
I've used Apple computers my entire life.  why I'm never buying one again - visionscaper
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-im-never-buying-an-apple-computer-again-2018-11
======
merricksb
Earlier discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18562478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18562478)

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snowwrestler
Is HN ever going to stop falling for this type of headline? There's absolutely
no new information in this article at all; it's just a summary of the basic
history and recent news about Apple, with a couple personal sentences from the
author thrown in. This is classic clickbait.

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daniel_warner
It is telling that the author of this article has not yet given up his
MacBook. My own move from Macbook to Dell/Linux took years, and I still find
myself saying "this would be easier on a Mac." The user experience is really
the best their is. Good luck with the switch... your values will be tested.

~~~
blakesterz
What makes you say "this would be easier on a Mac"? I'm curious, only because
I've never said that. I've also never said "this would be easier on Windows"
about anything other than needing to do something in Outlook. I've spent my
career going back and forth switching between the major operating systems and
somehow find Linux/Mac/Windows pretty similar for the work I do (obviously we
all work different).

Now I'm a Linux sysadmin working on Linux stuff, so my main work machine is
Linux, it would be a pretty easy for me to switch to a Mac, and now even
Windows.

~~~
orwin
Windows10 did a good job right now from what i've seen, but the first time i
went back on windows after a year of code on linux/mac with a friend high on
tuning your tools and workstations to your needs, it never really felt "good".
Granted, i had to use netbeans and this was on 7 (or 8), but when you're used
to the tools and you understand the system (not system as in OS, but how
everything work, where to look if you have issues etc), it's really hard to
switch.

On the other hand, those 6 month using windows made me really respect windows
sysadmins.

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snek
Non AMP link [https://www.businessinsider.com/why-im-never-buying-an-
apple...](https://www.businessinsider.com/why-im-never-buying-an-apple-
computer-again-2018-11)

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krylon
In late 2013, I decided I _really_ wanted a new computer. And after looking at
my bank account, I decided that a good way to treat myself without going
totally overboard financially would be be the 2012 Mac Mini with the quad-core
i7. I liked the machine very much, I eventually upgraded the RAM, but by late
2016, I was no longer happy with the machine's performance.

At that point, I took a look at Apple's lineup and found their machines
underpowered, overpriced (at least compared to my budget), and some part of me
no longer liked OS X as much as I had initially.

I waited for Ryzen to become available and for the first time in more than a
decade, I built my own PC and am now back to using GNU/Linux. About 20 months
later, I am very happy with my decision. But I might very well have chosen
another Apple machine if they had one with reasonably current hardware, at a
reasonable price, which I could have upgraded later on. It is sad, because
they sure know how to build a sweet computer.

Note: AFAIK, Apple computers are significantly more expensive in Europe, so
the price-performance ratio might be more favorable in the US.

~~~
vldx
Given the new Mac Mini, would you still build your own PC now? I was seriously
considering going the Hackintosh route, but the new Mini seems to provide fair
value for its price.

~~~
krylon
I spent about € 1100-1200 on my current desktop, it has a Ryzen 1700, 32 GB
RAM and 750 GB SSD storage, plus a GeForce GTX960.

Let me just make a quick check: With a six-core CPU (my Ryzen has 8, although
per-core performance is lower), 32 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD, the new Mac Mini
would cost me € 2209 in Apple's online shop. If I take 8GB RAM and upgrade
myself, the machine itself is € 1489, plus about € 250 for RAM, so about 1739
bucks. I have no idea how much that would cost me in the US.

Nah, I think I still would have built my own machine. Plus, it was
surprisingly fun. More laborious than I remembered, but fun. I have to admit,
though, the Mini looks gorgeous in Space Grey, and I like that they have upped
the performance significantly.

I briefly considered building a Hackintosh, but from what I heard, it is too
much trouble for me. I am pretty happy with openSuse Tumbleweed running the
MATE desktop. Setting up additional repositories for proper video playback was
a little annoying, but it was a one-time thing, and things Just Work(tm) now.
;-)

