You really start appreciating macOS when you go and install Linux on laptop and use it for a month. I had a same issue, I was in Apple camp for 10 years (as of this year). And I was like things suck now, Snow Leopard days yada yada yada... And then I installed Arch. Oh god... I mean, the worst thing is I can use Linux only as pure text/terminal UI. Although Gnome looks more polished than ever, whole UI/UX thing on Linux just can't be compared to macOS and Cocoa.
What I didn't like with OPs post is that Apple isn't making machine specifically for you, nor for developers. Why their machines had so much success since Jobs return was that they were making machines that were equally loved by music/video/content creators, developers, mothers/fathers/grandparents, students etc etc... If you aren't satisfied with your dev. environment go spin up a VM, rent a server or just get other machine that will fulfill your needs.
Where this post gets right is keyboards. Reliability has been number one aspect that Apple created as part of their brand's identity. I won't buy new machine until they do something about those crappy keyboards. And I would like to see them move from Intel. I would like to see how Apple do their own in-house development on CPU, or go with AMD.
While you are right that Apple isn't making machines specifically for the OP, the Pro was intended specifically for people like the OP. And the new MBP seems to have very different design goals than ealier MBPs. An obvious example is the ports. Older MBPs were renowned for the many different types of ports they supported.
The new MBP seems to be geared towards people who use Macs for Office work, but want the most expensive version of a mac portable they can find. Before writing this comment I was gonna add that Apple's definition of Pro seems to have reduced to people who deal with videos and photos, but if they were catering to that audience they would have left the SD card reader in.
The main difference between the old Apple portable lineup and the new one appears to me that in the old one, the Macbook, Air and the Pro all had overlapping but different design goals. Today's devices all seem to have the same primary design goals, with the differences existing so they can be slotted in different price brackets.
Preface: I am a full-time Linux user, who has used both Mac and Windows extensively. My systems run Ubuntu with MATE, but I'd accept Mint/Cinnamon or GNOME too.
Snow Leopard was nine years ago to be fair. The UI/UX of Linux has come a long way since then, but the UI/UX could be optimized further. What is wrong with it?
To cover the common issues first:
WiFi - Was an issue, but hasn't been on my machines at least six years.
Sleep - Was an issue, but hasn't been on my machines at least four years. I've had this machine up to 60 day uptime, so 50+ sleeps, only restarting for the kernel update for example.
HiDPI - Still an issue, but the apologist says "It was new tech! Just like the other two." Progress is being made, but it will be a while until seamless.
Due to my familiarity (with all three OSs) my UI/UX views may be incorrect for new users. I don't want a flame war. I want to know what else needs to be done in Ubuntu 18.04 GNOME and/or Mint/MATE. I'll file issues, create bug reports, and perhaps fix some things myself. It's easier to see this forest from another forest.
Edit: Further down the comments I found "Bluetooth" I'm going to look into it.
I continued on with my 17" 2011 MBP for years and finally committed to switch to Linux last year when Apple's hardware policy became clear.
I didn't want to do toe-in-the-water trial, so I researched for a while until I settled on something and ended up with a Dell Precision 7710. I really wanted to have a support line I could call if there was a problem and the Dell Developer Edition option has been excellent for that.
It was not easy at first. I experimented with a lot of distros (Arch is not for the faint of heart) and ended up settling on Fedora 25 at the time. I really enjoyed it for about 6 months until I had to upgrade to Fedora 26 and my machine got frozen in this weird between-upgrades state.
After that I decided to give Mint 18.3 w/ Cinnamon a try and I've been a very happy camper ever since. It's been an absolute joy to work with. Timeshift is pretty great too.
19 just hit beta and I'm looking forward to the upgrade. When I have to get on a Mac now, it feels clunky and in-the-way. I was an avid Mac user for 10+ years...even appeared as the Mac in one of those local "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC ads"...but I'll say it right now, it would take a job requirement to get me to go back at this point.
Spot on. I remember not long ago trying to replace my MBP with a linux box and asking/complaining about the HiDPI situation on linux on some forum. One the responses I received was no one needs HiDPI. Huh?
I'm hoping this is just a down period for Apple. They have had issues before and corrected them, so we'll see.
> Why their machines had so much success since Jobs return was that they were making machines that were equally loved by music/video/content creators, developers, mothers/fathers/grandparents, students etc etc... If you aren't satisfied with your dev. environment go spin up a VM, rent a server or just get other machine that will fulfill your needs.
So Apple used to make machines that delighted all audiences, they now don't, so one of those audience (developers) needs to get in line and change. O...k?
Apple should actually go out and understand why developers are lukewarm on their machines, and if they're not or just ignoring one of those audiences, then they're doing so at their own peril.
Odd. I've been waiting for a Macbook Pro that has something that excites me for a while (as my present one is 7 years old) and kind of gave up when the most recent Macbooks were announced.
I threw some more RAM and a 4 core CPU in a desktop that I'd previously been using as a PVR, and have gotten along with GNOME just fine. While a lot of folks dislike GNOME 3, I actually find it to be one of the more innovative and interesting desktops going around at the moment (including macOS and the various Windows iterations).
Oddly, the main thing I miss is that, while Mail.app has loads of annoyances, it still seems to do better with large IMAP folder better than anything on Linux except Thunderbird (which I find a bit clunky in the interface).
Were it not for music production software, I'd be very tempted to do a wholesale switch (in my case back to Linux, as it's what I used in the decade before I got my first Mac).
I don't know. I had to use Mac at work and I hated it. It seems like for every stupid thing you needed to install an app or something. I had to spend considerable amount of time to make os x usable in dev scenario, whereas when I compare it to Ubuntu, Ubuntu has everything working out of the box. I am glad I don't have to use OS X any more.
> whole UI/UX thing on Linux just can't be compared to macOS and Cocoa.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I much prefer the look and feel of my i3/polybar setup. As a professional developer, I am not the target audience for Apple's UI.
