I’ve had a macbook since 2006, current model being a macbook pro 2013, which is still running fine, albeit not with the most recent version of macos anymore since it is out of support.
The hardware is great, and I would have replaced it with an Mx model by now, were it not for the following reasons:
I can’t run Linux anymore as main OS, which is what I use the most. There is some progress with running Linux on the M2, but it is moving slow. The M4 is not supported, and expectations are that support for M4 will be hard.
Ram & SSD are not upgradable anymore, and servicing the battery has become expensive.
(in my 2006 macbook, that was all still possible, and I went through several upgrades of the HDD and the battery)
Recent Apple policies with respect to repairability do not give me confidence that if there is a problem, it will solved in a timely matter and with reasonable cost.
I dunno about that, I stopped following Louis Rossmann much in the last several years, but even from occasionally seeing his videos, which are not about Apple much these days, I know that ARM macs had charging controllers that invalidate basically the whole computer when they die because Apple prevents their partners from selling that part and/or locks the firmware in some way where even transplanting the controller isn’t possible. And this is just the latest example of how Apple seems to cheap out on parts and then lock people from fixing them easily. I think, them removing the “lifeboat” connector from motherboards also happened during ARM Mac era where they removed a connector which could be used by third-parties for data recovery, I guess, for no particular reason, screwing every one of their customers in case their motherboard dies.
And also, every computer can get broken if you drop it, or water damage it, so however rock solid the computer is, some people aren’t used to babying their tech, and every human makes mistakes in their life. Apple also sometimes puts delicate controllers right near popular ingress points for water making breakages more likely. You’d think they learn from tens of years of making those things, but seems like they are rather learning the reverse lesson.
But I am not telling you to not get a Mac. You spend your money however you want.
I think it’s pretty clear that Apple will do anything to make more space for battery and speaker…
Which is probably smart from a market standpoint since those are the main things people complain about on other laptops (and battery life is the only review number most people even understand)
I mean, Apple manages to do so good on those points that no one ever seems to mention the horrificly glossy screens (I survived only thanks to third party matte films)
I have the money for a MacBook, bought one and sent it back after 2 weeks.
The hardware is great, MacOS is crap and the keyboard is the worst.
I cannot run Windows. They force you to use different hotkeys than the rest of the world.
I’ve been there and done that with macs. It was a breath of fresh air when I first got one in the early 2000s. It was nice to have something to use at home that didn’t need constant troubleshooting after doing IT support for my job in the day. If it wasn’t for gaming it would be what I would stick with.
I’m forever changing things when it come to my home setup. It’s only due to lack of budget that I’m stuck on a razer with a 1660ti GPU. I will be changing to a Framework 16 as soon as I can.
I couldn’t see myself going back to a MacBook again.
I honestly have no clue how you ended up buying Framework Laptop if you sympathize Apple products.
Framework is like an “anti-MacBook”: MacBook is fully closed, Framework is 99% open (with closed source UEFI/BIOS because of the Insyde inc. I suppose), etc., etc.
In my opinion, if you like one, you can not like the other.
I agree that philosophically they’re opposed, but let’s be frank. On the hardware side, Apple just works. Most of the time, anyway. Framework is….hit or miss. The company is seeing a lot of issues right now between the cracking/poor color fidelity on the FW12 and the lack of updates (hopefully that will change this month) on the 16. The 13 also has had a consistent issue with battery drain under suspend since the 11th Gen Intel board that still has not been fully tamed.
To stick with Framework right now, especially considering it may never truly achieve its goal of readily repairable and replaceable hardware with parts that are easily available (er, looking at the battery situation in particular…), is a labor of love many consumers aren’t going to go out on a limb for like us enthusiasts. I’d argue that most people aren’t even computer enthusiasts at all, sadly. They just want something that works for their use case, be it browsing the web, content creation, etc. They don’t care about high-minded ideals like repairability and sustainability, which is how we got into this mess of non-user serviceable devices in the first place.
