26 comments

  • Cody SanfilippoCody Sanfilippo, over 5 years ago

    "Betteridge's law of headlines is one name for an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

    13 points
  • Greg BowenGreg Bowen, over 5 years ago

    My 2016 Macbook Pro is a piece of crap. The paint started wearing off the keys and screen cracked around the hinge and I treat it like it is fine China. I have the best Apple Care money can buy and it cost me ~$500 to fix. The tolerances on this machine are so tight, that the keys leave impressions on the screen, which obviously precludes using any keyboard stickers to help protect it.

    My 2008 MacBook Pro lasted close to a decade, still looks like it is right from the showroom floor.

    So by design, if you are asking if they have caught the imagination of would-be YouTube and Twitch celebrities that clamor for champagne colored devices, they are doing just fine.

    If you are talking about professional products for designers and developers, they need to a better job.

    I am team Android for now, got an Essential phone for 1/4 the price of the iPhone X - No Oled, but I love it anyway. It is rugged, it is not bulbous and round, it makes me happy and Apple is currently pissing me off.

    The reality is that companies like Google and Facebook have a revenue model that ensures larger and larger market shares. Apple sells mostly hardware and are reaching saturation - makes sense, I guess that there only path forward is planned obsolescence. And to be fair, my other laptop options are pretty lame,.

    10 points
    • Mitchell BMitchell B, over 5 years ago

      I had a key/screen issue on my 2015 MBP. Turned out it was a known problem that Apple was begrudgingly fixing: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/17/apple-extends-free-staingate-repairs/

      My computer was work-issued though, so I have no idea how the repair process went - just handed in my lappy and was handed a barely-used spare.

      0 points
    • John PJohn P, over 5 years ago

      Everything about the 2016-2017 series is horrible. More expensive, horrible keys that are somehow too noisy and too mushy at the same time and one of mine started to break within 24 hours of opening the thing. USB-C is a joke port it's destined to just be dongles forever now because everyone who has it just uses dongles so why would hardware makers ship anything other than USB-A. CPU throttles when external displays are plugged in. Can't tell if the thing is charging anymore when your battery is 0% because there is no LED.

      4 points
  • Norm Sheeran, over 5 years ago

    No.

    9 points
  • Charles JonesCharles Jones, over 5 years ago

    Has anyone switched to Windows due to these realities?

    4 points
    • Jared KrauseJared Krause, over 5 years ago

      nope

      2 points
    • John PJohn P, over 5 years ago

      Ditched Mac for my workstation because I built a machine that out performs the iMac Pro for less than the baseline iMac.

      If the next generation of laptops doesn't fix the keyboard and ditch the touchbar then I'll be switching to a Thinkpad.

      1 point
    • Greg Warner, over 5 years ago

      If I don't mind losing Sketch, the Surface Book 2 is really tempting me.

      1 point
  • Nick Orland, over 5 years ago

    Mamma Mia! Here we go again :)

    2 points
  • Ethan UnzickerEthan Unzicker, over 5 years ago

    How many times is this article going to be written?

    1 point
  • Tom WoodTom Wood, over 5 years ago

    Goodness. This has already been covered a zillion times, and none much better than Topolsky on the Outline.

    1 point
  • Jamie Diamond, over 5 years ago

    Oh hey! Copypasta of that article from right around this time, two years ago!

    1 point
  • Thomas PalumboThomas Palumbo, over 5 years ago

    Yes...no...maybe?

    They've certainly made questionable design decisions i.e. removing headphone jack, the lip on the iPhone X, razor thin macbooks with no useful ports, dongles etc.

    1 point
    • Ch'an Armstrong, over 5 years ago

      Apple has made innovative design decisions from the beginning of time. Designing the mouse, removing the floppy disk, removing the CD drive. Setting the standards in hardware design for decades. However, Google is now making amazing designs with their hardware :)

      0 points
  • Harper Lieblich, over 5 years ago

    Yes, of course it has. Back when you could interrupt the cell signal on the iPhone 4 by holding it wrong.

    Actually it was earlier than that. It was when they made the bezels on the original iPad to thick.

    Now that I think about it, they actually lost their mojo when they released that ugly, fat, little iPod Nano.

    No wait, it was when they designed the Mac Cube with not enough computing power.

    Or when they released the original iPod with a FireWire port and a scroll wheel that would fall out if you dropped it.

    Never mind, it was actually when apple released the iMac with a round hockey puck mouse.

    Yup, Apple lost their design mojo in 1998.

    0 points
  • Andrew C, over 5 years ago

    Nah. Switching to other platforms like MSFT and Google w Pixel always leaves me wanting. I feel we're do for a big step up, but no one's really doing it. The time to strike is now for sure.

    0 points
  • Ch'an Armstrong, over 5 years ago

    No. However, other brands such as Google and Samsung are catching up and putting emphasis on hardware design.

    0 points