For years, I've been the biggest supporter of everyone using a Mac, except gamers. Especially if you are a photographer or graphic designer, it just makes sense and it always has. But as current events unfold it's becoming harder and harder to stick with the platform, no matter how great it actually is.
The Good About Apple
The Mac operating system is what makes it so great. It's not so much the hardware, although it is very nice high-quality hardware. That said it's still commodity hardware and they are using Intel processors just like PC. It's not about the hardware really for the "user" anymore. The operating system (when you know how to use it as a power user) is what makes things so efficient and effective for graphics professionals in general, and especially photographers.
The MacOS Finder is truly incredible and as I mentioned before in my Mac tips. Little things like right-clicking the header of an open document to open that file's containing folder (or anywhere in its tree with ease) is vastly superior to Windows.
The reliability of MacOS is probably a decade ahead of Windows, no joke. There's no comparison on reliability.
I won't just make a statement like that without explaining why. The reason is Apple licenses the OS to work with their own hardware built computers. Meaning they know exactly what configurations of Apple computers are running their OS, since they manufactured them all. Windows, in contrast, has to "generalize" many things to be able to work on an infinite amount of different hardware configurations. On PC Part Picker alone you could configure a PC with thousands of different setups and the one operating system Windows, has to try and work with all those different configurations. That is a lot more difficult than making an OS work with your own handful of specifically built hardware, therefore the reliability of the Mac by that alone is very solid before even getting into the BSD derivative base system that MacOS runs on.
Apple Versus Windows: The Pros and Cons
Either operating system, Windows or MacOS, is capable of running the programs and getting the job done. They differ greatly in workflow, but they do run the same programs with relatively the same capabilities. Windows even has a few little things that are better than Mac, such as the ability to customize extra mouse buttons if you have say, a seven-button mouse. Mac has never been able to utilize those buttons and that's a real shame because that one little thing can make a tremendous difference in efficiency when utilized. As cool as that feature is, it doesn't make up for all the benefits MacOS provides, but it's something.
Bottom line, a capable computer user who has above novice level computer skills can use either operating system and get your work done.
Why Apple Is Making a Grave Mistake
Here's the scenario: I have one of my workstations that's a 2006-2008-era Mac Pro and when it was new it was leading edge quad-core with 32 GB RAM, 512 MB GPU. Now the Apple operating system is designed well unlike Windows which I believe is planned obsolescence the way the registry is structured, Windows actually slows down the longer you use it. MacOS will stay the exact same speed, however the perceived speed will change as software continues to develop and become more demanding. Cameras get higher megapixels, software has new features that are more processor and GPU intensive; those are the things that are making my 06-08 Mac Pro not work as well as it once did. It's the same speed it was in 08, but that's not good by today's demanding standards.
Apple's Mac Pro releases are few and far in between and the last release was the 2013 MacPro, and it was absolutely cutting edge with the 2nd Gen PCI-e SSD, good GPU, fast RAM, Thunderbolt, etc., but it's now four years old already and in computer terms that is an eternity.
So, my options for the 06-08 workstation Mac Pro? I could buy a used 2013 Mac Pro for still close to $2,000. That's a lot of money for an already four-year-old technology, and while they are fast and work well they still are much behind the current curve of fast processors and hardware architecture, such as the i7 7700. For example, for less money than a used 2013 Mac Pro costs, one could buy this. The 8 GB GPU, i7 at 4.2 GHz, DDR4 RAM, SSD. That computer, performance wise, will run circles around a 2013 Mac Pro. You can back a few of those specs down and be around $1,000 for a really fast modern-architecture computer system.
This makes it very difficult to buy a four-year-old used computer that has half or maybe less the performance specs for twice the money. Yes, MacOS is ideal for what I do, but at some point hardware that is 20x faster has to make a difference. Yes, there will be some negatives about the Windows OS to deal with (such as having to deal with some kind of anti-virus), as well as a few positive little things like the mouse button customization.
Further doubling down on Apple's mishandling of the pro market, they announced at the keynote that there won't be a new Mac Pro desktop built, rather a new iMac Pro which does boast some nice specs, but I hate iMac's for professional use. They are a great home or family computer, but I require more customization than that. What if I don't like the screen size? What if I want extra HDs or a different GPU? With the Windows build if I want a different GPU I can just pop out the existing and add a new one, no big deal.
Then there's the cost of this new iMac Pro at a rumored whopping $5,500 or more.
So Apple is leaving a certain market of professionals behind with the path they are headed down, a really expensive high-end iMac which I don't want anyway, or pay a lot of money for really old technology and there's no in-between. That's a rough place to be in because I truly love MacOS and what it gives me for my workflow. Windows will definitely be cumbersome but the speed of the computer is so much farther advanced, that it is appearing to now be the lesser of two evils.
