Is Apple Still the Company That Leads the Way, Or is it Just Getting Better at Locking in Users To Its Own Increasingly Subpar Experiences? (theoutline.com) 351
Readers share a column: Apple is no longer the king of the smartphone camera, but that's just a small component of a company in (highly profitable) stagnation. It wasn't that long ago that anyone who cared about taking great photos on their phone was destined to buy an iPhone (whether they wanted it or not) just by sheer brilliance of its miniaturized camera tech. But something happened over the last 18 months that's changed the dynamic for consumers in the market: Samsung and especially Google have started producing handsets that equal or surpass Apple's devices with their picture-taking quality.
[...] But Google is not Facebook, and while I give up some of my data to the company, what I get in return has sizable value -- apps I use for hours every day, predictive services that actually work, photo processing that means I'm less likely to miss an important moment. To be clear: the stuff Google and Amazon are doing right now isn't just cool and doesn't solely serve their corporate interests -- it matters in very real ways to consumers, with touchpoints they encounter every day where Apple can't even get a word in edgewise.
[...] Coming in second in the camera space alone might not be that big of an issue, but Apple has also had significant problems with its hardware recently -- not just with quality control, but in pure design terms as well (who could have predicted that in 2018 people would be touting Microsoft as the industry leader in design?). Siri continues to be a running joke among most people I know -- tech enthusiasts and average users alike. Apple's iCloud efforts have amounted to little more than a "hard disk in the sky" (a famous Jobsian turn of phrase). And is it the best experience for consumers to be forced into Apple Mail, Apple Maps, iTunes, Apple Music, and Apple Photos at every turn? Can you honestly say they're the best at what they do?
[...] But Google is not Facebook, and while I give up some of my data to the company, what I get in return has sizable value -- apps I use for hours every day, predictive services that actually work, photo processing that means I'm less likely to miss an important moment. To be clear: the stuff Google and Amazon are doing right now isn't just cool and doesn't solely serve their corporate interests -- it matters in very real ways to consumers, with touchpoints they encounter every day where Apple can't even get a word in edgewise.
[...] Coming in second in the camera space alone might not be that big of an issue, but Apple has also had significant problems with its hardware recently -- not just with quality control, but in pure design terms as well (who could have predicted that in 2018 people would be touting Microsoft as the industry leader in design?). Siri continues to be a running joke among most people I know -- tech enthusiasts and average users alike. Apple's iCloud efforts have amounted to little more than a "hard disk in the sky" (a famous Jobsian turn of phrase). And is it the best experience for consumers to be forced into Apple Mail, Apple Maps, iTunes, Apple Music, and Apple Photos at every turn? Can you honestly say they're the best at what they do?
apple needs to not over think the mac pro or price (Score:5, Insightful)
apple needs to not over think the mac pro or price it with to high of an starting point.
5 years old "news" on slashdot (Score:2)
>> Apple is no longer the king of the smartphone camera
That news is 5 years old, slashdot
Oh really (Score:2)
Just checked, Ives is Still Alive (as per the song).
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Not sure which you mean, but Ives is referring to Johnny Ives, a main source of product creativity (Jobs was just a really good No-man).
Still Alive is the song from the video game Portal... it means a lot more if you've played through the game.
Re: apple needs to not over think the mac pro or (Score:3, Insightful)
WOZ wasn't behind their most successful products. He is for certain an engineering genius.
Apple has still the best ecosystem around. Perhaps some of their pieces are sub-par, but the giant can still only focus on so much for so long. Apple has back-burners their Macs for a while, and focused on making their phone utterly brilliant. It has faceID tech that no one has truly copied, it has the very best CPU, which no one can deny, and it's camera has gone in a strange direction. Can the Samsung Phones and Goog
Re: apple needs to not over think the mac pro or (Score:5, Insightful)
A shaky, but mostly accurate analogy for Apple would be the young, upstart politician, breaking rules, breaking new ground, etc. to get elected, only to ossify into the old, staid, politician who wants to get re-elected.
The Mac, iPad, iPhone, AppleWatch and iTunes, etc will be refined and refined and refined and thus become predictable and boring.
Re: apple needs to not over think the mac pro or (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, we really need a new technology company to shake things up. The Apple/Amazon/Google/Facebook/Microsoft tech Oligopoly all seem to be in a race to copy each other's small product improvements, but none of them are really trying to do something genuinely innovative at the moment.
Re: apple needs to not over think the mac pro or (Score:4, Insightful)
It's very hard for new companies to enter the market with China out there ready to copy product and erase profit margins. That the iPhone was successful at all is purely because it was lightyears ahead of its competition, and they bet their entire company on it. If they had biffed that, there would be no Apple right now. If you think about it, people who are in the position of having significant financial resources, but also have really good reason to take huge risks are pretty rare. By the same token, if the iPhone clones had become good enough, fast enough, Apple would also probably have failed.
