I can only come to the same conclusion. Typing this on a 2018 MacBook 15 inch, and it's a disaster. I still keep accidentally hitting the Touchbar ten times per day while typing (it's not a press-bar, duh), I need a dongle for _everything and their mother_, battery lifetime isn't good, the keyboard is prone to mistyping and double clicks, the screen doesn't get bright enough sometimes, I can't get any higher spec hardware, it really feels like a super expensive toy to me.
I'd buy something different if there was a real alternative OS-wise (I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver, and Windows? Nah, get away...)
I recently was forced to upgrade by 2015 laptop at work because the battery life was finally short enough that I couldn't stand it. I hate dongles. The 2015 Macbook will stand as their last best laptop. Nothing about the 2018 laptop is better, it's only worse. I don't understand why they don't see this.
There should really be a huge multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit for their keyboards and fixability to wake them up. I'm so angry.
100% agree. I'm typing this on a 2015 Macbook Pro, and holding on for dear life, even as it has started alerting me about servicing the battery. It's a great machine. I tried using the touchbar on my son's newer MBP. It's awful, and not meant for serious use. His laptop has been replaced once already due to keyboard issue, and starting to show defects again.
I did it last year on my 2012 rMBpro after it have been complaining about servicing the battery for about a year, and while it wasn't a walk in the park, it all worked out great.
Tip: there are 2 ways to replace the battery.
One is by following the official iFixit etc instructions where you remove absolutely everything before you peel off the battery with acetone.
The other is by immediately peeling off the battery right away. In that case, you have to be careful that the acetone doesn't flow onto the speakers (because they'd melt.) That's the way I, and many other with me, did it. It still only took me about 1 hour to get everything back up and running.
Or just take it to the Apple Store and pay them $199 to repair the battery which also gets you an entirely new top case and keyboard (old, original stock)
Yeah in my experience that 199$ price doesn’t happen in real life, as they tell you they need to replace the whole top case. Never understood why they publicly list the 199$ battery change price. Am I missing something?
AFAIK, If your battery is in the service battery condition (generally, less than 80% health), then you'll get the $199 price, otherwise you have to pay for the top case. It's the same repair either way but they charge for it differently.
I just had the battery replaced in two mid-2014 MBPs. They said that I'd be paying for the battery replacement (199), but that they would also replace the keyboard and trackpad and I wouldn't be charged for either. However, the way they stated it initially was a little confusing, since it sounded like I'd be paying an additional 100, but they were quick to clear it up.
They did say that they might need to replace the shell (battery was slightly swollen in both machines) and that I'd be responsible for that cost, but that didn't happen for either box. I don't think they replace the shell unless it's really, really deformed. Neither of my machines would sit flat and both were obviously swollen. One I could practically spin like a top (and the trackpad was screwed).
I got both back with no deformities, a new battery, keyboard, and trackpad, and a 199 bill (plus tax).
I wouldn't rule out getting it fixed. If you do end up paying a little more, then you can probably sell it for more than the price it cost to fix.
I had to have my mid 2015 rMBP battery & top case replaced by a premium service provider in New Zealand due to a bulging battery. Thankfully I still had a couple of weeks of AppleCare left as the bill came to over $1300NZD ($850 USD). A $199 replacenent would be a dream.
I really do wonder whether Apple is running afoul of consumer law here. Surely $1300 is not a reasonable cost for a battery replacement.
Last time I looked I was quoted somewhere in the neighbourhood of $600 for a rMBP battery replacement - but that was just the battery. Even that IMO is not a reasonable cost for what it is - the only reason it costs that much is the fact that it's glued in, and the fact that Apple charge so much for the part.
indeed, the cheapest official vendor I could find in my country would have been about $600 for a battery replacement on my 2014 model. It's ludicrous. I bought a battery online for $60 or something including shipping from China...
I just had to have my screen replaced (by a third party repair shop), and while they were at it, they vacuumed out a lot of cat hair for free. Now it runs much cooler, and seems like a new machine!
You can also replace the thermal paste, although now that it's not overheating all the time, I won't have that done until next time it overheats and slows down and I need to have it vacuumed out again.
i bought an $80 battery (ifixit? i can't remember now) and took it to a local shop and had it back in 3 hours. they charged $120. So... ~$200 but I had same day replacement.
Internally there is nothing rigid to crack, they should bend with enough force. Catching fire is a real concern, but if you can get the battery voltage down real low they should be inert enough to pry out if you can manage it without puncturing the pack. (you'd have to bypass whatever internal low voltage protections they have)
Yes. I'm glad there was no glue. Battery was swollen for at least a year until I replaced it. I remember there were three screes holding it in place so there was no glue by design. Wish current macbooks would hold up to this kind of serviceability.
me too, I think I spent 2 hours on the replacement just to get the old battery loose from all the glue, afraid I'd puncture it in the process. So. Much. Glue.
Ha! I literally typed out another comment about how I to refuse to leave my 2015 macbook pro for a newer model. The new keyboard, touchbar and usb-c everywhere is so lame
Now that I have children of laptop-using age, I'm almost at the point where literally every single day I'm thinking about how useful MagSafe is. It was such a good invention for notebooks.
I really don't care about the "charge from either side" benefit of USB Type C. I do appreciate the fact that you can use aftermarket cables though - especially considering how poorly constructed Apple's are.
For me, odd things like inability to have a dark dock and titlebar and light windows. Using quickview on a file in Finder and then pressing shift-up used to select the file and the one above it, and then show a preview of the newly selected item. Now in Mojave they "fixed" it so that it shows the preview of the first file only, which is a colossal pain because now I can't filter through a giant list of photos to decide which ones to keep in an easy quick way. I have to look at each file individually.