Apple is essentially forcing my hand and likely many others. There will be a few markets left for them as professionals, since some folks may like and be ok with an iMac Pro and have the $5,000-plus to buy one. The rest of us are left with a tough choice. In the past, I have been happy to live with four-year-old hardware to not have to deal with Windows, but the gap now is only growing in performance due to the lack of Mac Pro production, so at some point it makes more sense to deal with the hassle of using Windows for the performance while saving a bunch of money and increasing future upgrade options without having to go out and buy into a whole new system.
It seems Apple is gearing heavily toward the consumer market and as a business decision that makes sense since there are a lot more regular consumers than graphics professionals. But it also seems like a huge mistake to abandon the original customer base that made the Apple computer so strong and good, evolving into what it is today.
What do you think? Is this really the end of the line for feasibly using Apple computers for professional photography?
From my experience, the bottleneck for stills are Lightroom and Photoshop rather than the specs of your computer.
“they announced at the keynote that there won't be a new Mac Pro desktop built”
Did they? I clearly remembered reading this earlier in the year: https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives
Yes, Bill, Apple has become a "bottom-line" only corporation, and a very successful one. Unfortunately for us photographers, Apple no longer considers the graphics professional market a significant part of their bottom line. Thus the lack of R&D investment and new products.
And for those of you who think the iMac Pro is a significant solution, do you not require a wide-gamut monitor (100% Adobe RGB) for production? Its big beautiful retina display can only be used as a palette monitor at best, a VERY expensive secondary monitor.
My first Apple was a new Apple II, and I have been using Macs ever since. But I have also used PC's for accounting and business, so I'm no stranger to both OS's. My ten year old Dell PC still works fine, so I harbor no illusions about Mac hardware being any better than a premium PC build. My ten year old Mac PowerBook died three years ago.
I feel your pain, Bill. Next month I will be replacing my aging 15" MacBook Pro with a biz-level Dell workstation. My refusal to participate in Apple's "new flavor every year" OS upgrades to avoid production problems has (as intended by Apple) rendered my Mac obsolete relative to the software I need to run. Years ago I made a decision not to join Apple's "eco-system" of inter-dependent products and services. I'm free to decide what's best for my business and creative endeavors. And that's no longer Apple.
a truly high quality professional 4K and up monitor (and not the regular tv / monitors in that range) for a PC is not cheap really!
the price you pay for an iMac is not for its "palette" monitor only but includes a really good computer too!
so, for most pro photographers out there, that's quite an option even if its monitor is not per specs of your expectations ...
(a pc user photographer videographer graphics artist IT specialist here btw!) :)
I used Apple until my laptop battery swelled and screen backlight started shuttling down at random. Until installers wouldn't even let me install basic editing apps because I didn't have a dedicated graphics card. To remediate the issue, I installed Linux, and not only did it work, it let me install any piece of software I wanted, and these worked too. I wanted to buy a new Apple laptop, but at the same time they came out with models that it was near impossible to upgrade in significant ways.
I like OS X, and think it's a good OS. Much, much better than Windows. By miles. I absolutely hate Windows. But I also don't like buying an expensive computer on which I lack control. So I bought a PC, installed a Linux distro on it. And you know what? The OS works really well. There are some features I wish it had that OS X or Windows have, but overall, I found it the least frustrating to use. I have a laptop with an i7-7700K, a GTX 1070 desktop version, 32GB of RAM that I could upgrade to 64GB but don't need to, and three drives. Two m2 drives and a 2.5" SATA SSD. When the i7-8700K arrives and is tested, if it is significantly more powerful than my current processor, I'll be able to make the switch. In a laptop. Same when NVIDIA comes up with new graphics cards.
I couldn't do that with an Apple laptop, unless I go back to the time they were running on PowerPC. And I couldn't do that with most PC laptops either.
Graphics wise, I had to relearn to use open source software instead of Adobe, and for some things Adobe does have the advantage, but not for everything. I have retried it on Windows last week (I sadly have to dual boot Windows to upgrade firmwares because manufacturers usually don't make firmware upgraders for Linux), and using Photoshop for the exact same task as I was using GIMP for, it didn't perform noticeably faster, to my surprise. Not only that, but it crashed when doing something that merely slowed GIMP down.
Honestly, if one doesn't need the few extra features that Photoshop and Lightroom offer, and don't need to exchange .psd files with coworkers or clients, using open source software becomes a viable option.
