Hesitating About New Mac Purchase: Issues With OS X...

[Kantian]

Hello,


First of all I would want to make it clear I in no way dislike Apple - the majority of my computers are Apple devices and run OS X or iOS - and the views I express are my opinion and only that. They are not intended to aggravate anyone.

For most of my life I have used OS X and is predecessor so that is what I am comfortable with. I have obviously used Windows and I have used Linux although for the most part that is irrelevant to this thread.

I have several computers at home which is where I do most of my work when not on location. However my main computer an iMac is broken and is beyond repair. I need to replace my desktop with a new computer but I don't know what to replace it with...

It's really a choice between Windows 10 and OS X and OS X is the clear favourite. I do have a access to a PC but although it is high end in my opinion it's not a "workstation" or something at that level and therefor not suitable.

If I buy a new Mac I will almost certainly be locking myself (and others) into OS X for the foreseeable future.

My New Computer:

I know I am after either another iMac, a Mac Pro or a MacBook Pro. I am not sure which one would be best for me. As an Architect I do a lot of traditional drawing of course but I do a lot of technical drawing and computer generated images on the computer. I also take a lot of photographs and video and create presentations for my clients.

I use many applications such as Adobe Photoshop and SketchUp etc. I like the fact that my iPhone and iPad all link up to my Macs at home and at work it makes things so much easier. Of course you don't need to be inside the Mac OS to have those features but until recently Mac OS X and iOS was my preferred work environment.

Which computer do you think would be best for me? I would prefer a desktop and I have the money to spend on a Mac Pro but I'm not sure if I can "get away" with an iMac. The MacBook Pro also interests me but but the amount of time the machine would be switched on leads me to worry about the battery...

My Problem With OS X & iOS:

I am hesitating about buying a new Apple Mac - I've been using them since 1994 - as I feel the main reason I bought Apple computers the operating system is no longer what it was. I am not an Apple follower so I could be wrong but it doesn't seem to be Apple's focus anymore.

I upgraded to OS X 10.10 Yosemite on my Macbook Air which I use mainly for personal use and the WI-FI began to be very patchy. Nothing I did solved this problem, update after update nothing worked. I had the machine tested by Apple they saw no issues so I then tested it myself again it no problems. I tried different routers at home at work at friend's houses. I eventually re-installed 10.9 and the WI-FI work as normal and I have had no issues since.

I have the push to integrate phone, tablet and desktop is a double-edged sword I really dislike the newer dock in 10.10. I have not looked into the improvements of OS X 10.11 but the newer dock remains. I miss the desktop feeling.

I know some of you will be reading this (if you have got this far) and thinking this is such a minor grievance why am I complaining? However the UI is very important to the flow of your creativity and productivity in my opinion and should not be overlooked.

I feel the OS is now a tad bloated and useful features are being taken away or merged and pointless ones are being added; Or course one should back up his claims with examples but I can't at the moment. Having found out we will have to put our dog to sleep (he has advanced fibrosis) my head is elsewhere.

If you feel I am wrong or things with 10.10 have improved please let me know. Any suggestions you have are welcome thank you very much for your time.

Regards,


Kantian

 

[quackers82]

Not sure which Mac is best suited for you, but on the WiFi side I had WiFi issues too with Yosemite, but those issues went away with 10.10.4 .

I also had the same opinion as you with the new look of OS X up until recently. My personal Macs run Yosemite, my work Mac runs Mavericks. When i use Mavericks now it just looks so dated and old and would take Yosemite look and feel any day, which is a complete U turn for me as i hated the new UI at first.

Having also had a play with the beta of Al Capitain, the speed difference between that and a Yosemite is massive. I would stay Mac on what is now stable Yosemite 10.10.5, move to Al Capitain when that is classed as stable and major bug free by the community.

The Windows world is not greener. I have in the last 2 years moved our whole work place from a Windows only place for the last 20 years to Mac's and iPads and its bliss in comparison to Windows (200 Macs, 400 iPads).