It would be better if companies could sort of succeed in this market, without being immediately run down. In a way, China has become the new Microsoft, and many are afraid to innovate. That money would be better spent on other investments which may have lower upside, but also lower downside.
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Yeah, we really need a new technology company to shake things up. The Apple/Amazon/Google/Facebook/Microsoft tech Oligopoly all seem to be in a race to copy each other's small product improvements, but none of them are really trying to do something genuinely innovative at the moment.
You seemed to have overlooked the fact that these same mega-corps also like to play another capitalistic game called Fill The Patent War Chest.
You want new technology? You want innovation? Then fight for patent reform, because that's about the only way you're going to get any new technology that doesn't ultimately end up stifled or mired in legal battles.
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Apple will circle back and update their Mac computers
In fact, they already have:
We will all get to witness the result next Tuesday:
https://www.apple.com/apple-ev... [apple.com]
Protip: Try Refreshing that Page a few times...
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While I still have "a camera" that I use when I know I want to take pictures (eg: vacation), I still like having a good "so-so camera" on my phone. Cellphone cameras have improved tremendously over the years. "The Best Camera Is The One You Have With You", making it great if I want to capture something that I see while I'm out and about on a regular day, and very easy if I want to capture something to share with friends or family.
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Unless your time and certainty has no value, apple laptops are the lowest total ownership costs as far as I can tell. Even IBM agrees with that. So much time is spent screwing around with the dissappointment and incompatibilieis or learning experiences it takes with changing models year to year with other brands there's no point in spending that money whey you could just get an apple, know how much it's going to cost you right up front in time and effort and certainty it will work. The macs tend to last longer too.
Sure when I'm hunging for cheap like in servers or for secondary computers or ones for specific missions I always buy Linux machines. No argument there that they are way cheaper to buy. And as long as I know they will work for what I plan in a specific situation there's no reason to buy apple.
And if all you want is a machine to check your twitter account and do google docs then the machine with the absolute lowest chance of letting you down is a chromebook.
But if you want one computer that can do everything, take on new missions, and act just like your old one did with perfect continuity of operations, then an apple is it unless hourly rate of pay isn't very high. Ever waste a day screwing with a computer? your salary+benefits+lossed_sales == what it cost you that day.
So true.
Genuine question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or false choice, clickbait, flamebait?
Re:Genuine question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or false choice, clickbait, flamebait?
I don't even like Apple and I think you've hit the nail on the head there! I laughed when I saw the headline because it came across as a troll.
Re:Genuine question? (Score:5, Interesting)
I laughed when I saw the phrase “touting Microsoft as the industry leader in design”.
Apple does have significant problems, though - I’ll grant the author that.
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Laugh if you like, but they link an article [theoutline.com] that touts as the industry leader in design. Because Microsoft Surface is more innovative than Apple I-pad. Can't really argue with that, it's kind of pathetic really. But "the industry leader"? Ahem, no. Just not as lame as Apple, which is damning with faint praise.
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Or false choice, clickbait, flamebait?
I don't even like Apple and I think you've hit the nail on the head there! I laughed when I saw the headline because it came across as a troll.
It's CERTAINLY Flamebait!
But the fella tells the facts... (Score:2)
When it comes to Apple and its products, a good chunk of fanfare is due to "media hype." To an unsuspecting reader, Apple can do no wrong. From "bend gate" to need for purchase of extra hardware if one needs fast charging for instance.
How about iphone USB cables that one cannot use on MacBooks?
How about a situation in which for example one clicks an internet link in an email message? For iOS, Safari opens up, even when one would prefer Chrome!
I just hate that company and glad they have never had a chance "e
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How about iphone USB cables that one cannot use on MacBooks?
Yes admitted that is an issue. Why they don't have a separate sku that comes with a USB type C cable is mind boggling.
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How about iphone USB cables that one cannot use on MacBooks?
Yes admitted that is an issue. Why they don't have a separate sku that comes with a USB type C cable is mind boggling.
You want separate SKUs for a difference in Charging cable?!?
Gimme a break. Just do this:
https://www.amazon.com/Syntech... [amazon.com]
or, if you dislike adapters, just trade the included cable for one like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Lightni... [amazon.com]
Phew! That was HARD...
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When it comes to Apple and its products, a good chunk of fanfare is due to "media hype." To an unsuspecting reader, Apple can do no wrong. From "bend gate" to need for purchase of extra hardware if one needs fast charging for instance.
Whatever the f that means. My iPhone charges from dead-flat to 100% in about 2 hours with the standard charging-nugget. It doesn't charge significantly faster using my higher-power iPad charger.
