S
SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
Thank you for the recommendations, I thought about using Batocera as well (either Dual Boot or via USB). Or using RetroArch.
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
lostinblue
Banned
ARM being acquired by Nvidia is NOT gonna happen, China has a say and they won't allow it because of how things escalated with Huawei and ZTE and how US claimed ownership of US-developed "tech" to bar them from continue using them freely and plenty ARM clients are filing complaints against the prospect in US.
I don't even think Nvidia thought this had big odds of happening before they made the pass. It was still good for them marketwise, perhaps better than spending all that money on a company that soon enough will need to lower their royalty fees against mounting pressure. It's clear to me that ARM will try to jump to high performance parts (laptop, consumer desktop) now, and might keep the mobile chip business blooming in US and Europe (China and Russia won't want to rely on it), but they'll lose the microcontroller market really fast to RISC-V, and probably the server market as well, with Alibaba (china, and really big on servers) being ballsdeep with Risc-V and Amazon (also big on servers) already circling it.
Even if it did happen though, Apple licences the ARM CPU ISA but they have a perpetual licence that allows them to modify everything and pay as little royalties as possible (this licence to modify everything wasn't allowed to anyone but Apple until last year, and is allowed now for other manufacturers because of increasing competition from RISC-V that allows it). ARM could go out of business tomorrow and it wouldn't mean a lot.
People confuse Apple ARM with everyone else's ARM, the Apple CPU's we are talking about are like clones to the other manufacturers ARM's, but they share very little. It's as if Apple dumped Intel and was manufacturing a x86 CPU as well, instead of going to AMD. Except they changed architecture as well, to one that they control everything.
Qualcomm catching up to the M1 might take as much as 3 years, at the current rate. Other path to be competitive quick would be go manycore and the problem there is that PC code has to be ready to take advantage of that or the platform will be deemed as super slow. Regardless it's a whole different paradigm and one that probably scares the living shit out of Intel.
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Zeroing
Banned
Artsy people here!! yeah they come with underpowered hardware. But thank god there are options besides windows. I despise what Apple has become, they bring a good product but they they start taking away specs, features, value, to see how much they can get away with it.
For those who do not know, back in the 90's Steve Jobs nearly gave Sony the authorization to use macOS on Vaio computers because the biggest inspiration for Steve Jobs was Sony hardware, guess who intervened to make sure that macOS would never be used on non Apple hardware? Microsoft.
Also when netbooks were a thing, Linux was being used... guess who pay to make use windows XP would be in every netbook...Microsoft.
So we ended with Windows and if you want a good alternative there's macOS but only on Apple hardware. THIS sucks.
Spukc
always chasing the next thrill
apple mac has no games is kinda lame imo.
plenty of games to be played these days on mac
esp if you use rosetta or a VM
if you just want to casually play some games there are plenty options (no it aint a gaming laptop) then again the battery also lasts 20 hours instead of 40 min
plenty of games to be played these days on mac
esp if you use rosetta or a VM
if you just want to casually play some games there are plenty options (no it aint a gaming laptop) then again the battery also lasts 20 hours instead of 40 min
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This is so petty. They are loosing their single biggest customer (Apple) and are loosing market share in the X86 battle with AMD.
And the funny thing is that one of the main reasons Apple transitioned is because they were tired of Intel being incapable of following their own product roadmap and releasing chips on time for apple to use on incoming Macs. Thus causing Apple to delay product launches. After a while, they realized that Intel was an unreliable partner that was not even putting out product that was offering worthwhile performance upgrades verses the previous offerings.
But this is so typical of Intel. Like clockwork they release press releases reiterating (the lie) that their processors are market leading and gamers first choice, right before an AMD product announcement or launch. They are feeling the squeeze from all sides, and instead of keeping their heads down to work on beating their competition, they just try to berate the competition that is whooping their ass at their own game.
The Apple Silicon transition is one of the most important transitions for Apple (and my opinion, computing generally) in a really long time. For the first time in Apple's history, their laptops are now considered the the best choice for laptops from a price to performance perspective and that is huge. I am really excited to see what they do going forward.
From a gamer's perspective this is also huge. Apple was never known for their gaming performance but it is now appearing that this is something that Apple is seriously focusing on. They have over a decade of chip design experience with their mobile chips that already have already been price to performance per watt leaders for some time now, and this expertise is paying dividends with a focus on the laptop and desktop space.
