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A world without the Mac Pro

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Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#81

Post by lucb1e »

m_mueller wrote: post #10
cwyers wrote: post #2

> Microsoft is boldly experimenting with PC hardware, but Windows and everything around Windows is woefully inferior to macOS and the Mac software ecosystem. Even if Microsoft did everything right, it would take Windows at least a decade to catch up — and they won’t do everything right. So, if you have everything already on macOS (I still hate that name change), I can get not wanting to switch. But what on Earth is i…

* The windows registry vs the OSX defaults system * Constantly changing APIs based on Microsofts internal politics vs. the very stable Cocoa * HiDPI that always works or has good fallbacks * Touchpad / gesture support that is actually pleasant and precise to use * Battery life * Multidesktop * POSIX scripting (that one is slowly coming to windows now) * Can be restored from another computer in a matter of minutes (se…

I don't like Microsoft and I like Apple about as much, but I have to be fair: almost everything on that list can be solved in two weeks if you distribute the tasks. Give it another month for polishing and testing.

Now fill the other 9 years and 10 months, minus two or three developers that are still working on some of the bigger items for another couple of months at most.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#82

Post by stevesun21 »

I personally don't really care how nerdy criticism sounds like to me. MacBook Pro still the best developer laptop I have ever use. Even, you just keep a closed MBP on everywhere in your house, it looks so like a piece of fine art rather than an electronic device to stand out.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#83

Post by protomyth »

WayneBro wrote: post #25
m_mueller wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* The windows registry vs the OSX defaults system * Constantly changing APIs based on Microsofts internal politics vs. the very stable Cocoa * HiDPI that always works or has good fallbacks * Touchpad / gesture support that is actually pleasant and precise to use * Battery life * Multidesktop * POSIX scripting (that one is slowly coming to windows now) * Can be restored from another computer in a matter of minutes (se…

Everything you listed as either incorrect or extremely insignificant. I don't have time to correct you right now but please, you're really reaching on quite a few of those. Edit: maybe it would help you to level out your perspective by thinking about some reasons why almost every business on the planet runs Windows and not Mac.

> maybe it would help you to level out your perspective by thinking about some reasons why almost every business on the planet runs Windows and not Mac.

Every is a bit strong, but...

Well, IBM wanted to use an OS called CP/M and was buying a lot of products from Microsoft. Something stupid happened and then IBM bought their OS from Microsoft. Microsoft was allowed to license it and Compaq figured out a work around for the BIOS issues. Thus DOS became the big thing because of IBM then all the other PC companies. Apple totally flubbed the Apple III, and Commodore didn't retain their leading market share. IBM then completely failed to follow-up with OS/2 (seems working with Microsoft to compete against Microsoft Windows is not a healthy move).

DOS begat Windows which begat Windows NT, and the software was good enough. I can buy a PC from more than one company and they have a lot of non-technical, business support. Microsoft doing a bit of cheating probably helped. It actually helps sell support contracts to have some problematic areas in your software which generates an amazing ecosystem that businesses understand (paying someone to be responsible is understandable).

A lot more people drive Kia than BMW, but I really wouldn't argue Kia is a better built car.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#84

Post by rcarmo »

ditados wrote: post #56

Some of the Mac people I follow seem to be begging Apple to build a PC-like box: - https://chuqui.com/2016/10/how-apple-could-have-avoided-much... - http://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/11/04/2230 - http://www.libertypages.com/clarktech/?p=751

Hey! Thanks for the link. I don't really want a completely PC-like box (I have a mini, and want to upgrade that), but I do want something that can be expandable somehow.

I'm pretty sure I won't get it (or worse, that I'll have to pay through the nose for it at Mac Pro-grade prices), but I'd really like to get a more modular Mac.

I don't think that Apple will do it, though. Jony "VP of Narration" Ive has a thing about unbroken surfaces, and even though I like Apple's overall aesthetics, I don't think there's any way a modular system fits into the Mac "look".

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#85

Post by eknkc »

_ph_ wrote: post #15
thenewwazoo wrote: post #6

I feel like I'm living in a crazytown where nobody sees what's so plainly obvious. Doesn't anyone remember when IBM wasn't able to deliver chips to Apple on the schedule they demanded, and customers were complaining, and they were taking a drubbing in the press for it? And Apple let their existing product line stagnate for a little while, and then we got the Intel Macs? Well, this time it's Intel and not IBM, except…

Apple has indeed some great chip designs available. But one should not forget that the switch to Intel not only gave Apple nicer CPUs but also made Apple compatible to the rest of the PC world. You can run any x86 application on a Mac via VMware or Parallels. Moving away from Intel would kill this.

I've been wondering, is it practically possible to have a dual arch hardware + OS?

The kernel would run on an ARM processor, along with all the supported software. Any x86 binary would be offloaded to the intel cpu. Sharing RAM and even the remaining hardware would be nearly impossible I guess. Not sure though. This way it can be like the integrated / discrete gpu design and switch can be done a lot less painfully.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#86

Post by jdietrich »

zanny wrote: post #30
wfleming wrote: post #7

> Linux can solve some pro needs, but not most. It’s a fantastic server OS but a miserable desktop one, and that will probably never change. Depending on which pro needs We're talking about, I don't believe this is true anymore. I was a Linux user for many years, then an OS X user for over a decade, and earlier this year I'd had enough with being annoyed by OS X & switched back to Linux. I am extremely happy I did. I…

There are professional crews running Linux and using either Krita for art / comic work or Blender for modeling and 3d animation. The only industries really lacking right now are video editing, which I believe Kdenlive is making great inroads on, and professional audio, which is the only major field that Mac Pros can target that is not really having their needs met at all (Ardour can be... something, but its UI is bar…

Frustratingly, the brilliant Davinci Resolve has been half ported to Linux. The backend will run on Linux to allow for rendering clusters, but the UI is Mac and Windows only.

