Also anti-tracking in Safari, huge security improvements, fantastic photo hardware and software, force-feedback on the trackpad, much improved filesystem (APFS), and on and on. Lots of great stuff that some people here seem to conveniently forget or claim they don’t care about, but would absolutely care if it wasn’t there.
But that doesn’t explain why they insist on using a broken keyboard design year after year. It really does boggle the mind.
And it is not whining for me to simply say, my keyboard doesn’t work. I paid a lot of money for this computer. It can’t be fixed. The only fix is a new computer with a decent keyboard. So far they haven’t given us that option.
Brilliant Adam. The only issue with this kind of a hack is that I have to do it across four or five Macs (yes, I’m really using four actively, two desktops and two MBP). In this case, it will be worth it. As I don’t care about Duplicate, just adding “Save As…” on command-shift-S will be enough for me. If only there were such a simple and succinct solution for all the annoyances of OS X (or any other OS).
What is your recommendation for people who were using Apple Soft Raid before for instance? Apparently it no longer works reliably. I guess it would be to “buy a bigger SSD for items for which you need very fast storage”. Fair enough.
I’m glad you’ve found things that work for you. It does illustrate my point that the assertion that Apple has stagnated over the last decade is a person-specific opinion rather than an immutable truth.
I’m not an expert in this area. I had one bad experience with some sort of software-based RAID in the late 1990s and have never tried again, largely because I don’t have a need for increased reliability (I have very good backups) or very large amounts of storage.
That said, if pressed for an answer I’d look to a NAS with hardware-based RAID, or possibly OWC’s SoftRAID (since the guy behind it, Tim Standing, really knows his stuff).
I’m not sure if any of those features are worth writing home about at all. Certainly nothing of the magnitude of the additions up to and including Snow Leopard.
Anti-tracking: simple browser add-on. Security improvements are a mirage as there have been even bigger security lapses since the nominal improvements which are gradually depriving the user of control of his computer (underlying real intention of SIP and the T2 chip).
The improved file system in the long run will be a boon but in the short run it means that disk utilities like Disk Warrior don’t work: the roll out should have been much more gradual and opt-in rather than handstands in Terminal (which I did: I do not want to be running two filesystems at the same time or be unable to do maintenance on my boot volumes).
There’s really very little great stuff and more issues like your broken keyboard. I’m sticking to MBP 2011 (2 x 17 inch, 1 x 15 inch) which can be upgraded and repaired for at least another few years (one of those is basically worn out from use, the other two in almost new condition, with GFXcardstatus pre-emptively installed to protect the Radeon 6750/6770 and TurboBoost Disabler to extend battery life and protect the fans).
I’d love to buy a new MBP from Apple, if it were 1. repairable 2. came with a 17 inch or at least matte screen 3. had a really good keyboard. Apple’s decided to stop offering hardware which suits my planet friendly (upgradeable and repairable) and technical requirements (large matte screen) and I’ve decided to stop buying their hardware. When I read the horror stories since the 2011 MBP (which themselves require adding third party software to ensure long life) with keyboards breaking with a single crumb in them, I’m so very glad not to own one myself.
Really it doesn’t look like Apple have been looking out for us, its users, customers and evangelists, some of us for decades. It’s just looking out for itself and for Wall Street. That’s a tactic for short term success, not a long term strategy for long term growth.
Actually, they’re all worth writing about – at least in a forum topic. As I noted, I find them all useful advances, and I certainly continue to disagree with you that they don’t match previous stuff.
How does making OS upgrades free fit with that narrative? They used to charge quite a lot and then (and it was Cook who did it, not Jobs), they stopped charging. That sure feels like looking out for us.
I wish this list had the limit that twitter has - 280 characters. There’s a difference between whining and discussions on problematic issues. I cannot be the only one that doesn’t read the extremely long and toxic emails. Stating problems, in a clear and short brief, is a good and positive thing for the rest of us to know. Bullet points help the reader. I appreciate the problematic issues brought to light. I support this list and Adam. “Keep it simple Sam.”
I have sadly come to the conclusion that Apple under Tim Cook is rapidly sinking into mediocrity.
Over the last few days I’ve read a lot about how Apple has been improving Siri in many countries, including India, which has been a difficult market for them. Siri is especially challenging there because of the number of dialects:
How many iPhone users would gladly substitute Google Voice Recognition for Siri if Apple allowed it.
I’ve said this before and I hope I don’t sound repetitive…Apple does not collect, store, analyze and sell personalized data from Siri. This means that Siri is a slower learner.
I don’t use Siri because it is so bad so often. Since Apple bought Siri from some developers (who only stayed around long enough to cash their stock options) I doubt Apple has the necessary expertise to improve Siri.
Please look back to something I posted a few days ago that includes links from the over 300 Siri specific job openings currently available in Cupertino, and that’s just in one office. It’s highly likely that there are many more people in that office currently dedicated to Siri. And I’m sure they’ve got thousands more employees working on Siri across the globe.
Can you name one Apple application (excluding operating systems) where the Apple product is best in class and the quality of the product is so good, it drives conversions? I cannot.
I have sadly come to the conclusion that Apple under Tim Cook is rapidly sinking into mediocrity.
Over the last few days I’ve read a lot about how Apple has been improving Siri in many countries, including India, which has been a difficult market for them. Siri is especially challenging there because of the number of dialects:
How many iPhone users would gladly substitute Google Voice Recognition for Siri if Apple allowed it.
I’ve said this before and I hope I don’t sound repetitive…Apple does not collect, store, analyze and sell personalized data from Siri. This means that Siri is a slower learner.
