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Comment by TallGuyShort | Hacker News Reader

For years I've been very happy, productive, and at times stubbornly loyal on my Linux / Lenovo setup, but it seems that so many of my colleagues have embraced Mac that it's gotten harder and harder to not be on the bandwagon. I recently hit the point of deciding maybe I should just have a Mac, but I seem to have done so after Macbook Pros have passed their peak. I don't follow consumer hardware trends much, so what does HN think - is it now too late to be getting on the Macbook Pro Kool-Aid? Will other platforms make a comeback soon?

edit: I'm aware this article is about the desktops, but it seems to be part of a trend that Apple isn't that focused on the workstation-use-case anymore, and is pushing ever more into mobile.

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There were basically three things that made Macbooks very appealing to developers before:

1) Very good hardware at a not-huge markup when compared apples-to-apples (haha) with Wintel hardware.

2) Unixy OS with outstanding Just Works but it's not your fault should it fail to Just Work, as in "ugh Tom's laptop won't connect to the projector again, because he insists on running Linux."

3) Excellent pick-up-and-go, thanks to a good, if not comprehensive, port selection, the best touchpad in the industry by a long shot and the only one I've ever used that doesn't make me start looking around the room for a mouse or feel like I need to keep one in my laptop bag, and battery life much better than the typical "get you from one outlet to another" of many (especially budget and midrange) Windows devices, while also being (yeah, yeah) thin and light. You could just grab your laptop and go, and be ready for most things, for most of a workday, no power cord, no mouse, no anything.

The 1st and 3rd of these have suffered a lot lately, with large price hikes putting them solidly back in the "LOL WUT?" pricing territory they periodically flirt with, and 3 thanks to #DongleLife making it pretty much impossible to plug anything "in the wild" into a Macbook at all without an adapter, and the keyboard going from good-enough to fairly-crappy. I'm hoping for fixes to some of the problems and for some of the "...and all those improvements, and we're also dropping the price $200!" announcements they did pretty regularly there for a while, because man, I still don't see any real competition for them out there, despite their missteps.

> the keyboard going from good-enough to fairly-crappy.

And don't forget the ginormous trackpad where your typing ends up in weird places because your palm or your wrist touched it unexpectedly. And forget it if you had the shift key pressed - very easy to have a large chunk of the document you're working on disappear making you wonder wtf just happened.

Do you actually use a mac? Because I've NEVER had that happen to me. Ever.

The trackpad software is exceptionally good at detect errant touches.

Maybe my experience is abnormal.

Related, I saw someone using their Apple Pencil with their writing hand hovering above the screen. They weren’t aware of palm rejection, thanks to crappy experiences from other devices and touch based stylus use.

I've never had the palm rejection work on my ipads, sadly, so I too have to use a stylus with my hand hovering, or else I get weird lines and mis-clicks on various UI elements.

The Apple Pencil generates its own signal separate from touch. A stylus does not. Palm rejection is basically ideal with an actual pencil, but not ideal with a touch stylus.

Agree. It's so ridiculously large on the pro, absurd for the use a programmer needs

I prefer the new keyboard to the old one. And the touchpad is still the best touchpad in the industry by a long shot.

> Macbook Pros have passed their peak

As someone who has used a number of Mac(book)s for years, I agree with this general (or a vocal minority's) consensus.

It's a beautiful machine: great OS, hardware integration is (mostly) top notch, and a lot of pro-grade hard/software for multimedia production are only available on the Mac.

And yet, the 2013 Macbook Pro (maxed out beyond recommended specs) is the last Apple-built computer I will buy. I recently built myself a PC that dual-boots macOS and Linux, and am looking at Thinkpads for my next laptop.

I don't know if "the tide" is moving to Linux, but at least I am, and being the most computer-savvy person in my social circle, I'm recommending everyone I know to not buy a Mac/book. It's probably the best computer in the market for that form factor, but the company has given the users too many reasons to move away.

Totally tangential rant here, but when I've had family or close friends (the kind who would come to me for free tech support and who I would generally indulge) ask me for recommendations, I've told them that I don't know Mac products well enough to recommend / recommend against them, but that if they get iOS or Macs, I simply won't be in a position to help them. Almost invariably they get the Apple device, need help, can't get it from Apple, and come back to me. Can't stand it. And if I ever have a glitch they'll say, "but Apple stuff just works..."

The only difference when they do choose the products you recommend (in my case it is Apple), they come to you first before even trying the manufacturer's support.

