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Comment by dbg31415 | Hacker News Reader

My suspicions is that they barely even want devs (given the new "Pro" line) -- they absolutely don't want gamers using their pretty laptops.

(I wish I were kidding about this, but I am not.)

Ok... so we had a bunch of the new MBPs at work and kept having keyboard issues (like 50% of the team complained about the keyboards and had keys that stuck within the first 3 months). I brought one machine in to the Apple Store and was scolded for eating while using the computer. "Hey Guys, I'm sorry that humans weren't in your target audience focus groups -- the new butterfly keys are amazing!" Wasn't even my machine... just doing a favor for a friend. Ugh.

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They want devs that care about Apple systems, Objective-C and Swift devs, not devs that use it as pretty UNIX.

That was only when they needed to survive.

I'm pretty sure they only tolerate developers given the poor state of the MacBook keyboard design.

What professional developer codes full-time on a laptop keyboard and screen? The ones at work are all on dual-27" displays and external keyboard and mouse.

I personally disagree with making engineering compromises on the human interface to make things a few mm thinner, but the results speak for themselves. People keep buying them because Apple has succeeded in the number one goal of branding - their products are instantly recognizable as luxury goods. So if you're a pro developer who doesn't care about the branding, you just buy a different laptop that has the attributes you do care about. If developers abandoning the Macbook Pro because of nerd rage about low key travel and the ESC key cause sales to plummet, I'm betting Apple will change the keyboard. I'm also betting that the sales won't plummet.

I have a Dell U3415W w/ a second 24" 1080 for my desktop, and to be honest, I'm often more focused and comfortable working on my 13" MBP in a comfortable chair instead.

Xcode is far better on the desktop but for terminal + vim + broswer type work, the laptop screen is perfectly reasonable.

As for using OSX, I've just gotten comfortable with it. I never have to fiddle anymore. I always wait to upgrade OS's and it generally just stays out of my way. Windows is annoying and I haven't found a comparable fussless linux laptop yet (and I'm actively looking because I won't be able to keep avoiding that stupid touchbar).

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