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Comment by drnick1 | Hacker News Reader

> You cannot buy an x86 PC laptop in the $600–700 price range that competes with the MacBook Neo on any metric — performance, display quality, audio quality, or build quality. And certainly not software quality.

I would argue the opposite: while Apple hardware is generally excellent, it is the software that leaves to be desired. Apple has also been consistently pushing the industry in a dangerous direction (walled gardens with app stores, excessive power over developers and users). MacOS is also very behind Linux these days in terms of app compatibility (especially games).

I won't be buying a Neo before a compatible Linux distro is confirmed. If the stock OS can't be replaced for one reason or another, it's dead on arrival as far as I am concerned.

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Agreed, macOS has hardly improved in the past decade. The only improvements are about ecosystem integration, which I don't really care about. Everything else is stuck in the 2010s. UI has regressed if you ask me.

The tab key doesn't even work consistently across apps and screens.

What improvements has Windows made in the last decade? I think what you're describing is a symptom of modern software development as a whole.

You get AI EMBEDDED EXPLORER! Just wait 2 seconds for LLM to open up your folder.

Oh and don't forget to watch the ads.

Or their constant use of dark patterns to push you into using Bing and Edge. I was actually an Edge user myself. I liked a few of its built-in features, and it felt pretty fast. But then they started tricking me into changing my default search engine to Bing. I fell for it a couple of times, and then I quit.

I wouldn't say as a whole. KDE is way ahead of where it was 10 years ago!

KDE was far less mature than macOS and Windows 10 years ago. Of course it’s come a long way.

Windows Terminal and PowerToys are pretty nice. The Phone Link app is convenient, and screenshots are way better (no need to paste into Paint anymore, just use snip and sketch)

The snipping tool (with all features I'm using today) was added to PowerToys more than 20 years ago. It was integrated directly into Windows 10 pretty early in the update cycle. Not sure it qualifies for "the last decade".

Ecosystem integration is the shining difference between Apple and others, as it is radically better than any other available implementation.

I would argue that ecosystem integration is the only primary consideration that you need to use at the top/first-culling-step of the flowchart to either include or discount Apple products in any purchasing decision. Anything else is secondary, and has workarounds.

> UI has regressed

Honestly, I love the UI of MacOS 9.2.2 the most. But I don’t have a Time Machine or Elon Musk levels of wealth to chart a different course.

And sure, some UI decisions of late have been questionable. That is always the case with non-niche products that don’t have highly focused and largely conforming users. Apple moved out of that category back in the early 2000s, and it is forced to make the same UI tradeoffs that Microsoft makes.

I actually don’t mind the modern UI, and aside from a few warts I think they’re going in a very user-friendly direction even if power users feel slighted and abandoned.

It has even regressed, I'm still on my High Sierra 2011 MacBook Air, but on my mom's M3 Air I can't help but observe that they did all that engineering to reduce the black bezel around the lid, only for Tahoe to have overly rounded windows and huge title bars.

I wouldn't say it hasn't improved. Security has improved considerably, and it's one of the main reasons to use a Mac.

However, there's too many bundled apps. Just wrote about this last week: https://medium.com/@hbbio/let-me-uninstall-spotlight-1fe64a3...

No, macOS has improved a ton in a lot of ways under-the-hood. Battery life, memory compression, paging behaviour. The MacBook Neo wouldn't be possible at 8GB without all this stuff.

> Agreed, macOS has hardly improved in the past decade

I would argue the opposite. Shared clipboard with my iPhone is a killer feature (i copy a lot of OTP tokens) and I envy you in the US that can remote access the iPhone (it is currently blocked in the EU, but hopefully will come eventually). Also mulit-monitor setup has become way better (I used to use 3rd party tools to restore window and monitor positions).

And I can share between my android, iOS, and linux devices with KDE Connect https://kdeconnect.kde.org/

If there are reasons its not good enough, since it's open source you should be able to help fix them (excepting iOS issues, since those are mostly just apple locking down the OS too hard for various things to work).

We're on hacker news, we should all want something we can hack on. Shared clipboard between two devices with proprietary OSs we can't hack on is a great feature for the masses, but not us.

