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>The key take away I think is NOT that recently OS X has some bugs, rather that the seemingly increasing in occurrence of bugs that more advanced users are experiencing is perceived as a sign on discarding their Test Everything Well Before Shipping culture that important to these people.

Apple products are clearly becoming less stable and usable, in ways that are very basic and obvious. Extreme computing skills are not required. I can think of the following bugs without trying too hard:

iCloud Notes fail to sync between my Mac, iPad and iPhone. (I've tried everything I can to fix this. Nothing worked.)

iPhoto makes two copies of all my photos when I download them from them my iPhone/iPad.

Windows/OS X networked file sharing seems deliberately broken, possibly at the Apple end. (You have to install the previous version of Samba to get it to kind-of work some of the time.)

I can't use FaceTime on my Mac because some weird sample rate issue makes everyone sound like a chipmunk.

Incoming FaceTime calls don't always ring on all devices, and some are simply ignored on all devices. (This is particularly unhelpful, especially for business calls.)

iTunes is an outstanding example of terrible software design. (Why is it still impossible to access app content directories from iTunes in any useful way? Why is the app icon layout editor so crufty and clumsy? And so on...)

All these features Just Don't Work[tm]. And it's not as a result of god-mode tweaking. They've simply never worked.

tl:dr; - Apple really needs to improve its software game.

I think the actual problem is complacency and a culture that favours style-over-substance marketing over solid UX engineering.

There's a lot of interest in trivia like flat icons, but clearly no one in or near the C-Suite cares about more basic usability issues.

I think one issue is that, as a general rule, most people in the C-Suite don't spend their time in the muck of their OS X desktop environment. They have people for doing whatever it is they would do there, and for everything else there's iOS.

FWIW I think writing server components are far, far better on Ubuntu Desktop than OS X. Package management is amazing and it matches my Ubuntu server deployments for production.

I agree with you on many points and it seems obvious that apple is spread too thin these days and tries to do too much.

I dont think this statement is true however:

> The core market for Apple until quite recently was not the everyday user but developers, designers and the more tech savvy.

Historically the core market of Apple Computer has been graphic-designers, journalists and the education market. Developers have only been on the platform post OS X because of unix.

These discussions criticizing Apple usually precede a new product that explains everything.

> people switched to Apple for superior well tested hardware

Hardware which you have to bake in an oven and drill holes in the case.

Hardware which has RAM soldered and proprietary hard drive connectors.

There is better hardware out there - which runs Linux - and at more competitive price points than what Apple offers.

I haven't found anything really in the same class as a rMBP 15 inch maxed out:

Retina display (anything higher than 1080p would count here, so the Chrome Pixel and the ThinkPad X1 count)

Quad Core CPU

16GB RAM

1 TB PCIe SSD

Ability to drive 3 monitors in addition to its screen

Good enough battery that I am not always thinking about it under 5 pounds

I've looked at various manufacturers and nobody makes a machine like it, especially at the weight and cost.

The equivalent lenovo, for example, is the Thinkpad W and in a similar high end configuration costs $3700 vs the rMBP at $3200 and weighs > 5 lbs.

EDIT: added pricing example and fixed formatting.

If you're willing to live with a 512 GB SSD or swap out a 1 TB HDD for your own brand of SSD, you can consider last year's XPS 15 with a 3200x1800 display. http://www.itpro.co.uk/laptops/21797/macbook-pro-15in-v-dell... There are quite a few others, they don't require Quatro workstation graphics (and their associated high prices).

That said, I've a retina too. :D I'm just impartial. Microsoft Store, for Canadians (or students or both), at least, has some very nice deals. :)

I'm looking for something competitive with a 15" MacBook Pro. In the past, I have struggled to find screens and trackpads that are comparable to Apple's. Any recommendations?

Screens you can find, but trackpads as good as Mac are rare because of how much of a difference the software/drivers have made for things like palm rejection. It's not impossible, but it's not as easy as just picking the Retina model that fits your budget. Apparently, there's a half dozen ways to tweak palm rejection depending on which trackpad driver ships with your laptop, e.g. graphics in answers for http://superuser.com/questions/504571/use-touchpad-while-typ...

Until there's an answer to the question of finding comparable hardware that doesn't include forum posts with tons of competing advice, I think I'll be sticking with Apple's kit.

None of those were true in the "golden days" that people are waxing nostalgic for.