Too many compromises were made to make macbook thin (unreliable keyboard, cooling, power delivery, battery, ports, non removable SSD...). Apple should make a model that is a bit thicker without those compromises!
And my Asus does not have key fingerprints on screen...
Does your Asus have a glass screen? Do you carry it in a backpack where there is pressure on the screen? Mind you, this isn't a well known issue. I've had it happen to me once in a decade of owning and frequently traveling with these and my backpack was stuffed to the point that it might damage the screen.
I disagree about making it thicker. The newest MacBook Pros are already extremely thick and heavy. I don't want to be carrying around a brick just because some people don't wash their hands or clean their keyboards every once in a while.
Screen on my Zenbook has touch layer, that makes glass a bit thicker I guess. And yes I keep it in stuffed in backpack and sometimes drop it. It is a tool, not museum exponate!
I had other laptops that left fingerprints. But Macbook Air had glass so thin it would randomly pop from temperature difference (well known issue)!
Nobody is forcing you to carry brick around. But some people like to carry brick and Apple should make a new model just for them (MacBrick). Is "wash your hands before use" mentioned in macbook manual?
And how do you even clean keyboard on Macbooks? That thing falls apart with a bad look, and it costs like $800 to replace. I can not imagine removing key caps just to clean it up!
Apple has made excellent portable dev workstations in the past. After the release of the Unibody Macbook Pro though, the focus of their hardware and software focues far, far away from developers. The new 14"/16" lineup is a good return to form, but in the context of how developer-unfriendly modern MacOS is it feels pyrrhic.
If you don't relate to someone's opinion, you don't have to justify Apple's stance against it.
This is where you lose me. Go to any tech company with pockets deep enough to afford whatever hardware its employees want and the vast majority will have MacBook Pros running macOS.
Sure, and I've seen it. I've also been responsible for writing the Mac-specific workarounds, and it's not very fun sourcing the correct version of bash from the incorrect install location, or fighting Homebrew consistency across different arches.
MacOS is simply shit for development. Even garbage proprietary Unix like Oracle Linux come with uniform packaging and up-to-date coreutils. MacOS had it's chance to be a developer platform (Xserve) and it just highlighted the most greedy, dysfunctional parts of Apple. It needs tough love to improve, because as-is it feels like Apple is ignoring the industry.
I do agree with you that pretty linux is the only sane developer environment, but it’s not exactly rocket science to make proper linux available for OSX, while still benefiting from the all-around apple ecosystem.
God I'd hope not. For programming, I cannot think of a single reason you'd want a glass display over a matte one. Maybe if you program in direct sunlight? Even still...
I'll go ahead and agree with the other commenter. Part of why I no longer buy Apple hardware is because of these compromises that they assume I want. Trying to bridge the gap between a "creator-class" laptop and a programming machine hasn't worked out hardware-wise (see: Touch Bar). Paying $500 extra for nano-textured glass that shatters the same from a waist-height fall isn't a solution, either.
I program and I prefer glass displays. It's more uniform, easier to clean, colors are more vibrant, and is easier on the eyes. I opt to not use an external display because most reasonably-priced ones are matte/non-glass and have awful color uniformity.
I find the glare and reflectivity of glass displays to be more difficult on the eyes and less uniform. Also, since I don't do much color-sensitive work, I've never really run into calibration issues. If anything, it makes the device much harder to use in low-brightness scenarios.
It doesn't bother me since other manufacturers fill this gap, but I'd like to see more options regardless.
Too many compromises were made to make macbook thin (unreliable keyboard, cooling, power delivery, battery, ports, non removable SSD...). Apple should make a model that is a bit thicker without those compromises!
And my Asus does not have key fingerprints on screen...