Remember how exciting 2005-2011 was for Apple?

[lowendlinux]

So am I. Dell C2D, now running Linux Mint/Cinnamon. With Windows 10, MS sort of "lost the plot" in my opinion, so WinTel is not a viable option for me. I still like my iMac and 17" MBP, don't get me wrong, but I haven't updated my MBP beyond Mavericks, and my iMac is still running fine on Snow Leopard.

As navaira has explained above, a lot of the innovation in the electronics sector as of late is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. I think that in order to impress enthusiasts now, it will take something so left-field as, say, 3-D holographic displays.

Cinnamon is a nice DE it's what Gnome 3 should have been

 

[dXTC]

Cinnamon is a nice DE it's what Gnome 3 should have been

Yeah, I'm digging Cinnamon too. I run it on two PCs right now, both hand-me-down Dell Core 2 Duos.

I do have a third Mint install, but it's the Xfce edition, since the old Atom-based Lenovo netbook is just too underpowered to run Cinnamon and still be useful. I could have used Lubuntu on it, but I wanted to stay in the Mint family for now.

 

[CJozef]

By the common sense, everything great has once to fall. I think they should provide the alternative to Windows and Android, a lot of people just do not like it.

 

[lowendlinux]

Yeah, I'm digging Cinnamon too. I run it on two PCs right now, both hand-me-down Dell Core 2 Duos.

I do have a third Mint install, but it's the Xfce edition, since the old Atom-based Lenovo netbook is just too underpowered to run Cinnamon and still be useful. I could have used Lubuntu on it, but I wanted to stay in the Mint family for now.

Cinnamon like Gnome 3 is a bit fat and if you combine that with the LM all daemons all the time it's probably a bit to much for older stuff.

 

[DevNull0]

For all you doom & gloomers - would you ever consider buying a WinTel machine? There's your answer right there.

I am a long time Apple user. Between my 1998 powerbook G3 and my 2011 macbook pro, I've owned 5 mac laptops, 4 mac minis, and 1 iMac. 2012 was the peak of Apple for hardware and OS X. It has been a shockingly fast descent into depravity since then.

I just did switch:
$370 for i7-4790k, MSI Z97 motherboard, and 16 gig of ram as a bundle a tiger direct
$255 for an MSI GTX 970 (black friday door crasher)
$120 for a 480 gig SSD
$90 for a 4 TB hard drive
$150 for a case and power supply.

Total cost, $985 for a machine that will destroy and Apple computer on the market in sheer performance.

And before you give me the usual story about OS X being so much better than Windows, that is the real reason I did it. Yosemite/El Crapitan is so crippled and such an ass-backward design, OS X is completely unusable. Windows 10 is an absolute pleasure next to the torture that is the current OS X. Between hiding the file system as much as possible in finder, even safari hides the url of the page you're on until you change that...they have ruined OS X.

As someone who has lived Mac for almost 20 years, all I can say is Windows is so much better than OS X, I only feel sorry for the people still stuck on OS X because of their outdated impressions.

There simply isn't all that much to improve. They can get longer battery life, faster SSDs, faster processors, etc., but a mobile phone has been perfected as a rectangular object with touch screen and a form of touch ID. Force/3D touch fails to impress me as true innovation. But it's probably as good as it gets. Similar to Adobe CC products or Office. At some point you really run out of stuff to stick into a word processor.

First, people have been saying for centuries there's not that much left to improve, and they've been wrong every time. Just because Apple isn't doing it and you can't picture anything outside Apple doesn't mean there's not plenty of room. Can Siri fully process natural language in any language and respond as smoothly as if you were talking to a real assistant?

Second, Apple has been making their products worse for years. You say you run out of stuff to stuck into a word processor. Apple is running out of features they can pull out of their word processor. Pages for OSX used to be fantastic. Now I use MS word because Pages is crippled down to act like a defective tablet program.

Year after year, apple takes away features, performance and functionally. But they sure do a great job making their useless crap thin.

Compare the feature list of the 2012 Macbook Pro to any laptop Apple makes now. 2 industry standard drive bays, 2 industry standard SODIMM slots. Ethernet. A magsafe cord that doesn't fall out if you breathe on the computer too hard. Glossy and matte screen options. A battery that's easily user-replacable. It's just sad what Apple users have lost in the past 3 years. And what have they gained? 0.25 inches thinner, a few ounces lighter, and a bag of extra accessories to make up for all the stuff that's no longer in the computer.

