Introducing Android 9 Pie - <AUTHOR> https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/08/introducing-android-9-pie.html <comment><USER3> Did anyone see these privacy changes? [https://developer.android.com/about/versions/p/android-9.0-c...](https://developer.android.com/about/versions/p/android-9.0-changes- all#privacy-changes-all)

* Limited access to sensors in background

* Restricted access to call logs

* Restricted access to phone numbers

* Restricted access to Wi-Fi location and connection information

* Information removed from Wi-Fi service methods

* Telephony information now relies on device location setting

<comment><USER4> Great stuff. However, while I'm happy that they're limiting third-party access to this data, given Google's business model, I still wouldn't trust _them_ with it.

<comment><USER5> You're right Google no longer has the trust it used to enjoy. So many apps have been uploading entire call logs and it's really absurd this was so easiy accessible to all apps.

<comment><USER6> Android may have always been available at no cost, but it was never free. Always assume if you are given a service gratis, that _you_ are the product being sold. This doesn't just apply to Android, but to gmail, Drive, Docs, etc.

<comment><USER5> A product only useful at the Billion User data points level. I am 100% fine participating in what's essentially the training data for all future AI products coming out of Google. It feels like a happy family of devices all working together for a more scientific future.

<comment><USER7> In history, people allowing one entity to accumulate a lot of power on the basis that they will remain benevolent have almost always be wrong.

Don't assume people at the top have an agenda that are compatible with yours.

The fact we are enjoying a lot of peace and freedom right now should now be a signal for us to relax : democracy is a system that needs maintenance, not some legacy you can claim ad vitam.

It's our duty as a citizen to always doubt the intentions of those in power. Just like it's a flight intendent duty to check that the planes doors safety are engaged again and again. It's not a moral issue. It's just a technical requirement.

<comment><USER8> There is no democracy, just the appearance of one. As an adult, I think it's everyone's responsibility to start and understand this sooner or later.

<comment><USER7> Well yes, I do believe we are in an oligarchy and not a democracy. But it's a different point, and would strike a debate that would not help with the main argument of my comment. So I just use the word "democracy" where most people expect it, otherwise, it gets complicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the quieter features of Android 9 is that they are reducing the API surface of Android by explicitly black-listing and white-listing various APIs and fields that previously required reflection to access. None of these APIs were documented, but none of them were explicitly "off limits" before Android P.

That suggests that the life of Java as Android's primary language might be really coming to an end, even though Android is very much a platform built on Java/C++ at its core.

<comment><USER10> That's a bizarre conclusion to come to. The real motivation is that if you know apps are reflecting into your internal implementation details, and you want to make a change, you're stuck with a bunch of bad choices.

1\. Break the apps.

Users tend to get annoyed when they upgrade the OS and their apps stop working.

2\. Maintain a compatibility shim.

Depending on what the change you're making does, this might not even be possible. Assuming that it is possible, how do you know what needs a shim and what behavior is actually expected?

3\. Give up and do something else instead.

Things get worse if you consider that OEMs may want to modify implementations as well, so you'll end up with apps that work, except on some devices. There's no sensible way to prevent app breakage when there are apps depending on your internal (and _explicitly_ private) API; the solution is enforcement.

<comment><USER11> Dumb question: isn't this what the Google Play submission process is for?

<comment><USER12> Yes, the problem is that many use private APIs to get around bugs that never get fixed, or even if they do, never reach customer devices.

Google is promising that now things will be different, take it with the usual skepticism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Essential has done a fabulous job with Android updates - [https://twitter.com/essential/status/1026516461907369984?s=2...](https://twitter.com/essential/status/1026516461907369984?s=20)

I hope they stay afloat and release a successor to the PH-1.

<comment><USER14> Yes, this is great. I purchased an Essential Phone on Amazon Prime Day. Amazon was (is?) an investor in Essential; they sold these for $250 on that day. The 360-degree camera is available from Essential at a deep discount.

I got the idea that they were winding down operations, but the unlocked bootloader gave me some hope that I would be able to use this device to learn Android app development.

And here they are, supporting Android P as an OTA update on launch day! I'm typing this on Android P...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > We partnered with DeepMind on a feature called Adaptive Battery that uses > machine learning to prioritize system resources for the apps the user cares > about most.

You know what mind I would like to control what apps get more resources?

Me

<comment><USER16> Not most people though. There was a time when in MacOS, one could manually limit the amount of memory a program was launched into by setting the required and preferred memory footprint.

But that kind of low-level stuff isn't something most people care about or want to do. They just want the damn thing to work.

<comment><USER17> I see your point that most people don't want to dig into the nitty-gritty details, but I don't think it'd hurt to be able to mark applications as High, Normal, or Low priority for memory and CPU use.

<comment><USER18> But this isn't really high/normal/low priority for mem and cpu, its how often the applications should wake up. And from my cursory understanding, background resource consumption can be highly variable, and most apps don't really need that much.

Its the same thing as using those battery manager task killer apps. For a pixel, those apps will result in worse battery life, because recent android versions manage resource consumption better than users will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I can't be the only one getting a chill down my spine when I read this. Google, a company "committed to reach and engage the right users safely and cost-effectively around the world", doing deep analysis of my every input and my context in order to "drive engagement" and "surfacing the best parts of the apps [I] use all the time"?

I hope this stuff is kept out of AOSP. Yes, I know it seems like at least some of the computation happens on-device, but I am not comfortable having it done on a device out of my full control regardless.

<comment><USER20> They already do this with your searches and geolocation data. Why not this?

<comment><USER19> I can still dodge those by disabling Location Services and using something else than Google app-wise. It is not clear how opt-out this will be. Even if it can be disabled today it might become pushed harder as time goes.

<comment><USER21> You can disable this too: Home Settings > Suggestions

I believe the computation is done fully locally, as for "tracking", every single OS has a history of what applications you've launched recently, how is that any different?

<comment><USER22> > doing deep analysis of my every input and my context in order to "drive > engagement" and "surfacing the best parts of the apps [I] use all the time"?

This is much richer data than a list of recently used apps, right? Do OSs also record that information?

<comment><USER21> A lot of those words are from the commenter, not sure where they pulled it from. The article says:

> Actions take advantage of machine learning to surface your app to the user > at just the right time, based on your app's semantic intents and the user's > context.

"Semantic intents" are basically Android intents. So yes, it's more than just what app you are in, but rather which window of the app you are in. There is also user context, which is things like what time it is or what other apps you have opened.

All this is fed to a model that basically practice, given the current context, what other intents you may need. It's nothing really out of the ordinary.

The commenter tries to imply it that it tracks every input, which is unfounded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> One small annoyance about the new version I've hoped they would revert is the new clock placement on the left. It was done to accommodate notches better but Android has always had notifications there. I've been running the beta for probably 6 weeks now and I still think I have notifications pending at a glance. It should move based on the presence of a notch only.

Edit: Also there is now a 4 notification icon limit with the clock on the left, whether you have a notch or not. I often have a lot more than 4 notification icons up (1) (esp since a couple are permanent from background apps) and the rest will just disappear under a dot-dot icon.

(1) - 3 email account alerts, Trillian, SMS, Ebay, and a Photos alert on my phone right now. Half aren't visible.

</comment><comment><USER24> * It looks like they've taken away the "apps" homerow button and swapped it for "swipe up from anywhere". So that is one less gesture available to apps, unless you install an alternative desktop.

* Wi-Fi RTT sounds pretty neat, I had not heard of that before.

* Shutting mic, camera and sensor data off for idle/background apps is neat, though I'm shocked that wasn't an option before.

<comment><USER25> It also looks like the back button is gone... how is that supposed to work?

<comment><USER18> The back button is now contextual, it appears in apps, but disappears when it can't do anything.

<comment><USER26> What about when an activity in app A opens an activity in app B? Can I still go back to app A's activity from app B's activity?

<comment><USER18> I just tested this (I think):

I opened a link from fb messenger in chrome. The back button is still there, and clicking it returned me to messenger. So yes I believe so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> As a developer working with an app that integrates fingerprint authentication - thank god for BiometricPrompt! It sounds awesome - finally a cross-OEM official API to do fingerprint auth with one callback and with a uniform, "standard" UI. Does anyone have any idea if and when will it be backported to the support library?

</comment><comment><USER28> Surprised not to see mention of the cutout stuff yet. It seems pretty dumb to me that Google is jumping on board with this ridiculous feature. Maybe this'll be one of those Dropbox-style HN comments which in hindsight looks misled, but I honestly can't find any redeeming factors to the cutout idea.

<comment><USER29> People loved it when Apple did it which gave everyone else the okay to go ahead and do it themselves. It allows phone manafacturers to advertise higher screen to body ratios and is really just a step in the progression towards bezelless phones. There's definitely a loud group of people who strongly dislike it but I think most people are okay with it

<comment><USER30> _the progression towards bezelless phones_

I hope not. The bezel has a very real purpose: a place to hold it without your fingers interfering with the screen, whether by activating a touch or just plain blocking the view. I have an older Android with ~5mm of bezel on all the sides and ~8mm of thickness, and trying to get a good grip while not activating or blocking the screen is hard enough. I remember being handed an iPhone 6, and trying not to drop it was the most difficult part. Holding something that thin is just not comfortable, as is trying to pick it up off a flat surface.

<comment><USER31> I use to agree, but I would except most devices to account for this. I'd except a virtual bezel or software controlled dead space around the edge of the phone.

You'd basically push buttons and the status bar into the bezel, then use the sides much like the Galaxy Edge does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Funny. My Essential already has the update, but my pixel doesn't. Go figure...

