Same for me. Been looking to replace my dell notebook and was looking into the Macbook Air with ubuntu as the alternative. Was just comparing prices and specs on the Apple's website last week.
I used to think Apple's success was great for us consumers because it's more choice, and competition is why companies are innovating in the first place, right? But this latest injunction made me realize, if I give money to Apple, there will be less competition and not more. They're unfairly anti-competitive and will use any immoral hole in legislation to make sure consumers have no options. To make sure there is no competition. That is driving innovation backwards, not forward. Summing the pros and cons. Their own technological innovation is not worth their effort to stop the whole rest of the world from innovating. Their balance to the world is on the negative.
I'm not gonna give money to a company that is driving humanity backwards. My 0.00001% missing contribution will have the same value as my vote for the country's president. I'm voting with my wallet.
Currently typing from a ~13" "ultrabook", I think having an extra inch of space is probably the best compromise between this and a bigger laptop, especially if it's light. And that resolution, in my experience, is exactly what I need for programming comfortably.
Finally, and this is obviously subjective, but I've always liked the way touchpads look best. There's something about matte black which just appeals to me.
i actually returned a macbook pro retina yesterday over this. i know it's insignificant to apple's bottom line, but their tactics against competitors seem to be growing increasingly unsavory.
i think in many tech patent cases if someone were found in violation, as the nexus apparently is, the normal strategy would be for the violator to pay the holder of the patent some licensing fees. maybe it doesn't always work out this way...
but even if licensing were an option and google and/or samsung were willing to pay to license the technology, with apple's very publicly stated goal of destroying android, i don't think they'd ever go along with it.
so this is basically bad for non-apple consumers and good for apple. i mean, it's rational that they'd try to maintain their competitive advantage, and even though multi-source search has existed in android as far back as donut and longer than that as a programming/computational task, i guess apple planted their flag first with this [IMO, obvious] patent
regarding the X1 carbon, ... i'm very excited about it myself. i currently have a T420 and thinkpads have great support for linux, which is my primary operating system. i'm just hoping they give the X1 carbon a decent display. the one on the T420 is pretty lousy.
They have a 256 gb ssd / i7 model for $1800, and a 128gb / i5 for a cheap $1300 (both are on Amazon, look for model number np900x4c). We played with one in a Best Buy before purchasing online, it definitely felt pretty comparable to the mba's I've used.
Just skimmed the review and that does indeed look like a fine device.
Completely unrelated: Why do vendors (including Apple) insist on plastering their ugly company logos on the back? Both the macbook and the zenbook would look much better without that white scar.
Branding in the strongest selling point of Apple products. They may have their flaws, but they're genius in their branding. They put an Apple logo in the back, for the same reason they give out Apple stickers for your car. For the same reason they put "sent from my iphone" at the end of an email. For the same reason their billionaire campaign insisted to "think different". Even their pixel placement choice has branding in mind. Apple engineering sacrificed multi-tasking to make sure scrolling could be displayed at 60fps, just so that holding a competing product "just doesn't feel like an Apple". That's ingenious branding being consistent at every layer of the company.
They want to you feel emotionally and better than others, and proud to show off the Apple logo. And they're the best in the world at doing this. That's why you saw all those posts angry at instagram when they launched for Android, claiming it wouldn't be as great now that the unwashed masses could touch it.
Maybe that's great for getting people to like the brand, but it's incredibly annoying to non-Apple users. Frankly, I think the whole "sent from my iPhone thing" is extremely obnoxious.
My roommate had a macbook freshman year. Whenever he used it at night (with the screen turned away from me), the stupid logo would light up the whole room. Really? Not only is it garish, but it's actively inconvenient.
I like what Thinkpad does here--they have a relatively unobtrusive logo in the corner with a red led for the dot over the i. It's cute and unobtrusive. My Vaio is also good in this regard--it has an elegant logo made up of metal on a matte blue background. Quite importantly, it does not light up. It might be a little pretentious, but it is elegant. It also has too many vowels, but that's not really related to the discussion :P.
There is a cut off for that, the moment the market hits a reasonable tipping point on that understanding, they will have to come up with something fantastic. Can't wait.
