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Anyone else abandoning ship?
- Thread starter ibivibiv
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I’m going to get my MBP 2018 repaired for 2 repeating keys and a keyboard imprint in the screen coating. I’ve been insanely OCD with this laptop so I wasn’t quite pleased that these two issues occurred after only half a year.
In fact, for when it’s away for repair, I’ve ordered a 2019 XPS 13, to see how that one feels. If it’s nice I’ll keep it, sell the MBP, and save myself a lot of money.
In fact, for when it’s away for repair, I’ve ordered a 2019 XPS 13, to see how that one feels. If it’s nice I’ll keep it, sell the MBP, and save myself a lot of money.
I jumped the ship after 20 years of Apple products... 
Too expensive for me and the quality of their products went down year after year but above all I hate the new keyboard and the touchbar of MBP.
Too expensive for me and the quality of their products went down year after year but above all I hate the new keyboard and the touchbar of MBP.
Apple's MacBook line has become a bit of a mess of overlapping products around the 13" thin and light section of the market, and has very little choice elsewhere. Personally I think they need a complete re-think and to come up with a complete new lineup with each model having a clear purpose.
MacBook Pro:
- Power focused. Single 15" Model. Similar to Unibody generation, allowing a degree of upgradability and having greater capacity to cool more powerful internals. Starting at $2,499.
MacBook:
- General use. Basically a re-branding of the Retina Pro models from 2012-2015. Put something like a 28W i7-8559U inside and replace TB2 with TB3/USB C. Offer in 13" and 15" sizes. Starting at $1,299 and $1,499.
MacBook Air:
- Portability focused. Re-brand the 12" MacBook and offer it as the smaller variant alongside the 13" Air. Perhaps the first to transition to A series chips. Starting from $999 (12") and $1,099 (13")
Still 5 separate computer lines, but offers a broader selection and a clearer use case for each machine. Powerful workstation, reasonably powerful all-rounders and thin and light ultraportables.
I've had thoughts on this...I like my 2018 MBP and will use it until it fails. If the screen fails like others are experiencing I am going to pull the motherboard, throw a desktop heat sink on it and build a box around it and turn it into a ghetto Mac mini and see if I can't hack some kexts to get it to show as much and hopefully get it to run full bore. If the keyboard fails, well I guess I'll do the same thing, assuming there's no repair program in place. I will then replace my MBP with a Lenovo X1E or the equivalent assuming these failures happen in the next 2-5 years and not 10 years out.
Since my first Powerbook [the TI one] and many more since, the range was never about creating workstations. The basic premise of the computers has not changed in 20 years, but what has is what other manufacturers are doing.
I have zero expectations on Apple changing the nature of the pro series laptops and trying to make / wish for change is futile. Get the competition if you think you need more power, but doing a spec by spec comparison [at full price] you will be very surprised how the current Apple range stacks up.
I was [and still am] fully ready to use Windows for my business, but there just isn't enough 'extra' in the competition to make me do it.
If you truly need a lot of power, like I do, use a desktop, and have a laptop for the lighter work. It is a great combination.
And if you really need workstation power on the go, certainly buy a MSI / HP / Dell mobile workstation - they will be faster than the MacBook Pro without a doubt.
As far as my own needs go, I don’t need a lot of power at all, but I do want a 15” laptop form factor. In this way the lineup immediately lets me down because my only option is to shell out a lot of money for power I don’t need in the 15” pro.
As for people who do utilise this power, it’s not so much that the machine is under specified currently, it’s more that keeping it relevant is very difficult. A lot of people have pointed to the soldered RAM issue - you buy 16GB now to save on the extortionate upgrade price, but after a year or two your needs change and you find you actually could do with 32GB. Other than that the machine is fine, but you have to replace the whole thing.
Like I say you have lots of options if you’re in the market for a 13” thin and light machine, but other than that the range doesn’t have a lot to offer.
This would be nice, but unfortunately will never happen. Judging by what other manufacturers in addition to Apple are doing, the market wants thin and light over performance. If you look at competing PCs such as the X1E and XPS 15, they are all getting thinner and squeezing more into a smaller chassis while sacrificing cooling resulting in thermal throttling. Everyone is following the trend Apple has set, and the market is rewarding them for it. The difference is, Dell, HP, and Lenovo have institutional contracts that justify making the less portable workstation that mass market consumers have rejected. Apple simply cannot justify a machine like that. The market is not large enough.
