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Reviewer: ProcrastinatingReader (talk · contribs) 12:45, 9 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Will try to review in the next few days.

Summary

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons:

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   Free use rationales provided where required and seem appropriate.

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   The caption for the 2013 Mac Pro image has a tag. I don't think a "by whom" tag is needed for captions - people are free to refer to the body for more info. The only question is whether the body adequetely supports the description of it having a reputation for being criticised.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Comments

I don't want to intrude on the review, but I wanted to point out some immediate things that jumped out at me when I saw this article in the review queue: you've got a disagreement between this article and linked articles (the Mac mini in the current lineup section is given as "4th gen: M1, 3rd gen: Intel Core i5, i7" but the Mac mini calls it the 5th and 4th generation), and sites like apple-history and Everymac are fan-run by people with no professional/expert qualifications and no fact-checking; they really shouldn't be used as sources unless you can justify them as reliable. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 16:03, 9 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Far from intruding, it's nice to see you here! I've seen you leave thoughtful comments in many past discussions since I joined, and that was just 2 months ago!

The Mac mini gens were just a typo on my part when trying to make the tables look nicer (from this to this), I've fixed it, and fully agreed on apple-history and Everymac. I've also removed LowEndMac for the same reason.

I'd like to justify replacing LowEndMac with a primary source (see this diff, though I later removed Fink): likely the only people who would be interested in clicking that citation are people with an interest in running BSD/Linux programs on Mac, or people who want to know how porting would work; and that old Apple Developer page is the only one I can think of that explains it both comprehensively for technical users, and approachably for newbies. DFlhb (talk) 02:25, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Footnote comments based on Special:Permalink/1121499474:

• FN3 needs a site name (The Verge), as with FN57, 117
• Are the following reliable sources? Kaomso (FN15), Launch Tomorrow (FN26), cultofmac (FN27, 62), lowendmac (FN28), everymac (FN37), 512 pixels (FN47, 80), loopinsight.com (FN61), operating-system.org (FN146), MacSales (FN142), TheNextWeb (FN140)

Seems like the article is largely based on web sources, many of them Apple-focused news sites (9to5mac, macworld, etc). At this point, Apple's history must be well covered in literature, so it's slightly surprising to see very few books etc cited? (where they are cited, they seem to be for very short amounts of content) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:43, 13 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Will go off and look for books on Apple's history, and I'll report back in; thanks very much for pointing this out. Though please keep the citations as-is until I can replace them; that'll make my job easier. DFlhb (talk) 17:01, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I checked: LowEndMac, LoopInsight, Cult of Mac, and 512 Pixels are good; the people behind them have either been published in more credible outlets, or worked for them, or these sites have been cited by reliable Apple blogs as credible. The Mac has long had a blogosphere that's quite credible and well-established, which I admit is pretty unique. We should replace them if we find better sources; but they should be ok. And the other sources you mention should be replaced. And I'm still looking through the books I have; several of them only have digital page numbers, not physical, so that'll be a bit of a challenge. DFlhb (talk) 21:38, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Will look into book citations (Google Books to the rescue!). I'll also try to focus less on Apple-centric web sources, where possible. Theknine2 (talk) 19:52, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Side note about the citations: IABot has been down for the past month so I am not able to add any archived versions of citation links at the moment. Theknine2 (talk) 06:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering if it was just me. DFlhb (talk) 06:27, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a bunch of book citations, and feel that the Mac Pro caption problem has been resolved. Do note, I likely won't have much time this weekend or next week for anything too time-consuming, but I'll do my best to help out. DFlhb (talk) 15:55, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How are you doing User:ProcrastinatingReader? DFlhb (talk) 23:49, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I paused reviewing while you mentioned you both were checking books, in case of changes to the article. Assuming that's complete, will continue looking through... ProcSock (talk) 01:36, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Overall, prose is nice and the article is a solid summary of the Mac. Initial comments follow:

• In 1994, Apple's market share fell to 8.5% compared to market leader Compaq's 10.3% -- fell from? Or could be worth mentioning peak market share earlier in the section. (on that note, probably doesn't hurt to mention its current market share)
  • Addressed your point. Also reworded the end of that paragraph so it's more detailed, and addresses readers' hypothetical objection of "wait, how did they decline if the PowerPC was so initally successful?". I'm frankly quite happy with how much better this pasage is now. Current market share is mentioned in § Marketing; I think it would be confusing to put today's market share alongside 1997 stuff. DFlhb (talk) 22:48, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• There are a few comments of it being expensive/cheap and a couple times an explicit price is mentioned. It may be nice to see this in context. How were these Macs priced with competitors?
  • I addressed this by steer away from mentioning prices as much as possible, since it's a little messy, with the 1997 USD being worth quite a different amount from today, and with the whole can of worms of: "which other companies' products should we compare Macintoshes to? Which Macintoshes should be compared, since there were dozens and dozens of models?" and stuff like that. We now only mention "Macintosh clones were cannibalizing the sales of Apple's higher-margin machines." I tried finding good numbers on that but didn't find anything solid enough. DFlhb (talk) 04:35, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• The iMac was a critical and commercial success, with Apple selling 800,000 units in 139 days, resulting in an annual profit of US$309 million in 1998, Apple's first profitable year since 1995 -- resulting in -> contributing to? Reads slightly confusing to me otherwise, as 139 days isn't a year, so the iMac can't (alone) result in that annual profit.
  • Fixed. DFlhb (talk) 04:35, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• However, the iMac's bundled USB Mouse received criticism for its non-traditional circular "hockey puck" shape -- anything more specific on the criticism of the product? Was the mouse bad/awkward to use? Or did people just not like the design?
  • Yeah, it was pilloried. Users found it hard to click with precision due to the awkward grip. Here are two articles [1][2]. I also recall that Steve Jobs invited John Carmack to the stage of an Apple keynote to demo Quake, and he completely trashed the mouse for lacking a right-button. I was shocked Steve even said the customary "Thanks John" when he retook the stage (he did, but the video cuts off before that). [3]

