
Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware? - rankam
Just as a thought experiment for current Apple users - if you joined a new company and were offered a new MacBook Pro (the most recently showcased) or a new [NON-APPLE] laptop, would you choose the [NON-APPLE] laptop? I ask because I&#x27;ve heard many say they&#x27;re looking for hardware to run elementary OS on, which is mimicking the mac OS UI (I don&#x27;t mean to disparage elementary OS - I think their work is fantastic!). If you&#x27;re not paying the bill, will you really move away from Apple?
======
jonpaine
Personally, I'm kind of amused by the appalled and horrified tech bloggers I
see posting about the sky falling. I keep reading about "life long" Apple
users threatening to switch ecosystems because of an SD card slot. Or function
keys. I mean, people must step through A LOT OF CODE to have that impact this
kind of decision.

My perspective is biased by my moving in the opposite direction. I'm just in
the process of considering a transition TO Apple after being a lifelong
windows user. My current build is a top of the line XPS 15 (2015). It's...
disappointing. The touchpad already broke. I went through at least 3 warranty
visits before the wifi finally worked halfway decent. Windows is becoming less
and less what I want it to be. I use it purely for coding, but when I do jump
online for a few minutes it manages to be slower than my ipad. Basically, I
want a simple, fast, productivity OS that just works (sorry). I don't want it
to show me ads and I'm beyond the point where I derive any satisfaction
whatsoever from tinkering or configuring it to be perfect. I just want it to
work well and work consistently.

Although consensus seems to be that their software is getting worse, from what
I see it feels like Apple is the one making the devices that can accomplish
what I'm looking for - and a big part of that is the hardware. Still, I'm
interested to hear what people say about elementary OS.

~~~
gotofritz
It's not that simple. First of all you ignore the whole dongle / headphones /
incompatibility with iPhone side of things.

I have been thinking of switching over for a while because I can't stand
Apple, the company, I hate having to pay €100 for a new charger if something
happens to the old one, or having to buy dongles. I detest iTunes and Preview,
I don't like having Xcode dictate what goes in my machine, I don't want to be
forced to buy an expensive Apple monitor because any other one looks blurry,
and a few other things. But most of all - I'm feed up with paying double for
quality I don't really need. Yes, the trackpad is great - but I don't care, I
connect a mouse to the laptop. I can buy two Windows machines for the price of
a Mac. The latest MBP announcement only adds fuel to the fire, but the fire
has been burning for a while.

What the latest MBP announcement DOES show is that Apple doesn't give a monkey
about devs anymore. We are not their target audience. We were like the artists
who move in a rundown area, make it appealing to middle class people, and then
are priced out and forced to move away. It's simply time to separate a work
machine with a generic home machine. I may still get myself an iPad for
connecting to my TV, music, generic web surfing, but I am going to start
migrating to a Linux for dev work.

~~~
allwein
iTunes I understand, but what don't you like about Preview? I think it's
actually one of the best parts of the mac. I'm also confused at what you mean
by blurry monitors and Xcode dictating what goes in your machine?

~~~
gotofritz
Preview's "modern" file model which forces you to duplicate files to work on
them and then automatically creates files on the filesystem with a name you
don't want and you then have to go and clean up.... annoying. A lot of non Mac
monitors (I have two HPs at the moment) are not very sharp used with a Mac.
Apparently only Apple monitors work well with MBP - this could be balooney by
anti-mac it people, but the fact that the monitor is not sharp is a fact. With
XCode the fact that you have to download the whole XCode when you just want
Make for example, and it comes with its own version of Ruby, etc, and it
causes havoc if you have installed your own version of Ruby. brew is good, but
luckily certain core unix tools only seem to come with XCode

~~~
rnovak
What?

Citations for any of these? I have 'make' installed on my mbp without XCode
(along with clang, etc), and I use my mbp with 2 24" monitors all the time (in
clamshell mode), and it's no less sharp than it is with a desktop.

~~~
gotofritz
I never said that monitors work better with desktop computers as opposed to
laptops. I said that only Apple monitors are sharp when connected to laptops,
as opposed to non Apple monitors. Wasn't that clear?

~~~
rnovak
Again, citation? What monitors are you comparing? I honestly hope you're not
truly complaining that a 1080p monitor looks less sharp than a 4k or 5k
display.

Also, where's your citation/article/ _anything_ that you can't get Make
without installing XCode?

------
__jal
This isn't quite the question asked, but it pertains.

My personal laptop is a 2010 MBP. I was waiting to replace it until, well, I
saw the new one. Now, I'm really undecided.

I'm planning on borrowing a laptop to run Debian on and see how much my
workflow changes. I spend a lot of time in vim and the terminal in general,
connected to mostly Linux machines, so in that sense, at least system
directories will be more similar.

Things I know I'll miss: excellent hardware, Omnifocus, Omnioutliner,
1password, a windowing system designed by people with actual functional
aesthetic sensibilities. And I'll have to figure out an alternate phone
backup, because I won't use cloud backup and dislike Android (not enough to be
unwilling to use it, but enough that re-purchasing software to use it is
really unappealing).

