The “Mac vs other companies” debate is a bit wearisome and can never end, let’s save that for the hardcore tech forums and keep this thread as a place to chill 
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Windows and macOS have pretty much the same model for drivers, except macOS have moved drivers outside of privileged access. This avoids issues like the CrowdStrike outage.
And in what way are you left behind? When was there an issue with drivers being unavailable for Apple Silicon macs?
from the article “The initial production run is said to be for the base M5 model, rather than Apple’s more advanced M5 Pro, M5 Max, and M5 Ultra processors.”
So i guess M4pro, max and ultra for next round of studios and those M5 are for next macbooks?? I didn’t read the full article as I am very lazy.
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Not for apple silicon. He mentioned driver issue as that’s what is listed as a reason for dropping intel hw support for mac OS in 5.+ blender i suppose.
The whole debate got sideways a bit because I responded to a person claiming that windows is the reason why you can run blender on old hw.
And I think I failed to clearly communicate my point, that MS don’t care and windows is definitely not the reason, it’s the fact that they(MS-windows) have to support all kind of HW permutations since OS is not locked to HW…
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If you need to assign a different shortcuts to different display mode in Blender File Browser to make it a bit closer to Finder then take a look at:
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Actually the idea is mostly good for column view (horizontal list). Which I indeed miss when in Blender.
Also I miss Default Folder X, which is an add on to finder, with folder history, etc.
I don’t get anything useful to work with your horizontal view. If Blender wouldn’t had the settings for files in the viewer, you could also use System File Open Dialog. Maybe that coming some day.
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The Finder like Column view would be awesome. In theory it should be possible based on Horizontal View mode. I tried to use ChatGPT to create such a new Column View mode add-on but so far without success.
For now I’ve added option/shortcut to increase/decrease icons size in Thumbnail View - I’ve always missed that too.
Very curious if they will integrate the complete apps into macOS and iOS, or strip functions from them for their own photo processing app.
Looks like I am still using Pixelmator (renamed) “Classic” version from the App Store - from 2011 ! (Still works fine…)
But I do not see any hints of an update or “we are part of Apple now” thing 
Beside that there’s no need to update Pixelmator (I also have Affinity Photo, also first version), as it looks it is better to wait a bit, in case Apple releases a Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Pixel iLive Update with Mac Studio M5 Ultra release …
(Or better bring Aperture back 
)
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Affinity Photo 1.0 is good enough, but 2.6 comes with AI selection tools
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I still use Affinity Suite 1.x on my two (12 years) old Intel MacBooks Pro – they still work nicely with Open Core Legacy Patcher and macOS 15.3.1 . Though the oldest, with an i5, is somewhat on the slow side And I use 2.5 on my M1. The upcoming ML Tools from 2.6 tools will only work on AppleSilicon, should be released soon. Have not tested the Beta this time. Used all my “Beta testing times” for Blender and Plasticity.
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If you compare Pixelmator background removal tool vs Photoshop you will see how bad Pixelmator’s version is!
I also find that Photoshops healing brush also produces much better results.
Affinity is somewhat inbetween - not as bad as Pixelmator not as good as Photoshop.
Did not try Gimp actually
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I have long been convinced that the only chance of Macs with Mx Extreme processors was for Apple to return to server manufacturing. Could it be that this is just becoming a reality? Server production is expected to start later this year. Could it be that the Mac Pro / Studio with the M4 Extreme is coming, by the way?
“As part of this package of U.S. investments, Apple and partners will open a new advanced manufacturing facility in Houston to produce servers”
“The fund’s expansion includes a multibillion-dollar commitment from Apple to produce advanced silicon in TSMC’s Fab 21 facility in Arizona.”
Apple will spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years
Could be.
Could be different though.
Let’s see how long it takes for a M4 Ultra to arrive … and if it’s the kind of Ultra we expect. Or if Apple skips M4 again for some reasons and waits for M5 or such things (?).
I still wonder how big the market for an expensive M Extreme could be and what it would be used for. An AI workstation (?). Then it could be similar to the Server chips and less than our consumer M4s.
In my opinion, it’s impossible for a Mac not to come out with Ultra SOC this year.
I was just thinking about this. The workstation market is probably too small for it to be worthwhile for Apple to create a huge and expensive processor just for that market. But if they could unify the production of the main chip that sits on the SOC board for workstation and server, then maybe it would make sense. Presumably such a chip would be more complex than the existing Mx series processors, as it would need to be able to use high-speed interconnects between multiple processors. The workstation version would simply not have the connections brought out on the SOC board.
It is clear that Apple has a gigantic demand for servers and I have wondered why they have not produced server hardware for themselves for so long. Maybe that’s how long it took them to somehow get around the limitations of the Mx processors.
Looking at Trump’s attitude towards Europe, I wonder how manufacturing hardware in the US will influence Apple’s product pricing in Europe. 
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I think Europe as a whole should start looking after itself and stop looking to its uncle in America. Europe needs to become strong by some miracle, including technologically. For now, Europe is in shock, but perhaps something good will come out of it yet. The child must finally grow up, move out of his parents’ home and start living independently. Otherwise it will continue to be a pathological situation.
If Apple has the vision to lose part of the (very important) European market, they will take some of the costs of this finite idiot’s moves on themselves. The American people have made that choice. Such is the charm of democracy. We have to deal with it. In a few years someone else will come along.
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I think the same.
But how often Apple since under Cook did things that I would have seen as senseless, irrational and absolute no go. Or by current other prominent persons in general …
So I try to be prepared for larger disappointments
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