TapeOp editorial re: leaving Mac for Windows

[BobK]

it seems like Apple is leaving us behind.

I agree.

The tipping point for me is hardware. I haven't had major software problems for a while now, though I am concerned about frequent macOS updates causing compatibility problems.

I don't know what the El Capitan problems are that he mentions in the article, but I recently installed it on my 2009 MacPro and so far everything seems fine. (My main music apps are the latest versions of ProTools, DP, and Sibelius.) My laptop runs Sierra, and it seems fine.

I don't need to update either of my machines just yet, but if I needed to right now, I'd seriously consider switching to Windows because none of these options seem very good:

2016 MacBook Pro: IMO, removing physical Escape and Function keys, SD slot, Ethernet port, and standard USB ports is absurd; RAM is still limited to 16GB; and the price went up.

Mac Pro: aging; was too expensive for me when released; I preferred the tower form factor (I have five drives in my cheese grater)

Mac Mini: seemed promising as a music computer, but I suspect Apple realized that making it too powerful would poach sales from their other lines. In any case, it's overdue for a refresh; RAM isn't user-upgradeable and capacity is limited to 16GB; and the latest version's CPU went from 4 to 2 cores.

That leaves the iMac. I've always preferred to have a separate display and CPU, so I'd be hesitant. I seem to recall people mentioning fan noise.

As for the latest OS features, I couldn't care less about Siri on the Mac; I won't allow Apple's cloud services anywhere near my Documents folder (Sierra tries to get you to sync Desktop and Documents folders via iCloud Drive); and when I see reviewers raving about all the Emoji possibilities, I want to tear my hair out.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Not ready to drop my 2013 or my 8 core cheese grater but if if get a laptop it'll be a touchscreen PC. More likely a giant iPad.

[mikehalloran]

... if if get a laptop it'll be a touchscreen PC. More likely a giant iPad.

My thought, too. I couldn't warm up to the IBM, though. Had the new MacBook come with a touch screen, I would have spent the $$$$.

Instead, I went for the big iPad and glad I did.

I won't allow Apple's cloud services anywhere near my Documents folder

That's not the way things work. There's no interaction between the two.

[BobK]

That's not the way things work. There's no interaction between the two.

ICYMI, a new feature in Sierra offers to sync your desktop files and documents folder via iCloud drive. It's optional, but my point is that Apple continues to try to push people into using their cloud services. (I tried iCloud drive, and it sucked compared to Dropbox. YMMV, of course.)

[SixStringGeek]

There's a reason the reddit audioengineering sub is loaded with hackintosh building tutorials.

Apple has dropped the ball on the computer market, but they still happen to have the best OS.

What to do? They don't want to sell me a modern computer...so I should just wait around?

People are taking the bull by the horns. It isn't easy but it does work. I can't blame them since Apple doesn't seem to want their money.

[Michael Canavan]

There's a reason the reddit audioengineering sub is loaded with hackintosh building tutorials.

Apple has dropped the ball on the computer market, but they still happen to have the best OS.

What to do? They don't want to sell me a modern computer...so I should just wait around?

People are taking the bull by the horns. It isn't easy but it does work. I can't blame them since Apple doesn't seem to want their money.

This is the confusing part to me. A friend who worked at apple for 15 odd years still talks to the guys he worked with and they pretty much say Apple isn't a computer company, which isn't to be taken seriously really, Apple is notorious for close lipped people, even to ex employees, that could very well be distraction, but it's very very possible that Apple will not upgrade the Mac Pro line very often. The iMac is now very capable, the i7 chips are more than fast enough, and really if you need massive amounts of power hungry plug ins a slave running VSL Pro is the way to go.

It's very possible Apple is just fine with throwing minimal monkey wrenches into OSX to make it slightly more difficult for most people to use a Hackintosh, driving most of them towards an iMac etc. and with the aforementioned VSL Pro they can then use the old Hackintosh with Windows on it to host VSL Pro.

Personally I'm very comfortable in OSX, all the stuff Tape Op dude talked about was maybe an hour of monkeying around with Notifications. It's annoying as f#¢k for sure, they make you turn off everything one at a time, and everything is turned on.. but it's not a "learning a new OS then dealing with it when it goes south on you for some reason and you don't know enough about that OS to really tackle it well" level of frustration.

[kassonica]

The Iphone killed the mac for serious creative users

Mac is becoming the microsoft of the 21st century

I'll never go over to Windoz, But I hope a 3rd player comes in like mac did way back in the day and change the game...

