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Edited: Mar 13

Jumping the Shark

Yes Tablet fans - he's gone off his rocker and is resetting (again). The SP11-S is being fixed by Microsoft and will be back here next week. The return for the SP11-I is in the works. An M4 MacBook Air (16gb/1tb) will be here in the morning and I will once again try the all Apple life. I know it will work (have my Time Machine backup as proof) and I am giving up the arm wrestling with Satya for arm wrestling Tim/Craig/Joz...

Even after posting my note about the apocalyptical Gruber article this morning, I want off the Microsoft rollercoaster. As Bronsky and most of the old-timers here will attest, this will likely last until MS releases the 11" Surface Pro, but this recent battle with the two different versions of Surface Pro 11 has really taken it out of me. I don't know for sure whether I will dstrauss the SP11-S (love that 5g option) to ItWorthMore, because keeping it in reserve may outweigh the $750 I'll get for it from them (I am NOT going back to FleaBay for a sale).

PS - on that "privacy thingy" between Microsoft and Apple, I think Apple's store may be a spying bugger. I've been putting various configurations of the M4 MacBook Air in my Bag for a few days now, and they are always 8-15 days out before delivery. Switching around again and tried the 16gb/1tb configuration, and suddenly it was "available" for delivery tomorrow for free. That hooked the shark and I pressed Check Out instantly - after closing out I went back in and put that same SKU in my bag again, and it was 12 days out to ship! Does that mean I got the last one in the warehouse five minutes earlier, or did they just bait me to close the deal after so many false starts? 🤔😶😯

Did someone question my mental health lately???

UPDATE - Looks like Apple store privacy issue was blown out of proportion. About an hour later I was able to log back in and put another 16gb/1tb into my bag with delivery tomorrow. Seems this is a "feature" to either keep you from accidentally reordering the same SKU or drawing down limited supplies through volume purchasing. My money's on the latter as this was Apple's reaction to complaints about the Wild West mess years ago when orders opened at a given time and scalpers tried to buy up the supply for high premium resales overseas (before the "new" pre-order system) ...

20 comments

Comments (20)

dstrauss

Mar 20

03/20/25 UPDATE

This update is coming from my repaired SP11-S 5g (for details see my 03/19/25 update). The 5g was really handy last night while I was at a meeting where hotel WiFi is a no no. So yes, the Shark Ate Me on my (10th?) failed jump, and I'm just going to stay with this one and both the Lunar Lake and M4 MBA are going back to M$ and Apple respectively.

A Special Note: If you are suffering with scanner support blues on your ARM64 device, give the VueScan software a try, but be sure to check out their page about the need to turn of driver signature enforcement before installing VueScan - if you use the recommended Recovery approach your next restart (after installation) will automatically reinstall that protection.

Edited

dstrauss

Mar 20

03/19/25 UPDATE:

The Surface Pro 11 Elite 5g arrived from the repair facility (interesting note, it had been repaired at the Pegatron facility in Juarez). Set up quickly with its native drive; created new Recovery Drive with Windows Image from Microsoft site (THANKS AGAIN @Cbutters) ; replaced the original drive with the Corsair 2tb and recovered system. It is up, running, and my backed up folders from the pre-disaster adventure are installed and all is functioning at home. Tomorrow I'll set up the office Ethernet and devices and get back to work.

Running fast and level - A nice feeling. While setting up, I turned off all possible privacy invasions in the Settings app; tomorrow I venture off into some more regedits and esoteric stomping on M$.

Looks like I'll be dancing with the devil that brung me rather than the one I saw across the room.

PS: I did learn I like the Surface Flex keyboard better than the shallower MacBook Air in the process.

PPS: More deep diving into the Gruber dust up does leave me concerned about Apple at a new level - it does appear they intentionally previewed AI features that hadn't even reached Alpha yet, and may not come to realization until next year - in other words, just as shallow behavior as M$...

Dellaster

Mar 20

Replying to

Congrats again? 😹 hope it works out!

As for the AI crud, the old “buy for what exists now, not what they promise later” applies. Occasionally a bot suggested answer at the top of a DuckDuckGo result page will nail it, saving me time. Otherwise I don’t don’t give a hoot about “AI”. It doesn’t affect my life and I don’t need it to. That said, I won’t knee-jerk reject cool stuff in the future if it happens.

In other words, I see complaints about Apple not meeting their AI promises as equivalent to not coming out with new emojis on time.

Edited

james!

Mar 20

Replying to

I have found the AI answers at the top of search pages to be wrong more often than they are right. The fact that they are the first thing I see and have to scroll to find the right answer costs more time than the few times it's been accurate. That's my main problem with AI in a nutshell (well, that and the widespread theft of artist's work). They've handed us a product that is half baked on all fronts with the best models having a high margin of inaccuracy and the only thing it does somewhat well is based off stolen works.

I'm just shocked that the world at large is just accepting this at all.

Dellaster

Mar 20

Replying to

“I have found the AI answers at the top of search pages to be wrong more often than they are right.”

Absolutely. And my “occasional” good result is most often only good to point me in the right direction.

Like, a couple weeks ago I had a Linux Desktop Environment (DE) issue where the only non-dark app in dark mode was the file manager. DDG’s bot came up with an answer for a different distribution with a different DE which was viable if intelligently adapted to my situation. Good enough for a quicky fix to save my eyes from getting blasted with bright whitespace if I dared look up a file.

