I joined a startup with a product in production for a dozen or so major customers (US universities), public facing, with a slick new front and backend the team had been working hard on. I brought along a young engineer friend who had a pet interest in pentesting, so his first task before getting up speed as a dev was a security review.
He and I sat down on day one to poke around, mainly to get oriented, not expecting much l. Popped up Chrome's devtool network panel, refreshed the login page.
One of the first XHR rows was to an endpoint named “getKeys”
The return object was the root keys for the AWS prod account.
This crap is incredibly common. Maybe not that egregious, but close enough.
After months of suffering with this, with an out warranty 15" MBP 2016 that was relegated to desk duty with an external keyboard, I heard about this program. I made an Apple Store appointment for the next day (a Tuesday); they checked it, warned me it could be a week or more because of a holiday that week. Thursday morning I had a call that it was ready. Total cost: $0 (according to the invoice the parts were over $800, including a mainboard replacement to fix a loose USB-C port). It was a basically new machine when I got it back.
I'm still sore over this kbd design, but its otherwise been a good laptop and their no-questions-asked handling of it was great.
I had a similar experience. Struggled with several keys either "not pressing" or "double pressing". After a while I took it in, they gave me an estimate of 5 days for repair, and called me after 4. No charge, no fee, no questions. Once I got used to the butterfly keys I didn't mind the low travel distance, and now that my keyboard is in proper working order, I have no issues with it. Still wish there was an escape key though...
You can set caps lock as escape key in System Preferences since one of the last OS versions. For me this works even better than the original escape key position since it’s on the home row.
This is what I do for my work computer but it makes memory muscle when switching machines super annoying. Give us back real keys on the top row. And if Apple really wants to be trendy with dynamic keys then make the top row physical buttons that are each their own displays so we truly get a usable, yet capably dynamic, top row. That would be innovation and not stifle those who rely on those physical keys to work proficiently.
I don't know if it's possible with third party software (I use a hardware programmable keyboard running QMK), but I map it to tap for escape, hold for ctrl. If you use vim keybindings for your editor it's glorious.
Yes Karabiner is great for that. I do the same thing except I have it act as Hyper when pressed in conjunction with another key. That's how all my shortcuts are triggered.
The reliability of these products was sacrificed before a golden idol of Jony Ive on the altar of Thin. I find it interesting that this program is announced more or less at the same time he announced his formal retirement from Apple.
He did many fine designs for the company, but like any superstar, at some point they can do no wrong and it becomes impossible to criticize them within an organization.
This was my experience. My battery was having issues and indicating service was needed, but they refused to only replace the top case since they claimed there was a "logic board failure" that caused my A and S keys to skip and repeat. It took hours of escalations and phone support to finally convince them to replace the affected parts, and of course we now know (and I always suspected) that it was never the logic board in the first place. Not sure where they came up with that conclusion originally.
Apple's repair service, and the Apple Store in general, have gotten much better in the last six months or so.
Two weeks ago I brought my Apple Watch in for an out-of-warranty repair on a Thursday night. I was told it would take 10 business days. It was ready the following Tuesday.
Their laptop service has always been top notch. Years ago I took in a White iBook for a case change (free because it was a known defect) and the guy told me that the HD that came with the laptop (Seagate) had a high failure rate and they would swap it for free but he noticed I already upgraded my HD. "Do you want the HD anyway and you can place it on a external case?". Hell yes!
You think so? I remember back in university, Apple would overnight ship my laptop to fix it. The last time I went to Apple, they wouldn’t even replace my faulty charger without me complaining to the manager.
My daughter was in the Apple store the other day with a faulty charger. (It wasn't the problem she went to ask about.) They wouldn't even speak to her about the problem she wanted to talk about until they went and got a new charger for her. They said it was just better to get that out of the way first. So her experience was excellent.
How is everyone's Apple store experience so radically different?
I reckon it's at least in part down to how busy the particular store is. The one near me is always absolutely rammed and to be honest the service there isn't exactly great.
It's also down to how potentially dangerous something can be. Depending on what actually fails, a charger could electrocute you, and it's cheap to both make and replace ("here's a new one"). A butterfly keyboard won't kill you and it's hell to replace.
