Apple Bye Bye

I run a chromebook pixel with crouton and this works really great for everything I need to do personally and professionally. System 76 also makes great machines that just work with linux. Check them out.

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Separate your input methods from your computing machines for great success!

All-in-one hardware is the worst.

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When was Apple not imperious? I think the rest of us have recognized this behavior for a long time. Dive in and find your true spirit animal with Linux :wink:

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I actually kind of think the Macbook Pro design is near perfect. Thin and light enough to carry around, but still enough heft to feel like a solid piece of technology. I am also not a fan of the tapered edges that a lot of tech and especially laptops are moving toward. I prefer the squared off edges and consistent thickness provided by the Macbook Pros.

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Very agreed. The MBP is a good example of a design thatā€™s been carefully refined over a 10+ year time without being reinvented. My original Macbook Pro lasted eight years; those things are ridiculously durable.

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I had a Quadra 800 I used off and on until around 2011 (running 8.1 mostly) when I gave it away - I loved that machine, and it required no maintenance besides a battery as well. I have an original G3 tower (overclocked to 300, with a lot of RAM and a fast GPU) that has been running fine too, itā€™s powered down right now, but boots fine and was my go-to Quake III Arena system for a long time.

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All rant, no meat. What I want to know is what you plan to do about it.

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Bunnie Huangā€™s Novena is high on my list: Novena

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There were thousands of apps made for iOS 5 and 6.

All I want to do is to be able to find and install them without having to jailbreak and look for cracked versions.

Try and find them on the app storeā€¦

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I count the visible decline at Apple to when I tried to change the font size in the Apple Store app and found it wasnā€™t possible. Nothing in the menus, nothing in the help. Ditto for iTunes (which used to at least allow for small, medium, and large).

There was a time (very long ago, perhaps) when that was a requirement for all applications. No longer, it seems.

There was a time when I was traveling a lot, and I moved up from 15" to the 17" MBP. Unfortunately, that is no longer an option, short of running a Hackintosh or 10.6.8 in a VM on a 17 or 18" laptop under Windows or Linux, which has other problems.

Senior UNIX Sysadmin (Ret.)

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I suggest you read the post.

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Pure and simple is the unfortunate nature of Apple decisions. If it improves the bottom line we do it. That is why they donā€™t care about the power users anymore and make a trashcan that is twice the cost of a windows machine and half as powerful.

They donā€™t care, not really.

There is also no doubt that they are starting to fail more in the ease of use arena. I fired up my Mac Plus the other day only to find it amazingly and refreshingly simple to use.

Apple maps vs Google Maps is a good sign post to see how the two approach design. I dare say that the Google Maps design and interface makes much more sense than the Apple Maps that puts a blue line on a gray background as your navigation interface. not to mention every time you try to hit ā€œEndā€ on the map it doesnā€™t get it or it pulls down the top menu. The user interface of Apple today is a shell of what used to be. I have a feeling that the ones who are anti-rant on this page do not remember a time when Apple actually made things easier to use and payed much more attention to the quality of the user experience. Apple watch is also a great case in point of pathetic user interface design.

I also believe that if someone had the money that they could develop a much better alternative to the present operating system. But that probably wont happen until VR is firmly on the trajectory.

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shrugs shoulders

Someone running iOS 5 on an iPhone at this point probably has installed the vast majority of apps they are ever going to use. Itā€™s not like someone got to iOS 7 and went, naw Iā€™m gonna just roll back to 5ā€¦ Cause you know that requires a jailbreak. And in reality it may not just be that there existed an iOS 5 version of X software, but now that software has moved several versions ahead and simply canā€™t be put on iOS 5. I donā€™t know how the Apple Store works, if they are keeping old copies or (as I suspect) simply replace with the newest.

And like others have said - this is the Apple way. Itā€™s been this way since OSX and the first iDevices. People bitch about Microsoft and the fact Windows is so bloated, but thatā€™s what comes with supporting 80 bazillion devices and ancient programs. Itā€™s 2016 and I can dig out a copy of XP install it and then put a copy of Word 6.0 from like 95 on it and have it all workā€¦

Oh, that reminds me of another way they add clicks to my routine use- used to be that the App Store would reopen to whatever window was open when last closed. Now it always opens to ā€œFeaturedā€, and I have to waste about a second for it to load and use an extra click to get to ā€œUpdateā€ which is what I would like it to open to, but they donā€™t allow any changes to the default window.

It sounds too trivial to complain about, but you add all these up and it gets real annoying.

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Can you not still kill things with the terminal on macs?

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There is no computer named ā€œMac Air.ā€ If the author canā€™t even be bothered to refer to an actual product when ranting, Iā€™m going to have a hard time taking the rant seriously.

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Sure. I use the terminal all the time for various tasks.

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Apple does not ship any proprietary ports on Macs, aside from MagSafe for charging. Mini DisplayPort is part of the VESA standard and has been used by lots of manufacturers on thin laptops. Thunderbolt is a standard designed by Intel that has not been widely adopted by anyone but Apple, but an increasing number of non-Macs are shipping with it now that Thunderbolt 3 is included in Skylake chipsets and can piggyback on USB-C ports.

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You are partly correct from the standpoint of high-end hardware, but not low-end hardware. Could I run el capitan on my 2007 MBP with its stock configuration? No. I had to upgrade the RAM and over the years Iā€™ve been through multiple hard drives as my needs increased. I will probably move to a 1 TB SSD soon. At least i have this choice. Although if i do move to el capitan, it will be without many of the features that are not compatible with my older machine (airdrop,etc). In addition, if you look at the new machines now, with RAM unremovable and hard drives now part of the motherboard, macs are becoming disposable so that they will less likely be around after 9 years because system requirements will require upgrades. What more am i asking for? Nothing. My original statement was that it was the Apple Way to move forward at the expense of old hardware. In the past, it was removing standard hardware (floppy, CD, etc.). I stand by the statement because Apple has changed the game so that now you canā€™t upgrade the machine in the future to meet demands of speed and capability.
I am not complaining - I am simply saying i can understand the perspective of the author. She had a fairly low-end machine anyway, as do I at work - At work I have a white macbook purchased for me in 2009 that cannot be upgraded past snow leopard. It will no longer meet our IT security requirements and will be taken off the network. The machine continues to fulfill all of my needs and i will likely continue to use it, but email and web will require a nearby PC. Those are the breaks. I wouldnā€™t expect to run el capitan on that machine. Apple makes decisions to enhance old hardware at the cost of its bottom line - it has to do that. How many people are still happily using iPad2? How are Appleā€™s iPad sales doing?

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If itā€™s from 2007 it most certainly wonā€™t work against El Capitanā€™s obdurate non-choices. The whole thing is set in stone.

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