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Yeah Apple still owns the laptop market but even their latest Macbook Pro wasn't really, more mainstream. Mac is still a better development environment because

Yeah Apple still owns the laptop market but even their latest Macbook Pro wasn't really, more mainstream. Mac is still a better development environment because it is nix based for most things webdev related and iOS appdev mobile related. At far as desktops though, even creative/advertising agencies are moving to PC for 3d, photography, graphic design, audio production, video production and more. These were always the target market of Apple but they lost many. Apple iPhone lost ground to Android and laptops may also do so starting with development. I see many devs that went from Mac to PC desktop go from Macbook Pros to Surface Pros but that is just starting. Eventually it could also start switching people from iPhone to Android/Samsung/Google hardware as well as the hardware has caught up. Apple being a hardware company, it is strange they did not take more advantage of the desktop inroads they were making in 2006+ with Intel and iOS development.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
> At far as desktops though, even creative/advertising agencies are moving to PC for photography, graphic design, audio production, video production and more. These were always the target market of Apple but they lost many. I don't think this is really true, all the creative agencies I'm aware of are still firmly mac shops. Do you have a citation or anecdotes to back up your assertion?
- drawkbox 9y ago
  Most of them are still pretty Mac heavy, I said 'moving to PC'. The agencies I work with and worked at have begun to purchase more and more PCs over Macs. Adobe Creative Cloud apps tend to work better on PC now so this is a big reason. The areas I mentioned (video, photography, audio, gamedev, 3d etc) are moving to hefty PC machines that need 64GB/128GB/256GB+ of ram, latest GPUs, many drives and many cores (16-40+)[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], no iMac can do that and Mac Pros have left the building. Many of the PCs are cheaper and more powerful as well, custom built ones especially. Many web developers or graphic designers still on iMacs, but the other areas on PC. Basically, anyone that needed a Mac Pro, where an iMac or Macbook Pro was not enough, has probably switched/back to PC. You'll see most people do this around 2013-2014 when the Mac Pro was un-cheese grated and put in a jet engine/trashcan, looks cool but too expensive and not for hands-on pros or expanded easily. One video/photography/3d guy I know is running 40+ core/thread machines 256GB RAM, hard for Mac Pros to compete with that[9][10]. [1] https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/the-digital-artists-guide-to-switching-from-mac-to-windows https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/the-digital-artists-guid... [2] https://www.slrlounge.com/apple-is-dead-to-me-trey-ratcliff-mac-vs-pc/ https://www.slrlounge.com/apple-is-dead-to-me-trey-ratcliff-... [3] https://www.stuckincustoms.com/2017/02/10/switching-from-mac-to-windows/ https://www.stuckincustoms.com/2017/02/10/switching-from-mac... [4] https://petapixel.com/2016/12/03/im-leaving-apple-microsoft-switching-photographer/ https://petapixel.com/2016/12/03/im-leaving-apple-microsoft-... [5] https://petapixel.com/2017/07/18/5-reasons-pick-pc-macbook-2017-photo-video-editing/ https://petapixel.com/2017/07/18/5-reasons-pick-pc-macbook-2... [6] http://philipbloom.net/blog/makingtheswitch/ http://philipbloom.net/blog/makingtheswitch/ [7] https://uxdesign.cc/designers-workflow-on-windows-57393856ae59 https://uxdesign.cc/designers-workflow-on-windows-57393856ae... [8] https://medium.com/charged-tech/why-i-left-mac-for-windows-apple-has-given-up-b48c0eaac64 https://medium.com/charged-tech/why-i-left-mac-for-windows-a... [9] https://www.techspot.com/review/1218-affordable-40-thread-xeon-monster-pc/ https://www.techspot.com/review/1218-affordable-40-thread-xe... [10] http://www.titancomputers.com/Titan-X399-Dual-Intel-Xeon-E5-v4-Broadwell-EP-Wo-p/x399.htm http://www.titancomputers.com/Titan-X399-Dual-Intel-Xeon-E5-...
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Thank you, that makes sense. I haven't seen any Mac Pros or iMac Pros yet, so I guess I haven't been exposed to that end of the segment yet.
rbanffy 9y ago
I see a lot of developers embarking on the Linux on Windows approach. It makes sense if one's goal is to learn to manage Windows boxes, but it misses a lot on the Linux side of things a good developer needs to know (unless, of course, they're developing for Windows, in which case the whole Linux side is unnecessary). Apple can't regain the 3D, design and production market unless they can get a solution that's competitive in price with PCs. I'd suggest keeping Macs as the most delightful to use desktop and transparently offloading the heavy lifting to racks of commodity PCs running headless Apple software (which may even run on top of Darwin if that makes the porting easier). OTOH, if Apple can develop a significant edge in performance like it had with early PowerPCs. Then Apple becomes the best bang for the buck again. Since they are designing CPUs, they can be pretty creative here.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