Arch is an OS for people who like hacking together an OS. For a full desktop experience, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu flavors, Elementary, and many other distributions are probably a better way to go.
> You really start appreciating macOS when you go and install Linux on laptop and use it for a month
Actually, the opposite happened to me: I started really disliking macOS after switching to Ubuntu + i3 on my main development machine. That's on a desktop computer though, not a laptop, so I didn't run into any Linux issues regarding battery & sleep. The experience might not be as good on a laptop, especially if the hardware is worse than my 2015 rMBP, which unfortunately seems quite common for non-Mac laptops even today.
So far I've had a good experience with Kubuntu on an old Lenovo ideapad from ~7 years ago, after throwing a new SSD in to replace the old HDD. Everything so far has worked out of the box without any problems, I was able to get both MATLAB and Mendeley (the only two programs I was concerned would give me issues) up and running without any problem for my research, and I configured the desktop environment so it looks and functions almost identical to MacOS (at least for how I usually use MacOS, and with a few changes that I feel are more aesthetically pleasing).
I tried this because my main 2015 macbook pro somehow developed an swollen battery, which has caused the case to warp really badly (wobbles distractingly when typing). There are reports that this swelling can, predictably, lead to explosions [1]. The ETA for arrival+service of new battery was ~ a week, full cost to me, and no loaner program. Pretty ridiculous for a known hardware defect.
Get a Linux Mint/Cinnamon on a notebook with 3k/4k HiDPI screen, 32GB RAM, install MacBuntu & Docky, and then come back to tell us about your experience ;-) It doesn't feel like a wannabe Mac slap-on anymore. I use such setup for some local users and it is smooth as on a Mac. I even had people asking me during a video call where I shared my desktop what kind of macOS mod it was.
Same here. It was the touch bar that did it for me. Didn’t mind the ports. Dell XPS with fedora 28 is so much faster, quieter and comfortable than any MacBook I had before (3 in total).
Last MacBook I had bricked on me while I was trying to shut it down while at the library. It didn’t shutdown but started heating up in my bagpack. I noticed the smell and was able to take it out and open the lid and let it die naturally.
Best thing about Apple though is still their ethical and generous customer service. Dell customer service is truly disgusting. At least in Germany. Would probably not buy a new Dell laptop but look for something else.
I don't know what to say about your comparisons.. I find all desktop OSes unusable at the moment and I think that is more embarrassing for Windows and OsX than Linux, since Linux has a lot of other places it can be besides desktop.
As a developer I am going back to pure window managers without the "environment" of gnome or KDE. For non-developers, Tablets seem to be dieing so I guess you are supposed to keep a larger phone at home.
I shared the sentiments that this post had. Then I got a XPS 15" and booted ElementaryOS on it and trying to deal with the resolution issues from the 4K display was just a huge headache.
Also, say what you will about the MBP, even though I paid $2k for my XPS, it still wasn't nearly as nice as the MBP's touchpad, etc. I would definitely still pay a premium for that MBP hardware.
The problem is you expected an Arch Linux laptop install to "just work" when you were new to desktop Linux in general. Linux really isn't a "just work" desktop OS and it caters to power users. You might try Ubuntu as your first Linux distribution, but you will be continually frustrated if you expect a fresh Linux desktop install to fit like a glove.
You don't go to Arch for the UI/UX. I have used Windows, Mac, and Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch). My experience with Arch (i3wm) has been vastly superior to anything I have used before. I would not trade it for anything. The thing about it is it caters to a certain group of people, and if you are not one of those, then you won't have a good time with it.
>the worst thing is I can use Linux only as pure text/terminal UI
Genuinely curious, but why on earth would you install Arch of all things, then? Surely you would have preferred any of the myriad distros that come with a desktop environment preinstalled?
Even on Arch, GNOME is just a pacman command away. You don't have to run i3 with anime wallpaper.
Unfortunately Mac is still miles ahead of Linux on usability. I recently got an XPS 13 and put Ubuntu on it, and immediately ran into many small issues such as:
- Touchpad had a very low resolution. This had to be fixed by using a different display server.
- Touchpad had nonexistent palm rejection. I fixed this by turning off tap to click which doesn’t actually fix the problem but stops it from causing an issue when typing.
- Touchpad generally had a very old fashioned layout with large zones for the right click button and scroll bar.
- All of these touchpad fixes had to be done with some strangely formatted text files.
- Key remapping also required diving into a whole set of text files and searching around for incomplete documentation wikis on it.
- Gestures do not work without switching back to the display server with the very low resolution touchpad.
- The windowing and multi desktop system is generally not as well thought out as Mac.
- Bluetooth just doesn’t work well. I need to “forget” and then reconnect to a device to join it again. Feels very buggy.
There are also a lot of other things I’m forgetting right now. Currently Linux does not offer a top tier desktop experience, and it’s been 90% of the way there for like 15 years, so I doubt it’s ever going to get better until the dynamics of the ecosystem change. My guess is that Linux developers don’t want to do boring stuff like fixing obscure bugs for certain peripherals, and they don’t want to listen to designers to create a polished unified experience.
I briefly used windows while installing Ubuntu and it was generally much smoother. If windows can get the Linux subsystem stuff working 100% my guess is that it will start to gain momentum as a developer OS.
Most of what the author mentions, like the "bloatware" (that happens to be one of the best OEM pack-in values in the history of personal computing) is personal preference.
There absolutely is a problem with the direction of Apple's pro laptops, though, and that is simply that they've lost the pragmatism of the Macbook Pro line:
A balance of current and future ports is pragmatic. Going from exclusively USB-A to exclusively USB-C is not.
Making the occasional experience of replacing the battery harder in exchange for a thinner and lighter device is pragmatic. Making the everyday experience of typing on the keyboard less reliable for a thinner and lighter device is not.
Adding a novel new mode of interaction to high-end models is pragmatic. Adding the Touch Bar to the base 15" model and increasing the entry-level price point by 20% is not.
