Until Apple entices software companies to write apps for the platform the Macintosh is not a viable solution (for engineers anyway)
Well, there are plenty of software companies that develop Mac versions of their products (even Microsoft...!), but Apple has been a bit shifty when it comes to nurturing these relationships.
I work in graphics and music/audio, and I'm very dependent Adobe's Creative Suite and Steinberg's Cubase. The problem is, these apps work and perform better on Windows, and I think part of the reason is the frosty relationship between Apple and these two companies.
Cubase, the best-selling music app in software history, was made by Steinberg, founded by Charlie Steinberg who was once partners with Gerhard Lengeling. They split up and became fierce competitors; Gerhard started a company called C-Lab (later Emagic) and released two products called Creator and Notator to compete with Steinberg's PRO-24. Then Steinberg released Cubase, and had the upper hand for a while until Emagic responded with a Cubase clone called Logic. Charlie and Gerhard eventually smoked the peace pipe and Emagic+Steinberg were on good terms. Until, of course, Apple screwed up everything by 1) acquiring Emagic, 2) immediately discontinuing the Windows version of Logic in a shameless effort to force Logic users to become involuntary switchers. And then after a couple of years, Apple resorted to price dumping by slashing Logic's pricetag in half, which they can afford to do because they make tons on the computer hardware. The competitors who rely on software sales alone were forced to follow suit. Unsurprisingly, former Atari and Mac lovers Steinberg now had a new favorite platform: Windows. Their grudge against Apple/Emagic has resulted in the Mac version of Cubase becoming more and more unattended; as of today the performance is radically better in the Windows version and word is that it's particularly bad on Nehalem Macs.
The situation with Adobe is somewhat similar. Out of the blue, Apple decided to become Adobe's #1 competitor through the release of software like Final Cut, Motion and Aperture (with the usual price dumping, of course). Adobe became very grumpy and responded by discontinuing Premiere and After Effects for Mac (they brought them back recently, though), and to this day they seem to show just a little more love for the PC version of CS. For example, if you want Photoshop in full 64-bit glory you have to use the Windows version, which has led some Mac Pro users to reluctantly do all their Photoshopping in BootCamp.
So yeah, it feels a bit weird to use Mac software from companies who secretly hate Apple... I half expect them to crash or just short fuse the machine out of pure spite.
Sehnsucht said:
Anuba, it sounds like you should hold out until your budget is double, and get both the Precision and the Mac Pro
That's an alternative too, but in any event I think I should hold off buying the Mac Pro now due to the pricing weirdness.
In the US, the basic Mac Pro is $2499, and the MacBook Pro 17" is $2799, right? Would you buy the Mac Pro right now if the prices were reversed? Because that's how it is here in Sweden... the Mac Pro is roughly $250 more than the MBP 17". In USD prices it would translate to something like $2699 for the MBP 17" and $2999 for the Mac Pro quad 2.66.
This is only because Apple's prices are very static and insensitive to currency fluctuations. The MBP was introduced in November '08 when the US dollar was cheap, the Mac Pro in March '09 when the US dollar was temporarily very expensive for about a week before dropping back to November '08 levels... so the next time the MP is refreshed they will probably have to slash $250 off the price, and that's when I'll buy one. With Dell this isn't an issue because they update their prices all the time, so I wouldn't have to pay extra for a USD spike that happened 3 months ago.