Rant over

[Michael Canavan]

The Iphone killed the mac for serious creative users

Mac is becoming the microsoft of the 21st century

I'll never go over to Windoz, But I hope a 3rd player comes in like mac did way back in the day and change the game...

Rant over

I'm a nerd about this, but Apple weren't necessarily the '3rd player', home computers offered little ease of use, and IMO at that point only Performer and Opcode were truly decent sequencers. Windows won by attrition, they established themselves in the business community by price point and IBM being the business name brand... It took until the 90's for them to offer decent sequencing, and still jitter was much worse on Windows until a little before 2000.

I don't think Apple are going anywhere, but I do think the Pro line will be phased out. With all due respect though, the iMac will do for 98% of the music market, and an iMac with a slave PC is still a bigger track count option than a single PC.

In my perfect world scenario Apple release OSX into the wild, thus allowing and begging the end user to buy their laptops, phones, tablets, for compatibility and familiarity reasons, thus slowly biting into Windows hegemony.

[mikehalloran]

That's not the way things work. There's no interaction between the two.

ICYMI, a new feature in Sierra offers to sync your desktop files and documents folder via iCloud drive. It's optional, but my point is that Apple continues to try to push people into using their cloud services. (I tried iCloud drive, and it sucked compared to Dropbox. YMMV, of course.)

You still don't understand how it works. For those with long memories, this was offered in limited form in OS 10.4 and it worked fairly well for iWork. That functionality broke in 10.5 and has not really come back although the current version of iCloud has come closer.

I agree that Dropbox is better but it works differently than iCloud. At $99 a year compared with 99¢ a month for 50G iCloud storage, upgrading Dropbox hold no interest for me. I have 3G free on Dropbox and that works just fine.

My iPad and iPhone are synced to iCloud since 2008 for backup, Notes and a few other apps but I do not have my Documents folder on my iMac synced even though I pay the 99¢. The only apps I use that way are Pages (iCloud) and Office (Dropbox).

[cuttime]

So how exactly does this work?

[bayswater]

Windows won by attrition, they established themselves in the business community by price point and IBM being the business name brand...

Yes, they were the business brand, but price was not a winning factor. I was there at the time and lost the argument. The pitch IBM made to IT managers was that if they went with Apple, they would lose control of the user community who would then be able to do whatever they wanted and make IT managers irrelevant. IBM, and later Microsoft knew that it was IT departments who made the computing decisions in businesses, not users, they knew what the IT departments wanted to hear, and they knew Apple could not deliver it.

[James Steele]

There's also the famous line regarding sourcing computers for business back then: "Nobody's ever been fired for buying IBM."

[mikehalloran]

There's also the famous line regarding sourcing computers for business back then: "Nobody's ever been fired for buying IBM."

Beat me to the punch on that one. Absolutely true.

The inroads that the current Mac has made in the business world began with the switch to Intel and the implied promise that, if the MacOS didn't work out, they could switch back to Windows.

When Win was no longer required for my company's email, it was about the time that PCs were no longer supplied to the field. I may have been the first to switch after my stroke but the floodgates opened and the vast majority of us now use Apple. We spend our own money.

[Gravity Jim]

Can anyone explain to what's missing from the "trash can" Macs that make them "out of date?" Seriously, is there some feature or connectivity that came along that they should be updated with?

Or is this just the usual speed-shop BS chatter where everyone expects an update and didn't get one?

It's a lot like Wall Street: a bunch of investment clowns who only know Apple (or any major company) from the outside project earnings (not Apple's numbers, but their own), and if Apple (or the afore mentioned Any Major Company) misses this outsider prediction by even a few 100,000 bucks, the stock price falls. Because the company didn't live up to the expectations of a group of racetrack touts.

Who cares what YOU think Apple should do? I just want to know exactly what makes the latest MacPros outdated.

Plus, which, it ain't Apple, Mars. Everybody is ignoring the desktop market. Because it's deadsville.

[frankf]

Not outdated for me Jim. I just picked up an Apple refurbished trash can 2.7GHz, 64GB RAM, 1T SSD, D500 video cards for just under $4500. Eligible for AppleCare too. At that price, I couldn't resist. Any expansion I need for film composing is done via Thunderbolt 2 or USB3. It was a no brainer for me coming from a MP 3,1. A Dell 4K 27" monitor is a beautiful retina like thing with DP. It's also 19 pounds. I put it in a backpack and walked 20 NYC blocks last week.

To answer your question though, the next rev will most likely have USB 3.1 and TB3 which are certainly connectivity improvements. Are they necessary for music production? Maybe, but not here.