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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

If I was being uncharitable I'd say that the problem is that companies beside Apple just don't care about a good user experience. Maybe they could produce the same product if they thought it mattered. With almost all non-Apple laptops being flimsy, cheap-feeling plastic junk, stuffed full of ports and bezels, I feel like they're miles away from being at the stage where it makes sense to optimise the trackpad.

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Companies optimize towards whatever drives their customers buying decisions.

For some makers that’s going to be performance or cost. For businesses laptops reliability and security are going to be big factors.

For Apple the overall experience is a large part of why people buy; Apple users want a great hardware experience integrated into the OS, and they’re willing to sacrifice performance and price to get it.

You’re giving Dell / HP / etc too much credit. They’ve tried over and over again to build a machine with Macbook level quality. They have laptops that cost just as much, if not more, than a Macbook. And every one of them has some glaring issue.

It’s not some purposeful design decision. They just don’t have the same caliber of engineers or management that Apple has.

Every MacBook Pro these days has the glaring issues of

* not having a top row of physical keys

* not being able to run Linux natively

* not integrating with any phones except the ones it makes

Apple just doesn't have the caliber of engineering or management to compete with PC manufacturers.

These are not glaring issues to most mac buyers, with the possible exception of the touchbar.

Most Mac buyers both want OSX, and use iPhones. If you want Linux, don't buy a Macbook Pro, you'll save a ton of money on features you don't need, and get better hardware support.

What I'm saying is that — while the fact that all PC laptops have glaring issues is true, Macs just have a different set of glaring issues.

Doing my bit to counteract the rampant sycophancy here.

You don’t have to like Macs, but calling everyone else sycophants is out of line.

I love the Touch Bar and the fact that the new Macbooks have a physical escape key should pretty much silence any devs that were screaming about losing one.

I hate the lack of function keys. I hate the lack of touch typing support. It's a huge, glaring issue.

Unfortunately for you, you're in the minority. The Touch Bar is infinitely more useful than unlabelled function keys.

All laptop keyboards are awful, and they encourage horrible posture. If you’re going to do extended typing in a fixed position, get an external keyboard monitor. The laptop keyboard should be for short term, mobile use only.

Buy the i5 air, it's a great little dev machine if you have access to some remote horsepower.

I downvoted you before you added your second and third bullet points, because you were taking a cheap shot. Even with the additional points, you're comparing apples to oranges.

Apple chose to remove physical function keys. No other manufacturer has previously had a smooth trackpad and chosen to remove it.

I genuinely don’t get what the big deal about function keys are. I never used them heavily, even on external keyboards. I actually transitioned to external keyboards that don’t have them, to save space.

The only key that’s useful on that top row is escape, IMHO. They should make that a key. Everything else is low utility.

"Everything else is low utility." - says who? I can't imagine working without function keys.

Says me. This is a personal observation about how I use my keyboards.

"Low" is the right idea for me.

When I buy (or build) a kb, I have the expectation to be able to tell it how to operate; that's why I needed it, after all. I find it tedious to remap lots of keybindings (was super+... global? shit.) when I can simply assign 24-48 non-conflicting commands to function keys.

Some map to scripts, others to specific actions in the tools I use, some are used to turn on cameras, switch users, chance resolutions, pull all logs, push commands to restart devices in VMs or bring up or take down containers, start or stop services, reset PCI or storage devices, or semi-automate git. It's really whatever I want to press a button and make happen. It was much worse when I first got clever with udev and dbus years and years ago.

I've always hated clicking and menu-hunting. If I know what I want to do, I don't want to wade through someone else's idea of UX to get to it.

Abjure the cruft. Embrace Function.

> I have the expectation to be able to tell it how to operate

This isn’t a reasonable expectation! Use the product as it’s designed! Work with it not against it!

> I find it tedious to remap lots of keybindings

Well don’t do this then. Why make things so complicated and custom?

I mean, you can add your own things to the Touch Bar for such tasks, but you’re already pushing the limits of any laptop keyboard. At that point you’re better off using something with programmable firmware, not the built in.

Maybe your particular development environment(s) don't use function keys, but I find function keys indispensable when debugging. Most debuggers I use have the function keys mapped for step-over, step-out, and step-into.

