One big advantage of Windows is that you can build your own PC however you like it by just buying the parts and assembling it yourself.
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PC Users Switching to Apple Silicon
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One big advantage of Windows is that you can build your own PC however you like it by just buying the parts and assembling it yourself.
ARM designs are mature, true, but they were designed with mobile-centric applications in mind. ARM never really chased performance. And this difference in design focus shows, as Apple-designed CPUs ended up being substantially faster at a comparable power consumption as their ARM counterparts. There is the new X1, sure, but so far leaked benchmarks of Exynos 2100 don’t make me too optimistic. X1 might be able to compete against AMD Renoir, but that’s not going to be enough to make it a strong contender for the PC world where it has to fight against Tiger Lake and Cezanne.
And RISC-V... it’s going to take ages for it to reach any significant importance. Frankly, I’m not really sure what the buzz is about except of course the fact that it’s an open-source ISA... leaving that aside, I dint see anything that would make RISC-V inherently better than ARM.
OT: RISC-V is very useful for anyone doing a custom embedded project with niche requirements. You can get a competent RISC-V design to use on a FPGA or ASIC that can be customized for your specific needs. It is very inexpensive compared to the alternatives because the design is open source.
That said, its importance in general compute is very limited. Like you said, it might increase in importance in a few years but there is no guarantee. It is just as likely to stay in its current niche.
What environment were you hoping to boot into? I mean what OS?
I have never had this happen and I would suggest that somehow you are creating spurious input that results in this.
What is an example of a simple utility you were hunting for?
I simply had Apple send me a password reset to my secondary email the last time this happened.
Like all keyboard shortcuts in all operating systems, that is not intuitive. But if that is too hard to learn there is a builtin screenshot app in Utilities.
Some simple examples that are intuitive:
- Want to install an app? drag it to Applications vs. double clicking on it and going through multiple useless setup screens.
- Want to open a file with a particular app? Drag the file onto the app vs. right click, "open with", hunt for application.
- Create a URL link on the desktop? Click on the URL in the browser, hold and drag to desktop vs I don't even know.
- Want to uninstall an app? drag it to the bin vs. Control panel > Apps > find the app > uninstall > go through useless screens.
Uhh yeah definitely better than Windows. Most people just will open Safari or Edge on Windows and log in to Facebook. Problem is, Windows can get a lot more malware on the system for a complete beginner.
For someone who knows nothing about tech, and malware is a great concern, iPadOS would probably be ideal.
But yeah, most malware is written for Windows.
Definitely agree. iPad would handle 99% of what a complete beginner needs with a computer.
Bootable USB stick usually means an installer. On Windows, you download a program and run it and it asks you what type of media you want and then finds your removable media and builds it. It's a bigger pain to do this on macOS because Apple hides older version of the OS but you still have to go into the terminal window to create a bootable installer. Apple currently has an annoying Certificate Error problem for older operating systems.
How would you know to go into Utilities for a screenshot? macOS has an absolute ton of options and shortcuts and places to change settings. So does Windows. None of these are intuitive. You go to google to ask how to do them and then follow the directions.
I guess you've never tried to uninstall Crossover. There are a number of macOS programs that hide files in various directories and dragging the App to the bin doesn't fully remove it.
There are plenty of macOS Apps that have dialog screens.
Windows, you just double-click. You can drag it onto the program as well.
But again, none of this is intuitive. You put a complete beginner in front of a Mac and they won't know how to use it.
Microsoft's built-in antimalware is actually pretty good and it's good that the OS comes with Antimalware. A lot of malware these days is social engineering anyways.
This.
Up to and including Mac OS 9 it used to be more intuitive. It was even proven in psychological studies. For example, people knew way better on Mac OS, where they had their files saved to and store. That was because the file hierarchy was obvious and cristal clear to the average user: on top was always the hard disk (which you could rename at will by the way, not possible with DOS/Windows back then C:\). Also, there was always one representation of your file contents open at any given time. You simply couldn’t open a folder twice. The system would even close open windows to make sure, that you would see content, that existed only once on your hard disk, only once. That was called the spatial finder (look it up). With multi-user it’s not possible to be that transparent anymore. Now your hierarchy starts in your user folder but it actually is not the top node and you need to be able to open the same folder more than once.
