Are we at the point yet where we've all acknowledged the steaming cesspool that windows has become? Obviously not. Saying it as someone that would have NEVER expected to willingly prefer a Mac or...
Are we at the point yet where we've all acknowledged the steaming cesspool that windows has become? Obviously not. Saying it as someone that would have NEVER expected to willingly prefer a Mac or OS X back when I was forced onto my first Apple device back in ~2011.
If apple forcefully reclaimed the enthusiast market by making the hardware repairable, that would be an unstoppable juggernaut.
Of course, all real software (he says, tongue in cheek) runs on Linux. Not even a competition. Just reality.
Honestly, glad to see Apple rewarding by growing market share. I keep yearly or so tabs on the market of available laptop hardware. As far as I can tell ... No one is close yet.
Apple provides self repair kits for their devices. Ones that are more difficult to repair these days are less because of bespoke screws and more because of the origami required to put a lot of...
If apple forcefully reclaimed the enthusiast market by making the hardware repairable, that would be an unstoppable juggernaut.
Apple provides self repair kits for their devices. Ones that are more difficult to repair these days are less because of bespoke screws and more because of the origami required to put a lot of computer in a handheld device. Notably the new $600 MacBook driving this article is quite repairable.
It's more of a swing back to their roots, too. Macs in the 2005-2012 range were very easy to work on. My 2008 MacBook had an intentionally user-serviceable battery, RAM and HDD. You just turned a...
It's more of a swing back to their roots, too. Macs in the 2005-2012 range were very easy to work on.
My 2008 MacBook had an intentionally user-serviceable battery, RAM and HDD. You just turned a coin in a slot and the battery would come off the bottom. Then two screws would remove a panel that let you slide the RAM and HDD out, without even taking the whole bottom off.
The 2011 was fairly doable too. A few philips (autocorrect says "philosopher's") screws to take the bottom off and you could easily get at all of those parts.
My 2006 MacBook was free because it was stolen from the original owner, ditched in a bush and left outside for three days in the rain, recovered, and the original owner said I could have it if I...
My 2008 2006 MacBook was free because it was stolen from the original owner, ditched in a bush and left outside for three days in the rain, recovered, and the original owner said I could have it if I could fix it since he had already gotten a new one.
I let it dry thoroughly, cleaned up any debris inside, slapped a new battery and HDD in and used it for a good year. Those polycarbonates were fantastic, I still have a 2011 2008 model in the basement although the screen is shot. Speaking of which, I did replace the screen on one of them at one point - also a very easy repair.
Edit: got my dates a little mixed up. I got the free 2006 model in 2008, then got a 2008 model in 2009.
To be fair, most laptops from that era were easy to work on. Laptops from back then were more similar to desktops today. They used commodity hardware, standardized expansion slots, and accessible...
To be fair, most laptops from that era were easy to work on. Laptops from back then were more similar to desktops today. They used commodity hardware, standardized expansion slots, and accessible cases. I upgraded many laptops by replacing their CPUs back then.
A laptop with a removable CPU is unheard of nowadays.
True story! And that's what I'm essentially referencing, honestly. They have a LONG way to go. Extensible GPUs, replaceable RAM and NVMe (or equivalent). They have a lot of work to do, and a lot...
True story! And that's what I'm essentially referencing, honestly. They have a LONG way to go. Extensible GPUs, replaceable RAM and NVMe (or equivalent). They have a lot of work to do, and a lot of trust to rebuild.
I'm confident the EU can help keep them on the open standards path, as well.
Most of that isn't Apple artificially doing anything, just design choices. You're not going to be able to replace RAM when it's literally on the SoC package. The latter is required for the GPU,...
Most of that isn't Apple artificially doing anything, just design choices. You're not going to be able to replace RAM when it's literally on the SoC package. The latter is required for the GPU, which needs lower latency than socketed DDR5 can have. Similarly, the system is really built around close integration between the integrated GPU and CPU.
The only thing that Apple could do better really is that to have non-soldered SSDs, although even then the SoC is actually the memory controller instead of having a discrete memory controller like consumer SSDs.
They started with the soldered SSDs, also, for performance reasons. They were doing PCIe bus SSDs before the industry landed on the m.2 form factor. And since they buy tons of raw flash chips...
They started with the soldered SSDs, also, for performance reasons. They were doing PCIe bus SSDs before the industry landed on the m.2 form factor. And since they buy tons of raw flash chips already for phones, designing their own controller instead of buying premade units made sense. (I think they've moved back to socketing on at least some models now.)
DDR6 is only now starting to address the RAM socketing issue, years later.
Apple's pushing boundaries consistently, not making commodity hardware. They're the last standing specialty Unix workstation manufacturer, like SGI or Sun, not Dell.
Time will tell...there's some possibility that we'll just start seeing all RAM being soldered next to the CPU going forward. DDR6 isn't going to be the same style of DIMM socket anymore. It might...
Time will tell...there's some possibility that we'll just start seeing all RAM being soldered next to the CPU going forward.
DDR6 isn't going to be the same style of DIMM socket anymore. It might be a CAMM2 form factor, which is basically a daughter board that screws down next to the CPU (kind of like m.2 SSDs) or it might end up just being the end of sockets for RAM.
Oh wow, I did a quick search on what it would mean to replace soldered RAM and it sounded like a very tricky job, with some pretty deep potential pits to fall down. Thanks for the link about that...
Oh wow, I did a quick search on what it would mean to replace soldered RAM and it sounded like a very tricky job, with some pretty deep potential pits to fall down. Thanks for the link about that potential form factor, that was interesting. I hope it does end up as a replaceable component generally.
I kind of think we're insisting on the wrong thing with upgradable ram... Modularity has a cost, upgradable ram doesn't seem worth that cost. Just build well rounded systems from the start with...
I kind of think we're insisting on the wrong thing with upgradable ram...
Modularity has a cost, upgradable ram doesn't seem worth that cost.
Just build well rounded systems from the start with the appropriate amount of ram for the workflow expected with each laptop's processor.
most people won't bother upgrading the ram, it doesn't make sense to make ram upgradable (with all the hits to performance / reliability / cost ) just for a few enthousiastic hobby tinkerer. Just buy the right amount of ram from the begining, have it be a complete reliable and whole system, and gift it / sell it as a whole if you ever outgrow it.
Making SSD upgradable is legitimate, as those can get damaged with use, but ram is pretty much indestructible.
same with swappable battery with no soldering, it's really not necessary... just make the case openable and have the parts available. that's fairly easy and provides 99% of the value.
Funny, I think exactly the opposite! I don't think the throughput gains of integrating memory are worth the loss of modularity. I suspect I have a very different perspective on this subject...
Funny, I think exactly the opposite! I don't think the throughput gains of integrating memory are worth the loss of modularity.
I suspect I have a very different perspective on this subject though, as I've spent the last decade or so as a computer hardware repair technician. "Indestructible" RAM sounds like a great thing, and I hope I get to see it before I die. I've certainly never seen it yet.
It should be noted that completely integrated SBCs sound like a great idea, until you consider the sustainability of making entire computers indivisible disposable goods. Having worked in both the repair and recycling sides of the industry, I can assure you that whatever you think about refurbishment and recycling is almost certainly incorrect. Almost no one does board-level repairs anymore–to the point where you have to pay a premium in time and money just to find someone capable of doing it– and it's certainly not done for consumer-grade integrated systems like the ones you're talking about. What happens is that SBCs are slagged for their precious metals, which then go into building more SBCs. That's a horrendously energy inefficient process, which is why "recycle" is the last term in the mantra "reduce, reuse, recycle." It's the thing you do when all else fails, not the first resort when a whole unit goes belly-up.
This is a particular bugbear of mine born of years of frustration with my chosen career, so I won't afflict you too much with my pronouncements on the subject. Suffice to say, the paradigm for which you're advocating es no bueno, and for more reasons than just some amorphous conception of "ownership."
Well you're obviously more qualified than me on this subject. I've personnaly never had ram be the weak point on my and my family's devices. In fact I've never had anything fail other than...
Well you're obviously more qualified than me on this subject.
