Why is it the more I read the EEVblog forum, my expectations of Apple keeps...

[Mr. Scram]

That's the iphone. I believe Harb is talking about Mac desktop PCs, not the phones.

It's an Apple thread, right?

[Zero999]

I thought a Mac is not a PC. Louis got even almost sued because he made a PC out of Macs by repairing them with jumper wires, as he says. Ridiculous.

PC just stands for Personal Computer, so a Mac desktop, is a type of PC. I suppose technically phones are also PCs, so one should say desktop PC.

[wraper]

I thought a Mac is not a PC. Louis got even almost sued because he made a PC out of Macs by repairing them with jumper wires, as he says. Ridiculous.

PC just stands for Personal Computer, so a Mac desktop, is a type of PC. I suppose technically phones are also PCs, so one should say desktop PC.

Tell that to Apple.

[Ampera]

I thought all Intel Macintoshes were IBM PC compatible. They just run a fancy version of BSD.

[Distelzombie]

I thought all Intel Macintoshes were IBM PC compatible. They just run a fancy version of BSD.

Ahem, *cough*, let me correct that for you: "They just run a fancy version of NEXT." *cough, cough*

[bd139]

Yes. OSX is remarkably similar to NEXTstep in function too. They haven’t bothered to hide a lot of that.

[Ampera]

I thought all Intel Macintoshes were IBM PC compatible. They just run a fancy version of BSD.

Ahem, *cough*, let me correct that for you: "They just run a fancy version of NEXT." *cough, cough*

I mean next is partially based on BSD code.

[BrianHG]

My main PC has run Win7 for about 4 years now.  It has yet to slow down at all.  My laptop is a different story, though, being similar spec and date, I can only assume the poor tiny 5400rpm drive is getting fragmented to hell with all the audio and video clips, large and small, going on and off it.

[Distelzombie]

My main PC has run Win7 for about 4 years now.  It has yet to slow down at all.  My laptop is a different story, though, being similar spec and date, I can only assume the poor tiny 5400rpm drive is getting fragmented to hell with all the audio and video clips, large and small, going on and off it.

Get an SSD? I bought a used one for my laptop: huuuge improvement. And "similar spec" on a laptop means usually "way worse".

[rdl]

You can defragment laptop drives the same as desktop, if that's what you meant. Otherwise yeah, get an SSD. They're cheap these days. Name brand 120-128 GB can be found for $40 or less.

Oh, and my Windows 7 machines don't slow down either.

[NiHaoMike]

So what? every Unix keeps its performance over time. Only Windows introduces stupid wrapping layers over time.
Gee, nowadays we have Windows Store apps that writes in XAML and JS, compared with a real programming language for client computers.
Linux can be as efficient as macOS, on PC hardware, and ATM my home network and storage is handled by a 4th gen i3-U server with 4GB of RAM, which if I run Windows on it it will crap out immediately.

I planned to do a major overhaul of my PC at 5 years. It's now about 6 years and still don't have a good reason to replace the CPU/motherboard. I was tempted into putting together a Ryzen system to mine some earnhoney (because my old Sandy Bridge E would use too much power doing that to be profitable), but then I calculated the break even point and it was silly long as in more than a year even with the very unrealistic assumption that difficulty stays constant. Too bad, because long story short, it would help in the fine tuning of upscaling algorithms for Nvidia GPUs.

PCs are like cars nowadays - replace it when there's a major breakdown that is uneconomical to fix. Otherwise, just keep using it. My next upgrade for my PC would be to add another SSD for the /opt directory because I installed Xilinx Vivado and now don't have very much space left on the root partition.

[Harb]

Its all hype......30 macs here none have "slowed down"..........

Are you sure?

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/30/16951328/apple-iphone-battery-slow-down-software-update-department-of-justice-sec-investigation-probe

That's the iphone. I believe Harb is talking about Mac desktop PCs, not the phones.

Yep thats right......desktop or Laptop.......never an issue.....ever

[Zero999]

I've never owned a Mac desktop, only Windows and Linux machines.

Smart phone wise, I've only had two and I'm old fashioned in that I don't use them for much else than making calls or texting. I find the touch screen a pain to use, because my fingers are too fat. I'd rather use a keyboard, mouse and a large display, so avoid working on phones and tablets, where possible.

