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Regretfully leaving the Apple camp

C

Cubemmal

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 13, 2013
824
1
I've been a huge Apple fan. I love their computers, under one hood you can run any OS you want, plus it's commercial UNIX. Great for development. However for the last four years each new hardware release has been a disappointment. I've got four MBP, two minis, a Mac Pro and lots of other gear. Now I have to conclude there's no good computer for me in their lineup.

Mac Mini

They took the discrete GPU's out so it's a $900 toy relatively

MBP

Glued batteries and soldered RAM, seriously? I've got a 2006 MBP that is going strong because I've upgraded RAM and disk. The SSD just crashed again, I'm updating it with a brand new one. Can't do that anymore. I could even replace the old battery if I wanted. This was the one that actually had a door on the back for easy swapping out components, remember that? What a great design.

iMac

Since it's hardly upgradable after the fact you have to BTO. Pricing that out for a minimum computer I'm at $2500, for a mobile GPU/CPU machine! Give me a break, plus who wants another screen? Not me.

nMP

I've waited and hoped, and while there's a chance this might make SOME kind of sense I'm seeing that it probably doesn't. I do software development and play games (booted into Win 7). This looks like a bad gaming rig with too much CPU and not enough GPU, but would make a lovely development machine. However, for $3,000? I don't get it, I have a hard time believing the "professional" graphics market is that big.

I suspect Apple has lost it's way, and any rate I'm forced to go Hackintosh or straight up PC. Maybe not surprisingly I hear more people who are in my camp, than those who are falling in love with their latest products.
 
You will find that other manufacturers are going this way, too. It's not just Apple.
 
You're a developer? What tools and environments do you use? What other tasks do you typically use your computers for, or would ideally use them for?

I agree with some of your points about things being taken away that are still useful, but some of them are things that at least I personally wouldn't miss too much. For example, the non-replacable RAM and batteries in the newer Apple laptops. I would typically max out the RAM on an Apple laptop upon first purchase (though with third party RAM, not BTO from Apple). Once you've maxed that out, whether it's removable or not doesn't make much difference. I haven't got to the point where I needed to replace a non user-replacable battery, so I can't speak to that experience. Thankfully there are many Apple Stores near me so I don't expect the experience to be that painful, plus I don't have to worry about the old battery being disposed of improperly as Apple would just keep it.

The Mac minis are due for an upgrade. Discrete GPUs would be nice to have back again, but surely the Intel Iris / Iris Pro would get the job done aside from top-end gaming and 3D work?

I'm really on the fence about the Mac Pro. It's a huge paradigm shift, for sure. I suspect a lot of people who can't let go of the big, expandable tower paradigm are going to migrate to Windows, but a lot of people will successfully adapt to the new Mac Pro's strengths, as well. We'll see.

I wouldn't underestimate the power of the top-end iMacs. They do out-perform quad-core Mac Pros on many operations. I could understand why the form factor / display wouldn't be suitable for many situations, though.
 
Go with a hackintosh.

I built my own over the summer and it runs great.

Its clocked at 4.3GHz, 2133 8GB RAM (all i need for now), a GTX 770 (as i use windows and game on it too) Samsung 840 Pro SSD for mac, 1tb SSHD drive for windows, and some various old laptop drives for storage.

It runs really nicely, the hackintosh community is strong, a damn site lot more friendly than the MacRumors forum. You start a thread on here and its WW3...
Not to say there are at least a few nice people on here, but most of the time its idiot comments and sarcastic remarks.

If you have any questions about hackintosh's send me a pm, id be happy to give you some info :)
 
Cubemmal said:
I suspect Apple has lost it's way, and any rate I'm forced to go Hackintosh or straight up PC. Maybe not surprisingly I hear more people who are in my camp, than those who are falling in love with their latest products.
Click to expand...

I think there are certainly people in that camp (I am one of them) but I think you'll find that we are very few in the grand scheme of things (just take a look at Apple's net profit).

If I hadn't bought a Mac Pro a few years back (that's still running strong) I'd definitely be building a Hackintosh. I've still got a few good years to go with it, so until then I'll let the other hobbyists continue to do great work so it's even easier for me when it comes time to build mine.
 
