Intel Tweet Asking Why Former Mac Users Switched to PC Backfires

[JKAussieSkater]

Intel asks a question for the specific target demographic of Mac-to-PC converts.

Apple super-fans, not belonging to that demographic, flood with ad hominem replies.

Top-rated MacRumors replies to this article on the topic mock Intel for being stupid, but fail to acknowledge the irrelevance of the Apple super-fans in the context of former mac users. 🙄

The question of “Why did you convert from Mac to PC?” is a perfectly valid and interesting one, just as it’s inverse question is too: “Why did you convert from PC to Mac?”.

People should reconsider answering questions that don’t apply to themselves. For example:

To the internet: “Why did you become vegan?”
Ad hominem attacks: “You’re just bitter about McDonalds’ successful launch of a new burger!”
^irrelevant replies to a valid question.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

But then it’s microsoft they should be worried about. Arm has been around for decades, windows for arm, not so long.

Windows on ARM has been around has been around for almost a decade at this point since windows RT, but no one took it seriously until recently because of slow speeds and compatibility issues etc. Now that Apple has come out with an ARM chip that is faster than consumer intel chips and a quickly growing number of native Mac apps and Rosetta, PC OEMs (including microsoft) and chip makers might start competing by putting in more effort into their ARM lineup (which will also push developers to write native apps for ARM).

 

[progx]

When I can build a state of the art desktop computer for under $3000 that will last me for over 7 years with Windows 11 and have a $650 Chromebook for portable use. I am no longer seeing a great value in Mac Hardware sales.

Well, good for you. However, building your PC in the future... that may change. Since Apple signaled this move to ARM, many of the PC manufacturers are taking note of it. Microsoft is working on a new ARM-based chip, plus Dell and HP are researching their own or going through Qualcomm, Samsung or AMD. User upgradable parts either may change... or disappear due to the new SOC designs based on ARM.

Your next build may be your last.

Raspberry Pi isn't just a novelty, it is a looking glass into the future of personal computers.

 

[pdoherty]

Well, good for you. However, building your PC in the future... that may change. Since Apple signaled this move to ARM, many of the PC manufacturers are taking note of it. Microsoft is working on a new ARM-based chip, plus Dell and HP are researching their own or going through Qualcomm, Samsung or AMD. User upgradable parts either may change... or disappear due to the new SOC designs based on ARM.

Your next build may be your last.

If everyone switches to ARM, wouldn’t he just be building one of those? I’m not sure it makes sense to conflate ARM with non-upgradeable. Nothing says you can’t socket CPU, RAM, etc with an ARM situation just because Apple choose to do so, and video cards are easily upgradable with slots in desktop PCs and remain so.

 

[Black Magic]

Windows on ARM has been around has been around for almost a decade at this point since windows RT, but no one took it seriously until recently because of slow speeds and compatibility issues etc. Now that Apple has come out with an ARM chip that is faster than consumer intel chips and a quickly growing number of native Mac apps and Rosetta, PC OEMs (including microsoft) and chip makers might start competing by putting in more effort into their ARM lineup (which will also push developers to write native apps for ARM).

I believe x86 is really on its last leg. Intel can't make the processor faster at this point and is maxed out. ARM is the way as mobile has shown us and computers utilizing ARM will be feature rich like mobile phones. I wouldn't waste any more money on deprecated technology unless you absolutely have too.

 

[polaris20]

I am building one right now with state of the art, Thunderbolt 4, WIFI 6e, 5 M.2 SSD memory slots, DTS audio with optical out, 64gb of ram with a Nvidia 3080 TI card. Everything I once did with Mac Pro towers.

Nice!! I'm kinda wanting to wait for the graphics card problem to die down, then I will too.

 

[polaris20]

Last year I built my desktop with a 3900X and absolutely love it. I'm not anti-Intel by any means, but I'm really enjoying the pressure AMD is applying and thought I'd make the switch. It's a fun time to be a tech nerd - lots of options out there!

Yeah, I've built plenty of both in the past. Whatever gets me there, you know?

 

[Mainyehc]

Um, maybe read the post again before attacking it like that. They said ported to macOS, not ported to ARM.

You mean… to the Mac, right?

And I stand by what I've said. Microsoft never ported Windows to Macs, and never will; if you recall, Apple's implementation of EFI was never standard, so basically either Apple (through Boot Camp and its included drivers) or another third-party VM solution vendor had to do the heavy lifting so that Windows would run properly on Macs.

Apple has already made it very clear that with their new safe boot mechanisms and Microsoft's unwillingness to license Windows-on-ARM to run on non-OEM machines, Boot Camp is a no-go (at least for the foreseeable future). So… OEMs it is, then. Apple may have the option to revive Boot Camp in the future, but I really don't see them doing so. They invested a lot in Hypervisor frameworks and whatnot, which should make VMs, whatever OS they are running, perform even better than before.

 

[progx]

If everyone switches to ARM, wouldn’t he just be building one of those? I’m not sure it makes sense to conflate ARM with non-upgradeable. Nothing says you can’t socket CPU, RAM, etc with an ARM situation just because Apple choose to do so, and video cards are easily upgradable with slots in desktop PCs and remain so.

