I think this is mostly a hate apple thread.

Everytime I look to read issues people are having I just see a lot of hate posted. I hate them too but still respect them (even after the 2011 gpu crap they pulled..) Now here is hoping my daughters 2017 mbp keyboard doesn't give out.
I would love to read more about problems being solved than just youtube videos I already seen linked here.

 

If you post a specific problem or issue you're having, you will usually get some help. Some bash Apple, but it is a love/hate relationship. I've used the 2016, 2017 and now a 2018 (i9) Macbook Pro 15 for work and I am not a huge fan of the keyboard. When it is docked (where it spends 80% of its life), it's a non issue, but on the go I take a portable BT keyboard with me and maybe only ~5% of the time do I actually have to use the built in keyboard. I can make it work, but I prefer other keyboards.

 

Right.. just not a lot of new content lately.

 

the main issue I have with apple computers, is they are stuck in the early 2000s. They are form over function. They need to move into the present with an updated MacOS. They need two in one offerings, REAL TOUCH, not some hackjob touch bar, and they need to make their devices reliable. At this point you are almost guaranteed to have failures of hardware with a MacBook/mac. The screens cracking, not covered, the keyboards failing (just issued an "apology" and now are fixing them) after a year of constant complaints and customers leaving the platform. It's hard to recommend apple or get excited over a new MacBook, when nothing has changed except the overall lack of reliability. I paid 599 dollars for my 13 in dell 2 in 1, and it's better than my son's MacBook air. I am using apple for my portable devices (iPhone, ipad). I really like them better than the competition. However, I think I am going to move my ipad 2018 to my wife's device, and I am going to get a 128gb surface go LTE to replace it. I really only use the browser on it, and the apps I do use have UWP apps and great webpages. The overall useage of the ipad is lessened now since most websites are developed for smaller screens now as well.

That should be pwa apps. Not uwp.

 

@kojack You hit the nail on the head with form over function. I understand thin and light, but there has to be a point where they prioritize performance and then maximize the form around that parameter. The Macbooks I've used are....ok. My main gripe is the keyboard this time around even moreso than performance which is telling.

I'm not asking for the world, but adding half an inch and a pound would do wonders for them as a start.

Their next MacPro would do well to lean more towards the cheese grater and not the cylinder fail.

 

My biggest issue with Apple these days is not so much form over function but how Apple is purposely SQUEEZING their customers for more money.

Case in point, I own a 2012 Mac Mini and I wanted to buy the 2018 Mini. Several problems arise. The base model comes with only 128GB of disk storage. Really only 128GB of storage in 2019 that you’ll to cough up another $200 to move up to 256GB of storage. So now the base model went from $799 to $999.

Another problem arises, the 2018 Mac Mini is a royal PITA to work on. If you want to upgrade the memory, you literally have to disassemble the entire Mini and remove the motherboard.

Problem #3, the SSD storage is soldered onto the motherboard. Really, Apple was that really necessary? If the SSD fails the Mini needs a new mobo. Sure you can add an external drive but the adds to the cost of $999 for the i3 base model with 256GB.

So just to make the point how Apple is squeezing their customers, I bought a Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny desktop. It’s the same size as the Mini with virtually the same specs AND it came with 256GB M2 Storage Card. It uses a similar Intel CPU i3 as the Mini with 8GB and the Intel 630 GPU as the Mini.

The best part is, you remove one screw and you have clear access to ThinkCentre Tiny and can easily replace the M2 storage card in a few seconds or upgrade the system memory. Adding a second drive is just as easy.

Now here’s the rub. I bought the ThinkCentre Tiny for $398 vs $999 and it’s super easy to work on and replace parts. Windows 10 boots in under 7 seconds.

I like Apple products and macOS but times have changed and Apple IMO is operating like they are selling a brand and the customers will buy it at any cost.

When my 2012 Mini is no longer supported, i’m going to convert it to a Linux box and just leave macOS. Apple’s OS is no longer as magical as it once was and I started using it with the very first release of OS X in 2001/2. Now Windows 10 with Microsoft doing everything it can to screw things up on purpose rivals macOS. Linux has come a long, long way and has become a solid alternative with Linux Mint being my favorite. Little by little Apple is doing everything it can to turn people away and now people have good choices besides macOS.

