Comment by msla | Hacker News Reader

Comment by msla | Hacker News Reader

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> Nominally "perfect" hardware support

With the decline of Apple hardware, this is less true, and modern Linux hardware support is, at worst, no worse than what other OSes provide, in my experience.

> Navigable by non-experts, even when things turn to shit

I think the "Closed Box Philosophy" of Apple either defines or disproves this: Non-experts can't be tripped up by having to fix things... because nobody outside of Apple can fix things, eh? Can't screw up something you're not allowed to do.

> The achilles heel of the open source community stems from the lack of a unifying vision and a top-down approach.

This means that I can keep running Window Maker and nobody can take it away from me. In a broader sense, I'm not afraid to upgrade for fear of losing some part of my workflow due to a high-level decision taking an option away from me. I can use Emacs even if everyone else around me is using Vim, I can use qutebrowser even if nobody knows what the fuck a "Cute Browser" even is, I can write in Ruby even if the Current Dogma is JavaScript.

> With the decline of Apple hardware, this is less true, and modern Linux hardware support is, at worst, no worse than what other OSes provide, in my experience.

I will still take a perceived regression in hardware from Apple over anything else on the market today. They are that far ahead. Still the best touchpad and connectivity support which are the two most important factors in my book. Also still the most aesthetically pleasing and known brand of laptop in the world. The latter point is not so important in my book, but I do believe it helps contribute to the resale value of the Mac, which again is class leading in terms of mass produced laptops.

The butterfly switch Macbook Pro keyboards prove it isn't just a perceived regression.

I get the appeal of the Apple Universe: It Just Works, everything is crafted, etc. The problem with that idea is that it's been eroded from two directions: Apple's own incompetence at making hardware and software which Just Works, and everyone else catching up to Apple at lower price points and, as I said before, while offering more meaningful choice than Apple has since the days of the Apple II.

I remember when I needed ndiswrapper to use WiFi on a laptop under Linux. I remember when I needed a bizarre Frankenstein pseudo-FTP setup to access NTFS partitions on Linux. I remember when USB didn't exist and you needed device drivers for every single thing. Those days are gone. Macs not having to deal with those things is no longer a competitive advantage.

These days, Macs are only really special in that they tie you to the Apple universe. I'm not interested in being tied to a corporation like that.

This is entirely subjective. Aesthetically pleasing and "well known" may be factors for you in a purchase decision, but I personally prefer more open hardware and choice in my purchases so that I can fine tune each component and not be at least a year behind when it comes to modern hardware when making a purchase to get better performance than what Mac will offer for a fraction of the cost.

Also, if you care a lot about looks then I'd recommend checking out Razer, or aluminum chassis notebooks:

https://www.reinisfischer.com/top-20-aluminium-chassis-noteb...

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