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Copernicron
I've never understood why people insist on writing articles detailing, "Why
I'm switching away from X." If you don't like it then don't use it. There's no
need to make a big deal out of it.

~~~
dboreham
People write a whole universe of articles. The question to ask is why are we
looking at the subset with this form.

------
corey_moncure
Mid-2000's Apple catapulted us into the current era. OS X, iPod, the iTunes
store, Macbook Pro (and Mac Pro to a lesser extent), and the iPhone, weren't
just new products or good products, they were best in class. No, they created
an entirely new class. They were the object of desire for anyone with eyes in
their head to see how good they were. They did almost everything right, all
the time, with relentlessly successful execution of features that actually
made your life better in the ways that mattered. It's easy to forget how
crummy and restrictive phones were in 2005. The business wins Apple pulled off
against the recalcitrant music and telephone industry players.

But the fire of their innovation has slowly burned out, and with it, their
vision. Like a star entering supernova, they have to try and burn
progressively heavier elements to maintain the reaction. Apple doesn't profit
from making desirable products any more, they have switched to exploitation.
When's the last time you felt excited about an Apple product? For me it was
the first retina MBP, which I ultimately didn't buy because I was waiting for
a CPU upgrade... and waiting... and waiting...

------
phillipamann
I started to contemplate this too. I love Apple products and I use a 13" 2017
tbMBP at work and a 15" 2017 tbMBP at home. I, of course, have an iPhone. I
have my complaints like everyone else about these products and the decisions
made for software and hardware but I recently had my first moment of doubt
when Apple removed Freedom from the App Store [1]. It bothered me greatly that
I wasn't free to install software that I wanted to on my iPhone that I
purchased unlocked and paid quite a great deal of money for. Of course, this
is exactly the sort of argument that Richard Stallman makes and has been
making for years. Of course, he is more extreme than me but I now understand
his point well.

It was the first time that I decided to look at Ubuntu again but I just can't
go back to this. I like to use my Mac for more than programming and the Mac
just excels at everything else. The iPhone is so much better of an experience
to me compared to an Android device as well.

However, despite all of the complaints and issues, there really isn't a
computer that does everything as well as the Mac can. If all I did with my
computer was programming, it wouldn't be a big deal to go Linux but then of
course my iPhone wouldn't have as nice as an experience so I'd likely have to
go Android too.

Unfortunately, in this new age of monopolies, I doubt I'll see a new provider
arise to challenge Apple, Microsoft, or Google with either a new operating
system, hardware, and software. We have to chose the system that will work the
best for us individually including the possible flaws that will come with the
system.

I personally think the macOS will become more and more closed as time goes and
it will resemble iOS further and further. I wonder what that will mean for
developers and programmers who do more than use Xcode for our own development
and need a nice full featured shell...

[1] [https://freedom.to/blog/freedom-has-been-temporarily-
removed...](https://freedom.to/blog/freedom-has-been-temporarily-removed-from-
the-app-store/)

------
dependsontheq
Understandable - but I think his criticism of the T2 is totally wrong we need
secure computing devices, especially with biometric identification. There are
banking Apps using Touch ID or Face ID.

~~~
alpaca128
Touch ID and Face ID are not necessarily more secure, they're a trade-off for
higher convenience. And the T2 chip might have gotten a warmer welcome if it
weren't also used for preventing any third-party repairs, which seems to be
Apple's new hobby beside further restricting their customers' choices.

------
SyneRyder
I've just gone through this experience and switched to PC after 12 years with
Apple. My MacBook Pro (mid-2012 model) kept failing literally every 2 months,
Apple replaced the failed SATA flex cable six times before I finally gave up
on it as a lemon & bought a PC.

For anyone else switching, do your research carefully. There are still things
Apple does right. I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga, and here's some of the
problems I'm having:

* The Dolby Vision HDR screen isn't actually HDR capable (though it is bright & wide-gamut).

* The HDR display has a really bad red-tint (roughly +10% red shift). I'll need to buy a colorimeter to calibrate it correctly. It clearly wasn't individually calibrated at the factory like my Dell monitor was.

* The built-in speakers are really terrible & thin sounding.

* There is a nasty audio click at the start & end of audio playback (eg a sentence played back in Duolingo). That's probably a Realtek audio driver problem rather than Lenovo's fault. Most people won't notice, but if you work with audio & use headphones it will drive you nuts. It works perfectly with my Focusrite 2i2 audio interface & ASIO drivers, though.

* It doesn't have media playback keys, which I used all the time with Spotify while working. Even my Logitech bluetooth keyboard has them, but this laptop doesn't. (Looks like the Surface Book 2 doesn't have media keys either.)

* I can't figure out how to disable two-finger click (different from two-finger tap). It seems a registry hack is required to do this, but none of the registry hacks I've tried so far work on this model.

* The usual Windows gripes. While I could uninstall Candy Crush & Fitbit Coach on the Windows 10 VM I had on my Mac, every time I try to uninstall them on my Lenovo X1 Yoga, it reinstalls them again on reboot.

There are things I like about the Lenovo, so I'll make it work. I love that I
can replace/upgrade the SSD myself, that it has a touchscreen & pen, the
keyboard & trackpad are better than Apple's latest butterfly keyboards. And it
hasn't broken down yet! But it seems that PC makers & Microsoft still aren't
painting both sides of the fence yet. If the MacBook Pros had decent keyboards
& replaceable SSD / HDDs, and I could somehow trust Apple's build quality
again, I'd switch straight back to Apple.

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tambourine_man
If the author loved Macs for being upgradable he was in the wrong platform.

The original Mac Pro née Power Mac, with its handle to open the case was the
exception, not the rule.

The original Mac was as closed a box as you could get. RAM upgradability was a
feature _sneaked in_

~~~
icebraining
True. The discussion goes back to the original Mac:
[https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...](https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Diagnostic_Port.txt)

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village-idiot
Great, someone is changing their personal computing choices.

But, why should I care? I bought a nice new pair of shoes, toe shoes in fact,
should I post an article to HN about never wearing Nikes again?

~~~
detaro
Click the flag link and move on

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romanovcode
Can you not link the AMP page? Thanks google.

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Double_a_92
Isn't the amp page better? It loads faster, has just the content I want, no
extra JS scripts and less adds. Just because google defined that format people
shun it?

~~~
ucosty
It has terrible formatting on a desktop, with the text spanning the full width
of the browser window.

