Nightfox wrote to Jagossel <=-
I imagine Apple is frustrated with Intel right now, but companies sometimes go into a bit of a slump, but I don't think it should mean
Apple should drop Intel.
Nightfox wrote to Jagossel <=-
I imagine Apple is frustrated with Intel right now, but companies sometimes go into a bit of a slump, but I don't think it should mean Apple should drop Intel.
Just read an article on this. The author claimed Apple will be closing their desktop line in the not so distant future (rumor). I think it would be strange to invest in a new processor design, then close shop on desktops.
I imagine Apple is frustrated with Intel right now, but companies
sometimes go into a bit of a slump, but I don't think it should mean
Apple should drop Intel.
Just read an article on this. The author claimed Apple will be closing their desktop line in the not so distant future (rumor). I think it would be strange to invest in a new processor design, then close shop on desktops. Apparently, iPad Pro's, iPads, and other IOS devices are their bread and butter. They're not making that much from desktops.
It should be noted the article was based on opinion from viewing recent Apple commercials where Desktops are referenced to be outdated antiques. It's just the author's hunch, not literal fact. Apparently, the Mac line doesn't get much attention at the WWDC.
Just read an article on this. The author claimed Apple will be closing their desktop line in the not so distant future (rumor). I think it would be strange to invest in a new processor design, then close shop on desktops. Apparently, iPad Pro's, iPads, and other IOS devices are their bread and butter. They're not making that much from desktops.
eh... It would seem like a very strange decision to drop desktops altogether. And by "desktops", does that also include laptop computers? I can't imagine that not enough people would want those that Apple would decide to drop them. There are still types of work that I think are easiest on that kind of device. Also, I could see people adding a keyboard and a mouse to a tablet, and at that point it becomes basically like a laptop anyway.
But then again, Apple has made decisions to drop things ahead of their time in the past. The first iMac didn't have a floppy drive, at a time when people still used floppies, and I was also surprised when Apple decided to remove optical drives from their computers (and they never did even have blu-ray drives).
My Mac has a blu-ray drive. Er, though I grafted it in there myself. It didn't come with it.
Just a few months ago, there was an interview with Schiller where he acknowledged that they dicked things up with the trash can Mac Pro, and that they were going to be releasing an actual, modular, upgradeable Mac Pro that would be more mainstream and what pro consumers actually wanted. Since that machine hasn't arrived yet, I can't see them dropping the desktop line.
My Mac has a blu-ray drive. Er, though I grafted it in there myself. It didn't come with it.
Yeah, Apple never made an actual Mac model that came with a blu-ray drive as standard. I'm not sure what software (if any) might be available for OS X to burn blu-ray discs or to watch blu-ray movies on a Mac.
I always think it's good to have a modular and upgradeable desktop PC. Some of Apple's older ads for their G3 and G4 desktop Macs advertized easy upgradeability as a feature.
The ability to burn to a blu-ray disc is built-in to macOS. There are external USB burners that work fine out of the box for burning to and reading burned blu-ray discs. Playing a movie on a blu-ray is another story. There ARE a few pieces of software... Macgo Blu-ray Player and some other bits, that'll do it, but it usually isn't cheap, and kind of not worth it when you can just download a digital file of the same quality.
I guess that might be the argument AGAINST having such an expandable system, in that lots of users would rather beef it up and expand it rather than buy next years' system the minute it comes out, thus depriving Apple of their desired profit.
Interesting that Mac OS has the ability to burn to blu-ray built in when Macs never included a blu-ray drive (even a reader) as standard. The OS wouldn't necessarily have to have the burning feature built-in, since there can also be software just for burning to optical discs. Windows has been able to burn to optical discs for a long time, but I'm still used to using software such as Nero to burn optical discs.
I dunno.. I can see how Apple would want to sell a whole system, but I think upgradability is also a desired feature. If their computer isn't upgradable, I'd be more likely to buy another company's computer instead.
