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Apple Launches MacBook 2016 With Intel Skylake Processor, Longer Battery Life
Apple, on Tuesday, announced a refresh for its 12-inch MacBook laptop. The 2016 MacBook comes with an Intel Skylake processor -- sixth-generation dual-core Intel Core M model, offering up to 1.3 GHz clock speed with Turbo Boost speeds of up to 3.1 GHz, faster 1866 MHz memory, and a 'rose gold' color variant. Apple assures 10 hours of wireless Web browsing time, or 11 hours of movie playback on a single charge. The new model will hit retail stores on Wednesday. It starts at $1,299 for the 256GB SSD and 8GB (up from 4GB) version, and goes all the way up to $1,599 for the top-of-the-line model which offers 512GB SSD.
A couple of points: the first-generation MacBook didn't fare well with reviewers and plenty of users alike. Second, today's announcement also hints that the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro lineups won't be getting the Intel Skylake upgrade for at least a few more months -- which is really sad, because, at present, they come equipped with almost three-year-old processor and graphics chips. No wonder, Oculus executive made fun of Apple's computers.
A couple of points: the first-generation MacBook didn't fare well with reviewers and plenty of users alike. Second, today's announcement also hints that the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro lineups won't be getting the Intel Skylake upgrade for at least a few more months -- which is really sad, because, at present, they come equipped with almost three-year-old processor and graphics chips. No wonder, Oculus executive made fun of Apple's computers.
Just a single USB-C port. While I like the magsafe charging connection of older macboks, I can support charging via USB-C - the more devices that can charge via the same standard connector, the better. While I like having the USB-A plugs, I'm willing to bet peripherals will transition with time to USB-C, and I can even deal with needing a dongle until that happens. What I find unacceptable is the fact that there is only a single USB-C port.
This makes me think of the early days of USB -- it was assumed people would chin their devices, as was common with SCSI. But then, peripheral manufacturers stopped including the pass-through connector. At first, this was annoying, but the fact is, it would be annoying to have to disassemble a chain of devices because you want to remove one from the middle.
I jumped over to TonyMacx86.com and as of 4/12/16 they have moved the recomended CPU from Haswell/Broadwell to Skylake.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/buil...
For those that like to tinker and build your own Hackintoshes.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Video decode uses a specialized, highly optimized decoder chip, most likely part of the GPU. The silicon is designed to decode H.264 and probably the various MPEG codecs using as little power as possible. CPU usage is very low while playing video.
Web browsing does JIT compilation of text-based script languages, initiates dozens of network connections per page load to pull in resources, and has to parse & render all of that using the general purpose CPU. That requires much higher CPU usage, and much greater power demands.
The difference is obvious on smaller (IE less compute) devices like phones. Smart phones have been able to play video flawlessly for years, but they still generally feel slower, more jumpy than most full computers for web browsing. Video decode has a very well defined, relatively small set of operations that can be optimized in silicon. Web browsing is wide open, anything goes in terms of computation. The additional flexibility required makes silicon-based optimization much more difficult, and power demands increase.
And watch the Apple fanbois try to justify the ridiculously overpriced outdated hardware in Macbooks.
You are very very wrong.
First of all, I'm not a "fanboi"
Secondly I have no idea if this Mac is overpriced.
Thirdly I have absolutely no clue what a "similar" specced PC would cost.
Fourth I don't care what a similar specced PC/Laptop will cost because that one would not run Mac OS X. At least not legally.
Five I have nothing to justify. Why would I have?
You buy for your gods sake what you want to buy.
And please leave me my freedom to buy what I want for what reason I want for what price I want.
If you guaranty that it works, and the upgrades work you can offer me a superior Hackingtosh, I don't care for the Apple Logo.
But I don't spend 1 day googleing and 5 hours working to by a cheap Laptop to install Mac OS X myself. I rather have the real thing and spent those 29 hours earning money with it.
