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The Mac Pro Lives

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Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#751

Post by untangle »

838 points later and this post is only the 2nd reply directly to the OP? And much of the commentary to date is about command line tools on Windows? Wow. Blasphemy.

OK, I'll bite. I'll talk about the Mac Pro news.

First, I'll state the obvious and applaud Apple for conducting a "Mac State of the Union" with a Congress of the Apple press. Bravo.

Looking at the details, I think we should be careful when assessing the use of iMacs, laptops, and Mini's by the pro user base. Specifically, were these folks running to the pro merits of these other devices or running away from the lack of a viable Mac Pro option? I think the latter.

I'm a Mac Pro user (2009 5.1) and devotee. I also own a top-line 5K iMac. I'd much rather do heavy computing on the Pro. For one thing, even something as simple as playing a 1080p video on the iMac wreaks thermal hell and sends the fans into overdrive. My oldish (and well-liked) Macbook Pro did similar things.

But what I truly like about the Pro is its easy expandability. In fact, I wish that it had more slots! Mine are always full (and I still lack a fast flash disk card).

So I am very, very psyched about the announcements. I am hopeful that the 2018 offerings are not outrageously priced.

Finally, as an aside, those who just can't wait until 2018 have an option. Very decent Mac Pro towers can be had used in the $1K-$2K price bracket. Maybe less if you mine Craigslist. If I were in the market for a non-laptop Mac, that's what I'd do.

Note that I am not trying to criticize non-Pro Macs. I just wanted to contrast them with the Pro, hopefully highlighting the latter's merits.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#752

Post by flukus »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #297
Eun wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Window management in OSX is horrible. Finder is even more horrible. It reminds me of the Windows 95 Explorer. A network drive hangs? Good luck with Finder..., the whole system halts.

> Window management in OSX is horrible. What is so horrible about it ? I have the exact same reaction every time I have to use Microsoft Windows. Window management is one of the strongpoints of MacOS. > A network drive hangs? Good luck with Finder..., the whole system halts. I've never encountered this problem on both AFP and SMB shares.

Having the menu bar on top is confusing when you've got multiple windows open.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#753

Post by Razengan »

Razengan wrote: post #524
nek4life wrote: post #101

Great. Now they need to reintroduce a MBP with top of the line specs and without the stupid touchbar. Snark aside, I have a mid 2010 mac pro at home that is still going strong (due to upgrades, SSD, more RAM.) However, I would like to get a new GPU for the machine, but I'm not about to spend $500 on a better, but ancient GPU that's compatible with a 7 year old machine. I've been wondering what my upgrade path would b…

Speak for yourself. The Touch Bar is actually very nice and definitely speeds up some tasks once you get used to it and customize. I certainly don't want to go back to a keyboard without a Touch Bar now. As for a "top of the line" MBP, the 2016 15" is already the fastest MBP ever overall, even if you count the few benchmarks which put it slightly behind 2015 models in one or two metrics.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3136714/data-storage/ap...

The damning benchmarks seem to be related to AMD vs. Nvidia. I don't know much about that but I'd put it down to optimization issues in a few apps. The 2016 15" definitely plays all games better than any MacBook before it.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#754

Post by Aaargh20318 »

komali2 wrote: post #596
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the whole obsession with running applications fullscreen. The whole point of a multitasking OS is to run multiple apps at the same time. If you need to run your apps fullscreen you probably need a bigger monitor.

For the other perspective - it actually boggles my mind when I see coworkers with one desktop open with 3-4 windows kinda mushed all around, different sizes, etc. Like, you paid a lot of money for that good display , why are you not using it?! How can you stand having to scroll all over a window to see something, when you could just fullscreen it? Is it that they need to context switch quickly? Why not just use multi…

When you want to write a letter by hand, do you clear your entire desk and get a desk-sized blank sheet of paper to write on ?

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#755

Post by exadeci »

csomar wrote: 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…

This is about a Mac Pro not MacBOOK Pro.

You can build a much more powerful computer and put OSX on it.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#756

Post by timbo1642 »

exadeci wrote: post #755
csomar wrote: 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…

This is about a Mac Pro not MacBOOK Pro. You can build a much more powerful computer and put OSX on it.

Not worth the trouble. Its too much trouble with the updates and all that crap. I have people calling me about their hackintoshs and I tell them to call someone else

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#757

Post by exadeci »

officelineback wrote: post #550
michelb wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent news indeed. I was well underway of compiling a hackintosh components list, dreading building a possibly less stable system. I'm really curious at what price points these new macs are going to end up, and if multiple cpu/gpu vendors are supported. (nVidia/AMD)

I remember building a hackintosh about 6 years ago, has much changed since then? It was a lot of fun and a lot more challenging than a regular Windows PC build.

It's dead easy now, the biggest issue might be the sound or gpu depending of your hardware

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#758

Post by exadeci »

VelNZ wrote: post #229

Wow, what a torrent of negativity on this thread, I didn't see a single positive comment reading through the top level. This is excellent news, I'm chugging along on a 2010 Mac Pro and was very disappointed when the Apple Displays were cancelled last year. They are a staple of the lineup and always look gorgeous compared to what's on the market. I will definitely be buying the new Mac Pro and 2 displays to go with it…

You can build a hackintosh for half the price, only the laptops are relevantish.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#759

Post by inDigiNeous »

jharger wrote: post #415
inDigiNeous wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree on the OpenGL support. I really wish Apple would just update OpenGL to the newest OpenGL so I wouldn't have to change platforms completely in the near future. Then again, developing for Apple currently means more compatibility with old hardware and drivers, but OpenGL 4.3 (which Apple doesn't support) includes Compute Shaders, something I would really like to explore, but can't as Apple supports only 4.2 with a…

Why not use Metal?

Why limit myself only to Apple platforms ? Apple is going towards a more closed walled garden all the time, and I don't particularly like that.

Also, Os X users are a relatively small group compared to Windows users, so if making for example applications for VR, limiting yourself to Mac is a killing move.

It's sad though, as I really love the Os X as a development environment.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#760

Post by amiga-workbench »

Eun wrote: post #222
csomar wrote: 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…

Window management in OSX is horrible. Finder is even more horrible. It reminds me of the Windows 95 Explorer. A network drive hangs? Good luck with Finder..., the whole system halts.

I don't know why better touch tool's window snapping isn't built into the OS, it makes my iMac usable.
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