Well the people with an iPhone 4 would beg to differ;-) Most Apple users buy a replacement every year or two. It's another way of keeping everything backwards compatible:-D
But the people with a 4s are rockin' iOS 9. and that is a phone that is over 4 years old; so...
It's copyright infringement to run OS X in any of those VM products unless you're running the VM product on a Mac
Actually, that isn't exactly true. There is ONE version (and, AFAIK, ONLY one version) of OS X that you can legally run under a VM. Snow Leopard Server 10.6.8, which, if you know what to ask for, is actually STILL available as a DVD from Apple for US$20.
Apple is now selling Snow Leopard Server for $19.99 + sales tax & shipping costs at 1.800.MYAPPLE (1.800.692.7753) - Apple Part Number: MC588Z/A (telephone orders only).
You will probably have to do a little "convincing" to the Order Drone that this is still available; but as of a few months ago, at least, it still was.
Swift is not a good example of an innovative language. Apple just wants something that is different enough to assist developer lock-in. That's what they used to love about Obj-C: it was resistent to being ported, thanks to its incredibly weird method-calling syntax.
Right. That's why they Open Sourced Swift. Lock in, that's it.
I agree re figuring this basic stuff out before v1. Actually I wish Apple would save us all the hassle of sharing their experience of "learning how to make a programming language". Buy MS already and take C#, a mature and generally well-regarded language. C# 1 was usable and they didn't make weird fundamental changes constantly afterwards as Apple is with Swift. Making programming languages is kind of a well understood domain, but Swift smells like hipsters fresh out of uni to me, learning from their mistakes as they go.
There's a simple solution: Don't use Swift, or STFU.
And how many full-blown programming languages have you written?
You do understand that this is how software use to be, right?
The company in question puts their software on their own website and "rubber stamps" their own updates.
Even the most stringent QA will miss things... users behave and use it differently quite frequently.
Yeah, I understand that is how software used to be... When a loaf of bread was fifty cents (U.S.), cars all had carbeurators, and lot of TVs still had vacuum tubes (other than the CRT).
Oh, and before everyone and his dog wasn't trying to steal your personal info off your smartphone through the internet; because smartphones didn't exist, the "internet" was still called DARPAnet, and China was still an agrarian society...
Times change. Sometimes that means old habits have to, too.
For example, Microsoft was slow to learn that the world wasn't one big, happy, computing family, and they (well, mostly their users) suffered for decades because of it.
But by the time Android came around (especially considering it is the idiot-bastard-son of Linux, which is the idiot-bastard-knockoff of Unix) there was simply NO excuse to not have a more "hardened" approach to software distribution, like iOS does.
Call it a Walled Garden or whatever, the proof is in the pudding...
They have not changed their policy. They have always allowed html / JavaScript content to be loaded. The hooks for JavaScript to access native functions is directly enabled in official APIs and has been used in Phonegap and the like for years. None of this is new. It may always have been possible to hide unused JS hooks in an app and remotely update JavaScript to use them. But this development methodology has been specifically endorsed for YEARS by Apple. What they don't allow is arbitrary code to be loaded i.e. users loading new code. Users can run their own code if they write it or copy / paste it. See the Pythonista app and its history.
Apps generally have to point internally to the external JS code to load. Though that could point to additional code to load. Apple can and has shut it down if it gets too close to being 1) too close to an alternative App Store or 2) a source of abuse of policy or security by the developer.
So this is a vestige of the pre App Store days? Interesting!
I hope that Apple changes the iOS App Store approval process to look for this insanely-dangerous BACKDOOR, and make the inclusion of that cause for instant REJECTION of the App.
I'm curious when exactly they changed their policy in the first place. Apple used to reject any application that tried to do anything like this.
I would bet they haven't changed their policy. This is either a b.s. Story, or something that has slipped past Apple (until now).
Android doesn't have this problem because publishing app updates take about 30 seconds, where iOS can sometimes take weeks.
This glaring security flaw must be why Android and Google went out of business, and people didn't flock to their platform by the hundreds of millions.
Android is only "that" popular because it is on a zillion SHIT "smartphones" that the Telcos GIVE away.