Not to mention that such a cheap laptop probably would break mechanically a day after warranty runs out. My 11" (or is it 12") Mac Book Pro from 2005 with Mac OS X 10.4 just runs fine. It is 11 years old ... Show me a PC OS (except Linux or Solaris) and a "PC Laptop" that would run fine after 11 years.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro lineups won't be getting the Intel Skylake upgrade for at least a few more months
Technical or commercial reasons?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I'm considering upgrading my 2013 model. Should I wait a couple of months?
Its a Mac so it must suck!!!!
And how does this "Apple hate" developed in a nerd community like /. ?
You think we just don't like the art of the logo?
Elok
Well the battery lifetimes are all really weird, but....
Video playback has stayed about the same, but technology has advanced to specifically help that out a lot. When doing nothing but playing a video, a modern computer basically turns off most of itself (much like the brain of the people watching many videos).
On the flip side, 'web browsing' means more and more javascript and css animations and such. As bad flash was/is for browsing, it's status as a plugin not guaranteed to be everywhere forced some measure of restraint. Now with the advancement of browser technologies allowing developers to completely ignore flash, the playing field is leveled and they love the shiny little things.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I'm not much of an Apple fan, but let's be fair here. At some point a company needs to refresh its product line. Just because there's been little improvement in technology really isn't Apples fault. And it's not like you have to buy a new one. Now if Apple stops releasing OSX updates for older models, then you'd have a point.
But if you follow that link to Apple and click "Buy" it 404's.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
A couple of points: the first-generation MacBook didn't fare well with reviewers and plenty of users alike.
My 2006 Black MacBook was useful for eight years until developers followed Apple's lead and started dropping support for 32-bit programs. Never mind that it runs 32-bit Windows 10 and Mint Linux without problems. I have yet to find a true successor to this great laptop.
As much as I enjoy mocking Apple, I have to say that my desktop PC at home is running a Intel i7-2600K which first showed up in 2011, so is five years old now (well, 4.5, it was released around October IIRC). It's still very competitive and runs modern games and apps just fine. The Skylake equivalent is only about 5-15% faster for most tasks.
That CPU was a great purchase with hindsight. It's more than justified its high price. More luck than skill of course.
So anyway, I can't really mock Apple in this instance. Their hardware still sucks for many other reasons though.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I was almost sold on a Mac Mini until I found out that you cannot upgrade the RAM in the newer models.
You can't upgrade a Mac Mini because it's already the best. Next year when Apple comes out with a Mac Mini "S", you buy that and discard your old one. That's how you upgrade. Get with the program!.
I was almost sold on a Mac Mini until I found out that you cannot upgrade the RAM in the newer models.
Buy and upgrade an older model from OWC.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Apple_Systems/Used/Macs_and_Tablets
Another increment in technology, overpriced to get as much out of the less technical as possible...smh
Are macbooks overpriced? Last time I checked (a few years ago, I admit), they weren't, at least not significantly. They were in the same ballpark as others given the the specs which of course include weight, size and some general notion of "build quality".
Main difference is htey don't drop prices so before a refresh, they're a little overpriced for the specs relative to the competiton, but just after the refresh they're pretty decently priced.
I don't even owna mac.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
the 15" line needs a refresh badly, and we need the return of the 17" with a 4K display.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Aside from what the other posters have said, text rendering is actually one of the most processor-intensive tasks that a typical desktop does. Each codepoint has to be converted to one or more glyphs. These glyphs are sequences of bezier curves that are rendered to raster images (which are typically cached). Next, you need some fairly complex calculations to work out the spacing between glyphs, which is starts as a fixed advance and is then subtly tweaked based on pixel alignment and shape of the next character. Now you have a set of glyph runs, but you want to render a paragraph of text, so you need to work out where to break the lines. If you're something that sucks less than MS Word, you then use a fairly simple dynamic programming algorithm to work out the place to break the lines for optimum readability, otherwise you use a greedy strategy. This is fairly easy in a rectangle, though gets more complex if there's a background. Now you know where the glyphs need to go, and all that's left is to alpha-blend them with the background (remember, antialiasing needs an alpha channel and sub-pixel AA means that each rasterised glyph will be in three colours). This last step is typically offloaded to the GPU, because the CPU hit of just that part is quite noticeable.
