Developer and journalist Owen Williams really wanted to try the tooth virtual reality. But couldn’t because his MacBook Pro with her friends. Williams expected that Apple will offer new and more powerful hardware and he will be able to realize his dream. But nothing happened. And not waiting for the change, the developer threw a cautious glance toward the PC. The story ended up being a fan of Apple together a powerful computer on Windows. Ain brings the story of a developer who switched to Windows after several years of work on the Mac.
Any of my friends will tell you that I am the biggest fan of Apple of everyone they know. And if you ask me which computer is better to buy, I’m almost one hundred percent probability answer — MacBook Pro or advise you to wait because Apple is going to update the hardware.
But recently I realized that the attitude of Apple to desktop devices I’m tired. Progress on macOS over to Yosemite two years ago and the platform update, which Apple has done since, was very small. I myself am a developer, and I have the impression that Apple are not really a lot of attention to his soft, and therefore hundreds of thousands of developers who have chosen the Mac for the main platform.
Just look at Sierra: the only remarkable feature is a half — unfinished Siri, and other features that are ported from iOS. And what for developers? Nothing, unless you are not using XCode.
The only reason the platform is still viable for programmers — it is a great effort from the open source community for the Mac toolchain (see for yourself how easy it is to use Node, npm, Yarn and many other relatively new tools).
At the end of 2016, Bloomberg reported that Apple left the Mac team, joining a team of iOS, and it shows. New MacBook Pro released late 2016, was interesting, but older users caused some uncertainty: the car is good, but the spark is no more. Iron was not powerful enough with a focus on design and touch panel touch Bar at the expense of power and functionality as in the previous models.
Honestly, initially I was a Windows user until they rolled out Vista. Then it became clear that the company has no strategy, no vision, and although Windows 7 is slightly corrected the situation, on the side of Apple I got something what I was looking for: all worked together very well.
You can send a message in iMessage from a computer or phone, to answer calls where ever you are, it is easy to transfer files from device to device. I was captivated in the beginning of 2012, when Apple introduced the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro.
This car was my first dip into the world of Apple and I liked it. Everything was very well made and worked perfectly. Deeply rooted in Unix, Apple allowed me to finally do web development, learn to use the terminal and even access to several opensource projects.
“But coincidentally, when I entered the world of Apple, the company focus has changed. Mac was no longer as important as iPhone, iPad, and then iPad Pro”.
The idea is simple: why bother to use a computer, if everything is the same you can do on your tablet or smartphone?
Attention Apple Mac weakened: the iron had not received updates for more than four years, and then macOS, which once regularly replenished with new interesting features, began to receive only scraps from iOS. Want to see this? Go to iMessage on the Mac: the flagship feature of iOS is iMessage stickers, hardly work on the Mac.
And so in almost all aspects: Airdrop — secret Apple that allows you to easily manipulate files between computer and phone is about 30% of the time it works, and at other times impossible to connect. And there was handoff, which allows you to work on one device and then easily continue on another. Not sure whether it is possible to make it work more or less reliably.
Meanwhile, Microsoft lick wounds thanks to Windows 8, finding a new CEO, Satya Nadella, and started doing interesting things on Windows 10: the company really began to listen and implement what users wanted.
But I continued to ignore Windows until last year, Microsoft introduced Windows Linux Subsystem – essentially the ability to use Linux natively on Windows. And that there is support for Bash. Then I realized that developing on Windows it seems for the first time was enjoyable. Then I realized that this is enough to entice me back to Windows. And it was a decisive moment.
I could hardly wait to upgrade MacBook Pro and was very disappointed that Apple actually set up a laptop with insufficient proizvoditelnost at an inflated price. Then I began thinking about how to return to Windows.
Gaming on the Mac that gave promising signs of life until 2015, became completely die, because Apple over the years has not put any serious innovations on the hardware, and I was very interested in virtual reality… the Oculus for the same reasons, stopped supporting Mac.
And then in October 2016, Microsoft unveiled the next version of Windows with the unexpected Creators Update. With it came a useful game function, full-featured support for VR, color customization, human quick messages and lots of other free Goodies.
I watched the presentation with his mouth open (and it was the first time over the past few years, when I watched the Microsoft event), wondering how they managed this.
This, coupled with the progress that Microsoft has shown through the Linux subsystem and the lack of visible development from Apple convinced me to come back. I’m not a hater, I’m just tired of the inability to get a machine that is worth to work on it.
It took me months to finally do it, I’ve been digging around on forums, studying publications and related new hardware, before I realized how far ahead the road has gone PC today. NVIDIA GTX 1080 is an amazing workhorse that pulls any VR – and not just the game and not sutured.
In February 2017 I started to build a computer from scratch. I sold my 15-inch MacBook Pro (today I use a 12-inch Mac laptop to work on the go), and invested in the Assembly of a powerful computer that will meet my requirements and will last so long.
I will not burden you with the details, but if you’re interested, you can see what it consists of: the machine is a little overinflated, but I want to learn developing for VR, and I think it is a good balance of “price-capacity” in the long term.
At the time of this writing I am working on Windows for about six weeks, and although I thought I was gonna hate her, the opposite happened — I’m impressed. It’s not perfect, but it became clear that Microsoft started to pay attention to detail for the first time in many years. I set up my development environment so I like it on the Mac, thanks to the subsystem Linux — everything works exactly as I expected.
I was worried about support from Microsoft screen with high resolution, because in Windows 8, and even in the original release of Windows 10 to use it was impossible. But with the update to the authors they seem to have learned to cope with a 4K display without consequences.
What is the result? I can play most new games without brakes on the PC, and I started to experiment with VR. HTC Vive is an amazing device, I started to deal with the Unit, and will soon be able to do things for virtual reality.
Of course, all is not so rosy. I forgot about the need for drivers, and quality programs on Windows, although now they are much better than before, still not Mac. But the problem is solved thanks to these apps, like Slack, Nylas, Hyper and Visual Studio Code.
Don’t mean to sound flippant, but Windows is back, and Microsoft is well on this job. Microsoft is getting better and faster in Windows than Apple doing anything for macOS.
There are a few things that I miss: the Sketch, which I often used for quick work with the design, iMessage, through which I have not had to get the phone every time I want someone to write, and some others. But I can live without them.
You can lip-read Apple, that’s all she cares about is iOS and iPhone. Maybe they will release something unexpectedly cool, return it to desktops in the game but yet the company is too busy trying to convince people that normally work on the iPad Pro.
I’ll be honest — I’m still not totally done with the Mac at work, because I am not sure that Windows is good enough laptops. Perhaps with time this will change.
But if you are a devoted Mac fan, which is sitting and waiting, when Apple will release a real workhorse, wrap it up and look closely at the Windows. It is good, you can get something surprisingly powerful for a great price, what will be really great to work with.