I am sure I will think of some other annoyances. I've kept a 2012 MBP on Sierra, and love that machine far more, eg. keyboard is actually good and is quiet, real function keys, real ports as found on every other device in the universe, ability to use my audio interface, network ports etc etc
A couple of control freak things. I despise the junk mail folder that can't be hidden or removed and requires an extra "are you sure" click to delete messages. It refuses to copy files from my external hard drive. I have to disable SIP to do some fairly normal stuff. Siri, though I have it turned off. Location on photos.
A year back I replaced the battery on my 2013 15" model - like the other commenters, I paid $199 at the Apple Store for a new battery, topcase, including keyboard and trackpad. I also recently bought a used 2015 Pro on ebay as a backup. I have a 2016 13" touchbar pro, and after replacing the original keyboard, I'm actually quite happy with it. But for the 15" model I just don't think the price is justified given the specs... my next mac might be a Thinkpad with Ubuntu and virtualized MacOS, sorry to say.
Virtualized MacOS because of Mac or iOS dev? Hard to imagine why someone would use a virtualized OS for normal usage or consumption. But maybe I’m missing something.
Also typing on a 3+ year old 2015 MBP. Touchwood no issues except for a slightly wonky right speaker. I hope I can extend its life until Apple comes to its sense, or it'll have to be a Dell XPS for me...
I hate accessories, but after getting my keyboard replaced I got a keyboard cover and so far it seems to be doing its job. It also makes me feel less like I have to baby it--which is something like in tools I use.
You keep it plugged in all the time? Do you feel a noticeable drop in battery life? When mine reached those 80% health I felt like it had lost half its battery life or more...
15" Retina MBP late 2013 with original battery. System reports 142 cycles (I mostly use it at a desk) and condition Normal.
Unfortunately it's not at all normal, it's swollen to the extent that the bottom of the case is slightly warped and the macbook will no longer sit flat. It's also affected the trackpad which doesn't click very well any more. I noticed these things a while back but didn't realise that the battery was the cause until I opened it up a couple of days ago to clean it out (something I do once or twice a year).
Now awaiting a battery replacement kit from iFixit and not looking forward to removing the old one. Probably going to try the dental floss method someone mentioned above (very, very carefully and far away from anything flammable).
I'm disappointed that Apple didn't either kill the Touchbar, or commit to it fully: why is there no desktop keyboard (wireless or wired) with the Touchbar? Presumably a huge amount of Pro users (this is a Macbook "Pro", right?) plug into keyboard, pointing device, and monitor frequently...
At least Lenovo just ditched their Touchbar after the disastrous 2nd generation of X1 Carbon, never to be seen again. Also did a mistake with the 2014 series of ThinkPad by removing the mouse buttons due to a bigger touchpad, just to give them back when the users complained enough in 2015.
Buying max RAM from start is a $200 extra which may validate saved space. Not justified is soldered SSD. Ive doubled SSD size once a year to extend laptop life by 6 or 7 years.
I would not give them credit for not being able to create a touchpad as good as Apples and just giving up. The MacBook touchpad is an amazing piece of hardware. I still think its too big now, but the hardware itself is one of the best things about the MacBook.
And I'll add the obligatory comment how us ThinkPad users enjoy our keyboard with the TrackPoint, experience no other manufacturer provide. I'd just remove the touchpad for more keys to the keyboard.
Agreed that I wish they had embraced, extended, or extinguished the Touch Bar. A larger offset from the top row of physical keys, a physical escape key, some form of accidental touch elimination, and/or a taller display surface would all be useful changes.
WRT to an external keyboard with it - in addition to making keyboards more expensive and proprietary, the Touch Bar is powered by the T2 chip, which is not just used to power the Touch Bar and TouchID, but for system functions like boot-up.
Even with these features removed, dynamically paired TouchID sensors would be a change to Apple's security model (which requires a hardware/data reset to pair a new TouchID sensor for security reasons).
Haptic feedback. I don't understand how they can understand how essential this is and implement it with increasing sophistication in both phones and trackpads but abdicate it entirely with the Touch Bar. To the point that third party software to use the trackpad haptics on touchbar clicks is a thing now: https://www.haptictouchbar.com/
I suspect it's probably hard to get the keyboard to straddle the touch bar, but I couldn't help think: Why not physical escape and power keys at the ends?
They should have just kept the F-keys and provide a system level option to neuter the touchbar as just a modern day reference card for the keys. It's not like the wrist rest isn't big enough to sacrifice for more room up top.
I work from home and open the laptop only if I need to be on a video call. Otherwise yeah, plug into keyboard. I had to work in a coffeeshop one day and had to use the keyboard. I have no idea how anyone can tolerate that piece of shit, to put it lightly.
Killing the touch bar would make Tim Apple lose face, and he lacks the Jobsian stagecraft spin to salvage it.
The touch mbp should've been a macbook air-like spin off, used to demonstrate the viability of the tech by letting people who want it choose it... instead of forcing everyone who wants a high end laptop to pick that model.
But the Apple keyboards are already $150, with no “lower” model available. Add a touchbar and it will be a $300 keyboard. Note that the price bump for emoji-enabled Macbooks is about the same.
Third party keyboards are a lot cheaper and work just as well, plus you get real F-keys if you want.
While I personally wouldn't buy it (I'm kind of picky about the tactile feel of the keyboard), you can get this fully functional Bluetooth keyboard for $20.