Currently, Starcraft plays at a solid 60fps @ med graphics and high texture quality on the new entry level M1 MacBook Air. A laptop with integrated graphics, and no fan. And all of this is being done without running native on these devices. And having a power envelope a fraction of the size of X86 power draws.
And remember these laptops, which are out-performing every laptop in a comparable price range (and a few hundred dollars above), are beating the competition without even running natively (they are running through the Roseta 2 translation layer to run X86 applications).
And this is just their first generation chip...
Knowing Apple, they will release yearly chip upgrades at the same pace of their A series chips. And there will be substantial performance upgrades that will actually be felt on the Mac side of the business as opposed to even being noticed on their mobile counterparts (mainly due to the fact that computationally intense tasks are typically not done on our phones as opposed to desktops and laptops).
Apple also has some insane advantages in the chip department.
1) They are priority customer No. 1 when it comes to TSMC production. TSMC is the best chip foundry in the world, and it is not even close. Their nodes (5nm, 3nm, and beyond) are so far ahead of their competition, they will constantly outperform any chips produced by Samsung and global foundries. Apple has the priority access to any and all chip manufacturing that TSMC offers. There is limited capacity, and Apple can dictate how much of this is allocated for itself first.
2) Apple's emphasis on power efficiency for 14 years is now paying dividends in the laptop space. Not only do these new M1 computers have amazing battery life (20 hrs), they also run much cooler and quieter.
3) Their developer ecosystem is very strong. Apple is the most lucrative app platform, and now that the mobile App Store and Mac app store will now be unified, they can get all developers to transition very quickly to supporting M1 computers. There are almost no companies that can manage an architecture transition like this smoothly. They are doing it very well. Money is left on the table if you do not transition, so economically it makes a ton of sense.
4) Vertical integration will continue to allow them to optimize better than companies that buy off the shelf products and construct the products that way. Building your own hardware (which now includes the CPU/GPU), software, and services, allow you to craft an optimized experience better than anyone else.
In conclusion, we are going to see some crazy changes in the chip landscape with performance that seemed impossible at certain power envelopes. This is truly an exciting time to be a person who follows computing generally. And as a person who enjoys games as well, we will be seeing some really cool products and performance that will make the Mac an equally (if not more so) competitive ecosystem to enjoy gaming in.
Rant over.
And the funny thing is that one of the main reasons Apple transitioned is because they were tired of Intel being incapable of following their own product roadmap and releasing chips on time for apple to use on incoming Macs. Thus causing Apple to delay product launches. After a while, they realized that Intel was an unreliable partner that was not even putting out product that was offering worthwhile performance upgrades verses the previous offerings.
But this is so typical of Intel. Like clockwork they release press releases reiterating (the lie) that their processors are market leading and gamers first choice, right before an AMD product announcement or launch. They are feeling the squeeze from all sides, and instead of keeping their heads down to work on beating their competition, they just try to berate the competition that is whooping their ass at their own game.
The Apple Silicon transition is one of the most important transitions for Apple (and my opinion, computing generally) in a really long time. For the first time in Apple's history, their laptops are now considered the the best choice for laptops from a price to performance perspective and that is huge. I am really excited to see what they do going forward.
From a gamer's perspective this is also huge. Apple was never known for their gaming performance but it is now appearing that this is something that Apple is seriously focusing on. They have over a decade of chip design experience with their mobile chips that already have already been price to performance per watt leaders for some time now, and this expertise is paying dividends with a focus on the laptop and desktop space.
Currently, Starcraft plays at a solid 60fps @ med graphics and high texture quality on the new entry level M1 MacBook Air. A laptop with integrated graphics, and no fan. And all of this is being done without running native on these devices. And having a power envelope a fraction of the size of X86 power draws.
And remember these laptops, which are out-performing every laptop in a comparable price range (and a few hundred dollars above), are beating the competition without even running natively (they are running through the Roseta 2 translation layer to run X86 applications).
And this is just their first generation chip...
Knowing Apple, they will release yearly chip upgrades at the same pace of their A series chips. And there will be substantial performance upgrades that will actually be felt on the Mac side of the business as opposed to even being noticed on their mobile counterparts (mainly due to the fact that computationally intense tasks are typically not done on our phones as opposed to desktops and laptops).
Apple also has some insane advantages in the chip department.
1) They are priority customer No. 1 when it comes to TSMC production. TSMC is the best chip foundry in the world, and it is not even close. Their nodes (5nm, 3nm, and beyond) are so far ahead of their competition, they will constantly outperform any chips produced by Samsung and global foundries. Apple has the priority access to any and all chip manufacturing that TSMC offers. There is limited capacity, and Apple can dictate how much of this is allocated for itself first.
