It's just a product. Not something to feel betrayed over.<p>>But I don't like owning things I can't tinker with or fix even a little, both out frugality and a desire to create a little less waste in the world.<p>Perfectly good reason. Apple is not going to stop trying to make its products just a bit thinner, or otherwise pursue some other overall aesthetic design goal. Repairability absolutely takes a back seat.<p>>As noted by Business Insider, Apple is increasingly becoming a luxury brand.<p>Not quite true - that is, they have ALWAYS gone for the higher margin. They flirted with very expensive watches, but that seems to have gone away. They have always gone for the high end though.
I feel this way a lot myself. I've been a Mac user my entire life and feel like Apple isn't interested in making a machine for me. The designers favor identity brand over functionality (for my purposes anyway).<p>OTOH, I'm also forced to recognize that my learning and growth had pushed me out of the space of the "computer for the rest of us." But I'm sadly not quite ready to leave.
I have been using Macs for the past 12 years and am nearing the end of my rope. I received the toucbar MBP through work and I hate it due to all the reasons popularized.<p>But while Mac might take a hostile approach in terms of hardware, Windows takes one with their software. I feel stuck. I also find linux still too janky and don't have the same patience I did as a teenager to go through myriad settings and configuration files just to get things working or looking good.
Is HN ever going to stop falling for this type of headline? There's absolutely no new information in this article at all; it's just a summary of the basic history and recent news about Apple, with a couple personal sentences from the author thrown in. This is classic clickbait.
I'm sort of tired of all these reasons (high upgrade pricing, needless thinness, keyboard reliability, repair hostility), but I am having a bigger problem moving away from MacOS and the tight integrations.<p>So that's the bigger issue. Windows Subsystem for Linux starts to make a difference, and I just don't have time to fight Linux.<p>I know people are going to say "Linux is great now! You just have to do these 3 things to get Wayland working with the thingamabob" and at that point, I'd be perfectly happy with a hackintosh if it means I have to fiddle. But I don't have time to fiddle.
I have abosutely no problem with Apple devices being thinner, and near impossible to repair. As long as, say the average Apple computer requiring repair is less than 0.1% per year. On a 100M Mac user scale, that is 100,000 repair per year. Apple could easily give them free replacement or fix it for them for free. That would be perfect.<p>But in reality the failure rate of Apple is <i>only</i> half of HP and Dell. Initial Cost 40%+, and repair cost 100% more. And for business / professional users, HP and Dell make same day replacement to fixing. Apple? Try that with Genius Bar.<p>Whatever it is, I think Apple is on the verge with consumer confidence collapse. Next 2 year will be crucial.
I thought we'd abandoned the practice of writing articles that start by bragging about the author's "Apple fanboy" cred, followed by comparing Apple to a religion. I can't possibly take any article seriously that still does that.
>Anyone have recommendations for a good PC?<p>A good place to mention <a href="https://puri.sm" rel="nofollow">https://puri.sm</a>. Repairability is one of their selling points, along with the openness.
The writer addresses hardware only, not discussing the number of software nuisances that have been added. Using Mavericks on an ADSL connection was next to impossible because it insisted on downloading 300MB of trivia right out of the box - an update for some plaything like Garageband. Finally tamed the "phone home" tendencies with Little Snitch.<p>From my POV the apotheosis of OSX was 10.6.8, so my daily driver on my 2013 retina MBP (Mojave) is... SLS 10.6.8, virtualized in Fusion. When this machine dies, that's it, no more Apple anything.
The last computer I ever upgraded was a machine I built in 1997. Meanwhile my Macs are lasting 7-8 years. I haven't used an MBP with the Touch Bar, so I can't speak to that (the two MBPs I have currently are a 2012 and 2015 model). As other commenters have stated I'm certainly not switching to Windows. I love Linux on servers but I'm not thrilled with running Linux on a laptop. So it's Apple. For me they're still the best value for the money.
Apple's high base prices and obscene upgrade prices finally crossed some hard to describe psychological barrier where I'm concerned. Bye, Apple. :(
I'm old enough to see Apple go from selling computers you had to put together yourself in your garage, to selling the most hacker/tinkerer-hostile products ever made.<p>I think the straw for me was the fact that I had to factory reset my entire MacBook down to the "ROM" just to get the left side of my keyboard to work.
For anyone looking to dump Apple, check out <a href="https://elementary.io" rel="nofollow">https://elementary.io</a> for an operating system!
All those saying they won’t buy another Mac will silently regret this once their new windows machine is infected with malware, slows down, or otherwise suffers from all of its ailments. Unless they are already proficient in Linux, one of those will drive them nuts with the relatively limited software offerings.<p>The author doesn’t actually say which of the possible upgrades he personally did, and how he benefited from it, and thus how he has suffered since the ability to custom upgrade components was taken away. I think he just likes the idea. He won’t like the reality of the hassle of a PC, and I hope he writes a follow-up article when he “returns” to Apple. And loads of people I know who have moved _from_ a PC to a Mac actually have benefited, without the need to then upgrade the already-powerful (Apple) computer they now own.<p>Anyway, the need to upgrade was driven by software that was ahead of the curve. This was good, people were making and improving Mac software! And they still are, without the correspending need to upgrade RAM to make it run. It just runs. I started with a PowerBook 170 (maybe it was 190?), and worked my way up through models, upgrading ram or HD as needed. I worked with people using windows... holy moly, their misery was non-stop. And it’s still that way!