Apple also sells external keyboards with real F-keys. Their newer external keyboards are meh, but the previous model, the A1243 Wired Keyboard with Numeric Keypad [0] is amazing. It goes up to F19, and I just generally prefer their layout. I've been using an A1243 as my programming keyboard for nearly a decade. When they stopped selling them I even bought a used spare as backup for when my current keyboard dies.
My only complaints with the A1243 are that the top row is half-sized, and that it has a useless eject button between F12 and F13 which can't be remapped.
Fair enough, it is an expensive keyboard, so any major issues you have with it make the price harder worth it.
I don't use tilde much.
There is no absence of a super key. Its on the spot where alt often is, and alt is on the spot super often is. It shares key with shift.
The ctrl is where caps lock is on today's keyboards. If I have caps lock I rebind it anyway. So ctrl and super are easiest to reach, whereas the spot where ctrl often is is difficult to reach (there is nothing there on the HHKB).
So in short this keyboard assumes you normally rebind caps lock to ctrl, it assumes you never use the ctrl elsewhere. It assumes you use super more than alt. It is pretty close to a traditional Sun keyboard.
Funny thing is also, you can buy the keyboard without print on the keys, so that you can rebind it in any way you prefer.
What?? I use it all the time: Tilde in vim for upper/downcase and bash for home and backtick for jumping to marks and in JS for template strings. Great key.
Windows is perfectly viable for doing development, so is Linux. You can easily get a laptop that is cheaper and more reliable than a Macbook. About the only thing you'll be missing is a cool Apple sticker, but you can get those on eBay. Your wallet will thank you, and so will your fingers.
A Macbook was a reasonable, even logical choice in 2012. Now, not so much.
Apple can have me back if they want -- hey, take my money! -- but they have to stop fucking up. I don't know why the Apple board isn't simply pounding the hell out of the management that's been allowing the poor quality and user-hostile decisions of the past several years.
[Hmmm, I just looked at their board members. That would explain a lot...]
> Windows is perfectly viable for doing development, so is Linux.
Viable, yes. I've spent the last year (since replacing a 2013 MB Pro) with a Dell 15 XPS, roughly 50/50 Windows & Linux (Ubuntu then Fedora). Both work. They each run everything I need a laptop for.
Honestly neither is quite as good a desktop for me as macOS, but they are near enough that even if I liked the current generation of MacBooks (which I don't), I wouldn't consider it worth paying the premium.
There isn't a single solution I'm truly happy with. Windows 10 is yucky but for me fairly practical (meaning mainly it doesn't waste my time). Linux is more appealing and almost worth it for the speedy file access, but is too time-consuming for me to to commit to. MacOS is my favourite all-round OS, but (Hackintoshes aside) only runs on hardware I don't want (and certainly not at the price). I guess the only thing I haven't tried is ChromeOS. Maybe next time. 2019 desktop OS's are a sorry scene.
> Linux is more appealing and almost worth it for the speedy file access, but is too time-consuming for me to to commit to.
I hear a variation of this semi-often and I never quite get what that's supposed to mean. Maybe being a full-time Linux user for a decade has made me used to whatever people are complaining about, but I don't think so, people are complaining about having to fix broken HW/SW occasionally, however as someone who:
- Picks Linux-supported hardware specifically, as opposed to a random, generic PC, (something you wouldn't do with macOS either, btw).
- Runs a rolling release distro, so if anything should experience more breakage than the regular Ubuntu LTS/Fedora user.
I can honestly say that my workflow is basically:
-> Turn the laptop on, (or wake from sleep, yes that works well on solid HW)
-> Get my work done
-> Update the system every couple of days, (rolling release updates)
-> Repeat
Now does occasionally some package update their config that I'll have to merge or something like that? Sure, maybe once or twice a year.
When I do have to use macOS for builds, I experience glitches, (like the login bar loading and never finishing), various annoying updates, (& update prompts), apps, (like Duet Display), randomly breaking when you need them, occasional kernel panics, (but more frequent than I ever had on Linux, in fact I had one on Linux maybe once), choppy performance even on a top spec 2016 MBP due to poor thermals, video rendering issues when switchable graphics is enabled etc.
All in all, my macOS experience is actually somewhat worse than on Linux. It's nothing I can't deal with, but it's nowhere near as trouble free as people make it seem.
I honestly think it comes down to things like macOS being more animated by default, having 3D shadows under every window, the dock enlarging the icons as you scroll pass them, your coworkers having a Mac as a status symbol etc. rather than some big technical hurdle.
Possibly once a year I install Ubuntu on my laptop and am always determined to move over to Linux on the desktop but sadly it takes only a few days of frustration before I revert back to OSX.
It's nothing to do with 3D shadows under windows, the dock enlarging when I roll over it or my co-workers being impressed because I've got a Mac, because they all have Macs too.
That last point is the least of it - honestly, I have no desire to impress anyone with what technology I happen to use and find it quite extraordinary that anyone thinks owning a Mac is some kind of status symbol.
It's not as if Apple product ownership is a rare thing, people from all walks of life own Macbooks or iPhones or whatever, yet this falacy that Mac/iPhone owners buy these products to impress people still somehow persists.
No, it's the fundamental user experience on various desktop managers I've tried on Linux that while it clearly works for other people, it simply doesn't for me.
There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm sure if I persisted with it for longer then I'd perhaps be happy enough using Linux on the desktop but to be honest it's time I'm not that interested in investing, when I'm immediately productive on OSX, and was when I first started using OSX back in 2004.