I've personnaly never had ram be the weak point on my and my tech support responsability family's devices. In fact I've never had anything fail other than screens, batteries and input device (keys and joysticks).
Is ram really that fragile or are you exagerating to support your preference?
I completely agree that it's reduce/reuse/recycle, in that order, I'm not advocating for not reusing laptops, I'm advocating for reusing laptop as a unit. Recycling sbc is worse than reusing, but the ram you add to your old computer has to come from somewhere, usually another old computer which will be recycled once ram has been extracted (cann't be used without ram) so mostly recycled. Wouldn't it be better to still have 2 working computer (and learn to use a lightweigt linux for frugal computing = reduce) instead of 1 computer with more ram. Most laptop i've seen being thrown away were fully fonctional, they didn't need a ram upgrade to save them, just the will to tolerate 1 minute boot time (the horror).
And it sucks that board level repairs are harder to get, but why stop at ram, why not make every capacitor and chip slotable to make it easely home repairable? I assume you agree that would be insane (insanely cool, but insane) and would bring more trouble that it fixes. It's not a slipery slope argument (which i think are more valid than internet people think), it a guenuine question of why you want end user replaceble ram but not replaceable capacitor?
I would love to be afflicted with your views on the subject ( i repeat, you are very likely more knowledgable, i'm pushing back to hopefully exorcise fully my old views on this), if you have the energy.
RAM isn't fragile, exactly, but there isn't a day that goes by in my shop where we don't have at least one bad module or integrated memory IC on a system board cross a bench. It's fitting that the...
RAM isn't fragile, exactly, but there isn't a day that goes by in my shop where we don't have at least one bad module or integrated memory IC on a system board cross a bench.
It's fitting that the reliability of RAM is under discussion, because a few years ago a big part of my job was to test DIMMs and SO-DIMMs in isolation. I remember getting thousands of modules of registered and ECC memory and testing them one by one in a specialized device with an automated test sequence. I've tested literally thousands of memory modules, and yes, the vast majority of them were still good, even after thousands of hours of continuous operation. I've also had modules die because one person handed it to another. Electronics be weird like that.
The point I made before about SBCs and integrated systems (by which I mean systems with primary components all soldered together on a single PCB, slightly distinct from the technical definition of "SBC") is salient: these boards are almost never actually repaired. When a system using them is fixed, it's almost without exception done as a component-level repair with the faulty board slagged. This is regardless of whether all the other components on the integrated board are good or not, which makes every potential point of failure a reason for perfectly good electronics to be destroyed. It's a monumentally wasteful paradigm, and it's more than in an abstract moral sense of "it's bad to be wasteful." Individual ICs aren't lifted from boards because the economic incentive simply isn't there. It would be cheaper energetically to salvage components, but it's more labor-intensive and requires some specialized knowledge and experience, and the OEMs have constructed their supply chains specifically to discourage the practice. Apple has been a major force in that shift.
Mind you, it doesn't have to be that way, it's just the way that the economic system has been constructed. The manufacturers like it because it simplifies their RMA processes and grants them almost complete control over access to parts, which in turn allows them to control lifecycles. You will throw away your system–because that's essentially what recycling is–and buy a new one, simply because that's the way they prefer it. The true cost of that paradigm is hidden under actuarial calculations, logistics partnerships, regulatory capture, subsidies, and a host of other not-entirely-aboveboard machinations.
So yes, you do get performance gains by packing everything together on a single board, but the cost of that performance gain is far greater than is immediately apparent. We also simply don't know if there are other ways to boost performance and keep Moore's Law chugging along for another decade, because the incentives simply aren't there for the manufacturers to find them. They're actually disincentivized from doing so.
I'll leave it at that for now. I've been trying to write this reply on my breaks, so apologies if it's a bit disjointed. I could probably have done a better job if I'd just sat down to put my thoughts down in one go, but such is not my lot at the moment.
I agree! Doesn't mean I'm happy with that set of trends in mobile computing. I make the evaluation that it's an acceptable set of compromises and find myself willing to buy apple laptop hardware....
I agree! Doesn't mean I'm happy with that set of trends in mobile computing. I make the evaluation that it's an acceptable set of compromises and find myself willing to buy apple laptop hardware.
Just hoping we can keep the desktop modality alive during my lifetime.
I look at my Mac Studio as a bad dollar-vote, whereas my many Linux-based desktop builds to be excellent dollar-votes.
Ever heard of the expression, "vote with your dollars"? Same basic idea. How you spend your money is an expression of your values and consumer preferences.
Ever heard of the expression, "vote with your dollars"? Same basic idea. How you spend your money is an expression of your values and consumer preferences.
The irony is that Apple is also adding a lot of annoying changes that are making their first party apps worse in recent times. It’s just that Microsoft is doing considerably more damage to their...
The irony is that Apple is also adding a lot of annoying changes that are making their first party apps worse in recent times. It’s just that Microsoft is doing considerably more damage to their own platform with wave after wave of increasingly anti-consumer practices and unpopular features.
I personally have been driven to consider Apple for the first time in 20 years because of the ongoing enshittification of everything. Vendors are attacking interoperability of services, the open...
I personally have been driven to consider Apple for the first time in 20 years because of the ongoing enshittification of everything. Vendors are attacking interoperability of services, the open web is no longer committed to being open. On top of that it is getting to the point where every company wants to change for everything: mail, photo storage, music, the list goes on.
If I'm going to have go pay for basic services, I may as well go with a company that has shown commitment to high quality hardware.
Before covid our company to buy Macs only for special roles/purposes. Now we only buy non-macs for special purposes. You're exactly right: It's hard to overstate how huge the change has been....
Before covid our company to buy Macs only for special roles/purposes.
Now we only buy non-macs for special purposes.
You're exactly right: It's hard to overstate how huge the change has been.
Apple is also making bank because their hardware is so much more expensive. Still worth it because it does the job better. For many local AI-models, or just transcribing audio, Macs are just extemely much more easy and quick to use without any special expertise.
Everyone's hiking prices up like crazy. Meanwhile, the reputable company known for a premium market is making one of the more affordable options. Seems inevitable, given the state of things.
Everyone's hiking prices up like crazy. Meanwhile, the reputable company known for a premium market is making one of the more affordable options. Seems inevitable, given the state of things.
The competition for laptops has also been shipping sub standard defective junk for so long that I basically expect a windows laptop to have the hinges snap, have problems sleeping, and multiple...
The competition for laptops has also been shipping sub standard defective junk for so long that I basically expect a windows laptop to have the hinges snap, have problems sleeping, and multiple other defects. Meanwhile Apple has maintained an incredible level of polish and quality.
The Neo feels like they kept the quality exactly the same but just removed the extra stuff not everyone needs.
Vertical integration. High performance and good battery life. They pay a lot of attention to the peripherals - trackpad, keyboard, screen. They don't feel cheap, even when they're $600. I would...
Vertical integration. High performance and good battery life. They pay a lot of attention to the peripherals - trackpad, keyboard, screen. They don't feel cheap, even when they're $600. I would absolutely prefer to be running Debian but still need the computer to be well made. I'm considering the Framework Pro later in the year depending on how the M6 redesign works out.
It's interesting that (in general, not specific to your reply) people seem to praise Apple's vertical integration, and belittle everyone else's. When Apple forces their users into their ecosystem,...
It's interesting that (in general, not specific to your reply) people seem to praise Apple's vertical integration, and belittle everyone else's. When Apple forces their users into their ecosystem, it's commonly spoken of as positive, but if Google, Microsoft, or anyone else does, it's not.
I guess when you control all the hardware so there's not a "cheap version" vendor selling it, then it's easier to control the narrative and come across as more premium hardware. There are high and low performing devices running everywhere else, but only Apple hardware can run Apple stuff.
Personally, I find more value in things like right-to-repair and open standard protocols. If Apple ever decides to get on board with that, and stop bullying non apple users with their marketing and lawyers, maybe I'll try them out.
I think there’s an uncanny valley on the software integration that Apple is uniquely on the far side of. But I didn’t just mean iPhone+Mac vertical integration. I also mean they make their own...
