PC Users Switching to Apple Silicon

[MacLawyer]

I occasionally check out the /Mac Reddit threads. Holy cow, the threads are packed with PC users who are supposedly switching. Most are into video production and photo editing. (Don't know why they were using PCs for that anyway, but whatever.) My favorite anecdote is by a user whose new 8 core MacBook Air blew by the maxed out workstation PC he built. He could not believe smooth 8K raw playback on the Mac. Something his workstation could not achieve.

Don't know if Apple silicon will entice the large Windows business installed base to convert. Probably don't need all that horsepower for spreadsheets, word processing, billing software, etc.

 

[Aoligei]

I occasionally check out the /Mac Reddit threads. Holy cow, the threads are packed with PC users who are supposedly switching. Most are into video production and photo editing. (Don't know why they were using PCs for that anyway, but whatever.) My favorite anecdote is by a user whose new 8 core MacBook Air blew by the maxed out workstation PC he built. He could not believe smooth 8K raw playback on the Mac. Something his workstation could not achieve.

Don't know if Apple silicon will entice the large Windows business installed base to convert. Probably don't need all that horsepower for spreadsheets, word processing, billing software, etc.

Why would large Windows business install base to convert? The whole reason business stick with Windows is backward compatibility. I can’t see how business would benefit from switching to M1 based Mac.

Give a example: my company still primary based on internet explorer. All our internal Applications are still based on Internet Explorer. I fail to see why suddenly business wants to rewrite all their application to ARM based Mac and spend billions of dollars to purchase M1 based Mac when existing PC works well for then,.

You also failed to understand, people who do 8K video editing or similar workflows are likely going to have machines like Mac Pro or PCs with Core i9, AMD Ryzen 7 or AMD ThreadRipper with lots of RAM and top end graphic card. Your MacBook Air aren’t designed for those workflows and never intended to do these kind of workload.

 

[adderthorn]

I occasionally check out the /Mac Reddit threads. Holy cow, the threads are packed with PC users who are supposedly switching. Most are into video production and photo editing. (Don't know why they were using PCs for that anyway, but whatever.) My favorite anecdote is by a user whose new 8 core MacBook Air blew by the maxed out workstation PC he built. He could not believe smooth 8K raw playback on the Mac. Something his workstation could not achieve.

Don't know if Apple silicon will entice the large Windows business installed base to convert. Probably don't need all that horsepower for spreadsheets, word processing, billing software, etc.

Hi there! I'm primarily a PC user. I wouldn't say I "switched" as my main desktop is still a PC, but I haven't bought a new mac in a very long time. I'm very impressed by the MacBook air, but feel very unproductive with macOS. Trying to relearn is difficult.

 

[ArPe]

I occasionally check out the /Mac Reddit threads. Holy cow, the threads are packed with PC users who are supposedly switching. Most are into video production and photo editing. (Don't know why they were using PCs for that anyway, but whatever.) My favorite anecdote is by a user whose new 8 core MacBook Air blew by the maxed out workstation PC he built. He could not believe smooth 8K raw playback on the Mac. Something his workstation could not achieve.

Don't know if Apple silicon will entice the large Windows business installed base to convert. Probably don't need all that horsepower for spreadsheets, word processing, billing software, etc.

Play 8K RAW in a stand-alone player such as QuickTime or Red’s player. Then you’ll know how well your computer handles a format without an NLE building a render cache or lower bitrate temp files.

In a stand alone player you need a **** ton of RAM just to decompress one of the five second sample 8K videos on Red’s site.

 

[Mr. Awesome]

Hi there! I'm primarily a PC user. I wouldn't say I "switched" as my main desktop is still a PC, but I haven't bought a new mac in a very long time. I'm very impressed by the MacBook air, but feel very unproductive with macOS. Trying to relearn is difficult.

Yeah, macOS and Windows both work very well, but some of the core features work very differently. Trying to find macOS versions of things like the Start Menu doesn’t work, because some things don’t have a direct translations between the platforms. While Windows has a Start Menu, macOS has Finder and Launchpad, which fulfill similar functions, but aren’t exactly the same thing. macOS has the menu bar, which some apps on Windows have, and some don’t. Paradigms are just different between the two platforms.

It’s definitely possible to be just as productive on either platform, but it takes a lot of getting used to, especially when you’ve used the other platform for years.

 

[MacLawyer]

Why would large Windows business install base to convert? The whole reason business stick with Windows is backward compatibility. I can’t see how business would benefit from switching to M1 based Mac.

Give a example: my company still primary based on internet explorer. All our internal Applications are still based on Internet Explorer. I fail to see why suddenly business wants to rewrite all their application to ARM based Mac and spend billions of dollars to purchase M1 based Mac when existing PC works well for then,.

