this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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I hate the tribalism regarding Apple products. There are loyal fanboys who won’t hear a bad word about Apple, and then there are Apple haters who criticise everything about them.
I wish we had some more nuance in this debate. The reality is that there are advantages and disadvantages to Apple products. I’ll outline a few:
Advantages
Disadvantages
I like to say that there are two Apples, Apple the designer and Apple the business.
Apple the designer is one of the best in the world. Yes they have blunders but they consistently put out some of the highest quality hardware and software. The current design language of the iPhone is beautiful, MacOS has its issues but it's a good OS, the seamlesness with which Apple devices work together is nothing short of incredible. They have some of the best engineers and designers in the world and it shows. (I'll never forgive them for the mouse though, that thing is a travesty)
Apple the business is a ghoul who hates its users and competition, would rather you buy a new phone than repair your broken one and, if they could, would make your device implode if you do anything they don't approve of. I'm still waiting for them to be benevolent enough to allow me to code on an M1 iPad, a device that has all the power of a mac but is completely knee capped by its OS.
I love Apple the designer, but unfortunately Apple the business makes it impossible for me to support them.
This is a great point. Anyone that says that the MacBook is a piece of crap has never used one (other than the first gen 12 inch MacBook) they are awesome and the design is great.
MacOS on the other hand really gets on my nerves and all of their anti-consumer stuff is enough for me to avoid them entirely. I won't even call them overpriced because a PC similarly equipped with a monitor as nice as theirs is just as much.
I wish there was a hardware designer as good as Apple on the PC side but because they are so good people excuse abhorrent business practices. You don't see people vehemently defending stupid things that Dell does for instance.
Great point. I can’t think of another company in the phone/computer industry that has such a cult following, that it allows them to get away with awful business practices without criticism from its loyal fan base.
I would also love to see a competitor to Apple make equally great products without all the awful business practices… Although I think the sad reality is that Apple’s anti-consumer practices earns them so much money, that it allows them to spend more on UX design, R&D, hardware etc and create better products.
As for the “overpriced” description, I’d say it’s a bit more debatable for a MacBook, but it’s a lot more noticeable on Apple’s other products (The most egregious example, of course, is the infamous $999 monitor stand). Even the accessories, such as a simple charger or adapter, will require you to pay the Apple Tax too.
Oh man I already forgot about that monitor stand. Yeah that's the kind of ridiculous stuff that people should be angry about.
Well said. I agree with your point. I love Apple designs/products but hate Apple business practices.
I guess my point is that people who buy an Apple product know that it’s a package deal. For instance, you know that you will get a beautiful high-end iPhone but you can’t side load apps. So it’s a case of weighing up the advantages and disadvantages.
And yes, I agree that the Magic Mouse is poorly designed, which is uncharacteristic of Apple. I was given one from work to use with my work-issued MacBook. And it was only when my mouse battery ran out for the first time that I discovered that you can’t charge and use the mouse at the same time! So frustrating!
Apple absolutely can do some great things, but I cannot overlook their anti-consumer practices towards the right to repair. The fact that aftermarket parts have to reuse a chip for the sole reason of marking the serial number the same as the original is ridiculous and should be illegal.
Also Apple devices are only more "private" in the sense that the prevent third parties from collecting your data (don't get me wrong, this is great), but then proceed to go and collect the same data for their own uses instead.
Another baffling thing I found is that you can't transfer files from the device if iCloud is enabled? That's fucking crazy to me. I get that it's not a common thing to do but I had multiple customers ask how they'd get something off, and the answer was to slowly download it from the cloud, if it was something that happened to be backed up.
While I accept that Apple are far from perfect, my understanding is that even their data collection for their own purposes is still less than the data collection that Google use for their own purposes. And since their are only two major phone OS (Android and iOS), we can only choose between the lesser of the two evils.
After all, do you want to give your data to a company which is the world’s biggest ad company? Or instead give your data to a company whose business model is convincing people to buy $1000+ phone every year?
But yeah, I agree that Apple’s anti-consumer practices are awful. I wasn’t aware of the aftermarket parts re-using chips just for the serial numbers and I’m not even the least bit surprised. We need governments to bring in legislation to protect right to repair, because companies like Apple can’t be reasonable.
Oh google is for sure worse, they are an ad company primarily afterall
Cherry-picked. There are phones without ads or bloat. And, given the incompatibility between facetime/iMessage and apps standardized across all other platforms, I consider these to be bloat.
