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Your parents, kids et cetera aren't power users though. Macs used to be for professionals, but Apple started seriously chasing the consumer demographic with the

Your parents, kids et cetera aren't power users though. Macs used to be for professionals, but Apple started seriously chasing the consumer demographic with the original iMac.

jononomo 4y ago
Macs are far better for power users now than they were 10 years ago. They're also faster!
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  "Better" is highly dubious. Less user-serviceable, forced to endure lead times at Apple Stores to procure parts. Death of macOS Server. Shall I continue?
  - jononomo 4y ago
    Yes, please continue.
altairprime 4y ago
You incorrectly assume that all power users wish to modify their operating system and hardware, and in doing so exclude professionals who prefer to use the tool as it was sold to them. There are many reasons why professionals with the capability to modify software and hardware behaviors might choose not to; conflating “power users” and “professionals” disregards that distinction, and by doing so ignores why Macs are successful among those professionals who are not, as you label it, “power users”.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  I said nothing about modifying anything, if anybody is assuming things, it is you. Case in point: my 70 year old aunt and 8 year old neighbour can change the RAM and storage on their computers, that doesn't make them power users. An Academy-winning Hollywood director I know bought his Windows-based computer pre-made, doesn't modify anything on it, just uses Da Vinci Resolve, but requires the absolute pinnacle of performance. He's a power user.
  - altairprime 4y ago
    You’re absolutely right: the term “power user” isn’t well-defined enough for us to use in this discussion without considering what it means. What definition are you using in your comment above? I don’t have any strong preference, and will accede to yours.
    - hammyhavoc 4y ago
      The typical one of having advanced skills and advanced needs. The thing that Macs did used to cater for. Software-wise, now both Logic and Final Cut are a bad joke, especially by modern standards. That's just one of dozens upon dozens of reasons why Apple aren't the go-to anymore.
threeseed 4y ago
> Macs used to be for professionals Makes you wonder who is then buying these expensive MacBook Pros, Mac Studios and Mac Pros. I guess it's those grandmas needing 28 cores for their recipes.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  It does indeed make you wonder considering the top composers are on Windows running Cubase/Nuendo, almost everybody in game dev is on Windows or Linux, and most of Hollywood's VFX teams are on Linux or Windows integrating with Da Vinci Resolve.
  - mfcl 4y ago
    What about the professional C-suite executives who want to look sharp when meeting potential clients or inventors.
    - hammyhavoc 4y ago
      Most C-suite execs don't even seem to use a Mac in 2022. All seem to be about the iPad Pro, Surface Pro, or ThinkPad. I also don't think a $2000 laptop is making anybody look "sharp" in 2022 when financing is readily available for anything Apple. What car you drive or what watch you have says more, but there's so many counterfeit watches out there that it's also fairly meaningless. Even cars, easily financed or leased these days.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        A sure way to identify C-suites at my current place is by MacBooks. Their close assistants, sorry, their chief of staffs are the same.
  - barrenko 4y ago
    There are a million "creators" in the middle that Apple and co. serve perfectly bar none. Just look at Procreate and similar music making apps.
doctor_eval 4y ago
Apple has always chased that demographic. It started life as “the computer for the rest of us”.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  There was one point where it seemed like everybody in Hollywood, music, and the visual arts were using Macs. Logic and Final Cut used to be serious programs.
  - ip26 4y ago
    I've always been curious why. Was Final Cut the Excel of the arts? Perhaps it was integrated platform color control? I don't recall PPC being dramatically faster, or supporting much more memory.
  - arvinsim 4y ago
    Apple themselves are to blame for that
    - chongli 4y ago
      Trying to compete with Adobe in this space seems pretty futile. Pro users are deeply entrenched in their workflows. The R&D costs of innovation are off the charts and the market is extremely tiny. The same problem occurred with Autodesk.
      - hammyhavoc 4y ago
        That opinion is very outdated. Da Vinci Resolve is the #1 post-production tool in Hollywood, and gives real-time collab, via LAN and WAN. It even works on Linux, Windows and macOS. Linux is huge in Hollywood these days. BlackMagic cut ahead with their Cinema Camera range of hardware. Cubase/Nuendo and Pro Tools likewise dominates as a combo for composers and sound designers.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    And then they use Adobe programms anyway. Having a Mac on your desk does look the kind so if you work in an agency.
jen20 4y ago
OSX, the OS with UNIX underpinnings, came out a full 4 years after the iMac. I think your timeline is flawed at best.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  What's OSX got to do with anything? OSX started out great (UNIX!), but they just kept bolting on more and more consumer-oriented rubbish to it.
  - jen20 4y ago
    The start of macs being viable for IT professionals was OSX, which was well after the iMac.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      IT professionals were using Mac before that, or do you think DTP, 2D, Excel, Illustration,... sprungs out of thin air?
      - bodhiandphysics 4y ago
        Unix you layer a major role in the success of the Mac in two key markets. First max was the cool box for young developers, since it provided a Unix dev environment and this such nice things as Python, ruby, reasonable c++, git, etc. when these often worked poorly on windows. 2) while emgineering software moved from Unix to windows in the early 2000s, scientific software often did not. It was however available on macs. The result is that macs took over university science departments. Now both of these are irrelevant because of virtualization, wsl, and better windows support. But it was once a really big deal. Mac was a Unix environment that also had word and PowerPoint.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        Only when one equates "developers === UNIX", which is why so many still don't get Apple developer's culture, even with two decades of OS X. C++ on the Mac was already a great development experience with Toolbox and Metrowerks PowerPlant. Copland was going to be fully based on C++. If you look close enough to NeXT's history and how Steve Jobs thought about UNIX beards, NeXT only supported UNIX as means to compete against Sun on the workstation market. His reluctant appearance at USENIX is well documented. Everything was supposed to be coded with Objective-C frameworks, down to the device drivers. If anything those "developers" are now finding out that they should have been giving money to Linux OEMs instead. While Microsoft discovered that that group doesn't really care about Linux per se, only having POSIX toys around, and given that Linux compatibility nowadays matters more than POSIX (even other UNIXes have Linux compatibility layers), they decided to reboot SUA with WSL.
pmontra 4y ago
As a kid I was definitely a power user of everything I cared about. Lego, reading, playing and inventing (physical) games etc. I was really busy and I couldn't understand all those kids that went to sleep after lunch. A waste of time. I don't know how this maps to using a computer but I think I wouldn't have appreciated a GUI that slowed me down.
alwillis 4y ago
Macs used to be for professionals, but Apple started seriously chasing the consumer demographic with the original iMac. The original iMac was released in 1998. What's happening today has nothing to do with 1998 other than it was the iMac that is credited with saving Apple. Professionals certainly do use Macs in all kinds of industries [1]: [1]: "Here’s why Twitter, Uber, and more are giving fully loaded M1 Max MacBook Pros to engineers"--https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/08/heres-why-twitter-uber-and-more-are-giving-fully-loaded-m1-max-macbook-pros-to-engineers/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/08/heres-why-twitter-uber-and-mo....
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  That it caught on with consumers at large is exactly why Apple became form over function for many years.
barrenko 4y ago
You are really not getting how "a professional" has changed. Apple does, kaching kaching.