2) Apple's emphasis on power efficiency for 14 years is now paying dividends in the laptop space. Not only do these new M1 computers have amazing battery life (20 hrs), they also run much cooler and quieter.
3) Their developer ecosystem is very strong. Apple is the most lucrative app platform, and now that the mobile App Store and Mac app store will now be unified, they can get all developers to transition very quickly to supporting M1 computers. There are almost no companies that can manage an architecture transition like this smoothly. They are doing it very well. Money is left on the table if you do not transition, so economically it makes a ton of sense.
4) Vertical integration will continue to allow them to optimize better than companies that buy off the shelf products and construct the products that way. Building your own hardware (which now includes the CPU/GPU), software, and services, allow you to craft an optimized experience better than anyone else.
In conclusion, we are going to see some crazy changes in the chip landscape with performance that seemed impossible at certain power envelopes. This is truly an exciting time to be a person who follows computing generally. And as a person who enjoys games as well, we will be seeing some really cool products and performance that will make the Mac an equally (if not more so) competitive ecosystem to enjoy gaming in.
Rant over.
lostinblue
Banned
^ Apple would transition eventually regardless, this is a company that always wants to shoot the middleman they previously relied on and there's countless examples.
They're not afraid to do transitions because that's part of enables sellers to compromise and go lower than they would otherwise, you know they can go through with anything, even if it's petty. To a fault everyone is a bit scared of what Apple can do against you if you don't reach an agreement. Even developers, with the Epic lawsuit thing you could tell, they were afraid to speak up. Apple is able to do a lot more than normally accepted without that tarnishing their image. And they also get away with doing LESS, right to repair? HP has shit image compared to Apple, but they do it right, every PC has a repair manual accessible for everyone and good repairability scores. As for polution? Apple is always in bed with greenpeace, bankrolling them and saying they are concerned with the environment and even recycle their own crap. All of this being no more than a narrative from someone that sells plenty things that have glued, unserviceable batteries and recycles less than 1% of what they produce.
They invest a lot less on education than Microsoft and others, certainly never drop their prices for such a good cause (they'll make cheaper and worse computers, if they need to and keep the profit margin they always had); they don't give a damn about the third world not being able to buy their shit and Product RED is just a show (costs zero money to do and doesn't even sell that well) as the company has no philanthrope/charitable vein whatsoever, unless it's down to giving computers and phones to reviewers that are nothing but sycophants and a Mac Pro to Trump.
In a lot of senses they are about as good as Facebook.
Examples of transitions done just because: Nvidia support being effectively blocked from the OS (not being a client is one thing, refusing to sign their drivers is another), discontinuing then dropping OpenGL/Vulkan support, telling PowerVR they are not going to use their GPU's anymore then poaching most people working there...
Dumping Qualcomm for 5G routers, moving a lawsuit against them because they wouldn't licence their patents at a reasonable price (try to make Apple licence anything...), invest on Intel's 5G router, pull out from buying anything, settle and make a deal with Qualcomm instead... Then buy Intel's 5G router division, because without clients it's suddenly for sale. LOL. These are all, Apple modus operandi.
Let's say it like it is, every company will suffer through some blunders once in a while, Intel did with Pentium 4/Pentium D and is suffering a bit now, AMD did with Bulldozer/Jaguar architecture, Nvidia did with Geforce FX 5x00 series, and so on.
Apple does as well, Apple maps was a fiasco, and some of their products have been quite unreliable. Whenever possible they try to blame someone else, but sometimes they increasingly have no-one to blame but them. Recent security problems, antenagate, phone battery problems, screen gloss treatment problems that have lasted for years because they want to do coating instead of applying a filter, the aforementioned keyboard reliability problem that effectively turned their laptop sales to mush for 4 years (and they tried to blame Intel for it - if the keyboard was made by a third party they would have gone through as many manufacturers as possible within 6 months). It's all part of a narrative.
Not to say Intel is not going through some shite, Apple doesn't owe them anything and if they want to jump it's now. But, they would jump eventually because it makes sense for them to be tied to a manufacturer whose roadmap doesn't have them at the center of the equation. One of the reasons to jump is actually that computers are lasting too long. A Haswell quad core CPU is not drastically different from a 2019 iMac 21,5", so dropping support looks bad. Apple machines were lasting 10 years. I assure you they won't from now on. 5 years tops, then 2 years of security updates.