The editors and IDEs I use also generally use the function keys for code-search, goto-defintion, and symbol-rename.

For me (and I suspect many others), the lack of tactile function keys is a productivity hit.

My two development environments have been Emacs and IntelliJ. The latter does depend on function keys for the actions you’re describing, but I’ve found it utterly impossible to memorize them. There’s no mnemonic available for F keys; so remember which is step over and which is step in just does not stick. I ended up rebinding those long before the touchbar arrived.

This is also why I miss my f keys.

Yes, and it's a glaring issue with management that they "chose" to do that. New shiny thing that compromises on fundamentals like touch typing support.

None of these things even remotely matter to me. They aren't issues when I'm looking at what to buy.

>not having a top row of physical keys

They instead get an adaptable keybed, that can be used as sliders, piano keys, timeline managers, and other controls, plus a fast and secure fingerprint sensor (PC ones are laughable), and a physical escape key again.

>not being able to run Linux natively

On exchange they get stronger security from the T2 controller handgling they keyboard, etc. Besides, most dodn't buy Macbooks to run Linux on them (though Linus used to love them for that purpose).

That said, if they're willing to turn it off, there's ongoing work from the Linux side to let it boot, talk to the SSD, keyboard, etc.

>not integrating with any phones except the ones it makes

I'm pretty sure it integrates just fine with my Android phone. Do you know something I don't know?

I honestly think a lot of it is just (bad) prioritization. An analogous situation; remember when Mac laptops had far, far better battery life than PC laptops? Like ridiculously better. People usually thought it was some magic property of the PowerPC; then Intel Mac laptops came out and they were still ridiculously better. Then Intel started taking it seriously, and a few Centrino revisions later the gap had narrowed dramatically.

I remember reading at the time that, when idle, the chipset in many PC laptops used more power than the CPU...

All Apple stuff's that way, it seems. A lot of it's the software. Just compare the effect of Safari versus Firefox or Chrome on MacBook battery life. One of these projects clearly gives a quite a large damn about power use—the other two... not so much.

I worked on software for phones and tablets right around the 2/3 split for Android, up through Android 5 or so. We had lots of testing devices of all quality levels. The joke-but-actually-100%-true around the office was that an Android tablet left unplugged on a desk over the weekend was always dead when you got back on Monday, while an iPad forgotten in a drawer for a month would have a useful amount of charge left on it (and come to life instantly, of course, as if it had never been asleep). Didn't seem to matter how much the Android device cost.

Totally. I own Android phones and tablets. But when I pick up a friend's iPhone or iPad, it's clear that the user experience is more polished. Is that because Google has a lower caliber engineers than Apple? I doubt it. Certainly the people I know at both companies are equally smart.

I’d argue that Google has lower caliber designers than Apple.

I'd be surprised if that was the case; they should be in a similar hiring position to Apple. They just seem... less interested in it.

And it's not just designers; it's everything around user experience. For instance, both Terminal.app and the Apple bluetooth keyboard (when plugged into USB) have class-leading latency. That wasn't designers, but it probably also wasn't accidental.

Mind you, the Apple today arguably isn't as good at this stuff as the Apple of a decade or so, and they really fall down in some areas (Apple Music grumble mutter).

Fair, from the outside it’s hard to tell the difference between low quality, poor management, or under staffing. What I can say is that Google’s design is somewhere between bad and inconsistent.

it's simply what is P1 and thus gets engineering bandwidth to fix. looks like UX is P1 at apple and just isn't at other companies ('isn't perfect but works', 'takes one click more than it could', etc.)

To be fair, apple hardware also has some catastrophic issues. The ongoing keyboard disasters and overheating/throttling are two that come to mind.

Fixed in the 2019 model.

for the 16". fixed in the air last month, and fixed in the 13" this week.

You're right, it's not a design decision. That degree of optimization is not something that happens at the product design level -- it is organization-wide optimization.

When Apple leverages iPhone R&D for their MacBook, they get it for free. If it takes Dell 50 million dollars to develop the tech, and Dell expects to sell 100,000 laptops, then if we assume everything else is equal, an equivalent Dell laptop would carry a premium of $500 over a MacBook. In which case, they probably wouldn't sell 100,000 laptops, and it would be a failure and a waste of 50 million bucks.