My OSX experience is wholly different to yours - I get rare update notifications, possibly because of the software products I use? and performance on my 2018 MBP is as quick as I've ever experienced, but then it should be for a modern computer.
For me, OSX/macOS simply stays out of the way and lets me get on with doing work. I'm sure Linux does the same for you but be assured, the reason I use OSX is not a single one of those reasons you've suggested.
- All the keyboard shortcuts are consistent across apps.
- Hit space to instantly quick-look almost any file, in the finder, in my torrent client, etc.
- Global menu bar doesn't waste space.
- Time Machine provides revision control for your entire drive, integrated into apps, where you can browse and revert to old versions. Even works when you only occasionally hook up your backup drive as it syncs.
- Window/desktop management with real multitouch gestures (not triggers that only kick in after you complete a gesture).
- Smooth font rendering without gamma or hinting errors. Smart kerning adjustment for long labels in tight spaces. Smart ellipsis that displays the start and end of long filenames.
- Icons represent files and can be dragged e.g. from document window titlebars. Right click to get a breadcrumb of all the directories the file sits in, so you can trivially open a finder window for what you're looking at.
- Half downloaded files are resumable bundles that keep the source URL inside. Can even copy to a different machine and resume there just by double clicking.
- Integrated disk, partition and image management, including creating encrypted disk images through the UI, and restoring images to drives.
Just a few things keeping me on this platform.
Oh also, when I upgraded my 2013 mbp to a 2015, migrating was trivial, as both laptops set up an adhoc wifi and transferred everything 1-to-1 without having to do anything. My customized Unix environment that lived though 3 or 4 major OS upgrades transplanted as if nothing changed.
Linux doesn't want to provide that level of convenience because it requires too much cat herding and agreement, while Microsoft can't without breaking years of legacy crap.
And I read that cookie-cutter response almost every time. Fine. Whatever. We have different experiences. I accept yours (because I think most people are more-or-less truthful). You don't accept mine (because ?).
> I honestly think it comes down to things like macOS being more animated by default, having 3D shadows under every window, the dock enlarging the icons as you scroll pass them, your coworkers having a Mac as a status symbol etc. rather than some big technical hurdle
Feel free. "Honestly think" any invented story you wish.
I was actually genuinely interested in you expanding what is actually harder, or rather what needs 'managing', I am not doubting your story, I just find it somewhat hard to wrap my mind around the specifics. I don't really personally care if you use Linux or not, but I am kind of tired of always hearing that 'I don't want to manage stuff' talk, without any specifics as to what that actually means.
Well I'll take you at your word that you're interested and 'not doubting' my story. But can you at least see why that isn't the impression I got from reading your comment? You even said you thought people were swayed by bouncing animations and fancy docks! [Edit: and that very dismissive status symbol comment - believe me, you'd laugh at that if you saw me in my crude rainforest shack, with nothing resembling a developer's office within 100 miles] FWIW, which isn't much, I always auto-hide docks, and DE preference is roughly i3/sway > Gnome > macOS > Windows.
Linux use for me isn't so much a matter of large technical hurdles, but the death of a thousand cuts. By the time of my last f/t Linux use round (just a couple of weeks ago) I didn't have any outstanding tech issues. There was nonessential hardware I couldn't get working at all or well (fingerprint scanner, SD card reader, gpu switching), but I could live with that.
It's more a matter of having a constant barrage of small issues, often with new software I install, each of which is quite soluble, but only after reading documentation (often poor). That's just not how I want to spend my time. I'm not going to enumerate the issues because, as I say, by and large I solved them. They are mostly trivial but constant. I would rather have spent that time listening to music, or learning Mandarin.
I keep logs of all my computer admin & troubleshooting in markdown files. I've been roughly 50/50 linux and windows over the last year. Eyeballing the logs, it's clearly true for me - Windows gives me hardly any issues to solve at all. I install stuff. It works. I get on with my work and the rest of my life. In contrast I have vast reams of notes about the various little niggles I had with Ubuntu and then Fedora.
[Edit: sorry - I forgot your I just find it somewhat hard to wrap my mind around the specifics. So just one example. Nothing big, but bear in mind I'd have something like this at least 3 or 4 times a week. I want to be able to dial down power use sometimes - if I'm low on battery, doing undemanding stuff and won't be near an outlet for a while. Windows: I didn't have to read any docs. Click on battery icon, and slide left on the popup control. Fedora: click around in gnome and find nothing. Search for info on how the Gnome power management interacts with whatever service is started by systemd. Find nothing up to date (Fedora doc on the topic was from version 14 or 17 and bore no resemblance to my version 30). Read up a bit on tlp and powertop, but still unclear on their relationship to whatever Gnome does. Find broken links to relevant AskFedora posts because they've deleted all the old pages moving to Discourse. Ask a question. Get no answer. I could have solved it eventually with a bit more reading, sure. But like most things I wanted to do, it would take orders of magnitude more time to figure out than on macOS or Windows.]
Actually you don't - I did give my reason for not committing to linux, despite in some ways preferring it, which is that it took up too much of my time to manage, compared to either macOS or Windows. What do you want, proof? Evidence that I'm not a paid Apple-and-Microsoft corporate shill?
I moved away from the Mac for 3D work a few years back just because CUDA based rendering engines were such a game changer. I was totally expecting the experience to just be gritting my teeth and dealing with Windows for the power, but actually I've been pleasantly surprised that it's honestly improved a lot and MS is taking the approach of tackling one or two pain points a year consistently, like modernizing the Terminal this year and I'm sure one day they'll get to Explorer which is the last thing that bugs me.