Subjective. I support a number of family members whose grandkids suggested iPhones. Whether it's swooshing, skootching, swiping, tapping or banging it against a guardrail, I haven't learned and they can't remember how to bring up the main app screen now that the functional button was removed -- like, none of them. I'm just here to fix their email passwords, and I leave the UX issues to said grandkids.
I use Iphone and Ipad just for the banking. I distrust Android. It is an open system, and used a lot more for data collection than Apple's ecosystem is. The return you get from a data request between apple and an Android system is vast. I refuse to use Facebook and the likes.
I never buy the latest edition of Iphone anymore. I have done in the past, but the idea of spending £1200 on a phone seems stupid to me. I have very few apps on both the Iphone and Ipad. I use a PC for other stuff. Iphone hardware is good with the CPU side of things, but the cameras are very inferior compared to some android phones.
I use a windows PC to move my own music to my iphone, but it is a hampered system. I really do not understand why they have not been brought to the spotlight of the monopolies commission because of how bad they hinder transfers. I have a process I have to follow to get new music on my iphone. Anyone who wants movies on their apple products should look at VLC. It is the easiest method. I should add I haven't added new music for a long time. This could have changed, but I would be sceptical until I saw it for myself.
I look down on anyone buying a Macbook. They are total dogcrap, and massively overpriced. They are designed to fail in many areas, the latest being the SSDs that are causing surges in the motherboard, which destroys it. Apple constructively inhibits any repairs behind software encoding and pressure it puts on 3rd party suppliers. They lobby US government to restrict self repairs. You are literally throwing money into Apple's bank account for very little return.
Intel macbooks deserve the hate, but the apple silicon ones are genuinely impressive to the point of being worth it until the competition catches up in terms of ARM performance, especially in terms of battery life.
When was the last time Apple used an Arm chips over intel ? According to the Wiki, this was 2005. X86 software and GPUs were behind apple by quite a way back then. Did they still add Arm to later versions?
Originally X86 was not built with graphics processing in mind. It did not really show anything worth while until the Nvidia viper GPUs in the mid 90s. Prior to that Amiga had the best for graphics processing. I seem to remember Lightshow being the software for Amiga (don't quote me on that, it is from memory). PC became the best for gaming when Voodoo release their first card (possibly 97/98), but they still could not compete with an Apple in graphic processing. Amiga had fell away by this time.
Today.
All their computers are Arm now.
Sorry, but Techreader agrees with me on this one. Apple Macbooks are simply not worth the money spent on them. Techreader does not mention the way Apple inhibits servicing or upgrades. A problem that does not exist at that level on the PC platform. Even with a laptop the CPU, memory and HDD are interchangeable. Apple does not want you to upgrade; they want you to spend 10X the cost by buying a whole new product.
How is that in any way related to whether or not they use ARM chips, which was the only thing I responded to?
Because of the conversation thread.
[email protected] indicated that my opinion was out of touch. Since you say his opinion is based on current editions of Apple Macbooks, then my original statements still holds up that current Macbooks are a bad purchase all round.
This is not a remark towards your input, and only that my opinion has not changed.
@Syldon @1993_toyota_camry I bought a Macbook Pro in 2008 and used it happily (with little performance degradation) until 2018 when the displays logic board died and that vintage wasn't being supplied any longer.
I've honestly never heard of a PC laptop lasting 10 years like that, except maybe by grannies who put it in a cozy every night, just play solitaire on the thing and never heard of a Windows update.
Lol, seriously my friend do not repeat that argument. OFC people use very old PCs. If you had a mac running for 10 years, this is not a regular event. The guy mentioned in this post, Louis Rossman, has made a lot of cash from pointing out the flaws behind the Macbook design. He makes a good living repairing them.
The company I worked for had 286 PCs running the stock system all the way up till 2013. This is a PC that was running for 24 years before they considered replacing it. The company was not some back street mickey mouse set up who didn't want to spend cash. This was one of the major car companies. Large companies do not change things that are critical to the operation without a lot of effort to makes sure it goes right. They rely heavily on old systems because they know they work. This is very much the case across a lot of large companies.
@Syldon and I run a file server that's now 16 years old, running Linux as happily as the day we bought it... of course, after it's had its CPU, memory and hard drives upgraded multiple times. For 3 times the price of a Mac of the same vintage and no idea after the upgrades.
I never meant to imply you couldn't get quality PC gear, you very much can, but as soon as you do you're paying just as much or more than a Mac.
The PC vs Mac debate was old and tired in the 90s and now it's just dead.
I am guessing you think the internet is wrong then.
@Syldon oh no, indeed not... the internet is the only place to go for accurate, factual and well-rounded and informed information.
