
Grieving for Apple - mrzool
https://wincent.com/blog/grieving-for-apple
======
vessenes
I'm sure there's a word coined for these 'death of Apple' posts.

It is true that my 2020 Macbook Pro 16 is not as much better than the
competition as my 2011 Macbook Air was.

But it is still definitely the best laptop I've ever owned. I keep my laptops,
and I can reach for whichever one I want: 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 in Air,
13", 15" and now 16" form factors, and I choose the 2020. I also daily reject
a number of windows and Chromebook pieces of hardware in favor of the MBP16.

When I don't choose it, I most often choose my iPad pro at times or my iPhone.

A thorough and hard ecosystem-level look at realistic competitors just doesn't
turn up anything that even comes close in terms of just "working".

Probably the closest would be an XPS developer running Ubuntu, but that is a
completely different experience than the 'it just works' world I get to live
in with my Macbook. And, by "it just works", I include a decent package
manager with homebrew, a very solid neovim or spacemacs development
environment, a fully working highdpi environment without 'quirks', ... the
list goes on. And, Windows has no Unix underneath it plus it contains ads in
the start menu. For me, it's just not a serious option for real work.

In all, I'd say that most people agree with me; the market seems to prefer
this hardware.

~~~
itsraining
My 2020 MacBook Pro 16 crashes frequently when it goes to sleep.
[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251223766](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251223766)

This has been a downgrade for me.

~~~
wilkowskidom
I had the same. Disabling power nap did it for me. If this doesn’t help I read
disabling graphic switching does it.

But yeah it’s redicules that We have to deal with this on a $3k laptop

~~~
blondin
hold on, disabling power nap won't fixes the auto log outs. it's a (new?)
security setting.

one sec...

alright okay. for anyone having the issue, you have to go to your "security &
privacy" -> click on padlock -> enter password -> click on "advanced". in the
sheet disable "Log out after X min of inactivity".

------
stevencorona
I recently (3 weeks ago) switched from OS X to Ubuntu 20.04 after a decade of
using macs as my primary desktop for software development.

I hadn't used desktop linux in about 15 years and I have to say I was
pleasantly surprised. Everything that I remembered being difficult was
straightforward. My AMD graphics card worked out of the box with dual
monitors. Bluetooth, wifi, HiDPI (two 5K displays), USB plug and play, volume
buttons on my keyboard, all seamless.

There are still a few quirks here and there (mainly HiDPI in some apps like
Spotify, which there are workarounds for), but I'm happy with my setup and
don't plan on moving back.

With Firefox, VS Code, Slack, Spotify, and 1Password X all being cross-
platform my workflow didn't even change.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Add to that excitement the new System 76 Lemur Pro 14" 2.2 lbs laptop with 40
GB of RAM and a massive 73 Wh battery and you're really going to be excited
[1]. I got one recently (moving up from an old Sony Vaio).

I've been daily driver on linux for about a decade now and have to agree that
it's awesome now.

[1] [https://system76.com/laptops/lemur](https://system76.com/laptops/lemur)

~~~
jjice
The price scared me at first, but I had to remember the cost of the new MBP.
Very impressive for the cost, and the 2.2 lb weight is really great,
especially for a 14". If I was looking for a laptop to serve as my main
machine, I could see this being a really strong competitor.

Seems like a great machine, as long as you're a Linux user.

~~~
pfranz
When I was comparing Mac laptops to PC alternatives they usually ended up
within a few hundred dollars. Sure, saving a few hundred dollars is nice, but
I'm fairly confident I can sell the Mac in a handful of years for a decent
price, confident I'll use it for a handful of years, I'm familiar with the
build quality and avenues for parts and replacements, and things like
trackpad, biometrics/fingerprint, and battery life are a known quantity for me
on a Mac. Saving only 10-15% made it less appealing to make the jump--
conversely, I can see people not wanting to pay an extra 10-15% to jump to a
Mac.

------
anorphirith
I went through the same cycle or frustration from apple products, I've bought
6 laptops in the past year trying out all of the competition. The truth is,
all of the alternatives, as frustrating as apple products can be, are just not
as good. And that's by a very very long shot. However fucked apple products
are, the competition is FAR behind. So I just swallow it and keep biting the
bullet.

That only applies if you want a LAPTOP, if you can live in with something
fixed to a desk, there's plenty of viable better alternatives out there.