<comment><USER33> My pixel 2 sees it.

I strongly suspect that this is a gradual rollout. Maybe that force checking if an update is available allows to force enroll ? that's how I saw the update and I now that Google has moved in this direction for the most impatient users.

<comment><USER34> You are correct. If you force check for an update, then it lets you update to Android Pie. I assume that the gradual rollout will send notifications to phones that it's available.

<comment><USER35> Force check on my Pixel 2 did not work =(

<comment><USER34> Ah well. That proves me the hell wrong then. Bad luck, try again tomorrow XD. FeelsBadMan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Interesting that the Digital Wellbeing features that were teased at IO aren't being launched today, but part of _another_ beta that you have to opt in to. (And Pixel series only?)

<comment><USER37> By the time Android P actually makes it to non-Pixel devices, the beta will have long since ended, so this doesn't _really_ matter.

<comment><USER38> Android P is available for the Essential phone[0] the same day as the Pixel. Technically, every device in that was enrolled in the Android P beta could have also had it day one.

[0][https://www.essential.com/](https://www.essential.com/)

<comment><USER39> Yup. I've got Android P on my Essential PH-1 right now. I'm bummed I don't have the wellbeing features that were promised.

<comment><USER40> You can have them if you're rooted.

[https://www.xda-developers.com/get-google-pixel-digital- well...](https://www.xda-developers.com/get-google-pixel-digital-wellbeing- essential-phone-android-pie/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's crazy that in 2018 we are still using GIFs to do short animated demo.

Those few "images" in the article were ~40Mb, come on.

</comment><comment><USER42> It is amazing how each new version of Android has a complete new UX and none of them are actually good. Google is basically a back-end company incapable of doing good UX (if it is more than a search bar).

<comment><USER43> I would agree with you, but after spending the last two years using an Android phone after almost a decade using iOS, I feel that Google has made some fundamentally bad decisions below the UI layer as well. Despite using a phone that is newer and more powerful, my Android phone is slower, less responsive and runs out of battery much faster than any of my iPhones.

The only reason I stay with Android is Google Fi.

<comment><USER40> I wholeheartedly disagree. I tried using both the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X and none of them came close to the Pixel 2, UX and feature wise. I couldn't download files, couldn't even change my ringtone to a custom melody, couldn't attach files coorectly, the integration with their Maps app was awful, the battery life drained faster after one update... I just felt so limited!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Does anyone know if Final Cut Pro X or Premiere Pro (or other popular video editing tools) yet support encoding to the "HDR VP9 Profile 2" ?

(HDR VP9 Profile 2 is isted as a new feature, as per "Android 9 adds built-in support for HDR VP9 Profile 2, so you can now deliver HDR-enabled movies to your users on HDR-capable devices." yet I wonder if this is effectively a telco-friendly video codec not widely used by media publishers or creators?)

<comment><USER45> I don't think publishing to a single specific profile is an appropriate use of a desktop video editing application. It's like typesetting a paperback book by pressing "print" from Microsoft Word.

You should be exporting a "master" file from your editor and getting your delivery platform (or at minimum a dedicated transcoding app) to output to the various profiles.

Also, exporting HDR content isn't as simple as changing your export setting. HDR changes the way you handle content from the earliest moments of data capture; the real question is how you choose to crush the high dynamic range down to a standard dynamic range for everyone else.

<comment><USER44> Yeah, all good points, although sometimes one just needs to export a file or two (as opposed to setting up a publishing workflow or a system).

And Compressor for Final Cut Pro X or Adobe Media Encoder CC for Premiere Pro CC are effectively integrated (or some of the export code) for such a function - or are launched via the apps when you 'Export' or 'Share', although this can depend upon your CC plan or whether you have purchased/installed Compressor, or not.

The 'crushing the HDR' is a good point, I'll have to look up how this codec handles DR and colour gamet :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Feels kind of lazy going with "Pie" after having used "Key Lime Pie" in the past. Though technically not a dessert, I was rooting for "Pancake".

<comment><USER47> It was changed from KLP to Kitkat though. So Pie was never used.

Disc: Googler but nowhere close to Android.

<comment><USER48> I was rooting for "Pumpkin Pie", a nice alliterative two-word name. And not trademarked! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Surprised with the naming, did Google just miss a great opportunity for collaborating with candy manufacturers like they did with Nestle for Android 4.4 'KitKat'?

<comment><USER50> me too, but what would be a world-renowned candy that starts with 'P'?

<comment><USER51> I was pulling for (unbranded) Petit four

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_four](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_four)

<comment> yoz-y I've been living in France for 16 years and eaten a lot of petits fours. Today I learned that they can be sweet? I've never seen somebody use the term for sweet foot.

<comment><USER45> I live in Australia and I only ever see _petits fours_ used to describe small sweet morsels served at the end of fine dining (a three course meal, a tasting menu or _degustation_ ) often delivered with your order of coffee or tea.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=dinner+course+menu+petits+fo...](https://www.google.com/search?q=dinner+course+menu+petits+fours+pdf+site%3A.au)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Given the number of times the post mentions Machine Learning (ML), I'm surprised they didn't skip the P for Pie and go straight to naming it Android ML ;)

</comment><comment><USER52> "It's nice!" ... or at least that's what I would say if my phone wasn't limited to Android 7.0

<comment><USER53> I was worried my S5 was doomed to Lineage 14.1 forever, but some saint dev ported it to 15.1 last month.

LTE doesn't work, but hey, 15.1.

Whats really scary is that the official Samsung Touchwiz ROM stopped getting updates two years ago and is stuck on 5.1 I think. Ain't it great when hobbyists support a device for over 3 major revisions past when the billion dollar manufacturer that made it stopped updating it less than five years after it was released.

<comment><USER54> >LTE doesn't work, but hey, 15.1

Ah, XDA, where critical features become optional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Even in Pie, "Adaptive Brightness" is terrible. The display often abruptly drops in brightness for seemingly no reason. I think I could do better with a photocell and an opamp.

</comment><comment><USER56> > App Actions is a new way to raise the visibility of your app and drive > engagement. Actions take advantage of machine learning to surface your app > to the user at just the right time, based on your app's semantic intents and > the user's context.

Aside from the unnecessary jargon, this irks me how it portrays the user as some passive consumer. It really drives home how Google is, first and foremost, an advertising company.

Compare Apple's ad copy: [https://developer.apple.com/ios](https://developer.apple.com/ios)

> Siri can now intelligently pair users' daily routines with your apps to > suggest convenient shortcuts right when they're needed. Use the Shortcuts > API to help users quickly accomplish tasks related to your app, directly > from the lock screen, in Search, or from the Siri watch face.

See how this is much more respectful of the user, by treating her as an active entity? Overall, Apple's copy is less jargon-y and terrible too: [https://developer.apple.com/ios/whats- new](https://developer.apple.com/ios/whats-new).

<comment><USER57> You're reading a developer blog.

The Android.com page is more similar to Apple's:

> App Actions predicts what you're about to do, so you get to your next task > more quickly. If you do something like connect your headphones, the playlist > you were listening to earlier is front and center. [1]

[1] [https://www.android.com/versions/pie-9-0/](https://www.android.com/versions/pie-9-0/)

<comment><USER56> > You're reading a developer blog.

Both things that I quoted are for developers:

> Siri can now intelligently pair users' daily routines with _your apps_ to > suggest convenient shortcuts right when they're needed.

The Android.com copy you quote, by contrast, is directed to users ("connect _your_ headphones").

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I was just hoping for them to retire those stupid round adaptive icons. They did not.

Also it's not clear if the old style of switching "opened" apps will still be there? Because the new one with the full screen preview seems more flashy but less practical(think alt+tab vs win+tab on Windows).

<comment><USER59> I think the idea was good, it's just too bad so many apps (many by Google) went the lazy path of leaving the icon as-is and adding a white background layer.

Also note that they're only circular on Pixel.

<comment><USER60> To be fair the API given is pretty c*p when you have to target older Androids as well (and don't want to give them an uglier icon). If I remember right I had to simplify the icon as well (remove transparency I think) because Android doesn't like many things that are okay in svgs.

<comment><USER59> I just used Android Studio to generate the icon for older versions. Yes, I would assume no transparency, since it needs to be a simple single-layered image, AFAIK.

[https://developer.android.com/studio/write/image-asset- studi...](https://developer.android.com/studio/write/image-asset- studio#launcher)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Adoption of the previous version (Oreo) is at 12%.

[https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/06/google-releases- android...](https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/06/google-releases- android-9-pie/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Finally, a dark theme.

</comment><comment><USER62> Great, system navigation looks like Palm webOS...

<comment><USER48> Or iOS's swipe-up app switcher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Could they cram the world Machine Learning into the article much more? If this was 12 months ago, replace every instance of the word Machine Learning with "blockchain"... Oh boy, gotta love buzzwords.

<comment><USER22> Each of the whopping 5 instances they use the phrase in are used correctly. The entire document is around 2500-3200 words. I think they could cram a lot more in and still keep it kosher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Anyone know if there's a way to get the Oreo "Recent apps" feature back? The new one is fairly terrible in my opinion, it now takes many more swipes to get back to the app I want.

</comment><comment><USER65> So to get all the privacy changes I will need to buy a new phone, as my current Samsung has 3 years now, so it won't get any updates. What a funny world.

