower and max it out with new kit. This way you can actually make a machine more powerful than the ones that they currently sell.

Depends on what your definition of "powerful" is. If it has to do with CPU or RAM or SSD performance then no, you cannot max out the 2012 vintage Mac Pro with kit comparable to what the current iMac Pro ships with.

Ability to play back 8K video? https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xkq8k/mac-pro-up...

It just shows that there is more to computers than their specifications. Doesn't matter how much RAM is has got if I don't like using it.

I assumed that by "eco-system" those people think of default icons and wallpapers ?

There just isn't much choice in the market. It's been windows or apple for a long time.

Windows and the laptops that come with it has gotten a lot better since the (imo) vista low point that got a lot of current mac users started (or back). But, there are still aren't many choices.

I was hoping android (or even iOS) would lead to some interesting new laptop choices but if you're in the market for a pc, it's still a pick-1-of-2 choice.

Vista wasn't a low point. It had its flaws and was (apparently - I didn't notice but was running top of the line hardware so can't really tell) a resource hog but it was still a pleasure to use compared to Windows 10.

Windows 10 is a low point.

The problem with Vista largely wasn't the OS itself.

It was:

- They changed the driver model from XP and a lot of 3rd parties either didn't have compatible drivers out at launch day (or anywhere soon after), or had buggy, unreliable ones.

- They set the minimum hardware requirements too low and so a lot of garbage was sold at the low-end of the market with a Vista sticker that was never really going to be able to run the OS well.

If you bought a new, higher-end device with Vista, you likely had a decent experience.

They should have forced everything to 64-bit at the same time. Vs forcing developers to support both 32- and 64-bit. Resulting in mostly 32-bit apps.

TBF, I still find that I just prefer using MacOS to Windows. Windows has definitely improved, but my Mac just doesn't slow to a crawl while something updates or indexes in the background, which happens to me in Windows still. All the time.

I think that's a perfectly legitimate answer. It's just a shame that the available hardware to do so is currently terrible.

> Macbooks will get fixed the day tech journalists start writing articles about how they tried a Windows laptop and liked it.

This happened after the touch bar MBP was released; a lot of people made the switch then. Did that count for nothing in the end?

> they tried a Windows laptop and liked it

This requires Windows to become likeable.

I (and plenty of other people) will like Windows once it:

* has a consistent UI instead of 3 control panels with icons and UI paradigms ranging from Windows 95 to Windows 10.

* ships with quality applications that don't try to eat the entire screen to display 2 lines of text (pretty much all "modern" built-in apps are a disaster in that regard)

* has an App Store with decent, curated apps. Now I'm not sure if stores are the future on desktops, but Apple at least seems to be able to keep the crap at bay and actually have some decent productivity apps in it. Windows Store? Oh yeah, knockoff Flash Players and similar scams, and near zero apps you'd actually want to pay for.

* doesn't come with ads nor invasive telemetry that sometimes re-enables itself after updates (don't mention the Enterprise edition which you can only get in volume, so no solution for freelancers & small businesses)

* doesn't force a stupid phone-style lockscreen on non-touchscreen machines (I'm sure you can disable it with a Group Policy or registry tweak - my point being, I shouldn't have to spend hours doing that - macOS comes with reasonably sane defaults in comparison)

* has a start-menu search that actually works and doesn't surface irrelevant crap from their failed attempt at a search engine.

* has a calculator that doesn't take 10 seconds to load and then asks me to "rate" it (seriously? can't believe I'm saying this)

* proper QA - since Windows 10 the quality has gone down the drain and it feels more like a half-assed Linux distribution except that it has ads and you still pay for it

MacBooks definitely have their flaws, but overall it's still worth it and I write off their price to the cost of doing business (even if I had to buy a new MacBook every few months it would still be worth it for me). Microsoft (and their OEMs) can have my business once they put out a decent OS that actually feels polished and works for me, not against me. They managed to do it with Windows 7, not reason they couldn't do it again.

Windows sucks but how bout Dell XPS with Ubuntu?

Coil whine. Seriously it’s like it’s trying to get me to kill myself.

I went for a Yoga 730 2-in-1. Superior to Macbook Air in every aspect other than having to deal with Windows - but with MacOS quality dropping and Windows improving on the WSL front the tradeoff is now worth it to me.

Ubuntu has a lot of those problems too, in fact that's why I compare Windows 10 to a half-assed Linux distribution.

I have been very happy with my HP Elitebook x360. It has some user upgradability (ssd, battery), has been rock solid so far, has a great screen, Wacom stylus + touchscreen, and lightweight.

As someone who alternates between windows and mac I was going to knee-jerk reply to your post explaining why your criticism wasn't valid and windows is actually good enough, but then I took the time to carefully read it and I have to say it's spot on. The ways you describe are exactly the ways that windows is bad.

Still, for me personally the software lead macOS has over windows had shrunk far enough a few years ago that I opted for a thinkpad over a macbook pro. I love that thinkpad, it's an excellent machine. YMMV.

Another bad thing about Windows: 3 or 4 different font rendering engines.

don't mention the Enterprise edition which you can only get in volume, so no solution for freelancers & small businesses

I agree with your larger point and most of your bullet points, but just as an FYI to anyone that's looking into Enterprise edition: you can get Enterprise licenses in small volumes.

Because of various data security clauses in some of our contracts, and MS's refusal to discuss issues like HIPAA compliance with respect to telemetry, I looked into getting Enterprise for our small business and found that there are resellers (I have experience with CDW and mychoicesoftware.com) that will provide small numbers of licenses -- in fact, I started with one license with each provider. Right now we have 2 licenses through mychoice and 4 licenses with CDW.

It's a pain in the ass because it's a subscription service and you're dealing with two parties for support (the reseller and MS) but it is doable.

Just wondering as to why I have to deal with a reseller (and find one - it’s not like they just give you a link in the system settings saying “hey, want enterprise? Get it here!”).

This is one of the few places where their miserable App Store can make a difference, and yet they don’t even use it.

Totally agreed -- the answer is that MS apparently wants to placate their resellers, so they limit sales through that channel. Like I said, it sucks, but it's possible.

The lock screen is hilariously stupid. Every single time I pop open my surface go, I put in the first characters of my password, only to realize oops, I've gotta swipe up / press enter.

That is literally the worst implementation. Even Linux which fell for this stupidity too (GDM has a locksceeen) at least does the good thing that any typed character automatically dismisses the lock screen and is typed into the password field.

> * ships with quality applications that don't try to eat the entire screen to display 2 lines of text (pretty much all "modern" built-in apps are a disaster in that regard)

Windows never has shipped with a lot of built-in apps.

Calc used to start slow, not an issue anymore. It is also open source now and seeing more and more features being added to it.

> * has an App Store with decent, curated apps.

The app store has a much better selection, heck I installed Inkscape from it the other day!

Part of the problem is the Windows 3rd party consumer app scene died off when Mobile came around, and on top of that a lot of small utilities that are commercial on Mac have always been free on Windows, so the expectation of paying for smaller apps never was there.

The amount of creative apps available though, wow. Having a lot of pen first devices means there is a flood of apps using ink. The ecosystem there really impresses me.

But honestly? The number of 3rd party paid apps I am running that would be "app store appropriate" is number at 1 right now, and I have a fair number of third party apps running in the background to customize my machine.

The top Windows software consists of either large productivity apps (Adobe), free as in beer apps (Spotify) or free as in speech apps (Notepad++)

> * doesn't force a stupid phone-style lockscreen on non-touchscreen machines

I actually had a chat with the developers in charge of the lock screen. I honestly forget what it is doing, but I remember that the initial screen being shown is actually there for some good technical reason.

Also you can just hit any key on the keyboard to dismiss it. By the time my monitor has turned on it is gone.

> * has a start-menu search that actually works and doesn't surface irrelevant crap from their failed attempt at a search engine.

I've ranted about the start menu for years. Often times on this very site.

It, honestly, doesn't suck anymore. Except for on my ~8 year old Desktop that was upgraded from 7->8->10, with a number of insider/beta builds along the way. That machine has distinct issues with its video drivers and explorer loves crashing every few minutes making the start menu a no go. Having

But hey, dev machine, console is all I need anyway.

