Overpriced? Yes, garbage? No. The MacBooks are far beyond the close competition in both quality and performance. Apple Silicon is a game changer for the industry and it’s making Intel and AMD look very bad.
That’s not apples to apples. If you spec a windows laptop, good luck getting the same performance and the same battery life and portability at the same price. Also build quality, screen, speaker and trackpad quality will likely not be at apples level from the windows machine. If that’s what you’re in the market for Apple machines are not bad. For instance a photographer/videographer working on location, truly amazing for them. Should everyone buy one? No. Are there a 100 better ways to spend the money if you don’t have that specific Apple favoured use case. Sure, e.g. your mum doesn’t need a MacBook Pro for Facebook / Amazon browsing and your cousin shouldn’t buy a Mac Studio for gaming. But use cases do exist, and for those people Macs are genuinely a good proposition.
You really don’t get any of those things. Be a Mac fan if that’s your thing, but don’t try to pretend they’re actually any better because all the PCs you’ve used have been trash.
A beefy ass desktop that weights about 15kg and eats as much energy as a microwave when gaming. For performance per watt nothing beats the Apple Silicon.
What you using all that power for? Gaming? Not likely on Mac, Machine learning? Also not likely with that GPU… Maybe a Photoshop machine? Enjoy that non expandable ram.
For a nice dev machine I get it, nice battery life and watch Netflix on a screen, but it’s not like you can’t get a same performance machine for the same/lesser price with Dell/Thinkpad and use Linux…
That’s a rather narrow set of use cases. For example, they are audio and video editing powerhouses. Audio in particular is exceptional because of core audio in MacOS.
And upgradable components aren’t something 95% of the population is worried about. Max out what you need when you buy it. My last Mac lasted 8 years with no trouble. And by the time I was ready to upgrade, the bottleneck was mainly the cpu, which in a case of 8 years, that means a new motherboard, and at that point you might as well upgrade the whole computer, as standards have changed and updated.
I have a colleague that spends 90% of their time out of the office on trains and on airplanes. They need to connect to an RDP server, answer emails, and do some InDesign work. Our IT dept manager has the same attitude as you and will only issue them a beefy laptop that weighs twice as much as a macbook and has half the battery. My colleague has tried to explain that compute power is not their primary concern but the IT manager won’t listen because he doesn’t have the perspective to imagine what it’s like to do someone else’s job.
As an IT worker, it is more likely that they don’t want to deal with the headache of enterprise management of a Mac for just one person.
Just buying a Mac is easy, setting that Mac up to be monitored, managed, and secured centrally is a whole other issue. Especially when none of their current infrastructure supports Mac, because why would it when no one current uses one.
The user is worried about what type of device works best for their specific use. The IT manager is worried about what type of device do I have a licences for anti virus, what device can I audit security settings remotely, what device can I centrally manage updates, etc…
That being said, for personal use there is definitely a niche for Apple products. It just isn’t so clear cut when it comes to using those devices in an enterprise setting. And speaking from experience just one person never stays at one person. Once someone gets one, everyone will be saying “well, why can’t I get one too?”.
Had to smile at your last sentence because there’s so much truth to office envy. I was issued a cell phone by my last employer because my position required weekly travel in an area with a diameter of >150 miles, and the people who thought it unfair only worked from the office. Same with a disabled person getting some sort of accommodation, the chicken coop was cackling about unfairness, constantly.
There’s nothing more toxic than a group of office workers.
I never said that no one else uses Macs in our office. Our entire marketing department and half the executives use Macs. For whatever reason our IT guy just has a ‘sales guys don’t get macs’ personal policy it seems.
If you think that’s too stupid to believe, join the club.
Apple silicon has a pretty decent on-board ML subsystem, you can get LLMs to output a respectable number of tokens per second off of it if you have the memory for them. I’m honesty shocked that they haven’t built a little LLM to power Siri
Yeah those laptops from Framework seems very interesting. They don’t ship here yet, but I’m indeed keeping an eye on them. I know Framework project thanks to LTT, which is one of the few things right they’ve been doing these latest months: introducing people to easy to repair projects.