I think there’s an uncanny valley on the software integration that Apple is uniquely on the far side of. But I didn’t just mean iPhone+Mac vertical integration. I also mean they make their own track pads, SoCs, etc and leverage this degree of control to optimize battery life and the overall user experience.
You're not wrong at all. It's the odd, longstanding product cult where users bought in at a time when Apple did design software better, it was easier to link your iPod or they had advantages in...
You're not wrong at all.
It's the odd, longstanding product cult where users bought in at a time when Apple did design software better, it was easier to link your iPod or they had advantages in the security front.
Now, they're all still there, and loving the company as if it still was still in a league of its own with all of the above, but realistically, it just has them so far in the garden that they'll never leave.
I only recently got into the ecosystem. I’m pretty disappointed with MacOS. WatchOS as well but that’s not really a necessity. Debian, and similarly well ran distros, are a big upgrade for me and...
I only recently got into the ecosystem. I’m pretty disappointed with MacOS. WatchOS as well but that’s not really a necessity. Debian, and similarly well ran distros, are a big upgrade for me and I’m looking for a way to jump ship. But I don’t see a definitively better alternative to iOS.
I'm riding out the Windows 10 extended updates for as long as I can then likely making the jump to Linux. As for mobile, I frankly haven't had much experience with iOS. For somebody who doesn't...
I'm riding out the Windows 10 extended updates for as long as I can then likely making the jump to Linux. As for mobile, I frankly haven't had much experience with iOS. For somebody who doesn't want to use Apple apps, is it viable? Much of what info is on the browser.
All of them? I have solutions for email, my music player, messaging and everything else. Also, having numerous apps all without the same ecosystem gives me the willies. If I can pay a third party...
All of them? I have solutions for email, my music player, messaging and everything else. Also, having numerous apps all without the same ecosystem gives me the willies.
If I can pay a third party outfit for a novel take on an existing service, I'd prefer it. Not funding the oligopoly while supporting competition in the space are my priorities.
Well you're not going to get away from stuff like the official app store, settings app, etc. So you'd need to enumerate the classes of apps you want to avoid. But I don't think I'm better than a...
Well you're not going to get away from stuff like the official app store, settings app, etc. So you'd need to enumerate the classes of apps you want to avoid. But I don't think I'm better than a search engine or LLM for helping you list what's replaceable. There are a couple notable issues in my experience:
Apple doesn't allow for 3rd party browser engines (well, they don't allow for 3rd party JavaScript JIT engines) so every browser app is a reskinned iOS Safari
You can remove Apple Maps (which I have done on my iPhone) but some system functionality is hard-coded to open it and will not gracefully fall back to alternative providers. I don't think this comes up often but it's annoying when it does. For example you might tap on an address in the Messages app (which I suppose you wouldn't be using anyway) and it tries to open Apple Maps even if it's uninstalled. You have to copy the address into Google Maps manually.
For what it's worth I agree with you. I think it's really interesting to read these threads about OOS, rights to privacy and other freedoms also mixed in with "guys I just love my IPhone". I don't...
For what it's worth I agree with you. I think it's really interesting to read these threads about OOS, rights to privacy and other freedoms also mixed in with "guys I just love my IPhone".
I don't disagree the hardware is excellent and you get great value for money. But you do buy into a walled garden and a ecosystem.
I used to use Dark Skies on my Android phone for years and it was by far the best weather app, I told a lot of friends and family to try it too and they liked it. Then Apple bought them put and integrated it into Apple weather, so fuck all of us I guess. I was even paying a subscription I liked it so much.
The key difference between Apple and Google or Microsoft is that the user is the customer. Apple is selling you expensive hardware and they need to make the experience good in order to justify the...
When Apple forces their users into their ecosystem, it's commonly spoken of as positive, but if Google, Microsoft, or anyone else does, it's not.
The key difference between Apple and Google or Microsoft is that the user is the customer. Apple is selling you expensive hardware and they need to make the experience good in order to justify the high price tag. With Google, the user is the product, they make their money harvesting user data and using it to drive the worlds largest ad platform. The same goes for Microsoft. This is reflected in how they build their software.
As an example of how that actually plays out in software design, look at how Apple and Microsoft handle their respective online accounts in their desktop operating systems. In Windows, it's become a hard requirement to set up your new computer with a Microsoft account. There are still some ways around it, but they've become increasingly difficult, because Microsoft really needs to pull you all the way into their ecosystem for their data collection. Apple has iCloud, but it's completely optional when you set up a new MacBook. It doesn't make any kind of fuss when you choose to set it up with a local account instead. They leave the door open for you to attach an iCloud account to that local account, but don't nag you after every update. They already got your money when they sold you a $2,000 laptop.
Ultimately, a relationship with any trillion dollar company is abusive to the end user, but the Apple relationship feels more honest: You know you're buying into their locked down ecosystem and what you get in exchange for it. I think that is why people generally feel better about it.
I ended up getting a little MacBook for my mom because she needed a new computer (Walmart had a deal on prior-Gen M1 models). It just works. The iPhones exchange data with it without hassle, it...
I ended up getting a little MacBook for my mom because she needed a new computer (Walmart had a deal on prior-Gen M1 models). It just works. The iPhones exchange data with it without hassle, it prints without hassle, it’s fast. It’s very good for a folks who want something more than a Chromebook, but don’t want to deal with Windows BS (I have a Linux desktop for gaming, so when I use her laptop it’s only for small stuff).
Non-Apple laptops have two major issues: bloatware and Windows. You can spend $3,000 on a Windows laptop and still have it preloaded with all sorts of junk trying to sell you antivirus or various...
Non-Apple laptops have two major issues: bloatware and Windows.
You can spend $3,000 on a Windows laptop and still have it preloaded with all sorts of junk trying to sell you antivirus or various other services.
Windows 11 is, in my experience so far, just worse compared to Windows 10.
The experience with a brand new Apple laptop is wildly different and feels like a premium experience.
You can also spend $500 on a laptop and have none of that. I don't think your argument stands on that point. Bloatware and extras largely depends on your vendor and OS version. When I bought my...
You can spend $3,000 on a Windows laptop and still have it preloaded with all sorts of junk trying to sell you antivirus or various other services.
You can also spend $500 on a laptop and have none of that. I don't think your argument stands on that point. Bloatware and extras largely depends on your vendor and OS version. When I bought my own Windows 11 license and installed the OS myself on my built PC, I didn't have anything trying to sell me antivirus or other services. Beyond that, things baked into the OS are just options to be turned off. Like Xbox game bar for Windows, or the iWork suite for Mac.
Most people will never build their own PC or install their own OS. Most people just buy a laptop and have to suffer with whatever junk the vendor/manufacturer loaded into it. Windows updates...
Most people will never build their own PC or install their own OS. Most people just buy a laptop and have to suffer with whatever junk the vendor/manufacturer loaded into it.
Windows updates frequently flip disabled settings / features back on silently.
I see. How does it compare then with things like ads in their app store, ads in their news/stock apps, Google being set as their default search engine, and persistent notifications for their...
I see. How does it compare then with things like ads in their app store, ads in their news/stock apps, Google being set as their default search engine, and persistent notifications for their services (such as "Finish setting up your iCloud")?
Similarly, would you consider Safari to be bloatware, in that that you can't uninstall Safari and just use your browser of choice? If you don't ever intend to use apps such as Garage Band, but that comes preinstalled, would you consider that bloatware?
These elements are baked in to Windows, Mac OS, iOS, and Android, all the same, so what makes Apple's version of it better?
The difference is that I don’t see any of those. Frankly I wasn’t even aware that you can’t uninstall Safari because I never saw a reason to touch it after I installed Firefox. GarageBand is...
The difference is that I don’t see any of those. Frankly I wasn’t even aware that you can’t uninstall Safari because I never saw a reason to touch it after I installed Firefox. GarageBand is preinstalled and it is annoying how some updates will bring new apps with them, but overall nothing they do is anywhere near as annoying as Microsoft’s stuffing OneDrive and Copilot into every corner of the operating system or the advertisements built into the start menu or desktop by default. I haven’t used android in years, but I certainly don’t remember it being nearly as irritating as Windows is now even with the early carrier bloat epidemic.