~~~
m0xte
I disagree. I got rid of a 2013 MBP and a 2019 MBA and went back to a thinkpad
T470 running Windows 10. 300% less of a pain in the ass. Keyboard works
reliably and isn’t horrible, doesn’t get ridiculously hot, actually has enough
USB holes, can actually drive it from the keyboard without tying my fingers in
knots, battery lasts longer, less fighting against the OS, less bugs (that one
hurt to write) and it doesn’t give me a rash that bleeds on my wrists. CPU,
memory, storage is about the same as a high end MBA. Display is 1080p so runs
at 125% scale which is pretty good. If I break it I just get another one off
eBay in 48h turnaround for less than the price of just a new screen for the
MBA. Oh and it docks too and I get triple head displays...

~~~
danlugo92
You're right about everything except high dpi handling.

Also can't beat Apple on trackpad and screen quality.

~~~
m0xte
I hardly miss the Retina display. The 1080p display with 125% scaling is good
enough. It’s not spectacular but fine for a laptop.

The trackpad I didn’t like on the MacBook either. I found it made my finger
tips sore after a few hours. I’m using the TrackPoint on the T470 and have the
touchpad disabled

------
supernova87a
If the touch bar (which I agree is useless, or worse, actively
counterproductive) is the worst thing he's annoyed by, then Apple is doing
pretty well for a computer manufacturer selling 20M units annually, don't you
think?

I think we have to have some self-realization that the gripes that appear here
generally are so specialized (the MacOS Catalina notarization problem just
today) that if you sit here you think the world is coming to an end. Yet
millions of people purchase and seem to get along just fine with buying what
Apple is offering.

Now, admittedly, one of the great selling points of Apple Mac is that its
power features are (were) designed exactly for developers and professionals to
be easy and high-performing, so they need to pay attention to it. But they
generally do, don't they? The notarization problem above, let's revisit in 1
month and see if it got some attention?

I'm just saying that it's easy for your threshold for what's unacceptable has
a tendency to keep on rising, and you get unhappy with smaller and smaller
things. It's important to keep a perspective about it.

If it is truly horrible what Apple is doing or becoming, well of course you
know that Mac / Chrome / your favorite app or hardware were all born out of
being unhappy with what someone else built, and going out to build something
new themselves.

Everyone is absolutely free to go and invent the next better thing and
displace the old and tired.

~~~
cosmotic
Selling well doesn't always mean doing well or doing good.

IT departments for companies that give their staff macs will buy whatever
garbage Apple makes available because they have no other option. Same with
consumers stuck in the Apple ecosystem.

I've been holding out on buying a mac for nearly a decade because they have no
compelling products. I'm stuck using a hackintosh workstation and a crappy
windows laptop for on the go.

~~~
scarface74
Right, because most of Apple sells come from the Enterprise. Apple has a long
history of going out of its way to support big enterprise to convince them to
buy Macs.

------
brokencode
If you really believe that a company can churn out nothing but perfect
products over and over again without making any mistakes, then maybe you have
been drinking too much of Apple’s Kool-Aid. Every top company has good and bad
generations of products, and Apple is no different.

This type of post complaining about Apple losing its soul and dying has been
coming out regularly for at least the decade since I’ve been following Apple,
and probably back way farther than that.

Something about Apple makes it an irresistible target for this kind of
criticism for some reason. Check out the MacRumors forums for examples.. it’s
a group of people who track every move Apple makes, yet overwhelmingly
complain about every potential flaw.

That’s not saying that there aren’t flaws to criticize about Apple’s products,
which there certainly are. But the level of vitriol is extreme compared to
what I see directed towards most other companies (except video game
companies.. gamers are a tough crowd).

~~~
thomascgalvin
I don't think Apple should be held to a "no mistakes" standard, but for the
last few years, the trend has been toward less functionality and more user-
hostility.

Take the drop of 32 bit support. There are now huge swaths of software,
software that I paid a lot of money for, that I can no longer use if I buy new
Apple hardware or upgrade to the latest MacOS.

There are bright spots, too. The new keyboards are much, much better than the
butterflies, and the physical escape key is a welcome return.

But in general, when Apple announces something new, I'm worried about what
they're going to take away from me, not what they're going to start offering.