I also bought a Surface Go recently and this has convinced me I could move away from Mac completely (To a Surface Pro) if need be, the industrial design is excellent, the keyboard is an absolute joy to type on and it's so versatile, like a "Pro" machine should be.
I tested them all (well, the main contenders) and even the flagship Surface Book trackpad is not comparable to a current MacBook. The Surface Book trackpad is like almost identical to a MacBook from around 2012-2013 era.
Admittedly the current MacBook trackpad is too big - but is otherwise functionally perfect in terms of its multi-touch and haptic feedback.
I guess touchpads must be far more important to some of you than they are to me. I'll only touch mine on the rare occasion I'm lazily reading on my laptop rather than a tablet. I'd hardly miss if it stopped working.
Have you done any iOS development in Xcode on that 13" MPB of yours? Unless you have excellent eyesight and use a screen resolution that gives you the max real estate, it's incredibly frustrating to use the code assistant editor, or to run the simulator.
I must have spent a couple thousand hours of iOS development on it. I use the default 1280x800@2x resolution with Xcode filling the screen (but not in fullscreen).
I do all my work on a vanilla 13" MBP, it works just fine. I also use 13" Linux and Windows laptops almost daily, and the "touchpad experience" there is indeed painful.
> Also, you can use the external Apple trackpad they sell with any OS.
I think the problem isn't the hardware, but the software (or more likely a combination of both). The MBP touchpad under Windows with Bootcamp is also quite terrible.
Agreed. But you can hack their replacement programs to extend the life of the newer (post 2015) models. There are a few battery replacement programs on MacBook Pro’s (e.g. https://www.apple.com/support/13inch-macbookpro-battery-repl...) and there is also a keyboard replacement program (https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...). Replacing either practically gives you all new internals because of they way everything is soldered on. I just did that on my 2016 model and it should hopefully last me now a few more years.
If it’s any consolation (probably the opposite) my 2017 MBP, without Touch Bar, has gotten about 2h battery when running a now-typical corporate “pro” stack (docker, slack, Outlook, etc) sind day one. If only running UNIx stuff plus maybe a browser I can push it to 6.
Every time I get out my 2013 MBP (not for the day job) I remember what a computer could be.
Slack and Outlook - I either use the web versions or just use my phone. They are both cross platform battery killers.
Docker - I don’t use it, but if it’s anything like the VMs I use to run, it also kill batteries.
I’m better off provisioning all of that on our DEV AWS Account and just connecting via my phone’s hotspot if I don’t have a reliable network connection and running very few things locally.
I recently discovered the web Slack and am trying to use it more. Seems to help, which ought to be a huge embarrassment to $WORK or whatever they call it.
I used to use Outlook Web and might go back. The native client is a nightmare but does some useful things the web one doesn’t.
Docker has been a huge boon to my dev efforts, usually much lighter weight than an old school VM, so I’m no hater but if I had to work on battery more often I’d probably do the same thing, spend a few bucks on AWS and only work online but with better battery life.
All that still won’t get me more than 6h though.... :-(
I am still rocking the MBP 2015 and recently changed the battery. Did you consider doing the same? That is, updating batteries instead of getting the new ones?
The 2015 Macbook Pro has the Force Touch trackpad as well (so no physical movement), so it has the exact same feel when you click at the top of the trackpad. Everything before the 2015 did have that issue though, you're correct. Never really bothered me though to be honest. The nicest part of the FT trackpad if you ask me is the ability to make trackpad clicks almost silent, and the fact that it's (supposedly) less likely to break.
> Gone is the gimmicky TouchBar, gone are the four USB-C ports that forced power users to carry a suitcase full of dongles. In their place we get a cornucopia of developer-friendly ports: two USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2 ports, a redesigned power connector, and a long-awaited HDMI port.
I still think the PowerBook 540c was the best Apple laptop that I ever used.
Although I had switched over to Windows by the time of the Pismo G3/500 (voted the best ever), I had my 540c upgraded with a PowerPC, and got many years of delightful service out of it.
It had two big symmetrical removable battery compartments, so you could switch out one at a time and keep running on as many batteries as you have pre-charged without interruption! Plus there was an external dual battery charger.
And you could swap a hard disk drive or CDROM into one of those bays.
Plus it was fat enough that it was able to cool so it didn't overheat all the time like an MBP.
Anorexic thinness isn't a thing for me: I'd trade a lot of thinness for huge removable batteries and great ventilation.
I never really liked the 500 series - I preferred the 1400 (I know, weirdo). The Intel MacBooks have had their moments (glass trackpads, SD card readers, quad core in the 2011 15"), but almost all of them had design defects of some kind:
* Original white and black MacBooks had sharp edges and cracking wrist rests
* 2nd Gen MBP had 8600GT chip death issues
* First Unibody MB/MBP had glossy screen not suitable for indoor lighting
* First Polycarbonate Unibody had chassis cracking and rubber base warping issues (but was otherwise an excellent machine, too bad they didn't resolve those issues and keep selling it...)
* 2011 15" will all eventually fail due to faulty GPUs
* 2012 Retina MBs had underpowered GPUs
* Retina MBPs had soldered RAM and proprietary SSDs (10.13's NVMe support for those older machines with a simple adaptor has made a complete mockery of anyone defending Apple's stupid proprietary pinout, too), glued batteries and display coating problems
In saying that, the original aluminium unibody was a spectacular design. It felt so much more premium than any other machine of the time it was absurd.