</comment><comment><USER66> My feature wish list: 1) working Smart Lock Trusted Places

</comment><comment><USER67> Coming to my Nexus 4 soon? ;)

It always feels like the goal here is to get people to buy new phones. I wonder what % of phones running the previous OS will be upgradable.

<comment><USER68> My Moto 4G finally got it's upgrade to Android 7.1… last week. Better late than never, I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Android Oreo, one year later in spite of Treble, 12.1%

<comment><USER69> Oreo was in tandem with Treble. Updates in Oreo and in the future should show an increase. Not upgrades _to_ Oreo.

<comment><USER70> Agreed. Put another way: Treble should make the Oreo distribution percentage go down more quickly than other versions did once they're not the latest. Since Pie was released today, this is the starting line. It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Where could one find graphs of the Android major versions' distribution percentage over time? [https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/](https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/) just shows today's numbers. I'd like to see a "distribution vs days since following version released" with a line for each old version.

<comment><USER71> Wikipedia has a nice graph: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history#/media...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history#/media/File:Android_historical_version_distribution_- _vector.svg)

Needs an update though; this one only goes up to February this year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I wonder if Google's own apps are exempt from adaptive battery? I continue to have problems with Google's apps soaking my phone's battery. Reset the phone, and I get 6 days of standby (this is LineageOS). Install Google apps, and it's now 4 hours. Wakelock detector says the apps Inbox, Google, and Google Contacts are the top offenders with dozens of wakes keeping the phone awake between 40% and 99% of the time. Super irritating.

<comment><USER73> That wakelock detector is probably showing wrong data (especially on newer API levels). Can you try something more advanced like Battery Historian (in dev tools) to see what's waking up the CPU?

(And no, Google apps are beholden to all power saving restrictions like other apps - Play Services being the exception because it services functionality that must work at all times.)

<comment><USER72> Battery Historian isn't really helping pin this down. CPU is running the whole time over night, ~5%/hr drain doing nothing. Kernel only uptime has hundreds of events per minute with reason "unknown". Userspace wakelocks total less than 16s every 20 minutes with no app I recognize named (Babel_ConcService is the top offender). Top app is blank as is Long waklocks and Screen. Doze is "light" all night.

        Kernel Wakesources:
        Ranking | Name            | Duration / Hr | Count / Hr | Total Duration | Total Count
        0       | event1          | 17m59s340ms   | 23457.57   | 3h2m57.557s    | 238578
        1       | event5          | 17m32s350ms   | 23463.47   | 2h58m23.053s   | 238638
        2       | alarmtimer      | 1m47s350ms    | 53.59      | 18m11.818s     | 545
        3       | wlan            | 45s341ms      | 58.99      | 7m41.149s      | 600
        4       | bluetooth_timer | 23s642ms      | 194.68     | 4m0.462s       | 1980

No idea what event1 and event5 are, but that seems excessive.

        Kernel Wakeup Reasons:
        Ranking | Name    | Duration / Hr | Count / Hr | Total Duration | Total Count | Show Count vs Time
        0       | unknown | 57m26s285ms   | 11789.25   | 9h44m10.852s   | 119904      |

        App Wakeup Alarms:
        Ranking | Name                           | Uid   | Frequency (count/hr) | Count
        0       | GOOGLE_SERVICES                | 10033 | 60.66                | 617
        1       | com.android.providers.calendar | 10004 | 0.20                 | 2

60 wakeup alarms per hour? Excessive anytime but absurd for night time.

        Time Spent In Each App State:
        Name                       | Uid   | Top / Hr | Foreground Service / Hr | Top Sleeping / Hr | Foreground / Hr | Background / Hr | Cached / Hr
        GOOGLE_SERVICES            | 10033 | 7s202ms  | 59m52s311ms             | 0ms               | 486ms           | 0ms             | 0ms
        bbc.mobile.news.ww         | 10109 | 5s312ms  | 0ms                     | 0ms               | 0ms             | 762ms           | 16m48s169ms
        net.sourceforge.opencamera | 10097 | 5s71ms   | 0ms                     | 0ms               | 0ms             | 0ms             | 59m54s209ms
        com.google.android.tts     | 10072 | 4s910ms  | 88ms                    | 0ms               | 0ms             | 0ms             | 59m54s200ms
        com.cyanogenmod.trebuchet  | 10026 | 3s247ms  | 0ms                     | 59m44s851ms       | 0ms             | 0ms             | 11s900ms

Foreground service per hour?

Anyway, battery life goes to about 4 days standby if I put the phone in airplane mode. Or if I reset the phone and then on next boot I don't enter my Google account info. I have one bugreport where the discharge rate varied between 15% and 40% per hour, but there's no battery data due to overflow (?) looks like I'm only getting 3-4 hours of detailed data after a reboot.

<comment><USER73> Hmmm... if I remember correctly the concservice thing is supposed to come from the Hangouts app. Unless you have Fi, can you try disabling it?

<comment><USER72> I've uninstalled Hangouts Dialer and Hangouts, reset stats and rebooted, left the phone untouched since. No change in discharge rate, it's still around 4-6% per hour. The top user wake lock offender is NlpWakeLock now, but it lasts just a second, but happens every 10-15 minutes.

Still event1 and event5 listed as wakesources with tens of thousands of counts per hour each. And still kernel wakeup reason "unknown" 12000+ counts per hour and 58m per hour duration (the entire 3h46m the phone was left since booting until capturing the bugreport).

The big gripe I have is in fact not the battery loss. It's the lack of tools that reliably pin the blame on the cause of the problem. So now I have to once again F around with uninstalling apps one by one to find out whodunnit and past experience tells me it will be a Google app or service with no recourse for getting the problem fixed. It's really an irritating platform.

Edit: And the WLD app shows the phone is "awake" 99% of the time. But if I put it in airplane mode, or wipe it and don't put it in airplane mode, it'll be awake 1% of the time (this is being left alone untouched for 1-4 hours).

<comment><USER73> Yeah, honestly this looks like there's something wrong with the actual phone (not software) - those "event" sources tend to come from kernel interrupts and those issues tend to happen when a sensor or something related malfunctions. Just a guess tho.

<comment><USER72> Except doesn't happen after a reset. Doesn't happen when in airplane mode. Happens only after I restore apps. Something is busy doing something when there's network access, and I suspect the 15% to 40% drains are when wifi goes down for whatever reason and I'm left with a really crummy weak mobile signal, which I know drains phone batteries fast just by the nature of having to compensate for weak signal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> I don't know if it's just me, but I don't really like the text magnifier. I select text better without it.

</comment><comment><USER75> It's a shame that Google has stopped upgrading the OS on the Nexus line of phones.

<comment><USER76> Is there a reason for them not upgrading Android on Nexus? Disappointing news since I bought mine a mere 2 years ago.

<comment><USER73> The major reason (according to the dev podcast) is that SoC vendors simply drop support and don't update drivers for new Android versions. This pretty much blocks any kind of updates since mobile drivers are all closed binary blobs.

Before 8.0 Android driver layer wasn't separate from other OS layer so they couldn't upgrade Android separately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm no longer surprised that Samsung doesn't feel the need to update to the latest version of Android! Grace UX (their skin) already had all of these features as of last year. I do not see anything worth upgrading for here.

Potentially huge for people buying the notched phones. The support for that did improve in this update.

<comment><USER77> Curious what others think of samsung hardware on HN.

Ive had:

>S5 phone whos charging port broke and had terrible battery life. But hey, when I bought the phone the screen was bright and beautiful... I feel like I was tricked

>My SSD failed in a year

>My grandpa's 1,000 dollar samsung TV he bought in 2018 has an irresponsibly slow smart TV.

And I read some horror stories about samsung home appliances when I was looking to buy them last year.

I cannot tell if Samsung has lots of customers with horror stories, or a massive marketing department that is able to get people to buy average products at luxury prices.

<comment><USER78> > And I read some horror stories about samsung home appliances when I was > looking to buy them last year.

I can add to that. From a previous comment: "I actually just replaced a 3 year old Samsung Electric Dryer. The heat was no longer working, and I suspect it was the heating element. To access the heating element required me to: - <USER2> off the control board - Take off the entire top of the dryer - Take out the door - Take out the Front panel - Take out the drum I only figured this out after finding a service manual, as I did not want to risk destroying a dryer to figure out how to fix it. A new heating element was $80 off the grey market. I wanted to see how much it would be to get it fixed by a service place, and any service place I went to wanted to charge $100 just to look at it!

When I saw a new dryer was $400, I just decided I did not want to deal with it anymore and bought a new dryer.

I will not be buying Samsung products again. "

<comment><USER79> I had a Samsung fridge, it would constantly reboot... Samsung products just flat out suck in my experience. They insist on installing shitty software on everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> In my opinion, Android should focus in quality/stability and UI responsiveness. E.g. it blows my mind that Nokia N900 (2009, Maemo Linux) was, in some cases, way more responsive in the UI than current Android running in hardware 20x faster.

</comment><comment><USER81> is the new API open source or vendor-lock-in so app developers are forced to stick with google

</comment><comment><USER82> Reading through the list of improvements leaves me quite underwhelmed. I thought the Oreo upgrade was basically useless, but this is literally a service pack style update. Also amusing to see "battery improvements" in every release without anything to show for it.

<comment><USER83> > _Also amusing to see "battery improvements" in every release without > anything to show for it._

Whatever improvements are made are most likely quickly eaten by the cruft accumulating both in the system and in applications. The latter update frequently, which means you have a steady stream of bloat coming in...

<comment><USER82> This is the first time I am considering an iphone as my next phone. But the lack of headphone jack makes it _really_ hard.