How about iphone USB cables that one cannot use on MacBooks?
If you want to use the included iPhone charging cable directly with a USB-C-equipped MacBook Pro (or MacBook), the cheapest way is with a $2 passive adapter you can buy on Amazon. Big F-ing deal.
Product development/release cycles don't always match-up. Deal with it. And if that's the biggest product-development gaffe you can come up with, that's pretty lame.
How about a situation in which for example one clicks an internet link in an email message? For iOS, Safari opens up, even when one would prefer Chrome!
Liar.
https://www.idownloadblog.com/... [idownloadblog.com]
I just hate that company and glad they have never had a chance "eat" my cash.
Seem to be doing just fine without it...
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need for purchase of extra hardware if one needs fast charging for instance.
My iPhone charges from dead-flat to 100% in about 2 hours with the standard charging-nugget. It doesn't charge significantly faster using my higher-power iPad charger.
That's not fast, my Moto G6 fast-charges from empty in less than an hour with the stock charger. OP has a point.
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All of them.
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Or false choice, clickbait, flamebait?
More like stark realisation. I mean it wasn't long ago where Apple were at the absolute forefront of hardware (their refusal to adopt OLED not withstanding). However these days it seems to be more about gimmicks.
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Your post is a false dichotomy: the headline may be both a genuine question and clickbait.
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Exactly. The answer could easily be "both": Apple could quite easily be the company that leads the way to a locked-in, subpar user experience.
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The article makes a false reference to being pushed into apple products. As if you can't install other mail clients or browsers. I'm not a apple fan, but the article is complete bullshit. Beyond that it makes the assumption that all people want or need these great new features.
I don't want a google device because I don't want my information to be in the hands of google. I've spent the last year removing myself from social media and and the piiForce as much as possible. I don't use google products, facebook,
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Not even Google search?
My Google search history alone would rival the 9.2 million words of the 8-volume Churchill biography Blood, Sweat, and Tears.
What they don't know about me, I barely know about myself.
Is Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Slashdot still interesting, or does it just post stories that are blatant, pointless shit-storms?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Yes.
Summarized Question (Score:5, Funny)
Apple, have you stopped beating your wife yet?
sub par? (Score:2)
I am typing this on a MacBook Pro, and I use and iPhone 8.
What experience is sub par? Sure apple steers me towards their mail and photo apps but you certainly can install alternatives if you want to. Having evaluated other leading platforms before making my last round of purchases; I don't find the experience sub par.
I think its different; but certainly not worse. Personally I like it better; which is why I chose them. That said I think you can have as a good an experience on a higher end Android device
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The trouble with Apple it doesn't listen to its users, at all.
Macbook pros had great keyboards , the new low profile keyboards suck. Mag safe was a great idea , gone. People like to be able to pull their drive and upgrade when necessary but no soldered ram and ssd drives ... I think they began losing the plot around 2012. It's kinda sad that they will not give us what we want.
These days the best performing macs are hackintoshes and that really is a problem when you can put together your own system that
Re:sub par? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are 100% incorrect. Apple absolutely listens to its users. The problem is that you don't understand that you are a minority, and the vast majority of apple users don't care about what you care about.
"People" do not like to be able to rip apart their laptop and upgrade it. You like that. I like that. But not people in general. Not half of people, not even 10% of people like that.
Apple has successfully changed to market itself to the mainstream population, and they are not like us.
When their MBP hardware really stagnated, they got rid of magsafe, and I got tired of their incessant iCloud nagware, I realized that they had moved on from where I am as a customer. That's life. My Dell precision running ubuntu isn't quite as slick as my 2012 MBP was when new, but it's better than that laptop these days, and better than the current line of MBPs. Thin, light, powerful, user-upgradable, and relatively inexpensive.
If a company isn't making a product you want, move on to one which is.
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the vast majority of apple users don't care about what you care about.
OP cares about a keyboard that works, and keeps working. What bubble do you live in?
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But is it really a positive move to solder down normally swapable components like SSDs, RAM, etc? Is it saving them money somehow? Or is it just a revenue generator because if something needs upgraded at all, it's whole new computer time?
Shit like that is consumer hostile, even for those that "don't care" up front.
In a PORTABLE computer, like a MacBook (all flavors), CONNECTORS are the ANTITHESIS of RELIABILITY.
Soldering fixes that.
But, for example, if you want to be at a live music performance, doing a multitrack recording with Logic Pro X running on your MacBook Pro, do you REALLY want to be treated to a nice, fat KERNEL PANIC screen because your RAM or SSD socket glitched when someone bumped the table your laptop was sitting on?
No one stops to think of THAT one...