And then, if it's a web page, something tweaks the DOM, or a new CSS file finishes downloading, and you need to do the whole thing again.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Mine's a late 2013 model and I'm a bit sad that it's coming to the end of its warranty period and there isn't something noticeably faster. The upgrade from the Core 2 to the Sandy Bridge i7 was a big jump (especially as I got an SSD at the same time). From Sandy Bridge to Haswell was noticeable, but not huge (though moving to the 1TB SSD meant that I didn't have to be too careful about space on the laptop). Skylake looks like another incremental jump.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Actually with improved video decoders it's true. The rest of the computer will low-power mode while only the computer runs. For example, a demo Carrizo machine got something like 11hr when playing a 1080p HEVC video, while lasting nowhere near as long at general use.
Yeah, Intel performance gains since Sandy Bridge have been lousy since AMD just isn't all that competitive.
Does this get posted by script, or does someone actually bother to type it?
Can someone explain why it is funny? I don't get it.
Compute CPU power is not much more than it was 3 years back.
In some regards, that is true, in others, less so.
Haswell to Skylake is rather pointless, but Sandy Bridge to Skylake is not, depending on what you're doing.
The other factor is power consumption, which has been Intel's real focus.
The new version is certainly a good incremental improvement over the previous. I have been using previous model since it was first released and love it because it fits my needs.
- I do wish Apple provided the multi port adapter with the laptop. I rarely use it but have to have one around just in case (USB-A and HDMI)
- Now that they provide a USB-C to lightning cable, I can use the same charger for my phone and laptop. They should have the option to get these with new phones.
The changes in the new version does not justify an upgrade for me. I usually keep my laptops for around 4 years. I do wish they had a batter replacement program.
Or just get an Intel NUC or one of the many other, cheaper, better and smaller units.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Or just get an Intel NUC or one of the many other, cheaper, better and smaller units.
Do they run Mac OS X?
We often find perfectly reasonable, relevant, on-topic, insightful and informative comments at -1.
Tell me about it; my comments that get down-modded are always reasonable... j/k; I'm almost certainly one of the biggest assholes on this site - but hey, I try! ;)
/ducks
And please leave me my freedom to buy what I want for what reason I want for what price I want.
Take a deep breath. Now let it out slowly and repeat after me: "Everything's going to be okay. No one's going to prevent me from spending as much as I want on a laptop."
Now don't you just feel better!
It's only funny to the gimp who writes it. I assume. Even then, he/she would promptly stop if they thought it wasn't annoying anyone.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
They certainly can. It's mostly a matter of selecting a compatible 802.11/Bluetooth card. Everything else you might stick in one is already on the OSX HCL. The processes for making a NUCintosh are pretty well documented and easy to find.
$499 of hardware? The list price of the processors is $281 - that doesn't leave much for the motherboard, screen, ram and SSD.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You have to shoot toughbooks so you can justify getting a new one.*
But they make macs look cheap. You get what you pay for, at best, you can also pay for BS.