<comment><USER83> Think of this experience next time someone tries to convince you that customers in this market get to "vote with their wallets".

<comment><USER84> They do. Customers voted overwhelmingly 'we don't care' so the headphone jack didn't return.

<comment><USER83> Did they? Or did they just express they care more about staying in Apple ecosystem than the headphone jack?

This is my point: there isn't really a way to express a preference for something minor. Smartphone market is mostly "take it or leave it".

<comment><USER85> They throw a dongle in the box. Just keep it hooked up to your headphones and now they're fancy Lightning buds. No big deal.

<comment><USER86> Nah, they're stopping that now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> But can we get scheduled SMS yet? Samsung has had this feature for ages...

<comment><USER59> The SMS app is not part of the base Android OS. Install whichever SMS app you like. It sounds like there are several that do what you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> What happened to the "3rd party brand" naming convention? No payday for PayDay?

<comment><USER89> KitKat and Oreo were brands with international reach. On the other hand, what's "PayDay"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> Can we please get a choice of a non-infantile UI in Android in the future? The candy-style material UI just pushes me not to use Android for serious work, more for fire-and-forget tasks I don't care about, as interfacing with it is extremely unpleasant (only slightly better than WP8).

</comment><comment><USER91> "Android 9 harnesses the power of machine learning to make your phone ...simpler"

What a ridiculous concept. Have you ever tried to install TensorFlow? It's a giant, flaming shit-pile covered in a layered shit cake. A word such as "simple" in this context is obscene. This is all bloatware. Android is garbage and it's only getting worse.

What phone can I get that isn't Android or iOS?</comment>


How GMail's Tabbed Inbox Changes Startup's Mobile Marketing Strategies - <AUTHOR> http://tomtunguz.com/mobile-reengagement <comment><USER2> Ugh, I absolutely detest the attitude on display here.. After a user signs up, they get an email? Okay, that's great. Most people expect/want a confirmation. But a few days later? A month later? If they haven't signed in? No, fuck you. Stop spamming me with your stupid Sales Funnel bullshit marketing emails. If your startup requires spamming your users in order to keep them coming back, then guess what? Your product/service isn't good enough.

This article is nothing more than a diatribe by a spammer who's upset that Gmail's new feature makes it harder to get his spam into my inbox.

And let me preempt the CEO of a startup who's sure to reply, telling me that THEIR product is good, and that THEIR users actually want to read the spam. Everyone thinks their special-snowflake emails are the exception, but that's almost universally delusional.

If you're sending more than a single confirmation email that the user has not EXPLICITLY requested then you are part of the problem.

<comment><USER3> I personally agree with your sentiment, but if it didn't work no one would do it. Obviously there are people out there that do not think like you do. A lot of them.

Why else would a company waste time and money on life cycle emails if they didn't work?

They have a nonzero rate of return. You are hating the player, and not the game. Humans are error prone, forgetful beings. An email reminder can often times engage them into something they intended to do but simply forgot, or became too busy to complete. In this act of reminding there is also a non zero rate of pissing off end users. The advantages obviously outweigh the disadvantages or it wouldn't be done.

I shrug and move on. There will always be an endless cycle of advertising and marketing surrounding you. The entirety of the economy depends upon getting you to exchange currency for productivity.

<comment><USER4> The problem is the externalities. It's the same as with spam. Emailing 1000 recipients is free, and there might be 1% that actually appreciates the email. However, there are 990 recipients to whom it is an annoyance. The net effect is that the startup causes more annoyance than value, but it does not need to bear the costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Any app giving me a push notification saying "You haven't used this app in 10 days! Want to use it now?" will be uninstalled forthwith, and downrated on the Android Market.

Also, aren't there some guidelines for what sort of stuff push notifications can be used for? This would basically seem to fall under advertisement (self- advertisement, I guess).

</comment><comment><USER6> What bothers me the most about the discussion from marketers regarding the new tabbed inbox is the sense of entitlement, as if they should have some sort of right to not only bother me with pointless emails to try to lure me back, but also expect me to return to their app/service (after I've opened their email and brought their funnel full circle, of course).

You read some of these outcries from marketers, and you'd think that Gmail decided to stuff all of these emails in the spam folder, never to be seen by anyone, ever. I'm speaking anecdotally here, but when I'm checking mail now I always tab through each inbox and review my new mail in each one. It's not as if the "promotions" or "social" inboxes have been blacklisted, I just tend to not care about the messages that end up in them (but I wouldn't care about them if they ended up in my primary inbox, either)

When I actually come across an email that catches my attention from a service I find valuable, what do I do? I open it (yes, even when its in the lowly "promotions" inbox). That doesn't happen too often though, because as is astutely pointed out, most of them are bullshit emails from services that I don't care about. Again, that's just my own perspective and I'm sure there is data to suggest lower open rates/conversions etc. since the UI change, but at the end of the day, the premise remains the same. Send me a relevant email that actually captures my attention, and I will open it (regardless of what inbox it falls into).

<comment><USER7> I go slightly further that there's a few companies I actually want to see the Promotions/Updates from, so I drag the email to my Primary tab and those emails will forever show up there.

I as the user, am in control.

And I thank Google for for ranking my email for me, so I don't half to.

BTW, Gmail already had the concept of "Important" email that one could filter their entire inbox by, which I used a lot. While it's not as in your face as the tabs, it had the same results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Businesses need to use push notifications with caution and not with the same intensity they blast out email, though. It's far more disruptive. Thus, nothing annoys me off faster than a marketing-based push notification...my phone is my sacred time and lifelink.

App Uninstall.

</comment><comment><USER8> If we start with the premise that there are more people accessing email from a mobile device then we have to take into account how they're doing that.

I have the Gmail app, iPhone's built-in Mail app, and Mailbox app. The only one of them that filters my email using the new Gmail tab structure is the Gmail app (which is not my primary mail app).

This also doesn't take into account that there are still thousands of businesses that are using Outlook to access their Gmail. B2B operations won't have to deal with the Gmail filtering as much.

There's no question that the new tab system has SOME impact but I don't think we can simply accept the numbers in the article as fact in all cases.

</comment><comment><USER9> If it means that I stop getting those pseudo-casual emails that are apparently the preferred way to promote continued engagement or to pull me back in when I've been away for 'too long', I'm all for it.

<comment><USER10> This. Twitter is atrocious for this crap.

<comment><USER9> For me it seems simple: if I stop using a service, it's because it didn't provide value to me. Even if I click a link in a reminder email out of curiosity - that doesn't change the fundamental problem.

I'd be interested to see some numbers on the long-term effectiveness of such campaigns, instead of the short-term spike in return visits

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Or, you could focus on creating a great service instead of being an ass.

</comment><comment><USER12> Agreed on this. I'd also add a couple of things - first, deeplinking is a partial solution that a ton of (even really sophisticated) products have yet to adopt (I'm looking at you LinkedIn). Second, push notifications for iOS are still a massive pain to implement. I see sophisticated dev teams struggle getting this set up all the time. Layer to that all the different ways people use emails (marketing emails, lifecycle emails, transactional emails etc) and try to turn these systems into generating push messages, at scale, and you have an even bigger challenge. Times will get tougher before they get better.

EDIT: Focused on iOS because, as of today, that's still where the money is. From what I understand setting push notifications up for Android is far more straightforward.

<comment><USER13> Nothing says "uninstall me" like an uninvited push notification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> To me, this is part of Google's long-term strategy.

Today: user signs up with website, website has access to user via email, Google is out-of-the-loop except to serve ads to gmail users only

Future: user signs up with website, website no longer has access to user via email, website has to pay Google to advertise to searchers

This will absolutely have an impact on AdWords and AdSense.

</comment><comment><USER15> Somewhat tangential, but LinkedIn has turned to email to increase engagement with such desperation that I am starting to short the future of the company.

"SomeRandomPerson has endorsed you. Click here to find out what they endorsed."

etc. It is a invirtuous cycle of trying to essentially trick people into doing things that trigger these emails for other people (recall Classmates.com being an earlier crash-into-Earth example of this pattern). They're trying, desperately, to fight the fact that many people simply have no need to use the service with any regularity at all, so it becomes gaming about endorsements.</comment>


Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware? - <AUTHOR> Just as a thought experiment for current Apple users - if you joined a new company and were offered a new MacBook Pro (the most recently showcased) or a new [NON-APPLE] laptop, would you choose the [NON-APPLE] laptop? I ask because I've heard many say they're looking for hardware to run elementary OS on, which is mimicking the mac OS UI (I don't mean to disparage elementary OS - I think their work is fantastic!). If you're not paying the bill, will you really move away from Apple? <comment><USER3> Personally, I'm kind of amused by the appalled and horrified tech bloggers I see posting about the sky falling. I keep reading about "life long" Apple users threatening to switch ecosystems because of an SD card slot. Or function keys. I mean, people must step through A LOT OF CODE to have that impact this kind of decision.

My perspective is biased by my moving in the opposite direction. I'm just in the process of considering a transition TO Apple after being a lifelong windows user. My current build is a top of the line XPS 15 (2015). It's... disappointing. The touchpad already broke. I went through at least 3 warranty visits before the wifi finally worked halfway decent. Windows is becoming less and less what I want it to be. I use it purely for coding, but when I do jump online for a few minutes it manages to be slower than my ipad. Basically, I want a simple, fast, productivity OS that just works (sorry). I don't want it to show me ads and I'm beyond the point where I derive any satisfaction whatsoever from tinkering or configuring it to be perfect. I just want it to work well and work consistently.

