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If you could legally purchase macOS/OS X for use on any computer, would you still buy Mac hardware?
- Thread starter ZapNZs
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That desktop setup is what I have now. A 2014 13" rMBP with an LG 27UD58 4k display. I'm simply using it at 1920x1080 aspect ratio. 2560x1440 is not quite as crisp for text although I love the screen space and full 4K resolution means everything is way too tiny for me to see. I wish I had gotten the 2015 rMBP though. I could then be doing 4K at 60Hz instead of 30Hz.
As for would i buy a Windows PC. I've seriously considered it. But if MS is collecting that much data from it's users I don't think I'd want to go there. Never owned a Windows PC before so the switch would be big for me. I do like the Dell XPS laptops though.
Same problem here... I own a 2012 Retina 15-inch MBP thus I opted for a Thunderbolt Display since I can't go 4K. Next one, be it another MacBook Pro or a Windows laptop, will surely be coupled with a UHD or 4K monitor.
I don't know much about the data collecting theme. I kind of trust Microsoft but I haven't got arguments not pro nor against it. The problem for me remain the "because Windows" things. For example, if I try to reply to a post here on MacRumors in Microsoft Edge the effective typing on screen is seriously delayed. I don't have any idea why and it works perfectly in other browsers and in Safari on macOS. As for pages loading speed... noticeably faster on my macOS installation on the same machine. The apps you can get in Windows, too, are a good way to cut down on browser usage, bookmarks, and interact more cleanly and directly with content, but their quality must really go up. Windows has the potential, macOS has the polish... kind of hard to decide but I'm getting off topic here.
As for the Dell XPS, my problem with it is that it's impossible, and I mean it, to see one in the flesh before buying one, at least here in Switzerland. Dell doesn't have physical stores, and before dropping 2 grands on a top-spec XPS 15 I would at least know how the soft-touch carbon fiber feels... though it looks gorgeous.
An old thread. But I was thinking about exactly the thread title. A cri de coeur...
I've a late 2012 mini. On the whole it suits me very well. It goes like the clappers; it's unix-ish, and with macports I can install 80% of the software I need -- emacs, latex, haskell, and other academic stuff.
The one thing that's missing, that mac osx gives me, is Garageband. There's literally no other Apple stuff that I use that I couldn't do in linux. Yes, there's a few unix daws, but IMHO, having tried them, they're crap. The manufacturers of audio interfaces and other gadgetry (eg Focusrite) don't care about linux, so they don't work there. Garageband is just plain neat, for a hobbyist/amateur like myself.
So I wondered: get a high-spec NUC-type linux box for work, and some Mac device to run Garageband? Problem is, audio is quite cpu/memory-intensive: I'm very glad to have my (affordable) mini's 2.6GHz quad-core i7 and (solder-free) 16Gb of memory. It strikes me that any modern Mac that could cope with that is just sheer extortion, for the sake of a lot of vanity crap of no interest to me.
If anyone can point me to a Hackintosh-type solution that isn't too difficult to get running Garageband with "standard" audio-peripherals, I'll be your friend forever. Pretty please?
I've a late 2012 mini. On the whole it suits me very well. It goes like the clappers; it's unix-ish, and with macports I can install 80% of the software I need -- emacs, latex, haskell, and other academic stuff.
The one thing that's missing, that mac osx gives me, is Garageband. There's literally no other Apple stuff that I use that I couldn't do in linux. Yes, there's a few unix daws, but IMHO, having tried them, they're crap. The manufacturers of audio interfaces and other gadgetry (eg Focusrite) don't care about linux, so they don't work there. Garageband is just plain neat, for a hobbyist/amateur like myself.
So I wondered: get a high-spec NUC-type linux box for work, and some Mac device to run Garageband? Problem is, audio is quite cpu/memory-intensive: I'm very glad to have my (affordable) mini's 2.6GHz quad-core i7 and (solder-free) 16Gb of memory. It strikes me that any modern Mac that could cope with that is just sheer extortion, for the sake of a lot of vanity crap of no interest to me.
If anyone can point me to a Hackintosh-type solution that isn't too difficult to get running Garageband with "standard" audio-peripherals, I'll be your friend forever. Pretty please?
I still like Apple hardware and the amazing build quality that typically goes with it, but if I could do a kosher install of macOS on my desktop and my Inspiron 7559, I absolutely would. I've gotten used to Windows 10 and I prefer it for certain tasks (namely video encoding and gaming), but for everyday tasks and syncing my devices I still prefer macOS.
Not too sure OP.
My ThinkPad has great hardware but it's nowhere near the modern MacBook. I often find Windows screws up the experience.