If anything, it's quite a testament to intel engineering that Apple wasn't able to kick their ass sooner despite the fact they didn't make them center of the universe as far as clients go.
They're not afraid to do transitions because that's part of enables sellers to compromise and go lower than they would otherwise, you know they can go through with anything, even if it's petty. To a fault everyone is a bit scared of what Apple can do against you if you don't reach an agreement. Even developers, with the Epic lawsuit thing you could tell, they were afraid to speak up. Apple is able to do a lot more than normally accepted without that tarnishing their image. And they also get away with doing LESS, right to repair? HP has shit image compared to Apple, but they do it right, every PC has a repair manual accessible for everyone and good repairability scores. As for polution? Apple is always in bed with greenpeace, bankrolling them and saying they are concerned with the environment and even recycle their own crap. All of this being no more than a narrative from someone that sells plenty things that have glued, unserviceable batteries and recycles less than 1% of what they produce.
They invest a lot less on education than Microsoft and others, certainly never drop their prices for such a good cause (they'll make cheaper and worse computers, if they need to and keep the profit margin they always had); they don't give a damn about the third world not being able to buy their shit and Product RED is just a show (costs zero money to do and doesn't even sell that well) as the company has no philanthrope/charitable vein whatsoever, unless it's down to giving computers and phones to reviewers that are nothing but sycophants and a Mac Pro to Trump.
In a lot of senses they are about as good as Facebook.
Examples of transitions done just because: Nvidia support being effectively blocked from the OS (not being a client is one thing, refusing to sign their drivers is another), discontinuing then dropping OpenGL/Vulkan support, telling PowerVR they are not going to use their GPU's anymore then poaching most people working there...
Dumping Qualcomm for 5G routers, moving a lawsuit against them because they wouldn't licence their patents at a reasonable price (try to make Apple licence anything...), invest on Intel's 5G router, pull out from buying anything, settle and make a deal with Qualcomm instead... Then buy Intel's 5G router division, because without clients it's suddenly for sale. LOL. These are all, Apple modus operandi.
Let's say it like it is, every company will suffer through some blunders once in a while, Intel did with Pentium 4/Pentium D and is suffering a bit now, AMD did with Bulldozer/Jaguar architecture, Nvidia did with Geforce FX 5x00 series, and so on.
Apple does as well, Apple maps was a fiasco, and some of their products have been quite unreliable. Whenever possible they try to blame someone else, but sometimes they increasingly have no-one to blame but them. Recent security problems, antenagate, phone battery problems, screen gloss treatment problems that have lasted for years because they want to do coating instead of applying a filter, the aforementioned keyboard reliability problem that effectively turned their laptop sales to mush for 4 years (and they tried to blame Intel for it - if the keyboard was made by a third party they would have gone through as many manufacturers as possible within 6 months). It's all part of a narrative.
Not to say Intel is not going through some shite, Apple doesn't owe them anything and if they want to jump it's now. But, they would jump eventually because it makes sense for them to be tied to a manufacturer whose roadmap doesn't have them at the center of the equation. One of the reasons to jump is actually that computers are lasting too long. A Haswell quad core CPU is not drastically different from a 2019 iMac 21,5", so dropping support looks bad. Apple machines were lasting 10 years. I assure you they won't from now on. 5 years tops, then 2 years of security updates.
If anything, it's quite a testament to intel engineering that Apple wasn't able to kick their ass sooner despite the fact they didn't make them center of the universe as far as clients go.
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Ya for sure. The transition was an inevitability.
The presence of the M1 Mac will not make people who hate the company feel any different.
I was by no means saying Apple is infallible. They have their own product philosophies. They are always criticized for their practises.
In general, I am just excited that something new has come to the market and it is not half bad. In fact, from all the reviews I am seeing, it is actually quite good.
From a macro perspective, whenever I see something that applies pressure to established players in a market, I cannot help but get excited as I know that what results will be better value for us the consumers.
This is just another occurrence.
lostinblue
Banned
Yes, my post was more of a recap than a proper answer to what you were saying.
What Apple does is interesting, it's amazing they have this chip/architecture and seeing they do they would be crazy not to cut Intel out of the equation. They're being clever and they are usually clever, not reckless.
I think Intel is crazy and dumb to answer like they did, but one thing is certain, what Apple did will change the market and that's what scares them. It just can't be the 2-3% loss of business/chips Apple amounted to.
