In my experience they are, and I use both (+Linux) on a daily basis. However, we've had this discussion before, and I think it's probably a bit down to what you do with the system. People end up having different experiences, and at the end of the day it's just your own experience that matters (to you).
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Apple's Revamped Mac Pro to Launch in 2019
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I have more faith in the hackintosh community's ability to overcome such a hurdle than I have in Apple's ability to make an affordable product. For me, I don't plan on going Mojave any time soon since it's a big so-what. High Sierra has been hackintoshed and works fine. Whatever new chipset Apple adopts for future hardware won't be worth emulating since they could never match the power and versatility of hackintosh gear. All in all, no worries.
Hackintoshes are a non starter in a lot of environments. Corporations don't want to see you running stolen software.
so in that thinking non apple repair parts or upgrades = non an mac and non an mac = stolen mac os.
I wonder if any engineers who design Dell Precision workstations, HP Z-series, or Lenovo workstations ever browse these forums and say, "It's not that difficult, guys..."
They've gotta be scratching their heads.
As the days go by.... it's getting sadder and sadder that Apple is struggling to make a credible workstation.
It is a solved problem. The tower works. Apple themselves used to make a tower workstation.
It's only when they decided to get all "clever" and literally abandon the box (hello cylinder) that they had problems.
Though as others have said... Apple probably won't make a standard tower-style workstation (even though that's what everyone says they want)
But let's hope Apple doesn't try "crazy" again. They did that already. The cylinder was strike one.
I don't think Apple gets another chance if this next attempt fails.
They've gotta be scratching their heads.
As the days go by.... it's getting sadder and sadder that Apple is struggling to make a credible workstation.
It is a solved problem. The tower works. Apple themselves used to make a tower workstation.
It's only when they decided to get all "clever" and literally abandon the box (hello cylinder) that they had problems.
Though as others have said... Apple probably won't make a standard tower-style workstation (even though that's what everyone says they want)
But let's hope Apple doesn't try "crazy" again. They did that already. The cylinder was strike one.
I don't think Apple gets another chance if this next attempt fails.
Not at all equivalent. Upgrade a Mac and it is still a Mac. Change the tires on a Chevy and it is still a Chevy.
Auditors have a simple request: Show me the license. MacOS is licensed for an Apple computer, not for anything else.
For me the number of drives bays is needed for my workflow. 1) Boot Drive, 2) Projects, 3) RAW Vision, 4) Trancoded Vision, 5) Scratch, 6) RAW NEFs, 7) Multi-Camera Shoots. Then a 4 Bay External for Back up. But then that is my entire business (video production) on those drives. Mark
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Releases $1,500 phone.
Spends 5+ years trying to figure out how to re-release a tower.
Spends 5+ years trying to figure out how to re-release a tower.
Yeah, I just asked because I've heard part of why the Mac is so popular in A/V stuff is that it works so well, and that things weren't as 'green' on the other side of the fence. But, that probably has more to do with what hardware is picked.
re: aesthetic - Yes, Apple has more or less abandoned what they once had in terms of actual productivity-boosting UI/UX superiority. What remains is residual until they ruin it, it seems. Pretty look, as nice as that might be, is just a pretty look.
But, there also used to be just basic stuff like screen rendering, mouse movement/feel, or things like that. I haven't spent enough time on Windows recently to know how much that stuff has changed.
Yeah, doing A/V stuff vs code development are quite different.
I have more faith in the hackintosh community's ability to overcome such a hurdle than I have in Apple's ability to make an affordable product. For me, I don't plan on going Mojave any time soon since it's a big so-what. High Sierra has been hackintoshed and works fine. Whatever new chipset Apple adopts for future hardware won't be worth emulating since they could never match the power and versatility of hackintosh gear. All in all, no worries.
I guess that (High Sierra) is fine for a few years, but eventually it would be a problem. I'm finding more and more software tied to particular versions of the OS, and with more software going subscription based, it's harder to stay with old versions of things. So, I'm not sure I quite agree on 'no worries' here... maybe more no short-term worries.
Plus, the stuff that the T chips (I said A-series, I think previously) does sound like good stuff, though it makes things way more proprietary.
Yeah, agreed. I'm not crazy about that aspect either, but given how many Macs I've owned over 30+ years, and how many I've 'sold' for Apple, they kind of owe me one in that regard... so I don't feel too bad about it. They abandoned me, not the other way around. And, I can't just switch platforms at Tim Cook's whim.
I don't know your workflow, but why do you need so many drives? Wouldn't having some huge amount of storage out in some TB3 RAIDs be just as effective? Bandwidth limitations for eGPUs are possible issues, but I didn't think that was much of the case in terms of external storage anymore (especially compared with older spinning internals).
For sure. I think this is super, super low priority on the list of Apple projects.