Things I won't miss: watching Apple turn excellent general purpose machines
into appliances that don't respect the user's desires, being asked to pay
~$200 and my escape key muscle-memory for an goofy emoji toolbar, and every
release coming with 5 more inscrutable daemons that want make connections to
seemingly random hosts at seemingly random times, which my machines are not
allowed to do.

Actually, just the act of writing this out made me firm up my conclusion; I'm
no longer in Apple's target market. So no, I won't be purchasing the new MBP.
Better to start migrating now and I'll worry about the phone conundrum later.

As far as the actual question, if I'm using Linux at home, I'll ask for a
Linux laptop for work. I'd rather not waste time keeping current on OS X if
that isn't what I use when not at work.

~~~
gremlinsinc
I recommend giving Antergos a try it's based on Arch Linux, and I'd also
recommend i3wm - it's a tiled window manager that makes your workspace seem
like you're in vim i.e. tons of shortcuts and hardly need to touch the mouse,
and it's extremely low on memory/ram resource usage.

~~~
__jal
I appreciate the advice. I rather like Debian, personally, and am kinda past
the point where playing with different distros is enjoyable. Debian is an
extremely solid base on which to build anything newer I need, and it just
works[1].

I'm resigned to the crappy state of window managers on Linux. I don't believe
it has gotten materially better since the 90s. Honestly, to me, that's fine,
if the annoyances stay at a dull roar (which basically means avoiding the
slough of despond called Gnome[2]). I use a tiling WM called awesome[3], and
for me it sucks slightly less that the other ones I've tried in the last
couple years.

[1] Additionally, on one machine at home I have Windows running in a VM with
VGA-passthrough, and that's enough of a hassle to get working that I really
don't relish learning yet another checklist for, e.g., generating initramfs or
whatever.

[2] Yeah, apparently some people honestly like it. Good for them. I have no
idea what's going on in the project, but the actual product exhibits all of
Apple's UX arrogance bundled with only a tiny fraction of Apple's UX ability.
Whatever the story is, it took me perhaps 10 minutes before wishing I could do
something more violent than `apt-get purge`.

[3] [https://awesomewm.org/](https://awesomewm.org/)

------
sssilver
I'll paste a comment I wrote earlier under a different, less relevant thread:

As a convert who used to be an ardent Android supporter, I've learned a very
important lesson after switching. It's not always about the numbers. In fact
it's never about the numbers. You can't quantify sheer quality. You can't
quantify how something makes you feel. I understand this can be easily
retorted by "Well I get that feel from my Samsung Galaxy N, it's totally
subjective", but I think that's just being dishonest. I've seen people mention
that they're considering switching back to Android after the headphone jack
thing, or switching to a PC laptop after the touchbar thing. For me simply
touching the surface of ANY premium laptop currently on the market is enough
to realize that Apple is light years ahead in terms of how they engineer their
devices to feel. Simple things like opening a lid. Using the trackpad. The
force touch. How the ringer switch clicks into place. All of it screams
"quality". Not like 15% higher quality, but like light years higher quality.
It's my experience anyway. It's like -- yes you can take the best mechanical
Breitling and ask what does it do that the average Casio ProTrek does not? And
there may be not a good answer for that in terms of numbers. But just take
both in your hands, and try to objectively say -- which device you intuitively
want to interact with more? Which one attracts you with some inexplicable
magic? Which one your fingers are craving to touch and understand? Imagine
having that feeling every day with a daily device. Imagine having that feeling
as the norm. How could you opt in for something less, despite the numbers?

------
aspectmin
Been a Mac fanatic since the early Fat Mac days. Loved the earlier MBPs,
Retina MBP 13, and the Airs.

Sadly though. They've fallen too far behind. It's like Microft and Apple
flipped. Win10 is fast, amazingly stable, and I can run all my monitors and
tools on super fast machines. Even just picked up a Razor laptop running Mint
and. Chromebook running Elemental.

Thought about trying the hackintosh but too much trouble.

I think if you forget to provide great hardware and tools for power developers
at the front end of our cycle, you fall behind and fail to innovate / have a
good support community in short order.

As much as I like Tim Cook and his values, he really reminds me of the same
fit as Ballmer. Not as much of a Dick though :)

Apple really needs another visionary like Jobs, or Satya.

Makes me sad.

------
mortenjorck
No, and perhaps that is why I and many others continue to be somewhat
disquieted with Apple's stewardship of its Mac platform: It would take much
more to make me switch. Apple would have to treat its professional users much
worse than they do today.

The corollary to this being, it could get much worse. The best parallel I can
draw, if you'll permit a terrible political analogy, might be idealistic
Bernie supporters slowly realizing they're going to end up with a choice
between Clinton and Trump.

~~~
gremlinsinc
That's a bad analogy I discovered that I can write in Bernie and have a solid
conscience knowing I didn't choose the corrupt politician, the rapist, the
hippie Bernie wannabe who has no clue about actually running anything in
government, or the always seemingly-high libertarian. - I really wanted to
like Jill Stein and vote for but couldn't...I voted democrat for all other
tickets in hopes that they were more progressive in general.

As for the new mac stuff I've never been a mac fan, not a win fan either.. I'd
much rather have my arch linux builds any day, but I'm not a hardcore gamer or
graphic designer either. I'm just a laravel / elixir developer. But I do feel
like Apple's lost their way there's just too much negative 'mojo' in the air,
they need to pivot and embrace the hard core techies who used to love them, or
they'll become irrelevant and it'll be like the 90's again.

Google and microsoft have both had pretty exciting launches this year, there's
lots of amazing tech going on in the world today, but when the majority of the
stories are negative that can have an effect maybe not today or this quarter,
but down the line in 2018 for example.

------
ianferrel
I bought a Dell XPS 13 the day after the announcement.

As shipped, it had flaky wifi and the audio clipped both through the speakers
and headphones.

Thinking of trying another brand after I get my refund.

