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On The Sad State of Macintosh Hardware (rogueamoeba.com)
Quentin Carnicelli, the chief technology officer at Rogue Amoeba, a widely-reputed firm that produces several audio software for Apple's desktop operating system: With Apple recently releasing their first developer beta of MacOS 10.14 (Mojave), we've been installing it on various test machines to test our apps. The inevitable march of technology means Mojave won't install on all of our older hardware. There's no shock there, but the situation is rather distressing when it comes to spending money to purchase new equipment. Here is the situation, as reported by the wonderful MacRumor's Buyers Guide: At the time of the writing, with the exception of the $5,000 iMac Pro, no Macintosh has been updated at all in the past year. Here are the last updates to the entire line of Macs: iMac Pro: 182 days ago, iMac: 374 days ago, MacBook: 374 days ago, MacBook Air: 374 days ago, MacBook Pro: 374 days ago, Mac Pro: 436 days ago, and Mac Mini: 1337 days ago.
Worse, most of these counts are misleading, with the machines not seeing a true update in quite a bit longer. The Mac Mini hasn't seen an update of any kind in almost 4 years (nor, for that matter, a price drop). The once-solid Mac Pro was replaced by the dead-end cylindrical version all the way back in 2012, which was then left to stagnate. I don't even want to get started on the MacBook Pro's questionable keyboard, or the MacBook's sole port (USB-C which must also be used to provide power). It's very difficult to recommend much from the current crop of Macs to customers, and that's deeply worrisome to us, as a Mac-based software company.
Worse, most of these counts are misleading, with the machines not seeing a true update in quite a bit longer. The Mac Mini hasn't seen an update of any kind in almost 4 years (nor, for that matter, a price drop). The once-solid Mac Pro was replaced by the dead-end cylindrical version all the way back in 2012, which was then left to stagnate. I don't even want to get started on the MacBook Pro's questionable keyboard, or the MacBook's sole port (USB-C which must also be used to provide power). It's very difficult to recommend much from the current crop of Macs to customers, and that's deeply worrisome to us, as a Mac-based software company.
Apple is destroying one of their best markets. That is, people who use it for pro audio and also graphic workstations to some extent. The hardware compatibility silliness and lack of updates and support if pushing tons and tons of audio people away. I organize raves and electronic music shows. Apple machines used to be considered the premium choice for live performances and DJ software, but it has all changed in the last few years. For the first ever since laptops became a thing on stage, I've seen former die hard Apple users make the switch to Windows over the last couple years.
Apple has made it clear that they just don't care about professional media customers anymore, unless they are the kind that can buy $4000 of new gear every year. But even then, people are catching on that it's just not very cost effective anymore. Not to mention that Windows performance and stability has drastically improved too, making it a viable switch, that didn't used to be the case.
I've been on Apple's platform since 1990, I saw it through the horrid time before Jobs' return. What did Jobs do? He made the mac cool again, sure, but he also made amazing machines with an amazing OS (OSX is the only reason I still am on the platform) and it was embraced by the pros - graphic designers, video editors, music producers... the performance, stability and workflow was unmatched. Now look at it. The only powerful machine they make is well out of the price range of all but the largest companies. The next step down is pathetic to say the least. Design and video professionals leave the platform in droves, why? because Apple made sad, underpowered machines covered in marking wank and focused on their gadgetry. Apple - shape up, or ship out. Unless you make a top end machine for $2500 that can be used in professional 4k video editing, motion graphics, audio production, graphic design, as well as support the huge potential of the mac gaming market (which never has been tapped but always should have been) - then go home and get lost. Make it modular, allow us to customize and upgrade our machines. Be good enough so we can love the mac again. Stop making $2000 facebook machines, make us machines we can be proud of. Unless you do this - my next machine will not be a mac, something I haven't done in 28 years.
Except for the very, very few 'pro' products they've (reluctantly) released (and barely updated), they've basically given up on the Pro crowd, and are clearly only concentrating on 'gadget' devices for consumers, not meant for professionals (creators, etc.): iDevices, AppleTV, AppleWatch & HomePod.
The signs that this was coming have been on the wall for a while. I've been getting away from Mac exclusive software ever since Final Cut Pro X had it's debut (and I don't work in video at all). The debacle that was the initial release (seriously, no multicam editing?) was a clear sign to me that Apple was giving up on its professional users. I jumped ship on anything that was only available for a Mac and (even though I'm typing this comment on a Mac Mini) can switch to another OS at any time.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
My laptop runs everything I want to run fine. Why would I want to "upgrade" to something "better" if it's not actually any better at what I want it to do?
I'd much rather they spend their money fixing system bugs.
I was pretty disappointed when I downloaded the 10.14 Developer Beta and was told that it wouldn't install on my Mac Pro....a machine with 12 logical cores running at 3.2 Ghz, 32 GB of RAM, 512 GB SSD, and a 3 GB ATI Radeon 7950 that's Metal compatible . The release notes say that support for this machine is coming in a later beta release, but who knows when this will happen.
I realize that my machine is about 6 years old, but Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04 run just fine on it. They really need to release this Mac Pro tower that's been rumored, because I sure don't want to move to the trash-can or an iMac.
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Hey, I'm a big Apple fan. The thing that's unfortunate right now is: if you are at a point where you should upgrade systems--- laptop life, OS support, etc--- all of the offerings are underwhelming: dated and not price-performant. Apple has always been a premium option but you'd usually get premium, up to date hardware for it until the past few years.
I'm on a Linux laptop these days and I hope they fix it so I can go back to everyday use of MacOS.
I know this is controversial, but if Apple isn't going to care about the hardware any more, perhaps it's time it pulled out of the market and sold macOS as a standalone product for third party PCs. And if they don't want to support it, they can contract that out too, maybe even partner with someone like Canonical (who have a great track record on making a third party OS work on everything out of the box.) With Intel and AMD controlling the entire non-standardized part of the hardware chain it's easier than it's been since the early nineties to produce a single OS that'll work on everything anyway.
It's always been the OS, not the hardware, that's made me crave Macs, but I haven't owned one in over ten years because I just don't trust them with hardware any more, and can't get a Mac with a specification I'm comfortable with.
If they no longer even care, then it's time to let their platform blossom.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The 2014 Mac Mini was a colossal failure. Between the elimination of the two-drive version and the elimination of the quad-core configuration, it went from being a great mini server to being an almost completely useless toy. I'd imagine their sales dropped commensurately, though they don't break out sales by product line enough to be certain. So I suspect it isn't getting updated because it has terrible sales, and it has terrible sales because the last upgrade was a huge downgrade.
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The problem isn't Apple, it's Intel who, has refused to add the support of more than 16 Gb of LPDDR RAM to their chipsets year after year after year.
Do you really think that Apple _doesn't_ want to sell you 32 Gb of soldered on RAM for what they would be marking it up for?
As for using power hungry desktop DDR like PC makers do, it'd kill the battery life on MBPs.
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