For that large demographic, a Mac is going to be a no brainer because they don’t want to think about this stuff. They just want something that works. FW will always have to take the hard road compared to the easy way of “just buy Apple already”. It’s sad, but we have to keep in mind the average person is no real idealist for much of anything, let alone tech.
I’ve mostly switched to a Framework 13 from a 16” MBP. It’s a still-supported Intel that I recently replaced the battery in. That experience cemented my decision to mostly abandon Apple laptops.
I still use the Macbook from time to time. The touchpad and speakers are better on it (keyboard’s a lot worse). The battery isn’t better, for whatever reason (probably: old, Intel, usage patterns, questionable battery).
I wear headphones a lot and listen to things other than music when not wearing headphones, mostly, so the speaker downgrade isn’t too bad. Software-wise, in general, I prefer Linux to macOS, the occasional proprietary app notwithstanding. The touchpad downgrade switching from macOS to Linux sucks. It’s night and day awful. I fantasize about developing the skill necessary to write my own Linux touchpad drivers.
Ok, but, here’s the thing: Apple treats you as a customer more respectfully than Google does. But they don’t even aspire to genuinely respect you as a customer. They don’t actually protect your privacy, and they don’t actually decline to stalk you, in the way that all the American tech companies do now. And that Intel MacBook, they routed a battery wire under the motherboard. And they went out of their way to make it a real pain to even open the case. I will be angry about that one wire going unnecessarily under instead of over the rest of my life. It was a horrific amount of extra work to, and I can’t stress this enough, replace a battery that failed during the middle of the supported life of the product (I used it that way for a year or two with badly decreased performance, probably some battery voltage issue). While Apple’s still providing OS updates, they’ve abandoned selling batteries for that machine. I had to go third party. It’s not even ten years old yet. That’s egregious and a step beyond planned obsolescence. I just don’t want to deal with a company that acts like its customers’ interests are best ignored. All soldered down, glued shut, surveilled by default, protection racket warrantied, battery not intended to be user replaced, non-standard, buy a new one.
I’m sure vendors like brand alignment, at least when it’s their brand. I don’t understand why some feel they have to knock down one brand to make another more desirable to them. I have several laptops I can use, and 99% of the time I use the mac. It works for me. I’ve given other laptops equal tries - using only them for a period of time. The one that comes the closest is the system76 lemur pro with Pop/Cosmic on it. Ironically, it was almost as hard to get Nix on it as it was the mac. I try to support the companies I believe in - framework and system76. Part of the frustration that drove me away (initially) from apple was how closed it was becoming. They’ve actually backed off that a bit, and I don’t have to turn off near as many apple security features to configure my system as I did 3 years ago or so.
I don’t know if that’s a reply to me or not, but the MacBook I was using two machines prior to the current one was a 2011 MacBook Pro, and it was great. I loved that thing, and I still do. Apple made a turn for the worse in that transition to “retina” laptops and MacBook Airs, because too many people were too impressed, and didn’t punish them for their sins. When a company is deliberately making cynical anti-customer decisions, knocking them down is the right thing to do.
You still can’t plug an industry-standard SSD into a MacBook Pro, and it’s indefensible. At least with soldered RAM, there’s a clear benefit (though I fantasize about a non-BGA surface-mount kinda soldered standard that’d still be modular by dint of being easy to work on with cheap equipment, if LPCAMM isn’t good enough).
My point is, having standards is a good thing, and judging companies against those standards is a good thing to do. They really are that cynical, the incentives really are that bad, and they really will screw you as much as they can get away with. I’m still cutting Framework a lot of slack because I’m still seeing a lot of signs of good faith on their part, and I genuinely like my laptop, and I hope there’s a lot more of the same from them (improvements too, but this is already good, now that I’m on an AMD motherboard). The only reason I’m not complaining about Asus or Microsoft or something is that they’re not even in the universe of consideration. Nothing’s stopping Apple from making a laptop I’d find attractive again, other than bad incentives, and broad complacency is part of that pile of incentives. I’m trying to do my part.
