The Wide, Wide World of Apple

[Duque de Bragança]

There may be some sales for the last Intel Macs, but it's only a short-term benefit.

Seems the new ARM Macs will be even less evolutive/upgradable.

[Threviel]

On the other hand there will be advantages. The iPad is moving more and more towards a PC and the mac towards the iPad. In the end we will get a huge eco-system of hardware running the same OS. For any normal user it will be a benefit. And rumour has it the next Windows will be a unix-system, so it shouldn't be too difficult to make an ARM-Windows and then we are back with boot camp.

For me, as a SW developer it more or less means that I won't be buying any more Macs, so there will be room in the market for well built high quality hardware.

[Barrister]

On the other hand there will be advantages. The iPad is moving more and more towards a PC and the mac towards the iPad. In the end we will get a huge eco-system of hardware running the same OS. For any normal user it will be a benefit. And rumour has it the next Windows will be a unix-system, so it shouldn't be too difficult to make an ARM-Windows and then we are back with boot camp.

Windows on ARM already exists.

[Threviel]

Windows CE worked/works on ARM and it was released in '96, I don't know from when it hand ARM-support. I had a Windows phone in 2005 or so with an ARM processor.

That does not mean that Windows works well on ARM processors, no support for x64 programs for example even in Windows 10.

[DontSayBanana]

Windows CE worked/works on ARM and it was released in '96, I don't know from when it hand ARM-support. I had a Windows phone in 2005 or so with an ARM processor.

That does not mean that Windows works well on ARM processors, no support for x64 programs for example even in Windows 10.

Because expecting a 64-bit OS to run an emulator (in this case, WOW64) full-time for another 64-bit OS is a bit unrealistic, no? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/winprog64/running-32-bit-applications

It works just fine, provided you know the limitations going in. I don't expect my Chromebook to natively run 64-bit Linux apps, just like I wouldn't expect an ARM64 Windows install to run everything available to x64 or AMD64 systems.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Long shot here...

My wife has a 2012 MacBook Pro she occasionally uses.  She wanted to try and play WoW with all this house arrest (it's the only computer game she's ever played).

We struggled with trying to update the battle.net installer, without success, only to discover her version of MacOS is badly out of date.  She's on 10.9 Mavericks.  The latest is 10.15 Catalina.  Minimum needed is 10.10 Yosemite.

I doublecheck, her computer meets min specs for Catalina (it's actually the oldest Mc that can run it).  But we go through the App Store, download the Catalina installer, enter her password, click on Continue, and nothing.  Just sits there.  I even check Network Activity to see if it isn't just downloading in the background - nope.

I did the obvious things - cleared some disk space, rebooted, tried hooking right into a router - nothing.


Any ideas on alternate means to update her OS?  I was all "We should take it to the Apple store" before being reminded it's closed.

I'm also running a 2012 Macbook Pro with 10.9. I haven't upgraded because I mostly stick with Win 10 on bootcamp or Debian on a Virtual Box. Were there any issues with the bootcamp partition after upgrading to Catalina, assuming she has a bootcamp partition?

[Barrister]

Long shot here...

My wife has a 2012 MacBook Pro she occasionally uses.  She wanted to try and play WoW with all this house arrest (it's the only computer game she's ever played).

We struggled with trying to update the battle.net installer, without success, only to discover her version of MacOS is badly out of date.  She's on 10.9 Mavericks.  The latest is 10.15 Catalina.  Minimum needed is 10.10 Yosemite.

I doublecheck, her computer meets min specs for Catalina (it's actually the oldest Mc that can run it).  But we go through the App Store, download the Catalina installer, enter her password, click on Continue, and nothing.  Just sits there.  I even check Network Activity to see if it isn't just downloading in the background - nope.

I did the obvious things - cleared some disk space, rebooted, tried hooking right into a router - nothing.


Any ideas on alternate means to update her OS?  I was all "We should take it to the Apple store" before being reminded it's closed.