~~~
scarface74
Apple hasn’t shipped a 32 bit Mac since 2006. How long was Apple suppose to
keep support for 32 bit software? Should they also have kept support for PPC
software? 68K software?

~~~
dmitriid
> Apple hasn’t shipped a 32 bit Mac since 2006.

So, they could easily have given developers a roadmap/timeline of 13 years
saying "in 2020 we're going to deprecate 32bit software, please upgrade".
Instead, they gave everyone less than two years.

In comparison, the switch from PowerPC to Intel took over four years. And this
was at the time when MacOS had significantly less software available on it.
Apple themselves released the last version of software that supported PowerPCs
_7 years_ after the announcement of the transition.

~~~
scarface74
They kind of did when they announced Carbon wouldn’t have 64 bit support over
five years ago.

PowerPC support was dropped in 10.7 three versions after the first Intel Macs
came out. It was an optional download in 10.6.

------
save_ferris
I completely agree with all of this. From the costly obsession with creating
an ever-thinner MBP at the expense of usability, to the demonstrably hostile
removal of Target Display Mode in the iMac and beyond, it’s pretty clear Apple
stopped designing their “pro” products for their pro users some time ago.

They’ve gotten way too comfy with their position in the personal computing
space and I too am regularly looking at the alternatives. If the last 5 years
are any indication of how the rumored ARM migration is going to be, then we’re
in for a really rough ride.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
_From the costly obsession with creating an ever-thinner MBP at the expense of
usability_

The latest MacBook Pro is thicker than its predecessor.

------
zackmorris
I just started writing up a big spiel about the constant daily agonies I
endure while using my older Apple hardware, but after a half an hour of it, I
abandoned it.

It would take me a few days to write out the list of grievances that started
when the iPhone arrived, and how Apple splitting its attention between desktop
and mobile began the long, slow decline, and how it is reminiscent of the old
Apple/Macintosh internal wars that almost brought down the company.

Basically what it comes down to is that Apple has a trillion dollars, and
that's great and everything, but it means that it's the establishment so it
can't innovate anymore. The bottom line is now its top priority.

For Apple to save its reputation in the eyes of geeks everywhere, it would
have to listen to any geek anywhere. It would have to stare at the ground
quietly as the grievances are aired, and then have the maturity to grok what
it's heard and do something about the problems.

I know it has teams of engineers working on this stuff day and night, and even
has a great CEO and everything else. But sometimes in spite of all of that
stuff, companies flounder. It's just especially tragic when it's this dream
company that got countless millions of people interested in tech initially.

Seriously, take a break Apple. Put all the grand plans aside for a while and
listen. I guess that's it. Sorry this came out kinda harsh, I'm not mad, I'm
just disappointed.

~~~
scarface74
Why do you think Apple cares about the “geek”?

~~~
dmitriid
Because somehow they still pretend to care about power and professional users.

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
Programmers are not the only power users

~~~
dmitriid
I know. That's why I didn't say programmers. The bad quality of their hardware
and software affects all power/pro users.

------
_bxg1
I don't disagree with the thesis, but I was disappointed to see yet another
rehashing of tired power-user nitpicks about MBPro hardware details, some of
which have even been phased out already. The opening made me hopeful I was
about to read a thoughtful piece about what's changed in Apple's soul, but
instead all I got was an unoriginal rant.

------
8bitsrule
The Apple I cared about died when the Macintosh arrived. Or was it when the
rainbow logo was replaced by chrome? Or was it when they abandoned Hypercard?

Or when I had to spend hours researching how to tweak the serial port to do
31250 bps I/O MIDI? Or when the serial ports disappeared and my n x $1000 of
serial-port hardware meant I should buy a new Mac.

By the time it released mobile phones with hard-wired batteries, the good
Apple was a distant memory. Borged.

------
ncmncm
Mention of Stockholm Syndrome, in the article, is the key.

Current customers are self-selected as willing to endure any degree of
degradation, provided it is arrived at via sufficiently small steps.

Apple is fully equipped and enabled to provide well-above-average quality
products and admirable service by the high premium they charge, but instead
they pocket the difference, every time. Customers are left with the dubious
benefit of price-signaling, which is increasingly shading into sucker-
signaling.

I get that, looking only at Microsoft, it is hard to imagine stepping down.
But that was never the only alternative.

------
agentdrtran
Ah good, I was worried we'd go more than a month without one of these.

------
fmajid
Pretty much how I feel, except I have less sadness and more anger. I haven’t
bought a Mac laptop since 2015, and I bought 4 PC ones to test my migration
path to Linux, even if it proceeds glacially due to having other things to do,
and in any case 15 years of workflow takes a while to switch.

------
m0zg
After 15 years of using Apple exclusively for my "creative" work (music,
photo, video), I've switched back to Windows 10 for those needs. Paid work is
still 100% Linux (including the laptop I'm typing this on), but I ain't payin'
$6K for a workstation, sorry Tim. Especially if I can't use an NVIDIA GPU in
it. And HP Z32 4K monitor costs $200 less than the Apple _display stand_.

------
hbrown92
I couldn’t agree more, I wish a new innovative platform would emerge. Apple is
too comfortable and their products just aren’t worth it anymore.