Its the tone. The language sounds unnatural, like you have an agenda. Commercials and marketing sounds like this because its trying to persuade or manipulate you how great this company or product is.
far beyond the close competition in both quality and performance
It’s true that Apple continues to be the king of build quality. And while they do currently hold the performance per watt crown, there are plenty of laptops that beat the M2 when it comes to raw performance, especially if you throw in a dGPU. And of course, none of this matters if the device doesn’t run the software you want, which is what I suspect most people on Lemmy have issue with.
Yeah, I remember XP and Seven as solid OSes where everything just worked.
Now it’s a mix of crap, hey this app is in night mode, this one isn’t! Want to change a parameter? Ha ha you can’t! You want to share a folder? Good luck!
And it’s heuristics/analysis just because Windows is inherently insecure drags any pc down to a crawl…
And publicity??!
Aurgh
Edit: can I run my old CS3 Photoshop in wine or something? And 3dstudio without crazy lags? If so I’ll stop using windows completely.
Windows 7 was peak Windows. They smoothed out all the problems of Vista (plus hardware caught up to the recommended specs) and all the new tech that Vista introduced matured a bit. Was one of the nicest looking operating systems they ever released too - though that is highly subjective.
Everything after has introduced some form of garbage in it’s iteration. Windows 8 had a garbage tablet interface that sucked when used with keyboard/mouse. Like the majority of devices that it was installed on. Windows 10 rolled back some of those shit changes but was the version Microsoft started implementing their adware. Windows 11 took it to 11 and put in a bunch of hardware requirements that conveniently required you to dump some money into Intel hardware.
Been running Linux for last six months and it is crazy how much better it runs. It isn’t as cumbersome to use as the old days… But every once in a while I run into something that requires Googling and tweaking in Terminal. It’s been my best experience with the OS though going back to WAY back (Mandrake and Slackware days - or are they still around? Early 2000’s maybe???)
Krita’s always done transparency just fine for me. It’s pretty good these days. There’s also a built in option to set your keyboard shortcuts to the same ones that Photoshop uses.
Yeah, I try never to underestimate the value of sheer familiarity. New software is like breaking in a new pair of leather shoes, sometimes you have to bleed a little before your feet adapt and you adjust it to fit.
I switched to MacOS last year and it’s so much better. Considering a full Linux switch when this iMac is too old unless the VisionPros turn out to be as good as advertised
I’m using Windows 10 at home and 11 at work. I’ve already turned an old gaming laptop into a Linux machine, and I don’t think I’ll ever switch to Windows 11. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the moment I read an article about Microsoft’s vision to make Windows entirely cloud based.
They’re great for productivity but not so much for gaming.
Yet, since they’ve been pushing to that sector for quite a while, they even released tools to help developers porting their games to Mac, which apparently some people are now using to actually play games on a MacBook.
keep in mind he’s running most of the games on a <1000$ Mac Mini.
Edit: The games in the video are being emulated, both Windows to MacOS and DirectX to Metal. So about 50% of the performance is being lost for emulation only.
Eventually everyone’s going to reach a breaking point where they feel subscriptioned out. I’ve already reached that point, but it appears the threshold for most people is much greater than mine, unfortunately.
Yeah, the pricing of the hardware is quite steep, but the OS is quite good. To be fair, some of the parts of a MacBook have an astonishing quality, like the speakers, the keyboard, mousepad, screen. Stuff that you must search pretty hard to find in the competition in the same package.
Probably would be better off getting a MacBook Pro 14" with 16 gb of ram and the base M2 Pro with 512gb SSD. Half that hardware of the Dell would get eaten up by Windows garbage and I can’t really use Linux to work.
Its kinda why chrome os works. Majority of people only need the browser, and if you need basic office suite, google has their own cloud options.
