[Skijumptoes]

Originally Posted by cyrano

First off, OSX should work even for the uninitiated. And secondly, there's hardly any docs at all from Apple. We seem to have to work it all out ourselves, with the help of sources like MacAdmins.

Are you signed up for the right accounts with Apple, for developers and server ops there's tons of in-depth documents for us, plus higher level help if you need it, although they're not all accessible publicly, it's easy to sign up for.

As for the uninitiated, i think that's part of the the problem that Apple have had to dumb things down, or hide things up for the masses. And spread OSX/MacOS thinner than it ever has been. It just comes with popularity, it's like people who give Windows a hard time, it's an incredibly well written OS that's just a victim of it's own success.

Bottom line though, for me personally OSX, and MacOS is still really good, barely see an issue, and any issues i have to sort are normally driver, user or some kind of internet browser add-on causing havoc. Very rare will it be intrinsic to MacOS itself.

Originally Posted by cyrano

Besides, my numbers come from fleets in the corporate/edu world. Most users aren't really knowledgeable when it comes to their computer.

In my experience, many corporate users love it when a machine goes wrong anyway, and they do all they can to get the system to fail so they can shrug their arms up and eat from their 'graze' box. Never been involved in public sector/edu work though, but in the UK that used to be a money pit and spending was through the roof - but things have changed recently with Govt spending over here, so not sure how that effects many of the creative Edu installs, who may have a strong Mac bias.

Originally Posted by cyrano

I've given up on Safari. I use Chrome and Vivaldi for daily work. Safari is kept clean. No extensions, no bookmarks even. It takes forever to load and it isn't as fast as the two others.

I use around 6-7 browsers for testing web deployments, so i have many running - however, i always come back to safari. I haven't a clue why, as it's undoubtable that Chrome is better, particularly if testing web stuff (It doesn't get stuck in a loop if javascript is wrong for example). I just use Safari for no logical reason whatsoever, i think i've seen so many overloaded Chrome installs that i immediately relate that to it, perhaps! ...I really don't know why i use it.

Originally Posted by cyrano

I gave up Logic when it was at 9.0 because of the time it took Apple to fix the many bugs.

Yeah Logic 9 was weird, it was active, then they went quiet.. Then it went App Store and had a mini push again, and then LPX popped out of the blue!!

Must say i love LPX, but it has so many of the old cogs running, and which is why i'm reaching out to Reaper for a while to see how it runs. And i must say i love the flexibility, customisation, but most importantly it seems to fit my workflow so much better.

Really miss the components in Logic though, but i'm building them up via third party deals that i'm seeing around the internet.

I've also got Studio One Pro as it came up super cheap if you already own a DAW like Logic, think it was like $100 or something silly on offer, and also recently got a Cubase License so trying that. But right now, i'm snagged up with Reaper as it does a lot of good things, most important is SysEx for my hardware, Studio One won't even handle that. As a multi-machine user, I'm hoping i don't have to go Cubase, because the Dongle thing!

I bet, as usual, i'll end up running back to Logic within 2-3 months, but time will tell! There's so much to love and so much to hate with Logic.

Originally Posted by cyrano

And I've given up on stuff like iMovie, because Apple killed it. Things like Pages

Again, i don't know why, but i reach for pages when i'm writing some technical docs or instruction manuals for some new software build and EVERY TIME i hit an issue, a feature that has been removed, i mean really silly basic things that Pages cannot do (Like moving pages!!!!), and i think what is going on.

But then you learn that the whole app(s) has been reduced so that they have IOS and MacOS in sync with one another. Which is cool, not for me personally, but i get that a lot of people love that - however, you're left to do that same old thing with Apple where they knock the tower over and then you have to wait for them to rebuild it again so you can get back on to working on the higher floors!!

Originally Posted by cyrano

I"ve been a Mac user since 1986 or so. But I've managed hundreds of Win machines back in W2K era. Glad I don't have to do that today

I'm still between them Mac/Linux/Win, and i'm not really fussed what i use if i'm honest, not such a big fan as windows but that's mainly as i run virtualisation of real machines for work, so i don't have a straight up 'windows' machine to really appreciate it's added grunt from my CPU's.

