[slantyyz]

>> Apple has been the butt of jokes at least since 2008 when I first got my first Apple product (an old 17" MacBook Pro). Back when I was looking at laptops then, I saw the same complaints that I see about the new MacBook Pro: too expensive, specs aren't good enough, etc., etc. None of this is new.

But actually some of it is new. I go back to the Apple ][ days, so I've seen my share of disdain of Apple products from people who weren't users of Apple products.

A lot of the uproar in the past several months, however, has come from vocal Apple users who feel let down.

[nilkn]

I even saw complaints about MacBook keyboards back then. RAM from Apple was not just limited but hilariously expensive.

Even the controversial use of new ports or removal of old ones is not unfamiliar in the history of Apple.

I'm not trying to defend every decision Apple has been making, and I don't necessarily agree with them all myself. But, honestly, it mostly feels like business as usual to me.

[slantyyz]

For the Macbook keyboard complaints - that was for a new product and didn't affect a lot of existing customers on the higher selling Macbook Air or Macbook Pro users.

The removal of ports with the first iMac happened when Apple had a much smaller customer base in a different era. Nobody was looking at Apple under a microscope the way they are today.

I may not like the direction Apple has taken (which caused me to switch a couple of years ago) but I don't have a problem with it. They are following the money. Who can blame them for that?

But anecdotally speaking -- since the 2016 Macbook Pro announcement, there have been more-than-usual negative Apple headlines (many of them being from Mac using bloggers) trickle into the HN front page, and I have never ever seen so many comments by Mac using HN'ers looking for non-Mac alternatives. I get that HN'ers are probably a small percentage of Mac users, but I also tend to think HN'ers are probably technology influencers in their social circles as well.