Anyhoo, I changed "bundled USB Mouse" to "bundled "hockey puck" mouse". That's its common name. And users may not notice the "Mouse" capitalization, and may not click on the link, expecting that it'll just lead to a generic article on all USB mice; I want to make it clear that the link leads to Apple's mouse. I changed the rest to: "was universally panned for being awkward to hold, imprecise to use, and lacking a right-click button", which is more precise. DFlhb (talk) 21:57, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• More than 140,000 preorders were placed for the iBook before it began shipping in September 1999,[48] and was the best selling portable computer in the U.S during the fourth quarter of 1999 "and it was the"? Although you may want to vary the sentence structure (compare to prev sentence), of either this or the preceding one. Probably rephrasing the preceding one is better.
  • Done. DFlhb (talk) 22:11, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• while also not including a monitor -- unclear relevance? esp as the Power Mac G4 also didn't include a monitor. Did other Apple products at the time include monitors, or was it an industry standard to include one?
  • Agree it's undue. The Cube was well known for developing cracks (and today, is notorious for it), so I took the liberty of doing a bolder edit here too: "It received acclaim for its innovative design, but the machine was expensive and non-expandable, and its translucent case was prone to developing cracks. It was discontinued a year later." DFlhb (talk) 21:32, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• These materials are billed as environmentally friendly tense?
  • I found better sourcing (replaced primary with secondary), and changed it to the following: "In October 2008, the second-generation MacBook Pro switched to a more recyclable "unibody" aluminum and glass enclosure, and eliminated several toxic chemicals, representing an early step in Apple's ongoing push for environmental friendliness." DFlhb (talk) 21:11, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Design chief Jony Ive guided products towards a minimalist and simple feel,[84] including the elimination of replaceable batteries in notebooks.[85] reword and could perhaps expand on his other design decisions, incl expanding on the minimalist design theme and its reception.
  • I actually removed that bit during the copyedit, since I thought it looked out of place. But I agree with you. Brought it back, but in the 2012-2016 section where it fits better (since that's where he started getting criticized) and expanded on it. DFlhb (talk) 05:13, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• the keyboard can only be serviced at an Apple Store or authorized service center tense
  • Also substantially copyedited, and changed this sentence to: "Due to the Butterfly keyboard being riveted into the laptop's case, it could only be serviced at an Apple Store or authorized service center." DFlhb (talk) 21:11, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• macOS features the Aqua user interface, which has been described as "highly intuitive" by who? Is there anything else to say about the interface?
  • Yeah, I don't think that should have been included, it's just completely subjective, even if we attribute it in text. I've replaced it with more objective stuff and neutra info. DFlhb (talk) 06:22, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Prose could be sharper and sentence structure more varied in the 'hardware' and 'software' sections.
  • I think this is now addressed. DFlhb (talk) 04:35, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I'd expand the software sub-section a bit, and perhaps hardware one also. Maybe a note of what it succeeded (Mac OS), and a brief summary of major versions. It's not the article for macOS, of course, but the OS is a big part of Macs so it makes sense to give it a bit more coverage. I think a couple of decent-length paragraphs can be written about it here.
  • Added quite a bit. Let me know if you feel this is good. DFlhb (talk) 06:22, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GPT-assisted copyedit, and structure improvement idea

I'm currenly working on making I've made wide-ranging improvements to the flow & writing of this article, inspired by User:DFlhb/Mac (GPT), a fun experiment. In addition to copyedits, I also made (or am making, some aren't done yet) several substantial content changes, to either clarify things (the reasons for Intel transition), add noteworthy detail (the benefits of Apple choosing NeXT; the quality control issues faced in the 90s, the significance of the Back to the Mac effort), or remove excessive detail (watercooled Power Macs, updates to Boot Camp). Sourcing has also been improved. Not all of these edits are submitted yet; I'll update this post to say when I'm done.

User:ProcSock, sorry for not thinking of these changes before you did your first-pass review. But I think these are substantial improvements, and hopefully we'll have a kick-ass Good Article! I'll obviously also continue working on the outstanding issues you already pointed out above. Got quite a few ideas for both the software and hardware sections. Done DFlhb (talk) 02:02, 4 December 2022 (UTC); edited to remove the middle paragraph; no longer think that was a good proposal 05:14, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Ok, with that, I think that's all listed concerns addressed for now. The copyedit is done. User:ProcrastinatingReader DFlhb (talk) 06:25, 5 December 2022 (UTC); edited DFlhb (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Sounds good. I'll try to get around to re-reviewing later this week or next. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:25, 13 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  User:ProcrastinatingReader do let us know! I've made a few substantial changes until a few days after your Dec 13th comment, in order to improve the sourcing further, but that's done now (should have posted this earlier to make it clear). DFlhb (talk) 03:57, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@ProcrastinatingReader: Any updates on this GAN? When can other expect a re-review? Z1720 (talk) 21:54, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]