What do people think about Toshiba z930? Haven't done much research, just saw it (or the z830 - predecessor, not sure) in a shop and liked the look and feel (apparently lightest Ultrabook).
There are plenty of innovative laptops if you don't mind spending some money. Most of the options you see at stores like Best Buy are cheap consumer devices--of course they're not going to be innovative!
Take an example--I have a Vaio Z-series (and I've had it for a while now). It's lighter than an MBA (yay for carbon fiber), has two SSDs in Raid 0 and up to 1080p on a 13" screen. It also has a good touchpad and a dock with an external graphics card connected via a light peak port. That part is admittedly wonky without drivers (that is, it doesn't work great on Linux or Windows 8), but it is really cool nonetheless. It also looks just great, and nothing like a mac. If that isn't innovative, I don't know what is. You just don't see it competing with the $600-$800 Windows laptops at Best Buy.
There are some other similarly innovative laptops like Thinkpads that you can get. Apple is not the only company with interesting notebooks!
I'm getting Galaxy S3 instead of iPhone - easy decision now. Just more proof that shows that patents slow innovation, increase costs, and reduces/limits the amount of people who can get access to the technology; Innovation will occur if people have the tools they need to build the innovation, design new tools, and reach the public who would 'vote' on the technology by mechanisms like pre-buying. Patents need to go. People need to stop fearing competition. Controlled ecosystems are bad for everyone, including the people stressing over maintaining the control.
I've been using Macs since the 80s and I'm with you. I've felt so ashamed of what Apple has become I covered the Apple logo on my MacBook Pro. I use Linux instead of Mac OS already but that's more of a preference thing than anything else.
I'm doing this too. My current Mac is dying and it's going to be replaced with a PC. (If only ARM based laptops were available already).
I moved to Apple with OS X back in the G4 era on the basis of OS X, and it is going to be a pain to leave, but with the trends in OS X development being what they are it had to happen at some point.
Happily, there are some very compelling options on Linux these days. If you happen not to like Unity and Ubuntu, I suggest you check out KDE--the later iterations of KDE 4 are marvelous. I've been extremely happy with it.
Well, you chose to avoid good product because of the stupid ideology. Why stupid? Because you can easily find a reason to hate Google the same or even more (the whole FRAND thing e.g.).
OTOH, people are not rational, nothing new here so this love/hate boils down to subjective preferences rationalized a lot.
I like Apple because they make damn good products. Damn good products make them damn good money.
Google makes money from ads. I hate ads. But strangely enough I feel neutral about Google.
As for the patents and this case: it was said more than once there—hate the game, not the player.
Sure, the MBA is a good product. But most of its competitors are also good products: there's not clearly a best one, at least for my needs. Indeed, I've been wavering back and forth for over a month over what I should choose: each has its own set of pros and cons. These recent events have emphasized one of Apple's cons and pushed me to other choices.
I won't lose any sleep over the switch: I don't feel that I'm missing out on some life changing experience just for the sake of ideology. Now I'll likely end up with an ultrabook with a better screen but inferior battery life and build quality. A definite trade-off, but the amount it will affect my day to day life probably isn't significant.
> it was said more than once there—hate the game, not the player.
No. This line of argument is so dumb it makes my head hurt. The "players" choose to participate in the "game". Apple could have quite easily decided not to pursue injunctions against Samsung, but they did.
I can quite easily hate "the player" for choosing to play such an idiotic and stupid "game".
I don't think it's in any way unreasonable or stupid for people to avoid products of a certain company based on disagreement with that company's business policy, no matter the quality of those products.
I can't come up with something catchier than hate the game, not the player, but I think the game is always going to stay shitty if people support players who show no interest in changing the game.
I am not saying it is unreasonable, just that it is not rational. The whole disagreement thing is just what wee chose to pay attention to and what to ignore. You can take any tech company and paint it however you want just by cherry-picking.
I agree, actually: most tech companies have some blood on their hands (though I genuinely think it's fair to say Apple has had a particularly bad track record compared to its competitors, at least on offensive patent litigation).
