Form over(priced) Function

Writing this article makes me sad. It’s like my dog, if I had a dog, had gone and killed next doors pet rabbit. Not my doing, but still saddens me.

When it comes to techie things I’ve always tried to be fairly agnostic and go for the best tool for the job when it comes to choosing a platform or manufacturer. After rage quitting Windows XP many moons ago after a nasty virus infection I went to Linux. Unfortunately I arrived at a time when Linux was mired in package dependency hell and the desktop applications really weren’t mature enough. So I bit the bullet and bought my first Apple computer. It was a PowerPC based Mac Mini & I loved it.

Since then I’ve used MacBooks. My current machine is the first aluminium unibody model from late 2008 packing a massive 4Gb memory and helped along by an SSD upgrade. And it’s fine. Just about fast enough for all I need, including Xcode development work.

But being pre-retina it’s a bit of a struggle to develop user interfaces for retina iPhones - when simulating an iPhone for example, only a quarter of the phone screen fits on my laptop screen. It’s also the first model that isn’t able to run the new macOS Sierra operating system.

So I reckoned it was time for an upgrade. I’d saved some money in anticipation of the new MacBooks being announced. I watched the event ‘live’ on Apple TV as they were revealed, and by the end of it I had my head in my hands.

Apple, you dicks.

I was geared up to by a new 15” Macbook Pro for pretty much any price, within reason.

You priced them outside reason.

I don’t give a monkeys about how thin it is, or how heavy it isn’t. It’s a computer, not an After Eight fucking mint. It’s a tool that should be able to do stuff. The doing of said stuff isn’t helped by removing all the ports used to connect it to other things that do other stuff.

MacBook Pros were the tools of choice for most iOS developers, a huge number of Photoshoppers and a whole bunch of musical type too. See that? I called it a TOOL. It’s used to create things.

By turning it into some flouncy extension of Jony Ive’s inner being or some such crap, Apple have stuck two fingers up to all those people who needed something useful.

So what do I do?

Well, Linux isn’t for me. Windows is looking more interesting, but I need Xcode. So it looks like my only real options are a second hand retina MBP, or stick with my current model.

If anyone is selling, let me know. I have a stack of cash waiting that Apple don’t seem to want.