Apple MacBook Neo - a $599 laptop

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wizardofid said:
My main gripe with Macs is that there are often extra steps involved when you want to do anything outside the typical Apple workflow, and those steps aren’t always very novice-friendly. Things that are straightforward on a PC can sometimes turn into a bit of a process on macOS.


On the PC side of things, it’s usually pretty simple. If you want to install an operating system or try something different, you just create a bootable ISO on a USB stick, boot from it, and you’re off to the races. The ecosystem has been built around that kind of flexibility for decades, so the workflow tends to be familiar and well documented.


That said, Linux can be just as intimidating for beginners. While the installation process itself has become easier over the years, the moment you start getting into more advanced setups it can quickly become technical. Personally, I tend to lose interest when the process starts involving modified bootloaders, patched EFI files, or a chain of workarounds just to get something running. At that point it stops feeling like a straightforward installation and starts feeling more like a weekend engineering project.

I am at an age where shyte just needs to work or GTFO. It isn't that I am lazy but rather if it becomes a chore to do anything and you have to deal with compromises, it is usually a k thx bye, from me.....I am sure a lot of people are like that as well.

I am sure most mac users are like that just get the next device and move on, likely only small handful that goes beyond the average user.

If you get my drift is just so much "extra" sometimes, rather not deal with it.......
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It really isn't that bad tbh, considering Apple hasn't actually blocked it, but hasn't helped either.

Linux has gotten much better nowadays, and ironically, having a standard machine that everyone has, like the MPN, makes it very friendly to get everything workers.
 
wizardofid said:
My main gripe with Macs is that there are often extra steps involved when you want to do anything outside the typical Apple workflow
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It feels like there are more keyboard combos than windows.

Want a function? Well, a simple CTRL + Option + Command + 4 and a little dance will do it. I made the mistake of wanting to delete a file when I got and pressed 'delete'. That doesn't work ...

Today I needed to reduce a PDF size and just couldn't do it. The solution was to open the file in Chrome, Print PDF and save.
 
wizardofid said:
My main gripe with Macs is that there are often extra steps involved when you want to do anything outside the typical Apple workflow, and those steps aren’t always very novice-friendly. Things that are straightforward on a PC can sometimes turn into a bit of a process on macOS.
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Like...?
 
bwana said:
Like...?
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Windows tends to support a huge variety of hardware with automatic driver installs, macOS is much more restrictive. If you want to use unsupported hardware, older GPUs, or build something like a Hackintosh, it can involve custom bootloaders, EFI tweaks, and kernel extensions.

NTFS drives are readable on macOS but not writable without third-party drivers. On Windows NTFS works fully by default, so moving drives between systems can become awkward.

On macOS the OS may refuse to open unsigned tools/apps entirely unless you override security restrictions manually

Certain apps on macOS need explicit permission to access folders like Documents, Desktop, or external drives. If the permission prompt doesn’t appear or gets denied, you end up digging through Security & Privacy settings to manually add the application.

On macOS you might need to use Disk Utility, format the drive correctly often GUID and specific filesystem, and sometimes run Terminal commands like createinstallmedia depending on the OS you’re trying to install.

macOS is much more restrictive. If you want to use unsupported hardware, older GPUs, or build something like a Hackintosh, it can involve custom bootloaders, EFI tweaks, and kernel extensions.

Things like modifying system paths, installing certain development tools, or managing packages frequently rely on command-line tools like Homebrew.

As long as you stay within the apple lane everything works smoothly anything else needs "extra". Some times windows too has some "issues" but generally it rarely requires command prompt commands, unless you tinker with specific things.

I have always said and I will say it again apple hardware is great, their OS, I completely loath...... I don't like an OS that babies me, and macos certain does that, it essentially protects users from themselves which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but a cage is still a cage.

I can at any point in time give windows the middle finger, not so much with macos sure there are ways around it, but apple doesn't necessarily make it easy, the last thing they want is for you to exit their ecosystem, macos is we rather you didn't.

Will still choose the lesser of two evils, with windows being it. I don't know why it is hard to grasp for apple users, what we take for granted they have to do chores to get working. It really isn't about X vs Y who is better, I rather, not deal with "extra" like a hormonal girlfriend and negotiate.