That isn't a great choice for some, though. If I were happy with Windows, I'd have been gone years ago, already. But, first, I don't think the Windows side of the fence would be as good as my current apps/workflow. And, second, there is a lot more involved than just my computer... there is phone, tablet, services, etc.
I'm not in love with W10, equally it works and doesn't present problems. Apple has done next to nothing to boost productivity on OS X, it's more interested in amusing the masses with animated emojis. Ultimately Apple is a phone and services company in 2018. I'm sure if Apple could get away with it would kill the Mac off, it certainly isn't a priority and it shows. Apple's desktop line up is little more than a joke and their portables only fit for moderate tasks, less they cook off with the CPU's rolling back to base frequency.
OS X certainly has it advantages such as colour space etc. however outside of a couple of apps it's dead in the water for many professionally, I've seen so many move to Windows these last few years even diehards. Apple simple doesn't provide the hardware or software taking the path of least resistance.
I truly wish Apple had stayed with the consumer & prosumer/professional model and not convert everything into anorexic appliance's with subsequent loss of performance and usability...
Q-6
That’s ridiculous. Use of Mac OS is subject to a license agreement. The license agreement doesn’t prevent you from repairing your device with third party parts. It does prevent you from using the OS on a non-Apple computer.
The multiple drive set-up started in 2007 when HDDs were small and expensive ($1000 AUS for 750GB), and our business had 3 edit suites. I guess I have stuck with that worfklow. The main reason is that video editing is much smoother when the graphics, videos and scratch drives are seperate. Once SSDs become cheaper then this problem will go away. I also like keeping things separate for data storage purposes. If one drive dies, I only have to recover that data. I don't like to have all my "eggs in one basket". MarkYeah, I just asked because I've heard part of why the Mac is so popular in A/V stuff is that it works so well, and that things weren't as 'green' on the other side of the fence. But, that probably has more to do with what hardware is picked.
re: aesthetic - Yes, Apple has more or less abandoned what they once had in terms of actual productivity-boosting UI/UX superiority. What remains is residual until they ruin it, it seems. Pretty look, as nice as that might be, is just a pretty look.
But, there also used to be just basic stuff like screen rendering, mouse movement/feel, or things like that. I haven't spent enough time on Windows recently to know how much that stuff has changed.
Yeah, doing A/V stuff vs code development are quite different.
I guess that (High Sierra) is fine for a few years, but eventually it would be a problem. I'm finding more and more software tied to particular versions of the OS, and with more software going subscription based, it's harder to stay with old versions of things. So, I'm not sure I quite agree on 'no worries' here... maybe more no short-term worries.
Plus, the stuff that the T chips (I said A-series, I think previously) does sound like good stuff, though it makes things way more proprietary.
Yeah, agreed. I'm not crazy about that aspect either, but given how many Macs I've owned over 30+ years, and how many I've 'sold' for Apple, they kind of owe me one in that regard... so I don't feel too bad about it. They abandoned me, not the other way around. And, I can't just switch platforms at Tim Cook's whim.
I don't know your workflow, but why do you need so many drives? Wouldn't having some huge amount of storage out in some TB3 RAIDs be just as effective? Bandwidth limitations for eGPUs are possible issues, but I didn't think that was much of the case in terms of external storage anymore (especially compared with older spinning internals).
For sure. I think this is super, super low priority on the list of Apple projects.
That isn't a great choice for some, though. If I were happy with Windows, I'd have been gone years ago, already. But, first, I don't think the Windows side of the fence would be as good as my current apps/workflow. And, second, there is a lot more involved than just my computer... there is phone, tablet, services, etc.
Except that license agreement is probably invalid and not enforceable in most parts of the world. And then, macOS is covered by many licenses, the majority of which are open source and free software licenses. You may well know that Darwin itself is open source and published by Apple themselves. I'm no lawyer and can't say it's one way or the other, and everyone needs to make their own choices. But it's certainly a lot more of a grey area than you represent.
What the poster brought up is what Apple has argued during right to repair disputes.
So if someone other than Apple repairs your Apple device, it's no longer an Apple device, and you have to remove the operating system?
Edit: How far does it go though? If you plug in a non-Apple eGPU to your MBP, is that still an Apple product or not? If you plug in a non-Apple ethernet adapter, is it still an Apple device, or do you have to uninstall macOS first? The list continues with TB2 eGPUs, nVidia cards in eGPUs etc. I can't really comment on the legal situation, but I can't say I find this reasonable from a consumer products standpoint. And just logically, if Apple's reasoning actually held up legally, I am personally quite convinced that they would be in court a lot more often.
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I don't see what's wrong with the cheese grater tower design.
Update its internals and release a Mac Pro already! I would have bought one, sold it and bought another in the years I've waited!