I think what we will see is a culling of the line going forward. The TouchBar MacBook Pros stick around as they are and the non-TouchBar get discontinued. The MacBook and MacBook Air lines either combine, or the MacBook goes down market in price. I think Apple intended for the MacBook to replace the Air and has gone back on that. That would give you a three-tier lineup where the MacBook is your budget option or super thin/light, MacBook Air the mainstream option, and the Pro as the high end in both price and performance.
As I read it, I guess we are almost saying the same thing. The big difference is that I do not see Apple making something that is upgradable ever again. Nor do I see them going away from thin and light. The market does not want it.
The market might want it if it was offered.
A starving man may eat garbage, but that doesn't mean he prefers it over normal food. "The market's" insistence on non-upgradable, subscription-based consumer lock-in is a sham.
The market might want it if it was offered.
Maybe, but every PC manufacturer is moving toward the same model as Apple. Business machines still have upgradability from some manufacturers, but many of the more mainstream consumer lines do not. The vast majority of users do not care about upgrading. Few come close to ever taxing their system to the point of needing an upgrade.
Well to be clear I don’t think they will do this, it’s mainly my opinion on how they should reorganise to give some structure back to a lineup that currently feels like they’ve been adjusting it on the fly, just reacting to how people are buying, not giving a clear direction of travel.
Ultimately I think their vision of consumer computing is the iPad, where this leaves the MacBook, Air and even nTB pro I’m not sure. At the higher end I do think they would benefit from making a machine that has some capacity to be end user upgradable, at least as far as replacing the RAM, battery and maybe even the SSD if they use a standard M.2 slot. This is both in line with their environmental agenda, and is something I see quite a few enthusiasts at least, mention they miss from the unibody machines.
The market might want it if it was offered.
A brand cannot be everything to everyone. As I mentioned earlier they haven't changed their methods for years, so dont expect it now. When they were self upgradeable it still wasn't super easy, and I highly doubt the majority of their customers ever upgraded the internals.
Yes, I upgraded SSD from HD, added Ram, and even did the CD replacement with an additional HD. It was reasonably tricky and really won't expect most people ever did this.
The computers of today are what they always were and intended to be, its just tech has changed.
My wild prediction is that all the talk we hear about ARM coming to the Mac is actually an iOS laptop that replaces the Mac, at least on the low end. The easiest way to avoid what would be a nasty transition is to not have a transition at all. I do not think we will see macOS on ARM. I think iOS will start to replace macOS. iBook seems like a good name, right?
I know iOS is not ready for that kind of environment, but it just makes too much sense. No transition needed, it gives Apple ultimate control like they have with the other iOS devices, and consumers will likely eat it up. They already have Office 365 and Lightroom, and Photoshop is coming. That coupled with the good calendar and to do apps already available on iOS actually makes a rather compelling platform for a lot of consumers. Obviously it would require some work on a more exposed file system and mouse support along with possibly windowing support.
In a parallel world Jobs is still alive, Apple are making ones similar to those, and MR users are all singing Apple's praises.
Screen was what sold me on preordering the 2012 MBP, still hanging on to it. If Apple manages to make a screen substantially better than the competition, I'm game.
I'm waiting, but not holding my breath, moved on with the desktop OS. In that parallel world Jobs would be totally pissed off as he was all about the product & user experience. He knew it would speak for itself and the $$$$ would come naturally. Tim & Co are only about the $$$$ little else, trying to flog dead horse's with little to no imagination, no gut's, nickel & diming paradigm number one...
Over 20 years with the Mac, what a sad state of affairs
Q-6
Yeah, I know what you mean, I've been using Macs intermittently since he Mac SE, and full bore at the iMac Bondi Blue days. I don't even know how many years that is. I'm surprised I lasted this long, but I think that was because I fell into the frog/tepid water trick. Now that I'm on the outside looking in, I have to say how much better other laptops are.
There are a number of great PC manufacturers. I love the Thinkpad Line myself.