I've only had an Android phone, which I smashed, when I slipped on ice last winter and currently have some old iPhone, which was given to me by someone who was getting the latest model. I admit I do prefer the iOS, over Android, user interface wise. I find it more intuitive and the touch screen recognises my typing better, than the Android phone even though it's smaller.

Would I buy an iPhone over an Android phone? No. I don't consider the improvement in user interface to be worth the extra cost. I also listen to people here when they talk of problems with their Apple devices.  I think it would be silly not to listen to the experience of experts. I also dislike Apple's use of non-standard connectors and headphone socket, which is silly. The device slowdown update scandal is also a factor in my decision, even though I don't believe it has affected me, I don'y buy Apple's excuse that it's to save battery life and not to encourage new sales.

[Halcyon]

I've only had an Android phone, which I smashed, when I slipped on ice last winter and currently have some old iPhone, which was given to me by someone who was getting the latest model. I admit I do prefer the iOS, over Android, user interface wise. I find it more intuitive and the touch screen recognises my typing better, than the Android phone even though it's smaller.

I will admit that Apple's implementation of the on-screen keyboard works very well, better than a lot of Android handsets I've used. However I also find that with Android keyboards, it's very much manufacturer specific and how they implement the keyboard. Previously I had an LG and I would always hit the period button instead of the space bar.

I now have a Samsung Galaxy S8, which conveniently allows me to resize and reconfigure the keyboard to suit my hands/muscle memory or if I'm doing one-handed typing, something that I couldn't do on the LG.

But as I've said many times, my gripe isn't nesessarily with Apple's operating system and software. All that comes down to personal opinion. I can see why people like IOS/MacOS, but I can also sympathise with those that hate it. The two biggest issues are with the way Apple don't really give a shit about their users once they've bought the device and their hardware, which isn't that innovative and lately has been kind of rubbish. I can build a better quality PC which will outlast any Apple for cheaper.

[Distelzombie]

Try Swiftkey if you don't like the keyboard. One plus for Android is that nobody telly you what app to use for anything. Choose yourself.
Swiftkey is the best keyboard app I could found. I tested many, 6+. Best predictions, customizations, comfort

[tooki]

Try Swiftkey if you don't like the keyboard. One plus for Android is that nobody telly you what app to use for anything. Choose yourself.
Swiftkey is the best keyboard app I could found. I tested many, 6+. Best predictions, customizations, comfort

I really like SwiftKey on iOS, too, better than the stock keyboard. What keeps me from using it is that I routinely write in 4 languages, and SwiftKey only lets you choose two at a time.

[Mr. Scram]

I will admit that Apple's implementation of the on-screen keyboard works very well, better than a lot of Android handsets I've used. However I also find that with Android keyboards, it's very much manufacturer specific and how they implement the keyboard. Previously I had an LG and I would always hit the period button instead of the space bar.

I now have a Samsung Galaxy S8, which conveniently allows me to resize and reconfigure the keyboard to suit my hands/muscle memory or if I'm doing one-handed typing, something that I couldn't do on the LG.

But as I've said many times, my gripe isn't nesessarily with Apple's operating system and software. All that comes down to personal opinion. I can see why people like IOS/MacOS, but I can also sympathise with those that hate it. The two biggest issues are with the way Apple don't really give a shit about their users once they've bought the device and their hardware, which isn't that innovative and lately has been kind of rubbish. I can build a better quality PC which will outlast any Apple for cheaper.

The problem with the keyboard in iOS is that it doesn't have all the tricks that other keyboards have. Using a third party keyboard in iOS a good way of fixing that, but it is suprisingly painful. When you set a third party keyboard in Android, you tend to forget it's even a different keyboard. Only when you switch devices you remember to set the same third party keyboard for that same consistent experience. In iOS the default keyboard tends to switch itself back regularly and not always at predictable times and can be painfully slow to load in. It's certainly workable, but when it comes to keyboards Android seems to fare better. That's what I consider to be a seemless experience.

[tooki]

I thought all Intel Macintoshes were IBM PC compatible. They just run a fancy version of BSD.

Some parts of Darwin (the underlying OSS OS) are taken from FreeBSD, IIRC.

As for the hardware, it's not 100% IBM PC architecture. 99.9%, but with a custom EFI firmware. Part of what the Boot Camp* tool does is to install (or perhaps just enable, in later Intel Macs?) a BIOS compatibility mode so that Windows can boot**. With that, stock Windows boots fine, though it doesn't have drivers for all the Apple custom hardware bits. (Modern Windows has no trouble finding the drivers for all the basic hardware.)