And the more users, the better. The more people decide to use a Linux distro, the more options will become available for it. Linux isn't perfect, and it doesn't always work out of the box, although it does most of the time and has been improving its accessibility to novices a lot over the last 20 years. But it's an OS with options, good compatibility with hardware, it doesn't cost anything and if you don't like a distribution, you can just try a different one, and the same software will run on it anyway. The updates are mostly quick and easy, compared to Windows' horrible update system.
if Adobe released Photoshop and the rest of its so-so industry standard AV programs for Linux (and Micro$oft also did the same with its own Office products) then both MacOSX as well as Windows would go debunked overnight!
"Then there's the cost of this new iMac Pro at a rumored whopping $5500+."
And how much will an equivalent Windows PC cost? Can you even build an 18-core Xeon PC?
An eqivilent PC would most likley be cheaper. And building a 18 core Xeon Pc is a walk in the park. If you got the money you could even go for a dual cpu build. However for photography that is not neccessary at all since all you need is a fast quad core as one of the new i7’s
Yeah you just buy an Intel Core i9 7980XE. But you probably wouldn't. You would probably buy a 16 core Threadripper at literally half the price. That's the beauty of PC, you have choice and you can customise your PC to what you need it to be. I needed mine to be fast in Photoshop. So I just bought parts for that which are very different to the parts you would buy if you wanted a fast machine for 3D or gaming etc. With a Mac you just get an expensive allrounder that's not perfectly suited for anything.
There's never a CPU option on a Mac you can't get on the PC side as Apple don't manufacture chips for their machines. They're just buying them and sticking them in a box like we do. It's always a lot cheaper to do it yourself. The cost on a 18 core mac is going to terrifying. I think, snipping a few corners, you could bring it in for 5 grand-ish on a PC.
I don't get the arguments for a Mac. "It has a better operating system". Firstly that's entirely subjective. The one you prefer will be the one you've used the most. I can happily jump from PC to OSX to Linux and I don't really see them being massively different. And it doesn't matter if they are. When I sit down to edit I spend 30 odd seconds with the OS and then 4 hours in photoshop. The OS is a non issue.
As for the complaints about windows: Stability? I've been using this machine for 2 years and it's never crashed once. Neither has photoshop. Virus protection? I don't have any. Windows Defender is built in. I've never noticed it. Haven't had a virus in years.
The main reason I use Windows though is cause I need to for the programs I use. Sometimes for my images I need to jump into Autodesk 3DS Max. The 3d equivalent of Photoshop and there's no Mac option.
In comparing Windows vs. macOS, a lot of talk is about stability. And that's fine. But it's not the sum total of the differences. I recently worked in a government office producing a video, and it was my first exposure to Windows 10. I was absolutely dumbfounded at how clunky and unintuitive it was. Also - I had to use Exchange for the first time, and I was appalled at how ugly and visually difficult to understand it was. I literally sat there with my jaw hanging down, saying "omg, omg, omg...this is SO...Where's the goddam SEND button???" for ten minutes. I mean, the graphical design is the worst I've seen in decades. All the buttons are the same size, with few graphic cues as to their function or even distinctions between one and another. The toolbar is just a hideous mishmash of flat white boxes, mostly the same size, with hard-to-read non-anti-aliased text. It looks like something from 1992. I mean, they've had 30 YEARS to learn from Apple how to do UI, and it's like they said to themselves, "FUCK Apple, we hate them, we're not going to do ANYthing like they do it. In fact, let's do the opposite! Retro is IN!" and deliberately made everything look as pixelated as possible.
That's not the aesthetic I want to embrace in my work environment.
the point is, Micro$oft has not learned much in the last 40 years from Mac or anyone for that matter! only those who have used both (and other) systems know very well what i'm talking about here ... Micro$oft's other products (Word, Excel etc) are fine and at times even beat the competition in some areas ... but these guys have simply failed in the OS department ... big time!
Jacques, you do know that Exchange is the mail server software and Outlook is the email client?
I was referring to the client side, so it must have been Outlook. Honestly, a high school extracurricular club could make a better UI in a week.
I agree that Apple's lineup doesn't give pros a lot of choices. And, I've long advocated for a headless iMac or similar affordable mini tower so photographers can choose or reuse their own displays and expand/upgrade the internals. A Mac Not-So-Mini would make a lot of photographers happy. But this article reads like a DIY fanboy's hit piece on Apple.
"Mac is like a cult."
Trite, unoriginal, and absurd.
Windows is like a cult.
There's nothing "efficient" about a really bad UI. And anyone who's willing to accept such a sado-masochistic relationship with a software developer who clearly doesn't give a damn is obviously a brainwashed koolaid-drinking cultist who's happy to accept a lashing and justify it with the notion of saving a few pennies.
That's not really what I think. Just turning your ridiculous "cult" talk around on ya.
