Not trying to start flamewars, but more and more I wonder how much are people willing to put up with such practices. On linux for 15+ years and everytime I try to use mac or win, it is an ordeal. And ads. F*cking ads in a system someone has purchased. And spying. Really user hostile environment. No, thank you.
Also the OS mostly “just works”, just last week my Linux laptop disabled NVIDIA GPU (and almost bricked itself?? Not sure, had to fix apt) during automated updates
They’re not light years ahead anymore, this is an old assumption.
There are some incredibly good PC laptops out there with the same kinds of features of MacBook Pros and more: long battery life, haptic trackpad, aluminum CNC build, long sleep battery life, etc. Check out Intel core series 3.
They never were light years ahead. Apple fans have always drastically overstated how good their hardware is. It's good, yes, but it's not nearly as good as their fans claim. And it never has been.
I think there have been times where it has been legitimately far ahead, but those windows of time have been relatively brief. There have been time windows during the PowerPC and Intel eras where Apple’s systems have not offered an incredibly good value and/or have been plagued with design issues.
G4 versus Intel, Touch Bar, Nvidia graphics long term reliability issues, then after that Apple used inferior AMD discrete GPUs for years until Apple Silicon, prematurely removing HDMI and SD ports then putting them back, and now they make the only laptop on the market with a giant notch in the middle.
Yes, the M1 MacBook Air was amazing, but it’s 6 years later now and that chip is not really far ahead.
A lot of the claims of a superior software experience are overblown. Just because Apple has a short list of more refined elements doesn’t mean that someone deciding to use Windows or Linux is getting some kind of drastically horrendous experience.
Even a lot of “big apple advantages” like haptic trackpads were never really that big of an advantage. We see this now with the embrace of the MacBook Neo: all of a sudden the haptic trackpad wasn’t such a big deal because Apple got rid of it. (And, by the way, the Neo is a horrendous value compared to HP Omnibook options in the same price range, and it has poor battery life)
You’re right, even me giving them the opinion that they were light years ahead for a sustained period of time is generous.
At time of the introduction of Apple Silicon, MacBooks were an incredible value.
But for most of the rest of history, not so much.
They’ve been praised for being refined and having a wonderful trackpad but with the aura and marketing around Apple (including incredibly adept narrative steering surrounding “independent” tech journalists), a lot of those benefits have been overblown.
Of course we have many eras of Apple where they weren’t particularly compelling.
We had the era where Intel was wiping the floor with the G4.
We had the era where Nvidia dGPUs in Apple machines were dying left and right.
We had the Touch Bar butterfly keyboard era.
We had the post-Nvidia era where Apple was shipping incredibly inferior AMD graphics solutions in their laptops. They just wouldn’t buy the superior Nvidia products over childish corporate feuding.
We had the premature removal of the HDMI and SD card ports that had to be reversed.
We have the current era of the embarrassingly large notch.
The YouTubers and TikTokers who hold expertise in content creation and hanging out in Final Cut Pro all day tell their followers that there’s nothing better than a Mac, with almost no knowledge of the incredibly vast breadth of alternatives out there. In the present era, the PC industry seemingly has very little issue keeping up with Apple.
The MacBook Neo has quickly turned into a pretty bad value after rushing out the gate looking like an incredible deal, but both HP and Dell have put forth alternatives that are a better bang for buck with better battery life as a bonus.
We have two alternatives with Intel Core Series 3 and Qualcomm Snapdragon that will match or beat Apple on battery life and performance depending on workload, we have companies like Lenovo and even tiny companies like Framework who have no problem giving us haptic trackpads and CNC machined aluminum chassis, and then we see innovation you’d never dream of from Apple like dual screen laptops with the Zenbook Duo or
vitro · · focus · HN ↗
tomp · · focus · HN ↗
Build quality (aluminum), charging (magsafe), screen resolution, battery life, noise (or lack thereof), trackpad…
It’s like other vendors aren’t even trying.
Also the OS mostly “just works”, just last week my Linux laptop disabled NVIDIA GPU (and almost bricked itself?? Not sure, had to fix apt) during automated updates
Grombobulous · · focus · HN ↗
There are some incredibly good PC laptops out there with the same kinds of features of MacBook Pros and more: long battery life, haptic trackpad, aluminum CNC build, long sleep battery life, etc. Check out Intel core series 3.
I’m a very happy with my Framework 13 Pro.
bigstrat2003 · · focus · HN ↗
Grombobulous · · focus · HN ↗
G4 versus Intel, Touch Bar, Nvidia graphics long term reliability issues, then after that Apple used inferior AMD discrete GPUs for years until Apple Silicon, prematurely removing HDMI and SD ports then putting them back, and now they make the only laptop on the market with a giant notch in the middle.
Yes, the M1 MacBook Air was amazing, but it’s 6 years later now and that chip is not really far ahead.
A lot of the claims of a superior software experience are overblown. Just because Apple has a short list of more refined elements doesn’t mean that someone deciding to use Windows or Linux is getting some kind of drastically horrendous experience.
Even a lot of “big apple advantages” like haptic trackpads were never really that big of an advantage. We see this now with the embrace of the MacBook Neo: all of a sudden the haptic trackpad wasn’t such a big deal because Apple got rid of it. (And, by the way, the Neo is a horrendous value compared to HP Omnibook options in the same price range, and it has poor battery life)
Grombobulous · · focus · HN ↗
At time of the introduction of Apple Silicon, MacBooks were an incredible value.
But for most of the rest of history, not so much.
They’ve been praised for being refined and having a wonderful trackpad but with the aura and marketing around Apple (including incredibly adept narrative steering surrounding “independent” tech journalists), a lot of those benefits have been overblown.
Of course we have many eras of Apple where they weren’t particularly compelling.
We had the era where Intel was wiping the floor with the G4.
We had the era where Nvidia dGPUs in Apple machines were dying left and right.
We had the Touch Bar butterfly keyboard era.
We had the post-Nvidia era where Apple was shipping incredibly inferior AMD graphics solutions in their laptops. They just wouldn’t buy the superior Nvidia products over childish corporate feuding.
We had the premature removal of the HDMI and SD card ports that had to be reversed.
We have the current era of the embarrassingly large notch.
The YouTubers and TikTokers who hold expertise in content creation and hanging out in Final Cut Pro all day tell their followers that there’s nothing better than a Mac, with almost no knowledge of the incredibly vast breadth of alternatives out there. In the present era, the PC industry seemingly has very little issue keeping up with Apple.
The MacBook Neo has quickly turned into a pretty bad value after rushing out the gate looking like an incredible deal, but both HP and Dell have put forth alternatives that are a better bang for buck with better battery life as a bonus.
We have two alternatives with Intel Core Series 3 and Qualcomm Snapdragon that will match or beat Apple on battery life and performance depending on workload, we have companies like Lenovo and even tiny companies like Framework who have no problem giving us haptic trackpads and CNC machined aluminum chassis, and then we see innovation you’d never dream of from Apple like dual screen laptops with the Zenbook Duo or