~~~
linguae
My dream platform would be essentially a revival of OpenDoc
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFJdjk2rq4E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFJdjk2rq4E)),
except it's built on top of the Common Lisp Object System, a dynamic object
system that supports multiple dispatch. Users can integrate components either
programmatically (like Unix pipes but with even more flexibility) or through a
GUI interface. GUI programs would be written in such a way where its UX is
highly flexible. The desktop environment should be fully themable, and GUI
programs written for this environment must comply with these themes. This
themability allows users to choose how they want their desktop environment to
look. If they like Material Design, they can use a desktop that adheres to
those standards. If they like classic UIs like those from the classic Mac OS
or Windows 95, then can choose those options and the programs would fit those
standards. They can use themes that have entirely different design standards.

The goals of my dream platform would be composability and flexibility, the
complete opposite of monolithic applications and opinionated UI/UX design.
This would run on Linux/BSD and would be implemented in Common Lisp, though
there will need to be some ways to allow programs written in other languages
to access CLOS objects since developers should be able to code in the
languages of their choice.

------
turtlebits
I thought everyone knew that you waited at least a year on Apple hardware and
software. I'm still on 10.14 and have no problems with it.

That said, I don't get the hate on number of ports. USB type-C is a godsend -
single cable to my monitor which provides power and USB hub.

I'm probably also in the minority on this one- I just got a new 16" Macbook
Pro work laptop, and I much prefer the keyboard on my 2018 15". The esc/touch
ID now being buttons are great. The speakers are amazing.

------
d3ntb3ev1l
I tried a world without Apple and lasted 2 months. I switched to a top of the
line Pixel phone (which is now in a box) and top of the link thinkpad. (Sold
it for next to nothing).

Overall I am glad we have choices. Everyone should make the ones that work for
them.

Give Google can’t make a decent android phone or watch after significant
acquisitions and investments, building real amazing things that make your life
better is hard.

I’m glad lots of people still are trying hard.

------
D13Fd
I disagree.

On ports, 4 is enough. At home and at work, I use standard Thunderbolt docking
stations, so ports on the laptop are irrelevant. When traveling, I typically
use at most 2 HDDs, so 4 ports is plenty. I’d honestly rather have the battery
life than the ports.

On the keyboard, they’ve fixed it in the new laptops. I agree it was awful for
a long stretch there.

On the annoying prompts, they are there for security, and I think they made
the right call generally. Everyone thinks security is so annoying, right up
until they get rooted.

On the Touch Bar, I think they missed the mark, but I appreciate the fact that
they are innovating. And in the end it’s an OK replacement for the function
keys (now that there is a physical escape key).

On the OS phoning out before running executables etc, I agree that it sounds
like a poor implementation overall. That said, I’ve never noticed any delays
from it in my 2016 MBP.

All that said, I always think it’s a good idea to try new things, and there is
no harm in switching brands/OS’s/etc. As others noted, so much software is
cross platform these days that switching is much less of a commitment than it
used to be.