~~~
dlss
I'm in love with my razer blade stealth. Same form factor, lower price,
aluminum unibody, great screen, 7500U standard. Bezels are on the large size
though.

~~~
ianferrel
What's the battery life like on it? I can't find documented battery life
anywhere.

------
manav
No, not laptops. I do run a few hackintosh desktops though. Macbooks are still
the best (unless you are a heavy gamer). Over the years of having used a
variety of machines, I haven't found anything close.

Build/Reliability: Probably more reliable than my IBM-era thinkpads. Excellent
build quality, NVME, good battery life, slim aluminum frame, and one of the
better notebook displays with retina. Trackpad is the best in the industry
period, no one has anything as good or responsive.

Support: Very big support network. I can walk into a store and get a loaner,
fix, or a brand new machine. If you don't have your own IT department this is
a huge value to your startup/small business.

OS: If you want to develop for iOS there really isn't an option, so that's not
a fair comparison. However, Apple supports practically every professional
level software suites (Adobe, FCP, etc). OS X is also certified Unix with a
polished ui and has pretty good compatibility with most of Linux/GNU with
homebrew.

------
philip1209
With so much changing, old "lock-in" factors don't really apply. New power
cord. New monitor adapters. I think the switching cost feels like getting a
different brand already, so it's natural to investigate alternatives

Plus, I would like more memory. 32 gigs specifically. My dev environment plus
all of these electron apps like slack are filling up 16 gigs fairly
consistently.

~~~
rankam
I didn't think of it that way - I was thinking os UI, but I think you have a
valid point regarding hardware features :)

------
elchief
No. I need Excel and I need the unix shell.

Calc + DataPilot doesn't cut it when it needs to.

I abandoned Windows a while ago and have been much happier since.

My 2015 MBP is the best computer I've owned. It's cool. It's quiet. It's fast.
It's light. The battery lasts. The screen is great. I hear they last. My
previous was an equally priced HP Elitebook and I hated it.

~~~
rankam
Wow - I never thought I'd see the day when someone said I need a mac to use
Excel :)

I understand your point - Calc is great for opening spreadsheets and doing
minor spreadsheet stuff, but can be a major pain for anything more.

------
Insanity
I did and I am happy that I have, I prefer the linux machines, though to be
honest it does not matter all that much. The terminal is great (on both
system) and most of what I do I can do from within my IDE (IntelliJ) which
also runs great on both systems.

I don't use computers a lot apart from when I am working, and for the
leisurely things I do it does not matter which OS I am using, as everything
runs in a browser nowadays.
[https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/mac_pc.png](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/mac_pc.png)

~~~
rankam
I hadn't seen that xkcd yet, but how absolutely true :)

------
lordnacho
For me it doesn't seem like there's really any difference between different
laptops. I'm on a 15" MacBook Pro at the moment because I needed a Mac to work
on an iOS project, but now I use it to code financial stuff.

Everything I do is on remote connections of one sort or another, and OSX has a
simple way to swap out one virtual desktop with another. Everything that
requires real computing power I do on a cloud, and everything else I think
would work fine on any reasonable machine.

I'm sure a windows/linux system could do the same as my MBP, and in terms of
work it wouldn't really matter as we use windows and linux together. I think
more or less any laptop in the price range would be able to drive multiple
screens, and it's really just a question of minor things like whether
keyboard/trackpad feels nice.

So it is a bit of a hair thin decision. If this whole no-ESC no-Fkey thing
seems to go badly for other devs, I won't get another Mac. I need F keys to
step through a debug, and it's annoying to change key bindings.

------
yequalsx
Went to a Microsoft store to buy a Surface Book. They are very expensive and
have roughly same specs as a MacBook Pro. I really like the look and feel of
the Surface Book and I was hoping it would replace my MacBook Pro + iPad Pro.
I'm still mulling over the purchase since the keyboard froze up when I was
checking it out and it reminded me why I went to Macs 10 years ago.

~~~
phaus
People always mention things like this when they badmouth PCs. My MBP freezes
once in a while, the keyboard sometimes becomes unresponsive and I frequently
have to plug-in my ethernet adapter multiple times in order to get it to
connect.

I'm sure many of these issues would be easy to fix, but that isn't the point.
The point is that MacOS if often reported to be a miraculous piece of software
that always works and never has the issues that Windows/Linux have. I use all
three operating systems on a daily basis and MacOS/Windows are honestly about
the same in terms of random, petty but annoying issues that pop up out of
nowhere and demand attention. Linux isn't too far behind, but when I do have a
problem it generally takes longer to figure out how to fix it on Linux.

As far as the hardware goes. My MBP has slightly better build quality than my
T550, but IMO they ruined the keyboard on the new version. My T550's keyboard
has the function keys acting as function keys only as a secondary function and
its really annoying. My MBP's keyboard is close to perfect (keys are a little
worse than T550, but the layout is better).

I think the touch-screen bar should have been an addition, not a replacement.