If it was not for the internet people in the UK would have zero idea just how bad the media is, so I really do not understand your point.
@Syldon If you put your trust in the internet then I really can't help ya, mate.
But hey, you do you, right? 👍🏼
So tell me. Where is the best place to trust?
@Syldon for "blind trust"...? absolutely no where.
If you want to form an educated respectable opinion then you deal with people that are educated in the field, then listen and learn. Otherwise, an opinion is just vacuous gas.
The internet and society is full enough with people expelling foul smelling gas as is without adding to it.
I don't know, I have an M1 Mac Mini and it is awful, I'll never buy another M chip. It's fast when you're just using a single program, but having more things open and it slows right to a crawl. Plus it's inability to do actual virtualisation is a real pain.
Very odd… i multitask and run both paravirtualized (arm) and virtualized (x86) linux and windows without issues. You are more likely on the base model and out of RAM.
It is the base model, I have about 2gb of ram free but it does run out quickly and due to apple bullshit there's no way to just open it and upgrade the ram (also, how the hell do they think 8gb is acceptable?). And they're capable of emulation, but not true virtualisation and things like VirtualBox don't run at all, unless that's changed recently because I admit I haven't looked into it since I found it was impossible after I got the machine.
Also once I have a single docker container running, it causes things like chrome to crash all the time, and I can't even run chrome, vscode, insomnia and a docker container together. Absolutely trash machine, doesn't compare even slightly to my 6 year old i7-8700k machine that's fully customisable. I don't see any reason to ever get another arm machine, and definitely not another Mac.
8GB is more than enough for someone who only does a little light web browsing and sending the occasional e-mail. Anyone who needs more from their computer is expected to know better and not order the base model. 32GB is workable, 64GB is better.
I have a MB pro with M1 Max and 64GB RAM and it’s an absolute beast. I can throw everything at it and it doesn’t break a sweat, and I’m a demanding user. I’m a developer and have a lot of software running all the time, 400+ tabs open in Safari, lots of PDF files and other documents open. I’m also running it with 2 high-res monitors (5k2k ultrawide and a 4k). Lots of work related apps (e.g. Teams, Outlook, and bullshit like that). The fan doesn’t even come on. Not even when I compile a large codebase using all 10 cores. It’s an absolute monster. And all that in a 14” laptop. Easily the best computer I ever used.
The whole apple ethos is to entirely control your product because you're too stupid too. You can try to see the nuance in that if you want I suppose, but I'm not really seeing anything meaningful myself.
iPhones are easy to use, if you do EVERYTHING their way.
This I do agree with
GrapheneOS
GrapheneOS on phone, linux on PC.
This I also agree with, but fuck broadcom wifi drivers.
Eh, it is "so easy a child could do it," yes, but the lack of ability to do what I want with my own computer or phone negatively impacts my user experience, personally. This one is way more subjective than people give it credit for tbh.
Isn't GraphebeOS just for pixel phones?
Yes, as they are the most secure phones out there for flashing since you can re-lock the bootloader. They're the only one that lets you do that iirc.
I agree with everything you said except the lightning port. The lightning port came out 4 years before USB C did and it did a much better job than any other port on the market at the time. Apple wasn’t going to make that investment if they weren’t going to stick with it for a while, for one every iPhone user would hate having to switch cables again that quickly, but also there was no guarantee USB C was going to succeed. Apple even participated in creating the USB C spec, as I detailed in another comment. Honestly I think the lightning port is actually better than USB C for what it does: incredibly thin, non clogging, waterproof phone port.
They should not have used it for other junk like the fucking Magic Mouse or whatever other mice or keyboard peripherals there were used for.
The issue isn't that Apple made the lightning port. The issue is that USB C has been standard on THEIR OWN DEVICES since 2012. I understand not wanting to switch immediately after introducing a new port, but I would argue that USB has been the clear winner ever since the Switch came out in 2017, which was still 6 YEARS ago.
Apple would not have changed to an objectively better port if it weren't for the EU regulations.
Also, lightning better than USB-C? A USB 2.0 port that transfers at 1/100th the speed? You're insane.
It's literally impossible for USB C to have been
It wasn't even announced until 2012, much less have any sort of spec. The spec wasn't even finalized by the USB Implementers Forum until 2014 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C
... they already switched on all their other devices. Why would they have not switched eventually?
Yes. I don't give one shit about transfer speed, just like the majority of phone users (not just iPhone users - all phone users). You sync using the cloud. If you're using a cable to sync you are in the minority
Lightning ports do clog up with fluff though.