Apple is usually very good with this sort of stuff.
My wife bought a MacBook two months before OS X came out, so she had OS 9. When OS X came out, Apple sent free copies to everyone who bought a computer in the last 90 days.
So you go to a very specific store that is only available in a the big cities to repair your laptop ordered via Internet? Isn't their an on-site service for Apple? I.e. the repairer comes to your office or home? I find it hard to believe you pay so much money only to get a service of this kind and waste hours traveling to some special Apple store.
Also, what happens in countries like Poland, where Apple products are sold officially through Apple certified resellers(iSpot etc) but there are no official Apple Stores in the entire country?
Apple really is good about taking care of problems. It's easy to complain about the price, but when my Samsung screen stopped working, I had to buy a new phone. When my iPhone screen started glitching, I got it fixed for free in less than two hours. Things like that make paying the "Apple premium" a little more palatable.
Unless your product is affected by an issue they decided to never recognize, which in that case you can merrily go fuck yourself because Apple won't lift a finger. Happened to me with an old iMac that developed dust smudges inside the LCD panel due to faulty sealing of the screen.
I owned an Apple Watch for about 2 months before the screen separated from the watch body. The front-line service rep didn’t know what to do about it and took it into the back to show a store manager, who decided it was impact damage and thus not covered by warranty; a fix would have cost something like 70% of the list price for the watch.
Instead of the repair, I bought a $20 Timex that’s served me faithfully ever since.
FWIW, I had the watch face separating issue as well. I had mine replaced at Best Buy (well, not actually replaced there, but they were who I dealt with). You should call back and see if you can get yours replaced. It was a well known flaw.
Too late now; it was over a year ago and in another country; Didn’t bother keeping the dead watch when I moved. I also had enough time with it to discover that I, personally, didn’t get much value out of the “smart” features.
This happened during a hurricane evacuation and I went to an Apple store several states away while waiting for the airport at home to reopen so I could find out if there had been any damage (fortunately not). Of all the people I dealt with during that experience, Apple’s employees were uniquely unsympathetic to my situation, and I decided I didn’t want anything to do with them ever again.
The proximate cause was probably an impact as I treated it like the sports watch it was advertised to be. The separation wasn’t a failure of the glue, but a crack that traveled around the weak part of the glass where it is curved downwards to meet the bezel. There was a tiny nick that was the nucleus of the fracture that could have been caused by anything (in my case, probably some clay on a tennis ball).
The biggest issue for me was that I didn’t want to have to baby something that fragile, especially when it’s supposed to be a fitness object. And the completely professional, but uncaring and robotic, way their representatives handled the situation.
We had a similar experience with my wife’s iPhone 5s, which she has held onto for ages because she loves the small size.
The screen developed a glitch where a few rows of pixels were inverted. We went to the Apple store to see if the screen could be fixed, and they found and gave her an identical new unit for no charge. “This way you’re also getting a fresh battery and everything will last longer.” They hooked up the old phone to the new phone and has everything copied over, we were out in less than an hour with “her phone” made brand new for free.
This was after the 5s was no longer on sale in the US. Maybe we just got lucky and they had some leftover inventory, I don’t know.
Whatever the reason, I felt that was impressively good customer service.
I’ve had consistently good experiences with the Apple store support across 3 countries (over two continents) and it’s the main reason I still buy apple products, specifically iPhones, despite them going down a path I don’t like for the last 4 years.
Apple of 2015 was, really, at the top of the game, I wish I had bought a 2015 retina MacBook when it was new. :(
Loretta Lynch faced extensive questioning in the Senate and long, contentious hearings about her background and clientele during a nearly six month nomination process. She was heavily vetted by both parties and eventually gained enough votes to move forward, including by McConnell and Graham. Yes, she was vetted publicly. No, this acting AG has not been. Not for a moment, which is why the free press is so important in an appointment like this.
Unless I misunderstand you, that’s an absurd overstatement at best.
My wife is a somm as are many of our friends. I joined in on many of their study sessions as each of them went through various phases of their certifications.
