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

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

#151
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be the disk speed.

No disk drive. Running off of an ADATA Premier SP600 256 gig SSD, which is supposed to have 540MB/s read, 290MB/s write.

Pointing out the obvious here, but there seems to be something wrong with your build. Adobe CS should be running very smoothly in your system.

I have CS running on and old i3 machine with 8 GB of RAM with an SSD and an integrated video card, and Photoshop runs as fast as in my MBPr i7.

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

#152
post #17

For people wed to commercial design apps, I can totally understand the draw of running macOS on commodity hardware. But as someone who skews more to the hacker end of the spectrum and doesn't depend on commercial software, the day-to-day qualitative experience of Linux is head and shoulders above macOS these days. Ditto OpenBSD, etc. I'll never go back. At least it does if you've already come around to using a deskto…

Uhhhh. I put my time in with a Linux desktop for nearly a decade until a job bought me a Mac and there's no way I'd go back. And I think my "hacker end of the spectrum" bona fides are pretty good--but those bona fides aren't incompatible with a preference for a pleasing UX that has been considered with users in mind, which for my money no open-source desktop environment has even approached (and I have my beefs with O…

Similar experience.

I also spent my high school years working on a roadster in the garage with my father, and once I had money I thought I'd like to do that again, but it turns out that knee room, heated seats, airbags, side impact safety, a DSG and not having to fuck around with my car all goddamned weekend trumped my need to tinker, and so it sat in the garage.

Instead I tinker with other things, like frameworks, databases, video games, and plants. And my computer Just Works.

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

#153

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 r…

They should just adapt the cheese grater to a mini itx format and work with that.

Agreed... as much as I'd prefer mATX, I think ITX would be the smartest bet... for that matter, if they'd sell "replacement" motherboards with a "core" fee (refunded on turning in the old MB), they could just turn even more of a blind eye to those that really want to go the DIY route with supported hardware. They don't make much money of the desktop users, but those users create most of their money making content for them.

Having a beautiful case that takes a standard ITX board would be great. Yeah, you might not get dual-gpu that way, but even a good ITX would be a huge step up from what they have now...

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tried this before with clones in the 90s. It didn't end well for anyone involved.

I don't know what you mean, the model worked extremely well and IBM PC clones took over the market completely. Oh, you mean Mac clones ;-). What I'm trying to say is it depends entirely on execution if it works or not. I wouldn't go the way of outsourcing it to others. I would make the clone company a 100% daughter company of Apple, and at the same time I would crack down hard on other Hackintoshs (legally and techni…

And how much of the PC desktop market did IBM retain? Apple probably prefers 100% of a smaller cake.

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

#155
post #129

The problem isn't that the Mac Pro isn't upgradeable. That is a symptom and a potential solution , but not necessarily the best one. The real problem here is that Apple itself hasn't been able to keep up with demands. If they were able to enhance and sell a "new model" of Mac pro every 6-12 months, the problem would go away. Nobody wants a hackintosh, barring the long tail of people who like building PC's anyway . (A…

The real problem here is that Apple itself hasn't been able to keep up with demands. I think the problem is they chosen not to update the Mac Pro, not that they haven't been able to. Resources should not be an issue given their cash reserves. And frankly, even if the Mac Pro were not a profitable machine for Apple overall, they would be better served by choosing to keep it up to date, and to keep is desirable, in ord…

I suspect they got wrapped around the axle on too much industrial design and painted themselves into a corner where they couldn't upgrade it easily. The ROI of going back to the drawing board so soon was a non-starter.

They're not yet at the point where their developers' grumblings are having a material negative impact on the bottom line. Yet.

I hope they don't make the same mistake twice. But I don't think a hackintosh-inspired tower with the upgrade path left solely to the buyer would be a good strategy.

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, bu…

As much as that's true, Apple has been trying to dig deeper into "services" over the last decade. App sales, music sales, movie sales, cloud services, anything they can do to expand their software ecosystem to make it more versatile and useful on hardware they never produced. If in some conceivable future Apple could make enough money on the "pro" market looking for OEM-style rigs to fund development of macOS through…

As I inderstand it, Apple isn't organised that way. They have OS teams, app teams, design teams, which work on whichever product at a given time. They don't have product-specific teams.

As for Apple being tiny without the iPhone; it's huge but Apple Watch (commonly described as a failure) is estimated to be a bigger business than Microsoft's Surface business.

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

#157
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not illegal, just against the EULA. Basically they could revoke your usage of the software and probably legally fine you. It is a software license issue. Technically it would be something like unlicensed distribution/copying. Practically speaking they don't care though. The machine building market is vanishingly small and the licensing gives Apple plausible "we never said it would work" deniability.

I think the illegal bit is using an illegal copy of their OS to install as you don't hold the copyright and so aren't allowed to make a (modified) copy of the installer that works on the non-Apple hardware.

Potentially. Of course if you're just downloading a modified version then it's not you that modified it.

It's a bit of a strange area. Either way - it's not illegal due to any specific thing Apple does. Other copyright/IP law may apply though.

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The trash can Mac Pro is definitely too much form for too little function - but letting the pendulum swing back the other way is IMO also bad. The previous tower Mac Pros are massive machines - massive beyond the point of practicality for many purposes. They're also insanely heavy to the point of impracticality. Not all pros want/can live with something 3 feet tall that consumes several square feet of floor space. Th…

Having max settle on desktop-class ITX motherboards would be huge... having the MB themselves be user purchasable would be beyond awesome. Buy a known quantity board with wireless/btle and an apple boot system, throw in your own cpu, ram, ssd, either onboard or offboard video, and you've still got a decent DIY system.

Apple could sell the full systems with a great looking case, and DIY enthusiasts could have a fast path to a hackintosh with a MB that's far less likely to blow up when updates happen.

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

#159
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…

Why doesnt McDonald's let you build a big mac at home - it's not like people don't have access to lettuce, tomatoes, hamburger buns, meat, cheese, mayonnaise, pickles, etc. The only thing we really need is the sauce that makes it a big mac. hey before I answer you wanna take a stab at that question? EDIT: I don't know why I was downvoted, it's a fairly close analogy.

mcdonalds cannot prevent you from making a bigmac at home if you know the recipe.

apple can prevent you from making a mac at home, even if you know the recipe (via licensing).

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

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have reverse-engineered everything about that, including the sauce. What's your point? People also go to fast food restaurants to get food quickly. Preparing it yourself saves you zero time, it destroys the value of the Big Mac. If you're going to make your own burger, you can sure as shit do better than a Big Mac.

your sister comment made an interesting point that McDonald's does sell the sauce in grocery stores. That is a close analogy to this (since if someone really wants a big mac, they can make a hamburger at home and, by including some of that sauce, gets something that meets some of that need.) I think that's a pretty bad business decision for McDonald's to have done.

It's a non-competing market. Nobody is going to fire up a grill in the office, make a burger, and then slap on the sauce just to save a trip to a McDonald's.

They are going to use it when the otherwise wouldn't buy a McDonald's burger, like when hosting a backyard BBQ.

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