Apple isn't the only one who's building ARM PCs at the moment. You have a Raspberry Pi, which it's internals cannot be upgraded. Various other smaller manufacturers who build similar ARM and RISC-V computers, they offer small storage upgrades, much like the Pi via MicroSD card. Microsoft currently has an ARM-chip powering it's Surface X, which doesn't have upgradeable parts either.

The Raspberry Pi is completely customizable with software and other hardware components you can add to it, but graphics cards and memory aren't available for these types of PCs.

Will it be like this in the future? I hope not, but it's looking like everything will be manufactured on the chip.

 

[hot-gril]

There’s a lot more on the internet than what those guys run/host. And you didn’t even state ‘internet’; you said ‘datacenter’ and there are tons of those hosting servers for on-prem use - far more than are on the internet. Tons of corporations have their own data centers.

How many is tons? I'm seeing stats that 60% of companies are on cloud providers. I would wager anyway that more than 13.6% (minus whatever number of on-prem one use Linux) are, and that the on-prem ones are much smaller. Then besides cloud, there's FB's and Goog's datacenters that run their own multi-bn-user services. The corps I listed have so much capacity, even relative to the entire world, that their hardware decisions noticeably affect market prices.

It also wouldn't surprise me if your stat included Windows VMs, since it's possibly fair to say those count as servers running Windows due to them having their own public IPs. And do Windows PCs that are part of a botnet count as servers?

 

[pdoherty]

No, Windows VDI desktops do not count - I’m referring to servers. SQL, Exchange, Citrix, Active Directory, etc…. All are Windows servers.

Cloud has only been an option for a decade or so. Anyone who thinks everything, or even a majority, of what’s running on servers for US corporations, is on cloud providers isn’t in IT.

 

[hot-gril]

Apple isn't the only one who's building ARM PCs at the moment. You have a Raspberry Pi, which it's internals cannot be upgraded. Various other smaller manufacturers who build similar ARM and RISC-V computers, they offer small storage upgrades, much like the Pi via MicroSD card. Microsoft currently has an ARM-chip powering it's Surface X, which doesn't have upgradeable parts either.

The Raspberry Pi is completely customizable with software and other hardware components you can add to it, but graphics cards and memory aren't available for these types of PCs.

Will it be like this in the future? I hope not, but it's looking like everything will be manufactured on the chip.

RPi isn't a PC, despite what their website says. Anyway, using the ARM or other RISC instruction set is independent of whether the graphics and memory have to be soldered on. One counterexample is PowerPC.

There will still be an unrelated trend towards non-upgradable components because CPUs can't keep getting faster, so specialized hardware has to be used instead, and that doesn't lend itself well to user customization. This standardized CPU + mobo + RAM + disk combo that we've taken for granted since the late 90s isn't gonna be a thing anymore. Building a PC will be like building your own car, just for fun and not actually faster than the state of the art.

 

[progx]

RPi isn't a PC, despite what their website says.

While I agree with your points on everything else in your reply, you’re wrong about the Raspberry Pi. It is a PC.

Without doing anything to it, it’s shipped OS offers every basic option for any user. You’re offered a full Linux OS in Raspbian, which offers Firefox, word processor, spreadsheet app, Minecraft and other tools to get you started. It’s made to be reformatted to anything that supports it. You can run Ubuntu on it.

My IT professor is the one calling these “PCs of the future.” He’s right to some degree, but compared to a Windows or Mac, it does lack with some productivity muscle in processor, graphics and memory. Where it lacks, it makes up as a PC device capable of any application you need.

You should research the vast community of Raspberry Pi and similar machines before making a statement. Your definition of it, fine, but to the world and community at large: walks and talks like a duck.

My Raspberry Pi 3 is a very capable, but basic machine. It’s my ultimate tinkering device. I’ve done retro game emulation, security camera system and a small server with it. Don’t knock it until you try it.

 

[hot-gril]

While I agree with your points on everything else in your reply, you’re wrong about the Raspberry Pi. It is a PC.

Without doing anything to it, it’s shipped OS offers every basic option for any user. You’re offered a full Linux OS in Raspbian, which offers Firefox, word processor, spreadsheet app, Minecraft and other tools to get you started. It’s made to be reformatted to anything that supports it. You can run Ubuntu on it.

My IT professor is the one calling these “PCs of the future.” He’s right to some degree, but compared to a Windows or Mac, it does lack with some productivity muscle in processor, graphics and memory. Where it lacks, it makes up as a PC device capable of any application you need.

You should research the vast community of Raspberry Pi and similar machines before making a statement. Your definition of it, fine, but to the world and community at large: walks and talks like a duck.

My Raspberry Pi 3 is a very capable, but basic machine. It’s my ultimate tinkering device. I’ve done retro game emulation, security camera system and a small server with it. Don’t knock it until you try it.

I have an RPi4, and it's too slow to even watch YouTube. Web browsing is all-around painfully slow on it, making it silly to use as a PC. I was hoping to leave it connected to the TV as a PC, but now I just use HDMI from my laptop. Also, I get that Linux PCs are a thing, but typically they can also run Windows, which the RPi can't.