> * proper QA - since Windows 10 the quality has gone down the drain and it feels more like a half-assed Linux distribution except that it has ads and you still pay for it

Agree. Except, outside of candy crush (wtf MS), I haven't seen any ads.

My Mac keeps asking me to sign me up for a bunch of paid cloud services though. That is annoying. I can come up with a list of complaints about MacOS just as long as your list of complaints about Windows. And I've had Linux package managers run update and leave me with an unbootable system. (Hasn't happened for quite a few years now though, so fingers crossed and all that!). I guess that is one more thing Windows and Linux have in common now days. :|

As for MacBooks vs Windows, well, lots of Windows laptops have a superior keyboard, better specs, and the advantage of not paying an arm and a leg for proper RAM or a good sized SSD. Mac's do have those nice trackpads.

tl;dr everything is garbage quality has gone downhill, get off my lawn, someone please re-hire all the testers that got laid off years ago from apparently every tech company in the world.

> Windows never has shipped with a lot of built-in apps.

But the ones it did ship with were pleasant to look at and were actually designed to get work done, not waste space (see Vista’s Windows Mail, Windows Fax & Scan, Windows Media Player, or even the legacy Control Panel).

Now it feels like the developers were given the task to fill up the entire screen, but no budget remained when it was time to actually develop features, so they increased font size & padding on the very little they had developed and called it a day.

> Calc used to start slow, not an issue anymore. It is also open source now and seeing more and more features being added to it.

It’s still the “new” calc which has the overhead of their awful UWP platform. I mean UWP makes sense for some stuff but a calculator? What was wrong with the legacy calc.exe? Not to mention the new calc has telemetry (yes, in a calculator, you heard me right) and they rejected the PR which removed it.

> free as in beer apps (Spotify) or free as in speech apps (Notepad++)

Seems like a perfect fit for the Store? They could have a team that reaches out to freeware/open source developers and packages their apps for the Store. If anything, that would help offset the amount of garbage that’s currently in there.

> I remember that the initial screen being shown is actually there for some good technical reason.

Mac and Linux (using LightDM) don’t seem to have that reason, so whatever it is, it’s more about laziness (not wanting to work around the supposed limitation)... oh and the fact they can use the lock screen to shill their sad search engine and/or ads.

> It, honestly, doesn't suck anymore.

Is the start menu fast? That’s another thing I noticed compared to Windows 7, the start menu on 10 has a slight delay while it was instant on Windows 7. That’s another issue when you’re used to pressing the Windows key and then typing whatever app you wanted.

> My Mac keeps asking me to sign me up for a bunch of paid cloud services though. That is annoying.

Haven’t noticed them myself (I am logged into my - free on the 5GB tier - iCloud account so maybe that’s why) but I heard Windows 10 trying to push OneDrive & Office 365... oh and I think they also try to push their browser if you attempted to install a third-party one.

> I've had Linux package managers run update and leave me with an unbootable system

Not surprising, but then again I’m not bitching about Linux (and nobody should) because it is free. However, when a paid, commercial OS like Windows 10 falls down to the same standard as Linux distributions (built by enthusiasts in their free time) you’ve gotta start asking questions.

Agreed about the hardware choices, but personally I’ve never felt the need for top of the line hardware anymore - my 12” MacBook (with dual core CPU and 8GB of RAM) is sufficient for my development work. In the rare cases I need to do CPU-intensive stuff (like compiling OpenWrt the other day) I get a beefy machine off a cloud provider and build it there - still more pleasant than dealing with Windows or Linux full-time.

That’s going to happen.

It’s hard to weigh the Mac ecosystem heavily when it’s obvious that it is a dead man walking platform. How Apple handles the iTunes transition will be the turning point.

Knock on Windows, but it is a living platform that Microsoft is investing in. We all laughed at Windows 8 and Surface, but if you’re still laughing now, it’s because you haven’t looked.

>I am stupid for buying another one of these computers

>I was hoping she talked more about this part, but brushing it aside by bringing up "Apple ecosystem" is pretty unsatisfactory. It does tell you, though, that Apple has its target demographic by the balls, and broken keyboards are certainly not chasing them away.

It's more like, I'd rather pay another sum (assuming I have it), than have to suffer the experience of Windows or desktop Linux (and I've used all three for decades -- in fact professionally, it's all Linux work).

But of course, I'd rather didn't have to pay for a broken keyboard fix, or suffer the broken keyboard. But the experience on the other side is so much worse to me, that it still trumps that (possibly because I can afford it, although just barely -- I've resorted to using external keyboards with my 2017 MBPr).

The "ecosystem" (e.g. I'll lose my paid apps, or such, is a non-factor for me).

My last company gave us iPhones, and I was excited to try an Apple product without giving Apple money.

Wow, I felt like I was using a phone that was 5 years old.

I only imagine Apple users have Allegory of the Cave effect, they don't know whats out there. Leaving the cave is lots of work, so they enjoy whats available for them.

What about the phone/OS made you feel that?

Your comment is offensively patronising. Have you considered the chance you’re also suffering from bias of having used the same systems for years?

I'll list my problems, I don't expect this to go over well, but since you asked-

>Apple's podcast app was glitchy/laggy.

>Apple maps took me a 'long' way, but it didn't know traffic was bad. I give them a 50% pass.

>Apple maps telling you to turn at the last second...

>The home screen is not on the same level as Android, no widgets in 2019.

>Controls, I felt like things werent intuitive, but thats an opinion thing.

>Updates, oh my god, it seemed like every day I needed to update, and every time I needed to sign in, and enter password

>I didn't like the animations, they took too long. Maybe I could have turned them off.

I can't think of anything else about the iphone product, so I'll let everyone tell me these are 'features' that are great.

Then there is an entirely different list about Apple being 'evil', being anti-competitive, closed, hackable, anti-consumer, poor treatment of workers, etc.. I consider working and buying products from 'evil' companies bad capitalism. I don't see them doing anything to remedy these.

Apple apps have nothing to do with iOS. You can use many apps. I'm using 4 different map apps and Apple maps is not among them. Check out google maps for example or try to find one that local people used (I had good experience with TomTom in Europe). iOS has widgets on other screens, home screen is just apps launcher. Controls are opinionated indeed and I feel myself better in iOS world without that strange "back" button which can do anything. Not sure about animations, I think that there are settings in accessibility options for those, but I'm not sure, never was an issue for me.

Frequent updates seems to be a good thing. I don't update myself often, and my phone complains may be once a week or month, definitely not every day.

These are nice answers, but I just want my phone to work.

My OG pixel is a clear upgrade.

I'm using iPhone and I did some Android development recently. I bought quite recent phone (cheap as hell, of course, but it's not slow). Sorry, Android is still not going to win over iOS for me. Price is awesome, yeah, that phone for $200 is as good as my $1000 iPhone, but Android is for very different kind of people than I am. And even that advantage seems to vanish in new versions (e.g. it seems that you can't record calls with new Android anymore).

I don't really want to bash on people using Android. It's free OS after all and that's awesome, it allows many things that are not possible with iOS. But not everyone does not know what's out there. It's not like Android is some hidden treasure, it's everywhere and most people saw it, they just made a different choice.

Do you have any reasons?

You didn't post any in your comment.

Nor did you.

There are many little things, I just don't feel that Android UI is as polished. I can live with them or in some cases I probably can customize things, but it's still irritation.

Here are some random ones:

* When I have to enter pin (6 digits) I must press "OK". iPhone unlocks after 6-th digit automatically.

* It seems that Android app developers prefer the ad model. I don't have a single app on iOS with ads. Yet it's hard to find a single app in Android without ads. And I hate them.

* I spent something like 30 minutes trying to add a second phone number to my own android contact. I did not succeed. Theoretically I have to go to Google profile and add it there. But that button was not there. With iOS me is just another contact that I can edit as any other contact.

* To turn off all radios (airplane mode) I have to swipe from top, then swipe again to uncover the full menu, then swipe again to go to the right menu and only there I can click to enable airplane mode. With iOS it's one swipe and one click. I guess that I can customize this screen with Android and I can't with iOS... I don't want to bother, actually.

