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A world without the Mac Pro

marco.org

1–10 of 191 posts

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#2
> Microsoft is boldly experimenting with PC hardware, but Windows and everything around Windows is woefully inferior to macOS and the Mac software ecosystem. Even if Microsoft did everything right, it would take Windows at least a decade to catch up — and they won’t do everything right.

So, if you have everything already on macOS (I still hate that name change), I can get not wanting to switch. But what on Earth is it doing so much better than Windows that at minimum a decade would be required for it to catch up?

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#3
While there is no doubt that Apple did neglect the Mac Pro, I am quite hopeful that it gets a significant refresh in the spring. As with so many Mac releases, Apple is limited by the Intel release schedules. That is why the Mac Pro has to wait till spring for a refresh. And that the Mac Pro has not being bumped in smaller features points to me to a rather larger change.

And it would make a lot of sense to go back to a bit more "PC" like design like the predecessor of the current machine. That would mean that Apple has less pressure to update it frequently, it would be sufficient to have updates whenever Intel releases new CPUs, but all the other stuff, especially graphics cards, could be updated independent of Apple releases.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#4
Arment is way too positive on the Mac Pro's thermal design. Recently I worked on an application where we had about a dozen Mac Pros doing heavy video encoding workloads. Four of these computers started having GPU overheating issues, and turns out that this is a common occurrence on the 2013 Mac Pro. Apple has been quietly replacing units over the years (searching for the specific console error message reveals that it's common among Mac Pro owners).

My theory is that the Mac Pro hasn't seen an update because Apple knows that its current thermal design is a lemon, and they don't really want to sell any more of these because the replacement rate is so high.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#5
post #2

> Microsoft is boldly experimenting with PC hardware, but Windows and everything around Windows is woefully inferior to macOS and the Mac software ecosystem. Even if Microsoft did everything right, it would take Windows at least a decade to catch up — and they won’t do everything right. So, if you have everything already on macOS (I still hate that name change), I can get not wanting to switch. But what on Earth is i…

Unix

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#6
I feel like I'm living in a crazytown where nobody sees what's so plainly obvious. Doesn't anyone remember when IBM wasn't able to deliver chips to Apple on the schedule they demanded, and customers were complaining, and they were taking a drubbing in the press for it? And Apple let their existing product line stagnate for a little while, and then we got the Intel Macs?

Well, this time it's Intel and not IBM, except Apple owns their own chip designs and has 200 billion dollars laying around.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#7
> Linux can solve some pro needs, but not most. It’s a fantastic server OS but a miserable desktop one, and that will probably never change.

Depending on which pro needs We're talking about, I don't believe this is true anymore.

I was a Linux user for many years, then an OS X user for over a decade, and earlier this year I'd had enough with being annoyed by OS X & switched back to Linux. I am extremely happy I did.

If you want beautiful GUIs or do video/audio/graphics editing then, yes, macOS is still superior. If you are a developer who spends most of your time split between the terminal and the browser, then Linux is not just an acceptable substitute, but can in fact be a superior replacement.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#8
post #5
post #2

> Microsoft is boldly experimenting with PC hardware, but Windows and everything around Windows is woefully inferior to macOS and the Mac software ecosystem. Even if Microsoft did everything right, it would take Windows at least a decade to catch up — and they won’t do everything right. So, if you have everything already on macOS (I still hate that name change), I can get not wanting to switch. But what on Earth is i…

Unix

Windows 10 has Linux subsystem now, which is Ubuntu 14.04. I would say it's at least on par now with MacOS.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#9
> Linux can solve some pro needs, but not most. It’s a fantastic server OS but a miserable desktop one, and that will probably never change.

I disagree! A Linux desktop gets as good as your customization.

For me nothing can replace my setup: Debian + custom Stumpwm window manager

Pro users want flexibility.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#10
post #2

> Microsoft is boldly experimenting with PC hardware, but Windows and everything around Windows is woefully inferior to macOS and the Mac software ecosystem. Even if Microsoft did everything right, it would take Windows at least a decade to catch up — and they won’t do everything right. So, if you have everything already on macOS (I still hate that name change), I can get not wanting to switch. But what on Earth is i…

* The windows registry vs the OSX defaults system

* Constantly changing APIs based on Microsofts internal politics vs. the very stable Cocoa

* HiDPI that always works or has good fallbacks

* Touchpad / gesture support that is actually pleasant and precise to use

* Battery life

* Multidesktop

* POSIX scripting (that one is slowly coming to windows now)

* Can be restored from another computer in a matter of minutes (see also the first point)

* PDF support baked into OS

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