But the whole integration of MacOS with my iPhone and iPad are unbeatable for my usability. I cannot find that kind of integration on the PC side. The MacBook Pro’s are always sleek and gorgeous. I love my MacBook Pro’s keyboard. The touch bar is ok.
Pick the tool that works for you. Enjoy it! Life is short!
I agree with most of what you say here, though speaking strictly for myself I hate the keyboard. I hated it on my 2016, I hate it on my 2018 and find the touch bar unchanged and equally useless across both models. But looks, MacOS, and integration with all their iDevices are mostly what Apple has going for it these days and why people stick with it. Mostly the integration/ecosystem. I think that's the main draw that keeps people hooked and why I am on unit #5 when I should have probably given up 2 to 3 tries ago
I'm not going to miss that integration one bit:
1. Messages - yeah, this is cool and works well, although I'm getting an average of 0.1 iMessage a day.
2. Calls - almost never works, usually when I click accept the call disconnects and I fumble to find my phone and call back whoever it was. When it actually connects I sound supposedly like deep inside a water well, quiet with some reverb or echo added and I'm asked to call back again, this time using a phone.
3. Handoff - I don't always do real work on the phone or tablet, but when I do, the stuff I was working on is already synced to the cloud and dowloaded to laptop by the time I put the phone down, and the same the other way around. Not to mention that while it works well with native apps (which I don't use) you need to have a matching pair of third party apps and I was having issues to make it work consistently in such scenario, even if it was only to see if it works.
4. Clipboard - never used, have trouble imagining a situation that would require it.
5. Instant Hotspot - come on, that's two gestures on the phone to open up regular hotspot. I'd be ashamed to even market it as a feature.
Did I miss something? Or maybe I'm just not using it right.
I agree, I use Office 365 with One Drive and One Note across my killer desktop PC, late '13 iMac, iPhones and iPad. I deleted all of the Apple apps off of my devices. Don't miss anything.
I haven't jumped ship yet, but my trusty MB Air is getting pretty old. It sucks because I really like OSX but the current hardware is just unacceptable.
My current work laptop (Thinkpad T480s) is pretty decent. The touchpad is nowhere near as good as Apple's, but it has a functional keyboard that won't break in six months. Windows 10 is kind of a mess, but it would probably be OK if I installed Linux on it. Still a far cry from OSX though.
My current work laptop (Thinkpad T480s) is pretty decent. The touchpad is nowhere near as good as Apple's, but it has a functional keyboard that won't break in six months. Windows 10 is kind of a mess, but it would probably be OK if I installed Linux on it. Still a far cry from OSX though.
I do like being able to get messages on any of my devices, but admittedly I like that convenience due to my own poor phone habits. I tend to leave it around in various places and can never find it in when I need it. Better habits would solve that issue. That one is on me
Same goes with the answering calls. And honestly its a huge annoyance at times because a call will ring on my phone, watch and computer at the same time, but if I answer it from my phone (novel concept right?) i get a stuck ring on my computer that just goes on like a broken record for several minutes.
Instant Hotspot. Yeah, that's a marketing bullet point. A simplification of something that wasn't difficult, to begin with.
I am with you on a handoff. Some folks love it. I suppose it depends on the way you work, but like you, most of what I do is synced to the cloud or is from a program that has no IOS equivalent anyway.
Most of the integration I enjoy is between my iPhone and Apple Watch, other than paying better attention to where I leave my phone, not something I would miss that much on the laptop/desktop if I jumped. Half the people who message me don't use iMessage anyway for a variety of reasons. Some are on Android or PC. Or regularly communicate with others who are if they themselves are a Mac/iPhone user, so they have just gotten out of the habit of using it as their go to.
I forgot about that, somebody calls and I have stuff ringing from the basement to the bedroom floor. WHICH ONE IS THE PHONE????? To make matters worse, the actual phone is always the last to start ringing, by good ten seconds or so, like if they did it on purpose just to mess with you.
Hahaha. I don't know. Does the phone have to send the signal out to the other devices first in order to get the ringing? No idea. But its that stuttered/stuck ring tone on my MBP for minutes after I answer that drives me nuts. Nothing like trying to take a call than having to kill the volume on the MBP so you don't hear the dunt dunt dunt dunt dunt dunt dunt sound in the background while it is stuck again.