I think it is a combination of this, and that the markets are maturing so while Apple is still being just as innovative with new technology as they always have been the changes in technology that they have to work with are getting smaller and smaller.

Really? Try looking outside the Apple reality distortion field. The next few years are going to be amazing for computer users, and apple is going to be left choking on dust.

VR is going to disrupt everything. Facebook invested $2 billion for a reason. Apple facetime is going to look so quaint when you can video conference in VR. Or preview vacation sites, tour properties, and watch movies in immersive environments. 5k iMacs will be a sad joke when you have a wall full of virtual 8k panels. Just turn your head to render the part you need to view. Read a bit about where this is going in the next 5 years. Apple is already out of that club because they don't make a single machine powerful enough to run it. But hey, $3 billion on beats was a pretty good move too compared to $2 billion for oculus.

This is the amazing future we've been reading about for years, it is amazing what is available. And Apple still sells the same computers now as they did in 2008 only thinner and with more pixels (but not enough processing power to drive all those pixels).

 

[navaira]

First, people have been saying for centuries there's not that much left to improve, and they've been wrong every time. Just because Apple isn't doing it and you can't picture anything outside Apple doesn't mean there's not plenty of room. Can Siri fully process natural language in any language and respond as smoothly as if you were talking to a real assistant?

You've got a wrong person for this particular jab My Sony tablet and phone say hello. I don't know very well how Siri works because I don't have any device capable of running it, my Macs and iPod Nano didn't get the memo yet. I was talking about the technicals of any mobile phone at the moment. And if people start all switching to voice operating their phones, boy, will the world become a very irritating place

Second, Apple has been making their products worse for years. You say you run out of stuff to stuck into a word processor. Apple is running out of features they can pull out of their word processor. Pages for OSX used to be fantastic. Now I use MS word because Pages is crippled down to act like a defective tablet program.

I use OpenOffice and love it, with the one exception – they gave it an update recently which makes it near impossible to permanently disable auto bulleting. But I digress. One of the first things I did when I got my Air was removing Pages, Keynote and Numbers. But it's one particular user case.

Year after year, apple takes away features, performance and functionally. But they sure do a great job making their useless crap thin.

Here we agree 100%. That's why I was so shocked to hear rMB is the best selling Mac. It's slow ALREADY. Imagine it in a few years. But it's thin! So thin!

It's just sad what Apple users have lost in the past 3 years. And what have they gained? 0.25 inches thinner, a few ounces lighter, and a bag of extra accessories to make up for all the stuff that's no longer in the computer.

Here again I can't justify their doings. The iMacs covered in glue so you can't possibly upgrade ANYTHING, the trashPro, the rMB with its one slot and a bag of adapters...

 

[Tech198]

"Twas the time before Tim Cook was CEO, and Steve Jobs was in. Software was great and Steve kept everyone on track."

Those times were good.. and in some cases better.. The good thing now is i don't need to carry a bulky mac round with me Performance has improved, may have led to some oversight with fully testing products/services in Cupertino.

 

[navaira]

While most of the "Steve come back" posts are... misguided, I bet you one thing: with Steve around the disgusting antenna bands, the protruding camera and the iHump wouldn't happen. He'd have daily tantrums until the design department came up with something 100% perfect.

And yes, I remember the puck mouse and I will argue that while semi-useless it sure looked good next to an iMac.

 

[roadbloc]

To be honest, 1999 to 2004 was even better in my opinion. The switch to Intel was followed by a decline in software quality and an obsession to make everything thinner rather than actually better.

 

[navaira]

Did the thinner obsession already start in 2004?!

 

[maflynn]

To be honest, 1999 to 2004 was even better in my opinion. The switch to Intel was followed by a decline in software quality and an obsession to make everything thinner rather than actually better.

I think the switch to intel was the best move they made. Clearly the Motorola and IBM were unable to deliver the chipsets Apple needed (both design improvements and quantities). I remember the days that apple had to delay a rollout because either the particular G3/G4 was delayed by Moto or IBM. The G5 was promised to get a mobile version, that never happened, and also a 3GHz version which never appeared as well.

As for the decline in the software, I think that's a new phenomenon, Originally iWorks and iLife were solid products that stopped getting decent updates. Then when they re-wrote them from the ground up, they were shells of their former selves.

Overall I find, my 5k iMac to be a great piece of hardware, running a fast, stable feature rich OS. It builds upon Yosemite and plugs the holes/weaknesses/bugs found in Yosemite. I know a number of folks have issues with El Cap, but for me its been a solid and much improved step up.