Although consensus seems to be that their software is getting worse, from what I see it feels like Apple is the one making the devices that can accomplish what I'm looking for - and a big part of that is the hardware. Still, I'm interested to hear what people say about elementary OS.

<comment><USER4> It's not that simple. First of all you ignore the whole dongle / headphones / incompatibility with iPhone side of things.

I have been thinking of switching over for a while because I can't stand Apple, the company, I hate having to pay €100 for a new charger if something happens to the old one, or having to buy dongles. I detest iTunes and Preview, I don't like having Xcode dictate what goes in my machine, I don't want to be forced to buy an expensive Apple monitor because any other one looks blurry, and a few other things. But most of all - I'm feed up with paying double for quality I don't really need. Yes, the trackpad is great - but I don't care, I connect a mouse to the laptop. I can buy two Windows machines for the price of a Mac. The latest MBP announcement only adds fuel to the fire, but the fire has been burning for a while.

What the latest MBP announcement DOES show is that Apple doesn't give a monkey about devs anymore. We are not their target audience. We were like the artists who move in a rundown area, make it appealing to middle class people, and then are priced out and forced to move away. It's simply time to separate a work machine with a generic home machine. I may still get myself an iPad for connecting to my TV, music, generic web surfing, but I am going to start migrating to a Linux for dev work.

<comment><USER5> iTunes I understand, but what don't you like about Preview? I think it's actually one of the best parts of the mac. I'm also confused at what you mean by blurry monitors and Xcode dictating what goes in your machine?

<comment><USER4> Preview's "modern" file model which forces you to duplicate files to work on them and then automatically creates files on the filesystem with a name you don't want and you then have to go and clean up.... annoying. A lot of non Mac monitors (I have two HPs at the moment) are not very sharp used with a Mac. Apparently only Apple monitors work well with MBP - this could be balooney by anti-mac it people, but the fact that the monitor is not sharp is a fact. With XCode the fact that you have to download the whole XCode when you just want Make for example, and it comes with its own version of Ruby, etc, and it causes havoc if you have installed your own version of Ruby. brew is good, but luckily certain core unix tools only seem to come with XCode

<comment><USER6> What?

Citations for any of these? I have 'make' installed on my mbp without XCode (along with clang, etc), and I use my mbp with 2 24" monitors all the time (in clamshell mode), and it's no less sharp than it is with a desktop.

<comment><USER4> I never said that monitors work better with desktop computers as opposed to laptops. I said that only Apple monitors are sharp when connected to laptops, as opposed to non Apple monitors. Wasn't that clear?

<comment><USER6> Again, citation? What monitors are you comparing? I honestly hope you're not truly complaining that a 1080p monitor looks less sharp than a 4k or 5k display.

Also, where's your citation/article/ _anything_ that you can't get Make without installing XCode?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This isn't quite the question asked, but it pertains.

My personal laptop is a 2010 MBP. I was waiting to replace it until, well, I saw the new one. Now, I'm really undecided.

I'm planning on borrowing a laptop to run Debian on and see how much my workflow changes. I spend a lot of time in vim and the terminal in general, connected to mostly Linux machines, so in that sense, at least system directories will be more similar.

Things I know I'll miss: excellent hardware, Omnifocus, Omnioutliner, 1password, a windowing system designed by people with actual functional aesthetic sensibilities. And I'll have to figure out an alternate phone backup, because I won't use cloud backup and dislike Android (not enough to be unwilling to use it, but enough that re-purchasing software to use it is really unappealing).

Things I won't miss: watching Apple turn excellent general purpose machines into appliances that don't respect the user's desires, being asked to pay ~$200 and my escape key muscle-memory for an goofy emoji toolbar, and every release coming with 5 more inscrutable daemons that want make connections to seemingly random hosts at seemingly random times, which my machines are not allowed to do.

Actually, just the act of writing this out made me firm up my conclusion; I'm no longer in Apple's target market. So no, I won't be purchasing the new MBP. Better to start migrating now and I'll worry about the phone conundrum later.

As far as the actual question, if I'm using Linux at home, I'll ask for a Linux laptop for work. I'd rather not waste time keeping current on OS X if that isn't what I use when not at work.

<comment><USER8> I recommend giving Antergos a try it's based on Arch Linux, and I'd also recommend i3wm - it's a tiled window manager that makes your workspace seem like you're in vim i.e. tons of shortcuts and hardly need to touch the mouse, and it's extremely low on memory/ram resource usage.

<comment><USER7> I appreciate the advice. I rather like Debian, personally, and am kinda past the point where playing with different distros is enjoyable. Debian is an extremely solid base on which to build anything newer I need, and it just works[1].

I'm resigned to the crappy state of window managers on Linux. I don't believe it has gotten materially better since the 90s. Honestly, to me, that's fine, if the annoyances stay at a dull roar (which basically means avoiding the slough of despond called Gnome[2]). I use a tiling WM called awesome[3], and for me it sucks slightly less that the other ones I've tried in the last couple years.

[1] Additionally, on one machine at home I have Windows running in a VM with VGA-passthrough, and that's enough of a hassle to get working that I really don't relish learning yet another checklist for, e.g., generating initramfs or whatever.

[2] Yeah, apparently some people honestly like it. Good for them. I have no idea what's going on in the project, but the actual product exhibits all of Apple's UX arrogance bundled with only a tiny fraction of Apple's UX ability. Whatever the story is, it took me perhaps 10 minutes before wishing I could do something more violent than `apt-get purge`.

[3] [https://awesomewm.org/](https://awesomewm.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'll paste a comment I wrote earlier under a different, less relevant thread:

As a convert who used to be an ardent Android supporter, I've learned a very important lesson after switching. It's not always about the numbers. In fact it's never about the numbers. You can't quantify sheer quality. You can't quantify how something makes you feel. I understand this can be easily retorted by "Well I get that feel from my Samsung Galaxy N, it's totally subjective", but I think that's just being dishonest. I've seen people mention that they're considering switching back to Android after the headphone jack thing, or switching to a PC laptop after the touchbar thing. For me simply touching the surface of ANY premium laptop currently on the market is enough to realize that Apple is light years ahead in terms of how they engineer their devices to feel. Simple things like opening a lid. Using the trackpad. The force touch. How the ringer switch clicks into place. All of it screams "quality". Not like 15% higher quality, but like light years higher quality. It's my experience anyway. It's like -- yes you can take the best mechanical Breitling and ask what does it do that the average Casio ProTrek does not? And there may be not a good answer for that in terms of numbers. But just take both in your hands, and try to objectively say -- which device you intuitively want to interact with more? Which one attracts you with some inexplicable magic? Which one your fingers are craving to touch and understand? Imagine having that feeling every day with a daily device. Imagine having that feeling as the norm. How could you opt in for something less, despite the numbers?

</comment><comment><USER10> Been a Mac fanatic since the early Fat Mac days. Loved the earlier MBPs, Retina MBP 13, and the Airs.

Sadly though. They've fallen too far behind. It's like Microft and Apple flipped. Win10 is fast, amazingly stable, and I can run all my monitors and tools on super fast machines. Even just picked up a Razor laptop running Mint and. Chromebook running Elemental.

Thought about trying the hackintosh but too much trouble.

I think if you forget to provide great hardware and tools for power developers at the front end of our cycle, you fall behind and fail to innovate / have a good support community in short order.

As much as I like Tim Cook and his values, he really reminds me of the same fit as Ballmer. Not as much of a Dick though :)

Apple really needs another visionary like Jobs, or Satya.

Makes me sad.

</comment><comment><USER11> No, and perhaps that is why I and many others continue to be somewhat disquieted with Apple's stewardship of its Mac platform: It would take much more to make me switch. Apple would have to treat its professional users much worse than they do today.

The corollary to this being, it could get much worse. The best parallel I can draw, if you'll permit a terrible political analogy, might be idealistic Bernie supporters slowly realizing they're going to end up with a choice between Clinton and Trump.

<comment><USER8> That's a bad analogy I discovered that I can write in Bernie and have a solid conscience knowing I didn't choose the corrupt politician, the rapist, the hippie Bernie wannabe who has no clue about actually running anything in government, or the always seemingly-high libertarian. - I really wanted to like Jill Stein and vote for but couldn't...I voted democrat for all other tickets in hopes that they were more progressive in general.

As for the new mac stuff I've never been a mac fan, not a win fan either.. I'd much rather have my arch linux builds any day, but I'm not a hardcore gamer or graphic designer either. I'm just a laravel / elixir developer. But I do feel like Apple's lost their way there's just too much negative 'mojo' in the air, they need to pivot and embrace the hard core techies who used to love them, or they'll become irrelevant and it'll be like the 90's again.

Google and microsoft have both had pretty exciting launches this year, there's lots of amazing tech going on in the world today, but when the majority of the stories are negative that can have an effect maybe not today or this quarter, but down the line in 2018 for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I bought a Dell XPS 13 the day after the announcement.

As shipped, it had flaky wifi and the audio clipped both through the speakers and headphones.

Thinking of trying another brand after I get my refund.

<comment><USER13> I'm in love with my razer blade stealth. Same form factor, lower price, aluminum unibody, great screen, 7500U standard. Bezels are on the large size though.

<comment><USER12> What's the battery life like on it? I can't find documented battery life anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> No, not laptops. I do run a few hackintosh desktops though. Macbooks are still the best (unless you are a heavy gamer). Over the years of having used a variety of machines, I haven't found anything close.