Not saying one is better than the other (wouldn’t want to miss multi-user), just stating system 7 & Co. indeed used to be more intuitive.
Wayne Gretzky used to say that one of the reasons he was so successful in the NHL was because would skate to "where the puck is going, not where it is." I think this has been Apple's approach to both A-series and M-series development. However, Microsoft lacks the expertise and personnel to design their own ARM-based processor, which means they will most likely just license specific designs from ARM rather than the ISA only as Apple has done. As a result, Microsoft will be doing the opposite of Gretzky's approach. By the time Microsoft releases their first "in-house" ARM processor, Apple will be on the 3rd generation M-series at the absolute earliest, quite possibly the 4th or 5th generation SoCs. We already know that Apple can get sustained YoY performance improvements with their A-series, and there's no technical or physical limitation which would prevent them from following a similar rate of improvement with the M series chips.
This is exactly right
I suggested to someone I know to look at a new Mac to replace a very old PC. His response was "They cost $1,000! And the screen is too small." That was the end of it. He got a $599 PC (with i3 processor) with a larger than 13" screen.
I have to agree with him. He spends all his time in a browser or Zoom. What does he get for the extra $400 he'd have to pay?
That's the thing, you're (and he's) exactly right, a Mac is not the best computer for everybody. Even as someone who switched to Mac 20 something years ago (though I do still have a Windows server), and as a person who's family, friends and neighbours turn to for any technology advice. I do not always recommend a Mac to people, even though I know it could have many benefits for them.
The simple fact is, they just wouldn't use it enough to justify that kind of investment, not when they can get an alternative which will perfectly meet their needs for significantly less. I do however, find that I am increasingly recommending iPads to people who traditionally were Windows users.
If all they're really doing is web browsing, FaceBook and some emails, they really don't need a computer at all. Not when they can get a comparatively inexpensive tablet, which does everything they want and has much better security. So far, of the many, many people I have made that suggestion to, every single one of them is happy with the decision. Of course I still recommend Windows systems, or a Mac, when that's what the situation demands, but iPad has changed the traditional market quite considerably around here.
I have a VERY beefy pc (i7, RTX3080, 32gb ram, M.2 SSD's) but recently bought a MacBook Air M1 for 'couch use' and just being curious about this new M1 cpu. Well, I have to say I'm pretty impressed. This thing is as fast as I can wish for a small, nicely built laptop for 1.150 euro. Am I switching? Well, no and yes. I don't see myself getting rid of my (gaming/lightroom/photoshop) pc because I still have no PS5, I still love using my large ultrawide monitor and the pc is pretty new and well running.
BUT... If Apple would come out with a very nice iMac/Mac Pro in the 2000 euro price range, which has amazing performance and comes with either a larger than 27" screen or allows me to use my ultrawide...well, I might consider moving to Apple and just use a console for gaming (which I do less and less anyway....47yrs old...other things to do even though I love games still)
BUT... If Apple would come out with a very nice iMac/Mac Pro in the 2000 euro price range, which has amazing performance and comes with either a larger than 27" screen or allows me to use my ultrawide...well, I might consider moving to Apple and just use a console for gaming (which I do less and less anyway....47yrs old...other things to do even though I love games still)
We've already discussed the problem with just licensing someone else's ARM IP. One of the big benefits that Apple has is that they can run their software and lots of customer programs on their own systems to get analytics on the kinds of operations done a lot and then implement hardware to speed up those operations. That's the benefit of designing in-house - you know what you want to improve. I have no doubt that they've done this with the iPhone and it contributes why you can get great performance with less RAM.
It makes absolute sense that Microsoft wants their own design-work but it's also true that it takes time to come up to speed which is why WinTel is in such a tough spot now.
I know that feeling all too well unfortunately, I'm 46 and I've been gaming since Pong in 1978, I still love it but I have a lot less time for it these days. Which is why I completely gave up on spending silly money on gaming PCs a while ago.
