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Modern “Hackintoshes” show that Apple should probably just build a Mac tower

arstechnica.com

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Re: Modern “Hackintoshes” show that Apple should probably just build a Mac tower

#41

Post by azeirah »

vbezhenar wrote: post #37

May be it's just me, but I don't really care about design at all. I'm perfectly fine with huge tower or some reasonable fan noise. What I care is price, durability, extendability, repairability, and, of course, performance. I'm not really into macOS, I can use Linux or Windows just fine, but macOS is not that bad. I'm actually opposed to thin things or design aberrations like trash can mac. I'm paying for that after…

> Maybe it's just me

It is. I don't care a lot about design either (although I care a lot about user experience), but many people /do/ care for design, and are willing to pay a premium to get that design.

Re: Modern “Hackintoshes” show that Apple should probably just build a Mac tower

#43

Post by marceldegraaf »

kstenerud wrote: post #34

Can anyone tell me their experiences running a virtual hackintosh? In my current job I don't need a mac anymore, so I'm switching to a NUC which I'm thinking it'll be best to run Qubes on. But I do have existing mac/ios projects that I'd like to support, thus the need for a virtual hackintosh.

I've tried running OS/X in VMWare on Windows. Technically it works fine but there's no video acceleration and that's annoying enough to not make it a viable option for me.

Re: Modern “Hackintoshes” show that Apple should probably just build a Mac tower

#45

Post by wand3r »

post_break wrote: post #28

Honestly, Apple should make a Mac tower, and then incentivize graphic card manufacturers to write drivers. Imagine a Mac with not last years cards, but current generation cards. No custom bios BS like they had before, just buy a card, put it in, install the driver.

As of last week newer (newest?) NVIDIA GPUs work and are supported for hackintosh and presumably Mac desktops

Re: Modern “Hackintoshes” show that Apple should probably just build a Mac tower

#46

Post by toddmorey »

Boy did they drop the football in this area. I always thought the advantage to making the switch to more common PC architectures was the ability to keep pace and support a wider array of components and technologies.

Instead, they over-designed the enclosure and froze the high-end range of the platform. Creating a simple, but reliable tower design (optimized for speed rather than size) would have been extremely well received, would be nearly free money, and would have done wonders for the brand and their connection to creative pros.

Most of the pros I work with in the industry have gone from loving the mac to tolerating the mac. They are certainly looking around. I don't love Windows, but I have to admit that the Adobe Creative Suite now sings on a modern Windows machine.

Re: Modern “Hackintoshes” show that Apple should probably just build a Mac tower

#47

Post by wand3r »

kirykl wrote: post #27

You dont need a hackintosh to run a great mac for cheap(er). I picked up a 2012 mac mini off CL with 2.5 i5 and dropped in a SSD and maxed RAM to 16GB. Runs silent in a small package. Also added a 28" 4K off craigslist (although it'll only drive up to 2k). All for under $900

A $900 hackintosh could have a modest GPU and Skylake i7.

Re: Modern “Hackintoshes” show that Apple should probably just build a Mac tower

#48

Post by gnicholas »

azeirah wrote: post #41
vbezhenar wrote: post #37

May be it's just me, but I don't really care about design at all. I'm perfectly fine with huge tower or some reasonable fan noise. What I care is price, durability, extendability, repairability, and, of course, performance. I'm not really into macOS, I can use Linux or Windows just fine, but macOS is not that bad. I'm actually opposed to thin things or design aberrations like trash can mac. I'm paying for that after…

> Maybe it's just me It is. I don't care a lot about design either (although I care a lot about user experience), but many people /do/ care for design, and are willing to pay a premium to get that design.

Honest question: what percent of Pro Mac users care more about design than performance? I get that lots of creatives (who might care about design) use Macs, but in the Pro community the sense I get is that performance (and expandability) are relatively more important. That's why the trash can Mac Pro was not particularly popular, to say the least.

Re: Modern “Hackintoshes” show that Apple should probably just build a Mac tower

#49

Post by dawnerd »

542458 wrote: post #31
dawnerd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's for developers they don't have to guarantee it. I'm happily running a hackintosh right now. If they made it a little easier we wouldn't have to do weird hacks to spoof hardware ids just so messages work.

I think the iOS "developer previews" have shown that even if you label something as being "unstable and just for developers" you'll still end up with thousands upon thousands of people with no idea what they're doing running it anyways and subsequently being vocally horrified that not everything works perfectly.

The difference is those people would now have to build hardware instead of just opening itunes and hitting install. You really think those users could get past the bios setup stage?

Re: Modern “Hackintoshes” show that Apple should probably just build a Mac tower

#50

Post by pinaceae »

panglott wrote: post #4

Why not allow developers to build their own Macs? The situation today in completely different than 1995-1996, when Apple briefly allowed Macintosh clones, before Jobs killed the project because they were cannibalizing Apple's high-end desktop sales. Now high-end desktop sales are such a small part of Apple's line that they let the products stagnate for years. Are Mac Pro motherboards really going to compete with note…

The core business model of Apple is to sell hardware.

That simple.

That's why macOS, etc are free now. That's why they're ramping up their enterprise partnerships behind the scenes to ensure big apps run best or even first on iOS and macOS.

IBM, SAP and especially Cisco (the latter has special hooks in the networking stack in iOS, giving Cisco routers an edge).

You can argue if that is the correct approach or not, but it is Apple's DNA now - and all the issues in the pro segment stem from it. Not enough hardware to be sold, why bother, etc.

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