Build/Reliability: Probably more reliable than my IBM-era thinkpads. Excellent build quality, NVME, good battery life, slim aluminum frame, and one of the better notebook displays with retina. Trackpad is the best in the industry period, no one has anything as good or responsive.

Support: Very big support network. I can walk into a store and get a loaner, fix, or a brand new machine. If you don't have your own IT department this is a huge value to your startup/small business.

OS: If you want to develop for iOS there really isn't an option, so that's not a fair comparison. However, Apple supports practically every professional level software suites (Adobe, FCP, etc). OS X is also certified Unix with a polished ui and has pretty good compatibility with most of Linux/GNU with homebrew.

</comment><comment><USER15> With so much changing, old "lock-in" factors don't really apply. New power cord. New monitor adapters. I think the switching cost feels like getting a different brand already, so it's natural to investigate alternatives

Plus, I would like more memory. 32 gigs specifically. My dev environment plus all of these electron apps like slack are filling up 16 gigs fairly consistently.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't think of it that way - I was thinking os UI, but I think you have a valid point regarding hardware features :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> No. I need Excel and I need the unix shell.

Calc + DataPilot doesn't cut it when it needs to.

I abandoned Windows a while ago and have been much happier since.

My 2015 MBP is the best computer I've owned. It's cool. It's quiet. It's fast. It's light. The battery lasts. The screen is great. I hear they last. My previous was an equally priced HP Elitebook and I hated it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow - I never thought I'd see the day when someone said I need a mac to use Excel :)

I understand your point - Calc is great for opening spreadsheets and doing minor spreadsheet stuff, but can be a major pain for anything more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I did and I am happy that I have, I prefer the linux machines, though to be honest it does not matter all that much. The terminal is great (on both system) and most of what I do I can do from within my IDE (IntelliJ) which also runs great on both systems.

I don't use computers a lot apart from when I am working, and for the leisurely things I do it does not matter which OS I am using, as everything runs in a browser nowadays. [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/mac_pc.png](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/mac_pc.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't seen that xkcd yet, but how absolutely true :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> For me it doesn't seem like there's really any difference between different laptops. I'm on a 15" MacBook Pro at the moment because I needed a Mac to work on an iOS project, but now I use it to code financial stuff.

Everything I do is on remote connections of one sort or another, and OSX has a simple way to swap out one virtual desktop with another. Everything that requires real computing power I do on a cloud, and everything else I think would work fine on any reasonable machine.

I'm sure a windows/linux system could do the same as my MBP, and in terms of work it wouldn't really matter as we use windows and linux together. I think more or less any laptop in the price range would be able to drive multiple screens, and it's really just a question of minor things like whether keyboard/trackpad feels nice.

So it is a bit of a hair thin decision. If this whole no-ESC no-Fkey thing seems to go badly for other devs, I won't get another Mac. I need F keys to step through a debug, and it's annoying to change key bindings.

</comment><comment><USER19> Went to a Microsoft store to buy a Surface Book. They are very expensive and have roughly same specs as a MacBook Pro. I really like the look and feel of the Surface Book and I was hoping it would replace my MacBook Pro + iPad Pro. I'm still mulling over the purchase since the keyboard froze up when I was checking it out and it reminded me why I went to Macs 10 years ago.

<comment><USER20> People always mention things like this when they badmouth PCs. My MBP freezes once in a while, the keyboard sometimes becomes unresponsive and I frequently have to plug-in my ethernet adapter multiple times in order to get it to connect.

I'm sure many of these issues would be easy to fix, but that isn't the point. The point is that MacOS if often reported to be a miraculous piece of software that always works and never has the issues that Windows/Linux have. I use all three operating systems on a daily basis and MacOS/Windows are honestly about the same in terms of random, petty but annoying issues that pop up out of nowhere and demand attention. Linux isn't too far behind, but when I do have a problem it generally takes longer to figure out how to fix it on Linux.

As far as the hardware goes. My MBP has slightly better build quality than my T550, but IMO they ruined the keyboard on the new version. My T550's keyboard has the function keys acting as function keys only as a secondary function and its really annoying. My MBP's keyboard is close to perfect (keys are a little worse than T550, but the layout is better).

I think the touch-screen bar should have been an addition, not a replacement.

<comment><USER19> I have recently experienced my keyboard freezing on MacOS and iOS insisting I update bothers me a lot. I'm probably going with Google Pixel and project Fi. But my pain with MS from the early 2000s is such that Microsoft destroyed whatever goodwill it had. Microsoft will have to prove it warrants me giving them another chance. Even though I feel this way I still have them a try. That's how bad Apple is doing. They are doing so bad that I'm trying to leave them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a 2009 MBP that I use at home. Still does a great job for what I need and I'll do some iOS development on it.

Newer computer is a Lenovo Flex 3 with Win 10 I got for under $500. I've been on a MB/MBP for almost 10 years now at various jobs. If I really need a MBP I use that. I don't see myself buying any more apple products though (including phones/ipads).

</comment><comment><USER22> I will choose the non-Apple laptop, because I already have a late 2013 rMBP, which still runs fine and I find in many ways superior to the new MBP.

Hopefully it will be a Dell XPS 15"or Lenovo ThinkPad P50, as I just can't stand working with any screen smaller than 15". And then I'll dual boot Windows + Linux or even triple boot Windows + Linux + *BSD.

</comment><comment><USER23> On a 4 yo Retina and couldn't be happier. I'd be paying to upgrade a fraction of a Ghz. It's Intel's fault not Apple's, but still don't see the need I did 4 years ago.

I've been using my laptop a bunch in my bed though, the Surface Book is detachable, and a Razer Core could give me multiple monitors when I need it.

It's probably going to be a year before another Apple innovation, and at this point the only thing holding me back from switching is the feeling that these other options have some sort of catch. Instability that will make me throw it out a window, or being ignored by the largely Apple development community.

The LinkedIn/Slack stuff is nice, but Microsoft should just invest hundreds of millions on improving Windows dev projects like VSCode.

</comment><comment><USER24> No. I actually really like Apple hardware, and can usually deal with the limitations. I was hoping Apple would offer a USB-A port and 2TB of storage on the 13" MacBook Pro, but I still ordered one without. The graphics and memory limitations don't bother me much.

However, I really keep hoping someone comes out with a competing operating system and ecosystem similar to Mac OS, but I haven't found anything that compares. Elementary is the closest I've seen from the open source world, but it needs a LOT more features and polish. I like Mac OS, but the quality issues and general product direction in the past few years have me itching to be able to replace it if I need to.

</comment><comment><USER25> I would choose the new MBP. Mostly to try out the Touch Bar. I'm intrigued by the possibilities of a context-specific, programmable function key area. Will it be useful? Will it be an annoyance?

Different users have different goals and pain points. More than anything I want a computer that fades into the background. I want to get work done using computer. I don't want to work on the computer itself. I don't want to tinker with esoteric configurations in Ubuntu. Or troubleshoot OEM driver issues in Windows (or wait for Windows to install updates on boot).

My experience with MBP over the past five years has been seamless.

</comment><comment><USER26> I will be staying with Apple for now but I hope for 32GB RAM in next iteration.

16GB is getting really tight when you are running kubernetes in docker containers locally and lots of microservices / datastores.

</comment><comment><USER27> I have recently tried to connect my old iPhone5 to my very old MacBook with Snow Leopard, and I could not open the phone to transfer some photos. I connected the phone to PC and got access to the catalogue righ away. I'm litterally pissed of at Apple and the next time I buy a computer I want to be in full control of what is going on. (having said that both the laptop and the phone work quite well despite their age).

</comment><comment><USER28> No. I own a 2015 15" MacBook Pro, fully loaded except for only 512 SSD. I'll wait for the next refresh when, hopefully, they'll have Kabylake, 32 GB of LPDDR4, and maybe they will have rethought the SD card slot. By that time developers will have figured out what to do with the Touch Bar and knowing Apple they will have sorted out any hardware problems.

I really wanted to upgrade. Every announcement Apple has I am the guy in the take-my-money meme.

They just didn't do it this time. Between the 16GB limit, the lack of ports, no magsafe, and removing the function keys that I actually use quite a lot.

32GB haters: I'm currently migrating a huge database from mongo to postgres and I run docker containers in development. Function key haters: Yes, I actually use them and every time I've bought something where virtual buttons replace physical ones it's been worse, at least in the first few generations. "Just get a dongle" haters: I know, they make usb-c everything, but my current set of MacBooks don't require me to carry anything but my Thunderbolt 2 ethernet adapter and at $80 I guard it with my life.

<comment><USER29> I doubt the touch bar will see much adoption, its on too few computers. If they were serious about it I'd expect a replacement keyboard for the iMacs as well as making it universally available on all their laptops.

It just won't make sense to target it for anything other than trivial features until it has more market penetration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I bought a pixel, coming in a week or so. Can't wait. Glad to be able to listen to music and charge my phone at the same time, glad to ditch itunes and its increasingly aggressive efforts to ruin my music listening experience, etc.

Also just had my company buy me a new macbook pro because I need it, but didn't buy my own (which I'd usually prefer) because I'm keeping my options open.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would need an apple machine for iOS / web development anyway.

What I'm planning to do, though, is starting to use Linux on a VM on my MBP at home, get used to it, then get a dedicated Linux machine at home, then perhaps when my MBP is old i will keep the Linux as a machine for working, and will get myself a Mac Mini / iPad for generic home use by the whole family.