I'm glad you don't have to see those, but at the end of the day, they're still there. Ultimately, both make the same tradeoffs. My Windows experience has been largely clean -- I haven't seen or...
I'm glad you don't have to see those, but at the end of the day, they're still there. Ultimately, both make the same tradeoffs. My Windows experience has been largely clean -- I haven't seen or experienced the advertisements built into the OS as you described. Clearly your experience with Apple has been clean as well. But I think that's due to familiarity, not a clean bill of health. The ads, the bundled services, unskippable setup nudges -- Both Windows, and MacOS have it.
I've never had macOS flat out ignore my default browser preference. Edge feels like bloatware because even after I tell Windows to use Firefox, random Windows apps still open links in Edge. So...
I've never had macOS flat out ignore my default browser preference. Edge feels like bloatware because even after I tell Windows to use Firefox, random Windows apps still open links in Edge.
So much of the bloat in modern Windows is also advertising, not necessarily apps. By default, there are ads in the start menu. Search for an app or file on your computer? For some reason you get fucking web results. Windows just got a minor feature update? A bunch of privacy related settings just got reset to their default values. These are all things macOS does not do.
The browser thing is a bigger deal than it sounds, too. In my iPhone I am using safari (not because it’s a better browser, but because of Apple’s frankly criminal barring of other browser...
The browser thing is a bigger deal than it sounds, too. In my iPhone I am using safari (not because it’s a better browser, but because of Apple’s frankly criminal barring of other browser rendering engines on the platform), but when I use continuity to switch to my MacBook it will open the page in Firefox seamlessly.
In addition to @TurtleCracker’s clarification, I think another factor is that with an Apple laptop, you know whether you’re spending $3k or <$1k, it’s not coming with bloatware preinstalled either...
In addition to @TurtleCracker’s clarification, I think another factor is that with an Apple laptop, you know whether you’re spending $3k or <$1k, it’s not coming with bloatware preinstalled either way.
But nevertheless, having a few OS options to run on Apple hardware would be great. Not sure why Apple doesn’t just buy up Asahi Linux (peanuts for them, but a night-and-day difference compared to the project’s current funding levels), they’d dominate the developer market even more if MacBooks offered first-class Linux/non-macOS support.
Again, I find the bloatware argument to be convoluted depending the user's interpretation of what they want. Vendor specific bloatware? OS specific bloatware? I get the crux of the argument, I...
Again, I find the bloatware argument to be convoluted depending the user's interpretation of what they want. Vendor specific bloatware? OS specific bloatware? I get the crux of the argument, I just don't find it to be incredibly strong, with how subjective it can be. Apple also comes with software people do not want.
And I don't forsee Apple ever offering support for anything besides their own OS. They have a rocky enough relationship with the GPL license, exacerbated by their anti-FOSS strategies. An unlocked bootloader is the best I think they'll ever do.
Go to Best Buy. Buy any windows laptop. I’d almost guarantee it comes preloaded with trial software that will pop up and ask you to subscribe to something. For example if you buy a Dell you’ll...
Go to Best Buy. Buy any windows laptop. I’d almost guarantee it comes preloaded with trial software that will pop up and ask you to subscribe to something.
For example if you buy a Dell you’ll probably get some combination of: Dell SupportAssist, Dell Update, Dell Digital Delivery, Dell Power Manager, Dell Cinema, and My Dell.
For non-Dell software you’ll probably get:
McAfee antivirus, Dropbox, Microsoft 365
This is on top of whatever Windows itself is going to try and prompt you to sign in and/or subscribe to.
This just doesn’t happen on a Mac and removing apps on a Mac is easier and more intuitive compared to Windows typically. At least for an average user.
I never claimed that Windows didn't have these things, only that Apple is also guilty of them, not "the standard of how it should be done". But I'm getting the impression that this is moving away...
I never claimed that Windows didn't have these things, only that Apple is also guilty of them, not "the standard of how it should be done". But I'm getting the impression that this is moving away from discussion, it's feeling more like I'm pointing out a thing Apple does to have Apple fans refute it by pointing out that Windows does it harder. I think the best thing for me to do is politely withdraw.
Yeah, unfortunately me saying that is a pipedream, of course. I’d imagine there to be a whole lot more goodwill for their hardware from certain audiences if they made (parts of) macOS actually...
And I don't forsee Apple ever offering support for anything besides their own OS. They have a rocky enough relationship with the GPL license, exacerbated by their anti-FOSS strategies. An unlocked bootloader is the best I think they'll ever do.
Yeah, unfortunately me saying that is a pipedream, of course.
I’d imagine there to be a whole lot more goodwill for their hardware from certain audiences if they made (parts of) macOS actually source-available, even under some crazy “restrictive” license, as opposed to just the very bare minimum (Darwin and XNU kernel) that’s accessible at the moment.
Then they couldn’t guarantee you getting the intended experience for your hardware that just works. And also couldn’t upsell you on their creative productive suite.
Not sure why Apple doesn’t just buy up Asahi Linux
Then they couldn’t guarantee you getting the intended experience for your hardware that just works. And also couldn’t upsell you on their creative productive suite.
Right. They’d essentially have to, at minimum, offer all iCloud and related products from their services category on Linux first (and probably pre-install them on a “recommended” package list for...
Right. They’d essentially have to, at minimum, offer all iCloud and related products from their services category on Linux first (and probably pre-install them on a “recommended” package list for every distro) before the finance/revenue division would even consider allowing such a move.
They make good products. Macbooks, especially the lower end ones, do a couple of things uniquely to the market. One of those is to prioritize the form of the product. A laptop is ultimately a...
They make good products. Macbooks, especially the lower end ones, do a couple of things uniquely to the market.
One of those is to prioritize the form of the product. A laptop is ultimately a laptop because it's designed to be portable, to be carried and used on the go, and the actual way the thing feels to use and hold matters a lot. Traditional laptop manufacturers in the lower end segment really prioritize specs - numbers. It's easier to market. But they end up feeling bad to use - they have plastic shells, are bulky, have 4k 120hz screens with 100 nits of peak brightness, terrible speakers.
In the same vein, when the M1 macs first came out, it was a serious gamechanger for battery life. That's not surprising - iPads were famous for their fantastic battery life, so bringing the same chip family to laptops would naturally do the same. This is again really important for something that's fundamentally a portable product.
Previous to the M series chips, you had to choose between performance and that great form. But post M series, you can have your cake and eat it too - you get very fast computer, that feels great to use, with great battery life.
In my experience the tie in between the software and hardware is naturally better. Back when I owned Dell XPS laptops, I would just constantly have small issues with drivers. A big, and somewhat commonplace, issue I had was with sleep - it just wouldn't work. You'd fold the laptop up and next thing you know your backpack is hot to the touch, and all of your battery drained. It's just nice owning a macbook and knowing that when you close the lid, it'll actually go to sleep.
Whether you like MacOS or not will be a subjective matter, but for what it's worth I think it's a fantastic desktop OS, fully Unix compliant while also having a level of stability and design that just isn't present on alternatives. There's a reason things like systemd and pulseaudio were ripoffs of launchd and core audio.
And really, macs isn't particularly a walled garden anymore.
I think this is the first comment to really respond to my question, thanks for that. I've got an XPS I've used since 2021, but without any of the driver or sleep issues you describe. I'd chock...
I think this is the first comment to really respond to my question, thanks for that.
I've got an XPS I've used since 2021, but without any of the driver or sleep issues you describe. I'd chock that up to QA I suppose. I recognize the validity in your statements though.
But I'll have to disagree on the walled garden aspect. Even without getting into the walled garden of their handheld devices, Apple's refusal to use common standards until forced to do so by the EU, soldiered in components, their proprietary Metal API over Vulcan, and with love for litigation and fighting right to repair, don't lend them much credibility to me. This new product seems to be the exception, not the rule, when it comes to that (in that at least it is "repairable").
