Seeking Advice - Apple or Windows PC

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
21

Firstly, I’ll address the ‘batterygate’. As Apple rightly states, batteries are a consumeable, and as they wear, performance can be more unpredictable. There was no nefarious plan to slow down phones. There was a decision made, incorrectly or otherwise that the best approach would be to ‘throttle’ the device to maintain stability as the battery aged. Where it all came unstuck was, 1. Apple did not communicate this in advance. 2. Apple did not initially give users the option to turn this function off or on as best suited them. As a result of those errors, all users, impacted or not have had the opportunity to replace their batteries at a substantial discount until the end of this year.

Performance has not, does not, and there is zero evidence to support the assertion that performance degrades with each iteration. Each new release of iOS and Mac OS included new features, new security, etc expected or demanded by consumers. The simple reality of life is that older processors, memory, graphics cards etc may not have the performance to run the new features at optimum speed. The claim of performance degradation is akin to those Win users who wailed about, to use your example, Win Vista degrading their PC’s. The reality was, the new features in Vista overwhelmed the vast majority of hardware more than a year or two old, and even did not support at all a good deal of older hardware/accessories. Truth is Vista was such a dog, it was the perfect example of bloatware. The ‘Performance degradation’ you refer to has been even more noticeable in the Win eco. Win3 to Win 95, 95 to 98… each variant inflicted pain, however while some was due to Ms’s sloppy code much was due to features and expectations outstripping the capabilities of all but the latest hardware.

The current iteration of iOS actually performs faster on any hardware that supports the previous version, so that puts the lie to ‘performance degradation.’ The same applies to Mojave. Granted, if your hardware doesn’t support specific features, those features will not work (Face ID). Mojave runs faster on my late 2012 Mac Mini than El Capitan or Sierra did.

Going back to hardware not supported by Win 10, it has nothing to do with the vast number of accessories available in the Win environment. We are talking equipment from major vendors stuck in the driver compatibility hell with each upgrade (even SP’s in some cases).

Of course, if you want to prevent ‘performance degredation’, ban software innovation and new features. (no move from Scrivener 2 to 3?)

22

I have both a Mac and Windows machines, and I prefer Mac most of the time (e.g. for Scrivener).

But with regards to obsolescence, one of my old Windows machines is going on 11 years, and it runs Win10 just fine. Outside of people who need raw grunt for, say, graphics-intensive tasks and can benefit by keeping up with regular hardware upgrades, I don’t think 6 years is actually that generous a time to be officially supported by the latest OS version. I don’t know if Apple have an official or even unofficial policy on how long it’s expected for a machine to be latest-OS-supported so the 6-year figure here could be arbitrary, but for what I suspect is the vast majority of people, 6 years of a computer’s life is – in my opinion – not that long in terms of what they probably need it to do.

23

Did you skip over the part where I said I’d benchmarked it?

Same hardware, fresh installs, noticeable deterioriation – on three separate sets of Mac minis and a MacBook Pro.

Using Boot Camp to run native Windows, or running Linux on the same hardware, I don’t see that same degradation. Solaris for a while had that same issue, but there it was an open secret that Solaris was being optimized for the hardware with higher numbers of processors, so all of the spinlocks and other kernel structures one had to have for effective large-scale SMP at that time were way too much overhead for simple 1-2 processor machines. Apple doesn’t have the same issue at work…but I do think that there is another common explanation for it.

I’ll trust my time and effort and data over anyone’s unsupported assertions.

Yes, and isn’t that curious that this is the first version of iOS that came out after BatteryGate? Given the PR problems Apple’s been having, it’s not a surprise that extra attention was paid to improving performance. I don’t think this is due to deliberate malfeasance – simple prioritization issues are enough to explain the issue. Vista is a perfect example of that – Vista RTM was slow as snot on a doorknob, to put it kindly, even on the latest, greatest, most supported hardware. Vista SP1 on the same hardware (and with the latest drivers) was a HUGE increase and actually got the most out of most hardware in ran on at that point, assuming they were running Vista-era drivers and not legacy XP drivers – because Microsoft made performance a top priority for the SP1 release.

It’s all too easy to fall into bad habits, and both Microsoft and Apple have not been as concerned about performance lately (although with Microsoft, at least, it tends to cycle – alternating upgrades to Windows 10 seem to tighten up performance and put a spring back into the step of my aging Surface Pro 3), although I suspect that it will be a priority for Apple for a little while. Only time will tell if it continues to be, though, especially now that they have current hardware refreshes. I suspect we’re going to see a hard die-off for support of older hardware in the next 3 macOS releases.

