<story><title>Apple kills a Kickstarter project</title><url>http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/20/apple-kills-a-kickstarter-project-portable-power-project-pop-refunding-139170-to-backers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eropple</author><text>&lt;i&gt;This is why I don&apos;t understand why so many hackers these days like to use apple products.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Avoid if possible.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s the thing. I can&apos;t. Because I want a computer I don&apos;t hate. There&apos;s nobody else who makes a machine I want to spend 8+ hours a day working and playing on.&lt;p&gt;There are some PC manufacturers where I can get some of what I want, but I&apos;ve yet to see one where I can get all of it--I like Lenovo&apos;s build quality and aesthetic, for example, but their laptops are universally underspecced for what I want (if your only GPU is Intel, you are not getting my money) and I can&apos;t get a Retina display, which I now consider &lt;i&gt;mandatory&lt;/i&gt;, anywhere else. And, while we&apos;re at it, if you&apos;re significantly heavier than my rMBP and don&apos;t provide at least competitive battery life, you&apos;re out too. I carry around enough crap as it is.&lt;p&gt;Worse, there are &lt;i&gt;no&lt;/i&gt; operating systems other than OS X that fulfill my needs of a pleasant-to-use Unix/Linux system--certainly no Linux distribution comes close on the &quot;pleasant-to-use&quot; part; I&apos;d rather use Windows 7 and Cygwin than any Linux desktop I&apos;ve been subjected to in the last five years.&lt;p&gt;For me it&apos;s the same as it was with iOS--until Android 4.0 there was simply no worthy competition to iOS as far as I was concerned, but 4.x is fantastic and I switched over because it gave me the environment I don&apos;t hate &lt;i&gt;plus&lt;/i&gt; the ability to mess around and customize it to my liking. But the first part is more important. If there was a Linux distribution with Apple levels of attention to detail and a modicum of taste--and that doesn&apos;t mean &quot;looks like OS X&quot;, something different could be fine so long as it was designed for human beings instead of neckbeards and was uncompromising in its attention to detail--I&apos;d probably be there. There isn&apos;t (and very well may never be), so I&apos;m not.</text></item><item><author>readme</author><text>This is why I don&apos;t understand why so many hackers these days like to use apple products.&lt;p&gt;Apple is the antithesis of the hacker ideal. They&apos;re just as bad as Microsoft.&lt;p&gt;I mean, seriously. Have you ever been to a radioshack? Multi-charging devices are a common product. Yet apple will have none of it. It&apos;s clearly an anti-competitive measure aimed at making sure they&apos;re your only supplier.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, apple&apos;s chargers suck. They deliberately have a weaker rubber sleeve around the end of laptop charger cables because it looks aesthetically nice. It&apos;s been proven that it&apos;s weaker than the conventional rubber joints on most laptop chargers, but they don&apos;t change it, because they value aesthetics over functionality.&lt;p&gt;Avoid if possible.&lt;p&gt;/me realizes he&apos;s using an ipod shuffle. oh well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>w1ntermute</author><text>&amp;#62; Worse, there are no operating systems other than OS X that fulfill my needs of a pleasant-to-use Unix/Linux system--certainly no Linux distribution comes close on the &quot;pleasant-to-use&quot; part; I&apos;d rather use Windows 7 and Cygwin than any Linux desktop I&apos;ve been subjected to in the last five years.&lt;p&gt;Sounds to me like this is just a matter of what you&apos;re used to. From my experience, OS X&apos;s UI is the last thing anyone would &lt;i&gt;want&lt;/i&gt; if they weren&apos;t used to it. The window management is pretty damn horrible. OTOH, Linux has a variety of window managers with many innovative paradigms.&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; I like Lenovo&apos;s build quality and aesthetic, for example, but their laptops are universally underspecced for what I want (if your only GPU is Intel, you are not getting my money) and I can&apos;t get a Retina display, which I now consider mandatory, anywhere else.&lt;p&gt;I don&apos;t know what you&apos;re doing with your machine that makes Lenovo machines underspecced, but for web and Android development, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon fits the bill. I wrote about it here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4848375&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4848375&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want discrete graphics, that is available in other models, such as the T series, IIRC. However, for anything other than gaming or video editing, integrated graphics really is enough. I personally prefer not having discrete graphics, as it keeps me from playing games.&lt;p&gt;The only thing missing is retina support, but you have the advantage of a lighter and thinner laptop than the MBP. It&apos;s no different from the MBA in that respect, with the added advantage of a 14&quot; screen in the same body size as the 13&quot; Air.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple kills a Kickstarter project</title><url>http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/20/apple-kills-a-kickstarter-project-portable-power-project-pop-refunding-139170-to-backers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eropple</author><text>&lt;i&gt;This is why I don&apos;t understand why so many hackers these days like to use apple products.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Avoid if possible.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s the thing. I can&apos;t. Because I want a computer I don&apos;t hate. There&apos;s nobody else who makes a machine I want to spend 8+ hours a day working and playing on.&lt;p&gt;There are some PC manufacturers where I can get some of what I want, but I&apos;ve yet to see one where I can get all of it--I like Lenovo&apos;s build quality and aesthetic, for example, but their laptops are universally underspecced for what I want (if your only GPU is Intel, you are not getting my money) and I can&apos;t get a Retina display, which I now consider &lt;i&gt;mandatory&lt;/i&gt;, anywhere else. And, while we&apos;re at it, if you&apos;re significantly heavier than my rMBP and don&apos;t provide at least competitive battery life, you&apos;re out too. I carry around enough crap as it is.&lt;p&gt;Worse, there are &lt;i&gt;no&lt;/i&gt; operating systems other than OS X that fulfill my needs of a pleasant-to-use Unix/Linux system--certainly no Linux distribution comes close on the &quot;pleasant-to-use&quot; part; I&apos;d rather use Windows 7 and Cygwin than any Linux desktop I&apos;ve been subjected to in the last five years.&lt;p&gt;For me it&apos;s the same as it was with iOS--until Android 4.0 there was simply no worthy competition to iOS as far as I was concerned, but 4.x is fantastic and I switched over because it gave me the environment I don&apos;t hate &lt;i&gt;plus&lt;/i&gt; the ability to mess around and customize it to my liking. But the first part is more important. If there was a Linux distribution with Apple levels of attention to detail and a modicum of taste--and that doesn&apos;t mean &quot;looks like OS X&quot;, something different could be fine so long as it was designed for human beings instead of neckbeards and was uncompromising in its attention to detail--I&apos;d probably be there. There isn&apos;t (and very well may never be), so I&apos;m not.</text></item><item><author>readme</author><text>This is why I don&apos;t understand why so many hackers these days like to use apple products.&lt;p&gt;Apple is the antithesis of the hacker ideal. They&apos;re just as bad as Microsoft.&lt;p&gt;I mean, seriously. Have you ever been to a radioshack? Multi-charging devices are a common product. Yet apple will have none of it. It&apos;s clearly an anti-competitive measure aimed at making sure they&apos;re your only supplier.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, apple&apos;s chargers suck. They deliberately have a weaker rubber sleeve around the end of laptop charger cables because it looks aesthetically nice. It&apos;s been proven that it&apos;s weaker than the conventional rubber joints on most laptop chargers, but they don&apos;t change it, because they value aesthetics over functionality.&lt;p&gt;Avoid if possible.&lt;p&gt;/me realizes he&apos;s using an ipod shuffle. oh well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jarcoal</author><text>&quot;Stuck with Apple&quot; has been the story of my computing life.&lt;p&gt;If another company can come along and provide a similar experience, I&apos;ll move over, but at this point no one is even close.</text></comment>