And you know what? I wouldn't come within ten feet of a mobile platform that has Apps that basically are Rubber-Stamp "Approved". Calling such an "Approval Process" is a cruel joke on the unsuspecting user.
And the difference in Malware-amount on the two platforms clearly shows that that "joke" is being played on the Android user time and time again...
Apple app approval may be "ridiculous" to you, but it beats the alternative of malware, or poorly thrown together code.
This. EXACTLY this!
I hope that Apple changes the iOS App Store approval process to look for this insanely-dangerous BACKDOOR, and make the inclusion of that cause for instant REJECTION of the App.
Just like with Encryption backdoors, there is NO WAY this won't be exploited in 3...2...1...
I'm always amused by idiots that get all hard over the Apple II. An expensive computer with no hardware sprites, sound synthesizer, or speech?
And I'm always amused by idiots that forget/revise history...
You DO realize, of course, that the Apple ][ was developed in 1976, long before Jay Miner's brilliant (but CPU-cycle-stealing) custom chipsets (Copper, Blitter, etc) were anything other than scribbles in his Engineering Notebook. Time marches on, and I also loved my Commodore 64's SID and its "GPU" with its Sprites, etc; but you have to remember, that machine was designed nearly FOUR YEARS after the Apple ][ (which was, in a lot of ways, really just an update to the Apple 1's original design from 1975), but you forget those Atari and Commodore machines that Jay Miner was responsible for had their own deficiencies. Need I mention the Commodore 1541 Disk Drive? The floppy drive that was actually SLOWER than cassette tape (!!!) and ran so hot (due to the fact that it had a full-blown 6502-based computer in it) that most people had to have a FAN on top of it? Meanwhile, the Apple ][ Disk drive was a marvel of hardware efficiency.
Oh, and after having ZERO (and I do mean ZERO) R&D dollars dedicated to it for nearly a DECADE (even though the Apple ][ product line was making Apple money hand-over-fist at the time), the Apple IIGS was introduced in 1988 (IIRC), and it corrected ALL of the deficiencies of the original Apple ][ design, including memory limitations, a faster (and 16-bit) CPU, lower-case and 80 column video, more Hi-RES graphics modes, including a 560 pixel "Super Hi-Res" mode, the ability to do "colored" text, and most notably, a full-blown Ensoniq "Q-Chip" 8-voice Sampling Synthesizer (the hands-down most underutilized feature of the IIGS). All this while maintaining 100% compatibility with the Apple//e. No mean feat, and the straw that ultimately broke the Apple///'s back, BTW. Unfortunately, this was after the Mac II had been released, and so, other than in primary and secondary schools, hardly anyone bought this wonderful updated version of the Apple ][. Oh, and lest we forget the rather interesting Apple//c, which was a fairly successful attempt at bringing the Apple ][ to a laptop form-factor, and actually had a couple of interesting innovations, such as the Integrated Woz Machine, the Lyra 3.5" Floppy, and an integrated LCD screen. Stuff that was pretty cool when it debuted in 1981 (IIRC)...
As for the Mac, it too was developed before "GPU" was even a CONCEPT, let alone an Acronym. I believe if you went inside the competition at that time, with the exception of the Commodore and Atari offerings (which were good game machines... and NOTHING else!), you would be VERY hard pressed to find any significant "hardware acceleration" for video. So the fact that the original Mac didn't have any either was of little concern in 1984. And even LESS in 1981, when the Mac project actually started...
Later, of course, Macs got custom (at first) then commodity (ATi and Nvidia) GPUs, and were essentially on-parity with the Windows systems (although MS' commitment and development of DirectX was a coup for them as "gaming" systems). By this time, both Commodore and Atari had filed bankruptcy. So much for their superiority translating into sales... And do we want to talk about the Crash-happy Debacle that was Amiga Workbench??? Did it EVER become stable, or was it always one "Guru Meditation Error" after another? But unlike you, I won't denegrate the designs of the Amiga or Atari 68k machines. They had some VERY clever hardware tricks (once again, 100% due to one man: The late, great Jay Miner), and at one point when I was considering embedding an Amiga 500 motherboard into a stage lighting controller, I was told that one out of four Arcade-level video games was actually running on an Amiga 500; unfortunately, neither the marketing nor the OS software could seal the deal, and so they are relegated to the dustbin of history...
