macplusplus

GeorgeBMac said:

macplusplus said:

GeorgeBMac said:

macplusplus said:

GeorgeBMac said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

jdw said:

fastasleep said:

It's a dead horse that's been beaten for going on its third year now. When does it stop? Most "pros" have moved on and are adapting just fine.

Whoever clicked "Informative" on your Yawn post must be ready for bed themselves, if they aren't already fast asleep.

The only place where many of those "Pros have moved onto" is Windows.  I for one will NOT be doing that.  Seriously, Apple is taking a shotgun to the Mac faithful by incorporating extremist levels of minimalism into their designs.  I've loved Macs since 1984, not because they were the most feature rich machines relative to Windoze, but because they were PRACTICAL TO ME.  The late 2016 and newer MBP's are no longer machines that I deem practical, and it doesn't matter one teensy tiny bit to me if a few other people do enjoy the excessive minimalism.  Again, I dare Apple to give us a full featured notebook selling along side their existing line.  Let's see who's right.  My guess is that I am right.  For who in their right mind would buy a stripped down machine for $4500 when you can get more features for that amount of money, and your life is better as a result?  Apple removed key features for no sensible reason at all.  It's a crying shame.  I continue to send Apple feedback about it, and encourage like-minded Mac users to do the same.  If we pound hard enough and long enough, the company just might wise up, especially if the media joins us.

Don't some of you get tired of your fellow Mac users blindly worshipping every decision out of Cupertino as if somehow Steve Jobs is still alive and blessed it?  Steve is no longer around and it shows.  Steve was pro-minimalism too, but at least he knew where to draw the line.  Johnny Ive's line is "so little design there's no design at all."  It's like a blank piece of paper, yet without the paper.  Sorry, but that's not practical for me, and there's a lot more people out there like me too.  Not every Mac user loves what Apple has been doing to the Mac since Steve's departure from this planet.  And we let our voices be heard, both in online forums and at Apple's feedback channel. 

And before a Cupertino Worshipper comes along and bashes me for having the guts to say all this, time and time again, consider well that Apple has 3 different notebook lines! Folks, did you hear that?  THREE DIFFERENT LINES!  These "I don't need ports, and I don't care about dongles or tactile feedback" people who perpetually defend Apple need only buy a MacBook or MacBook AIR to satisfy their lusting after zero practicality.  Why must Apple also gut the MacBook Pro?  It makes NO SENSE at all.  Apple should keep the Pro model feature rich, bridging the needs of today (which includes USB-A and an SD card slot) with the needs of tomorrow, which includes USB-C/TB3.  They have the MacBook and AIR to strip down to their heart's content.  Why must they also gut the Pro?  Again, it's the dumbest business decision I've ever come across.  And don't give me the "well, they needed to be consistent across the line and really push USB-C too, which they couldn't if they included USB-A."  All speculation and wild guesses, and I don't even care if these guesses are correct.

It's time for Apple to consider THE REST OF US.  They aren't now.

That's the thing -- they are. They are considering "the rest of us," meaning the vast majority of the computer market, with the Mac for possibly the first time since the bondi iMac. I'm not sure how many times I have to point it out that the target just isn't you, and probably also not a decent percent of the long-time AI reader base. Keep sending that feedback, if you'd like, I encourage it. Just realize that you are a drop in the bucket.

If a Windows PC is the right tool for your job, just get that, man. You're not going to get what you want from Apple.

With all due respect, I disagree.

From all of my personal as well as 20 years IT experience, from a hardware perspective, it seems to me that Apple is targeting a narrow, niche market with their Mac lines -- which I find odd, since the hardware is mostly just off-the-shelf stuff available to most any Mom & Pop assembler.  

MacOS and the Apple ecosystem are keeping the Mac lines alive. 

I think, and I hope, that they can and will do better.

Added as an after thought:   "Would you buy a MacBook if it was running Windows 10?"   I suspect few would say "YES!"

Crowds would cheer "YASSSSS!" because they get TWO laptops at the price of one ;-) Re: BootCamp...

Back to the point, BootCamp reveals that Apple always targets the largest audience. Apple was niche at the 90s, we all know how that ended. Actually Apple may sell more Macs if Apple Stores display and sell Windows boxes and set the BootCamp at cost right there. Fortunately there are third party sellers who can perform such attractions.