I've never really regretted it, I have PS4 Pro, Xbox One X and a Switch, PS 5 I'll get this year at some point, when its (hopefully) more readily available. But I also subscribe to Geforce Now, which takes care of my itch for the occasional PC game I need to play. I've been pleasantly surprised by its performance, playing Metro Exodus for instance, at 1920x1200, ray-tracing on and every setting set to its maximum, returns a really beautiful image. It runs buttery smooth and the lag is so imperceptible that it may not even exist.
Now though, even the wee MacBook Air can run at least some games at very playable frame-rates. I even tried (the admittedly quite old by now) Borderlands 2 out - but not the Mac version. I installed the Parallels preview, installed the Windows 10 ARM Insider release, then installed the Epic Games Store. I was actually pretty impressed that a fanless, (relatively) inexpensive, ARM computer, virtualising an ARM version of Windows, which in turn was emulating x86, managed to play the game at 60fps, with high settings.
Then, just to try and push the MBA some more, I fired up Final Cut Pro, threw together a quick 4K H.264 clip with edits, filters., text and so on and exported that, It had almost no impact on the game I was playing in Parallels and took just over 2 minutes to complete. This was while Music was open and playing, Mail was open (but minimised) and Safari was open with a few tabs.
I was pretty impressed considering this is only an 8GB system and the memory pressure only spiked into yellow briefly. I've given up looking at swap and so on, just concentrating on the memory pressure, because with the unified memory it's a little different. So unless I am actually seeing adverse effects, beach balls or whatever, I'm just trying to ignore any kind of system monitoring completely.
No, it would never compare to a high-end gaming PC that cost 3 times the price, that's a given. But for me at least, I've found a way I can finally live without having to spend obscene amounts of money upgrading a gaming PC every year.... Which makes the wife happy
and he had an accurate shot, during warm up he would flip pucks in a bag on the bench, i saw this in Hartford, New jersey and Pittsburgh in 1985. also Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey and others score many goals of his perfect passing.
The MacBook air i use has 4gb an i3 chip (i think) and can perform many 2020 tasks. they are great notebooks.
I have a friend with 2 dozen cats. Told him to buy a sub-$500 laptop so when it gets wet from cat piss it would be a cheap replacement.
same with buying a sub-$300 tv. Last tv he bought was damaged beyond repair due to cat piss
The problem is, low priced PCs tend to not last more than a couple of years. Yet my parents are still using the base 2013 21.5" iMac with SSD, and my brother is still using the base 2015 21.5" iMac fusion drive upgrade. Those were both around $1,100 at the time of purchase, 2013 iMac might have been a little more with the SSD upgrade. And the oldest one is going on 7 years now and it is NO slower today than it was the day it was purchased. They have no reason to upgrade. Now can you say the same thing about a $499 Dell desktop from 2013? Very doubtful.
Its better to spend a bit more to have a computer last longer than get a new one every couple of years, which would add up to be the same cost or maybe more in the long run.
Ugh I am glad you got a 30 series GPU. I need a new graphics card, either AMD or NVIDIA I do not care. Yet there are NONE in stock ANYWHERE and I am not paying scalpers the price of them. It is quite irritating. And no way would I get a 20 series GPU.
To everyone saying their favorite operating system is intuitive:
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned.
I have a 2008 Dell XPS Studio with Core i7 that I bought refurbished for $580 in 2008. It has a 240 GB SSD, USB 3.0 PCIe card and 48 GB of RAM. It has had a lot of jobs over the years as a Windows Trading station, development box running Oracle Enterprise Linux, and File Server. It's Geekbench 5 Multicore is about 2,000 which is usable for a lot of things. It's also built like a tank.
This is one of the reasons I prefer Dell when it comes to Windows systems. Of course the best is to just buy the parts and build it yourself. Someone in the Alternatives forum bought a bunch of parts on Black Friday and built a quite powerful Hackintosh for $500.
It had that much hardware in 2008 and only $580? Or are all of those after market upgrades? I prefer to build my own Windows PC too. I built one recently but had to put in an old GPU while I wait for AMD or NVIDIA cards to be available, if they ever will.