* Truth is I've been shooting old computer hardware for decades. It was the 'only thing to do' with old hard drives containing Netmare 2. Got to be a habit.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
They can run Mac OS X if you want.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Since the majority of the American public now plays video games I suspect that the most processor-intensive task performed by the typical desktop, by a wide margin, is some part of video gaming. Since the majority of graphics processing seems to happen on the GPU now, I would presume that to be physics simulations, but I'm honestly not sure. It's clear that it's not font rendering, though. I can websurf without my CPU even bothering to clock up, and more to the point, we had rendering of kerned outline fonts on computers that operated at MHz speeds. And I don't just mean towards the end of that era, I mean for example on a Macintosh IIci. Even fully anti-aliased and kerned text could be rendered on that platform almost as fast as you could do anything with it. We're talking 25 MHz 68030 here. By the time we did get up into the hundreds of MHz, you really could render it as fast as you could mess with it; the transformations would be done by the CPU, but the actual drawing operations were already being offloaded to graphics cards, well before they even had 3D acceleration.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They have been RAM bandwidth constrained for a _long_ time.
Don't buy new motherboards because of a new CPU family. Buy new motherboards because of new RAM, which usually comes with a new chipset. If the chipset/CPU doesn't do anything for the RAM bandwidth, skip the upgrade.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It comes from a long line of Nerd hate.
Back in the 1980's the good old IBM vs Apple debate. Then it moved to a command line vs GUI debate.
by 1990's With Windows becoming the dominate "OS" Windows 3.1 was more of an advance shell for DOS, and the inclusion of a large range of PC Compatibles it morphed further to General Purpose PC's vs. Apple.
During these geek wars for the past generation, had diminished Apple.
Then during the late 1990's Apple switch to "Cute" with the Fruit Colored iMac. And the Powerbook. Which were popular enough to get a few converts. But the geek debates were much less than as the PC was still the victor. However you got the Linux fanboys joining up with the Apple Fanboys as Microsoft was the common enemy, giving Apple a bit of an edge, and impression of the underdog outsider.
Then there was the iPod, which was popular. That allowed people to get interested in Macs again. so during the 00's Macs were getting popular with Microsoft messing up with major security problems with Windows XP and failures like ME. A lot of the people switched to Macs to avoid being boring PC guys. But this caused the hate wars to begin again. As apple is now becoming a major player on the block. No longer the underdog, but a major influencing threat. The Linux allies broke off and started to side more with Microsoft on the grounds that you can get more versatile hardware.
Then Apple changed the game with the iPhone. Which spawned tablets and other touch devices. Which diminished the popularity of Personal Computers in general. So the war moved mostly to Apple vs Android, however interests in Macbooks vs PC's have diminished. But in terms of Hardware manufacture Apple is the big name, and who do we have as a popular PC manufacturer? No longer IBM, Compaq, Gateway, and Dell. Lenovo Thinkpads keeps the business market. But the others not so much, as the big name.
So the underdog PC's are now getting Apple hate.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You can say that about almost every one of Apple's main computer products these days. The older gear is better. The only notable benefit of their recent iMac, Mini, and laptop offerings is that they are smaller. Upgradability is less, maintenance (getting into them to fix or replace things) is more difficult, they've cheaped out on sub-2GHz CPUs at the low (affordable) end while keeping the prices roughly the same, and removed the discrete graphics in all but the highest-end machines. The new hyper-thin MacBook keyboards are ... crap. One USB-C port? Insane. Heck, I'd pay more for a "thick" laptop like the MacBook Pros of old with an even larger battery and the simple blessing of having screws to open it instead of glue to unstick.
I knew that Apple products were more expensive on average, but usually you got what you paid for. Their laptops, for example, lasted me for years more than a typical Windows machine. I still use one as my main machine now (upgraded with a bigger SSD and more RAM = years more use). But in the last couple of years Apple is slowly but surely losing it. They're just too expensive for what you get most of the time, and some of the cosmetic design decisions (e.g., thinness) come at too high a cost in terms of practicality. As much as I like the older hardware I own and still use regularly, I can't see getting any of the newer machines unless they suddenly reverse the trends of the last few years.
Will common shortcuts like alt-tab, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-X work in OS-X?