Good for you, not see how that is relevant for the discussion what features were added to macOS though. Also note that clipcoard sharing just as Airdrop are point-to-point and neither require internet connection, nor is the data send through a third party or network.

> since it's open source you should be able to help fix them

And I can also grow my own tomatoes and cucumbers in my back yard, but I still prefer to buy them from a supermarket.

Same here, MacBooks are decent hardware but nowhere near so superior as to justify all the downsides and increasingly dark patterns Apple has been pushing left and right.

I agree that it isn’t as good as it was but compared to windows (with adds in the start menu, and two different settings menus for a decade as examples) it’s still better. More of a glass of warm cheap whiskey, than a glass of cool ice water in hell.

Haven’t HN users been warning that Apple was going to turn the Mac into a wall garden since the Mac App Store was introduced in 2009?

> MacOS is also very behind Linux these days in terms of app compatibility (especially games).

For the average consumer looking for a $599 MacBook Neo, Mac is the better choice for apps they actually use.

Linux can be used for gaming with a lot of titles, but both Mac and Linux are too far behind Windows or consoles to be considered as gaming machines.

The Linux gaming runtime is free, much like Windows redistributables. macOS gets singled-out for not having DXVK/Proton, and rightfully so.

macOS does have DXVK*, just not Proton.

*but it’s a bit slow because you also have to emulate Vulkan using Metal

> but both Mac and Linux are too far behind Windows or consoles to be considered as gaming machines.

That's absolutely not true, the vast majority of Windows games now run flawlessly on Linux via Proton. This is especially true for the kind of games you can expect to run on such modest hardware, i.e. not AAA games with kernel-level anticheat.

I, a developer, have never heard of Proton. Googling Proton, I only find Protonmail, and googling "Linux Proton," Valve's Proton is not even the first result. If you are not terminally online keeping up with Linux distro discourse, it's also difficult to even recognize any of the newer names and players.

Linux is not even remotely considerable as an option for the average consumer, which is fine and fully intentional with the audience and goals Linux distros serve.

You could even consider this a strong positive, because a Linux distro geared towards average consumers would probably be an analog to Samsung's take on Android. What makes your experience with Linux good is that it isn't catering towards a wider audience.

You, a developer, just happened to not know a very well known software. This fact is not as meaningful as you believe it is.

You've probably heard of the state of Mac gaming, if you've played video games much at all.

Linux has twice the number of active Steam users as Mac, with probably very nearly all of them using Proton to some degree: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...

Personally, I've actually had noticeably better compatibility on Linux with older games, compared to Windows. And every single one I've been interested in for the past several years works flawlessly on it. (I don't enjoy most AAA games, so my sample is definitely skewed, but it's a fairly common result)

You don’t need to know what proton is to click ‘install’ in Steam.

All games I've installed on Steam Deck, with our without official compatibility, have worked well. Steam Deck runs a Linux. It all works thanks to Proton. And I'd go as far as saying, it just works.

I agree in general with your first point.

Regarding gaming I disagree: my gaming needs (using a Mac for everything else) are fully satisfied by an additional steam deck, a "console" running linux. Of the top of my head I know only of one game I would like to run it on the steam deck but can't.

MacOS is a bug filled nightmare, and it's still light years better than Windows. I haven't used Ubuntu extensively since early 2019, but it still wasn't comparable to OSX at the time.

Apple and specifically MacOS is significantly worse than it has ever been, but again, still far better than the alternatives.

Its a shame there isn't more goodwill for some companies to bankroll a project like asahi linux. Keeping up with reverse engineering apple silicon seems like a very large task.

asahi is great and i hope they keep going but i can't help but wonder why apple appears to be fully singular in their arm dominance

> i can't help but wonder why apple appears to be fully singular in their arm dominance

I have to imagine that a big part of it is the company can plan and act as a single unit. The teams building the CPU, the computers which house that CPU, and the operating system and software that'll run on those computers are all working together, and can plan new features which cut across those boundaries. Other ARM CPU/system manufacturers don't have that advantage.

My hope is they can extend support for the A chips as Asahi Fedora has been splendid for my M1 Pro

As a developer, MacOS is super reliable to me. I love Linux, but there are always somethings not working, which drive me crazy.

I buy a macbook for the hardware and tolerate macos. I mostly do terminal stuff so i can largely avoid it.