Horizontal integration is powerful.

This is it. Apple is willing to spend money on actual R&D for user experience. Dell and hp and friends essentially just assemble off the shelf parts into a styled chassis. It took dell years to bother developing a thin camera module instead of having a nose cam. It does come at a cost and until recently windows machines were not able to recoup it (probably chicken and egg scenario)

Until Microsoft forced precision touch pads windows touch pads were awful since the oems just slapped in garbage vendor drivers.

Screen aspect ratio is another thing. Everyone but apple moved to 16:9 since it's cheaper but 16:10 is better for productivity and not bad for media. But even the business windows laptops pinch pennies and do 16:9. Only apple was willing to buy 16:10 panels.

My new-this-spring HP EliteBook (ordered custom with FreeDOS) running Ubuntu 20.04 seems flawless to me, although YMMV. This coming from someone who has only ever owned Macs and uses Macs at work.

Wow what a mac clone! I thought these facsimile designs died out, but I guess they must sell.

I agree there's nothing original about the basic design, but that's true of a lot of mature products. With USB ports on both sides (in additional to Thunderbolt 3) and an HDMI port, it's a lot like the 2015 MacBook Pro aka the "best laptop ever made"¹. But mine has a great matte touchscreen, so there are some new ideas.

1: https://marco.org/2017/11/14/best-laptop-ever

I would bet cash money that Dell, etc, could do just as poorly with equally good engineers. With differences that persist this long and are this far-reaching, I think you have to look at culture, process, and values.

For all Jobs' flaws, he built an amazing culture around valuing user experience and putting that first. That's extremely hard to do, especially with a dominant business culture that instead values things like individual performance metrics, quarterly profit numbers, and low labor costs. The average piece of consumer electronics gets 3-7 physical prototypes before launch; the iPod had over 100. That's not down to the caliber of engineers or line managers.

I think “culture” and “management” kind of bleed into each other, because at the end of the day you’re going to do whatever the manager tells you to do. If they tell you to make 100 more prototypes until you perfect the iPod, you’ll do it. If they tell you what we have isn’t perfect but it’s good enough, then you’ll go with that.

I think doing only what managers say is a fine example of bad culture. People who have been trained to not care can make a hundred prototypes and still not make anything great. People who believe that the organization will support them in making something great for the users will push to do more prototypes until they get it really right.

>They have laptops that cost just as much, if not more, than a Macbook. And every one of them has some glaring issue.

You can go to many laptop review sites and find that Apple are not dominating every category. What do you know that they don't?

The older I get the more I realize raw performance matters far less than the experience of using the machine every day. Macos is comfortable, so that's what I go with. Heavy lifting is better done with something permanently plugged into a wall.

Have you seen any Windows laptops in the past five years? Many Windows ultrabooks rival Apple's in terms of "ports and bezels." The XPS 13, for example, has significantly thinner bezels than the MacBook Pro I'm typing this on, at a much more reasonable price.

The XPS 13 isn't much cheaper than a MacBook Pro once you opt for the high res screen.

Yeah, but almost nobody opts for the super high resolution display because the screen is so small that the difference is basically unnoticeable. A similar configuration to my laptop is several hundred dollars cheaper, and that's a not insignificant difference.

Edit: I owned both.

> the screen is so small that the difference is basically unnoticeable

At the same scaling, maybe. But I use the high resolution display on my work-provided MacBook at 125%, which means a massive virtual screen estate gain.

Presumably the vast majority of people are not going to want to scale their 13-inch display so that everything is significantly harder to read for the sake of increased screen real estate. But I'm glad that the MacBook works well for your specific use case.

I currently work on a MacBook Pro 13 and I switched from a XPS 13 with a 4k display. They're largely comparable, and the only difference I notice or care about is the OS. It seems that is how it is for most people.

When I use other screens (including the iPhone SE I'm typing this on) the reason I struggle isn't lack of real estate, it's everything looking so massive and oddly hard to read because it's too big.

Both iPhone SEs have retina displays?

It's not just the pixel density, it's not allowing me to scale everything way down. The smallest font in settings is too big. UI elements are too big. With the keyboard open writing this there's about an inch high of the actual page visible, barely more than this textarea itself.