No, we're not "talking on Photoshop". You said Mac is a cult. That's got nothing to do with Photoshop. Why don't you just stick to Photoshop and stop slinging trite, uninformed insults at people you don't know.
Simple: I do more than run Photoshop on my Mac.
“they announced at the keynote that there won't be a new Mac Pro desktop built, rather a new iMac Pro which does boast some nice spec”
That is inaccurate. They actually announced that there is a new MacPro desktop coming and the iMac Pro you are talking about is a stop gap.
Really if you love the macOS build a hackintosh. Nowadays there is a ton of good guides on how to do it and what hardware to pick.
But if you want performance you could build a very stable Windows 10 system. For photography a rig with say an i7, 32gb RAM, GTX 1070 and a fast NVMe disk and normal SSD’s as general storage. This would go for around $2000 and will be very fast and all this hardware is very stable tohether. No weird configs that would cause trouble.
I had weighed all options including running MacOS as a VM on a box I built.. licensing becomes an issue, and a Hackintosh just isn't reliable enough for a production workstation, since updates can and will break your system.
But as yousaid, an i7 windows 10, 1070 is exactly what I am likely to do right now.
The argument of Apple or Windows continues! The gap between the two has narrowed considerably over the years. They are both good systems and it’s a trade off for consumers and professionals among hardware, software, price, what you’re already invested in, etc. I’ve used both for many years. I’ve found that the platform a person prefers is the one you’re used to and that’s ok - it’s your choice. Apple and Microsoft are profit-oriented businesses that continue to evole with their business plans and objectives, so stay tuned for more in the future...
God no, I actually went the opposite direction from windows to a Mac and it was like a time machine took me 20 years into the future. Microsoft is a dying giant. They no long have an ecosystem now that their mobile phone market is dead and tablets are replacing Desktops and Laptops for your average consumer who only needs to surf the web, shop, check emails, browse social media, and play games. Microsoft’s operating system is clunky, the interface is inconsistent, and prone to countless security issues. There are few reasons to run windows anymore unless you are a hardcore pc gamer. Using a MacBook has been the most satisfying experience I have ever had with a laptop, my only regret is not switching years ago. Combined with my iPhone and iPad Pro I’m now a true mobile photographer who no longer fears loosing my work due to ransomware or waiting hours to use my machine because it decides it needs to install countless windows updates. I look around at friends, family members, and co workers and they also have moved in the same direction. Ask any kid under the age of 18 and the only operating system they know of is iOS or Android. Microsoft f**ked big time when they decided to ignore the mobile market and felt they were too big to fail, now they are paying the consequences. As far as power is concerned whereas I needed 24 gigs of ram to run Windows 10 and Lightroom and some music production tools I used in the studio, I have no issues with 8 gigs of ram running the same software on my Mac. OSX is incredibly efficient compared to a windows and as such the requirements are not apples to apples ;)
Basically you're missing the point. The article speaks about professional hardware, you're talkative about tablets and phones. Yes those consumer-oriented screenies, have nothing to do with professional needs.
I am trying the switch
I used to be on PC years ago as in the 1900s :) ahhahaha
but with OS X switched to Mac again so what was that 12 or so years ago and now back to windows
built up a 7820x with a 1080 card
mostly use C1
I have had one issue with intel turbo boost a common issue and the hassles of windows arrggghhhhhhhh
if you are just adobe the iMac is not bad since adobe is so so so so behind on making use of current hardware and GPU its sad
programs like C1 make insane use of the GPU
the forums a buddy of mine Craig started a thread with some quick export times worth checking out
my issue with the current iMac and the new iMac pro offerings is once again closed system so when in a few years the GPU makes programs like C1 a lot better I can update
the iMac pro ? stuffing all that the thing is going to take a huge thermal hit (bottleneck)
also cleaning that thing out of dust :) again bad design
no chance of replacing parts and so on
the monitor is OK for a second but prefer NEC or Eizo still for color for some wont matter
windows pros hardware of course
macs I will miss no driver issues and a few programs and ease of use in a few things (common menu etc.. )
why the 7820x chip ? multi-task :) had some tests with the 7700 and 7740 and they can not hold up to multi-tasking like the 7820x
why the 1080 ? well surely not for adobe products :) ahhahhah but mainly for C1 where it does make a huge difference over a less GPU and I like gaming :)
one note about switching
I was planning on this since I heard the iMac pro info :)
I switched all our email to Gsuite and started leveraging it using kiwi as a common reader
this was also for other reasons to have a strong workflow we could do from our iPad pro or mac or pc or phone and any of us could answer emails or see what the others replied etc.. (two of us working together with two business)
also using some of the Gsuite tools and chrome synced bookmarks
google keep over the mac notes (which I loved for quick things)
trying to leverage adobe cloud a bit (still working on that) mostly for common assets I use in retouching
really trying to become less OS dependent and being able to work on any system once I am in the app such as C1 or adobe or Gsuite its all about the same anyway
also both adobe and C1 you can be on both at the same time under the current lic which is nice
things I miss about apple are the color management being OS wide but not a huge deal again I tend to work in less apps these days
having everything on a NAS to sync drives but it still took a bit to get all my work over and I would rethink this next time around and plan on getting a 10Gbe nas instead and keep all our work but our current on the system
and just use the one fast NVMe for current production ( I use a 1TB NVMe currently )
finding apps on the PC ? sync apps and a few others is a bit of a pain but I knew that
to many junk apps to sift through and the hassle of AV and malware stuff ? but not a huge deal they run in the background
switching to me was like getting a 10 year old car with a way faster engine ? so way more performance just not the nice smooth amenities or feeling of a new system
compared to my silver mac pro towers my new machine is way more quiet though with a AIO etc..