I fully agree. My use case sees a fairly intensive use of MacOS, Linux and Windows, and out of all these, MacOS is the worst experience for me, and that's saying a lot when I prefer to use Windows 11 over MacOS.

Macs have very strong advantages but the software, the OS is absolutely infuriating. There's so many annoyances over regular use. You can remedy some of them with third party software (which should have been just system settings), but not all, and by the way some of these cost money for stupidly basic settings.

Finally and probably most painful, is Apple's constant push to update your software stack and things just stop working, and they expect you to keep chasing their decisions. You can't really build anything for Apple that's meant to last. It's exhausting. Meanwhile Windows can run programs from 30 years ago and Linux has extremely efficient, beautifully implemented software from all eras probably already installed in your Distro.

This depends heavily on your use case. I'd get rid of Windows entirely if I could. For most people I'd say MacOS is the most sane and plug and play experience. The email/browser/note taking experience is better than on Windows, and easier than on Linux.

This gets less and less true when you start pluging peripherals and wanting to change the default behavior or use certain apps. But then they're not the target of the Neo.

that example is just worthless... most people are used to notepad and windows (by a huge margin) than ANY mac thing you can say. So, no, sorry, you are wrong, the sanest plug and play experience, still, is windows, who is pirated all across the globe and put on anything.

Those extremely efficient and beautifully implemented software runs in macOS, probably from the same source code.

The only GUI I use on Mac is browser, so I never felt anything - maybe the only thing that I don't deal with on linux is the weird requirement of xcode, which is mostly a chore that you do once. Still can't beat the hardware.

They might or might run. osx has no namespaces, no cgroups, no compiler extension for thread local storage, no wayland, no dbus.

Modern linux software won't run for sure, unless it is written with osx in mind and comes with plenty of workarounds.

Linux compatibility would be sweet, but Apple has no incentive.

Hopefully this product gives other companies the kick in the pants they need to improve their hardware.

Though they still haven’t been able to complete that well against the Air and Pro, so seems unlikely they will adapt well to this either.

How do you reconcile the fact that that Apple will sell millions of these devices without a compatible Linux distribution shipping for years if ever with your claim about it being DOA?

Like sure it’s DOA to you, but in what world does that really matter when it’s going to sell so well?

The same way I reconcile the fact that the 11" Macbook sold millions of devices; consumers don't care. They don't buy Macs as a conscious evaluation of what the device is capable of or how well it was made. Even the 2019 16" Macbook Pro, arguably the worst Mac ever sold, has millions of units floating around in Obsoleteland.

Personally I agree with the parent's comment. I used to buy Macs, but nowadays Apple alienates me. I'm one of the millions that don't buy a Mac because the hardware is gimped by arbitrary software limitations. Unless Apple changes that stance, I'm a lost customer. Cupertino has the market share statistics, they know where to find me.

Consider how many Macs in total that Apple sold during the years that Apple sold the 11 inch Air and that they discontinued it, I doubt it was a raging success.

Especially seeing that with the Apple now selling the 13 inch Neo and it decided to sell a larger Air instead of a small one, I don’t think it sold that well.

Most consumers don't use Linux, and MacOS is far ahead of Windows IMO -- and I use all three OSs (and have for 30 years)

I disagree that the software leaves to be desired

Just an example, I'll take Apple's Office suite (Pages, etc.) over MS Office any day - or LibreOffice.

> it is the software that leaves to be desired

That is how I had interpreted "And certainly not software quality" - that the PC not only competes but crushes the Mac.

I use Windows and macOS both daily and it's truly baffling to me that anyway could consider Windows software quality to crush the Mac -- either first party or third party. macOS has no shortage of bugs but compared to Windows it works like a dream.

As one example of many, Night Light (Windows' version of adjusting your screen to be warmer at night) has been broken for me, for 5+ years. I mean literally it just never works on its own. The only way to kick it into working is toggling HDR on and then off, every single time I wake it up.

I would guess it's just my configuration but I built a second PC from totally new parts, and got a different monitor, and installed Windows 11 instead of 10, and it's still broken.

I switched from a Windows laptop to a Macbook. When you closed the lid on the Windows one if whirred for about 30 seconds trying to sleep and if you opened and closed too quickly the os crashed and needed restarting. Mac you just open and close as you like and there's your stuff straight away.