A Gated os works fine mobile and portable devices, have no issue with that, but a desktop device, count me out
 
wizardofid said:
My main gripe with Macs is that there are often extra steps involved when you want to do anything outside the typical Apple workflow, and those steps aren’t always very novice-friendly. Things that are straightforward on a PC can sometimes turn into a bit of a process on macOS.
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Correct, Macs can be a PITA. But so can Windoze. And so can Linux.

SSD support is a biatch.

On the Mac, forget about plugging in your Samsung 990 Pro via a thunderbolt enclosure and hopping for Samsung Magician recognition and read out. Samsung Magician doesn't even recognise it. Forget about using USB 3 with UASP enclosures to access your SSD with TRIM. Not possible on the Mac. TRIM commands are not passed to external SSDs except through expensive thunderbolt enclosures or docks.

I had a Samsung 850 Pro SSD give me data errors on the Mac until I plugged it into a Thunderbolt enclosure and OS X passed TRIM to it and fixed the 'bad sector'. Your USB connected SSD is essentially never TRIMMED on Mac OS.

That's just the way Mac OSX and up handle USB enclosures. They don't trust them to pass low level commands.
 
Smiggles said:
Makes sense. NTFS is proprietary. Use exfat like a normal person.
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ExFat is like a big fat pile of dogturd - remove an external drive formatted inExFat once without using your add/remove drive functionality and you lose everything on that drive - its happened to me more than once on drives that were not serious enough to be backed up BUT you need to then redownload all the schit you had on it - NTFS is way more robust - and i truly will use ExFat in one circumstance and that is called "Never again" because it is just utter cr@p and even calling it garbage is insulting to garbage
 
naughty001 said:
ExFat is like a big fat pile of dogturd - remove an external drive formatted inExFat once without using your add/remove drive functionality and you lose everything on that drive - its happened to me more than once on drives that were not serious enough to be backed up BUT you need to then redownload all the schit you had on it - NTFS is way more robust - and i truly will use ExFat in one circumstance and that is called "Never again" because it is just utter cr@p and even calling it garbage is insulting to garbage
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Weird used it for many years with a hard drive connected to my Raspberry Pi without any issues.
 
Smiggles said:
Weird used it for many years with a hard drive connected to my Raspberry Pi without any issues.
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maybe it only causes kak to external drives improperly removed on windows devices but as i said lost i loads of schit (mostly unimportant and easy to find again cr@p) the time lost was what was more irritating since its easy to get most TV series from torrent sites .... i can't afford to lose my music though - that took me over 40 years to find everything in Flac to replace the lossy mp3 and most of it is no longer available (for download - but easy enough to stream however i want it stored on my local drives in case theres problems with the internet and that does happen often enough)
 
Mirai said:
Correct, Macs can be a PITA. But so can Windoze. And so can Linux.

SSD support is a biatch.

On the Mac, forget about plugging in your Samsung 990 Pro via a thunderbolt enclosure and hopping for Samsung Magician recognition and read out. Samsung Magician doesn't even recognise it. Forget about using USB 3 with UASP enclosures to access your SSD with TRIM. Not possible on the Mac. TRIM commands are not passed to external SSDs except through expensive thunderbolt enclosures or docks.

I had a Samsung 850 Pro SSD give me data errors on the Mac until I plugged it into a Thunderbolt enclosure and OS X passed TRIM to it and fixed the 'bad sector'. Your USB connected SSD is essentially never TRIMMED on Mac OS.

That's just the way Mac OSX and up handle USB enclosures. They don't trust them to pass low level commands.
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Okay to be fair, windows has gotten a lot more "gated" in recent years, especially with regards to programs can write to, which has made some programs not work with newer version of windows. Some times some programs had, settings.ini files where you could edit the writable folders, some don't. It wasn't a terrible move, more a problem of lazy programing. There is no particular reason why certain applications needed to write to certain directories in the first place.

It did have the added benefit of uniformity to where programs write files to now. So some things makes sense. Closing down security has definitely secured windows a lot more.

While you might point at windows updates been broken, macos hasn't been the darling angel either is had broken update in 2025 with tahoe, with devices failing to boot, login issues and some people having wipe their drives and reinstall macos.

I am not trying to put apple down, it has it's use for certain group of people. My Brother in the late 2000's was apple this or apple that, had a 27 inch imac, iphone, ipod and apple TV, was touting this or that feature, start writing an email on one device and continue it on another device syncing of devices ect ect.