You also failed to understand, people who do 8K video editing or similar workflows are likely going to have machines like Mac Pro or PCs with Core i9, AMD Ryzen 7 or AMD ThreadRipper with lots of RAM and top end graphic card. Your MacBook Air aren’t designed for those workflows and never intended to do these kind of workload.

Ermmmm. I think you and I basically agree!

 

[KPOM]

Why would large Windows business install base to convert? The whole reason business stick with Windows is backward compatibility. I can’t see how business would benefit from switching to M1 based Mac.

Give a example: my company still primary based on internet explorer. All our internal Applications are still based on Internet Explorer. I fail to see why suddenly business wants to rewrite all their application to ARM based Mac and spend billions of dollars to purchase M1 based Mac when existing PC works well for then,.

You also failed to understand, people who do 8K video editing or similar workflows are likely going to have machines like Mac Pro or PCs with Core i9, AMD Ryzen 7 or AMD ThreadRipper with lots of RAM and top end graphic card. Your MacBook Air aren’t designed for those workflows and never intended to do these kind of workload.

That said, even Microsoft is trying to get rid of Internet Explorer in favor of Edge.

 

[hugodrax]

Most Business are going to cloud based applications and Microsoft products like Word etc work on OS X. The other big positive is OS X on Apple Silicon is even more secure than a Bogstandard PC.

 

[mjfutures]

I use Macs and PCs, I work with many businesses... there is not a single business client or worker I know that could care less about a Mac or an M1 processor..... not sure how that would change. Maybe a creative professional or a teacher would like one I guess but none that I know would even care if it was Apple or Intel.

 

[Spindel]

Don't know if Apple silicon will entice the large Windows business installed base to convert. Probably don't need all that horsepower for spreadsheets, word processing, billing software, etc.

Of you say this you haven’t used spreadsheets in an professional environment.

I have a Excel spreadsheet that certain actions makes computers weep. No macros or scripts, just standard functions and a crap load of data



My old iMac from 2013 it took about 7 min for this action to finish. My work issued pos HP laptop from 2019 also about 7 min, but the system is compleatly unresponsive during that time.

M1, excel under rosetta, 2 min.



I’m getting annoyed with both mac people and PCMR people all the time thinking that the only occupations in the world that stresses their computers are videoeditors.

Hey guys, go outside and ponder who makes the drawings and calculations for every building, bridge, tunnel, powerline etc.

 

[ww1971]

I occasionally check out the /Mac Reddit threads. Holy cow, the threads are packed with PC users who are supposedly switching. Most are into video production and photo editing. (Don't know why they were using PCs for that anyway, but whatever.) My favorite anecdote is by a user whose new 8 core MacBook Air blew by the maxed out workstation PC he built. He could not believe smooth 8K raw playback on the Mac. Something his workstation could not achieve.

Don't know if Apple silicon will entice the large Windows business installed base to convert. Probably don't need all that horsepower for spreadsheets, word processing, billing software, etc.

it is up to the person himself. If he likes the Mac that’s his choice, but if he wants to stick to windows that’s his choice also. But if he wants to stick with windows he can buy pc and not mac unless it’s a intel based mac.

 

[haruhiko]

I occasionally check out the /Mac Reddit threads. Holy cow, the threads are packed with PC users who are supposedly switching. Most are into video production and photo editing. (Don't know why they were using PCs for that anyway, but whatever.) My favorite anecdote is by a user whose new 8 core MacBook Air blew by the maxed out workstation PC he built. He could not believe smooth 8K raw playback on the Mac. Something his workstation could not achieve.

Don't know if Apple silicon will entice the large Windows business installed base to convert. Probably don't need all that horsepower for spreadsheets, word processing, billing software, etc.

Corporate IT will be stuck with their underpowered decade old PCs forever. Their ultimate goal is to make your experience suck. So Wintel can feed on them forever.

 

[vinegarshots]

I occasionally check out the /Mac Reddit threads. Holy cow, the threads are packed with PC users who are supposedly switching. Most are into video production and photo editing. (Don't know why they were using PCs for that anyway, but whatever.) My favorite anecdote is by a user whose new 8 core MacBook Air blew by the maxed out workstation PC he built. He could not believe smooth 8K raw playback on the Mac. Something his workstation could not achieve.

Don't know if Apple silicon will entice the large Windows business installed base to convert. Probably don't need all that horsepower for spreadsheets, word processing, billing software, etc.