Nothing's perfect but Mac seems good at the basics of running quickly without crashes.

for 99% of consumers, the question is windows vs. macOS, and that's all there is to it. Between the two on a budget-price laptop, it's no competition.

Sorry but if "Switch to Linux" is a valid suggestion, then you most likely aren't talking to someone the Neo is marketed to. As good as Linux is, non technical people still should not switch to it. It needs to be MacOS or Windows.

Why? Like many people I don't do serious work on my laptop. It is used for Web browsing, email, and to SSH into other machines. A simple, affordable, but well built machine like the Neo would be ideal for this, on the condition that I can run Linux on it. I currently use an aging XPS in that capacity and the Neo would be quite compelling as a substitute.

your average neo buyer doesn't know what ssh is and would probably like media apps ranging from capcut to lightroom.

Not sure that’s true in general, but the comparison here is between Linux and macOS. And I believe that for the set of users contemplating Linux, GP is largely correct.

If web browsing, email, and SSH is all you do, then macOS is almost identical to Linux, while being so much easier to use.

Firefox, Gmail, and ssh have essentially the same user experience on Linux as on macOS.

The software is fine. I've been using macs for over 20 years, currently running an M2 with Sequoia 15.7.3 and haven't had any issues. I can't remember the last time I had any OS issue with an Apple machine. Sure, their Music app is terrible, but the OS is just fine.

I think the thing is "MacOS" itself hasn't really been evolved for some time - what has been happening is taking iOS ideas and concepts and porting them back.

I think that's ended up with a bit of a mess.

Yeah. There are a couple of Apple devices in the house and it's the software that causes me the most grief. The only thing worse is a Chromebook.

Is 2026 the year of the linux desktop?

Can I update video drivers in Linux without seeing a console? OS X updates them automatically where it's a non-issue.

It's been Year Of The Linux Handheld for gaming since 2022, the best platform to play games is Steam Deck where updates are clicking "Update" in the System panel. You can run either Bazzite or SteamOS on your own hardware, although I haven't tried that.

The best platform, provided the games you want to play actually work and work well. Many do not, even some popular ones.

I own a steam deck and love it, but please, let’s temper the enthusiasm with realism.

sure "best" is subjectively true for my criteria: it plays the largest number of games with about zero annoyance / friction. maybe desktop windows plays more games, but it certainly has a bazillion more frictions and annoyances

Updating video drivers in Ubuntu is so so so much easier than under Windows it's ridiculous.

Windows has more drivers for more things, but if Linux has drivers (e.g. you buy a Laptop with Linux support) then driver management is massively easier.

I spent god knows how many hours getting the windows drivers for my last self built gaming PC working. Linux I just installed and was done. In reality the Windows experience was also a lot worse than having to drop to the console occasionally. It definitely required more in depth knowledge, even if everything was UI driven...

Unless you have very specialized needs, the driver experience on Windows is "turn the machine on". The driver update experience is "connect to the internet" and occasionally "reboot". That's it.

Linux is significantly easier than it was 20 years ago but still not as easy in general.

Tell me what happens if you run a Windows machine for say 12 months and decide to switch the GPU from NVIDIA to AMD (or vice versa)? Yeah.

In linux it tends to be a nonissue.

When is the last time you used Windows? XP? It hasn't been an issue for decades.

Graphics drivers moved out of kernel space in Windows Vista.

That's true if you buy a Laptop with all drivers preinstalled. But it's absolutely not true if you install on a machine you built yourself.

I've been building machines myself for nearly 30 years, including multiple in the last 5, and I assure you I've needed to do nothing besides connect to the internet and let it get updates each time.

In some distros you have rolling updates where it happens for you and you're always on cutting edge.

> I won't be buying a Neo before a compatible Linux distro is confirmed.

You mean confirmed by Apple? I think that seems unlikely

No, just supported by, say, Asahi.

I don't know about this, MacOS for productivity is still better performing than Windows.

Both Apple and Microsoft have been pushing the industry into directions we aren't happy with. But MacOS is still fantastic and in this laptop will work extremely well.

People also aren't buying this laptop to play any games that require decent power.

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