One by one the devices dropped off his list, as they become unusable or needed to replace the SSD and apple store wanted some absurd replacement fee. Now he is on android for the last 2 devices and two highend windows laptops. Even has a portable android TV he goes camping with, samsung projector. Use to get ipads ect.

He can afford it, but he definitely wised up a lot with regards to tech, the one thing he told me was the "extra" it was with some things, having to jailbreak his ipads to sideload apps he wanted. He entirely got off the apple ecosystem within a few years.

Apples wants you on their ecosystem and spend money on their ecosystem, with everything and anything they can.

Will say windows is heading in that direction, unlike apple's relative "smallish" market share, it isn't like windows users will take that lying down. Their recent escapes have shown users will and can push back, the fact that a lot of users moved back to windows 10, is a testament of users telling microslop to get rekt.

Windows moving to same exploitive practices as apple has me up in arms, and I don't have a say in the matter, there is no moving to linux as I can work without windows, can't use macos no support
 
naughty001 said:
maybe it only causes kak to external drives improperly removed on windows devices but as i said lost i loads of schit (mostly unimportant and easy to find again cr@p) the time lost was what was more irritating since its easy to get most TV series from torrent sites .... i can't afford to lose my music though - that took me over 40 years to find everything in Flac to replace the lossy mp3 and most of it is no longer available (for download - but easy enough to stream however i want it stored on my local drives in case theres problems with the internet and that does happen often enough)
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I find that excuse poor. Deezer has offline lossless subscription and spotify is rolling out lossless offline and online. I do use youtube premium music and have whole albums downloaded for offline play as I too have internet issues often, they aren't lossless. That said unless you have High fidility speakers or earphones there is no point in having lossless or for that matter playing via bluetooth as that compresses the audio anyways.

A bit pointless if you don't have the supporting hardware.Besides that most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference in audio quality anyways.It is a waste of space to be honest. As you get older you going to have a hard time telling the difference anways as your hearing range changes, High frequency sensitivity drops over time, it is quite possible you aren't even hearing that lossless detail anyways anymore.

I know it isn't what you want to "hear". I would personally let someone run some tests and see, if you definitely can still tell the difference between lossless and lossy, it is so subtle unless you are trained to listen for the specific changes you aren't going to notice any. I think it is a nice to have, but once you hit 60 it is not going to matter much lol.

/rant off.
 
wizardofid said:
I find that excuse poor. Deezer has offline lossless subscription and spotify is rolling out lossless offline and online. I do use youtube premium music and have whole albums downloaded for offline play as I too have internet issues often, they aren't lossless. That said unless you have High fidility speakers or earphones there is no point in having lossless or for that matter playing via bluetooth as that compresses the audio anyways.

A bit pointless if you don't have the supporting hardware.Besides that most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference in audio quality anyways.It is a waste of space to be honest. As you get older you going to have a hard time telling the difference anways as your hearing range changes, High frequency sensitivity drops over time, it is quite possible you aren't even hearing that lossless detail anyways anymore.

I know it isn't what you want to "hear". I would personally let someone run some tests and see, if you definitely can still tell the difference between lossless and lossy, it is so subtle unless you are trained to listen for the specific changes you aren't going to notice any. I think it is a nice to have, but once you hit 60 it is not going to matter much lol.

/rant off.
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guy you don't know me at all - if you did then you would know that you are wasting your time telling me all that schit that you just did, because i once had Hi-fi systems that probably cost more than the car you drive now ..... lets just leave it at that

1) the internet in South Africa is mostly useless garbage

2) as for what i'm listening for ..... i forgot more about music facts and music listening than you even learned in your entire life up to now

3) i really don't give a rats behind about what anyone else thinks to be honest leave alone random ar5es on the internet who listen to their music on tinny PC speakers and who cant even pronounce Hi-fidelity leave alone having not ever experienced it before

and yes i have sold most of my Hi-fi equipment because i now reside in a retirement home but that doesn't mean i don't have hardware good enough to listen to any lossless or high res music that i have - and i dont need the likes of you telling me what is good enough or not good enough to listen to those formats when i have spent more than 40 years owning stuff in that category that you wouldn't even know about
 
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