Explaining to me the business concerns does not change my opinion on the product I need, that is not my problem.
Maybe not; but it IS Apple's "problem". And like every manufacturer of every product, they have to do a cost/benefit analysis for each and every major design decision of each and every product. In your little "me-centric" world, you may not recognize that metric; but then you've likely never been the CEO of a Company the size of Apple (nor have I).
The Mac Pro is targeting a vanishingly small segment of the market, but Apple has stood behind it...
Barely. When is the last time you heard "Mac Pro" in an Apple Keynote? Heck, they don't even include it when they haul out the "Mac Lineup" Slides at those events! I REALLY wish it weren't so; and I agree that it is a incredibly bold and frankly gutsy engineering and packaging achievement; but the "trashcan" Mac Pro seems destined to be discontinued...
I believe Apple could solve this neatly, way better than what we currently do with aftermarket cards, and manually mounting sensitive electronics.
You know what I think? I think that's why Apple has such a "nudge and a wink" attitude toward the Hackintosh community. My friends who like OS X, but want a bleeding-edge gaming system invariably build "Hacks". And you KNOW that Apple COULD lock-down OS X to REALLY only run on Apple hardware in about 2 seconds (remember, they were GOING to put Trusted Computing hardware/software into the Mac lineup (the original couple of Intel Macs actually had the chip); but then didn't. Why? My theory was that it was an intentional "backdoor" that allowed the hacker community to satisfy their desire for a "Mac" that was outside of what Apple could economically support. I also think that Apple hoped that high-end peripheral manufacturers would jump on the Thunderbolt bandwagon with both feet (the Mac Pro has SIX TB2 Ports, FFS!!!); but, for whatever stupid reason, they haven't been able to pull-off the same thing with Thunderbolt that they did with USB and the original iMac. Even high-end audio companies like Focusrite STILL haven't embraced TB wholeheartedly, and TB is tailor-made for that kind of application, preferring to use a TB to FW solution. They have only NOW come out with a few offerings that directly support TB (good on them!). Same thing with high-end video hardware. Yes, the original TB wasn't quite fast enough for high-end video; but that has changed... So where's all the high-end TB "video cards"???
However, by OFFICIALLY supporting Windows as a Dual-Boot system (with zero performance penalites), Apple TRULY created an environment where Gamers (and others with a want/need to run Windows) COULD have the best of both worlds.
What's not to like with that scenario? A Hackintosh will ALWAYS be cheaper than an equivalent Mac, just because there is no R&D cost, no Warranty cost, etc. Personally, I am not a gamer; so I would not likely build a "Hack"; but I think that Apple HAS actually "run the numbers" and decided that this is the best solution for everybody, without them getting into the whole "clone licensing" debacle again, and without admitting that they simply don't care what you install OS X onto (VMs other than on Snow Leopard Server notwithstanding).
And, I submit that Apple ALSO KNOWS when OS X is installed on a NON-Mac (all it takes is one little "phone home"), and is keeping track of those numbers for two reasons (and NOT for anti-piracy, which they could solve in other ways):
1. To see what percentage of HARDWARE sales they are losing to Hackintoshes
2. To see if perhaps there IS enough demand for machines outside of their current offerings.
It wouldn't surprise me there's a team developing a top secret version of OS X on the iPad Pro for the day when theyÂre forced to compete head-to-head with the Surface Pro. Why wouldn't OS X Macbook Air users benefit from a detachable keyboard and an iPencil...
I thought that the instant I saw the iPad Pro, too.
Everyone benefits from 10-20% more performance. There might be a relatively small number of people who NEED 10-20% more but everyone benefits from it.
When every action you perform on a machine is instant and there are no longer progress bars or hour glasses no matter how many things you do in parallel or what operation you are performing THEN you no longer benefit from a higher performing machine so long as it remains this way in the face of all new software released for the rest of your life. We aren't there on any of our machines yet. You can buy the biggest and most powerful machine in any data center and it still won't be performant enough to achieve this today let alone future proof.
