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Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

techcrunch.com

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Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#551

Post by bsg75 »

pjmlp wrote: post #344
ctack wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why XFCE is not the default for Ubuntu desktop. It was(is?) part of Xubuntu, the lightweight Ubuntu distro, years ago. I had the most basic entry level laptop, but I managed to connect 2 external monitors to it while the tiling would remember the locations of all programs in all three monitors and it was FAST. Nothing I have tried since has touched it. It set me up for a lot of disappointment! I no…

Not everyone misses CDE. At least that is what it reminded me of.

I never really used CDE, but XFCE just turned out to be my speed.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#552

Post by binthere »

Windows usually feels ugly if you have a bad monitor (which is pretty much 99.9% of the monitors available in the market today).

I've recently bought an Asus Rog Swift monitor and I couldn't be happier with Windows.

https://www.amazon.com/27-inch-Monitor-PG278Q-Response-Displ...

UI itself is just a matter of preference and I don't mind Windows 10 UI, you can hide most of the things you find ugly.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#553

Post by equalarrow »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #257
scandox wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. To my mind the greatest obstacle to Linux Desktop adoption is the traditional Desktop concept.

To me, NeXTStep was the best feature rich desktop. I wish there was a modern version that isn't macOS.

The only wm I loved and stuck with on Linux was Windowmaker. Your comment is why - NeXTStep was awesome and missed..

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#554

Post by shmerl »

pjmlp wrote: post #544
shmerl wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That won't help those who don't have resources to add support for a redundant API, and would rather leave MacOS without some features than do the former. Example: https://www.winehq.org//wwn/404 > An open issue with anything newer than Direct3D9 is that wined3d still depends on legacy OpenGL 2 features and many drivers do not expose some features necessary for d3d10/11 in legacy contexts. With the MaxVersionGL key se…

> wined3d still depends on legacy OpenGL 2 and many drivers do not expose some features necessary for d3d10/11 in legacy contexts. Well that says it all, even if Apple had an up to date OpenGL driver, that wouldn't help.

That phrase is confusing. They can use core profile, but Apple is simply stuck on older OpenGL, so features they rely on to implement DX11 aren't available on MacOS. So if Apple would have provided full OpenGL 4.5+ support, it wouldn't have been an issue.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#555

Post by nycticorax »

3131s wrote: post #216
lobster_johnson wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also considering a switch, but Windows drives me up the wall whenever I touch it. macOS has been getting uglier and more awkward to use the last few years, but Windows is still the king of ugly. So I've been considering Linux as my first option. I fired up a few VMs and dipped my toes in various Linux desktop environments: Elementary, Fedora 25, and Ubuntu (Unity) so far. These are all GNOME 3 variants. And... oh…

Try Linux Mint + Mate. It's simple, pleasant looking, and totally intuitive for me at least.

Or Ubuntu Mate 16.04, and switch to the "TraditionalOK" theme. (The default theme is, IMHO, not attractive.)

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#556

Post by jzl »

Lio wrote: post #403
pjmlp wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need when Unreal, Unity, Crytek and every other game engine that matters already support Metal.

I've not heard of any games or VR software released to the market that use Metal yet. I've heard it mentioned about projects still in development but so far that's all. Do you have any examples of things using it?

Both Unity and Unreal Engine (UE4) supports Metal, so any games created in Unity/UE4 for Mac & iOS might possibly use it. If the game doesn't need anything beyond GL 3 support then the creator might choose to not enable Metal and stick with GL.

I don't know what percentage of Unity/UE4 Mac & iOS games have Metal enabled, but it is potentially a very large number.

That's the thing about Metal -- as long as common libraries and game engines add support for it, most developers won't have to do much additional work to use it. Only people who are writing their own graphics engine from scratch would need to learn it.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#557

Post by empath75 »

bane wrote: post #47

I kind of feel like, once you're talking publicly about things like if you are committed or not, you probably aren't and are trying to keep people from fleeing while you figure out what to do or while some long-term strategy kicks in.

Just like in politics: "He has my full confidence" = "I'm going to accept his resignation after this weekend"

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#558

Post by shmerl »

jzl wrote: post #556
Lio wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not heard of any games or VR software released to the market that use Metal yet. I've heard it mentioned about projects still in development but so far that's all. Do you have any examples of things using it?

Both Unity and Unreal Engine (UE4) supports Metal, so any games created in Unity/UE4 for Mac & iOS might possibly use it. If the game doesn't need anything beyond GL 3 support then the creator might choose to not enable Metal and stick with GL. I don't know what percentage of Unity/UE4 Mac & iOS games have Metal enabled, but it is potentially a very large number. That's the thing about Metal -- as long as common libr…

See example above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13221395

Not everyone is going to spend resources on implementing a redundant API. Apple are just being their usual lock-in jerks by not supporting OpenGL and Vulkan.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#559

Post by cgvgffyv »

pdimitar wrote: post #84
bane wrote: post #47

I kind of feel like, once you're talking publicly about things like if you are committed or not, you probably aren't and are trying to keep people from fleeing while you figure out what to do or while some long-term strategy kicks in.

Agreed, I have the exact same feeling for this case as well. "We have so many amazing things in store that I am so excited about" Actions speak louder than words. The new MBPs are the most meh Apple laptops ever. The iPhone 7/Plus are the laziest iPhones ever made, too. Rehashes losing legacy ports and trying to impose new ones (although USB Type-C is the best decision they've made in the last several years; I think…

> the wording is just awful and comes off as corny and forced by your PR department.

Well someone's got to play the part of Steve Jobs.

Re: Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac

#560

Post by saghm »

ufo wrote: post #373
yoz-y wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KDE certainly is powerful and the Kparts system is amazing. However, in the beauty category I would put it at the bottom of the bunch.

KDE Plasma 5 is gorgeous. I couldn't stand KDE4's "windows XP" look but now KDE is one of my favorite DEs.

I used Plasma 5 for a while and really loved the interface and the ability to customize almost anything, but what got me in the end was trying to sync settings across multiple machines. From what I can tell, there are a bunch of random files with names starting with "k" dumped in ~/.config that store most of the settings, but copying them to different machines didn't seem to work. Of course, it's not much easier to sync settings with something like Gnome, but it takes me a lot less time and effort to set up Gnome with the exact settings I like than Plasma. If I didn't switch around machines/distros a lot, I probably would have stuck with Plasma though.
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