(It's the old SE, FWIW. Bought a refurb to try iOS when my Android phone broke. But the repair for that was arranged right around when lockdown started so I've been using this for longer than anticipated. Not the polished 'just works' experience I expected, the a priori known restrictions on changing default apps, browsers, etc. aside.)

From what I noticed Apple seems to relatively okay at this. On Android the typical app redesign has the key feature "we made the previews larger", which is always an infinitely stupid idea, because the main view of most apps is a list, meaning you want some overview over what's available. Soundcloud and Spotify (there are many more I can't think of right now) seem to think that a gigantic either very obstructed or totally generic cover is better than being able to see multiple titles at once (what the fuck - doubly so since Soundcloud removed the most awesome feature of showing a wave form preview - newer versions coincidentally only show you a portion of the wave form in full screen in playback mode).

Setting a custom DPI only helps a little - side elements like nav bars do get smaller, but all the layout is still completely the same, like everything is designed for a tiny phone (which absurdly nobody makes anymore).

What are designers thinking? Is it really just short-sighted "look, we like content" and "but pretty", or is it something that actually improves UX for most people and just leaves me bewildered?

The standard res screen on the XPS isn't high DPI at all. It's clearly inferior to a retina display for text and image rendering.

I'm not going to engage in some arcane debate about the particularities of random windows laptops vs. apple ones. The fact is that there are comparable windows laptops at this point when it comes to "bezels and ports," in particular, but also when it comes to most things that make a laptop nice to use.

I was just responding to your claim that the difference between the standard res screen and the 4k screen is unnoticeable. There’s a very easily noticeable difference between them, and the retina display on the MacBook Pro is much closer in quality to the 4k display. So it doesn’t make sense to compare the price of an XPS with a standard res screen to the price of a MacBook Pro with a retina screen.

This is actually a paradigm example of Apple getting it right. Other manufacturers offer you a choice between a crappy low DPI display or an ultra high DPI display that drains your battery. Apple offer you a sensible compromise.

I'm so getting downvoted for this, but let me just say it: the iPhone IPS not-even-FullHD displays are sad. The exact same inferiority you mention, in reverse -_-

Why do you think "not-even-FullHD" is an issue if it passes the benchmark of not being able to see individual pixels? Higher resolutions than that aren't just pointless, they're counterproductive.

The only important factor is Pixel density IMHO. And this is where Apple consistently get it right

The high res screen is the reason I switched to macbooks after a lifetime of windows laptops in the first place. I still have and use my 2012 macbook pro retina which is about 6 more years of functional life than I've gotten out of any windows laptop, and it cost the same then as the base XPS 13 does now.

The prices between manufacturers aren't really all that different; but, if they happen to be important for you, Apple has a few features and components that others haven't been able to replicate at any price point, which is why paying the Apple tax is worth it to some.

I guess some people see better... I like 17 inch displays, and while 4K looks great, FullHD is better for actually working. Maybe my eyes are going bad...

The good ones aren't much more reasonable than a MacBook Pro. Premium laptops tend to cost the same no matter who makes them.

And most of them have shitty touchpads. Apple excepted, of course.

That's not really accurate; a similarly specced XPS 13 is several hundred dollars cheaper than my laptop. But Apple is certainly winning the touchpad game, you're right about that.

You've proved his point. Similar spec with some components, but the Apple machine costs a few hundred more because other components are better than the XPS.

Look at the external power supplies and the packaging thereof in the box to see the difference in ethos and approach.

Even these “nice” PC laptops still come with a PSU that has ugly plastic-coated white wraparound paper stickers and labels on the black cords with meaningless unimportant shit on them (leaving oily adhesive residue on the cord even if you cut it off), bricks in the middle of the cable (AC and DC lines out opposing ends), plastic twist ties, in plastic baggies covered in meaningless production stickers. Apple doesn’t even do that on the cheap AppleTV.

This is to say nothing of the ugly metallic stickers they slap on the wristrests to spam you for the life of the machine.

The janky plastic trackpads are one of many issues with the approach that most of the industry takes. There are very few machines that even remotely aspire the level of care Apple puts into their each and every product.