* I hate back button philosophy. I don't want to switch to other apps with back button. I prefer back buttons in app UI.

* I can't tap top bar to scroll to the top. Some websites provide that button as part of their UI, so may be it's just an iOS habit.

> When I have to enter pin (6 digits) I must press "OK". iPhone unlocks after 6-th digit automatically.

So Apple leaks the length of your password, Android does not. Okay.

> I don't have a single app on iOS with ads.

I don't have a single app on my Android with Ads. I pay for my apps to support the developers, otherwise I could easily add a hosts file or firewall to block ads in apps. I'm not an iOS user, so I don't know if a local hosts/firewall is possible with iOS.

> I spent something like 30 minutes trying to add a second phone number to my own android contact.

PEBKAC. I found it super easy. If I'm reading your comment correctly, you had to create two contacts for yourself just to have two phone numbers for yourself in iOS!?

> To turn off all radios

It's one swipe for Android too...

Your last two issues are just personal preferences.

I had slowly been moving into the Apple ecosystem, buying an iPad, iPhone, and even a HomePod and Apple Music. I was largely motivated by a respect for Apple's stance on privacy. Then it came time for me to buy a laptop and I encountered these numerous reports of Apple screwing up one of the most basic parts of the computer. I couldn't justify spending so much on a laptop plus AppleCare, which would only result in getting another keyboard that suffers from the same problem.

I realized that this is what Apple lock-in means, and now I'm leaving their ecosystem. Whereas before I would tell friends and family to just get Apple products, now I'll them to buy a Chromebook or Windows laptop. Maybe this is why I keep seeing the newly released Macbook Air on sale for $200 off...

I am somewhat locked in to "the ecosystem", having an iPhone and an MBP. But the badly designed apps, the disaster that is iCloud, and the new MBP keyboard (the broken butterfly keys, the moronic touchbar) have motivated me to escape.

It's not entirely feasible, even with my minimal exposure. So I've compromised. My daily driver is a Darter by System76. The hardware is good enough, the battery life is good enough, the keyboard is fantastic, and Pop OS is beautiful. I still have my failing MBP, but it is demoted to a station for syncing my iPhone. I rarely touch it. When it dies I will replace it with a Mac Mini. I don't want to move to the Google ecosystem because of privacy issues.

> I couldn't justify spending so much on a laptop

Apple MacBooks lately are being priced on par with the competition. You want premium screen and trackpad - you will have to pay just as much for a windows laptop.

Just bought a Dell Precision, and out of curiosity, went through and specced one out to match an equivalent Macbook. The macbook was solidly 30%+ higher in price. They were pretty close about 3-4 years ago, but now they have gotten terrible. And that doesn't even consider the Dell has a better keyboard (and for me, a better trackpad).

I used Macs for almost a decade, but I'm crazy happy with my Dell running Ubuntu 18.04. Amazing!

My point is that a $1200 laptop with an unreliable keyboard isn't worth $1200 or even $1000. I'm not sure how to make that more clear.

Not if you consider the hardware: Apple hardware is a lot less powerful that the competition.

I don't understand the failure of the butterfly keyboard? I haven't had any issues with my 2017 macBook and it seems to keep kruft from getting under my keys (A problem I had with the older macbook keyboards)

I also live on my macbook so it's constantly in use, and much to my displeasure, around food.

You seem to be a rare case. I'm also a heavy user and got keys stuck a lot and actually broke two keys (I did nothing out of ordinary). I certainly like the feel of the butterfly switches, but they really are incredible frail.

I was happy with the feel of the 2017, however after a few months a couple keys got stuck to the point of it being unusable. I took it in for repair at the Apple Store, and after repair, touching the ID sensor would cause the machine to freeze. Soon after, more keys started getting stuck and I just put the thing in a drawer and pulled the 2015 back out, which is what I'm typing on to this day. I've been using Apple computers exclusively since the lciii in the early 90s, but my next laptop will not be a Macbook.

You are very lucky. I had three students in my office hours recently and of the four of us, all with butterfly keyboard MacBook Pros (some with the updated keyboards), three of us have had keyboard issues such as the spacebar double registering presses or other keys not registering a press at all.

Within my family, everyone that has a newer MacBook Pro has had keyboard issues.

I bought a used Lenovo X1 off ebay for $300 and that has become my daily driver, despite getting the keyboard repaired on my MBP. It doesn't get close to the same battery life as my MBP, and waking from sleep is a little iffy sometimes, but in terms of reliability and usability it far exceeds my experience with the MBP.

Nearly half of the third-gen Apple butterfly keyboards at Basecamp have failed. There are few other personal reports with similar percentages.

Second problem is that it will cost a lot of money to fix your keyboard out of warranty.

That's an amazingly high percentage, and suggests staggering incompetence at Apple HQ. A company with that kind of market cap should not be in this situation.

Yeah it will be expensive to fix out of warranty. Apple has extended the warranty to 4 years for the affected machines, but it seems like after that we’ll be screwed. The resale value of these things will suffer because it will cost $600 to get them fixed at that point.

They’ll be fine for use with external keyboards, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone buy a used one for use as a regular laptop.

I was just like you until a couple weeks ago. No grime in the keyboard, heavy use, took it with me everywhere, used it every day since 2016. (That being said, it was/is in pristine condition--no scratches, dents, or drops.)

But one day it just happened. Nothing to provoke it--hadn't been eating over it, hadn't been treating it any rougher than usual. E key started bouncing (repeating). Rarely at first, but it got worse over the course of a week. Canned air didn't fix it--had to ship it out.

I can't really say it was a bad experience, though. They handled everything without issue. I walked into the store--no appointment--and they took a look at it immediately. I didn't pay anything despite being out of warranty and without AppleCare. Had it back in my hands a few days later.

Personally, I love the feel of Apple's butterfly keys. I like the short travel distance and the satisfying "click" they make. I've had plenty of similar issues with scissor switch keyboards; it's just that they're easier to repair. Pop off the key, give it a good blow, and it's as good as new, though you might end up inhaling some ancient crumbs in the process. Allegedly, that usually doesn't work with butterfly keys, for whatever reason, and they're hard to remove without breaking.

They're actually really easy to remove without breaking, in my experience. You just have to use a very thin piece of flexible plastic to get under them from the top.

Then you're lucky. We have two 2017 MBPs and one has a broken R key. Broadly speaking (a) the failure rate is really high and (b) the fact that it can only be fixed by a complete front plate replacement makes this a punishing error. In the old days if a key broke you could just replace that key most of the time. Here you need to replace half the chassis, which necessitates a trip to the Apple Store.

So your entire comment is based purely on anecdotal evidence?

Same here, 2016 MacBook (so it's not even the second-gen keyboard). Still works fine, although I would prefer more key travel.

So far I have spent over $5k ferrying my 2017 Macbook Pro (15" with touchbar) to and from Apple. Is this a super isolated hardware situation or have others experienced similar?

- March 2018 I start my laptop in the morning to find the screen doesn't go on. I take it to the service center in Bali where they inform me it will take 6+ weeks to service. I can't do 6 weeks without my primary work device. I fly to Sydney and visit the genius bar. They replace the screen and the logic board (losing all the data) ($750 flight + other expenses).

I fly back to Bali (battery's ~ 80%) open up the laptop and find that the screen is dead again. After a week of conversations with Apple they agree to give me a new MBP but I have to fly to Sydney to get it ($750 flight + other expenses).

- March 2019 screen stops working. I fly to Kuala Lumpur where the authorised service center says 3 weeks to fix. That won't work, so I fly on to the new apple store in Bangkok. They replace the screen and logic board (losing all data) ($1.5k)

- April 2019 (5 weeks later) the screen gets pink lines. I fly back to Bangkok, they replace the screen (another $1.5k on travel) and offer me $980 off a new MBP + free 3 year applecare.

So far 12 international flight sectors, over $5k in expenses (hotels / flights etc) and 6 weeks with no device.

To stay on Apple I'm having to seriously consider a second standby laptop. Or make the switch to Windows as Dell has fast domestic warranty repair.