> At far as desktops though, even creative/advertising agencies are moving to PC for photography, graphic design, audio production, video production and more. These were always the target market of Apple but they lost many. I don't think this is really true, all the creative agencies I'm aware of are still firmly mac shops. Do you have a citation or anecdotes to back up your assertion?

drawkbox 9y ago
Most of them are still pretty Mac heavy, I said 'moving to PC'. The agencies I work with and worked at have begun to purchase more and more PCs over Macs. Adobe Creative Cloud apps tend to work better on PC now so this is a big reason. The areas I mentioned (video, photography, audio, gamedev, 3d etc) are moving to hefty PC machines that need 64GB/128GB/256GB+ of ram, latest GPUs, many drives and many cores (16-40+)[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], no iMac can do that and Mac Pros have left the building. Many of the PCs are cheaper and more powerful as well, custom built ones especially. Many web developers or graphic designers still on iMacs, but the other areas on PC. Basically, anyone that needed a Mac Pro, where an iMac or Macbook Pro was not enough, has probably switched/back to PC. You'll see most people do this around 2013-2014 when the Mac Pro was un-cheese grated and put in a jet engine/trashcan, looks cool but too expensive and not for hands-on pros or expanded easily. One video/photography/3d guy I know is running 40+ core/thread machines 256GB RAM, hard for Mac Pros to compete with that[9][10]. [1] https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/the-digital-artists-guide-to-switching-from-mac-to-windows https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/the-digital-artists-guid... [2] https://www.slrlounge.com/apple-is-dead-to-me-trey-ratcliff-mac-vs-pc/ https://www.slrlounge.com/apple-is-dead-to-me-trey-ratcliff-... [3] https://www.stuckincustoms.com/2017/02/10/switching-from-mac-to-windows/ https://www.stuckincustoms.com/2017/02/10/switching-from-mac... [4] https://petapixel.com/2016/12/03/im-leaving-apple-microsoft-switching-photographer/ https://petapixel.com/2016/12/03/im-leaving-apple-microsoft-... [5] https://petapixel.com/2017/07/18/5-reasons-pick-pc-macbook-2017-photo-video-editing/ https://petapixel.com/2017/07/18/5-reasons-pick-pc-macbook-2... [6] http://philipbloom.net/blog/makingtheswitch/ http://philipbloom.net/blog/makingtheswitch/ [7] https://uxdesign.cc/designers-workflow-on-windows-57393856ae59 https://uxdesign.cc/designers-workflow-on-windows-57393856ae... [8] https://medium.com/charged-tech/why-i-left-mac-for-windows-apple-has-given-up-b48c0eaac64 https://medium.com/charged-tech/why-i-left-mac-for-windows-a... [9] https://www.techspot.com/review/1218-affordable-40-thread-xeon-monster-pc/ https://www.techspot.com/review/1218-affordable-40-thread-xe... [10] http://www.titancomputers.com/Titan-X399-Dual-Intel-Xeon-E5-v4-Broadwell-EP-Wo-p/x399.htm http://www.titancomputers.com/Titan-X399-Dual-Intel-Xeon-E5-...
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Thank you, that makes sense. I haven't seen any Mac Pros or iMac Pros yet, so I guess I haven't been exposed to that end of the segment yet.

rbanffy 9y ago

I see a lot of developers embarking on the Linux on Windows approach. It makes sense if one's goal is to learn to manage Windows boxes, but it misses a lot on the Linux side of things a good developer needs to know (unless, of course, they're developing for Windows, in which case the whole Linux side is unnecessary). Apple can't regain the 3D, design and production market unless they can get a solution that's competitive in price with PCs. I'd suggest keeping Macs as the most delightful to use desktop and transparently offloading the heavy lifting to racks of commodity PCs running headless Apple software (which may even run on top of Darwin if that makes the porting easier). OTOH, if Apple can develop a significant edge in performance like it had with early PowerPCs. Then Apple becomes the best bang for the buck again. Since they are designing CPUs, they can be pretty creative here.