......sorry for the long post.

 

I agree. Apple is all about making money. The shiny objects Apple sells happen to be computers. It's all about pricing. Boldly charging far too much for something made desirable with marketing. And, then charging even more next year for essentially the same thing - many years running.

The most amusing are comparisons showing "time / inflation adjusted" prices from Apple's own most overpriced products - like the Macintosh II - used to justify Apple's current overpriced products like the new Macintosh Pro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_II :
"Introductory price US$5,498 (equivalent to $12,125 in 2018)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_IIfx :
"Introductory price US$8,969 (equivalent to $17,200 in 2018)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_IIx
"Introductory price US$7,769 (equivalent to $16,458 in 2018)"

Here's a much longer explanation on Apple's true business of "pricing", from 2010:

How Apple plays the pricing game
Creative strategies prompt consumers to buy, buy, buy
By Ben Kunz, Bloomberg Businessweek, updated 9/6/2010 12:53:38 PM ET
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38980367/ns/business-us_business/t/how-apple-plays-pricing-game/

Apple have implemented a few more tricks since 2010 to continue to increase their profit margins.

 

If apple didn't try to take advantage of their customers so much, maybe they wouldn't get so much hate

 

All for-profit companies are about making money. Apple’s certainly not alone in this as far as computers go, as pretty much all OEMs are pursuing this goal.

That said, the bashing can slow down a bit if Apple started to make decent computers. And if you have a specific question about something, someone will get around to answering it.

 

IMO they make good computers that provide some good value occasionally and have very strong points. But then they throw away any advantages they might have had by several choices that serve no other purpose other than to screw over their customers. Insane component upgrade costs + lack of easy to service design are totally unnecessary and don't add to the product, only take away

 

Such as charging $6,000 and dropping a 256GB SSD in the base model. Now that's what I call .. courage

 

$6000 for a puny 32GB RAM and 256GB of PCIe storage... And to top off that cake, it is paired with a pathetic 580X pro. That kinda pathetic spec sheet makes me wonder what the design team was thinking... Nobody will buy a $6k computer with less power than a $3k machine. The only options that make even a bit of sense are the higher end 20+ cores models

 

Nevermind the markup on upgrades, the problems are in the design of the laptops themselves. You have a lineup of products which can’t effectively use any of the their internal parts (CPU/GPU/etc) to their full potential due to poor cooling / power draw, so even without the markups they are still expensive for what you get (though to be fair, thermal/power throttling is an issue on pretty much all but a handful of laptops sold today). There’s also the issue of shoddy engineering such as the keyboard and display cable issues of the more recent models, the display coating issue of the mid-2010s, the Nvidia GPU debacle, etc.

Really the only noticeable thing about these machines hardware-wise is perhaps the display. Not amazing, but better than bottom-of-the-barrel stuff like what’s in my 7577. Certainly no Dreamcolor though. Software-wise, there’s nothing really there... macOS is just BSD with a nice skin and the few interesting macOS-only applications (like FCP) have been watered down to nothingness over the years. Maybe a switch from x86 to ARM might do the laptops some justice; at least it wouldn’t be an overheating mess anymore and it would still have enough grunt to surf the Internet.

 

On the one hand I see why Apple gets so much hate. I've tried twice to switch over to a MacBook for a portable device. Tablets have lost their appeal to me so laptops have become a focus for me again. They keep getting smaller so a tablet doesn't make as much sense as they did years ago. But, I could never get used to the MacOS itself. And since I don't need it for work I just decided it's not for me. But, damn if I don't look at them thinking they look nice, Yet that's kind of the problem I see pop up all the time. It's looks over function. They threw in an i9 processor into a machine that honestly should have no more than a U class CPU. Stuff like that should not come from a premium priced product. If a car company did half the things Apple did they would be sued and out of business.