“seven elements that every keyboard needs to create a great typing experience.” I have a hard time imagining what those seven elements are, because I get stuck at two: 1. Produces the characters 2. That I intended to type. These two attributes are also, incidentally, what the biggest and most-valuable tech companies in the world are somehow grappling with anew.

Oh come on. Having a keyboard that causes as little fatigue and soreness as possible over time is an unsolved and complicated problem. There's also noise to consider. And laptops don't have infinite room. These factors come after "does it make the characters?" but they are not unimportant.

She was being sarcastic. She wasn't saying that nothing else matters, she was saying that nothing else matters if it fails at being a functional keyboard.

But Apple is the only one grappling with that. It's not what Microsoft's presentation is going to be about.

Yes, exactly. That's the sarcasm.

>1. Produces the characters 2. That I intended to type.

if it helps, the butterfly mechanism fails at doing that if even a tiny speck of dust/grit gets in the mechanism

X1 Carbon and XPS 13 are still the best hardware out there if you are using Linux.

T480s seems like a more balanced machine than the carbon imo. Xps have quality control issues.

Running Ubuntu on T480s. Nice machine, plenty thin and really lightweight. Touchpad is nice, no pinch-to-zoom on linux but two-finger right click is finally working it seems (click, not tap). Battery life could be better, getting ~4hours on Ubuntu 18.10 with tlp installed (and I thought 6hrs on the 2016 Macbook Pro was a downgrade :/) I miss the mac apps though, linux apps got frozen in time somewhere in the early 2000s.

My experience with the XPS 13 has been pretty meh. Most things work reasonably well, except for using USB-C for an external monitor and the keyboard isn't holding up as well as I'd like. My biggest gripe is the wireless- there's a room in my house where every other laptop gets plenty sufficient signal (mb air, chromebook, windows) BUT the xps gets such a weak signal it's almost impossible to browse the internet.

If I wasn't worried about bricking it and all the config tweaks needed to get things like sleep and power management to work, I'd throw linux on the air and call it a day.

Recent XPS models use a "killer" branded wireless card that's soldered to the motherboard. I suspect things would be better if you could use an Intel card (as is used on most other premium laptops)

X1 Extreme is a better choice imo, up to 64G (replaceable), 2 m.2 slots, a GTX1050 for casual gaming or ML and a 4K display. I have one on order.

There is also the P1, which comes with a Xeon (!) option and Quadro P1000 graphics. The market for the P1 is pretty specific, but if you need those nVidia certified drivers, this is the one.

Edit: obviously you wouldn't run Linux on the P1 if you bought it for the certified drivers. It would still work though.

I get my X1 Extreme on Sunday -- had to order through a friend in the UK because the price in Thailand is nearly 2 times the UK one and in any case nobody has one.

Been a big fan of the thinkpads for 20 years. All of them very solid machines that just last and last, and never had a problem with running Linux on them

I'm in the market to replace my macbook. Does the X1 Extreme support usb-c charging (charging the laptop with usb-c)?

Yes it does.

What are the charger requirements? Mine doesn't charge with the 60W provided by my monitor.

Not too surprising I think. The charger is 135W

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/Thi...

I ordered the X1X as a replacement for my 2013 rMBP.

One of the requirements I had was that I can use the single cable USB-C 'docking' stations we have at the office, like my colleagues do who are on the new macbooks.

The great thing of the X1 is (imo) that is has USB-C with TB3 and charging capability like the Mac, but it also has 2 USB type A inputs.

That said, charging over USB-C is not ideal, the supplied 100W Lenovo power brick (unfortunately with proprietary connector) will charge the laptop much faster. It wouldn't even surprise me if the laptop actually loses charge under high load when connected to a USB-C charger. My current MBP also does that with a 60W charger connected.

I use the P1 as a company provided laptop. It works very well, but the thing is a tank. It's probably twice the weight as a Macbook, and the battery life is about 2 hours or so. It has died if I have many meetings in the day.

Honestly I'd rather just have a desktop at this point. But I don't get to decide what hardware I use.

I've been using company a provided X1, X1 Yoga 1st and now 3rd gen.

I had several issues with the arrow keys on the X1 Yoga 1st edition.

Tactile feedback while pressing but without actual keypress action on the up arrow. We had a lot of 15 of those, and the issue was present on 8 of these.

3rd edition now has the same issue on the left/right touchpad buttons (the physical ones). If you press don't press on the dead center of these keys, you feel the physical feedback, but there's no keypress action. Again, we got a batch of 15 of those, out of which 10 had this issue.

For the 1st edition the shape of the key was the issue (slant on the membrane), while for the 3rd the key is just too soft (plastic bends before pushing on the membrane).

This is the most brutal behavior a button can have. What's the point of physical feedback if it's broken?

The monitor backlight on all the X1 laptops we have (we're using them since 5 years) developed bright spots. The black level of the screen degrades pretty quickly too, settling after 3 months of normal usage. If you turn on a "fresh" X1 it has significantly more contrast than what you'll typically get a few months on.

Overall, it's still a great line (up and beyond than the HP "elitebook" series), but the keyboard and button issues are really irking me up and the Yoga 3rd edition IMHO has a worse keyboard then the 1st overall.

I sadly cannot compare with the XPS series as I never used the series long enough to judge.

The fact that there's well over 250+ comments and growing here alone, shows just what a sh*tshow this keyboard is. I was in the market for a new laptop, but the feel of these just turned me off. So I got a 'new' used laptop off of craigslist.

Coupled to this, I've had a number of friends (three so far) with issues. One had Apple not only replace their keyboard but looking over the bill of work - replaced the MB and some other components. All because their "e" key didn't work?... They were covered, so no costs - except not having their work computer for the couple of days.

The fact (for me ;-) ) that chromebooks have better feelings keyboards ought to be a wake up call.

It really seems like there's no one in charge of late, and perhaps a single a-hole demanding stuff work/clean design/simple is more needed than ever before.

Apple seems to focus more on the “can cost a lot” definition of “Pro”, and not the “get important work done” definition of “Pro”. The only correct course when offered a more-expensive and clearly-regressing machine is to not buy it (though I suspect Apple might actually have come out making more money this time around).

They need to also realize that if anyone is likely to accept reasonable trade-offs (like thickness) in favor of a better work machine, it’s “pros”! It is insane to regress at this price/feature level.

Apple has lost sight of it's original motto to be independent, creative and do the things that other people didn't dare to do or simply never thought of. This created a cult, often despised, but mostly admired, and being part of that cult was more important than having the best technical value for the money.

Now their purpose seems to maximize on making money off the brand value. That won't last. There is no vision anymore. Well, the "vision" is thinner, thinner, thinner, and all the while make it twice as expensive. I suppose there is a real market for this, many people may want it, but I think there are many users who don't care about 1cm thicker laptops, or having the fasted custom made ssd-connector. They prefer lower price and swappable disks and batteries. Oh and working keyboards. I'm glad with my 2015 macbook with good keyboard, but I don't know what I would do if this thing crashed tomorrow...

Not admitting your mistake this much is simply lying. They have a severe honesty problem admitting their hardware faults. How is this legal? Imagine if car companies, instead of recalling their broken shit, just lied and quietly tried to fix it on next year's model...

When the free keyboard replacement program shuts down, and Apple still denies the problem, and Apple happily charges you $795 every so often to fix their mistake over the life of the machine, will it be fraud?

Many poorly designed car parts fail prematurely just outside of warranty. If there's no safety concern, there's no recall.

Where is the threshold between "marketing spin" and lying?

The butterfly keyboards drive me crazy. They sound like a constant drove of woodpeckers going to town on a keyboard, and to me they just don’t feel right when traversing.

I own the full size wired aluminum keyboard and it’s honestly my favorite thing. It’s used on my Linux systems and Windows ones. Not a huge fan of mechanical keyboards and this one is thin, fast to traverse, and quiet to use. I was devastated when they ended support for it as they unveiled the iMac Pro.

I abandoned apple in Dec. of '17 after 5+ years in the ecosystem & went on a hefty soul search for what to use next. I knew the touchbar was sort of a warning flare that they were trending away from what I'd need out of computing.