I personally think absolute peak Apple notebook was the 2012 MacBook Pro 15" with the Anti-Glare display. All the best things about the pre-retina Unibody design, but serviceable, with USB3, no known serious GPU or CPU flaws, and none of the retina issues such as staingate or glued battery.
Had they made a Haswell revision of that to get the better battery life I'm reasonably convinced it would still be a seriously popular machine today.
Oh the glued hinge right behind the hot air vent is hilarious. I forgot about that one.
Yes, glossy screen had an anti-reflection coating added for Retina models that then proceeded into staingate. To make matters worse they took away the matte anti-glare option entirely because they thought their new compromise was best. Yelp.
Right, obviously heat is an enemy of li-ion batteries. My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that if a MBP is plugged in the power bypasses the battery once it reaches 100% charge, correct?
That is my understanding as well. Most of my macbooks (I've owned 3) have been plugged in the majority of the time, with at least some time every few days spent on battery power unplugged. I'd say you're fine as long as you're using the battery at least once every 2-3 weeks -- longer than that might not be good for the battery over long periods of time.
I have no dongle issue (I rarely plug anything into my laptop), but the Touch Bar was terrible for me. I was finally able to use Karabiner to suppress escape (I mapped caps lock to esc which is more convenient anyway).
I can see the Touch Bar probably makes sense for people who look at the keyboard while they type, which might be a majority for all I know, but for touch typists it's at best worthless, and the accidentally triggering is terrible.
This is my personal laptop but the screen is really crap. My work laptop is a 2015 13” MBP. Work recently offered to upgrade me to a new MBP. I declined.
The Air's display isn't that bad. It's a good TN panel with a good non-retina resolution (1440x900 on the 13"), decent contrast, and good (for TN) viewing angles. It's certainly a big step up from the frankly abysmal base WXGA TN displays of many Lenovo/HP/Dell machines.
But yes, it's not even close to the retina IPS displays.
I own two of them. And a 2015 13” MBP with a Retina display. And a current iPad mini and an iPhone XS. And a BenQ 32” 4K display. And before that I had a 2009 13” MBP.
All of the non-iOS displays are calibrated via a munki.
The MBA display from this generation (my kids have the 11” MBAs with basically the same crap display) is the worst I’ve used by far. So bad it’s basically useless for photo editing. The contrast stinks. The color gamut stinks. You can’t look at it off-axis at all.
No no, I’ve looked at a lot of displays in my life. It’s my least favorite. The 2009 13”
MBP display was better.
That there are non-Apple laptop displays that are even worse is cold comfort.
Haha, never pick up a base model ThinkPad then. Some of those displays are just ridiculously bad.
I measured the contrast of my 2013 MBA at ~800:1 with my Spyder3 back in the day, which is pretty OK for TN. It got somewhat close to 60% sRGB coverage.
For reference, my ThinkPad X230's TN display measured ~180:1 and couldn't even get to 50% sRGB.
No it isn't suitable for photo editing, but then no TN display really is due to the viewing angle colour and contrast shift. I haven't measured the 2015+ models but understand that the actual panel panel is meant to be the same. It's not what I would personally choose, but I thought it was acceptable at the time, even next to the TN MBP displays.
Just spent $200 on new battery and install for my 2015 MBP. I wish I'd opted for the 1t model vs 512g drive, but was getting refurb and at the time they had no 1t left - wasn't sure they'd have any more (friend of mine snagged one a few weeks later!)
Hi there. You can buy a sintech adapter on amazon that will let you put a standard NVME SSD into a macbook air/retina 2013-2015 model (and maybe some others).
It costs about $20.
With that, you can choose some of the cheap, new, fast, 2TB disks and get a massive improvement in speed and storage capacity for relatively little money. Google around; there are some recommended drives.
From what I've read the 'long' version of the sintech is the best one to buy. The upgrade process is on ifixit; it's super easy. You will also need a torx screwdriver; again you can buy a 'mac fixing kit' for $5-10 on amazon etc.
> I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver, and Windows? Nah, get away...
Linux hasn't had issues with the major wifi chipsets in ages. It's as plug and play as Mac and Windows are. There are plenty of reasons people might choose to avoid Linux, but drivers (outside of specialty, niche or obscure hardware) aren't really a reason anymore.
Graphics drivers are a constant source of trouble and confusion (so many driver projects and PPAs). My gf has a Linux laptop that stops working after every dist upgrade, and it's always some driver issue (or yet another Ubuntu NetworkManager bug).
Also, if the system isn't shut down cleanly, it will never just boot up again in spite of supposedly using a journaling file system. She always has to run e2fsck in manual mode (i.e confirming every single repair), specifying the address of a backup superblock.
Printing and scanning is broken as well. Not for some niche hardware but for one of the most widely deployed HP printer/scanners.
So on her particular laptop, Linux is anything but plug and play. If you're saying that Linux works well on your laptop I will believe you. It has never worked well an any laptop I owned and drivers have always been the main reason for that.
I believe you cannot simply run Linux any laptop. You have to buy a laptop specifically for Linux.
I've used laptops and desktops with GPUs from all 3 manufacturers. The only issues I've had were either really minor (ie. About the same as the other platforms), or with graphics switching (ie. Bumblebee). If you're just using the recommended drivers for the hardware I'd be extremely surprised if it was as unstable as you describe.
For reference, it's recommended you use the open source drivers for Intel and AMD, and the proprietary drivers for NVIDIA. No PPAs required.
The place where I remember a gap was laptops with dual graphics cards designed to use a low power one for light duty and a more powerful one for heavy duty tasks.
