pendell

Current Hyperfixation: Wizard of Oz

  • He/Him

I use outdated technology just for fun, listen to crappy music, and watch a lot of horror movies. Expect posts about These Things. I talk a lot.

Check tags like Star Trek Archive and Media Piracy to find things I share for others.



Got to use one of the 2022 M2 MacBook Pros today at work (a customer who owns one of those yet doesn't know how to join a wifi network or send an email... okay) and I mean I'm not in the market for a laptop right now, realistically my T440p will serve me just fine for at least a few more years, and I'm certainly not in the market for a $2,500 completely un-upgradeable, un-serviceable closed ecosystem machine - if I wanted to spend $2,500 on a new laptop I'd buy a Framework - but goddamn if the machine didn't feel nice as hell to use.

The keyboard's a little shallow for my taste (spoiled Thinkpad user) but wasn't bad to type on by any means and at least we're past the age of mushy laptop keyboards, I think everyone's pretty much figured that one out. Apple's software experience is just exemplary. It just keeps getting prettier to look at every time I see a new version of it. Even if it's a glorified iPhone at this point, these machines really are just nice. I can see why someone who doesn't know how to send emails would be suckered into buying one of these just for the look and feel of it all.


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in reply to @pendell's post:

My M2 MB Air tends to be more capable than my actual PC from last year. And whilst my PC has an older 1660 inside, the fact that it's a VR capable machine, with 24GB of RAM, an i5, & a dGPU, and it's outperformed in daily tasks by a fanless "mobile" chipset, should say a lot about the state of the platform and its performance.

I wish Valve would update their games and bring Proton to macOS, because these things could easily be solid gaming systems, except everything before a certain date is 32-bit, runs on OpenGL, and Valve only really supports Proton for the Deck.

The lack of upgradeability is rough; there's reasons to it (soldered ram, storage means you can create designs that are higher bandwidth, throughput than standardized, interchangeable components, for example), but it does mean you have to be "forward thinking" at the checkout if you want the machine to still perform well in 5 years time, and that's extra $$$ right up front.

Thunderbolt eases this a little. You can basically bring back the PowerBook Duo as a concept, only now it's a PCIe enclosure and a funny USB-C cable. But it's not perfect.

The ecosystem isn't fully closed. Between Thunderbolt, Unix, & USB you have a wide array of cards, peripherals, and software to choose from. The problem isn't Mac, it's developer support. Most hardware lacks drivers, many FOSS projects work off outdated assumptions about the platform if they even support it at all, and paid software will charge an arm and a leg just because it's Mac (no joke, even Stream Elements once charged more for their premium features if it was purchased through the Mac app, and it's not even going through the App Store! There was no Apple Tax!)

Apple actually added features to the last two major OS revisions just for OBS, and contributed directly to the project, and they're adding more APIs to both reach parity with and exceed Windows in regards to media sharing, calling, recording, etc.

Just up to developers to take advantage of it.

You're basically buying all the pain of Linux with all the polish of an iPhone.

Very informative! The evolution of MacOS over the years is fascinating to me especially in how its design (both aesthetic and practical) so directly reflects the culture of the time periods they're released in. Windows is often fairly static since it only gets major upgrades every half decade or so, but MacOS can basically be rehauled every years, and often is.

Like, OSX 10.1 is just completely unrecognizable from modern versions. Hell, 10.11 El Capitan, the last version supported on lots of older hardware, holds little resemblance aesthetically to macOS today.

I'm one of those weirdos who likes to see how things change (so long as they're not completely for the worse) so I genuinely think one of the most fun parts of owning a modern Mac product if I got one would just be seeing how the OS and using the device changes slightly every year until it's basically a different computer by its EOL.

Oh god I wish it were. It's more like how Windows 8 was "Just like Windows Phone".

In concept that is true, not in execution.

It's like the Apple devs tasked with the redesign started off trying to cram various different options into the primary menus, but gave up half way, and so nothing is organized consistently or in a sensible manner.

I legit have to use search now because nothing makes sense. It's neither sensible like iOS nor did they just keep the organization levels of the old app.

It's legitimately bad.

I got an M2 air because it's basically the only completely passively cooled decent performance laptop. I still go back to my Linux Thinkpad for embedded development stuff, but for all the other things the air is great.

I hope that Lenovo and companies like Framework are looking at how the ARM processors in the Apple stuff are performing, and finally get around to making their own spin on it. I like the hardware, but I'm still bumping into macos things that have a completely different design philosophy behind them.