I used macOS uninterruptedly since 2003 and it is by far my preferred Operating System to work on. But I wasn't game with anything that closed the system further. When I got it MacOS felt kinda open, it supported everything you wanted to pull, had proper OS-level tools for everything it was very feature complete but it has been going back. Time machine as awesome as it still is hasn't been improved in years, I think the day they break automator they won't bother, lots of tools, like disk utility and network utility are being dumbed down (raid is not supported officially anymore) or deprecated. Some recent changes have been either performance or memory hogs. I actually went back from catalina to mojave because of it.
The T2 chip (not being able to natively install other OS), proprietary HDD's that I can't take out and recover data from (I actually opted to use an external SSD on my iMac 21.5" due to that, but that's not feasible on a laptop) and I'm not game with what I'm seeing with M1, as impressive as it is it's also perpetually theirs unless all the documentation leaks.
I'm hoping Linux can start to get some commercial software as I mostly use the Adobe suite to work (but I don't know when that will happen if ever). Thankfully Windows has improved quite a bit, I still hate it but at least I can keep a workflow now.
Intel sure needed competition for the paradigm to change. That said, I hope Apple gets competition as well, to their CPU's and to their Operating System. I want them to be bested by platforms that are more open so I can adopt them.
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Dream-Knife
Banned
Wow. Got a source on Vaio's using Macos? My first real computer (other than a hand-me-down IBM PS/2) was a early 2000's Vaio. I always did compare the Vaio as the PC version of a Mac. That proprietary power supply screwed me over in the end.
I don't think power is what has prevented Macs from being a viable gaming platform, it is a combination of things. Apple not really caring about that market, market percentages, cost etc.
How many gamers are going to be cool with paying $200 to increase their ssd from 256 to 500gb? You can get a 1tb M.2 that's much faster for under $200.
I would like a source on them being priority at TMSC.
lostinblue
Banned
Here:
-> https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/5/5380832/sony-vaio-apple-os-x-steve-jobs-meeting-report
It certainly wasn't down to power. For a few years when they went Intel things looked rosy, big games were being released with 1 year delays but feature complete otherwise, and mac pro were not as expensive as they are today so you actually had regular people with them, and they could install better graphics card.
I worked at a place that had Mac Pro's and we used to play Halo and Unreal Tournament via LAN. It was great.
The biggest thing keeping Apple in was OpenGL support. DirectX wasn't obviously available, but games were starting to run better on OpenGL than they did on DirectX. The gravitas was so good that Steam Store was launched for it in 2010.
But then, slowly but surely, all crumbled. Apple stopped updating their OpenGL support in 2010, staying on OpenGL 3.3 for many years until they finally deprecated it in 2018. By then current OpenGL revision was 4.7 making MacOS unsuitably ancient for most ports to be easy. Amazingly despite initially collaborating on developing OpenCL and being the first to implement it in 2008 they stopped updating it leaving it for years with massive bugs then dropped it. After that they never implemented Vulkan support in any way shape of form instead opting to force their special incompatible flavour of it, Metal; that didn't went that well so they re-evaluated, reformulated it and re-relaunched it as Metal 2.
There's a nice writeup here:
- https://www.extremetech.com/computi...g-opengl-opencl-as-developers-threaten-revolt
At the same time, for a few years Apple was quite well equipped GPU-wise on entry models because they opted to forgo intel GPU's altogether and instead used Nvidia chipsets with integrated graphics (first Geforce 9400m, then Geforce 320m) Intel wasn't happy though and sued, then nvidia countersued, in the end it all boiled down to Nvidia continued doing chipsets with GPU for Core 2 Duo, but not for i3/i5/i7. Because of wanting to keep the GPU performance Apple didn't leave Core 2 Duo for an extra year on the Mac Mini, Macbook Pro 13, Macbook 13 and Macbook Air 11 and 13 as other models made the leap because they could have what we call a dual GPU setup (intel and AMD or Nvidia graphics). The fact Apple wanted to have good GPU's was seen as a good pro-consumer sign, but in later years they were satisfied with selling most of their machines with intel graphics only.
You can't really game of those.
Apple basically bought most of their 5nm production capacity, supposedly 53%
-> https://www.gizmochina.com/2021/02/08/apple-tsmc-5nm-chips-2021/
Of course 53% of the 5nm node is not 53% of their total production capacity, but it is pretty substantial.
