Apple Should Probably Just Build a Mac Tower

The popularity of the Hackintosh community has gotten some folks to ponder why Apple doesn’t just make it easier on themselves and build a simple, conventional tower system instead of insane ideas that look like they came off a Bed Bath and Beyond shelf. That seems to be exactly what many Mac users want, based on the increasing prevalence of throwing together generic PC hardware to power that OS. Ideally, the fruit company should leave the “thin, light, tightly integrated” design mentality to their iPhone and other products and move in another direction for the desktop (e.g., something that is actually more easily upgradeable), but I don’t know if the brass has any courage to spare for that.

After talking with dozens of Hackintosh users, I come away believing that Apple doesn’t need to over think this. The “pro” market that the company clearly still wants to keep happy would be served best if Apple treated its desktops (including the Mac Mini, the iMac, and the Mac Pro) the same way it did around the turn of the decade. The Mac Mini has long been neglected, and its latest iteration offered no quad-core CPUs, no upgradeable RAM, and no easily replaceable storage. All the 27-inch iMac really needs is better GPUs, but the 21.5-inch version has lost both dedicated GPU options and user-upgradeable memory since the 2012 redesign. And for the Mac Pro, well, you’re all pretty familiar with the arguments against the 2013 Mac Pro.

if it looks like a box you can't distinguish it from other boxes.

looks sell. that's why the civic is so pretty.

He has a good point.

I have family members who have worked in the graphics art business for many years. Most of them have given up on the Mac and switch to Windows PC's.
Combination of their companies switching to PC's over the past decade, and the high cost of replacing the old Mac's they use at home.

If they build it in a relatively upgradeable way, that means they can't charge hand over fist for minor upgrades. If you know you can't upgrade the memory in the future, you might be more inclined to pay $200 to go from 8 to 16 GB of memory in your 21" iMac to start with. And yes, they are actually charging $200 for a 8 gb bump of LPDDR3, what fuckers.

Quite simple really, Apple have put a lot of work into their OS and while very good its not as good as its golden years such as Snow Leopard so why should they give it away for next to nothing without making money on hardware. People just want their cake and eat it too, they think they have a right to OSX without buying into Apples ecosystem yet apparently Windows 10 is far superior... go figure.

It doesn't make smart business sense to build a computer that lasts 7yrs plus like the old Mac towers do, has nothing to do with Apple being greedy, it has to do with them being a business.

Windows 10 is superior (LOL)...now time for me to get back to candy crush and my in OS advertising...

Apple doesn't want upgable gear. Everything they make revolves around planned obsolescence.

Apple should just give up and release a OS flavor that can be run on normal pcs without jumping through hoops.

Apple is a consumer devices company.

Don't hold your breath waiting for them to make a computer that anyone reading this forum would think was a good value for the performance.

Or, given that their income is mostly generated by the iPhone, they could sell the damn OS by itself and only make Macs for the cult fanatics (since everyone knows that all apple devices gets sprinkled with Jobs ashes before leaving the factory)

And no, the drivers and other excuses are not real.

A Hackintosh runs great in spite of Apple's efforts to make sure that it doesn't, so imagine how great it will run with their blessing.

grtitan said:

Or, given that their income is mostly generated by the iPhone, they could sell the damn OS by itself and only make Macs for the cult fanatics (since everyone knows that all apple devices gets sprinkled with Jobs ashes before leaving the factory)

And no, the drivers and other excuses are not real.

A Hackintosh runs great in spite of Apple's efforts to make sure that it doesn't, so imagine how great it will run with their blessing.

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Apple have made no real efforts to stop it... other that going after people who try to make money off it. All things considered, Apple have been very tollerent of the hack community and made no efforts to shut it down.

Its only short term anyway, soon Apples silicon will power their computers and the hack community will die as there will be no hardware crossover with PCs.

You had me at "any courage to spare"

Hypergreatthing said:

Apple should just give up and release a OS flavor that can be run on normal pcs without jumping through hoops.

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That's when the Apple OSX dream of "it works out of the box" would come crashing down. Apple would have to expand its support team 50 fold and open it's self up to all kinds of hardware nightmares.

OSX only has to run on a tightly controlled mix of known hardware. Hence why they don't do as you would like.

People forget that Windows has to run on potentially billions of combinations of hardware and software and in most cases it does just fine. That is an incredible achievement.

I use a Mac for work (software development). I would like to get a Mac with at least a quad core processor and 16 gigs of ram. 32 GB would be even better. Hell, give me an 8 core Ryzen - Xcode would probably run quite well in this setup (assuming Ryzen would even work with macOS - it might not).
I actually like macOS. I know a lot of the keyboard shortcuts, Mac's have fantastic track pads (I have yet to meet one on a PC that works as well). I don't even use a mouse with my Mac - don't need it.