So upgradability can be a selling point. Sometimes you might find you need more RAM or hard drive space, or might want to put in a more powerful graphics card, and it can be useful to be able to do that. Speaking of that, I'm not sure what graphics cards are available for Mac these days, or if you can even replace them..
They definitely included that, which I discovered when I got an external blu-ray burner (it was on sale, and cheaper than the DVD versions). And there in my burning software was the full whatever giggage that a blu-ray holds. I eventually swapped the DVD drive in my MacBook Pro for a blu-ray just for the burning, though I don't use it enough to really justify it, so it might eventually be a second HD in there.
Since the switch to Intel, though, Macs are now just like any old PC. I am not sure about cramming better video cards in the trashcan Mac Pro, just because of the weird shape and maybe the cards need to be low profile or somehow otherwise mangled to fit, but the previous generation of towered Mac Pro should be able to handle any standard video card, assuming there are drivers for it available.
Since the switch to Intel, though, Macs are now just like any old PC. I am not sure about cramming better video cards in the trashcan Mac Pro, just because of the weird shape and maybe the cards need to be low profile or somehow otherwise mangled to fit, but the previous generation of towered Mac Pro should be able to handle any standard video card, assuming there are drivers for it available.
Yeah, the problem is finding drivers. I'm not sure if hardware makers for Mac make drivers that you can install like on Windows.
Surprisingly, macOS includes driver support for a lot of video cards that aren't actually sold as standard with Macs. Part of it, I think, is that Apple was really pushing the whole expansion-via-Thunderbolt thing, where you could have video cards in an external chassis plugged into any Mac via Thunderbolt, so they tossed support for as many as they could in there. Though, efficiency-wise, I've found that the Windows drivers are usually waaaay better than the Mac drivers.
I've heard Microsoft has been working on a version of Win10 that runs on ARM but I don't know of any such devices on the market yet. I thought it was st in development, and that PC makers were still working on ARM-based Windows devices.
I've heard Microsoft has been working on a version of Win10 that runs
on ARM but I don't know of any such devices on the market yet. I
thought it was st in development, and that PC makers were still
working on ARM-based Windows devices.
That wasn't the impression that I got years ago. I thought with Windows 8, they did come up with an ARM version of Windows, and it was called "Windows 8 RT", and was not well received by the consumers and Microsoft scraped the idea pretty quickly when Windows 8.1 was released (or at least pulled it off the market pretty quickly).
On 10-26-18 08:39, Jagossel wrote to Nightfox <=-
That wasn't the impression that I got years ago. I thought with Windows
8, they did come up with an ARM version of Windows, and it was called "Windows 8 RT", and was not well received by the consumers and
Microsoft scraped the idea pretty quickly when Windows 8.1 was released (or at least pulled it off the market pretty quickly).
On 10-26-18 09:56, Nightfox wrote to Jagossel <=-
though. This new ARM Windows 10 has the desktop interface and will run desktop Windows software, and even includes an x86 emulator for compatibility so it can run 32-bit Intel software on ARM.
That may have better luck, depending on how good the emulation is in
terms of both speed and accuracy. Time will tell. But will they get
it out in time, before all the popular Windows software goes 64 bit?
though. This new ARM Windows 10 has the desktop interface and will
run desktop Windows software, and even includes an x86 emulator for
compatibility so it can run 32-bit Intel software on ARM.
That may have better luck, depending on how good the emulation is in terms of both speed and accuracy. Time will tell. But will they get it out in time, before all the popular Windows software goes 64 bit?
What exactly is the advantage of having ARM processors? Is it just battery life? As I understand, obtaining additional speed out of a CPU is problematic due to the physics limitations of current CPU hardware. Therefore, it's unlikely that any CPU would outperform an Intel in the immediate future.
On 10-29-18 09:48, Nightfox wrote to Vk3jed <=-
That may have better luck, depending on how good the emulation is in terms of both speed and accuracy. Time will tell. But will they get it out in time, before all the popular Windows software goes 64 bit?
I'm wondering if a lot of Windows software will still have a 32-bit
option for a while, since 64-bit Intel/AMD processors can run 32-bit software without much (if any) performance impact.
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