No, EVERYONE does not benefit from an increase in performance; only those who bump into the upper end of their machine's performance actually benefit from the extra performance. Otherwise, it is just wasted potential (and energy). Not to mention that the additional cost often does not justify that extra speed, if the bottlenecks are few and far between and unless the intended processes are truly CPU/GPU-bound, and the slowness is not due to any other constraint that is already in the top echelon of its performance.
And in case you haven't noticed, your "goal" will ALWAYS be unobtainable; because software will ALWAYS expand in computational requirements to fill the computational resources... PLUS 10 percent...
'It all comes down to "Do you want to work WITH your Computer" or "Do you want to work ON your Computer."'
For some of us those two things are two intertwined there is little difference. I don't want to spend much time getting my computer up and running but playing with all the latest and greatest toys and understanding how they work inspires me when it comes time to work on things which get me paid.
I understand; and I truly do envy you for having that kind of free-time; but for me, those days are (somewhat sadly) over...
> I got all the "work ON my computer" out of my system (no pun) in the Apple ][ days.
I REMEMBER THOSE DAYS TOO!
Yeah, back when if you ran your Apple ][ with the cover ON (because you didn't get into the guts very often), you were considered lame...
I was QUITE the hardware/software developer for that wonderful little machine.Honestly, and in all modesty, probably one of the top ones in the country (USA) outside of some engineering employees at Apple HQ itself.
But I still wish they made one with a high end processor and a high end GPU (hint: AMD does not make any, but then either does Intel). I don't want to hear about "not needing the performance", that is a horrible answer on many different levels, and in point of fact, is wrong for some of us.
The problem is, the market for such a machine is vanishingly-small.
I would never say that SOME people might benefit from the extra 5-10% of performance (let's even get it to 20%); but you're only talking a couple of hundred-thousand machines WORLDWIDE. For a company the size of Apple, the numbers just don't add-up, for the extra R&D (both hardware and software), extra testing/support and extra supply and distribution logistics.
Yup, only with a Mac you fall out of support entirely - a Mac Pro released in 2006 wasnt supported by an OS Apple released just 6 years later. Runs Windows 10 fine however. Hows that for stupidity?!
However, for the savvy Slashdot reader, you can easily make that first-revision 2006-2007 Mac Pro run later versions of OS X than 10.7 (Lion). I will admit, there are a few gotchas; but all in all, it works.
Here's another article that goes beyond the first one, giving Yosemite (and very likely beyond) compatibility.
Oh, and the next Mac Pro hardware revision, 2008, apparently has no problems running the latest OS X. So, that would be eight years of support for that model (so far).
I'm SURE that they have Prototype Macs running AMD, ARM, and maybe even something as prosaic as MIPS.
Apple has always wanted to keep their options open. They got caught-up once being kind of beholden to IBM and it PowerPC product timeline, and I doubt they will EVER make that mistake again.
And since OS X is pretty damned processor-agnostic, they can easily jump ship if the mood/market dictates.
Nope, but you do severely limit what hardware you can use.
So the fuck what?
It all comes down to "Do you want to work WITH your Computer" or "Do you want to work ON your Computer".
I got all the "work ON my computer" out of my system (no pun) in the Apple ][ days. Now, I'd just as soon get some REAL work done, thankyouverymuch!
But for some people, it's the only way they can feel like they have control over some small part of their empty existence.
Note that this does NOT apply to those who are actually DOING the Yeoman's work of DEVELOPING F/OSS Projects. For them, I only have awe and admiration at their combined talent and perseverance. Quite frankly, OS X in its current form simply could not exist without their efforts; so to belittle them would be ridiculous.
I am instead referring to the basement-dwelling ne'er do-wells that simply leech off the tireless efforts of others in the F/OSS DEVELOPMENT Community and expect everything to be handed to them for free.
Slashdot Mirror
Well the people with an iPhone 4 would beg to differ ;-) Most Apple users buy a replacement every year or two. It's another way of keeping everything backwards compatible :-D
But the people with a 4s are rockin' iOS 9. and that is a phone that is over 4 years old; so...
