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I said no and Apple said yes

886 points · 701 comments · thatslast

  1. vitro · · focus · HN ↗
    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.
    1. tomp · · focus · HN ↗
      Because Mac laptops are lightyears ahead of any other hardware.

      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

      1. ravenstine · · focus · HN ↗
        > Also the OS mostly “just works”

        A large portion of the HN crowd woefully underrates this aspect of macOS. The types who would get pleasure tweaking their OS and understanding it intimately are overrepresented here, though props to them.

        I don't care what people say; macOS is the only OS I've ever used that has never booted to a black/blue screen with relatively cryptic error after performing an upgrade. Not once ever. Windows today is of course abusive to users and shouldn't be used, and as much as I absolutely love Linux as a server OS and for VM appliances, I get no joy whatsoever trying to figure out why the DE stopped working after letting the OS update itself or debugging subpar rendering from the Wayland compositor or X11. (Linux people still tell me this isn't a problem in 2026 but, guess what, my Ubuntu VM hit a black screen a couple days ago after upgrading with no other changes made to the installation, so they're wrong) That and so much graphical Linux software is written with the attitude of "I'm a freak who thinks context menus shouldn't exist so fuck the user and fuck anyone who tells me I'm wrong", yet so many DEs integrate these apps anyway.

        The worst thing that macOS has ever overtly done to me is slightly change the look of its interface over the years, which is incredibly minor compared to all the changes that Windows, Ubuntu, Gnome, and KDE have gone through in the last decade. Does it pull lame crap like phone home? Probably, but these days I assume that just about all software thinks it knows better than I and constantly pings cloud servers. MacOS is not really unique in this regard. I will switch to my own Linux if Apple goes down the road of "use our AI or else", but for now I don't really see the venom towards macOS to be justified when it's incredibly easy to prove that the alternatives are usually very poor.

        Oh yeah, and the hardware is excellent. (except for the keyboards which need TPU dam covering them or else dust kills them after a couple years)

        1. grahamburger · · focus · HN ↗
          I know what you mean, but my System 76 laptop comes pretty darn close to 'just works.' Certainly closer than Windows ever did for me.
          1. ravenstine · · focus · HN ↗
            It's been ages since I've looked at System 76. They have quite an impressive lineup of products now! I'll definitely be checking them out the next time I want a personal computing device that's not tied to Microslop or Apple.
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