Alt-tab was from Windows (but OS X has had it for over a decade), and how the hell do you not know that the Z/X/C/V for text editing came from the original 1984 Macintosh? It only got changed to use ctrl because Microsoft couldn't force computer manufacturers to add a command key to the keyboard. (They clearly got more powerful since then, as you can see from modern PC keyboards.) Just be thankful you don't have to use the original 3-button X Windows copy/paste!
I haven't cared much about the package management stuff in a while, but Fink is long dead, I think the current one is macports. And I don't know about what you've "heard" about breaking programs, but any OS can have DLL hell, even Linux. Maybe that's why Linux package managers are so good, because they have to be. The newer versions of OS X try to lock down the core OS, which can cause problems for some things, but it is well documented how turn that protection off. (Spoiler: you have to reboot in a special way first)
You could always try to find a cheap old unibody Macbook Pro laptop (be warned about trackpad click problems, they can be fixed if you know what to adjust, but you should research it first) and try it out. It might be better to get a cheap "learner" one before you go full into it. Or if you can get a good deal on a 2011 (pre-retina) model with an i7 in it, that might be as good for software development as a brand new one, plus you can easily upgrade to 16GB RAM. I'm still using my 2011 17" i7 and I'm a bit surprised that five years later it's still far from obsolete.
But no matter what you do, you'll always be lost for a few months when switching to a new OS until you get used to it. I only recently upgraded to 10.9 (OpenGL improvements motivated me) and that was essentially the same OS. On PCs, I'm still using Windows 7.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
They're just too expensive for what you get most of the time, and some of the cosmetic design decisions (e.g., thinness) come at too high a cost in terms of practicality.
That's why I don't ever want to see an Apple Car. It'll cost too much and be too thin.
it's $1299 for $499 worth of hardware, and you can't upgrade or replace any of it when it breaks,
While you might have a legitimate complaint that Apple prices are high, you do realize that this is a laptop right? Most laptops do not have replaceable/upgrade-able parts these days. Can you upgrade the GPU on many laptops? Not unless you replace the whole MB.
but people worry about that the other models will have a three-year-old CPU for a few more months, as if the computer is somehow totally unusable.
Not understanding what you're saying here. Why are people worried about older models with older CPUs that they'll be able to buy still from Apple?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Not legally in most places, which isn't a big deal if it's a box for use at home, but if you're using it for a business it opens you up to potential liability.
That aside, I recall building a hackintosh used to require fairly specific hardware, but I haven't followed those types of projects for years now. Is there generally better support for commodity hardware now or is it still a matter of carefully selecting parts to avoid strange behavior or other issues?
Further, unless you're doing it just to do it, why not just run Linux instead of OS X? Most of the people I know who either bought or were interested in a Mac Mini at any point wanted it for an HTPC or something similar. Linux has gotten good enough at that role over the years so I'm at a loss for why most people would even want to run Mac OS X on a PC outside of "because I can" reasons.
No wonder, Oculus executive made fun of Apple's computers.
They weren't even focused on the laptop platform (Since the vast majority of PC laptops can't effectively run VR), but on the mac pro, which is actually a quite powerful system - albeit not suitable for VR since it is focused as workstation platform and not a gaming one. If you're going to slight apple, at least make it generally relevant. Granted, I'm still not sold on the 12" models.
The main thing with hardware is to use an Intel chipset and CPU. Beyond that Mac OS supports ATI and Nvidia graphics cards (as well as the built in Intel GPU), various sound cards and on-board sound etc.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You need to send this memo out to Amazon video and Netflix. My macbook gets awfully warm when playing video from these sources. iPad stays nice and cool however. They (Amazon, Netflix, Apple) should fix this but alas, probably never will.
And it's absolutely Apple's fault that Intel isn't increasing the performance of their chips.
There's people in this thread complaining that they haven't refreshed the CPUs in MacBook Pro, and at the same time bitching that there isn't a large delta of performance between this MacBook and the last one. What is Apple supposed to do when their supplier doesn't deliver components that compel an upgrade? Should they release a new version or not?