There has always been an element of designer vanity to Apple's products, but it has been tempered by pragmatism. The 2016 MacBook Pro marks the point where vanity gained the upper hand – and I hope pragmatism takes it back soon.
The idea that Apple software is bloatwate because he’s fully bought into the Google ecosystem is laughable. It’s fine if you don’t want in on Apple’s rich ecosystem, but that’s very different from “bloatware.”
I don't get the complaints over stuff like HDMI and SD slots getting dropped. When they're left out, people who need them have to carry around adapters. When they're included, people who _don't_ need them have to carry them around (in the form of less battery and a bigger laptop).
Doesn’t it make sense to put the “burden” on folks who need this stuff? I don't want your HDMI. I don't want your SD slot. I don't even want your USB-A or audio-out. Why should my laptop be burdened with all this crap just because other people can’t manage dongles or a port replicator?
Hmm kind of a strange piece that's borderline misleading. It starts off with interesting points that are generally fixed usability issues (there's only one keyboard, only one trackpad, etc), but the "bloatware" section seems strangely out of place.
It's basically "I personally don't use these applications" ...and therefore that supports why the MBP is in decline? That's great that he uses Firefox but... who cares? I personally have given it up for Safari and Chrome. Ditto with the rest of the apps; I still use about half of those integrated apps (yet here, too, who cares?).
Plus, many of the integrated apps actually do support the platforms he's using - for example, Google syncing with the macOS Contacts, Calendar, and Reminders applications.
Additionally, the macOS Messages app is way more capable than most people realize. Of course it supports iMessage, but it also supports sending native SMSs when used with a paired iPhone, either via relay or through WiFi calling with a supported carrier. It also has Hangouts chat support AFAICT, and support for any other (standardized, decentralized) XMPP/Jabber server.
And the majority of the other applications come preinstalled, but can just be deleted.
I disagree. I know a lot of hardcore mac fans, and only a few of them use the built in mac software, and when they do, they don't use many.
Every point the author made about hardware was 100% spot on though, and he made a lot more points than just about the keyboard and trackpad. Virtually every change that mac has done to the hardware has made it worse, with the exception of efficiency, and maybe a slight improvement in power. But the efficiency and power improvements are vastly outweighed by the hardware negatives.
And the author is right about the software. None of the software changes they have made over the last 3 years have made anything better. It just keeps getting bigger.
I should have elaborated on that section. The fact that I use almost none of the native software is a negative for me personally because the native software used to be a reason for me to pay the premium price for an Apple laptop. I used to use iTunes, Safari, etc. But now that I don't, the inclusion of that software in the cost of the laptop is largely a waste to me.
It's definitely a very personal opinion though, hence my disclaimer at the beginning about my complaints being hard to generalize.
Trying Arch on a ThinkPad, Ubuntu on a Dell, and Windows on a Surface Book made me appreciate my MacBook more.
It's very tempting to realise you don't use any Apple apps, see how you're paying a lot for last year's hardware specs, throw up your arms and say “I'm done with Apple! I'll get a hacker's laptop!” But — if you've become accustomed to Apple hardware and macOS — the experience felt like a real downgrade to me.
I have a laundry list of Mac niggles, but they're generally in the category of, “I wish I could tweak that behaviour a little” (like fully removing OS-level UI animations beyond what “reduce motion” offers) rather than, “I can't work until this problem is solved”, which is what I saw much more of on Arch, Ubuntu, and Windows (redraw issues that rendered applications unusable, updates that broke critical deps and required rollbacks, and almost daily blue-screening on Windows).
Apple also gets a bunch of things right by default that you miss when you go elsewhere, like their trackpads, screens, and zero-config full-disk encryption.
The Touch Bar MacBook Pro I have now may be worse than the previous model in some ways (I do not like the keyboard or use the Touch Bar), but overall the experience hasn't declined enough to fall behind everything else that's on offer for me.
- Charging/Ports: USB-c is excellent. Used to have two+ cables to connect power and dual monitors. Now its just a thunderbolt cable feeding to an elgato dock. I can also (albeit slowly) charge my laptop with a usb-c power bank when traveling. I've yet to find myself needing a dongle most of the time. Cameras these days have wifi to copy files off and wireless ac is fast enough to not need ethernet. The only time I bring one is when traveling and even then its low profile and half the time I forget its even in my backpack.
- Keyboard: Okay this is fair. Gets really bad as the computer heats up, way more noticeable on normal Macbooks.
- Trackpad: Yeah I don't get your criticism, I love having a large trackpad.
- Touch Bar: I find it really useful and have it customized like crazy using better touch tool. Pretty nifty. I could live without it, but why? Love it.
- MacOS: Not sure how this makes the MBP "decline" as all macs have had this for years.
- Docker: Again not a MBP problem, complain to docker devs.
Biggest problem the MBP have is lack of ram. They absolutely should have sacrificed battery life for the people that really wanted more than 16gb. I'm already hurting my battery life as it is with the radeon graphics card.
Other thing I wish they'd change is round out the corners near the trackpad, they can be quite sharp sometimes.
The keyboard is really the main problem as the laptop performs very well otherwise. You have to turn off force feedback etc. I don't recommend taking your laptop to the beach but i kind of tend to and the butterfly keyboard will utterly fail if you get a single grain of sand near it as its too damn flat. Otherwise, I like the dynamic bar and trackpad and the thing just works without heating up.
Is here any alternative that can keep up with Apple's font rendering?
This might be highly subjective but for me the same font on a Mac looks much more pleasant than on Windows or Ubuntu. It is tempting to understate this as a minor detail but for me text is one of the most important parts of the user interface and I can't understand how the other platforms could neglect their font rendering this much.
I agree completely. Even on a HiDPI screen, I couldn’t believe how bad Avenir and other great fonts looked in a Windows and Linux browser. Although, the Retina display may be spoiling me, I checked some work on an older 27” iMac, non retina, and it looked pretty bad also.