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Surely you are in more danger of it being pulled off the table because what they actually bumped into was the power cord. So why are not other laptops suffering these RAM or SSD glitches where on the vast majority of laptops these are socketed.
If I wanted a fashion statement I would buy an air not a macbook pro.
and since when was a hard drive or ssd or ram left to float around in any laptop?
although there was a particular ic which gave problems due to poor soldering which on refurbs apple glued some rubber
Re:sub par? (Score:5, Insightful)
> What experience is sub par?
Gee, soldering [google.com] the RAM and SSD to the MBP mobo ISN'T a dick move???
Stockholm Syndrome much?
I love my MBP and iPhone 7+ too but let's cut the bullshit of Apple's anti-right-to-repair shenanigans.
Their gimping of the Mac Mini also isn't winning any fans.
Instead of embracing Vulkan (or OpenGL) they have NIH syndrome with Metal.
HTF am I supposed to charge AND listen to my wired headphones on the iPhone now? Oh that's right buy your shitty overpriced Beats headphone garbage. NOT. Fuck this "courage" nonsense.
Apple has lost their way. All they care about is branding and making money. The _also_ used to care about technology at one time.
Re:sub par? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh gosh, where to start?
Soldered RAM.
Soldered storage.
Glued MacBook batteries.
Glued iMac screens instead of magnets.
Replacing tactile MacBook keys with a touchbar.
No more matte display option on MacBooks.
Dropping USB-A connectors from MacBooks.
Dropping MagSafe from MacBooks.
Dropping FireWire interface from MacBooks.
Dropping Ethernet interface from MacBooks.
Dropping SD card slot from MacBooks.
Dropping integrated video output connector from MacBooks.
Requiring a fistful of dongles to plug damn near anything into MacBooks.
Insisting on a super-low-stroke keyboard that nobody wants. Doubling down when it turns out to be crap.
Claiming that key condoms are the solution to dust and crumbs causing those keyboard to fail when they're not.
Stupid-expensive fees to replace those super-low-stroke keyboards when they go bad.
Heavy focus on making MacBook Pros slimmer despite pro owners voicing disdain, demanding for return of removed features.
Stupid-expensive configurations.
Because everything is soldered and glued, requiring buyers to commit to a more expensive machine today because they'll invariably need more RAM and/or storage in a few years.
Selling years-old hardware at as-if-new prices.
Tied to that, taking years to upgrade hardware specs.
Highlighting more emojis as a feature with every OS update. (Hint: hieroglyphics are not a feature. More hieroglyphics even less so.)
Nagging to install new OS versions whenever there's an upgrade.
Annual OS upgrades when there's not that much compelling to warrant a whole new version. (There was a time when we could go multiple years without new OS versions. Look at Windows XP and Windows 7, for example.)
Genius Bars stocked with less-than-geniuses.
Refusing to service computers. (See the long-running adventures Linus had with an iMac Pro.)
Vindictive treatment of third-party service companies who are willing and able to fix things Apple won't touch or wants to gouge for. (Search for the adventures of Louis Rossmann.)
Refusing to acknowledge and address engineering flaws. If they eventually do, it's long after those affected have given up trying to get assistance and/or someone has filed a lawsuit.
I could go on...
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"Apple has lost their way. All they care about is branding and making money."
They haven't lost their way at all. They are very, very good at making money at the moment. Which is the only thing that really matters to companies.The thing is that their way is not your way.
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They haven't lost their way at all.
Horseshit. They way of making money used to be revolutionary. Now they are just screwing people.
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Those people buy their products voluntarily. No need to get worked up about this. Just buy something else if you don't like Apple anymore.
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They haven't lost their way at all.
Horseshit. They way of making money used to be revolutionary. Now they are just screwing people.
The problem is, if Apple doesn't invent something on par with cold fusion or time travel EVERY SINGLE YEAR, they are somehow "Losing their touch".
Seen it EVERY year since at least 1992. It is actually pretty funny to watch you pseudo-pundits get it wrong EVERY SINGLE YEAR, too!
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Dick move or not, it does seem to be on par with other vendors. I mean, if I go back some years, I can find replaceable ram/drives on other laptops. Now?
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Dick move or not, it does seem to be on par with other vendors. I mean, if I go back some years, I can find replaceable ram/drives on other laptops. Now?
Right.
And as I pointed out above, it is actually more RELIABLE to have a Laptop with SOLDERED components, rather than SOCKETED ones...
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Honestly, I don't care that it's soldered on. I want a lighter thinner laptop, I don't work on them and I'm never going to upgrade them. I buy my computer sized for the life I expect to use it. I have never, ever, ever, upgraded a computer.
Even the computers I built myself never got upgrades, I built a new one and sold the old one. Just like I do on everything else. No one complains you can't replace the cpu or ram on a phone right?