------
topkai22
Apple is a phone company that has a side business in personal computers. This
is good for Apple, because the personal computer business as a whole has been
pretty stagnant for a long time. The article would have been much improved by
at least making a nod to the fact that their beloved computer make was now in
fact primarily making other devices

------
kilo_bravo_3
>it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the Apple I once loved is moribund

If there is anything more pathetic than an adult expressing love for a
publicly traded corporate entity regardless of what they make or where they're
from or how cool their marketing is, I haven't found it.

edit: Never mind-- writing a 1600 word essay about the lover-who-must-
file-10Qs who is disappointing you and then publishing it online is definitely
more pathetic.

Compare and contrast:

1\. it's increasingly obvious that the White Rock Beverage Company, Inc. I
once loved is moribund (followed by a SIXTEEN HUNDRED WORD ESSAY about how
they changed the recipe of Sioux City Root Beer and it sucks now)

2\. it's increasingly obvious that the Apple, Inc. I once loved is moribund
(followed by a SIXTEEN HUNDRED WORD ESSAY about how their laptops suck now)

------
theonemind
Hmm. The way I see it, Apple still seems to have the same basic attitude of
high-value of aesthetics over function and a "my-way-or-the-highway" attitude,
backed by just a bit less creativity in innovating actual function.

It doesn't seem that much different, but a little less satisfying, ultimately.

------
luord
I rarely use the mac that my company issued to me, but I couldn't place my
finger on why exactly. It's a general feeling that everything about it is
obnoxious and cumbersome. Probably the sum of all the little things (and more)
mentioned in this comment.

This was curiosly not the case the last time I was issued a mac, which I used
pretty much all the time and not just for work; essentially replacing my
personal (Linux) device. That was a 2016 model, when this trend had already
started, so I guess everything has exacerbated in the three years since.

------
purplezooey
Apple is not alone in making janky laptops since 2015. Most of them are junk.
They all get too hot, have too much brittle plastic, and low rez displays
unless you want to pay a high premium. I've been liking the Chuwi laptops for
$200. At least if you get a cheap laptop, pay a cheap price.

------
brandonmenc
> I bought a refurbished mid-2015 model which I love. From a utility
> perspective, it’s the best laptop they’ve ever made, with a bunch of stuff
> that you’d reasonably expect to find on a "pro" Apple laptop: namely, 8
> ports/slots

Only two of which are actual USB ports.

I'd still have to carry around a hub to use it with my mobile music production
setup.

------
stanislavb
OK, let's craft a way out.

------
monadic2
It's profit-driven software, dummy.

~~~
cosmotic
Apple seems to be driving their software toward what they _think_ the consumer
wants (and maybe even what the consumer says they want, or even choses to buy
because of), instead of what the customer _actually needs_. Yes, the customer
might feel enamored with what's being sold, but they could have been even more
enamored had Apple focused properly.

~~~
scarface74
Well, if it wasn’t what the _consumer_ wants, then why are consumers still
buying their products at a premium? Maybe it’s just not what a few outspoken
geeks want.

~~~
monadic2
Customers do buy what they want relative to other products in the market, but
absolute satisfaction could still be broadly low across the board. The
incentive to fix commonly complained about problems is tied entirely to the
speed to which their competitors respond—shared incentives prevent the market
from improving as a whole through competition.

This is especially true in markets where the capital investment required for
entry is in the billions of dollars, like smartphones, operating systems,
vehicles and other patented infrastructure (looking at you, john deere).

Overall the claim should be that “customers buy what they want from available
products”, so that the one can not claim the converse, that a customer is
necessarily satisfied with the products they purchase.

------
wedgeantilles
Buy something else then.

~~~
0xDEEPFAC
He is going to, as he says at the bottom of the article, and he has bought
2015 refurbished models to avoid the headaches.... lol?

------
thebiglebrewski
Amen

------
plerpin
I had a similarly emotional schisms with Apple, but back in 1997. I finally
became aware of Apple's penchant for designing "road apples" to fuck cost-
conscious consumers. I worked hard as a teen to buy my 62XX Performa, but
later when I found out that it was a piece of shit because Apple deliberately
designed it as a piece of shit... well, fuck them, really. No respect for
their buyers.

I switched to Windows in 1998 and didn't look back.

[https://lowendmac.com/2014/road-apples-second-class-
macs/](https://lowendmac.com/2014/road-apples-second-class-macs/)

~~~
scarface74
Apple has never catered to “cost conscience” computers. Even back in the early
80s the 8 bit Apple //e’s were more expensive than competitors. T

