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The Mac Pro Lives

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Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#511
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's annoying, but not that annoying. I dunno, I've done all kinds of stuff to my windows 10 machine to keep Candy Crush Soda from reinstalling itself. Yet every few weeks/months that King garbage ends up on my start menu. I use windows 10 because I'm a .NET developer and a gamer. If I could use OSX on my desktop instead, and have access to the same steam games - I can't think of a reason I would stay. > Less clutt…

> I dunno, I've done all kinds of stuff to my windows 10 machine to keep Candy Crush Soda from reinstalling itself. Yet every few weeks/months that King garbage ends up on my start menu. Another anecdote, I right clicked and clicked "unpin from start" and never saw it again.

Some people don't like having junk they are not using on their computers, even if they 'never see it again', it's all about being in control of your own computer, (as much as possible, that is).

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#512
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love OSX but never understood why people pay so much for those apple displays. we use them at work and they suuuuuck. super heavy, can't adjust height, can't put it in portrait mode which is .. I don't know useful 40% of the time, glares like a mofo, and cost 2x-3x similar quality displays from not Apple. Is the look of them that desirable? i finally switched for same reso Dell units on my desk and really happy abo…

They look good on the outside... and that's about it. Btw, Apple has discontinued them and hasn't announced any replacement yet.

>They look good on the outside... and that's about it.

They also perform incredibly as monitors (or did, when they were newly updated). There's that too.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#513
post #178

Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a har…

From my perspective: If MacOS had: up-to-date OpenGL support, Nvidia made drivers that supported new cards for it, was not locked into Mac hardware - that would be tremendous. On the other hand, if Windows had a proper shell and cli tools, like cygwin with zsh, but native and not Ubuntu layer inside - that would be tremendous. If Linux, any desktop variant (Fedora my poison), had Adobe's support for their DCC apps an…

For Linux, how about supporting HiDPI right. I had a XPS 13 (one of the best laptops around) and it was unusable because of this:

- Most apps would look tiny; Others gigantic and pixelized (LibreOffice... looking at you) and plain unusable;

- External monitors have to be at the same DPI...

Also, the lack of proper graphic software like Keynote, Sketch, Pixelmator is the other reason I have to stick to macOS.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#514
post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second the Spectacle recommendation, but it is frustrating that you have to download an APP to do something that should be built into the window manager.

for top-level activities that won't really be composed with anything else, it seems fine to leave it to app developers; as long as someone does the job correctly

Yeah, there have been many many iterations of these apps, by different developers. SizeUp + Cinch, Divvy, Spectacles.

While I think that Apple should have just copied Microsoft's approach (i.e. what Cinch does) the wealth of options for window management means that everybody can find something that they like.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#515
post #389

I think it is funny they are scrapping the entire line because of GPU thermals. A big chunk of their pro market just wants a pile of ram and cpu cores. They could offer that now with an intel integrated gpu for $1-$3K. Also, it wouldnt surprise me if intel gpus can already drive 5K, so you'd be able to actually plug it into the nice LG mac monitor (unlike the thing they are shipping). If not, they could sell a high e…

They admit that there are thermal limitations, but it's not really in the context of GPUs so much as the entire package. What they do admit specifically about GPUs is that their entire prediction for the market was wrong, that multi GPU systems are not as important as the highest end single card on the market, and these cards simply can't fit in their current design dimensions.

In other words, GRAM sizes, and max single card speed are the driving factors in GPU adoption. Which makes sense, because you only get the large increases in GPU speed if you can fit everything in memory, and throughput is not high enough yet to ignore the cost of copying data to GRAM.

This is a tacit admission that Pro users are increasingly _not_ concerned with RAM capacity or CPU speed, but with GPU power.

The other mistake made was their assumption that Thunderbolt would allow nearly unlimited peripheral expansion, which turned out to be a complete bust.

Neither of things is solvable without completely changing the dimensions/specs of the Pro.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#516
post #178

Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a har…

>I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X Specifically? People typically point to the telemetry and forced updates, but I've managed to disable both, using what were admittedly much-too-difficult procedures or third-party software. It's annoying, but not that annoying. I really like Finder and Spotlight, but not enough to be tied, via licensing, to any specific hardware. Less cluttering--I can uninstall apps…

>Specifically?

Just the fact that I can download some new software and still see a 2001 era file dialog or such (because it was made with an older, but still supported ancient UI lib), is enough to put me off windows for life...

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#517
post #178

Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a har…

Same here. I used windows for many years but the second I used macOS I was won over and that piece of software will keep me there for a very long time. I don't often (not never) run into problems with the hardware. Hell I barely ever notice it. But the software is really important.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's annoying, but not that annoying. For you, maybe. For me, I have zero intention of going through the hassle when I can just use Linux instead. Any hassles here are easily learned and generally don't _require_ the use of third party stuff doing black magic under the hood.

The issue for linux are often things you can't solve at all. Like poor power management.

If anything, Linux is the only OS where you can solve that. Plus on modern kernels, battery life is seldom worse than on Windows.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#519
post #178

Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a har…

I agree macOS is better. It does have issues and bugs, but in my experience, there are far fewer annoyances with macOS than with Windows. It's a little hard to point things out, but Windows does get in the way many a times while using it. It's also the overall quality of applications that run on Windows that make for a poorer experience. Third party apps on macOS tend to be a lot better and nicer.

If there's one part where I like Windows and Windows applications a lot more than macOS, it's in the support of keyboard shortcuts (like all the Alt+ or Ctrl+ combinations). The apps as well as OS on macOS severely lack in keyboard shortcut support and depend more on a mouse or trackpad. I know I can define my own shortcuts for application/system menu items in macOS easily, but that's a big chore to do.

All the praise of macOS aside, I avoid Apple's own apps for anything where I need longer term availability. Take iWork for example. I never use it for anything that's not a throwaway project. Apple could, at any point in time, just decide that it's not worth it, junk support for all the files you've created (in its proprietary format) and then start afresh. So I use LibreOffice for all my longer term spreadsheet needs. Or Thunderbird for mail (and so on). The shelf life of Apple's own applications and their proprietary formats and cryptic file organization systems are relatively much shorter compared to FOSS offerings or even Microsoft's offerings. Apple's consumer side iLife apps also have hit some people hard in the past with data corruption and data loss (IIRC, iPhoto was notorious for that). Since I don't upgrade my hardware every few years, these factors hit me harder on the Mac side.

Linux is a lot more time consuming to manage for me (even though I'm fairly tech savvy). But a good combination of UI (looks, readability, fonts), usability along with perfect hardware support would be a great thing to have.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#520
I wonder why they didn't even update the current design to Haswell-E/Broadwell-E and DDR4. I don't think it would be that hard, right?
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