~~~
yequalsx
I have recently experienced my keyboard freezing on MacOS and iOS insisting I
update bothers me a lot. I'm probably going with Google Pixel and project Fi.
But my pain with MS from the early 2000s is such that Microsoft destroyed
whatever goodwill it had. Microsoft will have to prove it warrants me giving
them another chance. Even though I feel this way I still have them a try.
That's how bad Apple is doing. They are doing so bad that I'm trying to leave
them.

------
imaffett
I have a 2009 MBP that I use at home. Still does a great job for what I need
and I'll do some iOS development on it.

Newer computer is a Lenovo Flex 3 with Win 10 I got for under $500. I've been
on a MB/MBP for almost 10 years now at various jobs. If I really need a MBP I
use that. I don't see myself buying any more apple products though (including
phones/ipads).

------
k_sze
I will choose the non-Apple laptop, because I already have a late 2013 rMBP,
which still runs fine and I find in many ways superior to the new MBP.

Hopefully it will be a Dell XPS 15"or Lenovo ThinkPad P50, as I just can't
stand working with any screen smaller than 15". And then I'll dual boot
Windows + Linux or even triple boot Windows + Linux + *BSD.

------
rajington
On a 4 yo Retina and couldn't be happier. I'd be paying to upgrade a fraction
of a Ghz. It's Intel's fault not Apple's, but still don't see the need I did 4
years ago.

I've been using my laptop a bunch in my bed though, the Surface Book is
detachable, and a Razer Core could give me multiple monitors when I need it.

It's probably going to be a year before another Apple innovation, and at this
point the only thing holding me back from switching is the feeling that these
other options have some sort of catch. Instability that will make me throw it
out a window, or being ignored by the largely Apple development community.

The LinkedIn/Slack stuff is nice, but Microsoft should just invest hundreds of
millions on improving Windows dev projects like VSCode.

------
kylec
No. I actually really like Apple hardware, and can usually deal with the
limitations. I was hoping Apple would offer a USB-A port and 2TB of storage on
the 13" MacBook Pro, but I still ordered one without. The graphics and memory
limitations don't bother me much.

However, I really keep hoping someone comes out with a competing operating
system and ecosystem similar to Mac OS, but I haven't found anything that
compares. Elementary is the closest I've seen from the open source world, but
it needs a LOT more features and polish. I like Mac OS, but the quality issues
and general product direction in the past few years have me itching to be able
to replace it if I need to.

------
leepowers
I would choose the new MBP. Mostly to try out the Touch Bar. I'm intrigued by
the possibilities of a context-specific, programmable function key area. Will
it be useful? Will it be an annoyance?

Different users have different goals and pain points. More than anything I
want a computer that fades into the background. I want to get work done using
computer. I don't want to work on the computer itself. I don't want to tinker
with esoteric configurations in Ubuntu. Or troubleshoot OEM driver issues in
Windows (or wait for Windows to install updates on boot).

My experience with MBP over the past five years has been seamless.

------
richardknop
I will be staying with Apple for now but I hope for 32GB RAM in next
iteration.

16GB is getting really tight when you are running kubernetes in docker
containers locally and lots of microservices / datastores.

------
dorfuss
I have recently tried to connect my old iPhone5 to my very old MacBook with
Snow Leopard, and I could not open the phone to transfer some photos. I
connected the phone to PC and got access to the catalogue righ away. I'm
litterally pissed of at Apple and the next time I buy a computer I want to be
in full control of what is going on. (having said that both the laptop and the
phone work quite well despite their age).

------
cwisecarver
No. I own a 2015 15" MacBook Pro, fully loaded except for only 512 SSD. I'll
wait for the next refresh when, hopefully, they'll have Kabylake, 32 GB of
LPDDR4, and maybe they will have rethought the SD card slot. By that time
developers will have figured out what to do with the Touch Bar and knowing
Apple they will have sorted out any hardware problems.

I really wanted to upgrade. Every announcement Apple has I am the guy in the
take-my-money meme.

They just didn't do it this time. Between the 16GB limit, the lack of ports,
no magsafe, and removing the function keys that I actually use quite a lot.