*Boot Camp is the name of Apple's setup tool for Intel Macs to configure a dual-boot environment with Windows. It installs a BIOS compatibility mode, performs an on-the-fly disk repartitioning to give you an NTFS partition for Windows, and then sets up an installer for Windows to install all the drivers (both for the COTS components like mobo chipset, graphics chip, network interfaces, etc, as well as basic drivers for the custom Apple hardware like trackpads, keyboard, webcam, power management, etc., and a config utility to let you select the startup disk), and finally starts the Windows setup process.

**Just a little disclaimer: It's been years since I ran Boot Camp last, so I haven't done it on the latest Mac models, nor with any Windows that came after Win 7. So it's possible that newer Windows supports booting Apple's weirdo EFI implementation directly, as well as the process perhaps being different on newer Mac models. So just bear in mind that my info might be a bit dated.

[tooki]

I will admit that Apple's implementation of the on-screen keyboard works very well, better than a lot of Android handsets I've used. However I also find that with Android keyboards, it's very much manufacturer specific and how they implement the keyboard. Previously I had an LG and I would always hit the period button instead of the space bar.

I now have a Samsung Galaxy S8, which conveniently allows me to resize and reconfigure the keyboard to suit my hands/muscle memory or if I'm doing one-handed typing, something that I couldn't do on the LG.

But as I've said many times, my gripe isn't nesessarily with Apple's operating system and software. All that comes down to personal opinion. I can see why people like IOS/MacOS, but I can also sympathise with those that hate it. The two biggest issues are with the way Apple don't really give a shit about their users once they've bought the device and their hardware, which isn't that innovative and lately has been kind of rubbish. I can build a better quality PC which will outlast any Apple for cheaper.

The problem with the keyboard in iOS is that it doesn't have all the tricks that other keyboards have. Using a third party keyboard in iOS a good way of fixing that, but it is suprisingly painful. When you set a third party keyboard in Android, you tend to forget it's even a different keyboard. Only when you switch devices you remember to set the same third party keyboard for that same consistent experience. In iOS the default keyboard tends to switch itself back regularly and not always at predictable times and can be painfully slow to load in. It's certainly workable, but when it comes to keyboards Android seems to fare better. That's what I consider to be a seemless experience.

Oh, you're absolutely right. You can prevent it from switching back to the stock keyboard by disabling it, so that it only has, say, SwiftKey enabled. It will, however, still revert to the stock keyboard for password entry IIRC. It will also do that if the third-party keyboard (henceforth 3PK) crashes. (Behind the scenes, a 3PK is a user-space app that runs fairly normally, other than being overlaid on the keyboard area of the screen.)

It's absolutely true that in iOS, 3PKs are not seamless. And from a technical standpoint, I totally understand why (Apple runs them heavily sandboxed, to reduce the risk of them sucking user data and sending it off, or causing system instability, as have happened with some Android keyboards). But from a user perspective it's a decidedly degraded experience.

Another problem with 3PKs in iOS is compatibility with third-party apps: the latter are often never tested with non-stock keyboards, and so they're often buggy with 3PKs. For example, the Facebook app detects friends' names as you type so you can tag them. For a long time, with SwiftKey, this went something like this: suppose you're typing 'Thomas Sanchez' to tag him, and by the time you've typed "Thomas San" you've narrowed it down to just him, and tap it. The result in the text was something like "Thomas SanThomas Sanchez".

After a few versions of iOS with 3PK support, they did add more hooks to the OS to give keyboards deeper access to the text input fields, after asking for explicit user permission and explaining the risk. This has helped a lot with app incompatibility.

[tooki]

Yes. OSX is remarkably similar to NEXTstep in function too. They haven’t bothered to hide a lot of that.

Well, in a sense, with NeXT being Steve Jobs' second major GUI, it was in many ways "Mac interface 2.0". Some of that was better than the Mac's, some not so good (*cough* gimme a damned spatial Finder!! *cough*). But there's no question: macOS/OS X is a direct descendant of OpenStep (the renamed NeXT OS, once it had been liberated from running on only NeXT brand hardware), with some GUI elements and even window layouts being essentially unchanged (other than being skinned differently) from NeXT.