am I happy ? sure its fun and I am a tech guy but can report in 6 months for a honest answer
and so far the difference is not as much as I thought ? both have pros and cons and over the last two years apple has had its major issues and is no where near the stability it was so with that gone I might as well try out windows again cause I do think people need to experience and know both first hand to know what works for THEM :)
again only adobe use a iMac cause adobe sucks at using modern hardware
using C1 and other apps well night and day difference
2004 Mac Pro? with a Quad Core CPU, 32 GB RAM? Sell it, Sell it quick as it must be a prototype (the Mac Pro 1,1 was released in August 2006) ;) If you can't get details like this right, how are we supposed to trust the rest of your article? The devil is always in the detail.
As for the relentless Windows Vs Mac Os debate, its all been said, use whatever you find fits in with your workflow.
I guess it's an '09, my mistake! Thanks! (just looked at it)
Regarding the original article, you wrote that Apple said they were making a new iMac Pro, but not a new Mac Pro. This is incorrect.
They said they were updating the iMac to create a Pro model in the meantime before their real Mac Pro gets released, which is expected to be next year (and iMac Pro allegedly still this year).
Regarding choices, the spec lag of Macs versus PCs is irrelevant except for GPUs, where it really does matter.
Overall I love my iMac, but I do wish my 3.1TB Fusion drive was bigger.
Adobe Premiere is a seriously bloated piece of software. FCP and anything else perform so much better.
Adobe Lightroom has the same sort of problem .. slow performance generally for what it actually does. GPU is provides little performance gain.
Both of these are this way because Adobe has become very complacent in their industry-leading position.
Someone else has probably already posted this, but if no one has, Apple never said they’re not building a new Mac Pro.
They said, in no uncertain terms, they screwed up with the last Mac Pro as the design is incapable of cooling higher TDP hardware, so they’re forced to create a new design. That new design is expected to be released in 2018. Until then, for less demanding Pro users who’d normally prefer the iMac and replace their machines instead of upgrading the internals, they’re offering the iMac Pro; the iMac AIO design but with workstation-class CPU and GPU.
The iMac Pro is for the sort of business or home user that demands workstation class hardware but defers hardware support to Apple rather than their own, in-house technical support.
I use both platforms PC with windows 10 at work and Mac High Sierra at home. I guess it depends on what people use the machines for.
Microsoft still irritates the heck out of me. I find most of their sw. very counter productive. Apple on the other hand seems to be so confident in what they do, that they seem like they become deaf. The pricing is now so high that I find it difficult to justify. Result: my MBP and iMac are from 2009 and 2010. My Mac min’s are also pretty old. But running Windows servers and Windows 10 at home! Been there done that. My life is too short for that.
I am not a professional photographer, I am an amateur, and my opinion is based on my use. My iMac is the best computer investment I have ever made. And Apple is looking after the amateur photographer at least, as the latest Photos app that came with High Sierra does everything I need—so my copy of Capture 1 and DXO Optics have been unused since the install.
I share a house with someone who builds Windows gaming machines but he could not match the iMac with 27" 5K monitor for the price and although he could get close that would have been without warranty. So I think a lot of the price differential is bogus. Of course DIY is cheaper but it is not a comparable product. A warranted device is something different.
Meanwhile any professional photographers reading this article should be aware that it is laced with inaccuracies and judgement calls. I can't see that it is much more than clickbait.
I could only get a few paragraphs through this article because it so full of inaccuracies. The registry slows down a Windows computer over time? Windows is built around planned obsolescence? Mac OS is more reliable? You don't need anti virus on a Mac?
I spent about 10 years in IT maintaining over a thousand desktops and can definitely attest to the fact that Macs get viruses, Macs are no more reliable than Windows, and a registry is not slowing down any modern Windows computers.