Excess
Member
I'm actually optimistic that Nvidia will be able to acquire ARM because, technically, it doesn't matter if China denies it. I read an interesting article on Seeking Alpha the other day from an author who is bullish on Nvidia, and her rationale for the approval is premised on national security concerns and gaining a Western competitive advantage in AI:
Quote:
RISC-V is also mentioned as a con to the acquisition, so I'm aware. I'm not sure what Nvidia's answer is to this. I'd be inclined to believe that a company with a 327B market cap would have at least considered how to leverage it without those risks.
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lostinblue
Banned
Your point of view and the article is interesting and level headed considering what it's proposing. Thank you for sharing.
That would be an extreme situation that I don't see happening with Biden, but I could see it happening if Trump was on. As I see it, China and US tech war is bound to be like the cold war and nothing that substantial is going to happen most of the time.
What you describe would be pretty substantial, and would have repercussions on both sides. If it goes forward after China objects they will take it personally and probably make everything to dump ARM sooner and devalue it. Russia will follow suit as well. China is a big market, so that means a lot a pressure.
I think they will always try to block something like this from now on, because they can and because they'll always ask the following question "so what's in it for us?"... That makes it so that you have to negotiate with them, it's effectively the same position they occupy on NATO and UN: being there mostly just to block things.
China has already decided that it wants to be completely self sufficient in 10-20 years. That means investing in chinese foundries and ARM while the present and foreseable short term future, is definitely not part of their plans going forward because ARM is neither theirs nor open enough that they can just fork it and change it around at will.
I think it's a really long shot. Plus plenty influential US companies are against it. That said, although listed I don't think Apple is worried about it in the slightest apart from the fact that a universe where everyone uses ARM, but their ARM CPU's are better being something that is advantageous for them so they probably don't want either x86 nor RISC-V to be too successful by comparison.
Their answer would be not changing much on ARM modus operandi at first, acting like it's something on their porfolio and not be too... Nvidia about it. That way ARM costumers that are threatening to go somewhere else will stay because of the work and investment such a switch would be. If the product is competitive and gets even better under them, better than what costumers can get elsewhere all the better.
Micro-controllers and chinese market is already a lost cause IMO, so they probably also think everyone that will leave would do so sooner or later.
It's a correct assessment on Nvidia's account that the future of general purpose is deeply tied to AI/Machine Learning being in. It's quite possible that one of the reasons Apple's M1 seems so powerful is down to abstract machine learning on the AI cores.
Unless everything on the market was one chip configuration, it's really hard to optimize software for anything these days. Thus all chips are leaving performance on the table, the future is probably being able to fish out that performance without writing specific code for that to happen. AI is the glue that can make it happen.
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captainraincoat
Banned
not sure why we were quoted the $700 figure but it was at an official apple store and it was after they tested it so they must of found something else but decided to charge for it
the report simply listed battery replacement and labour...i never was involved in the initial contact but my friend was complaining about the price and i too was of the assumption that apple were usually pretty good with battery replacements until i saw the work receipt
They did try and sell him a brand new macbook pro in the store so if that was a way to push the customer into doing that they did a very shit job of it as he is now back with a windows pc
His work spend close to 20 grand on a specced up cheese-grater apple pro and the $9000 aud 6k screen.....to edit 30 second clips on how to put together play equipment which most people will probably look at on their phone
Nehezir
Banned
so uhh...things so short that I probably could just do them on my current desktop so fast that we're well past the point of diminishing returns?
Dream-Knife
Banned
Your PS5 is x86.
This is a really interesting read. Where do you think we're going in the future? All ARM? RISC-V?
Do you see there being a split between consumer/casual machines and gamer machines?
Also: that Vaio article says it just never took off. Nothing about MS being involved.
Apple should allow OSX on other machines, but they won't. The move to proprietary chips will close the garden even more.
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Tchu-Espresso
likes mayo on everthing and can't dance
I think I'll pick up one of the 16 inch m2 Pro models When they come out.
So sick of Windows laptops. I'm ready for a change.
So sick of Windows laptops. I'm ready for a change.
captainraincoat
Banned
i do love the ipads and the mac mini for the price and functionality but the laptops and cheese grater are overpriced for what they can do
i could build 4 top line gaming pcs for the price of 1 of the mac pros and you could probably go balls out with a threadripper cpu and have change left over which would eat the mac alive
most of our marketing team are running surface books and they are all sharing files and meeting using Teams and there is literally 1 imac in the whole office which they used to use to open files but as everything went cloud based its never turned on
Bartski
Member
You know you can just build your own mac from MacOS compliant parts? Home | tonymacx86.com
Also find a pro who does it to help you out if you can - you need good bios setup know-how and often some Kexts edited manually (sth close to a driver in OS) to your specific config.