32GB haters: I'm currently migrating a huge database from mongo to postgres
and I run docker containers in development. Function key haters: Yes, I
actually use them and every time I've bought something where virtual buttons
replace physical ones it's been worse, at least in the first few generations.
"Just get a dongle" haters: I know, they make usb-c everything, but my current
set of MacBooks don't require me to carry anything but my Thunderbolt 2
ethernet adapter and at $80 I guard it with my life.

~~~
slededit
I doubt the touch bar will see much adoption, its on too few computers. If
they were serious about it I'd expect a replacement keyboard for the iMacs as
well as making it universally available on all their laptops.

It just won't make sense to target it for anything other than trivial features
until it has more market penetration.

------
allworknoplay
I bought a pixel, coming in a week or so. Can't wait. Glad to be able to
listen to music and charge my phone at the same time, glad to ditch itunes and
its increasingly aggressive efforts to ruin my music listening experience,
etc.

Also just had my company buy me a new macbook pro because I need it, but
didn't buy my own (which I'd usually prefer) because I'm keeping my options
open.

------
gotofritz
I would need an apple machine for iOS / web development anyway.

What I'm planning to do, though, is starting to use Linux on a VM on my MBP at
home, get used to it, then get a dedicated Linux machine at home, then perhaps
when my MBP is old i will keep the Linux as a machine for working, and will
get myself a Mac Mini / iPad for generic home use by the whole family.

------
TurboHaskal
No. I reach for my 2015 MacBook Pro far often than my X250 due to the
atrocious Thinkpad display (16:9, bad contrast and terrible back bleeding
issues. The X260 model is even worse as it has PWM issues). Sure it has more
ports, mate screen, better keyboard and upgradability, but my poor sight is
done with bad screens.

I actually like the new Macbook Pro. The Thinkpad X1 Yoga OLED is a great
contender, although I'll never drop that much money on a laptop.

I may switch once WSL is ready, but I will miss native UNIX and using its
keybindings everywhere.

------
bunderbunder
It's complicated.

I won't be switching yet, because all my Apple kit is <2 years old. Barring
some sort of disaster, I'll have it for another couple years at least.

But they're definitely on watch, as far as I'm concerned. It's not just that
I'm disappointed by the new hardware. It's that their software - the real
thing that got me to switch to Apple in the first place - is getting
increasingly bad. The bundled apps, both for OS X and iOS, are a UX basket
case of early 2000s Windows Media Player proportions. I wish I could go back
to the skeuomorphic era; those apps were goofy but at least they didn't do
shit like quietly deleting music from my phone "to free up space" when I still
have 8 gigabytes to spare.

And I'm getting more and more pissed at Apple for harassing me 5+ times a day
to upgrade iOS, which I am not going to do because, seriously, now is not a
good time for me to do any OS upgrades and I really wish they could understand
that I do not live my life by their schedule. But Microsoft sure doesn't do
great on that latter point either, and I have definitely lost work when my Win
8 VM decided to reboot itself without my permission. At least Apple is
_polite_ about being a dick to me over the OS upgrades.

That said, 2 years is a while, and both companies could go either way from
here. And as far as I'm concerned, Unix running Windows in a VM is no less
functional than Windows running Unix in a VM.

But Microsoft is shipping hardware I care about, whereas Apple seems like it's
ready to charge back into the hockey puck mouse era. I switched to Apple as my
primary platform at home just after that period ended, so it'd be fitting to
switch away when it starts again.

About the only thing I'm confident is unlikely to happen is that I go back to
Linux as my primary OS, because, seriously, Linux as a desktop OS is like
something out of a Samuel Beckett play.

------
zbuttram
Thinking about Hackintosh-ing. Can take or leave the hardware for the most
part (especially on desktop, but they do still have the best trackpad), but
there's nothing better than macOS for what I want in my dev environment.

~~~
rankam
Hackintosh-ing sounds fantastic, but I've read so many horror stories about
upgrades that it frightens me

~~~
zbuttram
Same here. I've done it a few times as a dual-boot with my desktop and had
issues that caused me to uninstall after a month or two. I think the trick is
going to be buying hardware that's 100% compatible from one of the lists
people have put together.

I've had the same problem with every Linux distro I've tried, but I dumped
them due to UX jank, not compatibility problems.

~~~
soylentcola
This is also why I've messed with hackintosh in dual boot or old machines but
never for too long. To get one that's stable, you need to build a machine with
100% compatible parts. That's not terribly difficult but I don't usually build
machines just for running something like a hackintosh.

When I go to build a new desktop workstation every 5 years or so, I want to
pick the components based off bang for the buck, not just compatibility with
hackintosh installations. And if I really need MacOS to run something work-
related, I'm not gonna count on a hobbyist project like that to do it. I'm
gonna get work to pay for Apple hardware or take it out of whatever freelance
budget I have.

I guess if I had both the budget to build a second workstation for MacOS stuff
and a strong desire to run non-employment-related MacOS-only software, I might
just build a 100% compatible hackintosh but as it stands, there's nothing I
really absolutely need that only runs on MacOS so instead I just use my
Windows desktop workstation for just about everything, my Asus notebook for
mobile DJ/VJ gigs, and the ancient MBP I got for free a while back for the
rare occasion that I want to screw around with something that only runs on
MacOS.

------
joshmn
I've had a Macbook Pro for the last... 4 years. Two different models. I've
also had a lot of success Hackintoshing my desktop and have used it without
issue for the last 2 years.

I'll be hackintoshing a laptop this time around.

------
developer2
The new MacBook Pro refresh is too expensive. $700 CAD more than the
equivalent 2013 model. I'm not going to pay that much for a Touch Bar that is
a neat addition, but is not something I would opt into as an optional paid
upgrade.

I will be waiting for the next model, and if pricing doesn't drop by then, it
will likely be the moment I need to look elsewhere.

$2799 + tax = $3200 for my 2013 was right at the boundary of what I am willing
to pay. $3499 + tax = $4000 is going too far.