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I have never, ever, ever, upgraded a computer.
That's something to be proud of? Changing out the hard disk for an SSD is an easy way to convert a sluggish computer into a champ. Any idiot can do it. Maybe not you.
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Honestly, I don't care that it's soldered on. I want a lighter thinner laptop, I don't work on them and I'm never going to upgrade them. I buy my computer sized for the life I expect to use it. I have never, ever, ever, upgraded a computer.
Even the computers I built myself never got upgrades, I built a new one and sold the old one. Just like I do on everything else. No one complains you can't replace the cpu or ram on a phone right?
Or a microwave, disc player, dvd, etc. etc.
In fact, it has only ever been a RARE sighting to see a laptop with a replaceable CPU or GPU. Yes, there have been a few expensive "luggables"; but that is all.
Yet no one (well maybe SOMEone) seems to complain about THAT non-expandability. Why?
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> What experience is sub par?
Gee, soldering [google.com] the RAM and SSD to the MBP mobo ISN'T a dick move???
Stockholm Syndrome much?
Sorry, no.
It is a RELIABILITY move, especially when, as other posters have pointed out, a vanishingly small percentage of laptop users upgrade their hardware, even when they HAVE the opportunity. Proof positive is the fact that some other laptop OEMs do the same thing. Are they all Dicks, too? Why no Slashdot hand-wringing about THEM???
I love my MBP and iPhone 7+ too but let's cut the bullshit of Apple's anti-right-to-repair shenanigans.
Their gimping of the Mac Mini also isn't winning any fans.
IMHO, the reason they originally went from a 4 core to 2 core CPU in the 2014 Mac mini was issues with Thermal Dissapation. I realize that they could have updated the mini in
Where to begin? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am typing this on a MacBook Pro, and I use and iPhone 8. What experience is sub par?
The stack of dongles to plug everything in, the insanely high price, the keyboard's lack of movement, the lack of function keys, the lack of a decent GPU, the less-than-cutting-edge CPU, the lack of a pro desktop whose design is less than 5 years old, the inability for the power cord to magnetically disconnect...and that's just off the top of my head. I used to use Apple and dropped them when they dropped the ball on their macs. The mac mini now only has two cores - that's less than their laptops! - and until the new update comes out they are still trying to peddle a 5 year old Mac Pro at full price!
Their iOS devices have faired better but they have not only dropped the ball with their Mac line they no longer even remember where the ball is or what it looks like.
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the thing with apple is you have to "Get with the program"
USB-C is really nice if you embrace it. I have literally one lead I connect to my laptop when I return to my desk. Off that I get power, my other two monitors, a bunch of USB accessories, including my keyboard and mouse.
When I work with other people three of us can daisy chain our laptops on a conference table off a single power brick so we don't have to have a pile of power strips and bulky bricks all over the place.
Yes I miss magsafe a little.
As
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For people who miss Magsafe there is a solution. [ebay.com]
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For people who miss Magsafe there is a solution. [ebay.com]
Amazon also has literally dozens of solutions:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=usb... [amazon.com]
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USB-C is really nice if you embrace it.
Cool story. Hey can you copy this off my memory stick? Oh what? Everyone needs to embrace your thing now? What about my perfectly functioning hardware? Yeah just bin it like a good consumer.
I have embraced USB-C in the only sane way. My laptop has USB-C and USB-A. My desktop has USB-C and USB-A. Defending the removal of the most widely used accessory port in the world is frankly indefensible and you should feel bad for defending the action.
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Agree, removing USB-A from a device that has the physical space for the port is pure idiocy and customer-baiting. Only the mistiest eyed of fanatic devotees will be able to explain that away.
Meanwhile, I like USB-C a whole lot more than USB-A on my phone just because it's so much easier to plug in. Never mind the huge bandwidth increase and other new capabilities. Worth. Against that I need to populate my home and vehicles with new cables. Better than a dongle that gets lost.
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USB-C is really nice if you embrace it.
Cool story. Hey can you copy this off my memory stick? Oh what? Everyone needs to embrace your thing now? What about my perfectly functioning hardware? Yeah just bin it like a good consumer.
I have embraced USB-C in the only sane way. My laptop has USB-C and USB-A. My desktop has USB-C and USB-A. Defending the removal of the most widely used accessory port in the world is frankly indefensible and you should feel bad for defending the action.
Here. Hand me that USB stick...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J... [amazon.com]
Now, what were you saying?
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the thing with apple is you have to "Get with the program"
You mean, go Android.
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You forgot the requirement to use iCloud, which absolutely is a requirement when the base MBPs ship with 128gb hard drives in them, and jumping up to a 1 TB drive costs you $800. That's a sixty fucking percent increase to the price of the laptop to add a sensible sized drive to it. Retail, that's maybe a $200 drive.