That said, avoiding that mess is fine for a non-gaming laptop. And I've had no trouble installing Linux on Dell, Asus, or Lenovo. Many configurations specifically listed Ununtu as an OS option (but why bother getting it preinstalled), so sure any of those would be fine. They're not especially rare anymore.
> I believe you cannot simply run Linux any laptop. You have to buy a laptop specifically for Linux.
No you don't. Ive had debian on a lenovo laptop for five years with none of the issues you speak of. Printing and scanning work great (dell and brother printers). It boots fine after a hard power off. No update has ever fubard anything. I have no more trouble hooking up to a projector than anybody else (my boss has a mac and complains about hooking up to projectors).
I've also run linux without issue on prior laptops from toshiba, acer and sony and some off brand thing from 10 years ago. I have a brother who runs linux on a dell laptop just fine (and has for years). A co-worker runs linux on a newish sony laptop. I guess I'm just living in the perfect intersection of hardware that just magically always works with linux. Or maybe, linux just works.
> Linux hasn't had issues with the major wifi chipsets in ages.
… except (ironically) if you use Linux on a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. In this case there are severe issues with the wifi firmware making wifi completely unusable: https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux#wi-fi
The annoying thing is that for once this is an actual bug in the firmware and the upstream doesn't care about fixing it. It's simply not fixable on Linux side without rewriting the whole wifi stack to use Mac's model. It's not the typical "Linux hasn't got a driver", but without digging into the issue it looks like that.
I had a miserable time with the Broadcom drivers as well-- I actually abandoned them completely to instead use an adapter with Ralink driver. No hiccups, let alone crashes, since.
No. It's better than no driver. (I'll assume it works at all in some capacity.)
While there are some companies that make wifi cards you can't use easily, that's just one thing you check before buying, just as e.g. general reliability/performance.
That's way worse than no driver. By 'crash', I mean the whole kernel crashes. And, by the way, it does advertise linux support (for linux 4.10, but that's in the fine print).
AFAIK dual-display over thunderbolt is just not working very well for example (there are issues when going to/back from sleep). I've tried switching to Linux on my 2013 MBP for a couple of weeks, and gave up.
I can only come to the same conclusion. Typing this on a 2018 MacBook 15 inch, and it's a disaster. I still keep accidentally hitting the Touchbar ten times per day while typing (it's not a press-bar, duh)
My favorite problem is activating Siri when I use Touch ID (yes, I know you can remove Siri from the Touch Bar). I miss the physical escape key. But the Touch Bar is great for volume control and scrobbling. Touch ID is awesome though (if I manager to hit the right area), I really miss Touch ID on my Linux machine.
I need a dongle for _everything and their mother_
Don't get me started on the dongles. I was a fairly early adopter (had the first generation 12" MacBook). They actually sold USB-C adapters initially where the USB-A port only supports USB 2.0. Yep 80 Euro for an adapter that only does USB 2.0.
Then their USB-C HDMI adapter only support HiDPI at 30Hz (due to supporting an older HMDI version). Again, unbelievable for an adapter that was initially 80 Euro.
So, I had to buy a USB-C <-> DisplayPort adapter to hook up a HiDPI screen at 60Hz (third-party USB-C <-> HDMI adapters universally had bad reviews). The adapter works fine on the MacBook Pro 2016. I updated later to the MacBook Pro 2018, and for some mysterious reason the adapter does not work on the MacBook Pro 2018, no output at all (still works fine with my wife's 2016). So I had to buy yet another adapter... (What's the point of USB-C as a universal interface if it is not universal?)
I wish they would just offer a variant with physical function keys and a Touch Bar. They’d have plenty of room for both if they reduced the comically oversized touchpad.
From what I can recall, the reason why the USBC to DP adapter isn't working on the 2018 models is that the macbooks now have special end to end encryption (read: DRM and forced market penetration) to only allow you to use "apple authorized" dongles.
I have been using a System76 Darter Pro (max cpu and ram) with Pop!_OS 19.04 and it’s been a dream to use. My day to day workload includes docker, node.js services, Postgres, mongodb, and gis tasks. I get about 6 hours of battery life while working and about 8 or so when doing non-work tasks. It’s the real deal. I’m also driving a 4K monitor with the laptop display on as well. Smooth as butter. However, I’ve tried some modeling with Sweet Home 3D. That didn’t go so hot. The Darter can use thunderbolt external gpus though and I’ve been meaning to pick one up and see how well it works
Pop OS on a T series Lenovo have been fault free for me.
Ive run it on T480, T580 and T480S.
The T490 which has just been released has a much brighter panel so opt for that one if you can.
It only reinforces the idea that PopOS is little more than a reskinned Ubuntu (which is not a bad thing!). The only non different default setting is the availability of a recovery partition, while the other features mentioned are basically just different defaults.
For what it's worth, KDE [Plasma] is just a desktop environment - you can run it on Ubuntu.
As of 2019, I'm fairly happy with Linux on the desktop; usability is really solid, WINE is significantly better than years before, and many games will play perfectly fine with basically no manual configuration thanks to projects like DXVK.
I'm running KDE on Arch. And, I'm definitely happier than I was on Windows.
There's a number of people who can't stand KDE because of lack of consistency in padding etc (I have to take their word for it because I cannot see such things).
Often such people seem to enjoy using Macs and I defend that choice.
Personally I prefer Linux or even Windows to Macs because of (drumroll) consistency.
I want my keyboard to look mostly the same year in and year out. I want the layout to be roughly similar either I sit on my laptop keyboard or an external keyboard. I want modifier keys to work the same between apps. As a heavy multitasker I want my alt-tab to work the way it used when I learned it.