Granted I’m lucky to tell a Pinot from a Chardonnay, but watching trained Simms do blinds is impressive. It’s a mix of a very specific process - they work from “the grid”, picking apart specific properties of a taste one bit st a time - as well as incredible amount of practical knowledge that comes from tasting an absurd amount.
It’s another thing to say that tastes don’t necessarily correlate with price - any honest somm will tell you that. But anyone with a reasonable amount of experience can tell a $5 bottle of Cupcake or a two buck Chuck and something less industrial.
I know there’s a lot of excitement for lab made - it’ll rightly be seen as just another technique eventually.
You're speaking of somms being able to distinguish flavor profiles - which of course is a skill and I don't think anyone would deny that.
What OP said is that cheap vs. expensive wine is indistinguishable (At times). There have been blind tastes tests with 2 Buck Chuck and expensive bottles, and 2 Buck Chuck won.
The flavor profiles of cheap and expensive wines don't really correlate so this argument is flawed. 2 Buck Chuck and other cheap bottles have flavor profiles that tend to be sweeter and less acidic when compared to more expensive bottles of wine, especially from the old world.
I think the correct statement is that most people actually prefer cheap "industrial" wine as it's more approachable (sweet with low acid), especially in youth, than many expensive bottles.
Even that article you linked to stated "There are those who feel that the results should not be taken into account as the judges are not true, trained wine professionals. The California State Fair competition is dismissed by some critics as representing broad-based consumer tastes rather than the palates of true wine connoisseurs."
Blinding the average Joe with cheap vs expensive wine is not a good barometer for the quality of said wines from an well seasoned wine drinker's perspective.
My current Macbook Pro is probably the first bit of Apple hardware in two decades that's made me actively consider alternatives. It's been the one laptop - premium at that - from Apple which I've had continual frustrations with compared to its predecessor, for all the reasons listed above.
I love USB-C, but not for power. Already, two of my ports are loose. I've never had that on any previous Apple power connector. MagSafe was a brilliant solution to real problems, and just dropping it without a superior alternative is not at all what I expect from Apple.
I also like the universality of USB-C, but it's not like Apple didn't opt to keep one legacy port for usability reasons - that little headphone port. SD and HDMI would have been enough.
And yes, the keyboard is terrible. For a machine I spend all day on, designed for pros, its a disappointment. Like most people here, it always takes me a little time to adapt to a new keyboard; unlike in the past, after more than a year I still loathe this one.
Perhaps the only thing that doesn't bring out my inner rage is the Touchbar. I'm largely ambivalent about it - the lack of esc/f-keys was annoying for a few days but I adapted. Obviously, others disagree, but on this list its the one choice I could have found a way to rationalize.
I'm surprised no one has noted the copyright is to Design Science - this is a small company in my hometown who are still around. I've spoken with their CEO a few times and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the source code was lost, or somehow at least wasn't being made available to Microsoft (I doubt it ever was). It's a really old school shop who seems to have largely been coasting on the licensing of this one component for the past couple decades and I wouldn't at all be shocked to find they no longer are capable of maintaining it themselves.
I noted it - thanks for the background info on the company! I also assume that either they are not able to maintain the software themselves, or they have lost the source code, but it might also be that setting up the toolchain to compile such an old piece of software is more effort than just patching the binary.
This is such an underappreciated aspect of code stewardship. There are powerful tools for source control and archiving. But ensuring that state of code could actually be built at an arbitrary date in the future is so much less assured.
I would guess the build environment involves lots of dependencies, lots of special config, lots of stuff which has to be the exact correct version, and all that knowledge has been lost as people have left the team and it wasn't properly documented.
Sure, you could spend a couple of weeks setting up a suitable environment again and relearning everything from scratch, but binary patching is probably easier.
According to an Ars comment: "I've got an older version of Mac Office (2011 I think), and there's a version of Equation Editor in there with a 1990-2010 design science copyright on it, so they have some version of newer code they could swap the old office one for."
He and I sat down on day one to poke around, mainly to get oriented, not expecting much l. Popped up Chrome's devtool network panel, refreshed the login page.
One of the first XHR rows was to an endpoint named “getKeys”
The return object was the root keys for the AWS prod account.
This crap is incredibly common. Maybe not that egregious, but close enough.