Apple also just overhauled the speaker system in the 16” rMBP, making it easily 50% better than any laptop I’ve ever heard. It’s startlingly good, sound I never thought I’d hear out of a laptop.

I’m at a place in life where I have broken my iMessage dependency and find KDE to be delightful; I would absolutely love to pay a premium for an equivalent quality PC laptop, but there aren’t any in the ballpark, even. There are ones that are merely “good” (Razer Blade), none “great” (though the Pixelbook Eve comes close!), and zero have ever been insanely so, AFAIK.

Happy to be corrected if I’m wrong!

You're wrong, I owned an XPS 13 before my MacBook and the power supply was small and well designed.

Thinkpads.

Which of the OP's points don't apply to thinkpads? The points about trackpads and speakers certainly apply.

ThinkPad speakers are terrible to the point of being basically unusable even in a quiet room for most video calls.

I can live without the trackpad (once you learn to love the trackpoint you'll never go back to a trackpad) but the speakers and display are the two lacking points. Even though it's a 1440p display, it just doesn't look as nice as a "retina" display and getting a 4k display on a 13" laptop is in my mind an absurd waste of battery and money.

> This is to say nothing of the ugly metallic stickers they slap on the wristrests to spam you for the life of the machine.

What is up with these? I bought a Win laptop recently to test it out, and one of the first things that struck me at the store was that all of them had literal ads on the inside front of the lap top.

This might have just been Marketing team fucking it for everyone else, but my gut feeling was that any company that stoops that low is certainly not above severely cut corners.

I think Intel makes them do it, and it has become such a tradition/standard that everyone just expects their computer to have ugly-ass nearly-impossible-to-remove stickers there now. High end, low end, whatever. They all do it, and I think PC users have just tuned it out, like non-cordcutters with the 17 minutes per hour of commercials.

It’s utterly gross.

TBH, the lack of it was so surprising on the Pixelbook (Eve) that it caused me to take a longer/deeper look at the hardware, and it's actually top-notch. I own about 5 of them.

Is ChromeOS really enough for everything that you do? Or do you end up installing Linux applications?

ChromeOS runs a full linux in a VM, so I use that for stuff like signal-desktop. It also ships with docker. 99% of my daily tasks are chrome + zsh,docker,ssh,vim,go,python,git,syncthing.

I also just got the special closed case debugging orange cable that will let me reflash the bootloader (even the normally r/o parts) to turn them optionally into normal computers. I rather dig the security “guarantees” provided by ChromeOS but I also simply adore the design and build quality and screen and keyboard of the Eve, so I will probably do that to my 16GB/nvme one and put Gentoo hardened on it (all the others are 8GB/sata).

> bricks in the middle of the cable (AC and DC lines out opposing ends)

Huh? That's a feature. Apple's are awful without the AC extension cord. They're way too short (with the packaged USBC cable) and they eat a couple outlets on a power strip, rather than one. Bricks that don't have both, or at least the option for both (as Apple's do, though last I saw the AC cord is an add-on these days while it used to be included, which is bullshit on a laptop that expensive) are inferior, unless they're very small and for a device rarely used very far from an outlet while plugged-in (the newer, small-style iPhone charger bricks are OK)

EDIT: in general though I agree that even "high end" PC laptops are so terrible that Apple can repeatedly fuck up and dawdle on upgrades and raise prices for years on end and still not really have any competition.

Why do you need such a comically long power cable? I appreciate the compact nature of the Apple brick. I don't understand why you think they take up more than one outlet. It doesn't for me.

I mean it's just an absolute joke how ugly they are.

https://www.amazon.com/adapter-Dell-Precision-M4800-Serie/dp...

Why are they covered in so much writing that doesn't matter to me? Just have a discrete model number that I can look thing up from. Why are there so many icons? It's noise. Why do they have those massive ferrite cores on the cables? Twice even! Apple seem to manage without them. Why do they have those boots on the end of each cable? Apple manage without them.

Why are they so ugly?? Does nobody at Dell ever say 'hang on why are Apple able to do without all this _stuff_?'