That's why I'm constantly looking for new non-evil options, and my next phone is going to be B2G, if at all possible. Guess I won't be putting it on a Galaxy Nexus, though =)
Why would I hate Google for that? Motorola was cooperative and competitive with partners and despite all of their innovation they ended up -- like most of their traditional smartphone partners -- with most of their creations ending up in standards. Getting attacked by Apple and Microsoft they try to force a settlement with what they have. there is nothing in that that makes me dislike Motorola cum Google.
it was said more than once there—hate the game, not the player.
The xbox may be blocked because of critical, foundational patents, but I'm supposed to feel bad about the parties because they tried to be cooperative about them. The Galaxy Nexus is blocked because of laughable patents.
There is no question who the worse party is in this, and it's only a matter of time before something sticks and the iPhone/iPad is blocked from importation. We'll see how people like the game then.
Why would I hate Google for that? Motorola was cooperative and competitive with partners and despite all of their innovation they ended up -- like most of their traditional smartphone partners -- with most of their creations ending up in standards. Getting attacked by Apple and Microsoft they try to force a settlement with what they have. there is nothing in that that makes me dislike Motorola cum Google.
Actually, what really did Motorola in was years of getting ripped-off both in design and carrier sales wins by Samsung. Have a good look at the product line that Motorola sold from about 2000-2005. Then look at what Samsung was selling during the same period.
This is just what Samsung does. Good engineering, and let someone else do the design.
The xbox may be blocked because of critical, foundational patents, but I'm supposed to feel bad about the parties because they tried to be cooperative about them. The Galaxy Nexus is blocked because of laughable patents.
Apple's patents are "laughable" and Motorola's are "critical" and "foundational" because you're a software person, not a hardware person. You'll find that a lot of hardware patents, including Motorola's, suffer from the same obviousness when evaluated by EE's that Apple's do when evaluated by SE's.
This is laughable wrong. Motorola has never been cooperative with Microsoft. They are the ones being the aggressor and have used FRAND patents to do so. They've been nothing but underhanded at every opportunity.
And if Google/Motorola are so cooperative then why are the FTC/EU investigating them for anti-competitive behaviour ?
Microsoft sued Motorola after they couldn't extort them into making uncompetitive Windows Mobile devices. Motorola responded with standards-based patents and non-standards based patents, with the clear intention of trying to get a stalemate settlement. The "cooperative" part was that Motorola has thousands if not tens of thousands of patents that play a part in standards because they are a part of the whole moving things forward.
And if Google/Motorola are so cooperative then why are the FTC/EU investigating them for anti-competitive behaviour ?
Derpedeederp derp. The government investigates almost everything that any large multinational does. There are active investigations of Microsoft, Apple, Google, Oracle....if it's a big company there's probably an investigation of it. Secondly that EXACTLY goes to my original point -- Motorola made the "mistake" of daring to be a good innovation citizen before some upstarts came along and started extorting and patent trolling for every hilariously trivial patent.
1. Motorola is obligated to not use standards based patents against implementers of the standard. Under ANY circumstance. It undermines the entire foundation of the industry and without standards we all lose.
2. No government is investigating Microsoft or Apple for patent abuse. And it is ridiculous to assume that the government just investigates any multinational company.
You talked about:
"And if Google/Motorola are so cooperative then why are the FTC/EU investigating them for anti-competitive behaviour ?"
But now the goal post moved to patent abuse investigations, keep in mind that monopoly investigations and patent law can be engaged by diff state institutions, depending on the most effective engagement method, so you may have patent law dispute in the courts in any country and monopoly investigations conducted by an European entity. So while at any given moment, not having one corporation under investigation or defendent status does not push the innocent/guilty pendulum anywhere when acessing any given case. Or is it an indication of antagonistical reversable jurisprudence. The case at hand comes to mind.
Also, any multinational company is under the scrutiny of any government or substitutive supra governamental entity with attributed powers to do so and that is the way it will stay. There is nothing ridiculous about it. It is a needed lawful check for international law and the required balance for the implementation and usage of the Uniform Commercial Code.
If we're going to talk about obligations... I seem to recall that Microsoft and Apple had made some promises with respect to the Nortel patents they bought (triggered by a DoJ investigation).
I know, I know: no one cares about nerd ideologies. But I'll do my part and lower their monthly revenues by 0.00001%.