6 ms·

The shift is the pure neglect towards the dev community. Something that most likely would not have happened so blatant and fast under Jobs. It is also completel

The shift is the pure neglect towards the dev community. Something that most likely would not have happened so blatant and fast under Jobs. It is also completely not necessary that making great phones excludes a company from making at least decent upgrade cycles in their computer hardware. Why should one exclude the other?

caconym_ 10y ago
How do you figure "pure neglect"? What are the features you're missing in the current Mac lineup? Which products from other manufacturers make a meaningful improvement on Apple's offering for "devs"?
- Lio 10y ago
  Well a computer with enough GPU performance to work with VR would be a nice start. Apple don't currently have anything available other than hacking an eGPU set up together. The "current" Mac Pro is over 3 (4?) years old now. Users can't upgrade it because of the proprietary GPU cards and Apple don't seem able to keep it relevant themselves. It's difficult to have a professional relationship with a supplier where the best options for macOS are either a dodgy Hackintosh or a used 2012 Mac Pro with a new GPU.
  - nilkn 10y ago
    VR is a subset of PC gaming right now, and Apple has never offered hardware sufficient for high-end PC gaming.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - intoverflow2 10y ago
      GPUs are for more than VR. All 3D rendering is moving to GPUs, All machine learning development needs GPUs. GPU is the future of professional computing in many emerging sectors. Apple currently ships no hardware compatible with any of this.
    - toyg 10y ago
      GPU nowadays is almost a misnomer. They are more like supercharged versions of the old "floating-point calculation" chips. As such, they have plenty of applications beyond VR - bitcoin, data analysis, encryption etc etc etc.
- DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
  Here's one piece of anecdata, not for a "dev" but for another high-end use case: professional photography. My wife is a professional photographer. Her current photo-editing computer is a Windows 7 desktop with 16 GB of RAM. We know Windows 7's days are numbered, so we're starting to think about her next editing computer. The two most obvious options are (a) some Apple product, or (b) a computer running Windows 10. Here are the major criteria for the replacement, which need to remain true for 3+ years after the computer's purchase: (1) It must legally run current Adobe products. (2) Can support > 16 GB RAM during its lifetime. (3) There must be minimal unplanned downtime. (4) The price can't be exorbitant, relative to a medium-high end PC. TCO should also be reasonable. (5) It must be convenient to transfer photos from her camera's SD card. (6) We'd like to minimize the time and attention we put into initial setup and maintenance. So the most obvious options (currently) are: * Apple: MacPro, iMac, or MacBook Pro * PC: Windows 8 or Windows 10 Here's how I score the options, although perhaps someone will correct me: (1) Easily satisfied by all options listed. (2) No MacBook Pro satisfies this. Fast SSD for swap is helpful but sub-optimal. (3) Windows 10 (non-enterprise) fails this, because of unavoidable updates. MacPro and iMac fail this because (AFAIK) Apple doesn't offer loaners for these during warranty work. (4) For initial purchase cost, the MacPro is a fail, and the MacBook Pro is nearly a fail. However, all current Apple products are potential TCO fail given the lack of user-replaceable components. (5) AFAIK the desktop Macs fail this, although connecting an external USB reader should be easy enough. I suspect the MacBook Pro would be more hassle, given its ports/dongles mess. (6) All of the options should satisfy this criterion well-enough. As far as I can tell, the winner is a Windows 8 PC. Why is no Apple product a viable winner, given our criteria? - Nothing in the current lineup meets all our criteria. - We don't know if/when something will be added that meets our criteria. - We're not sure what Apple's longer-term plans are, so we don't want to invest time/money into a PC-to-Apple transition, just to need to reverse it in a few years. The three issues listed immediately above strike me as a pointless fail in Apple's strategy, at least relative to my wife's business's needs.
  - secabeen 10y ago
    Looks like the only blocker for Windows 10 is the "minimal unplanned downtime." Although Windows 10 does have mandatory updates, I have yet to see one that requires immediate and sudden reboots. Yes, if you get prompted for an update reboot and delay it a few times, the system will eventually force the update, but a simple workflow change of rebooting the system every night when you're done working with it and are going to bed would eliminate the unexpected updates and the associated downtime.
visarga 10y ago
> It is also completely not necessary that making great phones excludes a company from making at least decent upgrade cycles in their computer hardware. You bet! all those billions sitting in their coffers and they still couldn't pull their asses to achieve progress. It is like Microsoft of the XP era. I was pulling my hairs in 2003 cursing at Bill Gates, then switched to Mac until now. But I think the Mac era is over as well and Bill Gates is cool again. He's really great in his humanitarian work.
- DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
  > He's really great in his humanitarian work. I'm sure a lot of what Gates is currently doing is praiseworthy. But to be even-handed, we should also remember the means by which he obtained a lot of the money he's giving away.

caconym_ 10y ago

How do you figure "pure neglect"? What are the features you're missing in the current Mac lineup? Which products from other manufacturers make a meaningful improvement on Apple's offering for "devs"?