Not that I have a problem with that if it’s a clearly stated policy – I actually don’t think it’s reasonable, whether I’m paying for the software or not, to expect support for hardware that’s more than 5 years old if there’s stuff that substantially better that is available at a similar price point. I just think that needs to be made clear so user’s know up-front that they will be able to use this new device for X years at worst case, at which point they’ll fall off the upgrade train, and can make informed decisions about the life expetency of new purchases.

Linux (and to a certain extent Windows Embedded) is of course the special case, because so much of the use case for Linux is to run on specific combinations of hardware in embedded or consumer applications and appliances. Even there, though, the responsibility to keep the necessary compatibility shims in place falls on the groups who are monetizing the legacy hardware, not necessarily on the core kernel developers.

24

Microsoft’s policy used to be 10 years, and that bit them in the unmentionables with Windows XP. Which is why they don’t do it any more – the testing and support costs for keeping compatibility with hardware for that long are a stupid drain. Apple doesn’t have nearly the same issue thanks to having far fewer hardware variations to support, but they’ve been pretty arbitrary in the past, where they are not always consistent about updating hardware generations. If memory serves (and I freely admit I may not be remembering this correctly) there has been at least one release in the last decade where they supported the last two generations of hardware but that worked out to 4-year old hardware being left behind.

As I said in another post, I’d be fine with a cutoff of five years – for most applications, five years is more than adequate to recoup the cost of the purchase. I just want it to be transparent and announced and reliable, so that people who are about to drop $$ on new (and used) computing hardware have a consistent set of data to plan for. That $250 used deal on a laptop for college may not be so sweet if you know that you’re not going to be able to upgrade it in 2 more years.

25

Okay, I feel like I inadvertently started a war here! I understand the complexities of trying to engineer software that can adequately support hardware that can represent thousands of variations. I’m operations leader for a small technology firm that is vertically integrated much like Apple but on a micro-micro scale. We design custom hardware, develop the software to drive it, provide customer support, sales, and manufacture the hardware. I can’t imagine how difficult Microsoft’s job is, and another reason I believe Apple’s inclusive ecosystem may be a little more stable and predictable. Our products run on Windows devices as an external appliance. We support customers that have issues because they are using Windows PCs that are 5 or 6 years old that they have upgraded to recent versions of WinOS. I will say that our support volume dropped noticeably when Win8/8.1 was replaced with Win10.

There are times that hardware falls into obsolescence because supporting very old hardware may hold your new code back because it makes development too difficult or costly. We keep legacy hardware around so that we can test new code on our old hardware. But over time, that legacy hardware fails and replacement parts are no longer available! There comes a time that as a business, you must make a decision regarding your desire to take care of all your customers, including those still using very old legacy hardware and making a business decision to try and be as efficient as possible.

Chris

26

No I did not, however as that statement differs significantly from my own and other’s observations, I chose to ignore it.

Clearly you have a position, including conspiracy theories on Apple you will not be persuaded from, therefore I shall leave you to those.

27

Well, as just an average user who is new to Mac, it seems to me there’s more "have to " with Mac upgrades. As I’ve stated, I have two Windows machines running Win 7. I have no plans to upgrade them. They can keep right on running 7 until they die. My last Windows desktop did last more than 10 years and ran XP start to finish. I’ve got the beta of Scrivener 3 running on one of those Win 7 machines right now. However, I had to upgrade the OS on the first MacBook Pro I had in order to run either Scriv 3 or Vellum.

What came before XP? I’m pretty sure that was the first Windows system I used, and I ran it until I got a new machine with XP, so I’ve always let my Windows machines just chug along on whatever system they came with and was never forced to upgrade because a software wouldn’t run under the old system.

28

Oh, knock it off and stop reading your own baggage into what I wrote. Not every criticism of Apple is a conspiracy theory, True Believer.

I clearly said I didn’t believe it was deliberate and I offered examples of other software companies falling pretty to the exact same problem. Macs are nice machines, but Apple is not and has never been perfect, and I’m far from the first observer to note that they seem to be working through the same stages of software development mistakes and maturation that other companies have gone through before them.

29

Devinganger,

Thanks for sharing your observations. I always take away something useful from your posts.

Jim

30

Devin, I’ve had similar benchmark as you. Then i realized the missing key “for me”

In my case I had drivers for audio that were NOT being upgraded (or loaded properly, I never bothered to check) that resulted in some stupid compatibility issues. Once I started doing clean installs I always saw a perf improvement.

I will say that this is not an “apple” thing as I had the same issues with Linux, Solaris and window when specialized HW was involved. what i’ve found disturbing is that in recent years I’ve not been running specialized HW and all the OS STILL need a clean install.

That said, not everyone can be expected to comfortably do a clean install. To me this is a failure of our industry.

31

Hrm… I haven’t done a clean install in at least 5 iterations of Mac OS. Anecdotally, I’ve never noticed a slow-down after upgrades, except when they throw out the spotlight index and have to scan the entire hard drive to re-build it. Haven’t even noticed that slow-down in the last couple of upgrades–but flash drives are pretty snappy even under heavy I/O.