I've learned the hard way - built my first Hackintosh all by myself and it was shit. Now I have one made the right way and its amazing, zero issues.
This will save you around 60-70% on price as compared to same desktop configuration you'd get from apple.com.
Its also perfectly legal if you own a copy of macOS.
Why would you want that? Two reasons: Logic Studio and Final Cut.
+ galaxy of insanely great mac only apps as a bonus.
Biggest downside - you're bound to AMD.
Also find a pro who does it to help you out if you can - you need good bios setup know-how and often some Kexts edited manually (sth close to a driver in OS) to your specific config.
I've learned the hard way - built my first Hackintosh all by myself and it was shit. Now I have one made the right way and its amazing, zero issues.
This will save you around 60-70% on price as compared to same desktop configuration you'd get from apple.com.
Its also perfectly legal if you own a copy of macOS.
Why would you want that? Two reasons: Logic Studio and Final Cut.
+ galaxy of insanely great mac only apps as a bonus.
Biggest downside - you're bound to AMD.
Bo_Hazem
Banned
Yes, and it's old tech. x86 is like a sick horse, needs a bullet of mercy.
lostinblue
Banned
ARM needs to focus on high performance, AI and security. Which are the things that you can charge extra for.
They also need, as much as they can, to keep RISC-V from getting the best manufacturing nodes. Some RISC-V manufacturers are complaining right now that they can't secure machine time on those and that means they have to downclock their chips or add less cores.
Total chips manufactured on it are bound to drop a substantial amount and that will be bad for ARM profits as they earn a 1-2% royalty per chip, at first this won't be because RISC-V is taking the mobile phone market per say but because micro-controllers and devices with Internet of Things embedded don't need state of the art manufacturing processes any more than they need custom baked-in optimizations that were difficult before.
ARM was quick to open their platform and allow custom instructions once RISC-V allowed it and started gaining momentum. This was not in their best interest before as their interest was volume production, not about 10 brands being able to have 10 custom SOC's - their own chips. With ARM you usually pick from what is available you never design your own unless you have a lot of volume.
Seagate and Western Digital, big on micro-controllers made the jump immediately. Both were making/consuming 1 billion chips per year (2 billion if combined) as described in both links, and that's going away from ARM as soon as possible. Rest of that market will follow suit.
Let me surmise that only 1.5 billion phones are manufactured every year and this seems to be dropping slightly.
I don't know. I think RISC-V could be a bit like Linux. It's everywhere, specially in things you don't necessarily associate with having an Operating System/kernel, but might apparently fail in some markets. There is surely no demand for any of that now.
RISC-V won't start up being a competitor, things like Raspberry Pi, who require the chips they pick to have lots of documentation and be open will probably be the first to switch. But they won't be that powerful.
I understood problem was that Sony was already doing VAIO windows PC's. No doubt Apple wanted an exclusivity deal. Perhaps they had a lot of processors and parts pre-ordered.
I don't think M$ was involved directly, yes; but the Mac Operating System back then didn't run on intel chips.
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It really depends for what purpose you use it. It doesn't matter if it is a macbook pro, or M1 apple or a iPad "pro". In my company they are avoided like the plague, because of the OS and not the computer itself. A simple task like plotting a drawing is a fucking chore to get going, my boss uses one for his purposes (meetings, emails etc.) and he loves it, but it is hillarious when he approaches one of us with: " can you please print these documents and these drawings because i can't".
I will never say Apple does bad hardware though, they have really high quality products that will serve you well depending on the work you do, but they don't even get close to the flexibility of a pc imo.
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SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
How he can't print documents? Do I miss something here, because I've never heard of complaints about not being able to print with a Mac. It's easy to do honestly.
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Spukc
always chasing the next thrill
it's IT stuck in the past
It's the driver support, some plotters that we had and laser prints just weren't supported and i'm not joking. It was a pain in the ass with one of my colleagues that insisted he wanted to use mac, well good luck with that in engineering. Most of the software was a problem, we had to plot his drawings meaning because of him, two people would be occupied.
I know they're really strong in some departments but for my type of work it's just awful.
Valonquar
Member
Working at a university that is forced to support both PC and Mac in an enterprise enviroment, I can say with 100% certainty that Macs are complete and utter bullshit wastes of money, resources, and effort for 95% of users that "NEED" them. Unfortunately there are some legitimate use cases for them, and for the most part it's a handful of apps that were created specifically for Mac instead of PC in sound design, and digital art. I have no doubt there ist a PC option that is or could be better than the Mac offerings in these fields.
