Spelling it out

james: i dont hate OSX, I hate macs. Stupid non compatabile with other pieces of hardware cant use whatever sounds or graphics card I want no sli or directx or decent overclocking options overpriced components extra fewhundred quid stuck on the price piece of crap that they are.

me: Here is why you fail…
Do those makers of said “non-compatible” hardware make OS X or Linux drivers for their equipment? Or do they just make it for Windows and call it day. Or do you believe that Microsoft makes every driver for every piece of hardware that’s available for Windows?

james: I think you will find nvidia make drivers for all 3 platforms. How many graphics cards can i run on a mac? 3 i think it is?
And why is that? Why cant I run any graphics card I like. It’s not a driver issue, nvidia cards of the same generation should work without any problems they are just faster or have more pipelines.
Apple are deliberatly restricting what graphics cards can be used in a mac and jacking the price up. This is what I hate about macs. You mac users act like you have been LIBERATED by apple, freed from the shackles of teh evil windows.
In reality you have just changed your software shackles for some tighter shackes and some additional and deliberatly enforced hardware shackles.

me: Good thing those graphics cards don’t have firmware that has to be changed based on what OS you’re going to run it with.

james: what? i cant figure out if you;re being sarcastic. Are you saying you can hack other nvidia cards to make them work on a MAC? If so I wasn’t aware of that but even if that is true that still means apple are trying to control their hardware and inflate prices just that it can be worked around.
The PC hardware platform is very competitive and I like that. There are lots of ram makers, hard drive makers, graphics card makers motherboard manufacturers all competing in an industry and consumer driven market. Apple’s business model is a threat to this.

me (the final word as I can’t think of any reason to continue the discussion): James, you missed the point. OF COURSE you can hack the firmware, but you shouldn’t HAVE to. Considering that Apple only makes one computer that is capable of changing the video card (the Mac Pro), it’s doubtful that A: The graphics card makers will make any Mac compatible cards beyond what is requested by Apple and B: Most of the people that can afford Mac Pros won’t bother since the cards they have in them are very well suited toward what most people buy them for.

Not having a Core2Duo mid-range tower is IMO a glaring failure of Apple. Not everyone needs, wants, or can afford a four to eight core mega-monster computer. I would like to be able to do some of the more basic upgrades like increasing internal storage (which you can’t do on any Mac besides the Mac Pro without voiding your warranty), or putting in a better graphics card (which the makers MIGHT build if Apple had a machine that allowed it besides the Mac Pro).

As far as overclocking, meh, to risk my computer for a 10% percent gain?

Back in the Mac clone days (yes I’ve used Macs for a long time), I did just that with a Umax C600 Mac compatible. I flashed the firmware of a better ATI graphics card and used the ATI Mac compatible driver to make it work. Since Apple killed the clones and reduced their product line to one Pro machine and all-in-one consumer models with zero expandibility beyond adding RAM for everything else, I couldn’t do it now with what I can afford even if I wanted to.

This is the way it is for most Mac users. All the hardware you tout (with obvious exceptions like PCI-based expansion cards) works with Macs. Hard drives, RAM, USB/FireWire external devices, all work as long as there’s a Mac compatible driver. Which gets back to my original point. It isn’t up to Apple (or Microsoft, or the makers of various Linux OSes) to write these drivers. Software is the same argument.

On to your points:

“Are you saying you can hack other nvidia cards to make them work on a Mac?”

Yes you can but if you make a mistake, you can end up with a very expensive unusable card.

“If so I wasn’t aware of that but even if that is true that still means apple is trying to control their hardware and inflate prices just that it can be worked around.”

Apple controls the hardware that they build into their computers. Just as Dell/HP/Joe’s computers and aardvark supply shop does. The difference is that Dell, HP, Joe’s, etc sell cheap, expandable computers. With the exception of the Mac Pro, Apple does not. Apple limits their computer lines because they remember that having upteen million different lines (the old Performa, Centris, Quadra days) almost put them out of business. Apple has somewhere between (depending on who’s numbers you believe) 5 to 21% of the consumer market and nearly 0% of the business market. Any PC maker you can name that sells directly to the business market will tell you that the margins for those machines are razor-thin. The consumer lines are where the real money per machine is. Apple (and Dell/HP/Joe’s) knows this and sells computers to meet the needs of most of their assumed users. Myself and a few other Mac users are the exception, not the rule, in that we would like the power of an iMac but in a tower. Since I prefer OS X over Windows, I have to live with that. I don’t hate Windows and use it at work everyday, but I prefer the Mac and the tools that are available for it.

Hopefully OS X’s share of the market will increase to the point where Apple might try licensing the OS again. Apple would at that point have to stop making Macs in order for it to succeed (one of many mistakes they made with their first try). What’s that magic number? I don’t know, but I would have zero problem buying or building a Mac from someone other than Apple.