Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#41

Post by PascLeRasc » Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 1:33 PM UTC

zwaps wrote: post #24

zwaps wrote: post #23

Why you would use an Apple computer in actual "production pipelines" that generate revenue, need upgrading, and use external hardware, is beyond me. In that article we get to read about entire firms using rendering pipelines that are now useless. While that is a terrible blunder by Apple, I really would ask how the responsible parties thought it a good idea to rely on an ecosystem that they have zero control over and…

I mean seriously. When you had to start to daisy-chain a curious mix of Thunderbold 3 aftermarket applicances, splitters and adapters to your Mac Pro to "set up your pipeline", because Apple has openly, transparently and clearly demonstrated and communicated its periphery usage policy, it should have become clear that what you are doing is VOLATILE.

It's because developer/designer time is worth much more than whatever hardware costs. If you have a great developer on staff and they say they do their best work on OS X, you give them that. If you don't someone else will.

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#42

Post by SiVal » Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 1:42 PM UTC

zwaps wrote: post #23

Why you would use an Apple computer in actual "production pipelines" that generate revenue, need upgrading, and use external hardware, is beyond me. In that article we get to read about entire firms using rendering pipelines that are now useless. While that is a terrible blunder by Apple, I really would ask how the responsible parties thought it a good idea to rely on an ecosystem that they have zero control over and…

I agree with you if "pipeline" has the narrower meaning I think you're using. In a more general sense, though, I use a Mac all the time in my software dev "pipeline", but I'm much more careful these days to strenuously avoid using anything on the Mac that I couldn't take with me to the next platform (which won't be iOS) once Apple courageously removes enough usefulness from new Macs that I give up and move on.

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#43

Post by bjpbakker » Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 1:49 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #26

I've never been at the forefront of upgrading my Macbook, and that seems like a wise decision now. Still, increasingly poor versions of OS X present a clear end of the line for my 2011 Macbook Pro. Some time ago I was forced to upgrade to Sierra, because LinkedIn's website stopped working in Chrome. (I don't use LinkedIn much because it's awful, but a lot of clients find me there.) Turns out LinkedIn felt my version…

Owner of a late 2013 15" MBP here. I never been eager to upgrade to new mac version too.

> Some time ago I was forced to upgrade to Sierra

Until about a month ago I ran Sierra - which worked fine and in 2 years didn't crash my mpb once.

Then I had to compile a few ios apps for work, and since xcode was outdated on Sierra, I had to upgrade to High Sierra. High Sierra kept crashing on me. Several coworkers also had this experience and suggested to upgrade to Mojave.

Meanwhile Apple also kept pushing to upgrade to Mojave via an os notification they showed a few times a day. So I sadly ran the "upgrade" to find out the system was much less stable than before. No I see why. Sadly my GFX-750 isn't supported.

For me this is the end of the line on macs. Newer MBPs have broken keyboard that Apple refuses to fix, and are really expensive to the old hardware they come with. And apparently you cannot even expect a >$3500 MBP to outlive 5 years because Apple breaks it with their software patches.

I'll have to buy a new laptop because I cannot even connect a proper external monitor anymore. Obviously it won't apple product. I'm thinking to go System76.

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#44

Post by apostacy » Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 1:50 PM UTC

stoobs wrote: post #33

zwaps wrote: post #23

Why you would use an Apple computer in actual "production pipelines" that generate revenue, need upgrading, and use external hardware, is beyond me. In that article we get to read about entire firms using rendering pipelines that are now useless. While that is a terrible blunder by Apple, I really would ask how the responsible parties thought it a good idea to rely on an ecosystem that they have zero control over and…

Who the hell upgrades their entire production system to new OS releases without thoroughly testing beforehand? Especially if you're running completely unsupported hardware configurations. That's just extreme ineptitude at best, grossly negligent at worst. You just don't do that no matter the OS/hardware vendor - How many people have run afoul of Microsoft releasing broken patches into the wild? If you have mission-cr…

I'm really unhappy that Homebrew twists user's arms to update to the latest version of OSX. I'm glad that I waited a year before I updated to High Sierra, seeing as how there were APFS file corruption bugs, and a default root login bug!

We need to stop being so enamored with Apple, and treat them with the same skepticism as Microsoft.

Several people in my office have been bitten by the Mojave bug and are now regretting it. You should wait at least six months to update OSX.

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#45

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

eight_ender wrote: post #6

saagarjha wrote: post #4

> Apple fully controls drivers for Mac OS. How so? Can you just not write graphics drivers for macOS?

It's more nuanced than that. Nvidia can write the drivers but releasing them without the blessing of Apple blows away any chance of them getting that sweet GPU contract back. Nvidia doesn't have much of a real world application outside of GPUs in enclosures to keep the drivers alive. The reason to keep drivers ready is the potential for a very large contract from Apple.

I find that to be an unsubstantiated excuse. There is nothing stopping Nvidia from writing its own driver for macOS.

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#46

Post by bjpbakker » Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #4

> Apple fully controls drivers for Mac OS. How so? Can you just not write graphics drivers for macOS?

> Can you just not write graphics drivers for macOS?

So this is seriously what you suggest owners of an older MBP (official Apple hardware, just over 4 years old) to do?

Since both Apple's drivers and NVidia's drivers are completely closed source, I'd say it's hardly possible to write a working driver (w/ hardware acceleration) for it.

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#47

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 1:57 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #27

ksec wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nvidia seems to aim for higher margin products these days with scientific computing/data center/deep learning/hardcore gaming. Which is a problem. No (Real) Games on Mac, No Deep Learning/ Scientific Computing on Mac. Mac is now left with Programming, and Video / Graphics Editing. May be Apple's strategy for Mac is to milk it for as long as possible. They don't see it as a platform for growth ( Despite having plenty…

It seems to me like Apple has been on the road to slowly abandoning the Mac for quite some time. Newer Macbooks are unpopular, updates to OS X have problems, and on the whole, the platform just doesn't get much love from Apple. They want us all on iOS. I'll be moving to Linux instead.

The “newer MacBooks” are unpopular is just a meme in the tech bubble. While Apple will stop reporting unit sells next quarter, they just posted last quarters numbers. There is no indication that they are “unpopular”.

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#48

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

brian_herman wrote: post #2

In a walled ecosystem you are a sharecropper not the owner.

Well, as other have stated. There is nothing stopping Nvidia or anyone else from writing their own driver.

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#49

Post by bjpbakker » Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #32

Headline blaming Apple and then, in the 8th paragraph, > At this point, it’s somewhat unclear exactly as to why NVIDIA GPU support isn’t present in Mojave

Since there's nobody else responsible for releasing Apple's closed source OS, what makes you think Apple is not to blame on this?

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#50

Post by cronix » Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #22

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Word on the street is that Nvidia didn't get much value ($) out of working with Apple, so perhaps both parties aren't super interested. Same story with Nvidia and gaming consoles - last few gens of consoles have not used Nvidia chips and Nvidia doesn't see it as a big loss. The margins must be too low. Nvidia seems to aim for higher margin products these days with scientific computing/data center/deep learning/hardco…

>Nvidia seems to aim for higher margin products these days with scientific computing/data center/deep learning/hardcore gaming. Which is a problem. No (Real) Games on Mac, No Deep Learning/ Scientific Computing on Mac. Mac is now left with Programming, and Video / Graphics Editing. May be Apple's strategy for Mac is to milk it for as long as possible. They don't see it as a platform for growth ( Despite having plenty…

> Mac is now left with Programming, and Video / Graphics Editing.

You forgot Audio, which is HUGE on the Mac.