Experience taught me the opposite.
After having spent a fortune, at 55% premium over US retail, software updates on both ML and iOS6-iOS7.xx crippled so many functionalities that I sold my iPhone 5 and bought a much better functioning device at eleven times less than the cost of the 5. The cheap Chinese phone even came with a very thick, strong one metre long USB cable, unlike the Fraying Flimsy OEM Apple cables that also are seen as "this is not an Apple device" by Apple devices. The mess iCloud, which I was forced to be using in a country with hardly any "cloud", invoked the ire of thousands of users globally. It did the same with Notes, Calendar and Contacts. Apple to this day has not even properly restored local sync via wireless or USB, only some of it.
We invested into Apple
to avoud using Google. Our Apples only worked right
when using Google, in the end.
Steve Jobs took Apple to the grave and left us with the ghostly semblance of a once prime brand. Tim Cook and his tribe of directors also do not respond to user complaints; in Linux, I had very friendly exchanges with the developers/project leaders of AriOS (Mahdi) and Clem (Mint.) as well as UltimateOS, MakuluLinux, PearOS and Zorin, as well as a smaller one in the USA. How easy is it to chat online with Mr Cook?
I love Mac but will only use it when Cupertino really takes and interest and restore it to its former glory.
When I was a kid five decades ago, I saw how chickens could still run around wildly after their heads were chopped off. I did not like it then and I do not like it now.
Hardware for Linux:
Linux is even more stable and secure than Mac OS but there are T's & C's to consider.
- User-friendly distro's are limited to Mint & Zorin
- Out of 300 distro's, people choose what is popular. Herd mentality never is a good thing.
- Mac is not Linux, or the other way around, despite popular belief. Expectations should be realistic.
- The very BEST Linux I ever had was on a Mac.
- The most stable, secure, reliable, predictable OS experience I ever had was Linux Mint 13 - 17.1
- Combining best Linux with best Intel hardware makes sense!
My son is using his MBP for VJ'ing and he just loves Resolume Arena and similar DJ/VJ applications, as well as a few items from Adobe.
In Linux, one can have a system and never even need to update it to a next version as what you have will keep working forever until you break it, or hardware fails. Security patches are all that is needed. If a good MBP will last me 10 years, I will have an excellent stable and reliable ecosystem for a decade. I only need what I have now which is not really more than I had been using ten or twenty years ago. A basic browser, an office suite and that's about it.
If the MBP can accept a second HDD or mSATA, I need just 32GB (which is double my software + user data) to get ahead. Therefore, if I can stick in a 64GB SSD/mSATA next to MBP's own, I can enjoy best of both worlds.
Why use Linux then instead of Mac OS?
Linux does not nag updates and neither require them forcibly. It requires almost 5GB including all application software - full office suite, mail client, graphic design/photo editing, PDF reader, web browser, etc. It comes with a LOT of software installed and does not fill 5GB. It loads into about 360MB RAM (64-BIT) and much less in 32-BIT. Maybe around 170MB. Filling up 1-2GB RAM does not happen often, even with fairly heavy use. It also is even more secure against malware than Mac but that is irrelevant as even Macs don't get infected easily. I am typing here on an old eMachines with 2GB DDR and a weakling CPU called AMD Athlon x64 800MHz and the very latest Linux Mint just flies!
On the i5 MBP (non-retina) it is about 3x faster than Mavs! (I wonder how this machine would do on Yos? We are reluctant to upgrade = "lessons learnt.")
Questions from my side:
- Is 15" that much better than 13", is the price difference justified?
- Is Gforce GT750M that much better than Iris Pro that I need the dGPU? Cost difference is quite a few US$ and a fortune in my currency.
My son has an iPhone 5S and he is on iOS8 and Mavs on his MBP. The S is a much better product than my 5 was. We already cannot get the 5S here, only 5C, 6 and 6S. I don't want the 6's so it will be an Experia Z3 most likely, to take the place of the cheap but satisfactory Chinese interim measure.
The 5 had haywire wireless connectivity, power button went sour faster than farm milk in a thunderstrom and the GPS placed Cape Town just north of London. It is the most ridiculous gadget of any kind that I had ever owned. Tomorrow, a year ago, I received it NEW and had sold it by April this year, for a Huawei Ascend Y300 costing US$89 at the time.
MBP: the closest comparable devie to a 15" MBP Retina is a Dell Inspiron 7537, which costs about half the price and has double the USB ports, a full-sized backlit keyboard and should be a wiser buy than the Apple because of cost savings. It also comes with a 3-year on-site warranty. In my country, I cannot even buy the real Apple iCare of whatever it is called.
The MBP, however, just works out of the box with Linux Mint and I am in love with its design, that svelte keyboard, the perceived quality and how it feels to the touch. No logic there, just sentiment directing my wallet!
IF - a big IF - Mac will be more predictable and MS Office for Mac retains Outlook in its off-line capable format, I might consider it. Outlook is the ONE piece of software that Seattle ever got right. Mac & Linux lags behind, with Linux depending upon quirky Thunderbird and unstable Evolution while Mac's mail client is a fork of Geary (Linux) which is a toy from ............ Google!
IBM bought the fantastic Lotus Organizer (and the enter Smartsuite) and shelved it. What were they thinking?
So: here I am comparing Apples with Apples as far as screen sizes and GPU's are concerned. If anyone can help me choose between:
- MBP 13" i5 US$1,467
- MBP 15" 2.2GHz Iris Pro US$2,058
- MBP 15" with Geforce GT750M US$2,791
Eyesight is weakening and a bigger screen will be better but I can set up an external backlit LED 27" plus Kanex Keyboard + Magic Mouse for much less than the cheapest 15" will cost.
EDIT: my wife, my son and I all may be inetrested in taking up photography as a serious hobby and we may need to edit photo's and also video footage we collect.