OS X probably works so well because it's fine tuned to the hardware. If we had it on any device we wouldn't enjoy such optimisation and it'd probably have crap battery life, hardware causing issues and driver problems.....would OS X still be as good then? Idk.
So i voted unsure.
My ThinkPad has great hardware but it's nowhere near the modern MacBook. I often find Windows screws up the experience.
OS X probably works so well because it's fine tuned to the hardware. If we had it on any device we wouldn't enjoy such optimisation and it'd probably have crap battery life, hardware causing issues and driver problems.....would OS X still be as good then? Idk.
So i voted unsure.
The best performing Mac I've ever used was a hackintosh I built. Of course the updates would often ruin it and I spent more time restoring Time Machine than I cared for. But obviously I wouldn't pay the Apple tax for non upgradable machine if I could put MacOS on anything.
That certainly takes performance to new heights. But it cuts out the seamless overall experience and latest security of the latest release of OSX which , for me, is a biggie.
No one here remembers the last time Apple did this? I had a Power Computing machine back in the 90s. It worked fine, but Apple lost customers with the licensing deal, so no way they'd go back to that.
When not if Apple decides to axe the Mac line, because it's obvious they are loosing interest in it, I hope they do keep MacOS alive and farm it out to PC manufacturers..
This would be the best of both worlds... Choice of hardware that rocks MacOS...
This would be the best of both worlds... Choice of hardware that rocks MacOS...
Pretty machines not withstanding, Apple is unlikely to stop making machines any time soon. Most people have little concept of how successful their desktop/laptop business is. If anything Apple gave up leading the market in phones. That happened when they were too slow to make larger screens and Android is truly better now. That said, the iPhone remains a great and elegant device.
But I have family at Apple and it's well known that the market still chases Apple. Every company is pushing specs and still coming up short. The typical new-release negativity for the new MBP did nothing. They still flew out the door. My 2016 MacBooks with Touchbar are the best yet and the public voted with their wallets.
I'm well connected to the media machine in this country. Macs continue to dominate all aspects of film, TV, video and journalism. That's the jewel in the crown for American business and Apple owns it. If you think they're not intent on maintaining that, then I have a few bridges I'll sell cheap.
When the iPhone stopped being the best choice, I moved on. If the Mac computers stop being the best choice or that choice is ended, I'll move on. The variables of using the Mac OS on other systems are too vast for a poll to mean much, but it's interesting to think about.
R.
Yeah, licensing makes no sense. There will always be someone else undercutting apple on price. Right now Macs are one of the few computer lines increasing in sales not decreasing. The world is changing and it seems people/businesses are buying less computers.
I wonder if it could possibly be different this time if they were to try it again.
Back then, the Mac clones were targeted at a niche market, using a different processor architecture (that is, non-Windows compatible), and though the clones were cheaper, I assume they were still more expensive than a comparably spec'd PC of that time...?
Now, the Mac OS runs on Intel just like Windows does on many PCs.
And the Mac is no longer in a niche market.
Sales are stagnating, why license the OS that will only cause their sales to decrease? To put it another way, I believe they will make more money per unit on Macs then a license agreement with Dell/Lenovo/Whomever.
Oh they're still a niche, worldwide, they're only 6.9%
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Fair enough, though I wonder, if Apple did it, whether or not they could recapture some market share, i.e. getting back some of those users that have jumped ship and/or built their own unofficial rigs. Perhaps if Apple charged a premium for a "universal" version of the Mac OS installer (say $300-$500), for example. That price range seems to be in line with the so-called "Apple tax" and perhaps it would be worth it to those who, if given the option, would prefer to come back to the Mac OS and/or for those who would rather not have to deal with finding workarounds every time they update their OS on said rigs.
Point taken. I wonder what those numbers were back in the day. Surely, with their increased popularity, Apple has gained a lot of ground from then to now. And they are of course much more ubiquitous these days because of their increased presence with retail stores (yes, I know, a lot of that is because of the iDevices, etc.).
[doublepost=1500296535][/doublepost]Ultimately whether they do or not doesn't really matter to me. I'm just considering the possibility out loud.
After rocking Thinkpad's for years, The only Mac I would ever buy is a MacBook Air and it would be the MBA which I own. I'm not ready to move over to a USB-C only world yet. The Apple trackpad is by far the greatest trackpad on the planet in my opinion. I love OSX but if the Apple prices keep going the crazy way they are the MBA will be my last Mac portable.