As to the original poster’s question, I think it really comes down to preference. I very much prefer the consistency in hardware coming from the same company that produces the OS; that means I never have to track down drivers for cards/chips that come with the computer when I do a major upgrade to the OS. If they don’t support my hardware, then at least I don’t have to deal with incompatibilities. Obviously, that doesn’t apply to external peripherals. I also prefer the consistency of their OS design, though I dislike the stark white and monochrome they adopted a few years ago… “dark mode” is a rather extreme about-face to that decision, but it’s been almost universally adopted by companies whose software I’ve purchased.

Software designed for the Mac tends to be consistent with their user interface guidelines, so I don’t tend to be as frustrated by 3rd-party software for my Mac as I get with Windows software. For instance, if I need to get to an application’s preferences, I bring it to the foreground, click on that application’s name in the menu bar, and then click on “preferences”. Every single application that I use has their preferences in the same place. On Windows, I have Tools->Options (Scriv v1), File->Preferences (Scriv 3), View->Toad Options (TOAD for Oracle), File->Options (MS Office apps), 3 vertical dots to the very right of the navigation bar->Settings…(Chrome). I mean… come ON!

I’m not going to argue with benchmarks, though I will point out that Apple moved to OS designs that increase UI responsiveness and cluster high-impact processes to save energy. The priority seems to be user experience and battery life, so what feels like the same or better performance to humans might not look like it from certain tests. (treehugger.com/clean-techno … dware.html). Whether or not the aforementioned benchmarks are accurate, I appreciate that they keep improving things like this that are invisible to the average user–maybe MS does the same, and I’m just not paying attention though.

I appreciate that I rarely have to delve into system maintenance. I got sick and tired of having to wipe-and-reinstall Windows way back when I had my own Windows computers, and likewise, I got very weary of trying to enable all my hardwarer under Linux only to break more than I fixed, wasting days researching how to configure X-windows, sound chips, microphones, run-level files buried in /etc/… For the most part, Mac OS gets out of my way and lets me actually do stuff that isn’t related to the OS itself.

One final bit of advice: If you can get hold of an older mac (even just a Mac Mini), and give it a test-run. I did that with my ex’s old white iBook way back and tried it out. I was hooked after a couple of weeks, and have never regretted investing in the Apple ecosystem ever since, but it could have been that I hated it. Buyer’s remorse can be awful.

32

Hi RDale,

Thank you for your insight and experiences. I do not want to budget for a new MacBook Pro. I saw that BestBuy will have the older version, MacBook Air 2017 on sale for Black Friday for $799. I’m worried about the screen resolution, though, and within my small circle of family and friends, no one has a MacBook Air post 2015 that I could take for a longer-term test drive.

We purchased our son a MacBook Pro 15 in 2015 that was at the top end of specs because he was going off to college to become a graphic artist. He loves his MacBook and it’s held up very well and I know he pushes it very hard for photo and video editing and Adobe Cloud stuff. His Retina screen is very nice and when I talked to him about his MacBook, the one thing he immediately called out was the Retina and the fact that he doesn’t suffer eyestrain, even after long hours of work. (He knows my eyes are terrible). So, my son’s advice? Get Retina but you don’t need a Pro. In my mind, this makes the older version of the Air a high-risk item.

One note about quality, we purchased the AppleCare warranty for Sam’s MacBook Pro and never needed to use it. During the same time, I had an MS Surface Pro 3 fail after 6 months of light use and had to be replaced with a refurb under warranty. An 18-month Dell M4800 with OpenGL card would BSOD after running small assemblies in Solidworks. We never got it to run well and would get very hot, so I switched to another M4800 that we purchased at the same time and it never had the problem, except that it had several keys that would fly off the keyboard. Which is strange considering that it always stayed in a dock and I used a remote keyboard. That one waited until I was in front of a bunch of agents from DHS/ICE to fly apart! Oh, and a Fujitsu 2in1, rated for Engineering students, the battery started failing after 12 months, though my wife uses it now, so long as it’s tethered to a wall. And yes, we did clean installs on the M4800 that would BSOD at the worst possible times.

I do feel like I would want more than 128GB of storage.

I have started looking for a lightly used MacBook Pro 2015 that has a Retina screen. If I can’t find a decently priced 2015 MBP Retina, I guess it will have to be a MBA 2018. A local store that is a certified Apple repair facility has a used 2012 MBP 15" but they want $799! They fired it up and for a 2012 model, it was amazingly fast. I would say its bootup was as fast as my new Alienware. But it had the old screen, not the Retina.