On Friday a staff member asked if they could buy their old work laptop for the kids at home. It was over a 6 hour process just to do a clean install of windows and update it. I swore a lot at it and the photo attached my give you a glimpse into what its really like on the other side, constant maintenance.

 

[zhenya]

I don't see how moving to Windows would do anything but create headaches for you. It will be a new workflow to learn, probably new software to buy, and new maintenance issues to deal with. It's not like Windows doesn't have it's own issues - Microsoft's own flagship Surface Pro has been plagued with wifi issues itself.

As for which computer, if you really need advice there you will likely have better results breaking it into its own thread. From what you say though, I would think an iMac would be perfectly suited to you unless you want the portability that a laptop brings, at the trade-off of some processing power.

 

[riviera74]

I wonder what software he is using for his workplace. That would tell him to either go iMac or Mac Pro. I would not switch to Windows simply because the learning curve from Mac is massive and Windows can seem counter intuitive to any Mac user.

 

[Kantian]

Thank you all for your replies; I have to single out @quackers82 for special thanks as that imagine had me in stitches. I to know the pain of installing Windows as I recently repaired my younger cousin's ageing laptop after she deleted the WI-FI driver and corrupted the registry.

I apologise was not really switching to Windows but I was meaning rather if I can't stand the direction of OS X any longer then I'm stuck with Windows. Although if what @quackers82 said is true and I have no reason to doubt him I will update my MacBook Air in the morning and see how it goes; Regards of the horrible UI perhaps I will grow to like it I learned to not dislike "Unity".

I'm apologise once more if I'm posts/thread are poorly written as for the aforementioned reason my mind is else where.

I wonder what software he is using for his workplace. That would tell him to either go iMac or Mac Pro. I would not switch to Windows simply because the learning curve from Mac is massive and Windows can seem counter intuitive to any Mac user.

I did mention software in my original post all be it only two applications in a very long post. I draw and design a lot by hand and then use Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere for certain tasks and the majority of my other work is done in programs like AutoCAD from AutoDesk; There are several other applications from Autodesk I use. Although I like applications like Sketchup among others I have use Final Cut Pro on occasion and have been known to use Logic Pro should the presentation demand it.

Truth be told if this was an old style tower Mac Pro I'd have bought one of them instead of writing this post but we have this little black thing instead and I'm not sure about it; Many thanks once again for your time.

Regards,


Kantian

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Thank you all for your replies; I have to single out @quackers82 for special thanks as that imagine had me in stitches. I to know the pain of installing Windows as I recently repaired my younger cousin's ageing laptop after she deleted the WI-FI driver and corrupted the registry.

I apologise was not really switching to Windows but I was meaning rather if I can't stand the direction of OS X any longer then I'm stuck with Windows. Although if what @quackers82 said is true and I have no reason to doubt him I will update my MacBook Air in the morning and see how it goes; Regards of the horrible UI perhaps I will grow to like it I learned to not dislike "Unity".

I'm apologise once more if I'm posts/thread are poorly written as for the aforementioned reason my mind is else where.



I did mention software in my original post all be it only two applications in a very long post. I draw and design a lot by hand and then use Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere for certain tasks and the majority of my other work is done in programs like AutoCAD from AutoDesk; There are several other applications from Autodesk I use. Although I like applications like Sketchup among others I have use Final Cut Pro on occasion and have been known to use Logic Pro should the presentation demand it.

Truth be told if this was an old style tower Mac Pro I'd have bought one of them instead of writing this post but we have this little black thing instead and I'm not sure about it; Many thanks once again for your time.

Regards,


Kantian

Well if you want to run multiple 4K monitors from one machine and have it going 24/7 then get a mac pro.

But to be honest the 5K imac looks tailor made for your use case.

 

[Flynnstone]

The way I look at it ...
With a Mac you get 2 computers ... you can run OS X and/or Windows.
With a "PC", you get 1, you can run Windows. Ignoring Hacintoshs, you can't run OS X.