You could put Apple in the very definition of Planned Obsolescence. They sell hardware that you either can't upgrade or your upgrade choices are extremely limited and expensive if they exist at all.
Well Clint, I too have a similar background managing networks with both platforms as well as Linux, VM's and servers.
And if you don't think that the Windows registry system grows over time, and the OS needing to read through it constantly to do stuff doesn't slow it down, especially when the registry gets corrupted. Then I don't really know what to tell ya.
The MacOS is most certainly more reliable as a whole, for the reasons I mentioned in the article. No hardware compatibility issues, everything is designed to work together and does so in an excellent fashion.
Being a Linux/BSD type OS, that is a LOT more secure and stronger than anything Windows has ever been based on.
As far as the Mac getting viruses, I have never seen one in any of the machines I've ever worked with, ever. I mean a user would sure have to work hard to try and find a virus and try to get it past the BSD systems self-protection with the kernels and all... It may "technically" exist, but I can't imagine the % of Mac users that have ever seen a virus, you'd have to work quite hard at that.
And as far as Apple with the obsolescence with the hardware. Sure. That was the basic point of my article... was that the OS is incredible, but they are pushing many of us out of the system due to the hardware lack of options and development. The point was that for things to make the most sense performance-wise, I'll need to build a new PC to replace the old MacPro... Which is the right choice to make given the current state of the industry and options available and upcoming, but I'm obviously very unhappy about being forced to that choice, because Windows really does suck, ESPECIALLY when it comes to file management and such, where the MacOS Finder really shines. (Most Mac users don't even know how to take full advantage of what it offers, but when you do, it's light years ahead of Windows in that regard)
Thanks for your thoughts.
Best Regards,
Bill
I've been right clicking on documents to open their folder for years on windows, not sure when you used one last, maybe Windows NT days?
Reliability being a decade ahead? Is that why every other day I have to force restart my mac at work? Sorry but reliability is a joke. Not to mention they give us top of the line Macs that still force me to stare at that beach ball for half my work day. These things are slow. Programs freeze left and right, half the time if I stand up, I can see two or three of my co workers force restarting at any given time.
Not sure why your Windows installations slow down, unless it's because you last used NT. Mine stay speedy.
Antivirus is for people who blindly download everything they see, I've gone without the past few years.
The rest is fairly spot on, Apple rips off gullible users, their hardware is outdated and subpar.
You've just proved that even some of the more advanced and intelligent users are still naive and really don't know much about computers.
I love when my coworkers rip on me for using Windows, while they use non points from fifteen years ago, meanwhile my computer is thinking circles around theirs, with the same level of quality, half the price, and twice the specs.
Two years I've used that toy of an OS at work, and the entire company is suffering because of it. So much down time, so much expense, not to mention trying to do even the most simplistic task on Mac is a punishment that will take twice as long. I wanted to like them too.
Thanks for your reply, if you've been right click to open a folder/folder tree in windows, please share a screencast video? I'd love for that to be possible. I've been speaking with many close business affiliates, it directors, etc an they all say it can't be done natively in windows.
Oh man, I can't with this article. The whole thing was painful to read.
I've been in the graphic design, photography, video, 3D business for nearly 35 years now, and a UX designer for 7, working with some of the biggest names in tech. Some of you are probably using products I helped design right now.
I've been through so many different computers and platforms before some of you were even born. Currently I use both the latest Mac and Windows platforms, and occasionally some Linux.
Saying the Mac OS is for graphic designers and photographers is not only uninformed, but just plain weird.
I can 100% gauarantee you and anyone reading this article that there is absolutely ZERO advatange for creatives in using a Mac system over any other platform, except for native apps, and a handul of third party "trying too hard" design tools (like Sketch) that are only released on Mac OSX for no logical or technical reason other than bias/snobbery and poor business strategy in 2017.
The first and ONLY platform designed specifically for the creative was not a Mac. It was actually a Commodore, and it was their Amiga line. Let's all get that straight right now.
Mac was always a personal computer aimed at the general user, just like Windows is now. Apple's selling point was (and still is) designing devices that even the most technologically-challenged user could understand and use. This was a Steve Jobs charter/initiative. It had, and still has nothing to with creatives, rather some creatives choose to use OSX, just as some choose Windows, or even Linux.
Windows was about the power user, the functionality, the code. The Amiga was about the creative professional until Commodore left the market in the 90's, which consequently was when Apple and Microsoft starting refining their platforms and taking graphics capability and feature set cues from the Commodore Amiga.
Linux is about "sticking it" to the big 2, a less cpu intensive OS, and the open source community. Android/Chrome is about data mining, integration, and services which is a Linux fork.
