Just some general thoughts on Apple: What I like about Windows is, it’s all about choices, freedom, and options. Don’t like a particular hardware setup? Use another one. That free painting software not to your liking? There are tons more that can take its place. The point is, I’m not locked in to any particular device/software quirks; I don’t have to look on the back of the box to find out if it will work with my computer. Why do you think Mac users (not all, but quite a few) have Windows emulation software ? I don’t see many Windows users trying to emulate MacOS – there’s no need.
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I’m sure that the apple engineers, the best ones, that happen in these parts, maybe they don’t dare to say anything about these choices …
but I am sure that they are smart enough to deem these marketing choices to be among the most bad
I agree, although there’s always an upside and downside to everything. For example, because Apple creates both hardware and OS, the configurations are relatively problem-proof. Now that I’ve switched from a Mac to a Windows system, I’m encountering some minor hardware connectivity issues, and slightly more Blender crashes, even though I’ve got tried and tested components, such as an NVIDIA GPU. Because Windows has to work on thousands of possible hardware combinations, there’s also more risk of issues. But I’m also glad Windows offers much better hardware configurability and software availability.
The people here that use or have used Apple products represent some slight successes in what ultimately proved a failed endeavor to break into new markets. Apple is abandoning those endeavors now because they have failed to generate new revenue steams.
Apple recently revealed some new products and services aimed at creating new revenue streams. Everything they just revealed creates new ways to bring more money in from their existing customer base.
One of the more interesting reveals was a credit card in which the most notable difference between it and other credit cards is that the card itself is made of titanium. Now this has literally no effect on the actual service, but it looks cool, it’s noticeable, which is exactly what Apple’s base wants.
Apple wants to be the Louis Vuitton of tech companies. People who wear Louis Vuitton aren’t concerned about how strong or durable the material is, they just want everyone else to see them wearing it.
P.S. It’s all about image. FOSS has serf written all over it and Apple is for the dukes and duchesses.
Well, my perspective as Apple user for decades (and me being in first half of my 3rd decade says that “most of my life”) is that I have used Apple products for one reason only - the operating system, not hardware. And not because of Louis Vuitton 
macOS is POSIX compliant, I spend half of my time in “terminal” and programming starting from C/C+ (compilers n shit) and OpenGL and also web devops (spinning local webservers n shit). POSIX under the hood allows me to do that in a way which is comfortable and mirrors the actual deploy environments (GNU/Linux). AND macOS supports “most” of industry standard stuff in terms of graphics apps (Adobe Suite), MCAD, ACAD where I spend other half of my time.
macOS was the only OS that supported this combo.
Note that I still used MSW alongside for VisualGDB stuff (yeah, tools for embedded programming on macOS sux, you can get eclipse up and running for STLINK, but live debugging in VisualGDB is great) and MSW specific stuff as Kinect SDK (in cases where libfreenect does not cut it).
OpenGL depreciation on macOS coincides with MSW “kind of” bringing POSIX to that OS via WSL. I can do webdevops now in MSW flawlessly. The graphics programming stuff is bit different as I am giving a go for MSVC, not directly going with mingw on MSW, but as I have written C/C++ OpenGL apps on MSW already earlier there is no issue, plus I am using helpers/ abstraction layers such as libcinder and openFrameworks so, yeah.
Currently my company still own about 8 Apple machines - macbookpro, imac, macmini (my favourites), trashmacpro. And there are few dead lying around, notably macbookpros (and one white imac) that were hit by bad thermal design and Apple not giving shit abut it.
Next computers both in company and personal use will be PC running MSW with tuned WSL as “macOS the only OS that gives POSIX and industry standard userspace apps” argument for most part now is stripped away, MSW offers that too now and is not the one playing 1984.
Note though that any time GNU/Linux would bring “the other half” on the table I would choose that over MSW personally.
I know that I am pro when it comes squeezing everything out from macOS . And from this merit stance I afford to argue that Apples “Pro” lineup stands for “Prosumer” at best, not pro poweruser. Their laptops are better than cheapo plastic PCs. I’ve been power user long enough to see Apples direction.
And Apple and FOSS. What they did with SAMBA implementation? macOS kernel is open source? Right with binary kext blobs? They are as open source as any big tech company nowadays, they do have opensourced things that serve their goals (swift is a good example).
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Investors don’t want to hear about how Apple is going to keep the value of their investments flat, they want to hear how those investments are going to grow in value. Apple’s market share has stagnated, this means they won’t be making more money by selling more devices to more people. The only way now to make more money is to pull more out of their existing customer base. This means the products themselves must increase in price, exactly what’s been happening, or more accessories and services need to be sold to the buyers of those products, again exactly what Apple is doing.
