PERockwell

'Diablo IV' skips Mac gamers, and Whoopi Goldberg is mad about it

PERockwell

June 2023

lowededwookie said:

Queue the “Macs suck for gaming trolls”.

The reality is that Macs are one of the best platforms for gaming and Metal3 is the reason.

The reason that Macs suck for gaming is 100% on the developers who take the crappy approach of taking a Windows game and wrapping it in Cider and calling it a Mac game. There’s literally NOTHING Mac in this approach. It’s a Windows game running on Linux software and it will always have a performance hit.

Compare the old version of Eve Online to the current Metal based version and the difference is night and day. Then compare that to the iOS version of Eve Echoes and you start to get the picture that it’s not Mac hardware that’s the problem. We’ve been screwed by idiot developers who just treat us as a third class citizen in gaming.

We don’t need AAA titles if this is their approach. We need games designed specifically for Macs that makes people want to game on Macs that leave Windows PCs and gaming consoles in the dust. We can do it if developers don’t develop for the money but develop to showcase their talent. Ego is a massive driver and will be the only way Macs can get out of their gaming doldrums.

The issue, like it is for almost everything, is... money. I don't think it's an "idiot developer" problem.

Developing for the Mac with Metal et. al., takes expertise and effort to port existing games that aren't using Apple's APIs.. It also means that there's a different code base to test and support. As a business decision, If the developer doesn't take the cost into account and doesn't think they'll make up the effort in sales, then a port to native technologies on the Mac won't get done regardless of the "ego" strokes of saying "I ported to the Mac and it runs so much better".

Use of high level frameworks mask that effort over and can be a much more "justifiable" - but as you say it's at the expense of performance.

It will be interesting to see in practice how well the porting toolkit works to reduce the costs/efforts to port to Mac native technologies.

Apple issues Rapid Security Response update for iOS 16.4.1, macOS 13.3.1

PERockwell

May 2023

M68000 said:

Will wait until this becomes stable update if I can. Wondering how long this went through their QA department

That's your prerogative. However, consider that this Rapid Response update is designed to get high priority fixes out Ito users, well, rapidly. To me, that means that something is pretty urgent to use this mechanism.

But to intelligently make the decision whether the update is worth the risk, you need to know what the update fixes. It is pathetic that Apple has not provided documentation to say exactly what this update fixes. The link in the update points to a generic document telling you what Rapid Security Response updates are, but zero about what this one contains.

It is a good thing they give a mechanism to back it out. That's due to them using the cryptex mechanism - where the update is somewhat "containerized" and getting rid of it isn't as big a deal as removing a whole operating system update.

Apple is 'world's most admired company' for 16th straight year

PERockwell

February 2023

lkrupp said:

And on tech blogs like AppleInsider, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, iMore, etc., Apple is the source of all evil, the most derided, most hated, most criticized, most laughed at, most stupid, most inept, most anti-consumer, most monopolistic, most overpriced corporation the planet has had to endure since Eve offered the forbidden fruit to Adam.

Have I missed anything, tech bloggers?

You forgot the view of government authorities and large greedy app developers (ask someone about Epic and their policies for using Unreal Engine. Their pound of flesh makes Apple look like a saint).
To these groups, Apple is nowhere near the Most Admired Companies. Guess the consumer doesn't count, right?

iPhone 15 Pro rumored to get Thunderbolt connectivity

PERockwell

November 2022

I push the BS button on this one. Thunderbolt chips are expensive. Thunderbolt is over-kill. Take a look at the cost of external USB-C drives vs Thunderbolt drives if you want an idea.
If you want to drive up the cost of iPhones excessively, then go right ahead and put Thunderbolt in them.

USB-C as a connector and USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 or USB 4 are much more appropriate for these devices.