It's copyright infringement to run OS X in any of those VM products unless you're running the VM product on a Mac
Actually, that isn't exactly true. There is ONE version (and, AFAIK, ONLY one version) of OS X that you can legally run under a VM. Snow Leopard Server 10.6.8, which, if you know what to ask for, is actually STILL available as a DVD from Apple for US$20.
Apple is now selling Snow Leopard Server for $19.99 + sales tax & shipping costs at 1.800.MYAPPLE (1.800.692.7753) - Apple Part Number: MC588Z/A (telephone orders only).
You will probably have to do a little "convincing" to the Order Drone that this is still available; but as of a few months ago, at least, it still was.
I don't know why MS is pushing this update so crazy hard.
Because this is what the Feds did to Satya Nadella.
Swift is not a good example of an innovative language. Apple just wants something that is different enough to assist developer lock-in. That's what they used to love about Obj-C: it was resistent to being ported, thanks to its incredibly weird method-calling syntax.
Right. That's why they Open Sourced Swift. Lock in, that's it.
I agree re figuring this basic stuff out before v1. Actually I wish Apple would save us all the hassle of sharing their experience of "learning how to make a programming language". Buy MS already and take C#, a mature and generally well-regarded language. C# 1 was usable and they didn't make weird fundamental changes constantly afterwards as Apple is with Swift. Making programming languages is kind of a well understood domain, but Swift smells like hipsters fresh out of uni to me, learning from their mistakes as they go.
There's a simple solution: Don't use Swift, or STFU.
And how many full-blown programming languages have you written?
You do understand that this is how software use to be, right?
The company in question puts their software on their own website and "rubber stamps" their own updates.
Even the most stringent QA will miss things... users behave and use it differently quite frequently.
Yeah, I understand that is how software used to be... When a loaf of bread was fifty cents (U.S.), cars all had carbeurators, and lot of TVs still had vacuum tubes (other than the CRT).
Oh, and before everyone and his dog wasn't trying to steal your personal info off your smartphone through the internet; because smartphones didn't exist, the "internet" was still called DARPAnet, and China was still an agrarian society...
Times change. Sometimes that means old habits have to, too.
For example, Microsoft was slow to learn that the world wasn't one big, happy, computing family, and they (well, mostly their users) suffered for decades because of it.
But by the time Android came around (especially considering it is the idiot-bastard-son of Linux, which is the idiot-bastard-knockoff of Unix) there was simply NO excuse to not have a more "hardened" approach to software distribution, like iOS does.
Call it a Walled Garden or whatever, the proof is in the pudding...
If you want a microkernel architecture, then why not OS X or at least Darwin?
They have not changed their policy. They have always allowed html / JavaScript content to be loaded. The hooks for JavaScript to access native functions is directly enabled in official APIs and has been used in Phonegap and the like for years. None of this is new. It may always have been possible to hide unused JS hooks in an app and remotely update JavaScript to use them. But this development methodology has been specifically endorsed for YEARS by Apple. What they don't allow is arbitrary code to be loaded i.e. users loading new code. Users can run their own code if they write it or copy / paste it. See the Pythonista app and its history. Apps generally have to point internally to the external JS code to load. Though that could point to additional code to load. Apple can and has shut it down if it gets too close to being 1) too close to an alternative App Store or 2) a source of abuse of policy or security by the developer.
So this is a vestige of the pre App Store days? Interesting!
I hope that Apple changes the iOS App Store approval process to look for this insanely-dangerous BACKDOOR, and make the inclusion of that cause for instant REJECTION of the App.
I'm curious when exactly they changed their policy in the first place. Apple used to reject any application that tried to do anything like this.
I would bet they haven't changed their policy. This is either a b.s. Story, or something that has slipped past Apple (until now).
Android doesn't have this problem because publishing app updates take about 30 seconds, where iOS can sometimes take weeks.
This glaring security flaw must be why Android and Google went out of business, and people didn't flock to their platform by the hundreds of millions.
Android is only "that" popular because it is on a zillion SHIT "smartphones" that the Telcos GIVE away.
And you know what? I wouldn't come within ten feet of a mobile platform that has Apps that basically are Rubber-Stamp "Approved". Calling such an "Approval Process" is a cruel joke on the unsuspecting user.
