I have been a long time loyal Apple user. But, but....
- Have seen a lot of hardware issues the last years.
- El Capitan creates a lot of issues
- New machines make you totally dependent of Apple service, because storage is not removable anymore.
- Apple is censoring its community forum, and is not willing to talk about it.
It is wise to have some patience, but nevertheless, the problems with Apple products on this desk start to add up ugly in recent years.
The MBP on which I am typing right now has after a little over three years still it's original optical drive, screen and battery. To put it otherwise: RAM, logic board and hard drive, are all gone. The logic board has been replaced under extended warranty - but it took a long time before Apple committed itself after a court case in the US. The power supply has been replaced under warranty because of a badly designed cable. That is a lot, and believe me, I am careful with this computer. This has meant cost, downtime, and risk of data loss.
With El Capitan the internal audio out suddenly is not working: an internal hardware part from Apple itself! From a company that has a very narrow range of products, and set out a beta test of this new OS and got tons of feedback about all kind of USB audio issues. By the way: after downgrading to Yos it works fine again.
Motion, a professional product of Apple, has become unusable, because positioning text on screen is almost impossible. I keep my fingers crossed that Apple will fix this, but since my machine is locked out of the new Metal technology, I am not sure. By the way: after downgrading to Yos it works fine again.
May be a little over three years of support is the standard for phones, the mayor cash cow for Apple nowadays, but for professional products it is not acceptable.
It is not just Apple. I have a Caldigit Expresscard, a relatively expensive part, that just supported one single release of OSX. When I talk to CalDigit they point at Apple and the changes they made to the OS and of course Apple will tell that Caldigit has to take care of this.
Not to forget issues with TWAIN scanners. Apple dumped TWAIN support, but devices will keep on working as long as you don't do a clean update, because the old driver will remain there during an upgrade, but will not be installed again after a clean upgrade. Inconsistencies in the OS environment between an upgrade and a clean install are ugly. I expect that when I do a reinstall, let's say in the very rare event of a hardware failure, look above, I get the OS environment like it was before. Not, I get a new problem because an upgraded OS is different from a clean OS. By the way: the scanner has become unusable, long before the end of its technical life.
When Apple changes the rules, like they do now with EC, it would be very normal (and be very Linux/Unix like) to communicate with the end user. Instead, third party applications are being moved to other folders without any warning. How difficult a log file can be?
I am running a Mac Mini with OSX Server. Almost every update creates problems. Website down, calendar services down, mail down. Of course, I can fix it, but it is annoying. Also here lacks communication about changes and impact. How difficult a log file can be?
Unfortunately there are more things to worry. One of the paradigms in hardware design for a long time has been a sound separation of data storage versus processing. When you look at new Apple products it becomes difficult (iMac) or impossible (notebooks) to get your SSD memory drive out of it. This because chips are being soldered on the logic board itself. That means that you are totally dependent on Apple to get your data back and the answer to any occurring problem will be: new logic board. Apple logic boards are really expensive, apart from 95 euros 'investigation costs'.
Apple MBP's are advertised for heavy tasks like video editing. With my recent experience I feel they lack proper thermal control and that with the obsession of thinner devices with every iteration the suitability for compute intensive tasks becomes less.
Last but not least and really annoying. Discussing issues on Apple's forum proves to be difficult. For whatever reason they delete posts as they are considered against their Terms of Use.
- Have seen a lot of hardware issues the last years.
- El Capitan creates a lot of issues
- New machines make you totally dependent of Apple service, because storage is not removable anymore.
- Apple is censoring its community forum, and is not willing to talk about it.
It is wise to have some patience, but nevertheless, the problems with Apple products on this desk start to add up ugly in recent years.
The MBP on which I am typing right now has after a little over three years still it's original optical drive, screen and battery. To put it otherwise: RAM, logic board and hard drive, are all gone. The logic board has been replaced under extended warranty - but it took a long time before Apple committed itself after a court case in the US. The power supply has been replaced under warranty because of a badly designed cable. That is a lot, and believe me, I am careful with this computer. This has meant cost, downtime, and risk of data loss.
With El Capitan the internal audio out suddenly is not working: an internal hardware part from Apple itself! From a company that has a very narrow range of products, and set out a beta test of this new OS and got tons of feedback about all kind of USB audio issues. By the way: after downgrading to Yos it works fine again.
Motion, a professional product of Apple, has become unusable, because positioning text on screen is almost impossible. I keep my fingers crossed that Apple will fix this, but since my machine is locked out of the new Metal technology, I am not sure. By the way: after downgrading to Yos it works fine again.
May be a little over three years of support is the standard for phones, the mayor cash cow for Apple nowadays, but for professional products it is not acceptable.
It is not just Apple. I have a Caldigit Expresscard, a relatively expensive part, that just supported one single release of OSX. When I talk to CalDigit they point at Apple and the changes they made to the OS and of course Apple will tell that Caldigit has to take care of this.
Not to forget issues with TWAIN scanners. Apple dumped TWAIN support, but devices will keep on working as long as you don't do a clean update, because the old driver will remain there during an upgrade, but will not be installed again after a clean upgrade. Inconsistencies in the OS environment between an upgrade and a clean install are ugly. I expect that when I do a reinstall, let's say in the very rare event of a hardware failure, look above, I get the OS environment like it was before. Not, I get a new problem because an upgraded OS is different from a clean OS. By the way: the scanner has become unusable, long before the end of its technical life.
When Apple changes the rules, like they do now with EC, it would be very normal (and be very Linux/Unix like) to communicate with the end user. Instead, third party applications are being moved to other folders without any warning. How difficult a log file can be?
I am running a Mac Mini with OSX Server. Almost every update creates problems. Website down, calendar services down, mail down. Of course, I can fix it, but it is annoying. Also here lacks communication about changes and impact. How difficult a log file can be?
Unfortunately there are more things to worry. One of the paradigms in hardware design for a long time has been a sound separation of data storage versus processing. When you look at new Apple products it becomes difficult (iMac) or impossible (notebooks) to get your SSD memory drive out of it. This because chips are being soldered on the logic board itself. That means that you are totally dependent on Apple to get your data back and the answer to any occurring problem will be: new logic board. Apple logic boards are really expensive, apart from 95 euros 'investigation costs'.
Apple MBP's are advertised for heavy tasks like video editing. With my recent experience I feel they lack proper thermal control and that with the obsession of thinner devices with every iteration the suitability for compute intensive tasks becomes less.
Last but not least and really annoying. Discussing issues on Apple's forum proves to be difficult. For whatever reason they delete posts as they are considered against their Terms of Use.
