How is it a walled garden? It’s just another platform-specific API to support, next to the countless other APIs that are specific only to Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS, etc. The reality today already is that you can’t use one codebase to support all targets, so if it makes sense supporting another one, you just do it. If you don’t want to deal with that yourself, somebody else probably wrote some middleware for it already.
The fact that OpenGL is “open” and platform-agnostic on paper isn’t helping me one bit when in practice I have to deal with multiple terrible driver implementations, especially on mobile.
If Apple doesn’t provide any adequate platform for GPUs, they’ll just be getting worse support, end of story. Developers aren’t going to waste indefinite amounts of effort for a platform with a puny 5-10% user share. It’s up to the users then, to jump ship or not.
Apple doesn’t care about the whole professional 3D community, let alone Blender community. Designing new emojis is more important to Apple than updating GPU drivers that affect our work. I use several other pro applications besides Blender and considering Apple’s ignorance and projecting to the future I fail to see Apple really caring about us. I have been using Apple since 90’s and OSX since its first release but, I have finally accepted the fact that today we are the lowest priority for Apple. For me it’s time to say goodbye to MacOSX.
Windows has always been a great platform for developers, because you aren’t forced to do anything you don’t want to. Windows programs can be closed/open source, commercial, non-commercial, whatever you want. Linux is heavily forcing people to open source and GPL, which is not always a good thing. OSX has also problems, because Apple wants developers to join them and use XCode, plus other problems with drivers and libraries from outside Mac world. I don’t even know how people actually write versions of their programs to OSX, probably using unix-commands and gcc from the command line.
I won’t argue this apparently is the direction Apple has been taking recently, but if we had a number of mac developers and graphic artists out there sending an email that would take two minutes to write it might change the outcome of this, maybe not, maybe Cook is happy being a clueless idiot, or perhaps he wants the OSX Platform to fail so he can sell fruity little watches, but maybe he’ll step down or find his head on the chopping block which; lets face it: This is how Apple changes the guard.
I’m not married to OS X, I don’t even necessarily prefer it to Windows 7 but I don’t want to get stuck with a Windows only solution down the road because OS X ran it’s course and my only other option is UNIX/Linux which I personally feel is “patchy”
again, before anyone jumps ship take the minute needed to send an email to Apple, then if they ignore us we at least tried before we climbed aboard Vista 3. er… Windows 10 - which granted - it’s aiming to be the opposite but historically how often does Windows achieve what it sets out to do?
Quick sidenote:
That whole bad release good release dynamic is a thing of the past. They used to have two different teams and they would alternate between them thus the good, bad, good, bad pattern. Dont forget, the new CEO got microsoft’s *#%@ together, was even open to open sourcing windows itself. Time to adjust perception of the company again. Even their jump into hardware again is doing well (surface tablet PCs) and Cell Phones+OS. OS wise, since windows 7 its been great (if you can over look the ugly start menu thing with windows 8, easily fixed and under the hood the OS was better than 7). Win 10 is built to update as though it were a service, so it will probably ignore the previous approach of having a new OS every few years. Quite smart actually.
I always figured the good/bad release cycle was just good marketing. Nobody really wants to upgrade their OS, New is scary to most users. So any new release is going to have a lot of resistance. When MS drops a ME or Vista or 8 shaped loaf, people turn up their noses, but they already didn’t want it. They set themselves up to create a contrast in quality for the next, successful release. So, when xp or 7 or 10 hits, people see how much better it is than the one they didn’t want to begin with, now they are more prepared to upgrade and more positive about the experience.
Really, even the turd OS’s weren’t that bad (except ME, that was pretty egregious) They suffered from bad PR more than anything, but 95% of vista is in 7. 95% of 8 will be in 10. the perception of a bad OS is more damaging than how good it actually is or not. So MS throws out a sacrificial lamb every few years for everyone to get out their morning hate on before they switch over to the next ‘destined to succeed’ OS.
