"...the sad state of MacIntosh Hardware..."

[Andrew O'Neill]

I prefer mac.

 

[Sirius Glass]

From my experience, Windows are cheaper to buy but more expensive to maintain with all the updates and patches, Mac OS isn't perfect, but requires much less work to maintain. In our department, they tried to get rid of Macs for the IT folks because they cost too much. I pushed back telling them that I can't support arts faculty with their Macs if I don't have one. Management could dictate what computers staffers use, but faculty have free reign in what they want to buy and use. Our tech team has 3 platforms to support, Windows, Mac and now IOS.

OP read this again: From my experience, Windows are cheaper to buy but more expensive to maintain with all the updates and patches, Mac OS isn't perfect, but requires much less work to maintain.

Uh, before jumping ship to PCs, just be sure you realize that Windows 10 is by far one of the stupidest, brain-dead softwares ever foisted upon the public. Sure, "PCs" are great, cheap, expandable, powerful....but, Windows is an absolutely hideous use of a PC. Linux? A brilliant OS with no software applications of any importance.
I have come to the conclusion that Windows is not as much an operating system as it is spyware, adware, and trackingware. You'll see.

I have had more trouble with Windoz 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 in the last ten years than I ever had on all my Macs since 1984!

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

+1

 

[faberryman]

My concerns are more with what is stated in the article link: Apple OS is rapidly obsoleting pro-grade workstations with no replacement in sight. Even MacRumor's Buyer's Guide is NOT enthusiastically recommending purchase of any new Mac Pro grade workstation.The 12 Core Pro we run at work is safe for now, but...

Apple announced it will be updating the Mac Pro next year. You should be able to struggle along with your 12 core unit until then.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Aren't religious discussions supposed to only take place in The Soap Box?

 

[4season]

HP's Spectre X360 is the best 15" PC notebook I've ever owned and fairly priced for what it offers. When running software like Lightroom, I switch freely between Windows and Mac and as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much the same, it's just a matter of what size of notebook or desktop I feel like using at the moment.

I'm less keen on Windows privacy, do not wish to automatically connect to hotspots suggested by my contacts (why would I ever want to?), don't want a personalized advertising experience, don't wish my usage data to be shared with Microsoft affiliates, don't wish to automatically receive a Skype account, don't particularly care to save my documents to OneDrive, and if I set up facial recognition with Windows Hello, I wouldn't want to see those biometrics applied elsewhere, like identifying me when I walk into a Microsoft store.

In terms of which companies I trust more with private data, I rank Microsoft below Apple but above Google and Amazon.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

just be sure you realize that Windows 10 is by far one of the stupidest, brain-dead softwares ever foisted upon the public. Sure,

We lost a valuable Toshiba PC running Windows 8.1 upgraded to Windows 10. All went quite well for about 2 hours, then...gonski!
The hard disk was not accessible after this. Our experience was just one of millions worldwide and a result of Microsoft zealously pushing its software without taking into account so many myriad variations in system software and fallabilities. Like others, we were blindsided and frankly, bloody furious. No work was lost because of a persistent backup cycle but as the PC was out of warranty yet still minty and a joy to use, it really hurt. Compensation from Microsoft wasn't forthcoming. Today, we do not apply any Windows updates without first applying to a "scapegoat" machine for sensitivity and stability, and ignore anything and everything Microsoft has to say about its operating systems.

 

[Kino]

Let me just state emphatically that I hate all Operating Systems equally and I have run a LOT of variants.

Starting with Atari OS, AIX, Unix, NEXT, DOS, Windows, Linux (a thousand distros) from the very start, etc, etc,; I have unavoidably wasted the greater portion of my life struggling with these abdominal boxes of melted sand and electricity!

So if you think this is some sort of fan-boy, religious-war, "stir-them-up" post, think again.

Sick and tired of having to upgrade perfectly good hardware so some twit can run candy crush at 4K.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Let me just state emphatically that I hate all Operating Systems equally and I have run a LOT of variants.