I don’t use Siri because it is so bad so often. Since Apple bought Siri from some developers (who only stayed around long enough to cash their stock options) I doubt Apple has the necessary expertise to improve Siri.
Please look back to something I posted a few days ago that includes links from the over 300 Siri specific job openings currently available in Cupertino, and that’s just in one office. It’s highly likely that there are many more people in that office currently dedicated to Siri. And I’m sure they’ve got thousands more employees working on Siri across the globe.
Can you name one Apple application (excluding operating systems) where the Apple product is best in class and the quality of the product is so good, it drives conversions? I cannot.
Music, Photos & Camera, iCloud Drive, to name a few
Fooey…I hit send by accident. But what I and I’m sure many other people appreciate is that our information, location, and activities are not being tracked.
The quality and level of knowledge at Applecare has really deteriorated. You average Level 1 advisor half the time sounds like they’ve never actually used any Apple devices. The Senior Advisors have gone downhill and are more like the first level advisors of 5 years ago.
I agree with this 100%. However, at least there is still easily available help, support and repair services. Do people with Lenovo, Asus, Pixel, Huawei, Samsung, etc. have better options?
I have been an Apple advocate since 1984. I could articulate why Apple was better than Windows.
Now, I actually have come to dislike Apple and their arrogance. I think it is time for Tim Cook to be replaced.
Not to mention that while those are features that some might find nice and indeed improve their workflow, many are fairly simple add-on features, nothing groundbreaking or really novel. In many cases actually Apple integrated stuff that others had already thought of and you could add through third parties. But more importantly, these items much less represent evolution along some kind of grand vision for the Mac. Case in point, several are related to simply bringing iOS features to the Mac. As if the Mac needed the same set of tools a phone does.
I think this is really where it shows that while Apple no doubt has good engineers, they’d also need a real vision for the Mac. The Mac can’t just be considered a toaster that might need a new case or color every once in a while or a new button with LED lighting every 5-10 years. If that’s the way the Mac is developed, no wonder there’s less excitement for it and attention shifts to other products (or services). People notice what Apple takes seriously and where they devote their time and effort. Neglect things for too long and folks lose interest. If sales then stagnate and Apple concludes customers aren’t interested anymore, you have essentially closed a negative feedback cycle.
This is impressively wrong. Just the level of increasing integration between the Mac and iOS devices is wonderfully novel and remarkably useful. The way in which I can have my work flow easily from my Mac to my iPad to my iPhone and back again is quite amazingly helpful. I can download a pdf to my Mac, AirDrop it to my iPad, mark it up on the way to work with an Apple Pencil, and then return it to the Mac so that I can use it for the article I’m writing in Pages. It’s all pretty seamless, and it’s fantastically better than it used to be. And it’s free! The hardware costs money, but the software linkages don’t. The system upgrades that brought the capabilities are free, the base level of iCloud is free, and Pages is free.
I can put together a presentation in Keynote on my Mac, throw it to Keynote on my iPad, hook the iPad up to the projector via HDMI to present it, and use my Apple Pencil again to markup the presentation as I go. Software? Still free!
How does making OS upgrades free fit with that narrative? They used to charge quite a lot and then (and it was Cook who did it, not Jobs), they stopped charging. That sure feels like looking out for us.
Giving away upgrades, as well as free productivity software, was a brilliant competitive decision. It was a very good selling point for Mac hardware, but most importantly, it dealt a major blow to Microsoft, who was dependent upon revenue from upgrades. It initially forced MS to give upgrades away for free and hold down prices of full versions. And I think it’s what led MS to start the push to subscription services. Same with Adobe, who suffered major blows from Final Cut Pro, iPhoto/Photos. And what more features could MS, Adobe, etc. add to their existing products that would make them compelling enough to make people want to shell out the extra bucks?
Jeez, I just returned from having to use MS Word and Excel for a few days, and whatever their email app is called. I thought they were all just as excruciating for this Mac user as they have always been. Even resizing the widows is a PITA.
The vast majority of computer or mobile users don’t know about anti tracking add-on, even know how much they are being tracked, and how their information is being used. It would take a disaster as epic as Cambridge Analytica was to get the information back on the radar once again.
Here’s another example of data tracking that should creep people out but is not getting much coverage at all:
Google, YouTube To Pay $170 Million Penalty Over Collecting Kids’ Personal Info
I do this all the time, except instead of copying back and forth with AirDrop, I use iCloud Drive. On the Mac, just put the file on iCloud Drive (you can add subfolders if you want). It just magically appears in the Files app on the iPad. You can read and annotate PDFs directly from the Files app. No need to copy, the file is just available on both platforms.
While I’m perfectly willing to believe it works that way for you, that doesn’t make the statement generically true. In fact, there are several people here right now telling you that to them that stuff is simply not relevant.
As for myself, if you need an actual computer to get work done (I can’t code my stuff or write my papers on a phone, I did try it on an iPad and it sucked) all that integration serves really no purpose at all. And of course it amounts to nothing but bloat for those who prefer to use Android for mobile.
I know exactly what you mean. To this day I cannot figure out Excel or Word. Fortunately, I don’t need to use either for my own stuff. The one app I would have to use routinely (for teaching) is PowerPoint. Fortunately for me, there’s Keynote which has all I need and makes it all easily accessible.
I read a lot of complaints about Apple Mail and I have had my own issues with it. But just watching Win folks wrestle with Outlook has me convinced Mail is perfectly peachy.
Well, yes, of course it is. And your opinion about Apple’s stagnation and lack of grand vision over the last decade is also not a generic truth, and, notably, several people in this thread have been telling you that.
