Goodbye Apple. It's been a fun ride.

[technosix]

My gripe is that I think it's way past due the laptop lineup had a chassis redesign.

I agree completely.

Apple has milked this present design for far too long. But then again Apple's true problem is they simply have a rotten design team.

If only they had world class designers like Jony Ive... oh wait

 

[TPadden]

.....but it's up to one's taste if that person wants cheap looking device rather than a magnificent looking machine.

I'm not a fanboy to the exclusion of other devices; but to each his or her own .

 

[Meister]

So, do I spend $1,800 on the next MBA,.....

you are being ripped off.

 

[cbautis2]

you are being ripped off.

He probably meant next maxed out rMBP 13 without being CTO.

 

[Meister]

He probably meant next maxed out rMBP 13 without being CTO.

I don't know what the OP is doing, but the base mba is excellent for the vast majority of users.
s bto upgrades are overpriced.
It seems to be an endemic phenomenon that a lot of users order exepensive bto machines from apple and then complain about the price.

Here a new mba runs for 750€ - 850€, all fees and taxes included of course.
That is not expensive at all for a high end laptop.

 

[Aragornii]

Meh...I bought a Windows 8 laptop for my wife since it was more compatible with her work software. After 2 weeks and nearly throwing it through a window (no pun intended) I replaced it with another MBA. Crappy ugly hardware and the worst UI ever.

 

[Zeos]

I hear your frustration. The latest iteration OS X/iOS/iTunes is not a stable mix. But, the multitude of issues you describe seems somewhat unlikely. Multiple MacBooks, iMac, Mini all bombing overnight ? Have you checked the power supply in your house for spikes and brown-outs ?

Agree. But my iMac at home and Mac Mini at work, at least three times per week, will say "Your computer restarted because of a problem" when I open it up in the morning. My Air has done the same things several times on business trips. I started to shut down all apps before putting the computers to sleep, and that has not helped. The Mini at work is on a backup battery supply. I'm guessing it is the PowerNap feature that is causing an issue. IDK. Can't recreate the problem at the Genius Bar, also they won't be able to help.

----------

I don't know what the OP is doing, but the base mba is excellent for the vast majority of users.

I run my Air hard, and I admit that it crashes less frequently that the iMac or Mini. But the issues, IMHO opinion, are inexcusable. My Air used to just suddenly black out and go dead for several minutes. I installed Temperature Gauge Pro to get the fan running at high speeds at a lower temp and that has helped a lot (although my MBA is very noisy now). The other black screen I get is when the battery dies. The MBA doesn't go to sleep anymore at low battery. The computer just dies and all is gone. My first attempt at this posting resulted in a Safari beachball for 25 minutes before I hard reset. My TimeCapsule backup goes bad at least one per quarter with an "unreadable" error. I have to delete the backup and start fresh. etc. etc. Issues have definitely picked up since Yosemite.

----------

you are being ripped off.

Maxed MBA is $1749, plus tax.

 

[theSeb]

Agree. But my iMac at home and Mac Mini at work, at least three times per week, will say "Your computer restarted because of a problem" when I open it up in the morning. My Air has done the same things several times on business trips. I started to shut down all apps before putting the computers to sleep, and that has not helped. The Mini at work is on a backup battery supply. I'm guessing it is the PowerNap feature that is causing an issue. IDK. Can't recreate the problem at the Genius Bar, also they won't be able to help.

Did you upgrade all of these Macs to Yosemite? What third party apps are you using that usually run in the background, or could possibly have installed 3rd party kernel extensions? For example, did you install any software that comes with external hard drives and so forth?

I am not trying to apologise for OS X and I can see how your issues can cause frustration, but I can assure you that your problems are not normal and that power nap works, in most cases.

 

[Zeos]

Funny how the things that you describe never happens on my 2011 MacBook Air with Yosemite. I've never seen a beach ball on any of my daily tasks or even moderately CPU intensive tasks. BeachBalls showing up might be due to CPU throttling too much, I've cleaned the fans every 2 weeks since I purchased it to prevent dust build up. Maybe I'm just lucky that my MBA works perfectly.

Did you do a clean install with Yosemite? I was thinking that might be my next step on my MBA, Mini, and iMac. Yes, my CPU throttles a lot (the Temperature Gauge Pro app is always cranking the fan).