Right now, it's shame Reaper doesn't have good MCU support for Mac users, as the Klinke add on is only for windows users. If i really enjoy using Reaper, then for that reason alone i may be jumping to a windows machine for my music. I don't want to, but i'm really not biased one way or the other if it gets the job done.

I've not made money from music for about 2 years now, so it's settling down to be a hobby and music has been much more enjoyable for me, and i can kinda buy equipment that i want, rather than 'need', but most importantly not tied to a particular DAW.

Originally Posted by cyrano

The TonyMac scene has a lot of VERY knowledgeable people. And they are not fanbois. I also still support many Mac Pro users for photography and audio.

You seem a very handy person, i may be asking you for advice within the coming months!

And yes, the TonyMac scene is good. However, in my experience, There's a whole load of people that try to free ride the work that gets put in, offer nothing back, and then masquerade as legit Apple hardware users on other forums, damning Apple and demanding a fix for issues they've caused themselves.

Originally Posted by cyrano

In fact, I've built a PPC machine recently, for an artist who was so fed up with some plugin that comes with a built-in shop today that he went back to OS9 to get rid of all the cloud stuff. And, lo and behold, that ancient stuff is faster too.

Yeah i still run a few PPC's, basically to manage some old MIDI hardware i own - and some astrology software (geek out lol), i love the old 08/09 Mac Pro's - those 12 core upwards are killer beasts for the money, i may start collecting them as i've seen some go for silly money.. .Like 100 UK pounds (140-ish).

Originally Posted by cyrano

And, no, definitely NO USB-C. That's turning into the biggest money pit I've ever seen. AV Pro's with one of these new, light, slender MB Pro's also carry a big bag of USB-C adapters these days.

Is that not appeasing the masses again? I mean, i'm the same with phones, if they kept the iPhone 5 kinda profile and worked on it's battery life - i'd be quite happy, but they have to slim it down and down, moving ports and all this other stuff, so you never actually gain on things that matter!

However, nearly everyone i speak to thinks i'm made for being happy with a 'fat' iPhone 5!

Originally Posted by cyrano

What's definitely worrying me, is repairability. Apple obsoletes machines after 5 years, these days. That's simply not long enough to warrant the high price. HP's latest are beginning to look very interesting, with a 4 TB SSD, 32 GB ram and a 4 GHz processor, under 2.000$. That leaves budget for a new interface...

I think Apple, since moving to Intel are now going through a period where CPU's have kinda stagnated a little bit. When you compare a 5 year old mac to what's available now, the technology has changed but really the CPU power etc. hasn't jumped in leaps like we're used to.

I think it's that change in technology (i.e. frameworks like Metal etc.) which is causing them to obsolete machines.. It's a big change really in that we'd all run on basically the same tech and the hardware would keep increasing... Now, it's the other way around.

I don't know if you see it like that, or Apple are just money grabbing swines. My biggest concern, like you, is with these silly ports and adapters, oh and when they solder the RAM chips in a board, that's unforgivable. If they do that crap again and it's on the product like i'm looking at, i will walk away immediately.

Originally Posted by cyrano

And since REAPER works with Debian/Wine, there's not much left keeping me on OSX.

How does that work for you? I've often wondered with WINE, particularly with the Mackie MCU/Klinke thing. Does it give near true performance if you were to put windows on that same box do you know?

Originally Posted by cyrano

Renaming OSX to MacOS. Even their own devs don't want to use it. It makes finding anything on the net a real pita.

Coming from the dev world i find that many really like to use 'MacOS' to correct anyone who accidentally uses 'OSX', that's my experience of it, it's an elitist thing for most devs i'm sure! One thing though, I find he ObjC/Swift thing can be a little confusing when looking through forums and/or searching the net though, from a coding perspective.

Apple are very heavy on pushing swift.