That’s all just theory, though. It just seems like a really convenient pattern that has played out a number of times
Saint I think you see MS a little peachy here. Their hardware platform was a total disaster. Win phones and surface tablets crashed. If the current tablet will sell better we have to see - it is not really cheap. The 3 sells better than the version before but they are still not that hot sellers. Heat weak GPU and battery are still a major complaint. Most of my students gave it back because of UI and contrast issues in addition. The iCore 3 runs better(longer colder) but then CPU taxing apps are bad on that Surface.
MS does in many ways start to go the exactly same way as Google and Apple do. Both companies only develop products in the areas they think will make the most profit. Lots of Google products are half finished but sufficient for Google to collect data. Apple focuses on the market with the biggest income and sadly pro users do not count to that anymore. Business wise it is smart for us it sucks.
I hardly think that they really on purpose made good and bad designs. I think they simply employed a bad development. Just the idea to force tiles onto desktops just showed how much they did not realize the evident UI interaction issues. What worked on the OS was just assumed will be the same for desktops.
As long as each OS runs fine I think most users are happy but then when things go wrong the fun happens and honestly I never reinstalled or needed to repair OS X. With my years of windows experience it is somewhat different. Just with Win7 it finally got getter.
I think reality was rather that MS just produced bad products. Period. I am currently since 3 years beta testing for Autodesk and I see so many problems with the product and it just goes back to team management and focusing resources. Instead of focusing on less and doing it right they try to do everything and make bad code plus bad tools here and there. That is just the case with projects get too big.
There was a pretty nice comment about many company ceo’s today. There are two types. Those who lead and those who manage and most companies are over managed. Blackberry was another case where that culture crashed.
So MS throws out a sacrificial lamb every few years for everyone to get out their morning hate on before they switch over to the next ‘destined to succeed’ OS.
Interesting thread over on the Houdini forums, has a developer chiming in and he’s not happy either.
Not preachy at all, just looking at the facts, the objective data that helps paint an accurate picture. Take for example the Surface tablet pc’s… According to their 2015 Q2 Earnings Report, their Surface based revenue ($1.1 Billion Dollars) is up 24%. Not bad for a company that just got into the tablet/pc (hardware) market TWO YEARS ago. That qualifies as a success in my book.
I also own the original surface tablet, one of the very first to come out as it used a wacom digitizer at the time. Amazing device, while it can certainly get warm after long periods of use, so does my cintiq and a handful of other laptops I have owned. Unfortunately that effect is pretty much a standard at this point unless you go with something that has a weaker processor (which is available now both in surface form and non surface form).
Additionally, I know a few artist who work in vfx and film here in Hollywood, they use the surface 3 all the time. No problems with it. A Blur artist known for their sculpting work can be seen with theirs sculpting away from the desk, Penny Arcade’s comic artist uses one too.
Its quite literally creating a market for that kind of device and customers are biting.
On the subject of their phones… yes the old windows phone OS was garbage. I was right up there with everyone else calling it that, still prefer Android myself. My gf on the other hand has had a couple windows phones over their lifespan, once it hit WP8 the OS became very stable and grew quickly once Nokia became a Microsoft brand. The nokia lumia’s are Microsoft hardware now and there is a huge demand for the Nokia phones. Especially the Nokia Lumia 1020 which features a 41 megapixel camera, a large sensor, high end lenses and a metric ton of patented software technology which makes it the best camera phone on the market today by a large margin. There are hoards of people literally waiting for the successor to that flagship product. (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlgGSbkzma4 )
According to their earning report (same one above) their phones (hardware) brought in $2.3 billion in revenue, with10.5 million Lumia units being sold. Their devices and consumer revenue grew by 8% bringing that up to $12.9 billion dollars.
They are playing their cards right, the numbers in this case speak for themselves. Going away from the numbers, my personal experience ( as a former win8 hater, winphone hater ) has left me surprised at how much has changed for the better. I cannot in good conscious hold onto that previous opinion/bias when so much has changed, and for the better.