Ardour is only half the equation for audio production on Linux, even if it didn't have serious shortcomings. Professional users need an extensive suite of plugins, the vast majority of which are proprietary and have no good Linux alternative. There's no good pitch correction plugins for Linux, no Kontakt compatible sampler, no mastering suite, no restoration and repair suite, no good metering tools.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#87

Post by haldean »

m_mueller wrote: post #10
cwyers wrote: post #2

> Microsoft is boldly experimenting with PC hardware, but Windows and everything around Windows is woefully inferior to macOS and the Mac software ecosystem. Even if Microsoft did everything right, it would take Windows at least a decade to catch up — and they won’t do everything right. So, if you have everything already on macOS (I still hate that name change), I can get not wanting to switch. But what on Earth is i…

* The windows registry vs the OSX defaults system * Constantly changing APIs based on Microsofts internal politics vs. the very stable Cocoa * HiDPI that always works or has good fallbacks * Touchpad / gesture support that is actually pleasant and precise to use * Battery life * Multidesktop * POSIX scripting (that one is slowly coming to windows now) * Can be restored from another computer in a matter of minutes (se…

Some of these are valid, but:

* My Razer Blade 2015 has no problem driving its hidpi screen and my lodpi monitor, even at the same time

* My battery lasts 8 hours with a VM running, which is about as good as any MacBook I've ever had

* Multi desktop exists in Win10, Win+Tab lets you switch desktops

Windows isn't perfect, and I spent a long time on a combination of Linux and Mac machines, but my daily driver is Windows with a Linux VM for programming now and I'm perfectly happy.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#88

Post by mhenr18 »

cwyers wrote: post #2

> Microsoft is boldly experimenting with PC hardware, but Windows and everything around Windows is woefully inferior to macOS and the Mac software ecosystem. Even if Microsoft did everything right, it would take Windows at least a decade to catch up — and they won’t do everything right. So, if you have everything already on macOS (I still hate that name change), I can get not wanting to switch. But what on Earth is i…

* Free OS updates.

* Better touchpad support throughout the entire OS.

* Vastly superior HiDPI support (especially if you're using a multi-screen, multi-DPI setup). I cannot stress how poorly Windows 10 performs in this regard. This has been a solved problem on the Mac for years.

* Better colour management through the whole UI stack.

* Better tablet support (OSX has had integrated support for tablet events since 10.4, on the Windows side there were still apps that broke when the Surface 3 launched almost a decade later due to using a third-party API for tablet events that needed custom drivers)

* Core Audio. OS X has had the same set of audio APIs since 10.3, and they've been well regarded for years and years. It wasn't until Windows 10 that you could argue Microsoft had finally caught up, and there's still people with ASIO driver compatibility issues. That's literally 12 years it took for Microsoft to catch up.

* OS X had scrolling of inactive windows for over a decade before Windows caught up. I actually think it's something that was there in 10.0 but I only started using Macs at 10.3 so I can't be sure.

* Spotlight. Spotlight is almost the perfect analogy of the difference between OS X and Windows, and I'm just going to look at one tiny feature of it. If you want to do some math on Windows at a single keypress, you need to turn on Cortana which only became availble in Windows 10. Cortana isn't even available in every country. Meanwhile OSX has had that built into Spotlight since 10.4 and it works on every Mac ever shipped since then, no matter what country you're in.

* File tagging. OSX has had this for over a decade, and you still can't do it in Windows.

* An integrated C/C++ runtime library, like every other Unix ever. It wasn't until Windows 10 that you could ship C/C++ code without worrying about whether your end user had the right msvcr/msvcp DLL installed on their machine.

I'll stop here, because there's so many things that OSX has had for a decade or more that Windows still hasn't caught up with that I wouldn't be surprised if Windows doesn't catch up after another decade.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#89

Post by jackyinger »

If you know what you want a workstation for, you probably have enough know how to get a Supermicro barebones system and stuff it with the exact CPUs, GPUs, RAM, SSDs, and ANY peripheral you want. More flexibility and cheaper. There are even outfits that will build it for you if you're feeling lazy.

And when Linux breaks, there is a wealth of knowledge on how to fix it. I have found OS X's community to be plagued by the opposite.

Re: A world without the Mac Pro

#90

Post by aq3cn »

douche wrote: post #60
no1youknowz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Touchpad / gesture support that is actually pleasant and precise to use * Multidesktop * PDF support baked into OS He's right with these. I now solely use the touchpad on my MBPr. I cannot see myself ever switching back to a mouse. Having been a mouse user for 16 years! The ability to do a 3 finger swipe and switch to another virtual desktop in a split second is awesome. Is this possible on Windows? I don't know. I…

I'm pretty sure Edge has PDF rendering built into it. It keeps trying to smash the default file association I had for Foxit.

Latest Windows insider build have DrawboardPDF app preinstalled. So no more dependence on Edge anymore.
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