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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

#171

Post by intopieces »

dawnerd wrote: post #24
eddieroger wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drivers. Apple likes the control over the hardware and software, and packages all of the drivers needed to run macOS on any blessed instance of Apple hardware currently supported (and maybe even ever created, since Intel). If you wanted, and I have done this before, you can clone a Mac made HDD and boot it from any other Mac you can get your hands on, and other than the hardware swap it's basically a reboot. If Apple…

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.

>If it's for developers they don't have to guarantee it.

This would only be true in a world where Ars Technica, The Verge, and other publications did not exist.

Apple would suffer from poor performance reviews for any sort of driver issue. Plus, "not guaranteed to work" is the opposite of Apple's ethos, which is "it just works."

Apple has made it easy enough for hackitoshes to work by being lax with people running MacOS.

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

#172

Post by mustacheemperor »

logicallee wrote: post #59
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…

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.

I think you're being downvoted because your "close analogy" compares the lowest common denominator of burgers, where the main value is speed, to a company that purports to offer the highest tier of professional developer computers, where the main value is quality of experience.

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

#173

Post by concede_pluto »

cmurf wrote: post #118
1_2__3 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Apple is about as done as it can be with general purpose computing. I think it's safe to say they will make no more significant investments in it. Closed ecosystem computing is their golden goose now, they have zero interest in anything else. The margins for what they're doing now are too high for them to give that up.

Apple started with a closed ecosystem. Any perceived notion that they were going to be open: using commodity hardware, using open source software, was a means to an end. And they have come back full circle.

Anyone could get a schematic of their Apple ][ and crack the case. It wasn't until the Mac that they stopped treating customers like humans with tools.

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

#174

Post by logicallee »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #172
logicallee wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you're being downvoted because your "close analogy" compares the lowest common denominator of burgers, where the main value is speed, to a company that purports to offer the highest tier of professional developer computers, where the main value is quality of experience.

A lot of people go to McDonald's because they yearn for their signature hamburger, a Big Mac. In fact some people might leave a fully stocked kitchen to go eat one. that's all I meant. it considerably cheapens the experience if you can get the big mac in a bottle -- and mcdonad's is making a bad business decision by allowing that product on grocery shelves.

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

#175

Post by alkonaut »

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.

And don't forget that "design" doesn't just mean estethics. Design is also usability, maintainability etc. Good product design makes a product easy to use too, not just nice to look at.

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

#176

Post by justinclift »

walterbell wrote: post #135
justinclift wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the specs, none of the Z2 configurations have ECC memory. That's extremely disappointing for a "workstation". :(

ECC memory is available when you select a Xeon CPU.

Ahhh thanks, didn't notice that. :)

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

#177

Post by mark212 »

alexeiz wrote: post #128

Apple isn't making a Mac tower because there is no demand for overpriced machines with mediocre performance. All those people building hackintoshes want a cheap Mac desktop. They won't buy a new Mac tower should Apple produce one. They'll continue building hackintoshes.

not true for me. I built the hackintosh I'm typing this on last summer so I could run a large 4k display and have an Nvidia graphics card to monkey around with. If Apple builds a nice Mac tower that I can upgrade and extend (a new, larger SSD ... a new video card ... etc), I'll buy it. It's not really cost.

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

#179

Post by FireBeyond »

vbezhenar wrote: post #121
abtinf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"(15 years or something like that)" I'm curious how you came up with that number? Are you currently still using anything PC related from 2002?

My old computers are working fine. I've gifted them to other people, but I care about devices working for a long time. But really nowadays computers are not progressing that much. Unless something very revolutionary happens, the difference between 2017 and 2032 computer will be much less than difference between 2002 and 2017. So it's perfectly reasonable to assume that people will use computers from 2017 (especially…

I feel skeptical about that. 2002 was seeing Pentium IIIs being released that could support usually a maximum of 256MB of RAM (512MB on the very latest high end models). I don't see much in the way of web browsing these days working with that.

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

#180

Post by alkonaut »

melling wrote: post #6

Do we really need a full tower? Isn't most of the space in a traditional PC "trash can" form factor wasted? The graphics card size would need to change, but it would be great if we could shrink the case and still have all the power of a desktop.

If they skip a second cpu socket, a second graphcis card, and any 3.5" internal storage then they could make it pretty small. I hope they don't however, they should at least have two full length graphics cards. CPU's are good enough that you can cram enough cores in one socket these days for most desktop workloads. Spinning metal storage isn't necessary either, an m2 slot + space for 2xSSD's is plenty for internal storage. The problem is the full size graphics cards, in the age of 4K, 5K and 8K and what have you, there is just no way around that content creators for games, video, VR etc will need two of the latest of whatever is on the market. And those are huge and hot. And they need a large box of moving air with an 750W+ power supply.
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