And the difference in Malware-amount on the two platforms clearly shows that that "joke" is being played on the Android user time and time again...
Apple app approval may be "ridiculous" to you, but it beats the alternative of malware, or poorly thrown together code.
This. EXACTLY this!
I hope that Apple changes the iOS App Store approval process to look for this insanely-dangerous BACKDOOR, and make the inclusion of that cause for instant REJECTION of the App.
Just like with Encryption backdoors, there is NO WAY this won't be exploited in 3...2...1...
I'm always amused by idiots that get all hard over the Apple II. An expensive computer with no hardware sprites, sound synthesizer, or speech?
And I'm always amused by idiots that forget/revise history...
//e. No mean feat, and the straw that ultimately broke the Apple ///'s back, BTW. Unfortunately, this was after the Mac II had been released, and so, other than in primary and secondary schools, hardly anyone bought this wonderful updated version of the Apple ][. Oh, and lest we forget the rather interesting Apple //c, which was a fairly successful attempt at bringing the Apple ][ to a laptop form-factor, and actually had a couple of interesting innovations, such as the Integrated Woz Machine, the Lyra 3.5" Floppy, and an integrated LCD screen. Stuff that was pretty cool when it debuted in 1981 (IIRC)...
You DO realize, of course, that the Apple ][ was developed in 1976, long before Jay Miner's brilliant (but CPU-cycle-stealing) custom chipsets (Copper, Blitter, etc) were anything other than scribbles in his Engineering Notebook. Time marches on, and I also loved my Commodore 64's SID and its "GPU" with its Sprites, etc; but you have to remember, that machine was designed nearly FOUR YEARS after the Apple ][ (which was, in a lot of ways, really just an update to the Apple 1's original design from 1975), but you forget those Atari and Commodore machines that Jay Miner was responsible for had their own deficiencies. Need I mention the Commodore 1541 Disk Drive? The floppy drive that was actually SLOWER than cassette tape (!!!) and ran so hot (due to the fact that it had a full-blown 6502-based computer in it) that most people had to have a FAN on top of it? Meanwhile, the Apple ][ Disk drive was a marvel of hardware efficiency.
Oh, and after having ZERO (and I do mean ZERO) R&D dollars dedicated to it for nearly a DECADE (even though the Apple ][ product line was making Apple money hand-over-fist at the time), the Apple IIGS was introduced in 1988 (IIRC), and it corrected ALL of the deficiencies of the original Apple ][ design, including memory limitations, a faster (and 16-bit) CPU, lower-case and 80 column video, more Hi-RES graphics modes, including a 560 pixel "Super Hi-Res" mode, the ability to do "colored" text, and most notably, a full-blown Ensoniq "Q-Chip" 8-voice Sampling Synthesizer (the hands-down most underutilized feature of the IIGS). All this while maintaining 100% compatibility with the Apple
As for the Mac, it too was developed before "GPU" was even a CONCEPT, let alone an Acronym. I believe if you went inside the competition at that time, with the exception of the Commodore and Atari offerings (which were good game machines... and NOTHING else!), you would be VERY hard pressed to find any significant "hardware acceleration" for video. So the fact that the original Mac didn't have any either was of little concern in 1984. And even LESS in 1981, when the Mac project actually started...
Later, of course, Macs got custom (at first) then commodity (ATi and Nvidia) GPUs, and were essentially on-parity with the Windows systems (although MS' commitment and development of DirectX was a coup for them as "gaming" systems). By this time, both Commodore and Atari had filed bankruptcy. So much for their superiority translating into sales... And do we want to talk about the Crash-happy Debacle that was Amiga Workbench??? Did it EVER become stable, or was it always one "Guru Meditation Error" after another? But unlike you, I won't denegrate the designs of the Amiga or Atari 68k machines. They had some VERY clever hardware tricks (once again, 100% due to one man: The late, great Jay Miner), and at one point when I was considering embedding an Amiga 500 motherboard into a stage lighting controller, I was told that one out of four Arcade-level video games was actually running on an Amiga 500; unfortunately, neither the marketing nor the OS software could seal the deal, and so they are relegated to the dustbin of history...
Explaining to me the business concerns does not change my opinion on the product I need, that is not my problem.
