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The End of OS X

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Re: The End of OS X

#201

Post by oneplane »

technofiend wrote: post #138
oneplane wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side: does anyone still buy a low-specced machine and upgrade it mid-lifecycle? I've seen it less and less over the last 6 years and the last 2 years it hasn't happened in any work setting. I know people like to have the feeling of control (do you really control your laptop if you can't replace your EC, CSME, AGESA, SSD FW, NIC FW, VBIOS) and the concept of shuffling parts around, but the need for that (a…

Why wait for mid lifecycle? Buy a low-specced machine and the drop in larger storage and memory rather than paying a huge premium to the vendor. It's not about control as much as just saving money.

Mid-lifecycle because saving 10% on an expensive device isn't what most people are interested in when they are buying something to work on.

Yes, people exist that do that or want that or really need to save every cent possible, but to many others that is not even interesting as a thought exercise.

So I referred to mid-lifecycle because those people that initially don't try to go on the cheap usually only did any part swapping because the machine was good enough and swapping machines was too much of a hassle: upgrades made sense.

Re: The End of OS X

#202

Post by monocasa »

hn_check wrote: post #46
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The move towards "iOSing" the OS. It won't be GateKeeper. It will be policies. They won't make it obvious at all, because they know how unpopular it will be. Let's see what the future brings. I'm not thrilled with it (for example, I have one app that I've written, that uses ffmpeg[0], and ffmpeg no likee sandbox). [0] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_MediaServer

"The move towards "iOSing" the OS." People have been claiming this for literally a decade+ now. The death of macOS is perpetually imminent.

Did you miss the big announcement that arm macbooks will run iOS apps unmodified?

Do you think you'll be able to run an non apple signed kernel on aarch64 macbooks?

Re: The End of OS X

#203

Post by sailingparrot »

oneplane wrote: post #182
sailingparrot wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I literally can think of no reason I personally would want to do this If you personnaly care a little bit about the environment there is a pretty evident reason why being able to swap a single piece of hardware is better than replacing the whole unit because everything is soldered together. Right to repair would also mean that once your device goes out of guarantee you would have more options to get your device rep…

You assume that people have to throw away millions of laptops, but his comment (and mine) refer to the fact that a recent laptop works fine for 6+ years as-is. The lifecycle doesn't shorten but the need to toy with the innards has gone away for a lot of people.

> You assume that people have to throw away millions of laptops

Hmm yes I do: https://twitter.com/RDKLInc/status/1275100376350384132

Have you also never had anyone you know spilling liquid on their keyboard after the warranty expired? Or dropped it?

So in the end yes, I am pretty sure that there are literal millions of devices being thrown away because repairing them is too expensive.

Edit: I'll also add that in 6 years using a mac, Apple replaced my macbook entirely twice for some issue that you would hope could be fixed without throwing everything away. So, sure, the customer is happy because they got a brand new device. But personnally I would rather stick with my 1 year old device and reduce environmental impact.

Re: The End of OS X

#204

Post by [deleted] »

panzagl wrote: post #120
pron wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is a huge Java shop. They're quite secretive but a very large portion (the great majority?) of their backend is Java. OpenJDK has a Linux/AArch64 port, and it will have a macOS/AArch64 port, too.

Do they currently run their backend on MacOS?

[deleted]

Re: The End of OS X

#205

Post by sudosysgen »

jaywalk wrote: post #169
swyx wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why exactly did they change the version number? i dont get it

I don't think Apple has explicitly said anything, but the fact that this version will support a new CPU architecture seems like a pretty good reason.

Not really, OS X supports PowerPC and Intel (32 and 64 bits) at various stages in it's lifetime.

Re: The End of OS X

#206

Post by codetrotter »

crazygringo wrote: post #71

First OS X was big cats, then it was mountains. Very surprised they didn't switch to a new naming theme! I guess an architecture change was as good a reason as any to revert back to a normal, sane versioning system where the first number increments like most programs. But it's just weird how "unannounced" or unacknowledged it is.

> I guess an architecture change was as good a reason as any to revert back to a normal, sane versioning system where the first number increments like most programs. But it's just weird how "unannounced" or unacknowledged it is.

There are many ways to version software.

They changed the major version from 9 to 10 when they went from classic Mac OS to the NeXTSTEP-based Mac OS X.

Arguably they could have bumped the major version a couple of times between them and now, for example when they dropped support for the PPC architecture back in 10.6 Snow Leopard. Likewise, when they deprecated Carbon in 10.8 Mountain Lion (alternatively, with the release of macOS 10.15 Catalina when Carbon was officially discontinued and removed entirely). And probably they could have had other major version bumps along the way too.

