crimguy

I don't think it's a hater crowd.  If it was a HP with a lousy keyboard no one would mention it.  People love the Apple hardware and software, and having a keyboard that's sub-par for what you do most - writing - is unacceptable.  I bought a Lenovo for about $500 for work and, despite the inferior operating system, touchpad, and screen, find myself grabbing it over the macbook whenever I have to compose more than an email.  For basic computing/web browsing etc. I still use the macbook tho, despite the fact it's a lot slower.

I've yet to try the 16" macbook pro, but have heard good things about it.  

I think this is the place:

https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_mac

I am also skeptical.  All of this talk about virtualization, Rosetta, etc.  Very reminiscent of when we went from PowerPC to Intel.  The difference is, going to Intel was a boon because suddenly we had Macs that could run linux, Windows, etc.  It was great, and I promptly tossed my Windows machine out a window.

Now?  We're going in the opposite direction, hoping all of these virtualization technologies won't take a bit performance hit (I've got news. They always do!).  He's talking about getting linux running on a mac, which is great, but are we talking about custom ARM builds?  There are only a limited number of distros (granted, all my favorites are there) and even then having ARM support doesn't by any means guarantee compatibility with your arm processor.  Nothing has been built for Apple's chips that I know of (yet).

And graphics performance?  Anyone here really think Apple is going to magically be able to compete with nVidia hardware, with on-the-fly ray tracing support? I find it hard to swallow.  We will need to get AMD or nVidia to create drivers for OSX I suppose if we have their gpu's at all.

Then we have the question of native performance.  Until I see some benchmarks I will reserve judgment.  I'll be very happy indeed if they can get their chips to compete with the latest Ryzen cpus.

Just so I'm not sounding too negative, I am very excited for the common development across iOS and OSX.  This should bring a ton of software across both platforms.  

While xCode is huge with iOS development, I am not aware of those outside of that ecosystem being big fans.  This turns on getting everyone to use it, no?  Otherwise we aren't going to see as many apps from Windows developers who wanted to go cross-platform, but don't want to switch IDE's. 

I see a fad at work here as well.  My son's 4th grade class is obsessed with the fitbit, all because one lucky kid got a Charge for his birthday.  I asked  him (he's a very nice kid, dad used to play in the MLB) why he has it, and he told me "Check how many steps I've walked, monitor my heart rate."  Of course I asked if he had some rare congenital defect that required a 10 year-old being monitored, and received a blank stare.

So now my kid wants a Blaze.  As does all of his friends.  Then he saw the Moto360 and wants one of them.  The real reason is because he knows no one will ever buy him a $300 Apple Watch (he's basically admitted as much).

I don't wish to take away the value of the fitbit.  My wife has been using one for years and it's a nice little device, the price is right, and it keeps her on track when exercising.  But at least in my limited circle, I'm seeing a bit of a blip more than anything.

BTW, I got an apple watch 2 weeks ago and love it.  I see room for a lot of improvements but it is a neat device.

“Dalrymple goes on to say that an upcoming update will deliver 5.1 surround, 7.1 surround, and Dolby Atmos support to HomePods connected to an Apple TV 4K. HomePod's directional audio is required for the simulated surround sound feature to work, so those looking to replace their home theater system will have to spring for the more expensive model. HomePod and HomePod mini can't be connected to an Apple TV at the same time, though two HomePod mini units can be paired to achieve stereo sound. “

And a little video card called the GTX 1080 was just released.  Dare to dream . . .

In all seriousness, for a single card solution at an affordable price (meaning less than $700 for a single card), the new 1070 and 1080 are about the only game in town.  If Apple were serious (and I really doubt this rumor as they've never had decent GPU's in their computers) this would coincide nicely with their release.  I can see them bull**)thing about how "there has never been the power to do what we wanted to do in the graphics and gaming space . . . until now."