Lee, Everything you say is exactly right and for me the large trackpad is so large I keep hitting it with the palm and this often causes havoc…
I was in a meeting WAY back in Cincinnati, very large Apple crowd and it was announced that Apple was doing away with SCSI and moving to USB as their only connectivity….gasp in the room. Intel and Microsoft had the USB out for a couple years and little movement in the market but as soon as little Apple changed to USB then the entire world moved to USB. When Jobs wanted to move away from the DVD/CD drive gasp, what are they doing…almost everything is now streamed or downloaded. What I do find magical is the USB-C plug, I mean if you want this animal to be USB, then it will be USB. If you want it to be Ethernet, then it will be Ethernet. If you want it to be HDMI then it will be HDMI If you want it to be Lightening, then it will be Lightening. If you want it to be Thunderbolt 2 then it will be Thunderbolt 2 If you want it to be Thunderbolt 3, then it will be Thunderbolt 3 This little plug is a jewel, and watch, the entire industry will begin moving to this connectivity…. I maintain that Cook hasn’t a clue as to what built Apple, yes the iPhone is the bread and butter but to do away with some of the product, to delay upgrades is a horrible mistake, but he didn’t call and ask my opinion, even though I have sent several notes to him letting him know how I feel about Vertical sales and the importance of having your product SEEN through the lighting of the Apple logo, or the importance of Apple Monitors, current Apple routers… Service is another area that is vastly different from any other company….for a smart guy like you it makes little difference, you would fix your own machine but for most of us we need help. ALWAYS I get the most fantastic service from Apple, be it on line or at the Apple store. I gave my daughter my old laptop, reformatted the SSD and then tried to install El Capitan, it wouldn’t work, have no idea why. I broke the screen on the iPhone 7+ so I took the phone and the laptop to the Louisville store. They put a new screen on the phone while I waited and loaded El Cap on the laptop…the place was like Walmart at Christmas, the line to check in was 12 people deep, so many people in the store it was hard to move…this was a Monday around 11:00 a.m….in the center of the Mall was the Microsoft Kiosk with two people…both Microsoft Employees. When I tried to purchase Office 365 for my Mac a few months ago it was unreal. I was on the phone with tech support several times, finally the guy told me to give up and try with another email address, he could never get it straight and was of no help. Quality cost more in the beginning but as I’ve sent out to this group several times Mac’s are much lower in cost when figuring all the time it takes to keep the Windows world operating. IBM, which will soon have half a million Apple products maintains it’s $150.00 per devise less expensive to own Apple then a Windows machine…FINALLY enterprise is beginning to understand this as was reflected in a note I sent a couple days ago. John Dang, I wish he wouldn’t delete my notes, they are gems. John > On Mar 15, 2017, at 12:21 PM, Lee Larson <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Mar 14, 2017, at 10:59 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > >> Why wouldn’t you buy a Mac laptop? > > > My main reason is price. I would want to get a MacBook Pro i7 with 16 GB of > RAM and a 1 TB SSD. Apple’s price for such a machine is about $2700, and it’s > not upgradable — ever. There are several comparable machines for as much as > $1000 less; e.g., Dell XPS13. I could easily switch to Linux as my main > operating system, so buying one of the alternatives wouldn’t be that much of > a shock. > > Here are some other things that aren’t deal-breakers, but annoyances, with > the 2016 MacBook Pro. > > > • They no longer have the MagSafe power connection. This has saved my machine > many times. > > • The “breathing” light on the front is no longer there. Without it, it’s > hard to tell if the machine is really asleep when the lid is closed. Also, > the glowing Apple logo on the case is gone. This isn’t a big deal, but it was > a nice distinctive feature in these days when all laptops look pretty much > the same. > > • I don’t care for the new low-depth clicky keyboard. Its key travel is > really short in order to make the whole machine thinner. I don’t know of > anyone who has “thinner” as a high priority, except, apparently, Jony Ive. > I’d trade a millimeter or two of thin for more battery and a keyboard with > more throw. > > • They’ve fallen behind the industry by using the older Intel Skylake series > of processors instead of the Kaby Lake series. This was no doubt a trade-off > because Intel couldn’t manufacture the volume they needed, but Dell, HP and > Asus somehow use the newer chips. > > • You can’t get more than 16 GB of RAM — ever — for the machine. And it’s > $200 to jump from 8 GB to 16 GB. I want some future-proofing. I’m often > running memory-hungry programs like Sage and Mathematica. Right now, 16 GB is > plenty, but the handwriting is on the wall. > > • The $400 to go from a 512 GB SSD to a 1T SSD is ridiculous. If you buy a > machine with a 512 GB SSD you can never, ever upgrade it as SSD prices fall. > > • There’s no external video port. I use my laptop connected to a projector a > lot. Apple has made sure I'd have to buy one more $40 dongle for the USB > C/Thunderbolt ports. Of course, I’d leave it in whatever room I was using it > and would have to buy another… > > • I haven’t decided if the Touch Bar is really useful or just a gimmick. None > of the software I use has been upgraded to support it yet, but I do use the > function keys and escape a lot. They’re now buried in the Touch Bar which > makes we touch-typists look at the keyboard. > > > After typing all of this, be aware that I’ve not made up my mind. After using > Mac laptops for many years, it would be a mental jolt to switch. But, I have > the feeling Apple is designing their machines for a different audience. My > needs are very different from the businessman who spends his whole day in > Excel/Word/PowerPoint/Outlook. > > I also think there’s too much boutique and not enough toolbox in the new > machines. > > L^2 > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > MacGroup mailing list > Posting address: [email protected] > Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/> > Answers to questions: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup/>
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