The first Apple reseller I ever worked at, in 1999, had also been a NeXT reseller in the past, and they actually still used a NeXT workstation in the back office for a few things, so I got a chance to use NeXT in its "pure" incarnation. I was a super Mac nerd back in those days, and managed to get my hands on various prerelease copies of Rhapsody (Apple's code name for OpenStep as it was given plastic surgery to morph it into the likeness of Mac OS 8), and then Mac OS X Server 1.0 (not 10.0!!), which was literally just a Power Mac build of OpenStep with the Mac OS 8 skin and support for Mac-formatted disks and network protocols bolted on, and then early developer preview releases of Mac OS X, some of which had the Mac OS X Server 1.0 skin, while later ones moved to the new Aqua interface (which also replaced the Display PostScript graphics layer with Display PDF). It was really fascinating to see the NeXT user interface gradually morph into the modern Mac interface. And at the same time as the window dressing, they did major under-the-hood work:
a) the framework to let classic Mac OS run in a virtual machine for running legacy Mac apps
b) updated versions of the Mac APIs to make it easy for developers to port their existing Mac apps to Mac OS X
c) entirely new frameworks to support app developers in writing modern new apps
d) added PowerPC support (while keeping OpenStep's x86 support, though totally changing how fat binaries are constructed)

It was quite the feat of engineering IMHO.

[wraper]

[tooki]

Another video from Rossman whining about Apple’s supposed rampant failures, I’m shocked...

His entire business is built around servicing machines that Apple, for various reasons, won’t service, or that the customer doesn’t want to pay Apple’s repair price for. (And it’s great that he offers this option.) That said, he doesn’t see the millions of Apple devices that never fail. He doesn’t acknowledge the high percentage of the time that Apple’s own customer service does do right by the customer, never mind when they go above and beyond sometimes.

Surveys consistently show Apple’s product reliability to be above average, and customer satisfaction (which is of course a result not only of the devices themselves, but how Apple handles failures if they do occur) to be at the front of the pack, year after year after year. So even with the occasional exception, the overwhelming majority of customers are very happy.

Listening to Rossman, you’d think that every Apple product sold was doomed to premature failure. But if that were actually true, it would be reflected in the statistics, and it’s just not.

The Apple haters will of course dismiss it as “the crApple Sheep cult members will do anything Apple says”, but that’s a cheap cop-out that simply exposes the fact that they don’t understand the true reasons people buy Apple products, and by extension the fact that they can’t explain Apple’s success. Brand affinity explains some, but decidedly not the only, reason for choosing Apple. What keeps customers coming back is that the products largely work as expected, are easy for non-engineers to use, and prove reliable, both in intrinsic reliability, but also in recovery from failure. (If your Apple product fails and must be replaced, provided you’ve used the built-in backup features, you’re up and running on a replacement unit within hours, with all apps, data, and settings exactly as you left them, compared to days or longer re-configuring a competing product.) Investment in the ecosystem (especially software) is a factor, too (just as it is for anyone who’s used any platform for a while).

In a nutshell, no matter what the Apple haters say, the proof is in the pudding: Apple customers keep coming back. There is no coercion, no religion, no cult. Just a large group of largely satisfied customers. A self-selected minority of exceptions doesn’t disprove the overall picture.

[Distelzombie]

Apart from the device that still work: if you have a problem with one and it's the manufacturers fault, don't you think they should do something? They apparently just ignore until they get sued. Is that not a problem for you?

[Richard Crowley]

Reports are that Apple fans are becoming weary of the expensive treadmill. 
Top end phone sales are in a downturn in favor of more sensibly priced models.

Share prices of Apple suppliers fall on ‘deeper trough’ of iPhone X sales
https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/24/iphone-x-sales-apple-suppliers/

Almost nobody wants the iPhone X
"But analysts say that tide is shifting: Dramatically fewer people are buying the latest iPhones."
https://qz.com/1260811/apples-second-quarter-2018-analyst-expect-poor-iphone-x-sales/

etc.....

[BradC]

Reports are that Apple fans are becoming weary of the expensive treadmill. 
Top end phone sales are in a downturn in favor of more sensibly priced models.

I'd suspect that has exactly *zero* to do with "blah blah Apple fans are tired of..."  and everything to do with Apple having built a phone few people find attractive (for whatever reason).

Nobody gets it right all the time, and the market lets them know in precisely this manner.