That's an interesting comment. I bought my first MBP in mid-2012 (and, it's my current mac, although I just dropped it and cracked the LCD screen, so this discussion is suddenly very relevant to me) and I found, especially when outputting to a 1080p monitor, that I hated the way text looked on the Mac. I think this was one of my biggest complaints. Either it's gotten better over the years, or I've gotten used to it, because I don't notice it anymore.
Have you tried out what it looks like on Windows 10 with a high resolution display properly set to zooming like 200%? I think that Windows has made a lot of progress on this in the last few years.
In 2012 I switched from a 2010 MBP 13" to a Thinkpad T410 running linux for personal use and haven't looked back. I distro hopped for a while (Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, CrunchBang, Debian and Arch) before settling on Fedora. I'm seeing quite a few complaints about usability issues in Linux. I think that's fair for the most part, but as a counterpoint, I've had very few issues and these days it seems like most things just work.
Fedora is not perfect out of the box, but it's pretty easy to fix.
1. Install Fedy (folkswithhats.org), provides one click installs for pretty much every application I use that isn't in the fedora repos. It also has a script that improves the font rendering.
2. Install Gnome Tweak Tool, I wish this was included by default. It makes it easy to change themes, keybinds, etc.
3. Install a decent looking theme (I use Arc). IMHO at this point the UI looks far better than my wife's Macbook Air and is significantly more usable (of course that's coming from a long time gnome user).
At that point I'm pretty much done. You no longer need to install TLP or powertop to get good battery life. I can't remember the last time I had a kernel panic (while my Windows 7 machine at work BSOD'd this morning). I vastly prefer the trackpoint on my thinkpad to any touchpad I've used (although my old MBP had the best touchpad I've ever used). As a bonus I spend lots of time at work logged into a redhat server, so having the same CLI on my personal machine is great.
Another point is that you can activate a Windows 10 VM using the OEM key. I keep a Windows VM installed just in case, but I seldom use it.
I will say that I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on a T480 and am going to stick with the 1080p display because I've heard horror stories about scaling in linux.
I can relate to most of these points. However, he lost me with the bloatware statement. It came off to me as 'Apple didnt design MACOS for my 1 very specific development use case so its bloated and useless'.
Completely disagree with this. None of these apps are tied to the OS in a similar way IE was linked to Windows, and just because you like Google apps to handle your utilities doesnt mean everyone else will. Some people do want iMovie, Photos or the productivity apps and dont want to share all of their personal data with google to use their suite. Ive never looked at an unused included utility by apple or microsoft and thought this is BLOATWARE!!!
The new macbook pro has plenty of flaws that you can avoid the above point and still make a compelling case. Ive skipped upgrading my 2014 model until I see the next version. I tried a buddy of mine's MBP and the trackpad is pretty bad and in the way of my hands.
Author here. In retrospect, using the word "bloatware" was unnecessary, given the connotations of the word. I totally get that it's a very personal situation and that most Mac owners probably use a fair amount of Mac software.
I only included that section because my shift from Mac software to alternatives was so gradual that I didn't really realize how complete it was until I started writing this blog post. At which point I wanted to list them out point by point for my own self-reflection.
All the flaws mentioned are valid enough, but most don't resonate with me as strong negatives, with the exception of iTunes, which is a bloated, slow, nasty mess.
That aside, a big deal for me is that Mac laptops max out at 16GB. That's perhaps the biggest single reason I'm not buying one now. Hopefully the refresh will fix this.
Another big deal is the general lack of attention for OS X (or macOS or whatever). The exception is the updated filesystem, and even this was an extremely painful transition for me because (although it may be fixed now) Spotlight doesn't work on external volumes using APFS. Or how about some good process/application sandboxing and quota capabilities? Or, my machine with 128 GB (!) of RAM starts out blazing fast, and then slows down: process switching can take a second or two, which is really annoying. How is this happening on a modern OS in 2018? Simple -- Apple is not trying.
Having said this, I agree with some other posters that macOS is the worst desktop OS out there, except for all the other ones. I frequently have to use Windows and I simply cannot make myself like it. I love Linux for its freedom and for its terminal, but none of the desktops are awesome in comparison to macOS. Not many people would say they "love" Windows or they "love" Gnome, but many would still say they love macOS, despite the flaws.
I'm getting more and more disappointed in Apple's hardware, but OSX is still better than any other OS out there by a mile. I'm feeling conflicted about this.
I have an emojibar Macbook pro. Since getting it shortly after they launched, I've had two complete hardware failures resulting in Apple replacing the whole thing. Most of this post's other complaints I agree with but don't feel strongly about, but the keyboard thing is really bad. Specs of dust have caused keys to stop functioning. Trying to fix them, I one day popped the enter key off and broke the plastic clip holding it on. So I bought a replacement key, only to find out that the mounting bracket for the key (which I have to replace) is _glued_ on to the case. So now I have a perfectly functional enter key, except that the entire thing will fall out of the laptop whenever I tilt it sideways.
This isn't the level of hardware quality I've grown to know and love. If they release a new MBP that resolves these issues, I might stick with it. But as things stand, I'm looking at a non-macbook for my next laptop. I really don't want to do that, since I've gotten used to OSX and nothing else compares to the ease of use and the things I have set up. But I'm getting tired of paying thousands for second-rate hardware
> I would rather use keyboard shortcuts than look down at the touch bar.
I actually happen to like the fact that I don't have to remember the non-essential shortcuts anymore. That, and volume & brightness sliders. Still, it's extremely immature and far from being useful.
Most importantly, a few applications actually support it in any meaningful manner. Most of time, my touchbar is empty, or shows the function (F) keys. Even when app provides some controls, they're usually for from being actually useful, leaving a feeling that they were added in a haste, just to fill "we support touchbar now" tick, without giving it much thought. Rarely I want the buttons app provides by default, and rarely the buttons I want to see are available.
And it really lacks any tactile feedback. The hacks that use trackpad magnets are not working for me - in a sense I don't like how it feels, at all. If it'd work like a trackpad with display - it'd be perfect. Slide fingers across to "feel" the button, then push a little harder to actually "press" it.