Many PC makers are like Ford or Chevy. They make money by selling lots of cheap products to lots of people. Apple doesn’t have that kind of market share, they need to be more like Ferrari or Lamborghini, selling a small amount of really expensive products. Now when you look at the market there what is it that these people are interested in? Image. They have a lot of money, they want people to know they have a lot of money.
What you’re talking about may have been true in the past, but Apple hit a wall and now they need to reassess their priorities.
Whatever. And whatever Apple decisions or reasoning, Apple is not he only hardware company and macOS is not the only OS. Hardware wise for me Apple now is smartphone company, not workstation PC company (for long time actually, and last macbookpro that I valued was 2012ish model or so). Apart from being iTunes company. I do workstation demanding tasks on the tool called personal computer. And it is not about the price, my target is Ferrari and I am willing to pay for it. Thing is Apple CAN NOT provide me with Ferrari. Maybe the looks, but not the engine. Maxed out MSW laptop in price does not differ from MBP, but supplies more. My choice is based on Apple OS decisions, that is - no open standard, cross platform graphics programming and compute API supported on the platform. I am capable of using any OS. And I am not saying that Apple is “bad”. I buy and use what best suits my needs. No emotions, just business.
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Amen. I’ve returned to a solid, up-to-date Windows PC after years of enjoying macOS, and I value both. I’m also not ruling out a return to macOS if the 3D situation improves in the upcoming years.
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Of course. People use term “switching” - the way it is usually presented implies / gives this notion of / gives weight for the dry fact that “I just changed used OS”. Ah, those social animals. My everyday is in 3 OSes. If tomorrow Apple gives me OpenGL or Vulkan, good for them, issue is still that hardware lacks. If tomorrow Apple also gives more than Razer Blade I’ll buy that. There is no right or wrong side, I do not spend my time on deep secular moral thoughts when it comes to buying PC, but I respect Stallman views (and I secretly root for red instead of green team 
, I’m flaaaawwwed… )
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From the top of my old head: a concise history of digital ‘my choice is better than yours’ battles…
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Atari 2600 vs Philips Videopac
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CBS Colecovision vs Mattel Intellivision
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Nintendo NES vs Sega Master System
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Commodore 64 vs Sinclair ZX Spectrum vs MSX vs Atari XL vs Amstrad CPC
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Commodore Amiga vs Atari ST
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Sega Genesis / Megadrive vs Nintendo Super NES
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Sega Saturn vs Sony Playstation
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Windows vs macOS vs Linux
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iOS vs Android
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Blender vs 3ds Max vs Maya vs Cinema 4D vs Modo vs ZBrush vs 3D-Coat vs Houdini
I’m probably forgetting to mention a lot here.
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- Reason vs informal logical fallacies
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I’m not attacking you or Mac users in general. I’m sure you’re a highly competent and capable technology consumer. I’ve never been an Apple customer myself, but as I understand it historically they’ve made very powerful products. While that was then I believe the company is, at this time, shifting gears to focus more exclusively on a particular audience.
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Say whaat, at which point there was something by you that could be interpreted as an attack towards Apple users? I did not read your long discussion though, just picked up on that Louis Vuitton analogy as entrance point for my perspective whereI just tried to deliver that macOS for my specific needs was not Louis Vuitton, it had some very specific characteristics (has POSIX, AND has most “industry standard” desktop apps available, AND had open standard cross platform graphics and compute API), but these are probably out of scope of Blender users, unless you are creating glTFs and writing and authorising your own PBR shaders (like real programming for desktop C/C++, having your own test environment of OpenGL, where you can iterate your GLSL, now SPIR-V, as well as use powers of POSIX to fire up devserver to test how Blender glTF creation looks with your GLSL100 shaders for WebGL n stuff, write and tune shaders there) along with them to be used in some kind of real time graphics, custom solutions (especially if you want to extend what current glTF supports, say parallax mapping, that enables further self shadowing etc). My context is not so much Blender as macOS globally discontinuing cross platform open standard API, because those end results at least in my case 99% run on debian based distros (apart for works where I am asked to create WebGL solution for Blender outputted glTFs, where server OS does not matter as it is all JavaScript), and right now in the times of ever growing power of SBCs need for OpenGL in the pipeline is even stronger, as those little bastards can run at most OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan is future for those platforms as SoC vendor laziness to write drivers. Thus I need my desktop bench OS to support OpenGL and in future Vulkan not only because of Blender, Apple cannot supply that. And even if you “offended” Apple users by stating facts, chill, it’s their issue of being offended and being empirically wrong. 
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The Louis Vuitton reference was not meant to be a desciptor of their current audience as much as a descriptor of the audience they wish to cultivate going forward.