The Mac Pro fairs a little better, because it at least starts with twice the storage. Still caps out at 1TB however.
But hey, no big deal, right? You can drop $300 on a 2TB Airport drive, or just
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Different use cases. You don't have to use iCloud. You could use one drive, dropbox, etc.
Shit, I don't get how people use up all that space anyways. I'm using 53GiB of data on my macbook. What are we storing there?
I've got 3 or 4 dozen git repositories synced, all the apps I require, and still have 450 GiB of empty space!
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I don't get how people use up all that space anyways.
Have you installed a game lately?
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Since you apparently use a Mac, you apparently haven't ever tried not to use iCloud.
iCloud can't be ignored, and can't be killed. I tried for 6 months. It's woven through the entire Mac ecosystem, and if you don't log into it, you get prompted to do so every time one of the components wakes up.
I literally had an iCloud login popup about every half hour near the end when I quit using the machine. Turning it off in software settings didn't work, manually killing the process didn't work, and trying to blow awa
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You forgot the requirement to use iCloud, which absolutely is a requirement when the base MBPs ship with 128gb hard drives in them
Considering that "Pro" applications NEVER store DATA on the Boot Drive, you'd likely be better served to get something like this Ruggedized 4TB USB-C external for $107 from Amazon. And it looks like it supports USB-A, too, in case you need to transfer to an older Mac. Depending on how much on-the-road stuff you do, pick up a couple and you're all set:
https://www.amazon.com/Silicon... [amazon.com]
BTW, I have NEVER used iCloud. Period.
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Most buyers of Apple computers these days don't need peripherals - and thus no dongles.
They have the laptop - and that's it. Maybe they connect a phone to it - but to transfer a few files, you can use AirDrop and it's quite fast, too.
My 2012 Mini still has a FireWire800 disk connected to it. Doesn't mean I want Apple to make a new computer with IEEE1394b.
Granted, there are certain peripherals that will never get USB 3.1 - but I'd just get a dock for those.
I think it's hilarious that somebody can accuse Appl
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I think it's hilarious that somebody can accuse Apple of being stagnant (5 year old design on the MP) and being too progressive (only USB C) in one sentence.
Well said, sir!
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My Minis have FW800. My MBP has FW800. I have a bunch of FW400 and FW800 hard drives. With no FW on new Macs I'm going to end up with a pile of no-longer-usable external storage.
The Apple experience.
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My Minis have FW800. My MBP has FW800. I have a bunch of FW400 and FW800 hard drives. With no FW on new Macs I'm going to end up with a pile of no-longer-usable external storage.
Time marches on.
You can either take the drive mechs out of those FW enclosures and put them into some USB-C ones. That would be your cheapest route.
Or, you can go the Apple-Approved route:
Apple TB3 TB2 Adapter, + Apple TB2 FW 800 Adapter. Yes, it is a daisy-chain. Yes, Apple approves the configuration. $60 for both Adapters together. Then you should be able to use your existing drives. Most FW drives can be daisy-chained with some inexpensive (around $12) cables; so that should work.
https://www.apple.com/ [apple.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I work 9 hours a day on a macbook pro. I have no dongles. Not one. I do miss the magentic power adaptor and I think the touchbar is 100% stupid. I don't mind the keyboard, I've gotten use to it and it's fine. Plus I only use the keyboard when I'm not at my desk and connected to my monitors and external keyboard/mouse.
Overall, I'd still take this macbook over a dell laptop, just for a proper os for the work I do. I'd hate to be writing python and managing systems in windows (if only my company would support
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I'm typing this on my 2018 touchbar rMBP, that replaced my 2012 rMBP used for 6 years and then sold off for more than many new PC's cost to defray part of the cost of my new Mac.
Re Dongles: Not a problem and indeed an advantage because I've been able to use multiple Gbit Ethernet interfaces where my PC colleagues needed to use multiple laptops for the same job. I've never lost a dongle even though my job takes me to different places/clients. As for connecting my iPhone, USB-C to lightning cables exist &
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I am typing this on a MacBook Pro, and I use and iPhone 8. What experience is sub par?
The stack of dongles to plug everything in, the insanely high price, the keyboard's lack of movement, the lack of function keys, the lack of a decent GPU, the less-than-cutting-edge CPU, the lack of a pro desktop whose design is less than 5 years old, the inability for the power cord to magnetically disconnect...and that's just off the top of my head. I used to use Apple and dropped them when they dropped the ball on their macs. The mac mini now only has two cores - that's less than their laptops! - and until the new update comes out they are still trying to peddle a 5 year old Mac Pro at full price!