Instead, I'm forced to get CPU upgrades for a used 2010 Mac Pro to get the necessary HD storage space without breaking the bank. It seems a hackintosh is in the cards. Will save me 50%
Hire less overpaid pony-tailed pie-in-the-sky industrial designers and more computer manufacturing automation designers and assembly workers to get me a low cost Mac Pro that competes with other PCs where I can purchase and swap all parts off-the-shelf including RAM. Hear your user base deaf people! Take the corporate earplugs out THIS quarter! Give the option of purchasing machines without RAM! or offer sane RAM prices you greedy greedy bunch of...
Apple is really going downhill. Plus it's dropping the ball on XCode with API compatibility nightmares for developers who want to add new software features on apps running on "older" Mac OS's and older iOS devices.
Like a chicken with its head cut off is the frantic pace of Apple software development.
Get it right morons! Windows and Android aren't so bad anymore that we can't all decide to kick you out of the house and finally get that divorce. You exist because of us fans.
Update its internals and release a Mac Pro already! I would have bought one, sold it and bought another in the years I've waited!
Instead, I'm forced to get CPU upgrades for a used 2010 Mac Pro to get the necessary HD storage space without breaking the bank. It seems a hackintosh is in the cards. Will save me 50%
Hire less overpaid pony-tailed pie-in-the-sky industrial designers and more computer manufacturing automation designers and assembly workers to get me a low cost Mac Pro that competes with other PCs where I can purchase and swap all parts off-the-shelf including RAM. Hear your user base deaf people! Take the corporate earplugs out THIS quarter! Give the option of purchasing machines without RAM! or offer sane RAM prices you greedy greedy bunch of...
Apple is really going downhill. Plus it's dropping the ball on XCode with API compatibility nightmares for developers who want to add new software features on apps running on "older" Mac OS's and older iOS devices.
Like a chicken with its head cut off is the frantic pace of Apple software development.
Get it right morons! Windows and Android aren't so bad anymore that we can't all decide to kick you out of the house and finally get that divorce. You exist because of us fans.
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They are making us believe that the new Mac Pro will be such a incredibly huge engineering effort that it will take 3 years to design it. But that's not true (they also said a couple of years ago they "were working in the Mini" and that the "Mini wouldn't be so mini anymore", and then... after years waiting they release a Mini that didn't took more than a couple of months to design).
The truth is that the current Apple management believes the traditional Mac Pro form factor is not what Apple needs. To begin with, they believe in a service-based business model (that's why they are pushing iOS into the professional area, as iOS gives less control to the user and more control to Apple, so it's better for a service-based business).
And then, if new Mac products must be released, they prefer that they sell like iPhones (teens buy a new one every year, or every two years). Again, the traditional Mac Pro form factor is completely opposite to that, because it's far closer to the historical purchase behavior of old time Mac users (care your hardware, upgrade it, make it last, don't touch things when they work) than to the compulsive behavior in the iOS area (buy, buy, buy, update to the newest iOS no matter what, accept every nag screen you get, etc...).
That's why the iMac Pro was released: if a single component fails, the whole computer goes to service. Well, that looks much more like an iPhone or an iPad, doesn't it? They released the iMac Pro like a last try before surrendering to a new Mac Pro.
The new Mac Pro, if it's ever released, won't have more than 5 months of engineering effort behind it. The reason it has taken years is that they are trying hard, really hard, to get all pros into iOS and, if that's not possible, at least into the iMac Pro.
Go back to the cheese grater Mac Pro? Don't you remember what a nightmare it was to lift that super-heavy sumbitch while the sharp edges of the handles were cutting into your hands? You may want one back, I'm thrilled the terrible things are out of my life forever. To avoid that, if I had one I'd happily pay a qualified tech to make whatever upgrades I needed. And most likely if I did I'd be working for somebody's lab or studio, so I could let my boss pay for the job.
So let's see... in terms of form factors so far, they have done cylinder and cheese grater, there's also a cube from before. What could be next? Sphere? Pyramid? Tetradecahedron? I shudder to think what they will come up with next, when all users want is something similar to a mITX build.
...well... if it takes you two years (supposing they started when they said they were working at it) to design a motherboard that uses COTS elements only and a chasis/skin that is basically the same as the previous Mini versions, then either you are a single engineer, or your team has a serious problem. That's a task for a few months.
Although maybe you are right and they had a single engineer updating the Mini, who took several years to finish it. It's quite a realistic scenario, considering the current Apple's direction.
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I wasn't talking about the "geometrical" form factor, but about the "concept" form factor. You can put a mITX inside a sphere if you wish, but it will have a "user-serviceable" form factor, and it won't be liked by the current Apple management, no matter how "cool" the geometrical sphere form factor can be.
And it might be "modular" but I would bet it won't be truly user upgradeable and repairable. I believe it might have user replaceable RAM and proprietary and expensive CPU/GPU modules but that's it.