Comment by ktallett

Apple Silicon is amazing when it comes to cost-performance and battery life

You are 100% getting 15 hours from a normal workload. The keyboard is better than any other laptop keyboard. The camera is better than any other laptop integrated webcam.

The quality of the software is same or better as Linux (because getting all your Linux desktop and command line software running is a brew install away).

The hardware is class leading. The screens are best in class. The laptops will last you 8-10 years and then you can install a Linux on them and keep them going for another 5.

Yes, repairability is poor, but improving.

I get why people make other choices, but the idea that Apple hardware is poor quality and the software is terrible just isn't the way to do it. Argue about purity of freedom, argue about cost (Apple hardware is expensive, because it's superb), argue about crappy dev account policies like the thread is here to support.

But, y'know, don't just make up stuff anybody who uses this stuff daily knows is just made up...

You're getting 15 when you're listening music all day while doing work. You get an hour or two more if you're working silent. If you want an equal keyboard to a MacBook, you will pay for top of the line systems from the big three (HP/Lenovo/Dell), and they are more expensive than their Apple equivalents for less hardware. I have never seen an equivalent internal webcam in none of any non-Apple notebooks, BTW. You can add a high end Logitech or a mirrorless camera, but that beats the purpose, of course.

Linux exists and improved a ton in the last two decades. It's great and is my primary OS, but macOS is not an imitation of Linux, by any stretch.

Tell me a backup solution which allows you plug your drive to a brand new computer, get a coffee and resume from the point you left, literally incl. open apps, documents, window positions, volume level, and even the playing song. I'm trying to contribute Back in Time in Linux and know Borg exists, but all of them are filling different roles. Windows / LLVM / BTRFS / ZFS snapshots are a thing but, none of them are easy to use by the layman.

"Low quality glass" issue exposed in 2014, and it's not "low quality glass", but "fragile coating" issue, and I believe it's due to harsh handling of the glass. Because, I have an 2008, 2014 and 2020 MacBooks. 2008 has an old fashioned matte screen, and 2014 and 2020 MacBook's screen coatings are almost spotless. They both have a single short line in the middle due to an oily key burned the coating because I didn't clean my keyboard and somehow pressed the machines so the keys made contact.

If you use an alcohol free screen cleaner (which is dirt cheap here) or a camera lens cleaning solution, with a clean cloth (e.g. the one Apple provides inside the box), you can't damage the screen. Of course, Apple can go above and beyond and use fluorine coatings on these screens (which are used in high end camera lenses), which will easily double the price of the whole machine.

I agree on the repairability, but I'll note something else: dependability. None of my Macs needed any service. 2014 one needs a new battery after 10 years, and that's acceptable. One friend managed to fry their MacBook Air by abusing it a bit with AI workloads, but it's fixed under warranty for manufacturing error. I know ~20 people with Macs, and nobody except two (who both emptied a mug coffee on their keyboards) needed a service.

Also, on the iPhone side, if you send your phone in for battery replacement, any damaged part of your phone will be replaced free of charge if there's no external damage on that part. Apple changed my speaker for free on my iPhone, because they found its performance subpar. No info, no questions asked. "We changed your battery and speaker. You only pay for battery. Enjoy your phone, have a nice day". That's good service if you ask me, and the phone returned in a condition that nobody could tell that thing was opened and its battery replaced. The phone was out of warranty for 2 years when that happened.

On the OS side, there's no real limitation except you need to enable external kernel modules via recovery menu, and if we're talking about SIP, praising Nix and immutable systems and loathing macOS SIP is hypocrisy, so there's that.

On the reliability of macOS underpinnings, that laptop is up for 60 days (because of an update induced reboot), and it never crashes and fragments its memory so nothing works. So, I don't know if that this is not reliable, what is.

By long term, you mean 7 years? Heck, you can't even get 7 years of support and spare parts for enterprise hardware unless you pay an arm and a leg (don't ask me how I know), and Apple gives you 7 years of HW/SW support for anything they build. How this is not LTS?

Accessibility is a really hard topic, and it's very hard to appreciate and sounds/feels backwards if you don't depend on them.

Wish more people worked on them, and OS were designed to accommodate accessibility technologies better.

The thing is, my Macs work as front ends to my Linux systems. So, there's nothing non-interoperable, or non-removable from these systems.

There are some applications with no Linux equivalent, but it's not a MacOS problem, it's a development effort problem.

Currently, no, but in the future I might migrate out of support systems to Asahi.

One of the reasons I use macOS is I get to inspect how they do some things. I carry the experience to Linux via the small tools I develop. Apple is one of the last "purveyors of magic" when it comes to user interfaces, and studying them, iterating on them and implementing them is both a good learning experience. Also, it feels nice when something you write (with a GPL license no less) has the same magic feeling of frictionless productivity.

I am keeping a close eye on it for sure. The last time I tried it wasn't quite there yet and still had too many rough edges for my taste.

My coworker would disagree with you. Slack and Teams never remember the microphone, frequently fails to initialize the device correctly and have to rejoin the meeting. _Never_ have that problem on Windows or Linux.

Asking as a Linux user for whom PipeWire works fine (for recording, live-streaming, as well as playback), what does macOS do better?

Oh, yes, that's very true. I forgot that since I'm not recording for quite some time now.

I use my 2014 and 2020 Macs with mesh and old-school multi-ap networks which broadcast same SSID all the time, and I see it as switches APs from the wireless reception bar, without any drop in connectivity. Mesh enabled or not.

Interesting.

Yes. The gestures are also great and very natural. Magic mouse is also very intuitive, too.

It's a shame that drag-lock is not on by default. It makes life much easier.