I guess I wasn't clear.   Let me restate the question:

"Would you buy a MacBook if it was running Windows 10 instead of MacOS and part of Apple's ecosystem?"

Would you buy it solely for the hardware?

You were clear enough, you just miss or ignore the bigger picture. No PC manufacturer can even compete with Apple in terms of hardware design, this is beyond discussion.

From a hardware perspective --  these are good machines -- but very restricted.  The Lenovo Thinkpad line for instance walks all over it -- partly because they don't just offer a single model with different engines inside but instead offer a wide variety of hardware to meet every need.

What Apple provides is good, even excellent -- IF you need a thin, light, minimalist design -- then pick one of the three because that's all you have to choose from.

In addition, I choke on the fact that I have to spend a LOT of extra money to future proof the machine because I know I can't upgrade later if I need to.   What you buy is what you live with.  I suspect there will be more than one person who fills up the base 128Gb of storage and is shocked to find out they have to buy a whole new machine to get more storage.   That's just stupid.

I think Apple can do better.  I think they WILL do better.

GeorgeBMac said:

macplusplus said:

GeorgeBMac said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

jdw said:

fastasleep said:

It's a dead horse that's been beaten for going on its third year now. When does it stop? Most "pros" have moved on and are adapting just fine.

Whoever clicked "Informative" on your Yawn post must be ready for bed themselves, if they aren't already fast asleep.

The only place where many of those "Pros have moved onto" is Windows.  I for one will NOT be doing that.  Seriously, Apple is taking a shotgun to the Mac faithful by incorporating extremist levels of minimalism into their designs.  I've loved Macs since 1984, not because they were the most feature rich machines relative to Windoze, but because they were PRACTICAL TO ME.  The late 2016 and newer MBP's are no longer machines that I deem practical, and it doesn't matter one teensy tiny bit to me if a few other people do enjoy the excessive minimalism.  Again, I dare Apple to give us a full featured notebook selling along side their existing line.  Let's see who's right.  My guess is that I am right.  For who in their right mind would buy a stripped down machine for $4500 when you can get more features for that amount of money, and your life is better as a result?  Apple removed key features for no sensible reason at all.  It's a crying shame.  I continue to send Apple feedback about it, and encourage like-minded Mac users to do the same.  If we pound hard enough and long enough, the company just might wise up, especially if the media joins us.

Don't some of you get tired of your fellow Mac users blindly worshipping every decision out of Cupertino as if somehow Steve Jobs is still alive and blessed it?  Steve is no longer around and it shows.  Steve was pro-minimalism too, but at least he knew where to draw the line.  Johnny Ive's line is "so little design there's no design at all."  It's like a blank piece of paper, yet without the paper.  Sorry, but that's not practical for me, and there's a lot more people out there like me too.  Not every Mac user loves what Apple has been doing to the Mac since Steve's departure from this planet.  And we let our voices be heard, both in online forums and at Apple's feedback channel. 

And before a Cupertino Worshipper comes along and bashes me for having the guts to say all this, time and time again, consider well that Apple has 3 different notebook lines! Folks, did you hear that?  THREE DIFFERENT LINES!  These "I don't need ports, and I don't care about dongles or tactile feedback" people who perpetually defend Apple need only buy a MacBook or MacBook AIR to satisfy their lusting after zero practicality.  Why must Apple also gut the MacBook Pro?  It makes NO SENSE at all.  Apple should keep the Pro model feature rich, bridging the needs of today (which includes USB-A and an SD card slot) with the needs of tomorrow, which includes USB-C/TB3.  They have the MacBook and AIR to strip down to their heart's content.  Why must they also gut the Pro?  Again, it's the dumbest business decision I've ever come across.  And don't give me the "well, they needed to be consistent across the line and really push USB-C too, which they couldn't if they included USB-A."  All speculation and wild guesses, and I don't even care if these guesses are correct.

It's time for Apple to consider THE REST OF US.  They aren't now.

That's the thing -- they are. They are considering "the rest of us," meaning the vast majority of the computer market, with the Mac for possibly the first time since the bondi iMac. I'm not sure how many times I have to point it out that the target just isn't you, and probably also not a decent percent of the long-time AI reader base. Keep sending that feedback, if you'd like, I encourage it. Just realize that you are a drop in the bucket.