When I hear other creatives say, Mac is the only "serious" tool for designers I both laugh and cringe at the same time. I get embarrased by the sheer ignorance and willingness to jump on whatever bandwagon trend the day presents, without much after thought, critical let alone imperical. And nothing could be further from the truth in 2017, when most all platforms are running the same exact creative software pushed by the exact same internal Intel CPU processors, memory/RAM and GPU setups.
I think what is happening is many creatives use the "Mac only" tag line to ultimately explain why they got suckerd into spending twice as much for a closed system they could have had for half the price, and in some cases better preformance by purchasing a different platform.
Apple has never been the value manufacturer, nor a leader in significant raw performance over other platforms. Again, it's selling angle has always been and still is easy to use, not the ultimate creator's tool. That what some creator's prescribed to it back in the late 90's, early 2000s, and has sort of psychologically stuck.
At my personal studio, where I do anything from graphic design, to 3D animation, VFX, photo/film editing, to music composition, to a Cintiq, I run it all through Windows 10/Asus ROG, largely using Adobe CC products. Not because I'm a Microsoft fanboy, but because price to power ratio I can get far more value for the dollar, not to mention way better extensibility for future investment.
Bottom line: Why pay the "stupid tax" if you dont have to? For aesthetics of the system's hardware that my clients never see and could care less about?
As someone who has always and will probably always use Windows, the problem with PC's and what gives them a bad name is prebuilts.
They have a few good components but the rest are cheap and in turn shortens the life of the PC. You're much better off building yourself if you go the PC route since you not only get a more powerful machine that's better for the money, but it's also a lot of fun!
very nice and well written article ...
but isn't the writer a little anti-Apple if not somewhat uninformed about how things work the Mac way?
yes, indeed PC has a number of important useful stuff Mac doesn't quite offer ... not by default at least ...
but what about a 'powerful' PC, such as the example given here, which is at least $500 less expensive than a Mac BUT it doesn't come with a super fine quality ultra high res monitor (4K for example) built in, which is a MUST if we're doing photography, serious, professional photography that is!?
add such a great monitor to such a PC system and you'll see it'll be much more costly than the top of the line iMac! (btw, the PC you have given here as an example, is not suited for photography simply because it's a gaming computer ...)
then in terms of lots of memory and some other additional hardware goodies ... well, what a Mac system does with 8GB, a PC requires at least 2 times that amount of memory to do the same thing! and that is extra costs again, isn't it? same is with extra storage devices and stuff like that we need for any of the two systems anyway ... so both are even in that department anyway ...
yes, PCs do accept at least 4 HD drives plus at least 1 extra CD drive internally ... but -again- they are not a MUST for photography uses really ... and Mac accepts external drives just as well ...
also, PCs do need to be discarded every two to three years usually and be replaced / upgraded with a totally new hardware and a new version of Windows and stuff, don't they?
the only thing that even a Mac Pro does really suffer from in comparison to a PC imo, is the fact that adding at least an additional monitor on a Mac is not as comfortably done as in a PC, where more than two monitors can be added relatively easily but certainly not cheaply! and as far as i know, there are some resolution limitations for a Mac to accept a second monitor btw ...
_ _ _
as a semi-pro photographer, i'm not a regular Mac user myself because of cost reasons more than anything else (and i do some IT stuff too, which makes PC a 'better' choice for me) but i know it well enough to be sure there are ways to either add a physical multi-button mouse to a Mac in some ways, or download and install some app that can help make Mac's single-button mouse emulate a multi-button mouse ... besides, a multi-button mouse, although quite useful on a PC, is not really a must on a Mac that you're using for photography! even on a PC, multi-button mice are usually needed for gaming, not photography or video and graphics necessarily ... as for extra monitors, well, yes, again, that's an area the Apple Mac system is sagging behind badly apparently ... (one more reason i'm using a PC for my photography and video works ...)
long story short, although this article has tried to address very important topics, it's lacking in proper logic imo and contradicts itself at some points!
After watching the FStoppers laptop battle a few months ago I dropped in and bought a Dell XPS 15. After only two hours of battling with the OS, I was ready to throw it out the window. Being that I bought it from B&H, I can't return it. So if anyone out there wants to buy a brand new Dell XPS 15 9550, I'll give you a hell of a deal. Seriously. Email me at dave@davelehl.com.
Maybe... I'm not a professional photographer, but I imagine that few have a network like mine: 3 Macs, 4 Windows PCs, 3 Linux PCs, and 3 Sun boxes running Linux. I'm pretty much OS agnostic as a consequence. What pushed me back to Windows for my primary desktop, after running with OS X on an iMac for the last 6 years? Hardware. My current desktop is the Surface Studio and feature wise, it just scratched all the itches I cared about. Apple could do this, but they didn't, it's that simple. For art and photography, the Surface Studio is killer, especially with the new Surface Pen.