Apple has created some impressive silicon, but they’ve also alienated a huge chunk of the creative market over the past years (and the new Mac Pro is just a joke, IMO). Macs are good for editing video in Final Cut, but what about third party support? The entire Adobe Suite runs like garbage on Macs in comparison to PCs (one of the reasons I sold my iMac Pro recently and bought a new PC). If you work in 3D modeling/rendering, all Macs are a horrible choice (second reason I sold my iMac Pro).

When Apple creates an Apple Silicon workstation that can render out of Blender as fast or faster than my PC, and run Adobe After Effects faster than my PC , then I’ll consider switching back. But that day may never come

 

[raknor]

Apple has created some impressive silicon, but they’ve also alienated a huge chunk of the creative market over the past years (and the new Mac Pro is just a joke, IMO). Macs are good for editing video in Final Cut, but what about third party support? The entire Adobe Suite runs like garbage on Macs in comparison to PCs (one of the reasons I sold my iMac Pro recently and bought a new PC). If you work in 3D modeling/rendering, all Macs are a horrible choice (second reason I sold my iMac Pro).

When Apple creates an Apple Silicon workstation that can render out of Blender as fast or faster than my PC, and run Adobe After Effects faster than my PC , then I’ll consider switching back. But that day may never come

What is your PC and how fast does it render things on Blender?

 

[vinegarshots]

What is your PC and how fast does it render things on Blender?

Custom built. It renders the Blender BMW sample project in 12 seconds.... ?? iMac Pro took over 4 minutes to render the same thing.

On top of that, Blender has Nvidia Optix features coded into it now that make the ray traced viewport crazy crazy fast. It’s almost a little hard to believe unless you see it with your own eyes

 

[raknor]

Custom built. It renders the Blender BMW sample project in 12 seconds.... ?? iMac Pro took over 4 minutes to render the same thing.

I find that hard to believe. Blender BMW renders in 3 minutes on my iMac Pro. The 16’ MacBook Pro 8 core takes 4:15. This is CPU based of course.

What CPU is in this custom built PC?

Looks like you are using the GPU since you mentioned Nvidia Optix.. I just tested the Radeon ProRender engine instead of Cycles with the Vega 56 in my iMac Pro and BMW sample project took 17 seconds! A 5700XT eGPU does it in 14 seconds. Doesn‘t look like it’s going to be that hard for a Mac to match or beat your PC.

 

[scottishwildcat]

I use Macs and PCs, I work with many businesses... there is not a single business client or worker I know that could care less about a Mac or an M1 processor..... not sure how that would change. Maybe a creative professional or a teacher would like one I guess but none that I know would even care if it was Apple or Intel.

What they may care about, however, is battery life, and/or running cool on their lap. I agree most people don’t give a damn about what’s inside their laptop, but for people who attend a lot of meetings and conferences (remember those?) or work while they’re flying (remember that?), never having to worry about where to find the next power socket is invaluable.

 

[Lammers]

Corporate IT will be stuck with their underpowered decade old PCs forever. Their ultimate goal is to make your experience suck. So Wintel can feed on them forever.

Nothing like a good conspiracy theory.

 

[ian87w]

Each person has their own reasons to use whatever systems they decided to use.

For those using Final cut, an M powered Mac is obvious. After reading tech forums for years, many people did switch to Windows / Premiere when Apple changed how Final Cut Pro works (from 9 to X), and its early days, Final Cut Pro X had a lot of features missing. Fast forward a bit, and there were switchers to Windows (add on the failure of Mac Pro trash can, etc). But now, M1 showed the performance prowess, and Final Cut has gained a ton of features it was lacking. In the world where time is money, any seconds wasted in rendering/encoding is money being lost. I can easily see people going back to Apple after seeing the M1 performs (and for a lot less power). Moreso with new younger editors who don’t have the time/money/knowledge to build a souped up high end PC workstation just for decent rendering performance. The M1 MacBook Pro can be the ideal mobile “workstation” for some of these people.

For more casual users (like me), the main draw of M powered Macs is the battery life. I’m going to use myself as an example, but no matter what intel laptops I have used, their battery life hovers only around 4 to 5 hours on typical use, regardless of the manufacturer claim. That’s not bad than the olden days, but still less than ideal, and is causing that power socket anxiety. Many dreamt of a laptop with iPad like battery like. The M Macs are delivering this. With so many work is now on the cloud and platform agnostic, whether the OS is Windows of MacOS is irrelevant. There’s a reason why even Chromebooks are getting traction in some niches. For these people, all that needs to happen is full universal binary on the software that they use. Once that happens, the only barrier is probably going to be availability and cost, not the machine itself.

For many, Windows still makes more sense. Gamers is the obvious one. It’s not about the performance, but more about platform support. Apple can make an Apple silicon super desktop with crazy GPU power, but it’s pointless if there are lack of games on the platform.

