Geeks tend to forget that there is more to a computer than raw numbers.
Design, noise, materials, software (try getting that inspiron with apps like garageband, imove, pages and numbers for less than $1099), support (walk into the apple store and someone's there to help) and general ecosystem (time machine, app store, UNIX foundation (no real viruses)).
You're right of course. Honestly, I wouldn't buy any of them myself (the iMac included). But getting a better user experience does count for something. I'm just lamenting that it looks like the return of the Apple tax, which was thankfully going away with things like the MBA and the rMBP which really were better than similarly priced offerings.
It's "becoming" the norm? That was happening 6-8 years ago. Now 1080p has been the norm for something like two upgrade cycles, and anyone who currently cares about resolution beyond that is looking at 1440p or more.
There was certainly a transition from 5:4 to widescreen displays in the 2000s, with nearly everyone but Apple opting for 16:9. I don't recall any mass adoption of 16:10 followed by a mass migration to 16:9 in the last decade, which is what you're stating happened.
If Apple is moving from 16:10 to 16:9, then that would indeed be a very recent development. If this is the case, it would be kind of sad to me (I prefer a bit more vertical space), but understandable given the economics of the panel business.
> I don't recall any mass adoption of 16:10 followed by a mass migration to 16:9 in the last decade, which is what you're stating happened.
I don't quite agree with what you're stating I'm stating. (I realize that this has gone on way longer than the original reply warranted, but...)
User teh_klev said that they were sad that 1080p "was becoming" the norm on medium sized panels, and that 1920x1200 wasn't becoming the norm, instead.
I replied that the transition to 1080p had already occurred, some time ago. I don't believe that either teh_klev or I implied that there was mass adoption of 1920x1200 (16:10), only that teh_klev would have preferred that there have been such a mass adoption, and I was suggesting that that preference (which I share, though I didn't mention it[1]) became moot last decade.
[1] though it turns out that if the screen is large enough and the resolution high enough, I no longer care about the precise aspect ratio...
Oh aye, I know the transition has happened for a while. I also realise why this happened (due to the 1080p/16:9 format being the standard in content delivery and consumer displays such as flat screen tellys). This makes it a marketing no brainer for box builders such as Dell and Apple to standardise on 16:9, the format and "1080p" branding is recognisable to consumers.
However, for those of us doing "serious" work where we need those extra 120 lines, finding a decent >=21" panel (or even 17" one in a laptop) is getting expensive/more difficult to find.
I think the extra 180 pixels of vertical resolution is what he's worried about. I am too, that little bit helps a lot, even with the dock hidden and off to the side of the screen.
Even though I copied a "gold build" from "TonyMacx86" (the "hackintosh authority"), the machine freezes randomly every hour, sometimes a week. But it will freeze and I'll have to do a hard reset.
Also, many of Apples services won't work with a hackintosh. iMessage and FaceTime, for example. To fix it, you'll need to call Apple and convince them to whitelist your fake generated system ID, risking getting your apple ID banned.
Something also happened during the installation so I have to have a Mavericks USB drive attached at all times to boot the damn thing.
Oh, and don't forget you have to reconfigure the whole thing when you apply an update.
Had I known these things I'd just have saved up a little more and bought the real thing.
I built one last year, and it's far from being a nightmare. I also followed the builds from the site you mentioned, as best as I could in my country (local dealers are cheaper, or on-par to amazon around here) - the few deviations I had to make just require me to replace the NIC and Graphic kexts after an update (but I can do this on the same system, it's not unusable without them). The only other problem I did not bother to fix yet is that I can't watch hardware-accelerated movies in the browser (really not required with the work I do this machine).
But still, it was for fun. I'd never use them as a substitute to the real thing, the price difference is too small IMHO – I do factor in the time I "waste" on a system.
So I don't quite get where people got the Idea that a Hackintosh is worth the hassle to be used as a substitute. C'mon, it's even in the name.
Mine works perfectly fine. Installing OS X was pretty painless and the only problem I have is that point updates break audio but that is a two minute fix. iMessages and Facetime work as expected.
The first time I built one I had lots of problems like you described but that was pretty much due to me not really knowing what the hell I was doing.
Is something wrong with your hardware? That doesn't sound right at all. I have a hackintosh (not the gold build, just my own uber-cheap machine based on their recommendations) and it has never had an issue.
That's what I thought, but it runs ubuntu and windows without issues. Many people have similar issues. I actually think the freezing has been solved with a new kext i installed recently, but how can I be 100% sure?
That's a shame. I built one for fun and it works perfectly. There were a couple of tweaks I had to make to get dual monitors working, the sound working, etc, but it didn't take longer than a few hours.
This is one of the reasons why ponying up the extra money for a Mac system is a good deal, you get a box, you open the box, you press the on button and you're ready to go.
Indeed. I get a little depressed thinking about the hours I've wasted on the tonymac forums looking up solutions to the problems I've having and trying random things to see if it worked.
In my experience with other OS' (Windows 3.1 -> Windows 8, Ubuntu 4 -> Ubuntu 13, half a dozen other Linux varieties), I've never been able to open the box and get to work within half an hour. There's always been some niggle. It's a bit trickier now that the dev tools are an optional download rather than a CD/setup option, but in practise I'm usually good to start working with a fresh Mac in about half an hour. With Linux there's a lot more tinkering to get it just so, and with Windows there's generally a lot more to download and configure to get it working comfortably.
Tor really needs some more relays. With this it could be more interesting to companies as a business model.
One thing I could be worried about is abuse - could a scriptkiddie deploy a botnet and earn TorCoins with this, like it's done with bitcoin miners (although not that effective any more).
Exactly - I read pretty quickly, but usually don't have the time/patience/inclination to watch a whole 30+ minute talk. Transcripts are the best, I wish more talks had them.
Design, noise, materials, software (try getting that inspiron with apps like garageband, imove, pages and numbers for less than $1099), support (walk into the apple store and someone's there to help) and general ecosystem (time machine, app store, UNIX foundation (no real viruses)).