To answer the OP's direct question: if it's an employer paying, then yes I am
taking a MacBook over anything else.

------
macawfish
Already have ;)

~~~
rankam
If you don't mind me asking, which linux distro did you go with for the
switch?

~~~
aspectmin
Linux Mint for the desktop and laptop here. Love it. Ubuntu for servers and
Elemental for an older Chromebook.

------
phyalow
Yes was in the market to buy a refreshed mac pro for my desktop. I'm not
paying 2013 prices for 2013 hardware, so just built a sick Linux deep learning
rig instead for the same price.

------
bradknowles
I'll take the current MacBook Pro, if it's maxed out on RAM and has enough
SSD. But that's for work, not personal use.

For personal use, since my current MacBook Pro is already maxed out on RAM and
SSD, I'll most likely wait until 2017 before I seriously consider upgrading.
There just wouldn't be enough bang for the mega bucks.

------
toyg
If the laptop I'm offered were one of Dell XPS 15, Razer, or maybe one of them
fancy HP, yeah sure, why not. It's clear Apple doesn't care about me anymore.

In my lifetime I had to work with Win 95/98, 2000, xp, Win7/2012, KDE 2 to 5,
Gnome 2 (bleh), blackbox, and various OSX releases, so moving workflow doesn't
really scare me.

If I were offered a Thinkpad or a Surface... eh, maybe not. But I don't think
MBPs are as untouchable as they were 4 years ago.

------
TaylorGood
No.

Still happy with my iMac and Macbook Pro. Having 14+ years of OS experience
and familiarity, the technical updates or lack thereof aren't enough of a
driver to abandon the former.

------
WayneBro
I don't need more than a text editor, a browser and a commandline to do web
development. So I would be fine with just Linux if that's all I ever did.

To do anything at all with iOS I need a Mac. So I expect that I will always
have one around as long as iOS is a thing for me.

Windows is my favorite desktop and it is the best performer in my opinion. I
absolutely need it to do work for most clients. Windows is the one that I will
probably never be able switch away from completely.

------
makaronin
I won't, because I never purchased any Apple products.

------
tomc1985
For work I've a 2013 MBP running Yosemite and you'll have to pry it from my
cold, dead fingers!

(Would be really nice if those update nags would fuck off, though)

------
endemic
I actually am switching jobs in a week; I was offered the choice of a 13" or
15" MBP. I do web development, so Windows isn't really an option.
Unfortunately, I can't choose Linux, since it doesn't run whatever management
tool the org uses. But if I could have an XPS or ThinkPad with some flavor of
Linux, I would probably do it, just to be contrary.

~~~
NetStrikeForce
> I do web development, so Windows isn't really an option.

What.

~~~
PerfectElement
Hacker News bubble.

------
hypercluster
Actually I did the opposite. Just bought my first Macbook ever. And not even
the Pro but a Macbook Air! I know, bad screen and all. But I wanted to get
into iOS development and I couldn't justify spending even more. But apart from
the screen I don't think it's a bad machine. The XPS base model with 4GB -at
leaste in my country- is more expensive.

~~~
threesixandnine
What is wrong with the screen? I hear this all the time but to me screen on
Air is perfectly fine.

~~~
EdwardMSmith
I had (have) an Air, and used it for 3 years until the motherboard died. I
used to look at retina screens and wonder what the big deal was - really
didn't see that dramatic a difference, sure it was a bit sharper, but the air
was fine.

When the air died, I had major deadlines, and Apple wasn't going to get to
repairing it for over a week, so in a bit of a panic, I bought a 13" macbook
pro retina, so I could restore from backup and get right back working.

Ended up taking a couple runs at repairing the air (which actually was a
wonderful experience - they replaced the main board for something like $300,
and also gave me a new battery at the same time for free (was not expecting
that at all).

But, when I got the air back and turned it on, after having gotten used to the
retina screen, I couldn't believe how blurry and low contrast the screen on
the air was. Was a huge difference.

CSB...

------
mooreds
I never really bought into this--always was a windows person. Of course,
didn't do development on windows--I used cygwin first, and then when vagrant
became mature, used vagrant + virtualbox.

Can't recommend that highly enough! Way better than cygwin, plus offers a
level of isolation you can't get on the mac unless you use something like
vagrant also.

------
TYPE_FASTER
No, my next laptop will be a MBP. My brand new Thinkpad at work has poor power
management and wakes up from a sleep sometimes, I thought Windows 10 was
pretty good but it has random issues that make me wish I was using OS X, and I
don't have time to spend messing with Linux config these days.

------
dyeje
It depends. My current laptop MBP Retina will probably last a long time. If
USB-C support is good and the new function row turns out well, then I will
probably buy it. If not, I'll probably go for something else (maybe just
another MBP Retina if they're still up to snuff).

------
shortoncash
I don't plan on moving away from Apple hardware. Apple hardware isn't always
the best bang for the buck, but the software ecosystem seems much more usable
to me. Occasionally Apple makes changes that irritate me, but none have been
so horrible as to chase me off. Yet, anyway.