God yes. BGAs are such a frustration for me. The only consistent success I’ve had replacing them by hand was after laser cutting little kapton tape templates to match the ball pads, sticking that to a circuit card, wiping solder paste into the template’s holes (wiping off excess), then placing the component and using an old IR solder setup to gently heat the board from the bottom and solder the component down with manually-directed IR. Still a hassle and still not nearly as reasonable as a handheld heat gun and solder station.
It’s not. Just a general observation. There are things I like and dislike about every computer I own. None of them have pushed me away from something I’m interested in though. I really believe in Framework’s mission - it’s why I have 3 of their laptops. it’s why I built one from parts even though it was more expensive - because I need to see how well the engineering goes together. It’s also why I have the system76 laptop and just ordered a case from them as well. I’ve tried many distros on all of the laptops, even Windows. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. There are decisions that companies make that encourage me to migrate me away - Ubuntu for example. Or IBM and what it’s doing to the RHEL ecosystem.
Given the question, I think it can split off into two scenarios: Scenario / Question 1: Knowing what you know / have experienced with now: You have to pick either an FL16 or a Macbook for your next machine. You have sufficient fund for either one, and you don’t care which is more expensive or cheaper. Plot twist: This machine will be with you for a 5 year mission in space, and it’s also your re-entry console / interface system. Of course, with it being a space mission, you’re given a second machine for redundancy…but it’s going to be identical to the first system that you picked.
Scenario / Question 2: Knowing what you know / have experienced with now: You have to pick either an FL16 or a Macbook for your next machine. You have infinite fund for either one, and you don’t care which is more expensive or cheaper. Plot twist: This machine will be with you for 5 years, for a time-critical 24/7 project on earth. If, at any point in time, the system malfunction, you can choose to repair the system or replace the entire system. Allowable downtime is 3 hours, with a maximum number of downtime occurrence being once a month. Cost of the replacement part(s) or replacement laptop is not an issue (paid for by project sponsor). However, you cannot store / pre-purchase any spare parts / system ahead of time.
What would people pick then?
i.e. The scenarios point out how one prioritize reliability, up-time, repair time / replacement time. Money / cost aside. To really look at the usage side of things, putting aside cost, company ethics and just look at the unit. Using the unit, continue using the unit when things go south. A tool as a tool. Also implying time is a finite resource that you have, and an extremely strong focus on the work that the system has to carry out, as a tool (not as a personal belief system / ethical stance statement). i.e. Your work is more important than your one self.
Edit:
I should clarify, the exercise is to help one to make that choice, but first evaluating the system, purely as a tool to do the job…then add on additional layer(s) of criteria. e.g. Then cost (initial cost, ongoing repair cost, time needed for repair…etc). It’s a multi-dimensional situation (like most decisions). In order to (attempt to be more objectively) articulate at what point are you willing to compromise this for that.
Your hypotheticals don’t match my needs so I’ll leave that discussion to others.
I will say this though: when my AMD 7640u mainboard suddenly died, I popped the old 12th gen Intel out of the Coolermaster, swapped SSDs, and was back to work in 30 minutes. If I’m in space, that’s the sort of modularity that I’d be looking for.
Bought a 12th gen Framework 13 three years ago. I have had zero issues running Fedora Silverblue, initially it had Fedora Workstation on it, same no issues. Coming from Thinkpads I did it simply because I got tired of buying a new used Thinkpad every 2-3 years. I am currently simply waiting for an upgrade path that provides a significantly better experience than I already have on my current 12th gen Intel.
Would I ever buy a Mac…NOPE. Have an M1 Mac Book at work for troubleshooting Mac specific issues, and quite frankly I don’t get the hype. It really feels like a bad install of Freebsd. The machine itself is fine but the software, just no.
It is not that black and white. Both have their positive and negative sides. I love OSX on my macbook pro for its usability and stability, and I also love my Framework 16 for its repairability/upgradability and Linux support.