</comment><comment><USER31> No. I reach for my 2015 MacBook Pro far often than my X250 due to the atrocious Thinkpad display (16:9, bad contrast and terrible back bleeding issues. The X260 model is even worse as it has PWM issues). Sure it has more ports, mate screen, better keyboard and upgradability, but my poor sight is done with bad screens.

I actually like the new Macbook Pro. The Thinkpad X1 Yoga OLED is a great contender, although I'll never drop that much money on a laptop.

I may switch once WSL is ready, but I will miss native UNIX and using its keybindings everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER32> It's complicated.

I won't be switching yet, because all my Apple kit is <2 years old. Barring some sort of disaster, I'll have it for another couple years at least.

But they're definitely on watch, as far as I'm concerned. It's not just that I'm disappointed by the new hardware. It's that their software - the real thing that got me to switch to Apple in the first place - is getting increasingly bad. The bundled apps, both for OS X and iOS, are a UX basket case of early 2000s Windows Media Player proportions. I wish I could go back to the skeuomorphic era; those apps were goofy but at least they didn't do shit like quietly deleting music from my phone "to free up space" when I still have 8 gigabytes to spare.

And I'm getting more and more pissed at Apple for harassing me 5+ times a day to upgrade iOS, which I am not going to do because, seriously, now is not a good time for me to do any OS upgrades and I really wish they could understand that I do not live my life by their schedule. But Microsoft sure doesn't do great on that latter point either, and I have definitely lost work when my Win 8 VM decided to reboot itself without my permission. At least Apple is _polite_ about being a dick to me over the OS upgrades.

That said, 2 years is a while, and both companies could go either way from here. And as far as I'm concerned, Unix running Windows in a VM is no less functional than Windows running Unix in a VM.

But Microsoft is shipping hardware I care about, whereas Apple seems like it's ready to charge back into the hockey puck mouse era. I switched to Apple as my primary platform at home just after that period ended, so it'd be fitting to switch away when it starts again.

About the only thing I'm confident is unlikely to happen is that I go back to Linux as my primary OS, because, seriously, Linux as a desktop OS is like something out of a Samuel Beckett play.

</comment><comment><USER33> Thinking about Hackintosh-ing. Can take or leave the hardware for the most part (especially on desktop, but they do still have the best trackpad), but there's nothing better than macOS for what I want in my dev environment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hackintosh-ing sounds fantastic, but I've read so many horror stories about upgrades that it frightens me

<comment><USER33> Same here. I've done it a few times as a dual-boot with my desktop and had issues that caused me to uninstall after a month or two. I think the trick is going to be buying hardware that's 100% compatible from one of the lists people have put together.

I've had the same problem with every Linux distro I've tried, but I dumped them due to UX jank, not compatibility problems.

<comment><USER34> This is also why I've messed with hackintosh in dual boot or old machines but never for too long. To get one that's stable, you need to build a machine with 100% compatible parts. That's not terribly difficult but I don't usually build machines just for running something like a hackintosh.

When I go to build a new desktop workstation every 5 years or so, I want to pick the components based off bang for the buck, not just compatibility with hackintosh installations. And if I really need MacOS to run something work- related, I'm not gonna count on a hobbyist project like that to do it. I'm gonna get work to pay for Apple hardware or take it out of whatever freelance budget I have.

I guess if I had both the budget to build a second workstation for MacOS stuff and a strong desire to run non-employment-related MacOS-only software, I might just build a 100% compatible hackintosh but as it stands, there's nothing I really absolutely need that only runs on MacOS so instead I just use my Windows desktop workstation for just about everything, my Asus notebook for mobile DJ/VJ gigs, and the ancient MBP I got for free a while back for the rare occasion that I want to screw around with something that only runs on MacOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've had a Macbook Pro for the last... 4 years. Two different models. I've also had a lot of success Hackintoshing my desktop and have used it without issue for the last 2 years.

I'll be hackintoshing a laptop this time around.

</comment><comment><USER36> The new MacBook Pro refresh is too expensive. $700 CAD more than the equivalent 2013 model. I'm not going to pay that much for a Touch Bar that is a neat addition, but is not something I would opt into as an optional paid upgrade.

I will be waiting for the next model, and if pricing doesn't drop by then, it will likely be the moment I need to look elsewhere.

$2799 + tax = $3200 for my 2013 was right at the boundary of what I am willing to pay. $3499 + tax = $4000 is going too far.

To answer the OP's direct question: if it's an employer paying, then yes I am taking a MacBook over anything else.

</comment><comment><USER37> Already have ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't mind me asking, which linux distro did you go with for the switch?

<comment><USER10> Linux Mint for the desktop and laptop here. Love it. Ubuntu for servers and Elemental for an older Chromebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Yes was in the market to buy a refreshed mac pro for my desktop. I'm not paying 2013 prices for 2013 hardware, so just built a sick Linux deep learning rig instead for the same price.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'll take the current MacBook Pro, if it's maxed out on RAM and has enough SSD. But that's for work, not personal use.

For personal use, since my current MacBook Pro is already maxed out on RAM and SSD, I'll most likely wait until 2017 before I seriously consider upgrading. There just wouldn't be enough bang for the mega bucks.

</comment><comment><USER40> If the laptop I'm offered were one of Dell XPS 15, Razer, or maybe one of them fancy HP, yeah sure, why not. It's clear Apple doesn't care about me anymore.

In my lifetime I had to work with Win 95/98, 2000, xp, Win7/2012, KDE 2 to 5, Gnome 2 (bleh), blackbox, and various OSX releases, so moving workflow doesn't really scare me.

If I were offered a Thinkpad or a Surface... eh, maybe not. But I don't think MBPs are as untouchable as they were 4 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER41> No.

Still happy with my iMac and Macbook Pro. Having 14+ years of OS experience and familiarity, the technical updates or lack thereof aren't enough of a driver to abandon the former.

</comment><comment><USER42> I don't need more than a text editor, a browser and a commandline to do web development. So I would be fine with just Linux if that's all I ever did.

To do anything at all with iOS I need a Mac. So I expect that I will always have one around as long as iOS is a thing for me.

Windows is my favorite desktop and it is the best performer in my opinion. I absolutely need it to do work for most clients. Windows is the one that I will probably never be able switch away from completely.

</comment><comment><USER43> I won't, because I never purchased any Apple products.

</comment><comment><USER44> For work I've a 2013 MBP running Yosemite and you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers!

(Would be really nice if those update nags would fuck off, though)

</comment><comment><USER45> I actually am switching jobs in a week; I was offered the choice of a 13" or 15" MBP. I do web development, so Windows isn't really an option. Unfortunately, I can't choose Linux, since it doesn't run whatever management tool the org uses. But if I could have an XPS or ThinkPad with some flavor of Linux, I would probably do it, just to be contrary.

<comment><USER46> > I do web development, so Windows isn't really an option.

What.

<comment><USER47> Hacker News bubble.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Actually I did the opposite. Just bought my first Macbook ever. And not even the Pro but a Macbook Air! I know, bad screen and all. But I wanted to get into iOS development and I couldn't justify spending even more. But apart from the screen I don't think it's a bad machine. The XPS base model with 4GB -at leaste in my country- is more expensive.

<comment><USER49> What is wrong with the screen? I hear this all the time but to me screen on Air is perfectly fine.

<comment><USER50> I had (have) an Air, and used it for 3 years until the motherboard died. I used to look at retina screens and wonder what the big deal was - <USER2> didn't see that dramatic a difference, sure it was a bit sharper, but the air was fine.

When the air died, I had major deadlines, and Apple wasn't going to get to repairing it for over a week, so in a bit of a panic, I bought a 13" macbook pro retina, so I could restore from backup and get right back working.

Ended up taking a couple runs at repairing the air (which actually was a wonderful experience - they replaced the main board for something like $300, and also gave me a new battery at the same time for free (was not expecting that at all).

But, when I got the air back and turned it on, after having gotten used to the retina screen, I couldn't believe how blurry and low contrast the screen on the air was. Was a huge difference.

CSB...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I never really bought into this--always was a windows person. Of course, didn't do development on windows--I used cygwin first, and then when vagrant became mature, used vagrant + virtualbox.

Can't recommend that highly enough! Way better than cygwin, plus offers a level of isolation you can't get on the mac unless you use something like vagrant also.

</comment><comment><USER52> No, my next laptop will be a MBP. My brand new Thinkpad at work has poor power management and wakes up from a sleep sometimes, I thought Windows 10 was pretty good but it has random issues that make me wish I was using OS X, and I don't have time to spend messing with Linux config these days.

</comment><comment><USER53> It depends. My current laptop MBP Retina will probably last a long time. If USB-C support is good and the new function row turns out well, then I will probably buy it. If not, I'll probably go for something else (maybe just another MBP Retina if they're still up to snuff).

</comment><comment><USER54> I don't plan on moving away from Apple hardware. Apple hardware isn't always the best bang for the buck, but the software ecosystem seems much more usable to me. Occasionally Apple makes changes that irritate me, but none have been so horrible as to chase me off. Yet, anyway.

</comment><comment><USER55> Not me, I'm sticking with Apple even though I mostly run Win10 on my Macbooks. I looked at the alternatives and they are either crappy build quality, huge heavy bricks, or just as expensive as the Macbooks. Might as well stick with Apple since I trust their hardware.

</comment><comment><USER56> i've been using apples for over 25 years, off and on, mostly on. so probably not unless i buy one and it's just complete garbage.

not saying it's impossible, just very unlikely. much of their software is approaching trash-tier, so hey, anything is possible.

