dreyfus2

I bought the first 15" rMBP in mid 2012 (upgraded to max. RAM and the then fastest CPU). While it does not have the latest WiFi speeds and the fastest PCIe SSD, it still is doing more than fine. Neither the speed nor the battery life are any issue. What I do miss (and what would make me upgrade) is a higher RAM limit (32 GB would be great for running more virtual machines – I occasionally give MCSE classes, and some demos require 5-6 VMs running), and I really want support for at least one external 5k display. For all things requiring less power, I use the iPad Pro anyhow.

So, they are calling them iPads when they work, and MS Surface when they don't? That's marketing all money can't buy :-)

I do not mind the odd choices, but excluding Apple Mail (for exactly what purpose?) and not even mentioning Outlook or Thunderbird (which may be the two real "competitors", as far as free software without ads is in competition at all)... is just plain goofy. My definition of a mail client is flexible, except for two points: 1. It has to support proper email (SMTP, POP, IMAP) standards. Any application exclusively designed to deal with the proprietary mess that is Gmail is not a mail client, but a Gmail client. 2. Any application that implements features by adding own servers between me and my email providers (and requires me to give them my credentials to do so) while not even having a business plan that could even in theory be sustainable... must be fucking kidding. A Nigerian princess with an own email app is still a Nigerian princess. Long story short. I use Apple Mail (with MailTags, Mail-Act-On and MailHub extensions) to manage 13 email accounts with over 700 real emails a week. Neither do I need someone to "fix"email (my inbox is empty, my mails are answered, and - thanks to MailTags - I have any mean to handle, sort and filter them, even set reminders and tickle dates without ever leaving Mail.app), nor has anything proven to be better than Mail. Every time I tried Outlook I came back screaming and begging for mercy.

jdw said:

1) Apple calls it a pencil.  Some pencils come without erasers but MOST DO.  It's only natural to give it an eraser.  It's expected.  And for $100, it's a MUST.

2) People reviewing MS's input device have praised the flip-side eraser as natural, while expressing minor disapproval of Apple's design choice.  Not that we really care what MS fans care about, but we would be fools to treat their thinking as flippant.  They are paying customers too.

3) I myself don't care so much about what other people think when it comes to my "needs."  I just want products to be the best they can be, and I am willing to voice that accordingly.  I want the flip-side to be an eraser.  Put an eraser there and don't use it?  Who cares!  But remove the eraser and want to use it?  Ah, but you can't.  So by adding the eraser I am happy and so are you since you don't care!

1. No, all professional pencils (those normally used by artists) do not have erasers. No artist expects an eraser there, and it certainly is no must.

2. True, I do not care what MS fans care about.

3. That is a perfectly fine opinion, but that is not how good products are designed. You don't cater for every possible wish of every single individual, you make the best choices possible. And an eraser at the end is a terrible idea for various reasons... There is the stroke width discrepancy (eraser is thicker, might even be thicker than the eraser thickness set in the software – it is not an actual eraser after all, it is just another software setting), no need to confuse the issue by having two hardware pieces performing the same thing, only worse. Then there are apps that do not even have eraser functionality, like technical drawing apps that only draw shapes and bezier curves – there is only undo there, no erase. How confusing would the eraser end be there? Once it is part of the hardware, you can't make it disappear.

I use Wacom tablets since 2002 and have never used the eraser end on those pens that had it (swapping modes by hitting a button is always faster than flipping the pen around), and in my two weeks with the Apple Pencil I have not missed it even once.