Since it wasn't mentioned in the article or in the comments, max 16GB of memory has been the main complaint among our engineers.
In the article, some of the gripes about macOS software is just filler. Safari runs very well on macOS and mac hardware. I know people who prefer the Mail client, Notes, and Reminders over alternatives. FaceTime is way better than Google Hangouts and Skype.
Apple basically killed the "Pro" and turned it into a consumer-level concept laptop that is a downgrade in nearly every possible way that matters to actual pro users.
- The keyboard is horrible and unreliable. A piece of dust can render it inoperable and require an $800 repair? Give me a break.
- The Touch Bar is inconvenient, annoying, and ergonomically terrible. It is a problem looking for a solution but instead causes more problems.
- The lack of a hardware Escape key and function row is inconvenient, annoying, and hostile to pro users. I use my Escape key and FN keys multiple dozens of times per day.
- Losing MagSafe is a downgrade with no conceivable benefit
- USB-C is inconvenient and inconsistent
- Dongles required for everything possible is annoying and inconvenient
- 16GB RAM is comical in 2018 for a "pro" machine
If you want a good Mac laptop at the moment, you have to buy 3-6 year old hardware, usually refurbished or used on eBay/craigslist. Think about that for a minute. This sums it up well:
> "Apple has made many great laptops, but the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro (2012–2015) is the epitome of usefulness, elegance, practicality, and power for an overall package that still hasn’t been (and may never be) surpassed."
My sincere hope is they actually fix the keyboard (and add the Escape and FN keys back), remove the Touch Bar, give it 32GB of RAM, and re-introduce MagSafe. Getting ports back is almost certainly too much to ask for, I don't think there has ever been a time where Apple removed ports and then brought them back again.
After my decade-long love affair with the MBP, i finally called it quits after the last "upgrade"
- Being stuck at 16GB RAM seriously limited VMs, etc
- Not having a CUDA-compliant GPU forced me to use AWS and not run minor dev work locally
- The keyboard...
I got a 64GB RAM ThinkPad P51 w/ an NVIDIA GPU. Miss the feel and art, but otherwise haven't looked back because i'm so productive at work.
For me, peak-mac was the 2014 MBP with NVIDIA GPU and traditional keyboard.
I still prefer MacOS, but I have a 5th gen X1 Carbon, dual booting win 10 and elementary OS (linux). A funny thing happened at a recent hotel stay. The audio wasn’t working while connected via hdmi to the tv, was booted into win10. Jumped over to Linux, using chrome, worked perfectly. I couldn’t believe Linux was easier to use than windows. Was definitely a Tom Hanks, I have made fire moment.
I'm really upset with how Apple's been treating the MBP considering my entire livelihood depends on using macOS to get work done. Sure, I could switch to another platform, but it wouldn't be the same. I'd be less efficient and I would have access to a lot of the tools I love and use.
To be limited to their crappy hardware they've been releasing lately is a shame. I'm ready for an upgrade from my 2013 Macbook Air, but none of Apple's notebooks are suitable upgrades—I refuse to buy any until they either 1) fix the keyboard and get rid of the dumb Touchbar on the MBP, or 2) allow me to buy a Macbook Air with 16GB of memory.
[+] [-] Philipp__|7 years ago|reply
What I didn't like with OPs post is that Apple isn't making machine specifically for you, nor for developers. Why their machines had so much success since Jobs return was that they were making machines that were equally loved by music/video/content creators, developers, mothers/fathers/grandparents, students etc etc... If you aren't satisfied with your dev. environment go spin up a VM, rent a server or just get other machine that will fulfill your needs.
Where this post gets right is keyboards. Reliability has been number one aspect that Apple created as part of their brand's identity. I won't buy new machine until they do something about those crappy keyboards. And I would like to see them move from Intel. I would like to see how Apple do their own in-house development on CPU, or go with AMD.
[+] [-] addicted|7 years ago|reply
The new MBP seems to be geared towards people who use Macs for Office work, but want the most expensive version of a mac portable they can find. Before writing this comment I was gonna add that Apple's definition of Pro seems to have reduced to people who deal with videos and photos, but if they were catering to that audience they would have left the SD card reader in.
The main difference between the old Apple portable lineup and the new one appears to me that in the old one, the Macbook, Air and the Pro all had overlapping but different design goals. Today's devices all seem to have the same primary design goals, with the differences existing so they can be slotted in different price brackets.
[+] [-] cormman|7 years ago|reply
It's so cool to hate on Ubuntu, but it's the best desktop linux experience. You did yourself a disservice.
What shines for linux is the package manager as a 1rst class citizen. I've had all sorts of issues with `brew` and no issues with `apt`
[+] [-] eosrei|7 years ago|reply
Snow Leopard was nine years ago to be fair. The UI/UX of Linux has come a long way since then, but the UI/UX could be optimized further. What is wrong with it?
To cover the common issues first: WiFi - Was an issue, but hasn't been on my machines at least six years. Sleep - Was an issue, but hasn't been on my machines at least four years. I've had this machine up to 60 day uptime, so 50+ sleeps, only restarting for the kernel update for example. HiDPI - Still an issue, but the apologist says "It was new tech! Just like the other two." Progress is being made, but it will be a while until seamless.
Due to my familiarity (with all three OSs) my UI/UX views may be incorrect for new users. I don't want a flame war. I want to know what else needs to be done in Ubuntu 18.04 GNOME and/or Mint/MATE. I'll file issues, create bug reports, and perhaps fix some things myself. It's easier to see this forest from another forest.
Edit: Further down the comments I found "Bluetooth" I'm going to look into it.
[+] [-] brightball|7 years ago|reply
I didn't want to do toe-in-the-water trial, so I researched for a while until I settled on something and ended up with a Dell Precision 7710. I really wanted to have a support line I could call if there was a problem and the Dell Developer Edition option has been excellent for that.