------
6nf
Not me, I'm sticking with Apple even though I mostly run Win10 on my Macbooks.
I looked at the alternatives and they are either crappy build quality, huge
heavy bricks, or just as expensive as the Macbooks. Might as well stick with
Apple since I trust their hardware.

------
beachstartup
i've been using apples for over 25 years, off and on, mostly on. so probably
not unless i buy one and it's just complete garbage.

not saying it's impossible, just very unlikely. much of their software is
approaching trash-tier, so hey, anything is possible.

------
rackbreaker
No, I still run Adobe apps frequently and have switched back and forth between
Macs and Windows a couple times; have settled on the Mac mostly for build
quality (especially touchpad performance), nicer OS experience, and Time
Machine.

------
kawera
No, at least in the foreseeable future. As a dual career developer and pro
photographer/illustrator, apps/utilities are more important for my work than
the underling OS and Linux's creative toolkit is not there (yet?).

------
geoah
btw, tried today elementary on a macbook -- installation and drivers were fine
-- visual studio code would not launch so I gave up for now -- will try over
the weekend probably.

It seems like a polished OS, some shortcuts need tuning but might work.

~~~
rankam
It makes me curious - do we (mac users) like our hardware, do we like our UI,
do we like a combo of both or is it something else? Regardless, cool to hear
you got elementary running on a mac!

~~~
aspectmin
I like that in the past, it's been rock solid stable and I have had to perform
very little IT support to keep it so. Not so stable these days, which is where
a lot of my issues come from.

Here's my primary reasons for using OSX / Mac's all these years:

\-- A unix variant shell underneath - so I can do all my work fast, relatively
compatible with my linux servers in the cloud, and run things like MySQL,
Mongo, Node, etc... locally. Definitely a keyboard guy as well. Now that
Windows has Bash/Canonical -- I suspect this will be a game changer.

\-- Terminal and Iterm -- Actually - this is probably the major reason. I run
lots of windows, and lots of scripting therein. Conemu / Putty for Windows
isn't bad. Linux has a few not so bad terminal clients, but nothing touches
Iterm. Come to think of it - if I had iTerm on my Win10 machine, with bash for
scripting, and a great ssh command line client - I'd have no issues making it
my daily driver.

\-- Sublime Text. -- But I've been back using Vim and Emacs more and more.

\-- Something about Windows... they seem to have no concern for interrupting
what you're doing and popping up a window that just blocks everything. It's
like a 'rude' operating system. Mac's just don't seem to do that.

\-- Actually the Apps that have kept me on a Mac: iTerm, Panic Transmit,
Sublime Text, and Bash/Zsh.

What I really want in a Mac:

GTX 1080's or NVidia Titan X's, or something that can actually do GPU work
relatively fast (Machine learning is eating the world), and drive multiple 4k
monitors. 32+G of RAM.

Happy to give up some battery life and weight to do these.

~~~
lowmagnet
Regarding heavy nVidia iron: [https://bizon-
tech.com/us/bizonbox3-egpu.html/](https://bizon-
tech.com/us/bizonbox3-egpu.html/)

I think that'll get you one slot, so make it count. I'd also like to see if
anaconda can work with an external adaptor for compute.

~~~
aspectmin
Wow. Thanks. Very helpful.

------
echelon
If I were offered a Thinkpad instead of a Macbook Pro, I'd go with the
Thinkpad.

~~~
TurboHaskal
Ask for a Thinkpad at work instead of a MacBook and you'll be at a 67% chance
of getting one with a TN screen. n=1

------
rhubarbquid
Not yet, the new Macbook Pro meets all my needs (assuming I can stand the
keyboard)

------
hprotagonist
For my personal devices, my plan is to eke out my mid-2010 MBP until such time
as the next wave of laptops are released, and hope they support a developer's
workflow more appropriately.

For work: i work in an OS-agnostic kind of world.

------
nunez
I would do so only if the non-Windows laptop were a Surface Pro or a Surface
Book. Windows 10 has Powershell and a real Linux subsystem now and I can use
the Surface as an iPad Pro when needed.

Every other Windows laptop is crap, IMO.

------
epx
Macs are horribly expensive in Brazil these days (US$ 5-6k for a decently
configured MBP). Next year I plan to buy a gray-market Mac Mini and a fast
notebook for Linux, and try a "Hackintosh" VM in it.

------
akamaka
The outrageous price increase is my only problem with the new hardware. I just
saved $450 by buying a refurbished 2015 Macbook which has the exact same
computing power as the new model.

------
lazzlazzlazz
I'll stick with my current MacBook Pro until a change is much more appealing,
and I've already started discussions with people on what a great Linux laptop
solution looks like.

~~~
kylebenzle
Thinkpad x260 + whatever unbuntu

------
tedmiston
I was hoping to see a poll here. I'm curious to see say 3–6 months from now
what percentage has left Apple hardware, laptops specifically.