 

[lowendlinux]

I think the switch to intel was the best move they made. Clearly the Motorola and IBM were unable to deliver the chipsets Apple needed (both design improvements and quantities). I remember the days that apple had to delay a rollout because either the particular G3/G4 was delayed by Moto or IBM. The G5 was promised to get a mobile version, that never happened, and also a 3GHz version which never appeared as well.

As for the decline in the software, I think that's a new phenomenon, Originally iWorks and iLife were solid products that stopped getting decent updates. Then when they re-wrote them from the ground up, they were shells of their former selves.

Overall I find, my 5k iMac to be a great piece of hardware, running a fast, stable feature rich OS. It builds upon Yosemite and plugs the holes/weaknesses/bugs found in Yosemite. I know a number of folks have issues with El Cap, but for me its been a solid and much improved step up.

But is it really fair to judge the quality of a bit of software by using a brand new machine as the testbed? Wouldn't it be more fair to judge it using machines at the other end of the curve?

 

[nightcap965]

But is it really fair to judge the quality of a bit of software by using a brand new machine as the testbed? Wouldn't I'd be more fair to judge it using machines at the other end of the curve?

Yes, it is certainly fair to judge the quality of software using a brand new machine made by the same manufacturer.

Linux perforce can only run on older hardware or open-source reference platforms that someone has kindly written drivers for. I've been using Linux since 1993, and to this day it is close to impossible to get all of the features of a new laptop working. Certainly not out of the box - I'd be searching for and installing patches for days.

Nothing against Linux. I've spent many a happy hour fiddling, compiling, and making stuff work. But when I just want to get something done, I reach for MacOS X. Underneath that colorful candy shell is enough crunchy Unix goodness to keep me happy for a long time.

 

[lowendlinux]

Yes, it is certainly fair to judge the quality of software using a brand new machine made by the same manufacturer.

Linux perforce can only run on older hardware or open-source reference platforms that someone has kindly written drivers for. I've been using Linux since 1993, and to this day it is close to impossible to get all of the features of a new laptop working. Certainly not out of the box - I'd be searching for and installing patches for days.

Nothing against Linux. I've spent many a happy hour fiddling, compiling, and making stuff work. But when I just want to get something done, I reach for MacOS X. Underneath that colorful candy shell is enough crunchy Unix goodness to keep me happy for a long time.

What does Linux have anything to do with what I said?

 

[nightcap965]

What does Linux have anything to do with what I said?

Only that you had noted previously in this thread that you were running Linux. I took that as coloring your opinion on how new software ought to be evaluated.

 

[maflynn]

But is it really fair to judge the quality of a bit of software by using a brand new machine as the testbed? Wouldn't it be more fair to judge it using machines at the other end of the curve?

I'm running El Cap on my 2012 rMBP as well, and the same result - very good

 

[lowendlinux]

I'm running El Cap on my 2012 rMBP as well, and the same result - very good

I didn't really have problems with Yosemite on the 09 MBP either but I only use it when necessary so I'm not a good judge.

 

[lowendlinux]

Only that you had noted previously in this thread that you were running Linux. I took that as coloring your opinion on how new software ought to be evaluated.

Linux colors my opinion about a lot of things but if his not even two week old iMac with a fusion drive didn't run the OS it shipped with like lightning he should take it back. I think the better test of SW quality like I said in my post is how does it run at the other end of the spectrum those on older HW.

 

[maflynn]

I didn't really have problems with Yosemite on the 09 MBP either but I only use it when necessary so I'm not a good judge.

Perhaps, but I was countering your point that my iMac was not a good example, but in fact I've been rocking with El Cap on old and new hardware without any issues. I understand that others have, and I'm not diminishing those issues, but my opinion is that El Cap is a solid upgrade to Yosemite.

 

[lowendlinux]

Perhaps, but I was countering your point that my iMac was not a good example, but in fact I've been rocking with El Cap on old and new hardware without any issues. I understand that others have, and I'm not diminishing those issues, but my opinion is that El Cap is a solid upgrade to Yosemite.

If you had said NY '12 MBP runs great I wouldn't have commented at all.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Nah....I'm sailing along in it with a nice Merlot in my hand....

If only I could have a nice glass of Pinot Grigio right now. Anyhow only another 4 months to go. This thread brings back a lot of memories of various iPods in the mid 2000's and then my first iPhone in 2009.

 

[Tech198]

I'd rather forget the past, but the older times were good.

The only good thing about switching to Intel meant Apple finally got Bootcamp and Windows users matched to a Mac, and vitalization.

I guess performance would have been improvement somewhat too.