Short version: people are just bitching because Apple. Apple is doing nothing here that Lenovo, HP, and Dell haven't already done; for some reason Lenovo, HP, and Dell get a pass on it.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
" they come equipped with almost three-year-old processor and graphics chips"
That must be a joke, right? Apple computers are expensive, but at least they give you the latest technology, isn't it?
Not legally in most places,
Has it been confirmed by a single court that Apple can legally restrict what I can do with the software I purchased from them?
My understanding was that the User Agreement was moot.
This is just a bunch of touchy feely "what were my friends doing" zeitgeist.
What is true is that people were learning Linux or BSD (because reasons), found that it was great, and Mac OS X was becoming a better "desktop *NIX" faster than Linux was. Not because they were afraid of being "boring PC guys." Not everybody felt this way, but practically speaking, UNIX underpinnings helped sway pragmatists.
Nobody needs to side with Microsoft to get "more versatile hardware." Just go back to Linux.
You may still love it. But would you buy it again at full price in 2016?
The Oculus Rift comment was lame. Of course a Mac notebook isn't going to have graphics up to snuff for VR. How many PC notebooks are up to the task? 2? 3 maybe? Sure, Mac desktops suck for VR, but this article isn't about those.
- will be just as much work making OS X more like my linux machine in terms of a good terminal emulator?
Yes. I can't believe how crappy is the default OS X shell/terminal compared to a standard Ubuntu install.
Coreutils suck, lack many useful options of the GNU variants used in Linux. You have bash, but without bash-completion (not to be confused with plain old tab-completion) it feels like you are stuck with a Linux distro from the 90s.
- How about decent package management? How do fink/hombrew/pip etc compare to apt?
It sucks a lot more. A lot less integrated with the system, packages are more buggy, less maintained. They also often duplicate packages already provided by the OS.
- Will common shortcuts like alt-tab, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-X work in OS-X?
No, most of them are different. You need a special keyboard with an Apple key.
The problem is Intel's chip. They have some hardware-accelerated h.264 (and HVEC/VP9) decoding support but they prefer you use the (lower quality) Quicksync they put in silicon to do video decoding. Browsers and apps have to specifically use that when decoding and the quality difference is noticeable.
Their newest Apollo Lake atom-based chip *finally* fully hardware-accelerates HVEC and VP9, so I think devices with those will be competitive with the iPad when it comes to video streaming. But I don't think Sky Lake does the same...
The Macbook Air is reasonably priced compared to other ultralight laptops if you take resell value into account.
The same goes for the macbook Pro. If you compare it to the Dell XPS 13/15 and do some math on the resell value (assuming you sell it after 3-5 years) then the Dell is only a couple of hundred bucks cheaper.
The new Macbook is reasonably priced only if you desperately want a beautiful, lightweight, laptop for casual use and you have enough money that you think $800 and $1600 is the same amount of money to a first approximation...
You can get two ultralight Asus laptops for the price of one Macbook.
I'm worried about this upgrade path myself. I've got a Macbook Pro that's probably 5-6 years old. Upgraded the RAM and swapped the HDD for a SSD. Still runs like butter, but it won't last forever.
I don't understand why phones kept getting bigger and laptops keep getting smaller. My Macbook is a 15" and I can't imagine going any smaller and still being able to do the things I need to do. I already have to squint and put my face two inches from the screen to read any text on an RDP session.
Apple will replace OS X with iOS.
Latest rumor is that Apple will rename OS X to MacOS to be consistent with iOS, tvOS and WatchOS.
http://www.slashgear.com/apple-further-hints-os-x-name-change-to-macos-15436420/
Apple car an thin death trap that is dealer maintenance only (even tries and oil) at apple prices.