----------

Did you upgrade all of these Macs to Yosemite? What third party apps are you using that usually run in the background, or could possibly have installed 3rd party kernel extensions? For example, did you install any software that comes with external hard drives and so forth?

I am not trying to apologise for OS X and I can see how your issues can cause frustration, but I can assure you that your problems are not normal and that power nap works, in most cases.

No hard drive software, but I do have a number of apps running in the background. Skydive, google drive, dropbox, Evernote, moom, alfred, fantasical.

 

[theSeb]

Did you do a clean install with Yosemite? I was thinking that might be my next step on my MBA, Mini, and iMac. Yes, my CPU throttles a lot (the Temperature Gauge Pro app is always cranking the fan).

When this happens and you feel that the CPU is throttling, you can check this by opening the terminal and typing

pmset -g thermlog

This will keep running and show you thermal events in the terminal window. You can close it by hitting ctrl + c and quitting the terminal. When CPU_Speed_limit goes below 100, the CPU is throttling. Intel Power Gadget is a much easier option, but I haven't tried it in Yosemite, so I am not sure if it will work.

Now it's time to start trying to find the possible culprit behind your issues.

In the terminal window copy and paste this (make sure to copy the entire line, not just what is visible for the lines with the scroll bars)

kextstat -kl | awk '!/com\.apple/{printf "%s %s\n", $6, $7}' | open -ef

...and press return

This will open your default text file app (usually TextEdit) and, if there is anything in there, paste the contents of TextEdit in a reply

Next, copy and paste the following in to the terminal

{ sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.(apple|openssh|vix\.cron)|org\.(amav|apac|cups|isc|ntp|postf|x)/{print $3}'; echo; sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook; echo; sudo crontab -l; } 2> /dev/null | open -ef

Repeat as above, but this will ask you for your admin password - type it in and press return (the text will not show up in the terminal when you type it in).

Do not worry, I am not doing anything nefarious and any other poster on this forum with technical knowledge will confirm that. if anything comes up in the TextEdit window, then paste it in your reply

Another line for copy and paste

{ launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple|org\.(x|openbsd)/{print $3}'; echo; crontab -l 2> /dev/null; } | open -ef

You should know the drill by now

Finally,

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of login items' | open -ef

When copying and pasting the results of these commands, I highly recommend that you put them into [ code ] [ / code ] tags so that it is easy for us to read.

Edit:

Finally, the next time your Mac crashes, open the crash report (it will prompt after the crash/restart). You can choose to send it to Apple, but it would be useful to copy and paste the contents of it again into [ code ] tags.

 

[kittencounter]

It clearly depends on the user and how he/she uses the computer. I had a windows VAIO laptop and it served me over 4 years without any reinstall and maintenance and it still runs fine with windows 8 on it. I bought the 15 rMBP in 2012 because of it's solid build quality, solid battery life, excellent pre-calibrated display and the best trackpad. It still running for over 2 years now without shutting down once or manual restart (unless installations force it). People keep talking about the differences between OSX and Windows ...honestly I don't give a damn. You get used to the systems in no time. But what really make the Mac great are the Mac Apps. When you switch to OSX and apps like Tower, Sublime Text, Alfred, Sparrow, Fantastical, Pages, Keynote...etc. just make the computer like an "usability-dream". I stopped recommend people what computer they should buy because people are very different and do all kind of weird stuffs with their machines.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

The MBA starts out at $899 and the maxed out 13" ends at $1749 with an i7 & 512GB SSD.
Take Dell's newest 13" XPS ultra book, starting at $899 (i5) and when loaded tops out at $1449 with max i5 & 256GB SSD, whereas the MBA goes to i7 & 512GB.
With an i5 & 256GB, the MBA is only $1299.

Granted, you get the new QHD display on the higher priced Dell, but the point is, given the same specs, PCs are not a whole lot cheaper.

You're off on a few points. You can get an i7 and 512gb SSD from Dell, the QHD screen is a touch screen, and the battery life is somewhere around 12-15 hours.

I paid $1600 for the i5/256gb model, including tax and the extended warranty. It's pretty much equal to the MBA, pricing wise, and slightly better, spec wise.