Maybe not; but it IS Apple's "problem". And like every manufacturer of every product, they have to do a cost/benefit analysis for each and every major design decision of each and every product. In your little "me-centric" world, you may not recognize that metric; but then you've likely never been the CEO of a Company the size of Apple (nor have I).
The Mac Pro is targeting a vanishingly small segment of the market, but Apple has stood behind it...
Barely. When is the last time you heard "Mac Pro" in an Apple Keynote? Heck, they don't even include it when they haul out the "Mac Lineup" Slides at those events! I REALLY wish it weren't so; and I agree that it is a incredibly bold and frankly gutsy engineering and packaging achievement; but the "trashcan" Mac Pro seems destined to be discontinued...
I believe Apple could solve this neatly, way better than what we currently do with aftermarket cards, and manually mounting sensitive electronics.
You know what I think? I think that's why Apple has such a "nudge and a wink" attitude toward the Hackintosh community. My friends who like OS X, but want a bleeding-edge gaming system invariably build "Hacks". And you KNOW that Apple COULD lock-down OS X to REALLY only run on Apple hardware in about 2 seconds (remember, they were GOING to put Trusted Computing hardware/software into the Mac lineup (the original couple of Intel Macs actually had the chip); but then didn't. Why? My theory was that it was an intentional "backdoor" that allowed the hacker community to satisfy their desire for a "Mac" that was outside of what Apple could economically support. I also think that Apple hoped that high-end peripheral manufacturers would jump on the Thunderbolt bandwagon with both feet (the Mac Pro has SIX TB2 Ports, FFS!!!); but, for whatever stupid reason, they haven't been able to pull-off the same thing with Thunderbolt that they did with USB and the original iMac. Even high-end audio companies like Focusrite STILL haven't embraced TB wholeheartedly, and TB is tailor-made for that kind of application, preferring to use a TB to FW solution. They have only NOW come out with a few offerings that directly support TB (good on them!). Same thing with high-end video hardware. Yes, the original TB wasn't quite fast enough for high-end video; but that has changed... So where's all the high-end TB "video cards"???
:
However, by OFFICIALLY supporting Windows as a Dual-Boot system (with zero performance penalites), Apple TRULY created an environment where Gamers (and others with a want/need to run Windows) COULD have the best of both worlds.
What's not to like with that scenario? A Hackintosh will ALWAYS be cheaper than an equivalent Mac, just because there is no R&D cost, no Warranty cost, etc. Personally, I am not a gamer; so I would not likely build a "Hack"; but I think that Apple HAS actually "run the numbers" and decided that this is the best solution for everybody, without them getting into the whole "clone licensing" debacle again, and without admitting that they simply don't care what you install OS X onto (VMs other than on Snow Leopard Server notwithstanding).
And, I submit that Apple ALSO KNOWS when OS X is installed on a NON-Mac (all it takes is one little "phone home"), and is keeping track of those numbers for two reasons (and NOT for anti-piracy, which they could solve in other ways)
1. To see what percentage of HARDWARE sales they are losing to Hackintoshes
2. To see if perhaps there IS enough demand for machines outside of their current offerings.
It wouldn't surprise me there's a team developing a top secret version of OS X on the iPad Pro for the day when theyÂre forced to compete head-to-head with the Surface Pro. Why wouldn't OS X Macbook Air users benefit from a detachable keyboard and an iPencil...
I thought that the instant I saw the iPad Pro, too.
Everyone benefits from 10-20% more performance. There might be a relatively small number of people who NEED 10-20% more but everyone benefits from it. When every action you perform on a machine is instant and there are no longer progress bars or hour glasses no matter how many things you do in parallel or what operation you are performing THEN you no longer benefit from a higher performing machine so long as it remains this way in the face of all new software released for the rest of your life. We aren't there on any of our machines yet. You can buy the biggest and most powerful machine in any data center and it still won't be performant enough to achieve this today let alone future proof.
No, EVERYONE does not benefit from an increase in performance; only those who bump into the upper end of their machine's performance actually benefit from the extra performance. Otherwise, it is just wasted potential (and energy). Not to mention that the additional cost often does not justify that extra speed, if the bottlenecks are few and far between and unless the intended processes are truly CPU/GPU-bound, and the slowness is not due to any other constraint that is already in the top echelon of its performance.