On the opposite side of the fence there are ALOT of elitist PC master people here. And I have several of them on my ignore list. And I have them ignored because they never have anything nice to say and everything is worse than their one Golden Standard laptop that came out five years ago. So believe me when I tell you that they are on all parts of this forum. So if someone says something negative that you don't like then just click on their name and then click on ignore on the pop up. Boom! Negative person gone forever on this forum.

Now if you really need help with a problem there are people here that will help. Even the ones that try to let people know that Apple is doing some shady things.

 

Lately say within the last 5 years there have been some serious design issues. The butterfly keybd that quite a few have had issues with have been going on now for around three generations of the MBP. After three tries someone needs to replace the keyboard designer or is it down to Jony Ive's obsession with thinner and lighter that's at the crux of the problem? Regardless when you are buying a fancy laptop that can hit the $5000 mark those are issues the end user should not have to be dealing with. The same goes for the $5 display flex cable that requires a trip to an Apple store to have the top display replaced because the flex cable is part of the display.

And yet you can buy a nicely spec'd carbon fiber ThinkPad X1 for much less, that's more reliable and has the best keyboards in the industry. My ThinkPad T60 which is going on 12 yrs just had the battery replaced and is happily running Linux.

The other problem is that Apple hardware has an EOL, so after a certain amount of years it no longer gets support. How's the proud owner of the new Mac Pro going to feel when s/he knows their nicely spec'd MP can easily handle macOS 10.39 but Apple decides the cutoff is macOS 10.23/4?

One thing Apple does really well is meld hardware and software to provide an overall nice package for the customer. I have a wireless Apple trackpad 2 and there's nothing like it and how it functions within macOS. But then Apple has to be Apple and decides they need to muck things up with a few bad decisions like selling a $999 monitor stand which is mandatory or a $6000 Mac Pro with a 256GB SSD and it only is capable up to 4TB of total SSD storage.

 

Well, at least the Mac user is able to install a different OS like Windows or some Linux flavor when macOS decides "no, that's enough for you", though that sort of defeats the purpose of buying Apple's hardware. The $999 stand did crack me up though; like, why the hell is it priced that high when you can buy "premium" (still overpriced) stands for something like $200-$300?

 

I could build a PC with a monitor and stand for $1000!

 

Now, to be fair Richard, you could NOT buy a similar spec'ed computer to the new mac pro'grater for 1000 dollars with monitor and stand.

 

Fair enough. But I can for like $3k or around that

 

That sounds about right. The biggest expense will be a high end graphics card from nVidia. I would say between $2-3K max.

 

You mean the RX 580X pro?

 

I was thinking something in the Quadro series. Not the Quadro RTX 8000 as that's fetching in the neighborhood of $5700 with 48GB of VRAM.

The Quadro P4000 is in the $800 range and the Quadro K6000 is in the $1300 range. Mac users have been clamoring for an Nvidia solution but Apple for some reason has had a fallout with them and they are just using AMD Radeon.

 

Any higher? Becuse we can!



Apple Sells 16GB RAM for $400 – Almost 700% Higher Price Than Other OEMs

Memory prices had exploded back in 2018, due to cryptocurrency mining. At their peak, 16GB DDR4 memory modules cost an average of $200. To put things into perspective, even those high prices are half of what Apple charges in 2019, despite RAM prices being the lowest they have ever been. Apple continues charging so much money just because they can, not because they should.

 

Makes the highway robbery of companies like Dell seem like a bargain. But, Apple has never sold anything for a reasonable price. There is a flawed perception of quality based on an inflated price tag among the devoted. But, paying more to get less is popular with Alienware fans, too. You're essentially paying extra for admission to a pop culture cult/clique.

 

Apple customer service is outstanding!

 

Many Acura/Honda, Lexus/Toyota, Infiniti/Nissan, and Audi/Volkswagen vehicles are fundamentally the same products. They share parts and get you to the same places at the same speeds. Yet hundreds of thousands happily pay the often thousands to tens of thousands of dollars more for the upscale brands, myself included. Why? Because while the luxury brands do offer some features and technology you can't get on mainstream products, the purchase and after-sales experiences are, for the most part, vastly superior. They will go above and beyond in order to keep customers happy because it's far more difficult to keep customers who have the money to buy whatever they want than those who don't. Below is a perfect example and far from the only one where Apple has performed a similar service.