I think that you will be hard pressed to locate a notebook that will run OS X reliably. There are good notebooks out there, however. My experience with ThinkPads have made them my favorite notebook, but I have never tried to run OS X on them - only Windows 7.

I think the OS X experience would be reduced running it on a notebook other than an Apple notebook, due to the hardware/trackpad, etc., that OS X is optimized for. I can't see it being anywhere close on another device.

No need to "regret" purchasing other hardware - you need to use what is best for you!
 
Getting major facts wrong:

- Mac Mini didn't change since June, and it's not $900. In reality Mac Mini starts at $599 new, and cheaper from Apple refurb.

- MBP: the PC makers are copying Apple design.

- 2006 MBP doesn't come with SSD. SSD crashing has nothing to do with Apple.

- Claims 2006 MBP "had a door on the back for easy swapping out components," which is not true. There's no door for swapping HD.

- iMac with discreet GPU starts at $1499. It's not a BTO and not $2500.

- Mac Pro: lol GPU that can run three 4k display is "not enough GPU"


Cubemmal said:
I've been a huge Apple fan. I love their computers, under one hood you can run any OS you want, plus it's commercial UNIX. Great for development. However for the last four years each new hardware release has been a disappointment. I've got four MBP, two minis, a Mac Pro and lots of other gear. Now I have to conclude there's no good computer for me in their lineup.

Mac Mini

They took the discrete GPU's out so it's a $900 toy relatively

MBP

Glued batteries and soldered RAM, seriously? I've got a 2006 MBP that is going strong because I've upgraded RAM and disk. The SSD just crashed again, I'm updating it with a brand new one. Can't do that anymore. I could even replace the old battery if I wanted. This was the one that actually had a door on the back for easy swapping out components, remember that? What a great design.

iMac

Since it's hardly upgradable after the fact you have to BTO. Pricing that out for a minimum computer I'm at $2500, for a mobile GPU/CPU machine! Give me a break, plus who wants another screen? Not me.

nMP

I've waited and hoped, and while there's a chance this might make SOME kind of sense I'm seeing that it probably doesn't. I do software development and play games (booted into Win 7). This looks like a bad gaming rig with too much CPU and not enough GPU, but would make a lovely development machine. However, for $3,000? I don't get it, I have a hard time believing the "professional" graphics market is that big.

I suspect Apple has lost it's way, and any rate I'm forced to go Hackintosh or straight up PC. Maybe not surprisingly I hear more people who are in my camp, than those who are falling in love with their latest products.
Click to expand...
 
Cubemmal said:
I've been a huge Apple fan. I love their computers, under one hood you can run any OS you want, plus it's commercial UNIX. Great for development. However for the last four years each new hardware release has been a disappointment. I've got four MBP, two minis, a Mac Pro and lots of other gear. Now I have to conclude there's no good computer for me in their lineup.

Mac Mini

They took the discrete GPU's out so it's a $900 toy relatively

MBP

Glued batteries and soldered RAM, seriously? I've got a 2006 MBP that is going strong because I've upgraded RAM and disk. The SSD just crashed again, I'm updating it with a brand new one. Can't do that anymore. I could even replace the old battery if I wanted. This was the one that actually had a door on the back for easy swapping out components, remember that? What a great design.

iMac

Since it's hardly upgradable after the fact you have to BTO. Pricing that out for a minimum computer I'm at $2500, for a mobile GPU/CPU machine! Give me a break, plus who wants another screen? Not me.

nMP

I've waited and hoped, and while there's a chance this might make SOME kind of sense I'm seeing that it probably doesn't. I do software development and play games (booted into Win 7). This looks like a bad gaming rig with too much CPU and not enough GPU, but would make a lovely development machine. However, for $3,000? I don't get it, I have a hard time believing the "professional" graphics market is that big.

I suspect Apple has lost it's way, and any rate I'm forced to go Hackintosh or straight up PC. Maybe not surprisingly I hear more people who are in my camp, than those who are falling in love with their latest products.
Click to expand...

I agree - what Apple is doing is atrocious.

However, many ultrabook providers are following the same pattern so look carefully if you're after an ultrabook that doesn't solder components together into one unupgradeable mess.

