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Comment by roadbeats | Hacker News Reader

Sorry if this sounds overly critical but I find it inethical to use the Chinese clones of Apple products.

I’ve been using Arch Linux last 12 years, on desktop, Thinkpad, MacBook Air and now Macbook Pro.

Linux runs on these machines smoothly, except latest versions. Macbook Pros until 2016 has no issues with Linux. No time to configure & fix issues? There is a special Linux distro just for Macbooks (Happy Hacking Linux).

Now I don’t understand this; why would someone who make money from software choose to buy cheaper copy cats who steal the years of hard work put by people who geniunely try to innovate and find new ideas. We make money from software and we are relatively in a comfortable state to make ethical choices. We know that Huawei and Xionomi are thieves.

If there is a reason I don’t understand, I’m happy to read.

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> We know that Huawei and Xionomi are thieves.

Apple is well known patent troll that sues companies for round corners. They constantly try to make harder to repair their products and sue anyone who attempts to import part.[1] Why support there douchebags?

I see no need to pick the side here. I just take the product that suits me.

1: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3ppvj/dhs-seized-afterma...

There are a surprising number of comments defending Huawei here. They're known to send engineering teams to Apple suppliers under false pretenses to spy on manufacturing techniques and try to recruit insiders. They profit from government espionage into global companies, and pay bonuses to employees who successfully steal trade secrets and manufacturing techniques.

Specifically for the matebook, Huawei stole a hinge design that allowed them to make their laptops thinner.

> An earlier Apple-related incident, according to one source, involved Huawei copying a 2016 connector design used to make the MacBook Pro hinge thinner while linking the display to the logic board. A similar component then appeared in Huawei's 2018 MateBook Pro, something achieved by shopping Apple's schematic around to various suppliers — most of which recognized the design and refused to build it. Eventually the company found a willing partner.

https://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/19/02/18/huawei-clo...

There's too much evidence against Huawei to dismiss their history of espionage.

Reverse engineering and designing to be similar to an existing successful product is one thing, but taking manufacturing schematics and manufacturing molds directly is a different ball game.

> Sorry if this sounds overly critical but I find it inethical to use the Chinese clones of Apple products.

Which part exactly was cloned from Apple? You mention Chinese. Would you find it more ethical to buy an American clone of an Apple product?

The only thing this laptop has in common with a MacBook is the design aesthetic. But that goes for the a majority of laptops from all vendors from all over the world nowadays.

What exactly was cloned? The look of it? They still had to mill the thing from aluminum, design the components to fit and operate well, and everything else that comes with developing a laptop. It's not like they even took Apple's frame and copied that verbatim.

In fact, they went a step further by including some features that a Macbook doesn't have. Apple doesn't have exclusive rights on aluminum frames or the color silver. Or black keys... so what exactly did they clone, really?

> What exactly was cloned?

The screen has rounded corners. Blatant theft of innovation.

> We know that Huawei and Xionomi are thieves.

You mean Xiaomi?

Sorry, but you're going to have to provide us a little more evidence when making these kinds of allegations. Don't all successful companies copy and steal? Nothing is really original nowadays, and hasn't been for hundreds of years. Shoulders of giants and all.

I mean other than the visual style what did they "steal" here? Do we all have to buy 4 year old MacBooks because Apple has you convinced their laptop is actually that unique?

You mean Apple/IBM/Lenovo never copy good ideas? It's also not like these Chinese companies are pushing the companies you call original and innovative to slash their prices by stealing their customer base: Apple fans still buy and defend Apple no matter how bad some of their hardware "innovations" backfire.

No one forced Apple to ship production to China. It was well understood what was going to happen before they did it and they did it anyway. It's hard for me to have any sympathy for their current position. Business is ruthless and Apple knows it. Apple has a long history of crushing small suppliers to their own advantage so it's not like their hands are clean in all of this.

I don't mind being price gouged, I can afford it, but Apple no longer makes laptops suitable for me.

Employers have been threatening and actively trying to outsource my employment overseas my entire adult life. This drove a lot of people out of the software industry. I made the bet that they would be less successful than they planned. Now I gouge them for access to my rare skills - a problem they created. I could easily have been wrong and if that happened these companies would have not supported me out the goodness of their heart.

I don't see a touch bar on this thing.

The Huawei certainly looks like a MacBook, but If you wanted that form factor to run Linux it would make sense to buy it and overwrite your windows with Linux than buy a Mac and overwrite that.

I always thought the “apple tax” was paying for a better experience with macOS. If you aren’t gointg to use macOS and use Linux instead it would make sense to buy the machine less expensive os (windows). Ideally you’d buy a machine without an os, but that’s not really an option on notebooks. If you wanted to revert to windows that windows based machine is also a better starting point.

I ended up buying a notebook with Linux pre installed. It’s been great and I’m surprised there weren’t more options for that route.

I have dual boot Linux running on two Macbooks at home. You don’t have to overwrite OSX.

I guess you already forgot how Apple stole the ideas of GUI from Xerox.

Steve Jobs gave credit to Xerox Research Lab in a few interview I saw. Xerox and Apple actually worked together and Apple used that tech to build a unique & creative product instead of copying an existing market and selling it for cheap leveraging the abusive labor policies.

Just curious, do you feel the same way when Apple "Sherlocks" developers in the iTunes and Mac app stores?

It's cheaper. I don't care about the ethics. Steal away!

Well, Apple done so much unethical stuff so its an open question who society should blame first

> Sorry if this sounds overly critical but I find it inethical to use the Chinese clones of Apple products.

Unlike most, not everyone is inclined to pay for the privilege of closed source, proprietary walled gardens (like those from Apple). People, especially those who believe in open source and free software ideals, consider the above practice unethical, which is probably why they don't buy Chinese made Apple laptops. Those users are largely in favor of sharing technological innovations for the benefit of everyone, instead of guarding them for a select few. So, no it is not unethical because, in the end, it doesn't harm the end user.

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