I think you're conflating the iPhone/iPod and Mac. Apple was one of the companies leading the USB-C standard. In fact, one of the controversial things they did was that they were the first company...
Apple's refusal to use common standards until forced to do so by the EU
I think you're conflating the iPhone/iPod and Mac. Apple was one of the companies leading the USB-C standard. In fact, one of the controversial things they did was that they were the first company to launch laptops with only usb-c ports.
Apple’s new MacBook ditches inputs for a single reversible USB connector
proprietary Metal API over Vulcan
Metal is proprietary but open. There's nothing inherently walled about it.
soldiered in components
The only thing that could conceivably not be soldered is the SSD at this point. The RAM is on the SoC package for chip design reasons (the same reason you can't replace your GPU's VRAM). But it's also not a walled garden. The fact that the SSDs aren't swappable does not prevent you from switching to a competitor's product in any way.
This is a big part of your experience: you have a professional/executive laptop that will generally cost the same as a Macbook with similar specs. Going by the replies here, you likely have...
I've got an XPS I've used since 2021
This is a big part of your experience: you have a professional/executive laptop that will generally cost the same as a Macbook with similar specs. Going by the replies here, you likely have Windows Pro, which avoids a lot of the added bloat and is generally a better experience overall. Those two things combined give you a generally better experience, similar in quality to what people turn to Macs for.
A lot of the comparisons people make about macs - either gushing about a better experience or mocking them for the price - come from comparisons between average consumer-grade laptops and macbooks. Until the Neo was announced, every macbook was in the higher category that your XPS is in. Now there's a cheaper alternative that's still offering a better user experience than most consumer Windows laptops at the same price point.
The sleep issue isn't a QA thing. Dell removed the simpler S3 sleep mode from their firmware at a certain point (2018?) because Windows 10 stopped supporting it and the s2idle replacement frankly...
I don't know what you mean by bullying, but since you said the Mac is a walled garden, it's pretty obvious you have never used macOS. The Mac is so far from being a walled garden. I am not going...
I don't know what you mean by bullying, but since you said the Mac is a walled garden, it's pretty obvious you have never used macOS. The Mac is so far from being a walled garden. I am not going to try to defend their mobile operating systems, but the Mac is far more open than windows is.
It’s very good news I think. Obviously we want competition in the field and high quality laptops that last a long time are better for the environment. After Apple started making phones and tablets...
It’s very good news I think. Obviously we want competition in the field and high quality laptops that last a long time are better for the environment.
After Apple started making phones and tablets they seemed to neglect computers for a while and I thought for a while they might eventually give up on them.
It's too bad the Neo isn't really enough to build iOS apps. I'd almost buy one just for the convenience. I hate Apple a little bit for their little walled garden.
It's too bad the Neo isn't really enough to build iOS apps. I'd almost buy one just for the convenience. I hate Apple a little bit for their little walled garden.
I've used a mac professionally for the last 7 years, and before that, it was a PC. I've used PCs with Windows Pro (the one time I had Windows Home or something, it was honestly the worst...
I've used a mac professionally for the last 7 years, and before that, it was a PC. I've used PCs with Windows Pro (the one time I had Windows Home or something, it was honestly the worst experience with so many ads that it was impossible to navigate, and I immediately got help to get something else installed) or some flavor of Linux for basically my entire life, up until the last two years of college when I got a MacBook Air for its weight, size, and its compatibility with some instruments I used in the lab for direct data capture that just couldn't be done with a PC. I had already been using iPads as my note-taking device for years because of Notability, which was iOS only, and had no problems getting my notes from my iPad to my Mac from that point, which made studying so much easier.
I'm the only consistent Apple user in my family, mostly because the products just work out of the box, and I don't have to fiddle around to make the computer do what I want and work the way I want to or to add the accessibility companions I need. They're all just there. Every time I need to use a Windows device, it's like pulling teeth, and I have a Pro 10 at home that I use for data organization purposes. We also have three Windows desktops that are gaming PCs—but honestly, they are literally only used for Steam. I would be willing to bet that Mr. Tired would let me upgrade to a SteamOS if I asked him his preference. At least one to play around with.
I'm not an Apple stan, and if something else came out that just worked out of the box with little to no fussing from me, with accessibility features pre-installed on it that are relevant to me, I would make the switch. At least for my computing needs. Nothing compares to Procreate on the iPad for artwork in my experience, so I just won't even look anymore.
Are we at the point yet where we've all acknowledged the steaming cesspool that windows has become? Obviously not. Saying it as someone that would have NEVER expected to willingly prefer a Mac or OS X back when I was forced onto my first Apple device back in ~2011.
If apple forcefully reclaimed the enthusiast market by making the hardware repairable, that would be an unstoppable juggernaut.
Of course, all real software (he says, tongue in cheek) runs on Linux. Not even a competition. Just reality.
Honestly, glad to see Apple rewarding by growing market share. I keep yearly or so tabs on the market of available laptop hardware. As far as I can tell ... No one is close yet.
Apple provides self repair kits for their devices. Ones that are more difficult to repair these days are less because of bespoke screws and more because of the origami required to put a lot of computer in a handheld device. Notably the new $600 MacBook driving this article is quite repairable.
It's more of a swing back to their roots, too. Macs in the 2005-2012 range were very easy to work on.
My 2008 MacBook had an intentionally user-serviceable battery, RAM and HDD. You just turned a coin in a slot and the battery would come off the bottom. Then two screws would remove a panel that let you slide the RAM and HDD out, without even taking the whole bottom off.
The 2011 was fairly doable too. A few philips (autocorrect says "philosopher's") screws to take the bottom off and you could easily get at all of those parts.
My
20082006 MacBook was free because it was stolen from the original owner, ditched in a bush and left outside for three days in the rain, recovered, and the original owner said I could have it if I could fix it since he had already gotten a new one.I let it dry thoroughly, cleaned up any debris inside, slapped a new battery and HDD in and used it for a good year. Those polycarbonates were fantastic, I still have a
20112008 model in the basement although the screen is shot. Speaking of which, I did replace the screen on one of them at one point - also a very easy repair.Edit: got my dates a little mixed up. I got the free 2006 model in 2008, then got a 2008 model in 2009.
To be fair, most laptops from that era were easy to work on. Laptops from back then were more similar to desktops today. They used commodity hardware, standardized expansion slots, and accessible cases. I upgraded many laptops by replacing their CPUs back then.
A laptop with a removable CPU is unheard of nowadays.
True story! And that's what I'm essentially referencing, honestly. They have a LONG way to go. Extensible GPUs, replaceable RAM and NVMe (or equivalent). They have a lot of work to do, and a lot of trust to rebuild.
I'm confident the EU can help keep them on the open standards path, as well.
Most of that isn't Apple artificially doing anything, just design choices. You're not going to be able to replace RAM when it's literally on the SoC package. The latter is required for the GPU, which needs lower latency than socketed DDR5 can have. Similarly, the system is really built around close integration between the integrated GPU and CPU.
The only thing that Apple could do better really is that to have non-soldered SSDs, although even then the SoC is actually the memory controller instead of having a discrete memory controller like consumer SSDs.
They started with the soldered SSDs, also, for performance reasons. They were doing PCIe bus SSDs before the industry landed on the m.2 form factor. And since they buy tons of raw flash chips already for phones, designing their own controller instead of buying premade units made sense. (I think they've moved back to socketing on at least some models now.)
DDR6 is only now starting to address the RAM socketing issue, years later.
Apple's pushing boundaries consistently, not making commodity hardware. They're the last standing specialty Unix workstation manufacturer, like SGI or Sun, not Dell.
Would DDR6 potentially be able to offer socketed speeds enough to convince Apple to not solder RAM in (if they felt like it)?
Time will tell...there's some possibility that we'll just start seeing all RAM being soldered next to the CPU going forward.
DDR6 isn't going to be the same style of DIMM socket anymore. It might be a CAMM2 form factor, which is basically a daughter board that screws down next to the CPU (kind of like m.2 SSDs) or it might end up just being the end of sockets for RAM.
It's still probably a few years off.