 

[Meister]

I run my Air hard, and I admit that it crashes less frequently that the iMac or Mini. But the issues, IMHO opinion, are inexcusable. My Air used to just suddenly black out and go dead for several minutes. I installed Temperature Gauge Pro to get the fan running at high speeds at a lower temp and that has helped a lot (although my MBA is very noisy now). The other black screen I get is when the battery dies. The MBA doesn't go to sleep anymore at low battery. The computer just dies and all is gone. My first attempt at this posting resulted in a Safari beachball for 25 minutes before I hard reset. My TimeCapsule backup goes bad at least one per quarter with an "unreadable" error. I have to delete the backup and start fresh. etc. etc. Issues have definitely picked up since Yosemite.

Sounds like you own a defective unit.

----------

Maxed MBA is $1749, plus tax.

What do you do that requires all these upgrades?
The i7 runs hotter than the i5 btw.

 

[theSeb]

Sounds like you own a defective unit.

Not necessarily. The culprit could be third-party software.

I have similar issues with TM on different Macs and I am forced to format and create new backups from scratch about twice a year, but these problems have been around since TM has been around and are unrelated to his Yosemite, crashing and high fan use complaints anyway.

 

[cbautis2]

Did you do a clean install with Yosemite? I was thinking that might be my next step on my MBA, Mini, and iMac. Yes, my CPU throttles a lot (the Temperature Gauge Pro app is always cranking the fan).

I do clean install major OS updates then restoring Apps and settings from time machine. I wait for spotlight to finish indexing then voila it's perfect as it can be. Remember to always do a dust cleanup on any laptop (mac or pc) every 2 weeks to keep the machine running as good as it gets.

 

[cbautis2]

Meh...I bought a Windows 8 laptop for my wife since it was more compatible with her work software. After 2 weeks and nearly throwing it through a window (no pun intended) I replaced it with another MBA. Crappy ugly hardware and the worst UI ever.

Windows 8 on a laptop is an abomination. Windows 7 is tolerable but extremely boring and dull. PureCrap (PC) laptops are just crap with zero reliability hardware and drivers. PC and Windows will always be inferior to Macs and OS X.

 

[case2001]

Hey sorry for your problems.

As stated earlier, why buy new machines. If Windows 8 works for you just install it on your current hardware. That is one of the big reasons I switched to Mac's in the first place. I thought if I didn't like it, I could go back to Windows on the same hardware.

Next, if you don't require the features of Yosemite or newer iOS, why upgrade at all? Simply downgrade back to what worked.

Finally, I would remove any third party software one week at a time and see if that improves your problems. Start with the least used/least needed on your main machine and see if that improves your problems.

I understand how frustrating it can be, but throwing the baby out with the bath water is not a solution.

 

[Zeos]

----------

[/COLOR]What do you do that requires all these upgrades?
The i7 runs hotter than the i5 btw.

Autocad, Photoshop, Parallels, and Final Cut Pro are the bigger resource hogs that seem to benefit from the faster processor/more RAM.

 

[bubbleboil]

Ran yosemite since available till now and my computer only crash twice.

Been playing games like arkam knight, tomb raider, left for dead and my MBA manage to maintain temperature at 65 degree for 2 or 3 hours.

Currently using 2013 mba, i5 with 8 gb ram. But my old macbook with 2gb ram can barely run lion, maverick or yosemite but heard many says they run fine with more ram . So I think many issues is due to ram?

 

[bluush]

When this happens and you feel that the CPU is throttling, you can check this by opening the terminal and typing

pmset -g thermlog

This will keep running and show you thermal events in the terminal window. You can close it by hitting ctrl + c and quitting the terminal. When CPU_Speed_limit goes below 100, the CPU is throttling. Intel Power Gadget is a much easier option, but I haven't tried it in Yosemite, so I am not sure if it will work.

Now it's time to start trying to find the possible culprit behind your issues.