After frustrations with windows / linux (laptop, dell xps 13), I ended up shelling out a bunch of money to get a macbook pro '16 with just the two ports: No touchbar. Had to have the top replaced within 6 months due to keyboard. The two ports heated up and pushing heavy throughput via wireless would make bluetooth go apeshit. Sold it immediately afterwards, endured a few more frustrating months with linux. Got a '17 pro, surely they had fixed things. Keys started sticking. Replacement, sold it. Now on a '19 macbook air, because surely they've fixed it, yes?

Keys are sticking after less than ~10 uses.

My desktop has been linux powered since that soul search started, without issue. The trackpad on my lenovo x5c is working wonderfully under ubuntu after I realized I had been importing broken configs from my 10+ year old backups: Exclude your dotfiles.

I only miss two things from the entire ecosystem: ulysses (the text editor) & little snitch. Everything else about linux is far superior.

> Now on a '19 macbook air, because surely they've fixed it, yes?

Is there a 2019 MBA? I thought it was most recently updated in 2018. It certainly feels better than the older models, and even a smidge better than the 2018 MBP, which was updated earlier in the year. But there are still reports of issues with the 2018 MBA, including in the WSJ writeup IIRC.

Keen point: It's likely the '18. Bought early '19. Regardless, keys already becoming non-functional on the left-hand side of it after very little use.

hmm... am I alone in being someone who likes the butterfly keyboard?

no, you are not

as long as it lasts, I enjoy it.

Not at all. Even a lot of people that hate it, liked it for several months until it broke.

That doesn't say much about whether it's a good idea overall, though.

Right. It's a very polarizing keyboard design. Whereas previous designs pleased everyone.

I also hate it, but maybe it’s like music and it’s totally subjective.

I haven't had too much trouble with it aside from a poorly responsive spacebar at one point. I still dislike it though, and don't really find any value in the extra thinness.

the article isn't about the feel of the keyboard, its about the reliability. Unless you are saying you like stuck keys?

Apple users say they like that Apple is closed, so I wouldn't put it past them.

I like the sharpness of it and don't mind short travel.

I hate when I have to send my laptop in to Apple for 10 days to repair it because a speck of dust entered it.

So now I use a "keyboard condom" on it to keep dust out (despite Apple's explicit support article saying NOT to use one) and it's turned into the worst keyboard since the ZX80

The apple repair store near me (not an apple store per-se) has those condoms on the customer facing keyboards. Wow, they're awful!

I have the Ghostcover and it's amazing.

Doesn't cover the TouchBar and helps to soften the noise.

Oh how sad. I remember those videos showing the first unibody MBPs, everyone was drooling over those. Now people have to use that!! [1] while $200 laptops from ASUS have keyboards that work for 10 years. I wish they were the kind of company that could admit a mistake, but it breaks their story.

[1] https://store.gouppercase.com/products/premium-keyboard-prot...

Not sure what you're talking about. Nobody has to use them.

I like to use them so my laptop keyboard stays clean and helps soften the noise since MacBook Pro is designed to at least partially emulate a mechanical keyboard.

Nope.

I didn’t like it first. Then I became ok with it.

But it’s so so so infuriatingly shoddy. Cmd fell out on my previous laptop. On my current one most of the keys feel wobbly. Coupled with accidental brushes againt touchbar and the unnecessarily enlarged touchpad frequently failing at palm rejection this ends up being a very subpar experience compared to earlier models.

I love it. I recently had to temporarily go back to a 2014 MacBook and it just felt mushy and imprecise. The new keyboards feel sharp and way more precise. Just simply better.

I love them. The newer keyboards have a very satisfying clickiness to them. I guess I'm lucky to have a 2018 model that's not had keystroke issues however

The arrow keys are one of the most essential parts of a keyboard for people who write a lot of code or otherwise do a lot of copyediting.

This type of user needs to be able to lock on to the arrow keys repeatedly and unconsciously without fail throughout the work day.

Apple's keyboard designers understood this and got it right for over 15 years. But that changed in 2016.

As of 2016, Apple's new keyboards provide zero affordances for these kinds of users and are completely unsuitable for real work.

You couldn't pay me enough to use one of these keyboard for writing code, and I certainly wouldn't pay my own money for one.

> The arrow keys are one of the most essential parts of a keyboard for people who write a lot of code

Ahem... I think you meant "hjkl".

Just joking ;)

How's that escape key going? :p

Honest question: Why are you using arrow keys for coding?

If you’re going to suggest vim bindings, fine, I get it; but the act of moving a cursor around to insert, remove, replace, or otherwise refactor parts of code is pretty essential to my workflow and I can’t imagine how someone wouldn’t need it. I use structural editing shortcuts quite a bit, but not 100% of the time.

I think you’d be surprised as to how many people just use the mouse for that.

Sometimes resulting in RSI

I'd guess that people who aren't mac-native don't realize how well the various arrow and option/ctrl/command/shift combinations work for editing.

Or, uh, did. Before, y'know, they stopped providing a T-shaped arrow panel.

Been using them for several years now and I like them a lot too. I have the v2 MacBook where the 'b' key got stuck once but I managed to fix with some can of air spray. Have had various MBPs at work and most of been fine too.

I've always had a habit ofregularly clean my keyboards too which I think may have helped reduce the amount of dirt getting stuck underneath.

> I've always had a habit ofregularly

“of regularly”

My company bought me a 2018 MacBook Pro about two weeks ago and so far I'm enjoying the keyboard; I like the tactile feel (I typically use mechanical keyboards whenever I'm at a desk, and so the tactile feel of the MacBook Pro's keyboard was a pleasant surprise), and there's more travel than I thought there would be. I remember trying the butterfly keyboards back in 2016 and hating them, so either something must have changed or my preferences have changed.

With that being said, I've only had this MacBook Pro for two weeks, and so we'll see if it remains reliable over the next few years.

I think you’ll find a lot of people that like the way the keys feel and travel — like me — but are really tired of not having a reliable machine.

I’ve had to take multiple different machines in for repair. And each time I have to tell them to replace the entire keyboard, but they always want to blow it with an air can. Utterly infuriating.

No, I also like it. I’m not saying the complaints are unfounded, but they’re not my issues. I broke the command key after about a year of heavy use, but it took about five minutes at an Apple Store to have it replaced. I’ve broken keys on every laptop I’ve ever had, including the venerated IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads. (Don’t even get me started on how many problems I had with that horrendous trackpoint thing.)

Since then, my only complaint about the MBP is the arrow key arrangement, which I will never adapt to, and the goddamn useless, laggy yet hypersensitive touchbar.

When I have to use other people’s keyboards, I dislike their long travel now.

No, I like mine also. I'd be annoyed too if a bunch of my keys were sticking, but they aren't, so I guess I'm lucky.

No, but we’re just quietly working and using our macs. There’s obviously a problem, but it’s not the end of the world.

I liked it when it worked. It's all about what you are used to I think. When typing on a mechanical keyboard for a while, even a thinkpad keyboard will seem like pressing on cardboard. But mine broke a lot and I managed to snap off the key caps, those are really fragile.

Jumped ship from Apple a couple of years ago and haven't looked back. Thinkpad laptop and homemade PC with mechanical keyboard: they're fast, easy to type on, and I'm lucky enough to be sufficiently savvy to fix most issues on my own.

OSX is still the superior OS - by orders of magnitude, in my mind - but Apple has simply stopped trying. Prices up, quality down. The only exception remains the good ol' iMac - possibly their greatest non-phone achievement. But the design hasn't changed in a billion years, you can't really upgrade it, and there's no decent GPU solution.

Windows-land ain't wonderful, but I'm priced out of Appleworld and I've lost my patience with it. Until something better comes along OS-wise, I'm happy where I am. (I use Linux occasionally too and enjoy it.) With respect to typing, though, man oh man: Thinkpad keyboards? Cherry MX switches? I know which rock I'm dying on.

I guess Im just an outlier as I love the butterfly keyboard. It is certainly my favorite thing about the new macs. I still have my 2016 Mac and it is in prime condition. I am a light touch typer. Therefore I dislike having to mash my fingers down into the keys to register the click.

Same!

