[coldtea]

>I like Anandtech but they have come into criticism recently, from some of their long-time readers, for fawning over Apple products.

Which, instantly, should be reason enough to understand that said criticism is BS.

Apple products are among the best in the industry, period. Not just from the industrial design part of it, but overall: coherence of product vision, attention to important characteristics for the target market (battery time, portability, weight), quality machining and materials, attention to small details (from multitouch touchpad to magsafe adaptor and from backlit keyboard to magnetic, non protruding, lid hinge).

These people think that because they are not speced and designed like gaming PCs they are not worthy ("I can have a better GPU for less money in my custom box, and with xeon lights on the sides too).

And they attribute their popularity to some BS "reality distortion" effect, ignoring the fact that hardcore hackers, prominent programmers and old school neckerbeards, from Rob Pike, DHH, and Duncan Davidson to Jamie Jawinsky and Miguel De Icaza (the frigging founder of the Gnome desktop) down to Linus Torvalds, who waxes poetically about his MacBook Air as the best in the market.

So, "fawning over Apple" justs translates to "did some favorable reviews of products, instead of making up BS reasons to dislike them".

[yapcguy]

Rob Pike wrote a blog post "Thank you Apple" (sarcasm) because of the problems he was having with his iMac and Apple's software.

http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/09/thank-you-apple.ht...

Linus Torvalds is said to be using the ChromeBook Pixel as his primary machine.

http://www.geek.com/chips/linus-torvalds-is-making-the-chrom...

As for Miguel De Icaza, he's eating his own dog food, as he now makes his money selling an IDE for iOS development, so of course he's going to choose the Mac because that's where the toolchain is.

[coldtea]

>Rob Pike wrote a blog post "Thank you Apple" (sarcasm) because of the problems he was having with his iMac and Apple's software.

Half of it it's about how it's Apple's fault that he didn't have a USB to boot off, so he tried to boot of a (camera) CF card (unsupported) and then an old Mac that wasn't up to running the latest OS version. Because Apple should consider what olders machines an OS supports not on hardware specs needed by the new OS, but on the needs of people upgrading their OS without a USB that want to use their older machine as a firewire devices (huh?). It's like the kind of complaints you read on Tripadvisor ("the bell boy didn't smile enough to me", "the bedsheets where not the exact Pantone blue they had on the hotel website" etc).

>http://www.geek.com/chips/linus-torvalds-is-making-the-chrom...

Yes, but he said a MBA just until then, of which he writes on his Google+ page. Also, if you read the article, what he solely likes about the Pixel is the screen resolution. And he dislikes its weight. He looks like a perfect candidate for the inevitable retina MBA.

>As for Miguel De Icaza, he's eating his own dog food, as he now makes his money selling an IDE for iOS development, so of course he's going to choose the Mac because that's where the toolchain is.*

Well, it's not just that. He also wrote a post about why he moved to OS X, and how he got dissillusioned with the Linux desktop prospects.

[leephillips]

From now on when people ask me why I use Linux instead of OSX and why I refuse to install closed-source, copy-protected software, I'm going to send them to Rob Pike's eloquent description of his self-inflicted torture.

[coldtea]

Self-inflicted sums it about nice. He didn't have a USB drive (needed for installation), so he tried a few offbeat methods which didn't work, and he didn't have a bootable backup image (so he had to mess with a lengthy copying process). The only legit thing in his complaints is that Time Machine wouldn't let him restore off his Time Machine backup. The other stuff is self-inflicted.

[hollerith]

OK, but you should know that Pike likes Linux even less than he likes OS X.

[leephillips]

http://store.apple.com/us/reviews/MC747LL/A/apple-45w-magsaf...

EDIT: rsynnott, below, has an excellent point.

[coldtea]

Well, FWIW, I have had 3-4 magsafe cords (MBA, MBP, MBPr) and have used them from 5 (MBP) to 3 (MBA) to 1 year (MBPr) without issue.

I've had other parts crap on me though, e.g a battery after 2-3 years of use that had to be replaced. Also had an iMac (sold now), which had a faulty DVD (also replaced).

The thing is, those things happen to ALL production runs, there are some % of defective units. You can be Apple, IBM, Dell or BMW, and you still get this. I've had "upmarket" IBM hard disks die on me for example ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGST_Deskstar ).

And, for tens of millions of machines sold, you only get to read about the far fewer faulty ones on such problem forums (well, duh!) -- so it's not much to get an accurate picture on.

I like to do extensive research before I buy something (I buy lots of tech gear, from stuff like DSLRs to Audio interfaces), and if I gave much promimence to the occasional forum complaints, I wouldn't have bought anything at all, because there are always people that have issues with any product you search. I prefer to stick to reviews, seeing units in action from friends and in the store, etc. Case in point, my latest buy, a Focusrite Scarlett interface. Pages of complaints about strange audio glitches with Mountain Lion / iMacs etc in audio forums. Have been working 100% fine for me.

[rsynnott]

The trouble with reviews on that sort of product is that almost nobody has any reason to ever write a good one, because everyone writing one is buying the thing because their old one broke. Unless you have a product that _never ever fails_, reviews on spare parts are always going to be pretty awful.

[AnthonyMouse]

It does seem to have been a design defect in this case:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts4127

[dsuth]

Which Apple is fixing with a free replacement policy. There was a similar glitch with 2010-era MacBook Pros, which was uncovered in a new OS or firmware version in 2013 - 3 years later. They fixed mine (complete replacement of the main logic board) free of charge, 2 years out of warranty.

Even their known defects make Apple come out smelling like roses. Contrast that with obvious design defects in other, cheaper PC laptops, which get ignored or refused at the 3rd party retailers they come from, and it makes Apple a pretty simple recommendation for power users and casual users both. Nobody I've recommended Apple laptops to has been disappointed.