Their iOS devices have faired better but they have not only dropped the ball with their Mac line they no longer even remember where the ball is or what it looks like.
1. Stack of Dongles: Boy, does THAT meme deserve to DIE! Get a simple multiport USB-C Dock for $30-99 on Amazon and STILL have 3/4 of your I/O FREE! And they're cheap enough to have TWO, one for home, one for office. So, changing locations consists of swapping like ONE cable... And remember, you can expand a 4- Port MacBook Pro up to FIFTY-TWO Legacy Ports (in a MYRIAD of Configurations). Yeah, that really sucks...
2. Insanely high price: In case you haven't looked, ALL PC prices are up. Memory prices are up
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Too much money for too little computer. Counts as sub-par.
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Anyone can enter our leave the Android ecosystem at any time and you can take most of your content with you.
The same is true of Apple [tidbits.com].
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One consequence of these alleged lies is that you waste time and effort posting shit nobody will read. Wouldn't it be better spending that time on something else?
Yes and no (Score:5, Insightful)
They're still good in some areas, in others not so much.
If the so-called low-cost MacBook Air replacement also has that fucking nightmare of a keyboard (butterfly mechanism) then I'll be forced to start looking at OpenBSD/FreeBSD or something.
Whoever at Apple thought that a keyboard with almost no travel was a good idea should have been fired immediately after the launch of the MacBook Pro that used that keyboard. Instead we're now at the third revision of this pile of crap. Admit it's a failure, go back to the old keyboard design and increase the thickness of the laptops by 2mm to compensate. It's not the end of the fucking world. As a bonus, you'll be able to increase the size of the battery.
Lead the way? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No question Apple makes beautiful equipment and user experiences
They used to. Now. not so much unless carrying a pile of dongles and using a keyboard with no travel and no functions keys is your idea of a "beautiful" user experience.
Increasingly sub-par? Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Increasingly expensive? Absolutely. Increasingly abandoning opinion leaders (us)? Yep.
Truth be told: Apple can afford to drag their heels on hardware updates and offer sub-optimal support and repairability. Apple is by now a full blown fashion brand. Being expensive is a value in itself for Apple customers. Is their stuff bad? No, absolutely not. Do they care about is developers anymore? Nope, not really. It's up to Google and Microsoft to pick up that ball now I suppose.
I've stopped buying Apple hardware which I've been doing since 2003 (12" iBook G4 - legendary!) and if they want to win me back they better start delivering a minimum base of good price performance products. Which they stopped doing a few years back.
Bottom line: Apple is doing just fine for people who can't calculate or judge hardware by it's specs. Which is 99% of all people. Other than that, I'm moving towards custom/special Linux hardware once again.
My two eurocents.
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Bottom line: Apple is doing just fine for people who can't calculate or judge hardware by it's specs. Which is 99% of all people.
Or don't measure their computer's value in twitch game FPS or seconds to compile the Linux kernel. Let's compare the latest i9-9900k to the i7-2600k released in January 2011 thanks to Anandtech bench 1 [anandtech.com] and bench 2 [anandtech.com] using the i7-6700k as common reference.
Cinebench R15 Single Threaded: 216 vs 133
Cinebench R15 Multi-Threaded: 2032 vs 617
So 7.5 years later single threaded performance is still 62% and multi threaded 30% of what today must be considered ancient hardware. Give it enough RAM and an SSD and for most
Leading questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do I mod this story Troll ?
Actually, where can I flag this story as Inappropriate ?
Can we get msmash [slashdot.org] (4491995) banned ?
Flawed premise? (Score:2, Insightful)
When did Apple actually "lead the way"? Remember the old joke: "to see what is coming on the new iPhone, look at what was new on Android 2 years ago".
Apple has rarely been a technology leader.
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^This.
Not to say Apple hasn't come up with any of their own ideas but their leadership has largely been about taking other people's ideas and making them shiny and easy to use... examples:
Xerox Alto > Apple Macintosh for the mouse driven UI.
IXI (prototypes) > AT&T (internal) > SaeHan (public) > many others like Creative Labs NOMAD > Apple iPod for the large capacity portable music player
AT&T FlashPAC > others > iTunes for streaming music services
IBM Simon > Palm/etc > NTT
Focus on gimmicks not on stability... (Score:2)
Long time reader here but itâ(TM)s been years since I commented. Wanted to add my opinion to this one though. The biggest problems facing Apple today and many tech companies for that matter is the release of feature enhanced hardware and software without fully vetting them out through user testing and quality assurance.
I was an Apple user since OS X was released. It is by far one of the best desktop operating systems to be release from a UX and system foundation standpoint. But over the years it has be
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Maybe it's the hardware?
