Today, I am ashamed of owning many Apple products, despite them being so well built…
Might literally consider spending thousands of dollars and countless hours to switch to freedom enabling hardware.
What’s the alternative for Apple Silicon laptops, guys?
Apple’s walled garden isn’t the software, as many suggest… it is the quality of their hardware that’s hard to overcome.
Maybe android phones make sense, but laptops lag behind big time since Apple Silicon.
I would only personally run graphene os on android. If I had to have a mobile… 3 years and counting mobile free 🪙
I literally destroyed my phone a month ago in a karting accident. Went mobile-less for the remaining of the evening. Had to go the grocery before going home somehow… had no idea which one might be open at 11PM.
Felt weird to knock on every grocery door just to figure out which one was opened. Turns out none of them was, so I spent almost an hour searching for one, and upped my carbon footprint in the process.
Literally felt like the 90’s, without all the awesomeness that comes with it, such as youth.
Linux fixes this… grab yourself something like a framework laptop or similar. Right to repair & FOSS is critical.
I’d of course run Linux, but as I said, it has to run on efficient hardware first.
Tradeoffs so far are speed, energy consumption, heat dissipation, noise, build quality and I am probably forgetting more.
If you wanted to talk phones, I can help you. However, when it comes to laptops, I would just buy the latest generation Intel CPU Dell laptop. Now, if we're talking building a gaming desktop, step into my office 😆
To my knowledge, all Dells run on x86 CPUs… which makes sense, but feels like going back to stone age after getting used to Apple Silicon.
so you want an ARM processor?
Pretty much yeah… try a powerful one for a week and you won’t be able to go back.
I haven't used one in a laptop yet. I know some manufacturers are making them though.
I am also now starting to see VPS providers adding ARM support. They're cheaper, but you take a 20% performance hit.
Save money, run Asahi Linux.
Buy Android phone.
If you still have pain, look at the Microsoft Surface Laptop (or Surface Pro) with Microsoft’s SQ processor. They’re good products with Qualcomm arm chips.
Asahi would make sense, really… even better yet, NixOS can use all of its awesomeness and add more on top of it.
Thing is, running Linux on Apple Silicon is still considered alpha to this day. There is no way I will go back to the drivers hell I went through when I was a student. That was fun back then, but I didn’t have dad duties at the time.
Looks like Microsoft SQ might be the best alternative so far…
Wondering if it runs linux…
Check these guys out
May consider next year or when they remove "your mileage may vary" in their documentation
In a laptop, you literally get all the best in terms of efficiency…despite less power dissipation, less heat and no fan noise, everything is snappy all day long no matter how many windows or tabs opened… and they have all day batteries.
Can’t have your cake and eat it too bro.
Dell is all-in with Intel, most major HW vendors are. Apple went their own route with chips and they’re leading the market for laptops, ironically because they saw web apps becoming dominant before the x86 chip makers could pivot..
Apple have the best HW in the market for portable computing, that’s just facts. Gotta accept the trade offs if you switch but would focus more on the software layer and how you can do more sovereign computing if you are serious about it.
Literally the reason why I am still just considering the switch and not actually doing it… pretty sure it won’t happen. I will remain trapped in the "walled garden" cause their hardware competition is not even close.
Apple laptops are not so walled-garden. You’ll get security warnings and/or errors (ie Bisq) but you can run most things on them or use web with minimal issue. The bigger hurdle on lappies is the lack of diversity in browser engines nowadays; some web apps just don’t work unless you use a specific browser.
If you are willing and able to setup a proper home server architecture it’s feasible to switch.
I can’t. I have work stuff that needs to function in a workflow so I’ve built a little segregated setup for home server and accept the trade offs because I also can’t have my cake and eat it too.
Hopefully #nostr gets big enough that it warrants someone rebuilding HW from the ground up. Appreciate Derek’s guidance but I don’t see much benefit in switching Apple for Alphabet…
All true…
i'd love a third player to enter the hardware space. i've been wanting this for a long while. each attempt has failed as the software sucks or the hardware is mediocre. no one wants to completely gimp their mobile experience just to say that they're using open source hardware/software/whatever.
the new player would have to be large enough to withstand several years of losing money and no profits though as people won't switch overnight and it will take several years for the hardware and software to mature to a point where people would be comfortable to switch.
If it’s not x86 or ARM artichtecture, it’s almost impossible. The software industry struggles supporting just two architectures, imagine introducing a thrid one.
Next level hardware will have to rely on either of them, and I can’t see x86 being as efficient as ARM anytime soon, or ever.
It will happen. Hardware is cyclical, no vendor stays at the top for long. They establish a lead, juice sales, screw up support and the next one comes in to replace the last leader - it’s a tale as old as hardware.
TSMC needs competition. Intel aren’t providing it, Samsung is focussed on the old integrated model, Nvidia are coasting on GPU sales for AI, there IS room for a new player..
Maybe Bukele seeks to replicate TSMC in ES in partnership with a lower tier vendor?
Apple bought a whole division for Billions of dollars so that tech lead is difficult to catch-up in the immediate term but something that works for Billions of people on lower margins that approaches via a new paradigm could have a shot?
macos isnt an issue (yet)
Well, if I ditch my iPhone, the macs will follow, as I am already a heavy Linux user for everything that doesn’t have a keyboard attached to it.
Dells for heavy workstation laptops.
ThinkPads for lighter weight performance.
System76 if you like buying stuff that is supposedly specifically for Linux, but I've never had problems using Linux with either of the above.
No regrets here. I’m sticking with my Apple devices. Side loading will eventually come to iOS and is not an issue on MacOS. Luckily everyone is free to make their own choices. Though I Heavily disagree with Apples decision to kick nostr:npub18m76awca3y37hkvuneavuw6pjj4525fw90necxmadrvjg0sdy6qsngq955 out of the AppStore. 😕