If a Windows PC is the right tool for your job, just get that, man. You're not going to get what you want from Apple.

With all due respect, I disagree.

From all of my personal as well as 20 years IT experience, from a hardware perspective, it seems to me that Apple is targeting a narrow, niche market with their Mac lines -- which I find odd, since the hardware is mostly just off-the-shelf stuff available to most any Mom & Pop assembler.  

MacOS and the Apple ecosystem are keeping the Mac lines alive. 

I think, and I hope, that they can and will do better.

Added as an after thought:   "Would you buy a MacBook if it was running Windows 10?"   I suspect few would say "YES!"

Crowds would cheer "YASSSSS!" because they get TWO laptops at the price of one ;-) Re: BootCamp...

Back to the point, BootCamp reveals that Apple always targets the largest audience. Apple was niche at the 90s, we all know how that ended. Actually Apple may sell more Macs if Apple Stores display and sell Windows boxes and set the BootCamp at cost right there. Fortunately there are third party sellers who can perform such attractions.

I guess I wasn't clear.   Let me restate the question:

"Would you buy a MacBook if it was running Windows 10 instead of MacOS and part of Apple's ecosystem?"

Would you buy it solely for the hardware?

GeorgeBMac said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

jdw said:

fastasleep said:

It's a dead horse that's been beaten for going on its third year now. When does it stop? Most "pros" have moved on and are adapting just fine.

Whoever clicked "Informative" on your Yawn post must be ready for bed themselves, if they aren't already fast asleep.

The only place where many of those "Pros have moved onto" is Windows.  I for one will NOT be doing that.  Seriously, Apple is taking a shotgun to the Mac faithful by incorporating extremist levels of minimalism into their designs.  I've loved Macs since 1984, not because they were the most feature rich machines relative to Windoze, but because they were PRACTICAL TO ME.  The late 2016 and newer MBP's are no longer machines that I deem practical, and it doesn't matter one teensy tiny bit to me if a few other people do enjoy the excessive minimalism.  Again, I dare Apple to give us a full featured notebook selling along side their existing line.  Let's see who's right.  My guess is that I am right.  For who in their right mind would buy a stripped down machine for $4500 when you can get more features for that amount of money, and your life is better as a result?  Apple removed key features for no sensible reason at all.  It's a crying shame.  I continue to send Apple feedback about it, and encourage like-minded Mac users to do the same.  If we pound hard enough and long enough, the company just might wise up, especially if the media joins us.

Don't some of you get tired of your fellow Mac users blindly worshipping every decision out of Cupertino as if somehow Steve Jobs is still alive and blessed it?  Steve is no longer around and it shows.  Steve was pro-minimalism too, but at least he knew where to draw the line.  Johnny Ive's line is "so little design there's no design at all."  It's like a blank piece of paper, yet without the paper.  Sorry, but that's not practical for me, and there's a lot more people out there like me too.  Not every Mac user loves what Apple has been doing to the Mac since Steve's departure from this planet.  And we let our voices be heard, both in online forums and at Apple's feedback channel. 

And before a Cupertino Worshipper comes along and bashes me for having the guts to say all this, time and time again, consider well that Apple has 3 different notebook lines! Folks, did you hear that?  THREE DIFFERENT LINES!  These "I don't need ports, and I don't care about dongles or tactile feedback" people who perpetually defend Apple need only buy a MacBook or MacBook AIR to satisfy their lusting after zero practicality.  Why must Apple also gut the MacBook Pro?  It makes NO SENSE at all.  Apple should keep the Pro model feature rich, bridging the needs of today (which includes USB-A and an SD card slot) with the needs of tomorrow, which includes USB-C/TB3.  They have the MacBook and AIR to strip down to their heart's content.  Why must they also gut the Pro?  Again, it's the dumbest business decision I've ever come across.  And don't give me the "well, they needed to be consistent across the line and really push USB-C too, which they couldn't if they included USB-A."  All speculation and wild guesses, and I don't even care if these guesses are correct.

It's time for Apple to consider THE REST OF US.  They aren't now.

That's the thing -- they are. They are considering "the rest of us," meaning the vast majority of the computer market, with the Mac for possibly the first time since the bondi iMac. I'm not sure how many times I have to point it out that the target just isn't you, and probably also not a decent percent of the long-time AI reader base. Keep sending that feedback, if you'd like, I encourage it. Just realize that you are a drop in the bucket.