What that means, anyways to me, is that you just need to decide what matters to you. Right now, comparatively speaking, my Surface machines are quite a bit more reliable than my Macs are. Both have the advantage of getting extra attention, Microsoft is going to be very sure on their OS support for their own hardware, but I'm seeing a lot of rush out of Apple these days. Heck, even IOS 11 has had 3 updates since release. Outside of that, being able to pull that gorgeous display into drafting table mode and use the pen right on my images? Love it. I have a Cintiq, not as nice or convenient to use, your mileage may vary.
I got next to nothing out of this article but conjecture and FUD. I am a system administrator and work with multiple operating systems including macOS, Solaris, Windows and Linux. The idea that Windows machines are prone to problems is complete nonsense!!! Have you ever heard of WHQL??? You can choose to get certified drivers for your hardware if you want.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/install/whql-r...
A Windows machine can as stable or unstable as you want it to be, your choice. But in my experience using Windows machines in both a corporate and home environment since 2001 is that Windows is remarkably stable provided you give it enough hardware for the task(s) at hand. And yes I have worked with systems that did not have sufficient resources and in that particular case, any OS would have crashed.
If you are going to compare and contrast operating systems, talk about real features such as support for multiple cores and CPU's which I think Windows has a significant edge over macOS based on the complaints people have had with Premiere running on macOS and the benchmark test article posted here not too long ago. One macOS feature that can be used specifically to determine the potential cause of the Premiere performance problem is DTrace. I have used this tool on Solaris systems for years and it is far better than truss. I don't have a Mac to test Premiere on but my feeling is that how CPU cores and threads are allocated by the I/O scheduler for macOS may be a problem. DTrace would find the problem.
https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/Darwin/Referenc...
Macs are no different than mainstream UNIX hardware from Sun (now Oracle), IBM and HP, the vendor controls what devices can be used so that the experience is seamless. You pay a premium for that experience and if you are OK with that, fine. If you are not go to Windows.
Did Apple forget about creative professionals, I don't know. I gave up on the idea of owning a Mac when Apple wimped out of getting ZFS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS
Is Apple updating their hardware as fast as PC vendors? I find the complaining curious since people like the "stability" of a Mac. You don't get that stability by upgrading your hardware every six months. You get that stability by not changing things, possibly for years. Does that really matter, especially when a number of people here are also complaining about upgrading?
I pick what I use based on best practices and does the software I want to use run on the hardware I have or want to buy and at a price I am willing to pay. Right now that is Windows 10 on a HP Omen desktop running an 8-core Ryzen CPU with 16 GB of memory and multiple SSD's. Photoshop and Photo Mechanic work quite well for me on this system.
What I did was to buy an iClon. PC tower with apple os inside. Take a look to this URL. https://goo.gl/zTGJjV
it could be an alternative
Solid article. I've had loaded MacBook Pro's for the last 12 years as I've been a full time iOS developer and part-time photog. During that time I've paid about $2,500-$3,000 for a loaded MBP. With the high resale value I end up paying about $30 a month to own a MBP for 3 years then upgrade.
It's been a solid experience for me until this last 3 years. I've been stuck on 16GB for what feels like forever. The storage space and video cards really feel like they stalled out compared to the windows counterparts. I sold my latest MBP and 27" Apple Display last week and spent $4,000 on a new Windows Coffee Lake setup. i7-8700K 6-cores 12 threads, 32GB 3200 ram, 1TB Samsung EVO, 1080Ti (12gb ram) etc driving a 32" Dell display. (https://pcpartpicker.com/user/pcmofo/saved/mQgbjX)
Yes windows is awful by comparison to MacOS for daily use. Most of the apps I use (chrome, evernote, Adobe Lr/Ps/Pr) are all cross platform so it really doesn't matter as much as it used to. The end result is after giving apple over $10k in the last 12 years in Mac's my pro workstation is now a PC because I'm not waiting another year or more to pay $6k+ on a Mac Pro. Using an iPad Pro for mobile photo/video with Lr and Luma Touch. So far everything is working great.
IMO Apple Pro gear can no longer be as fast as PC because Apple no longer uses current tech. The best use case for Apple pro gear was always buying something powerful that just works. Alternately Apple could make an iMac as a stand alone computer with no screen and drop the price accordingly. They are intentionally creating a gap between the Mini and the Pro to drive average photographers to a high end iMac or low end Mac Pro.
Just get a spec'd up iMac.
I have a new iMac with 2 additional monitors and it cruises through Lightroom edits and Photoshop work. It makes light work of video editing too and I expect it to live a good 4-6 years