MacBook Air

[Raven]

Originally Posted by Sharma

Apple are shit.

A good point, well put.

Only dicks buy Apple products

[Chilly]

Originally Posted by DaGaffer

So its a £20 labour charge that you wouldn't otherwise have. Sounds like a ripoff to me. But to be honest, that's not the point. Laptop batteries start to degrade pretty much from the moment you start using them. You don't necessarily want to replace the battery when its completely dead, so you get a spare before you reach that point. Plus, if you're actually using your light, thin sub-notebook in the real world, you know, like travelling and stuff, the ability to swap in a spare battery to keep working, (watch movies, whatever) is an absolute boon. It feels like this is a device designed to be used around the home or office (close to a wireless network), which makes its thinness much less valuable; I don't really care about having the lightest/thinnest lappy when I'm at home/work, but I do care about it when I have to carry the damn thing, and that's when this is at its least useful. Don't get me wrong, I actually really fancy the idea of a Mac sub-notebook but this is misconceived.

Thats a good point actually. The product does sound a bit misguided. A removable battery would massively improve usability.

[xane]

The general consensus from The Register is because the Air is so underpowered it's not worth getting for regular graphics/games anyway, if you want a super portable which is totally solid state, go for an Asus Eee, in fact you could go for five or six Eees for the same price.

[SawTooTH]

Apple sell shiny plastic with buttons. A bit like the play centers you see for babies. You get some enjoyment out of pushing the bright new buttons and listening to the squeaks...but at the end of the day its just a Mac and you just cant do anything interesting on it.

[nath]

Originally Posted by SawTooTH

Apple sell shiny plastic with buttons. A bit like the play centers you see for babies. You get some enjoyment out of pushing the bright new buttons and listening to the squeaks...but at the end of the day its just a Mac and you just cant do anything interesting on it.

Typical nerd opinion and Apple do sell quite a lot of consumer bollocks but Mac OS is better than XP/Vista. It just is.

This isn't coming from a fanboy standpoint either - I don't even own an apple machine

[ford prefect]

Originally Posted by nath

Typical nerd opinion and Apple do sell quite a lot of consumer bollocks but Mac OS is better than XP/Vista. It just is.

This isn't coming from a fanboy standpoint either - I don't even own an apple machine

When I first looked at the final release of vista, I was actually quite shocked at how little it had moved on. You have to wonder what the microsoft developement boys and girls have been up to for the past seven years really.

Mac OS on the otherhand always brings something new an innovative the the table every release. I mean look at Time Machine, or the new file preview stuff, boot camp, not to mention the improvements in finder.

Vista (which apparently was more or less coded from scratch), could have been a slim, fast memory efficient operating system. Instead its full of bloatware and eats system resources for fun, and well the 64bit version isn't exactly inspiring a lot of support from hardware manufacturers atm is it?

[Raven]

Originally Posted by nath

Typical nerd opinion and Apple do sell quite a lot of consumer bollocks but Mac OS is better than XP/Vista. It just is.

It may well be but if nothing useful actually works on it then its a bit pointless.

[Kryten]

More than just the OS. APple had next to nothing to do with the dev of MacOS 10 onwards - and the hardware just aint worth the hassle or money.

[TdC]

Originally Posted by Raven

It may well be but if nothing useful actually works on it then its a bit pointless.

tbh a mahoosive amount of software works for the Apple. because it's not useful to you doesn't mean it's not useful to everyone.

oh god, now you have me defending them, and I'm known at work as they guy who hates them

[ECA]

What I dont understand is that if OSX is sooo much better than any windows OS ever, wouldn't they make a lot of money NOT locking you into their hardware?

If Apple felt secure in
A) the looks selling overpriced shit ( you'd get more sales from people buying them as a "PC" on which you can install whatever the fuck you want ) [ yes I know you can do that now - but who would buy that ovepriced crap?! - and the people who buy shit like that dont know you can do that anyway ]

B) Mac OS X being good ( because selling a lot of OS units = $$$ )

then they would make more money not-bundling them.

They don't want people to be able to buy the OS seperately and evaluate it honestly, all you have is the rabid apple nutters who cant see that apple is WORSE than MS in terms of being restrictive.

Its like MS buying alienware and only letting you run windows on their selfsold hardware - it would fail so badly because its a shit idea, and yes there is a small but stupid band who do not see this and like donating money to Steve Jobs.


Its the same reason the ipod/iphone will dissapear - only a small band of wankers will be left buying it - everyone else will be using players that dont restrict formats/personal usage no matter how good the interface is.

The second apple loses its pseudo elitism is the second all the pseudo elitists abandon it and will move on to something else to be elitist about.

Its the same people who like bands when they are new but then become mainstream and suddenly they dont like it anymore.

Its that bunch of twats wankers and ***** who buy apple.

[nath]

This is a guess, but I'd assume one of the benefits of selling on just your own hardware is that you can tailor the software to that specific hardware set. They always know what hardware it needs to run on whereas with Windows it needs to support an infinite combination of hardware setups.

Like I said - I'm not an apple fanboy, I don't even own one. I'm just capable of looking at things objectively and Mac OS is a very decent (read: better than windows) operating system.

Also you maybe right about that bunch of wankers buying apple, but that doesn't say anything about the software. The iphone is ridiculous but it has its merits. They've completely revolutionised human interface and hopefully other companies will follow suit.

[ECA]

I'll give them credit for great interfaces ( ipod/iphone ) but they dont actually want to compete.

In terms of the ipod your limited to THEIR store, THEIR format and FUCK YOU if you dont like it.

If you want an iphone you cant just have one, they have exclusive network deals wherever they can because they dont want to compete.

Also: I am responsible for purchasing a mac

Some doofus photographer at work was bringing in his own macbook w/ a 12" screen to do graphics work claiming it was superior to windows ( despite the fact he would be using only adobe photoshop regardless of the system ) and I actually wanted results so he got an imac w/ a decent sized monitor so the company didnt have to suffer for his fuckwittery.

[ECA]

Also has anyone met a mac owner that isnt a stereotype?

I've never met a male mac owner who I havnt wanted to stab in the face and never want to speak to again. They just dont exist.

The female mac owners are ALWAYS dumb middle aged women who want to be thought of as middle/upper class intelligentsia and/or just dumb people who think they are "pretty".

[Raven]

needs a hair cut (but styled like that) cheap suit jacket over a £50 T-shirt, jeans. a sort of confused "cool" facial expression. Probably a chelsea fan


dickheads

[Kryten]

Or rather fond of black polo necks and blue jeans.


/me coughs