Oh wow, I did a quick search on what it would mean to replace soldered RAM and it sounded like a very tricky job, with some pretty deep potential pits to fall down. Thanks for the link about that potential form factor, that was interesting. I hope it does end up as a replaceable component generally.
I kind of think we're insisting on the wrong thing with upgradable ram...
Modularity has a cost, upgradable ram doesn't seem worth that cost.
Just build well rounded systems from the start with the appropriate amount of ram for the workflow expected with each laptop's processor.
most people won't bother upgrading the ram, it doesn't make sense to make ram upgradable (with all the hits to performance / reliability / cost ) just for a few enthousiastic hobby tinkerer. Just buy the right amount of ram from the begining, have it be a complete reliable and whole system, and gift it / sell it as a whole if you ever outgrow it.
Making SSD upgradable is legitimate, as those can get damaged with use, but ram is pretty much indestructible.
same with swappable battery with no soldering, it's really not necessary... just make the case openable and have the parts available. that's fairly easy and provides 99% of the value.
Funny, I think exactly the opposite! I don't think the throughput gains of integrating memory are worth the loss of modularity.
I suspect I have a very different perspective on this subject though, as I've spent the last decade or so as a computer hardware repair technician. "Indestructible" RAM sounds like a great thing, and I hope I get to see it before I die. I've certainly never seen it yet.
It should be noted that completely integrated SBCs sound like a great idea, until you consider the sustainability of making entire computers indivisible disposable goods. Having worked in both the repair and recycling sides of the industry, I can assure you that whatever you think about refurbishment and recycling is almost certainly incorrect. Almost no one does board-level repairs anymore–to the point where you have to pay a premium in time and money just to find someone capable of doing it– and it's certainly not done for consumer-grade integrated systems like the ones you're talking about. What happens is that SBCs are slagged for their precious metals, which then go into building more SBCs. That's a horrendously energy inefficient process, which is why "recycle" is the last term in the mantra "reduce, reuse, recycle." It's the thing you do when all else fails, not the first resort when a whole unit goes belly-up.
This is a particular bugbear of mine born of years of frustration with my chosen career, so I won't afflict you too much with my pronouncements on the subject. Suffice to say, the paradigm for which you're advocating es no bueno, and for more reasons than just some amorphous conception of "ownership."
Well you're obviously more qualified than me on this subject.
I've personnaly never had ram be the weak point on my and my
tech support responsabilityfamily's devices. In fact I've never had anything fail other than screens, batteries and input device (keys and joysticks).Is ram really that fragile or are you exagerating to support your preference?
I completely agree that it's reduce/reuse/recycle, in that order, I'm not advocating for not reusing laptops, I'm advocating for reusing laptop as a unit. Recycling sbc is worse than reusing, but the ram you add to your old computer has to come from somewhere, usually another old computer which will be recycled once ram has been extracted (cann't be used without ram) so mostly recycled. Wouldn't it be better to still have 2 working computer (and learn to use a lightweigt linux for frugal computing = reduce) instead of 1 computer with more ram. Most laptop i've seen being thrown away were fully fonctional, they didn't need a ram upgrade to save them, just the will to tolerate 1 minute boot time (the horror).
And it sucks that board level repairs are harder to get, but why stop at ram, why not make every capacitor and chip slotable to make it easely home repairable? I assume you agree that would be insane (insanely cool, but insane) and would bring more trouble that it fixes. It's not a slipery slope argument (which i think are more valid than internet people think), it a guenuine question of why you want end user replaceble ram but not replaceable capacitor?
I would love to be afflicted with your views on the subject ( i repeat, you are very likely more knowledgable, i'm pushing back to hopefully exorcise fully my old views on this), if you have the energy.
RAM isn't fragile, exactly, but there isn't a day that goes by in my shop where we don't have at least one bad module or integrated memory IC on a system board cross a bench.
It's fitting that the reliability of RAM is under discussion, because a few years ago a big part of my job was to test DIMMs and SO-DIMMs in isolation. I remember getting thousands of modules of registered and ECC memory and testing them one by one in a specialized device with an automated test sequence. I've tested literally thousands of memory modules, and yes, the vast majority of them were still good, even after thousands of hours of continuous operation. I've also had modules die because one person handed it to another. Electronics be weird like that.
The point I made before about SBCs and integrated systems (by which I mean systems with primary components all soldered together on a single PCB, slightly distinct from the technical definition of "SBC") is salient: these boards are almost never actually repaired. When a system using them is fixed, it's almost without exception done as a component-level repair with the faulty board slagged. This is regardless of whether all the other components on the integrated board are good or not, which makes every potential point of failure a reason for perfectly good electronics to be destroyed. It's a monumentally wasteful paradigm, and it's more than in an abstract moral sense of "it's bad to be wasteful." Individual ICs aren't lifted from boards because the economic incentive simply isn't there. It would be cheaper energetically to salvage components, but it's more labor-intensive and requires some specialized knowledge and experience, and the OEMs have constructed their supply chains specifically to discourage the practice. Apple has been a major force in that shift.
Mind you, it doesn't have to be that way, it's just the way that the economic system has been constructed. The manufacturers like it because it simplifies their RMA processes and grants them almost complete control over access to parts, which in turn allows them to control lifecycles. You will throw away your system–because that's essentially what recycling is–and buy a new one, simply because that's the way they prefer it. The true cost of that paradigm is hidden under actuarial calculations, logistics partnerships, regulatory capture, subsidies, and a host of other not-entirely-aboveboard machinations.
So yes, you do get performance gains by packing everything together on a single board, but the cost of that performance gain is far greater than is immediately apparent. We also simply don't know if there are other ways to boost performance and keep Moore's Law chugging along for another decade, because the incentives simply aren't there for the manufacturers to find them. They're actually disincentivized from doing so.
I'll leave it at that for now. I've been trying to write this reply on my breaks, so apologies if it's a bit disjointed. I could probably have done a better job if I'd just sat down to put my thoughts down in one go, but such is not my lot at the moment.
I agree! Doesn't mean I'm happy with that set of trends in mobile computing. I make the evaluation that it's an acceptable set of compromises and find myself willing to buy apple laptop hardware.
Just hoping we can keep the desktop modality alive during my lifetime.
I look at my Mac Studio as a bad dollar-vote, whereas my many Linux-based desktop builds to be excellent dollar-votes.
What is a "dollar-vote"? Are you talking value for money?
Ever heard of the expression, "vote with your dollars"? Same basic idea. How you spend your money is an expression of your values and consumer preferences.
Oh duh, of course, that makes total sense, cheers!
The irony is that Apple is also adding a lot of annoying changes that are making their first party apps worse in recent times. It’s just that Microsoft is doing considerably more damage to their own platform with wave after wave of increasingly anti-consumer practices and unpopular features.
Windows being as bad as it is seems like a deliberate self-sabotage campaign
I personally have been driven to consider Apple for the first time in 20 years because of the ongoing enshittification of everything. Vendors are attacking interoperability of services, the open web is no longer committed to being open. On top of that it is getting to the point where every company wants to change for everything: mail, photo storage, music, the list goes on.
If I'm going to have go pay for basic services, I may as well go with a company that has shown commitment to high quality hardware.
What's even more stark is the raw numbers: every laptop manufacturer is estimated to have a YoY dip, while Apple has a 21% increase from 23m to 28m.
Before covid our company to buy Macs only for special roles/purposes.
Now we only buy non-macs for special purposes.
You're exactly right: It's hard to overstate how huge the change has been.
Apple is also making bank because their hardware is so much more expensive. Still worth it because it does the job better. For many local AI-models, or just transcribing audio, Macs are just extemely much more easy and quick to use without any special expertise.
Everyone's hiking prices up like crazy. Meanwhile, the reputable company known for a premium market is making one of the more affordable options. Seems inevitable, given the state of things.
The competition for laptops has also been shipping sub standard defective junk for so long that I basically expect a windows laptop to have the hinges snap, have problems sleeping, and multiple other defects. Meanwhile Apple has maintained an incredible level of polish and quality.
The Neo feels like they kept the quality exactly the same but just removed the extra stuff not everyone needs.