------
jaytaylor
As soon as something better comes along, then sure :)

~~~
geoah
Same here, for now will stick with my 13 inch 2015 mbp -- I was hoping for
more ram and an actual GPU but that went south.

Might move to a Razer Blade on windows as hackintosh on the 1060 isn't an
option right now. -- I have high hopes for Windows' Linux Subsystem.

------
importantbrian
I won't. I've found TCO to be so much lower with Apple products that I won't
switch until that stops being the case.

------
nitai
I already switched. Got a Thinkpad t460s. Has a great screen, 20gb ram, 1tb
SSD.

I run Ubuntu and can do just about everything with it. No regrets here.

------
Vanit
Bought an XPS 15 the other day in response to the Apple announcement. Looks
like I'm not the only one!

------
tzs
I realize you asked about work machines supplied by your employer, but I'm
going to answer for personal machines anyway.

My home desktop is a 2009 Mac Pro. I also have a personally owned 2008 Mac Pro
that I keep at work. They are both too old now for the new version of OS X, so
it looks like they will stay on El Capitan.

At some point, I'll either need something that requires an OS later than El
Capitan, or the hardware will die. At that time, I would not be surprised if I
moved to something else. A lot will depend on what Apple's desktop lineup is
like when the time comes.

I would want to be able to move the SSDs from my current Mac Pros to the new
machine(s), and nothing in the current Apple desktop line seems designed to
make that easy. I would be reluctant to buy any of the current Mac desktops
with the Apple upgrade to SSD because that raises the price too much.

The iMacs are also problematic because of the built-in monitor. I don't want
to have to keep a separate monitor for my Windows gaming PC, so prefer a Mac
desktop without a monitor so that the Mac and PC can share it. For a while
iMacs had a feature where they could be used as a monitor for another
computer, but I believe Apple dropped support for that.

I suppose I could use an iMac and use Bootcamp to boot an external disk with
Windows for gaming, but I'm also not sure about the iMac from a gaming
performance point of view.

Another piece of Apple hardware that may be endangered soon for me is my iPad.
I've got a 3rd generation. Like my desktops, it is now too old for the current
OS. (And even the last version of iOS Apple released for it had some of its
most touted features disabled on iPads as old as mine).

I'm seriously thinking of something in the Surface line when it is time to
replace the iPad. That's because I'm getting annoyed at the multitasking
performance of the iPad, particular of the browser. I'm tired of being on some
big page, like a heavily commented Reddit thread, switching to another app or
another tab within Safari, then switching back and having the browser have to
reload the page. This is especially annoying if I was writing a comment and
switched away to get some information I needed for the comment. I end up
having to select-all/copy what I'm working on before switching away, so I can
restore it if the page reloads, but then I cannot use copy/paste to copy in
whatever it was I switched away to look for!

I believe that Surface is running more of a desktop OS with tablet
enhancements than a separate mobile OS like iPad uses, and so I'm hoping that
it would multitask more like a desktop system does...and so switching between
browser tabs, or between the browser and another app, would not cause browser
page reloads. I've yet to look into this in detail, though, to verify this.

My iPhone is great. I see no reason at all to consider switching to something
else in the phone department. It's just tablets and desktops where I foresee
problems.

------
rcarmo
I'm the guy whose Elementary OS post was on HN the other day -- and,
incidentally, I tested it because I'm more concerned with upgrading my home
desktop than my laptop, and because I need Docker, SSH, Visual Studio Code and
Remote Desktop (the rest is all secondary) and prefer its looks.

(I also need to have something to use that isn't Windows at home to both keep
an open mind and stay in the UNIX universe - which is how I got into OSX in
the first place)

I work at Microsoft, wrote [http://taoofmac.com](http://taoofmac.com) for 14
years, and have a Lenovo Carbon X1 as my work laptop (which, incidentally, has
a touchscreen I actually use, and USB A). I got it a year ago and had no
choice in the matter.

I'm not crazy about my work laptop (I prefer smaller, more portable machines,
and plan to replace it with a Surface i5 at the earliest opportunity solely
because it's the most compact and lightweight machine on the roster with a
decent enough display and battery life).

Now that I've answered your question literally, let me answer it in the way
that makes sense for me, as a paying Apple customer: I want expandable
hardware with standard ports and adequate performance for my needs.

In terms of laptops, the MacBook Pro Escape would satisfy only the latter (and
even then I would prefer a better GPU).

I'm holding out for something like a new Mac mini (I prefer small machines,
and like to pick my own displays), and at this point I am pretty sure I'm
going to have to buy a bunch of dongles for it too (if it ever materializes)
and that I will never be able to expand it.

I also find it frustrating that I can build a Hackintosh for _half_ the price
of a current Mac mini that has a comparable (larger, but bearable) volume,
fully standard ports, vastly superior repairability and much better
performance (google for Snazzylabs hackintosh).

Most people complaining about the MacBook Pro do so because it doesn't match
their requirements for performance (with or without Kaby Lake, GPU, battery or
thickness compromises) or expandability (either aftermarket or lack of
standard ports), and because expectations were too high regarding refreshes of
_all_ the Mac product lines (even though rumors only hinted at laptops).

In short, your question has little to do with what people are actually
complaining about. Even though macOS has evolved relatively little under the
hood and recent versions have had a few more bugs than usual, few complain
about the ecosystem or the OS.

We just want more powerful, expandable and flexible hardware instead of
designer cutlery.

(And I'm going to be pretty annoyed if I have to buy a dongle with a MicroSD
card slot on the end, too - THAT they would most certainly have room for.)

------
rileytg
not yet. we'll see.

------
tillinghast
No.