I'm also running a 2012 Macbook Pro with 10.9. I haven't upgraded because I mostly stick with Win 10 on bootcamp or Debian on a Virtual Box. Were there any issues with the bootcamp partition after upgrading to Catalina, assuming she has a bootcamp partition?

No bootcamp - this is my wife's Mac.  She wanted to run WoW for Mac.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Then how does she play EUIV? 

[MadBurgerMaker]

I gave an iPhone a shot.  3 months with an 11 Pro and I hate it so much that I did a trade in for a Pixel 5 a couple hours ago, even with Apple's version of Android, iOS 14, installed on it the whole time as a beta and then full version.  Blergh.  Nothing is particularly bad about it, but there are a whole lot of little things that just irritate me to no end.

------------------

Beeb, did you ever get that thing updated?  If not, do a clean install.  It avoids the slowdowns that seem to sometimes happen when going from pre-Mojave to Mojave/Catalina:  Make a Catalina USB installer, back up everything you want to save, option boot and pick the USB you made, open Disk Utility, erase the internal Mac HD partition (name the new one the same thing, APFS format), quit Disk Utility, pick Install OSX to Macintosh HD from the options.

Voila, Catalina like it's new from the store, only better because it has MagSafe and more than just USB-C plugs.  She just needs to make her username, etc, and then put her saved stuff back on there.

Also make sure everything she uses is 64bit beforehand, cause if not you're SOL with Mojave/Catalina. This wipes everything from the drive and does a clean install of the OS, so don't skip the bold part.

E:  Catalina USB drive instructions:  https://osxdaily.com/2020/07/14/how-make-bootable-macos-catalina-install-drive/

[Barrister]

MBM, Mrs B was dead-set against a wipe-and-install (which I certainly suggested).  So the project just languished (heh).

Eventually she figured out some way to do it herself.

[MadBurgerMaker]

MBM, Mrs B was dead-set against a wipe-and-install (which I certainly suggested).  So the project just languished (heh).

Eventually she figured out some way to do it herself.

Ah good to hear. 

[HisMajestyBOB]

I replaced the HDD on my MacBook Pro with a SSD. Installing Catalina and restoring all of my files and applications from the old drive was pretty painless. This was also an upgrade from 10.9, so a few applications were no longer supported, but nothing I was really using. Catalina is very nice, though some of the security settings are a pain in the ass.

[Threviel]

I have a 2013 iMac as my main computer. Everyday stuff in MacOS and gaming dual booted into Windows. It is getting a bit long in the tooth and it is time to replace it with a new iMac. Because of the dual boot thingy I was planning to buy the last generation Intel iMac, but they were released shortly before the M1 Mac Mini, and I waited for the reviews of those and I wasn't really in a hurry either.

Well, the M1 blew Intel out of the water so I've been hesitating since then. A few days ago the new iMac with M1 was presented and it looks sweet. I was still not in hurry so I planned to wait and see for a while more, perhaps an M2 is around the corner.

Well. Fuck. Yesterday the partition table on my Mac broke and the MacOS partition disappeared. I had to remove all partitions and re-install MacOS. And I don't have access to any legal Windows anymore, the one I had was a student license from 2013.

So I guess that my trusty old Mac is just an old Mac nowadays and it looks like I will order a new iMac in a few days. And I will have to get used to living without Windows as my gaming platform.

Anyone here gamin on a Mac? How is it? How's modding affected by the operating system? I'm thinking almost purely of Paradox games.

[Barrister]

For what it's worth Microsoft is now incredibly forgiving about Windows licenses.  You can probably call them and get a new product key.

I agree the new M1 sounds incredibly promising.  But gaming on Mac was always pretty niche - and now any game would have to be recompiled to run on ARM.  Not sure there's be very much there (beyond ports of iOS games).  But would be curious to hear you report back.

[Threviel]

Emulated Intel on M1 is apparently faster than on Intel with Rosetta. So games don't have to be built for Arm.

Graphics wise the M1s are integrated, so it will not be better for gaming than an intel Mac, but gaming is a niche thing I do for myself and if the computer is good for everything else it can't be the deciding factor.