Hopefully competitors start to learn from Apple. I forsee consolidation of the PC manufacturer market before then.
How do you mean? Everything I want is the opposite of Apple's pro-bullying and walled garden corporate mentality.
Vertical integration. High performance and good battery life. They pay a lot of attention to the peripherals - trackpad, keyboard, screen. They don't feel cheap, even when they're $600. I would absolutely prefer to be running Debian but still need the computer to be well made. I'm considering the Framework Pro later in the year depending on how the M6 redesign works out.
It's interesting that (in general, not specific to your reply) people seem to praise Apple's vertical integration, and belittle everyone else's. When Apple forces their users into their ecosystem, it's commonly spoken of as positive, but if Google, Microsoft, or anyone else does, it's not.
I guess when you control all the hardware so there's not a "cheap version" vendor selling it, then it's easier to control the narrative and come across as more premium hardware. There are high and low performing devices running everywhere else, but only Apple hardware can run Apple stuff.
Personally, I find more value in things like right-to-repair and open standard protocols. If Apple ever decides to get on board with that, and stop bullying non apple users with their marketing and lawyers, maybe I'll try them out.
I think there’s an uncanny valley on the software integration that Apple is uniquely on the far side of. But I didn’t just mean iPhone+Mac vertical integration. I also mean they make their own track pads, SoCs, etc and leverage this degree of control to optimize battery life and the overall user experience.
You're not wrong at all.
It's the odd, longstanding product cult where users bought in at a time when Apple did design software better, it was easier to link your iPod or they had advantages in the security front.
Now, they're all still there, and loving the company as if it still was still in a league of its own with all of the above, but realistically, it just has them so far in the garden that they'll never leave.
I only recently got into the ecosystem. I’m pretty disappointed with MacOS. WatchOS as well but that’s not really a necessity. Debian, and similarly well ran distros, are a big upgrade for me and I’m looking for a way to jump ship. But I don’t see a definitively better alternative to iOS.
I'm riding out the Windows 10 extended updates for as long as I can then likely making the jump to Linux. As for mobile, I frankly haven't had much experience with iOS. For somebody who doesn't want to use Apple apps, is it viable? Much of what info is on the browser.
What Apple apps are you trying to avoid?
All of them? I have solutions for email, my music player, messaging and everything else. Also, having numerous apps all without the same ecosystem gives me the willies.
If I can pay a third party outfit for a novel take on an existing service, I'd prefer it. Not funding the oligopoly while supporting competition in the space are my priorities.
Well you're not going to get away from stuff like the official app store, settings app, etc. So you'd need to enumerate the classes of apps you want to avoid. But I don't think I'm better than a search engine or LLM for helping you list what's replaceable. There are a couple notable issues in my experience:
All good to know - thank you!
Honestly Apple’s products still offer these benefits.
For what it's worth I agree with you. I think it's really interesting to read these threads about OOS, rights to privacy and other freedoms also mixed in with "guys I just love my IPhone".
I don't disagree the hardware is excellent and you get great value for money. But you do buy into a walled garden and a ecosystem.
I used to use Dark Skies on my Android phone for years and it was by far the best weather app, I told a lot of friends and family to try it too and they liked it. Then Apple bought them put and integrated it into Apple weather, so fuck all of us I guess. I was even paying a subscription I liked it so much.
The key difference between Apple and Google or Microsoft is that the user is the customer. Apple is selling you expensive hardware and they need to make the experience good in order to justify the high price tag. With Google, the user is the product, they make their money harvesting user data and using it to drive the worlds largest ad platform. The same goes for Microsoft. This is reflected in how they build their software.
As an example of how that actually plays out in software design, look at how Apple and Microsoft handle their respective online accounts in their desktop operating systems. In Windows, it's become a hard requirement to set up your new computer with a Microsoft account. There are still some ways around it, but they've become increasingly difficult, because Microsoft really needs to pull you all the way into their ecosystem for their data collection. Apple has iCloud, but it's completely optional when you set up a new MacBook. It doesn't make any kind of fuss when you choose to set it up with a local account instead. They leave the door open for you to attach an iCloud account to that local account, but don't nag you after every update. They already got your money when they sold you a $2,000 laptop.
Ultimately, a relationship with any trillion dollar company is abusive to the end user, but the Apple relationship feels more honest: You know you're buying into their locked down ecosystem and what you get in exchange for it. I think that is why people generally feel better about it.
I ended up getting a little MacBook for my mom because she needed a new computer (Walmart had a deal on prior-Gen M1 models). It just works. The iPhones exchange data with it without hassle, it prints without hassle, it’s fast. It’s very good for a folks who want something more than a Chromebook, but don’t want to deal with Windows BS (I have a Linux desktop for gaming, so when I use her laptop it’s only for small stuff).
Non-Apple laptops have two major issues: bloatware and Windows.
You can spend $3,000 on a Windows laptop and still have it preloaded with all sorts of junk trying to sell you antivirus or various other services.
Windows 11 is, in my experience so far, just worse compared to Windows 10.
The experience with a brand new Apple laptop is wildly different and feels like a premium experience.
You can also spend $500 on a laptop and have none of that. I don't think your argument stands on that point. Bloatware and extras largely depends on your vendor and OS version. When I bought my own Windows 11 license and installed the OS myself on my built PC, I didn't have anything trying to sell me antivirus or other services. Beyond that, things baked into the OS are just options to be turned off. Like Xbox game bar for Windows, or the iWork suite for Mac.
Most people will never build their own PC or install their own OS. Most people just buy a laptop and have to suffer with whatever junk the vendor/manufacturer loaded into it.
Windows updates frequently flip disabled settings / features back on silently.
I would argue that the things that are coming built into Windows 11 directly from Microsoft are bloatware. The ads everywhere, gamebar, etc.
I see. How does it compare then with things like ads in their app store, ads in their news/stock apps, Google being set as their default search engine, and persistent notifications for their services (such as "Finish setting up your iCloud")?
Similarly, would you consider Safari to be bloatware, in that that you can't uninstall Safari and just use your browser of choice? If you don't ever intend to use apps such as Garage Band, but that comes preinstalled, would you consider that bloatware?
These elements are baked in to Windows, Mac OS, iOS, and Android, all the same, so what makes Apple's version of it better?
The difference is that I don’t see any of those. Frankly I wasn’t even aware that you can’t uninstall Safari because I never saw a reason to touch it after I installed Firefox. GarageBand is preinstalled and it is annoying how some updates will bring new apps with them, but overall nothing they do is anywhere near as annoying as Microsoft’s stuffing OneDrive and Copilot into every corner of the operating system or the advertisements built into the start menu or desktop by default. I haven’t used android in years, but I certainly don’t remember it being nearly as irritating as Windows is now even with the early carrier bloat epidemic.
I'm glad you don't have to see those, but at the end of the day, they're still there. Ultimately, both make the same tradeoffs. My Windows experience has been largely clean -- I haven't seen or experienced the advertisements built into the OS as you described. Clearly your experience with Apple has been clean as well. But I think that's due to familiarity, not a clean bill of health. The ads, the bundled services, unskippable setup nudges -- Both Windows, and MacOS have it.
I've never had macOS flat out ignore my default browser preference. Edge feels like bloatware because even after I tell Windows to use Firefox, random Windows apps still open links in Edge.
So much of the bloat in modern Windows is also advertising, not necessarily apps. By default, there are ads in the start menu. Search for an app or file on your computer? For some reason you get fucking web results. Windows just got a minor feature update? A bunch of privacy related settings just got reset to their default values. These are all things macOS does not do.
The browser thing is a bigger deal than it sounds, too. In my iPhone I am using safari (not because it’s a better browser, but because of Apple’s frankly criminal barring of other browser rendering engines on the platform), but when I use continuity to switch to my MacBook it will open the page in Firefox seamlessly.
I use Orion on my phone and Firefox on my laptop and have noticed the same (awesome) behavior. I doubt Google or Microsoft would ever do it this way.
In addition to @TurtleCracker’s clarification, I think another factor is that with an Apple laptop, you know whether you’re spending $3k or <$1k, it’s not coming with bloatware preinstalled either way.
