Comment by bborud | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bborud | Hacker News Reader

Even 13 years ago when I made the move to OSX and Macs I was comfortable with the somewhat closed nature of Apple's platforms. I made an informed choice about what I was giving up and I have continued to make informed choices about what I have progressively given up over the years.

Because Apple mostly made really good computers this was an acceptable tradeoff.

Fast fordward to 2020, and I dread that my ageing Macbook Pro (2015-2016?) is going to kick the bucket because newer Macbooks have compromised hardware. If it kicks the bucket I have to make a choice. Do I stay on OSX or am I going to start migrating everything off OSX. (I have half a dozen Macs - iMacs, Mac Minis, Macbooks etc)

Apple no longer make laptops that you can buy without any thought. You have to wait and see what problems this iteration will have. And how much pain others go through to get them fixed. And while I used to own a Mac Pro and am definitively in the segment of users that looks for high power options, I would never risk buying a Mac Pro today. I simply can't afford to pay that kind of money and not know if it will cost me a fortune to fix if it breaks -- or if it will be fixed at all.

This in itself isn't a big dramatic change for me. I'm not happy about it, but I only run OSX anyway. It doesn't change anything for me. But it is another notch on the ratchet. And there have been numerous notches in the last decade. Slowly making the walls around the garden higher and higher, while the rent has been going up and the quality has been going down.

If Apple doesn't make a quality product and a product they will stand by and support unquestioningly when it fails, I think at least I will find myself where I was 13 years ago. With Windows as the platform for running applications, Linux to do software development and PC hardware to do it on.

Apple will have to nail the next MacBook Pro or I think developers will start leaving.

A year ago I had very similar concerns, but now I'm a happy user of a 16" Macbook Pro. Yes, the silly touchbar is still there, but with a hardware Escape key I can tolerate it. Is there anything else lacking for you from a 16" model?

I'm mostly concerned with their durability and fixability. We used to have no problems with Macbooks until some years ago. Keyboard, screen, battery etc. Fortunately no burned SMCs so far (which is essentially a death-sentence since Apple will do their best to turn replacement of a $2 part into an opportunity to sell you a new Mac)

A couple of batteries died for no apparent reason on machines newer than 6 months, I think one screen failure was due to bad thermal design (hot airstream vs connector), we've had keyboards crapping out and the fans tend to be on constantly when running workloads that are more than "mostly idling".

Even though the batteries are glued down, we stared doing those repairs ourselves. But anything that requires an inventory of dubiously sourced parts tends to mean a bad, time-consuming and expensive repair job at some authorized shop - and most of the time they don't actually repair stuff; they chuck the board in the bin, put in a new one and make you pay for it.

How do you cope with the thermal throttling? Or do you run light loads?

Why would you attempt to repair them when Apple will do it for free?

Apple doesn't actually repair anything. Apple outsources this to shops with wildly varying qualifications. Often incurring unnecessary cost. And no, they wouldn't repair them for free.

Anything that breaks within the warranty period Apple fixes for free, and often even outside the warranty period. I, like many others, have had an Apple genius waive a repair charge out of warranty if the device should not have failed.

And whether your claim of their outsourcing is true or not, Apple is still on the hook for warranty on the repairs. I highly doubt it’s common.

Lastly Apple has by far the highest customer satisfaction in the industry in a good part because of how they handle repairs.

I think you might want to look into that. A good place to start is Louis Rossman's Youtube channel (he fixes Macbooks for a living and a recurring feature on his channel is how Apple and other companies do "repairs"). https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup

How many Macbooks, iPads and iPhones have you sent off for repair?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com