Its when you have specific use cases when you HAVE to use a certain os over another (e.g gaming with anti cheat, AI/ML and engineering software is usually windows foward, adobe stability on OSX. A lot of backend and server applications on linux)
Unless you make it a point to procure an LTSC version, which Microsoft won’t even sell to you unless you have a site license.
LTSC is the only version of Windows that behaves like it’s still your computer, and I have uptime measured in months on a computer who serves Plex all day long.
They are not “impossible” to repair they are very expensive to repair. For example, if you break a screen on a MacBook usually Apple solution is to replace the entire fucking lid. So because of a broken screen you throw the metal, camera, microfones and all other bullshit that comes in a MacBook lid just to fix a fucking screen.
TLDR: Windows is now the bloatware.
Windows is getting shittier and shittier each version. Using a MacOS, even with all its flaws it’s such a clean experience compared to it.
But then I’d have to support Macintosh’s overpriced garbage.
Get what you pay for. My M2 MacBook pro is best computer I’ve ever used by a huge margin
Overpriced? Yes, garbage? No. The MacBooks are far beyond the close competition in both quality and performance. Apple Silicon is a game changer for the industry and it’s making Intel and AMD look very bad.
Right. Buy products that is not only expensive to buy, but also expensive to repair. Pass…
And you are forced to give up system control, and choice of software
You will even have to give up compatible software because Apple deemed it “too old”
The close competition? For the price of a MacBook you could get a beefy ass PC.
That’s not apples to apples. If you spec a windows laptop, good luck getting the same performance and the same battery life and portability at the same price. Also build quality, screen, speaker and trackpad quality will likely not be at apples level from the windows machine. If that’s what you’re in the market for Apple machines are not bad. For instance a photographer/videographer working on location, truly amazing for them. Should everyone buy one? No. Are there a 100 better ways to spend the money if you don’t have that specific Apple favoured use case. Sure, e.g. your mum doesn’t need a MacBook Pro for Facebook / Amazon browsing and your cousin shouldn’t buy a Mac Studio for gaming. But use cases do exist, and for those people Macs are genuinely a good proposition.
Then you’d have a laptop twice as thick, 1/5th the battery life, be built worse, and have an awful trackpad.
You really don’t get any of those things. Be a Mac fan if that’s your thing, but don’t try to pretend they’re actually any better because all the PCs you’ve used have been trash.
I’ve yet to find a PC laptop that can replicate a Mac TouchPad. They’ve gotten better in the last few years, but are still miles off Apple.
They’re not better for everything, but some stuff they’ve absolutely nailed over the competition and it’s not even close.
A beefy ass desktop that weights about 15kg and eats as much energy as a microwave when gaming. For performance per watt nothing beats the Apple Silicon.
What you using all that power for? Gaming? Not likely on Mac, Machine learning? Also not likely with that GPU… Maybe a Photoshop machine? Enjoy that non expandable ram.
For a nice dev machine I get it, nice battery life and watch Netflix on a screen, but it’s not like you can’t get a same performance machine for the same/lesser price with Dell/Thinkpad and use Linux…
That’s a rather narrow set of use cases. For example, they are audio and video editing powerhouses. Audio in particular is exceptional because of core audio in MacOS.
And upgradable components aren’t something 95% of the population is worried about. Max out what you need when you buy it. My last Mac lasted 8 years with no trouble. And by the time I was ready to upgrade, the bottleneck was mainly the cpu, which in a case of 8 years, that means a new motherboard, and at that point you might as well upgrade the whole computer, as standards have changed and updated.
I have a colleague that spends 90% of their time out of the office on trains and on airplanes. They need to connect to an RDP server, answer emails, and do some InDesign work. Our IT dept manager has the same attitude as you and will only issue them a beefy laptop that weighs twice as much as a macbook and has half the battery. My colleague has tried to explain that compute power is not their primary concern but the IT manager won’t listen because he doesn’t have the perspective to imagine what it’s like to do someone else’s job.
As an IT worker, it is more likely that they don’t want to deal with the headache of enterprise management of a Mac for just one person.