Unfortunately, the irrational hate for Windows is endemic to many corners in the FOSS world and the mentality is even applied to some of the developers. This leads to certain FOSS organizations limiting their audience to less than 1 percent of total PC users because the only people that matter to them are those who have “repented of their Windows transgression and learned to like Linux” (they might have Windows builds available but they usually don’t work as good. Then they wonder why they can’t seem to obtain a lot of funding and users for the project).
It needs to be noted that Microsoft is out of the Steve Ballmer era and Satya is really invested in positioning Microsoft to be a brand that loves Open Source and a brand that is known for quality. Give him a chance.
I’m keeping an eye on Microsoft to see how they start to open up more (hopefully), this is from a guy who has never personally owned a Windows box, I have only ever used the OS for work. I’m especially interested in the hololens, but if it ends up being Windows only, it’s not going to be much use to me.
The way microsoft is opening up currently is with development and some cross platform software. The Hololens is like the apple watch, it exist on its own but uses apps native to their platform. This means you wont be plugging it into something like the Mac OS or Linux. Should be a given that such a thing wouldnt happen, nor I doubt would apple allow it. Better to just switch OS. Now what you can find is the ability to port your ios apps to windows 10, and from there it can probably be used with the hololens.
Also with where the hololens is currently… according to “wired” (the author might be biasied) they argue thats its limited by a narrow field of view and resolution. If so I still think its amazing for what its doing, but like the original oculus rift it needs to level up more and build upon whats been done so far.
The only way apple will listen is their current user base start voting with their wallets and switch to another OS. They take their customers for granted, betting on the general stereotype being true… which is that they are fanatically tied to the brand. There is no incentive for Apple to try hard to keep them.
Your loss. Nothing to gain from that kind of stubbornness, but I am not surprised by it. Apple users have a tendency to be a tad hard headed when it comes to their OS, and theres usually not much logic behind it (granted, not all but most of those I have met so far are like
. I mean many even adopted the term “cult” &
to refer to users.
stuff, but its they chose to compete) But hey, consumers pick what they want, regardless of if the reasoning is good. Think of all the people who bought into Nintendo Wii even though it had horrible hardware and a gimmick for a controller.
The hololens isnt supposed to be VR btw, its AR…augmented reality. I think we are going to see a convergence of VR headsets with outward facing cameras to supplement the AR experience. The downside is that it will be a bit bulkier than something like the hololens but probably more functional. Also Oculus and others are buying up tech that recognizes physical objects and renders them in real time 3d. Pretty neat stuff.
This is true, I’m thinking that Tim Cook(?) is no Steve Jobs, I guess we will see how Apple does in the next few years.
Although I have a Macbook Pro that my work gave me, my personal choice is Linux and will probably be my choice for the foreseeable future. I’m not very impressed with MacOS X either.
Fun issues with Modo 901 on OSX, too. C’mon, Apple. Take your watch off, put on your big kid pants, and do some maintenance work on your drivers before you lose the entire professional artist community.
Non Modo users (full version) cant see but theres a thread in a hidden subforum over there as well…and its many pages long about that very thing. Lots of angry mac users. Problem is half are blaming Modo’s developers and the other half is trying to remind them its not The Foundry but Apple. Some still refuse to accept blaming their precious Apple. So …frustrating…
This is quite a bit of a stretch here, starting with the fact that you can’t just bring someone in and write patches for OSX (you would have to be employed by Apple in their software division to do that and even then only if Tim Cook makes it a priority).
Secondly, any graphical issues that are part of the system is out of the BF’s control, the best they can do is workaround them and if they can’t, then the only option is to disable features for Mac users.
can you even boot a mac into linux?
Err… this question sounds as if it came out of a random phrase generator (please do some research into the subject in question before asking).
Although I’m interested in the hololens, I think Google’s VR stuff will be better, and probably far more open.