Another thing that people always seem to forget, and never seem to want to accept, is that Apple is first, a hardware company, not a software company. They make the software to run on the hardware. Apple is still one of the most valuable companies in the world, and you still have any people not involved in that money making machine that seem to "know better" than Apple. I agree, that some of Apple's choices do not benefit me, like the new laptops, that require a dongle for an SD card...thats a game killer for me. I'll keep my old 2011 MBP for now, I don't want a bunch of dongles to carry around with me everyday. That does NOT change the fact that Apple knows what they are doing, and seem to do very well at it. They used to always be the idea that "Apple knows what you want before you do, and decide what you want for you." I don't think that has changed either.
I bought an XPS 13 Developers Edition last year - I7 CPU, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, beautiful display. The Developers Edition came with Ubuntu pre-installed and was about $100 cheaper than the Windows version. I don't care much for Ubuntu, but by being pre-installed with a Linux distro, it's a given that the machine is compatible with most flavors of Linux desktops. I've not been disappointed at all, and now have it double booted with MX-Linux and Arcolinux. After reading of all the issues with the new MBP's, I'm so glad I bought the Dell instead. It has both USB C and USB B ports as well as an SD card slot. The keyboard and carbon fiber construction are nice to the touch, and the machine also has touch screen which works fine. I refuse to run Windows, but as long as PCs can run Linux, I'm fine with them these days. BTW, I have an old 2006 MBP which Apple stopped supporting 6 or so years ago, and it is running just fine on Linux Mint after 12 years.
I like GNU/Linux a lot but as my institution relies heavily on the Office 365 suite and as I already bought software for macOS and Windows (e.g. Affinity Photo) I really can't make the jump (but having used desktop versions of Fedora, Ubuntu and Mint in my main productivity machines for years I miss a lot of the cleanliness that comes with the Linux experience).
Do Linux applications perform well on a such high DPI display? How does the trackpad behave? Coming from an MBP this "scares" me a bit.
Build-quality wise how do you find the XPS to perform? I am used to the relative sturdiness of a Mid-2012 Retina MacBook Pro and I absolutely hate materials that scratch easily, as I often wear a watch while working on the laptop.
Many things have changed since I wrote the last post and I'm still on my original MacBook Pro. I tried out a 13-inch non-Touch Bar 2017 MacBook Pro and I was horrified by the keyboard experience. The display got better but still isn't 4K and some movie and TV series content is beginning to appear in such a resolution which would not benefit from the 1880p screen of the MBP.
My usual reseller put out a good price on a maxed-out 5K iMac so I picked up one and bought two 1080p monitors to sit next to it, but when the MacBook Pro will die a decision about a laptop will have to be made, and I think it'll be either an XPS or a Surface if Apple doesn't carve out something different in the meantime.
What do you miss the most about macOS with a Linux laptop? Thank you for your insight!
My rMBP is reaching end of usable life (as my main portable workstation) so now it is time to reconsider options. I'm not quite sure what direction to go..
I could give some as I am actively trying to get out of the Apple ecosystem (my third attempt I think).
The Linux distribution I use is PopOS
HiDPi displays:
I do not have a 4K display so I cannot speak to how it performs. But I do have a 2K display and I have zero problems with it. This is because of specific work done in PopOS to handle HiDPi displays. I am not sure if this work is in the upstream yet but nevertheless, PopOS has been fantastic in this regard.
Build quality:
Honestly, I do not think Apple's build quality is all that great. Have a look at this 25 minute video (please!) and then tell me. I personally have been on the receiving end of 3 MacBook Pro failures because of Apple's stupid engineering. On the PC side, there are plenty of machines that offer good build quality and sensible engineering.
I am totally biased but I love Thinkpads. Excellent keyboards and very good build quality. Dell XPSs look nice but I suspect that even they are susceptible to all the problems that occur when you are seduced by the 'thin-and-light' mistress! The Thinkpad T470 I have is by no means a fat machine. It is light, has very good thermals and I have rarely seen the CPU temps hit 70C, whereas the same workload gets my MacBook Pro to 90C.
Did I mention the keyboard on the T470 is so so so so good that I sometimes disconnect my Topre and Cherry Clear keyboards just to type on the laptop's keyboard!
Choice:
With Linux (and Windows), you have so much hardware choice. I am personally against all-in-ones cause they cause so much distress when they break. Still, HP and Dell's service options are much better in that regard cause repairmen come down to your place to repair the AIO you bought. With Apple, you have to lug it around.
Nevertheless, I would not buy an AIO from any manufacturer. Instead, I will buy a tower or build my own and attach it to the display of my choice. Much more flexible arrangement. With Apple, you can only do this with a 6 year old MacPro that is known to have graphic card problems.
The bad:
Two main issues with Linux so far, one expected and the other unexpected.
Expected issue: third party software not very polished.
