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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

#191

Post by eridius »

fps wrote: post #52
eropple wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've found Gnome-terminal to be better than iTerm2 in the areas that matter to me - speed, color/font rendering, and configurability. I switched from OS X to Ubuntu and i3 because I was tired of how slow iTerm2 was compared to Gnome Terminal, and haven't regretted it even slightly. My main workstation is a Lenovo Thinkpad with dual 1440p external monitors, and haven't run into issues losing heads, however, I wrote my…

> I switched from OS X to Ubuntu and i3 because I was tired of how slow iTerm2 was compared to Gnome Terminal

Did you ever try using the built-in Terminal.app? I've never had any speed issues with it.

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

#192

Post by abritinthebay »

robhu wrote: post #190
abritinthebay wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think downloading an illegal copy of something is still illegal though right? If I download a copy of a DVD for instance I've committed a crime in the UK at least. I agree it's not due to anything specific about Apple - it's just that it's an illegal copy as you are not the copyright holder and so have no right to make a modified copy or download a copy or modified copy.

> I think downloading an illegal copy of something is still illegal though right?

Mostly not! Seeding a torrent however counts as distribution. Using the software is against the EULA on ToS usually though.

It's kind of like how, back in the day, if you bought pirate software from a guy in a market they were the criminal, not you. Copyright law is mostly about infringement which requires distribution.

It's how torrent sites stay (mostly) legal: they don't actually distribute the files (usually).

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

#193

Post by lightedman »

ericfrederich wrote: post #74
lightedman wrote: post #3

Apple did. It came with a G5 processor. Most people didn't want to pay the exorbitant prices that Apple wanted them to pay for things like Apple-compatible AGP graphics cards and such when PCs got the same thing at literally 1/3 the price, and they pretty quickly fell into irrelevance. Apple would probably go the exact same route as they did the last time and fail just as miserably.

Wasn't this use case exactly what was part of their justification for switching to Intel?... the ability to keep up faster.

They certainly did not keep up. Their equipment has been behind as far as I can tell when I worked for them starting back in the G3 days, and that's including after the intel switch.

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

#194

Post by mjn »

iainmerrick wrote: post #18
mjn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current philosophy is pretty solidly in line with the historical Apple design philosophy, so I wouldn't necessarily expect it to change. The iMac is basically today's evolution of the original Mac [1], a single-piece computer/monitor combination with no user-serviceable parts. Jobs said in 1984 that hardware customization is unnecessary to support, because "customization really is mostly software now". The Mac Pr…

You're cherry-picking. That is definitely one of Apple's design philosophies, and it has definitely worked very well for the iPhone and iPad. But not all their computers have followed that style. The Mac II launched in 1987(!) and was very influential. And as the earlier commenter mentioned, before the "trash can" redesign, the Mac Pro was easy to open and had plenty of ports. Trying to apply that sealed appliance ap…

True, although perhaps worth noting that the Mac II was developed in secret because its developers knew Jobs would hate it, and indeed Jobs hated its "unnecessary" and supposedly user-unfriendly expansion ports. It ended up being released only after Jobs was fired from Apple.

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

#195

Post by err4nt »

wmeredith wrote: post #168
toddmorey wrote: post #46

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…

> Most of the pros I work with in the industry have gone from loving the mac to tolerating the mac. This is true of myself (UX Designer with 10+ years in the biz pushing code and design) and ALL of the creative types I associate with. I know Apple is something like 90% an iPhone company now, but I'd love to see some long term analysis on the damage they've done to themselves, and even the iPhone, by alienating ALL of…

Agree 100%, I just refurbished my 6-year old Macbook Air instead of buying a new computer because Apple doesn't sell anything today I actually want. I know for sure my next tablet and my next phone won't be Apple, so they have until this 2011 Macbook Air dies (for the last time) to come up with something worth spending money on, or else I'm back to the PC market! Same goes for all of the Mac users I know, we lament the golden days of Apple but are glad to have experienced them.

This Apple is starting to go rotten.

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

#196

Post by jbmorgado »

sp0rk wrote: post #71
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…

> May be it's just me, but I don't really care about design at all. > I'm not really into macOS, I can use Linux or Windows just fine, but macOS is not that bad. I think it's safe to say that you fall outside of Apple's target demographic.

I think the OP was referring that he doesn't care about the design of the machine, not that he doesn't care about design as in development.

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

#197

Post by rtkwe »

melling wrote: post #107
rtkwe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full towers have a couple benefits against smaller cases, thermals and space for expansion (internal hdd's, additional graphics cards, etc.). Smaller cases really suffer from lack of expansion space and often severely restrict the components you can use just based on the volume you can work with.

Yes, the expansion capabilities are well understood. Applying an 80/20 rule, one or two graphics cards, and a couple of drives should pretty much cover it. Apple could offer a large and small form case. The real problem is heat, right?

Heat is a big problem but given that they barely seem to want to be in the pro business at all these days given their laptop choices lately I doubt they'd want to have 2 different desktops.

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

#198

Post by developer2 »

toddmorey wrote: post #46

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…

People overestimate how a modern Mac Pro tower would work. A Mac Pro tower is not going to permit hackintosh-style hardware builds. They will force the use of whitelisted "supported" hardware, and sell it all themselves with their standard high markups.

Without proprietary hardware, there is not enough money in the market for them to bother with a tower in the first place. It would also put the "it just works" aspect of the Apple brand at risk, should customers use 3rd-party hardware components that wind up not functioning properly due to unofficial drivers. Apple has a public image to maintain, and they will not expose themselves to having customers claim that their Mac Pro "isn't working", blaming Apple instead of looking to the 3rd-party hardware manufacturer.

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

#199

Post by iainmerrick »

abritinthebay wrote: post #164
iainmerrick wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they didn't have to make a bet at all. They wanted to make a tiny, silent Pro machine to make a statement, but nobody seems to have cared much about that. I haven't seen a single person saying "I hope the new Pro is still really really small, even if that means it's more expensive and less expandable!"

> But they didn't have to make a bet at all. Sure, neither does anyone... on anything. If the bet had succeeded though we'd all be calling them geniuses and suchlike. If no-one made bets like that we'd still have boring beige boxes. Hell the original Mac was a bet like that (the design was radical at the time). The MacPro is an awesome machine. Everyone I know that has used one loves it. That's great for a pro-machin…

Sorry, I was unclear about the "bet". I don't mean they shouldn't take risks, more that in this case it would have been easy to hedge the bet -- launch a bigger expandable box at the same time.

In their recent discussions around the upcoming redesign, it sounds like they didn't realize they were making a bet at all. If they had, they should have monitored it more closely and been a lot quicker out of the gate with the redesign.

A possible defence is that Apple had other priorities at the time, and wasn't paying full attention to the Pro. But it's mystifying why the world's biggest company by market cap can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

The MacPro is an awesome machine. Everyone I know that has used one loves it.

It's funny it hasn't been more successful, then! Although I certainly believe you. It's definitely possible for it to be popular with a niche while failing in the wider market.

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

#200

Post by iainmerrick »

basseq wrote: post #169
basseq wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hackint…

Also, note[1] that Apple isn't being stupid here. Their strategy was just wrong (namely expansion via Thunderbolt peripherals and multi-GPU performance). John Gruber suggests this is a bit of an "Oh Shit" moment for Apple, too. [1] https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives

Maybe not stupid, but very slow on the uptake. If they'd been taking the temperature of the community properly, they wouldn't have been surprised when the reaction to their new MacBook Pros was "okay, whatever, but what about the desktops?"
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