It was not easy at first. I experimented with a lot of distros (Arch is not for the faint of heart) and ended up settling on Fedora 25 at the time. I really enjoyed it for about 6 months until I had to upgrade to Fedora 26 and my machine got frozen in this weird between-upgrades state.
After that I decided to give Mint 18.3 w/ Cinnamon a try and I've been a very happy camper ever since. It's been an absolute joy to work with. Timeshift is pretty great too.
19 just hit beta and I'm looking forward to the upgrade. When I have to get on a Mac now, it feels clunky and in-the-way. I was an avid Mac user for 10+ years...even appeared as the Mac in one of those local "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC ads"...but I'll say it right now, it would take a job requirement to get me to go back at this point.
[+] [-] matwood|7 years ago|reply
I'm hoping this is just a down period for Apple. They have had issues before and corrected them, so we'll see.
[+] [-] awinder|7 years ago|reply
So Apple used to make machines that delighted all audiences, they now don't, so one of those audience (developers) needs to get in line and change. O...k?
Apple should actually go out and understand why developers are lukewarm on their machines, and if they're not or just ignoring one of those audiences, then they're doing so at their own peril.
[+] [-] wheels|7 years ago|reply
I threw some more RAM and a 4 core CPU in a desktop that I'd previously been using as a PVR, and have gotten along with GNOME just fine. While a lot of folks dislike GNOME 3, I actually find it to be one of the more innovative and interesting desktops going around at the moment (including macOS and the various Windows iterations).
Oddly, the main thing I miss is that, while Mail.app has loads of annoyances, it still seems to do better with large IMAP folder better than anything on Linux except Thunderbird (which I find a bit clunky in the interface).
Were it not for music production software, I'd be very tempted to do a wholesale switch (in my case back to Linux, as it's what I used in the decade before I got my first Mac).
[+] [-] merinowool|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willtim|7 years ago|reply
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I much prefer the look and feel of my i3/polybar setup. As a professional developer, I am not the target audience for Apple's UI.
[+] [-] ilikehurdles|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peferron|7 years ago|reply
Actually, the opposite happened to me: I started really disliking macOS after switching to Ubuntu + i3 on my main development machine. That's on a desktop computer though, not a laptop, so I didn't run into any Linux issues regarding battery & sleep. The experience might not be as good on a laptop, especially if the hardware is worse than my 2015 rMBP, which unfortunately seems quite common for non-Mac laptops even today.
[+] [-] albutr|7 years ago|reply
I tried this because my main 2015 macbook pro somehow developed an swollen battery, which has caused the case to warp really badly (wobbles distractingly when typing). There are reports that this swelling can, predictably, lead to explosions [1]. The ETA for arrival+service of new battery was ~ a week, full cost to me, and no loaner program. Pretty ridiculous for a known hardware defect.
[1]https://medium.com/@dourvaris/my-2015-macbook-pro-retina-exp...
[+] [-] bitL|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onyva|7 years ago|reply
Last MacBook I had bricked on me while I was trying to shut it down while at the library. It didn’t shutdown but started heating up in my bagpack. I noticed the smell and was able to take it out and open the lid and let it die naturally.
Best thing about Apple though is still their ethical and generous customer service. Dell customer service is truly disgusting. At least in Germany. Would probably not buy a new Dell laptop but look for something else.
[+] [-] yayana|7 years ago|reply
As a developer I am going back to pure window managers without the "environment" of gnome or KDE. For non-developers, Tablets seem to be dieing so I guess you are supposed to keep a larger phone at home.
[+] [-] BlackjackCF|7 years ago|reply
I shared the sentiments that this post had. Then I got a XPS 15" and booted ElementaryOS on it and trying to deal with the resolution issues from the 4K display was just a huge headache.
Also, say what you will about the MBP, even though I paid $2k for my XPS, it still wasn't nearly as nice as the MBP's touchpad, etc. I would definitely still pay a premium for that MBP hardware.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] anothergoogler|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] farresito|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitofhope|7 years ago|reply
Genuinely curious, but why on earth would you install Arch of all things, then? Surely you would have preferred any of the myriad distros that come with a desktop environment preinstalled?
Even on Arch, GNOME is just a pacman command away. You don't have to run i3 with anime wallpaper.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] chewz|7 years ago|reply
Never looked back - it is excellent combo of graphical environment of ChromeOS which really just works and Debian in terminal with zsh, Vim and all...
[+] [-] woah|7 years ago|reply
- Touchpad had a very low resolution. This had to be fixed by using a different display server.
- Touchpad had nonexistent palm rejection. I fixed this by turning off tap to click which doesn’t actually fix the problem but stops it from causing an issue when typing.
- Touchpad generally had a very old fashioned layout with large zones for the right click button and scroll bar.
- All of these touchpad fixes had to be done with some strangely formatted text files.
- Key remapping also required diving into a whole set of text files and searching around for incomplete documentation wikis on it.
- Gestures do not work without switching back to the display server with the very low resolution touchpad.
- The windowing and multi desktop system is generally not as well thought out as Mac.
- Bluetooth just doesn’t work well. I need to “forget” and then reconnect to a device to join it again. Feels very buggy.
There are also a lot of other things I’m forgetting right now. Currently Linux does not offer a top tier desktop experience, and it’s been 90% of the way there for like 15 years, so I doubt it’s ever going to get better until the dynamics of the ecosystem change. My guess is that Linux developers don’t want to do boring stuff like fixing obscure bugs for certain peripherals, and they don’t want to listen to designers to create a polished unified experience.
I briefly used windows while installing Ubuntu and it was generally much smoother. If windows can get the Linux subsystem stuff working 100% my guess is that it will start to gain momentum as a developer OS.
[+] [-] mortenjorck|7 years ago|reply
There absolutely is a problem with the direction of Apple's pro laptops, though, and that is simply that they've lost the pragmatism of the Macbook Pro line:
A balance of current and future ports is pragmatic. Going from exclusively USB-A to exclusively USB-C is not.
