nolamacguy

davidswelt said:

Now, the main thing I'm going to miss is an HDMI port.  Pretty much any professional out there will need to give presentations.  I lecture, and I speak publicly -- quite regularly so.  I need a port that connects to projectors.  Now I'm going to need to carry two adapters: a VGA one, and an HDMI one.  I'm going to forget them, and it's going to lead to embarrassment.  But I think it'll be a temporary problem if USB-C is going to establish itself.

Rayz2016 said:

Last call for passenger Cnocbui. Last call for passenger Cnocbui. 

sflocal said:

Will it include an early-warning explosion-detection system?

F1Tyler said:

all the highly paid software engineers Apple has and all they came up with is ethic widgets Lol

avon b7 said:

nolamacguy said:

avon b7 said:

flaneur said:

avon b7 said:

flaneur said:

knowitall said:

zoetmb said:

slurpy said:

Aw's move by Apple. This SHOULD shut up most of the complaints, but of course it won't. 

It's not like Apple is selling $500 laptops.   There's two ways to look at this:  

The first is that if someone is buying a laptop that starts at $2400, they should't be complaining about having to buy some adapters, even if they're overpriced and that if you're a pro, technology advances and the investment is the price of doing business.  

The other way to look at it is that if someone is spending between $2400 and $4300 (for the MBP with all options except for application software and AppleCare), Apple shouldn't have cheaped out and they should have provided 2 to 4 adapters in the box of the customer's choosing.   The price of four adapters/cables is as much as a cheap PC.   

And then my cost of ownership goes up because I can't replace the battery, expand memory or replace the SSD myself.   Or, if I Iive with a 256GB SSD, I've got to get a ton of external storage for pro-level photos and video and live with the hassle of not having every file with me when I'm out of the home/office.  

This is another example of Apple labeling something "pro" and then not understanding the workflow of their pro customers.   They did that with FinalCutPro and they did it when they moved away from the tower configuration of the MacPro.  

Every time Apple switches ports, they tell the market how their new choices are the greatest and how they want lboth manufacturers and consumers to commit to that port.  Then after a few years, they change their minds and they move on to something else.   Did they really need to drop Mag-safe?  What about all the people who bought extra power supplies to keep at home/office, etc.?   HDMI is ubiquitous on TVs and receivers and the cables have become inexpensive, but now I've got to buy an adapter that costs ten times what the cable cost?

What was Apple's rationale for going solely to USB-C?   Was it because they truly think this port is the future and that the accessory market will fully move to that port and that it provides technological advantages?   Or was it really because of Ive's anal-obsessiveness over thinness and not wanting to look at different sized/shaped ports on the side of the machine?   What drives me crazy is that Apple wants the machine to have this superior industrial design so that it looks great in photos and in ads, but they have no problem with users having to stick a bunch of dongles and adapters on the thing.   It's the same with the iPhone and the obsession with thinness, but then we have to put it in a case because it can't survive a fall.   So few are really seeing and feeling the thinness anyway.  Sometimes I think people at Apple don't actually use the products they produce in the real world. 

So, IMO, criticism is warranted.   If Apple wants my money, they're going to have to do a bit better.   I hate using PCs at work, but I'm not spending $4K to $5K on my next computer and I don't want to feel like I have less than what I have today.  So as much as I hate Windows, my next laptop might actually be a Windows machine.  And I've been an Apple customer for 35 years. 

Ok, very good comment, especially your remark about Jony Ive, when will he appear on stage?
I do think that profit maximization (and the hot breath of the shareholder) is getting the better of Apple.
Its all money money money, and Apple holds their customers at ransom by disabling all upgrade options so they cannot expand the life of the computers and have to dig very deep to get all MBs needed.

This is why Apple is holding back the ARM; if they expand RAM beyond 4GB (and have enough memory pins on the Ax die to support that) board modders will find a way to connect a TB or so external RAM and iPads and iPhones can be used - or have a second life - as regular computers.

That was actually a stupid and gross comment he made about Ive. And he should never appear on stage. That's absolutely not his remit, and you should know that.

You may not agree with his decisions, but you should acknowledge what's behind them. Example: one of the requirements of a portable machine is that it be rugged enough to survive drops and bumps. Upgradability means points of weakness, thus all the adhesive and the hermetic sealing. It's not about new model upsell, or what would be the same thing, planned obsolescence. Why would they make them so durable if that were so?

Apple's laptops are not rugged enough to survive drops. Believe me on this. If you suffer a drop - start praying. Upgradability has nothing to do with 'points of weakness'. Where on earth did you hear that? If your connections are good... On the contrary, if your laptop doesn't survive the drop, hermetic sealing and glue mean you lose accessibility to get in and locate the problem. Accessibility together with user upgradeable parts, extends the life of the machine both in terms of lifespan and usefulness.

I didn't hear that, I figured it out. Why does modern manufacturing practice make things more and more sealed and non-user serviceable? Answer: to make them more foolproof. Who are the fools? Answer: the user. 

I"m not saying that Jony Ive thinks we're fools, by the way, just that as an honest designer, he's resorting to this design for the benefit of the product, and thus the user. I prefer anything I use to be fixable with my own hands and I still rebuild my own VW engines, but I realize that this is not the trend of the wider world. So I let it go and don't carp about my wife's Toyota. And I don't blame Apple if my phone breaks if I drop it, either. I know they tried. 

Glue is used to shave mm off the thinness of the machine. Making them inaccessible only serves Apple, not the user. 

ERRRNT! incorrect. inaccessibility is a side-effect of the actual benefit to the user -- thinness & lightness. I'm a software developer and i can lug my notebook to a client side, an airport, or a cafe. a heavier machine is more of a burden than a lighter machine. i certainly appreciate lightness. if that means i cant later upgrade the RAM, so be it -- no big whoop. as a pro I've already selected the amount of RAM i needed from Day 1, and give it zero thoughts afterward. but weight? thats something that continues to affect me every time i travel outside my office.

that is why these devices have built-in memory, storage, glue, etc -- because using off-the-shelf components and still achieving these value-giving form factors is impossible. see iPad. are you complaining about user accessibility on your iPad? nope. your iPhone? nope. your iPod? nope. your DVD player? nope. home receiver? nope. getting the point? appliance computing. 

if you dont like appliance computing apple is not the brand for you. 

As I said, but you ignored, when thinness leads to compromises it isn't innovation. In this case it isn't a benefit because things had to be sacrificed to get there. I have complained about sealed in batteries since they came into use. The only access I want to my iPad is that. I already have access to my DVD player (which has a hard drive in it) and my receiver. Neither of them use glue by the way. Being a few millimetres thinner than they were gives me no added value. None. They were thin enough. We lost value on the form factor by having to use dongles!!