Everyone keeps saying that Apple is super high in cost compared to a Windows device. I’m not entirely sure that they are that far apart. At work, I started procuring Lenovo laptops for everyone because I had not been very happy with Dell over the last few years. None of them have had a single failure, and all are still operating fast. Anyway, Lenovo doesn’t have anything as thin as a MBA, but went with a Thinkpad T480. I chose 8GB ram, 256GB SSD, 8th Gen i5 U-series CPU at 1.6GHz, and QHD screen (Retina-like), For $29, I added the 2nd battery for about 15 hours of usage and the total and 3 year warranty with accidental damage. Total was $1901 - $493 in discounts = $1408. If I drop the screen to FHD, it reduces the cost $180. The biggest advantage, OS aside, is that the T480 has user upgradeable RAM and SSD. I think that with the 2nd battery, it will go longer than the MBA, too. The downside is Win10Pro, methinks.

Chris

33

These days, where I see the higher Apple cost is for expansion. Their prices for extra RAM and HD/SSD are insane. There are some decent reputable and reliable third-party suppliers that specialize in add-ons for Mac hardware that bring that down into the same range as for Windows machines and they are usually a bit better on the price/reputation ratio, actually – without all of the pain of having to do the research yourself for whatever PC variant you have.

34

Devin, I’ve never bought “real” apple parts unless I had a board failure. RAM, disks, CDROM are all standard components. I just wait for warranty expiration then buy reputable product on sale. Recently put in 500G SSD in MBP for less than $70 each. Talk about making things fast…

The key is just figuring out what the mac is really using. That’s where the hardware inspector (or whatever they call it now) is nice. :slight_smile:

35

Regarding hardware, that only works if the parts in question are modular. If the RAM or SSD are soldered onto the PCB, it is very difficult to replace them without damaging the component or adjacent components. Parts like that are machine placed and the boards are reflowed. It’s difficult to replace manually. Not saying impossible, but freakin hard with the right tools, which I have in my R&D lab.

Chris

36

Last night, I went back to BestBuy to look at the MBA 2017 vs. 2018 again. The local chap that has the 2-month old MBA 2017 contacted me and said he would take $640 and BestBuy’s Black Friday advertisement has it listed for $799. The price is so compelling, that I wanted to take another look.

Disappointingly, the MBA 2018 on display had a screen displaying softly colored zig-zag lines, and the cursor looked like a little box of zig-zag lines. The salesperson asked me if I needed help and of course, I said, “No, but your display Air 2018 needs some love.” It required two reboots but seemed to look normal afterward.

Side-by-side, going from the MBA 2017 to the MBA 2018, there’s really very little difference in the text resolution. I noticed that on the highest setting, the MBA 2017 seemed to be significantly brighter. Scrolling through text actually seemed to be faster on the MBA 2017, too.

Another area of consternation was the keyboards. Again, the MBA 2017 seemed to be much more comfortable than the MBA 2018 and the keys seem to be a little more spread out. I’m a 6’4" ogre with extra large manly man’s hands that have seen their fair share of manual labor. I can type >65 wpm, but my digits tend to need more room.

I wandered through the rest of the laptop offerings and only the MS Surface Book 2 tickled my fancy, but it’s more expensive than the MBA 2018.

Decisions, decisions.

Chris

37

Okay, I have narrowed this decision down to two machines. I’d love to hear from anyone that has used/own/owned both.

Option1:
7 week old MBA 2017 with 8GB ram and 128GB SSD with 1 year extended warranty from BestBuy. Private seller, $600. Warranty is transferable.

Option 2:
Mid 2015 MBP 13 with 8GB ram and 256GB SSD. Retina display. 163 charging cycles on the battery. Looks nearly new and well taken care of. Seller is original owner, student that had to move to a Windows PC to meet college requirements. They are asking $700 but are open to offers.

I’m leaning towards Option 2, but no warranty is worrisome. Which would you choose?

Thanks,

Chris

38

MBA. Not for the warnatee but use… if you’re not going to be doing high end computational computing then go for the convenience. Just use external HD or NAS for extending storage. iTunes and Photos are the only ones that I have to be “thoughtful” about when being portable.

39

MBP, because It has a much better screen.

Screen quality is my #1 priority. I’m not fussy about keyboards; I’m adaptable with my digit down-presses. Disk, memory are all sufficient on modern machines for writing – unless you capture 100s of Gbs of research images and audio, I guess. YMMV, of course.

40

I’d go for the MBA.

I used a 2011 13" MBA for years and absolutely loved it. I traded it in for a 2015 retina MBA. Except for editing photos—and even then I don’t use full retina display unless absolutely necessary—I haven’t found the retina screen to be that much better than the one on the MBA with my 70+ year-old eyes. I also preferred typing on it, because of the slight inclination of the keyboard.

That said, the MBP has extra ports and it might be easier to replace the SSID with a larger one if necessary, though I don’t know.

Mark