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Comment by gutnor | Hacker News Reader

> What are Pros supposed to do in the mean time? Keep buying PCs I guess. > How much would it cost R&D to update the Mac Pro?

I hope/think that Apple is thinking that bringing back the cheese grater or in other word a PC running MacOS is not going to be enough to bring back the pro. They need to come back with something that has something unique.

The TrashCan failed but you can see where Apple was going. A small, silent, powerful machine infinitely customisable on the fly via TB.

So of course if failed and this attempt has a good chance to fail too. I'm not quite sure that Apple has in its DNA the deep understanding of the type of Pro that are not content with either the iMac Pro or MBP in the same fashion they get the consumer sphere. It is just that for a long period of time the intersection between the 2 world was large but are now diverging. Perfectly happy for me to be wrong though.

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> I hope/think that Apple is thinking that bringing back the cheese grater or in other word a PC running MacOS is not going to be enough to bring back the pro.

Before they can think of "bringing back the pro", they need to stop the bleeding: pros who need to upgrade this year have no choice but to go PC. An upgraded cheese-grater would have been a good stop-gap while they go back to the drawing board on their 2019 product.

Certainly.

Right now I program Rails on an old 2012 MBPr. I want to get a faster machine. Possibilities:

1) Spend 5k on a iMac Pro. That's an absurd amount of money.

2) Get a new MBP limited by USB C, new keyboard, and the abominable Touchbar. That's a lot of money for a downgrade.

3) Get a decent specced iMac or Mac Mini. Most viable option.

4) Ditch Rails, start learning .NET, so I can go Windows 100% to build my own PC. I save money. I lose a lot of time.

5) Build PC, install Linux. Viable but might be a configuration nightmare. I just want to work.

6) Run Linux under Windows host as a VM. Second most viable option.

I'm pretty frustrated. Suggestions?

I've had pretty good luck with Linux "just working" these days. That said, this is coming from the kind of guy who runs Arch Linux, so take that as you will.

System 76 sells machines with Linux pre-installed. I've had good luck with these (replacing the default Ubuntu with Arch of course).

But:

7) continue developing Rails using Windows 10 and the Windows Subsystem For Linux

Overall my experience with WSL has been great.

7) buy an XPS or precision. Install ubuntu or another linux on it, or buy one with it preinstalled.

I did this, bought an XPS and a precision. Both refurbed in sales/with coupons, great specs. Cost me ~500 less than retail. Both like new.

Sure I'd prefer a mac, but its over double the cost for similar specs. I could look past the touchbar and ports. But not the keyboard

8) buy a librem. I don't know how good they are, though

> I'm pretty frustrated. Suggestions?

I suggest an upgraded 2009 Mac Pro.

The upgrades would include: flash to 5,1, 3.46 MHz Intel Hexcore proc, 32 GB RAM, SSD on a PMCIA card, and 5770 GPU. This should cost $1K USD or less, dual CPU (12 core) for a bit more. Mine Geekbenches at 3800 (S) and 17,800 (M).

I'm running one of these and it has been bulletproof and 100% hardware/software compatible.

That actually sounds fantastic. Can it drive a 4k display?

On 5, it's my home setup. SSH'ing to a local Linux box is fast and I'd already be using a terminal. I use it from both Linux and Macs and the only thing that bothers me a little is syncing the working directories. Most server grade boxes from Dell or Lenovo work with Linux perfectly and the tower ones are great workstations.

The iMac Pro is overspecced for Rails development. You can get a very decent Mac for much less. If you keep your work environment synced via iCloud or Dropbox, the problem of syncing I mentioned doesn't exist (I prefer the minor discomfort to syncing through a third party).

As for 6, get a Linux PC and run a Windows VM when you need it. It's better to have the decent OS host the crappy one than the other way around.

What's wrong with the iMac for development? $2500 for a quad core 3.44Ghz Core I5 with 32GB of RAM would make a nice development machine.

If you need more power for $2900 you can get a Core I7 4.2Ghz quad core with the same specs.

I'm not a Mac fanboy by any stretch of the imagination - I haven't bought a Mac in 12 years but I want to get away from Windows and don't want to futz with Linux. Getting an iMac would allow me to develop for iOS, Android, Windows, and give me a real Unix environment.

You can do .Net Core with a Mac. I am a Windows developer now, and will probably stick with .Net, but especially for hosted solutions, using Linux is a lot cheaper for deployment.

I agree that the iMac is a good choice, although it's a bit pricey for a stationary machine that shouldn't be constrained by power, size, or cooling. I am OK with paying a 100% markup for a well-designed laptop, however. Even with these objections I think that I will end up getting an iMac. Reluctantly.

You can run ubuntu natively without a VM on windows 10. It works really well.

Also configuring Linux is not the beast that it was years ago. Even on laptops it is fairly straightforward.

I feel the pain here too. It feels like macbooks have stagnated the last 5 years. I am struggling to do java / microservices development on my MBP. I just don't have the RAM and cores to run a lot of server processes.

I wouldn't touch the current slate of MacBooks. I prefer the Dell 2-n-1s - either business line or bought from the Microsoft store to avoid the bloatware.

The only Macs worth buying now are the iMacs.

7) Build a Hackintosh

While I have a Hackintosh, I'm not sure I'd want to get one if it was my primary computer. Granted, I haven't had any problems with mine, but all it takes is an update from Apple to break or brick it. Native Macs don't have that issue.

Its also a legal risk to do any kind of billable work on a hackintosh.

It might be unethical, but the risk is zero. Apple isn't going to sue you. Running unlicensed Windows is a significantly bigger risk.

The risk is pretty real, see my other thread.

If you don't have a legal office declared for business activities to the regulators, then yeah it might be zero.

If you have a real Mac/Macbook and a Hackintosh it would probably be hard to prove which was used for the work.

Except if you happen to live in a country where goverment authorities are entitled to search your office for illegal software.

Then good luck in court.

7) remote into a box in Azure or AWS when you need more power, still would be Lin or Win tho’

> They need to come back with something that has something unique.

That would be MacOS itself. That's all they need to bring a huge number of Pros who bailed on the entire Apple ecosystem back into the fold.

Well yes, but macOs was also much less buggy and much more stable a few years ago than now. I miss the days of Snow Leopard which was rock stable.

But until they bring back that stability, macOs won't be sufficient an argument to bring back pros I think

> They need to come back with something that has something unique.

Why?

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