3 ms·

I'm not. Since the last few iterations of Apple hardware and OS software, I've decided to switch to something else. I'm also advicing all friends and collegues

by kebman 6y ago

I'm not. Since the last few iterations of Apple hardware and OS software, I've decided to switch to something else. I'm also advicing all friends and collegues to do the same. There is simply no reason to stay with Apple anymore as a professional. It used to be stability and ease of use, but Windows has since closed that gap, and Linux is a close second (and a must for programming). Most likely that means I'll run a Linux laptop for programming, and have a partition for Windows on a gaming computer, cuz I love me some games. I know Steam is gradually approaching Linux, but most AAA games still run best under Win. Plus it's an easy platform (outside OS X) to run multimedia production tools. Sorry, I just don't think Gimp or other Linux tools for multimedia production are good enough yet, but the hope remains that they will someday compete with giants like Adobe. For real. And not just as free but woefully inadequate alternatives. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, though. I'd love to be surprised, if you are able!

jm547ster 6y ago
Gravit designer, Blender and Bitwig studio would come to mind as tools for multimedia production that are as good as anything on the other platforms.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Also Krita is improving pretty much constantly to become the "Blender of drawing".
- kebman 6y ago
  Great tips! Thank you! I'm more into 2D compositing for video, but I've had my eye on Blender for some time. Not sure how it stacks up against stuff like After Effects. For audio production I already use Reaper FM, but I might give Bitwig a go too. ^^
  - blcArmadillo 6y ago
    Not open source; however, supposedly DaVinci Resolve is supported for Linux: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/ https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/. For most people the free variant should be more than enough.
rednum 6y ago
I haven't used Windows in long time, but it feels like "the gap" was closed by Apple, by letting their system degrade. The high end 2019 MacBookPro is in many regards less reliable for music production than my old 2012 MacBookAir, which is really, really sad. Unless Apple gets their act together my next music production setup will be Windows-based (or maybe I'll even try Bitwig on Linux).
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  Apple still is best for audio and animation applications and there are synergies in certain industries like game development. But apart from that it is a bad deal. Windows degraded itself with its bad store, telemetry and PaaS dream, but yes, as soon as they could Apple developed in the same direction. Microsoft suffers from bad decisions on some management level.
- joshspankit 6y ago
  > “the gap” was closed by Apple, by letting their system degrade. 100% agreed. And I would even go so far as to say that Steve Jobs had such a strong vision of how things could be, that it was his greatest mistake to put someone in charge who did not (Tim Cook).
- kebman 6y ago
  >it feels like "the gap" was closed by Apple, by letting their system degrade. While there is some merit to this claim, I don't agree with it entirely. In my experience using these systems side-by-side for over 10 years now, it's pretty obvious that Microsoft has stabilized while "stealing" Apple's good parts, and that Apple hasn't really evolved any further than they got in about 2010. In essence, Apple has allowed Microsoft to close the gap, although by about 2005 Apple managed to become so high quality on the computer market, and so ahead of its time (by "stealing" the good parts from Linux) that it's hard for me to say how they could possibly keep that position for long. (I'm not saying that they literally stole things. Obviously they've done a lot of innovation themselves, but there are also some pretty obvious signs of "inspiration" going on too.) There has for sure been downgrades with Apple too, but not really in regards to pure stability. In my experience most of it started in the 2010's, when Apple decided to turn away from the pro market to focus more on the trend consumer market instead. At first it happened slowly with a few technical changes that put off web designers. However the first major blow was against Final Cut Pro. I guess it turned out well in the end, but in the beginning they stumbled badly and gave away a large market share to Adobe as media pros started fleeing from Apple. Soon after came system changes that made Adobe crash more often (I'm sure it was just a coincidence...), only resulting in customers fleeing from Apple as a whole. Today Apple Mac's are decidedly more of a tightly controlled trend brand than the prosumer brand it used to be. (Kind of like Hasselblad has gone from the photo engineer's brand to an almost purely luxury brand by now.) (Also I really miss the MagSafe lol.)
fluidcruft 6y ago
I don't even bother dual-boot anymore and just use WSL. Windows has basically become what OS X used to be except better because it's actually Windows and actually Linux. It just goes back to Apple not caring one iota about developers. Focusing on developers used to be Microsoft's strong suit and they've positioned themselves well for that again.

by kebman 6y ago

jm547ster 6y ago

Gravit designer, Blender and Bitwig studio would come to mind as tools for multimedia production that are as good as anything on the other platforms.

m4rtink 6y ago
Also Krita is improving pretty much constantly to become the "Blender of drawing".
kebman 6y ago
Great tips! Thank you! I'm more into 2D compositing for video, but I've had my eye on Blender for some time. Not sure how it stacks up against stuff like After Effects. For audio production I already use Reaper FM, but I might give Bitwig a go too. ^^
- blcArmadillo 6y ago
  Not open source; however, supposedly DaVinci Resolve is supported for Linux: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/ https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/. For most people the free variant should be more than enough.

rednum 6y ago

I haven't used Windows in long time, but it feels like "the gap" was closed by Apple, by letting their system degrade. The high end 2019 MacBookPro is in many regards less reliable for music production than my old 2012 MacBookAir, which is really, really sad. Unless Apple gets their act together my next music production setup will be Windows-based (or maybe I'll even try Bitwig on Linux).

raxxorrax 6y ago
Apple still is best for audio and animation applications and there are synergies in certain industries like game development. But apart from that it is a bad deal. Windows degraded itself with its bad store, telemetry and PaaS dream, but yes, as soon as they could Apple developed in the same direction. Microsoft suffers from bad decisions on some management level.
joshspankit 6y ago
> “the gap” was closed by Apple, by letting their system degrade. 100% agreed. And I would even go so far as to say that Steve Jobs had such a strong vision of how things could be, that it was his greatest mistake to put someone in charge who did not (Tim Cook).
kebman 6y ago
>it feels like "the gap" was closed by Apple, by letting their system degrade. While there is some merit to this claim, I don't agree with it entirely. In my experience using these systems side-by-side for over 10 years now, it's pretty obvious that Microsoft has stabilized while "stealing" Apple's good parts, and that Apple hasn't really evolved any further than they got in about 2010. In essence, Apple has allowed Microsoft to close the gap, although by about 2005 Apple managed to become so high quality on the computer market, and so ahead of its time (by "stealing" the good parts from Linux) that it's hard for me to say how they could possibly keep that position for long. (I'm not saying that they literally stole things. Obviously they've done a lot of innovation themselves, but there are also some pretty obvious signs of "inspiration" going on too.) There has for sure been downgrades with Apple too, but not really in regards to pure stability. In my experience most of it started in the 2010's, when Apple decided to turn away from the pro market to focus more on the trend consumer market instead. At first it happened slowly with a few technical changes that put off web designers. However the first major blow was against Final Cut Pro. I guess it turned out well in the end, but in the beginning they stumbled badly and gave away a large market share to Adobe as media pros started fleeing from Apple. Soon after came system changes that made Adobe crash more often (I'm sure it was just a coincidence...), only resulting in customers fleeing from Apple as a whole. Today Apple Mac's are decidedly more of a tightly controlled trend brand than the prosumer brand it used to be. (Kind of like Hasselblad has gone from the photo engineer's brand to an almost purely luxury brand by now.) (Also I really miss the MagSafe lol.)

fluidcruft 6y ago

I don't even bother dual-boot anymore and just use WSL. Windows has basically become what OS X used to be except better because it's actually Windows and actually Linux. It just goes back to Apple not caring one iota about developers. Focusing on developers used to be Microsoft's strong suit and they've positioned themselves well for that again.