Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

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I don't know, people have been lamenting the poor quality of Apple software and how much better it was in the old days since I got my first Mac in 2007, at least that's when I became aware of the complaints. If it was really on a substantial continual down trend from then, by now nothing would work at all. Apple continues to invest massively in software, that means a ton of new code, which means a ton of new bugs. You can't develop new software and not have quality issues.

Apple continues to make extremely long term highly strategic investments. You don't get to develop a highly original, industry leading SOC architecture without long term investment in technology. Bankrolling new process node development and thereby locking in capacity in strategic contracts doesn't happen by accident or on a whim. Development and implementation of the Apple watch happened entirely in the post-Jobs era.

So I just don't see it, they continue to commit to heavy long term investment in capital intensive technology projects and innovative new products. Not everything works out. The touch bar and butterfly keyboards were notable misses. But then that's always been true. I look at the phones, desktops, laptops, watch, Airpods, iPads, etc. They're the most Apple-y products Apple has ever produced, and not a single one of them is a me-to product slapped together to ride a trend.

Yeah - people have been saying the mac software has been in decline for as long as there's been mac software. If you have enough users some fraction of them are going to get hit by some rare bug and declare the software is crap, even if it is 0.001% of the users.

My m1 mbp is the best laptop I've ever owned, and I've owned a lot. I don't really use any mac software though - just a terminal, emacs, and a web browser. Macos just stays out of the way and causes no problems. I routinely get 1 or 2 months of uptime - only ever needing to reboot to apply system updates. Maybe if I used more mac software I would see this supposed decline.

It was a very dark era for Apple, but the Power Computing years were the best time to be an Apple fanboy IMO. You had commodity firebreathing PC hardware running OS 8 better than Macs did, more ports and connectivity, the software was best-in-class, and this was the era with no spyware, telemetry and all the BS we face now.

And yes, I was still buying legit Macs and software, and a lot of stock when it was at $11. It was a blast, I tell you.

Uhh, speak for yourself. As a fanboy myself back then, it was kinda terrifying. Sure Power Computing was able to bump the bus speed beyond what Apple seemed to to able to do, but they also cannibalized Apple’s hardware market which they needed to stay alive. Also it became clear that the wheels were falling off the “new” OS rewrite (Rhapsody) project with no real plan for remedying. It was scary times when Microsoft had to help bail them out. Honestly, buying NeXT was the accidentally smartest move Apple executives made. I remember how cool BeOS was but was glad they chose NeXTStep over it. Mostly, because I was a Unix fanboy by that time too.

You can pry my Motorola StarMax out of my cold dead hands.

... the fact that the StarMax product hasn't been powered on for over two decades is beside the point. I want my nostalgia!

Rhapsody came about after Jobs came back, and after he ended the OS license debacle. The wayward OS was Copland.

> the Power Computing years were the best time

No, it really wasn't.

I know people who were techs for retail stores at the time.

The sheer volume of shit cheap-ass clones that crossed their workbenches during that era....

> no spyware

What spyware is on your modern Mac?

Ehh, Apple has some big misses. Their software objectively sucks. OS X has gotten buggier and slower over the years. I traded “it just works” for the speed and customization of linux years ago and would _really_ like the benefits of Apple hardware but can’t bite the bullet on Apple software (Asahi isn’t in a good enough spot yet to be my primary computer imo).

The iPad pro line is a travesty. IPadOS is horrible, Apple need to take it out back and shoot it. The hardware fits a great niche but Apple have ruined it with their gimmicky software.

IPhones have been getting bigger, heavier, and last less time with each generation. I recently upgraded from the 11 to the 14 pro, and the hardware feels strictly worse. It’s snappier and has a digital island, but it’s significantly heavier and is the first iPhone I’ve ever really been worried about dying during the day (even after turning off the stupid always on display).

AirPods have probably been their biggest win in recent years. The original were amazing, Pros, and Pro 2 were significant upgrades and they’re a big reason (along w/ apple ecosystem integration) I won’t jump ship for android. Maxs are horrible, heavy, and I just don’t understand why people like them at all (bose + sony both make better headphones for cheaper here).

For my use case (education) iPad Pro is a godsend. I don’t see anything wrong with it.

What feature of the pro makes it worth $150 ($650 if you have the larger screen) more than the comparable iPad?

120Hz + Apple Pencil.

So, 120hz is only on the 12.9. If it’s worth twice the price to you, that’s your decision.

The apple pencil difference is magnetic charging and magnetic storage on the side of the ipad. Which is nice, but it also means you have the camera in the absolutely most annoying spot in the world. Good luck using faceID while you’re browsing and you’re always going to have the worst angle/look like you’re staring into space during video calls.

iPadOS just doesn’t cut it for multi-tasking/any pro workload that would justify an M2 chip

The basic iPads don’t have laminated displays, are smaller, heavier and come with older CPUs and less memory. So the decision for me is between iPad Air and Pro. Frankly which makes the best buy varies. My current iPad is an M1 Pro that’s just over a year old, but my brother bought one last summer and got an Air, and if I’d been buying one then I’d have done the same. Sometimes it comes down to which was refreshed most recently. I just look at the size, weight, screen features, processor, memory, storage tiers and price then see what is the most compelling package. 14 months ago it was a Pro. 6 months later it was an Air.

Yeah, I mean you’ve more or less reiterated what I said. The hardware is very nice. And if you play a game where you calculate the hardware/$, the iPad pro makes sense.

When you really ask yourself what workload you’re doing on an iPad that requires anything more than an A16 is … I think you’ll find there isn’t much. You’re limited to iPad apps. You can’t even install a browser that isn’t a safari skin. Multitasking is horrible. The mouse/touch interface has weird janky things (like text selection).

You don’t have an escape key or a function row, so even many web apps are broken.

The iPad pro is about the same price as an M2 Macbook Air, and significantly more expensive than an M1 Macbook Air. While the hardware looks comparable, the software makes the hardware more or less useless.

For something that’s useless, I get an incredible amount of use out of it. Honestly a pro is probably overkill for me, but I use my iPad a ton every day. I use multitasking a fair bit. I’m actually typing this in a floating browser panel on top of Teams. iPads last seemingly forever, my hand me down iPad 2 was being used by a relative and got retired a few months ago. So I go for the best experience because multiplied by the use I get out of it, it’s worth it.

The only claim I think is objective here is IpadOS. And even then to say it's a "travesty" is hyperbole.

> OS X has gotten buggier and slower over the years. I traded “it just works” for the speed and customization of linux years ago

If you have been using Linux for years, how come you've been experiencing increasing number of OS X bugs and performance degradation? I thought you've been running Linux for years?

People have been lamenting about MacOS software quality since I got my first Mac in 1992.

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