 

But, that doesn't explain the basis for having your eyes gouged out with ludicrous overpricing of completely ordinary service components. Paying for a brand isn't the same as being shafted on the price of parts. Only a silly person that doesn't appreciate the value of money earned the hard way would pay double for new tires or an oil change just to be able to say they had it done at a specific shop. There is nothing magical about the tires, or the oil and filter. You get nothing but screwed in that scenario. You can pay for the services of a call girl, but the delivery of those services doesn't mean she really loves you, even if she says she does.

If you need service or warranty fulfillment, it's certainly nice to have it delivered in a hassle-free way. I think every person expects (and deserves) that no matter how much or how little they paid for a product. Service delivery should be (and usually is) a reflection of the core values of a company and employees that do the right thing. Employees believing in the product they sell/service comes into play on the service side. Service is about the people, not the product. But, good service doesn't make the product any better. Some super expensive products are unreliable and have a list of flaws as long as your leg. Some inexpensive products have few flaws.

At the end of the day, people are going to spend their money however they want to. I'm OK with that. It's their money. We certainly don't (or shouldn't) hate them because of it. No skin off of my nose. But, I also think identifying the flaws in their logic is legitimate and having it questioned should be expected.

 

Yeah, we're surrounded by this kind of thing across every industry. Every company makes or sells flawed products. Some are "better" at it than others. But, nothing is ever perfect and we live in a litigious world where everyone is looking for an opportunity to get rich off of people and companies that are incompetent and/or don't take ownership of their mistakes. The only entities that typically benefit are the attorneys. Everyone else pays for it, either directly or indirectly.

 

I'm sure Apple will walk a long way helping people when they know they can charge their loyal customers up to 700% Higher Prices than what the product is worth... This is equal a never empty Goldmine...


And they will charge you the same next time you visit their store/webstore. Many will swap their machines after 3 years usage. This means 3 times robbed within a 10 years period

 

OR, for someone like me, it could be the result of being sick and tired of Microsoft, their telemetry, their buggy updates, their stupid driver incompatibilities with every new build which is like every 6 months. This coming from someone who knows how to tame Windows 10 inside out, I can do it, and easily, but it is time consuming and I'm SICK and tired of it. I would pay for my time for something that "just works" out of the box with no drivers needed to be installed, no tweaks, switching off telemetry is just 2 clicks away (Settings > Privacy). Heck I don't even have Microsoft Office on my MBP, just using the built in iWorks which is enough for my basic needs (editing my resume and whatnot).

 

I totally get the hate for that filth. 100% get it. That's why I stopped allowing them update anything quite a few years ago. Those stupid bastards couldn't do things right if their lives depended on it. And, Windoze OS X "feature" updates are as worthless as the tits on a boar. I cannot identify one that matters... not even one... since 2015. Because they are incompetent imbeciles.

The only way to do it is lock things down and not allow any changes until you're darn good and ready for them. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

Their crappy updates history goes way back in history. Remember the Windows update buggy update that broke Aero and they never bothered to fix it even years after discovering it? You had to manually uninstall/disable that update to make Aero fully functional

You see, in normal people's heads, updates should be good right? Better features? security patches, better hardware support. I cannot remember a single update that made this piece of garbage of an OS any better! Not once.

I remember Windows 10 Build 10240 (Threshold 1) as much as we hated I back then, is 10x better than the mess we are at right now. It was faster, less telemetry, better hardware support coming from Windows 8, and it was much easier to tame, just a few tweaks and you're done. Now you're in for a roller coaster ride just to make this OS even usable.

 

I am not sure if Dell is copying Apple, or if Apple is copying Dell. Same behavior.

@hmscott - just watched that video. Wow... just... wow. Crazy level of arrogance, indeed. Seeing how much he hated Clevo keyboards, Brother @Spartan really dodged a bullet getting the 16-inch model with a new "magic" keyboard design.