I don't mind that - I can almost always fix an Android or PC glitch myself. It's the look of disbelief when I tell them I have no idea if their iPad is supposed to do that or not, followed by, "but you're a techy person".

They need to fix a few things (mostly on the Macbook Pro) and drop their prices somewhat, which isn't a crazy thing to hope for since they did it pretty often not that long ago, sometimes even while announcing an upgrade. I still think their iOS device prices are fairly decent for what you get, but their Mac hardware pricing's gone way out of wack in the last 3ish years.

>2013 Macbook Pro is the last Apple-built computer I will buy

I had a 2013 and a 2015 at the same time (one for work, one personal) and the only difference was the Force Touch trackpad on the 2015. After using the 2013 for a while, I noticed my finger being sore, and I trace it back to trying to click anywhere (like the top of the trackpad) on the 2013 like I could on the 2015. It wouldn't work, so I'd push harder and end up hurting my finger.

Long story short, I'd much rather have a 2015 MBP than a 2013.

MacBook models until around 2009 had a physical button at the bottom of their trackpads. Imagine that it's still there -- use your thumb to click, and your fingers for everything else. I'm pretty sure that's what Apple intended users to do (until they made tap-to-click the default recently).

IMO The current MacBook design iteration has mostly been a disappointment. The hardware quality has materially worsened over the previous generation, with numerous reports of keyboard, screen, and speaker issues. They sacrificed far too much in order to achieve the thin form factor. The touchbar is also a terrible joke.

I’ve had two current-gen MBPs through work and both of them have completely convinced me against buying my own. They’re both so inferior to the design of the previous generation.

Your points are completely valid, I get your frustration. But you are comparing against previous generations of MacBooks. I would like to know your thoughts when comparing against e.g. a top tier ThinkPad running Windows or Linux.

I can’t honestly give you that comparison because I’ve never used a thinkpad long enough to get to know it. I’ve been Mac-only for 8 years now, but I’m looking around to see if the community decides on a solid MBP replacement of my old MBP dies.

I couldn’t use it long enough to unlearn using the trackpad as a crutch. Thinkpad trackpads are pretty terrible by comparison. I also hated trying to use windows and didn’t want to keep maintaining a Linux install, though that might have gotten better lately.

I am going to ride out my personal 2013 mbp until they fix the keyboards on the new machines. I have a new one at work, and each incremental fix still breaks after a while and I don’t think they have ironed it out. It’s a beautiful feeling machine and I want to love it. However, you can get everything else perfect and screw up the keyboard, and it doesn’t matter because I can’t get work done.

If they don’t get it right by the time my current MBP dies completely I guess I’ll see how far Linux has come. I’d suggest the same for you - even as an apple shareholder and former employee I can’t recommend a programmer buy a laptop with such an unreliable keyboard. But if they nail the keyboard in the next generation, absolutely hop aboard the bandwagon.

Pretty much it comes down to the flaky keyboards for me. USBC support is just getting better, the displays and trackpad are still best in class, and a lightweight aluminum unibody design is something I didn’t think I would miss but you absolutely do. The OS is widely supported by a community of other developers, and it is super easy to set up a productive development environment. And the OS is widely supported by hardware and software vendors too, so you don’t have to fight compatibility issues nearly as much as Linux.

The X1 Carbon has a really nice body, and a decent screen. The touchpad is still hot garbage, and I never really enjoyed using the nub, but overall they've come closer than anything I've used to unseating my MBP as a daily driver.

You could try an apple trackpad and a good keyboard alongside some other hardware.

An apple trackpad isn’t just the hardware, it’s also the software integration. Plus, who wants to carry around an external trackpad for their machine? I’ll just cope with avoiding the trackpad if I switch back.

I think this depends a lot on what kind of laptop user you are. Are you someone who is always at a desk with a mouse and keyboard, or do you want to post up in a coffee shop with just your machine and no peripherals?

The macbook pro is vastly superior to any device for the later use case because the touchpad is so far ahead of anything else. The new keyboard on the other hand is a bit frustrating when coming back from my personal surface book.

> Macbook Pros have passed their peak

There's this weird idea that the quality of Apple products has just always steadily increased over time until this most recent MacBook Pro.

If you've been using Macs long enough, you'll remember various iBook debacles, the horrific 2006 MacBook, the utterly bizarre 3rd gen iPod, and other past missteps.

They'll bounce back (even though I actually love the current MBPs).

The System76 Thelio seems to be picking up steam for a high-end native-Linux desktop.