As far as who will buy a rMBP 15" for $3,000. I did. And I returned it. It sounded great before buying, but the issues it had were huge (too hot - keyboard is uncomfortable to burning, can't handle intensive applications, a simple render in after effects is enough to push all cores to Tjunction, and the display has rampant issues. Either it's too dark, not uniform, has a yellow tint, bad backlighting, or will ghost).

ALL macbook pro retina users are making huge compromises whether they know it or not.
 
Upgradability has never been a major strength of Apple. Apple has always rather focused on making integrated systems that reduce complexity and offer a great user experience in terms of form factor (lighter, thinner), ease-of-use, stability, and performance. This is almost diametrically opposed to the PC value proposition which sacrifices most of this in favor of focusing on choice, flexibility and cost.

In terms of notebooks, the track pad and MagSafe alone are enough that you would have to pry my rMBP from my cold dead hands.

Pick your poison... But I will be very surprised if you can eliminate every Mac and Apple product from your life and be truly happy. I suspect you will be back.

PS. I have a friend that works at MS and a few years ago, the most popular computer amongst MS employees was the MB Air, with the MBP a close second. It got so bad, that MS IT had to clamp down and put rules in place. And the MB Air has never been upgradable... AT ALL.
 
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DJJAZZYJET said:
Go with a hackintosh.

I built my own over the summer and it runs great.

Its clocked at 4.3GHz, 2133 8GB RAM (all i need for now), a GTX 770 (as i use windows and game on it too) Samsung 840 Pro SSD for mac, 1tb SSHD drive for windows, and some various old laptop drives for storage.
Click to expand...

I have to agree here. The only thing "wrong" with a Hackintosh at the moment is that Socker 2011 isn't top notch. Hopefully with the release of the nMP, power management will get support, but it's essentially the only remaining "upgradable" option of running OS X. I own a custom built Hackintosh, a Core i5 with a GTX 660, and it outperforms anything Apple would have sold me for the price I paid to build the machine myself. It has almost NO problems, (my audio chipset isn't supported, but I still get sound, just no USB audio, this is fixable by using a more supported board) and runs OS X perfectly. Just takes a bit of system knowledge and patience to get up and running. I would have gone this route myself, probably around this time of year, as I needed a new desktop, but I got a steal on a 3,1 Mac Pro about 2 months ago. If you don't need the aesthetics or some of the "features" that Macs provide, a Hackintosh will do most of what you need without having to deal with Winderps for productivity.
 
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Cubemmal said:
I suspect Apple has lost it's way, and any rate I'm forced to go Hackintosh or straight up PC. Maybe not surprisingly I hear more people who are in my camp, than those who are falling in love with their latest products.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think I have about 3-4 more years to squeeze out of my Mac Pro and then I'm out too.
 
Cubemmal said:
nMP

I've waited and hoped, and while there's a chance this might make SOME kind of sense I'm seeing that it probably doesn't. I do software development and play games (booted into Win 7). This looks like a bad gaming rig with too much CPU and not enough GPU, but would make a lovely development machine. However, for $3,000? I don't get it, I have a hard time believing the "professional" graphics market is that big.

I suspect Apple has lost it's way, and any rate I'm forced to go Hackintosh or straight up PC. Maybe not surprisingly I hear more people who are in my camp, than those who are falling in love with their latest products.
Click to expand...

From MaximumPC

This could be Apples view of the professional graphics market

According to JPR, the computer graphics hardware market will exceed $124 billion by 2016, up from an expected $107 billion in 2013, which itself is up from $93 billion in 2010.

"The sharp curtailment of household and corporate spending during the recession has resulted in a renewed desire among consumers and businesses to begin increasing spending on the latest graphics software and hardware platforms," JPR says. "We will see the development of traditional segments like CAD/CAM expand as new design approaches in automotive, aerospace, and architecture are adopted. Visualization, a market that has been almost dormant for the past few years, is now poised for significant growth due to the availability of more powerful and less expensive visualization technologies."
 
I have to stay Mac as I support both OSX and Windows platforms but get you totally about the upgrade aspect. My MBP 17 2010 will be replaced by a used last gen 17 with thunderbolt as soon as one comes along for the right price which will get maxed out with the SSD and ram to extend its life and usability for a long as possible.