Your parents, kids et cetera aren't power users though. Macs used to be for professionals, but Apple started seriously chasing the consumer demographic with the original iMac.

jononomo 4y ago

Macs are far better for power users now than they were 10 years ago. They're also faster!

hammyhavoc 4y ago
"Better" is highly dubious. Less user-serviceable, forced to endure lead times at Apple Stores to procure parts. Death of macOS Server. Shall I continue?
- jononomo 4y ago
  Yes, please continue.

altairprime 4y ago

You incorrectly assume that all power users wish to modify their operating system and hardware, and in doing so exclude professionals who prefer to use the tool as it was sold to them. There are many reasons why professionals with the capability to modify software and hardware behaviors might choose not to; conflating “power users” and “professionals” disregards that distinction, and by doing so ignores why Macs are successful among those professionals who are not, as you label it, “power users”.

hammyhavoc 4y ago
I said nothing about modifying anything, if anybody is assuming things, it is you. Case in point: my 70 year old aunt and 8 year old neighbour can change the RAM and storage on their computers, that doesn't make them power users. An Academy-winning Hollywood director I know bought his Windows-based computer pre-made, doesn't modify anything on it, just uses Da Vinci Resolve, but requires the absolute pinnacle of performance. He's a power user.
- altairprime 4y ago
  You’re absolutely right: the term “power user” isn’t well-defined enough for us to use in this discussion without considering what it means. What definition are you using in your comment above? I don’t have any strong preference, and will accede to yours.
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    The typical one of having advanced skills and advanced needs. The thing that Macs did used to cater for. Software-wise, now both Logic and Final Cut are a bad joke, especially by modern standards. That's just one of dozens upon dozens of reasons why Apple aren't the go-to anymore.

threeseed 4y ago

> Macs used to be for professionals Makes you wonder who is then buying these expensive MacBook Pros, Mac Studios and Mac Pros. I guess it's those grandmas needing 28 cores for their recipes.