For example, on the Mac I have Ulysses and on Linux, there are plenty of alternatives but none match up to the quality. But as a developer, I am able to get around this by using Sublime Text and a few plugins and a few tweaks in my own head w.r.t to the workflow.
But this is something you have to accept. Software quality on the Linux is not going to be very polished. It will get the job done though. No Photoshop but you do have GIMP.
The unexpected: video playback issues.
Don't get me wrong. I can playback every video file there is on Linux but not very efficiently. For e.g., playing a youtube video at 480p takes 5% CPU on my Mac but takes 30% on my T470. I could get it down to 15% by not playing the video in the browser but in mpv player. This is because Chrome and Firefox have disabled hardware decoding in Linux due to the quality of graphic drivers on Linux.
I think I am in a position to ignore the bad stuff cause everything else, Linux fits. It is beautiful and not the incoherent mess it was the last time I tried it 10 years ago. The video issues will be solved in the next couple of years. The quality and the number of apps will increase due to many developers getting on the Electron bandwagon. And more importantly, Windows could surprise me in the next few years cause under Nadella, they seem to be the ones innovating and getting their house in order.
So I will see what Apple does this WWDC. If it is going to shove the same cr*p in my face, then I will pack my bags and leave the Apple ecosystem. True I have a lot invested in the software but I will be able to recoup all that money in the next two hardware changes I make because of the money I save not buying Apple's overpriced junk.
When Mac hardware was still top notch and closely wedded to OSX, and yes, when Steve Jobs was still at the helm, I thought the solid reliability of both the hardware and the BSD based OS, along with superb software packages included, made the ownership of Macs well worth the prices. Apple customer support was also top notch, which is unfortunately increasingly no longer the case. I worked with Windows, especially Windows servers, from 1994 (with the release of Windows NT) until 2007, when I retired. Prior to that I had worked primarily with Unix, VMS, and other older DEC systems, varying from PDP-11's to Vaxes, and finally DEC Alphas. It was instructive that around 2006 most of our 12-member Windows Server staff were using Macbook Pro's for their personal machines. The combination of Apple quality and support, along with the switch to Intel architecture made the new Macs appealing to people of our backgrounds with largely Intel PCs and Servers. That was when I bought my first Mac, the old but worthy MBP (1,1) I'm currently typing this on. The keyboard is the best I've ever experienced and still works well. Once Apple stopped supporting it, I installed a Linux partition on it just so I could get Linux system updates. Once I retired, I stopped using Windows entirely, have bought 3 different iMacs (still a pretty good buy - bought my last one about 6 months ago), but only now buy PC laptops and install Linux of various flavors.
In the last 5 years, I've seen Apple laptops suffer with lack of ports, keyboard issues, and some cooling problems. They've also lagged in ease of hardware upgradability that used to be standard with MBPs. I've noticed the decline in customer support, both online and at the Apple stores in my area. The high prices of Apple laptops are no longer justified, at least for me. During this same 5 year period, PC hardware has significantly improved in both performance and in reliability, and Linux distributions have vastly improved in ease of use, both for installation and in software support. Apple decline has occurred simultaneously with PC/Linux improvements. PC hardware support has always been rather scant, as there are so many hardware vendors, and of course, with Linux you must be willing to be largely self-supporting by using the various distro forums for suggestions and guidelines when troubles come up. I would say that most folks coming from the Apple "walled garden" will mostly miss what Apple used to offer under Jobs - high hardware/software reliability and great customer support. With the decline of Apple in those areas, there isn't as much to miss by switching to the PC. I don't miss the current Apple much at all in terms of what I need in a good laptop. Since I come from a career in computers and networks, I actually enjoy tinkering with Linux - others might not appreciate that so much. Sorry this was long, and that it took me so long to respond. Just now ran across you message. Good luck!
Bought my XPS 13 Developer Edition (configured to be compatible with Linux, initially Ubuntu 16.04) in December, 2016. Here I am, 18 months later, and that computer is still a gem. Ubuntu has left, and she now sports a triple boot of Arch, MX, and Mint. The only issue I've had with that little machine is that when you put it into sleep mode under my Linux distros in battery mode, the machine way overheats. I don't know if that's a hardware problem, or (as I suspect), a problem with how Linux and the Dell deal with battery / power issues. I don't think that's a problem with how thin the little XPS 13 is, though I'd be okay if it was a few mm thicker. Resolution and graphics on the laptop are superb, the I7 seventh generation CPU still kicks rear end, and the NVIDIA graphics GPU is spot on for my needs. It has the ports I currently want and need: USB-B, USB-C, SD slot. A similarly spec'd MBP 13 would have cost $500 more, with only C ports and a problematic keyboard. No thanks.