Just buying a Mac is easy, setting that Mac up to be monitored, managed, and secured centrally is a whole other issue. Especially when none of their current infrastructure supports Mac, because why would it when no one current uses one.
The user is worried about what type of device works best for their specific use. The IT manager is worried about what type of device do I have a licences for anti virus, what device can I audit security settings remotely, what device can I centrally manage updates, etc…
That being said, for personal use there is definitely a niche for Apple products. It just isn’t so clear cut when it comes to using those devices in an enterprise setting. And speaking from experience just one person never stays at one person. Once someone gets one, everyone will be saying “well, why can’t I get one too?”.
Had to smile at your last sentence because there’s so much truth to office envy. I was issued a cell phone by my last employer because my position required weekly travel in an area with a diameter of >150 miles, and the people who thought it unfair only worked from the office. Same with a disabled person getting some sort of accommodation, the chicken coop was cackling about unfairness, constantly.
There’s nothing more toxic than a group of office workers.
I never said that no one else uses Macs in our office. Our entire marketing department and half the executives use Macs. For whatever reason our IT guy just has a ‘sales guys don’t get macs’ personal policy it seems.
If you think that’s too stupid to believe, join the club.
Apple silicon has a pretty decent on-board ML subsystem, you can get LLMs to output a respectable number of tokens per second off of it if you have the memory for them. I’m honesty shocked that they haven’t built a little LLM to power Siri
With that software support…?
Or a beefy laptop that can do more than send emails and Photoshop lol
Before I will even think about buying a Mac I will buy a Framework laptop and install debian.
And I don’t even use Linux outside of a home server.
Yeah those laptops from Framework seems very interesting. They don’t ship here yet, but I’m indeed keeping an eye on them. I know Framework project thanks to LTT, which is one of the few things right they’ve been doing these latest months: introducing people to easy to repair projects.
You sound like an Apple advertising bot.
I’m literally stating the negatives, now only because I said there’s good stuff about them I’m an advertising bot?
Its the tone. The language sounds unnatural, like you have an agenda. Commercials and marketing sounds like this because its trying to persuade or manipulate you how great this company or product is.
I’m so sorry for English not being my native language 🧐
It’s true that Apple continues to be the king of build quality. And while they do currently hold the performance per watt crown, there are plenty of laptops that beat the M2 when it comes to raw performance, especially if you throw in a dGPU. And of course, none of this matters if the device doesn’t run the software you want, which is what I suspect most people on Lemmy have issue with.
Windows : making Linux better by comparison!
Maybe thanks to Windows being so shit, Linux will have its year soon
Yeah, I remember XP and Seven as solid OSes where everything just worked.
Now it’s a mix of crap, hey this app is in night mode, this one isn’t! Want to change a parameter? Ha ha you can’t! You want to share a folder? Good luck!
And it’s heuristics/analysis just because Windows is inherently insecure drags any pc down to a crawl…
And publicity??!
Aurgh
Edit: can I run my old CS3 Photoshop in wine or something? And 3dstudio without crazy lags? If so I’ll stop using windows completely.
Windows 7 was peak Windows. They smoothed out all the problems of Vista (plus hardware caught up to the recommended specs) and all the new tech that Vista introduced matured a bit. Was one of the nicest looking operating systems they ever released too - though that is highly subjective.
Everything after has introduced some form of garbage in it’s iteration. Windows 8 had a garbage tablet interface that sucked when used with keyboard/mouse. Like the majority of devices that it was installed on. Windows 10 rolled back some of those shit changes but was the version Microsoft started implementing their adware. Windows 11 took it to 11 and put in a bunch of hardware requirements that conveniently required you to dump some money into Intel hardware.
Been running Linux for last six months and it is crazy how much better it runs. It isn’t as cumbersome to use as the old days… But every once in a while I run into something that requires Googling and tweaking in Terminal. It’s been my best experience with the OS though going back to WAY back (Mandrake and Slackware days - or are they still around? Early 2000’s maybe???)