Making the occasional experience of replacing the battery harder in exchange for a thinner and lighter device is pragmatic. Making the everyday experience of typing on the keyboard less reliable for a thinner and lighter device is not.
Adding a novel new mode of interaction to high-end models is pragmatic. Adding the Touch Bar to the base 15" model and increasing the entry-level price point by 20% is not.
There has always been an element of designer vanity to Apple's products, but it has been tempered by pragmatism. The 2016 MacBook Pro marks the point where vanity gained the upper hand – and I hope pragmatism takes it back soon.
[+] [-] azinman2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Eric_WVGG|7 years ago|reply
Doesn’t it make sense to put the “burden” on folks who need this stuff? I don't want your HDMI. I don't want your SD slot. I don't even want your USB-A or audio-out. Why should my laptop be burdened with all this crap just because other people can’t manage dongles or a port replicator?
[+] [-] moogleii|7 years ago|reply
It's basically "I personally don't use these applications" ...and therefore that supports why the MBP is in decline? That's great that he uses Firefox but... who cares? I personally have given it up for Safari and Chrome. Ditto with the rest of the apps; I still use about half of those integrated apps (yet here, too, who cares?).
[+] [-] haikuginger|7 years ago|reply
Additionally, the macOS Messages app is way more capable than most people realize. Of course it supports iMessage, but it also supports sending native SMSs when used with a paired iPhone, either via relay or through WiFi calling with a supported carrier. It also has Hangouts chat support AFAICT, and support for any other (standardized, decentralized) XMPP/Jabber server.
And the majority of the other applications come preinstalled, but can just be deleted.
[+] [-] liquidify|7 years ago|reply
Every point the author made about hardware was 100% spot on though, and he made a lot more points than just about the keyboard and trackpad. Virtually every change that mac has done to the hardware has made it worse, with the exception of efficiency, and maybe a slight improvement in power. But the efficiency and power improvements are vastly outweighed by the hardware negatives.
And the author is right about the software. None of the software changes they have made over the last 3 years have made anything better. It just keeps getting bigger.
[+] [-] dguo|7 years ago|reply
It's definitely a very personal opinion though, hence my disclaimer at the beginning about my complaints being hard to generalize.
[+] [-] modernerd|7 years ago|reply
It's very tempting to realise you don't use any Apple apps, see how you're paying a lot for last year's hardware specs, throw up your arms and say “I'm done with Apple! I'll get a hacker's laptop!” But — if you've become accustomed to Apple hardware and macOS — the experience felt like a real downgrade to me.
I have a laundry list of Mac niggles, but they're generally in the category of, “I wish I could tweak that behaviour a little” (like fully removing OS-level UI animations beyond what “reduce motion” offers) rather than, “I can't work until this problem is solved”, which is what I saw much more of on Arch, Ubuntu, and Windows (redraw issues that rendered applications unusable, updates that broke critical deps and required rollbacks, and almost daily blue-screening on Windows).
Apple also gets a bunch of things right by default that you miss when you go elsewhere, like their trackpads, screens, and zero-config full-disk encryption.
The Touch Bar MacBook Pro I have now may be worse than the previous model in some ways (I do not like the keyboard or use the Touch Bar), but overall the experience hasn't declined enough to fall behind everything else that's on offer for me.
[+] [-] dawnerd|7 years ago|reply
- Charging/Ports: USB-c is excellent. Used to have two+ cables to connect power and dual monitors. Now its just a thunderbolt cable feeding to an elgato dock. I can also (albeit slowly) charge my laptop with a usb-c power bank when traveling. I've yet to find myself needing a dongle most of the time. Cameras these days have wifi to copy files off and wireless ac is fast enough to not need ethernet. The only time I bring one is when traveling and even then its low profile and half the time I forget its even in my backpack.
- Keyboard: Okay this is fair. Gets really bad as the computer heats up, way more noticeable on normal Macbooks.
- Trackpad: Yeah I don't get your criticism, I love having a large trackpad.
- Touch Bar: I find it really useful and have it customized like crazy using better touch tool. Pretty nifty. I could live without it, but why? Love it.
- MacOS: Not sure how this makes the MBP "decline" as all macs have had this for years.
- Docker: Again not a MBP problem, complain to docker devs.
Biggest problem the MBP have is lack of ram. They absolutely should have sacrificed battery life for the people that really wanted more than 16gb. I'm already hurting my battery life as it is with the radeon graphics card.
Other thing I wish they'd change is round out the corners near the trackpad, they can be quite sharp sometimes.
[+] [-] sebringj|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hs86|7 years ago|reply
This might be highly subjective but for me the same font on a Mac looks much more pleasant than on Windows or Ubuntu. It is tempting to understate this as a minor detail but for me text is one of the most important parts of the user interface and I can't understand how the other platforms could neglect their font rendering this much.
[+] [-] sbr464|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwalton|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hachre|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sh-run|7 years ago|reply
Fedora is not perfect out of the box, but it's pretty easy to fix.
1. Install Fedy (folkswithhats.org), provides one click installs for pretty much every application I use that isn't in the fedora repos. It also has a script that improves the font rendering. 2. Install Gnome Tweak Tool, I wish this was included by default. It makes it easy to change themes, keybinds, etc. 3. Install a decent looking theme (I use Arc). IMHO at this point the UI looks far better than my wife's Macbook Air and is significantly more usable (of course that's coming from a long time gnome user).
At that point I'm pretty much done. You no longer need to install TLP or powertop to get good battery life. I can't remember the last time I had a kernel panic (while my Windows 7 machine at work BSOD'd this morning). I vastly prefer the trackpoint on my thinkpad to any touchpad I've used (although my old MBP had the best touchpad I've ever used). As a bonus I spend lots of time at work logged into a redhat server, so having the same CLI on my personal machine is great.
Another point is that you can activate a Windows 10 VM using the OEM key. I keep a Windows VM installed just in case, but I seldom use it.
I will say that I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on a T480 and am going to stick with the 1080p display because I've heard horror stories about scaling in linux.