 

[ApolloBoy]

With a "PC", you get 1, you can run Windows. Ignoring Hacintoshs, you can't run OS X.

Or you can have it dual boot Windows and Linux...

 

[jeyf]

for the first time i would not recommend apple to a friend looking to switch.

 

[ryannel2003]

I've been a Mac user since 2004 and the last two releases of OS X have become more bloated and buggier than previous releases. Yosemite has been a disaster OS for me as it has been unresponsive at times, laggy, buggy, and plain out bad. El Capitan seems to have fixed that... for now. I would prefer for Apple to go back to the way they used to release operating systems instead of bringing a new one out every year. I don't understand the point anyways.

In my opinion, OS X Lion was where Mac OS X started a slow downfall. Apple has become too focused on integrating the Mac and iOS and I wish they would leave the two separate features wise. I like the integration of certain features (messages, iPhone calls on Mac, etc) but a lot of the features are useless (Continuity has never worked for me). Regardless I love my Macs though I would consider a nice Windows machine if I had to. I was a huge fan of Windows 7 and Windows 10 looks like a step in the right direction.

 

[tibas92013]

My Mac Mini(Late 2012), 2.5GHz,16GB Ram, 500GB HD which is still on OSX "Mountain Lion" and I will not upgrade to OSX "El Capitan" until I install a SSD.

 

[HomeLate]

I use both: Yosemite on my daily driver, a mid range 2014 Mac Mini and Windows 10 on my photo/video work station. The last one is a Dell based 3 year old work station with a 6-core cpu and a Nvidia based GPU. I really like the upgrade capabilities I have on this workstation, although I only upgraded the GPU since I bought it three years ago.

But... Windows 10. It feels better than the tile fiasco Microsoft introduced in Windows 8. But since upgrading to 10, it has been a driver fiasco :-( I have issues with Nvidia drivers, not fully supporting my 4K display from Dell. When power saving, the connection between PC & monitor are lost and it's back to 640x480 again, until I cold boot both computer and monitor. My Canon PRO-100 was working well in 8.1 but became a complete mess in 10. My HP home office printer has an on/off wifi relationship with my PC since Windows 10. Windows 10 isn't mature yet, I think it needs SP1 before it runs like a charm, like previous Windows versions. Most of the Windows issues will be solved when I perform a full clean reinstall of Windows. But that's a big pain and time consuming event which I want to postpone to whenever I have some days to spare.

Scaling on 4K displays works well in both Windows & Mac OS for apps like Edge/IE/Chrome, Office, Lightroom, DxO... But Windows 10 feels like Windows 3.1 sometimes because not all dialogs are scaled properly.

Mac OS has it niggles, Windows 10 too, but in my personal case and in the future, I might move to a complete Mac OS/Apple environment. I still have some saving to do, but it will happen some time in the future.

 

[throAU]

My suggestion:
Run apple Wifi gear. This way they can't blame your AP, and your AP vendor can't blame apple.

I haven't noticed any real issues on recent versions of OS X when run on appropriate hardware - and i you buy a new machine it will be on appropriate hardware...

WIFI issues are not unique to Apple by the way.

If i leave the WIFI turned on on my surface pro 3 at work, it will blue-screen as there is a compatibility problem between our Cisco access points and the wifi driver in the surface.

 

[Beachguy]

My only comment is that if you are concerned about bloat and bugginess, you should DEFINITELY avoid Windows.

 

[Ecuadorexpat]

Download a copy of virtual box and install the last LTS (long term support) version of Ubuntu or Linux mint. I was without Mac for 6 months waiting for Apple to adopt usb 3, so I played around with a $400 Win 7 Ubuntu dual boot 17" laptop, just to see how close I could come to replicating the Mac experience. You might be surprised what is out there.

I do most of my web on an iPad.

What Apple has to offer today is the integration of all its devices. Answering a call on my iPad or iMac when my iPhone rings is still a hoot for me.