 

New Entry-Level 13-inch MacBook Pro Customers Now Have to Pay Double the Price for Upgrading the RAM wccftech.com | Today

Customers Now Being Charged $200 Instead of $100 to Upgrade the RAM on the Entry-Level MacBook Pro
Customers in the U.S. now have to pay $200 instead of $100 to upgrade the RAM from 8GB to 16GB on their MacBook Pro. The RAM upgrade features the same 2133MHz frequency, but more memory is always advantageous for running multiple applications or firing up programs that use up a lot of memory.

 

So, basically you'll have sheeple lining up and volunteering to be raped to the tune of a $200 bloodbath to add 8GB of 2133 RAM.

Stupid prices on stupid products for the people that are stupid enough to allow it. Not a new concept for the Cupertino Clown Posse. That's what they do. That is what their muppet customers let them do.

*yawn*
*SHM*

 

Very hard to get Samsung modules unless you have lot of extra unwanted cash in India. Apple soldered RAM might be very very expensive in India.

 

Making a cartoonish argument against Apple isn't helpful if you're trying to make a compelling point. As much as people howl about the "Apple Tax" I don't hear anything about all the ridiculously bad cheap Chinese **** like Lenovo take any where near this kind of heat. X1 Carbon and X1E are a joke, hell X1E has keyboard issues like the butterfly keyboards. Don't get me started on Dell either! The Alienware Area 51 is a joke and requires all kinds of fixes to keep from cooking itself to death but hey its up-gradable right...or is it? So applying that kind of logic unequally just makes you look like a hypocrite. The only people who are interested in buying some 1980s throwback like Clevo are people like us, not the general public.

Apple makes AIO type devices for people who do not want to know how the sausage is made only that it works. Try running an eGPU right now, I'll wait. Oh it requires a PCI.sys mod in Powershell? You really think the average user is going to use Powershell?

Oh and talk about the hovering sword of Damocles called forced Windows Update. How would you feel if you were a graduate student and have your PC blow out and lose everything from a botched update. Oh but you saved everything to OneDrive... oh wait that was bugged too and now its gone forever? Its cheaper to pay $200 than try and retake a semester or spend hours re-doing school/business work over. How is that hard to understand?

People are willing to pay a premium up front for good hardware that does not require any kind tinkering to run and I'd say roughly 8/10 laptops are no where near that. The closest thing to the "Apple Experience" you can buy is a business class workstation and in almost every case is *MORE* expensive than Apple. So how does that work exactly?

The only reason and I do mean THE ONLY REASON why I have a "laptop" and not another MBP is because I need specific windows hypervisor and coding applications that are difficult to run in OSX. Yes I could use bootcamp but I lose the custom power curves that make running a thin and light device like an MBP possible.

What did I buy? A Zbook and it cost the same as a MBP 16" **USED**

People need to hang up the dogma and start being pragmatic for use-case. Ive got a custom desktop gaming PC for me, a cheap prebuilt for RTX voice for my wife's office. Iphone XRs for the kids since they're young and can operate the facial recognition but not the key pad unlock. 13" MBP for my mother-in-law on disability and a MBP 15" for my wife because she wanted a bigger screen. Now I'm about to buy a Chromebook for the oldest.

This isn't a gang war lol

 

I agree with the choice of ios devices. They work, have years and years of updates, so you get your moneys worth. Macbook however are another story. Right from new you get previous generation hardware, tied into a subpar software ecosystem, and the build quality has gone the way of the dodo bird with Apple too. At least with a windows based you get your moneys worth with a robust reliable system.

 

Wrong.

 

Right.

That macbook was released last month. May 7th. The 10th gen chip was released in may 2019. The new devices moving forward are all going to have new chipsets and the Macbook won't be upgraded for 2 years at least using they current cycle.

 

Did they allow actual RAM upgrades or are those soldered on mobos? 16GB these days are nothing. 32/64GB should be pretty standard on any 2000$+ laptops. I hate the idea that some 3000$ maxes out at 16GB and you need to shell out extra for HyperX or Samsung die based DRAM that supports higher memory frequency at lower voltages.