[+] [-] S_A_P|7 years ago|reply
Completely disagree with this. None of these apps are tied to the OS in a similar way IE was linked to Windows, and just because you like Google apps to handle your utilities doesnt mean everyone else will. Some people do want iMovie, Photos or the productivity apps and dont want to share all of their personal data with google to use their suite. Ive never looked at an unused included utility by apple or microsoft and thought this is BLOATWARE!!!
The new macbook pro has plenty of flaws that you can avoid the above point and still make a compelling case. Ive skipped upgrading my 2014 model until I see the next version. I tried a buddy of mine's MBP and the trackpad is pretty bad and in the way of my hands.
[+] [-] dguo|7 years ago|reply
I only included that section because my shift from Mac software to alternatives was so gradual that I didn't really realize how complete it was until I started writing this blog post. At which point I wanted to list them out point by point for my own self-reflection.
[+] [-] thothamon|7 years ago|reply
That aside, a big deal for me is that Mac laptops max out at 16GB. That's perhaps the biggest single reason I'm not buying one now. Hopefully the refresh will fix this.
Another big deal is the general lack of attention for OS X (or macOS or whatever). The exception is the updated filesystem, and even this was an extremely painful transition for me because (although it may be fixed now) Spotlight doesn't work on external volumes using APFS. Or how about some good process/application sandboxing and quota capabilities? Or, my machine with 128 GB (!) of RAM starts out blazing fast, and then slows down: process switching can take a second or two, which is really annoying. How is this happening on a modern OS in 2018? Simple -- Apple is not trying.
Having said this, I agree with some other posters that macOS is the worst desktop OS out there, except for all the other ones. I frequently have to use Windows and I simply cannot make myself like it. I love Linux for its freedom and for its terminal, but none of the desktops are awesome in comparison to macOS. Not many people would say they "love" Windows or they "love" Gnome, but many would still say they love macOS, despite the flaws.
[+] [-] eqdw|7 years ago|reply
I have an emojibar Macbook pro. Since getting it shortly after they launched, I've had two complete hardware failures resulting in Apple replacing the whole thing. Most of this post's other complaints I agree with but don't feel strongly about, but the keyboard thing is really bad. Specs of dust have caused keys to stop functioning. Trying to fix them, I one day popped the enter key off and broke the plastic clip holding it on. So I bought a replacement key, only to find out that the mounting bracket for the key (which I have to replace) is _glued_ on to the case. So now I have a perfectly functional enter key, except that the entire thing will fall out of the laptop whenever I tilt it sideways.
This isn't the level of hardware quality I've grown to know and love. If they release a new MBP that resolves these issues, I might stick with it. But as things stand, I'm looking at a non-macbook for my next laptop. I really don't want to do that, since I've gotten used to OSX and nothing else compares to the ease of use and the things I have set up. But I'm getting tired of paying thousands for second-rate hardware
[+] [-] drdaeman|7 years ago|reply
I actually happen to like the fact that I don't have to remember the non-essential shortcuts anymore. That, and volume & brightness sliders. Still, it's extremely immature and far from being useful.
Most importantly, a few applications actually support it in any meaningful manner. Most of time, my touchbar is empty, or shows the function (F) keys. Even when app provides some controls, they're usually for from being actually useful, leaving a feeling that they were added in a haste, just to fill "we support touchbar now" tick, without giving it much thought. Rarely I want the buttons app provides by default, and rarely the buttons I want to see are available.
And it really lacks any tactile feedback. The hacks that use trackpad magnets are not working for me - in a sense I don't like how it feels, at all. If it'd work like a trackpad with display - it'd be perfect. Slide fingers across to "feel" the button, then push a little harder to actually "press" it.
[+] [-] wufufufu|7 years ago|reply
In the article, some of the gripes about macOS software is just filler. Safari runs very well on macOS and mac hardware. I know people who prefer the Mail client, Notes, and Reminders over alternatives. FaceTime is way better than Google Hangouts and Skype.
[+] [-] notadoc|7 years ago|reply
- The keyboard is horrible and unreliable. A piece of dust can render it inoperable and require an $800 repair? Give me a break.
- The Touch Bar is inconvenient, annoying, and ergonomically terrible. It is a problem looking for a solution but instead causes more problems.
- The lack of a hardware Escape key and function row is inconvenient, annoying, and hostile to pro users. I use my Escape key and FN keys multiple dozens of times per day.
- Losing MagSafe is a downgrade with no conceivable benefit
- USB-C is inconvenient and inconsistent
- Dongles required for everything possible is annoying and inconvenient
- 16GB RAM is comical in 2018 for a "pro" machine
If you want a good Mac laptop at the moment, you have to buy 3-6 year old hardware, usually refurbished or used on eBay/craigslist. Think about that for a minute. This sums it up well:
> "Apple has made many great laptops, but the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro (2012–2015) is the epitome of usefulness, elegance, practicality, and power for an overall package that still hasn’t been (and may never be) surpassed."
https://marco.org/2017/11/14/best-laptop-ever
My sincere hope is they actually fix the keyboard (and add the Escape and FN keys back), remove the Touch Bar, give it 32GB of RAM, and re-introduce MagSafe. Getting ports back is almost certainly too much to ask for, I don't think there has ever been a time where Apple removed ports and then brought them back again.
[+] [-] TuringNYC|7 years ago|reply
I got a 64GB RAM ThinkPad P51 w/ an NVIDIA GPU. Miss the feel and art, but otherwise haven't looked back because i'm so productive at work.
For me, peak-mac was the 2014 MBP with NVIDIA GPU and traditional keyboard.
[+] [-] sbr464|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] docmars|7 years ago|reply
To be limited to their crappy hardware they've been releasing lately is a shame. I'm ready for an upgrade from my 2013 Macbook Air, but none of Apple's notebooks are suitable upgrades—I refuse to buy any until they either 1) fix the keyboard and get rid of the dumb Touchbar on the MBP, or 2) allow me to buy a Macbook Air with 16GB of memory.