I've had a Hackintosh in the past. It worked for a while but was flaky. Sound didn't work, wifi and blutooth had issues. However, it could run Xcode well. The problem is the system was just not stable and you had to walk on pins and needles if you thought about upgrading anything. I gave up on it after a while. If I needed a Mac at home, I'd consider building another Hackintosh as Apple doesn't offer what I would want.

aokman said:

Apple have made no real efforts to stop it... other that going after people who try to make money off it. All things considered, Apple have been very tollerent of the hack community and made no efforts to shut it down.

Its only short term anyway, soon Apples silicon will power their computers and the hack community will die as there will be no hardware crossover with PCs.

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They could do more, is true, but dont be naive in thinking that they arent doing it.

Besides, their rabids fanatics are spreading as much fud as possible about it and many of those would not run osx in anything but a mac, even if apple had a blessed version of osx for pc.

If you want proof of that, just read the comments at Ars for this article, they will lynch anyone that says that much.

Anyone else notice that the Audioengine 5+ speakers in the image used in the article are the wrong way around? Do hackintosh people like their stereo channels reversed?

Kor said:

Anyone else notice that the Audioengine 5+ speakers in the image used in the article are the wrong way around? Do hackintosh people like their stereo channels reversed?

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You can reverse the channels in the OSX MIDI mixer? I do the same as the power is closer on the other side...

Not every OS is as shit as Windows with simple options like that...

grtitan said:

They could do more, is true, but dont be naive in thinking that they arent doing it.

Besides, their rabids fanatics are spreading as much fud as possible about it and many of those would not run osx in anything but a mac, even if apple had a blessed version of osx for pc.

If you want proof of that, just read the comments at Ars for this article, they will lynch anyone that says that much.

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LOL they havent done anything to block it other than not helping people to run non-mac hardware such as the Pascal GPUs

I'd buy one if the price wasn't ridiculous.

Their prices for Macbook Pro are ok because competing products (quality for quality) are in the same price range.

But a tower has nothing special that isn't inside of my PC I am typing this on.

vegeta535 said:

Apple doesn't want upgable gear. Everything they make revolves around planned obsolescence.

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Its not even that simple. I have a late 2012 mac mini that right now I'd love to replace with something newer as the intel graphics it has is slow. The issue is my 2012 model is faster than the current one as far as multitasking goes. Mine is a quad core i7, 16 gigs of ram, and it has a sata ssd vs the pci express one that I could get in the new one. If they had a 7th gen quad core i7 option with upgrade able memory and storage I'd have bought it. Virtually every computer I've ever owned has been upgraded in some way though. I might upgrade the ssd storage 2 years in to something larger(same with mechanical drives before that). Memory usually gets upgraded at some point. If I bought something new I'd prob go with 16 gigs of ram again but I'd want to upgrade to 32 gigs later. Instead they want me to buy a system that hasn't changed since 2014.

They did such a bad job with the current mac pro that many held off upgrading their old ones instead of buying it. Instead of going to it they went to the cheaper imac or just ditched apple for something else.

The mac pro is too expensive for me even if it wasn't hardware from like 2012 ish that they released in 2013. It isn't that I can't afford it, I just don't see the advantage. I could buy a nice i7 windows desktop for what a little over a grand and have the ability to upgrade.


I'd love apple to come out with a new real desktop. Give me desktop starting say under 1500 bucks. It needs to support a quad core i7(it can be non replaceable for all I care), have memory slots supporting up to 32 gigs of ram, have like 2 pci express expansion ports so it can run a midrange video card and have a slot for something else like a 10gig network card, upgraded wireless, capture card, whatever. Past that at least one m2 slot(preferable 2) and a slot or two for sata drives. It can be a slim tower like the dell workstations to limit expansion some. Then have a higher end mac pro that supports dual xeons, a shit ton of ram, dual graphics cards, 10 gig Ethernet stock, multiple storage drives, have more expansion etc.

Planned obsolescence is one thing, apple isn't releasing new hardware to replace the old stuff aging out.

This is pure fuckery right here. Apple does what it wants with its designs with the consumer base having no real input besides the hundreds to thousands of dollars spent per product (I know they have some <$100 items), and no matter how limited the expandability is, how poor the durability is, how insanely expensive the product is, consumers still buy, and come back for more. I'm not even going to try and make sense of it, but I'll continue to be entertained by it!

Is a Mac tower like a Trump tower?

So what I got from this is that they want a PC with the mac os on it

As others here have pointed out, that's completely contradictory to Apple's business model.

And so goes the apple hypocrisy

M76 said:

Is a Mac tower like a Trump tower?

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No. A Mac tower is more expensive, and a Trump tower is more useful.

Master_shake_ said:

if it looks like a box you can't distinguish it from other boxes.

looks sell. that's why the civic is so pretty.

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But looks also divide.. I think the civic looks like a POS.

I guess apple knows they have to justify the profit margin by working on making these things a fashion accesory.