Enterprises probably still need Windows as well due to legacy/custom software. Some critical government apps are also Windows only. There’s no way around this since Windows has been the market leader for decades. Also there’s cost. Not many people/enterprises can afford a $1k laptop. Majority of laptops out there are ~$600 or less. The volume sellers are the low end Acers and Asus. Obviously Windows is the choice as Apple is not playing in that segment.

So imo each individual will have their specific needs. There are trends of what people decided to use, but I don’t think our personal reason disqualifies the opposite of our choice for other reasons.

 

[wyrdness]

I find that hard to believe. Blender BMW renders in 3 minutes on my iMac Pro. The 16’ MacBook Pro 8 core takes 4:15. This is CPU based of course.

I don't find that hard to believe. Ive seen YouTube videos of similar setups. Crazy fast.

 

[Quackington]

Why would large Windows business install base to convert? The whole reason business stick with Windows is backward compatibility. I can’t see how business would benefit from switching to M1 based Mac.

Give a example: my company still primary based on internet explorer. All our internal Applications are still based on Internet Explorer. I fail to see why suddenly business wants to rewrite all their application to ARM based Mac and spend billions of dollars to purchase M1 based Mac when existing PC works well for then,.

You also failed to understand, people who do 8K video editing or similar workflows are likely going to have machines like Mac Pro or PCs with Core i9, AMD Ryzen 7 or AMD ThreadRipper with lots of RAM and top end graphic card. Your MacBook Air aren’t designed for those workflows and never intended to do these kind of workload.

I don’t disagree with any of this but my word, imagine using Internet Explorer in 2020.

 

[Hexley]

I occasionally check out the /Mac Reddit threads. Holy cow, the threads are packed with PC users who are supposedly switching. Most are into video production and photo editing. (Don't know why they were using PCs for that anyway, but whatever.) My favorite anecdote is by a user whose new 8 core MacBook Air blew by the maxed out workstation PC he built. He could not believe smooth 8K raw playback on the Mac. Something his workstation could not achieve.

Don't know if Apple silicon will entice the large Windows business installed base to convert. Probably don't need all that horsepower for spreadsheets, word processing, billing software, etc.

What would hold back thin margin business is the starting price points of Macs and other Apple products.

Laptops selling at $1,000 or more, desktops selling at $700 or more and smartphones selling at $400 or more will be a hard sell for organizations whose IT budget allocates less than those price points per user.

In my organization we give our rank & file are assigned 30 month postpaid plans with $8.31/month fees with "free" Android smartphone with 32GB storage. Desktop or laptop is less than $700.

Our managers are assigned $400 iPhones and $1,000 laptops but must be compatible with decade old server software.

I'm sure larger companies could deploy Macs to all users but Apple products are generally expensive.

 

[iBluetooth]

What would hold back thin margin business is the starting price points of Macs and other Apple products.

Laptops selling at $1,000 or more, desktops selling at $700 or more and smartphones selling at $400 or more will be a hard sell for organizations whose IT budget allocates less than those price points per user.

In my organization we give our rank & file are assigned 30 month postpaid plans with $8.31/month fees with "free" Android smartphone with 32GB storage. Desktop or laptop is less than $700.

Our managers are assigned $400 iPhones and $1,000 laptops but must be compatible with decade old server software.

I'm sure larger companies could deploy Macs to all users but Apple products are generally expensive.

“I'm sure larger companies could deploy Macs to all users but Apple products are generally expensive.”

This was true, but today with Apple Silicon I would say that the M1 products are much cheaper than comparable PC products, if they exist at all.

 

[Piggie]

I wonder how many Apple computers are involved with the REAL manufacture of Apple computers?
All the CNC design and machine software control packages to actually get the real work of actually making a physical product?

 

[Hexley]

“I'm sure larger companies could deploy Macs to all users but Apple products are generally expensive.”

This was true, but today with Apple Silicon I would say that the M1 products are much cheaper than comparable PC products, if they exist at all.

There is such a thing as overpowered.

A reason why PC upgrade cycles lengthened from 3 years to 5-6 years is because apps need not more absolute performance.

A dozen years ago netbooks and nettops became popular. As they were cheap, had the absolute performance of more expensive PCs from another dozen years prior at a fraction of the power consumption.

So at my company we decided to upgrade all PCs bought with the first iteration of Windows XP with CRT dispalys and upgrade them to year 2010 nettops powered by Intel Atom with LED dispalys.

Building power consumption reduced by 20%.

Nettop was slightly faster, very quiet and ran very cool as compared to a computer bought in 2002

Of course after 3 years we needed to upgrade as we upgraded software company-wide.

I agree the performance per Watt of any Apple product is tops but it only accessible to budgets of the top 20% of buyers/users.