But nevertheless, having a few OS options to run on Apple hardware would be great. Not sure why Apple doesn’t just buy up Asahi Linux (peanuts for them, but a night-and-day difference compared to the project’s current funding levels), they’d dominate the developer market even more if MacBooks offered first-class Linux/non-macOS support.
Again, I find the bloatware argument to be convoluted depending the user's interpretation of what they want. Vendor specific bloatware? OS specific bloatware? I get the crux of the argument, I just don't find it to be incredibly strong, with how subjective it can be. Apple also comes with software people do not want.
And I don't forsee Apple ever offering support for anything besides their own OS. They have a rocky enough relationship with the GPL license, exacerbated by their anti-FOSS strategies. An unlocked bootloader is the best I think they'll ever do.
Go to Best Buy. Buy any windows laptop. I’d almost guarantee it comes preloaded with trial software that will pop up and ask you to subscribe to something.
For example if you buy a Dell you’ll probably get some combination of: Dell SupportAssist, Dell Update, Dell Digital Delivery, Dell Power Manager, Dell Cinema, and My Dell.
For non-Dell software you’ll probably get:
McAfee antivirus, Dropbox, Microsoft 365
This is on top of whatever Windows itself is going to try and prompt you to sign in and/or subscribe to.
This just doesn’t happen on a Mac and removing apps on a Mac is easier and more intuitive compared to Windows typically. At least for an average user.
I never claimed that Windows didn't have these things, only that Apple is also guilty of them, not "the standard of how it should be done". But I'm getting the impression that this is moving away from discussion, it's feeling more like I'm pointing out a thing Apple does to have Apple fans refute it by pointing out that Windows does it harder. I think the best thing for me to do is politely withdraw.
Yeah, unfortunately me saying that is a pipedream, of course.
I’d imagine there to be a whole lot more goodwill for their hardware from certain audiences if they made (parts of) macOS actually source-available, even under some crazy “restrictive” license, as opposed to just the very bare minimum (Darwin and XNU kernel) that’s accessible at the moment.
Then they couldn’t guarantee you getting the intended experience for your hardware that just works. And also couldn’t upsell you on their creative productive suite.
Right. They’d essentially have to, at minimum, offer all iCloud and related products from their services category on Linux first (and probably pre-install them on a “recommended” package list for every distro) before the finance/revenue division would even consider allowing such a move.
They make good products. Macbooks, especially the lower end ones, do a couple of things uniquely to the market.
One of those is to prioritize the form of the product. A laptop is ultimately a laptop because it's designed to be portable, to be carried and used on the go, and the actual way the thing feels to use and hold matters a lot. Traditional laptop manufacturers in the lower end segment really prioritize specs - numbers. It's easier to market. But they end up feeling bad to use - they have plastic shells, are bulky, have 4k 120hz screens with 100 nits of peak brightness, terrible speakers.
In the same vein, when the M1 macs first came out, it was a serious gamechanger for battery life. That's not surprising - iPads were famous for their fantastic battery life, so bringing the same chip family to laptops would naturally do the same. This is again really important for something that's fundamentally a portable product.
Previous to the M series chips, you had to choose between performance and that great form. But post M series, you can have your cake and eat it too - you get very fast computer, that feels great to use, with great battery life.
In my experience the tie in between the software and hardware is naturally better. Back when I owned Dell XPS laptops, I would just constantly have small issues with drivers. A big, and somewhat commonplace, issue I had was with sleep - it just wouldn't work. You'd fold the laptop up and next thing you know your backpack is hot to the touch, and all of your battery drained. It's just nice owning a macbook and knowing that when you close the lid, it'll actually go to sleep.
Whether you like MacOS or not will be a subjective matter, but for what it's worth I think it's a fantastic desktop OS, fully Unix compliant while also having a level of stability and design that just isn't present on alternatives. There's a reason things like systemd and pulseaudio were ripoffs of launchd and core audio.
And really, macs isn't particularly a walled garden anymore.
I think this is the first comment to really respond to my question, thanks for that.
I've got an XPS I've used since 2021, but without any of the driver or sleep issues you describe. I'd chock that up to QA I suppose. I recognize the validity in your statements though.
But I'll have to disagree on the walled garden aspect. Even without getting into the walled garden of their handheld devices, Apple's refusal to use common standards until forced to do so by the EU, soldiered in components, their proprietary Metal API over Vulcan, and with love for litigation and fighting right to repair, don't lend them much credibility to me. This new product seems to be the exception, not the rule, when it comes to that (in that at least it is "repairable").
I think you're conflating the iPhone/iPod and Mac. Apple was one of the companies leading the USB-C standard. In fact, one of the controversial things they did was that they were the first company to launch laptops with only usb-c ports.
As an example: https://www.theverge.com/2015/3/9/8174219/apple-macbook-usb-type-c-connector
Metal is proprietary but open. There's nothing inherently walled about it.
The only thing that could conceivably not be soldered is the SSD at this point. The RAM is on the SoC package for chip design reasons (the same reason you can't replace your GPU's VRAM). But it's also not a walled garden. The fact that the SSDs aren't swappable does not prevent you from switching to a competitor's product in any way.
This is a big part of your experience: you have a professional/executive laptop that will generally cost the same as a Macbook with similar specs. Going by the replies here, you likely have Windows Pro, which avoids a lot of the added bloat and is generally a better experience overall. Those two things combined give you a generally better experience, similar in quality to what people turn to Macs for.
A lot of the comparisons people make about macs - either gushing about a better experience or mocking them for the price - come from comparisons between average consumer-grade laptops and macbooks. Until the Neo was announced, every macbook was in the higher category that your XPS is in. Now there's a cheaper alternative that's still offering a better user experience than most consumer Windows laptops at the same price point.
The sleep issue isn't a QA thing. Dell removed the simpler S3 sleep mode from their firmware at a certain point (2018?) because Windows 10 stopped supporting it and the s2idle replacement frankly sucked. It's all over Reddit. I'm not sure I've seen anyone say s2idle on XPS is any good. Windows is not good at handling this modern sleep mode.
Dell’s firmware is so incredibly bad that the last laptop I bought from them made me decide to never buy them again.
I don't know what you mean by bullying, but since you said the Mac is a walled garden, it's pretty obvious you have never used macOS. The Mac is so far from being a walled garden. I am not going to try to defend their mobile operating systems, but the Mac is far more open than windows is.
It’s very good news I think. Obviously we want competition in the field and high quality laptops that last a long time are better for the environment.
After Apple started making phones and tablets they seemed to neglect computers for a while and I thought for a while they might eventually give up on them.
It's too bad the Neo isn't really enough to build iOS apps. I'd almost buy one just for the convenience. I hate Apple a little bit for their little walled garden.
I've used a mac professionally for the last 7 years, and before that, it was a PC. I've used PCs with Windows Pro (the one time I had Windows Home or something, it was honestly the worst experience with so many ads that it was impossible to navigate, and I immediately got help to get something else installed) or some flavor of Linux for basically my entire life, up until the last two years of college when I got a MacBook Air for its weight, size, and its compatibility with some instruments I used in the lab for direct data capture that just couldn't be done with a PC. I had already been using iPads as my note-taking device for years because of Notability, which was iOS only, and had no problems getting my notes from my iPad to my Mac from that point, which made studying so much easier.
I'm the only consistent Apple user in my family, mostly because the products just work out of the box, and I don't have to fiddle around to make the computer do what I want and work the way I want to or to add the accessibility companions I need. They're all just there. Every time I need to use a Windows device, it's like pulling teeth, and I have a Pro 10 at home that I use for data organization purposes. We also have three Windows desktops that are gaming PCs—but honestly, they are literally only used for Steam. I would be willing to bet that Mr. Tired would let me upgrade to a SteamOS if I asked him his preference. At least one to play around with.
I'm not an Apple stan, and if something else came out that just worked out of the box with little to no fussing from me, with accessibility features pre-installed on it that are relevant to me, I would make the switch. At least for my computing needs. Nothing compares to Procreate on the iPad for artwork in my experience, so I just won't even look anymore.