I have a bit of repetitive strain injury so I try to use a mechanical keyboard with light force requirement and not bottom out the keys. Reducing travel and force when typing seems to help. I also like the butterfly keyboard a lot, so it probably works great for light typers.

I like it too (2019 version). I hated it the first three weeks, but now it's great and I prefer it to my old 2012 MacBook Pro keyboard. Maybe I'll hate it again in six months or a year if it dies like many other people's have, but for now it's great, at least.

After using Windows since the beginning, I switched to Mac and leased a top-of-the-line MacBook and iPad, lured in by their great build quality and Mac-only software.

Neither reliably works for input!

The Mac has the keyboard issue, and the iPad has the less well known issue with randomly not being able to recognize fingers. Neither is fixable.

When the lease is up this fall, I will own them. The Mac will become a desktop testing machine, as it's useless as a laptop. The iPad works with pen, so I'll still use it for some purposes. But I wish I could sell them!

I can't though, because unlike Apple, I could not ethically sell these to some other sucker. Such a waste of money. I've lost all respect for Apple and will avoid them at all costs from now on.

Getting the next MS Surface Book for my next laptop.

If you're concerned about ethics when you go to sell, you can confirm with the buyer that they have owned one previously and know what they are getting into. That way, you're in the clear.

To play devil's advocate, I've fully adjusted to the butterfly keyboard design and find the travel of the older keys excessive and unnecessary work for my fingers. All my colleagues type 8hr+ a day on the butterfly keyboard without complaints.

While I have experienced the annoyance of debris getting caught underneath keys, it seems like a problem of refinement of the design rather than tossing it out entirely, as many seem to be advocating.

I'm not sure articles like these are indicative of general sentiment towards the design. People enjoying the keyboard have no reason to comment about it, because having an opinion that you enjoy the status quo isn't interesting or worth sharing.

I have a 2017 MBP and a few months in keys started to fail, I eventually got it repaired by 2 AASP, but had a TERRIBLE experience with Apple support (first repair agent they told me to send it to I later found out was known to be terrible and ended up breaking more than fixing on my laptop, I did my own research then and found a good AASP to get the first AASP work fixed).

All in all, it took over half a year to get it all fixed. I rarely have a need to go to Apple to get things fixed but this one incident really soured my view of Apple support.

Having said all that, since then the replaced keyboard has worked without fault since, so they must have put in a slightly refined one.

They can’t just “refine” it if their 3rd iteration still has problems and it’s been years. They would have been better off reverting.

And honestly, I’m not sure I will trust them if they get up on stage again with another “all new” design. I want them to basically say “we went back to exactly the same design as our 2013 laptops”.

The next generation keyboard (I'm guessing) will be a sealed set of raised keys that uses the taptic engine to simulate a keypress, similar to how the touchpads on MacBooks work now. This will be a good change because not only will it fix the issues of dust and crumbs and outright key failure, but it could also provide some protection against small spills onto the keyboard.

I just purchased a 2018 MacBook Pro and I actually kind of enjoy using the keyboard, but I'm worried about keyboard failures in the future, and on a $2500 laptop I shouldn't have to worry about that. I'm considering returning it and waiting for a 2019 model with a redesigned keyboard, but I haven't completely decided yet...and it's possible that Apple will just refresh the 2019 MacBooks with new processors, and not address the keyboard issues this year.

I updated my work laptop last year to the 2017 model and I immediately determined that I would wait for a better keyboard design before updating my personal laptop. Preferably one without the touchbar, or at the very least with a physical escape key.

i am absolutely laughing at this macbook pro 2017 i bought. the keyboard has been replaced 3 times now...the screen was replaced for stagelight effect(broken connector)...they replaced the whole top bit for that(everything north of the hinge gets replaced)

i finally pawned it off on someone else and they promptly fried the motherboard due to water damage(the air intake ports lead directly to the motherboard so good luck to any starbucks warriors out there) so that got replaced too.

Ship of theseus in action - a macbook story. only the bottom baseplate is from the original macbook at this point.

Woa. For the X1 Carbon, Lenovo actually designed ducts to channel accidental water ingress away from the important parts.

It's kind of sad that Apple gets away with just focusing on the glitzy externals - and that their plethora customers don't care.

They do care, but Apple has a monopoly on making MacOS hardware and people are unable to “vote with their wallet”. Same thing with iPhones and the headphone jack.

You can buy a Lightning to 3.5mm adapter off eBay for $2.

And not sure if you've looked around your particular city but most people are using wireless headphones these days.

Though on that front I feel like they did the Appleish thing: had an excuse to remove the jack (waterproofing), moved the industry in the direction they wanted, released a product that everyone loves (AirPods).

That excuse doesn't really hold water though. The S10 still has it, and is arguably every bit as "killer" as the new iPhones.

It's more like cost cutting / engineering laziness dressed up as being progressive.

Lenovo (I’ve got an X1 Carbon) has no room to talk about shoddy QA: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/lenovo-laptop-quality-cont...

Thanks. My first actually had a gap in the corner, but no issues getting that replaced. It allowed me to go from the i5/8/256 to the i7/8/256 as the latter wasn't available when I ordered - i7 was only with 4gb.

I shall certainly be wary when I do get around to upgrading this one. Lenovo Australia are pretty easy to deal with though, fortunately.

You can famously pour water into a Thinkpad keyboard without any damage.

Try that with a Coke or fancy Starbucks drink and you'll have sticky residue that requires you to replace the keyboard or clean it very, very thouroughly.

The air intake ports on the MacBook Pro are on the sides/back:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202179

Must have had the unit deeply submerged in water to get it in via those ports. Be interesting to know how that would've happened.

I'm not sure about the 2017 models, but looking at my 2015 MBP I can easily see liquid spilled onto the lower display and hinge being deflected into the vents, especially if the bottom of the machine is propped up at an angle.

I got the MacBook Pro end of 2016, when it came out (reluctantly, as it was so much more expensive than the MBA it replaced). Since then, every part of it has been replaced (under Apple Care) except the bottom plate. The cables (USB-C power cable, USB-C to lightning) are totally broken and frazzled out, unusable, too (no replacement under Apple Care, but hey, what's $55 among friends?).

However, I must admit, I did use the machine and also even moved it regularly. It doesn't seem designed for that.

I joined HN during the Ballmer/Jobs era. Back then the community seemed predominantly Apple and [rightfully so] very weary of Microsoft. Getting to that point took Apple a huge amount of work; I still remember the days when Apple purely existed for Adobe and DAWs. Apple had to climb a mountain of consumer apathy in order to displace Microsoft. The hardware specs have never been great (which is why I personally never made the switch), but Apple was good enough for nearly everything and I could never argue against Apple build quality.

The tables seem to have switched. Microsoft is putting out some unbelievably good hardware, my MSFT friends have surfaces and I drool over them (without worrying about breaking the keyboard :) ). My Dell isn't that bad, certainly superior to anything Apple has on offer (the touchpad sucks as always, but I have a bluetooth trackball). Windows is now a great OS. Microsoft is now facing the very same mountain of consumer apathy that Apple faced.

It does seem to be changing. There was an Ask HN thread yesterday asking about setups, and the amount of "Install Windows 10" or "Install Linux" I saw on HN was utterly bizarre.

My main complaint with their new keyboard design, not having used it enough to encounter any reliability issues, is that it’s just way too cramped to actually type on. I’ve since gone back to an older MBP, but while I was using the newer design I found the only way I could actually type on it was using an external keyboard. There really wasn’t anything wrong with the 2012/2015 form factor and I wish they’d go back to that.

I too had to go back to an older MBP, but not because the keyboard was cramped. My complaints:

1. Not enough tactile feedback from keys. I have to carefully calibrate the amount of muscle power I use to hit the keys, which paradoxically increases the pain in the joints of my fingers.

2. Lack of a physical ESC key. I touch type, and this makes writing code rather difficult.

3. Lack of USB port. Lack of HDMI port. Lack of magnetic charging port (which is very convenient)

4. Oversized touchpad. Increases accidental touches.

My old MBP is now in its third year, and I'm really hoping a newer, more usable version will come out before it dies.

Re 2, I remapped the tilde key to escape because it was driving me nuts. I do still want to type a tilde char sometimes, so that is now Alt-tilde. Thank goodness for Karabiner.