</comment><comment><USER57> No, I still run Adobe apps frequently and have switched back and forth between Macs and Windows a couple times; have settled on the Mac mostly for build quality (especially touchpad performance), nicer OS experience, and Time Machine.

</comment><comment><USER58> No, at least in the foreseeable future. As a dual career developer and pro photographer/illustrator, apps/utilities are more important for my work than the underling OS and Linux's creative toolkit is not there (yet?).

</comment><comment><USER59> btw, tried today elementary on a macbook -- installation and drivers were fine -- visual studio code would not launch so I gave up for now -- will try over the weekend probably.

It seems like a polished OS, some shortcuts need tuning but might work.

<comment><AUTHOR> It makes me curious - do we (mac users) like our hardware, do we like our UI, do we like a combo of both or is it something else? Regardless, cool to hear you got elementary running on a mac!

<comment><USER10> I like that in the past, it's been rock solid stable and I have had to perform very little IT support to keep it so. Not so stable these days, which is where a lot of my issues come from.

Here's my primary reasons for using OSX / Mac's all these years:

\-- A unix variant shell underneath - so I can do all my work fast, relatively compatible with my linux servers in the cloud, and run things like MySQL, Mongo, Node, etc... locally. Definitely a keyboard guy as well. Now that Windows has Bash/Canonical -- I suspect this will be a game changer.

\-- Terminal and Iterm -- Actually - this is probably the major reason. I run lots of windows, and lots of scripting therein. Conemu / Putty for Windows isn't bad. Linux has a few not so bad terminal clients, but nothing touches Iterm. Come to think of it - if I had iTerm on my Win10 machine, with bash for scripting, and a great ssh command line client - I'd have no issues making it my daily driver.

\-- Sublime Text. -- But I've been back using Vim and Emacs more and more.

\-- Something about Windows... they seem to have no concern for interrupting what you're doing and popping up a window that just blocks everything. It's like a 'rude' operating system. Mac's just don't seem to do that.

\-- Actually the Apps that have kept me on a Mac: iTerm, Panic Transmit, Sublime Text, and Bash/Zsh.

What I really want in a Mac:

GTX 1080's or NVidia Titan X's, or something that can actually do GPU work relatively fast (Machine learning is eating the world), and drive multiple 4k monitors. 32+G of RAM.

Happy to give up some battery life and weight to do these.

<comment><USER60> Regarding heavy nVidia iron: [https://bizon- tech.com/us/bizonbox3-egpu.html/](https://bizon- tech.com/us/bizonbox3-egpu.html/)

I think that'll get you one slot, so make it count. I'd also like to see if anaconda can work with an external adaptor for compute.

<comment><USER10> Wow. Thanks. Very helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> If I were offered a Thinkpad instead of a Macbook Pro, I'd go with the Thinkpad.

<comment><USER31> Ask for a Thinkpad at work instead of a MacBook and you'll be at a 67% chance of getting one with a TN screen. n=1

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Not yet, the new Macbook Pro meets all my needs (assuming I can stand the keyboard)

</comment><comment><USER63> For my personal devices, my plan is to eke out my mid-2010 MBP until such time as the next wave of laptops are released, and hope they support a developer's workflow more appropriately.

For work: i work in an OS-agnostic kind of world.

</comment><comment><USER64> I would do so only if the non-Windows laptop were a Surface Pro or a Surface Book. Windows 10 has Powershell and a real Linux subsystem now and I can use the Surface as an iPad Pro when needed.

Every other Windows laptop is crap, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER65> Macs are horribly expensive in Brazil these days (US$ 5-6k for a decently configured MBP). Next year I plan to buy a gray-market Mac Mini and a fast notebook for Linux, and try a "Hackintosh" VM in it.

</comment><comment><USER66> The outrageous price increase is my only problem with the new hardware. I just saved $450 by buying a refurbished 2015 Macbook which has the exact same computing power as the new model.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'll stick with my current MacBook Pro until a change is much more appealing, and I've already started discussions with people on what a great Linux laptop solution looks like.

<comment><USER68> Thinkpad x260 + whatever unbuntu

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I was hoping to see a poll here. I'm curious to see say 3–6 months from now what percentage has left Apple hardware, laptops specifically.

</comment><comment><USER70> As soon as something better comes along, then sure :)

<comment><USER59> Same here, for now will stick with my 13 inch 2015 mbp -- I was hoping for more ram and an actual GPU but that went south.

Might move to a Razer Blade on windows as hackintosh on the 1060 isn't an option right now. -- I have high hopes for Windows' Linux Subsystem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I won't. I've found TCO to be so much lower with Apple products that I won't switch until that stops being the case.

</comment><comment><USER72> I already switched. Got a Thinkpad t460s. Has a great screen, 20gb ram, 1tb SSD.

I run Ubuntu and can do just about everything with it. No regrets here.

</comment><comment><USER73> Bought an XPS 15 the other day in response to the Apple announcement. Looks like I'm not the only one!

</comment><comment><USER74> I realize you asked about work machines supplied by your employer, but I'm going to answer for personal machines anyway.

My home desktop is a 2009 Mac Pro. I also have a personally owned 2008 Mac Pro that I keep at work. They are both too old now for the new version of OS X, so it looks like they will stay on El Capitan.

At some point, I'll either need something that requires an OS later than El Capitan, or the hardware will die. At that time, I would not be surprised if I moved to something else. A lot will depend on what Apple's desktop lineup is like when the time comes.

I would want to be able to move the SSDs from my current Mac Pros to the new machine(s), and nothing in the current Apple desktop line seems designed to make that easy. I would be reluctant to buy any of the current Mac desktops with the Apple upgrade to SSD because that raises the price too much.

The iMacs are also problematic because of the built-in monitor. I don't want to have to keep a separate monitor for my Windows gaming PC, so prefer a Mac desktop without a monitor so that the Mac and PC can share it. For a while iMacs had a feature where they could be used as a monitor for another computer, but I believe Apple dropped support for that.

I suppose I could use an iMac and use Bootcamp to boot an external disk with Windows for gaming, but I'm also not sure about the iMac from a gaming performance point of view.

Another piece of Apple hardware that may be endangered soon for me is my iPad. I've got a 3rd generation. Like my desktops, it is now too old for the current OS. (And even the last version of iOS Apple released for it had some of its most touted features disabled on iPads as old as mine).

I'm seriously thinking of something in the Surface line when it is time to replace the iPad. That's because I'm getting annoyed at the multitasking performance of the iPad, particular of the browser. I'm tired of being on some big page, like a heavily commented Reddit thread, switching to another app or another tab within Safari, then switching back and having the browser have to reload the page. This is especially annoying if I was writing a comment and switched away to get some information I needed for the comment. I end up having to select-all/copy what I'm working on before switching away, so I can restore it if the page reloads, but then I cannot use copy/paste to copy in whatever it was I switched away to look for!

I believe that Surface is running more of a desktop OS with tablet enhancements than a separate mobile OS like iPad uses, and so I'm hoping that it would multitask more like a desktop system does...and so switching between browser tabs, or between the browser and another app, would not cause browser page reloads. I've yet to look into this in detail, though, to verify this.

My iPhone is great. I see no reason at all to consider switching to something else in the phone department. It's just tablets and desktops where I foresee problems.

</comment><comment><USER75> I'm the guy whose Elementary OS post was on HN the other day -- and, incidentally, I tested it because I'm more concerned with upgrading my home desktop than my laptop, and because I need Docker, SSH, Visual Studio Code and Remote Desktop (the rest is all secondary) and prefer its looks.

(I also need to have something to use that isn't Windows at home to both keep an open mind and stay in the UNIX universe - which is how I got into OSX in the first place)

I work at Microsoft, wrote [http://taoofmac.com](http://taoofmac.com) for 14 years, and have a Lenovo Carbon X1 as my work laptop (which, incidentally, has a touchscreen I actually use, and USB A). I got it a year ago and had no choice in the matter.

I'm not crazy about my work laptop (I prefer smaller, more portable machines, and plan to replace it with a Surface i5 at the earliest opportunity solely because it's the most compact and lightweight machine on the roster with a decent enough display and battery life).

Now that I've answered your question literally, let me answer it in the way that makes sense for me, as a paying Apple customer: I want expandable hardware with standard ports and adequate performance for my needs.

In terms of laptops, the MacBook Pro Escape would satisfy only the latter (and even then I would prefer a better GPU).

I'm holding out for something like a new Mac mini (I prefer small machines, and like to pick my own displays), and at this point I am pretty sure I'm going to have to buy a bunch of dongles for it too (if it ever materializes) and that I will never be able to expand it.

I also find it frustrating that I can build a Hackintosh for _half_ the price of a current Mac mini that has a comparable (larger, but bearable) volume, fully standard ports, vastly superior repairability and much better performance (google for Snazzylabs hackintosh).

Most people complaining about the MacBook Pro do so because it doesn't match their requirements for performance (with or without Kaby Lake, GPU, battery or thickness compromises) or expandability (either aftermarket or lack of standard ports), and because expectations were too high regarding refreshes of _all_ the Mac product lines (even though rumors only hinted at laptops).

In short, your question has little to do with what people are actually complaining about. Even though macOS has evolved relatively little under the hood and recent versions have had a few more bugs than usual, few complain about the ecosystem or the OS.

We just want more powerful, expandable and flexible hardware instead of designer cutlery.

(And I'm going to be pretty annoyed if I have to buy a dongle with a MicroSD card slot on the end, too - THAT they would most certainly have room for.)

</comment><comment><USER76> not yet. we'll see.

</comment><comment><USER77> No.</comment>