And in case you haven't noticed, your "goal" will ALWAYS be unobtainable; because software will ALWAYS expand in computational requirements to fill the computational resources... PLUS 10 percent...
'It all comes down to "Do you want to work WITH your Computer" or "Do you want to work ON your Computer."' For some of us those two things are two intertwined there is little difference. I don't want to spend much time getting my computer up and running but playing with all the latest and greatest toys and understanding how they work inspires me when it comes time to work on things which get me paid.
I understand; and I truly do envy you for having that kind of free-time; but for me, those days are (somewhat sadly) over...
> I got all the "work ON my computer" out of my system (no pun) in the Apple ][ days.
I REMEMBER THOSE DAYS TOO!
Yeah, back when if you ran your Apple ][ with the cover ON (because you didn't get into the guts very often), you were considered lame...
I was QUITE the hardware/software developer for that wonderful little machine.Honestly, and in all modesty, probably one of the top ones in the country (USA) outside of some engineering employees at Apple HQ itself.
Good times, good times...
At the very least you know where the money is.
And that's the ONLY thing (good) that can EVER be said of Windows Development.
But I still wish they made one with a high end processor and a high end GPU (hint: AMD does not make any, but then either does Intel). I don't want to hear about "not needing the performance", that is a horrible answer on many different levels, and in point of fact, is wrong for some of us.
The problem is, the market for such a machine is vanishingly-small.
I would never say that SOME people might benefit from the extra 5-10% of performance (let's even get it to 20%); but you're only talking a couple of hundred-thousand machines WORLDWIDE. For a company the size of Apple, the numbers just don't add-up, for the extra R&D (both hardware and software), extra testing/support and extra supply and distribution logistics.
They don't mind shitting on Mac users either. They suck microsoft dick hard, it's where the money is at and they are whores after all.
Listen, asshole: I work developing Windows Application Software.
So I think I know which is better.
Don't mean to reply to my own Post; but apparently El Capitan can run on a 2006/2007 Mac Pro with all features, too!
Yup, only with a Mac you fall out of support entirely - a Mac Pro released in 2006 wasnt supported by an OS Apple released just 6 years later. Runs Windows 10 fine however. Hows that for stupidity?!
However, for the savvy Slashdot reader, you can easily make that first-revision 2006-2007 Mac Pro run later versions of OS X than 10.7 (Lion). I will admit, there are a few gotchas; but all in all, it works.
Here's another article that goes beyond the first one, giving Yosemite (and very likely beyond) compatibility. Oh, and the next Mac Pro hardware revision, 2008, apparently has no problems running the latest OS X. So, that would be eight years of support for that model (so far).
Apple is laging / thinking about going ARM.
I'm SURE that they have Prototype Macs running AMD, ARM, and maybe even something as prosaic as MIPS.
Apple has always wanted to keep their options open. They got caught-up once being kind of beholden to IBM and it PowerPC product timeline, and I doubt they will EVER make that mistake again.
And since OS X is pretty damned processor-agnostic, they can easily jump ship if the mood/market dictates.
Nope, but you do severely limit what hardware you can use.
So the fuck what?
It all comes down to "Do you want to work WITH your Computer" or "Do you want to work ON your Computer".
I got all the "work ON my computer" out of my system (no pun) in the Apple ][ days. Now, I'd just as soon get some REAL work done, thankyouverymuch!
But for some people, it's the only way they can feel like they have control over some small part of their empty existence.
Note that this does NOT apply to those who are actually DOING the Yeoman's work of DEVELOPING F/OSS Projects. For them, I only have awe and admiration at their combined talent and perseverance. Quite frankly, OS X in its current form simply could not exist without their efforts; so to belittle them would be ridiculous.
I am instead referring to the basement-dwelling ne'er do-wells that simply leech off the tireless efforts of others in the F/OSS DEVELOPMENT Community and expect everything to be handed to them for free.
Intel going Windows only and without AMD doing much they can.
You mean "Windows and OS X" only.
FTFY.