Lack of competition in the Apple ecosystem, plain and simple. I think people know this before making the jump. Or they work for a company that forces them into choosing between a windows or osx laptop. I'm in this crowd and I have no love for either. I despise apple hardware but hate windows itself far more.

Most people are best served with a good chromebook. That crowd won't be the ones frequenting this type website.

You're spot on, I'm sorry that you're being downvoted.

Apple Inc has a monopoly on regular users' hardware for their iOS/OS.

Windows, Linux, Android, Windows Phone OS (when that was a thing), did not. Companies were able to try and provide the best hardware in order to win customers.

Apple doesn't have provide the best hardware, regular users only have one hardware provider to choose from if they want Apple's iOS/OS.

(The average regular user is not going to make a Hackintosh.)

How much of an ecosystem is there between Apple on the desktop vs mobile?

I have an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and AirPods and there is definitely a strong ecosystem there.

However, I ditched the MacBook (due to keyboard issues) and went with a ThinkPad and have been very happy. The ThinkPad has iTunes, so I dont lose my music. I supposed there is iCloud integration, but that seems like a small reason to remain on Apple desktops.

Side note: Other benefits of ThinkPad

- 64GB RAM! Can run multiple VMs easily - NVIDIA GPU for those who do CUDA work.

The warranty on my MacBook expired, but Apple replaced the keyboard under their "Quality" coverage program.

So, to some extent I felt they "admitted" the mistake. But when the new keyboard fails, and the repair costs fall on me, I'll be looking for an alternative.

For comparison, my 2012 MacBook Air keyboard still rocks.

May be the only one that thinks this but changing up the keyboard so much on all devices has ruined me on all of them. The old MBP feels weird now I’m used to the new one and old PC keyboards feel weird too, the ChromeBook keyboard feels weird, etc..Hmm how about velvet that smells like lavender wouldn’t that be nice?

Everyone speaks about being ‘locked in’ to the apple ecosystem. I’m happy to be in the ecosystem and I’m happy to pay more for my devices. The alternatives are simply interior (having used all platforms myself). In particular when you are trying to work across multiple devices from different ecosystems.

I wonder if the resellers have been facing any backlash from this.

Best Buy has taken $400 off both the base 13" model (earlier this week) and the base 13" touchbar model (right now).

Clearing out inventory for incoming new models? Or just discounting them so they'll actually sell?

Apple deserves a multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit over these keyboards. I don’t know why some ambulance chaser hasn’t taken this up As a cause yet, this would be the first class actions lawsuit I would support.

What? The butterfly keyboard is great. I went from about 96 WPM on traditional mechanical keyboards to over 110 on the butterfly. It feels great and the short travel time combined with clickiness really works nicely.

My rant about the state of Apple: https://github.com/geophile/reality-distortion-field

This is the corporate disease. If everybody is following the procedures, then there is only one way - forward. Nobody can take a step back to analyse the current state, or admit that the company made mistake. Life goes on, the managers are taking their big bonuses, the engineers will continue to make useless inventions, and probably in few iterations a new keyboard will be announced, without admitting anything wrong with the current product.

Actually it's the best keyboard I ever type on. I just loved. I have a 13-inch MacBook Pro Touch Bar at work. It's fast and reliable with every key press.

I second this. You may hate the butterfly keyboard but I love it. So claiming the design has clearly failed is a little bit of a stretch.

I completely agree, scrolled through a lot to get to some positive comments. Love the keyboard, especially considering how thin my 13" MBP is (I have a "huge" Windows laptop also, since I work in CAD development, and its keyboard is pretty good too). I do generally dislike the touch bar though (it does have its moments).

One thing I find interesting, is that the first couple dozen of negative comments are from people saying "I left Apple products behind X years/months ago"... Not necessarily people that use Apple products, or this keyboard, daily.

The design has failed not because a majority of users dislike the feel of the keyboard. It's a failure because of, well, the failure rate of said keyboard...

My Masters program of about 30 people were all given 2018 MacBook Pros in August 2018. We've all been using it as our primary laptop since then and there has one keyboard problem that Apple did end up fixing.

I've also spilled maybe half a cup of water directly the keyboard of my 2017 MacBook Pro and it still works just fine to this day (I've since given the laptop to my dad).

Just hoping to add some more data to the conversation.

Put your laptop in its "dock", and use a cheap, indestructible keyboard that'll be far superior to the laptop's keyboard.

I too experience keyboard problems on the new MacBook Air keyboard design. Spontaneously unresponsive keys, and a spacebar that inserts two spaces regularly. In any endeavor that requires precision syntax to be entered in a reliable manner, that is an obvious problem.

On a positive note, the new MacBook Air has an Escape key, function row, and does not include a Touch Bar.

Tim Cook needs to do the right thing and hold a VP accountable for this, as well as for the thermal throttling and T2 bugs, flex cable failure, iPad chassis deformation, AirPower vaporware, etc. Phil Schiller? Dan Riccio? John Ternus? Sounds like Apple needs Bob Mansfield to run the hardware division again.

I'm no fan of macs despite the fact I have to use one for work and I own a mini personally, but come on - you literally don't have to eat over a computer. How does that even work? You take a bite and chew while typing? Take 5 minutes and finish your meal somewhere else.

Okay, they haven't admitted their mistaken design to the public. So what? That says nothing about what design changes they might make in the future.

There are definitely things to point out about Apple's current generation of MacBooks, but I really don't get the vitriol people currently have for them.

Sure, I liked the MagSafe charging port, but USB-3 has so far been better than I expected. I only need one kind of cable for most things now, and can charge my phone and my MacBook off the same charger.

The touchbar is kind of bullshit to me, though. It hasn't provided any benefit and is really just a nuisance when I somehow inadvertently touch virtual keys when reaching for the delete key. Other times, it shuts off after non-use during things like Google Hangouts, in which case what's the point of the virtual keys if I can't see them all the time? Yet the touchbar doesn't offend me enough that I wouldn't buy another MacBook in the future.

These are still good computers. I used to be a Windows and Linux guy, but all the non-Apple laptops I owned had significant flaws that usually didn't reveal themselves at first. My experience with 2014+ MacBooks has been excellent in contrast, with updates always being very smooth, no hardware failures besides soy sauce jamming up my spacebar, and a consistent experience overall.

I get people's criticisms, but I also think people need to chill out a bit, and that some of the vitriol is being manufactured by journalists(for better or worse, it's popular right now to attack Big Tech).

If you don't like the butterfly keys, you can still buy a 2015 MacBook brand new or refurbished and it's really just as good for most purposes. My main laptop is a mid-2014 MacBook Pro and it's still working great with Mojave.

Apple makes shit hardware now and has for a few years. The Apple of old is gone. People need to accept that. The keyboard is shit. The trackpad is too big. And the screen has issues too. Desktop/laptop software, other than OS X, has always been shit. OS X is slowly turning into iOS which is a locked down piece of garbage. This is reality and no amount of fanboyism is going to change that. The alternative is Windows which is an adware riddled spy machine or Linux for which every year is the year of the desktop but not quite. I suppose a Hackintosh could work for some people too who want the OS X experience but don't want to deal with shit hardware. There's plenty of choice in the Windows world for people that don't mind spyware and adware. And Linux is pretty much the same year in, year out. Those are the choices for serious computing. We need to get used to them. I know what I'm going with next upgrade.

Apple's mistake is not putting the membrane over the keys instead of under it. With the engineering that's already gone into the keyboard, just go the rest of the way and make a membrane keyboard that has good tactile response.

One side questions, what do you guys think about Apple Magic Keyboard 2 typing experience compare to MacBook Pro 2014-2015 series (or ThinkPad T, X series). I’m thinking of buying one as a backup for my 2017 MBP Touchbar Keyboard.

There is a petition to get Apple to recall the keyboards. Previous discussion here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16997476

Yet she went on and bought another Macbook, and this is not the only case I've heard of about "Macbooks have gone crap but what else am I supposed to do about it?"

Well, the problem is that you've bought into the ecosystem so hard now it's impossible to you to get out, I agree, maybe you don't feel like Windows or Linux are going to solve your problems (although I don't think this to be true) , but the problem is if you keep buying Apple products the company will retain the monopoly.

