So, how's it been going the past few months you might be asking. Well, lets say .. I still don't regret having bought a MacBook. Up to this point actually, back in January I was thinking, I may very well be crying out loud for a sudden replacement wishing my old Linux installation back in an instant. Yet, that is not the case. Well, mostly. Lets break it down:
- Power Management: The power management on this thing is pretty much the best I have seen on any laptop or operating system EVER. I don't know what Apple does different from all the other vendors, Microsoft or the Linux folks .. but they're doing it right. I hardly ever get to realize my laptop even comes equipped with a fan. And even when it does come up from time to time it doesn't really stay on all the long while still working at reasonable and tolerable noise levels. Then there's is the automated screen brightness adjustment, the turning down of wifi and bluetooth signal strengths whenever there's an access point or device in range that doesn't require a huge amount of signal power to get ahold of and last but not least the straight out stunning sleep/wakeup times. Seriously, my laptop is able to go to sleep in a matter of 2 - 4 seconds (depending on the attached peripherals (Hello USB-Bus!)) and it does wake up from suspend to RAM in a matter of 1 - 3 seconds. I call that astoninishing. Its amazing really. Outstanding. Plus, I stopped worrying about taking a charger to work or for that matter .. anywhere I go. Under ideal conditions the battery lasts for a little over 6 hours (bluetooth/wifi turned off, screen brightness at its lowest, moderate use) and even with just a brink of power left before going dead on me I can still suspend the laptop, take it back home, attach the power cord to it and continue working immediately. And in the unlikely event it should really be running out of juice, Apple's very own "Safe Sleep" kicks in (basically, thats what Apple calls "hibernation") automatically (yes, you don't have to trigger anything) which always keeps the laptop in the safest yet most convenient power state. All in all, just the power management alone is LIGHT YEARS ahead of what any other commercial opponent or free operating system (sorry Linux!) has to offer.
- Sidenote: Yes, I know, Linux doesn't have all the vendor support Apple and Microsoft can build upon and its so difficult and frustrating etc. Stop the yammering already. I know. I've been (and still am!) and avid support, developer and user of Linux myself. But from a user perspective, Apple's take is the real deal. And if Linux is unable to overcome the obstacles lying it its way .. its too bad. But its not going to change the facts. Period. Welcome to the real world.
- Trackpad/Clickpad/Touchpad/WHATEVERpad: I've heard it be called many different names. Yet, in the end, they all annotate one single feature of my MacBook that cannot be beaten by any other laptop on sale these days: Its formidable touchpad. Which has become my only pointing device. The one and only. I really don't know how I could ever live without mouse gestures in the past. Because right now, scrolling with two fingers, changing windows with a three finger swipe or getting to my desktop putting in a fourth is pretty much what I'm doing all day long. And its so intuitive, easy and thought through .. I do not what to use anything else for moving my mouse cursor for the rest of my life. Even the little things like palm, finger and swipe detection work stunningly good (the software maybe gets one in a hundred actions wrong). Its a blizz .. and every time I deal with another laptop I come to think how I could live with any other touchpad up to that point, no, how I could ever even endure the mere existence of any other input devices (sorry,clit mice!) I had to deal with in the past. The touchpad's vendor, Synaptics, has promised to offer the same hardware option to other OEM manufacturers by fall this year. Lets hope they deliver on that promise. Otherwise I'll have to stick with Apple for the rest of my life.
- MacOS: Okay, to be honest, if I had to come up with a ranking of user interfaces for computer based hardware or software that is ment to act as such it'd be: Xfce > MacOS > any other Linux-based GUI > any other GUI > a baseball bat > Windows. Yes, MacOS is that good. It does a very solid job, its stable, its fast, it looks good. There are just enough free, open-source applications out there to satisfy my needs. But, to be honest, I do miss my Xfce. I miss the way I could tweak it to suit my exact needs, I miss Thunar, I miss the interface not getting in my and I actually loath the way Apple rubs their attitude and approach to GUI productivity in your face all the fucking time. Every time I come across a bump in user interaction with the GUI, and I go and try to find a solution I usually end up with "No, that is not possible because its ment to work this way instead".
Hm, okay. How should I put this?
NO BITCH! DEAD FUCKING WRONG!
Just because you're too stupid to realize there might be other ways of doing it than the ones Apple thought of in the first place doesn't mean there is not other way! The software installed on my computer should serve me and not the other way around. And if I don't like the way it behaves there are two different approaches: I make it behave the way I want it to behave. Or, I through it out. I cannot do that with any of the core components within MacOS like Finder or iTunes. Yet, Apple also made sure I cannot make them work the way I want them to work. And that is utterly wrong. Because I know Xfce. Guys, you don't even how much your work should be appreciated and loved. Just know, I'd take Xfce over anything any day. Even Apple's precious MacOS .. for obvious reasons.
More to follow soon.