Thoughts on the new Macbook?

[jminer]

I'm a PC guy have have been for a very long time. I've dabbled with Linux a fair bit, especially on the server side but it's a bit too glitchy to daily for me (or especially my wife).

Windows 10 has been getting more and more annoying, giving users less control giving me a walled garden, but a buggy one..

All this is making me seriously thinking about buying a macbook. I haven't daily driven a mac since OSX was named after animals (and still called OSX). The new arm chips are tempting as I've been a big supporter user of arm (lots of raspberry pis and such) but I'm just not sure.

Thoughts of my fellow opponauts on purchasing a new arm macbook? They're fairly reasonable in price and they now have a good keyboard again.

[HammerheadFistpunch]

@jminer I've had one for less than 2 years that has had major repairs 5 times and is sitting here making noise at me about to go in for its 6th.

[jminer]

@hammerheadfistpunch They did definitely have a bad run of hardware for a while, between the terrible keyboard and a few other issues.

These are the thing that concern me.

[DAWRX]

@jminer If its just gonna be a general web browsing/streaming machine I'd say shoot go for it. But if you're gonna use it for anything remotely productive I'd wait a while to make sure there is wide program compatibility with the ARM instruction set.

[jminer]

@dawrx My laptop is usually a mix of browsing, composing, and remoting into things. I do some dev and such, but that's all text editor and SSH based nowadays. I know VMWare is working on parrallels for it to emulate x86 which would be needed eventually but RDP into one of my other servers suffices in the meantime.

[TorqueToYield]

So I'm not up on the latest deets but I'm assuming it'll run iOS apps natively and everything else x86 based will have to be emulated. So if everything you want to run is an iOS app that's fine, but its unclear how well other stuff will run.

[spacekraken]

@jminer Long term mac daily driver, gotta say my '15 macbook pro is the last "good" mac I've used. I have a mac mini desktop and it works great... but their insistence on USB C for everything is very annoying when I have zero native USB C devices. Generally feel like the new computers are well built (if you skip the butterfly keyboard fiasco), but they've made them less and less flexible as time goes on.

[jminer]

@spacekraken I'm with you on ambivalence on USB-C but everyone does that now. I have a 15" dell laptop for work and have to carry a USB-C adapter for ethernet.

I've sworn by Thinkpads for over a decade, but they're the same cost as Macs and have the same soldered RAM now.

[jminer]

@TorqueToYield They're supposed to have an emulation layer built-in for x86 apps. It won't be seamless though.

[spacekraken]

@jminer Oh shoot, USB-C has taken over now? Then yeah, probably six of one, half dozen on the other if we're talking nice but totally non-upgradable laptops.

[jminer]

@spacekraken Most windows laptops still have 1 full-usb on them. But its rare for a full-size HDMI or ethernet to exist there either. A good deal of windows thin and light machines have 2 usb-c and that's it. Same as the macbook.

That being said I do love the universality us USB-C for charging.

[jminer]

@spacekraken Also to be honest I'd love to buy a used macbook but even a 2015 pro in decent spec is like $700 and I'd rather pay $1k for a new base macbook than that. 13" is a good size for me.

[CB]

@jminer >thinks Windows 10 is a walled garden

Look man, if that's your issue, Apple isn't going to be a greener pasture.

[DAWRX]

@jminer Kind of sounds like to me you want to give it a spin and are going into it knowing the potential limitations. As long as you don't mind being a beta tester in that way I'd say send it. I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on it in a month or so.

My wife has the Macbook Air that came out earlier this year, basically the last intel macbook air. They're built really nice and I do really like the new keyboard they put in (even if it feels a little bit cheap for apple), and the battery life is stellar. So on those bases I can recommend it even though I really am not a fan of the Mac OS, which keeps me from buying in.

[TorqueToYield]

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[TorqueToYield]

@jminer interesting. honestly their pricing is really competitive probably helped by the new in house chip. I really like their hardware design, Apple always has well thought out, pretty looking, tight integrated designs. I personally wouldn't get one and I don't like Apple software. Maybe get an extended warranty

[jminer]

@cb That was the point I'm trying to make. Windows isn't nearly as flexible as it used to be so that is less of an advantage. I'll also admit that as I age, machines I use everyday I want to just kind of work.

[EssExTee]

@jminer I'm sure the hardware will be amazing as usual but I'm not a fan of Apple and its business practices. If you think Windows is cultivating a "walled garden" then boy are you in for a treat with macOS.

[Jarrett]

@jminer The newly announced Macbooks aren't able to support Photoshop at launch. I predict that their move to the new processors is going to have tremendous compatibility issues.

For web browsing/light use it should be fine, but if that's all you want it for, why would you need a $1500 machine for that? I've never understood the value proposition that Apple has brought to the table. I feel as though they charge a significant premium simply because their customer base is willfully ignorant with respect to computer price/performance.

Full disclaimer: I build my own machines, so I'm naturally biased against Apple products. I also play lots of games.

[ttyymmnn]

I have a mid-2012 13" that I bought from RustyVandura. Never had a problem with it (knock on wood). I have looked at the newer ones, but they always seemed too expensive. And I'm a Mac guy through and through. At this point, I'd probably buy used, like my cameras. Though I did recently get a new giant iMac that is ballers, as the kids say.

[Just Jeepin']

From all reports, the Rosetta emulation layer is fantastic. At this point the only type of software that isn’t available for the new architecture is virtualization tools, and those will come.

And this silly demo of the performance of the new Mini is impressive as hell.

[jminer]

@ttyymmnn These new ones are priced better than previous models, still a little more expensive than a PC, but not by much.

@Jarrett I doubt I'll ever have a mac as my desktop - I build them too.

@Just-Jeepin I was there for the power PC to Intel transition and while it was a bit rough, it went pretty well.

[EssExTee]

@jminer Win10 seems to be a mixed bag. Some people are reporting a buggy mess, but it's been the most stable Windows I've ever used. I'm running it on a six year old Thinkpad that sees crazy uptimes (I use Hibernate, it only fully reboots when I update) and have had zero problems.

[jminer]

@essextee 100% with you there, I've got it on like 6 machines and some don't have a single problem and others are plagued with regular BSOD.

[jminer]

@just-jeepin said in Thoughts on the new Macbook?:

From all reports, the Rosetta emulation layer is fantastic. At this point the only type of software that isn’t available for the new architecture is virtualization tools, and those will come.

And this silly demo of the performance of the new Mini is impressive as hell.

If VMware ever gets parallels running on it and well I'm sold. That's the best desktop virtualization platform hands down. I don't understand why they don't also release that product for PC.