If a Windows PC is the right tool for your job, just get that, man. You're not going to get what you want from Apple.

With all due respect, I disagree.

From all of my personal as well as 20 years IT experience, from a hardware perspective, it seems to me that Apple is targeting a narrow, niche market with their Mac lines -- which I find odd, since the hardware is mostly just off-the-shelf stuff available to most any Mom & Pop assembler.  

MacOS and the Apple ecosystem are keeping the Mac lines alive. 

I think, and I hope, that they can and will do better.

Added as an after thought:   "Would you buy a MacBook if it was running Windows 10?"   I suspect few would say "YES!"

MplsP said:

macplusplus said:

MplsP said:

Personally, I am not offended by calling the iPad a computer. That is exactly what it is, and a very powerful one at that. It is just not a laptop replacement, which is what Apple is marketing it as. I would agree that the pencil has an incredible amount of precision, and would classify it as necessary if you plan on doing significant work on an iPad. 

I have not used AutoCAD, MS Office or iMovie on my iPad, but after 6 months of trying, Pages and Numbers do not work identically on the iPad. They are adaptations with compromises to accommodate iOS that make them significantly more difficult to use, bordering on painful at times. They also do not have the complete feature set. Apple Mail also lacks feature parity. The Preview app is a very powerful part of macOS that is basically absent in iOS if you want to do anything except view documents. 

On top of this, many third party apps also lack feature parity. The developers have them more as sidekicks to the full desktop versions. Not apple's fault to be sure, but any computer's functionality is dictated by the software. There are some full-featured apps out there, but figuring out what is what in the App Store is difficult at best.

Apple Mail and Preview are well known omissions in iOS. It is understandable that being a communication feature, email be more adapted to the smartphone simplicity. Yet Mail leverages that with capabilities unique to iPad. We cannot have Apple Mail exactly as it is on macOS, this is a windows-menu-mouse paradigm app.

I said nothing about a window-menu paradigm. I'm talking about features. What 'capabilities unique to the iPad' does the iPad mail app leverage? Nothing. It is, however significantly underpowered and lacking in features when compared to its Mac counterpart. "adapted to smartphone simplicity???" This is not a smart phone. It is supposed to be a pro computer. (or laptop alternative, as you choose to call it.)  If you are arguing that an alternative computer requires you to make compromises in terms of features then you are agreeing with my point.

Preview has roots in the very early releases of OS X, as a "preview to Display Postscript" or PDF, more accurately...The PDF "preview" feature is implemented in iOS like any other image viewer, doc viewer, xls viewer etc. available everywhere without requiring a specific app. macOS Preview features are largely included in Adobe Acrobat and other 3d party PDF apps.

Preview can handle postscript, but that is a virtually irrelevant part of its capabilities. On OS X it is a fairly powerful tool to manage, convert and annotate images and other PDFs. Those features are largely missing form iOS. Again, we are missing significant and useful features and having to buy third party software to augment them. IOS 11 did add improved abilities to mark up an attachment, etc, but when I tried to sign a document that was emailed to me, the recipient couldn't read the file. Nice.

Regarding other productivity apps of Apple, the differences with desktop versions are not severe enough to call them adaptations ot compromises. With every major iOS version Apple releases a new version of these, worth to check again.

At this point you have basically lost any credibility. Have you even used numbers on the iPad? I don't care that the interface is different. What I care about is that it is missing features and is a pain in the butt to use, taking significantly longer to accomplish simple tasks. When I try to edit documents using Numbers on the iPad, I feel like I'm doing it just to prove that it can be done. Again, we have a 'pro' computer that has difficulty doing simple productivity tasks.

Apple has never marketed the iPad as a laptop replacement.

Ummm... you clearly haven't read the article or watched the video. That's exactly what they're doing.

 It is not a laptop replacement, it is a laptop alternative. Why is it too hard to understand that?

Replacement vs alternative is a semantic argument that I am well capable of understanding. Does 'alternative' mean we should be satisfied with incomplete features and usability issues? You seem to be caught up in semantics and missing the point that whatever you choose call it, there are significant compromises in features and usability. In the end, that is all I care about.