The XPS 13 power supply is a pretty comprehensive Apple-esque ripoff (but in black), and doesn't have any of the stuff, so we know Dell is capable of it.

https://youtu.be/pRuDoJx8Rv4#t=22s

They did shit-up their included usb-c to usb-a adapter though with a pointless ugly hang tag. (To be fair, Apple doesn't give you one at all, but I'd rather buy a non-ugly one out of pocket than use the Dell included one for free.)

> They did shit-up their included usb-c to usb-a adapter though with a pointless ugly hang tag.

Cut it off? I also read a comment in this thread complaining about the laptop coming with stickers on them. You realize you can remove this stuff, right? Or are we really that lazy?

The stickers on PC laptops tend to require cleaning with solvents to remove all the goo. It's absurd one has to spend time removing ads and wrist-scratchers (some of the stickers are quite tall, as well) from the case of the computer one just paid for.

Can you see how it’s user-hostile to put a sticker on my laptop and tell me it’s my job to take it off?

I have a lot of hardware, so I have spent a lot of time doing precisely that.

Cutting off twist ties, removing those pointless little white HDPE condoms they put on the blades of the AC plug, plastic bags, more plastic bags, the sticky superthin protection plastic film that almost every china manufacturing plant puts on any shiny plastic flat surface, peeling keyboard stickers, carefully applying goo gone to remove the glue, then glass cleaner to remove the goo gone, cutting the stupid labels off of AC cords (being careful not to damage the cord in the process), et c.

You also have to be careful not to scratch the case with the metallic wrist rest stickers when removing them, as well, because the corners are sharp and the glue is serious so you have to pry them up with a tool. The large, ugly stickers on the bottom have important things like serial on them, so you can't remove those if you ever want your warranty to work (Apple, of course, laser etches the serial into the aluminum case in small type).

Why was any of that useless shit shipped to me in the first place, on a high end computer?

It's not about the hang tag, it's about a fundamental lack of empathy for the customer and their experience. That's the root cause, and it manifests itself as everything from building relatively decent computers and then shipping them with ugly accessories, to using plastic trackpads, to not pushing back against Intel's ugly marketing case sticker demands, et c et c et c ad nauseam.

It's like buying an $80k car and on delivery suddenly finding out it doesn't have keyless entry, or that the brand new key fob is shipped in one of those hand-slicingly-difficult wraparound plastic blister containers.

Come to think of it, the key fobs on high end cars shouldn't be made out of cheap plastic, either. A replacement one for my car cost me over $400 which I'm sure is all margin. Step up, hardware makers.

> Why do you need such a comically long power cable?

The USB-C cable in the box is, what, one meter? That won't even reach through a cable-hole in a desk down to the floor. Maybe they've fixed it but I distinctly remember receiving a brand new MBP shortly after the all-USB-C shift that had a uselessly short included cable and no AC cord included.

> I appreciate the compact nature of the Apple brick. I don't understand why you think they take up more than one outlet.

If your power strip's ports are arranged sideways I guess it might be OK, though then they're prone to "tipping" out of the port if bumped. Otherwise they're definitely the length of two ports on a power strip, at least with US-style plugs. I don't understand how you could look at it and not think it takes up two since it just is for sure longer than one port, unless plugged into the one on the very end. And I'm looking at one for a 2014 Magsafe model right now—the ones on newer MacBooks are even larger (I have those, too)

[EDIT] even my iPad Pro charger is longer than one outlet and blocks the second, and it's smaller than any MacBook Pro or even Air brick I've seen.

Yeah mine comes unplugged constantly, barely fits in the wall on a power strip at the office we can barely fit two or three plugged in at once

I didn't know people actually liked them at least it pleases some people I guess

The big 96W ones come unplugged pretty easily from their weight alone. If you have an old house it won't even plug into the wall without falling out immediately. Less of an issue with the 61W, or if you get a GaN charger from another manufacturer.

> Why are they covered in so much writing that doesn't matter to me?

I don't get it. Just turn it over. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81I5aA2rwtL...

That cable may be ugly, but I know that the insulation isn't going to disintegrate within a year, which is a known problem with Apple's PVC-free devices.

Why are people at Dell tolerating it being ugly? What is wrong with the company culture that nobody says - hang on that looks like garbage shall we fix it?

From Dell I can buy a 30w charger for £11.63, or a 90w charger for £19.55.