As for why KDE/Linux instead of Windows I just really like it for some reason. On top of that I prefer the Linux ecosystem, the reduced build times I get when I compile, the snappier git etc etc.
I recently got a Purism Librem 13 and it's been golden. The only thing I miss from MacBooks is the touchpad. I did replace their PureOS with stock Ubuntu, which was a breeze and probably improved performace due to proprietary drivers.
I've not compiled my own kernel in the last 5 years and all of my hardware has been supported. Not saying that you can't run into h/w compatibility issues with Linux today, but I don't think that you should keep yourself from using Linux as a daily driver if you're worried about hardware compatibility. Just get a thinkpad, and you'll be golden.
>I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver
You can buy hardware that comes with Linux support including drivers. Changing your workflow is always a pain though, so Linux with a decent DE like KDE could be a suitable alternative for you but because of the big change you could get frustrated and hate the experience.
I am also at that period in life where I don't get pleasure from tinkering with compiling custom kernels, making the PC boot 10% faster, use the latest and greatest... so for me Kubuntu LTS fits perfectly it may be a good option for you too.
> I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver, and Windows? Nah, get away...
You can buy laptops with various flavours of Linux pre-installed from a number of different manufacturers right now, you know that right? In the distant past I used to regularly compile my kernels out of necessity and also out of curiosity and trying to eke every last drop of performance from my systems. Now? No way. Have not done that in ages. And you never need to compile a kernel to get a driver working these days, every now and again what you might find is that you have to blacklist a driver or drop a manufacturers firmware into place. In truth, I had to do the exact same on a Macbook to get a non Apple blessed SSD running at full tilt many years ago.
Linux, by any reasonable metric, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with MacOS and Windows today. I can't believe in 2019 with Chromebooks, Lenovo, Dell, Purism, System76 (and those are the ones that I know off the top of my head) you still think compiling kernel drivers is a thing. Even Microsoft makes Linux apps these days: VS Code, Skype, SQL Server, … so that's got to tell you something. The real hold-out is Adobe. I'd love if IBM bought Adobe (after their Redhat purchase) and made all Adobe's apps cross-platform.
Not sure what your usage is like, but after being on OSX for 10 years and going back to Windows 10, I don't miss it much. Windows 10 is pretty great these days.
Zoom on Macs is so much more convenient than on Win10, even with aerozoom, I also tried the sysinternals zoom: no dice, Win10 usability is still kluncky. I got both and still use the 2015 Pro a lot more than the way more beefy oled-screen Dell.
I have Windows running along side macOS on my Mac Pro. It boots faster and the video screams... when it’s not installing updates. Seriously. It’s worse than my xBox.
The only reason I want a Mac again is for MacOS's hiDPI support. I can't stand regular screens anymore, and from what I've heard, Windows 10 hiDPI support is non-existent, even for non fractional scaling.
Using Windows 10 forces one to either use a low resolution screen, or deal with the consequences (most non-flagship software fails at scaling).
And that's not even getting into font rendering issues. Windows 10 can't render don't properly, except in design apps such as InDesign, for some reason. As for Linux compatibility, Win10 does a semi-decent job emulating Linux system calls with WSL.
And get a refurbished T440p with a quad core CPU that's fast and costs you a couple of hundred of euros. Replace parts when they break. No need to pay the premium for the new models.
That must have been a wonderfull f*up on the part of your service center.
Here where I live they would have to refund you the machine, if they weren't capable to repair it within 30 days (while under warranty, which I assume X1 Extreme was). The only manufacturer, whose service is able to achieve 30 days here is Apple ;).
With Lenovo, and previously IBM, I've had experience to have issues fixed NBD, even when I was retail customer.
Lenovo standard customer support sucks ass. Pay a little more and they route you to IBM support (at least in Canada). Those people are godly. Next business day, go to your home, fix whatever you want, accidental damage, whatever, all covered.
Running a 2017 MBP model at work here, have all those issues and more. My Bluetooth chip somehow freezes without fail after X hours of usage and requires a hard power cycle to fix, often if I put it to sleep on a night I wake it up to a kernel panic message.
I have a 2013 MBP at home that I still use every night, the worst thing that has happened to it in all those years of daily usage is 3 of the feet have fallen off. The thing has been an absolute champ and I would have dropped serious money on another by now if they hadn't changed it.
Interesting, I’ve never experienced these usability problems. Maybe accidentally hit the touchbar once or twice a day for the first week, before I got used to it.
BTW you can customize the touchbar to move stuff around so it’s not in the way of your fingers (e.g. top-right corner).
But yeah it sucks and there’s no real use-case for it, the standard keys are way better. The only thing I like about it is the TouchID, but they’ve showed with air that it can be a standalone thing.
The usb-c transition happened too early, it’s annoying that you can’t even plug in an usb if you forgot to bring the dongle. The nice thing about it is being able to plug the charger at any port, but that’s no reason to have only the usb-c ports.
Agree on the OS, I’ve probably bought into their ecosystem way too much to make a smooth transition away. Also the trackpad experience is still superior. But the list of reasons why I would buy a macbook after this one bites the big one is getting shorter.
Guy spent a year trying to build a better slack, but then finds out people love to complain about slack, but will not make any steps to actually try any alternatives.
>I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver
You'll be happy to hear about dkms then. Just install the driver, let your package manager update it and it will recompile on its own for whatever kernel you're using.
I'd buy something different if there was a real alternative OS-wise (I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver, and Windows? Nah, get away...)