The fastest CPU available in those is still slower than an 6.5 years old i5-750.. I hope they will at least get the macbook pro right with a good gpu this time around :\
Funny thing - I went primarily Mac for my home user boxes because it was 1) an actual *nix (well, literally a certified UNIX variant), and 2) it could run all the CG/gfx app suites that I wanted it to run.
I never really got into the flamewars except for the occasional poking of fun at whatever side needed poking. For years on end, I happily ran a Mac Cube, the later a monster PowerMac on one big KVM switch with all my 'doze and Linux machinery.
I will say this, though: While I was re-installing Linux every year because I wanted to (distro-hopping), and reinstalling 'doze every 6-12 months on the PCs because I had to (Winrot)? I upgraded the Cube once in its 6 year lifespan, and the PowerMac once in its 9-year lifespan... both times only because I wanted the features that came with the upgrades. Now I just plop in the OS upgrade on my MacBook Pro, but have only had to re-install once - when I replaced the factory platter drive with a way faster SSD drive. The OS simply holds up at least as well as Linux over the long term.
As a fun side benefit, the MacBook Pros put up with my abuses just fine (my current one is nearly 3 years old), whereas before 2013 I was buying new laptops damned near every 12-18 months, with most of them dying off at the hardware level by month 13-14.
Overall though, I can happily use Macs and Linux side-by-side. Windows I only use when I have no choice in the matter (I use a Mac at work, BTW).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
A few details that get lost is that shortly before the iPod, Apple began to transition their OS from Mac OS to OS X which is based on BSD. Later Apple switched from Power to Intel. Both moves have done a lot to bring in some geeks. There are still those that don't know or refuse to accept that a Mac these days is basically an Intel Unix box.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Later Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel.
FTFY.
Alt-tab was from Windows (but OS X has had it for over a decade), and how the hell do you not know that the Command-Z/X/C/V for text editing came from the original 1984 Macintosh? It only got changed to use Ctrl because Microsoft was too stupid to use the Alt key for Command (which is in the proper location), and used Alt for other keyboard functionality.
FTFY.
We had a thread about them a month ago, but here you go.
My feeling is that thing is going to spend a lot of time throttling because of poor thermal design since that's what the i3 and i5 NUCs have done throughout their history, but that thing is a legitimate quad-core machine.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
You can get two ultralight Asus laptops for the price of one Macbook.
Last time I was in the market, when the UX21 was current, the UX21 and 11" air were about the same price, but the UX21 had a larger SSD. Hardly 2 for 1.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
What in the f*** allows you to render full motion video at screen resolution more efficiently than you can render a few static lines of text?
Video decoding is hardware assisted and it's power-optimized to hell and back. Javascript engines can't really compete. Modern websites are, unfortunately, power hungry. It's a combination of absolutely abhorrent APIs offered by the browsers, and the cluelessness of front-end developers. Unfortunately, browser APIs exposed via javascript seem to suffer from the same lack of direction, cohesion and foresight in API design as plagues PHP.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Heck, when you watch media from an optical drive through OS X's DVD player or iTunes, it'll read-ahead several minutes worth of material and turn off the drive for that time. That also saves battery, and watching DVDs is quieter that way, too.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
- OS X's terminal is perfectly usable. Default shortcuts are funky, but you'll get used to them. :)
- macports is what you should be using. I like it more than the RPM I've been using since RedHat 2 (not RHEL 2, mind you).
- very good in macports, OS X comes with some older python version preinstalled, though
- Cmd-Tab, Cmd-C, Cmd-V, Cmd-X all work
- bettersnaptool handles all that, but of course you can arrange your windows whatever way you wish
- minor (n.n.x) version updates don't do that, major version updates (n.x) keep your installed packages usually working, but if you wish to do any package changes (updates etc.) it's best to reinstall macports, but it's very easy to do
I don't think it'll take you longer than 2 days to get used to it, as long as you read the basic keyboard shortcuts, OS X user guide, the user guide for the hardware you'll be using (e.g. iMac essentials, and google for stuff you don't know.