… Then later that day someone on the forum where I asked about it gave me the correct answer, so…

Edited

dstrauss

Mar 19

03/18/25 UPDATE:

"Well, Dale, congratulations I guess? This is such a well-worn road you travel. 😹" @Dellaster

Yep, I'm worse than Peter Noone "Second verse, same as the first..." Microsoft has finally shipped my repaired SP11-S 5g and should be here tomorrow. The SP11-LL has been cleaned, original SSD restored, and ready for return. Just can't justify a nearly $1200 premium over what I paid for the SP11-S5g, even if I have to use VueScan to make my R40 scanner work. And then there is the MBA M4 I'm writing this on. A really nice piece of kit, of course well integrated into the Apple ecosystem, but I just don't have the "love" for the pure laptop experience over a 2-in-1. Add the fact that built in 5g is REALLY nice and here I go again waffling and sweating Apple's very short (14 day) return leash. Doesn't help that my Apple-loving daughter keeps telling me she does all her "fun stuff" (photo editing, reading, videos, etc.) on her 2018 iPad Pro and not her MacBook Pro, so I should do the same with my SP11...

Not to meniton that the M4 MBA has a very nice screen, but it sure's not the SP11 OLED...

NUTS!

Edited

james!

Mar 19

Replying to

What, wait? Wait, what? So soon?

dstrauss

Mar 18

UPDATE - 5g vs Tethering

One thing I haven't discussed ro thought about much in all my whining has been how much I just used my SP11-S 5g without even thinking about connecting to the hotel/remote WiFi. It just worked smoothly and effortlessly.

I didn't realize the improvement it makes in portability and performance. Despite being a little easier than PC tethering, my iPhone to MBA is still not has handy as that SP11-S 5g. I really wonder if that is as much Qualcomm's influence as anything else. And it BEGS another big question - why NO MACBOOK AIR 5g, wh NO SP11-Intel 5g?

darkmagistric

há 3 dias

Replying to

So, my understanding on why 5G on devices is such a chore, at least with all the Microsoft 5G models, they are not US locked, but rather International and will work with a variety of cellular bands world-wide. However, the complex part is getting all the Band certifications. Thats largely why there is such a delay in getting 5G models out, comparative to Wifi models. And since Microsoft doesn't churn out phones, its chore for them.

And as far as Lunar Lake, it's more of an issue of timing as the Pro 10 5G models were only released this past fall. The effort to get those out would be wasted if they were to just released a better model very shortly after. We are getting 5G laptop 7's though.

Apple however has no excuse in my book in why Macs don't have 5G options. or even touch/pen. but Apples whole thing is the ecosystem, so I'm sure they'd rather all Mac users just also have an iPad and iPhone, so excluding those features from the Mac proper makes it easier to sell the whole 3 device solution over a single device solution.

dstrauss

há 3 dias

Replying to

Good explanation, but why not pursue FCC clearance from the beginning, rather than making the device a 6-9 month delayed disaster? The iPad Pro always has a 5g option available at launch, although I share your disgust with Apple for not including 5g capabilities at least in the MacBook Air.

Edited

Dellaster

Mar 13

Well, Dale, congratulations I guess? This is such a well-worn road you travel. 😹

I vote for keeping that Snapper with 5G. That way each time you start feeling the urge to try Windows again you can fire it up and nip it in the bud. You’ll probably be hit by 100 updates and ads at once every time you do.And something will break.

I mentioned in the other thread that I'm leaning towards completing my set of iPhone mini & iPad mini with a Mac of some kind—M4 Mac minis are in the Apple refurb store now and with a veteran discount the base model is $458+tax... but the M4 Pro might end up too tempting. I much prefer Apple's ecosystem, devices, and yes, even the UI & software despite shortcomings and wish-it-weres. No hurry though. Anyway, this time I won’t dstrauss my Windows/Linux gaming laptop. It’s actually doing quite well with Linux gaming at this time, with a fallback Windows gaming setup on the second internal SSD.

Good luck with the Mac Air transition!

Edit: Or maybe the Mac isn’t necessary anymore? I was just checking out the current Ulysses app and it looks like I can do everything on my iPad mini, including export to EPUB with a provided KDP style that’s quite good enough to easily do the finishing touches with the Sigil Epub editor in Linux. Might want a better portable monitor for it, but yeah. (I accidentally got rid of my nice 3:2 portable instead of the 16:10 last year. D’oh!)

Edited

Eltos

Mar 15

Replying to

Good luck, @dstrauss! I am doing the same thing, but since I don't sell anything anymore, I just switched back and put the ole' SP9 in a drawer for a while (until the next time I can't handle something Apple is doing). I agree with you @Dellaster, the ecosystem does really work well top to bottom. I just wish it was better at gaming. Granted these days I am mostly BG3, CP2077, and Teamfight Tactics, and I think Mac can do all three of those (Just not as well as my RTX 4060).

Dellaster

Mar 18

Replying to

@Eltos - Yup, if native gaming was expanded on the Mac I’d jump back and forget about fooling around with Linux. A much better overall alternative to Windows.

Proponents might say that something works on Linux but often it’s a subpar experience barely worth the effort. Case in point, the makers of Scrivener (et al) suggest running it via Lutris on Linux so I gave it a go, and…

I’ve noticed in the past that things run through WINE lack in their readability (Lutris is a front end for WINE). Native typography is also not as good as Windows or Mac/iOS, such as with Typora. That one has antialiasing blur unless I make it all really large.

Everything has downsides, alas.

Edited

Eltos

Mar 19

Replying to

Yeah, I was even a linux admin way back in the day (Redhat and SUSE) and I still am not fond of the little things when it comes to Linux (as you point out above). That’s why I end up on Mac (as a BSD variant of UNIX) if I want that route.

But yeah I have thought about it for just gaming LOL.