Why cs3 when krita would have more features and be free? Familiarity?
Because I’m used to it I guess, and I haven’t found a single app that handles pixels and transparency well.
Like zoom in like crazy, update 1 pixel, save, transparency is still there.
Haven’t looked for a bunch of years though, maybe it’s time to try again :-)
Krita’s always done transparency just fine for me. It’s pretty good these days. There’s also a built in option to set your keyboard shortcuts to the same ones that Photoshop uses.
Well then I’ll have to re-check it out :-)
Cheers
Yeah, I try never to underestimate the value of sheer familiarity. New software is like breaking in a new pair of leather shoes, sometimes you have to bleed a little before your feet adapt and you adjust it to fit.
Or a whole lot if you go the Blender route…
I guess it’s like smoking.
You know it’s bad for you, and it costs a lot, but it’s a hassle to drop, so you just keep smoking anyway.
And the CPUs riddled with security flaws that suddenly get discovered, fixed and you lose 20% of performance overnight.
That obviously sucks but it isn’t limited to windows, right?
Yes, that’s mostly related to the CPU maker.
Since 1998
I switched to MacOS last year and it’s so much better. Considering a full Linux switch when this iMac is too old unless the VisionPros turn out to be as good as advertised
I’m using Windows 10 at home and 11 at work. I’ve already turned an old gaming laptop into a Linux machine, and I don’t think I’ll ever switch to Windows 11. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the moment I read an article about Microsoft’s vision to make Windows entirely cloud based.
Astonishing how Microshit is making Apple look good in comparison.
MacOS has been fine for awhile now, but Apple’s hardware is very expensive. They’re great for productivity but not so much for gaming.
Yet, since they’ve been pushing to that sector for quite a while, they even released tools to help developers porting their games to Mac, which apparently some people are now using to actually play games on a MacBook.
Even emulating the performance is quite impressive. Yet another coverage that LTT screwed up badly, so I give you this better video to check: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beYODfD2ipo&t=99s
keep in mind he’s running most of the games on a <1000$ Mac Mini.
Edit: The games in the video are being emulated, both Windows to MacOS and DirectX to Metal. So about 50% of the performance is being lost for emulation only.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=beYODfD2ipo&
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
That’s so they can run everything as SaaS and bill you monthly to use the computer you already paid for.
Eventually everyone’s going to reach a breaking point where they feel subscriptioned out. I’ve already reached that point, but it appears the threshold for most people is much greater than mine, unfortunately.
Yeah, the pricing of the hardware is quite steep, but the OS is quite good. To be fair, some of the parts of a MacBook have an astonishing quality, like the speakers, the keyboard, mousepad, screen. Stuff that you must search pretty hard to find in the competition in the same package.
Dell precision 5570
Maxed our about $3000, not bad, but an i9 no thank you.
Probably would be better off getting a MacBook Pro 14" with 16 gb of ram and the base M2 Pro with 512gb SSD. Half that hardware of the Dell would get eaten up by Windows garbage and I can’t really use Linux to work.
ive slapped mint on so many PCs… people barely know its not windows
most people only use the freakin browser
Its kinda why chrome os works. Majority of people only need the browser, and if you need basic office suite, google has their own cloud options.
Its when you have specific use cases when you HAVE to use a certain os over another (e.g gaming with anti cheat, AI/ML and engineering software is usually windows foward, adobe stability on OSX. A lot of backend and server applications on linux)
Unless you make it a point to procure an LTSC version, which Microsoft won’t even sell to you unless you have a site license.
LTSC is the only version of Windows that behaves like it’s still your computer, and I have uptime measured in months on a computer who serves Plex all day long.
I have a friend who runs MacOS too. She bought it used and it’s a desktop so it isn’t impossible to repair.
They are not “impossible” to repair they are very expensive to repair. For example, if you break a screen on a MacBook usually Apple solution is to replace the entire fucking lid. So because of a broken screen you throw the metal, camera, microfones and all other bullshit that comes in a MacBook lid just to fix a fucking screen.