From Apple I get just a mains lead for £19.95. Apple have 30w USB C charger (with mains plug) for £49, and all their other Mac chargers are £79.

The Apple chargers are nice, but I don't get the hostility to the Dell chargers. Why are people looking at the charger?

If we're talking about chargers, what's wrong with the company culture at Apple that nobody says - "hang on, why are we gently electrocuting our users? shall we fix it?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12946673 (note this isn't just people using it in ungrounded outlets, there are UK users in that thread).

Wow. I guess you can honestly criticize strain relief on cables if no Apple power cable has ever failed due to fraying.

I've never experienced this.

In time, my friend. Every apple cable I've had has failed after a few years. Usually the sheath by the end will get squeezed off of the insulation and expose the wiring. Over time this gets damaged and eventually the cord stops working. Typically I would fix this with a layer of gaffer tape if I notice the cord starting to slip out of it's shielding.

There's also something about the wiring material that makes it prone to breaking the insulation at the mid point. Small pinches turn into a crack that becomes a gaping hole, and can also be a point of failure. Most of my old magsafe cables that have seen years of service look like zebras with all the black gaffer tape patches I've had to put on them, but they work at least.

Here are some images of this, it seemed to have become a serious issue when apple switched to that grippy rubber coating on their cabling:

https://www.mobilefun.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/...

https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/10/FYGXC4BGR...

https://brokenapplecords.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/wave-3-...

This one isn't broken yet but showing some of the first symptoms:

https://i.insider.com/5cc1cac5d1a2f83ea64c99ea?width=1200&fo...

Inspect your apple cables once a month for any signs of damage or pulling at the ends. Until Apple changes the material for their wiring insulation and beefs up strain relief at both ends, it's not a matter of if your cable will fail, but when. You can prolong this with patches of gaffer tape, but it will look like hell.

I kinda love the apple charger situation. They never changed the long cord, so I have like half a dozen accumulated over the years tucked around my house, be it by the desk in a power strip or behind the couch in some hard to reach outlet. If I want to plug in, I just slap on the brick to the nearest convenient long cord, and there are plenty. If I am out and about, I'll throw the nub on the brick and tuck the whole thing in my sleeve. Then again with modern battery life, rarely do I need the charger when I'm out and about (nor is there much of that going on right now with the pandemic).

My biggest gripe, other than the lack of magsafe, is that they removed the cord wrapping arms from the brick. It really kept things tidy in the bag.

> labels on the black cords with meaningless unimportant shit on them

Legally mandated in many regions, and Apple applies the stickers in those regions.

> This is to say nothing of the ugly metallic stickers they slap on the wristrests to spam you for the life of the machine.

I agree those stickers are ugly. I wish they'd stop putting them on. They're really easy to take off though.

No, not the large curved shiny ones that show the specs that you are expected to remove immediately after purchase.

The small square ones made out of little metal plates that are glued on there like there’s no tomorrow, the ones you are never intended to remove, like the intel one you’ve now seen so many times it’s invisible.

They’re anything but easy to remove: you have to pry them up with a tool like a spudger, being careful not to scratch the case with either the tool or the opposite edge of the metal plate, and then use a solvent to get the 0.5mm thick glue pad off the case, then use a cleaner to get the solvent off. Years back before I resolved to stop buying cheap plastic computers, some of the solvents I used to remove the glue actually permanently damaged the surface finish of the wrist rest.

Now I just don’t buy computers with ugly spam on them. I was impressed and amazed that my iPhone 11 actually has no writing whatsoever anywhere on the case, which is a regulatory feat I didn’t think was even possible (they put the required regulatory markings behind the info button on the pre-activation screen), and I think a first for the whole mobile phone industry.

> The small square ones made out of little metal plates that are glued on there like there’s no tomorrow, the ones you are never intended to remove, like the intel one you’ve now seen so many times it’s invisible.

I've never had a problem removing those smaller rectangle stickers, and it's something I do to any computer I buy. For second hand computers there is a problem that you'll be left with a small discoloured patch.

> some of the solvents I used to remove the glue

A tiny drop of oil is usually good to get the glue off.

> Now I just don’t buy computers with ugly spam on them.

I definitely agree! I really do wish they'd stop using those stickers.