 

Unfortunately I can't agree regarding iOS devices and "they work". iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 have been dreadful in my experience. There was iOS 13.2.3 that was a battery draining finger burning nightmare for thousands of users, and then of course there is iPadOS 13.4 which suffers chronic Bluetooth issues, also for thousands of users and completely wrecked some accessibility features I rely on. I can't tell you how angry I was about that. For each major iOS update that I have used there has been one sub version which has been a complete nightmare and had to be patched to restore "Normal" operation.

I would also not agree with "subpar software ecosystem" and "at least with Windows-based you get your money's worth with a robust reliable system". I will admit that it's fairly niche but for me, the built-in accessibility features of Apple makes the difference between a system being usable and unusable. Given that I have both Windows and Apple machines in my signature my personal experience is that the Apple ecosystem as a whole has more features that I personally want and has fantastic integration across devices, something I find very useful. As for reliability, we all know that there have been major issues like retina screen delamination and butterfly keyboards, that said my 2014 13 inch MacBook Pro is working perfectly after six years (yes I did have the screen replaced!). Only a couple of months ago my previous Windows gaming laptop automatically uninstalled the latest version of AMD software and installed a five month old version in its place. I have had comparatively few issues with Windows 10 but that one was pretty unnerving.

Use case is exactly it. Horses for courses. Different people have different requirements and different experiences and a lot of enthusiasts and reviewers in my experience seem to Think every product is aimed at them when in reality somebody's requirements and situation will dictate their purchasing.

 

THANK YOU! People seem to treat these brands like they're political parties. Apple engineers are incredible at what they do, the ARM teams are an excellent example of this given that they created ARM in the first place. Apple founded ARM for portable devices so people can complain about the Apple Tax on their Android smartphones; ironic isn't it?

Just because it's not engineered to do what you want doesn't make it a marvel of modern engineering. Who else uses haptic feedback in a laptop right now or any device other than the PS5? How about since 2015? I rest my case.

It's OK to not like the direction a company is taking. I sold my MBP and moved back to Windows because I have concerns about the move back to ARM for laptops and bought an LG V35 for $185. Does that mean I hate Apple now? Absolutely not! If I can see some kind of confirmation about emulation or my compatibility fears are put to rest of course I'll buy another MBP. That's what makes us better than children; object permanence and reason; act like it folks lol.

Oh come on off with this. There's a difference between an announcement, tech demos, design wins and actual releases. Lenovo like em or hate em are at the forefront of OEM designs and they literally JUST announced Cometlake Thinkpads today. I'm quite sure we will see Cometlake MBPs launched next Tuesday at WWDC.

 

They do treat them that way don't they? We have android, Windows and Apple devices in my household and they all fulfill their functions.

As for 10th generation, the 10th generation gaming laptops are only just coming out now. It takes awhile to re-engineer things, especially as the graphics has changed so much on the 10th generation devices from Apple.

 

What marvelous outcomes does haptic feedback give in a laptop? In a phone yes, laptop....nope. espeically one that don't have a touch screen. Nothing magical or special there.

I use all three, however I would never have another macbook. They are just terrible. simple. My son comes home from university and I use is macbook for 10 min and it's frusturating.

 

Well what good did ARM do for computing when the iPod came out? That's kinda how innovation works... Again it's OK to not like something but from a cohesive software package Windows seriously lags behind Apple even with Siri being a complete joke. The last innovative tech I've seen from the "PC" world was nVidia with RTX Voice, Microsoft has done absolutely nothing on the engineering and design front in a decade. Hell they can't even build current generation PCs that are able to run on the latest Windows build. Can you imagine the shrieking if that happened to a Macbook?

Literally less than a week, I mean honestly; WWDC is Tuesday.

 

I'm not sure of the point you are making here?

 

That was directed at folks like kojack who are complaining that Apple doesn't upgrade internal hardware fast enough when compared to Windows OEMs. We're less than a week away from WWDC when the new Macbooks using Cometlake will be announced and likely available for direct orders after the event.

 

We must look at different rumour mills, I had interpreted the availability of the 5600 M just announced on the 15 inch MacBook Pro this week plus the recent updates to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13 to add 10th generation to mean that WWDC would not feature anything new for Macbooks. We will see!

 

15" and iMacs is what I was referring to as you're correct the 13" was already updated and won't until Tigerlake.