Starting with Atari OS, AIX, Unix, NEXT, DOS, Windows, Linux (a thousand distros) from the very start, etc, etc,; I have unavoidably wasted the greater portion of my life struggling with these abdominal boxes of melted sand and electricity!

So if you think this is some sort of fan-boy, religious-war, "stir-them-up" post, think again.

Sick and tired of having to upgrade perfectly good hardware so some twit can run candy crush at 4K.

My wife and I have better things to spend our money on. When our iPhone 4s had dying batteries, I bought both of us new batteries and we're still using our 4+ year old phones. Name any item in your life where you spend $500 and you upgrade it after 3 years?

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

My wife and I have better things to spend our money on. When our iPhone 4s had dying batteries, I bought both of us new batteries and we're still using our 4+ year old phones. Name any item in your life where you spend $500 and you upgrade it after 3 years?

Have pity on me then for witnessing the death of a much-loved LG G3 (LG's own version of the infamous 'blue screen of death') and having to make the jump to today's generation of ultra-fast, do-it-all mobiles. Took the plunge with our national flagbearer Telco as an 18 month lease with purchase option. Not surprisingly the contract remarks of an "easy and present upgrade path". No deal!! If my LG G3 were still beating along I would have no hesitation in keeping it for over the 4 years I had owned it — no upgrade needed or warranted and that's the case that shall remain now and into the future with this 4.6Ghz wunderkind.

 

[Sean]

Primary system is a 2014 macbook pro, has been an absolute workhorse and runs the same as the day I bought it. Fully encrypted and multiple time machine backups. It seems quite impervious to viruses, spyware, malware etc allowing me to trust it with my businesses, something I don't feel confident with on windows or android. For the most part, if someone were to steal my mbook, it is a total brick. I replace it, connect to my time machine backup and am 100% restored within minutes. I wish Apple would license their OS to other hardware manufacturers though. The pricing is insane.. If I wanted a new macbook I'm looking at $4,000 NZD! Which is why I'm still running a 2014 model lol.

 

[Sirius Glass]

When my previous Mac went belly up after fifteen years, I moved the drive to the new Mac Pro then I turned it on. I came up and said are you upgrading from a Mac with the second drive? I said yes and in a few minutes it moved everything over from the second drive to the primary drive with everything running and no intervention from me. The second drive became my backup drive. Do not try this at home with a Windoz computer.

 

[sissysphoto]

My stock portfolio thanks you Apple fans.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

pricing is insane.. If I wanted a new macbook I'm looking at $4,000 NZD! Which is why I'm still running a 2014 model lol.

There is hope. When New Zealand becomes the 7th State of Australia you will experience such wonders as 10% GST, cheaper computers of either persuasion, more widespread availability of photographic trinkets and our wonderful Prime Minister. Are you excited?

 

[ReginaldSMith]

HP's Spectre X360 is the best 15" PC notebook I've ever owned and fairly priced for what it offers. When running software like Lightroom, I switch freely between Windows and Mac and as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much the same, it's just a matter of what size of notebook or desktop I feel like using at the moment.

I'm less keen on Windows privacy, do not wish to automatically connect to hotspots suggested by my contacts (why would I ever want to?), don't want a personalized advertising experience, don't wish my usage data to be shared with Microsoft affiliates, don't wish to automatically receive a Skype account, don't particularly care to save my documents to OneDrive, and if I set up facial recognition with Windows Hello, I wouldn't want to see those biometrics applied elsewhere, like identifying me when I walk into a Microsoft store.

In terms of which companies I trust more with private data, I rank Microsoft below Apple but above Google and Amazon.

Excellent comments. I find Windows to be not just intrusive, but deceptive about the intrusions. I only recently discovered that Windows forces sleeping PCs to wake up and being communicating with the MS servers ostensibly to download the constant updates. As it turns out, it is nearly impossible to stop this by conventional means. Some of the options are so deep into the maze of settings that it would confound anyone's intuition about where to find them.

I now manually disconnect all my PCs from the Internet when I am not at the keyboard.