Lio 10y ago
Well a computer with enough GPU performance to work with VR would be a nice start. Apple don't currently have anything available other than hacking an eGPU set up together. The "current" Mac Pro is over 3 (4?) years old now. Users can't upgrade it because of the proprietary GPU cards and Apple don't seem able to keep it relevant themselves. It's difficult to have a professional relationship with a supplier where the best options for macOS are either a dodgy Hackintosh or a used 2012 Mac Pro with a new GPU.
- nilkn 10y ago
  VR is a subset of PC gaming right now, and Apple has never offered hardware sufficient for high-end PC gaming.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - intoverflow2 10y ago
    GPUs are for more than VR. All 3D rendering is moving to GPUs, All machine learning development needs GPUs. GPU is the future of professional computing in many emerging sectors. Apple currently ships no hardware compatible with any of this.
  - toyg 10y ago
    GPU nowadays is almost a misnomer. They are more like supercharged versions of the old "floating-point calculation" chips. As such, they have plenty of applications beyond VR - bitcoin, data analysis, encryption etc etc etc.
DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
Here's one piece of anecdata, not for a "dev" but for another high-end use case: professional photography. My wife is a professional photographer. Her current photo-editing computer is a Windows 7 desktop with 16 GB of RAM. We know Windows 7's days are numbered, so we're starting to think about her next editing computer. The two most obvious options are (a) some Apple product, or (b) a computer running Windows 10. Here are the major criteria for the replacement, which need to remain true for 3+ years after the computer's purchase: (1) It must legally run current Adobe products. (2) Can support > 16 GB RAM during its lifetime. (3) There must be minimal unplanned downtime. (4) The price can't be exorbitant, relative to a medium-high end PC. TCO should also be reasonable. (5) It must be convenient to transfer photos from her camera's SD card. (6) We'd like to minimize the time and attention we put into initial setup and maintenance. So the most obvious options (currently) are: * Apple: MacPro, iMac, or MacBook Pro * PC: Windows 8 or Windows 10 Here's how I score the options, although perhaps someone will correct me: (1) Easily satisfied by all options listed. (2) No MacBook Pro satisfies this. Fast SSD for swap is helpful but sub-optimal. (3) Windows 10 (non-enterprise) fails this, because of unavoidable updates. MacPro and iMac fail this because (AFAIK) Apple doesn't offer loaners for these during warranty work. (4) For initial purchase cost, the MacPro is a fail, and the MacBook Pro is nearly a fail. However, all current Apple products are potential TCO fail given the lack of user-replaceable components. (5) AFAIK the desktop Macs fail this, although connecting an external USB reader should be easy enough. I suspect the MacBook Pro would be more hassle, given its ports/dongles mess. (6) All of the options should satisfy this criterion well-enough. As far as I can tell, the winner is a Windows 8 PC. Why is no Apple product a viable winner, given our criteria? - Nothing in the current lineup meets all our criteria. - We don't know if/when something will be added that meets our criteria. - We're not sure what Apple's longer-term plans are, so we don't want to invest time/money into a PC-to-Apple transition, just to need to reverse it in a few years. The three issues listed immediately above strike me as a pointless fail in Apple's strategy, at least relative to my wife's business's needs.
- secabeen 10y ago
  Looks like the only blocker for Windows 10 is the "minimal unplanned downtime." Although Windows 10 does have mandatory updates, I have yet to see one that requires immediate and sudden reboots. Yes, if you get prompted for an update reboot and delay it a few times, the system will eventually force the update, but a simple workflow change of rebooting the system every night when you're done working with it and are going to bed would eliminate the unexpected updates and the associated downtime.

visarga 10y ago

> It is also completely not necessary that making great phones excludes a company from making at least decent upgrade cycles in their computer hardware. You bet! all those billions sitting in their coffers and they still couldn't pull their asses to achieve progress. It is like Microsoft of the XP era. I was pulling my hairs in 2003 cursing at Bill Gates, then switched to Mac until now. But I think the Mac era is over as well and Bill Gates is cool again. He's really great in his humanitarian work.

DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
> He's really great in his humanitarian work. I'm sure a lot of what Gates is currently doing is praiseworthy. But to be even-handed, we should also remember the means by which he obtained a lot of the money he's giving away.