One more thing: to use the compiler, you need to install xcode, then from terminal run sudo gcc to accept the license. From that point on the command-line build environment is usable and you can then install macports, build your own code, etc.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I know that Apple could do better, but nobody serious uses whatever is bundled with OS X when it comes to gnuland. Macports is where it's at, and the first thing you do after installing macports is sudo port followed by selfupdate and install coreutils. Then close & reopen the terminal tab, and you're up and running.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Let's be fair, most Apple sales are not because their products are better or more advanced, but because the average consumer doesn't like to think.
The iPod won because it looked simple. It wasn't that much easier to use than it's competitors and it had far less features, but it literally looked simpler because of less buttons.
Again, Average consumer doesn't like to think so they go with the simple product.Same logic for iPhone.
Macs really only still exist because Apple subsidized their spread into academia, who indoctrinated students into the platform. Apple doesn't take the platform seriously because it knows it doesn't need to compete. The people buying them do not do it because they are educated in computers but the exact opposite.
Bring back the rainbow apple...
iTerm2 is exactly what you want.
And how does this "Apple hate" developed in a nerd community like /. ?
Being on the same side of a controversial issue is an alternative to actually having friends.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
- will be just as much work making OS X more like my linux machine in terms of a good terminal emulator?
That depends on
- How about decent package management? How do fink/hombrew/pip etc compare to apt?
It's a whole different game. Brew is currently the best among them. You should view it as a way to install a couple (or dozens) of additional tools, while in Linux it's basically almost the way the OS is put together.
- How is the python tooling?
It does depend on how you use it. On my Linux boxes, I never uses pip, and always search through apt for the library in question. That won't work under OS X. However if you use pip, which basically is independent of the OS, then you won't encounter difficulties.
- Will common shortcuts like alt-tab, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-X work in OS-X?
On OS X, you'll have to use the CMD key which is located where the Alt-key normally is. Alt-tab thus normally works.
- What is the state of vertical splitting of the screen between programs - for eg, vertically splitting eclipse and chrome?
There are tools for this, but they're all clunky. Using virtual desktops works great, though.
- I have heard that OS updates in OS-X break programs installed in userspace (especially those installed via package management tooks). To what extent is this true?
I've had something like that once. But it was quickly fixed by Homebrew.
If it is going to take me 3-4 weekends to get OS-X to a point where it is usable for development and I feel comfortable in it
Then don't start using OS X. I mean, you're moving to a new OS -- that's not nothing. I found it great fun, though.
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DDR4 isn't much better than DDR3 other than clocks. DDR is really reaching the end of its capabilities from my point of view. Once they start stacking RAM on chip or using optic instead of electronic buses, things will improve a lot.
Hopefully this will be resolved with monitor technology; my 24" 4k is already about 150dpi, an 8k should get us close enough (I print at 600dpi, but 300 to 600 can't affect kerning that much, can it?).
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Most improvements are of the nature of parallel RAM pipes in the chipset. Clock improvements count too.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I have a NUC that I use to run OpenELEC. It freezes occasionally, and a couple of times a month the fan(s) escalate to full speed making a lot of noise, requiring a power cycle. I have yet to get the onboard IR to work. For the $400-$500 or whatever I paid for it, I'm less than impressed. At some point, just buy a unit with however much RAM you'll need vs. whining about not being able to update it yourself. I find that those arguments are usually more about ego than RAM, and if Apple's markup compared to low-end open-market commodity RAM is a hardship, you most likely shouldn't be buying this sort of computer anyway.
That plus being able to run a decent desktop OS. Sometimes prices do drop a bit before refreshes; this is at times reported on MacRumors. MacMall sells NIB previous-gen units at attractive prices; for someone who doesn't need the extra 10% of CPU that a refresh brings, it can be an economical way to get larger RAM and SSD complements. I suspect Apple uses them as a liquidator.
No sig for you! Come back one year!