My 2012 Mini has become more stable with newer OS X (and then macOS) releases over the year.
BT used to be crappy and flaky, now it's rock solid. It's weeks between reboots.
Has it come to this? (Score:2)
...and while I give up some of my data to the company, what I get in return has sizable value...
Has the anti-apple vitriol really come to this? To arguing that trading your privacy away to Google is good as long as you get something nice in exchange because Tim Cook said it was bad? Really?
I don't care (Score:4, Informative)
Cameras, assistants that googles shit for you.. all irrelevant noise to me.
Apple is an annoying company because they prioritize crap nobody cares about like artistic monoculture designs, how much shit weighs and being a bunch of pricks (e.g. "courage") over usability, locking people into walled gardens and charges ridiculous prices for mediocre hardware.
The most amusing part of all of this is MOST people walk around with their expensive pretty little works of art iPhones in cheap bulky rubberized cases. Every time I see one ... can't help but smile at the absurdity of the whole dynamic.
Expecting Apple users to grow a brain is like expecting Trump supporters to grow a brain. Neither are likely yet both are an entertaining freak show to behold.
I've just set up a Samsung A8 as my work phone... (Score:2)
Apple user since the Apple ][ era (Score:2)
If Adobe Creative Suite ran on Ubuntu I'd be gone. Sorry but it's true.
Second rate hack job (Score:3)
I may be old... (Score:2)
I may be a grumpy old man, but now that we've come up with a truckload of technology to improve our lives a lot, can we please step back from this technology buzz and get back to regular old life?
Really, Mr Topolski? (Score:2)
So preemuch the exact same article he wrote on this topic a little while back, offering the same level of analysis and same lack of insight into what either design or experience consists of. But now with added blitheness about privacy too!
"yes ish"? (Score:3)
1- provide an algorithmic experience. That's difficult. The "fuzzy logic" machine learning systems everyone else is using exist because writing strict algorithms to surface all the relevant data is hard.
2- provide a crappy experience from their own AI engine trained on limited data.
3- provide a ??? experience by buying someone else's training dataset.
This isn't even an Apple-specific question. In a world where we're talking about data privacy, in MANY fields (calendar/email/browser data is only the tip of the iceberg - consider autonomous driving data for example, including everything every autonomous car captures with every one of its sensors on every drive) - where is the tradeoff between "we want this thing to look smart" vs "we don't want to feed the beast"?
apple were king of smartphone cameras? (Score:2)
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What is dinner visual flair? like a sprig of parsley?
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It's about the OS. While iOS is not palatable for my device, it is a hell of a lot better for my wife and kid. With my Samsung S5, I had samsung interrupting EVERY aspect of the device. Once I reloaded it with Cyan/LineageOS, it works fine.
On the iPhone, while the experience is a walled garden, it is not interrupted by bixby / samsung crapware / wireless crapware every five seconds. If the iPhone had replaceable batteries and a headphone jack, I would upgrade my 4 y/o phone. Until then, no reason to.
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You're using it wrong.
No, really, a phone or even an iPad is not suitable for real work. You need a computer for that.
The question is: when can we connect a good screen and keyboard to a phone and use it like we use a PC now?
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a phone or even an iPad is not suitable for real work. You need a computer for that.
Phones and tablets are computers, the hardware isn't the problem, it's the crappy graphical interface.
The question is: when can we connect a good screen and keyboard to a phone and use it like we use a PC now?
Since years ago? I regularly use a bluetooth keyboard with my Android phone for video chat. Bluetooth mouse works fine too, except that the UI is missing a lot of the widgets you normally want for mousing. HDMI-out dongles are readily available for Android, I use mine from time to time for photo review.
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Indeed, we're almost there.
On iOS you don't need a keyboard for video chat (FaceTime on iOS).
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On iOS you don't need a keyboard for video chat
You don't need it on Android either, however it is often useful to type and chat at the same time. Surprised you didn't know that.
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I'm not 100% sure Apple lets you do that. They do pretty trivally let you tether. But the iOS filesystem is pretty locked down.
Your family member couldn't figure out how to download a free app from the app store [apple.com]? for their phone or click the orange button ? That does not seem like Apple's fault.
This went a
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Leading the way with useless "innovations". Let's see: No headphone jack. A notch in an otherwise good display. I'm sure there are more, but both of those are show-stoppers for me.
Well, they weren't the first (or the last) with the deletion of the legacy 3.5 mm jack.
Well, they weren't the first (and CERTAINLY not the last!) with the display-notch.
So, even if YOU, oh wise one, have deemed that APPLE "innovated" those design attributes, they did NOT. Additionally, even if YOU, oh wise one, have deemed that those same design attributes are "useless", obviously other OEMs have not.
Now what, idiot?