Apple Bye Bye

It really is a shame they control the known universe and have such power.

Not quite the same thing, is it?

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Um… I’m not sure if anyone’s pointed this out yet, but there’s no need to change your screen resolution… the Finder allows you to make the icons any size you want.

This reads like someone who really doesn’t have any idea how to use their Mac. Have you ever read any of its documentation at all? Or do you consider reading the manual to be a waste of time?

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Right click on the desktop, select “Show View Options.” Use the dropdown menu to select any point size between 10 and 16.

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That is something they never did to the business class machines thankfully. Dell’s business class laptops are pretty nice and sturdy as well. If you want a clean a system as possible there are a lot places that will build a laptop for you and some linux only shops like system76 out there. You will pay more as the don’t get subsidized by the crapware installs.
Also see if there are local refurb options. The kid and wife have business grade refurb Dells from a local nonprofit shop. They are well built and last way longer than the standard cycle time for the companies originally buying them.

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I’m totally with the author. Apple has become too successful for its own good. They are supremely arrogant and apparently have lost interest in catering to pro users. They’ll lose all of them.

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Well, my point about Macs stands then. I will note that the original article deals exclusively with the author’s Mac needing replacement.

I’m not really a heavy iPhone or iPad user, so I don’t focus on upgrades to them. For different reasons (dropped and pickpocketed, respectively) both of my mobile devices are nearly new. I’m genuinely curious though, I’ll have to look at the iOS versions and see if there is an upgrade I need, or might want in the future. But both of them do all the things I need them to do, and I would expect them to for a few more years at least.

This is why I stay away from Apple nowadays.

I used to have an Iphone, (In fact I still do in a drawer somewhere) I found myself needing to reset the phone and do a clean install of the software but when I tried to install my apps, it turns out that I couldn’t download quite a few of them because the currently available version on the appstore required a newer OS than what my phone supported.

These were apps I had payed for, and even though there was an older version on a repository somewhere that worked on my phone, I couldn’t get at it because the app store only serves to lock me in to Apple’s business model. Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money!

Its not that the hardware and OS aren’t supported anymore, its that they’re deliberately crippled so they’re obsolete.

After this happened with Logic on my Imac, I gave up on Apple, In the age of physical media, it would have been possible to make older hardware useful beyond its artificially imposed life span, but digital distribution tied to a crooked business model is bad for consumers. Unless you’ve got money of course, then you might not feel spending it is a constraint.

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Yep

(6char)

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I disagree heavily with the author, but I do agree that Apple’s massive success in music and entertainment with iPods and the App Store has pulled them away from their previous focus on professional hardware. Their pro laptops are still some of the best in the industry, but their pro desktops are difficult (if not impossible) to upgrade easily. I don’t look forward to the day I need to replace my sturdy Mac Pro with an iMac.

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Why not? From an environmental standpoint, (imaginary) corporations that support older technology ranks high on my list. If something works and a customer wants to keep using it for several years over the imaginary expiration date of four-to-six years, why shouldn’t they? Less landfill is a win-win.

I say this as someone who must get a new cell phone this week because it’s three years old. Other than the battery, it does fine and accepts newer apps. But since the battery is going, the whole phone must go. Not eco-friendly at all.

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Yep, in the exact same window that couldn’t be found to change the icon size.

What kind of phone do you have where you can’t replace the battery?

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I think they mean easily.
Just because you can buy a “kit” to do it on an iPhone doesn’t mean it’s designed to be replaceable. You know say compared to my LG G3 where the back pops off and a battery comes out…

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yeah… i’ve lost two macbook keyboards this way. once, the smallest amount of tea – the second time, a leaky water bottle in my bag.

so far as i understand, the keyboards on macs were designed to vent air in order to reduce the laptop’s size ( versus a back vent. ) but, that leaves them open to damage with the smallest drop.

luckily for me there was no cpu damage, so both times i ordered a new keyboard/trackpad plate, and replaced it myself. ( maybe 35-40 us ) i finally got an air after the mavericks update - my macbook was already getting old and crufty, but mavericks put it in the grave.

i just laugh whenever someone says macs have good design.

yes, the hardware looks and feels great.

the rest of the user experience is full of incompatible cords, bad keyboard designs, and os bloat.

some of the core software ux is also pretty bad: a decade in and i still can’t understand “finder”, menus can’t be accessed (easily) with the keyboard, important shortcut keys are rarely the same across applications, things like “close window” (cmd-w) are next to “quit application” (cmd-q), etc. etc.

i keep giving them money mainly because i do some ios development now and then. it doesn’t help that the most recent versions of windows look so gimmicky.

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I am quite satisfied with my Lenovo X1 carbon running Debian GNU/Linux (sid). Nice high dpi screen, can run a 4K monitor via displayport, has three physical mousebuttons, quick SSD, and a pretty good keyboard.

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Apple has always been very authoritarian since forever. You do things the apple way or not at all has always been the way of things.

That goes all the way back to the old Cardinal Toolbox joke/jargon:

Cardinal ToolBox (When the Apple Macintosh appeared on the scene,
admiration for its developers soon evaporated when it became apparent that
their devotion to doing things the right way (i.e… The Macintosh Way) went far
beyond the bounds of reason. The term Cardinal Toollbox refers to the Mac way
of doing anything, and it’s still used today whenever blind slavish devotion to
the Mac rears its head. Example:

“Q. Can we use a fixed-width font in this window? A. No, Cardinal Toolbox) won’t
allow it.”

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HTC phone that ran first gen Windows, which I fell in love with except it kept cycling itself on and off, so I went back to Motorola. Both phones were sealed and I was told no replacement battery because (and I remember this quote) “all phones are following Apple’s model.” I probably could hunt down a person or place to replace my battery, if I could be without my phone for some time. I need it for work since I don’t have a landline.

My phone is a workhorse; I’ve dropped it so many times and I think I have one tiny scratch on the screen that I can feel but can’t see.

Maybe I’ll call around afterall…

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Ah - that makes sense. I have to hand it to them - it does run surprisingly cool. I have a Macbook Pro from my job. It ha convinced me my next personal computer will have a solid state drive. They are very light weight, great battery life, and very crisp, bright screens.

The Mac OS I have gotten used to. Though at least once every other week, all my backgrounds just disappear for no reason. I have to open the setting and reassign each desktop their background again. Seriously - WTF. This shouldn’t happen on a $3000 laptop with state of the art OS.

You are sooo right about the cords. You take a sleek design with proprietary inputs that NO ONE USES. So at my desk i have this rats nest of adaptors for crap like my ethernet and 2nd monitor. Fortuneteller the monitor has a USB hub for my trackball and keyboard (do like the apple keyboard though).

I have also had things like totally lock up on me requiring a reboot. Firefox crashes several times a week for no reason. At least with my Dell I can find a program and shut it down. Force Quit sometimes doesn’t work.

Overall I like it, but it isn’t the gold cow some make it out to be.

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Linux all the way! I think you are also in Tucson. Happy to point you in the right direction if you make the move!

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