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A world without the Mac Pro

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Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#111

Post by hyperpape »

addicted wrote: post #43
m_mueller wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* 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 (se…

1) Do people still face Registry issues anymore? My ME system was hosed due to a minor registry corruption, but I haven't heard about Registry complaints in a decade (to be fair, I was completely in the mac camp, until a few months ago, so I may simply be unaware). 2) Applications written in the 90s still work on Windows 10. There was a short period (around Windows 8) where MS started dropping all their old APIs, but…

8. I believe the tool of choice among Mac users is Super-Duper. It creates bootable clones. Time Machine isn't that well regarded.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#112

Post by gaius »

eknkc wrote: post #85
_ph_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has indeed some great chip designs available. But one should not forget that the switch to Intel not only gave Apple nicer CPUs but also made Apple compatible to the rest of the PC world. You can run any x86 application on a Mac via VMware or Parallels. Moving away from Intel would kill this.

I've been wondering, is it practically possible to have a dual arch hardware + OS? The kernel would run on an ARM processor, along with all the supported software. Any x86 binary would be offloaded to the intel cpu. Sharing RAM and even the remaining hardware would be nearly impossible I guess. Not sure though. This way it can be like the integrated / discrete gpu design and switch can be done a lot less painfully.

I've been wondering, is it practically possible to have a dual arch hardware + OS?

Yes of course, we were doing it back in the 1980s with hybrid 6502/Z80 systems, the Z80 side running CP/M.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#113

Post by halis »

As a software developer, I can't say I really care about the Mac Pro.

It's not to say that I don't care about performance, I have a MacBook Pro bought by my work that's about 5 months old and it's great.

But honestly, I run the hell out of this thing and I never really notice a slowdown.

I can have Chrome open with a bunch of tabs (I probably limit it to a dozen before I force myself to start reading/closing them), multiple VM's spun up with vagrant/virtual box, a Windows 10 VM via Parallels, an entire linux software stock via docker-compose, Sublime Text, Slack, SourceTree, PostMan, 4 or 5 terminals, a VPN manager, multiple web servers and not notice any slowdown whatsoever.

If a new MBP came out and offered 32GB of RAM, I'd take the option. But do I really have any reason based on reality that I need more than 16GB of RAM? No.

Would I ever buy a 4K or 5K Mac Pro? Unless I had some sort of big data or scientific computing need, no. And even then, wouldn't I have a cluster somewhere else for that? Probably.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#114

Post by addicted »

benologist wrote: post #38
thenewwazoo wrote: post #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…

This time Apple's explicitly saying the iPad Pro is their next personal computer so I wouldn't bet on that transition to ARM including macOS! The only piece missing is creating iOS apps on iOS devices, for which they've already created a language and an app to learn programming, then everything we do and know and learn just to keep our computers running is kind of legacy stuff.

I think the Mac will be around for a while, but I strongly suspect that it will be running iOS soon. It won't be difficult for Apple to add Windowing to iOS, and mouse pointer and keyboard support, and replace MacOS with iOS.

The only issue will be major apps like Adobe CS and Office, but even those have iOS incarnations that can potentially reach parity with their MacOS counterparts.

I suspect a Mac running a KBM and Windowing friendly iOS would make a really nice machine.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#115

Post by trungaczne »

sverige wrote: post #14
wfleming wrote: post #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. I…

And if you split your time between the terminal and the browser and want what amounts to a built-in IDE, OpenBSD is a great answer.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "what amounts to a built-in IDE"?

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#116

Post by mhenr18 »

spo81rty wrote: post #48
m_mueller wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* 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 (se…

Why would most macOS users care about the Windows registry, Microsoft APIs, OS level PDF, or POSIX? Perhaps a programmer, but not an end user? Seems like I would take a super powerful Windows or linux server any day over a lower powered Mac Pro just because of the OS if hardware specs were that critical. Taking 10 vs 1 minute to render would be way more important. BTW, Windows 10 has multi desktop and most apps work…

You wouldn't be commenting on things working at high DPIs on Windows if you've been using a Mac for the past few years. It's really one of those things where a lot of Windows users think that it's fine, but once you see how well seamless and fully supported things are on OSX you realise just how much there is left to do.

Every single app integrates well and the scaling is flawless even for the few that don't support 2x mode. I have never dragged a window between screens on the Mac and seen it appear at the wrong scale.

I've done it about 50 times in the past week at my day job on my Windows machine. To be fair, that Windows machine drives a VR headset that you just can't use on OSX because no Macs have the compute power needed - there are definite wins to going with Windows.

It's just that the Windows mentality is to just get most things working and assume the rest is just something that most users won't care about, whereas the Mac mentality is to get it all to work together seamlessly.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#117

Post by addicted »

criddell wrote: post #102
vbezhenar wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Intel? They release new processors every year. Apple could easily update every mac every year with new processor, they just don't care.

Intel's problem is power consumption.

Is there any evidence that ARM processors doing the same things Intel processors currently do have better power efficiency?

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#118

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

witty_username wrote: post #94
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's put it this way: We had someone in to demo a piece of software (webapp) this week which we were considering licensing, they had a Linux laptop (Ubuntu). They weren't able to connect to our corporate wireless and the meeting was delayed almost 40 minutes (ultimately we loaned them an in-house Windows ultrabook to do the demo). I felt embarrassed for them. I've not seen sleep issues on MacOS or Windows for over t…

Just curious, is that because of VPN?

No nothing I posted about has anything to do with VPN.

The user wasn't able to connect to our guest 802.1X (EAP, 802.11n) wireless network using their Ubuntu laptop. MacOS clients and Windows clients have no issue (it is a guest network, non-employees use it often).

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#119

Post by pavlov »

whyoh wrote: post #92
pavlov wrote: post #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…

It was already evident from the Anandtech review, where the 12 core model was reaching around 100 C (CPU and GPU) under stress load. Anand tried to downplay the issue somewhat, but the numbers speak for themselves, it's not a computer you can rely on for prolonged high loads.

Apple could give it a secondary function as a tea kettle... Then the design would finally serve some purpose. Just needs a samovar-style tap.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#120

Post by redial »

gaius wrote: post #108
bitwize wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually all of the rendering heavy lifting and many of the desktops in the world of cinematic VFX are Linux. Have been for years. Even Pixar has a Linux desktop fleet.

That is subtly incorrect - what they are is "cheap generic x86" (or x64 now), that's why all those SGIs and Suns were dumped, the price/performance of the hardware. Linux just happened to be the x86 Unix around at the time. It could just have easily been FreeBSD or (if Sun weren't so short-sighted) Solaris x86. Would anyone have ditched IRIX to run Linux on their MIPS kit? Of course not because it was never about the…

Right place at the right time. That's half the battle.
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