If you want Apple to either improve their hardware or open up their software to other manufacturers then I feel like the only way is to stop buying their products.

And it's not only about hardware/software quality, it's also about their despicable relationship with customers.

After 13 years of Apple I’m on my last iPhone, and MacBook. The company has gone backwards, with phones and with computers, and I regret the day I have to slide back to the PC.

Amusingly, the bad keyboard plus touchbar has made me finally use my Capslock as Escape instead of Control, making me more balanced between emacs and vi. Thanks, I guess?

Damn, there are problems in all hiend laptop in these comments. I guess I'll stick to xiaomi, at least I can buy two for price of XPS/X1/Mac.

I take it with these amazing apple keyboards you can't just pop the keycaps off with a screwdriver to clean under them and pop them back on?

You can very, very carefully remove them with a credit card.

However, they are VERY easy to damage. And even if you get the key off without breaking it, the problem is the butterfly mechanism is very fragilse and goes 'flat', it's not so much getting dust specks in there.

There are nice USB external keyboards available, you know. With a proper set of dongles, you can set yourself a proper typewriter. :P

The larger trackpad, the touchbar, and the crappy keyboard might all be easing us towards fully touchscreen computers.

The larger trackpad gives us more touchable real estate, getting us used to making gestures to control screen behavior.

The touchbar is similar- getting us used to changing collections of touchable buttons rather than the static keys available on a keyboard.

Maybe a crappy keyboard is part of that plan, providing a worse user experience to make the transition away from keyboards completely an easier pill to swallow.

Writing this from a two month old MacBook Air with broken H key (at my desk with external keyboard!)

Except Apple issued an apology over a month ago:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/macbook-keyboard-apple-apolo...

Just another clickbait title.

i like the razor edge they put on the bottom of the computer, such that after using it for a while, people feel compelled to ask me about my day and offer kind affirmations.

This again?

blah blah blah

I think the butterfly keys are great, when I got used to them going back to anything else felt like a step back.

Reliability issues are a problem, but that's all within reason I think. If they repair for free.

The issue with Mac is they are too expensive and a lot of the regular, non-iPhone stuff is languishing.

>Reliability issues are a problem, but that's all within reason I think.

No, when your product doesnt work, that is unacceptable.

This the real world: every physical product has tolerances and exhibits problems, and most that are expensive require maintenance. Moreover, new features are going to be problematic.

Consider your statement as it would apply to cars for example: they are in constant need of repair, tweaking, maintenance.

Butterfly keyboards have never been a problem for me, the issue is really the rate of problems, how they are fixed, who pays for it.

Design it so it doesnt break despite tolerances?

This is engineering, having something fail is not acceptable.

"This is engineering, having something fail is not acceptable."

No. Engineering is not about 'zero failure' at all. It's about characterizing the failure properly.

Have you ever had the pleasure of working on a physical, manufactured product? There is no such thing as a perfect run. There are always defects, there are always failures for any product at scale.

100% of Apple products have a measurable failure rate.

The only Eng. problem where we shoot for 0 failures are a) Space Systems and b) Nuclear tech. Maybe some other things.

But even in Space and Nuclear ... there's still a tolerance!

We launch people into space with some kind of estimate as to the likelihood they will all die.

Failure-

Not meeting specifications.

These did not meet specs. At least customer expectations.

That gas in the "canned air" cans has a staggeringly high global warming potential. Apple ought to sell a version which is environmentally safe.

The butterfly keyboard is a disaster, but the trackpad with its completely broken palm rejection is much worse.

It's amazing how a feature (palm rejection) that worked fine on previous Apple laptops doesn't work on current models.

Literally my favorite thing about the MacBook Pro is the keyboard. I do not understand the beef with it (aside from stuck keys which can happen to others).

P.T. Barnum (possibly) said it best: "There's a sucker born every minute." There are a lot of suckers out there with MacBooks.

After watching Louis Rossmann's live repairs and informed bitching, I bought an almost maxed-out Lenovo T480 on the President's Day sale and hackintoshed it. Water-resistant, backlit keyboard that's awesome and isn't crazy loud/fragile. 16 GiB, WQHD (could be brighter), Samsung 1 TiB 970 Pro and giant extended battery. 9 hour run-time. MIL-spec rated.

EDIT: I had a pre-Retina A1278 mid-2012 MBP with 16 GiB and 2 SSD's for a long time. MagSafe 1, okay keyboard, generally bulletproof for a while until the external ports and logic board traces started corroding from humidity and temperature extremes. :( I bought a broken screen MBP for $170 USD to get a working logic board cheap to recover and migrate off. Donated to a sane-but-poor itinerant writer/journalist/commercial fisherman.

LR has absolutely guaranteed that I will never willingly purchase an apple product in my life.

Which kind of makes you think what he thinks of what his business really is in the long term. Repairing Macs that nobody buys anymore probably not.

I doubt hes under the delusion that people will stop buying apple anytime soon, and even if they did, it shouldn't be too hard for him to pivot to doing more general repairs.

Had a T480S for work. Nice port selection. Kinda thick. Speakers stink.

Powerful CPU. Upgradeable RAM/SSD.

Keyboard is nice, trackpad isn’t that great, screen isn’t as nice. Plus you’re stuck with Windows or Linux.

I tried, but I don't really feel much sympathy for someone who buys a product with a 40% premium that's effectively a status symbol masquerading as a piece of hardware.

To be honest, I'm quite giggly over this whole ordeal.

I tried, but I don't really feel much sympathy for someone who buys a product with a 40% premium that's effectively a status symbol masquerading as a piece of hardware.

Oh come on, this is getting really old. A lot of people (most Mac users that I know) pay the 40% premium because they want macOS and the Mac application ecosystem. Sure, there are people that will buy it as a status symbol, but that's a crude over-generalization.

Also, a Surface with about the same specs sells at about the same price at our local retailer. The Surface Laptop 2 with a Core i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD is 1449 Euro, the MacBook Air 1409. There are some differences like a touch screen (Surface), Touch ID (MacBook), higher PPI (MacBook). But for all practical purposes, they are in the same class and have the same price. A similarly spec'ed Dell XPS goes for 1399 Euro without a HiDPI screen.

I drive a 7-year old subcompact and you're telling me that the Mercedes S-Class is not that expensive because it's only $10k more than the BMW 7-Series.

Those are two quite modestly-spec'd laptops with fairly high price tags. I bought a rebranded Clevo with pre-installed Ubuntu 4 years ago with an i7 and 16GB of RAM for around $1,000. Does it have cool features like an all-aluminium construction or a nifty touch-bar? No, but it's a highly functional machine and has been quite reliable as a daily workstation (I once dropped it from a second-floor balcony and didn't have to visit a "Genius" since I'm actually allowed to open it and work on it myself).

Not so great at impressing peers, perhaps; however, I can eat all the sandwiches I want over my keyboard and it still works.

Can you develop and test iOS apps on it?

Those are two quite modestly-spec'd laptops with fairly high price tags. I bought a rebranded Clevo with pre-installed Ubuntu 4 years ago with an i7 and 16GB of RAM for around $1,000.

Sure. I am just saying that there is no big markup for Apple compared to other vendors. If you want a laptop with the same specs, screen, trackpad, weight, and thinness as a MacBook Air, you are going to end up in the same price class as a MacBook Air.

I am not arguing for thin laptops, light laptops, Magic Trackpads, or whatever. Different people have different requirements. But a lot of people buy MacBooks based on their requirements and not for status.

I think there is at least one thing that we can agree on: the Touch Bar is completely unnecessary and a gimmick ;).

MacBooks aren't a status symbol anymore. You only tell yourself this to feel superior instead of considering that there are actual reasons people prefer macOS and, yes, the ecosystem over Windows or Android. Many of these reasons are cited in this thread.

It really is pretty hilarious that the people who believe Mac users to be superior are the ones who desperately need to feel superior themselves.

Most Mac users are just happy to pay more for a device that isn't perfect but works far better than Windows and Linux.

I'm willing to pay that 40% for the only decent desktop OS out there.

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