In the terminal window copy and paste this (make sure to copy the entire line, not just what is visible for the lines with the scroll bars)

kextstat -kl | awk '!/com\.apple/{printf "%s %s\n", $6, $7}' | open -ef

...and press return

This will open your default text file app (usually TextEdit) and, if there is anything in there, paste the contents of TextEdit in a reply

Next, copy and paste the following in to the terminal

{ sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.(apple|openssh|vix\.cron)|org\.(amav|apac|cups|isc|ntp|postf|x)/{print $3}'; echo; sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook; echo; sudo crontab -l; } 2> /dev/null | open -ef

Repeat as above, but this will ask you for your admin password - type it in and press return (the text will not show up in the terminal when you type it in).

Do not worry, I am not doing anything nefarious and any other poster on this forum with technical knowledge will confirm that. if anything comes up in the TextEdit window, then paste it in your reply

Another line for copy and paste

{ launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple|org\.(x|openbsd)/{print $3}'; echo; crontab -l 2> /dev/null; } | open -ef

You should know the drill by now

Finally,

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of login items' | open -ef

When copying and pasting the results of these commands, I highly recommend that you put them into [ code ] [ / code ] tags so that it is easy for us to read.

Edit:

Finally, the next time your Mac crashes, open the crash report (it will prompt after the crash/restart). You can choose to send it to Apple, but it would be useful to copy and paste the contents of it again into [ code ] tags.

The mere fact you have to waste your time doing all this nonsense is confirmation that OS X is, as another said, in its Vista stage and desperately needs help. Apple products should just work. No ifs, ands or buts. While I haven't been pushed into browsing Windows machines again (yet), I must admit Apple is really letting the quality of their OS software wane.

 

[Meister]

Autocad, Photoshop, Parallels, and Final Cut Pro are the bigger resource hogs that seem to benefit from the faster processor/more RAM.

Your workload sounds like rmbp material to me.
Get the base 15". Same price, more power

 

[theSeb]

The mere fact you have to waste your time doing all this nonsense is confirmation that OS X is, as another said, in its Vista stage and desperately needs help. Apple products should just work. No ifs, ands or buts. While I haven't been pushed into browsing Windows machines again (yet), I must admit Apple is really letting the quality of their OS software wane.

I didn't see any nonsense. This is a very quick and easy way to diagnose what third party kernel extensions and apps are starting/running etc. Doing this on Windows requires a bit more work than a couple of terminal commands. It shows the power of an operating system that is built on FreeBSD.

The whole "Apple quality is going down" song is old and untrue and anecdotal evidence is not going to prove it. It also gets boring to read about ever year.

Apple, like pretty much all companies, has an illustrious history of pushing out clunky software, even when Steve Jobs was around.

 

[rotorblade69]

I don't blame you my friend.

The skinny beach ball is now more prevalent on the wife's mid 2012 MBA after the Yosemite update. Which I wish I had never done the update.
I find stuff freezes up more now and I have to Force Quit more and more.

I hate the look of Yosemite and it seems more "Buggy"



On the flip side my dad hates Windows 8.

Well, after several years of Apple laptop ownership, we are going back to Windows on our next laptop. We converted during the "Hi I'm a PC" ads, and loved how the Mac truly just worked. But now, after it seems Apple has overextended OS X with features and neglected the everyday cleanup up of code, we can no longer justify the premium price. Our laptops hang, apps stop running, the iMac, Air, and Mini frequently bomb overnight, iTunes sync is a mess, the gray screen of death is becoming more common, and the spinning beachball is a common occurrence. Even my friends are saying that they "aren't as happy with Apple as we used to be." So, do I spend $1,800 on the next MBA, or do I spend $850 on a souped-up Windows PC? I can buy two of those in four years and still come out ahead. I hope that Apple is again worth the price someday.

 

[tdale]

I think this is clearly a pebkac issue.

Correct. Does every Mac user have every problem everyday? If yes, its a mess, if no, its pebkac

 

[motrek]

Did you do a clean install with Yosemite? I was thinking that might be my next step on my MBA, Mini, and iMac. Yes, my CPU throttles a lot (the Temperature Gauge Pro app is always cranking the fan).

----------



No hard drive software, but I do have a number of apps running in the background. Skydive, google drive, dropbox, Evernote, moom, alfred, fantasical.

No need to futz with the command line just yet. Just go to Activity Monitor and see what's taking up all your CPU time.

What if you find out that ironically Skydrive (a piece of Microsoft software) has a bug in it and is causing your computer to be slow, hot, loud, and beachball all the time?