hammyhavoc 4y ago
It does indeed make you wonder considering the top composers are on Windows running Cubase/Nuendo, almost everybody in game dev is on Windows or Linux, and most of Hollywood's VFX teams are on Linux or Windows integrating with Da Vinci Resolve.
- mfcl 4y ago
  What about the professional C-suite executives who want to look sharp when meeting potential clients or inventors.
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    Most C-suite execs don't even seem to use a Mac in 2022. All seem to be about the iPad Pro, Surface Pro, or ThinkPad. I also don't think a $2000 laptop is making anybody look "sharp" in 2022 when financing is readily available for anything Apple. What car you drive or what watch you have says more, but there's so many counterfeit watches out there that it's also fairly meaningless. Even cars, easily financed or leased these days.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      A sure way to identify C-suites at my current place is by MacBooks. Their close assistants, sorry, their chief of staffs are the same.
- barrenko 4y ago
  There are a million "creators" in the middle that Apple and co. serve perfectly bar none. Just look at Procreate and similar music making apps.

doctor_eval 4y ago

Apple has always chased that demographic. It started life as “the computer for the rest of us”.

hammyhavoc 4y ago
There was one point where it seemed like everybody in Hollywood, music, and the visual arts were using Macs. Logic and Final Cut used to be serious programs.
- ip26 4y ago
  I've always been curious why. Was Final Cut the Excel of the arts? Perhaps it was integrated platform color control? I don't recall PPC being dramatically faster, or supporting much more memory.
- arvinsim 4y ago
  Apple themselves are to blame for that
  - chongli 4y ago
    Trying to compete with Adobe in this space seems pretty futile. Pro users are deeply entrenched in their workflows. The R&D costs of innovation are off the charts and the market is extremely tiny. The same problem occurred with Autodesk.
    - hammyhavoc 4y ago
      That opinion is very outdated. Da Vinci Resolve is the #1 post-production tool in Hollywood, and gives real-time collab, via LAN and WAN. It even works on Linux, Windows and macOS. Linux is huge in Hollywood these days. BlackMagic cut ahead with their Cinema Camera range of hardware. Cubase/Nuendo and Pro Tools likewise dominates as a combo for composers and sound designers.
- hef19898 4y ago
  And then they use Adobe programms anyway. Having a Mac on your desk does look the kind so if you work in an agency.

jen20 4y ago

OSX, the OS with UNIX underpinnings, came out a full 4 years after the iMac. I think your timeline is flawed at best.

hammyhavoc 4y ago
What's OSX got to do with anything? OSX started out great (UNIX!), but they just kept bolting on more and more consumer-oriented rubbish to it.
- jen20 4y ago
  The start of macs being viable for IT professionals was OSX, which was well after the iMac.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    IT professionals were using Mac before that, or do you think DTP, 2D, Excel, Illustration,... sprungs out of thin air?
    - bodhiandphysics 4y ago
      Unix you layer a major role in the success of the Mac in two key markets. First max was the cool box for young developers, since it provided a Unix dev environment and this such nice things as Python, ruby, reasonable c++, git, etc. when these often worked poorly on windows. 2) while emgineering software moved from Unix to windows in the early 2000s, scientific software often did not. It was however available on macs. The result is that macs took over university science departments. Now both of these are irrelevant because of virtualization, wsl, and better windows support. But it was once a really big deal. Mac was a Unix environment that also had word and PowerPoint.
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Only when one equates "developers === UNIX", which is why so many still don't get Apple developer's culture, even with two decades of OS X. C++ on the Mac was already a great development experience with Toolbox and Metrowerks PowerPlant. Copland was going to be fully based on C++. If you look close enough to NeXT's history and how Steve Jobs thought about UNIX beards, NeXT only supported UNIX as means to compete against Sun on the workstation market. His reluctant appearance at USENIX is well documented. Everything was supposed to be coded with Objective-C frameworks, down to the device drivers. If anything those "developers" are now finding out that they should have been giving money to Linux OEMs instead. While Microsoft discovered that that group doesn't really care about Linux per se, only having POSIX toys around, and given that Linux compatibility nowadays matters more than POSIX (even other UNIXes have Linux compatibility layers), they decided to reboot SUA with WSL.

pmontra 4y ago

As a kid I was definitely a power user of everything I cared about. Lego, reading, playing and inventing (physical) games etc. I was really busy and I couldn't understand all those kids that went to sleep after lunch. A waste of time. I don't know how this maps to using a computer but I think I wouldn't have appreciated a GUI that slowed me down.

alwillis 4y ago

Macs used to be for professionals, but Apple started seriously chasing the consumer demographic with the original iMac. The original iMac was released in 1998. What's happening today has nothing to do with 1998 other than it was the iMac that is credited with saving Apple. Professionals certainly do use Macs in all kinds of industries [1]: [1]: "Here’s why Twitter, Uber, and more are giving fully loaded M1 Max MacBook Pros to engineers"--https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/08/heres-why-twitter-uber-and-more-are-giving-fully-loaded-m1-max-macbook-pros-to-engineers/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/08/heres-why-twitter-uber-and-mo....

hammyhavoc 4y ago
That it caught on with consumers at large is exactly why Apple became form over function for many years.

barrenko 4y ago

You are really not getting how "a professional" has changed. Apple does, kaching kaching.