DOS was an "operating system." Windows and MACOS are not. They are the primary application of the computer, and exist to push commerce, and collect valuable user information. The bits that would qualify as an "operating system" for a PC are small and were finalized and perfected in 1985. Everything since is an evolution of the principle, "how to grow future profits from the user."

Google is by miles and miles the most offensive (and dangerous) player in the technology space. Apple and MS are not even in the same league.

 

[removed account4]

hi kino
im not a fanboy ... my family was using ibm and other
PC computers when i was a yoot but i ended up with a mac + ...i don't typically change brands unless i have trouble
and i really haven't had much trouble except for 15+ year old computers being orphaned but that's life...
i am not a person with a state of the art workstation but still, i haven't had viruses or hardware issues ...
i take that back, i did have trouble a while ago .. it seems
my computer was so screwed up " so bad" a nice guy called me from microsoft because he kept getting
"error messages" and i had to depress the window key and some other key and give him a code
so he could do whatever it was he needed to do and "fix" the problem.

 

[Lee Rust]

For decades, I've been able to operate my small business without an IT person because our four generations of Macs have been stable and relatively trouble free over the past 25 years. I just upgraded my decade old laptop because so many websites stopped working with the old browsers, and I found the newish (mid 2015) MacBook Pro to be a logical evolution. However the file system has become quite fussy and I find that I'm annoyed by many of the obscure and intrusive new user interface features that are meant to be helpful and fun. Fortunately, most of my old software still works, but I understand that the next generation will not be compatible with any of the old 32 bit applications. The almost complete absence of external ports on the newest models is extremely annoying too.

 

[faberryman]

Google is by miles and miles the most offensive (and dangerous) player in the technology space. Apple and MS are not even in the same league.

You don't have to use Google; there are plenty of other search engines.

 

[ReginaldSMith]

You don't have to use Google; there are plenty of other search engines.

Right. Of course I wasn't referring to "search engines," which is the very least of my concerns. MY concern is Android, YouTube, GMAIL, Google Assist, Photos, MAPS, Drive and the rest of the panoply of Googleware which vacuums up our every move and thought and message and location.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Apple and other tech companies have oversold their wares. Though many wonderful things have happened through high tech for me that included meeting my wife online and I earn my bread and butter working in IT. It's supposed to make us smarter and make the world more democratic. Some ways it's true. But we have all learned that too much faith in technology is a detriment. With Millennials addicted to social media, fake news on the Internet and our data being hacked it outright sold. I need to use technology with caution. I use technology. I try not to let technology to use me.

 

[Chan Tran]

From my experience, Windows are cheaper to buy but more expensive to maintain with all the updates and patches, Mac OS isn't perfect, but requires much less work to maintain. In our department, they tried to get rid of Macs for the IT folks because they cost too much. I pushed back telling them that I can't support arts faculty with their Macs if I don't have one. Management could dictate what computers staffers use, but faculty have free reign in what they want to buy and use. Our tech team has 3 platforms to support, Windows, Mac and now IOS.

I don't find maintaining PC is expensive. It takes some work from time to time but no big deal. I can buy a cheap PC if I just need one but I can buy a very powerful $40,000 workstation if I need the power. There are more choice in the level of power I need. Mac used to look good but not any more.

 

[RattyMouse]

https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2018/06/14/on-the-sad-state-of-macintosh-hardware/

Will Apple continue to be a viable computer platform in the future?

Last week I bought a new iMac. A few months earlier, I bought a new MacBook. Later this fall I'll be buying another MacBook for my son.

I'll never ever go back to windows.

 

[RattyMouse]

The only reason I have Mac's is for FCPX. I find PC hardware to be more reliable, upgradeable and future proof than the Macs.

I just retired my *2008* MacBook Pro. I got 10 solid years out of that computer, replacing only the battery a few times.

How much more future proof would I need? None.

 

[RattyMouse]

.
I have come to the conclusion that Windows is not as much an operating system as it is spyware, adware, and trackingware. You'll see.

Well said.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

What is driving development of all computers including mobile devices are computer games.