Nonetheless, the fact that they didn’t hasn’t really seemed that strange to me for a long while, given like I said, that there are a lot of ways to version software.

Choosing Big Sur as the name for the first major version bump in a long while seems like no coincidence to me.

From the Wikipedia article about Big Sur, California:

> It is frequently praised for its dramatic scenery. Big Sur has been called the "longest and most scenic stretch of undeveloped coastline in the contiguous United States," a "national treasure that demands extraordinary procedures to protect it from development" and "one of the most beautiful coastlines anywhere in the world, an isolated stretch of road, mythic in reputation."

> The stunning views, redwood forests, hiking, beaches, and other recreational opportunities have made Big Sur a popular destination for about 7 million people who live within a day's drive and visitors from across the world. It is among the top 35 tourist destinations world-wide.

> The region receives about the same number of visitors as Yosemite National Park [...]

Seems to me that the release of this version of macOS is a big deal to Apple, and I would agree that it is. With the introduction of their upcoming computers that will be running ARM CPUs, I can see how they would want to signify that this is something really worth noting both in the version number and in the name.

Personally I am really excited to see these new upcoming computers, and to use them and the macOS 11 Big Sur.

Re: The End of OS X

#207

Post by duskwuff »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #105
PeterCorless wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I suspect that non-App Store apps for the Mac may be seeing the twilight." Obv someone doesn't shop on Steam.

I do, and being a Mac user on Steam sucks. Epic is even worse. Apple doesn't seem to be particularly worried about it. For all the hate dumped on Mac as being a "toy" computer, it is a terrible gaming computer. I use it to do work .

Valve doesn't seem particularly worried about it either. Steam's macOS support has always felt like an afterthought -- they've put more effort into supporting the miniscule number of users on Linux (through efforts like Proton) than macOS.

Re: The End of OS X

#208

Post by [deleted] »

sudosysgen wrote: post #173
pjmlp wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they do, otherwise selling desktop software to Linux users would actually be profitable.

Selling desktop software to Linux users is only unprofitable because it often sucks and when it doesn't the market share isn't there. Have you ever seen anyone actually pay for Windows or Mac OS? No? right.

[deleted]

Re: The End of OS X

#209

Post by jmull »

lordleft wrote: post #64

I've looked at the trajectory of Apple these past few years with mounting bitter-sweetness. At its best, MacOS really felt like the best of Unix combined with the consumer focus alluded to in the article. I still adore the craftsmanship of the latest Macbooks, but my 2015 Macbook felt like the apex of Mac's design. It was the kind of device that was such a pleasure to develop on. You could leverage the power of Unix…

> And now that balance has tipped away from the power-user, the developers, to the end-user

What do you mean by that? (Personally, I can't think of anything I can't do now that I could do five or ten years ago on my Mac. Yet a lot of things are better.)

Re: The End of OS X

#210

Post by badRNG »

_bxg1 wrote: post #102
parasubvert wrote: post #84

I personally think that the MacBook Pro 16 inch is the world’s best laptop, and look forward to see what the next generations can do. But the whole point has been MacOS. I’m not sure what to think of the changes. If they stabilize the mess that was Catalina, then they’re doing the right things, even with the increased iOS-ification of the Mac. If they just slap more Windows 8 style touch gloss on deep and unresolvabl…

> Linux is only free if your time has no value Hah, that's great. I'll have to tuck that one away.

That was probably a fair assessment a decade ago, but Linux seriously "just works" now. About a year ago I bought a Dell XPS 13, I've thrown Pop!_OS on there, and it worked out of the box, no driver downloads, no sneakernetting Wi-Fi drivers, no codec installs, no track-pad problems (two fingers to right click works!), no scaling issues, no 3rd party repos. It just works. (I'm sure FOSS folks may dislike the distribution of 3rd party binaries, but I don't use Linux because I'm a FOSS purist.)

Pop!_OS comes with a built-in tiling manager you can toggle on that completely changes the game for development. If you have never used a tiling manager, you owe it to yourself to do it at least once. The built in software manager is excellent, and is the one-stop-shop for installing VSCode, Android Studio, Steam, Chromium and IntelliJ all at once. No finding/adding repos, automatic updates, it just works.

Even gaming (on Steam and Lutris) is a breeze. It honestly requires zero tinkering (on Steam at least) to get 90% of my library to run (including AAA titles.) If you haven't used desktop Linux since 2010, it is a radically different experience. It honestly is easier to use and get what I want it to do than a MBP today.

(Disclaimer, I'm sure mileage varies depending on your environment, hardware, and chosen distro, just sharing my experience. I prefer to compare the XPS + Linux experience to MBP + macOS)

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