Hackintosh is fun for a tinkerer but not really practical for someone that just needs to get work done. I say this as someone who dislikes macOS and has tried the hackintosh approach in an attempt to build iOS apps without having to buy a mac. You can make it work, but it's a big pain and all bets are off when an update comes down the line.
I know a few people who work from home as freelancers in the visual effects industry around here. They are all rabid Apple fanboys/fangirls, owned pre-trashcan Mac Pros, but just couldn't stomach the trashcan version. They all switched to Hackintosh or Windows in the last few years.
Even for technically challenged artists, it is not difficult because there are several technicians around here that install Hackintosh machines for this industry and update them from time to time. Their names are passed by word-of-mouth.
The bigger production houses will probably buy the new Mac Pros, but the entire freelance sector will keep their Hackintoshes or move to Windows. The pricing is just crazy.
> there are several technicians around here that install Hackintosh machines for this industry and update them from time to time. Their names are passed by word-of-mouth.
Like I said, it can work, but relying on "word of mouth technicians" isn't very practical. There are also times when, after an update, things just break, and the "technician" may not even be able to fix the issue in a timely fashion, especially issues related to sound or QE/CI. I've done enough digging around and tinkering with kext files and video drivers to know that it can sometimes take days of concerted effort to fix these issues. I'm sure mileage varies depending on one's needs or the particular hardware configuration but you're rolling the dice every time you update.
> but you're rolling the dice every time you update.
Definitely, they've all become paranoid about updates or installing anything which is not absolutely necessary. They are a version or two of macOS behind, and never update without confirming with the technician.
I shudder at the security implications, but I'm told it has become quite common after the trashcan came out.
I think that the new low level security chips, replacement parts with signed firmware and more and more software features getting baked into encrypted hardware is gonna be the end of hackintosh quite soon
They will have to support Macs without T2 chips for many years into the future.
I predict that MacOS's premier status will be disappear before Apple manages to lock it down. The Mac app development community is dying. Apple strangled it to death with the heavy handed Mac App Store sandboxing policies. Nobody wants to develop exclusive Mac apps anymore.
A friend of mine has used a hackintosh for a whole year to do professional, paid work. Not only was it reliable, but it was dirt cheap.
Featuring a used i7 3770k and rx580, it cost $200 to build and its CPU benchmarks were on par with the macbook pro i7 2017 but much more graphically capable (which is surprisingly noticeable when doing innocuous tasks like maintaining smooth animations when switching between desktops)
All I've ever had to do after an upgrade is re-run my MultiBeast config. What's so difficult? My quad-core i7 hackintosh is still going strong after 9 years of daily use.