The Mac Pro 3,1 I have now will no doubt get replaced by a 5,1 and that too will be upgraded and extended.

The girls iMac will be swapped out for another used newer gen when that dies too.

Hopefully I won't have to get to the point where you are now for another 4-5 years and the spare parts upgrades I can procure from the used marketplace!
 
Silencio said:
For example, the non-replacable RAM and batteries in the newer Apple laptops. I would typically max out the RAM on an Apple laptop upon first purchase (though with third party RAM, not BTO from Apple). Once you've maxed that out, whether it's removable or not doesn't make much difference.
Click to expand...

Right, but you have to pay Apple for that pleasure now. Not too bad on some models, but consider wanting 8GB of RAM on a Macbook Air. 1.3GHz, 4GB RAM, 256GB drive on Amazon is £870. Want that with an extra 4GB of RAM? It would be £900 if you could upgrade the RAM. Instead you have to give Apple £1,209. £309 for 4GB of RAM because it (appears) to be a BTO option only.
 
NOTNlCE said:
I have to agree here. The only thing "wrong" with a Hackintosh at the moment is that Socker 2011 isn't top notch. Hopefully with the release of the nMP, power management will get support, but it's essentially the only remaining "upgradable" option of running OS X. I own a custom built Hackintosh, a Core i5 with a GTX 660, and it outperforms anything Apple would have sold me for the price I paid to build the machine myself. It has almost NO problems, (my audio chipset isn't supported, but I still get sound, just no USB audio, this is fixable by using a more supported board) and runs OS X perfectly. Just takes a bit of system knowledge and patience to get up and running. I would have gone this route myself, probably around this time of year, as I needed a new desktop, but I got a steal on a 3,1 Mac Pro about 2 months ago. If you don't need the aesthetics or some of the "features" that Macs provide, a Hackintosh will do most of what you need without having to deal with Winderps for productivity.
Click to expand...

Socket 2011 isn't great, but it will still work once you know how. For most people, they won't be needing 2011. The great thing with a mackintosh is that its truly customisable, you can choose whatever case you want (if it fits your planned components) choose your cooling, choose your ram, you have a lot of options.

----------
AppleInMyBlood said:
This old myth gets repeated ad nauseum. The iMac has had desktop CPUs for years.
Click to expand...

But only laptop standard RAM and GPU, which makes it quite underpowered. Obviously its because of the form factor, but still.
 
DJJAZZYJET said:
But only laptop standard RAM and GPU, which makes it quite underpowered. Obviously its because of the form factor, but still.
Click to expand...

It's not underpowered. It's just not on top of the technology chain. Even the new Mac Pro is underpowered if you're comparing it to a supercomputer. The iMac is a great balance of power, price, and style.
 
Cubemmal said:
Mac Mini

They took the discrete GPU's out so it's a $900 toy relatively
Click to expand...
The Mac mini is a nice office computer. Other users can encode thousands of videos with this machine (2.6 GHz, Ivy Bridge, Quad-Core). No problem. You can install Windows on this machine, so that you have access to all office tools, lossless video editors (VirtualDub, for example) and filters (via AviSynth). So the Mac mini is not a toy.

Btw, the discrete GPU in the Mac mini was a bad joke. I'm not sure why you mention it.
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
Btw, the discrete GPU in the Mac mini was a bad joke. I'm not sure why you mention it.
Click to expand...

Finding things to complain about on the internet is sport. I've been pissed ever since they took away the discrete floating point co-processor. :)
 
Everything apple does is questionable, including the NMP, especially the NMP. The things we do for OSX. The best solution I think will do you best is possibly Hackintosh. Build your custom system, with supported parts of course, running OSX.

I'll probably go this route later on for my intensive video work.
 
chabig said:
It's not underpowered. It's just not on top of the technology chain. Even the new Mac Pro is underpowered if you're comparing it to a supercomputer. The iMac is a great balance of power, price, and style.
Click to expand...

I meant as in underpowered for the machine itself. Laptop GPU/s perform significantly lower to their desktop counterparts.
 
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