I’m about to drop a really dumb question in here:

Why do so many people dislike Apple? I have listed some of my problems with Apple (listed in no particular order):

1. Keyboard layout
2. I fundamentally disagree with FaceID and would prefer a fingerprint sensor
3. Lack of customisation (you can’t even hide the finder on MacOS)
4. Apple makes it really difficult for people to leave their ecosystem

However, I really don’t understand why people, ordinary people, dislike Apple, other than due to being overpriced. I mean I really think physical SIM cards are a thing of the past and less secure than eSIMs since you can’t just take a physical SIM out using a pin. Although I heavily dislike the provisioning of USB 2.0 in 2024, the reality is that most of my files, even on my Android device, are transferred via networks. And yes, for the point about battery, I don’t particularly care about the battery size as much as I do the battery life. Even then, I always have a charger in my bag. It also helps that I barely use my phone.

Once again, keep in mind this is from someone whose only Apple product is a Macbook.

I can understand hating on Apple as a company, I was furious at how long they took to throw USB-C on things, however, often times people provide arguments that are baseless, as are several “points” listed in this image.

Who cares about a physical capture button? Any professional required to use a camera for a living will not be using an iPhone. Who cares about physical SIM vs eSIM. Hell, I’m an advocate for eSIMs. Who cares about the unlockable bootloader? And really, with modern consumerism, who on earth is listening to hi-res wireless audio and not a song off of Spotify, YouTube, etc?

I agree with the 120 Hz point, there is no reason a flagship phone at a a flagship price should not provide a smooth refresh rate. I partially agree with the storage point, however, the vast majority of people do not take advantage of their phone’s storage, so why would Apple be competitive here? They try to optimise for profit. I definitely agree with the point about the lack of modern USB. The lack of the 3.5mm headphone jack kinda sucks for everyone who owns devices that cannot be used with phones without this jack.

I’m opening to listening to other people’s takes and discussing this with them.

Can someone PLEASE do some reviews of the Strix Point CPUs running Linux on notebooks?

I had a Maths Prof who used Mint so this kinda checks out

I am aware that command left and command right is home and end. However, I still prefer to use shift + end to highlight from my cursor to the end of the line as opposed to shift + command + right. There’s also switching between tabs, it’s a similar thing, 3 keys instead of 2.

However, the most important part of this is I cannot even have ALT+Q behave as ALT+F4. I cannot have F11 act as fullscreen EVERYWHERE.

“Global” mappings are the biggest issue for me, but I do strongly prefer having dedicated home, page up, page down, end keys.

Currently typing this on a Microsoft Surface without dedicated home, page up, page down and end keys, and I am heavily noticing the difference, despite using fn + down to behave as page down.

Just finished my Master’s this year.

I belonged to the Department of Computer Science at a university in the UK so granted there’s a lot of bias here:

I will point out a few observations, without going into much detail or reasoning:

1. Microsoft’s Office suite was a non-requirement. For collaboration, everyone was using Google’s Office suite (Google Docs, Sheets) or Overleaf (Premium if we signed up with our university email).
2. Around half (maybe more) were MacOS users, maybe 25-25% split between Linux and Windows.
3. Lots of iPads, particularly in any Maths classes.

Anything else to keep in mind? Yes, that people are ignorant. Even in our CS department people used to actively avoid using Linux, a lot of people will buy Macbooks because of reasons I would attribute more to the demographics of CS students, i.e. primarily from Asian countries where Apple is seen as a economic symbol.

Be prepared for people to judge you (not saying they should, but that they likely will). If you want to avoid this judgement, get an Apple silicon Macbook Air or something. However, I commend you for going out of your way to learn and wanting to reduce your dependency on Windows. I think that learning to be comfortable with the machine will help you in the future, most likely indirectly.

Lastly, keep in mind that when we have discussions about privacy or Linux or not supporting big tech companies who we might not agree with (e.g. Microsoft, Google, Apple etc) it’s never a binary problem. You might find that you will end up relying on teams for internal communication or that your university email is with outlook/office365.

Try and do your bit, but don’t be too harsh on yourself. :)

Needless to say, if you’re looking for a laptop that runs Linux well plenty of people will tell you to buy a used thinkpad (great from a value perspective), or if you’d prefer some of the new kidz stuff then a Tuxedo notebook.

Do not make the mistake of buying a notebook which doesn’t have a reputation of good Linux support. I bought a HP notebook (can’t quite remember the model number right now but can get back to you) and still no sound without manual kernel module patch :D

While I’m definitely on the same page as you with regards to performance, battery, and a great touchpad, I do think that given we are on Lemmy and a lot of us are what you would call “power-users”, it is worth pointing out that MacOS is terrible to navigate with the keyboard.

As a small example (amongst many others), Macbooks do not come with dedicated home, page up, page down, end keys, and I’ve been using my wife’s M2 Macbook Air for quite a while (over a year), and STILL feel as though I can’t get the same snappy behaviour I can by using a keyboard for most of my navigation.

Once again, of course if people tend to navigate the OS using the touchpad this isn’t as much of a problem, but for folks who swear by the keyboard, you do feel it.

I’m hoping that the second iteration of the snapdragon x elites will be good enough to replace the Macbooks for what I do.

I find myself guilty of this mistake as well. Honestly I think anything higher than x.9 should be avoided due to confusion x)

Is there any good news for the x elite laptops?

Honestly, whilst I would not recommend this at all, I find CutefishOS (you could argue it doesn’t even need to be a distro) incredibly visually appealing.

Perhaps I will get downvoted for being a sucker for modern visuals, but the theme is consistent, simple and easy on my eyes.

Although I like GNOME, the consistency bothers me and some of the design choices are inconsistent and don’t make for a great user experience, looking at Nautilus for example.