[fnord123]

Reboot for an upgrade happens by holding a spin lock until it overheats and reboots. This happens every time on multiple computers so I think it's intentional(?) but the crash reports are pretty wild.

No official package manager.

The Macbook cases ground through the user when they're on an insulated surface (there is no ground pin on the Macbook power adapters).

Audio crackles when the machine grounds through the user. Makes speakers hum.

I guess some of these are hardware issues.

[shawnz]

They are grounded if you use the "power adapter extension cable" (not shipped with the unit): https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/product/MK122LL/A/power-adapte...

[simondotau]

Why don't Apple offer grounded duckheads? For that matter, why haven't any third parties made grounded duckheads? This has been irritating me for the past decade or more.

The ground connection, where available, occurs through the metal stud which the duckhead slides into. Correct me if I'm wrong, but even the UK (Type G) duckhead doesn't connect ground even though the physical ground pin is mandatory.

I know that most DC adapters are unearthed, but my lived experience is that you can often feel electrovibration in the aluminium Macbook chassis when ungrounded and it goes away when the Apple DC adapter is grounded.

[jim-jim-jim]

It's not just your experience. When using the Apple-supplied charger, the surface of the macbook feels slightly fuzzy, and even delivers minor shocks.

[asddubs]

getting zapped by ~50/100v (depending on what voltage your country uses) through the x rated capacitor, at a very low current. I don't use macbooks, but tried very hard to find a usb charger that actually has a ground prong for the same reason, and they seem to straight up not exist.

It's also weird to me, since they have exposed metal and a transformer winding shorting could lead to passing through line voltage to the usb port/your phone chassis. So how does it count as double insulated?

[cutthegrass2]

I'm so glad you mentioned this. I thought it was just me!

[ctime]

The UK/Ireland 3 prong duckhead is grounded. I have no idea why third parties haven't produced grounded versions, other than the obvious (no demand and anyone who cares has a solution, use the extension cable).

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Replacement-Adapter-Duckhead-Universa...

[simondotau]

Are you sure?

https://thisbeast.com/how-to-avoid-electric-charge-on-macboo...

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/17575/how-to-prope...

[cassianoleal]

It is most certainly not. The ground is done over the round pin that slides into the duckhead. If you check the rail where the pin slides in, it's all plastic.

The extension cable is the only one that's grounded.

[thombles]

They used to, in Australia at least. I can't remember if it came with my iBook G4 or one of the Intels soon afterward, but out of the box I got both a two-prong stub that attaches directly to the brick and a ~1.5m cable that goes to a three-prong plug. I sold the original laptop long ago but kept the old grounded cable all the way up to my current work MBP. Personally the buzzing drives me nuts.

The first time I noticed it I was a bit worried about it all. I had a volt stick from work (a safety device to identify live wiring) and surprisingly it illuminated when I brought it near the metal chassis of my macbook. Some further tests with an oscilloscope showed that it was floating a good couple of hundred volts, but the capacitance was so low that the energy payload was never going to do any harm to a human. I don't care, I still just ground the thing.

[simondotau]

The no-longer-standard extension cable is properly grounded, the duckhead (what you called a "stub") has never been. This is the case in all countries including Australia, where I live.

[ashtonkem]

It’s kind of interesting that it’s not a code requirement. I presume that the power charger is double insulated, hence the option for 2 prongs, but the laptops sure aren’t double insulated.

[jonwest]

I feel so stupid that I was chasing down audio hum issues for a while and even though I knew it was ground related I didn’t even clue in to use the 3 prong adapter.

[fnord123]

This is Emporers new clothes territory. How can a >2k EUR machine ground through the user unless they purchase extra add-ons. I don't know why there's not a class action law suit on this.

[shawnz]

It doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I never noticed any issues when using the ungrounded adapter. I think it is pretty conventional for most modern electronics to use a floating ground.

[astrange]

> Reboot for an upgrade happens by holding a spin lock until it overheats and reboots. This happens every time on multiple computers so I think it's intentional(?) but the crash reports are pretty wild.

That's a watchdog kernel panic (maybe). Shouldn't be seeing that unless you have misbehaving NFS mounts or something.

[fnord123]

Yes, it's a watchdog kernel panic which takes place after the fans spin up. No NFS mounts here.

[frupert52]

I have them happen too (for no particularly discernible reason)

[astrange]

Well, you can always set up a coredump server and report it with Feedback Assistant…

[fnord123]

I do this dutifully with each reboot.

[davidbarker]

I’m not sure if you’re describing the same issue I had, but whenever my MBP (15”, 2018) would restart during an update (and sometimes just a regular restart), I would get the progress bar after entering my password. The fans would then spin up, the machine would get ridiculously hot, and the machine would restart. It was an endless loop.

Usually, I was able to get it to complete whatever it was trying to do and log me in by holding it directly in front of my air conditioning unit (this was as ridiculous as it sounds), but a few weeks ago even that didn’t work. I had to completely wipe the machine and reinstall macOS. It’s been fine so far.

[wpearse]

I just had a similar endless loop on update (Catalina to Big Sur) last week. Apple guided me to do a T2 firmware update which bricked the machine. Sent it in for service.

Logic board was replaced "under warranty" (it's a 3 year old machine with no Apple Care!).

[mmastrac]

> The Macbook cases ground through the user when they're on an insulated surface (there is no ground pin on the Macbook power adapters).

Oooh, I had fun with this one on an airplane. Kept getting shocks to my funny bone.

[hokumguru]

Woah is that why it feels like my MacBook is humming sometimes when I touch it? Wondered this for years.

[somedude895]

Yes! I've been wondering what was up with that since forever! Weird that they say the power adapter doesn't have a ground pin though because the one of my 2019 MBP does in Switzerland.

[vultour]

Not sure how the charger looks in Switzerland, but if it's modular (you can swap the plug), does it have a third connection where it attaches to the brick? The ones in UK have 3 prongs but only 2 connections.

[mdisibio]

> No official package manager.

That's the app store. It just needs to be extended to deliver a wider range of things like CLIs or system extensions.

[zepto]

What do you want from an ‘official’ package manager?

[smoldesu]

For one, it would at least solve the issue of MacOS' coreutils being perpetually outdated. Secondly, it would be a nice way for developers to skip the burning dumpster fire otherwise known as the App Store when distributing basic apps, without having to download untrusted third-party software.

As for specific features, I'd really like to see a list of all the different MacOS components so I can remove the things I don't care about (iMessages, Photos, Facetime, etc.) like I can do on all my Linux boxes. It would be nice to have integration with MacOS' various distribution formats too, and while we're asking I'd love to see a declarative approach like NixOS, that would really put MacOS head-and-shoulders above your average Linux distro.

[cpuguy83]

How would a official package manager solve packages being out of date? Apple has a means to deliver those updates already. If they had an interest in doing so, they'd update them. So it stands to reason it would be up to the community to deal with this, as it does now.

[vajrabum]

A real uninstall capability would be a basic starting point.

[zepto]

You aren’t the person I asked. From your previous comments, it’s obvious that you want MacOS to be more like Linux. I was curious if there are other reasons someone might have.

[fnord123]

Annoint brew. It feels like a total hack that you need an open source project which gets meagre funding (I tishinkbthey donate some hardware) is the only way to get a >2k machine to be useful for development.

[diffeomorphism]

Not the person above, but I just want it to be official/blessed. Same as with winget vs chocolatey. Same as with netflix vs torrents. I want one and only one main place to look. The other options might be "better" in some aspect, but being standard/official/"the one" is a huge benefit.

Every other OS, be it windows, android, ios, linux, *bsd,... has a package manager included. Mac is the only hold out.