I don’t remember “those early days” very well, but as far as I remember it has always been the case.
And for “programming/under the hood” I really don’t remember Apple promoting to general public that their OS
- is BSD
- bash, perl, python OOB
- Clang OOB (previously GCC)
- one can
make(brew installnowadays) nearly any stuff out there - and put it all together to create pipes for automated development/deployment
- and throw Automator stuff on top to bring POSIX powers to GUI side
Because it is not relevant to general public.
If you visit https://www.apple.com right now, then the landing page is
- iPhone X R
- iPhone X S
- apple tv+
- apple news+
- apple arcade
- apple card
- apple watch
https://www.apple.com/mac/ section talks about iMac and lists LogicPro, Adobe, Maya, Blackmagic among others. Those photographers and moviemakers do not care about OpenGL and rightfully so. Unless it works (and Metal works). It is Apple’s target audience and usage, unfortunately not on the most capable hardware.
I do remember visiting that site which talks about workstation https://web.archive.org/web/20060808193532/http://www.apple.com/
Most what they promote about macOS as OS for development is for iOS (outside developer conferences, where they talk a bit more). And they have never to my knowledge promoted stuff for poweusers. Everything else is Louis Vuitton. One could argue that I am (and there are others) using the OS as not intended by Apple. The thing that it is popular OS for say webdevelopers has come due to community, but not because of Apple targeting, they too are doing “not supported by Apple” stuff by firing up iTerm, running nginx, node.js, php-fpm, dnsmasq etc… I’m soooo glad that MSW introduced WSL.
I think that fashion conscious probably describes the core of their audience and has for some time, but, like you said, they do have customers in other markets so it doesn’t really describe the entirety of their audience.
It looks to me that Apple is abandoning those other markets to focus solely on their core. This is even evidenced here as we can see a few Mac users in this very thread who are part of one of those markets that fall outside Apple’s core audience and have decided to switch to another platform based on these recent decisions from Apple.
Apple knows who’s going to appreciate these decisions and who isn’t. I think exclusivity is their new direction and that’s really what that core audience wants. That core wants to accessorize, they want the extras, they want the titanium credit card and the magazine subscription service. Those other markets don’t usually care for that crap so much. Apple needs customers it can sell all the bells and whistles to because no one else is buying anymore.
And I mean some of us might think that’s kinda shitty, not just to the audience they’re abandoning, but to the suckers who are buying into the overpriced useless junk, but Apple is dying. People that like Apple products love Apple products and if they want to keep them well this is what it costs.
I loved the Mac G5, singularly for its beautifully engineered case. It was a masterpiece…
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few words to the wise
I stand corrected , I thought 3DS was available for mac and then it stopped supporting MacOS at some point. I mixed it up with Alias
Also the second excuse I found in their forums why 3DS was not ported to macos is pathetic to say the least. The first one is quite reasonable, the 3DS , according to them , is dependent on some Windows specific libraries which makes sense that would be a ton of work. Although they claiming not to have resources to port 3DS to MacOS is hysterical funny to say the least with the billion they make each year with their insane subscriptions.
But the second reason is what is teals the show of hysterical funny is that they claim 10-15% market share of MacOS does not justify the investment.
This is hysterical for 2 reasons
a) They know very well that mac user have much deeper pockets. Last time I checked iOS alone even though a dwarf compared to the market share of Android it still had significant larger revenue.
b) To claim that anything above 5% is something that can be dismissed on a financial or business perspective is insane to say the least. Yet they claim that a 10-15% market share that MacOS currently has cannot justify the port. Companies would kills their first born to have 10-15%. 15% that was the growth of the shipping sector alone, which I happen to work with, and its headline news in financial news sites.
Bottom line is that they are not popular fair and square, many massive companies failed to capture the platform.
Even in terms of programming when Apple was pushing for Java, the developers were screaming “yes” the users were screaming “nope”. As it happens with MacOS , users always win. Java was practically kicked out of MacOS by Apple and Sun back then (now Oracle) had to take on their shoulders the porting of Java to MacOS. So people would not laugh at their slogan “code once run everywhere”. Java had also huge issues and probably still has with penetration iOS market as well.
MacOS has been far friendlier to open source projects , Apple practically helped Gimp port to MacOS with their support for X11 which they eventually dropped because GTK3 now support macos out of the box, than it is to huge commercial Windows software.
If OpenGL was not practically the adopted child of Apple (they are the single reason why OpenGL became so popular before the arrival of Android) MacOS would have kicked out OpenGL as fast it kicked out Java and Microsoft Office and Flash and many others. The “adopted child” here meant that the entire MacOS GUI was highly dependent on OpenGL which is now dependent on Metal.
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