Also, it doesn't exactly run Minecraft. It runs Minecraft Pi Edition, which is a stripped down version of MC. It's not even fast enough to run just the vanilla MC server without very heavy lag; I specifically tried that.

It's useful as a portable tinkering device like you said, or a low-power server as I use it. That's what it's made for.

 

[progx]

I have an RPi4, and it's too slow to even watch YouTube. Web browsing is all-around painfully slow on it, making it silly to use as a PC. I was hoping to leave it connected to the TV as a PC, but now I just use HDMI from my laptop. Also, I get that Linux PCs are a thing, but typically they can also run Windows, which the RPi can't.

Also, it doesn't exactly run Minecraft. It runs Minecraft Pi Edition, which is a stripped down version of MC. It's not even fast enough to run just the vanilla MC server without very heavy lag; I specifically tried that.

It's useful as a portable tinkering device like you said, or a low-power server as I use it. That's what it's made for.

I wouldn't use one as my main PC either, but nonetheless it is one since it has the ability to get online and do basic functions out of the box. Never tired Minecraft since I don't care for it. Again, mine is strictly a tinker machine since I have a Mac mini and custom-built Ryzen 5 Windows 10/Ubuntu machine.

I highly doubt it'll make people chuck Windows or Mac out of their homes (if they even have one), nor would anyone using Linux primarily want to use a Raspberry Pi or RISC-V variant mini-PC. If you search "Raspberry Pi competitors," you'll find many options that put it to shame. They just don't have the retailer presence that Raspberry Pi gets with Best Buy or Amazon.

Also, Raspberry Pi isn't the only manufacturer of these mini-PCs either. (I think) they're the only ones who use ARM, but there are quite a few RISC-V machines out there and have more souped-up specs as well. These types of PCs are the reason why Intel makes the NUC, along with AMD's version to make X86 portable and small. While ARM and RISC-V are built directly off low power to zero voltage chips.

 

[pdoherty]

How many is tons? I'm seeing stats that 60% of companies are on cloud providers. I would wager anyway that more than 13.6% (minus whatever number of on-prem one use Linux) are, and that the on-prem ones are much smaller. Then besides cloud, there's FB's and Goog's datacenters that run their own multi-bn-user services. The corps I listed have so much capacity, even relative to the entire world, that their hardware decisions noticeably affect market prices.

It also wouldn't surprise me if your stat included Windows VMs, since it's possibly fair to say those count as servers running Windows due to them having their own public IPs. And do Windows PCs that are part of a botnet count as servers?

60% of companies being “on cloud providers” in no way suggests that even a majority, much less all, of their servers are there. That metric literally would simply mean they have at least ONE server in the cloud. Pretty meaningless if they 4,000 servers, I think you’ll agree.

 

[pdoherty]

As for the "put everything in the cloud" contingent... as of one hour ago AWS is down and tons of major services are offline because of it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/rm49er

 

[MauiPa]

As for the "put everything in the cloud" contingent... as of one hour ago AWS is down and tons of major services are offline because of it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/rm49er

I think you miss the point. Putting it in the cloud does not necessarily mean you don’t have a local copy. I use everything in the cloud and it’s also on my Mac. If the internet is done or the cloud service is down, it resyncs after service is restored. Easy peazy

 

[asdfjkl;]

As for the "put everything in the cloud" contingent... as of one hour ago AWS is down and tons of major services are offline because of it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/rm49er

Wow, clueless. This was a single availability zone out of 9 in the east-1 region. If you are in the least serious about uptime, you will have spread your compute over multiple availability zones and possibly multiple regions. AWS is not "down". Clueless.

 

[pdoherty]

I think you miss the point. Putting it in the cloud does not necessarily mean you don’t have a local copy. I use everything in the cloud and it’s also on my Mac. If the internet is done or the cloud service is down, it resyncs after service is restored. Easy peazy

We're not talking about simply storing data in the cloud; when AWS goes down the actual servers are unavailable so every company relying on those for their business is offline. Unless they're paying double or more to have a redundant full set of in-sync backup servers in another datacenter somewhere.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

We're not talking about simply storing data in the cloud; when AWS goes down the actual servers are unavailable so every company relying on those for their business is offline. Unless they're paying double or more to have a redundant full set of in-sync backup servers in another datacenter somewhere.

One of my clients went with a cloud backup service, and their internet was down for a week after a construction crew cut the line feeding them. No backups. No restores.

Another client signed up with their vertical apps 'cloud service', to save money. And their internet went down for a few days too. They had to go back to using paper and pencil, and lost tens of thousands they estimated at the time. They dropped the cloud service and went back to hosting the server app in-house.

You are right, the 'cloud' is a fix for something that really didn't need as much of a fix. It's not a 'one size fits all' product. Putting your data on someoneelses system means you have to have a way to get to it. If the 'road' is closed, it can mean losing a lot more than it was advertised to save. Some things should never be 'put in the cloud'. Period...

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

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