However, bringing this up to faculty is akin to telling rednecks they don't need their guns, and should be wearing a mask in Wal-Mart.
However, bringing this up to faculty is akin to telling rednecks they don't need their guns, and should be wearing a mask in Wal-Mart.
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SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
Compatibility can always be an issue, I had similar issues when using Linux the first time. I couldn't even connect to the internet because somehow drivers weren't supported. Generally, there is a lot of comparable software on Mac, including some great ones for drawings, so there are solutions. Your colleague could've just used a virtual machine on his Mac. Kinda an assy move from him.
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SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
The M1 Air is the best laptop on the market right now with the best value and it's not even close.
Even in the field of business, there are tons of solutions.
There also CRM apps, stuff for project management, marketing, accounting software.
And even if you have to use Windows apps because your working space requires it, you can easily run something like parallels which in many instances runs even better than on a native Windows machine. Again, am I missing something? Because it literally sounds like 99% of the problems stem from an inability to adapt.
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Pagusas
Elden Member
I'll agree with this in all areas of business with the major exception being Marketing. Marketing departments run off macs, they go hand and hand.
Dream-Knife
Banned
As long as you don't require too much storage. The $200-250 price premium from moving from 256gb to 512gb is unforgivable.
What are you guys doing that runs so poorly in windows?
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What smug, smell my own fart, head up ass comments
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SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
One of my computers runs both Linux and Windows (dual boot) my Windows runs much worse despite having much more space. I've tried reinstalling the OS and it did improve things a lot, but it's still no comparison though. My Macbook Pro 2015 which has about the same specs as my computer runs much smoother than both in pretty much every way.
I once had one of these cheaper windows notebooks (2-in-1 tablet and notebook) and it was horrible, but I guessed it was entirely because it was a low-cost entry, so I've bought a Dell Latitude 5410, and it is a decent enough notebook and you can definitely work with it, still preferred my Macbook Pro in many ways. The M1 is another league though, it annihilates the Dell Latitude despite being cheaper. There are still some things that need to be fixed, but none of them will be permanent and the positives far outweigh any negatives. It is just an all-around fantastic machine. Quick, snappy, high-quality, long battery, good specs, and the general benefits a Unix-based system comes with. I also just really like OS X. It is basically a less open but more intuitive and user-friendly version of Linux (which I also really really like).
You can watch these for more insight too:
Valonquar
Member
No, it's a comment of a system administrator that manages both a SCCM server for PCs and a JAMF server Macs for 2000+ machines in an EDU environment. I have worked in IT for 25+ years. I advise the campus on what model machines to purchase for both PC and Mac machines each year that departments can\should choose from for refreshes. I fully acknowledge that some users do need a Mac for certain software offerings. Departments can still buy whatever they want, but outside of suggested models we offer limited support. Fragmentation is a real bitch to deal with.
Over the years, I have watched departments stretch refresh budgets 4 years beyond end of warranty just to keep buying Macs when they could be twice as many PCs for the same price. These are for users that literally only use PCs for O365 applications, email, and Adobe Acrobat. Mac OS updates run like dogshit on 7+ year old macs, and Apple is constantly swinging back & forth over enterprise level controls for org owned machines. The things are glued together just so they are a bigger pain in the ass to repair for fucks sake. The extra cost of supporting Apple's products vs comparable, often better machines in an enterprise environment is astronomical. We have to pay extra for JAMF when SCCM\Intune come bundled with our A3 license already. O365 on Macs is a joke compared to PC offering, which of course leads to Mac users fragmenting off towards G-Suite, or other suites, again adding more costs.
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Dream-Knife
Banned
No doubt. Intels mobile chips are pretty bad. If you want power you use a desktop anyway.
Hopefully this does light a fire under their ass though.
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SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
Oh definitely, for the sake of competition alone. It feels like an eternity when having "powered by intel" on your computer actually meant something. They slept for too long and now it caught up to them.
mango drank
Member
After Anti-M1 Ads, Intel Wants to Make Future Apple Silicon Chips
Apple in November started releasing Macs with Apple-designed M1 chips, and the Apple silicon technology will eventually replace all the Intel chips...
www.macrumors.com
mitchman
Gold Member
You absolutely want to use Windows even for non-games if you want the best debugger in the business.