> stuffed full of ports

Imagine thinking this was a bad thing.

How long were VGA ports commonplace in laptops? Few, if any, laptop OEMs were interested in trying to refine the mobile experience until just a few years ago.

Not that I’m a fan of those (haven’t owned a non Apple laptop in over a decade) but the reason they had those is that a VGA is the only way you’re gonna be sure that the projector in whatever random Fortune 500 meeting room you’re in can connect to your laptop. They’re kind of compensating for corporate IT being absolute garbage.

But I don’t need them! I just need USB-C! Nothing else! Get rid of the legacy junk and give me simpler, lighter, thinner, better sealed laptop.

You're not the target market.

So what should I buy if I want a powerful, long-life Windows laptop but don't want umpteen silly ports down the side?

I'm not your personal shopper. I'm sure if you want a machine with no ports someone is willing to oblige you.

Or you can go back to one-size-fits-all Apple-land.

> I'm not your personal shopper.

The point was - there's no option available. Nobody but Apple seems to be capable of doing it. That's what this thread is about. If you can't think of any counter examples then that's an argument in my favour not yours!

You're not the target market. Those laptops are for people who want features. If Apple is serving you, stay with them.

Like apple cares about a good keyboard?

Well people make mistakes. I guess they got it wrong if so many people don't like it. But they were trying to improve it, even if it failed. Other companies aren't trying to improve anything.

What nonsense is this? It is very clear that Dell has tried to improve the XPS 13 over the years and it has gotten better. They figured out a way to have the webcam on top and super thin bezels, something Apple hasn't been able to do.

If Apple didn't care they'd use some junk off-the-shelf keyboard, like PC laptop manafacturers use. They're trying to build something better themselves. A lot of people think they got it wrong this time, ok, but they're trying. Nobody else is!

Obviously they do care, as you can see by their investment in numerous attempts at in-house proprietary designs. They of course fucked up a few times, but you can’t say they haven’t tried. Otherwise they’d just be using some off the shelf keyboard assembly from a 3rd party supplier.

I love the typing experience of the butterfly keyboard. The reliability issues obviously suck, but Apple cares enough about those to have switched to a new design. That being said, I have a MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with 4th gen butterfly keyboards and haven't personally experienced any reliability problems with them. I suspect that the 4th gen pretty much fixed the reliability issues, but Apple recognized that the PR battle had long been lost.

I find typing on the butterfly keyboard strange but pleasant. It made me change the way I handle the keyboard though due to the nearly nonexistent travel in the switches.

They do care. Sure, they've made a few big mistakes, but they worked to correct them.

PC laptop manufacturers? With a few exceptions their keyboards are just garbage.

Lenovo probably does the best keyboards at this point. Their old 7-row keyboards were even better though.

I really don't care for their keyboards now. They used to be the best out there, but now they're... just... mediocre.

What's wrong with PC laptop keyboards?

I have a £200 Linx14 laptop and the keyboard is identical to my Apple keyboard (the wireless white keyboard, external). Sure, the Mac one bounces a bit more but there's no difference.

What is wrong with PC laptop keyboards?

Most of them are just garbage. At least that one doesn't have a numpad.

Have you tried an actual MacBook Pro keyboard? The external keyboards aren't quite the same.

Yes, I have a 2012 and a 2016 MacBook Pro. The 2016 keyboard feels horrible and loud and the backlight on it is very bad. The 2012 is very good.

The 2016 keyboard actually feels worse to me than my £200 laptop keyboard. The cheapo laptop has decent travel and isn't deafening to use.

Yeah, the 2015-2018/19 macbook pros have that butterfly keyboard. Fortunately Apple has come to their senses with their newest iteration.

This makes no sense whatsoever, firstly you have to ignore the thing less than a centimetre away from the trackpad - the keyboard that Apple completely fucked up for half a decade. Does Apple just not care about a good user experience?

Secondly, non-Apple laptops aren't cheap-feeling plastic junk. This is the classic "Let me compare my iPhone 11 Pro to this Alcatel 1" - well the iPhone 11 Pro is 25x the price. The Dell XPS 13 isn't cheap-feeling plastic junk, nor is the Thinkpad X1 carbon, nor is the Microsoft Surface Laptop. They're all premium products.

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